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+Project Gutenberg's The Companions of Jehu, by Alexandre Dumas, pere
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Companions of Jehu
+
+Author: Alexandre Dumas, pere
+
+Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7079]
+Posting Date: March 21, 2009
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE COMPANIONS OF JEHU ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Robert J. Hall
+
+
+
+
+
+THE COMPANIONS OF JEHU
+
+By Alexandre Dumas, pere
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+  An Introductory Word to the Reader.
+  Prologue--The City of Avignon.
+        I. A Table d'Hote.
+       II. An Italian Proverb.
+      III. The Englishman.
+       IV. The Duel.
+        V. Roland.
+       VI. Morgan.
+      VII. The Chartreuse of Seillon.
+     VIII. How the Money of the Directory was Used.
+       IX. Romeo and Juliet
+        X. The Family of Roland.
+       XI. Chateau des Noires-Fontaines.
+      XII. Provincial Pleasures.
+     XIII. The Wild-Boar.
+      XIV. An Unpleasant Commission.
+       XV. The Strong-Minded Man.
+      XVI. The Ghost.
+     XVII. Investigations.
+    XVIII. The Trial.
+      XIX. The Little House in the Rue de la Victoire.
+       XX. The Guests of General Bonaparte.
+      XXI. The Schedule of the Directory.
+     XXII. The Outline of a Decree.
+    XXIII. Alea Jacta Est.
+     XXIV. The Eighteenth Brumaire.
+      XXV. An Important Communication.
+     XXVI. The Ball of the Victims.
+    XXVII. The Bear's Skin.
+   XXVIII. Family Matters.
+     XXIX. The Geneva Diligence.
+      XXX. Citizen Fouche's Report.
+     XXXI. The Son of the Miller of Guerno.
+    XXXII. White and Blue.
+   XXXIII. The Law of Retaliation.
+    XXXIV. The Diplomacy of Georges Cadoudal.
+     XXXV. A Proposal of Marriage.
+    XXXVI. Sculpture and Painting.
+   XXXVII. The Ambassador.
+  XXXVIII. The Two Signals.
+    XXXIX. The Grotto of Ceyzeriat.
+       XL. A False Scent.
+      XLI. The Hotel de la Poste.
+     XLII. The Chambery Mail-Coach.
+    XLIII. Lord Grenville's Reply.
+     XLIV. Change of Residence.
+      XLV. The Follower of Trails.
+     XLVI. An Inspiration.
+    XLVII. A Reconnoissance.
+   XLVIII. In which Morgan's Presentiments are Verified.
+     XLIX. Roland's Revenge.
+        L. Cadoudal at the Tuileries.
+       LI. The Army of the Reserves.
+      LII. The Trial.
+     LIII. In which Amelie Keeps Her Word.
+      LIV. The Confession.
+       LV. Invulnerable.
+      LVI. Conclusion.
+
+
+
+
+AN INTRODUCTORY WORD TO THE READER
+
+Just about a year ago my old friend, Jules Simon, author of "Devoir,"
+came to me with a request that I write a novel for the "Journal pour
+Tous." I gave him the outline of a novel which I had in mind. The
+subject pleased him, and the contract was signed on the spot.
+
+The action occurred between 1791 and 1793, and the first chapter opened
+at Varennes the evening of the king's arrest.
+
+Only, impatient as was the "Journal pour Tous," I demanded a fortnight
+of Jules Simon before beginning my novel. I wished to go to Varennes; I
+was not acquainted with the locality, and I confess there is one thing I
+cannot do; I am unable to write a novel or a drama about localities with
+which I am not familiar.
+
+In order to write "Christine" I went to Fontainebleau; in writing "Henri
+III." I went to Blois; for "Les Trois Mousquetaires" I went to Boulogne
+and Bethune; for "Monte-Cristo" I returned to the Catalans and the
+Chateau d'If; for "Isaac Laquedem" I revisited Rome; and I certainly
+spent more time studying Jerusalem and Corinth from a distance than if I
+had gone there.
+
+This gives such a character of veracity to all that I write, that the
+personages whom I create become eventually such integral parts of the
+places in which I planted them that, as a consequence, many end by
+believing in their actual existence. There are even some people who
+claim to have known them.
+
+In this connection, dear readers, I am going to tell you something
+in confidence--only do not repeat it. I do not wish to injure honest
+fathers of families who live by this little industry, but if you go to
+Marseilles you will be shown there the house of Morel on the Cours, the
+house of Mercedes at the Catalans, and the dungeons of Dantes and Faria
+at the Chateau d'If.
+
+When I staged "Monte-Cristo" at the Theatre-Historique, I wrote to
+Marseilles for a plan of the Chateau d'If, which was sent to me. This
+drawing was for the use of the scene painter. The artist to whom I had
+recourse forwarded me the desired plan. He even did better than I would
+have dared ask of him; he wrote beneath it: "View of the Chateau d'If,
+from the side where Dantes was thrown into the sea."
+
+I have learned since that a worthy man, a guide attached to the Chateau
+d'If, sells pens made of fish-bone by the Abbe Faria himself.
+
+There is but one unfortunate circumstance concerning this; the fact is,
+Dantes and the Abbe Faria have never existed save in my imagination;
+consequently, Dantes could not have been precipitated from the top to
+the bottom of the Chateau d'If, nor could the Abbe Faria have made pens.
+But that is what comes from visiting these localities in person.
+
+Therefore, I wished to visit Varennes before commencing my novel,
+because the first chapter was to open in that city. Besides,
+historically, Varennes worried me considerably; the more I perused the
+historical accounts of Varennes, the less I was able to understand,
+topographically, the king's arrest.
+
+I therefore proposed to my young friend, Paul Bocage, that he accompany
+me to Varennes. I was sure in advance that he would accept. To merely
+propose such a trip to his picturesque and charming mind was to make him
+bound from his chair to the tram. We took the railroad to Chalons.
+There we bargained with a livery-stable keeper, who agreed, for a
+consideration of ten francs a day, to furnish us with a horse and
+carriage. We were seven days on the trip, three days to go from Chalons
+to Varennes, one day to make the requisite local researches in the city,
+and three days to return from Varennes to Chalons.
+
+I recognized with a degree of satisfaction which you will easily
+comprehend, that not a single historian had been historical, and with
+still greater satisfaction that M. Thiers had been the least accurate of
+all these historians. I had already suspected this, but was not certain.
+The only one who had been accurate, with absolute accuracy, was Victor
+Hugo in his book called "The Rhine." It is true that Victor Hugo is a
+poet and not a historian. What historians these poets would make, if
+they would but consent to become historians!
+
+One day Lamartine asked me to what I attributed the immense success of
+his "Histoire des Girondins."
+
+"To this, because in it you rose to the level of a novel," I answered
+him. He reflected for a while and ended, I believe, by agreeing with me.
+
+I spent a day, therefore, at Varennes and visited all the localities
+necessary for my novel, which was to be called "Rene d'Argonne." Then
+I returned. My son was staying in the country at Sainte-Assise, near
+Melun; my room awaited me, and I resolved to go there to write my novel.
+
+I am acquainted with no two characters more dissimilar than Alexandre's
+and mine, which nevertheless harmonize so well. It is true we pass many
+enjoyable hours during our separations; but none I think pleasanter than
+those we spend together.
+
+I had been installed there for three or four days endeavoring to begin
+my "Rene d'Argonne," taking up my pen, then laying it aside almost
+immediately. The thing would not go. I consoled myself by telling
+stories. Chance willed that I should relate one which Nodier had told
+me of four young men affiliated with the Company of Jehu, who had been
+executed at Bourg in Bresse amid the most dramatic circumstances. One of
+these four young men, he who had found the greatest difficulty in dying,
+or rather he whom they had the greatest difficulty in killing, was but
+nineteen and a half years old.
+
+Alexandre listened to my story with much interest. When I had finished:
+"Do you know," said he, "what I should do in your place?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"I should lay aside 'Rene d'Argonne,' which refuses to materialize, and
+in its stead I should write 'The Companions of Jehu.'"
+
+"But just think, I have had that other novel in mind for a year or two,
+and it is almost finished."
+
+"It never will be since it is not finished now."
+
+"Perhaps you are right, but I shall lose six months regaining my present
+vantage-ground."
+
+"Good! In three days you will have written half a volume."
+
+"Then you will help me."
+
+"Yes, for I shall give you two characters."
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"You are too exacting! The rest is your affair; I am busy with my
+'Question d'Argent.'"
+
+"Well, who are your two characters, then?"
+
+"An English gentleman and a French captain."
+
+"Introduce the Englishman first."
+
+"Very well." And Alexandre drew Lord Tanlay's portrait for me.
+
+"Your English gentleman pleases me," said I; "now let us see your French
+captain."
+
+"My French captain is a mysterious character, who courts death with all
+his might, without being able to accomplish his desire; so that each
+time he rushes into mortal danger he performs some brilliant feat which
+secures him promotion."
+
+"But why does he wish to get himself killed?"
+
+"Because he is disgusted with life."
+
+"Why is he disgusted with life?"
+
+"Ah! That will be the secret of the book."
+
+"It must be told in the end."
+
+"On the contrary, I, in your place, would not tell it."
+
+"The readers will demand it."
+
+"You will reply that they have only to search for it; you must leave
+them something to do, these readers of yours."
+
+"Dear friend, I shall be overwhelmed with letters."
+
+"You need not answer them."
+
+"Yes, but for my personal gratification I, at least, must know why my
+hero longs to die."
+
+"Oh, I do not refuse to tell you."
+
+"Let me hear, then."
+
+"Well, suppose, instead of being professor of dialectics, Abelard had
+been a soldier."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, let us suppose that a bullet--"
+
+"Excellent!"
+
+"You understand? Instead of withdrawing to Paraclet, he would have
+courted death at every possible opportunity."
+
+"Hum! That will be difficult."
+
+"Difficult! In what way?"
+
+"To make the public swallow that."
+
+"But since you are not going to tell the public."
+
+"That is true. By my faith, I believe you are right. Wait."
+
+"I am waiting."
+
+"Have you Nodier's 'Souvenirs de la Revolution'? I believe he wrote one
+or two pages about Guyon, Lepretre, Amiet and Hyvert."
+
+"They will say, then, that you have plagiarized from Nodier."
+
+"Oh! He loved me well enough during his life not to refuse me whatever
+I shall take from him after his death. Go fetch me the 'Souvenirs de la
+Revolution.'"
+
+Alexandre brought me the book. I opened it, turned over two or three
+pages, and at last discovered what I was looking for. A little of
+Nodier, dear readers, you will lose nothing by it. It is he who is
+speaking:
+
+
+The highwaymen who attacked the diligences, as mentioned in the article
+on Amiet, which I quoted just now, were called Lepretre, Hyvert, Guyon
+and Amiet.
+
+Lepretre was forty-eight years old. He was formerly a captain of
+dragoons, a knight of St. Louis, of a noble countenance, prepossessing
+carriage and much elegance of manner. Guyon and Amiet have never been
+known by their real names. They owe that to the accommodating spirit
+prevailing among the vendors of passports of those days. Let the reader
+picture to himself two dare-devils between twenty and thirty years of
+age, allied by some common responsibility, the sequence, perhaps of
+some misdeed, or, by a more delicate and generous interest, the fear of
+compromising their family name. Then you will know of Guyon and Amiet
+all that I can recall. The latter had a sinister countenance, to which,
+perhaps, he owes the bad reputation with which all his biographers have
+credited him. Hyvert was the son of a rich merchant of Lyons, who had
+offered the sub-officer charged with his deportation sixty thousand
+francs to permit his escape. He was at once the Achilles and the Paris
+of the band. He was of medium height but well formed, lithe, and of
+graceful and pleasing address. His eyes were never without animation nor
+his lips without a smile. His was one of those countenances which
+are never forgotten, and which present an inexpressible blending of
+sweetness and strength, tenderness and energy. When he yielded to the
+eloquent petulance of his inspirations he soared to enthusiasm. His
+conversation revealed the rudiments of an excellent early education and
+much natural intelligence. That which was so terrifying in him was his
+tone of heedless gayety, which contrasted so horribly with his position.
+For the rest, he was unanimously conceded to be kind, generous, humane,
+lenient toward the weak, while with the strong he loved to display a
+vigor truly athletic which his somewhat effeminate features were far
+from indicating. He boasted that he had never been without money, and
+had no enemies. That was his sole reply to the charges of theft and
+assassination. He was twenty-two years old.
+
+To these four men was intrusted the attack upon a diligence conveying
+forty thousand francs of government money. This deed was transacted
+in broad daylight, with an exchange of mutual courtesy almost; and the
+travellers, who were not disturbed by the attack, gave little heed to
+it. But a child of only ten years of age, with reckless bravado,
+seized the pistol of the conductor and fired it into the midst of the
+assailants. As this peaceful weapon, according to the custom, was only
+charged with powder, no one was injured; but the occupants of the coach
+quite naturally experienced a lively fear of reprisals. The little
+boy's mother fell into violent hysterics. This new disturbance created
+a general diversion which dominated all the preceding events and
+particularly attracted the attention of the robbers. One of them flew to
+the woman's side, reassuring her in the most affectionate manner, while
+complimenting her upon her son's precocious courage, and courteously
+pressed upon her the salts and perfumes with which these gentlemen were
+ordinarily provided for their own use. She regained consciousness. In
+the excitement of the moment her travelling companions noticed that the
+highwayman's mask had fallen off, but they did not see his face.
+
+The police of those days, restricted to mere impotent supervision, were
+unable to cope with the depredations of these banditti, although they
+did not lack the means to follow them up. Appointments were made at the
+cafes, and narratives relating to deeds carrying with them the penalty
+of death circulated freely through all the billiard-halls in the land.
+Such was the importance which the culprits and the public attached to
+the police.
+
+These men of blood and terror assembled in society in the evening,
+and discussed their nocturnal expeditions as if they had been mere
+pleasure-parties.
+
+Lepretre, Hyvert, Amiet and Guyon were arraigned before the tribunal
+of a neighboring department. No one save the Treasury had suffered from
+their attack, and there was no one to identify them save the lady
+who took very good care not to do so. They were therefore acquitted
+unanimously.
+
+Nevertheless, the evidence against them so obviously called for
+conviction, that the Ministry was forced to appeal from this decision.
+The verdict was set aside; but such was the government's vacillation,
+that it hesitated to punish excesses that might on the morrow be
+regarded as virtues. The accused were cited before the tribunal of
+Ain, in the city of Bourg, where dwelt a majority of their friends,
+relatives, abettors and accomplices. The Ministry sought to propitiate
+the one party by the return of its victims, and the other by the almost
+inviolate safeguards with which it surrounded the prisoners. The return
+to prison indeed resembled nothing less than a triumph.
+
+The trial recommenced. It was at first attended by the same results as
+the preceding one. The four accused were protected by an alibi, patently
+false, but attested by a hundred signatures, and for which they could
+easily have obtained ten thousand. All moral convictions must fail
+in the presence of such authoritative testimony. An acquittal seemed
+certain, when a question, perhaps involuntarily insidious, from the
+president, changed the aspect of the trial.
+
+"Madam," said he to the lady who had been so kindly assisted by one
+of the highwaymen, "which of these men was it who tendered you such
+thoughtful attention?"
+
+This unexpected form of interrogation confused her ideas. It is probable
+that she believed the facts to be known, and saw in this a means of
+modifying the fate of the man who interested her.
+
+"It was that gentleman," said she, pointing to Lepretre. The four
+accused, who were included in a common alibi, fell by this one admission
+under the executioner's axe. They rose and bowed to her with a smile.
+
+"Faith!" said Hyvert, falling back upon his bench with a burst of
+laughter, "that, Captain, will teach you to play the gallant."
+
+I have heard it said that the unhappy lady died shortly after of
+chagrin.
+
+The customary appeal followed; but, this time, there was little hope.
+The Republican party, which Napoleon annihilated a month later, was in
+the ascendency. That of the Counter-Revolution was compromised by its
+odious excesses. The people demanded examples, and matters were arranged
+accordingly, as is ordinarily the custom in strenuous times; for it is
+with governments as with men, the weakest are always the most cruel. Nor
+had the Companies of Jehu longer an organized existence. The heroes of
+these ferocious bands, Debeauce, Hastier, Bary, Le Coq, Dabri, Delbourbe
+and Storkenfeld, had either fallen on the scaffold or elsewhere. The
+condemned could look for no further assistance from the daring courage
+of these exhausted devotees, who, no longer capable of protecting their
+own lives, coolly sacrificed them, as did Piard, after a merry supper.
+Our brigands were doomed to die.
+
+Their appeal was rejected, but the municipal authorities were not the
+first to learn of this. The condemned men were warned by three shots
+fired beneath the walls of their dungeon. The Commissioner of the
+Executive Directory, who had assumed the role of Public Prosecutor at
+the trial, alarmed at this obvious sign of connivance, requisitioned a
+squad of armed men of whom my uncle was then commander. At six o'clock
+in the morning sixty horsemen were drawn up before the iron gratings of
+the prison yard.
+
+Although the jailers had observed all possible precautions in entering
+the dungeon where these four unfortunate men were confined, and whom
+they had left the preceding day tightly pinioned and heavily loaded
+with chains, they were unable to offer them a prolonged resistance.
+The prisoners were free and armed to the teeth. They came forth without
+difficulty, leaving their guardians under bolts and bars, and, supplied
+with the keys, they quickly traversed the space that separated them
+from the prison yard. Their appearance must have been terrifying to the
+populace awaiting them before the iron gates.
+
+To assure perfect freedom of action, or perhaps to affect an appearance
+of security more menacing even than the renown for strength and
+intrepidity with which their names were associated, or possibly even to
+conceal the flow of blood which reveals itself so readily beneath white
+linen, and betrays the last agonies of a mortally wounded man, their
+breasts were bared. Their braces crossed upon the chest--their wide red
+belts bristling with arms--their cry of attack and rage, all that must
+have given a decidedly fantastic touch to the scene. Arrived in the
+square, they perceived the gendarmerie drawn up in motionless ranks,
+through which it would have been impossible to force a passage. They
+halted an instant and seemed to consult together. Lepretre, who was, as
+I have said, their senior and their chief, saluted the guard with his
+hand, saying with that noble grace of manner peculiar to him:
+
+"Very well, gentlemen of the gendarmerie!"
+
+Then after a brief, energetic farewell to his comrades, he stepped in
+front of them and blew out his brains. Guyon, Amiet and Hyvert assumed
+a defensive position, their double-barrelled pistols levelled upon their
+armed opponents. They did not fire; but the latter, considering this
+demonstration as a sign of open hostility, fired upon them. Guyon fell
+dead upon Lepretre's body, which had not moved. Amiet's hip was broken
+near the groin. The "Biographie des Contemporains" says that he was
+executed. I have often heard it said that he died at the foot of the
+scaffold. Hyvert was left alone, his determined brow, his terrible eye,
+the pistol in each practiced and vigorous hand threatening death to
+the spectators. Perhaps it was involuntary admiration, in his desperate
+plight, for this handsome young man with his waving locks, who was
+known never to have shed blood, and from whom the law now demanded the
+expiation of blood; or perhaps it was the sight of those three corpses
+over which he sprang like a wolf overtaken by his hunters, and the
+frightful novelty of the spectacle, which for an instant restrained
+the fury of the troop. He perceived this and temporized with them for a
+compromise.
+
+"Gentlemen," said he, "I go to my death! I die with all my heart! But
+let no one approach me or I shall shoot him--except this gentleman," he
+continued, pointing to the executioner. "This is an affair that concerns
+us alone and merely needs a certain understanding between us."
+
+This concession was readily accorded, for there was no one present who
+was not suffering from the prolongation of this horrible tragedy, and
+anxious to see it finished. Perceiving their assent, he placed one
+of his pistols between his teeth, and drawing a dagger from his belt,
+plunged it in his breast up to the hilt. He still remained standing and
+seemed greatly surprised. There was a movement toward him.
+
+"Very well, gentlemen!" cried he, covering the men who sought to
+surround him with his pistols, which he had seized again, while the
+blood spurted freely from the wound in which he had left his poniard.
+"You know our agreement; either I die alone or three of us will die
+together. Forward, march!" He walked straight to the guillotine, turning
+the knife in his breast as he did so.
+
+"Faith," said he, "my soul must be centred in my belly! I cannot die.
+See if you can fetch it out."
+
+This last was addressed to his executioner. An instant later his head
+fell. Be it accident or some peculiar phenomenon of the vitality, it
+rebounded and rolled beyond the circle of the scaffolding, and they will
+still tell you at Bourg, that Hyvert's head spoke.
+
+
+Before I had finished reading I had decided to abandon Rene d'Argonne
+for the Companions of Jehu. On the morrow I came down with my travelling
+bag under my arm.
+
+"You are leaving?" said Alexandre to me.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"To Bourg, in Bresse."
+
+"What are you going to do there?"
+
+"Study the neighborhood and consult with the inhabitants who saw
+Lepretre, Amiet, Guyon and Hyvert executed."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+There are two roads to Bourg--from Paris, of course; one may leave the
+train at Macon, and take stage from Macon to Bourg, or, continuing as
+far as Lyons, take train again from Lyons to Bourg.
+
+I was hesitating between these two roads when one of the travellers who
+was temporarily occupying my compartment decided me. He was going to
+Bourg, where he frequently had business. He was going by way of Lyons;
+therefore, Lyons was the better way.
+
+I resolved to travel by the same route. I slept at Lyons, and on the
+morrow by ten in the morning I was at Bourg.
+
+A paper published in the second capital of the kingdom met my eye. It
+contained a spiteful article about me. Lyons has never forgiven me since
+1833, I believe, some twenty-four years ago, for asserting that it was
+not a literary city. Alas! I have in 1857 the same opinion of Lyons as I
+had in 1833. I do not easily change my opinion. There is another city
+in France that is almost as bitter against me as Lyons, that is Rouen.
+Rouen has hissed all my plays, including Count Hermann.
+
+One day a Neapolitan boasted to me that he had hissed Rossini and
+Malibran, "The Barbiere" and "Desdemona."
+
+"That must be true," I answered him, "for Rossini and Malibran on their
+side boast of having been hissed by Neapolitans."
+
+So I boast that the Rouenese have hissed me. Nevertheless, meeting a
+full-blooded Rouenese one day I resolved to discover why I had been
+hissed at Rouen. I like to understand these little things.
+
+My Rouenese informed me: "We hiss you because we are down on you."
+
+Why not? Rouen was down on Joan of Arc. Nevertheless it could not be
+for the same reason. I asked my Rouenese why he and his compatriots were
+ill-disposed to me; I had never said anything evil of apple sugar, I
+had treated M. Barbet with respect during his entire term as mayor,
+and, when a delegate from the Society of Letters at the unveiling of the
+statue of the great Corneille, I was the only one who thought to bow to
+him before beginning my speech. There was nothing in that which could
+have reasonably incurred the hatred of the Rouenese.
+
+Therefore to this haughty reply, "We hiss you because we have a grudge
+against you," I asked humbly:
+
+"But, great Heavens! why are you down on me?"
+
+"Oh, you know very well," replied my Rouenese.
+
+"I?" I exclaimed.
+
+"Yes, you."
+
+"Well, never mind; pretend I do not know."
+
+"You remember the dinner the city gave you, in connection with that
+statue of Corneille?"
+
+"Perfectly. Were they annoyed because I did not return it?"
+
+"No, it is not that."
+
+"What is it then?"
+
+"Well, at that dinner they said to you: 'M. Dumas, you ought to write a
+play for Rouen based upon some subject taken from its own history.'"
+
+"To which I replied: 'Nothing easier; I will come at your first summons
+and spend a fortnight in Rouen. You can suggest the subject, and during
+that fortnight I will write the play, the royalties of which I shall
+devote to the poor.'"
+
+"That is true, you said that."
+
+"I see nothing sufficiently insulting in that to incur the hatred of the
+Rouenese."
+
+"Yes, but they added: 'Will you write it in prose?' To which you
+replied--Do you remember what you answered?"
+
+"My faith! no."
+
+"You replied: 'I will write it in verse; it is soonest done.'"
+
+"That sounds like me. Well, what then?"
+
+"Then! That was an insult to Corneille, M. Dumas; that is why the
+Rouenese are down on you, and will be for a long time."
+
+Verbatim!
+
+Oh, worthy Rouenese! I trust that you will never serve me so ill as to
+forgive and applaud me.
+
+The aforesaid paper observed that M. Dumas had doubtless spent but one
+night in Lyons because a city of such slight literary standing was not
+worthy of his longer sojourn. M. Dumas had not thought about this at
+all. He had spent but one night at Lyons because he was in a hurry to
+reach Bourg. And no sooner had M. Dumas arrived at Bourg than he asked
+to be directed to the office of its leading newspaper.
+
+I knew that it was under the management of a distinguished archeologist,
+who was also the editor of my friend Baux's work on the church of Brou.
+
+I asked for M. Milliet. M. Milliet appeared. We shook hands and I
+explained the object of my visit.
+
+"I can fix you perfectly," said he to me. "I will take you to one of
+our magistrates, who is at present engaged upon a history of the
+department."
+
+"How far has he got in this history?"
+
+"1822."
+
+"Then that's all right. As the events I want to relate occurred in 1799,
+and my heroes were executed in 1800, he will have covered that epoch,
+and can furnish me with the desired information. Let us go to your
+magistrate."
+
+On the road, M. Milliet told me that this same magisterial historian was
+also a noted gourmet. Since Brillat-Savarin it has been the fashion
+for magistrates to be epicures. Unfortunately, many are content to be
+gourmands, which is not at all the same thing.
+
+We were ushered into the magistrate's study. I found a man with a shiny
+face and a sneering smile. He greeted me with that protecting air which
+historians deign to assume toward poets.
+
+"Well, sir," he said to me, "so you have come to our poor country in
+search of material for your novel?"
+
+"No, sir; I have my material already. I have come simply to consult your
+historical documents."
+
+"Good! I did not know that it was necessary to give one's self so much
+trouble in order to write novels."
+
+"There you are in error, sir; at least in my instance. I am in the habit
+of making exhaustive researches upon all the historical events of which
+I treat."
+
+"You might at least have sent some one else."
+
+"Any person whom I might send, sir, not being so completely absorbed
+in my subject, might have overlooked many important facts. Then, too, I
+make use of many localities which I cannot describe unless I see them."
+
+"Oh, then this is a novel which you intend writing yourself?"
+
+"Yes, certainly, sir. I allowed my valet to write my last; but he had
+such immense success that the rogue asked so exorbitant an increase of
+wages that, to my great regret, I was unable to keep him."
+
+The magistrate bit his lips. Then, after a moment's silence, he said:
+
+"Will you kindly tell me, sir, how I can assist you in this important
+work?"
+
+"You can direct my researches, sir. As you have compiled the history of
+the department, none of the important event which have occurred in its
+capital can be unknown to you."
+
+"Truly, sir, I believe that in this respect I am tolerably well
+informed."
+
+"Then, sir, in the first place, your department was the centre of the
+operations of the Company of Jehu."
+
+"Sir, I have heard speak of the Companions of Jesus," replied the
+magistrate with his jeering smile.
+
+"The Jesuits, you mean? That is not what I am seeking, sir."
+
+"Nor is it of them that I am speaking. I refer to the stage robbers who
+infested the highroads from 1797 to 1800."
+
+"Then, sir, permit me to tell you they are precisely the ones I have
+come to Bourg about, and that they were called the Companions of Jehu,
+and not the Companions of Jesus."
+
+"What is the meaning of this title 'Companions of Jehu'? I like to get
+at the bottom of everything."
+
+"So do I, sir; that is why I did not wish to confound these highwaymen
+with the Apostles."
+
+"Truly, that would not have been very orthodox."
+
+"But it is what you would have done, nevertheless, sir, if I, a poet,
+had not come here expressly to correct the mistake you, as historian,
+have made."
+
+"I await your explanation, sir," resumed the magistrate, pursing his
+lips.
+
+"It is short and simple. Elisha consecrated Jehu, King of Israel,
+on condition that he exterminate the house of Ahab; Elisha was Louis
+XVIII.; Jehu was Cadoudal; the house of Ahab, the Revolution. That is
+why these pillagers of diligences, who filched the government money to
+support the war in the Vendee, were called the Companions of Jehu."
+
+"Sir, I am happy to learn something at my age."
+
+"Oh, sir! One can always learn, at all times and at all ages; during
+life one learns man; in death one learns God."
+
+"But, after all," my interlocutor said to me with a gesture of
+impatience, "may I know in what I can assist you?"
+
+"Thus, sir. Four of these young men, leaders of the Companions of Jehu,
+were executed at Bourg, on the Place du Bastion."
+
+"In the first place, sir, in Bourg executions do not take place at the
+Bastion; they execute on the Fair grounds."
+
+"Now, sir--these last fifteen or twenty years, it is true--since Peytel.
+But before, especially during the Revolution, they executed on the Place
+du Bastion."
+
+"That is possible."
+
+"It is so. These four young men were called Guyon, Lepretre, Amiet, and
+Hyvert."
+
+"This is the first time I have heard those names."
+
+"Yet their names made a certain noise at Bourg."
+
+"Are you sure, sir, that these men were executed here?"
+
+"I am positive."
+
+"From whom have you derived your information?"
+
+"From a man whose uncle, then in command of the gendarmerie, was present
+at the execution."
+
+"Will you tell me this man's name?"
+
+"Charles Nodier."
+
+"Charles Nodier, the novelist, the poet?"
+
+"If he were a historian I would not be so insistent, sir. Recently,
+during a trip to Varennes, I learned what dependence to place upon
+historians. But precisely because he is a poet, a novelist, I do
+insist."
+
+"You are at liberty to do so; but I know nothing of what you desire to
+learn, and I dare even assert that, if you have come to Bourg solely to
+obtain information concerning the execution of--what did you call them?"
+
+"Guyon, Lepretre, Amiet, and Hyvert."
+
+"You have undertaken a futile voyage. For these last twenty years, sir,
+I have been searching the town archives, and I have never seen anything
+relating to what you have just told me."
+
+"The town archives are not those of the registrar, sir; perhaps at the
+record office I may be able to find what I am seeking."
+
+"Ah! sir, if you can find anything among those archives you will be a
+very clever man! The record office is a chaos, a veritable chaos. You
+would have to spend a month here, and then--then--"
+
+"I do not expect to stay here more than a day, sir; but if in that day I
+should find what I am seeking will you permit me to impart it to you?"
+
+"Yes, sir; yes, sir; and you will render me a great service by doing
+so."
+
+"No greater than the one I asked of you. I shall merely give you some
+information about a matter of which you were ignorant, that is all."
+
+You can well understand that on leaving my magistrate, my honor was
+piqued. I determined, cost what it might, to procure this information
+about the Companions of Jehu. I went back to Milliet, and cornered him.
+
+"Listen," he said. "My brother-in-law is a lawyer."
+
+"He's my man! Let's go find the brother-in-law."
+
+"He's in court at this hour."
+
+"Then let us go to court."
+
+"Your appearance will create a sensation, I warn you."
+
+"Then go alone--tell him what we want, and let him make a search. I will
+visit the environs of the town to base my work on the localities. We
+will meet at four o'clock at the Place du Bastion, if you are agreed."
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+"It seems to me that I saw a forest, coming here."
+
+"The forest of Seillon."
+
+"Bravo!"
+
+"Do you need a forest?"
+
+"It is absolutely indispensable to me."
+
+"Then permit me--"
+
+"What?"
+
+"I am going to take you to a friend of mine, M. Leduc, a poet who in his
+spare moments is an inspector."
+
+"Inspector of what?"
+
+"Of the forest."
+
+"Are there any ruins in the forest?"
+
+"The Chartreuse, which is not in the forest, but merely some hundred
+feet from it."
+
+"And in the forest?"
+
+"There is a sort of hermitage which is called La Correrie, belonging to
+the Chartreuse, with which it communicates by a subterranean passage."
+
+"Good! Now, if you can provide me with a grotto you will overwhelm me."
+
+"We have the grotto of Ceyzeriat, but that is on the other side of the
+Reissouse."
+
+"I don't mind. If the grotto won't come to me, I will do like Mahomet--I
+will go to the grotto. In the meantime let us go to M. Leduc."
+
+Five minutes later we reached M. Leduc's house. He, on learning what we
+wanted, placed himself, his horse, and his carriage at my disposal. I
+accepted all. There are some men who offer their services in such a way
+that they place you at once at your ease.
+
+We first visited the Chartreuse. Had I built it myself it could not have
+suited me better. A deserted cloister, devastated garden, inhabitants
+almost savages. Chance, I thank thee!
+
+From there we went to the Correrie; it was the supplement of the
+Chartreuse. I did not yet know what I could do with it; but evidently it
+might be useful to me.
+
+"Now, sir," I said to my obliging guide, "I need a pretty site, rather
+gloomy, surrounded by tall trees, beside a river. Have you anything like
+that in the neighborhood?"
+
+"What do you want to do with it?"
+
+"To build a chateau there."
+
+"What kind of a chateau?"
+
+"Zounds! of cards! I have a family to house, a model mother, a
+melancholy young girl, a mischievous brother, and a poaching gardener."
+
+"There is a place called Noires-Fontaines."
+
+"In the first place the name is charming."
+
+"But there is no chateau there."
+
+"So much the better, for I should have been obliged to demolish it."
+
+"Let us go to Noires-Fontaines."
+
+We started; a quarter of an hour later we descended at the ranger's
+lodge.
+
+"Shall we take this little path?" said M. Leduc; "it will take us where
+you want to go."
+
+It led us, in fact, to a spot planted with tall trees which overshadowed
+three or four rivulets.
+
+"We call this place Noires-Fontaines," M. Leduc explained.
+
+"And here Madame de Montrevel, Amelie and little Edouard will dwell. Now
+what are those villages which I see in front of me?"
+
+"Here, close at hand, is Montagnac; yonder, on the mountain side,
+Ceyzeriat."
+
+"Is that where the grotto is?"
+
+"Yes. But how did you know there was a grotto at Ceyzeriat?"
+
+"Never mind, go on. The name of those other villages, if you please."
+
+"Saint-Just, Treconnas, Ramasse, Villereversure."
+
+"That will do."
+
+"Have you enough?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+I drew out my note-book, sketched a plan of the locality and wrote about
+in their relative positions the names of the villages which M. Leduc had
+just pointed out to me.
+
+"That's done!" said I.
+
+"Where shall we go now?"
+
+"Isn't the church of Brou near this road?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then let us go to the church of Brou."
+
+"Do you need that in your novel?"
+
+"Yes, indeed; you don't imagine I am going to lay my scene in a country
+which contains the architectural masterpiece of the sixteenth century
+without utilizing that masterpiece, do you?"
+
+"Let us go to the church of Brou."
+
+A quarter of an hour later the sacristan showed us into this granite
+jewel-case which contains the three marble gems called the tombs of
+Marguerite of Austria, Marguerite or Bourbon, and of Philibert le Beau.
+
+"How is it," I asked the sacristan, "that all these masterpieces were
+not reduced to powder during the Revolution?"
+
+"Ah! sir, the municipality had an idea."
+
+"What was it?"
+
+"That of turning the church into a storage house for fodder."
+
+"Yes, and the hay saved the marble; you are right, my friend, that _was_
+an idea."
+
+"Does this idea of the municipality afford you another?" asked M. Leduc.
+
+"Faith, yes, and I shall have poor luck if I don't make something out of
+it."
+
+I looked at my watch. "Three o'clock! Now for the prison. I have an
+appointment with M. Milliet at four on the Place du Bastion."
+
+"Wait; there is one thing more."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"Have you noticed Marguerite of Austria's motto?"
+
+"No; where is it?"
+
+"Oh, all over. In the first place, look above her tomb."
+
+"'Fortune, infortune, fort'une.'"
+
+"Exactly."
+
+"Well, what does this play of words mean?"
+
+"Learned men translate it thus: 'Fate persecutes a woman much.'"
+
+"Explain that a little."
+
+"You must, in the first place, assume that it is derived from the
+Latin."
+
+"True, that is probable."
+
+"Well, then: 'Fortuna infortunat--'"
+
+"Oh! Oh! 'Infortunat.'"
+
+"Bless me!"
+
+"That strongly resembles a solecism!"
+
+"What do you want?"
+
+"An explanation."
+
+"Explain it yourself."
+
+"Well; 'Fortuna, infortuna, forti una.' 'Fortune and misfortune are
+alike to the strong.'"
+
+"Do you know, that may possibly be the correct translation?"
+
+"Zounds! See what it is not to be learned, my dear sir; we are endowed
+with common-sense, and that sees clearer than science. Have you anything
+else to tell me?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Then let us go to the prison."
+
+We got into the carriage and returned to the city, stopping only at the
+gate of the prison. I glanced out of the window.
+
+"Oh!" I exclaimed, "they have spoiled it for me."
+
+"What! They've spoiled it for you?"
+
+"Certainly, it was not like this in my prisoners' time. Can I speak to
+the jailer?"
+
+"Certainly."
+
+"Then let us consult him."
+
+We knocked at the door. A man about forty opened it. He recognized M.
+Leduc.
+
+"My dear fellow," M. Leduc said to him, "this is one of my learned
+friends--"
+
+"Come, come," I exclaimed, interrupting him, "no nonsense."
+
+"Who contends," continued M. Leduc, "that the prison is no longer the
+same as it was in the last century?"
+
+"That is true, M. Leduc, it was torn down and rebuilt in 1816."
+
+"Then the interior arrangements are no longer the same?"
+
+"Oh! no, sir, everything was changed."
+
+"Could I see the old plan?"
+
+"M. Martin, the architect, might perhaps be able to find one for you."
+
+"Is he any relation to M. Martin, the lawyer?"
+
+"His brother."
+
+"Very well, my friend, then I can get my plan."
+
+"Then we have nothing more to do here?" inquired M. Leduc.
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Then I am free to go home?"
+
+"I shall be sorry to leave you, that is all."
+
+"Can you find your way to the Bastion without me?"
+
+"It is close by."
+
+"What are you going to do this evening?"
+
+"I will spend it with you, if you wish."
+
+"Very good! You will find a cup of tea waiting for you at nine."
+
+"I shall be on hand for it."
+
+I thanked M. Leduc. We shook hands and parted.
+
+I went down the Rue des Lisses (meaning Lists, from a combat which
+took place in the square to which it leads), and skirting the Montburon
+Garden, I reached the Place du Bastion. This is a semicircle now used as
+the town marketplace. In the midst stands the statue of Bichat by
+David d'Angers. Bichat, in a frockcoat--why that exaggeration of
+realism?--stands with his hand upon the heart of a child about nine or
+ten years old, perfectly nude--why that excess of ideality? Extended
+at Bichat's feet lies a dead body. It is Bichat's book "Of Life and
+of Death" translated into bronze. I was studying this statue, which
+epitomizes the defects and merits of David d'Angers, when I felt some
+one touch my shoulder. I turned around; it was M. Milliet. He held a
+paper in his hand.
+
+"Well?" I asked.
+
+"Well, victory!"
+
+"What is that you have there?"
+
+"The minutes of the trial and execution."
+
+"Of whom?"
+
+"Of your men."
+
+"Of Guyon, Lepretre, Amiet--!"
+
+"And Hyvert."
+
+"Give it to me."
+
+"Here it is."
+
+I took it and read:
+
+  REPORT OF THE DEATH AND EXECUTION OF LAURENT GUYON, ETIENNE
+  HYVERT, FRANCOIS AMIET, ANTOINE LEPRETRE. Condemned the twentieth
+  Thermidor of the year VIII., and executed the twenty-third
+  Vendemiaire of the year IX.
+
+  To-day, the twenty-third Vendemiaire of the year IX., the
+  government commissioner of the tribunal, who received at eleven
+  of the evening the budget of the Minister of Justice, containing
+  the minutes of the trial and the judgment which condemns to
+  death Laurent Guyon, Etienne Hyvert, Francois Amiet and Antoine
+  Lepretre;--the decision of the Court of Appeals of the sixth
+  inst., rejecting the appeal against the sentence of the
+  twenty-first Thermidor of the year VIII., I did notify by letter,
+  between seven and eight of the morning, the four accused that
+  their sentence of death would take effect to-day at eleven o'clock.
+  In the interval which elapsed before eleven o'clock, the four
+  accused shot themselves with pistols and stabbed themselves with
+  blows from a poinard in prison. Lepretre and Guyon, according
+  to public rumor, were dead; Hyvert fatally wounded and dying;
+  Amiet fatally wounded, but still conscious. All four, in this
+  state, were conveyed to the scaffold, and, living or dead, were
+  guillotined. At half after eleven, the sheriff, Colin, handed in
+  the report of their execution to the Municipality for registration
+  upon the death roll:
+
+  The captain of gendarmerie remitted to the Justice of the Peace
+  a report of what had occurred in the prison, of which he was a
+  witness. I, who was not present, do certify to what I have learned
+  by hearsay only.
+
+    (Signed) DUBOST, _Clerk_.
+
+  Bourg, 23d Vendemiaire of the year IX.
+
+Ah! so it was the poet who was right and not the historian! The captain
+of gendarmerie, who remitted the report of the proceedings in the prison
+to the Justice of the Peace, at which he was present, was Nodier's
+uncle. This report handed to the Justice of the Peace was the story
+which, graven upon the young man's mind, saw the light some forty
+years later unaltered, in that masterpiece entitled "Souvenirs de la
+Revolution." The entire series of papers was in the record office. M.
+Martin offered to have them copied for me; inquiry, trial and judgment.
+
+I had a copy of Nodier's "Souvenirs of the Revolution" in my pocket.
+In my hand I held the report of the execution which confirmed the facts
+therein stated.
+
+"Now let us go to our magistrate," I said to M. Milliet.
+
+"Let us go to our magistrate," he repeated.
+
+The magistrate was confounded, and I left him convinced that poets know
+history as well as historians--if not better.
+
+ALEX. DUMAS.
+
+
+
+
+PROLOGUE. THE CITY OF AVIGNON
+
+We do not know if the prologue we are going to present to our readers'
+eyes be very useful, nevertheless we cannot resist the desire to make of
+it, not the first chapter, but the preface of this book.
+
+The more we advance in life, the more we advance in art, the more
+convinced we become that nothing is abrupt and isolated; that nature
+and society progress by evolution and not by chance, and that the event,
+flower joyous or sad, perfumed or fetid, beneficent or fatal, which
+unfolds itself to-day before our eyes, was sown in the past, and had
+its roots sometimes in days anterior to ours, even as it will bear its
+fruits in the future.
+
+Young, man accepts life as it comes, enamored of yestereen, careless
+of the day, heeding little the morrow. Youth is the springtide with its
+dewy dawns and its beautiful nights; if sometimes a storm clouds the
+sky, it gathers, mutters and disperses, leaving the sky bluer, the
+atmosphere purer, and Nature more smiling than before. What use is there
+in reflecting on this storm that passes swift as a caprice, ephemeral
+as a fancy? Before we have discovered the secret of the meteorological
+enigma, the storm will have disappeared.
+
+But it is not thus with the terrible phenomena, which at the close of
+summer, threaten our harvests; or in the midst of autumn, assail our
+vintages; we ask whither they go, we query whence they come, we seek a
+means to prevent them.
+
+To the thinker, the historian, the poet, there is a far deeper subject
+for reflection in revolutions, these tempests of the social atmosphere
+which drench the earth with blood, and crush an entire generation of
+men, than in those upheavals of nature which deluge a harvest, or flay
+the vineyards with hail--that is to say, the fruits of a single harvest,
+wreaking an injury, which can at the worst be repaired the ensuing year;
+unless the Lord be in His days of wrath.
+
+Thus, in other days, be it forgetfulness, heedlessness or ignorance
+perhaps--(blessed he who is ignorant! a fool he who is wise!)--in other
+days in relating the story which I am going to tell you to-day I would,
+without pausing at the place where the first scene of this book occurs,
+have accorded it but a superficial mention, and traversing the Midi like
+any other province, have named Avignon like any other city.
+
+But to-day it is no longer the same; I am no longer tossed by the
+flurries of spring, but by the storms of summer, the tempests of
+autumn. To-day when I name Avignon, I evoke a spectre; and, like Antony
+displaying Caesar's toga, say:
+
+  "Look! in this place ran Cassius' dagger through;
+  See what a rent the envious Casca made;
+  Through this the well-beloved Brutus stabbed--"
+
+So, seeing the bloody shroud of the papal city, I say: "Behold the blood
+of the Albigenses, and here the blood of the Cevennais; behold the blood
+of the Republicans, and here the blood of the Royalists; behold the
+blood of Lescuyer; behold the blood of Marechal Brune."
+
+And I feel myself seized with a profound sadness, and I begin to write,
+but at the first lines I perceive that, without suspecting it, the
+historian's chisel has superseded the novelist's pen in my hand.
+
+Well, let us be both. Reader, grant me these ten, fifteen, twenty pages
+to the historian; the novelist shall have the rest.
+
+Let us say, therefore, a few words about Avignon, the place where the
+first scene of the new book which we are offering to the public, opens.
+Perhaps, before reading what we have to say, it would be well to cast a
+glance at what its native historian, Francois Nouguier, says of it.
+
+"Avignon," he writes, "a town noble for its antiquity, pleasing in
+its site, superb for its walls, smiling for the fertility of its soil,
+charming for the gentleness of its inhabitants, magnificent for its
+palace, beautiful in its broad streets, marvellous in the construction
+of its bridge, rich because of its commerce, and known to all the
+world."
+
+May the shade of Francois Nouguier pardon us if we do not at first see
+his city with the same eyes as he does. To those who know Avignon be it
+to say who has best described it, the historian or the novelist.
+
+It is but just to assert in the first place that Avignon is a town
+by itself, that is to say, a town of extreme passions. The period of
+religious dissensions, which culminated for her in political hatreds,
+dates from the twelfth century. After his flight from Lyons, the valleys
+of Mont Ventoux sheltered Pierre de Valdo and his Vaudois, the ancestors
+of those Protestants who, under the name of the Albigenses, cost the
+Counts of Toulouse, and transferred to the papacy, the seven chateaux
+which Raymond VI. possessed in Languedoc.
+
+Avignon, a powerful republic governed by podestats, refused to submit
+to the King of France. One morning Louis VIII., who thought it easier
+to make a crusade against Avignon like Simon de Montfort, than against
+Jerusalem like Philippe Auguste; one morning, we say, Louis VIII.
+appeared before the gates of Avignon, demanding admission with lances at
+rest, visor down, banners unfurled and trumpets of war sounding.
+
+The bourgeois refused. They offered the King of France, as a last
+concession, a peaceful entrance, lances erect, and the royal banner
+alone unfurled. The King laid siege to the town, a siege which lasted
+three months, during which, says the chronicler, the bourgeois of
+Avignon returned the French soldiers arrow for arrow, wound for wound,
+death for death.
+
+The city capitulated at length. Louis VIII. brought the Roman
+Cardinal-Legate, Saint-Angelo, in his train. It was he who dictated the
+terms, veritable priestly terms, hard and unconditional. The Avignonese
+were commanded to demolish their ramparts, to fill their moats, to raze
+three hundred towers, to sell their vessels, and to burn their engines
+and machines of war. They had moreover to pay an enormous impost, to
+abjure the Vaudois heresy, and maintain thirty men fully armed and
+equipped, in Palestine, to aid in delivering the tomb of Christ. And
+finally, to watch over the fulfillment of these terms, of which the bull
+is still extant in the city archives, a brotherhood of penitents was
+founded which, reaching down through six centuries, still exists in our
+days.
+
+In opposition to these penitents, known as the "White Penitents," the
+order of the "Black Penitents" was founded, imbued with the spirit of
+opposition of Raymond of Toulouse.
+
+From that day forth the religious hatreds developed into political
+hatreds. It was not sufficient that Avignon should be the land of
+heresy. She was destined to become the theatre of schisms.
+
+Permit us, in connection with this French Rome, a short historical
+digression. Strictly speaking, it is not essential to the subject
+of which we treat, and we were perhaps wiser to launch ourselves
+immediately into the heart of the drama; but we trust that we will be
+forgiven. We write more particularly for those who, in a novel, like
+occasionally to meet with something more than fiction.
+
+In 1285 Philippe le Bel ascended the throne.
+
+It is a great historical date, this date of 1285. The papacy which, in
+the person of Gregory VII., successfully opposed the Emperor of Germany;
+the papacy which, vanquished in matters temporal by Henry IV., yet
+vanquished him morally. This papacy was slapped by a simple Sabine
+gentleman, and the steel gauntlet of Colonna reddened the cheek of
+Boniface VIII. But the King of France, whose hand had really dealt this
+blow, what happened to him under the successor of Boniface VIII.?
+
+This successor was Benedict XI., a man of low origin, but who might
+perhaps have developed into a man of genius, had they allowed him the
+time. Too weak for an open struggle with Philippe le Bel, he found a
+means which would have been the envy of the founder of a celebrated
+order two hundred years later. He pardoned Colonna openly.
+
+To pardon Colonna was to declare Colonna culpable, since culprits alone
+have need of pardon. If Colonna were guilty, the King of France was at
+least his accomplice.
+
+There was some danger in supporting such an argument; also Benedict
+XI. was pope but eight months. One day a veiled woman, a pretended
+lay-sister of Sainte-Petronille at Perugia, came to him while he was
+at table, offering him a basket of figs. Did it conceal an asp like
+Cleopatra's? The fact is that on the morrow the Holy See was vacant.
+
+Then Philippe le Bel had a strange idea; so strange that it must, at
+first, have seemed an hallucination.
+
+It was to withdraw the papacy from Rome, to install it in France, to put
+it in jail, and force it to coin money for his profit.
+
+The reign of Philippe le Bel was the advent of gold. Gold! that was the
+sole and unique god of this king who had slapped a pope. Saint Louis had
+a priest, the worthy Abbe Suger, for minister; Philippe le Bel had two
+bankers, two Florentines, Biscio and Musiato.
+
+Do you expect, dear reader, that we are about to fall into the
+philosophical commonplace of anathematizing gold? You are mistaken.
+
+In the thirteenth century gold meant progress. Until then nothing was
+known but the soil. Gold was the soil converted into money, the
+soil mobilized, exchangeable, transportable, divisible, subtilized,
+spiritualized, as it were.
+
+So long as the soil was not represented by gold, man, like the god
+Thermes, that landmark of the fields, had his feet imprisoned by the
+earth. Formerly the earth bore man, to-day man bears the earth.
+
+But this gold had to be abstracted from its hiding-place, and it was
+hidden far otherwise than in the mines of Chile or Mexico. All the gold
+was in the possession of the churches and the Jews. To extract it from
+this double mine it needed more than a king; it required a pope.
+
+And that is why Philippe le Bel, that great exploiter of gold, resolved
+to have a pope of his own. Benedict XI. dead, a conclave was held at
+Perugia; at this conclave the French cardinals were in the majority.
+Philippe le Bel cast his eyes upon the Archbishop of Bordeaux, Bertrand
+de Got, and to him he gave rendezvous in a forest near Saint-Jean
+d'Angely.
+
+Bertrand de Got took heed not to miss that appointment.
+
+The King and the Archbishop heard mass there, and at the moment when the
+Host was elevated, they bound themselves by this God they glorified to
+absolute secrecy. Bertrand de Got was still ignorant of the matter in
+question. Mass over, Philippe le Bel said:
+
+"Archbishop, I have it in my power to make thee pope."
+
+Bertrand de Got listened no longer, but cast himself at the King's feet,
+saying:
+
+"What must I do to obtain this?"
+
+"Accord me the six favors which I shall ask of thee," replied Philippe
+le Bel.
+
+"It's for thee to command and for me to obey," said the future Pope.
+
+The vow of servitude was taken.
+
+The King raised Bertrand de Got, and, kissing him on the mouth, said:
+
+"The six favors which I demand of thee are these: First, thou shalt
+reconcile me completely with the Church, and grant me pardon for the
+misdeed that I committed toward Boniface VIII. Second, thou shalt
+restore to me and mine the right of communion of which the Court of Rome
+deprived me. Third, thou shalt grant me the clergy's tithe in my kingdom
+for the next five years, to help defray the expenses of the war in
+Flanders. Fourth, thou shalt destroy and annul the memory of Pope
+Boniface VIII. Fifth, thou shalt bestow the dignity of cardinal upon
+Messires Jacopo and Pietro de Colonna. As to the sixth favor and
+promise, that I shall reserve to speak to thee thereof in its time and
+place."
+
+Bertrand de Got swore to the promises and favors known, and to the
+promise and favor unknown. This last, which the King had not dared to
+mention in connection with the others, was the abolition of the Knights
+Templar. Besides the promises made on the Corpus Domini, Bertrand de Got
+gave as hostages his brother and two of his nephews. The King swore on
+his side that he should be elected pope.
+
+This scene, set in the deep shadows of a crossroad in the forest,
+resembled rather an evocation between magician and demon than an
+agreement entered upon between king and pope.
+
+Also the coronation of the King, which took place shortly afterward
+at Lyons, and which began the Church's captivity, seemed but little
+agreeable to God. Just as the royal procession was passing, a wall
+crowded with spectators fell, wounding the King and killing the Duc de
+Bretagne. The Pope was thrown to the ground, and his tiara rolled in the
+mud.
+
+Bertrand de Got was elected pope under the name of Clement V.
+
+Clement V. paid all that Bertrand de Got had promised. Philippe was
+absolved, Holy Communion restored to him and his, the purple again
+descended upon the shoulders of the Colonna, the Church was obliged
+to defray the expenses of the war in Flanders and Philippe de Valois's
+crusade against the Greek Empire. The memory of Pope Boniface VIII. was,
+if not destroyed and annulled, at least besmirched; the walls of the
+Temple were razed, and the Templars burned on the open space of the Pont
+Neuf.
+
+All these edicts--they were no longer called bulls from the moment the
+temporal power dictated them--all these edicts were dated at Avignon.
+
+Philippe le Bel was the richest of all the kings of the French monarchy;
+he possessed an inexhaustible treasury, that is to say, his pope. He had
+purchased him, he used him, he put him to the press, and as cider flows
+from apples, so did this crushed pope bleed gold. The pontificate,
+struck by the Colonna in the person of Boniface VIII., abdicated the
+empire of the world in the person of Clement V.
+
+We have related the advent of the king of blood and the pope of gold.
+We know how they ended. Jacques de Molay, from his funeral pyre, adjured
+them both to appear before God within the year. _Ae to geron sithullia_,
+says Aristophanes. "Dying hoary heads possess the souls of sibyls."
+
+Clement V. departed first. In a vision he saw his palace in flames.
+"From that moment," says Baluze, "he became sad and lasted but a short
+time."
+
+Seven months later it was Philippe's turn. Some say that he was killed
+while hunting, overthrown by a wild boar. Dante is among their number.
+"He," said he, "who was seen near the Seine falsifying the coin of the
+realm shall die by the tusk of a boar." But Guillaume de Nangis makes
+the royal counterfeiter die of a death quite otherwise providential.
+
+"Undermined by a malady unknown to the physicians, Philippe expired,"
+said he, "to the great astonishment of everybody, without either his
+pulse or his urine revealing the cause of his malady or the imminence of
+the danger."
+
+The King of Debauchery, the King of Uproar, Louis X., called the Hutin,
+succeeded his father, Philippe le Bel; John XXII. to Clement V.
+
+Avignon then became in truth a second Rome. John XXII. and Clement VI.
+anointed her queen of luxury. The manners and customs of the times made
+her queen of debauchery and indulgence. In place of her towers, razed by
+Romain de Saint-Angelo, Hernandez de Heredi, grand master of Saint-Jean
+of Jerusalem, girdled her with a belt of walls. She possessed dissolute
+monks, who transformed the blessed precincts of her convents into places
+of debauchery and licentiousness; her beautiful courtesans tore the
+diamonds from the tiara to make of them bracelets and necklaces; and
+finally she possessed the echoes of Vaucluse, which wafted the melodious
+strains of Petrarch's songs to her.
+
+This lasted until King Charles V., who was a virtuous and pious prince,
+having resolved to put an end to the scandal, sent the Marechal de
+Boucicaut to drive out the anti-pope, Benedict XIII., from Avignon. But
+at sight of the soldiers of the King of France the latter remembered
+that before being pope under the name of Benedict XIII. he had been
+captain under the name of Pierre de Luna. For five months he defended
+himself, pointing his engines of war with his own hands from the heights
+of the chateau walls, engines otherwise far more murderous than his
+pontifical bolts. At last forced to flee, he left the city by a
+postern, after having ruined a hundred houses and killed four thousand
+Avignonese, and fled to Spain, where the King of Aragon offered him
+sanctuary.
+
+There each morning, from the summit of a tower, assisted by the two
+priests who constituted his sacred college, he blessed the whole world,
+which was none the better for it, and excommunicated his enemies, who
+were none the worse for it. At last, feeling himself nigh to death,
+and fearing lest the schism die with him, he elected his two vicars
+cardinals on the condition that after his death one of the two would
+elect the other pope. The election was made. The new pope, supported by
+the cardinal who made him, continued the schism for awhile. Finally both
+entered into negotiations with Rome, made honorable amends, and returned
+to the fold of Holy Church, one with the title of Arch bishop of
+Seville, the other as Archbishop of Toledo.
+
+From this time until 1790 Avignon, widowed of her popes, was governed
+by legates and vice-legates. Seven sovereign pontiffs had resided
+within her walls some seven decades; she had seven hospitals, seven
+fraternities of penitents, seven monasteries, seven convents, seven
+parishes, and seven cemeteries.
+
+To those who know Avignon there was at that epoch--there is yet--two
+cities within a city: the city of the priests, that is to say, the Roman
+city, and the city of the merchants, that is to say, the French city.
+The city of the priests, with its papal palace, its hundred churches,
+its innumerable bell-towers, ever ready to sound the tocsin of
+conflagration, the knell of slaughter. The town of the merchants, with
+its Rhone, its silk-workers, its crossroads, extending north, east,
+south and west, from Lyons to Marseilles, from Nimes to Turin. The
+French city, the accursed city, longing for a king, jealous of its
+liberties, shuddering beneath its yoke of vassalage, a vassalage of the
+priests with the clergy for its lord.
+
+The clergy--not the pious clergy, tolerantly austere in the practice
+of its duty and charity, living in the world to console and edify
+it, without mingling in its joys and passions--but a clergy such as
+intrigue, cupidity, and ambition had made it; that is to say, the
+court abbes, rivalling the Roman priests, indolent, libertine, elegant,
+impudent, kings of fashion, autocrats of the salon, kissing the hands of
+those ladies of whom they boasted themselves the paramours, giving their
+hands to kiss to the women of the people whom they honored by making
+their mistresses.
+
+Do you want a type of those abbes? Take the Abbe Maury. Proud as a duke,
+insolent as a lackey, the son of a shoemaker, more aristocratic than the
+son of a great lord.
+
+One understands that these two categories of inhabitants, representing
+the one heresy, the other orthodoxy; the one the French party, the other
+the Roman party; the one the party of absolute monarchy, the other that
+of progressive constitutionalism, were not elements conducive to the
+peace and security of this ancient pontifical city. One understands,
+we say, that at the moment when the revolution broke out in Paris, and
+manifested itself by the taking of the Bastille, that the two parties,
+hot from the religious wars of Louis XIV., could not remain inert in the
+presence of each other.
+
+We have said, Avignon, city of priests; let us add, city of hatreds.
+Nowhere better than in convent towns does one learn to hate. The heart
+of the child, everywhere else free from wicked passions, was born there
+full of paternal hatreds, inherited from father to son for the last
+eight hundred years, and after a life of hate, bequeathed in its turn, a
+diabolical heritage, to his children.
+
+Therefore, at the first cry of liberty which rang through France the
+French town rose full of joy and hope. The moment had come at last for
+her to contest aloud that concession made by a young queen, a minor,
+in expiation of her sins, of a city and a province, and with it half a
+million souls. By what right had she sold these souls in aeternum to the
+hardest and most exacting of all masters, the Roman Pontiff?
+
+All France was hastening to assemble in the fraternal embrace of the
+Federation at the Champ de Mars. Was she not France? Her sons ejected
+delegates to wait upon the legate and request him respectfully to leave
+the city, giving him twenty-four hours in which to do so.
+
+During the night the papists amused themselves by hanging from a gibbet
+an effigy of straw wearing the tri-color cockade.
+
+The course of the Rhone has been controlled, the Durance canalled, dikes
+have been built to restrain the fierce torrents, which, at the melting
+of the snows, pour in liquid avalanches from the summits of Mt. Ventoux.
+But this terrible flood, this living flood, this human torrent that
+rushed leaping through the rapid inclines of the streets of Avignon,
+once released, once flooding, not even God Himself has yet sought to
+stay it.
+
+At sight of this manikin with the national colors, dancing at the end
+of a cord, the French city rose upon its very foundations with terrible
+cries of rage. Four papist, suspected of this sacrilege, two marquises,
+one burgher, and a workman, were torn from their homes and hung in the
+manikin's stead. This occurred the eleventh of June, 1790.
+
+The whole French town wrote to the National Assembly that she gave
+herself to France, and with her the Rhone, her commerce, the Midi, and
+the half of Provence.
+
+The National Assembly was in one of its reactionary moods. It did not
+wish to quarrel with the Pope; it dallied with the King, and the matter
+was adjourned. From that moment the rising became a revolt, and the Pope
+was free to do with Avignon what the court might have done with Paris,
+if the Assembly had delayed its proclamation of the Rights of Man.
+The Pope ordered the annulment of all that had occurred at the Comtat
+Venaissin, the re-establishment of the privileges of the nobles and
+clergy, and the reinstallation of the Inquisition in all its rigor. The
+pontifical decrees were affixed to the walls.
+
+One man, one only, in broad daylight dared to go straight to the walls,
+in face of all, and tear down the decree. His name was Lescuyer. He
+was not a young man; and therefore it was not the fire of youth that
+impelled him. No, he was almost an old man who did not even belong to
+the province. He was a Frenchman from Picardy, ardent yet reflective, a
+former notary long since established at Avignon.
+
+It was a crime that Roman Avignon remembered; a crime so great that the
+Virgin wept!
+
+You see Avignon is another Italy. She must have her miracles, and if
+God will not perform them, so surely will some one be at hand to invent
+them. Still further, the miracle must be a miracle pertaining to the
+Virgin. La Madonna! the mind, the heart, the tongue of the Italians are
+full of these two words.
+
+It was in the Church of the Cordeliers that this miracle occurred. The
+crowd rushed there. It was much that the Virgin should weep; but a rumor
+spread at the same time that brought the excitement to a climax. A large
+coffer, tightly sealed, had been carried through the city; this chest
+had excited the curiosity of all Avignon. What did it contain? Two hours
+later it was no longer a coffer; but eighteen trunks had been seen going
+toward the Rhone. As for their contents, a porter had revealed that;
+they contained articles from the Mont-de-Piete that the French party
+were taking with them into exile. Articles from the Mont-de-Piete, that
+is to say, the spoils of the poor! The poorer the city the richer its
+pawn-shops. Few could boast such wealth as those of Avignon. It was no
+longer a factional affair, it was a theft, an infamous theft. Whites
+and Reds rushed to the Church of the Cordeliers, shouting that the
+municipality must render them an accounting.
+
+Lescuyer was the secretary of the municipality. His name was thrown to
+the crowd, not for having torn down the pontifical decrees--from that
+moment he would have had defenders--but for having signed the order to
+the keeper of the Mont-de-Piete permitting the removal of the articles
+in pawn.
+
+Four men were sent to seize Lescuyer and bring him to the church. They
+found him in the street on his way to the municipality. The four men
+fell upon him and dragged him to the church with the most ferocious
+cries. Once there, Lescuyer understood from the flaming eyes that met
+his, from the clinched fists threatening him, the shrieks demanding his
+death; Lescuyer understood that instead of being in the house of the
+Lord he was in one of those circles of hell forgotten by Dante.
+
+The only idea that occurred to him as to this hatred against him was
+that he had caused it by tearing down the pontifical decrees. He climbed
+into the pulpit, expecting to convert it into a seat of justice, and in
+the voice of a man who not only does not blame himself, but who is even
+ready to repeat his action, he said:
+
+"Brothers, I consider the revolution necessary; consequently I have done
+all in my power--"
+
+The fanatics understood that if Lescuyer explained, Lescuyer was saved.
+That was not what they wanted. They flung themselves upon him, tore him
+from the pulpit, and thrust him into the midst of this howling mob, who
+dragged him to the altar with that sort of terrible cry which combines
+the hiss of the serpent and the roar of the tiger, the murderous zou!
+zou! peculiar to the people of Avignon.
+
+Lescuyer recognized that fatal cry; he endeavored to gain refuge at the
+foot of the altar. He found none; he fell there.
+
+A laborer, armed with a stick, dealt him such a blow on the head that
+the stick broke in two pieces. Then the people hurled themselves upon
+the poor body, and, with that mixture of gayety and ferocity peculiar to
+Southern people, the men began to dance on his stomach, singing, while
+the women, that he might better expiate his blasphemies against the
+Pope, cut or rather scalloped his lips with their scissors.
+
+And out of the midst of this frightful group came a cry, or rather a
+groan; this death groan said: "In the name of Heaven! in the name of the
+Virgin! in the name of humanity! kill me at once."
+
+This cry was heard, and by common consent the assassins stood aside.
+They left the unfortunate man bleeding, disfigured, mangled, to taste of
+his death agony.
+
+This lasted five hours, during which, amid shouts of laughter, insults,
+and jeers from the crowd, this poor body lay palpitating upon the steps
+of the altar. That is how they kill at Avignon.
+
+Stay! there is yet another way. A man of the French party conceived the
+idea of going to the Mont-de-Piete for information. Everything was in
+order there, not a fork or a spoon had been removed. It was therefore
+not as an accomplice of theft that Lescuyer had just been so cruelly
+murdered, it was for being a patriot.
+
+There was at that time in Avignon a man who controlled the populace. All
+these terrible leaders of the Midi have acquired such fatal celebrity
+that it suffices to name them for every one, even the least educated,
+to know them. This man was Jourdan. Braggart and liar, he had made the
+common people believe that it was he who had cut off the head of the
+governor of the Bastille. So they called him Jourdan, Coupe-tete.
+That was not his real name, which was Mathieu Jouve. Neither was he a
+Provencal; he came from Puy-en-Velay. He had formerly been a muleteer
+on those rugged heights which surround his native town; then a soldier
+without going to war--war had perhaps made him more human; after that
+he had kept a drink-shop in Paris. In Avignon he had been a vendor of
+madder.
+
+He collected three hundred men, carried the gates of the town, left
+half of his troop to guard them, and with the remainder marched upon
+the Church of the Cordeliers, preceded by two pieces of cannon. These he
+stationed in front of the church and fired them into it at random. The
+assassins fled like a flock of frightened birds, leaving some few dead
+upon the church steps. Jourdan and his men trampled over the bodies and
+entered the holy precincts. No one was there but the Virgin, and the
+wretched Lescuyer, still breathing. Jourdan and his comrades took good
+care not to despatch Lescuyer; his death agony was a supreme means
+of exciting the mob. They picked up this remnant of a sentient being,
+three-quarters dead, and carried it along, bleeding, quivering, gasping,
+with them.
+
+Every one fled from the sight, closing doors and windows. At the end of
+an hour, Jourdan and his three hundred men were masters of the town.
+
+Lescuyer was dead, but what of that; they no longer needed his agony.
+Jourdan profited by the terror he had inspired to arrest or have
+arrested eighty people, murderers, or so-called murderers of Lescuyer.
+Thirty, perhaps, had never even set foot within the church. But when one
+has such a good opportunity to be rid of one's enemies, one must profit
+by it; good opportunities are rare.
+
+These eighty people were huddled into the Trouillas Tower. Historically
+it is known as the Tower de la Glaciere; but why change this name of
+the Trouillas Tower? The name is unclean and harmonizes well with the
+unclean deed which was now to be perpetrated there.
+
+It had been the scene of the inquisitorial tortures. One can still see
+on the walls the greasy soot which rose from the smoke of the funeral
+pyre where human bodies were consumed. They still show you to-day the
+instruments of torture which they have carefully preserved--the caldron,
+the oven, the wooden horse, the chains, the dungeons, and even the
+rotten bones. Nothing is wanting.
+
+It was in this tower, built by Clement V., that they now confined the
+eighty prisoners. These eighty men, once arrested and locked up in the
+Trouillas Tower, became most embarrassing. Who was to judge them? There
+were no legally constituted courts except those of the Pope. Could they
+kill these unfortunates as they had killed Lescuyer?
+
+We have said that a third, perhaps half of them, had not only taken no
+part in the murder, but had not even set foot in the church. How should
+they kill them? The killing must be placed upon the basis of reprisals.
+But the killing of these eighty people required a certain number of
+executioners.
+
+A species of tribunal was improvised by Jourdan and held session in
+one of the law-courts. It had a clerk named Raphel; a president, half
+Italian, half French; an orator in the popular dialect named Barbe
+Savournin de la Roua, and three or four other poor devils, a baker, a
+pork butcher--their names are lost in the multitude of events.
+
+These were the men who cried: "We must kill all! If one only escapes he
+will be a witness against us."
+
+But, as we have said, executioners were wanting. There were barely
+twenty men at hand in the courtyard, all belonging to the petty
+tradesfolk of Avignon--a barber, a shoemaker, a cobbler, a mason, and an
+upholsterer--all insufficiently armed at random, the one with a sabre,
+the other with a bayonet, a third with an iron bar, and a fourth with a
+bit of wood hardened by fire. All of these people were chilled by a fine
+October rain. It would be difficult to turn them into assassins.
+
+Pooh! Is anything too difficult for the devil?
+
+There comes an hour in such crises when God seems to abandon the earth.
+Then the devil's chance comes.
+
+The devil in person entered this cold, muddy courtyard. Assuming the
+features, form and face of an apothecary of the neighborhood named
+Mendes, he prepared a table lighted by two lanterns, on which he placed
+glasses, jugs, pitchers and bottles.
+
+What infernal beverage did these mysterious and curiously formed
+receptacles contain? No one ever knew, but the result is well known.
+All those who drank that diabolical liquor were suddenly seized with a
+feverish rage, a lust of blood and murder. From that moment it was only
+necessary to show them the door; they hurtled madly into the dungeon.
+
+The massacre lasted all night; all night the cries, the sobs, the
+groans of the dying sounded through the darkness. All were killed, all
+slaughtered, men and women. It was long in doing; the killers, we have
+said, were drunk and poorly armed. But they succeeded.
+
+Among these butchers was a child remarked for his bestial cruelty, his
+immoderate thirst for blood. It was Lescuyer's son. He killed and then
+killed again; he boasted of having with his childish hand alone killed
+ten men and four women.
+
+"It's all right! I can kill as I like," said he. "I am not yet fifteen,
+so they can do nothing to me for it."
+
+As the killing progressed, they threw their victims, the living, dead
+and wounded, into the Trouillas Tower, some sixty feet, down into the
+pit. The men were thrown in first, and the women later. The assassins
+wanted time to violate the bodies of those who were young and pretty. At
+nine in the morning, after twelve hours of massacre, a voice was still
+heard crying from the depths of the sepulchre:
+
+"For pity's sake, come kill me! I cannot die."
+
+A man, the armorer Bouffier, bent over the pit and looked down. The
+others did not dare.
+
+"Who was that crying?" they asked.
+
+"That was Lami," replied Bouffier. Then, when he had returned, they
+asked him:
+
+"Well, what did you see at the bottom?"
+
+"A queer marmalade," said he. "Men and women, priests and pretty girls,
+all helter-skelter. It's enough to make one die of laughter."
+
+"Decidedly man is a vile creature," said the Count of Monte-Cristo to M.
+de Villefort.
+
+Well, it is in this town, still reeking with blood, still warm, still
+stirred by these last massacres, that we now introduce two of the
+principal personages of our story.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I. A TABLE D'HOTE
+
+The 9th of October, 1799, on a beautiful day of that meridional autumn
+which ripens the oranges of Hyeres and the grapes of Saint-Peray, at the
+two extremities of Provence, a travelling chaise, drawn by three post
+horses, galloped at full speed over the bridge that crosses the Durance,
+between Cavailhon and Chateau-Renard, on its way to Avignon, the ancient
+papal city which a decree, issued the 25th of May, 1791, eight years
+earlier, had reunited to France--a reunion confirmed by the treaty
+signed in 1797, at Tolentino, between General Bonaparte and Pope Pius
+VI.
+
+The carriage entered by the gate of Aix and, without slackening speed,
+traversed the entire length of the town, with its narrow, winding
+streets, built to ward off both wind and sun, and halted at fifty paces
+from the Porte d'Oulle, at the Hotel du Palais-Egalite, which they were
+again beginning to quietly rename the Hotel du Palais-Royal, a name
+which it bore formerly and still bears to-day.
+
+These few insignificant words about the name of the inn, before which
+halted the post-chaise which we had in view, indicate sufficiently well
+the state of France under the government of the Thermidorian reaction,
+called the Directory.
+
+After the revolutionary struggle which had occurred between the 14th of
+July, 1789, and the 9th Thermidor, 1794; after the days of the 5th and
+6th of October, of the 21st of June, of the 10th of August, of the 2d
+and 3d of September, of the 21st of May, of the 29th Thermidor and the
+1st Prairial; after seeing fall the heads of the King and his judges,
+and the Queen and her accusers, of the Girondins and the Cordeliers, the
+Moderates and the Jacobins, France experienced that most frightful and
+most nauseous of all lassitudes, the lassitude of blood!
+
+She had therefore returned, if not to a need of monarchy, at least to a
+desire for a stable government, in which she might place her confidence,
+upon which she might lean, which would act for her, and which would
+permit her some repose while it acted.
+
+In the stead of this vaguely desired government, the country obtained
+the feeble and irresolute Directory, composed for the moment of the
+voluptuous Barres, the intriguing Sieyes, the brave Moulins, the
+insignificant Roger Ducos, and the honest but somewhat too ingenuous
+Gohier. The result was a mediocre dignity before the world at large and
+a very questionable tranquillity at home.
+
+It is true that at the moment of which we write our armies, so glorious
+during those epic campaigns of 1796 and 1797, thrown back for a time
+upon France by the incapacity of Scherer at Verona and Cassano, and by
+the defeat and death of Joubert at Novi, were beginning to resume
+the offensive. Moreau had defeated Souvarow at Bassignano; Brune had
+defeated the Duke of York and General Hermann at Bergen; Massena had
+annihilated the Austro-Russians at Zurich; Korsakof had escaped only
+with the greatest difficulty; the Austrian, Hotz, with three other
+generals, were killed, and five made prisoners. Massena saved France at
+Zurich, as Villars, ninety years earlier, had saved it at Denain.
+
+But in the interior, matters were not in so promising a state, and the
+government of the Directory was, it must be confessed, much embarrassed
+between the war in the Vendee and the brigandages of the Midi, to which,
+according to custom, the population of Avignon were far from remaining
+strangers.
+
+Beyond doubt the two travellers who descended from the carriage at the
+door of the Hotel du Palais-Royal had reason to fear the state of mind
+in which the always excitable papal town might be at that time; for just
+before reaching Orgon, at a spot where three crossroads stretched out
+before the traveller--one leading to Nimes, the second to Carpentras,
+the third to Avignon--the postilion had stopped his horses, and, turning
+round, asked:
+
+"Will the citizens go by way of Avignon or Carpentras?"
+
+"Which of the two roads is the shorter?" asked the elder of the two
+travellers in a harsh, strident voice. Though visibly the elder, he was
+scarcely thirty years of age.
+
+"Oh, the road to Avignon, citizen, by a good four miles at least."
+
+"Then," he had replied, "go by way of Avignon."
+
+And the carriage had started again at a gallop, which proclaimed that
+the citizen travellers, as the postilion called them, although the title
+of Monsieur was beginning to reappear in conversation, paid a fee of at
+least thirty sous.
+
+The same desire to lose no time manifested itself at the hotel entrance.
+There, as on the road, it was the elder of the two travellers who spoke.
+He asked if they could dine at once, and the way this demand was made
+indicated that he was ready to overlook many gastronomical exigencies
+provided that the repast in question be promptly served.
+
+"Citizens," replied the landlord, who, at the sound of carriage wheels
+hastened, napkin in hand, to greet the travellers, "you will be promptly
+and comfortably served in your room; but if you will permit me to
+advise--" He hesitated.
+
+"Oh, go on! go on!" said the younger of the travellers, speaking for the
+first time.
+
+"Well, it would be that you dine at the table d'hote, like the traveller
+for whom this coach, already harnessed, is waiting. The dinner is
+excellent and all served."
+
+The host at the same time indicated a comfortably appointed carriage,
+to which were harnessed two horses who were pawing the ground, while the
+postilion sought patience in the bottle of Cahors wine he was emptying
+near the window-ledge. The first movement of him to whom this proposal
+was made was negative; nevertheless, after a second's reflection,
+the elder of the two travellers, as if he had reconsidered his first
+decision, made an interrogative sign to his companion, who replied with
+a look which signified, "You know that I am at your orders."
+
+"Very well, so be it," said the other, "we will dine at the table
+d'hote." Then, turning to the postilion, who, hat in hand, awaited
+his order, he added, "Let the horses be ready in a half hour, at the
+latest."
+
+And the landlord pointing out the way, they both entered the
+dining-room, the elder of the two walking first, the other following
+him.
+
+Everyone knows the impression generally produced at a table d'hote by
+new-comers. All eyes were bent upon them and the conversation, which
+seemed to be quite animated, stopped.
+
+The guests consisted of the frequenters of the hotel, the traveller
+whose carriage was waiting harnessed at the door, a wine merchant from
+Bordeaux, sojourning temporarily at Avignon for reasons we shall shortly
+relate, and a certain number of travellers going from Marseilles to
+Lyons by diligence.
+
+The new arrivals greeted the company with a slight inclination of the
+head, and sat down at the extreme end of the table, thereby isolating
+themselves from the other guests by three or four empty places. This
+seemingly aristocratic reserve redoubled the curiosity of which they
+were the object; moreover, they were obviously people of unquestionable
+distinction, although their garments were simple in the extreme. Both
+wore hightop boots and breeches, long-tailed coats, travelling overcoats
+and broad-brimmed hats, the usual costume of the young men of that day.
+But that which distinguished them from the fashionables of Paris, and
+even of the provinces, was their long straight hair, and their black
+stocks buckled round the neck, military fashion. The Muscadins--that
+was the name then given to young dandies--the Muscadins wore dogs' ears
+puffing at the temples, the rest of the hair combed up tightly in a bag
+at the back, and an immense cravat with long floating ends, in which
+the chin was completely buried. Some had even extended this reaction to
+powder.
+
+As to the personality of the two young men, they presented two
+diametrically opposite types.
+
+The elder of the two, he who, as we have already remarked, had taken
+the initiative several times, and whose voice, even in its most familiar
+intonations, denoted the habit of command, was about thirty years of
+age. His black hair was parted in the middle, falling straight from
+his temples to his shoulders. He had the swarthy skin of a man who has
+travelled long in southern climes, thin lips, a straight nose, white
+teeth, and those hawk-like eyes which Dante gives to Caesar. He was short
+rather than tall, his hand was delicate, his foot slender and elegant.
+His manner betrayed a certain awkwardness, suggesting that he was at
+the moment wearing a costume to which he was not accustomed, and when he
+spoke, his hearers, had they been beside the Loire instead of the Rhone,
+would have detected a certain Italian accent in his pronunciation.
+
+His companion seemed to be some three or four years younger than he. He
+was a handsome young man with a rosy complexion, blond hair and light
+blue eyes, a straight, firm nose and prominent but almost beardless
+chin. He was perhaps a couple of inches taller than his companion,
+and though his figure was somewhat above medium height, he was so well
+proportioned, so admirably free in his movements, that he was evidently
+if not extraordinarily strong, at least uncommonly agile and dexterous.
+Although attired in the same manner and apparently on a footing of
+equality, he evinced remarkable deference to the dark young man,
+which, as it could not result from age, was doubtless caused by some
+inferiority of position. Moreover, he called his companion citizen,
+while the other addressed him as Roland.
+
+These remarks which we make to initiate the reader more profoundly into
+our story, were probably not made as extensively by the guests at the
+table d'hote; for after bestowing a few seconds of attention upon
+the new-comers, they turned their eyes away, and the conversation,
+interrupted for an instant, was resumed. It must be confessed that
+it concerned a matter most interesting to the travellers--that of the
+stoppage of a diligence bearing a sum of sixty thousand francs belonging
+to the government. The affair had occurred the day before on the road
+from Marseilles to Avignon between Lambesc and Pont-Royal.
+
+At the first words referring to this event, the two young men listened
+with unmistakable interest. It had taken place on the same road which
+they had just followed, and the narrator, the wine merchant of Bordeaux,
+had been one of the principal actors in the scene on the highroad. Those
+who seemed the most curious to hear the details were the travellers in
+the diligence which had just arrived and was soon to depart. The other
+guests, who belonged to the locality, seemed sufficiently conversant
+with such catastrophes to furnish the details themselves instead of
+listening to them.
+
+"So, citizen," said a stout gentleman against whom a tall woman, very
+thin and haggard, was crowding in her terror. "You say that the robbery
+took place on the very road by which we have just come?"
+
+"Yes, citizen, between Lambesc and Pont-Royal. Did you notice the spot
+where the road ascends between two high banks? There are a great many
+rocks there."
+
+"Yes, yes, my friend," said the wife, pressing her husband's arm, "I
+noticed it; I even said, as you must remember, 'Here is a bad place; I
+would rather pass here by day than at night.'"
+
+"Oh! madame," said a young man whose voice affected to slur his r's
+after the fashion of the day, and who probably assumed to lead the
+conversation at the table d'hote, on ordinary occasions, "you know the
+Companions of Jehu know no day or night."
+
+"What! citizen," asked the lady still more alarmed, "were you attacked
+in broad daylight?"
+
+"In broad daylight, citizeness, at ten o'clock in the morning."
+
+"And how many were there?" asked the stout gentleman.
+
+"Four, citizen."
+
+"Ambushed beside the road?"
+
+"No; they were on horseback, armed to the teeth and masked."
+
+"That's their custom," said the young frequenter of the table d'hote,
+"and they said, did they not: 'Do not defend yourself, we will not harm
+you. We only want the government money.'"
+
+"Word for word, citizen."
+
+"Then," continued this well-informed young man, "two dismounted from
+their horses, flinging their bridles to their comrades, and commanded
+the conductor to deliver up the money."
+
+"Citizen," said the stout man astonished, "you describe the thing as if
+you had seen it."
+
+"Monsieur was there, perhaps," said one of the travellers, half in jest,
+half in earnest.
+
+"I do not know, citizen, whether in saying that you intend a rudeness,"
+carelessly observed the young man who had so pertinently and obligingly
+come to the narrator's assistance, "but my political opinions are
+such that I do not consider your suspicion an insult. Had I had the
+misfortune to be among those attacked, or the honor to be one of those
+who made the attack, I should admit it as frankly in the one case as in
+the other. But yesterday at ten o'clock, at precisely the moment when
+the diligence was stopped, twelve miles from here, I was breakfasting
+quietly in this very seat. And, by-the-bye, with the two citizens who
+now do me the honor to sit beside me."
+
+"And," asked the younger of the two travellers who had lately joined the
+table, whom his companion called Roland, "how many men were you in the
+diligence?"
+
+"Let me think; we were--yes, that's it--we were seven men and three
+women."
+
+"Seven men, not including the conductor?" repeated Roland.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"And you seven men allowed yourselves to be plundered by four brigands?
+I congratulate you, gentlemen."
+
+"We knew with whom we had to deal," replied the wine merchant, "and we
+took good care not to defend ourselves."
+
+"What! with whom you had to deal?" retorted the young man. "Why, it
+seems to me, with thieves and bandits."
+
+"Not at all. They gave their names."
+
+"They gave their names?"
+
+"They said, 'Gentlemen, it is useless to defend yourselves; ladies, do
+not be alarmed, we are not bandits, we are Companions of Jehu.'"
+
+"Yes," said the young man of the table d'hote, "they warned you that
+there might be no misunderstanding. That's their way."
+
+"Ah, indeed!" exclaimed Roland; "and who is this Jehu who has such
+polite companions? Is he their captain?"
+
+"Sir," said a man whose dress betrayed somewhat the secularized priest,
+and who seemed also to be, not only an habitual guest at the table
+d'hote, but also an initiate into the mysteries of the honorable company
+whose merits were then under discussion, "if you were better versed than
+you seem to be in the Holy Scriptures, you would know that this Jehu
+died something like two thousand six hundred years ago, and that
+consequently he cannot at the present time stop coaches on the
+highways."
+
+"Monsieur l'Abbe," replied Roland, who had recognized an ecclesiastic,
+"as, in spite of the sharp tone in which you speak, you seem a man of
+learning, permit a poor ignoramus to ask you a few details about this
+Jehu, dead these two thousand six hundred years, who, nevertheless, is
+honored by followers bearing his name."
+
+"Jehu!" replied the churchman, in the same sour tone, "was a King of
+Israel anointed by Elisha, on condition that he punish the crimes of the
+house of Ahab and Jezbel, and put to death the priests of Baal."
+
+"Monsieur l'Abbe," replied the young man laughing, "I thank you for the
+explanation. I don't doubt it is correct, and, above all, very learned.
+But I must admit it doesn't tell me much."
+
+"What, citizen!" exclaimed the abbe, "don't you understand that Jehu
+is his Majesty Louis XVIII., anointed on condition that he punish the
+crimes of the Revolution and put to death all the priests of Baal; that
+is to say, all those who had taken any part whatsoever in the abominable
+state of things which, for these last seven years, has been called the
+republic?"
+
+"Yes, indeed!" exclaimed the young man; "of course I understand. But
+among those whom the Companions of Jehu are appointed to fight, do
+you reckon the brave soldiers who have repulsed the enemy along the
+frontiers of France, and the illustrious generals who have commanded the
+armies of the Tyrol, the Sambre-and-Meuse, and of Italy?"
+
+"Why, beyond doubt, those foremost and before all."
+
+The young man's eyes flashed lightning; his nostrils quivered and his
+lips tightened. He rose from his chair, but his comrade touched his coat
+and forced him to sit down again, while with a single glance he silenced
+him. Then he who had thus given proof of his power, speaking for the
+first time, addressed the young man of the table d'hote.
+
+"Citizen, excuse two travellers who are just arrived from the end of the
+earth, from America, or India as it were. Absent from France these last
+two years; we are completely ignorant of all that has occurred here, and
+most desirous to obtain information."
+
+"Why, as to that," replied the young man, to whom these words were
+addressed, "that is but fair, citizen. Question us and we will answer
+you."
+
+"Well," continued the dark young man with the eagle eye, the straight
+black hair, and the granite complexion, "now that I know who Jehu is,
+and to what end his company was instituted, I should like to know what
+his companions do with the money they take."
+
+"Oh! that is very simple, citizen. You know there is much talk of the
+restoration of the Bourbon monarchy?"
+
+"No, I did not know it," replied the dark young man, in a tone which he
+vainly strove to render artless; "I am but just arrived, as I told you,
+from the end of the earth."
+
+"What! you did not know that? Well, six months hence it will be an
+accomplished fact."
+
+"Really!"
+
+"I have the honor to tell you so, citizen."
+
+The two soldier-like young men exchanged a glance and a smile, though
+the young blond one was apparently chafing under the weight of his
+extreme impatience.
+
+Their informant continued: "Lyons is the headquarters of the conspiracy,
+if one can call conspiracy a plot which was organized openly. 'The
+provisional government' would be a more suitable word."
+
+"Well, then, citizen," said the dark young man with a politeness not
+wholly exempt from satire, "let us call it 'provisional government.'"
+
+"This provisional government has its staff and its armies."
+
+"Bah! its staff perhaps--but its armies--"
+
+"Its armies, I repeat."
+
+"Where are they?"
+
+"One is being organized in the mountains of Auvergne, under the orders
+of M. de Chardon; another in the Jura Mountains, under M. Teyssonnet;
+and, finally, a third is operating most successfully at this time,
+in the Vendee, under the orders of Escarboville, Achille Leblond and
+Cadoudal."
+
+"Truly, citizen, you render me a real service in telling me this. I
+thought the Bourbons completely resigned to their exile. I supposed the
+police so organized as to suppress both provisional royalist committees
+in the large towns and bandits on the highways. In fact, I believed the
+Vendee had been completely pacificated by Hoche."
+
+The young man to whom this reply was addressed burst out laughing.
+
+"Why, where do you come from?" he exclaimed.
+
+"I told you, citizen, from the end of the earth."
+
+"So it seems." Then he continued: "You understand, the Bourbons are
+not rich, the emigres whose property was confiscated are ruined. It is
+impossible to organize two armies and maintain a third without money.
+The royalists faced an embarrassing problem; the republic alone could
+pay for its enemies' troops and, it being improbable that she would do
+so of her own volition, the shady negotiation was abandoned, and it was
+adjudged quicker to take the money without permission than to ask her
+for it."
+
+"Ah! I understand at last."
+
+"That's very fortunate."
+
+"Companions of Jehu then are the intermediaries between the Republic and
+the Counter-Revolution, the tax-collectors of the royalist generals?"
+
+"Yes. It is not robbery, but a military operation, rather a feat of
+arms like any other. So there you are, citizen, and now you are as well
+informed on this point as ourselves."
+
+"But," timidly hazarded the wine merchant of Bordeaux, "if the
+Companions of Jehu--observe that I say nothing against them--want the
+government money--"
+
+"The government money, no other. Individual plunder on their part is
+unheard of."
+
+"How does it happen, then, that yesterday, in addition to the government
+money, they carried off two hundred louis of mine?"
+
+"My dear sir," replied the young man of the table d'hote, "I have
+already told you that there is some mistake. As surely as my name is
+Alfred de Barjols, this money will be returned to you some day."
+
+The wine merchant heaved a sigh and shook his head, as if, in spite of
+that assurance, he still retained some doubts. But at this moment, as if
+the promise given by the young noble, who had just revealed his social
+position by telling his name, had stirred the delicacy of those whom he
+thus guaranteed, a horse stopped at the entrance, steps were heard in
+the corridor, the dining-room door opened, and a masked man, armed to
+the teeth, appeared on the threshold.
+
+"Gentlemen," said he, in the profound silence occasioned by his
+apparition, "is there a traveller here named Jean Picot, who was in the
+diligence that was held up yesterday between Lambesc and Pont-Royal?"
+
+"Yes," said the wine merchant, amazed.
+
+"Are you he?" asked the masked man.
+
+"I am."
+
+"Was anything taken from you?"
+
+"Oh, yes, two hundred louis, which I had intrusted to the conductor."
+
+"And I may add," said the young noble, "that the gentleman was speaking
+of it at this very moment. He looked upon it as lost."
+
+"The gentleman was wrong," said the masked unknown, "we war upon
+the government and not against individuals. We are partisans and not
+robbers. Here are your two hundred Louis, sir, and if a similar mistake
+should occur in the future, claim your loss, mentioning the name of
+Morgan."
+
+So saying, the masked individual deposited a bag of gold beside the wine
+merchant, bowed courteously to the other guests, and went out, leaving
+some terrified and others bewildered by such daring.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II. AN ITALIAN PROVERB
+
+Although the two sentiments which we have just indicated were the
+dominant ones, they did not manifest themselves to an equal degree
+in all present. The shades were graduated according to the sex, age,
+character, we may almost say, the social positions of the hearers. The
+wine merchant, Jean Picot, the principal personage in the late event,
+recognizing at first sight by his dress, weapons, mask, one of the
+men who had stopped the coach on the preceding day, was at first sight
+stupefied, then little by little, as he grasped the purport of this
+mysterious brigand's visit to him, he had passed from stupefaction to
+joy, through the intermediate phases separating these two emotions. His
+bag of gold was beside him, yet he seemingly dared not touch it; perhaps
+he feared that the instant his hand went forth toward it, it would melt
+like the dream-gold which vanishes during that period of progressive
+lucidity which separates profound slumber from thorough awakening.
+
+The stout gentleman of the diligence and his wife had displayed, like
+their travelling companions, the most absolute and complete terror.
+Seated to the left of Jean Picot, when the bandit approached the wine
+merchant, the husband, in the vain hope of maintaining a respectable
+distance between himself and the Companion of Jehu, pushed his chair
+back against that of his wife, who, yielding to the pressure, in turn
+endeavored to push back hers. But as the next chair was occupied by
+citizen Alfred de Barjols, who had no reason to fear these men whom
+he had just praised so highly, the chair of the stout man's wife
+encountered an obstacle in the immovability of the young noble; so,
+as at Marengo, eight or nine months later, when the general in command
+judged it time to resume the offensive, the retrograde movement was
+arrested.
+
+As for him--we are speaking of the citizen Alfred de Barjols--his
+attitude, like that of the abbe who had given the Biblical explanation
+about Jehu, King of Israel, and his mission from Elisha, his attitude,
+we say, was that of a man who not only experiences no fear, but who even
+expects the event in question, however unexpected it may be. His lips
+wore a smile as he watched the masked man, and had the guests not been
+so preoccupied with the two principal actors in this scene, they might
+have remarked the almost imperceptible sign exchanged between the eyes
+of the bandit and the young noble, and transmitted instantly by the
+latter to the abbe.
+
+The two travellers whom we introduced to the table d'hote, and who as
+we have said sat apart at the end of the table, preserved an attitude
+conformable to their respective characters. The younger of the two had
+instinctively put his hand to his side, as if to seek an absent weapon,
+and had risen with a spring, as if to rush at the masked man's throat,
+in which purpose he had certainly not failed had he been alone; but
+the elder, who seemed to possess not only the habit but the right of
+command, contented himself by regrasping his coat, and saying, in an
+imperious, almost harsh tone: "Sit down, Roland!" And the young man had
+resumed his seat.
+
+But one of the guests had remained, in appearance at least, the most
+impassible during this scene. He was a man between thirty-three and
+thirty-four years of age, with blond hair, red beard, a calm, handsome
+face, with large blue eyes, a fair skin, refined and intelligent lips,
+and very tall, whose foreign accent betrayed one born in that island of
+which the government was at that time waging bitter war against France.
+As far as could be judged by the few words which had escaped him, he
+spoke the French language with rare purity, despite the accent we have
+just mentioned. At the first word he uttered, in which that English
+accent revealed itself, the elder of the two travellers started. Turning
+to his companion, he asked with a glance, to which the other seemed
+accustomed, how it was that an Englishman should be in France when the
+uncompromising war between the two nations had naturally exiled all
+Englishmen from France, as it had all Frenchmen from England. No doubt
+the explanation seemed impossible to Roland, for he had replied with his
+eyes, and a shrug of the shoulders: "I find it quite as extraordinary
+as you; but if you, mathematician as you are, can't solve the problem,
+don't ask me!"
+
+It was evident to the two young men that the fair man with the
+Anglo-Saxon accent was the traveller whose comfortable carriage awaited
+him harnessed in the courtyard, and that this traveller hailed from
+London, or, at least, from some part of Great Britain.
+
+As to his remarks, they, as we have stated, were infrequent, so laconic,
+in reality, that they were mere exclamations rather than speech. But
+each time an explanation had been asked concerning the state of France,
+the Englishman openly drew out a note-book and requested those about
+him, the wine merchant, the abbe, or the young noble to repeat their
+remarks; to which each had complied with an amiability equal to the
+courteous tone of the request. He had noted down the most important,
+extraordinary and, picturesque features of the robbery of the diligence,
+the state of Vendee, and the details about the Companions of Jehu,
+thanking each informant by voice and gesture with the stiffness peculiar
+to our insular cousins, replacing his note-book enriched each time by a
+new item in a side pocket of his overcoat.
+
+Finally, like a spectator enjoying an unexpected scene, he had given a
+cry of satisfaction at sight of the masked man, had listened with all
+his ears, gazed with all his eyes, not losing him from sight until the
+door closed behind him. Then drawing his note-book hastily from his
+pocket--
+
+"Ah, sir," he said to his neighbor, who was no other than the abbe,
+"will you be so kind, should my memory fail me, as to repeat what that
+gentleman who has just gone out said?"
+
+He began to write immediately, and the abbe's memory agreeing with
+his, he had the satisfaction of transcribing literally and verbatim the
+speech made by the Companion of Jehu to citizen Jean Picot. Then, this
+conversation written down, he exclaimed with an accent that lent a
+singular stamp of originality to his words:
+
+"Of a truth! it is only in France that such things can happen; France
+is the most curious country in the world. I am delighted, gentlemen, to
+travel in France and become acquainted with Frenchmen."
+
+The last sentence was said with such courtesy that nothing remained save
+to thank the speaker from whose serious mouth it issued, though he was
+a descendant of the conquerors of Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt. It was
+the younger of the two travellers who acknowledged this politeness in
+that heedless and rather caustic manner which seemed habitual to him.
+
+"'Pon my word! I am exactly like you, my lord--I say my lord, because I
+presume you are English."
+
+"Yes, sir," replied the gentleman, "I have that honor."
+
+"Well! as I was saying," continued the young man, "I am delighted to
+travel in France and see what I am seeing. One must live under the
+government of citizens Gohier, Moulins, Roger Ducos, Sieyes and Barras
+to witness such roguery. I dare wager than when the tale is told, fifty
+years hence, of the highwayman who rode into a city of thirty thousand
+inhabitants in broad day, masked and armed with two pistols and a sword
+at his belt, to return the two hundred louis which he had stolen the day
+previous to the honest merchant who was then deploring their loss, and
+when it is added that this occurred at a table d'hote where twenty or
+twenty-five people were seated, and that this model bandit was allowed
+to depart without one of those twenty or twenty-five people daring to
+molest him; I dare wager, I repeat, that whoever has the audacity to
+tell the story will be branded as an infamous liar."
+
+And the young man, throwing himself back in his chair, burst into
+laughter, so aggressive, so nervous, that every one gazed at him in
+wonderment, while his companion's eyes expressed an almost paternal
+anxiety.
+
+"Sir," said citizen Alfred de Barjols, who, moved like the others by
+this singular outburst, more sad, or rather dolorous, than gay, had
+waited for its last echo to subside. "Sir, permit me to point out to you
+that the man whom you have just seen is not a highwayman."
+
+"Bah! Frankly, what is he then?"
+
+"He is in all probability a young man of as good a family as yours or
+mine."
+
+"Count Horn, whom the Regent ordered broken on the wheel at the Place
+de Greve, was also a man of good family, and the proof is that all the
+nobility of Paris sent their carriages to his execution."
+
+"Count Horn, if I remember rightly, murdered a Jew to steal a note
+of hand which he was unable to meet. No one would dare assert that a
+Companion of Jehu had ever so much as harmed the hair of an infant."
+
+"Well, be it so. We will admit that the Company was founded upon a
+philanthropic basis, to re-establish the balance of fortunes, redress
+the whims of chance and reform the abuses of society. Though he may be
+a robber, after the fashion of Karl Moor, your friend Morgan--was it not
+Morgan that this honest citizen called himself?"
+
+"Yes," said the Englishman.
+
+"Well, your friend Morgan is none the less a thief."
+
+Citizen Alfred de Barjols turned very pale.
+
+"Citizen Morgan is not my friend," replied the young aristocrat; "but if
+he were I should feel honored by his friendship."
+
+"No doubt," replied Roland, laughing. "As Voltaire says: 'The friendship
+of a great man is a blessing from the gods.'"
+
+"Roland, Roland!" observed his comrade in a low tone.
+
+"Oh! general," replied the latter, letting his companion's rank escape
+him, perhaps intentionally, "I implore you, let me continue this
+discussion, which interests me in the highest degree."
+
+His friend shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"But, citizen," continued the young man with strange persistence, "I
+stand in need of correction. I left France two years ago, and during my
+absence so many things have changed, such as dress, morals, and accents,
+that even the language may have changed also. In the language of the day
+in France what do you call stopping coaches and taking the money which
+they contain?"
+
+"Sir," said the young noble, in the tone of a man determined to sustain
+his argument to its end, "I call that war. Here is your companion whom
+you have just called general; he as a military man will tell you that,
+apart from the pleasure of killing and being killed, the generals of
+all ages have never done anything else than what the citizen Morgan is
+doing?"
+
+"What!" exclaimed the young man, whose eyes flashed fire. "You dare to
+compare--"
+
+"Permit the gentleman to develop his theory, Roland," said the dark
+traveller, whose eyes, unlike those of his companion, which dilated as
+they flamed, were veiled by long black lashes, thus concealing all that
+was passing in his mind.
+
+"Ah!" said the young man in his curt tone, "you see that you, yourself,
+are becoming interested in the discussion." Then, turning to the young
+noble, whom he seemed to have selected for his antagonist, he said:
+"Continue, sir, continue; the general permits it."
+
+The young noble flushed as visibly as he had paled a moment before.
+Between clinched teeth, his elbow on the table, his chin on his clinched
+hand, as if to draw as close to his adversary as possible, he said with
+a Provencal accent, which grew more pronounced as the discussion waxed
+hotter: "Since _the general_ permits"--emphasizing the two words--"I
+shall have the honor to tell him and you, too, citizen, that I believe
+I have read in Plutarch that Alexander the Great, when he started for
+India, took with him but eighteen or twenty talents in gold, something
+like one hundred or one hundred and twenty thousand francs. Now, do
+you suppose that with these eighteen or twenty talents alone he fed his
+army, won the battle of Granicus, subdued Asia Minor, conquered Tyre,
+Gaza, Syria and Egypt, built Alexandria, penetrated to Lybia, had
+himself declared Son of Jupiter by the oracle of Ammon, penetrated
+as far as the Hyphases, and, when his soldiers refused to follow him
+further, returned to Babylon, where he surpassed in luxury, debauchery
+and self-indulgence the most debauched and voluptuous of the kings
+of Asia? Did Macedonia furnish his supplies? Do you believe that King
+Philip, most indigent of the kings of poverty-stricken Greece, honored
+the drafts his son drew upon him? Not so. Alexander did as citizen
+Morgan is doing; only, instead of stopping the coaches on the highroads,
+he pillaged cities, held kings for ransom, levied contributions from
+the conquered countries. Let us turn to Hannibal. You know how he left
+Carthage, don't you? He did not have even the eighteen or twenty talents
+of his predecessor; and as he needed money, he seized and sacked the
+city of Saguntum in the midst of peace, in defiance of the fealty of
+treaties. After that he was rich and could begin his campaign. Forgive
+me if this time I no longer quote Plutarch, but Cornelius Nepos. I will
+spare you the details of his descent from the Pyrenees, how he crossed
+the Alps and the three battles which he won, seizing each time the
+treasures of the vanquished, and turn to the five or six years he spent
+in Campania. Do you believe that he and his army paid the Capuans for
+their subsistence, and that the bankers of Carthage, with whom he had
+quarrelled, supplied him with funds? No; war fed war--the Morgan system,
+citizen. Let us pass on to Caesar. Ah, Caesar! That's another story. He
+left for Spain with some thirty millions of debt, and returned with
+practically the same. He started for Gaul, where he spent ten years with
+our ancestors. During these ten years he sent over one hundred millions
+to Rome, repassed the Alps, crossed the Rubicon, marched straight to the
+Capitol, forced the gates of the Temple of Saturn, where the treasury
+was, seized sufficient for his private needs--and not for those of the
+Republic--three thousand pounds of gold in ingots; and died (he whom
+creditors twenty years earlier refused to allow to leave his little
+house in the Suburra) leaving two or three thousand sesterces per head
+to the citizens, ten or twelve millions to Calpurnia, and thirty or
+forty millions to Octavius; always the Morgan system, save that Morgan,
+I am sure, would die sooner than subvert to his personal needs either
+the silver of the Gauls or the gold of the capital. Now let us spring
+over eighteen centuries and come to the General Buonaparte." And the
+young aristocrat, after the fashion of the enemies of the Conqueror of
+Italy, affected to emphasize the _u_, which Bonaparte had eliminated
+from his name, and the _e_, from which he had removed the accent.
+
+This affectation seemed to irritate Roland intensely. He made a movement
+as if to spring forward, but his companion stopped him.
+
+"Let be," said he, "let be, Roland. I am quite sure that citizen Barjols
+will not say the General Buonaparte, as he calls him, is a thief."
+
+"No, I will not say it; but there is an Italian proverb which says it
+for me."
+
+"What is the proverb?" demanded the general in his companion's stead,
+fixing his calm, limpid eye upon the young noble.
+
+"I give it in all its simplicity: 'Francesi non sono tutti ladroni, ma
+buona parte'; which means: 'All Frenchmen are not thieves, but--"
+
+"A good part are?" concluded Roland.
+
+"Yes, 'Buonaparte,'" replied Alfred de Barjols.
+
+Scarcely had these insolent words left the young aristocrat's lips than
+the plate with which Roland was playing flew from his hands and struck
+De Barjols full in the face. The women screamed, the men rose to their
+feet. Roland burst into that nervous laugh which was habitual with him,
+and threw himself back in his chair. The young aristocrat remained calm,
+although the blood was trickling from his brow to his cheek.
+
+At this moment the conductor entered with the usual formula:
+
+"Come! citizen travellers, take your places."
+
+The travellers, anxious to leave the scene of the quarrel, rushed to the
+door.
+
+"Pardon me, sir," said Alfred de Barjols to Roland, "you do not go by
+diligence, I hope?"
+
+"No, sir, I travel by post; but you need have no fear; I shall not
+depart."
+
+"Nor I," said the Englishman. "Have them unharness my horses; I shall
+remain."
+
+"I must go," sighed the dark young man whom Roland had addressed as
+general. "You know it is necessary, my friend; my presence yonder is
+absolutely imperative. But I swear that I would not leave you if I could
+possibly avoid it."
+
+In saying these words his voice betrayed an emotion of which, judging
+from its usual harsh, metallic ring, it had seemed incapable. Roland, on
+the contrary, seemed overjoyed. His belligerent nature seemed to expand
+at the approach of a danger to which he had perhaps not given rise, but
+which he at least had not endeavored to avoid.
+
+"Good! general," he said. "We were to part at Lyons, since you have had
+the kindness to grant me a month's furlough to visit my family at Bourg.
+It is merely some hundred and sixty miles or so less than we intended,
+that is all. I shall rejoin you in Paris. But you know if you need a
+devoted arm, and a man who never sulks, think of me!"
+
+"You may rest easy on that score, Roland," exclaimed the general.
+Then, looking attentively at the two adversaries, he added with an
+indescribable note of tenderness: "Above all, Roland, do not let
+yourself be killed; but if it is a possible thing don't kill your
+adversary. Everything considered, he is a gallant man, and the day will
+come when I shall need such men at my side."
+
+"I shall do my best, general; don't be alarmed." At this moment the
+landlord appeared upon the thresh-hold of the door.
+
+"The post-chaise is ready," said he.
+
+The general took his hat and his cane, which he had laid upon the chair.
+Roland, on the contrary, followed him bareheaded, that all might see
+plainly he did not intend to leave with his friend. Alfred de Barjols,
+therefore, offered no opposition to his leaving the room. Besides, it
+was easy to see that his adversary was of those who seek rather than
+avoid quarrels.
+
+"Just the same," said the general, seating himself in the carriage to
+which Roland had escorted him, "my heart is heavy at leaving you thus,
+Roland, without a friend to act as your second."
+
+"Good! Don't worry about that, general; seconds are never lacking. There
+are and always will be enough men who are curious to see how one man can
+kill another."
+
+"Au revoir, Roland. Observe, I do not say farewell, but au revoir!"
+
+"Yes, my dear general," replied the young man, in a voice that revealed
+some emotion, "I understand, and I thank you."
+
+"Promise that you will send me word as soon as the affair is over, or
+that you will get some one to write if you are disabled."
+
+"Oh, don't worry, general. You will have a letter from me personally
+in less than four days," replied Roland, adding, in a tone of profound
+bitterness: "Have you not perceived that I am protected by a fatality
+which prevents me from dying?"
+
+"Roland!" exclaimed the general in a severe tone, "Again!"
+
+"Nothing, nothing," said the young man, shaking his head and assuming
+an expression of careless gayety which must have been habitual with him
+before the occurrence of that unknown misfortune which oppressed his
+youth with this longing for death.
+
+"Very well. By the way, try to find out one thing."
+
+"What is that, general?"
+
+"How it happens that at a time when we are at war with England an
+Englishman stalks about France as freely and as easily as if he were at
+home."
+
+"Good; I will find out."
+
+"How?"
+
+"I do not know; but when I promise you to find out I shall do so, though
+I have to ask it of himself."
+
+"Reckless fellow! Don't get yourself involved in another affair in that
+direction."
+
+"In any case, it would not be a duel. It would be a battle, as he is a
+national enemy."
+
+"Well, once more--till I see you again. Embrace me."
+
+Roland flung himself with passionate gratitude upon the neck of the
+personage who had just given him this permission.
+
+"Oh, general!" he exclaimed, "how happy I should be--if I were not so
+unhappy!"
+
+The general looked at him with profound affection, then asked: "One day
+you will tell me what this sorrow is, will you not, Roland?"
+
+Roland laughed that sorrowful laugh which had already escaped his lips
+once or twice.
+
+"Oh! my word, no," said he, "you would ridicule me too much."
+
+The general stared at him as one would contemplate a madman.
+
+"After all," he murmured, "one must accept men as they come."
+
+"Especially when they are not what they seem to be."
+
+"You must mistake me for OEdipe since you pose me with these enigmas,
+Roland."
+
+"Ah! If you guess this one, general, I will herald you king of Thebes!
+But, with all my follies, I forgot that your time is precious and that I
+am detaining you needlessly with my nonsense."
+
+"That is so! Have you any commissions for Paris?"
+
+"Yes, three; my regards to Bourrienne, my respects to your brother
+Lucien, and my most tender homage to Madame Bonaparte."
+
+"I will deliver them."
+
+"Where shall I find you in Paris?"
+
+"At my house in the Rue de la Victoire, perhaps."
+
+"Perhaps--"
+
+"Who knows? Perhaps at Luxembourg!" Then throwing himself back as if
+he regretted having said so much, even to a man he regarded as his
+best friend, he shouted to the postilion, "Road to Orange! As fast as
+possible."
+
+The postilion, who was only waiting for the order, whipped up his
+horses; the carriage departed rapidly, rumbling like a roll of thunder,
+and disappeared through the Porte d'Oulle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III. THE ENGLISHMAN
+
+Roland remained motionless, not only as long as he could see the
+carriage, but long after it had disappeared. Then, shaking his head as
+if to dispel the cloud which darkened his brow, he re-entered the inn
+and asked for a room.
+
+"Show the gentleman to number three," said the landlord to a
+chambermaid.
+
+The chambermaid took a key hanging from a large black wooden tablet on
+which were arranged the numbers in white in two rows, and signed to the
+young traveller to follow her.
+
+"Send up some paper, and a pen and ink," Roland said to the landlord,
+"and if M. de Barjols should ask where I am tell him the number of my
+room."
+
+The landlord promised to obey Roland's injunctions and the latter
+followed the girl upstairs whistling the Marseillaise. Five minutes
+later he was seated at a table with the desired paper, pen and ink
+before him preparing to write. But just as he was beginning the first
+line some one knocked, three times at the door.
+
+"Come in," said he, twirling his chair on one of its hind legs so as to
+face his visitor, whom he supposed to be either, M. de Barjols or one of
+his friends.
+
+The door opened with a steady mechanical motion and the Englishman
+appeared upon the threshold.
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Roland, enchanted with this visit, in view of his
+general's recommendation; "is it you?"
+
+"Yes," said the Englishman, "it is I."
+
+"You are welcome."
+
+"Oh! if I am welcome, so much the better! I was not sure that I ought to
+come."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"On account of Aboukir."
+
+Roland began to laugh.
+
+"There are two battles of Aboukir," said he; "one which we lost; the
+other we won."
+
+"I referred to the one you lost."
+
+"Good!" said Roland, "we fight, kill, and exterminate each other on the
+battlefield, but that does not prevent us from clasping hands on neutral
+ground. So I repeat, you are most welcome, especially if you will tell
+me why you have come."
+
+"Thank you; but, in the first place, read that." And the Englishman drew
+a paper from his pocket.
+
+"What is that?" asked Roland.
+
+"My passport."
+
+"What have I to do with your passport?" asked Roland, "I am not a
+gendarme."
+
+"No, but I have come to offer you my services. Perhaps you will not
+accept them if you do not know who I am."
+
+"Your services, sir?"
+
+"Yes; but read that first."
+
+Roland read:
+
+  In the name of the French Republic--The Executive Directory hereby
+  orders that Sir John Tanlay, Esq., be permitted to travel freely
+  throughout the territory of the Republic, and that both assistance
+  and protection be accorded him in case of need.
+    (Signed) FOUCHE.
+
+And below:
+
+  To whom it may concern--I recommend Sir John Tanlay particularly
+  as a philanthropist and a friend of liberty.
+    (Signed) BARRAS.
+
+"Have you read it?"
+
+"Yes; what of it?"
+
+"What of it? Well, my father, Lord Tanlay, rendered M. Barras some
+services; that is why M. Barras permits me to roam about France. And I
+am very glad to roam about; it amuses me very much."
+
+"Oh, I remember, Sir John; you did us the honor to say so at dinner."
+
+"I did say so, it is true; I also said that I liked the French people
+heartily."
+
+Roland bowed.
+
+"And above all General Bonaparte," continued Sir John.
+
+"You like General Bonaparte very much?"
+
+"I admire him; he is a great, a very great, man."
+
+"By Heavens! Sir John, I am sorry he is not here to hear an Englishman
+say that of him."
+
+"Oh! if he were here I should not say it."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I should not want him to think I was trying to please him. I say so
+because it is my opinion."
+
+"I don't doubt it, my lord," said Roland, who did not see what the
+Englishman was aiming at, and who, having learned all that he wished to
+know through the passport, held himself upon his guard.
+
+"And when I heard," continued the Englishman with the same phlegm, "you
+defend General Bonaparte, I was much pleased."
+
+"Really?"
+
+"Much pleased," repeated the Englishman, nodding his head affirmatively.
+
+"So much the better!"
+
+"But when I saw you throw a plate at M. Alfred de Barjols' head, I was
+much grieved."
+
+"You were grieved, my lord, and why?"
+
+"Because in England no gentleman would throw a plate at the head of
+another gentleman."
+
+"My lord," said Roland, rising with a frown, "have you perchance come
+here to read me a lecture?"
+
+"Oh, no; I came to suggest that you are perhaps perplexed about finding
+a second?"
+
+"My faith, Sir John! I admit that the moment when you knocked at the
+door I was wondering of whom I could ask this service."
+
+"Of me, if you wish," said the Englishman. "I will be your second."
+
+"On my honor!" exclaimed Roland, "I accept with all my heart."
+
+"That is the service I wished to render you!"
+
+Roland held out his hand, saying: "Thank you!"
+
+The Englishman bowed.
+
+"Now," continued Roland, "as you have had the good taste, my lord, to
+tell me who you were before offering your services, it is but fair that,
+since I accept them, I should tell you who I am."
+
+"Oh! as you please."
+
+"My name is Louis de Montrevel; I am aide-de-camp to General Bonaparte."
+
+"Aide-de-camp to General Bonaparte. I am very glad."
+
+"That will explain why I undertook, rather too warmly perhaps, my
+general's defence."
+
+"No, not too warmly; only, the plate--"
+
+"Oh, I know well that the provocation did not entail that plate. But
+what would you have me do! I held it in my hand, and, not knowing what
+to do with it, I threw it at M. de Barjols' head; it went of itself
+without any will of mine."
+
+"You will not say that to him?"
+
+"Reassure yourself; I tell you to salve your conscience."
+
+"Very well; then you will fight?"
+
+"That is why I have remained here, at any rate."
+
+"What weapons?"
+
+"That is not our affair, my lord."
+
+"What! not our affair?"
+
+"No; M. de Barjols is the one insulted; the choice is his."
+
+"Then you will accept whatever he proposes?"
+
+"Not I, Sir John, but you in my name, since you do me the honor to act
+as my second."
+
+"And if he selects pistols, what is the distance to be and how will you
+fight?"
+
+"That is your affair, my lord, and not mine. I don't know how you do in
+England, but in France the principals take no part in the arrangements.
+That duty devolves upon the seconds; what they decide is well decided!"
+
+"Then my arrangements will be satisfactory?"
+
+"Perfectly so, my lord."
+
+The Englishman bowed.
+
+"What hour and what day?"
+
+"Oh! as soon as possible; I have not seen my family for two years, and I
+confess that I am in a hurry to greet them."
+
+The Englishman looked at Roland with a certain wonder; he spoke with
+such assurance, as if he were certain that he would not be killed. Just
+then some one knocked at the door, and the voice of the innkeeper asked:
+"May I come in?"
+
+The young man replied affirmatively. The door opened and the landlord
+entered, holding a card in his hand which he handed his guest. The young
+man took the card and read: "Charles du Valensolle."
+
+"From M. Alfred de Barjols," said the host.
+
+"Very well!" exclaimed Roland. Then handing the card to the Englishman,
+he said: "Here, this concerns you; it is unnecessary for me to see this
+monsieur--since we are no longer citizens--M. de Valensolle is M. de
+Barjols' second; you are mine. Arrange this affair between you. Only,"
+added the young man, pressing the Englishman's hand and looking fixedly
+at him, "see that it holds a chance of certain death for one of us.
+Otherwise I shall complain that it has been bungled."
+
+"Don't worry," said the Englishman, "I will act for you as for myself."
+
+"Excellent! Go now, and when everything is arranged come back. I shall
+not stir from here."
+
+Sir John followed the innkeeper. Roland reseated himself, twirled his
+chair back to its former position facing the table, took up his pen and
+began to write.
+
+When Sir John returned, Roland had written and sealed two letters and
+was addressing a third. He signed to the Englishman to wait until he had
+finished, that he might give him his full attention. Then, the address
+finished, he sealed the letter, and turned around.
+
+"Well," he asked, "is everything arranged?"
+
+"Yes," said the Englishman, "it was an easy matter. You are dealing with
+a true gentleman."
+
+"So much the better!" exclaimed Roland, waiting.
+
+"You will fight two hours hence by the fountain of Vaucluse--a charming
+spot--with pistols, advancing to each other, each to fire as he pleases
+and continuing to advance after his adversary's fire."
+
+"By my faith! you are right, Sir John. That is, indeed, excellent. Did
+you arrange that?"
+
+"I and M. de Barjols' second, your adversary having renounced his rights
+of the insulted party."
+
+"Have you decided upon the weapons?"
+
+"I offered my pistols. They were accepted on my word of honor that you
+were as unfamiliar with them as was M. de Barjols. They are excellent
+weapons. I can cut a bullet on a knife blade at twenty paces."
+
+"Peste! You are a good shot, it would seem, my lord."
+
+"Yes, I am said to be the best shot in England."
+
+"That is a good thing to know. When I wish to be killed, Sir John, I'll
+pick a quarrel with you."
+
+"Oh! don't pick a quarrel with me," said the Englishman, "it would
+grieve me too much to have to fight you."
+
+"We will try, my lord, not to cause you such grief. So it is settled
+then, in two hours."
+
+"Yes, you told me you were in a hurry."
+
+"Precisely. How far is it to this charming spot?"
+
+"From here to Vaucluse?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Twelve miles."
+
+"A matter of an hour and a half. We have no time to lose, so let us rid
+ourselves of troublesome things in order to have nothing but pleasure
+before us."
+
+The Englishman looked at the young man in astonishment. Roland did not
+seem to pay any attention to this look.
+
+"Here are three letters," said he; "one for Madame de Montrevel, my
+mother; one for Mlle. de Montrevel, my sister; one for the citizen,
+Bonaparte, my general. If I am killed you will simply put them in the
+post. Will that be too much trouble?"
+
+"Should that misfortune occur, I will deliver your letters myself," said
+the Englishman. "Where do your mother and sister live?"
+
+"At Bourg, the capital of the Department of Ain."
+
+"That is near here," observed the Englishman. "As for General Bonaparte,
+I will go to Egypt if necessary. I should be extremely pleased to meet
+General Bonaparte."
+
+"If you take the trouble, as you say, my lord, of delivering my letters
+yourself, you will not have to travel such a distance. Within three days
+General Bonaparte will be in Paris."
+
+"Oh!" said the Englishman, without betraying the least surprise, "do you
+think so?"
+
+"I am sure of it," replied Roland.
+
+"Truly, he is a very extraordinary man, your General Bonaparte. Now,
+have you any other recommendations to make to me, M. de Montrevel?"
+
+"One only, my lord."
+
+"Oh! as many as you please."
+
+"No, thank you, one only, but that is very important."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"If I am killed--but I doubt if I be so fortunate."
+
+Sir John looked at Roland with that expression of wonder which he had
+already awakened three or four times.
+
+"If I am killed," resumed Roland; "for after all one must be prepared
+for everything--"
+
+"Yes, if you are killed, I understand."
+
+"Listen well, my lord, for I place much stress on my directions being
+carried out exactly in this matter."
+
+"Every detail shall be observed," replied Sir John, "I am very
+punctilious."
+
+"Well, then, if I am killed," insisted Roland, laying his hand upon his
+second's shoulder, to impress his directions more firmly on his memory,
+"you must not permit any one to touch my body, which is to be placed in
+a leaden coffin without removing the garments I am wearing; the coffin
+you will have soldered in your presence, then inclosed in an oaken bier,
+which must also be nailed up in your presence. Then you will send it to
+my mother, unless you should prefer to throw it into the Rhone, which I
+leave absolutely to your discretion, provided only that it be disposed
+of in some way."
+
+"It will be no more difficult," replied the Englishman, "to take the
+coffin, since I am to deliver your letter."
+
+"Decidedly, my lord," said Roland, laughing in his strange way. "You
+are a capital fellow. Providence in person brought us together. Let us
+start, my lord, let us start!"
+
+They left Roland's room; Sir John's chamber was on the same floor.
+Roland waited while the Englishman went in for his weapons. He returned
+a few seconds later, carrying the box in his hand.
+
+"Now, my lord," asked Roland, "how shall we reach Vaucluse? On horseback
+or by carriage?"
+
+"By carriage, if you are willing. It is much more convenient in case one
+is wounded. Mine is waiting below."
+
+"I thought you had given the order to have it unharnessed?"
+
+"I did, but I sent for the postilion afterward and countermanded it."
+
+They went downstairs.
+
+"Tom! Tom!" called Sir John at the door, where a servant, in the severe
+livery of an English groom, was waiting, "take care of this box."
+
+"Am I going with you, my lord?" asked the servant.
+
+"Yes!" replied Sir John.
+
+Then showing Roland the steps of his carriage, which the servant
+lowered, he said:
+
+"Come, M. de Montrevel."
+
+Roland entered the carriage and stretched himself out luxuriously.
+
+"Upon my word!" said he. "It takes you English to understand travelling.
+This carriage is as comfortable as a bed. I warrant you pad your coffins
+before you are put in them!"
+
+"Yes, that is a fact," said Sir John, "the English people
+understand comfort, but the French people are much more curious and
+amusing--postilion, to Vaucluse!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV. THE DUEL
+
+The road was passable only from Avignon to l'Isle. They covered the nine
+miles between the two places in an hour. During this hour Roland, as he
+resolved to shorten the time for his travelling companion, was witty
+and animated, and their approach to the duelling ground only served to
+redouble his gayety. To one unacquainted with the object of this
+drive, the menace of dire peril impending over this young man, with
+his continuous flow of conversation and incessant laughter, would have
+seemed incredible.
+
+At the village of l'Isle they were obliged to leave the carriage.
+Finding on inquiry that they were the first to arrive, they entered the
+path which led to the fountain.
+
+"Oh! oh!" exclaimed Roland, "there ought to be a fine echo here." And he
+gave one or two cries to which Echo replied with perfect amiability.
+
+"By my faith!" said the young man, "this is a marvellous echo. I know
+none save that of the Seinonnetta, at Milan, which can compare with it.
+Listen, my lord."
+
+And he began, with modulations which revealed an admirable voice and an
+excellent method, to sing a Tyrolean song which seemed to bid defiance
+to the human throat with its rebellious music. Sir John watched Roland,
+and listened to him with an astonishment which he no longer took the
+trouble to conceal. When the last note had died away among the cavities
+of the mountain, he exclaimed:
+
+"God bless me! but I think your liver is out of order."
+
+Roland started and looked at him interrogatively. But seeing that Sir
+John did not intend to say more, he asked:
+
+"Good! What makes you think so?"
+
+"You are too noisily gay not to be profoundly melancholy."
+
+"And that anomaly astonishes you?"
+
+"Nothing astonishes me, because I know that it has always its reason for
+existing."
+
+"True, and it's all in knowing the secret. Well, I'm going to enlighten
+you."
+
+"Oh! I don't want to force you."
+
+"You're too polite to do that; still, you must admit you would be glad
+to have your mind set at rest about me."
+
+"Because I'm interested in you."
+
+"Well, Sir John, I am going to tell you the secret of the enigma,
+something I have never done with any one before. For all my seeming good
+health, I am suffering from a horrible aneurism that causes me spasms of
+weakness and faintness so frequent as to shame even a woman. I spend
+my life taking the most ridiculous precautions, and yet Larrey warns me
+that I am liable to die any moment, as the diseased artery in my breast
+may burst at the least exertion. Judge for yourself how pleasant for
+a soldier! You can understand that, once I understood my condition, I
+determined incontinently to die with all the glory possible. Another
+more fortunate than I would have succeeded a hundred times already.
+But I'm bewitched; I am impervious alike to bullets and balls; even the
+swords seem to fear to shatter themselves upon my skin. Yet I never miss
+an opportunity; that you must see, after what occurred at dinner. Well,
+we are going to fight. I'll expose myself like a maniac, giving my
+adversary all the advantages, but it will avail me nothing. Though
+he shoot at fifteen paces, or even ten or five, at his very pistol's
+point, he will miss me, or his pistol will miss fire. And all this
+wonderful luck that some fine day when I least expect it, I may die
+pulling on my boots! But hush I here comes my adversary."
+
+As he spoke the upper half of three people could be seen ascending the
+same rough and rocky path that Roland and Sir John had followed, growing
+larger as they approached. Roland counted them.
+
+"Three!" he exclaimed. "Why three, when we are only two?"
+
+"Ah! I had forgotten," replied the Englishman. "M. de Barjols, as much
+in your interest as in his own, asked permission to bring a surgeon, one
+of his friends."
+
+"What for?" harshly demanded Roland, frowning.
+
+"Why, in case either one of you was wounded. A man's life can often be
+saved by bleeding him promptly."
+
+"Sir John," exclaimed Roland, ferociously, "I don't understand these
+delicacies in the matter of a duel. When men fight they fight to kill.
+That they exchange all sorts of courtesies beforehand, as your ancestors
+did at Fontenoy, is all right; but, once the swords are unsheathed or
+the pistols loaded, one life must pay for the trouble they have taken
+and the heart beats they have lost. I ask you, on your word of honor,
+Sir John, to promise that, wounded or dying, M. de Barjols' surgeon
+shall not be allowed to touch me."
+
+"But suppose, M. Roland--"
+
+"Take it or leave it. Your word of honor, my lord, or devil take me if I
+fight at all."
+
+The Englishman again looked curiously at the young man. His face was
+livid, and his limbs quivered as though in extreme terror. Sir John,
+without understanding this strange dread, passed his word.
+
+"Good!" exclaimed Roland. "This, you see, is one of the effects of my
+charming malady. The mere thought of surgical instruments, a bistoury or
+a lance, makes me dizzy. Didn't I grow very pale?"
+
+"I did think for an instant you were going to faint."
+
+"What a stunning climax!" exclaimed Roland with a laugh. "Our
+adversaries arrive and you are dosing me with smelling salts like a
+hysterical woman. Do you know what they, and you, first of all, would
+have said? That I was afraid."
+
+Meantime, the three new-comers having approached within earshot, Sir
+John was unable to answer Roland. They bowed, and Roland, with a smile
+that revealed his beautiful teeth, returned their greeting. Sir John
+whispered in his ear:
+
+"You are still a trifle pale. Go on toward the fountain; I will fetch
+you when we are ready."
+
+"Ah! that's the idea," said Roland. "I have always wanted to see that
+famous fountain of Vaucluse, the Hippocrene of Petrarch. You know his
+sonnet?
+
+  "'Chiari, fresche e dolci acque
+    Ove le belle membra
+    Pose colei, che sola a me perdona.'
+
+This opportunity lost, I may never have another. Where is your
+fountain?"
+
+"Not a hundred feet off. Follow the path; you'll find it at the turn of
+the road, at the foot of that enormous bowlder you see."
+
+"My lord," said Roland, "you are the best guide I know; thanks!"
+
+And, with a friendly wave of the hand, he went off in the direction
+of the fountain, humming the charming pastoral of Philippe Desportes
+beneath his breath:
+
+  "'Rosette, a little absence
+    Has turned thine heart from me;
+    I, knowing that inconstance,
+    Have turned my heart from thee.
+    No wayward beauty o'er me
+    Such power shall obtain;
+    We'll see, my fickle lassie,
+    Who first will turn again.'"
+
+Sir John turned as he heard the modulations of that fresh sweet voice,
+whose higher notes had something at a feminine quality. His cold
+methodical mind understood nothing of that nervous impulsive nature,
+save that he had under his eyes one of the most amazing organisms one
+could possibly meet.
+
+The other two young men were waiting for him; the surgeon stood a little
+apart. Sir John carried his box of pistols in his hands. Laying it upon
+a table-shaped rock, he drew a little key from his pocket, apparently
+fashioned by a goldsmith rather than a locksmith, and opened the box.
+The weapons were magnificent, although of great simplicity. They
+came from Manton's workshop, the grandfather of the man who is still
+considered one of the best gunsmiths in London. He handed them to M.
+de Barjols' second to examine. The latter tried the triggers and played
+with the lock, examining to see if they were double-barrelled. They were
+single-barrelled. M. de Barjols cast a glance at them but did not even
+touch them.
+
+"Our opponent does not know these weapons?" queried M. Valensolle.
+
+"He has not even seen them," replied Sir John, "I give you my word of
+honor."
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed M. de Valensolle, "a simple denial suffices."
+
+The conditions of the duel were gone over a second time to avoid
+possible misunderstanding. Then, these conditions determined, the
+pistols were loaded. They were then placed, loaded, in the box, the box
+left in the surgeon's charge, and Sir John, with the key in his pocket,
+went after Roland.
+
+He found him chatting with a little shepherd boy who was herding three
+goats on the steep rocky slope of the mountain, and throwing pebbles
+into the fountain. Sir John opened his lips to tell Roland that all
+was ready; but the latter, without giving the Englishman time to speak,
+exclaimed:
+
+"You don't know what this child has been telling me, my lord! A perfect
+legend of the Rhine. He says that this pool, whose depth is unknown,
+extends six or eight miles under the mountain, and a fairy, half woman
+half serpent, dwells here. Calm summer nights she glides over the
+surface of water calling to the shepherds of the mountains, showing
+them, of course, nothing more than her head with its long locks and her
+beautiful bare shoulders and arms. The fools, caught by this semblance
+of a woman, draw nearer, beckoning to her to come to them, while she
+on her side signs to them to go to her. The unwary spirits advance
+unwittingly, giving no heed to their steps. Suddenly the earth fails
+them, the fairy reaches out her arms, and plunges down into her dripping
+palaces, to reappear the next day alone. Where the devil did these
+idiots of shepherds get the tale that Virgil related in such noble verse
+to Augustus and Mecaenas?"
+
+He remained pensive an instant, his eyes bent upon the azure depths,
+then turning to Sir John:
+
+"They say that, no matter how vigorous the swimmer, none has ever
+returned from this abyss. Perhaps were I to try it, my lord, it might be
+surer than M. de Barjols' bullet. However, it always remains as a last
+resort; in the meantime let us try the bullet. Come, my lord, come."
+
+Then turning to the Englishman, who listened, amazed by this mobility
+of mind, he led him back to the others who awaited them. They in the
+meantime had found a suitable place.
+
+It was a little plateau, perched as it were on a rocky proclivity,
+jutting from the mountain side, exposed to the setting sun, on which
+stood a ruined castle where the shepherds were wont to seek shelter when
+the mistral overtook them. A flat space, some hundred and fifty feet
+long, and sixty wide, which might once have been the castle platform,
+was now to be the scene of the drama which was fast approaching its
+close.
+
+"Here we are, gentlemen," said Sir John.
+
+"We are ready, gentlemen," replied M. de Valensolle.
+
+"Will the principals kindly listen to the conditions of the duel?" said
+Sir John. Then addressing M. de Valensolle, he added: "Repeat them,
+monsieur; you are French and I am a foreigner, you will explain them
+more clearly than I."
+
+"You belong to those foreigners, my lord, who teach us poor Provencals
+the purity of our language; but since you so courteously make me
+spokesman, I obey you." Then exchanging bows with Sir John, he
+continued: "Gentlemen, it is agreed that you stand at forty paces, that
+you advance toward each other, that each will fire at will, and wounded
+or not will have the right to advance after your adversary's fire."
+
+The two combatants bowed in sign of assent, and with one voice, and
+almost at the same moment, they said:
+
+"The pistols!"
+
+Sir John drew the little key from his pocket and opened the box. Then
+approaching M. de Barjols he offered it to him open. The latter wished
+to yield the choice of weapons to his opponent; but with a wave of his
+hand Roland refused, saying in a tone almost feminine in its sweetness:
+
+"After you, M. de Barjols. Although you are the insulted party, you
+have, I am told, renounced your advantages. The least I can do is to
+yield you this one, if for that matter it is an advantage."
+
+M. de Barjols no longer insisted. He took one of the two pistols at
+random. Sir John offered the other to Roland, who took it, and, without
+even examining its mechanism, cocked the trigger, then let it fall at
+arm's-length at his side.
+
+During this time M. de Valensolle had measured forty paces, staking a
+cane as a point of departure.
+
+"Will you measure after me?" he asked Sir John.
+
+"Needless, sir," replied the latter: "M. de Montrevel and myself rely
+entirely upon you."
+
+M. de Valensolle staked a second cane at the fortieth pace.
+
+"Gentlemen," said he, "when you are ready."
+
+Roland's adversary was already at his post, hat and cloak removed.
+The surgeon and the two seconds stood aside. The spot had been so well
+chosen that neither had any advantage of sun or ground. Roland tossed
+off hat and coat, stationed himself forty paces from M. de Barjols,
+facing him. Both, one to right the other to the left, cast a glance at
+the same horizon. The aspect harmonized with the terrible solemnity of
+the scene about to take place.
+
+Nothing was visible to Roland's right and to M. de Barjols' left, except
+the mountain's swift incline and gigantic peak. But on the other side,
+that is to say, to M. de Barjols' right and Roland's left, it was a far
+different thing.
+
+The horizon stretched illimitable. In the foreground, the plain, its
+ruddy soil pierced on all sides by rocks, like a Titan graveyard with
+its bones protruding through the earth. Then, sharply outlined in the
+setting sun, was Avignon with its girdle of walls and its vast palace,
+like a crouching lion, seeming to hold the panting city in its claws.
+Beyond Avignon, a luminous sweep, like a river of molten gold, defined
+the Rhone. Beyond the Rhone, a deep-hued azure vista, stretched the
+chain of hills which separate Avignon from Nimes and d'Uzes. And far
+off, the sun, at which one of these two men was probably looking for the
+last time, sank slowly and majestically in an ocean of gold and purple.
+
+For the rest these two men presented a singular contrast. One, with his
+black hair, swarthy skin, slender limbs and sombre eyes, was the type of
+the Southern race which counts among its ancestors Greeks, Romans, Arabs
+and Spaniards. The other, with his rosy skin, large blue eyes, and hands
+dimpled like a woman's, was the type of that race of temperate zones
+which reckons Gauls, Germans and Normans among its forebears.
+
+Had one wished to magnify the situation it were easy to believe this
+something greater than single combat between two men. One might have
+thought it was a duel of a people against another people, race against
+race, the South against the North.
+
+Was it these thoughts which we have just expressed that filled Roland's
+mind and plunged him into that melancholy revery.
+
+Probably not; the fact is, for an instant he seemed to have forgotten
+seconds, duel, adversary, lost as he was in contemplation of this
+magnificent spectacle. M. de Barjols' voice aroused him from this
+poetical stupor.
+
+"When you are ready, sir," said he, "I am."
+
+Roland started.
+
+"Pardon my keeping you waiting, sir," said he. "You should not have
+considered me, I am so absent-minded. I am ready now."
+
+Then, a smile on his lips, his hair lifted by the evening breeze,
+unconcerned as if this were an ordinary promenade, while his opponent,
+on the contrary, took all the precaution usual in such a case, Roland
+advanced straight toward M. de Barjols.
+
+Sir John's face, despite his ordinary impassibility, betrayed a profound
+anxiety. The distance between the opponents lessened rapidly. M. de
+Barjols halted first, took aim, and fired when Roland was but ten paces
+from him.
+
+The ball clipped one of Roland's curls, but did not touch him. The young
+man turned toward his second:
+
+"Well," said he, "what did I tell you?"
+
+"Fire, monsieur, fire!" said the seconds.
+
+M. de Barjols stood silent and motionless on the spot where he had
+fired.
+
+"Pardon me, gentlemen," replied Roland; "but you will, I hope, permit me
+to be the judge of the time and manner of retaliating. Since I have felt
+M. de Barjols' shot, I have a few words to say to him which I could not
+say before." Then, turning to the young aristocrat, who was pale and
+calm, he said: "Sir, perhaps I was somewhat too hasty in our discussion
+this morning."
+
+And he waited.
+
+"It is for you to fire, sir," replied M. de Barjols.
+
+"But," continued Roland, as if he had not heard, "you will understand
+my impetuosity, and perhaps excuse it, when you hear that I am a soldier
+and General Bonaparte's aide-de-camp."
+
+"Fire, sir," replied the young nobleman.
+
+"Say but one word of retraction, sir," resumed the young officer. "Say
+that General Bonaparte's reputation for honor and delicacy is such that
+a miserable Italian proverb, inspired by ill-natured losers, cannot
+reflect discredit on him. Say that, and I throw this weapon away to
+grasp your hand; for I recognize in you, sir, a brave man."
+
+"I cannot accord that homage to his honor and delicacy until your
+general has devoted the influence which his genius gives him over France
+as Monk did--that is to say, to reinstate his legitimate sovereign upon
+the throne."
+
+"Ah!" cried Roland, with a smile, "that is asking too much of a
+republican general."
+
+"Then I maintain what I said," replied the young noble. "Fire! monsieur,
+fire!" Then as Roland made no haste to obey this injunction, he shouted,
+stamping his foot: "Heavens and earth! will you fire?"
+
+At these words Roland made a movement as if he intended to fire in the
+air.
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed M. de Barjols. Then with a rapidity of gesture and
+speech that prevented this, "Do not fire in the air, I beg, or I shall
+insist that we begin again and that you fire first."
+
+"On my honor!" cried Roland, turning as pale as if the blood had left
+his body, "this is the first time I have done so much for any man. Go to
+the devil! and if you don't want to live, then die!"
+
+At the same time he lowered his arm and fired, without troubling to take
+aim.
+
+Alfred de Barjols put his hand to his breast, swayed back and forth,
+turned around and fell face down upon the ground. Roland's bullet had
+gone through his heart.
+
+Sir John, seeing M. de Barjols fall, went straight to Roland and drew
+him to the spot where he had thrown his hat and coat.
+
+"That is the third," murmured Roland with a sigh; "but you are my
+witness that this one would have it."
+
+Then giving his smoking pistol to Sir John, he resumed his hat and coat.
+During this time M. de Valensolle picked up the pistol which had escaped
+from his friend's hand, and brought it, together with the box, to Sir
+John.
+
+"Well?" asked the Englishman, motioning toward Alfred de Barjols with
+his eyes.
+
+"He is dead," replied the second.
+
+"Have I acted as a man of honor, sir?" asked Roland, wiping away the
+sweat which suddenly inundated his brow at the announcement of his
+opponent's death.
+
+"Yes, monsieur," replied M. de Valensolle; "only, permit me to say this:
+you possess the fatal hand."
+
+Then bowing to Roland and his second with exquisite politeness, he
+returned to his friend's body.
+
+"And you, my lord," resumed Roland, "what do you say?"
+
+"I say," replied Sir John, with a sort of forced admiration, "you
+are one of those men who are made by the divine Shakespeare to say of
+themselves:
+
+                       "'Danger and I--
+  We were two lions littered in one day,
+  But I the elder.'"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V. ROLAND
+
+The return was silent and mournful; it seemed that with the hopes of
+death Roland's gayety had disappeared.
+
+The catastrophe of which he had been the author played perhaps a part
+in his taciturnity. But let us hasten to say that in battle, and more
+especially during the last campaign against the Arabs, Roland had been
+too frequently obliged to jump his horse over the bodies of his victims
+to be so deeply impressed by the death of an unknown man.
+
+His sadness was, due to some other cause; probably that which he
+confided to Sir John. Disappointment over his own lost chance of death,
+rather than that other's decease, occasioned this regret.
+
+On their return to the Hotel du Palais-Royal, Sir John mounted to his
+room with his pistols, the sight of which might have excited something
+like remorse in Roland's breast. Then he rejoined the young officer and
+returned the three letters which had been intrusted to him.
+
+He found Roland leaning pensively on a table. Without saying a word the
+Englishman laid the three letters before him. The young man cast his
+eyes over the addresses, took the one destined for his mother, unsealed
+it and read it over. As he read, great tears rolled down his cheeks. Sir
+John gazed wonderingly at this new phase of Roland's character. He had
+thought everything possible to this many-sided nature except those tears
+which fell silently from his eyes.
+
+Shaking his head and paying not the least attention to Sir John's
+presence, Roland murmured:
+
+"Poor mother! she would have wept. Perhaps it is better so. Mothers were
+not made to weep for their children!"
+
+He tore up the letters he had written to his mother, his sister, and
+General Bonaparte, mechanically burning the fragments with the utmost
+care. Then ringing for the chambermaid, he asked:
+
+"When must my letters be in the post?"
+
+"Half-past six," replied she. "You have only a few minutes more."
+
+"Just wait then."
+
+And taking a pen he wrote:
+
+  My DEAR GENERAL--It is as I told you; I am living and he is
+  dead. You must admit that this seems like a wager. Devotion
+  to death.
+
+  Your Paladin
+
+  ROLAND.
+
+Then he sealed the letter, addressed it to General Bonaparte, Rue de la
+Victoire, Paris, and handed it to the chambermaid, bidding her lose no
+time in posting it. Then only did he seem to notice Sir John, and held
+out his hand to him.
+
+"You have just rendered me a great service, my lord," he said. "One
+of those services which bind men for all eternity. I am already your
+friend; will you do me the honor to become mine?"
+
+Sir John pressed the hand that Roland offered him.
+
+"Oh!" said he, "I thank you heartily. I should never have dared ask this
+honor; but you offer it and I accept."
+
+Even the impassible Englishman felt his heart soften as he brushed away
+the tear that trembled on his lashes. Then looking at Roland, he said:
+"It is unfortunate that you are so hurried; I should have been pleased
+and delighted to spend a day or two with you."
+
+"Where were you going, my lord, when I met you?"
+
+"Oh, I? Nowhere. I am travelling to get over being bored. I am
+unfortunately often bored."
+
+"So that you were going nowhere?"
+
+"I was going everywhere."
+
+"That is exactly the same thing," said the young officer, smiling.
+"Well, will you do something for me?"
+
+"Oh! very willingly, if it is possible."
+
+"Perfectly possible; it depends only on you."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Had I been killed you were going to take me to my mother or throw me
+into the Rhone."
+
+"I should have taken you to your mother and not thrown you into the
+Rhone."
+
+"Well, instead of accompanying me dead, take me living. You will be all
+the better received."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"We will remain a fortnight at Bourg. It is my natal city, and one of
+the dullest towns in France; but as your compatriots are pre-eminent for
+originality, perhaps you will find amusement where others are bored. Are
+we agreed?"
+
+"I should like nothing better," exclaimed the Englishman; "but it seems
+to me that it is hardly proper on my part."
+
+"Oh! we are not in England, my lord, where etiquette holds absolute
+sway. We have no longer king nor queen. We didn't cut off that poor
+creature's head whom they called Marie Antoinette to install Her
+Majesty, Etiquette, in her stead."
+
+"I should like to go," said Sir John.
+
+"You'll see, my mother is an excellent woman, and very distinguished
+besides. My sister was sixteen when I left; she must be eighteen now.
+She was pretty, and she ought to be beautiful. Then there is my brother
+Edouard, a delightful youngster of twelve, who will let off fireworks
+between your legs and chatter a gibberish of English with you. At the
+end of the fortnight we will go to Paris together."
+
+"I have just come from Paris," said the Englishman.
+
+"But listen. You were willing to go to Egypt to see General Bonaparte.
+Paris is not so far from here as Cairo. I'll present you, and,
+introduced by me, you may rest assured that you will be well received.
+You were speaking of Shakespeare just now--"
+
+"Oh! I am always quoting him."
+
+"Which proves that you like comedies and dramas."
+
+"I do like them very much, that's true."
+
+"Well, then, General Bonaparte is going to produce one in his own style
+which will not be wanting in interest, I answer for it!"
+
+"So that," said Sir John, still hesitating, "I may accept your offer
+without seeming intrusive?"
+
+"I should think so. You will delight us all, especially me."
+
+"Then I accept."
+
+"Bravo! Now, let's see, when will you start?"
+
+"As soon as you wish. My coach was harnessed when you threw that
+unfortunate plate at Barjols' head. However, as I should never have
+known you but for that plate, I am glad you did throw it at him!"
+
+"Shall we start this evening?"
+
+"Instantly. I'll give orders for the postilion to send other horses, and
+once they are here we will start."
+
+Roland nodded acquiescence. Sir John went out to give his orders, and
+returned presently, saying they had served two cutlets and a cold fowl
+for them below. Roland took his valise and went down. The Englishman
+placed his pistols in the coach box again. Both ate enough to enable
+them to travel all night, and as nine o'clock was striking from the
+Church of the Cordeliers they settled themselves in the carriage and
+quitted Avignon, where their passage left a fresh trail of blood, Roland
+with the careless indifference of his nature, Sir John Tanlay with
+the impassibility of his nation. A quarter of an hour later both were
+sleeping, or at least the silence which obtained induced the belief that
+both had yielded to slumber.
+
+We shall profit by this instant of repose to give our readers some
+indispensable information concerning Roland and his family.
+
+Roland was born the first of July, 1773, four years and a few days later
+than Bonaparte, at whose side, or rather following him, he made his
+appearance in this book. He was the son of M. Charles de Montrevel,
+colonel of a regiment long garrisoned at Martinique, where he had
+married a creole named Clotilde de la Clemenciere. Three children were
+born of this marriage, two boys and a girl: Louis, whose acquaintance we
+have made under the name of Roland, Amelie, whose beauty he had praised
+to Sir John, and Edouard.
+
+Recalled to France in 1782, M. de Montrevel obtained admission for young
+Louis de Montrevel (we shall see later how the name of Louis was changed
+to Roland) to the Ecole Militaire in Paris.
+
+It was there that Bonaparte knew the child, when, on M. de Keralio's
+report, he was judged worthy of promotion from the Ecole de Brienne to
+the Ecole Militaire. Louis was the youngest pupil. Though he was only
+thirteen, he had already made himself remarked for that ungovernable and
+quarrelsome nature of which we have seen him seventeen years later give
+an example at the table d'hote at Avignon.
+
+Bonaparte, a child himself, had the good side of this character; that
+is to say, without being quarrelsome, he was firm, obstinate, and
+unconquerable. He recognized in the child some of his own qualities, and
+this similarity of sentiments led him to pardon the boy's defects,
+and attached him to him. On the other hand the child, conscious of a
+supporter in the Corsican, relied upon him.
+
+One day the child went to find his great friend, as he called Napoleon,
+when the latter was absorbed in the solution of a mathematical problem.
+He knew the importance the future artillery officer attached to this
+science, which so far had won him his greatest, or rather his only
+successes.
+
+He stood beside him without speaking or moving. The young mathematician
+felt the child's presence, and plunged deeper and deeper into his
+mathematical calculations, whence he emerged victorious ten minutes
+later. Then he turned to his young comrade with that inward satisfaction
+of a man who issues victorious from any struggle, be it with science or
+things material.
+
+The child stood erect, pale, his teeth clinched, his arms rigid and his
+fists closed.
+
+"Oh! oh!" said young Bonaparte, "what is the matter now?"
+
+"Valence, the governor's nephew, struck me."
+
+"Ah!" said Bonaparte, laughing, "and you have come to me to strike him
+back?"
+
+The child shook his head.
+
+"No," said he, "I have come to you because I want to fight him--"
+
+"Fight Valence?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"But Valence will beat you, child; he is four times as strong as you."
+
+"Therefore I don't want to fight him as children do, but like men
+fight."
+
+"Pooh!"
+
+"Does that surprise you?" asked the child.
+
+"No," said Bonaparte; "what do you want to fight with?"
+
+"With swords."
+
+"But only the sergeants have swords, and they won't lend you one."
+
+"Then we will do without swords."
+
+"But what will you fight with?"
+
+The child pointed to the compass with which the young mathematician had
+made his equations.
+
+"Oh! my child," said Bonaparte, "a compass makes a very bad wound."
+
+"So much the better," replied Louis; "I can kill him."
+
+"But suppose he kills you?"
+
+"I'd rather that than bear his blow."
+
+Bonaparte made no further objections; he loved courage, instinctively,
+and his young comrade's pleased him.
+
+"Well, so be it!" he replied; "I will tell Valence that you wish to
+fight him, but not till to-morrow."
+
+"Why to-morrow?"
+
+"You will have the night to reflect."
+
+"And from now till to-morrow," replied the child, "Valence will think me
+a coward." Then shaking his head, "It is too long till to-morrow." And
+he walked away.
+
+"Where are you going?" Bonaparte asked him.
+
+"To ask some one else to be my friend."
+
+"So I am no longer your friend?"
+
+"No, since you think I am a coward."
+
+"Very well," said the young man rising.
+
+"You will go?"
+
+"I am going."
+
+"At once?"
+
+"At once."
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed the child, "I beg your pardon; you are indeed my
+friend." And he fell upon his neck weeping. They were the first tears he
+had shed since he had received the blow.
+
+Bonaparte went in search of Valence and gravely explained his mission to
+him. Valence was a tall lad of seventeen, having already, like certain
+precocious natures, a beard and mustache; he appeared at least twenty.
+He was, moreover, a head taller than the boy he had insulted.
+
+Valence replied that Louis had pulled his queue as if it were a
+bell-cord (queues were then in vogue)--that he had warned him twice to
+desist, but that Louis had repeated the prank the third time, whereupon,
+considering him a mischievous youngster, he had treated him as such.
+
+Valence's answer was reported to Louis, who retorted that pulling a
+comrade's queue was only teasing him, whereas a blow was an insult.
+Obstinacy endowed this child of thirteen with the logic of a man of
+thirty.
+
+The modern Popilius to Valence returned with his declaration of war. The
+youth was greatly embarrassed; he could not fight with a child without
+being ridiculous. If he fought and wounded him, it would be a horrible
+thing; if he himself were wounded, he would never get over it so long as
+he lived.
+
+But Louis's unyielding obstinacy made the matter a serious one. A
+council of the Grands (elder scholars) was called, as was usual in
+serious cases. The Grands decided that one of their number could not
+fight a child; but since this child persisted in considering himself
+a young man, Valence must tell him before all his schoolmates that he
+regretted having treated him as a child, and would henceforth regard him
+as a young man.
+
+Louis, who was waiting in his friend's room, was sent for. He was
+introduced into the conclave assembled in the playground of the younger
+pupils.
+
+There Valence, to whom his comrades had dictated a speech carefully
+debated among themselves to safeguard the honor of the Grands toward the
+Petits, assured Louis that he deeply deplored the occurrence; that
+he had treated him according to his age and not according to his
+intelligence and courage, and begged him to excuse his impatience and to
+shake hands in sign that all was forgotten.
+
+But Louis shook his head.
+
+"I heard my father, who is a colonel, say once," he replied, "that he
+who receives a blow and does not fight is a coward. The first time I see
+my father I shall ask him if he who strikes the blow and then apologizes
+to avoid fighting is not more of a coward than he who received it."
+
+The young fellows looked at each other. Still the general opinion was
+against a duel which would resemble murder, and all, Bonaparte included,
+were unanimously agreed that the child must be satisfied with what
+Valence had said, for it represented their common opinion. Louis
+retired, pale with anger, and sulked with his great friend, who, said
+he, with imperturbable gravity, had sacrificed his honor.
+
+The morrow, while the Grands were receiving their lesson in mathematics,
+Louis slipped into the recitation-room, and while Valence was making a
+demonstration on the blackboard, he approached him unperceived, climbed
+on a stool to reach his face, and returned the slap he had received the
+preceding day.
+
+"There," said he, "now we are quits, and I have your apologies to boot;
+as for me, I shan't make any, you may be quite sure of that."
+
+The scandal was great. The act occurring in the professor's presence,
+he was obliged to report it to the governor of the school, the Marquis
+Tiburce Valence. The latter, knowing nothing of the events leading up
+to the blow his nephew had received, sent for the delinquent and after
+a terrible lecture informed him that he was no longer a member of the
+school, and must be ready to return to his mother at Bourg that very
+day. Louis replied that his things would be packed in ten minutes, and
+he out of the school in fifteen. Of the blow he himself had received he
+said not a word.
+
+The reply seemed more than disrespectful to the Marquis Tiburce Valence.
+He was much inclined to send the insolent boy to the dungeon for a week,
+but reflected that he could not confine him and expel him at the same
+time.
+
+The child was placed in charge of an attendant, who was not to leave him
+until he had put him in the coach for Macon; Madame de Montrevel was to
+be notified to meet him at the end of the journey.
+
+Bonaparte meeting the boy, followed by his keeper, asked an explanation
+of the sort of constabulary guard attached to him.
+
+"I'd tell you if you were still my friend," replied the child; "but you
+are not. Why do you bother about what happens to me, whether good or
+bad?"
+
+Bonaparte made a sign to the attendant, who came to the door while Louis
+was packing his little trunk. He learned then that the child had been
+expelled. The step was serious; it would distress the entire family, and
+perhaps ruin his young comrade's future.
+
+With that rapidity of decision which was one of the distinctive
+characteristics of his organization, he resolved to ask an audience
+of the governor, meantime requesting the keeper not to hasten Louis's
+departure.
+
+Bonaparte was an excellent pupil, beloved in the school, and highly
+esteemed by the Marquis Tiburce Valence. His request was immediately
+complied with. Ushered into the governor's presence, he related
+everything, and, without blaming Valence in the least, he sought to
+exculpate Louis.
+
+"Are you sure of what you are telling me, sir?" asked the governor.
+
+"Question your nephew himself. I will abide by what he says."
+
+Valence was sent for. He had already heard of Louis's expulsion, and
+was on his way to tell his uncle what had happened. His account tallied
+perfectly with what you Bonaparte had said.
+
+"Very well," said the governor, "Louis shall not go, but you will. You
+are old enough to leave school." Then ringing, "Bring me the list of the
+vacant sub-lieutenancies," he said.
+
+That same day an urgent request for a sub-lieutenancy was made to the
+Ministry, and that same night Valence left to join his regiment. He went
+to bid Louis farewell, embracing him half willingly, half unwillingly,
+while Bonaparte held his hand. The child received the embrace
+reluctantly.
+
+"It's all right now," said he, "but if ever we meet with swords by our
+sides--" A threatening gesture ended the sentence.
+
+Valence left. Bonaparte received his own appointment as sub-lieutenant
+October 10, 1785. His was one of fifty-eight commissions which Louis
+XVI. signed for the Ecole Militaire. Eleven years later, November 15,
+1796, Bonaparte, commander-in-chief of the army of Italy, at the Bridge
+of Arcola, which was defended by two regiments of Croats and two pieces
+of cannon, seeing his ranks disseminated by grapeshot and musket balls,
+feeling that victory was slipping through his fingers, alarmed by the
+hesitation of his bravest followers, wrenched the tri-color from the
+rigid fingers of a dead color-bearer, and dashed toward the bridge,
+shouting: "Soldiers! are you no longer the men of Lodi?" As he did so he
+saw a young lieutenant spring past him who covered him with his body.
+
+This was far from what Bonaparte wanted. He wished to cross first. Had
+it been possible he would have gone alone.
+
+Seizing the young man by the flap of his coat, he drew him back,
+saying: "Citizen, you are only a lieutenant, I a commander-in-chief! The
+precedence belongs to me."
+
+"Too true," replied the other; and he followed Bonaparte instead of
+preceding him.
+
+That evening, learning that two Austrian divisions had been cut to
+pieces, and seeing the two thousand prisoners he had taken, together
+with the captured cannons and flags, Bonaparte recalled the young man
+who had sprung in front of him when death alone seemed before him.
+
+"Berthier," said he, "tell my aide-de-camp, Valence, to find that young
+lieutenant of grenadiers with whom I had a controversy this morning at
+the Bridge of Arcola."
+
+"General," stammered Berthier, "Valence is wounded."
+
+"Ah! I remember I have not seen him to-day. Wounded? Where? How? On the
+battlefield?"
+
+"No, general," said he, "he was dragged into a quarrel yesterday, and
+received a sword thrust through his body."
+
+Bonaparte frowned. "And yet they know very well I do not approve of
+duels; a soldier's blood belongs not to himself, but to France. Give
+Muiron the order then."
+
+"He is killed, general."
+
+"To Elliot, in that case."
+
+"Killed also."
+
+Bonaparte drew his handkerchief from his pocket and passed it over his
+brow, which was bathed with sweat.
+
+"To whom you will, then; but I want to see that lieutenant."
+
+He dared not name any others, fearing to hear again that fatal "Killed!"
+
+A quarter of an hour later the young lieutenant was ushered into his
+tent, which was lighted faintly by a single lamp.
+
+"Come nearer, lieutenant," said Bonaparte.
+
+The young man made three steps and came within the circle of light.
+
+"So you are the man who wished to cross the bridge before me?" continued
+Bonaparte.
+
+"It was done on a wager, general," gayly answered the young lieutenant,
+whose voice made the general start.
+
+"Did I make you lose it?"
+
+"Maybe, yes; maybe, no."
+
+"What was the wager?"
+
+"That I should be promoted captain to-day."
+
+"You have won it."
+
+"Thank you, general."
+
+The young man moved hastily forward as if to press Bonaparte's hand,
+but checked himself almost immediately. The light had fallen full on his
+face for an instant; that instant sufficed to make the general notice
+the face as he had the voice. Neither the one nor the other was
+unknown to him. He searched his memory for an instant, but finding it
+rebellious, said: "I know you!"
+
+"Possibly, general."
+
+"I am certain; only I cannot recall your name."
+
+"You managed that yours should not be forgotten, general."
+
+"Who are you?"
+
+"Ask Valence, general."
+
+Bonaparte gave a cry of joy.
+
+"Louis de Montrevel," he exclaimed, opening wide his arms. This time the
+young lieutenant did not hesitate to fling himself into them.
+
+"Very good," said Bonaparte; "you will serve eight days with the
+regiment in your new rank, that they may accustom themselves to your
+captain's epaulets, and then you will take my poor Muiron's place as
+aide-de-camp. Go!"
+
+"Once more!" cried the young man, opening his arms.
+
+"Faith, yes!" said Bonaparte, joyfully. Then holding him close after
+kissing him twice, "And so it was you who gave Valence that sword
+thrust?"
+
+"My word!" said the new captain and future aide-de-camp, "you were there
+when I promised it to him. A soldier keeps his word."
+
+Eight days later Captain Montrevel was doing duty as staff-officer
+to the commander-in-chief, who changed his name of Louis, then in
+ill-repute, to that of Roland. And the young man consoled himself
+for ceasing to be a descendant of St. Louis by becoming the nephew of
+Charlemagne.
+
+Roland--no one would have dared to call Captain Montrevel Louis after
+Bonaparte had baptized him Roland--made the campaign of Italy with his
+general, and returned with him to Paris after the peace of Campo Formio.
+
+When the Egyptian expedition was decided upon, Roland, who had been
+summoned to his mother's side by the death of the Brigadier-General de
+Montrevel, killed on the Rhine while his son was fighting on the Adige
+and the Mincio, was among the first appointed by the commander-in-chief
+to accompany him in the useless but poetical crusade which he was
+planning. He left his mother, his sister Amelie, and his young brother
+Edouard at Bourg, General de Montrevel's native town. They resided
+some three-quarters of a mile out of the city, at Noires-Fontaines,
+a charming house, called a chateau, which, together with the farm and
+several hundred acres of land surrounding it, yielded an income of six
+or eight thousand livres a year, and constituted the general's entire
+fortune. Roland's departure on this adventurous expedition deeply
+afflicted the poor widow. The death of the father seemed to presage that
+of the son, and Madame de Montrevel, a sweet, gentle Creole, was far
+from possessing the stern virtues of a Spartan or Lacedemonian mother.
+
+Bonaparte, who loved his old comrade of the Ecole Militaire with all his
+heart, granted him permission to rejoin him at the very last moment
+at Toulon. But the fear of arriving too late prevented Roland from
+profiting by this permission to its full extent. He left his mother,
+promising her--a promise he was careful not to keep--that he would
+not expose himself unnecessarily, and arrived at Marseilles eight days
+before the fleet set sail.
+
+Our intention is no more to give the history of the campaign of
+Egypt than we did that of Italy. We shall only mention that which
+is absolutely necessary to understand this story and the subsequent
+development of Roland's character. The 19th of May, 1798, Bonaparte and
+his entire staff set sail for the Orient; the 15th of June the Knights
+of Malta gave up the keys of their citadel. The 2d of July the army
+disembarked at Marabout, and the same day took Alexandria; the 25th,
+Bonaparte entered Cairo, after defeating the Mamelukes at Chebreiss and
+the Pyramids.
+
+During this succession of marches and battles, Roland had been the
+officer we know him, gay, courageous and witty, defying the scorching
+heat of the day, the icy dew of the nights, dashing like a hero or a
+fool among the Turkish sabres or the Bedouin bullets. During the forty
+days of the voyage he had never left the interpreter Ventura; so that
+with his admirable facility he had learned, if not to speak Arabic
+fluently, at least to make himself understood in that language.
+Therefore it often happened that, when the general did not wish to use
+the native interpreter, Roland was charged with certain communications
+to the Muftis, the Ulemas, and the Sheiks.
+
+During the night of October 20th and 21st Cairo revolted. At five in the
+morning the death of General Dupey, killed by a lance, was made known.
+At eight, just as the revolt was supposedly quelled, an aide-de-camp of
+the dead general rode up, announcing that the Bedouins from the plains
+were attacking Bab-el-Nasr, or the Gate of Victory.
+
+Bonaparte was breakfasting with his aide-de-camp Sulkowsky, so severely
+wounded at Salahieh that he left his pallet of suffering with the
+greatest difficulty only. Bonaparte, in his preoccupation forgetting the
+young Pole's condition, said to him: "Sulkowsky, take fifteen Guides and
+go see what that rabble wants."
+
+Sulkowsky rose.
+
+"General," interposed Roland, "give me the commission. Don't you see my
+comrade can hardly stand?"
+
+"True," said Bonaparte; "do you go!"
+
+Roland went out and took the fifteen Guides and started. But the order
+had been given to Sulkowsky, and Sulkowsky was determined to execute it.
+He set forth with five or six men whom he found ready.
+
+Whether by chance, or because he knew the streets of Cairo better than
+Roland, he reached the Gate of Victory a few seconds before him. When
+Roland arrived, he saw five or six dead men, and an officer being led
+away by the Arabs, who, while massacring the soldiers mercilessly, will
+sometimes spare the officers in hope of a ransom. Roland recognized
+Sulkowsky; pointing him out with his sabre to his fifteen men, he
+charged at a gallop.
+
+Half an hour later, a Guide, returning alone to head-quarters, announced
+the deaths of Sulkowsky, Roland and his twenty-one companions.
+
+Bonaparte, as we have said, loved Roland as a brother, as a son, as he
+loved Eugene. He wished to know all the details of the catastrophe, and
+questioned the Guide. The man had seen an Arab cut off Sulkowsky's
+head and fasten it to his saddle-bow. As for Roland, his horse had
+been killed. He had disengaged himself from the stirrups and was seen
+fighting for a moment on foot; but he had soon disappeared in a general
+volley at close quarters.
+
+Bonaparte sighed, shed a tear and murmured: "Another!" and apparently
+thought no more about it. But he did inquire to what tribe belonged
+these Bedouins, who had just killed two of the men he loved best. He was
+told that they were an independent tribe whose village was situated some
+thirty miles off. Bonaparte left them a month, that they might become
+convinced of their impunity; then, the month elapsed, he ordered one of
+his aides-de-camp, named Crosier, to surround the village, destroy
+the huts, behead the men, put them in sacks, and bring the rest of the
+population, that is to say, the women and children, to Cairo.
+
+Crosier executed the order punctually; all the women and children who
+could be captured were brought to Cairo, and also with them one living
+Arab, gagged and bound to his horse's back.
+
+"Why is this man still alive?" asked Bonaparte. "I ordered you to behead
+every man who was able to bear arms."
+
+"General," said Crosier, who also possessed a smattering of Arabian
+words, "just as I was about to order his head cut off, I understood him
+to offer to exchange a prisoner for his life. I thought there would be
+time enough to cut off his head, and so brought him with me. If I am
+mistaken, the ceremony can take place here as well as there; what is
+postponed is not abandoned."
+
+The interpreter Ventura was summoned to question the Bedouin. He replied
+that he had saved the life of a French officer who had been grievously
+wounded at the Gate of Victory, and that this officer, who spoke a
+little Arabic, claimed to be one of General Bonaparte's aides-de-camp.
+He had sent him to his brother who was a physician in a neighboring
+tribe, of which this officer was a captive; and if they would promise
+to spare his life, he would write to his brother to send the prisoner to
+Cairo.
+
+Perhaps this was a tale invented to gain time, but it might also be
+true; nothing was lost by waiting.
+
+The Arab was placed in safe keeping, a scribe was brought to write at
+his dictation. He sealed the letter with his own seal, and an Arab
+from Cairo was despatched to negotiate the exchange. If the emissary
+succeeded, it meant the Bedouin's life and five hundred piastres to the
+messenger.
+
+Three days later he returned bringing Roland. Bonaparte had hoped for
+but had not dared to expect this return.
+
+This heart of iron, which had seemed insensible to grief, was now melted
+with joy. He opened his arms to Roland, as on the day when he had found
+him, and two tears, two pearls--the tears of Bonaparte were rare--fell
+from his eyes.
+
+But Roland, strange as it may seem, was sombre in the midst of the joy
+caused by his return. He confirmed the Arab's tale, insisted upon his
+liberation, but refused all personal details about his capture by the
+Bedouins and the treatment he had received at the hands of the doctor.
+As for Sulkowsky, he had been killed and beheaded before his eyes, so it
+was useless to think more of him. Roland resumed his duties, but it was
+noticeable his native courage had become temerity, and his longing for
+glory, desire for death.
+
+On the other hand, as often happens with those who brave fire and sword,
+fire and sword miraculously spared him. Before, behind and around Roland
+men fell; he remained erect, invulnerable as the demon of war. During
+the campaign in Syria two emissaries were sent to demand the surrender
+of Saint Jean d'Acre of Djezzar Pasha. Neither of the two returned; they
+had been beheaded. It was necessary to send a third. Roland applied
+for the duty, and so insistent was he, that he eventually obtained the
+general's permission and returned in safety. He took part in each of the
+nineteen assaults made upon the fortress; at each assault he was seen
+entering the breach. He was one of the ten men who forced their way into
+the Accursed Tower; nine remained, but he returned without a scratch.
+During the retreat, Bonaparte commanded his cavalry to lend their horses
+to the wounded and sick. All endeavored to avoid the contagion of the
+pest-ridden sick. To them Roland gave his horse from preference. Three
+fell dead from the saddle; he mounted his horse after them, and reached
+Cairo safe and sound. At Aboukir he flung himself into the melee,
+reached the Pasha by forcing his way through the guard of blacks who
+surrounded him; seized him by the beard and received the fire of his two
+pistols. One burned the wadding only, the other ball passed under his
+arm, killing a guard behind him.
+
+When Bonaparte resolved to return to France, Roland was the first to
+whom the general announced his intention. Another had been overjoyed;
+but he remained sombre and melancholy, saying: "I should prefer to
+remain here, general. There is more chance of my being killed here."
+
+But as it would have appeared ungrateful on his part to refuse to follow
+the general, he returned with him. During the voyage he remained sad
+and impenetrable, until the English fleet was sighted near Corsica.
+Then only did he regain his wonted animation. Bonaparte told Admiral
+Gantheaume that he would fight to the death, and gave orders to sink
+the frigate sooner than haul down the flag. He passed, however, unseen
+through the British fleet, and disembarked at Frejus, October 8, 1799.
+
+All were impatient to be the first to set foot on French soil. Roland
+was the last. Although the general paid no apparent attention to these
+details, none escaped him. He sent Eugene, Berthier, Bourrienne, his
+aides-de-camp and his suite by way of Gap and Draguignan, while he took
+the road to Aix strictly incognito, accompanied only by Roland, to judge
+for himself of the state of the Midi. Hoping that the joy of seeing his
+family again would revive the love of life in his heart crushed by its
+hidden sorrow, he informed Roland at Aix that they would part at Lyons,
+and gave him three weeks' furlough to visit his mother and sister.
+
+Roland replied: "Thank you, general. My sister and my mother will be
+very happy to see me." Whereas formerly his words would have been:
+"Thank you, general. I shall be very happy to see my mother and sister
+again."
+
+We know what occurred at Avignon; we have seen with what profound
+contempt for danger, bitter disgust of life, Roland had provoked
+that terrible duel. We heard the reason he gave Sir John for this
+indifference to death. Was it true or false? Sir John at all events
+was obliged to content himself with it, since Roland was evidently not
+disposed to furnish any other.
+
+And now, as we have said, they were sleeping or pretending to sleep as
+they were drawn by two horses at full speed along the road of Avignon to
+Orange.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI. MORGAN
+
+Our readers must permit us for an instant to abandon Roland and Sir
+John, who, thanks to the physical and moral conditions in which we left
+them, need inspire no anxiety, while we direct our attention seriously
+to a personage who has so far made but a brief appearance in this
+history, though he is destined to play an important part in it.
+
+We are speaking of the man who, armed and masked, entered the room of
+the table d'hote at Avignon to return Jean Picot the two hundred louis
+which had been stolen from him by mistake, stored as it had been with
+the government money.
+
+We speak of the highwayman, who called himself Morgan. He had ridden
+into Avignon, masked, in broad daylight, entered the hotel of the
+Palais-Egalite leaving his horse at the door. This horse had enjoyed
+the same immunity in the pontifical and royalist town as his master; he
+found it again at the horse post, unfastened its bridle, sprang into
+the saddle, rode through the Porte d'Oulle, skirting the walls,
+and disappeared at a gallop along the road to Lyons. Only about
+three-quarters of a mile from Avignon, he drew his mantle closer about
+him, to conceal his weapons from the passers, and removing his mask he
+slipped it into one of the holsters of his saddle.
+
+The persons whom he had left at Avignon who were curious to know if
+this could be the terrible Morgan, the terror of the Midi, might have
+convinced themselves with their own eyes, had they met him on the road
+between Avignon and Bedarides, whether the bandit's appearance was as
+terrifying as his renown. We do not hesitate to assert that the features
+now revealed would have harmonized so little with the picture their
+prejudiced imagination had conjured up that their amazement would have
+been extreme.
+
+The removal of the mask, by a hand of perfect whiteness and delicacy,
+revealed the face of a young man of twenty-four or five years of age,
+a face that, by its regularity of feature and gentle expression, had
+something of the character of a woman's. One detail alone gave it or
+rather would give it at certain moments a touch of singular firmness.
+Beneath the beautiful fair hair waving on his brow and temples, as was
+the fashion at that period, eyebrows, eyes and lashes were black as
+ebony. The rest of the face was, as we have said, almost feminine. There
+were two little ears of which only the tips could be seen beneath the
+tufts of hair to which the Incroyables of the day had given the name of
+"dog's-ears"; a straight, perfectly proportioned nose, a rather large
+mouth, rosy and always smiling, and which, when smiling, revealed a
+double row of brilliant teeth; a delicate refined chin faintly tinged
+with blue, showing that, if the beard had not been carefully and
+recently shaved, it would, protesting against the golden hair, have
+followed the same color as the brows, lashes and eyes, that is to say, a
+decided black. As for the unknown's figure, it was seen, when he entered
+the dining-room, to be tall, well-formed and flexible, denoting, if not
+great muscular strength, at least much suppleness and agility.
+
+The manner he sat his horse showed him to be a practiced rider. With his
+cloak thrown back over his shoulders, his mask hidden in the holster,
+his hat pulled low over his eyes, the rider resumed his rapid pace,
+checked for an instant, passed through Bedarides at a gallop, and
+reaching the first houses in Orange, entered the gate of one which
+closed immediately behind him. A servant in waiting sprang to the bit.
+The rider dismounted quickly.
+
+"Is your master here?" he asked the domestic.
+
+"No, Monsieur the Baron," replied the man; "he was obliged to go away
+last night, but he left word that if Monsieur should ask for him, to say
+that he had gone in the interests of the Company."
+
+"Very good, Baptiste. I have brought back his horse in good condition,
+though somewhat tired. Rub him down with wine, and give him for two or
+three days barley instead of oats. He has covered something like one
+hundred miles since yesterday morning."
+
+"Monsieur the Baron was satisfied with him?"
+
+"Perfectly satisfied. Is the carriage ready?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur the Baron, all harnessed in the coach-house; the
+postilion is drinking with Julien. Monsieur recommended that he should
+be kept outside the house that he might not see him arrive."
+
+"He thinks he is to take your master?"
+
+"Yes, Monsieur the Baron. Here is my master's passport, which we used
+to get the post-horses, and as my master has gone in the direction of
+Bordeaux with Monsieur the Baron's passport, and as Monsieur the Baron
+goes toward Geneva with my master's passport, the skein will probably
+be so tangled that the police, clever as their fingers are, can't easily
+unravel it."
+
+"Unfasten the valise that is on the croup of my saddle, Baptiste, and
+give it to me."
+
+Baptiste obeyed dutifully, but the valise almost slipped from his hands.
+"Ah!" said he laughing, "Monsieur the Baron did not warn me! The devil!
+Monsieur the Baron has not wasted his time it seems."
+
+"Just where you're mistaken, Baptiste! if I didn't waste all my time, I
+at least lost a good deal, so I should like to be off again as soon as
+possible."
+
+"But Monsieur the Baron will breakfast?"
+
+"I'll eat a bite, but quickly."
+
+"Monsieur will not be delayed. It is now two, and breakfast has been
+ready since ten this morning. Luckily it's a cold breakfast."
+
+And Baptiste, in the absence of his master, did the honors of the house
+to the visitor by showing him the way to the dining-room.
+
+"Not necessary," said the visitor, "I know the way. Do you see to the
+carriage; let it be close to the house with the door wide open when I
+come out, so that the postilion can't see me. Here's the money to pay
+him for the first relay."
+
+And the stranger whom Baptiste had addressed as Baron handed him a
+handful of notes.
+
+"Why, Monsieur," said the servant, "you have given me enough to pay all
+the way to Lyons!"
+
+"Pay him as far as Valence, under pretext that I want to sleep, and keep
+the rest for your trouble in settling the accounts."
+
+"Shall I put the valise in the carriage-box?"
+
+"I will do so myself."
+
+And taking the valise from the servant's hands, without letting it be
+seen that it weighed heavily, he turned toward the dining-room, while
+Baptiste made his way toward the nearest inn, sorting his notes as he
+went.
+
+As the stranger had said, the way was familiar to him, for he passed
+down a corridor, opened a first door without hesitation, then a second,
+and found himself before a table elegantly served. A cold fowl, two
+partridges, a ham, several kinds of cheese, a dessert of magnificent
+fruit, and two decanters, the one containing a ruby-colored wine, and
+the other a yellow-topaz, made a breakfast which, though evidently
+intended for but one person, as only one place was set, might in case of
+need have sufficed for three or four.
+
+The young man's first act on entering the dining-room was to go straight
+to a mirror, remove his hat, arrange his hair with a little comb which
+he took from his pocket; after which he went to a porcelain basin with
+a reservoir above it, took a towel which was there for the purpose,
+and bathed his face and hands. Not until these ablutions were
+completed--characteristic of a man of elegant habits--not until these
+ablutions had been minutely performed did the stranger sit down to the
+table.
+
+A few minutes sufficed to satisfy his appetite, to which youth and
+fatigue had, however, given magnificent proportions; and when Baptiste
+came in to inform the solitary guest that the carriage was ready he
+found him already afoot and waiting.
+
+The stranger drew his hat low over his eyes, wrapped his coat about him,
+took the valise under his arm, and, as Baptiste had taken pains to lower
+the carriage-steps as close as possible to the door, he sprang into the
+post-chaise without being seen by the postilion. Baptiste slammed the
+door after him; then, addressing the man in the top-boots:
+
+"Everything is paid to Valence, isn't it, relays and fees?" he asked.
+
+"Everything; do you want a receipt?" replied the postilion, jokingly.
+
+"No; but my master, the Marquise de Ribier, don't want to be disturbed
+until he gets to Valence."
+
+"All right," replied the postilion, in the same bantering tone, "the
+citizen Marquis shan't be disturbed. Forward, hoop-la!" And he started
+his horses, and cracked his whip with that noisy eloquence which says to
+neighbors and passers-by: "'Ware here, 'ware there! I am driving a man
+who pays well and who has the right to run over others."
+
+Once in the carriage the pretended Marquis of Ribier opened the window,
+lowered the blinds, raised the seat, put his valise in the hollow, sat
+down on it, wrapped himself in his cloak, and, certain of not being
+disturbed till he reached Valence, slept as he had breakfasted, that is
+to say, with all the appetite of youth.
+
+They went from Orange to Valence in eight hours. Our traveller awakened
+shortly before entering the city. Raising one of the blinds cautiously,
+he recognized the little suburb of Paillasse. It was dark, so he struck
+his repeater and found it was eleven at night. Thinking it useless to go
+to sleep again, he added up the cost of the relays to Lyons and counted
+out the money. As the postilion at Valence passed the comrade who
+replaced him, the traveller heard him say:
+
+"It seems he's a ci-devant; but he was recommended from Orange, and, as
+he pays twenty sous fees, you must treat him as you would a patriot."
+
+"Very well," replied the other; "he shall be driven accordingly."
+
+The traveller thought the time had come to intervene. He raised the
+blind and said:
+
+"And you'll only be doing me justice. A patriot? Deuce take it! I pride
+myself upon being one, and of the first calibre, too! And the proof
+is--Drink this to the health of the Republic." And he handed a
+hundred-franc assignat to the postilion who had recommended him to his
+comrade. Seeing the other looking eagerly at this strip of paper, he
+continued: "And the same to you if you will repeat the recommendation
+you've just received to the others."
+
+"Oh! don't worry, citizen," said the postilion; "there'll be but one
+order to Lyons--full speed!"
+
+"And here is the money for the sixteen posts, including the double
+post of entrance in advance. I pay twenty sous fees. Settle it among
+yourselves."
+
+The postilion dug his spurs into his horse and they were off at a
+gallop. The carriage relayed at Lyons about four in the afternoon. While
+the horses were being changed, a man clad like a porter, sitting with
+his stretcher beside him on a stone post, rose, came to the carriage and
+said something in a low tone to the young Companion of Jehu which seemed
+to astonish the latter greatly.
+
+"Are you quite sure?" he asked the porter.
+
+"I tell you that I saw him with my own eyes!" replied the latter.
+
+"Then I can give the news to our friends as a positive fact?"
+
+"You can. Only hurry."
+
+"Have they been notified at Servas?"
+
+"Yes; you will find a horse ready between Servas and Sue."
+
+The postilion came up; the young man exchanged a last glance with
+the porter, who walked away as if charged with a letter of the utmost
+importance.
+
+"What road, citizen?" asked the postilion.
+
+"To Bourg. I must reach Servas by nine this evening; I pay thirty sous
+fees."
+
+"Forty-two miles in five hours! That's tough. Well, after all, it can be
+done."
+
+"Will you do it."
+
+"We can try."
+
+And the postilion started at full gallop. Nine o'clock was striking as
+they entered Servas.
+
+"A crown of six livres if you'll drive me half-way to Sue without
+stopping here to change horses!" cried the young man through the window
+to the postilion.
+
+"Done!" replied the latter.
+
+And the carriage dashed past the post house without stopping.
+
+Morgan stopped the carriage at a half mile beyond Servas, put his head
+out of the window, made a trumpet of his hands, and gave the hoot of a
+screech-owl. The imitation was so perfect that another owl answered from
+a neighboring woods.
+
+"Here we are," cried Morgan.
+
+The postilion pulled up, saying: "If we're there, we needn't go
+further."
+
+The young man took his valise, opened the door, jumped out and stepped
+up to the postilion.
+
+"Here's the promised ecu."
+
+The postilion took the coin and stuck it in his eye, as a fop of our
+day holds his eye-glasses. Morgan divined that this pantomime had a
+significance.
+
+"Well," he asked, "what does that mean?"
+
+"That means," said the postilion, "that, do what I will, I can't help
+seeing with the other eye."
+
+"I understand," said the young man, laughing; "and if I close the other
+eye--"
+
+"Damn it! I shan't see anything."
+
+"Hey! you're a rogue who'd rather be blind than see with one eye! Well,
+there's no disputing tastes. Here!"
+
+And he gave him a second crown. The postilion stuck it up to his other
+eye, wheeled the carriage round and took the road back to Servas.
+
+The Companion of Jehu waited till he vanished in the darkness. Then
+putting the hollow of a key to his lips, he drew a long trembling sound
+from it like a boatswain's whistle.
+
+A similar call answered him, and immediately a horseman came out of the
+woods at full gallop. As he caught sight of him Morgan put on his mask.
+
+"In whose name have you come?" asked the rider, whose face, hidden as it
+was beneath the brim of an immense hat, could not be seen.
+
+"In the name of the prophet Elisha," replied the young man with the
+mask.
+
+"Then you are he whom I am waiting for." And he dismounted.
+
+"Are you prophet or disciple?" asked Morgan.
+
+"Disciple," replied the new-comer.
+
+"Where is your master?"
+
+"You will find him at the Chartreuse of Seillon."
+
+"Do you know how many Companions are there this evening?"
+
+"Twelve."
+
+"Very good; if you meet any others send them there."
+
+He who had called himself a disciple bowed in sign of obedience,
+assisted Morgan to fasten the valise to the croup of the saddle, and
+respectfully held the bit while the young man mounted. Without even
+waiting to thrust his other foot into the stirrup, Morgan spurred his
+horse, which tore the bit from the groom's hand and started off at a
+gallop.
+
+On the right of the road stretched the forest of Seillon, like a shadowy
+sea, its sombre billows undulating and moaning in the night wind. Half
+a mile beyond Sue the rider turned his horse across country toward the
+forest, which, as he rode on, seemed to advance toward him. The horse,
+guided by an experienced hand, plunged fearlessly into the woods. Ten
+minutes later he emerged on the other side.
+
+A gloomy mass, isolated in the middle of a plain, rose about a hundred
+feet from the forest. It was a building of massive architecture, shaded
+by five or six venerable trees. The horseman paused before the portal,
+over which were placed three statues in a triangle of the Virgin, our
+Lord, and St. John the Baptist. The statue of the Virgin was at the apex
+of the triangle.
+
+The mysterious traveller had reached his goal, for this was the
+Chartreuse of Seillon. This monastery, the twenty-second of its order,
+was founded in 1178. In 1672 a modern edifice had been substituted for
+the old building; vestiges of its ruins can be seen to this day. These
+ruins consist externally of the above-mentioned portal with the three
+statues, before which our mysterious traveller halted; internally, a
+small chapel, entered from the right through the portal. A peasant, his
+wife and two children are now living there, and the ancient monastery
+has become a farm.
+
+The monks were expelled from their convent in 1791; in 1792 the
+Chartreuse and its dependencies were offered for sale as ecclesiastical
+property. The dependencies consisted first of the park, adjoining the
+buildings, and the noble forest which still bears the name of Seillon.
+But at Bourg, a royalist and, above all, religious town, no one dared
+risk his soul by purchasing property belonging to the worthy monks whom
+all revered. The result was that the convent, the park and the forest
+had become, under the title of state property, the property of the
+republic; that is to say, they belonged to nobody, or were at the best
+neglected. The republic having, for the last seven years, other things
+to think of than pointing walls, cultivating an orchard and cutting
+timber.
+
+For seven years, therefore, the Chartreuse had been completely
+abandoned, and if by chance curious eyes peered through the keyhole,
+they caught glimpses of grass-grown courtyards, brambles in the orchard,
+and brush in the forest, which, except for one road and two or three
+paths that crossed it, had become almost impenetrable. The Correrie, a
+species of pavilion belonging to the monastery and distant from it about
+three-quarters of a mile, was mossgrown too in the tangle of the forest,
+which, profiting by its liberty, grew at its own sweet will, and had
+long since encircled it in a mantle of foliage which hid it from sight.
+
+For the rest, the strangest rumors were current about these two
+buildings. They were said to be haunted by guests invisible by day,
+terrifying at night. The woodsmen and the belated peasants, who went to
+the forest to exercise against the Republic the rights which the town of
+Bourg had enjoyed in the days of the monks, pretended that, through the
+cracks of the closed blinds, they had seen flames of fire dancing along
+the corridors and stairways, and had distinctly heard the noise of
+chains clanking over the cloister tilings and the pavement of the
+courtyards. The strong-minded denied these things; but two very opposite
+classes opposed the unbelievers, confirming the rumors, attributing
+these terrifying noises and nocturnal lights to two different causes
+according to their beliefs. The patriots declared that they were
+the ghosts of the poor monks buried alive by cloister tyranny in the
+In-pace, who were now returned to earth, dragging after them their
+fetters to call down the vengeance of Heaven upon their persecutors.
+The royalists said that they were the imps of the devil, who, finding
+an empty convent, and fearing no further danger from holy water, were
+boldly holding their revels where once they had not dared show a claw.
+One fact, however, left everything uncertain. Not one of the believers
+or unbelievers--whether he elected for the souls of the martyred monks
+or for the Witches' Sabbath of Beelzebub--had ever had the courage to
+venture among the shadows, and to seek during the solemn hours of night
+confirmation of the truth, in order to tell on the morrow whether the
+Chartreuse were haunted, and if haunted by whom.
+
+But doubtless these tales, whether well founded or not, had no influence
+over our mysterious horseman; for although, as we have said, nine
+o'clock had chimed from the steeples of Bourg, and night had fallen,
+he reined in his horse in front of the great portal of the deserted
+monastery, and, without dismounting, drew a pistol from his holster,
+striking three measured blows with the butt on the gate, after the
+manner of the Freemasons. Then he listened. For an instant he doubted if
+the meeting were really there; for though he looked closely and listened
+attentively, he could perceive no light, nor could he hear a sound.
+Still he fancied he heard a cautious step approaching the portal from
+within. He knocked a second time with the same weapon and in the same
+manner.
+
+"Who knocks?" demanded a voice.
+
+"He who comes from Elisha," replied the traveller.
+
+"What king do the sons of Isaac obey?"
+
+"Jehu."
+
+"What house are they to exterminate?"
+
+"That of Ahab."
+
+"Are you prophet or disciple?"
+
+"Prophet."
+
+"Welcome then to the House of the Lord!" said the voice.
+
+Instantly the iron bars which secured the massive portal swung back, the
+bolts grated in their sockets, half of the gate opened silently, and the
+horse and his rider passed beneath the sombre vault, which immediately
+closed behind them.
+
+The person who had opened the gate, so slow to open, so quick to close,
+was attired in the long white robe of a Chartreuse monk, of which the
+hood, falling over his face, completely concealed his features.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII. THE CHARTREUSE OF SEILLON
+
+Beyond doubt, like the first affiliated member met on the road to Sue by
+the man who styled himself prophet, the monk who opened the gate was of
+secondary rank in the fraternity; for, grasping the horse's bridle, he
+held it while the rider dismounted, rendering the young man the service
+of a groom.
+
+Morgan got off, unfastened the valise, pulled the pistols from the
+holsters, and placed them in his belt, next to those already there.
+Addressing the monk in a tone of command, he said: "I thought I should
+find the brothers assembled in council."
+
+"They are assembled," replied the monk.
+
+"Where?"
+
+"At La Correrie. Suspicious persons have been seen prowling around the
+Chartreuse these last few days, and orders have been issued to take the
+greatest precautions."
+
+The young man shrugged his shoulders as if he considered such
+precautions useless, and, always in the same tone of command, said:
+"Have some one take my horse to the stable and conduct me to the
+council."
+
+The monk summoned another brother, to whom he flung the bridle. He
+lighted a torch at a lamp, in the little chapel which can still be
+seen to the right of the great portal, and walked before the new-comer.
+Crossing the cloister, he took a few steps in the garden, opened a door
+leading into a sort of cistern, invited Morgan to enter, closed it as
+carefully as he had the outer door, touched with his foot a stone which
+seemed to be accidentally lying there, disclosed a ring and raised a
+slab, which concealed a flight of steps leading down to a subterraneous
+passage. This passage had a rounded roof and was wide enough to admit
+two men walking abreast.
+
+The two men proceeded thus for five or six minutes, when they reached
+a grated door. The monk, drawing a key from his frock, opened it. Then,
+when both had passed through and the door was locked again, he asked:
+"By what name shall I announce you?"
+
+"As Brother Morgan."
+
+"Wait here; I will return in five minutes."
+
+The young man made a sign with his head which showed that he was
+familiar with these precautions and this distrust. Then he sat down upon
+a tomb--they were in the mortuary vaults of the convent--and waited.
+Five minutes had scarcely elapsed before the monk reappeared.
+
+"Follow me," said he; "the brothers are glad you have come. They feared
+you had met with some mishap."
+
+A few seconds later Morgan was admitted into the council chamber.
+
+Twelve monks awaited him, their hoods drawn low over their eyes. But,
+once the door had closed and the serving brother had disappeared, while
+Morgan was removing his mask, the hoods were thrown back and each monk
+exposed his face.
+
+No brotherhood had ever been graced by a more brilliant assemblage of
+handsome and joyous young men. Two or three only of these strange monks
+had reached the age of forty. All hands were held out to Morgan and
+several warm kisses were imprinted upon the new-comer's cheek.
+
+"'Pon my word," said one who had welcomed him most tenderly, "you have
+drawn a mighty thorn from my foot; we thought you dead, or, at any rate,
+a prisoner."
+
+"Dead, I grant you, Amiet; but prisoner, never! citizen--as they still
+say sometimes, and I hope they'll not say it much longer. It must be
+admitted that the whole affair was conducted on both sides with touching
+amenity. As soon as the conductor saw us he shouted to the postilion to
+stop; I even believe he added: 'I know what it is.' 'Then,' said I, 'if
+you know what it is, my dear friend, our explanations needn't be long.'
+'The government money?' he asked. 'Exactly,' I replied. Then as there
+was a great commotion inside the carriage, I added: 'Wait! first come
+down and assure these gentlemen, and especially the ladies, that we
+are well-behaved folk and will not harm them--the ladies; you
+understand--and nobody will even look at them unless they put their
+heads out of the window.' One did risk it; my faith! but she was
+charming. I threw her a kiss, and she gave a little cry and retired
+into the carriage, for all the world like Galatea, and as there were
+no willows about, I didn't pursue her. In the meantime the guard was
+rummaging in his strong-box in all expedition, and to such good purpose,
+indeed, that with the government money, in his hurry, he passed over two
+hundred louis belonging to a poor wine merchant of Bordeaux."
+
+"Ah, the devil!" exclaimed the brother called Amiet--an assumed
+name, probably, like that of Morgan--"that is annoying! You know the
+Directory, which is most imaginative, has organized some bands of
+chauffeurs, who operate in our name, to make people believe that we rob
+private individuals. In other words, that we are mere thieves."
+
+"Wait an instant," resumed Morgan; "that is just what makes me late.
+I heard something similar at Lyons. I was half-way to Valence when I
+discovered this breach of etiquette. It was not difficult, for, as if
+the good man had foreseen what happened, he had marked his bag 'Jean
+Picot, Wine Merchant at Fronsac, Bordeaux.'"
+
+"And you sent his money back to him?"
+
+"I did better; I returned it to him."
+
+"At Fronsac?"
+
+"Ah! no, but at Avignon. I suspected that so careful a man would stop
+at the first large town to inquire what chance he had to recover his two
+hundred louis. I was not mistaken. I inquired at the inn if they knew
+citizen Jean Picot. They replied that not only did they know him, but in
+fact he was then dining at the table d'hote. I went in. You can imagine
+what they were talking about--the stoppage of the diligence. Conceive
+the sensation my apparition caused. The god of antiquity descending from
+the machine produced a no more unexpected finale than I. I asked which
+one of the guests was called Jean Picot. The owner of this distinguished
+and melodious name stood forth. I placed the two hundred louis
+before him, with many apologies, in the name of the Company, for the
+inconvenience its followers had occasioned him. I exchanged a friendly
+glance with Barjols and a polite nod with the Abbe de Rians who were
+present, and, with a profound bow to the assembled company, withdrew. It
+was only a little thing, but it took me fifteen hours; hence the delay.
+I thought it preferable to leaving a false conception of us in our wake.
+Have I done well, my masters?"
+
+The gathering burst into bravos.
+
+"Only," said one of the participants, "I think you were somewhat
+imprudent to return the money yourself to citizen Jean Picot."
+
+"My dear colonel," replied the young man, "there's an Italian proverb
+which says: 'Who wills, goes; who does not will, sends.' I willed--I
+went."
+
+"And there's a jolly buck who, if you ever have the misfortune to fall
+into the hands of the Directory, will reward you by recognizing you; a
+recognition which means cutting off your head!"
+
+"Oh! I defy him to recognize me."
+
+"What can prevent it?"
+
+"Oh! You seem to think that I play such pranks with my face uncovered?
+Truly, my dear colonel, you mistake me for some one else. It is well
+enough to lay aside my mask among friends; but among strangers--no,
+no! Are not these carnival times? I don't see why I shouldn't disguise
+myself as Abellino or Karl Moor, when Messieurs Gohier, Sieyes, Roger
+Ducos, Moulin and Barras are masquerading as kings of France."
+
+"And you entered the city masked?"
+
+"The city, the hotel, the dining-room. It is true that if my face was
+covered, my belt was not, and, as you see, it is well garnished."
+
+The young man tossed aside his coat, displaying his belt, which was
+furnished with four pistols and a short hunting-knife. Then, with a
+gayety which seemed characteristic of his careless nature, he added: "I
+ought to look ferocious, oughtn't I? They may have taken me for the late
+Mandrin, descending from the mountains of Savoy. By the bye, here are
+the sixty thousand francs of Her Highness, the Directory." And the young
+man disdainfully kicked the valise which he had placed on the ground,
+which emitted a metallic sound indicating the presence of gold. Then he
+mingled with the group of friends from whom he had been separated by the
+natural distance between a narrator and his listeners.
+
+One of the monks stooped and lifted the valise.
+
+"Despise gold as much as you please, my dear Morgan, since that doesn't
+prevent you from capturing it. But I know of some brave fellows who are
+awaiting these sixty thousand francs, you so disdainfully kick aside,
+with as much impatience and anxiety as a caravan, lost in the desert,
+awaits the drop of water which is to save it from dying of thirst."
+
+"Our friends of the Vendee, I suppose?" replied Morgan. "Much good may
+it do them! Egotists, they are fighting. These gentlemen have chosen
+the roses and left us the thorns. Come! don't they receive anything from
+England?"
+
+"Oh, yes," said one of the monks, gayly; "at Quiberon they got bullets
+and grapeshot."
+
+"I did not say from the English," retorted Morgan; "I said from
+England."
+
+"Not a penny."
+
+"It seems to me, however," said one of those present, who apparently
+possessed a more reflective head than his comrades, "it seems to me that
+our princes might send a little gold to those who are shedding their
+blood for the monarchy. Are they not afraid the Vendee may weary
+some day or other of a devotion which up to this time has not, to my
+knowledge, won her a word of thanks."
+
+"The Vendee, dear friend," replied Morgan, "is a generous land which
+will not weary, you may be sure. Besides, where is the merit of fidelity
+unless it has to deal with ingratitude? From the instant devotion meets
+recognition, it is no longer devotion. It becomes an exchange which
+reaps its reward. Let us be always faithful, and always devoted,
+gentlemen, praying Heaven that those whom we serve may remain
+ungrateful, and then, believe me, we shall bear the better part in the
+history of our civil wars."
+
+Morgan had scarcely formulated this chivalric axiom, expressive of a
+desire which had every chance of accomplishment, than three Masonic
+blows resounded upon the door through which he had entered.
+
+"Gentlemen," said the monk who seemed to fill the role of president,
+"quick, your hoods and masks. We do not know who may be coming to us."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII. HOW THE MONEY OF THE DIRECTORY WAS USED
+
+Every one hastened to obey. The monks lowered the hoods of their long
+robes over their faces, Morgan replaced his mask.
+
+"Enter!" said the superior.
+
+The door opened and the serving-brother appeared.
+
+"An emissary from General Georges Cadoudal asks to be admitted," said
+he.
+
+"Did he reply to the three passwords?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+"Then let him in."
+
+The lay brother retired to the subterranean passage, and reappeared a
+couple of minutes later leading a man easily recognized by his costume
+as a peasant, and by his square head with its shock of red hair for a
+Breton. He advanced in the centre of the circle without appearing in
+the least intimidated, fixing his eyes on each of the monks in turn, and
+waiting until one of these twelve granite statues should break silence.
+The president was the first to speak to him.
+
+"From whom do you come?" he asked him.
+
+"He who sent me," replied the peasant, "ordered me to answer, if I were
+asked that question, that I was sent by Jehu."
+
+"Are you the bearer of a verbal or written message?"
+
+"I am to reply to the questions which you ask me, and exchange a slip of
+paper for some money."
+
+"Very good; we will begin with the questions. What are our brothers in
+the Vendee doing?"
+
+"They have laid down their arms and are awaiting only a word from you to
+take them up again."
+
+"And why did they lay down their arms?"
+
+"They received the order to do so from his Majesty Louis XVIII."
+
+"There is talk of a proclamation written by the King's own hand. Have
+they received it?"
+
+"Here is a copy."
+
+The peasant gave a paper to the person who was interrogating him. The
+latter opened it and read:
+
+  The war has absolutely no result save that of making the monarchy
+  odious and threatening. Monarchs who return to their own through
+  its bloody succor are never loved; these sanguinary measures must
+  therefore be abandoned; confide in the empire of opinion which
+  returns of itself to its saving principles. "God and the King,"
+  will soon be the rallying cry of all Frenchmen. The scattered
+  elements of royalism must be gathered into one formidable sheaf;
+  militant Vendee must be abandoned to its unhappy fate and marched
+  within a more pacific and less erratic path. The royalists of the
+  West have fulfilled their duty; those of Paris, who have prepared
+  everything for the approaching Restoration, must now be relied
+  upon--
+
+The president raised his head, and, seeking Morgan with a flash of the
+eye which his hood could not entirely conceal, said: "Well, brother,
+I think this is the fulfilment of your wish of a few moments ago.
+The royalists of the Vendee and the Midi will have the merit of pure
+devotion." Then, lowering his eyes to the proclamation, of which there
+still remained a few lines to read, he continued:
+
+  The Jews crucified their King, and since that time they have
+  wandered over the face of the earth. The French guillotined
+  theirs, and they shall be dispersed throughout the land.
+
+  Given at Blankenbourg, this 25th of August, 1799, on the day
+  of St. Louis and the sixth year of our reign.
+
+  (Signed) LOUIS.
+
+The young men looked at each other.
+
+"'Quos vult perdere Jupiter dementat!'" said Morgan.
+
+"Yes," said the president; "but when those whom Jupiter wishes to
+destroy represent a principle, they must be sustained not only against
+Jupiter but against themselves. Ajax, in the midst of the bolts and
+lightning, clung to a rock, and, threatening Heaven with his clinched
+hand, he cried, 'I will escape in spite of the gods!'" Then turning
+toward Cadoudal's envoy, "And what answer did he who sent you make to
+this proclamation?"
+
+"About what you yourself have just answered. He told me to come and
+inform myself whether you had decided to hold firm in spite of all, in
+spite of the King himself."
+
+"By Heavens! yes," said Morgan.
+
+"We are determined," said the President.
+
+"In that case," replied the peasant, "all is well. Here are the real
+names of our new chiefs, and their assumed names. The general recommends
+that you use only the latter as far as is possible in your despatches.
+He observes that precaution when he, on his side, speaks of you."
+
+"Have you the list?" asked the President.
+
+"No; I might have been stopped, and the list taken. Write yourself; I
+will dictate them to you."
+
+The president seated himself at the table, took a pen, and wrote the
+following names under the dictation of the Breton peasant:
+
+"Georges Cadoudal, Jehu or Roundhead; Joseph Cadoudal, Judas Maccabeus;
+Lahaye Saint-Hilaire, David; Burban-Malabry, Brave-la-Mort; Poulpiquez,
+Royal-Carnage; Bonfils, Brise-Barriere; Dampherne, Piquevers; Duchayla,
+La Couronne; Duparc, Le Terrible; La Roche, Mithridates; Puisaye, Jean
+le Blond."
+
+"And these are the successors of Charette, Stoffiet, Cathelineau,
+Bonchamp, d'Elbee, la Rochejaquelin, and Lescure!" cried a voice.
+
+The Breton turned toward him who had just spoken.
+
+"If they get themselves killed like their predecessors," said he, "what
+more can you ask of them?"
+
+"Well answered," said Morgan, "so that--"
+
+"So that, as soon as our general has your reply," answered the peasant,
+"he will take up arms again."
+
+"And suppose our reply had been in the negative?" asked another voice.
+
+"So much the worse for you," replied the peasant; "in any case the
+insurrection is fixed for October 20."
+
+"Well," said the president, "thanks to us, the general will have the
+wherewithal for his first month's pay. Where is your receipt?"
+
+"Here," said the peasant, drawing a paper from his pocket on which were
+written these words:
+
+  Received from our brothers of the Midi and the East, to be
+  employed for the good of the cause, the sum of....
+
+  GEORGES CADOUDAL,
+  General commanding the Royalist army of Brittany.
+
+The sum was left blank.
+
+"Do you know how to write?" asked the president.
+
+"Enough to fill in the three or four missing words."
+
+"Very well. Then write, 'one hundred thousand francs.'"
+
+The Breton wrote; then extending the paper to the president, he said:
+"Here is your receipt; where is the money?"
+
+"Stoop and pick up the bag at your feet; it contains sixty thousand
+francs." Then addressing one of the monks, he asked: "Montbard, where
+are the remaining forty thousand?"
+
+The monk thus interpellated opened a closet and brought forth a
+bag somewhat smaller than the one Morgan had brought, but which,
+nevertheless, contained the good round sum of forty thousand francs.
+
+"Here is the full amount," said the monk.
+
+"Now, my friend," said the president, "get something to eat and some
+rest; to-morrow you will start."
+
+"They are waiting for me yonder," said the Breton. "I will eat and sleep
+on horseback. Farewell, gentlemen. Heaven keep you!" And he went toward
+the door by which he had entered.
+
+"Wait," said Morgan.
+
+The messenger paused.
+
+"News for news," said Morgan; "tell General Cadoudal that General
+Bonaparte has left the army in Egypt, that he landed at Frejus, day
+before yesterday, and will be in Paris in three days. My news is fully
+worth yours, don't you think so? What do you think of it?"
+
+"Impossible!" exclaimed all the monks with one accord.
+
+"Nevertheless nothing is more true, gentlemen. I have it from our friend
+the Priest (Lepretre), [Footnote: The name Lepretre is a contraction
+of the two words "le pretre," meaning the priest; hence the name under
+which this man died.] who saw him relay at Lyons one hour before me, and
+recognized him."
+
+"What has he come to France for?" demanded several voices.
+
+"Faith," said Morgan, "we shall know some day. It is probable that he
+has not returned to Paris to remain there incognito."
+
+"Don't lose an instant in carrying this news to our brothers in the
+West," said the president to the peasant. "A moment ago I wished to
+detain you; now I say to you: 'Go!'"
+
+The peasant bowed and withdrew. The president waited until the door was
+closed.
+
+"Gentlemen," said he, "the news which our brother Morgan has just
+imparted to us is so grave that I wish to propose a special measure."
+
+"What is it?" asked the Companions of Jehu with one voice.
+
+"It is that one of us, chosen by lot, shall go to Paris and keep the
+rest informed, with the cipher agreed upon, of all that happens there."
+
+"Agreed!" they replied.
+
+"In that case," resumed the president, "let us write our thirteen names,
+each on a slip of paper. We put them in a hat. He whose name is first
+drawn shall start immediately."
+
+The young men, one and all, approached the table, and wrote their
+names on squares of paper which they rolled and dropped into a hat. The
+youngest was told to draw the lots. He drew one of the little rolls of
+paper and handed it to the president, who unfolded it.
+
+"Morgan!" said he.
+
+"What are my instructions?" asked the young man.
+
+"Remember," replied the president, with a solemnity to which the
+cloistral arches lent a supreme grandeur, "that you bear the name and
+title of Baron de Sainte-Hermine, that your father was guillotined on
+the Place de la Revolution and that your brother was killed in Conde's
+army. Noblesse oblige! Those are your instructions."
+
+"And what else?" asked the young man.
+
+"As to the rest," said the president, "we rely on your royalist
+principles and your loyalty."
+
+"Then, my friends, permit me to bid you farewell at once. I would like
+to be on the road to Paris before dawn, and I must pay a visit before my
+departure."
+
+"Go!" said the president, opening his arms to Morgan. "I embrace you
+in the name of the Brotherhood. To another I should say, 'Be brave,
+persevering and active'; to you I say, 'Be prudent.'"
+
+The young man received the fraternal embrace, smiled to his other
+friends, shook hands with two or three of them, wrapped himself in his
+mantle, pulled his hat over his eyes and departed.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX. ROMEO AND JULIET
+
+Under the possibility of immediate departure, Morgan's horse, after
+being washed, rubbed down and dried, had been fed a double ration of
+oats and been resaddled and bridled. The young man had only to ask for
+it and spring upon its back. He was no sooner in the saddle than the
+gate opened as if by magic; the horse neighed and darted out swiftly,
+having forgotten its first trip, and ready for another.
+
+At the gate of the Chartreuse, Morgan paused an instant, undecided
+whether to turn to the right or left. He finally turned to the right,
+followed the road which leads from Bourg to Seillon for a few moments,
+wheeled rapidly a second time to the right, cut across country, plunged
+into an angle of the forest which was on his way, reappeared before long
+on the other side, reached the main road to Pont-d'Ain, followed it for
+about a mile and a half, and halted near a group of houses now called
+the Maison des Gardes. One of these houses bore for sign a cluster of
+holly, which indicated one of those wayside halting places where the
+pedestrians quench their thirst, and rest for an instant to recover
+strength before continuing the long fatiguing voyage of life. Morgan
+stopped at the door, drew a pistol from its holster and rapped with the
+butt end as he had done at the Chartreuse. Only as, in all probability,
+the good folks at the humble tavern were far from being conspirators,
+the traveller was kept waiting longer than he had been at the monastery.
+At last he heard the echo of the stable boy's clumsy sabots. The gate
+creaked, but the worthy man who opened it no sooner perceived the
+horseman with his drawn pistol than he instinctively tried to, close it
+again.
+
+"It is I, Patout," said the young man; "don't be afraid."
+
+"Ah! sure enough," said the peasant, "it is really you, Monsieur
+Charles. I'm not afraid now; but you know, as the cure used to tell
+us, in the days when there was a good God, 'Caution is the mother of
+safety.'"
+
+"Yes, Patout, yes," said the young man, slipping a piece of silver into
+the stable boy's hand, "but be easy; the good God will return, and M. le
+Cure also."
+
+"Oh, as for that," said the good man, "it is easy to see that there is
+no one left on high by the way things go. Will this last much longer, M.
+Charles?"
+
+"Patout, I promise, in my honor, to do my best to be rid of all that
+annoys you. I am no less impatient than you; so I'll ask you not to go
+to bed, my good Patout."
+
+"Ah! You know well, monsieur, that when you come I don't often go to
+bed. As for the horse--Goodness! You change them every day? The time
+before last it was a chestnut, the last time a dapple-gray, now a black
+one."
+
+"Yes, I'm somewhat capricious by nature. As to the horse, as you say,
+my dear Patout, he wants nothing. You need only remove his bridle; leave
+him saddled. Oh, wait; put this pistol back in the holsters and take
+care of these other two for me." And the young man removed the two from
+his belt and handed them to the hostler.
+
+"Well," exclaimed the latter, laughing, "any more barkers?"
+
+"You know, Patout, they say the roads are unsafe."
+
+"Ah! I should think they weren't safe! We're up to our necks in regular
+highway robberies, M. Charles. Why, no later than last week they stopped
+and robbed the diligence between Geneva and Bourg!"
+
+"Indeed!" exclaimed Morgan; "and whom do they accuse of the robbery?"
+
+"Oh, it's such a farce! Just fancy; they say it was the Companions of
+Jesus. I don't believe a word of it, of course. Who are the Companions
+of Jesus if not the twelve apostles?"
+
+"Of course," said Morgan, with his eternally joyous smile, "I don't know
+of any others."
+
+"Well!" continued Patout, "to accuse the twelve apostles of robbing a
+diligence, that's the limit. Oh! I tell you, M. Charles, we're living in
+times when nobody respects anything."
+
+And shaking his head like a misanthrope, disgusted, if not with life, at
+least with men, Patout led the horse to the stable.
+
+As for Morgan, he watched Patout till he saw him disappear down the
+courtyard and enter the dark stable; then, skirting the hedge which
+bordered the garden, he went toward a large clump of trees whose lofty
+tops were silhouetted against the darkness of the night, with the
+majesty of things immovable, the while their shadows fell upon a
+charming little country house known in the neighborhood as the Chateau
+des Noires-Fontaines. As Morgan reached the chateau wall, the hour
+chimed from the belfry of the village of Montagnac. The young man
+counted the strokes vibrating in the calm silent atmosphere of the
+autumn night. It was eleven o'clock. Many things, as we have seen, had
+happened during the last two hours.
+
+Morgan advanced a few steps farther, examined the wall, apparently in
+search of a familiar spot, then, having found it, inserted the tip of
+his boot in a cleft between two stones. He sprang up like a man mounting
+a horse, seized the top of the wall with the left hand, and with a
+second spring seated himself astride the wall, from which, with the
+rapidity of lightning, he lowered himself on the other side. All this
+was done with such rapidity, such dexterity and agility, that any one
+chancing to pass at that instant would have thought himself the puppet
+of a vision. Morgan stopped, as on the other side of the wall, to
+listen, while his eyes tried to pierce the darkness made deeper by the
+foliage of poplars and aspens, and the heavy shadows of the little
+wood. All was silent and solitary. Morgan ventured on his path. We
+say ventured, because the young man, since nearing the Chateau des
+Noires-Fontaines, revealed in all his movement a timidity and hesitation
+so foreign to his character that it was evident that if he feared it was
+not for himself alone.
+
+He gained the edge of the wood, still moving cautiously. Coming to a
+lawn, at the end of which was the little chateau, he paused. Then he
+examined the front of the house. Only one of the twelve windows which
+dotted the three floors was lighted. This was on the second floor at the
+corner of the house. A little balcony, covered with virgin vines which
+climbed the walls, twining themselves around the iron railing and
+falling thence in festoons from the window, overhung the garden. On both
+sides of the windows, close to the balcony, large-leafed trees met and
+formed above the cornice a bower of verdure. A Venetian blind, which was
+raised and lowered by cords, separated the balcony from the window, a
+separation which disappeared at will. It was through the interstices of
+this blind that Morgan had seen the light.
+
+The young man's first impulse was to cross the lawn in a straight line;
+but again, the fears of which we spoke restrained him. A path shaded
+by lindens skirted the wall and led to the house. He turned aside and
+entered its dark leafy covert. When he had reached the end of the path,
+he crossed, like a frightened doe, the open space which led to the house
+wall, and stood for a moment in the deep shadow of the house. Then, when
+he had reached the spot he had calculated upon, he clapped his hands
+three times.
+
+At this call a shadow darted from the end of the apartment and clung,
+lithe, graceful, almost transparent, to the window.
+
+Morgan repeated the signal. The window was opened immediately, the blind
+was raised, and a ravishing young girl, in a night dress, her fair hair
+rippling over her shoulders, appeared in the frame of verdure.
+
+The young man stretched out his arms to her, whose arms were stretched
+out to him, and two names, or rather two cries from the heart, crossed
+from one to the other.
+
+"Charles!"
+
+"Amelie!"
+
+Then the young man sprang against the wall, caught at the vine shoots,
+the jagged edges of the rock, the jutting cornice, and in an instant was
+on the balcony.
+
+What these two beautiful young beings said to each other was only a
+murmur of love lost in an endless kiss. Then, by gentle effort, the
+young man drew the girl with one hand to her chamber, while with the
+other he loosened the cords of the blind, which fell noisily
+behind them. The window closed behind the blind. Then the lamp was
+extinguished, and the front of the Chateau des Noires-Fontaines was
+again in darkness.
+
+This darkness had lasted for about a quarter of an hour, when the
+rolling of a carriage was heard along the road leading from the highway
+of Pont-d'Ain to the entrance of the chateau. There the sound ceased; it
+was evident that the carriage had stopped before the gates.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X. THE FAMILY OF ROLAND
+
+The carriage which had stopped before the gate was that which brought
+Roland back to his family, accompanied by Sir John.
+
+The family was so far from expecting him that, as we have said, all the
+lights in the house were extinguished, all the windows in darkness, even
+Amelie's. The postilion had cracked his whip smartly for the last five
+hundred yards, but the noise was insufficient to rouse these country
+people from their first sleep. When the carriage had stopped, Roland
+opened the door, sprang out without touching the steps, and tugged at
+the bell-handle. Five minutes elapsed, and, after each peal, Roland
+turned to the carriage, saying: "Don't be impatient, Sir John."
+
+At last a window opened and a childish but firm voice cried out: "Who is
+ringing that way?"
+
+"Ah, is that you, little Edouard?" said Roland. "Make haste and let us
+in."
+
+The child leaped back with a shout of delight and disappeared. But at
+the same time his voice was heard in the corridors, crying: "Mother!
+wake up; it is Roland! Sister! wake up; it is the big brother!"
+
+Then, clad only in his night robe and his little slippers, he ran down
+the steps, crying: "Don't be impatient, Roland; here I am."
+
+An instant later the key grated in the lock, and the bolts slipped
+back in their sockets. A white figure appeared in the portico, and flew
+rather than ran to the gate, which an instant later turned on its hinges
+and swung open. The child sprang upon Roland's neck and hung there.
+
+"Ah, brother! Brother!" he exclaimed, embracing the young man, laughing
+and crying at the same time. "Ah, big brother Roland! How happy mother
+will be; and Amelie, too! Every body is well. I am the sickest--ah!
+except Michel, the gardener, you know, who has sprained his leg. But why
+aren't you in uniform? Oh! how ugly you are in citizen's clothes! Have
+you just come from Egypt? Did you bring me the silver-mounted pistols
+and the beautiful curved sword? No? Then you are not nice, and I won't
+kiss you any more. Oh, no, no! Don't be afraid! I love you just the
+same!"
+
+And the boy smothered the big brother with kisses while he showered
+questions upon him. The Englishman, still seated in the carriage, looked
+smilingly through the window at the scene.
+
+In the midst of these fraternal embraces came the voice of a woman; the
+voice of the mother.
+
+"Where is he, my Roland, my darling son?" asked Madame de Montrevel,
+in a voice fraught with such violent, joyous emotion that it was almost
+painful. "Where is he? Can it be true that he has returned; really true
+that he is not a prisoner, not dead? Is he really living?"
+
+The child, at her voice, slipped from his brother's arms like an eel,
+dropped upon his feet on the grass, and, as if moved by a spring,
+bounded toward his mother.
+
+"This way, mother; this way!" said he, dragging his mother, half dressed
+as she was, toward Roland. When he saw his mother Roland could no longer
+contain himself. He felt the sort of icicle that had petrified his
+breast melt, and his heart beat like that of his fellowmen.
+
+"Ah!" he exclaimed, "I was indeed ungrateful to God when life still
+holds such joys for me."
+
+And he fell sobbing upon Madame de Montrevel's neck without thinking of
+Sir John, who felt his English phlegm disperse as he silently wiped away
+the tears that flowed down his cheeks and moistened his lips. The
+child, the mother, and Roland formed an adorable group of tenderness and
+emotion.
+
+Suddenly little Edouard, like a leaf tossed about by the wind, flew from
+the group, exclaiming: "Sister Amelie! Why, where is she?" and he rushed
+toward the house, repeating: "Sister Amelie, wake up! Get up! Hurry up!"
+
+And then the child could be heard kicking and rapping against a door.
+Silence followed. Then little Edouard shouted: "Help, mother! Help,
+brother Roland! Sister Amelie is ill!"
+
+Madame de Montrevel and her son flew toward the house. Sir John,
+consummate tourist that he was, always carried a lancet and a smelling
+bottle in his pocket. He jumped from the carriage and, obeying his first
+impulse, hurried up the portico. There he paused, reflecting that he had
+not been introduced, an all-important formality for an Englishman.
+
+However, the fainting girl whom he sought came toward him at that
+moment. The noise her brother had made at the door brought Amelie to the
+landing; but, without doubt, the excitement which Roland's return had
+occasioned was too much for her, for after descending a few steps in an
+almost automatic manner, controlling herself by a violent effort, she
+gave a sigh, and, like a flower that bends, a branch that droops, like
+a scarf that floats, she fell, or rather lay, upon the stairs. It was at
+that moment that the child cried out.
+
+But at his exclamation Amelie recovered, if not her strength, at least
+her will. She rose, and, stammering, "Be quiet, Edouard! Be quite, in
+Heaven's name! I'm all right," she clung to the balustrade with one
+hand, and leaning with the other on the child, she had continued to
+descend. On the last step she met her mother and her brother. Then
+with a violent, almost despairing movement, she threw both arms around
+Roland's neck, exclaiming: "My brother! My brother!"
+
+Roland, feeling the young girl's weight press heavily upon his shoulder,
+exclaimed: "Air! Air! She is fainting!" and carried her out upon the
+portico. It was this new group, so different from the first, which met
+Sir John's eyes.
+
+As soon as she felt the fresh air, Amelie revived and raised her head.
+Just then the moon, in all her splendor, shook off a cloud which had
+veiled her, and lighted Amelie's face, as pale as her own. Sir John gave
+a cry of admiration. Never had he seen a marble statue so perfect as
+this living marble before his eyes.
+
+We must say that Amelie, seen thus, was marvelously beautiful. Clad in
+a long cambric robe, which defined the outlines of her body, molded on
+that of the Polyhymnia of antiquity, her pale face gently inclined upon
+her brother's shoulder, her long golden hair floating around her snowy
+shoulders, her arm thrown around her mother's neck, its rose-tinted
+alabaster hand drooping upon the red shawl in which Madame de Montrevel
+had wrapped herself; such was Roland's sister as she appeared to Sir
+John.
+
+At the Englishman's cry of admiration, Roland remembered that he was
+there, and Madame de Montrevel perceived his presence. As for the child,
+surprised to see this stranger in his mother's home, he ran hastily down
+the steps of the portico, stopping on the third one, not that he
+feared to go further, but in order to be on a level with the person he
+proceeded to question.
+
+"Who are you, sir!" he asked Sir John; "and what are you doing here?"
+
+"My little Edouard," said Sir John, "I am your brother's friend, and I
+have brought you the silver-mounted pistols and the Damascus blade which
+he promised you."
+
+"Where are they?" asked the child.
+
+"Ah!" said Sir John, "they are in England, and it will take some time to
+send for them. But your big brother will answer for me that I am a man
+of my word."
+
+"Yes, Edouard, yes," said Roland. "If Sir John promises them to you,
+you will get them." Then turning to Madame de Montrevel and his sister,
+"Excuse me, my mother; excuse me, Amelie; or rather, excuse yourselves
+as best you can to Sir John, for you have made me abominably
+ungrateful." Then grasping Sir John's hand, he continued: "Mother, Sir
+John took occasion the first time he saw me to render me an inestimable
+service. I know that you never forget such things. I trust, therefore,
+that you will always remember that Sir John is one of our best friends;
+and he will give you the proof of it by saying with me that he has
+consented to be bored for a couple of weeks with us."
+
+"Madame," said Sir John, "permit me, on the contrary, not to repeat my
+friend Roland's words. I could wish to spend, not a fortnight, nor three
+weeks, but a whole lifetime with you."
+
+Madame de Montrevel came down the steps of the portico and offered her
+hand to Sir John, who kissed it with a gallantry altogether French.
+
+"My lord," said she, "this house is yours. The day you entered it has
+been one of joy, the day you leave will be one of regret and sadness."
+
+Sir John turned toward Amelie, who, confused by the disorder of her
+dress before this stranger, was gathering the folds of her wrapper about
+her neck.
+
+"I speak to you in my name and in my daughter's, who is still too much
+overcome by her brother's unexpected return to greet you herself as she
+will do in a moment," continued Madame de Montrevel, coming to Amelie's
+relief.
+
+"My sister," said Roland, "will permit my friend Sir John to kiss her
+hand, and he will, I am sure, accept that form of welcome."
+
+Amelie stammered a few words, slowly lifted her arm, and held out her
+hand to Sir John with a smile that was almost painful.
+
+The Englishman took it, but, feeling how icy and trembling it was,
+instead of carrying it to his lips he said: "Roland, your sister is
+seriously indisposed. Let us think only of her health this evening. I am
+something of a doctor, and if she will deign to permit me the favor of
+feeling her pulse I shall be grateful."
+
+But Amelie, as if she feared that the cause of her weakness might be
+surmised, withdrew her hand hastily, exclaiming: "Oh, no! Sir John is
+mistaken. Joy never causes illness. It is only joy at seeing my brother
+again which caused this slight indisposition, and it has already passed
+over." Then turning to Madame de Montrevel, she added with almost
+feverish haste: "Mother, we are forgetting that these gentlemen have
+made a long voyage, and have probably eaten nothing since Lyons. If
+Roland has his usual good appetite he will not object to my leaving you
+to do the honors of the house, while I attend to the unpoetical but much
+appreciated details of the housekeeping."
+
+Leaving her mother, as she said, to do the honors of the house, Amelie
+went to waken the maids and the manservant, leaving on the mind of Sir
+John that sort of fairy-like impression which the tourist on the Rhine
+brings with him of the Lorelei on her rock, a lyre in her hand, the
+liquid gold of her hair floating in the evening breezes.
+
+In the meantime, Morgan had remounted his horse, returning at full
+gallop to the Chartreuse. He drew rein before the portal, pulled out a
+note-book, and pencilling a few lines on one of the leaves, rolled it up
+and slipped it through the keyhole without taking time to dismount.
+
+Then pressing in both his spurs, and bending low over the mane of the
+noble animal, he disappeared in the forest, rapid and mysterious as
+Faust on his way to the mountain of the witches' sabbath. The three
+lines he had written were as follows:
+
+  "Louis de Montrevel, General Bonaparte's aide-de-camp, arrived
+  this evening at the Chateau des Noires-Fontaines. Be careful,
+  Companions of Jehu!"
+
+But, while warning his comrades to be cautious about Louis de Montrevel,
+Morgan had drawn a cross above his name, which signified that no matter
+what happened the body of the young officer must be considered as sacred
+by them.
+
+The Companions of Jehu had the right to protect a friend in that way
+without being obliged to explain the motives which actuated them. Morgan
+used that privilege to protect the brother of his love.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI. CHATEAU DES NOIRES-FONTAINES
+
+The Chateau of Noires-Fontaines, whither we have just conducted two of
+the principal characters of our story, stood in one of the most charming
+spots of the valley, where the city of Bourg is built. The park, of five
+or six acres, covered with venerable oaks, was inclosed on three sides
+by freestone walls, one of which opened in front through a handsome gate
+of wrought-iron, fashioned in the style of Louis XV.; the fourth side
+was bounded by the little river called the Reissouse, a pretty stream
+that takes its rise at Journaud, among the foothills of the Jura, and
+flowing gently from south to north, joins the Saone at the bridge of
+Fleurville, opposite Pont-de-Vaux, the birthplace of Joubert, who, a
+month before the period of which we are writing, was killed at the fatal
+battle of Novi.
+
+Beyond the Reissouse, and along its banks, lay, to the right and left
+of the Chateau des Noires-Fontaines, the village of Montagnac and
+Saint-Just, dominated further on by that of Ceyzeriat. Behind this
+latter hamlet stretched the graceful outlines of the hills of the Jura,
+above the summits of which could be distinguished the blue crests of the
+mountains of Bugey, which seemed to be standing on tiptoe in order to
+peer curiously over their younger sisters' shoulder at what was passing
+in the valley of the Ain.
+
+It was in full view of this ravishing landscape that Sir John awoke. For
+the first time in his life, perhaps, the morose and taciturn Englishman
+smiled at nature. He fancied himself in one of those beautiful valleys
+of Thessaly celebrated by Virgil, beside the sweet slopes of Lignon sung
+by Urfe, whose birthplace, in spite of what the biographers say,
+was falling into ruins not three miles from the Chateau des
+Noires-Fontaines. He was roused by three light raps at his door. It was
+Roland who came to see how he had passed the night. He found him radiant
+as the sun playing among the already yellow leaves of the chestnuts and
+the lindens.
+
+"Oh! oh! Sir John," cried Roland, "permit me to congratulate you. I
+expected to find you as gloomy as the poor monks of the Chartreuse, with
+their long white robes, who used to frighten me so much in my childhood;
+though, to tell the truth, I was never easily frightened. Instead of
+that I find you in the midst of this dreary October, as smiling as a
+morn of May."
+
+"My dear Roland," replied Sir John, "I am an orphan; I lost my mother
+at my birth and my father when I was twelve years old. At an age when
+children are usually sent to school, I was master of a fortune producing
+a million a year; but I was alone in the world, with no one whom I loved
+or who loved me. The tender joys of family life are completely unknown
+to me. From twelve to eighteen I went to Cambridge, but my taciturn and
+perhaps haughty character isolated me from my fellows. At eighteen I
+began to travel. You who scour the world under the shadow of your flag;
+that is to say, the shadow of your country, and are stirred by the
+thrill of battle, and the pride of glory, cannot imagine what a
+lamentable thing it is to roam through cities, provinces, nations, and
+kingdoms simply to visit a church here, a castle there; to rise at four
+in the morning at the summons of a pitiless guide, to see the sun rise
+from Rigi or Etna; to pass like a phantom, already dead, through the
+world of living shades called men; to know not where to rest; to know no
+land in which to take root, no arm on which to lean, no heart in which
+to pour your own! Well, last night, my dear Roland, suddenly, in an
+instant, in a second, this void in my life was filled. I lived in you;
+the joys I seek were yours. The family which I never had, I saw smiling
+around you. As I looked at your mother I said to myself: 'My mother was
+like that, I am sure.' Looking at your sister, I said: 'Had I a sister
+I could not have wished her otherwise.' When I embraced your brother, I
+thought that I, too, might have had a child of that age, and thus leave
+something behind me in the world, whereas with the nature I know I
+possess, I shall die as I have lived, sad, surly with others, a burden
+to myself. Ah! you are happy, Roland! you have a family, you have fame,
+you have youth, you have that which spoils nothing in a man--you have
+beauty. You want no joys. You are not deprived of a single delight. I
+repeat it, Roland, you are a happy man, most happy!"
+
+"Good!" said Roland. "You forget my aneurism, my lord."
+
+Sir John looked at Roland incredulously. Roland seemed to enjoy the most
+perfect health.
+
+"Your aneurism against my million, Roland," said Lord Tanlay, with a
+feeling of profound sadness, "providing that with this aneurism you give
+me this mother who weeps for joy on seeing you again; this sister who
+faints with delight at your return; this child who clings upon your neck
+like some fresh young fruit to a sturdy young tree; this chateau with
+its dewy shade, its river with its verdant flowering banks, these blue
+vistas dotted with pretty villages and white-capped belfries graceful
+as swans. I would welcome your aneurism, Roland, and with death in
+two years, in one, in six months; but six months of stirring, tender,
+eventful and glorious life!"
+
+Roland laughed in his usual nervous manner.
+
+"Ah!" said he, "so this is the tourist, the superficial traveller,
+the Wandering Jew of civilization, who pauses nowhere, gauges nothing,
+judges everything by the sensation it produces in him. The tourist who,
+without opening the doors of these abodes where dwell the fools we call
+men, says: 'Behind these walls is happiness!' Well, my dear friend,
+you see this charming river, don't you? These flowering meadows, these
+pretty villages? It is the picture of peace, innocence and fraternity;
+the cycle of Saturn, the golden age returned; it is Eden, Paradise!
+Well, all that is peopled by beings who have flown at each other's
+throats. The jungles of Calcutta, the sedges of Bengal are inhabited
+by tigers and panthers not one whit more ferocious or cruel than the
+denizens of these pretty villages, these dewy lawns, and these charming
+shores. After lauding in funeral celebrations the good, the great, the
+immortal Marat, whose body, thank God! they cast into the common sewer
+like carrion that he was, and always had been; after performing these
+funeral rites, to which each man brought an urn into which he shed
+his tears, behold! our good Bressans, our gentle Bressans, these
+poultry-fatteners, suddenly decided that the Republicans were all
+murderers. So they murdered them by the tumbrelful to correct them of
+that vile defect common to savage and civilized man--the killing his
+kind. You doubt it? My dear fellow, on the road to Lons-le-Saulnier they
+will show you, if you are curious, the spot where not six months ago
+they organized a slaughter fit to turn the stomach of our most ferocious
+troopers on the battlefield. Picture to yourself a tumbrel of prisoners
+on their way to Lons-le-Saulnier. It was a staff-sided cart, one of
+those immense wagons in which they take cattle to market. There were
+some thirty men in this tumbrel, whose sole crime was foolish exaltation
+of thought and threatening language. They were bound and gagged; heads
+hanging, jolted by the bumping of the cart; their throats parched with
+thirst, despair and terror; unfortunate beings who did not even have,
+as in the times of Nero and Commodus, the fight in the arena, the
+hand-to-hand struggle with death. Powerless, motionless, the lust of
+massacre surprised them in their fetters, and battered them not only in
+life but in death; their bodies, when their hearts had ceased to beat,
+still resounded beneath the bludgeons which mangled their flesh and
+crushed their bones; while women looked on in calm delight, lifting high
+the children, who clapped their hands for joy. Old men who ought to have
+been preparing for a Christian death helped, by their goading cries, to
+render the death of these wretched beings more wretched still. And in
+the midst of these old men, a little septuagenarian, dainty, powdered,
+flicking his lace shirt frill if a speck of dust settled there, pinching
+his Spanish tobacco from a golden snuff-box, with a diamond monogram,
+eating his "amber sugarplums" from a Sevres bonbonniere, given him
+by Madame du Barry, and adorned with the donor's portrait--this
+septuagenarian--conceive the picture, my dear Sir John--dancing with his
+pumps upon that mattress of human flesh, wearying his arm, enfeebled
+by age, in striking repeatedly with his gold-headed cane those of the
+bodies who seemed not dead enough to him, not properly mangled in that
+cursed mortar! Faugh! My friend, I have seen Montebello, I have seen
+Arcole, I have seen Rivoli, I have seen the Pyramids, and I believe I
+could see nothing more terrible. Well, my mother's mere recital, last
+night, after you had retired, of what has happened here, made my hair
+stand on end. Faith! that explains my poor sister's spasms just as my
+aneurism explains mine."
+
+Sir John watched Roland, and listened with that strange wonderment
+which his young friend's misanthropical outbursts always aroused. Roland
+seemed to lurk in the niches of a conversation in order to fall upon
+mankind whenever he found an opportunity. Perceiving the impression he
+had made on Sir John's mind, he changed his tone, substituting bitter
+raillery for his philanthropic wrath.
+
+"It is true," said he, "that, apart from this excellent aristocrat who
+finished what the butchers had begun, and dyed in blood the red heels
+of his pumps, the people who performed these massacres belonged to the
+lower classes, bourgeois and clowns, as our ancestors called those who
+supported them. The nobles manage things much more daintily. For the
+rest, you saw yourself what happened at Avignon. If you had been told
+that, you would never have believed it, would you? Those gentlemen
+pillagers of stage coaches pique themselves on their great delicacy.
+They have two faces, not counting their mask. Sometimes they are
+Cartouche and Mandrin, sometimes Amadis and Galahad. They tell fabulous
+tales of these heroes of the highways. My mother told me yesterday of
+one called Laurent. You understand, my dear fellow, that Laurent is a
+fictitious name meant to hide the real name, just as a mask hides the
+face. This Laurent combined all the qualities of a hero of romance, all
+the accomplishments, as you English say, who, under pretext that you
+were once Normans, allow yourselves occasionally to enrich your language
+with a picturesque expression, or some word which has long, poor beggar!
+asked and been refused admittance of our own scholars. This Laurent was
+ideally handsome. He was one of seventy-two Companions of Jehu who have
+lately been tried at Yssen-geaux. Seventy were acquitted; he and one
+other were the only ones condemned to death. The innocent men were
+released at once, but Laurent and his companion were put in prison to
+await the guillotine. But, pooh! Master Laurent had too pretty a head
+to fall under the executioner's ignoble knife. The judges who condemned
+him, the curious who expected to witness him executed, had forgotten
+what Montaigne calls the corporeal recommendation of beauty. There was
+a woman belonging to the jailer of Yssen-geaux, his daughter, sister
+or niece; history--for it is history and not romance that I am telling
+you--history does not say which. At all events the woman, whoever she
+was, fell in love with the handsome prisoner, so much in love that
+two hours before the execution, just as Master Laurent, expecting the
+executioner, was sleeping, or pretending to sleep, as usually happens
+in such cases, his guardian angel came to him. I don't know how they
+managed; for the two lovers, for the best of reasons, never told the
+details; but the truth is--now remember; Sir John, that this is truth
+and not fiction--that Laurent was free, but, to his great regret, unable
+to save his comrade in the adjoining dungeon. Gensonne, under like
+circumstances, refused to escape, preferring to die with the other
+Girondins; but Gensonne did not have the head of Antinous on the body of
+Apollo. The handsomer the head, you understand, the more one holds on to
+it. So Laurent accepted the freedom offered him and escaped; a horse
+was waiting for him at the next village. The young girl, who might have
+retarded or hindered his flight, was to rejoin him the next day. Dawn
+came, but not the guardian angel. It seems that our hero cared more for
+his mistress than he did for his companion; he left his comrade, but
+he would not go without her. It was six o'clock, the very hour for his
+execution. His impatience mastered him. Three times had he turned his
+horse's head toward the town, and each time drew nearer and nearer. At
+the third time a thought flashed through his brain. Could his mistress
+have been taken, and would she pay the penalty for saving him? He was
+then in the suburbs. Spurring his horse, he entered the town with face
+uncovered, dashed through people who called him by name, astonished to
+see him free and on horseback, when they expected to see him bound and
+in a tumbrel on his way to be executed. Catching sight of his guardian
+angel pushing through the crowd, not to see him executed, but to meet
+him, he urged his horse past the executioner, who had just learned of
+the disappearance of one of his patients, knocking over two or three
+bumpkins with the breast of his Bayard. He bounded toward her, swung her
+over the pommel of his saddle, and, with a cry of joy and a wave of his
+hat, he disappeared like M. de Conde at the battle of Lens. The people
+all applauded, and the women thought the action heroic, and all promptly
+fell in love with the hero on the spot."
+
+Roland, observing that Sir John was silent, paused and questioned him
+by a look. "Go on," replied the Englishman; "I am listening. And as I am
+sure you are telling me all this in order to come to something you wish
+to say, I await your point."
+
+"Well," resumed Roland, laughing, "you are right, my dear friend, and,
+on my word, you know me as if we had been college chums. Well, what idea
+do you suppose has been cavorting through my brain all night? It is that
+of getting a glimpse of these gentlemen of Jehu near at hand."
+
+"Ah, yes, I understand. As you failed to get yourself killed by M. de
+Barjols, you want to try your chance of being killed by M. Morgan."
+
+"Or any other, my dear Sir John," replied the young officer calmly; "for
+I assure you that I have nothing in particular against M. Morgan; quite
+the contrary, though my first impulse when he came into the room and
+made his little speech--don't you call it a speech--?"
+
+Sir John nodded affirmatively.
+
+"Though my first thought," resumed Roland, "was to spring at his throat
+and strangle him with one hand, and to tear off his mask with the
+other."
+
+"Now that I know you, my dear Roland, I do indeed wonder how you
+refrained from putting such a fine project into execution."
+
+"It was not my fault, I swear! I was just on the point of it when my
+companion stopped me."
+
+"So there are people who can restrain you?"
+
+"Not many, but he can."
+
+"And now you regret it?"
+
+"Honestly, no! This brave stage-robber did the business with such
+swaggering bravado that I admired him. I love brave men instinctively.
+Had I not killed M. de Barjols I should have liked to be his friend. It
+is true I could not tell how brave he was until I had killed him. But
+let us talk of something else; that duel is one of my painful thoughts.
+But why did I come up? It was certainly not to talk of the Companions of
+Jehu, nor of M. Laurent's exploits--Ah! I came to ask how you would like
+to spend your time. I'll cut myself in quarters to amuse you, my dear
+guest, but there are two disadvantages against me: this region, which is
+not very amusing, and your nationality, which is not easily amused."
+
+"I have already told you, Roland," replied Lord Tanlay, offering his
+hand to the young man, "that I consider the Chateau des Noires-Fontaines
+a paradise."
+
+"Agreed; but still in the fear that you may find your paradise
+monotonous, I shall do my best to entertain you. Are you fond of
+archeology--Westminster and Canterbury? We have a marvel here, the
+church of Brou; a wonder of sculptured lace by Colonban. There is a
+legend about it which I will tell you some evening when you cannot
+sleep. You will see there the tombs of Marguerite de Bourbon, Philippe
+le Bel, and Marguerite of Austria. I will puzzle you with the problem of
+her motto: 'Fortune, infortune, fort'une,' which I claim to have solved
+by a Latinized version: 'Fortuna, in fortuna, forti una.' Are you fond
+of fishing, my dear friend? There's the Reissouse at your feet, and
+close at hand a collection of hooks and lines belonging to Edouard, and
+nets belonging to Michel; as for the fish, they, you know, are the last
+thing one thinks about. Are you fond of hunting? The forest of Seillon
+is not a hundred yards off. Hunting to hounds you will have perforce to
+renounce, but we have good shooting. In the days of my old bogies, the
+Chartreuse monks, the woods swarmed with wild boars, hares and foxes.
+No one hunts there now, because it belongs to the government; and the
+government at present is nobody. In my capacity as General Bonaparte's
+aide-de-camp I'll fill the vacancy, and we'll see who dares meddle with
+me, if, after chasing the Austrians on the Adige and the Mamelukes
+on the Nile, I hunt the boars and deer and the hares and foxes on
+the Reissouse. One day of archeology, one day of fishing, and one of
+hunting, that's three already. You see, my dear fellow, we have only
+fifteen or sixteen left to worry about."
+
+"My dear Roland," said Sir John sadly, and without replying to the young
+officer's wordy sally, "won't you ever tell me about this fever which
+sears you, this sorrow which undermines you?"
+
+"Ah!" said Roland, with his harsh, doleful laugh. "I have never been
+gayer than I am this morning; it's your liver, my lord, that is out of
+order and makes you see everything black."
+
+"Some day I hope to be really your friend," replied Sir John seriously;
+"then you will confide in me, and I shall help you to bear your burden."
+
+"And half my aneurism!--Are you hungry, my lord?"
+
+"Why do you ask?"
+
+"Because I hear Edouard on the stairs, coming up to tell us that
+breakfast is ready."
+
+As Roland spoke, the door opened and the boy burst out: "Big brother
+Roland, mother and sister Amelie are waiting breakfast for Sir John and
+you."
+
+Then catching the Englishman's right hand, he carefully examined the
+first joint of the thumb and forefinger.
+
+"What are you looking at, my little friend?" asked Sir John.
+
+"I was looking to see if you had any ink on your fingers."
+
+"And if I had ink on my fingers, what would it mean?"
+
+"That you had written to England, and sent for my pistols and sword."
+
+"No, I have not yet written," said Sir John; "but I will to-day."
+
+"You hear, big brother Roland? I'm to have my sword and my pistols in a
+fortnight!"
+
+And the boy, full of delight, offered his firm rosy cheek to Sir John,
+who kissed it as tenderly as a father would have done. Then they went to
+the dining-room where Madame de Montrevel and Amelie were awaiting them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII. PROVINCIAL PLEASURES
+
+That same day Roland put into execution part of his plans for his
+guest's amusement. He took Sir John to see the church of Brou.
+
+Those who have seen the charming little chapel of Brou know that it is
+known as one of the hundred marvels of the Renaissance; those who have
+not seen it must have often heard it said. Roland, who had counted on
+doing the honors of this historic gem to Sir John, and who had not seen
+it for the last seven or eight years, was much disappointed when, on
+arriving in front of the building, he found the niches of the saints
+empty and the carved figures of the portal decapitated.
+
+He asked for the sexton; people laughed in his face. There was no longer
+a sexton. He inquired to whom he should go for the keys. They replied
+that the captain of the gendarmerie had them. The captain was not far
+off, for the cloister adjoining the church had been converted into a
+barrack.
+
+Roland went up to the captain's room and made himself known as
+Bonaparte's aide-de-camp. The captain, with the placid obedience of a
+subaltern to his superior officer, gave him the keys and followed behind
+him. Sir John was waiting before the porch, admiring, in spite of the
+mutilation to which they had been subjected, the admirable details of
+the frontal.
+
+Roland opened the door and started back in astonishment. The church was
+literally stuffed with hay like a cannon charged to the muzzle.
+
+"What does this mean?" he asked the captain of the gendarmerie.
+
+"A precaution taken by the municipality."
+
+"A precaution taken by the municipality?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"For what?"
+
+"To save the church. They were going to demolish it; but the mayor
+issued a decree declaring that, in expiation of the false worship for
+which it had served, it should be used to store fodder."
+
+Roland burst out laughing, and, turning to Sir John, he said: "My
+dear Sir John, the church was well worth seeing, but I think what this
+gentleman has just told us is no less curious. You can always find--at
+Strasburg, Cologne, or Milan--churches or cathedrals to equal the chapel
+of Brou; but where will you find an administration idiotic enough to
+destroy such a masterpiece, and a mayor clever enough to turn it into a
+barn? A thousand thanks, captain. Here are your keys."
+
+"As I was saying at Avignon, the first time I had the pleasure of seeing
+you, my dear Roland," replied Sir John, "the French are a most amusing
+people."
+
+"This time, my lord, you are too polite," replied Roland. "Idiotic is
+the word. Listen. I can understand the political cataclysms which have
+convulsed society for the last thousand years; I can understand the
+communes, the pastorals, the Jacquerie, the maillotins, the Saint
+Bartholomew, the League, the Fronde, the dragonnades, the Revolution; I
+can understand the 14th of July, the 5th and 6th of October, the 20th
+of June, the 10th of August, the 2d and 3d of September, the 21st of
+January, the 31st of May, the 30th of October, and the 9th Thermidor; I
+can understand the egregious torch of civil wars, which inflames instead
+of soothing the blood; I can understand the tidal wave of revolution,
+sweeping on with its flux, that nothing can arrest, and its reflux,
+which carries with it the ruins of the institution which it has itself
+shattered. I can understand all that, but lance against lance, sword
+against sword, men against men, a people against a people! I can
+understand the deadly rage of the victors, the sanguinary reaction of
+the vanquished, the political volcanoes which rumble in the bowels of
+the globe, shake the earth, topple over thrones, upset monarchies, and
+roll heads and crowns on the scaffold. But what I cannot understand is
+this mutilation of the granite, this placing of monuments beyond the
+pale of the law, the destruction of inanimate things, which belong
+neither to those who destroy them nor to the epoch in which they are
+destroyed; this pillage of the gigantic library where the antiquarian
+can read the archeological history of a country. Oh! the vandals, the
+barbarians! Worse than that, the idiots! who revenge the Borgia crimes
+and the debauches of Louis XV. on stone. How well those Pharaohs, Menaes,
+and Cheops knew man as the most perversive, destructive and evil of
+animals! They who built their pyramids, not with carved traceries, nor
+lacy spires, but with solid blocks of granite fifty feet square! How
+they must have laughed in the depths of those sepulchres as they watched
+Time dull its scythe and pashas wear out their nails in vain against
+them. Let us build pyramids, my dear Sir John. They are not difficult as
+architecture, nor beautiful as art, but they are solid; and that enables
+a general to say four thousand years later: 'Soldiers, from the apex of
+these monuments forty centuries are watching you!' On my honor, my lord,
+I long to meet a windmill this moment that I might tilt against it."
+
+And Roland, bursting into his accustomed laugh, dragged Sir John in the
+direction of the chateau. But Sir John stopped him and asked: "Is there
+nothing else to see in the city except the church?"
+
+"Formerly, my lord," replied Roland, "before they made a hay-loft of
+it, I should have asked you to come down with me into the vaults of
+the Dukes of Savoy. We could have hunted for that subterranean passage,
+nearly three miles long, which is said to exist there, and which,
+according to these rumors, communicates with the grotto of Ceyzeriat.
+Please observe, I should never offer such a pleasure trip except to an
+Englishman; it would have been like a scene from your celebrated Anne
+Radcliffe in the 'Mysteries of Udolpho.' But, as you see, that is
+impossible, so we will have to be satisfied with our regrets. Come."
+
+"Where are we going?"
+
+"Faith, I don't know. Ten years ago I should have taken you to the farms
+where they fatten pullets. The pullets of Bresse, you must know, have a
+European reputation. Bourg was an annex to the great coop of Strasburg.
+But during the Terror, as you can readily imagine, these fatteners of
+poultry shut up shop. You earned the reputation of being an aristocrat
+if you ate a pullet, and you know the fraternal refrain: 'Ah, ca ira, ca
+ira--the aristocrats to the lantern!' After Robespierre's downfall
+they opened up again; but since the 18th of Fructidor, France has been
+commanded to fast, from fowls and all. Never mind; come on, anyway.
+In default of pullets, I can show you one thing, the square where
+they executed those who ate them. But since I was last in the town the
+streets have changed their names. I know the way, but I don't know the
+names."
+
+"Look here!" demanded Sir John; "aren't you a Republican?"
+
+"I not a Republican? Come, come! Quite to the contrary. I consider
+myself an excellent Republican. I am quite capable of burning off my
+hand, like Mucius Scaevola, or jumping into the gulf like Curtius to save
+the Republic; but I have, unluckily, a keen sense of the ridiculous.
+In spite of myself, the absurdity of things catches me in the side and
+tickles me till I nearly die of laughing. I am willing to accept the
+Constitution of 1791; but when poor Herault de Sechelles wrote to the
+superintendent of the National Library to send him a copy of the laws
+of Minos, so that he could model his constitution on that of the Isle
+of Crete, I thought it was going rather far, and that we might very well
+have been content with those of Lycurgus. I find January, February, and
+March, mythological as they were, quite as good as Nivose, Pluviose,
+and Ventose. I can't understand why, when one was called Antoine or
+Chrystomome in 1789, he should be called Brutus or Cassius in 1793.
+Here, for example, my lord, is an honest street, which was called
+the Rue des Halles (Market Street). There was nothing indecent or
+aristocratic about that, was there? Well, now it is called--Just wait
+(Roland read the inscription). Well, now it is called the Rue de la
+Revolution. Here's another, which used to be called Notre Dame; it is
+now the Rue du Temple. Why Rue du Temple? Probably to perpetuate the
+memory of that place where the infamous Simon tried to teach cobbling to
+the heir of sixty-three kings. Don't quarrel with me if I am mistaken by
+one or two! Now here's a third; it was named Crevecoeur, a name famous
+throughout Bresse, Burgundy and Flanders. It is now the Rue de la
+Federation. Federation is a fine thing, but Crevecoeur was a fine name.
+And then you see to-day it leads straight to the Place de la Guillotine,
+which is, in my opinion, all wrong. I don't want any streets that lead
+to such places. This one has its advantages; it is only about a hundred
+feet from the prison, which economized and still economizes the tumbrel
+and the horse of M. de Bourg. By the way, have you noticed that the
+executioner remains noble and keeps his title? For the rest, the square
+is excellently arranged for spectators, and my ancestor, Montrevel,
+whose name it bears, doubtless, foreseeing its ultimate destiny, solved
+the great problem, still unsolved by the theatres, of being able to see
+well from every nook and corner. If ever they cut off my head, which,
+considering the times in which we are living, would in no wise be
+surprising, I shall have but one regret: that of being less well-placed
+and seeing less than the others. Now let us go up these steps. Here we
+are in the Place des Lices. Our Revolutionists left it its name, because
+in all probability they don't know what it means. I don't know
+much better than they, but I think I remember that a certain Sieur
+d'Estavayer challenged some Flemish count--I don't know who--and that
+the combat took place in this square. Now, my dear fellow, here is the
+prison, which ought to give you some idea of human vicissitudes. Gil
+Blas didn't change his condition more often than this monument its
+purposes. Before Caesar it was a Gaelic temple; Caesar converted it into a
+Roman fortress; an unknown architect transformed it into a military work
+during the Middle Ages; the Knights of Baye, following Caesar's
+example, re-made it into a fortress; the princes of Savoy used it for a
+residence; the aunt of Charles V. lived here when she came to visit her
+church at Brou, which she never had the satisfaction of seeing finished.
+Finally, after the treaty of Lyons, when Bresse was returned to France,
+it was utilized both as a prison and a court-house. Wait for me a
+moment, my lord, if you dislike the squeaking of hinges and the grating
+of bolts. I have a visit to pay to a certain cell."
+
+"The grating of bolts and the squeaking of hinges is not a very
+enlivening sound, but no matter. Since you were kind enough to undertake
+my education, show me your dungeon."
+
+"Very well, then. Come in quickly. I see a crowd of persons who look as
+if they want to speak to me."
+
+In fact, little by little, a sort of rumor seemed to spread throughout
+the town. People emerged from the houses, forming groups in the streets,
+and they all watched Roland with curiosity. He rang the bell of the
+gate, situated then where it is now, but opening into the prison yard. A
+jailer opened it for them.
+
+"Ah, ah! so you are still here, Father Courtois?" asked the young man.
+Then, turning to Sir John, he added: "A fine name for a jailer, isn't
+it, my lord?"
+
+The jailer looked at the young man in amazement.
+
+"How is it," he asked through the grating, "that you know my name, when
+I don't know yours?"
+
+"Good! I not only know your name, but also your opinions. You are an old
+royalist, Pere Courtois."
+
+"Monsieur," said the jailer, terrified, "don't make bad jokes if you
+please, and say what you want."
+
+"Well, my good Father Courtois, I would like to visit the cell where
+they put my mother and sister, Madame and Mademoiselle Montrevel."
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed the gatekeeper, "so it's you, M. Louis? You may well say
+that I know you. What a fine, handsome young man you've grown to be!"
+
+"Do you think so, Father Courtois? Well, I can return the compliment.
+Your daughter Charlotte is, on my word, a beautiful girl. Charlotte is
+my sister's maid, Sir John."
+
+"And she is very happy over it. She is better off there than here, M.
+Roland. Is it true that you are General Bonaparte's aide-de-camp?"
+
+"Alas! I have that honor, Courtois. You would prefer me to be Comte
+d'Artois's aide-de-camp, or that of M. le Duc of Angouleme?"
+
+"Oh, do be quiet, M. Louis!" Then putting his lips to the young man's
+ear, "Tell me, is it true?"
+
+"What, Father Courtois?"
+
+"That General Bonaparte passed through Lyons yesterday?"
+
+"There must be some truth in the rumor, for this is the second time
+that I have heard it. Ah! I understand now. These good people who were
+watching me so curiously apparently wanted to question me. They were
+like you, Father Courtois: they want to know what to make of General
+Bonaparte's arrival."
+
+"Do you know what they say, M. Louis?"
+
+"Still another rumor, Father Courtois?"
+
+"I should think so, but they only whisper it."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"They say that he has come to demand the throne of his Majesty Louis
+XVIII. from the Directory and the king's return to it; and that if
+Citizen Gohier as president doesn't give it up of his own accord he will
+take it by force."
+
+"Pooh!" exclaimed the young officer with an incredulous air bordering on
+irony. But Father Courtois insisted on his news with an affirmative nod.
+
+"Possibly," said the young man; "but as for that, it's news for me. And
+now that you know me, will you open the gate?"
+
+"Of course I will. I should think so. What the devil am I about?"
+and the jailer opened the gate with an eagerness equalling his former
+reluctance. The young man entered, and Sir John followed him. The jailer
+locked the gate carefully, then he turned, followed by Roland and the
+Englishman in turn. The latter was beginning to get accustomed to
+his young friend's erratic character. The spleen he saw in Roland was
+misanthropy, without the sulkiness of Timon or the wit of Alceste.
+
+The jailer crossed the yard, which was separated from the law courts
+by a wall fifteen feet high, with an opening let into the middle of
+the receding wall, closed by a massive oaken door, to admit prisoners
+without taking them round by the street. The jailer, we say, crossed the
+yard to a winding stairway in the left angle of the courtyard which led
+to the interior of the prison.
+
+If we insist upon these details, it is because we shall be obliged to
+return to this spot later, and we do not wish it to be wholly unfamiliar
+to our readers when that time comes.
+
+These steps led first to the ante-chamber of the prison, that is to say
+to the porter's hall of the lower court-room. From that hall ten steps
+led down into an inner court, separated from a third, which was that of
+the prisoners, by a wall similar to the one we have described, only this
+one had three doors. At the further end of the courtyard a passage led
+to the jailer's own room, which gave into a second passage, on which
+were the cells which were picturesquely styled cages. The jailer paused
+before the first of these cages and said, striking the door:
+
+"This is where I put madame, your mother, and your sister, so that if
+the dear ladies wanted either Charlotte or myself, they need but knock."
+
+"Is there any one in the cell?"
+
+"No one"
+
+"Then please open the door. My friend, Lord Tanlay, is a philanthropic
+Englishman who is travelling about to see if the French prisons are more
+comfortable than the English ones. Enter, Sir John."
+
+Pere Courtois having opened the door, Roland pushed Sir John into a
+perfectly square cell measuring ten or twelve feet each way.
+
+"Oh, oh!" exclaimed Sir John, "this is lugubrious."
+
+"Do you think so? Well, my dear friend, this is where my mother, the
+noblest woman in the world, and my sister, whom you know, spent six
+weeks with a prospect of leaving it only to make the trip to the Place
+de Bastion. Just think, that was five years ago, so my sister was
+scarcely twelve."
+
+"But what crime had they committed?"
+
+"Oh! a monstrous crime. At the anniversary festival with which the town
+of Bourg considered proper to commemorate the death of the 'Friend of
+the People,' my mother refused to permit my sister to represent one of
+the virgins who bore the tears of France in vases. What will you! Poor
+woman, she thought she had done enough for her country in giving it
+the blood of her son and her husband, which was flowing in Italy and
+Germany. She was mistaken. Her country, as it seems, claimed further the
+tears of her daughter. She thought that too much, especially as those
+tears were to flow for the citizen Marat. The result was that on the
+very evening of the celebration, during the enthusiastic exaltation,
+my mother was declared accused. Fortunately Bourg had not attained the
+celerity of Paris. A friend of ours, an official in the record-office,
+kept the affair dragging, until one fine day the fall and death of
+Robespierre were made known. That interrupted a good many things, among
+others the guillotinades. Our friend convinced the authorities that the
+wind blowing from Paris had veered toward clemency; they waited fifteen
+days, and on the sixteenth they told my mother and sister that they were
+free. So you understand, my friend--and this involves the most profound
+philosophical reflection--so that if Mademoiselle Teresa Cabarrus had
+not come from Spain, if she had not married M. Fontenay, parliamentary
+counsellor; had she not been arrested and brought before the pro-consul
+Tallien, son of the Marquis de Bercy's butler, ex-notary's clerk,
+ex-foreman of a printing-shop, ex-porter, ex-secretary to the Commune
+of Paris temporarily at Bordeaux; and had the ex-pro-consul not become
+enamored of her, and had she not been imprisoned, and if on the ninth
+of Thermidor she had not found means to send a dagger with these words:
+'Unless the tyrant dies to-day, I die to-morrow'; had not Saint-Just
+been arrested in the midst of his discourse; had not Robespierre, on
+that day, had a frog in his throat; had not Garnier de l'Aube exclaimed:
+'It is the blood of Danton choking you!' had not Louchet shouted for his
+arrest; had he not been arrested, released by the Commune, recaptured
+in spite of this, had his jaw broken by a pistol shot, and been executed
+next day--my mother would, in all probability, have had her head cut off
+for refusing to allow her daughter to weep for citizen Marat in one of
+the twelve lachrymal urns which Bourg was desirous of filling with its
+tears. Good-by, Courtois. You are a worthy man. You gave my mother and
+sister a little water to put with their wine, a little meat to eat with
+their bread, a little hope to fill their hearts; you lent them your
+daughter that they might not have to sweep their cell themselves. That
+deserves a fortune. Unfortunately I am not rich; but here are fifty
+louis I happen to have with me. Come, my lord."
+
+And the young man carried off Sir John before the jailer, recovered from
+his surprise and found time either to thank Roland or refuse the fifty
+louis; which, it must be said, would have been a remarkable proof of
+disinterestedness in a jailer, especially when that jailer's opinions
+were opposed to those of the government he served.
+
+Leaving the prison, Roland and Sir John found the Place des Lices
+crowded with people who had heard of General Bonaparte's return
+to France, and were shouting "Vive Bonaparte!" at the top of their
+lungs--some because they really admired the victor of Arcola, Rivoli,
+and the Pyramids, others because they had been told, like Pere Courtois,
+that this same victor had vanquished only that Louis XVIII. might profit
+by his victories.
+
+Roland and Sir John, having now visited all that the town of Bourg
+offered of interest, returned to the Chateau des Noires-Fontaines, which
+they reached before long. Madame de Montrevel and Amelie had gone out.
+Roland installed Sir John in an easy chair, asking him to wait a few
+minutes for him. At the end of five minutes he returned with a sort of
+pamphlet of gray paper, very badly printed, in his hand.
+
+"My dear fellow," said he, "you seemed to have some doubts about the
+authenticity of that festival which I just mentioned, and which nearly
+cost my mother and sister their lives, so I bring you the programme.
+Read it, and while you are doing so I will go and see what they have
+been doing with my dogs; for I presume that you would rather hold me
+quit of our fishing expedition in favor of a hunt."
+
+He went out, leaving in Sir John's hands a copy of the decree of the
+municipality of the town of Bourg, instituting the funeral rites in
+honor of Marat, on the anniversary of his death.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII. THE WILD-BOAR
+
+Sir John was just finishing that interesting bit of history when Madame
+de Montrevel and her daughter returned. Amelie, who did not know how
+much had been said about her between Roland and Sir John, was astounded
+by the expression with which that gentleman scrutinized her.
+
+To him she seemed more lovely than before. He could readily understand
+that mother, who at the risk of life had been unwilling that this
+charming creature should profane her youth and beauty by serving as a
+mourner in a celebration of which Marat was the deity. He recalled that
+cold damp cell which he had lately visited, and shuddered at the thought
+that this delicate white ermine before his eyes had been imprisoned
+there, without sun or air, for six weeks. He looked at the throat,
+too long perhaps, but swan-like in its suppleness and graceful in its
+exaggeration, and he remembered that melancholy remark of the poor
+Princesse de Lamballe, as she felt her slender neck: "It will not give
+the executioner much trouble!"
+
+The thoughts which succeeded each other in Sir John's mind gave to his
+face an expression so different from its customary aspect, that Madame
+de Montrevel could not refrain from asking what troubled him. He then
+told her of his visit to the prison, and Roland's pious pilgrimage to
+the dungeon where his mother and sister had been incarcerated. Just
+as Sir John had concluded his tale, a view-halloo sounded without, and
+Roland entered, his hunting-horn in his hands.
+
+"My dear friend," he cried, "thanks to my mother, we shall have a
+splendid hunt to-morrow."
+
+"Thanks to me?" queried Madame de Montrevel.
+
+"How so?" added Sir John.
+
+"I left you to see about my dogs, didn't I?"
+
+"You said so, at any rate."
+
+"I had two excellent beasts, Barbichon and Ravaude, male and female."
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Sir John, "are they dead?"
+
+"Well, yes; but just guess what this excellent mother of mine has done?"
+and, tilting Madame de Montrevel's head, he kissed her on both cheeks.
+"She wouldn't let them drown a single puppy because they were the dogs
+of my dogs; so the result is, that to-day the pups, grand-pups, and
+great-grand-pups of Barbichon and Ravaude are as numerous as the
+descendant of Ishmael. Instead of a pair of dogs, I have a whole pack,
+twenty-five beasts, all as black as moles with white paws, fire in their
+eyes and hearts, and a regiment of cornet-tails that would do you good
+to see."
+
+And Roland sounded another halloo that brought his young brother to the
+scene.
+
+"Oh!" shouted the boy as he entered, "you are going hunting to-morrow,
+brother Roland. I'm going, too, I'm going, too!"
+
+"Good!" said Roland, "but do you know what we are going to hunt?"
+
+"No. All I know is that I'm going, too."
+
+"We're going to hunt a boar."
+
+"Oh, joy!" cried the boy, clapping his little hands.
+
+"Are you crazy?" asked Madame de Montrevel, turning pale.
+
+"Why so, madame mother, if you please?"
+
+"Because boar hunts are very dangerous."
+
+"Not so dangerous as hunting men. My brother got back safe from that,
+and so will I from the other."
+
+"Roland," cried Madame de Montrevel, while Amelie, lost in thought, took
+no part in the discussion, "Roland, make Edouard listen to reason. Tell
+him that he hasn't got common-sense."
+
+But Roland, who recognized himself again in his young brother, instead
+of blaming him, smiled at his boyish ardor. "I'd take you willingly,"
+said he, "only to go hunting one must at least know how to handle a
+gun."
+
+"Oh, Master Roland," cried Edouard, "just come into the garden a bit.
+Put up your hat at a hundred yards, and I'll show you how to handle a
+gun."
+
+"Naughty child," exclaimed Madame de Montrevel, trembling, "where did
+you learn?"
+
+"Why, from the gunsmith at Montagnac, who keeps papa's and Roland's
+guns. You ask me sometimes what I do with my money, don't you? Well, I
+buy powder and balls with it, and I am learning to kill Austrians and
+Arabs like my brother Roland."
+
+Madame de Montrevel raised her hands to heaven.
+
+"What can you expect, mother?" asked Roland. "Blood will tell. No
+Montrevel could be afraid of powder. You shall come with us to-morrow,
+Edouard."
+
+The boy sprang upon his brother's neck.
+
+"And I," said Sir John, "will equip you to-day like a regular huntsman,
+just as they used to arm the knights of old. I have a charming little
+rifle that I will give you. It will keep you contented until your sabre
+and pistols come."
+
+"Well," asked Roland, "are you satisfied now, Edouard?"
+
+"Yes; but when will he give it to me? If you have to write to England
+for it, I warn you I shan't believe in it."
+
+"No, my little friend, we have only to go up to my room and open my
+gun-case. That's soon done."
+
+"Then, let's go at once."
+
+"Come on," said Sir John; and he went out, followed by Edouard.
+
+A moment later, Amelie, still absorbed in thought, rose and left the
+room. Neither Madame de Montrevel nor Roland noticed her departure, so
+interested were they in a serious discussion. Madame de Montrevel
+tried to persuade Roland not to take his young brother with him on the
+morrow's hunt. Roland explained that, since Edouard was to become a
+soldier like his father and brother, the sooner he learned to handle a
+gun and become familiar with powder and ball the better. The discussion
+was not yet ended when Edouard returned with his gun slung over his
+shoulder.
+
+"Look, brother," said he, turning to Roland; "just see what a fine
+present Sir John has given me." And he looked gratefully at Sir John,
+who stood in the doorway vainly seeking Amelie with his eyes.
+
+It was in truth a beautiful present. The rifle, designed with that
+plainness of ornament and simplicity of form peculiar to English
+weapons, was of the finest finish. Like the pistols, of which Roland
+had had opportunity to test the accuracy, the rifle was made by the
+celebrated Manton, and carried a twenty-four calibre bullet. That it had
+been originally intended for a woman was easily seen by the shortness
+of the stock and the velvet pad on the trigger. This original purpose of
+the weapon made it peculiarly suitable for a boy of twelve.
+
+Roland took the rifle from his brother's shoulder, looked at it
+knowingly, tried its action, sighted it, tossed it from one hand to the
+other, and then, giving it back to Edouard, said: "Thank Sir John again.
+You have a rifle fit for a king's son. Let's go and try it."
+
+All three went out to try Sir John's rifle, leaving Madame de Montrevel
+as sad as Thetis when she saw Achilles in his woman's garb draw the
+sword of Ulysses from its scabbard.
+
+A quarter of an hour later, Edouard returned triumphantly. He brought
+his mother a bit of pasteboard of the circumference of a hat, in which
+he had put ten bullets out of twelve. The two men had remained behind in
+the park conversing.
+
+Madame de Montrevel listened to Edouard's slightly boastful account of
+his prowess. Then she looked at him with that deep and holy sorrow of
+mothers to whom fame is no compensation for the blood it sheds. Oh!
+ungrateful indeed is the child who has seen that look bent upon him
+and does not eternally remember it. Then, after a few seconds of this
+painful contemplation, she pressed her second son to her breast, and
+murmured sobbing: "You, too! you, too, will desert your mother some
+day."
+
+"Yes, mother," replied the boy, "to become a general like my father, or
+an aide-de-camp like Roland."
+
+"And to be killed as your father was, as your brother perhaps will be."
+
+For the strange transformation in Roland's character had not escaped
+Madame de Montrevel. It was but an added dread to her other anxieties,
+among which Amelie's pallor and abstraction must be numbered.
+
+Amelie was just seventeen; her childhood had been that of a happy
+laughing girl, joyous and healthy. The death of her father had cast a
+black veil over her youth and gayety. But these tempests of spring pass
+rapidly. Her smile, the sunshine of life's dawn, returned like that of
+Nature, sparkling through that dew of the heart we call tears.
+
+Then, one day about six months before this story opens, Amelie's face
+had saddened, her cheeks had grown pale, and, like the birds who migrate
+at the approach of wintry weather, the childlike laughter that escaped
+her parted lips and white teeth had fled never to return.
+
+Madame de Montrevel had questioned her, but Amelie asserted that she was
+still the same. She endeavored to smile, but as a stone thrown into
+a lake rings upon the surface, so the smiles roused by this maternal
+solicitude faded, little by little, from Amelie's face. With keen
+maternal instinct Madame de Montrevel had thought of love. But
+whom could Amelie love? There were no visitors at the Chateau des
+Noires-Fontaines, the political troubles had put an end to all society,
+and Amelie went nowhere alone. Madame de Montrevel could get no further
+than conjecture. Roland's return had given her a moment's hope; but
+this hope fled as soon as she perceived the effect which this event had
+produced upon Amelie.
+
+It was not a sister, but a spectre, it will be recalled, who had come
+to meet him. Since her son's arrival, Madame de Montrevel had not
+lost sight of Amelie, and she perceived, with dolorous amazement, that
+Roland's presence awakened a feeling akin to terror in his sister's
+breast. She, whose eyes had formerly rested so lovingly upon him, now
+seemed to view him with alarm. Only a few moments since, Amelie had
+profited by the first opportunity to return to her room, the one spot in
+the chateau where she seemed at ease, and where for the last six months
+she had spent most of her time. The dinner-bell alone possessed the
+power to bring her from it, and even then she waited for the second call
+before entering the dining-room.
+
+Roland and Sir John, as we have said, had divided their time between
+their visit to Bourg and their preparations for the morrow's hunt. From
+morn until noon they were to beat the woods; from noon till evening they
+were to hunt the boar. Michel, that devoted poacher, confined to his
+chair for the present with a sprain, felt better as soon as the question
+of the hunt was mooted, and had himself hoisted on a little horse that
+was used for the errands of the house. Then he sallied forth to collect
+the beaters from Saint-Just and Montagnac. He, being unable to beat
+or run, was to remain with the pack, and watch Sir John's and Roland's
+horse, and Edouard's pony, in the middle of the forest, where it was
+intersected by one good road and two practicable paths. The beaters,
+who could not follow the hunt, were to return to the chateau with the
+game-bags.
+
+The beaters were at the door at six the following morning. Michel was
+not to leave with the horses and dogs until eleven. The Chateau des
+Noires-Fontaines was just at the edge of the forest of Seillon, so the
+hunt could begin at its very gates.
+
+As the battue promised chiefly deer and hares, the guns were loaded with
+balls. Roland gave Edouard a simple little gun which he himself had used
+as a child. He had not enough confidence as yet in the boy's prudence
+to trust him with a double-barrelled gun. As for the rifle that Sir John
+had given him the day before, it could only carry cartridges. It was
+given into Michel's safe keeping, to be returned to him in case they
+started a boar for the second part of the hunt. For this Roland and
+Sir John were also to change their guns for rifles and hunting knives,
+pointed as daggers and sharp as razors, which formed part of Sir John's
+arsenal, and could be suspended from the belt or screwed on the point of
+the gun like bayonets.
+
+From the beginning of the battue it was easy to see that the hunt would
+be a good one. A roebuck and two hares were killed at once. At noon two
+does, seven roebucks and two foxes had been bagged. They had also seen
+two boars, but these latter had only shaken their bristles in answer to
+the heavy balls and made off.
+
+Edouard was in the seventh heaven; he had killed a roebuck. The beaters,
+well rewarded for their labor, were sent to the chateau with the game,
+as had been arranged. A sort of bugle was sounded to ascertain Michel's
+whereabout, to which he answered. In less than ten minutes the three
+hunters had rejoined the gardener with his hounds and horses.
+
+Michel had seen a boar which he had sent his son to head off, and it was
+now in the woods not a hundred paces distant. Jacques, Michel's eldest
+son, beat up the woods with Barbichon and Ravaude, the heads of the
+pack, and in about five minutes the boar was found in his lair. They
+could have killed him at once, or at least shot at him, but that would
+have ended the hunt too quickly. The huntsmen launched the whole pack
+at the animal, which, seeing this troop of pygmies swoop down upon
+him, started off at a slow trot. He crossed the road, Roland giving the
+view-halloo, and headed in the direction of the Chartreuse of Seillon,
+the three riders following the path which led through the woods. The
+boar led them a chase which lasted until five in the afternoon, turning
+upon his tracks, evidently unwilling to leave the forest with its thick
+undergrowth.
+
+At last the violent barking of the dogs warned them that the animal had
+been brought to bay. The spot was not a hundred paces distant from
+the pavilion belonging to the Chartreuse, in one of the most tangled
+thickets of the forest. It was impossible to force the horses through
+it, and the riders dismounted. The barking of the dogs guided them
+straight along the path, from which they deviated only where the
+obstacles they encountered rendered it necessary.
+
+From time to time yelps of pain indicated that members of the attacking
+party had ventured too close to the animal, and had paid the price of
+their temerity. About twenty feet from the scene of action the hunters
+began to see the actors. The boar was backed against a rock to avoid
+attack in the rear; then, bracing himself on his forepaws, he faced the
+dogs with his ensanguined eyes and enormous tusks. They quivered around
+him like a moving carpet; five or six, more or less badly wounded, were
+staining the battlefield with their blood, though still attacking the
+boar with a fury and courage that might have served as an example to the
+bravest men.
+
+Each hunter faced the scene with the characteristic signs of his age,
+nature and nation. Edouard, at one and the same time, the most imprudent
+and the smallest, finding the path less difficult, owing to his small,
+stature, arrived first. Roland, heedless of danger of any kind, seeking
+rather than avoiding it, followed. Finally Sir John, slower, graver,
+more reflective, brought up the rear. Once the boar perceived his
+hunters he paid no further attention to the dogs. He fixed his gleaming,
+sanguinary eyes upon them; but his only movement was a snapping of the
+jaws, which he brought together with a threatening sound. Roland watched
+the scene for an instant, evidently desirous of flinging himself into
+the midst of the group, knife in hand, to slit the boar's throat as a
+butcher would that of a calf or a pig. This impulse was so apparent that
+Sir John caught his arm, and little Edouard exclaimed: "Oh! brother, let
+me shoot the boar!"
+
+Roland restrained himself, and stacking his gun against a tree, waited,
+armed only with his hunting-knife, which he had drawn from its sheath.
+
+"Very well," said he, "shoot him; but be careful about it."
+
+"Oh! don't worry," retorted the child, between his set teeth. His
+face was pale but resolute as he aimed the barrel of his rifle at the
+animal's head.
+
+"If he misses him, or only wounds him," observed Sir John, "you know
+that the brute will be upon us before we can see him through the smoke."
+
+"I know it, my lord; but I am accustomed to these hunts," replied
+Roland, his nostrils quivering, his eyes sparkling, his lips parted:
+"Fire, Edouard!"
+
+The shot followed the order upon the instant; but after the shot, with,
+or even before it, the beast, swift as lightning, rushed upon the child.
+A second shot followed the first, but the animal's scarlet eyes still
+gleamed through the smoke. But, as it rushed, it met Roland with his
+knee on the ground, the knife in his hand. A moment later a tangled,
+formless group, man and boar, boar and man, was rolling on the ground.
+Then a third shot rang out, followed by a laugh from Roland.
+
+"Ah! my lord," cried the young man, "you've wasted powder and shot.
+Can't you see that I have ripped him up? Only get his body off of me.
+The beast weighs at least four hundred pounds, and he is smothering me."
+
+But before Sir John could stoop, Roland, with a vigorous push of the
+shoulder, rolled the animal's body aside, and rose to his feet covered
+with blood, but without a single scratch. Little Edouard, either from
+lack of time or from native courage, had not recoiled an inch. True, he
+was completely protected by his brother's body, which was between him
+and the boar. Sir John had sprung aside to take the animal in the flank.
+He watched Roland, as he emerged from this second duel, with the same
+amazement that he had experienced after the first.
+
+The dogs--those that were left, some twenty in all--had followed the
+boar, and were now leaping upon his body in the vain effort to tear the
+bristles, which were almost as impenetrable as iron.
+
+"You will see," said Roland, wiping the blood from his face and hands
+with a fine cambric handkerchief, "how they will eat him, and your knife
+too, my lord."
+
+"True," said Sir John; "where is the knife?"
+
+"In its sheath," replied Roland.
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed the boy, "only the handle shows."
+
+He sprang toward the animal and pulled out the poniard, which, as he
+said, was buried up to the hilt. The sharp point, guided by a calm eye
+and a firm hand, had pierced the animal's heart.
+
+There were other wounds on the boar's body. The first, caused by the
+boy's shot, showed a bloody furrow just over the eye; the blow had been
+too weak to crush the frontal bone. The second came from Sir John's
+first shot; it had caught the animal diagonally and grazed his breast.
+The third, fired at close quarters, went through the body; but, as
+Roland had said, not until after the animal was dead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV. AN UNPLEASANT COMMISSION
+
+The hunt was over, darkness was falling, and it was now a question of
+returning to the chateau. The horses were nearby; they could hear them
+neighing impatiently. They seemed to be asking if their courage was so
+doubted that they were not allowed to share in the exciting drama.
+
+Edouard was bent upon dragging the boar after them, fastening it to the
+saddle-bow, and so carrying it back to the chateau; but Roland pointed
+out that it was simpler to send a couple of men for it with a barrow.
+Sir John being of the same opinion, Edouard--who never ceased pointing
+to the wound in the head, and saying, "That's my shot; that's where I
+aimed"--Edouard, we say, was forced to yield to the majority. The three
+hunters soon reached the spot where their horses were tethered, mounted,
+and in less than ten minutes were at the Chateau des Noires-Fontaines.
+
+Madame de Montrevel was watching for them on the portico. The poor
+mother had waited there nearly an hour, trembling lest an accident had
+befallen one or the other of her sons. The moment Edouard espied her he
+put his pony to a gallop, shouting from the gate: "Mother, mother! We
+killed a boar as big as a donkey. I shot him in the head; you'll see the
+hole my ball, made; Roland stuck his hunting knife into the boar's belly
+up to the hilt, and Sir John fired at him twice. Quick, quick! Send the
+men for the carcass. Don't be frightened when you see Roland. He's all
+covered with blood--but it's from the boar, and he hasn't a scratch."
+
+This was delivered with Edouard's accustomed volubility while Madame de
+Montrevel was crossing the clearing between the portico and the road to
+open the gate. She intended to take Edouard in her arms, but he jumped
+from his saddle and flung himself upon her neck. Roland and Sir John
+came up just then, and Amelie appeared on the portico at the same
+instant.
+
+Edouard left his mother to worry over Roland, who, covered as he was
+with blood, looked very terrifying, and rushed to his sister with the
+tale he had rattled off to his mother. Amelie listened in an abstracted
+manner that probably hurt Edouard's vanity, for he dashed off to the
+kitchen to describe the affair to Michel, who was certain to listen to
+him.
+
+Michel was indeed interested; but when, after telling him where the
+carcass lay, Edouard gave him Roland's order to send a couple of men
+after the beast, he shook his head.
+
+"What!" demanded Edouard, "are you going to refuse to obey my brother?"
+
+"Heaven forbid! Master Edouard. Jacques shall start this instant for
+Montagnac."
+
+"Are you afraid he won't find any body?"
+
+"Goodness, no; he could get a dozen. But the trouble is the time of
+night. You say the boar lies close to the pavilion of the Chartreuse?"
+
+"Not twenty yards from it."
+
+"I'd rather it was three miles," replied Michel scratching his head;
+"but never mind. I'll send for them anyway without telling them what
+they're wanted for. Once here, it's for your brother to make them go."
+
+"Good! Good! Only get them here and I'll see to that myself."
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Michel, "if I hadn't this beastly sprain I'd go myself.
+But to-day's doings have made it worse. Jacques! Jacques!"
+
+Jacques came, and Edouard not only waited to hear the order given, but
+until he had started. Then he ran upstairs to do what Roland and Sir
+John were already doing, that is, dress for dinner.
+
+The whole talk at table, as may be easily imagined, centred upon the
+day's prowess. Edouard asked nothing better than to talk about it, and
+Sir John, astounded by Roland's skill, courage, and good luck, improved
+upon the child's narrative. Madame de Montrevel shuddered at each
+detail, and yet she made them repeat it twenty times. That which seemed
+most clear to her in all this was that Roland had saved Edouard's life.
+
+"Did you thank him for it?" she asked the boy. "Thank whom?"
+
+"Your brother."
+
+"Why should I thank him?" retorted Edouard. "I should have done the same
+thing."
+
+"Ah, madame, what can you expect!" said Sir John; "you are a gazelle who
+has unwittingly given birth to a race of lions."
+
+Amelie had also paid the closest attention to the account, especially
+when the hunters spoke of their proximity to the Chartreuse. From that
+time on she listened with anxious eyes, and seemed scarcely to breathe,
+until they told of leaving the woods after the killing.
+
+After dinner, word was brought that Jacques had returned with two
+peasants from Montagnac. They wanted exact directions as to where the
+hunters had left the animal. Roland rose, intending to go to them, but
+Madame de Montrevel, who could never see enough of her son, turned
+to the messenger and said: "Bring these worthy men in here. It is not
+necessary to disturb M. Roland for that."
+
+Five minutes later the two peasants entered, twirling their hats in
+their hands.
+
+"My sons," said Roland, "I want you to fetch the boar we killed in the
+forest of Seillon."
+
+"That can be done," said one of the peasants, consulting his companion
+with a look.
+
+"Yes, it can be done," answered the other.
+
+"Don't be alarmed," said Roland. "You shall lose nothing by your
+trouble."
+
+"Oh! we're not," interrupted one of the peasants. "We know you, Monsieur
+de Montrevel."
+
+"Yes," answered the other, "we know that, like your father, you're
+not in the habit of making people work for nothing. Oh! if all the
+aristocrats had been like you, Monsieur Louis, there wouldn't have been
+any revolution."
+
+"Of course not," said the other, who seemed to have come solely to echo
+affirmatively what his companion said.
+
+"It remains to be seen now where the animal is," said the first peasant.
+
+"Yes," repeated the second, "remains to be seen where it is."
+
+"Oh! it won't be hard to find."
+
+"So much the better," interjected the peasant.
+
+"Do you know the pavilion in the forest?"
+
+"Which one?"
+
+"Yes, which one?"
+
+"The one that belongs to the Chartreuse of Seillon."
+
+The peasants looked at each other.
+
+"Well, you'll find it some twenty feet distant from the front on the way
+to Genoud."
+
+The peasants looked at each other once more.
+
+"Hum!" grunted the first one.
+
+"Hum!" repeated the other, faithful echo of his companion.
+
+"Well, what does this 'hum' mean?" demanded Roland.
+
+"Confound it."
+
+"Come, explain yourselves. What's the matter?"
+
+"The matter is that we'd rather that it was the other end of the
+forest."
+
+"But why the other end?" retorted Roland, impatiently; "it's nine miles
+from here to the other end, and barely three from here to where we left
+the boar."
+
+"Yes," said the first peasant, "but just where the boar lies--" And he
+paused and scratched his head.
+
+"Exactly; that's what," added the other.
+
+"Just what?"
+
+"It's a little too near the Chartreuse."
+
+"Not the Chartreuse; I said the pavilion."
+
+"It's all the same. You know, Monsieur Louis, that there is an
+underground passage leading from the pavilion to the Chartreuse."
+
+"Oh, yes, there is one, that's sure," added the other.
+
+"But," exclaimed Roland, "what has this underground passage got to do
+with our boar?"
+
+"This much, that the beast's in a bad place, that's all."
+
+"Oh, yes! a bad place," repeated the other peasant.
+
+"Come, now, explain yourselves, you rascals," said Roland, who was
+growing angry, while his mother seemed uneasy, and Amelie visibly turned
+pale.
+
+"Beg pardon, Monsieur Louis," answered the peasant; "we are not rascals;
+we're God-fearing men, that's all."
+
+"By thunder," cried Roland, "I'm a God-fearing man myself. What of
+that?"
+
+"Well, we don't care to have any dealings with the devil."
+
+"No, no, no," asserted the second peasant.
+
+"A man can match a man if he's of his own kind," continued the first
+peasant.
+
+"Sometimes two," said the second, who was built like a Hercules.
+
+"But with ghostly beings phantoms, spectres--no thank you," continued
+the first peasant.
+
+"No, thank you," repeated the other.
+
+"Oh, mother, sister," queried Roland, addressing the two women, "in
+Heaven's name, do you understand anything of what these two fools are
+saying?"
+
+"Fools," repeated the first peasant; "well, possibly. But it's not the
+less true that Pierre Marey had his neck twisted just for looking over
+the wall. True, it was of a Saturday--the devil's sabbath."
+
+"And they couldn't straighten it out," affirmed the second peasant, "so
+they had to bury him with his face turned round looking the other way.
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Sir John, "this is growing interesting. I'm very fond of
+ghost stories."
+
+"That's more than sister Amelie is it seems," cried Edouard.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Just see how pale she's grown, brother Roland."
+
+"Yes, indeed," said Sir John; "mademoiselle looks as if she were going
+to faint."
+
+"I? Not at all," exclaimed Amelie, wiping the perspiration from her
+forehead; "only don't you think it seems a little warm here, mother?"
+
+"No," answered Madame de Montrevel.
+
+"Still," insisted Amelie, "if it would not annoy you, I should like to
+open the window."
+
+"Do so, my child."
+
+Amelie rose hastily to profit by this permission, and went with
+tottering steps to a window opening upon the garden. After it was
+opened, she stood leaning against the sill, half-hidden by the curtains.
+
+"Ah!" she said, "I can breathe here."
+
+Sir John rose to offer her his smelling-salts, but Amelie declined
+hastily: "No, no, my lord. Thank you, but I am better now."
+
+"Come, come," said Roland, "don't bother about that; it's our boar."
+
+"Well, Monsieur Louis, we will fetch your boar tomorrow."
+
+"That's it," said the second peasant, "to-morrow morning, when it's
+light."
+
+"But to go there at night--"
+
+"Oh! to go there at night--"
+
+The peasant looked at his comrade and both shook their heads.
+
+"It can't be done at night."
+
+"Cowards."
+
+"Monsieur Louis, a man's not a coward because he's afraid."
+
+"No, indeed; that's not being a coward," replied the other.
+
+"Ah!" said Roland, "I wish some stronger minded men than you would face
+me with that argument; that a man is not a coward because he's afraid!"
+
+"Well, it's according to what he's afraid of, Monsieur Louis. Give me a
+good sickle and a good cudgel, and I'm not afraid of a wolf; give me a
+good gun and I'm not afraid of any man, even if I knew he's waiting to
+murder me."
+
+"Yes," said Edouard, "but you're afraid of a ghost, even when it's only
+the ghost of a monk."
+
+"Little Master Edouard," said the peasant, "leave your brother to do the
+talking; you're not old enough to jest about such things--"
+
+"No," added the other peasant, "wait till your beard is grown, my little
+gentleman."
+
+"I haven't any beard," retorted Edouard, starting up, "but just the same
+if I was strong enough to carry the boar, I'd go fetch it myself either
+by day or night."
+
+"Much good may it do you, my young gentleman. But neither my comrade nor
+myself would go, even for a whole louis."
+
+"Nor for two?" said Roland, wishing to corner them.
+
+"Nor for two, nor four, nor ten, Monsieur de Montrevel. Ten louis are
+good, but what could I do with them if my neck was broken?"
+
+"Yes, twisted like Pierre Marey's," said the other peasant.
+
+"Ten louis wouldn't feed my wife and children for the rest of my life,
+would they?"
+
+"And besides, when you say ten louis," interrupted the second peasant,
+"you mean really five, because I'd get five, too."
+
+"So the pavilion is haunted by ghosts, is it?" asked Roland.
+
+"I didn't say the pavilion--I'm not sure about the pavilion--but in the
+Chartreuse--"
+
+"In the Chartreuse, are you sure?"
+
+"Oh! there, certainly."
+
+"Have you seen them?"
+
+"I haven't; but some folks have."
+
+"Has your comrade?" asked the young officer, turning to the second
+peasant.
+
+"I haven't seen them; but I did see flames, and Claude Philippon heard
+chains."
+
+"Ah! so they have flames and chains?" said Roland.
+
+"Yes," replied the first peasant, "for I have seen the flames myself."
+
+"And Claude Philippon on heard the chains," repeated the other.
+
+"Very good, my friends, very good," replied Roland, sneering; "so you
+won't go there to-night at any price?"
+
+"Not at any price."
+
+"Not for all the gold in the world."
+
+"And you'll go to-morrow when it's light?"
+
+"Oh! Monsieur Louis, before you're up the boar will be here."
+
+"Before you're up," said Echo.
+
+"All right," said Roland. "Come back to me the day after tomorrow."
+
+"Willingly, Monsieur Louis. What do you want us to do?"
+
+"Never mind; just come."
+
+"Oh! we'll come."
+
+"That means that the moment you say, 'Come,' you can count upon us,
+Monsieur Louis."
+
+"Well, then I'll have some information for you."
+
+"What about?"
+
+"The ghosts."
+
+Amelie gave a stifled cry; Madame de Montrevel alone heard it. Louis
+dismissed the two peasants, and they jostled each other at the door in
+their efforts to go through together.
+
+Nothing more was said that evening about the Chartreuse or the pavilion,
+nor of its supernatural tenants, spectres or phantoms who haunted them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV. THE STRONG-MINDED MAN
+
+At ten o'clock everyone was in bed at the Chateau des Noires-Fontaines,
+or, at any rate, all had retired to their rooms.
+
+Three or four times in the course of the evening Amelie had approached
+Roland as if she had something to say to him; but each time the words
+died upon her lips. When the family left the salon, she had taken
+his arm, and, although his room was on the floor above hers, she had
+accompanied him to his very door. Roland had kissed her, bade her
+good-night, and closed his door, declaring himself very tired.
+
+Nevertheless, in spite of this assertion, Roland, once alone, did not
+proceed to undress. He went to his collection of arms, selected a pair
+of magnificent pistols, manufactured at Versailles, and presented to
+his father by the Convention. He snapped the triggers, and blew into
+the barrels to see that there were no old charges in them. They were in
+excellent condition. After which he laid them side by side on the table;
+then going to the door, looking out upon the stairs, he opened it softly
+to see if any one were watching. Finding the corridor and stairs empty,
+he went to Sir John's door and knocked.
+
+"Come in," said the Englishman. Sir John, like himself, was not prepared
+for bed.
+
+"I guessed from the sign you made me that you had something to say to
+me," said Sir John, "so I waited for you, as you see."
+
+"Indeed, I have something to say to you," returned Roland, seating
+himself gayly in an armchair.
+
+"My kind host," replied the Englishman, "I am beginning to understand
+you. When I see you as gay as you are now, I am like your peasants, I
+feel afraid."
+
+"Did you hear what they were saying?"
+
+"I heard them tell a splendid ghost story. I, myself, have a haunted
+castle in England."
+
+"Have you ever seen the ghosts, my lord?"
+
+"Yes, when I was little. Unfortunately, since I have grown up they have
+disappeared."
+
+"That's always the way with ghosts," said Roland gayly; "they come and
+go. How lucky it is that I should return just as the ghosts have begun
+to haunt the Chartreuse of Seillon."
+
+"Yes," replied Sir John, "very lucky. Only are you sure that there are
+any there?"
+
+"No. But I'll know by the day after to-morrow."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"I intend to spend to-morrow night there."
+
+"Oh!" said the Englishmen, "would you like to have me go with you?"
+
+"With pleasure, my lord. Only, unfortunately, that is impossible."
+
+"Impossible, oh!"
+
+"As I have just told you, my dear fellow."
+
+"But why impossible?"
+
+"Are you acquainted with the manners and customs of ghosts, Sir John?"
+asked Roland gravely.
+
+"No."
+
+"Well, I am. Ghosts only show themselves under certain conditions."
+
+"Explain that."
+
+"Well, for example, in Italy, my lord, and in Spain, the most
+superstitious of countries, there are no ghosts, or if there are,
+why, at the best, it's only once in ten or twenty years, or maybe in a
+century."
+
+"And to what do you attribute their absence?"
+
+"To the absence of fogs."
+
+"Ah! ah!"
+
+"Not a doubt of it. You understand the native atmosphere of ghosts is
+fog. Scotland, Denmark and England, regions of fog, are overrun with
+ghosts. There's the spectre of Hamlet, then that of Banquo, the shadows
+of Richard III. Italy has only one spectre, Caesar, and then where did he
+appear to Brutus? At Philippi, in Macedonia and in Thessaly, the Denmark
+of Greece, the Scotland of the Orient; where the fog made Ovid so
+melancholy he named the odes he wrote there Tristia. Why did Virgil make
+the ghost of Anchises appear to Eneas? Because he came from Mantua.
+Do you know Mantua? A marsh, a frog-pond, a regular manufactory
+of rheumatism, an atmosphere of vapors, and consequently a nest of
+phantoms."
+
+"Go on, I'm listening to you."
+
+"Have you seen the Rhine?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Germany, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Still another country of fairies, water sprites, sylphs, and
+consequently phantoms ('for whoso does the greater see, can see the
+less'), and all that on account of the fog. But where the devil can
+the ghosts hide in Italy and Spain? Not the least bit of mist. And,
+therefore, were I in Spain or Italy I should never attempt to-morrow's
+adventure."
+
+"But all that doesn't explain why you refuse my company," insisted Sir
+John.
+
+"Wait a moment. I've just explained to you that ghosts don't venture
+into certain countries, because they do not offer certain atmospheric
+conditions. Now, let me explain the precautions we must take if we wish
+to see them."
+
+"Explain! explain!" said Sir John, "I would rather hear you talk than
+any other man, Roland."
+
+And Sir John, stretching himself out in his easy-chair, prepared to
+listen with delight to the improvisations of this fantastic mind,
+which he had seen under so many aspects during the few days of their
+acquaintance.
+
+Roland bowed his head by way of thanks.
+
+"Well, this is the way of it, and you will grasp it readily enough. I
+have heard so much about ghosts in my life that I know the scamps as if
+I had made them. Why do ghosts appear?"
+
+"Are you asking me that?" inquired Sir John.
+
+"Yes, I ask you."
+
+"I own that, not having studied ghosts as you have, I am unable to give
+you a definitive answer."
+
+"You see! Ghosts show themselves, my dear fellow, in order to frighten
+those who see them."
+
+"That is undeniable."
+
+"Of course! Now, if they don't frighten those to whom they appear, they
+are frightened by them; witness M. de Turenne, whose ghosts proved to be
+counterfeiters. Do you know that story?"
+
+"No."
+
+"I'll tell it to you some day; don't let's get mixed up. That is just
+why, when they decide to appear--which is seldom--ghosts select stormy
+nights, when it thunders, lightens and blows; that's their scenery."
+
+"I am forced to admit that nothing could be more correct."
+
+"Wait a moment! There are instances when the bravest man feels a shudder
+run through his veins. Even before I was suffering with this aneurism it
+has happened to me a dozen times, when I have seen the flash of sabres
+and heard the thunder of cannon around me. It is true that since I have
+been subject to this aneurism I rush where the lightning flashes and the
+thunder growls. Still there is the chance that these ghosts don't know
+this and believe that I can be frightened."
+
+"Whereas that is an impossibility, isn't it?" asked Sir John.
+
+"What will you! When, right or wrong, one feels that, far from dreading
+death, one has every reason to seek it, what should he fear? But I
+repeat, these ghosts, who know so much, may not know that only ghosts
+know this; they know that the sense of fear increases or diminishes
+according to the seeing and hearing of exterior things. Thus, for
+example, where do phantoms prefer to appear? In dark places, cemeteries,
+old cloisters, ruins, subterranean passages, because the aspect of these
+localities predisposes the soul to fear. What precedes their appearance?
+The rattling of chains, groans, sighs, because there is nothing very
+cheerful in all that? They are careful not to appear in the bright
+light, or after a strain of dance music. No, fear is an abyss into which
+you descend step by step, until you are overcome by vertigo; your feet
+slip, and you plunge with closed eyes to the bottom of the precipice.
+Now, if you read the accounts of all these apparitions, you'll find they
+all proceed like this: First the sky darkens, the thunder growls, the
+wind howls, doors and windows rattle, the lamp--if there is a lamp
+in the room of the person the ghosts are trying to frighten--the lamp
+flares, flickers and goes out--utter darkness! Then, in the darkness,
+groans, wails and the rattling of chains are heard; then, at last, the
+door opens and the ghost appears. I must say that all the apparitions
+that I have not seen but read about have presented themselves under
+similar circumstances. Isn't that so, Sir John?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+"And did you ever hear of a ghost appearing to two persons at the same
+time?"
+
+"I certainly never did hear of it."
+
+"It's quite simple, my dear fellow. Two together, you understand, have
+no fear. Fear is something mysterious, strange, independent of the will,
+requiring isolation, darkness and solitude. A ghost is no more dangerous
+than a cannon ball. Well, a soldier never fears a cannon ball in the
+daytime, when his elbows touch a comrade to the right and left. No, he
+goes straight for the battery and is either killed or he kills. That's
+not what the phantoms want. That's why they never appear to two persons
+at the same time, and that is the reason I want to go to the Chartreuse
+alone, my lord. Your presence would prevent the boldest ghost from
+appearing. If I see nothing, or if I see something worth the trouble,
+you can have your turn the next day. Does the bargain suit you?"
+
+"Perfectly! But why can't I take the first night?"
+
+"Ah! first, because the idea didn't occur to you, and it is only just
+that I should benefit by my own cleverness. Besides, I belong to the
+region; I was friendly with the good monks in their lifetime, and there
+may be a chance of their appearing to me after death. Moreover, as I
+know the localities, if it becomes necessary to run away or pursue I
+can do it better than you. Don't you see the justice of that, my dear
+fellow?"
+
+"Yes, it couldn't be fairer; but I am sure of going the next night."
+
+"The next night, and the one after, and every day and night if you
+wish; I only hold to the first. Now," continued Roland rising, "this is
+between ourselves, isn't it? Not a word to any one. The ghosts might be
+forewarned and act accordingly. It would never do to let those gay dogs
+get the best of us; that would be too grotesque."
+
+"Oh, be easy about that. You will go armed, won't you?"
+
+"If I thought I was only dealing with ghosts, I'd go with my hands in
+my pockets and nothing in my fobs. But, as I told you, M. de Turenne's
+ghosts were counterfeiters, so I shall take my pistols."
+
+"Do you want mine?"
+
+"No, thanks. Though yours are good, I am about resolved never to use
+them again." Then, with a smile whose bitterness it would be impossible
+to describe, he added: "They brought me ill-luck. Good-night! Sir John.
+I must sleep soundly to-night, so as not to want to sleep to-morrow
+night."
+
+Then, shaking the Englishman's hand vigorously a second time, he left
+the room and returned to his own. There he was greatly surprised to find
+the door, which he was sure he had left closed, open. But as soon as he
+entered, the sight of his sister explained the matter to him.
+
+"Hello!" he exclaimed, partly astonished, partly uneasy; "is that you,
+Amelie?"
+
+"Yes, it is I," she said. Then, going close to her brother, and letting
+him kiss her forehead, she added in a supplicating voice: "You won't go,
+will you, dear Roland?"
+
+"Go where?" asked Roland.
+
+"To the Chartreuse."
+
+"Good! Who told you that?"
+
+"Oh! for one who knows, how difficult it is to guess!"
+
+"And why don't you want me to go to the Chartreuse?"
+
+"I'm afraid something might happen to you."
+
+"What! So you believe in ghosts, do you?" he asked, looking fixedly into
+Amelie's eyes.
+
+Amelie lowered her glance, and Roland felt his sister's hand tremble in
+his.
+
+"Come," said Roland; "Amelie, at least the one I used to know, General
+de Montrevel's daughter and Roland's sister, is too intelligent to yield
+to these vulgar terrors. It's impossible that you can believe these
+tales of apparitions, chains, flames, spectres, and phantoms."
+
+"If I did believe them, Roland, I should not be so alarmed. If ghosts do
+exist, they must be souls without bodies, and consequently cannot bring
+their material hatred from the grave. Besides, why should a ghost hate
+you, Roland; you, who never harmed any one?"
+
+"Good! You forget all those I have killed in war or in duels."
+
+Amelie shook her head. "I'm not afraid of them."
+
+"Then what are you afraid of?"
+
+The young girl raised her beautiful eyes, wet with tears, to Roland, and
+threw herself in his arms, saying: "I don't know, Roland. But I can't
+help it, I am afraid."
+
+The young man raised her head, which she was hiding in his breast, with
+gentle force, and said, kissing her eyelids softly and tenderly: "You
+don't believe I shall have ghosts to fight with to-morrow, do you?"
+
+"Oh, brother, don't go to the Chartreuse!" cried Amelie, eluding the
+question.
+
+"Mother told you to say this to me, didn't she?"
+
+"Oh, no, brother! Mother said nothing to me. It is I who guessed that
+you intended to go."
+
+"Well, if I want to go," replied Roland firmly, "you ought to know,
+Amelie, that I shall go."
+
+"Even if I beseech you on my knees, brother?" cried Amelie in a tone of
+anguish, slipping down to her brother's feet; "even if I beseech you on
+my knees?"
+
+"Oh! women! women!" murmured Roland, "inexplicable creatures, whose
+words are all mystery, whose lips never tell the real secrets of their
+hearts, who weep, and pray, and tremble--why? God knows, but man, never!
+I shall go, Amelie, because I have resolved to go; and when once I have
+taken a resolution no power on earth can make me change it. Now kiss me
+and don't be frightened, and I will tell you a secret."
+
+Amelie raised her head, and gazed questioningly, despairingly, at
+Roland.
+
+"I have known for more than a year," replied the young man, "that I have
+the misfortune not to be able to die. So reassure yourself, and don't be
+afraid."
+
+Roland uttered these words so dolefully that Amelie, who had, until
+then, kept her emotion under control, left the room sobbing.
+
+The young officer, after assuring himself that her door was closed, shut
+his, murmuring: "We'll see who will weary first, Fate or I."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI. THE GHOST
+
+The next evening, at about the same hour, the young officer, after
+convincing himself that every one in the Chateau des Noires-Fontaines
+had gone to bed, opened his door softly, went downstairs holding his
+breath, reached the vestibule, slid back the bolts of the outer door
+noiselessly, and turned round to make sure that all was quiet. Reassured
+by the darkened windows, he boldly opened the iron gate. The hinges
+had probably been oiled that day, for they turned without grating,
+and closed as noiselessly as they had opened behind Roland, who walked
+rapidly in the direction of Pont d'Ain at Bourg.
+
+He had hardly gone a hundred yards before the clock at Saint-Just struck
+once; that of Montagnac answered like a bronze echo. It was half-past
+ten o'clock. At the pace the young man was walking he needed only twenty
+minutes to reach the Chartreuse; especially if, instead of skirting the
+woods, he took the path that led direct to the monastery. Roland was
+too familiar from youth with every nook of the forest of Seillon
+to needlessly lengthen his walk ten minutes. He therefore turned
+unhesitatingly into the forest, coming out on the other side in about
+five minutes. Once there, he had only to cross a bit of open ground to
+reach the orchard wall of the convent. This took barely another five
+minutes.
+
+At the foot of the wall he stopped, but only for a few seconds. He
+unhooked his cloak, rolled it into a ball, and tossed it over the wall.
+The cloak off, he stood in a velvet coat, white leather breeches, and
+top-boots. The coat was fastened round the waist by a belt in which were
+a pair of pistols. A broad-brimmed hat covered his head and shaded his
+face.
+
+With the same rapidity with which he had removed his garment that might
+have hindered his climbing the wall, he began to scale it. His foot
+readily found a chink between the stones; he sprang up, seizing the
+coping, and was on the other side without even touching the top of the
+wall over which he bounded. He picked up his cloak, threw it over
+his shoulder, hooked it, and crossed the orchard to a little door
+communicating with the cloister. The clock struck eleven as he passed
+through it. Roland stopped, counted the strokes, and slowly walked
+around the cloister, looking and listening.
+
+He saw nothing and heard no noise. The monastery was the picture of
+desolation and solitude; the doors were all open, those of the cells,
+the chapel, and the refectory. In the refectory, a vast hall where the
+tables still stood in their places, Roland noticed five or six bats
+circling around; a frightened owl flew through a broken casement, and
+perched upon a tree close by, hooting dismally.
+
+"Good!" said Roland, aloud; "I'll make my headquarters here; bats and
+owls are the vanguards of ghosts."
+
+The sound of that human voice, lifted in the midst of this solitude,
+darkness and desolation, had something so uncanny, so lugubrious about
+it, that it would have caused even the speaker to shudder, had not
+Roland, as he himself said, been inaccessible to fear. He looked about
+for a place from which he could command the entire hall. An isolated
+table, placed on a sort of stage at one end of the refectory, which had
+no doubt been used by the superior of the convent to take his food apart
+from the monks, to read from pious books during the repast, seemed to
+Roland best adapted to his needs. Here, backed by the wall, he could
+not be surprised from behind, and, once his eye grew accustomed to the
+darkness, he could survey every part of the hall. He looked for a seat,
+and found an overturned stool about three feet from the table, probably
+the one occupied by the reader or the person dining there in solitude.
+
+Roland sat down at the table, loosened his cloak to insure greater
+freedom of movement, took his pistols from his belt, laid one on the
+table, and striking three blows with the butt-end of the other, he said,
+in a loud voice: "The meeting is open; the ghosts can appear!"
+
+Those who have passed through churches and cemeteries at night have
+often experienced, without analyzing it, the supreme necessity of
+speaking low and reverently which attaches to certain localities. Only
+such persons can understand the strange impression produced on any
+one who heard it by that curt, mocking voice which now disturbed the
+solitude and the shadows. It vibrated an instant in the darkness, which
+seemed to quiver with it; then it slowly died away without an echo,
+escaping by all the many openings made by the wings of time.
+
+As he had expected, Roland's eyes had accustomed themselves to the
+darkness, and now, by the pale light of the rising moon, whose long,
+white rays penetrated the refectory through the broken windows, he could
+see distinctly from one end to the other of the vast apartment. Although
+Roland was as evidently without fear internally as externally, he was
+not without distrust, and his ear caught the slightest sounds.
+
+He heard the half-hour strike. In spite of himself the sound startled
+him, for it came from the bell of the convent. How was it that, in this
+ruin where all was dead, a clock, the pulse of time, was living?
+
+"Oh! oh!" said Roland; "that proves that I shall see something."
+
+The words were spoken almost in an aside. The majesty of the place and
+the silence acted upon that heart of iron, firm as the iron that had
+just tolled the call of time upon eternity. The minutes slowly passed,
+one after the other. Perhaps a cloud was passing between earth and
+moon, for Roland fancied that the shadows deepened. Then, as midnight
+approached, he seemed to hear a thousand confused, imperceptible sounds,
+coming no doubt from the nocturnal universe which wakes while the other
+sleeps. Nature permits no suspension of life, even for repose. She
+created her nocturnal world, even as she created her daily world, from
+the gnat which buzzes about the sleeper's pillow to the lion prowling
+around the Arab's bivouac.
+
+But Roland, the camp watcher, the sentinel of the desert, Roland, the
+hunter, the soldier, knew all those sounds; they were powerless to
+disturb him.
+
+Then, mingling with these sounds, the tones of the clock, chiming the
+hour, vibrated above his head. This time it was midnight. Roland counted
+the twelve strokes, one after the other. The last hung, quivering upon
+the air, like a bird with iron wings, then slowly expired, sad and
+mournful. Just then the young man, thought he heard a moan. He listened
+in the direction whence it came. Again he heard it, this time nearer at
+hand.
+
+He rose, his hands resting upon the table, the butt-end of a pistol
+beneath each palm. A rustle like that of a sheet or a gown trailing
+along the grass was audible on his right, not ten paces from him. He
+straightened up as if moved by a spring.
+
+At the same moment a shade appeared on the threshold of the vast hall.
+This shade resembled the ancient statues lying on the tombs. It was
+wrapped in an immense winding-sheet which trailed behind it.
+
+For an instant Roland doubted his own eyes. Had the preoccupation of his
+mind made him see a thing which was not? Was he the dupe of his senses,
+the sport of those hallucinations which physicians assert, but cannot
+explain? A moan, uttered by the phantom, put his doubts to flight.
+
+"My faith!" he cried in a burst of laughter, "now for a tussle, friend
+ghost!"
+
+The spectre paused and extended a hand toward the young officer.
+"Roland! Roland!" said the spectre in a muffled voice, "it would be a
+pity not to follow to the grave those you have sent there."
+
+And the spectre, without hastening its step, continued on its way.
+
+Roland, astounded for an instant, came down from the stage, and
+resolutely followed the ghost. The path was difficult, encumbered with
+stones, benches awry, and over-turned tables. And yet, through all
+these obstacles, an invisible channel seemed open for the spectre, which
+pursued its way unchecked.
+
+Each time it passed before a window, the light from with out, feeble
+as it was, shone upon the winding-sheet and the ghost, outlining the
+figure, which passed into the obscurity to reappear and vanish again at
+each succeeding one, Roland, his eyes fixed upon the figure, fearing to
+lose sight of it if he diverted his gaze from it, dared not look at the
+path, apparently so easy to the spectre, yet bristling with obstacles
+for him. He stumbled at every step. The ghost was gaining upon him. It
+reached the door opposite to that by which it had entered. Roland saw
+the entrance to a dark passage. Feeling that the ghost would escape him,
+he cried: "Man or ghost, robber or monk, halt or I fire!"
+
+"A dead body cannot be killed twice, and death has no power over the
+spirit," replied the ghost in its muffled voice.
+
+"Who are you?"
+
+"The Shade of him you tore violently from the earth."
+
+The young officer burst into that harsh, nervous laugh, made more
+terrible by the darkness around him.
+
+"Faith!" said he, "if you have no further indications to give me, I
+shall not trouble myself to discover you."
+
+"Remember the fountain at Vaucluse," said the Shade, in a voice so faint
+the words seemed to escape his lips like a sigh rather than articulate
+speech.
+
+For an instant Roland felt, not his heart failing him, but the sweat
+pouring from his forehead. Making an effort over himself, he regained
+his voice and cried, menacingly: "For a last time, apparition or
+reality, I warn you that, if you do not stop, I shall fire!"
+
+The Shade did not heed him, but continued on its way.
+
+Roland paused an instant to take aim. The spectre was not ten paces from
+him. Roland was a sure shot; he had himself loaded his pistols, and only
+a moment before he had looked to the charge to see that it was intact.
+
+As the spectre passed, tall and white, beneath the gloomy vault of the
+passage, Roland fired. The flash illumined the corridor like lightning,
+down which the spectre passed with unfaltering, unhastening steps. Then
+all was blacker than before. The ghost vanished in the darkness. Roland
+dashed after him, changing his other pistol from the left hand to the
+right. But short as his stop had been, the ghost had gained ground.
+Roland saw him at the end of the passage, this time distinctly outlined
+against the gray background of the night. He redoubled his pace, and as
+he crossed the threshold of the passage, he fancied that the ghost was
+plunging into the bowels of the earth. But the torso still remained
+visible.
+
+"Devil or not," cried Roland, "I follow you!"
+
+He fired a second shot, which filled the cavernous space, into which the
+ghost had disappeared, with flame and smoke.
+
+When the smoke had cleared away, Roland looked vainly around. He was
+alone. He sprang into the cistern howling with rage. He sounded the
+walls with the butt-end of his pistol, he stamped on the ground; but
+everywhere, earth and stone gave back the sound of solid objects. He
+tried to pierce the darkness, but it was impossible. The faint moonlight
+that filtered into the cistern died out at the first steps.
+
+"Oh!" cried Roland, "a torch! a torch!"
+
+No one answered. The only sound to be heard was the spring bubbling
+close at hand. Realizing that further search would be useless, he
+emerged from the cavern. Drawing a powder-horn and two balls from his
+pocket, he loaded his pistols hastily. Then he took the path along which
+he had just come, found the dark passage, then the vast refectory, and
+again took his place at the end of the silent hall and waited.
+
+But the hours of the night sounded successively, until the first gleam
+of dawn cast its pallid light upon the walls of the cloister.
+
+"Well," muttered Roland, "it's over for to-night. Perhaps I shall be
+more fortunate the next time."
+
+Twenty minutes later he re-entered the Chateau des Noires-Fontaines.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII. INVESTIGATIONS
+
+Two persons were waiting for Roland's return; one in anguish, the other
+with impatience. These two persons were Amelie and Sir John. Neither of
+them had slept for an instant. Amelie displayed her anguish only by
+the sound of her door, which was furtively closed as Roland came up the
+staircase. Roland heard the sound. He had not the courage to pass before
+her door without reassuring her.
+
+"Be easy, Amelie, I am here," he said. It did not occur to him that his
+sister might be anxious for any one but him.
+
+Amelie darted from her room in her night-dress. It was easy to see from
+her pallor and the dark circles which spread nearly to the middle of her
+cheeks that she had not closed her eyes all night.
+
+"Has nothing happened to you, Roland?" she cried, clasping her brother
+in her arms and feeling him over anxiously.
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"Nor to any one else?"
+
+"No."
+
+"And you saw nothing?"
+
+"I didn't say that," answered Roland.
+
+"Good God! What did you see?"
+
+"I'll tell that to you later. Meantime, there is no one either killed or
+wounded."
+
+"Ah! I breathe again!"
+
+"Now, let me give you a bit of advice, little sister. Go to bed and
+sleep, if you can, till breakfast. I am going to do the same thing,
+and can assure you I won't need any rocking. Good-night, or rather
+good-morning."
+
+Roland kissed his sister tenderly. Then affecting to whistle a
+hunting-air carelessly, he ran up the next flight of steps. Sir John was
+frankly waiting for him in the hall. He went straight to the young man.
+
+"Well?" he asked.
+
+"Well, I didn't roll my stone entirely for nothing."
+
+"Did you see any ghosts?"
+
+"At any rate I saw something that resembled one very closely."
+
+"Come, tell me all about it."
+
+"I see you won't be able to sleep, or at best only fitfully, if I don't.
+Here's what happened, in a nutshell."
+
+And Roland gave him a minute account of the night's adventure.
+
+"Excellent," said Sir John, when Roland had finished. "I hope you have
+left something for me to do."
+
+"I am even afraid," answered Roland, "that I have left you the hardest
+part."
+
+Then, as Sir John went over each detail, asking many questions about the
+localities, he said:
+
+"Listen, Sir John. We will pay the Chartreuse a visit in broad daylight
+after breakfast, which will not interfere in the least with your
+night-watch. On the contrary, it will acquaint you with the localities.
+Only you must tell no one."
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Sir John, "do I look like a gabbler?"
+
+"No, that's true," cried Roland laughing, "you are not a gabbler, but I
+am a ninny." So saying, he entered his bedchamber.
+
+After breakfast the two young men sauntered down the slopes of the
+garden, as if to take a walk along the banks of the Reissouse. Then they
+bore to the left, swung up the hill for about forty paces, struck into
+the highroad, and crossed the woods, till they reached the convent wall
+at the very place where Roland had climbed over it on the preceding
+night.
+
+"My lord," said Roland, "this is the way."
+
+"Very well," replied Sir John, "let us take it."
+
+Slowly, with a wonderful strength of wrist, which betokened a man well
+trained in gymnastics, the Englishman seized the coping of the wall,
+swung himself to the top, and dropped down on the other side. Roland
+followed with the rapidity of one who is not achieving a feat for the
+first time. They were both on the other side, where the desertion and
+desolation were more visible by night than by day. The grass was growing
+knee high in the paths; the espaliers were tangled with vines so thick
+that the grapes could not ripen in the shadow of the leaves. The wall
+had given way in several places, and ivy, the parasite rather than the
+friend of ruins, was spreading everywhere.
+
+As for the trees in the open space, plums, peaches and apricots, they
+had grown with the freedom of the oaks and beeches in the forest, whose
+breadth and thickness they seemed to envy. The sap, completely absorbed
+by the branches which were many and vigorous, produced but little fruit,
+and that imperfect. By the rustle of the tall grass, Sir John and Roland
+divined that the lizards, those crawling offsprings of solitude, had
+established their domicile there, from which they fled in amazement at
+this disturbance.
+
+Roland led his friend straight to the door between the orchard and the
+cloister, but before entering he glanced at the clock. That clock, which
+went at night, was stopped in the day time. From the cloister he passed
+into the refectory. There the daylight showed under their true aspect
+the various objects which the darkness had clothed with such fantastic
+forms the night before. Roland showed Sir John the overturned stools,
+the table marked by the blow of the pistol, the door by which the
+phantom had entered. Accompanied by the Englishman, he followed the
+path he had taken in pursuit of the spectre. He recognized the obstacles
+which had hindered him, and noted how easily one who knew the locality
+might cross or avoid them.
+
+At the spot where he had fired, he found the wad, but he looked in vain
+for the bullet. The arrangement of the passage, which ran slanting, made
+it impossible for the bullet, if its marks were not on the walls, to
+have missed the ghost. And yet if the ghost were hit, supposing it to
+be a solid body, how came it to remain erect? How had it escaped being
+wounded, and if wounded, why were there no bloodstains on the ground?
+And there was no trace of either blood or ball.
+
+Sir John was almost ready to admit that his friend had had to do with a
+veritable ghost.
+
+"Some one came after me," said Roland, "and picked up the ball."
+
+"But if you fired at a man, why didn't the ball go into him?"
+
+"Oh! that's easily explained. The man wore a coat of mail under his
+shroud."
+
+That was possible, but, nevertheless, Sir John shook his head dubiously.
+He preferred to believe in a supernatural occurrence; it gave him less
+trouble.
+
+Roland and he continued their investigations. They reached the end of
+the passage which opened on the furthest extremity of the orchard. It
+was there that Roland had seen his spectre for an instant as it glided
+into the dark vault. He made for the cistern, and so little did he
+hesitate that he might still have been following the ghost. There he
+understood how the darkness of the night had seemed to deepen by the
+absence of all exterior reflection. It was even difficult to see there
+by day.
+
+Roland took two torches about a foot long from beneath his cloak, took
+a flint, lighted the tinder, and a match from the tinder. Both torches
+flared up.
+
+The problem was now to discover the way by which the ghost had
+disappeared. Roland and Sir John lowered their torches and examined the
+ground. The cistern was paved with large squares of limestone,
+which seemed to fit perfectly. Roland looked for his second ball as
+persistently as for the first. A stone lay loose at his feet, and,
+pushing it aside, he disclosed an iron ring screwed into one of the
+limestone blocks.
+
+Without a word Roland seized the ring, braced his feet and pulled.
+The square turned on its pivot with an ease which proved that it
+was frequently subjected to the same manipulation. As it turned, it
+disclosed a subterranean passage.
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Roland, "this is the way my spectre went."
+
+He entered the yawning cavern, followed by Sir John. They traversed the
+same path that Morgan took when he returned to give an account of
+his expedition. At the end of the passage they came upon an iron gate
+opening into the mortuary vaults. Roland shook the gate, which yielded
+to his touch. They crossed this subterranean cemetery, and came to a
+second gate; like the first, it was open. With Roland still in front,
+they went up several steps, and found themselves in the choir of the
+chapel, where the scene we have related between Morgan and the Company
+of Jehu took place. Only now the stalls were empty, the choir was
+deserted, and the altar, degraded by the abandonment of worship, was no
+longer covered by the burning tapers or the sacred cloth.
+
+It was evident to Roland that this was the goal of the false ghost,
+which Sir John persisted in believing a real one. But, real or false,
+Sir John admitted that its flight had brought it to this particular
+spot. He reflected a moment and then remarked: "As it is my turn to
+watch tonight, I have the right to choose my ground; I shall watch
+here."
+
+And he pointed to a sort of table formed in the centre of the choir by
+an oaken pedestal which had formerly supported the eagle lectern.
+
+"Indeed," said Roland, with the same heedlessness he showed in his own
+affairs, "you'll do very well there, only as you may find the gates
+locked and the stone fastened tonight, we had better look for some more
+direct way to get here."
+
+In less than five minutes they had found an outlet. The door of the old
+sacristy opened into the choir, and from the sacristy a broken window
+gave passage into the forest. The two men climbed through the window and
+found themselves in the forest thicket some twenty feet from the spot
+where they had killed the boar.
+
+"That's what we want," said Roland; "only, my dear Sir John, as you
+would never find your way by night in a forest which, even by day, is so
+impenetrable, I shall accompany you as far as this."
+
+"Very well. But once I am inside, you are to leave me," said the
+Englishman. "I remember what you told me about the susceptibility of
+ghosts. If they know you are near, they may hesitate to appear, and as
+you have seen one, I insist on seeing at least one myself."
+
+"I'll leave you, don't be afraid," replied Roland, adding, with a laugh,
+"Only I do fear one thing."
+
+"What is that?"
+
+"That in your double capacity of an Englishman and a heretic they won't
+feel at ease with you."
+
+"Oh," replied Sir John, gravely, "what a pity I shall not have time to
+abjure before this evening."
+
+The two friends, having seen all there was to see, returned to the
+chateau. No one, not even Amelie, had suspected that their walk was
+other than an ordinary one. The day passed without questions and without
+apparent anxiety; besides, it was already late when the two gentlemen
+returned.
+
+At dinner, to Edouard's great delight, another hunt was proposed, and
+it furnished a topic for conversation during dinner and part of the
+evening. By ten o'clock, as usual, all had retired to their rooms,
+except Roland, who was in that of Sir John.
+
+The difference of character showed itself markedly in the preparations
+of the two men. Roland had made them joyously, as if for a pleasure
+trip; Sir John made his gravely, as if for a duel. He loaded his pistols
+with the utmost care and put them into his belt English fashion. And,
+instead of a cloak, which might have impeded his movements, he wore a
+top-coat with a high collar put on over his other coat.
+
+At half-past ten the pair left the house with the same precautions that
+Roland had observed when alone. It was five minutes before eleven when
+they reached the broken window, where the fallen stones served as a
+stepping-block. There, according to agreement, they were to part. Sir
+John, reminded Roland of this agreement.
+
+"Yes," said Roland, "an agreement is an agreement with me. Only, let me
+give you a piece of advice."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"I could not find the bullets because some one had been here and carried
+them off; and that was done beyond doubt to prevent me from seeing the
+dents on them."
+
+"What sort of dent do you mean?"
+
+"Those of the links of a coat of mail; my ghost was a man in armor."
+
+"That's too bad!" said Sir John; "I hoped for a ghost." Then, after a
+moment's silence and a sigh expressive of his deep regret in resigning
+the ghost, he asked: "What was your advice?"
+
+"Fire at his face!"
+
+Sir John nodded assent, pressed the young officer's hand, clambered
+through the window and disappeared in the sacristy.
+
+"Good-night!" called Roland after him. Then with the indifference to
+danger which a soldier generally feels for himself and his companions,
+Roland took his way back to the Chateau des Noires-Fontaines, as he had
+promised Sir John.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII. THE TRIAL
+
+The next day Roland, who had been unable to sleep till about two in the
+morning, woke about seven. Collecting his scattered wits, he recalled
+what had passed between Sir John and himself the night before, and was
+astonished that the Englishman had not wakened him. He dressed hastily
+and went to Sir John's room at the risk of rousing him from his first
+sleep.
+
+He knocked at the door. Sir John made no answer. Roland knocked again,
+louder this time. The same silence. This time some uneasiness mingled
+with Roland's curiosity. The key was on the outside; the young officer
+opened the door, and cast a rapid glance around the room. Sir John
+was not there; he had not returned. The bed was undisturbed. What had
+happened?
+
+There was not an instant to lose, and we may be sure that, with that
+rapidity of decision we know in Roland, he lost not an instant. He
+rushed to his room, finished dressing, put his hunting knife into his
+belt, slung his rifle over his shoulder and went out. No one was yet
+awake except the chambermaid. Roland met her on the stairs.
+
+"Tell Madame de Montrevel," said he, "that I have gone into the forest
+of Seillon with my gun. She must not worry if Sir John and I are not on
+time for breakfast."
+
+Then he darted rapidly away. Ten minutes later he reached the window
+where he had left Sir John the night before. He listened, not a sound
+came from within; the huntsman's ear could detect the morning woodland
+sounds, but no others. Roland climbed through the window with his
+customary agility, and rushed through the choir into the sacristy.
+
+One look sufficed to show him that not only the choir but the entire
+chapel was empty. Had the spectres led the Englishman along the reverse
+of the way he had come himself? Possibly. Roland passed rapidly behind
+the altar, into the vaults, where he found the gate open. He entered the
+subterranean cemetery. Darkness hid its depths. He called Sir John three
+times. No one answered.
+
+He reached the second gate; it was open like the first. He entered the
+vaulted passage; only, as it would be impossible to use his gun in such
+darkness, he slung it over his shoulder and drew out his hunting-knife.
+Feeling his way, he continued to advance without meeting anybody, but
+the further he went the deeper became the darkness, which indicated that
+the stone in the cistern was closed. He reached the steps, and mounted
+them until his head touched the revolving stone; then he made an effort,
+and the block turned. Roland saw daylight and leaped into the cistern.
+The door into the orchard stood open. Roland passed through it, crossed
+that portion of the orchard which lay between the cistern and the
+corridor at the other end of which he had fired upon the phantom. He
+passed along the corridor and entered the refectory. The refectory was
+empty.
+
+Again, as in the funereal passageway, Roland called three times. The
+wondering echo, which seemed to have forgotten the tones of the human
+voice, answered stammering. It was improbable that Sir John had come
+this way; it was necessary to go back. Roland retraced his steps, and
+found himself in the choir again. That was where Sir John had intended
+to spend the night, and there some trace of him must be found.
+
+Roland advanced only a short distance, and then a cry escaped him. A
+large spot of blood lay at his feet, staining the pavement. On the other
+side of the choir, a dozen feet from the blood, was another stain, not
+less large, nor less red, nor less recent. It seemed to make a pendant
+for the first.
+
+One of these stains was to the right, the other to the left of that sort
+of pedestal intended, as we have said, to support the eagle lectern--the
+pedestal which Sir John had selected for his place of waiting. Roland
+went up to it. It was drenched with blood! Evidently the drama had taken
+place on that spot; a drama which, if all the signs were true, must have
+been terrible.
+
+Roland, in his double capacity of huntsman and soldier, was keen at
+a quest. He could calculate the amount of blood lost by a man who was
+dead, or by one who was only wounded. That night three men had fallen,
+either dead or wounded. What were the probabilities?
+
+The two stains in the choir to the right and left of the pedestal were
+probably the blood of Sir John's two antagonists. That on the pedestal
+was probably his own. Attacked on both sides, right and left, he had
+fired with both hands, killing or wounding a man with each shot. Hence
+these two bloodstains which reddened the pavement. He himself must have
+been struck down beside the pedestal, on which his blood had spurted.
+
+After a few seconds of examination, Roland was as sure of this as if he
+had witnessed the struggle with his own eyes. Now, what had been done
+with the bodies? He cared little enough about two of them; but he was
+determined to know what had become of that of Sir John.
+
+A track of blood started from the pedestal and led straight to the door.
+Sir John's body had been carried outside. Roland shook the massive door.
+It was only latched, and opened at the first pressure. Outside the
+sill the tracks of blood still continued. Roland could see through
+the underbrush the path by which the body had been carried. The broken
+branches, the trampled grass, led Roland to the edge of the wood on the
+road leading from Pont d'Ain to Bourg. There the body, living or dead,
+seemed to have been laid on the bank of the ditch. Beyond that no traces
+whatever.
+
+A man passed just then, coming from the direction of the Chateau des
+Noires-Fontaines. Roland went up to him.
+
+"Have you seen anything on the road? Did you meet any one?" he inquired.
+
+"Yes," replied the man, "I saw two peasants carrying a body on a
+litter."
+
+"Ah!" cried Roland, "was it that of a living man?"
+
+"The man was pale and motionless; he looked as if he were dead."
+
+"Was the blood flowing?"
+
+"I saw some drops on the road."
+
+"In that case, he is living."
+
+Then taking a louis from his pocket he said: "There's a louis for you.
+Run for Dr. Milliet at Bourg; tell him to get a horse and come at full
+speed to the Chateau des Noires-Fontaines. You can add that there is a
+man there in danger of dying."
+
+While the peasant, stimulated by the reward, made all haste to Bourg,
+Roland, leaping along on his vigorous legs, was hurrying to the chateau.
+
+And now, as our readers are, in all probability, as curious as Roland
+to know what had happened to Sir John, we shall give an account of the
+events of the night.
+
+
+A few minutes before eleven, Sir John, as we have seen, entered what was
+usually known as La Correrie, or the pavilion of the Chartreuse, which
+was nothing more than a chapel erected in the woods. From the sacristy
+he entered the choir. It was empty and seemed solitary. A rather
+brilliant moon, veiled from time to time by a cloud, sent its bluish
+rays through the stained glass, cracked and broken, of the pointed
+windows. Sir John advanced to the middle of the choir, where he paused
+and remained standing beside the pedestal.
+
+The minutes slipped away. But this time it was not the convent clock
+which marked the time, it was the church at Peronnaz; that is to say,
+the nearest village to the chapel where Sir John was watching.
+
+Everything happened up to midnight just as it had to Roland. Sir John
+heard only the vague rustling and passing noises of the night.
+
+Midnight sounded; it was the moment he awaited with impatience, for it
+was then that something would happen, if anything was to happen. As the
+last stroke died away he thought he heard footsteps underground, and saw
+a light appear behind the iron gate leading to the mortuary vault. His
+whole attention was fixed on that spot.
+
+A monk emerged from the passage, his hood brought low over his eyes, and
+carrying a torch in his hand. He wore the dress of a Chartreux. A second
+one followed, then a third. Sir John counted twelve. They separated
+before the altar. There were twelve stalls in the choir; six to the
+right of Sir John, six to his left. The twelve monks silently took their
+places in the twelve stalls. Each one placed his torch in a hole made
+for that purpose in the oaken desk, and waited.
+
+A thirteenth monk appeared and took his stand before the altar.
+
+None of the monks affected the fantastic behavior of ghosts or shades;
+they all belonged undoubtedly to the earth, and were living men.
+
+Sir John, a pistol in each hand, stood leaning against the pedestal
+in the middle of the choir, and watched with the utmost coolness this
+manoeuvre which tended to surround him. The monks were standing, like
+him, erect and silent.
+
+The monk at the altar broke the silence.
+
+"Brothers," he asked, "why are the Avengers assembled?"
+
+"To judge a blasphemer!" replied the monks.
+
+"What crime has this blasphemer committed?" continued the interlocutor.
+
+"He has tried to discover the secrets of the Companions of Jehu."
+
+"What penalty has he incurred?"
+
+"Death."
+
+The monk at the altar waited, apparently, to give time for the sentence
+which had just been pronounced to reach the heart of him whom it
+concerned. Then turning to the Englishman, who continued as calm as if
+he were at a comedy, he said: "Sir John Tanlay, you are a foreigner and
+an Englishman--a double reason why you should leave the Companions of
+Jehu to fight their own battles with the government, whose downfall they
+have sworn. You failed in wisdom, you yielded to idle curiosity; instead
+of keeping away, you have entered the lion's den, and the lion will rend
+you."
+
+Then after an instant's silence, during which he seemed to await the
+Englishman's reply, he resumed, seeing that he remained silent: "Sir
+John Tanlay, you are condemned to death. Prepare to die!"
+
+"Ah! I see that I have fallen into the hands of a band of thieves. If
+so, I can buy myself off with a ransom." Then turning to the monk at the
+altar he asked, "How much do you demand, captain?"
+
+A threatening murmur greeted these insolent words. The monk at the altar
+stretched out his hand.
+
+"You are mistaken, Sir John. We are not a band of thieves," said he in a
+tone as calm and composed as Sir John's, "and the proof is, that if you
+have money or jewels upon you, you need only give me your instructions,
+and they will be remitted either to your family or the person whom you
+designate."
+
+"And what guarantee shall I have that my last wishes will be carried
+out?"
+
+"My word."
+
+"The word of the leader of assassins! I don't trust it."
+
+"This time, as before, you are mistaken, Sir John. I am no more the
+leader of assassins than I am a captain of thieves."
+
+"Who are you, then?"
+
+"The elect of celestial vengeance. I am the envoy of Jehu, King of
+Israel, who was anointed by the prophet Elisha to destroy the house of
+Ahab."
+
+"If you are what you say, why do you veil your faces? Why do you wear
+armor under your robes? The elect strike openly; they risk death in
+giving death. Throw back your hoods, show me your naked breasts, and I
+will admit that you are what you pretend to be."
+
+"Brothers, you have heard him," said the monk at the altar.
+
+Then, stripping off his gown, he opened his coat, waistcoat and even
+his shirt. Each monk did the same, and stood with face exposed and
+bared breast. They were all handsome young men, of whom the eldest was
+apparently not more than thirty-five. Their dress was elegant, but,
+strange fact, none was armed. They were judges and nothing more.
+
+"Be satisfied, Sir John Tanlay," said the monk at the altar. "You will
+die, but in dying, you can, as you wished just now, recognize and kill
+your judges. Sir John, you have five minutes to prepare your soul for
+death!"
+
+Sir John, instead of profiting by this permission to think of his
+eternal salvation, coolly cocked his pistols to see that the triggers
+were all right, and passed a ramrod down the barrels to make sure that
+the balls were there. Then, without waiting for the five minutes to
+expire, he said: "Gentlemen, I am ready. Are you?"
+
+The young men looked at each other; then, on a sign from their chief,
+they walked straight to Sir John, and surrounded him on all sides. The
+monk at the altar stood immovable, commanding with his eye the scene
+that was about to take place.
+
+Sir John had only two pistols, consequently he could only kill two men.
+He selected his victims and fired. Two Companions of Jehu rolled upon
+the pavement, which they reddened with their blood. The others, as if
+nothing had happened, still advanced with outstretched hands upon
+Sir John. Sir John seized his pistols by the muzzle, using them like
+hammers. He was vigorous and the struggle was long. For ten minutes,
+a confused group tussled in the centre of the choir; then this violent
+commotion ceased, and the Companions of Jehu drew away to right and
+left, and regained their stalls, leaving Sir John bound with their
+girdles and lying upon the pedestal in the choir.
+
+"Have you commended your soul to God?" asked the monk at the altar.
+
+"Yes, assassin," answered Sir John; "you may strike."
+
+The monk took a dagger from the altar, advanced with uplifted arm, and,
+standing over Sir John, levelled the dagger at his breast: "Sir John
+Tanlay," he said, "you are a brave man, and doubtless a man of honor.
+Swear that you will never breathe a syllable of what you have seen;
+swear that under no circumstances, whatever they may be, you will
+recognize us, and we will spare your life."
+
+"As soon as I leave here," replied Sir John, "I shall denounce you. The
+moment I am free I will trail you down."
+
+"Swear," repeated the monk a second time.
+
+"No," said Sir John.
+
+"Swear," said the monk for the third time.
+
+"Never," replied Sir John.
+
+"Then die, since you will it!"
+
+And he drove his dagger up to the hilt in Sir John's breast; who,
+whether by force of will, or because the blow killed him at once,
+did not even sigh. Then the monk in a loud sonorous voice, like a man
+conscious of having done his duty, exclaimed: "Justice is done!"
+
+Then he returned to the altar, leaving the dagger in the wound and said:
+"Brothers, you are invited to the ball of the Victims, which takes place
+in Paris on the 21st of January next, at No. 35 Rue du Bac, in memory of
+the death of King Louis XVI."
+
+So saying, he re-entered the subterranean passage, followed by the
+remaining ten monks, each bearing his torch in his hand. Two torches
+remained to light the three bodies.
+
+A moment later four serving brothers entered, and raised first the
+bodies of the two monks, which they carried into the vault. Then they
+returned, lifted that of Sir John, placed it on a stretcher, and carried
+it out of the chapel by the entrance door, which they closed after them.
+Two of the monks walked in front of the stretcher, carrying the two
+torches left in the chapel.
+
+And now, if our readers ask why there was this difference between the
+treatment received by Roland and that administered to Sir John, why
+this mansuetude toward one and this rigor toward the other, we reply:
+Remember that Morgan enjoined on his brethren the safety of Amelie's
+brother, and thus safeguarded, under no circumstances could Roland die
+by the hand of a Companion of Jehu.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX. THE LITTLE HOUSE IN THE RUE DE LA VICTOIRE
+
+While they are bearing Sir John Tanlay's body to the Chateau des
+Noires-Fontaines; while Roland is hurrying in the same direction; while
+the peasant, despatched by him, is hastening to Bourg to notify Dr.
+Milliet of the catastrophe which necessitated his immediate presence
+at Madame de Montrevel's home, let us jump over the distance which
+separates Bourg from Paris, and the time which elapsed between the 16th
+of October and the 7th of November; that is to say, between the 24th of
+Vendemiaire and the 16th Brumaire, and repair to that little house in
+the Rue de la Victoire rendered historically famous by the conspiracy of
+the 18th Brumaire, which issued from it fully armed.
+
+It is the same house which stands there to-day on the right of the
+street at No. 60, apparently astonished to present to the eye, after
+so many successive changes of government, the consular fasces which may
+still be seen on the panels of its double oaken doors.
+
+Let us follow the long, narrow alley of lindens that leads from the gate
+on the street to the door of the house; let us enter the antechamber,
+take the hall to the right, ascend the twenty steps that lead to a study
+hung with green paper, and furnished with curtains, easy chairs and
+couches of the same color. The walls are covered with geographical
+charts and plans of cities. Bookcases of maple are ranged on either
+side of the fireplace, which they inclose. The chairs, sofas, tables and
+desks are piled with books; there is scarcely any room on the chairs to
+sit down, or on the desks and tables to write.
+
+In the midst of this encumbering mass of reports, letters, pamphlets and
+books, a man had cleared a space for himself where he was now seated,
+clutching his hair impatiently from time to time, as he endeavored to
+decipher a page of notes, compared to which the hieroglyphics on the
+obelisk of Luxor, would have been transparently intelligible. Just as
+the secretary's impatience was approaching desperation, the door opened
+and a young officer wearing an aide's uniform entered.
+
+The secretary raised his head, and a lively expression of satisfaction
+crossed his face.
+
+"Oh! my dear Roland," said he; "you here at last! I am delighted to see
+you, for three reasons. First, because I am wearying for you; second,
+because the general is impatient for your return, and keeps up a
+hullaballoo about it; and third, because you can help me to read this,
+with which I have been struggling for the last ten minutes. But first of
+all, kiss me."
+
+And the secretary and the aide-de-camp embraced each other.
+
+"Well," said the latter, "let us see this word that is troubling you so,
+my dear Bourrienne!"
+
+"Ah! my dear fellow, what writing! I get a white hair for every page I
+decipher, and this is my third to-day! Here, read it if you can."
+
+Roland took the sheet from the secretary, and fixing his eyes on the
+spot indicated, read quite fluently: "Paragraph XI. The Nile, from
+Assouan to a distance of twelve miles north of Cairo, flows in a single
+stream"--"Well," said he, interrupting himself, "that's all plain
+sailing. What did you mean? The general, on the contrary, took pains
+when he wrote that."
+
+"Go on, go on," said Bourrienne.
+
+The young man resumed: "'From that point, which is called'--ah! Ah!"
+
+"There you are! Now what do you say to that?"
+
+Roland repeated: "'Which is called'--The devil! 'Which is called--'"
+
+"Yes, 'Which is called'--after that?"
+
+"What will you give me, Bourrienne," cried Roland, "if I guess it?"
+
+"The first colonel's commission I find signed in blank."
+
+"By my faith, no! I don't want to leave the general; I'd rather have a
+good father than five hundred naughty children. I'll give you the three
+words for nothing."
+
+"What! are there three words there?"
+
+"They don't look as if they were quite three, I admit. Now listen, and
+make obeisance to me: 'From the point called Ventre della Vacca.'"
+
+"Ha! Ventre de la Vache! Confound it! He's illegible enough in French,
+but if he takes it into his head to go off in Italian, and that Corsican
+patois to boot! I thought I only ran the risk of going crazy, but then
+I should become stupid, too. Well, you've got it," and he read the whole
+sentence consecutively: "'The Nile, from Assouan to a distance of twelve
+miles north of Cairo, flows in a single stream; from that point, which
+is called Ventre de la Vache, it forms the branches of the Rosetta and
+the Damietta.' Thank you, Roland," and he began to write the end of the
+paragraph, of which the first lines were already committed to paper.
+
+"Tell me," said Roland; "is he still got his hobby, the dear general, of
+colonizing Egypt?"
+
+"Yes; and then, as a sort of offset, a little governing in France; we
+will colonize from a distance."
+
+"Well, my dear Bourrienne, suppose you post me a little on matters in
+this country, so that I won't seem to have just arrived from Timbuctoo."
+
+"In the first place, did you come back of your own accord, or were you
+recalled?"
+
+"Recalled? I should think so!"
+
+"By whom?"
+
+"The general himself."
+
+"Special despatch?"
+
+"Written by himself; see!"
+
+The young man drew a paper from his pocket containing two lines, not
+signed, in the same handwriting as that which Bourrienne had before him.
+These two lines said: "'Start. Be in Paris 16th Brumaire. I need you."
+
+"Yes," said Bourrienne, "I think it will be on the eighteenth."
+
+"What will be on the eighteenth?"
+
+"On my word, Roland, you ask more than I know. That man, as you are
+aware, is not communicative. What will take place on the 18th Brumaire?
+I don't know as yet; but I'll answer for it that something will happen."
+
+"Oh! you must have a suspicion!"
+
+"I think he means to make himself Director in place of Sieyes, or
+perhaps president in Gohier's stead."
+
+"Good! How about the Constitution of the year III.?"
+
+"The Constitution of the year III. What about that?"
+
+"Why, yes, a man must be forty years old to be a Director; and the
+general lacks just ten of them."
+
+"The deuce! so much the worse for the Constitution. They must violate
+it."
+
+"It is rather young yet, Bourrienne; they don't, as a rule, violate
+children of seven."
+
+"My dear fellow, in Barras' hands everything grows old rapidly. The
+little girl of seven is already an old prostitute."
+
+Roland shook his head.
+
+"Well, what is it?" asked Bourrienne.
+
+"Why, I don't believe the general will make himself a simple Director
+with four colleagues. Just imagine it--five kings of France! It wouldn't
+be a Directory any longer, but a four-in-hand."
+
+"Anyway, up to the present, that is all he has allowed any one to
+perceive; but you know, my dear friend, if we want to know the general's
+secrets we must guess them."
+
+"Faith! I'm too lazy to take the trouble, Bourrienne. Besides, I'm a
+regular Janissary--what is to be, will be. Why the devil should I bother
+to form an opinion and battle for it. It's quite wearisome enough to
+have to live." And the young man enforced his favorite aphorism with a
+long yawn; then he added: "Do you think there will be any sword play?"
+
+"Probably."
+
+"Then there will be a chance of getting killed; that's all I want. Where
+is the general?"
+
+"With Madame Bonaparte. He went to her about fifteen minutes ago. Have
+you let him know you are here?"
+
+"No, I wanted to see you first. But I hear his step now."
+
+Just then the door was opened abruptly, and the same historical
+personage whom we saw playing a silent part incognito at Avignon
+appeared on the threshold, in the picturesque uniform of the
+general-in-chief of the army of Egypt, except that, being in his own
+house, he was bare-headed. Roland thought his eyes were more hollow and
+his skin more leaden than usual. But the moment he saw the young man,
+Bonaparte's gloomy, or rather meditative, eye emitted a flash of joy.
+
+"Ah, here you are, Roland!" he said. "True as steel! Called, you come.
+Welcome, my dear fellow." And he offered Roland his hand. Then he asked,
+with an imperceptible smile, "What were you doing with Bourrienne?"
+
+"Waiting for you, general."
+
+"And in the meantime gossiping like two old women."
+
+"I admit it, general. I was showing him my order to be here on the 16th
+Brumaire."
+
+"Did I write the 16th or the 17th?"
+
+"Oh! the 16th, general. The 17th would have been too late."
+
+"Why too late?"
+
+"Why, hang it, Bourrienne says there are to be great doings here on the
+18th."
+
+"Capital," muttered Bourrienne; "the scatter-brain will earn me a
+wigging."
+
+"Ah! So he told you I had planned great doings for the 18th?"
+Then, approaching Bourrienne, Bonaparte pinched his ear, and said,
+"Tell-tale!" Then to Roland he added: "Well, it is so, my dear fellow,
+we have made great plans for the 18th. My wife and I dine with President
+Gohier; an excellent man, who was very polite to Josephine during my
+absence. You are to dine with us, Roland."
+
+Roland looked at Bonaparte. "Was it for that you brought me here,
+general?" he asked, laughing.
+
+"For that, and something else, too, perhaps. Bourrienne, write--"
+
+Bourrienne hastily seized his pen.
+
+"Are you ready?"
+
+"Yes, general."
+
+"'My dear President, I write to let you know that my wife and I, with
+one of my aides-de-camp, will dine with you the day after to-morrow.
+This is merely to say that we shall be quite satisfied with a family
+dinner.'"
+
+"What next?"
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Shall I put, 'Liberty, equality, fraternity'?"
+
+"Or death," added Roland.
+
+"No," said Bonaparte; "give me the pen."
+
+He took the pen from Bourrienne's hands and wrote, "Ever yours,
+Bonaparte." Then, pushing away the paper, he added: "Address it,
+Bourrienne, and send an orderly with it."
+
+Bourrienne wrote the address, sealed it, and rang the bell. An officer
+on duty entered.
+
+"Send an orderly with that," said Bourrienne.
+
+"There is an answer," added Bonaparte.
+
+The officer closed the door.
+
+"Bourrienne," said Bonaparte, pointing to Roland, "look at your friend."
+
+"Well, general, I am looking at him."
+
+"Do you know what he did at Avignon?"
+
+"I hope he didn't make a pope."
+
+"No, he threw a plate at a man's head."
+
+"Oh, that was hasty!"
+
+"That's not all."
+
+"That I can well imagine."
+
+"He fought a duel with that man."
+
+"And, most naturally, he killed him."
+
+"Exactly. Do you know why he did it?"
+
+"No."
+
+The general shrugged his shoulders, and said: "Because the man said that
+I was a thief." Then looking at Roland with an indefinable expression of
+raillery and affection, he added: "Ninny!" Then suddenly he burst out:
+"Oh! by the way, and the Englishman?"
+
+"Exactly, the Englishman, general. I was just going to speak to you
+about him."
+
+"Is he still in France?"
+
+"Yes, and for awhile even I thought he would remain here till the last
+trumpet blew its blast through the valley of Jehosaphat."
+
+"Did you miss killing him?"
+
+"Oh! no, not I. We are the best friends in the world. General, he is a
+capital fellow, and so original to boot that I'm going to ask a bit of a
+favor for him."
+
+"The devil! For an Englishman?" said Bonaparte, shaking his head. "I
+don't like the English."
+
+"Good! As a people, but individually--"
+
+"Well, what happened to your friend?"
+
+"He was tried, condemned, and executed."
+
+"What the devil are you telling us?"
+
+"God's truth, general."
+
+"What do you mean when you say, 'He was tried, condemned, and
+guillotined'?"
+
+"Oh! not exactly that. Tried and condemned, but not guillotined. If he
+had been guillotined he would be more dangerously ill than he is now."
+
+"Now, what are you gabbling about? What court tried and condemned him?"
+
+"That of the Companions of Jehu!"
+
+"And who are the Companions of Jehu?"
+
+"Goodness! Have you forgotten our friend Morgan already, the masked man
+who brought back the wine-merchant's two hundred louis?"
+
+"No," replied Bonaparte, "I have not forgotten him. I told you about the
+scamp's audacity, didn't I, Bourrienne?"
+
+"Yes, general," said Bourrienne, "and I answered that, had I been in
+your place, I should have tried to find out who he was."
+
+"And the general would know, had he left me alone. I was just going to
+spring at his throat and tear off his mask, when the general said, in
+that tone you know so well: 'Friend Roland!'"
+
+"Come back to your Englishman, chatterbox!" cried the general. "Did
+Morgan murder him?"
+
+"No, not he himself, but his Companions."
+
+"But you were speaking of a court and a trial just now."
+
+"General, you are always the same," said Roland, with their old school
+familiarity; "you want to know, and you don't give me time to tell you."
+
+"Get elected to the Five Hundred, and you can talk as much as you like."
+
+"Good! In the Five Hundred I should have four hundred and ninety-nine
+colleagues who would want to talk as much as I, and who would take
+the words out of my mouth. I'd rather be interrupted by you than by a
+lawyer."
+
+"Will you go on?"
+
+"I ask nothing better. Now imagine, general, there is a Chartreuse near
+Bourg--"
+
+"The Chartreuse of Seillon; I know it."
+
+"What! You know the Chartreuse of Seillon?" demanded Roland.
+
+"Doesn't the general know everything?" cried Bourrienne.
+
+"Well, about the Chartreuse; are there any monks there now?"
+
+"No; only ghosts--"
+
+"Are you, perchance, going to tell me a ghost-story?"
+
+"And a famous one at that!"
+
+"The devil! Bourrienne knows I love them. Go on."
+
+"Well, we were told at home that the Chartreuse was haunted by ghosts.
+Of course, you understand that Sir John and I, or rather I and Sir John,
+wanted to clear our minds about it. So we each spent a night there."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Why, at the Chartreuse."
+
+Bonaparte made an imperceptible sign of the cross with his thumb, a
+Corsican habit which he never lost.
+
+"Ah!" he exclaimed, "did you see any ghosts?"
+
+"One."
+
+"And what did you do to it?"
+
+"Shot at it."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"It walked away."
+
+"And you allowed yourself to be baffled?"
+
+"Good! How well you know me! I followed it, and fired again. But as he
+knew his way among the ruins better than I, he escaped me."
+
+"The devil!"
+
+"The next day it was Sir John's turn; I mean our Englishman."
+
+"Did he see your ghost?"
+
+"He saw something better. He saw twelve monks enter the church, who
+tried him for trying to find out their secrets, condemned him to death,
+and who, on my word of honor, stabbed him."
+
+"Didn't he defend himself?"
+
+"Like a lion. He killed two."
+
+"Is he dead?"
+
+"Almost, but I hope he will recover. Just imagine, general; he was found
+by the road, and brought home with a dagger in his breast, like a prop
+in a vineyard."
+
+"Why, it's like a scene of the Sainte-Vehme, neither more nor less."
+
+"And on the blade of the dagger, that there might be no doubt as to who
+did the deed, were graven the words: 'Companions of Jehu.'"
+
+"Why, it isn't possible that such things can happen in France, in the
+last year of the eighteenth century. It might do for Germany in the
+Middle Ages, in the days of the Henrys and the Ottos."
+
+"Not possible, general? But here is the dagger. What do you say to that?
+Attractive, isn't it?"
+
+And the young man drew from under his coat a dagger made entirely of
+steel, blade and handle. The handle was shaped like a cross, and on the
+blade, sure enough, were engraved the words, "Companions of Jehu."
+
+Bonaparte examined the weapon carefully.
+
+"And you say they planted that plaything in your Englishman's breast?"
+
+"Up to the hilt."
+
+"And he's not dead?"
+
+"Not yet, at any rate."
+
+"Have you been listening, Bourrienne?"
+
+"With the greatest interest."
+
+"You must remind me of this, Roland."
+
+"When, general?"
+
+"When?--when I am master. Come and say good-day to Josephine. Come,
+Bourrienne, you will dine with us, and be careful what you say, you
+two, for Moreau is coming to dinner. Ah! I will keep the dagger as a
+curiosity."
+
+He went out first, followed by Roland, who was, soon after, followed by
+Bourrienne. On the stairs they met the orderly who had taken the note to
+Gohier.
+
+"Well?" asked the general.
+
+"Here is the President's answer."
+
+"Give it to me."
+
+Bonaparte broke the seal, and read:
+
+  The President Gohier is enchanted the good fortune promised him
+  by General Bonaparte. He will expect him to dinner the day after
+  to-morrow, the 18th Brumaire, with his charming wife, and the
+  aide-de-camp, whoever he may be. Dinner will be served at five
+  o'clock.
+
+  If the hour does not suit General Bonaparte, will he kindly make
+  known the one he would prefer.
+
+  The President, GOHIER.
+  16th Brumaire, year VII.
+
+With an indescribable smile, Bonaparte put the letter in his pocket.
+Then turning to Roland, he asked: "Do you know President Gohier?"
+
+"No, general."
+
+"Ah! you'll see; he's an excellent man."
+
+These words were pronounced in a tone no less indescribable than the
+smile.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX. THE GUESTS OF GENERAL BONAPARTE
+
+Josephine, in spite of her thirty-four years, or possibly because of
+them (that enchanting age when woman hovers between her passing youth
+and her corning age), Josephine, always beautiful, more graceful than
+ever, was still the charming woman we all know. An imprudent remark
+of Junot's, at the time of her husband's return, had produced a slight
+coolness between them. But three days had sufficed to restore to the
+enchantress her full power over the victor of Rivoli and the Pyramids.
+
+She was doing the honors of her salon, when Roland entered the room.
+Always incapable, like the true Creole she was, of controlling her
+emotions, she gave a cry of joy, and held out her hand to him. She knew
+that Roland was devoted to her husband; she knew his reckless bravery,
+knew that if the young man had twenty lives he would willingly have
+given them all for Bonaparte. Roland eagerly took the hand she offered
+him, and kissed it respectfully. Josephine had known Roland's mother in
+Martinique; and she never failed, whenever she saw Roland, to speak
+to him of his maternal grandfather, M. de la Clemenciere, in whose
+magnificent garden as a child she was wont to gather those wonderful
+fruits which are unknown in our colder climates.
+
+A subject of conversation was therefore ready at hand. She inquired
+tenderly after Madame de Montrevel's health, and that of her daughter
+and little Edouard. Then, the information given, she said: "My dear
+Roland, I must now pay attention to my other guests; but try to remain
+after the other guests, or else let me see you alone to-morrow. I want
+to talk to you about _him_" (she glanced at Bonaparte) "and have a
+thousand things to tell you." Then, pressing the young man's hand with a
+sigh, she added, "No matter what happens, you will never leave him, will
+you?"
+
+"What do you mean?" asked Roland, amazed.
+
+"I know what I mean," said Josephine, "and when you have talked ten
+minutes with Bonaparte you will, I am sure, understand me. In the
+meantime watch, and listen, and keep silence."
+
+Roland bowed and drew aside, resolved, as Josephine had advised, to play
+the part of observer.
+
+But what was there to observe? Three principal groups occupied the
+salon. The first, gathered around Madame Bonaparte, the only woman
+present, was more a flux and reflux than a group. The second,
+surrounding Talma, was composed of Arnault, Parseval-Grandmaison, Monge,
+Berthollet, and two or three other members of the Institute. The third,
+which Bonaparte had just joined, counted in its circle Talleyrand,
+Barras, Lucien, Admiral Bruix, [Footnote: AUTHOR'S NOTE.--Not to be
+confounded with Rear-Admiral de Brueys, who was killed at Aboukir,
+August 1, 1798. Admiral Bruix, the negotiator with Talleyrand of
+the 18th Brumaire, did not die until 1805.] Roederer, Regnaud de
+Saint-Jean-d'Angely, Fouche, Real, and two or three generals, among whom
+was Lefebvre.
+
+In the first group they talked of fashions, music, the theatre; in the
+second, literature, science, dramatic art; in the third, they talked
+of everything except that which was uppermost in their minds. Doubtless
+this reserve was not in keeping with Bonaparte's own feeling at the
+moment; for after sharing in this commonplace conversation for a short
+time, he took the former bishop of Autun by the arm and led him into the
+embrasure of the window.
+
+"Well?" he asked.
+
+Talleyrand looked at Bonaparte with that air which belonged to no one
+but him.
+
+"What did I tell you of Sieyes, general?"
+
+"You told me to secure the support of those who regarded the friends of
+the Republic as Jacobins, and to rely, upon it that Sieyes was at their
+head."
+
+"I was not mistaken."
+
+"Then he will yield?"
+
+"Better, he has yielded."
+
+"The man who wanted to shoot me at Frejus for having landed without
+being quarantined!"
+
+"Oh, no; not for that."
+
+"But what then?"
+
+"For not having looked at him or spoken to him at Gohier's dinner."
+
+"I must confess that I did it on purpose. I cannot endure that unfrocked
+monk."
+
+Bonaparte perceived, too late, that the speech he had just made was
+like the sword of the archangel, double-edged; if Sieyes was unfrocked,
+Talleyrand was unmitred. He cast a rapid glance at his companion's face;
+the ex-bishop of Autun was smiling his sweetest smile.
+
+"Then I can count upon him?"
+
+"I will answer for him."
+
+"And Cambaceres and Lebrun, have you seen them?"
+
+"I took Sieyes in hand as the most recalcitrant. Bruix saw the other
+two."
+
+The admiral, from the midst of the group, had never taken his eyes off
+of the general and the diplomatist. He suspected that their conversation
+had a special importance. Bonaparte made him a sign to join them. A less
+able man would have done so at once, but Bruix avoided such a mistake.
+He walked about the room with affected indifference, and then, as if he
+had just perceived Talleyrand and Bonaparte talking together, he went up
+to them.
+
+"Bruix is a very able man!" said Bonaparte, who judged men as much by
+little as by great things.
+
+"And above all very cautious, general!" said Talleyrand.
+
+"Yes. We will need a corkscrew to pull anything out of him."
+
+"Oh, no; on the contrary, now that he has joined us, he, will broach the
+question frankly."
+
+And, indeed, no sooner had Bruix joined them than he began in words as
+clear as they were concise: "I have seen them; they waver!"
+
+"They waver! Cambaceres and Lebrun waver? Lebrun I can understand--a
+sort of man of letters, a moderate, a Puritan; but Cambaceres--"
+
+"But it is so."
+
+"But didn't you tell them that I intended to make them each a consul?"
+
+"I didn't get as far as that," replied Bruix, laughing.
+
+"And why not?" inquired Bonaparte.
+
+"Because this is the first word you have told me about your intentions,
+Citizen General."
+
+"True," said Bonaparte, biting his lips.
+
+"Am I to repair the omission?" asked Bruix.
+
+"No, no," exclaimed Bonaparte hastily; "they might think I needed them.
+I won't have any quibbling. They must decide to-day without any other
+conditions than those you have offered them; to-morrow it will be too
+late. I feel strong enough to stand alone; and I now have Sieyes and
+Barras."
+
+"Barras?" repeated the two negotiators astonished.
+
+"Yes, Barras, who treated me like a little corporal, and wouldn't send
+me back to Italy, because, he said, I had made my fortune there, and it
+was useless to return. Well, Barras--"
+
+"Barras?"
+
+"Nothing." Then, changing his mind, "Faith! I may as well tell you. Do
+you know what Barras said at dinner yesterday before me? That it was
+impossible to go on any longer with the Constitution of the year III. He
+admitted the necessity of a dictatorship; said he had decided to abandon
+the reins of government, and retire; adding that he himself was looked
+upon as worn-out, and that the Republic needed new men. Now, guess to
+whom he thinks of transferring his power. I give it you, as Madame
+de Sevigne says, in a hundred, thousand, ten thousand. No other than
+General Hedouville, a worthy man, but I have only to look him in the
+face to make him lower his eyes. My glance must have been blasting!
+As the result, Barras came to my bedside at eight o'clock, to excuse
+himself as best he could for the nonsense he talked the night before,
+and admitted that I alone could save the Republic, and placed himself
+at my disposal, to do what I wished, assume any role I might assign him,
+begging me to promise that if I had any plan in my head I would count on
+him--yes, on him; and he would be true to the crack of doom."
+
+"And yet," said Talleyrand, unable to resist a play upon words, "doom is
+not a word with which to conjure liberty."
+
+Bonaparte glanced at the ex-bishop.
+
+"Yes, I know that Barras is your friend, the friend of Fouche and Real;
+but he is not mine, and I shall prove it to him. Go back to Lebrun and
+Cambaceres, Bruix, and let them make their own bargain." Then, looking
+at his watch and frowning, he added: "It seems to me that Moreau keeps
+us waiting."
+
+So saying, he turned to the group which surrounded Talma. The two
+diplomatists watched him. Then Admiral Bruix asked in a low voice:
+"What do you say, my dear Maurice, to such sentiments toward the man who
+picked him out, a mere lieutenant, at the siege of Toulon, who trusted
+him to defend the Convention on the 13th Vendemiaire, and who named him,
+when only twenty-six, General-in-Chief of the Army in Italy?"
+
+"I say, my dear admiral," replied M. de Talleyrand, with his pallid
+mocking smile, "that some services are so great that ingratitude alone
+can repay them."
+
+At that moment the door opened and General Moreau was announced. At this
+announcement, which was more than a piece of news--it was a surprise
+to most of those present--every eye was turned toward the door. Moreau
+appeared.
+
+At this period three men were in the eyes of France. Moreau was one of
+these three men. The two others were Bonaparte and Pichegru. Each had
+become a sort of symbol. Since the 18th Fructidor, Pichegru had become
+the symbol of monarchy; Moreau, since he had been christened Fabius,
+was the symbol of the Republic; Bonaparte, symbol of war, dominated them
+both by the adventurous aspect of his genius.
+
+Moreau was at that time in the full strength of his age; we would
+say the full strength of his genius, if decision were not one of the
+characteristics of genius. But no one was ever more undecided than the
+famous cunctator. He was thirty-six years old, tall, with a sweet, calm,
+firm countenance, and must have resembled Xenophon.
+
+Bonaparte had never seen him, nor had he, on his side, ever seen
+Bonaparte. While the one was battling on the Adige and the Mincio, the
+other fought beside the Danube and the Rhine. Bonaparte came forward to
+greet him, saying: "You are welcome, general!"
+
+"General," replied Moreau, smiling courteously, while all present made a
+circle around them to see how this new Caesar would meet the new Pompey,
+"you come from Egypt, victorious, while I come, defeated, from Italy."
+
+"A defeat which was not yours, and for which you are not responsible,
+general. It was Joubert's fault. If he had rejoined the Army of Italy
+as soon as he had been made commander-in-chief, it is more than probable
+that the Russians and Austrians, with the troops they then had, could
+not have resisted him. But he remained in Paris for his honeymoon! Poor
+Joubert paid with his life for that fatal month which gave the enemy
+time to gather its reinforcements. The surrender of Mantua gave them
+fifteen thousand men on the eve of the battle. It was impossible that
+our poor army should not have been overwhelmed by such united forces."
+
+"Alas! yes," said Moreau; "it is always the greater number which defeats
+the smaller."
+
+"A great truth, general," exclaimed Bonaparte; "an indisputable truth."
+
+"And yet," said Arnault, joining in the conversation, "you yourself,
+general, have defeated large armies with little ones."
+
+"If you were Marius, instead of the author of 'Marius,' you would
+not say that, my dear poet. Even when I beat great armies with little
+ones--listen to this, you young men who obey to-day, and will command
+to-morrow--it was always the larger number which defeated the lesser."
+
+"I don't understand," said Arnault and Lefebvre together.
+
+But Moreau made a sign with his head to show that he understood.
+Bonaparte continued: "Follow my theory, for it contains the whole art
+of war. When with lesser forces I faced a large army, I gathered mine
+together, with great rapidity, fell like a thunderbolt on a wing of the
+great army, and overthrew it; then I profited by the disorder into which
+this manoeuvre never failed to throw the enemy to attack again, always
+with my whole army, on the other side. I beat them, in this way, in
+detail; and the victory which resulted was always, as you see, the
+triumph of the many over the few."
+
+As the able general concluded his definition of his own genius, the door
+opened and the servant announced that dinner was served.
+
+"General," said Bonaparte, leading Moreau to Josephine, "take in my
+wife. Gentlemen, follow them."
+
+On this invitation all present moved from the salon to the dining-room.
+
+After dinner, on pretence of showing him a magnificent sabre he had
+brought from Egypt, Bonaparte took Moreau into his study. There the two
+rivals remained closeted more than an hour. What passed between them?
+What compact was signed? What promises were made? No one has ever known.
+Only, when Bonaparte returned to the salon alone, and Lucien asked him:
+"Well, what of Moreau?" he answered: "Just as I foresaw; he prefers
+military power to political power. I have promised him the command of
+an army." Bonaparte smiled as he pronounced these words; then added, "In
+the meantime--"
+
+"In the meantime?" questioned Lucien.
+
+"He will have that of the Luxembourg. I am not sorry to make him
+the jailer of the Directors, before I make him the conqueror of the
+Austrians."
+
+The next day the following appeared in the "Moniteur":
+
+  PARIS, 17th Brumaire. Bonaparte has presented Moreau with a
+  magnificent Damascus sword set with precious stones which he
+  brought from Egypt, the value of which is estimated at twelve
+  thousand francs.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI. THE SCHEDULE OF THE DIRECTORY
+
+We have said that Moreau, furnished no doubt with instructions, left the
+little house in the Rue de la Victoire, while Bonaparte returned alone
+to the salon. Everything furnished an object of comment in such a
+company as was there assembled; the absence of Moreau, the return of
+Bonaparte unaccompanied, and the visible good humor which animated his
+countenance, were all remarked upon.
+
+The eyes which fastened upon him most ardently were those of Josephine
+and Roland. Moreau for Bonaparte added twenty chances to the success of
+the plot; Moreau against Bonaparte robbed him of fifty. Josephine's
+eyes were so supplicating that, on leaving Lucien, Bonaparte pushed his
+brother toward his wife. Lucien understood, and approached Josephine,
+saying: "All is well."
+
+"Moreau?"
+
+"With us."
+
+"I thought he was a Republican."
+
+"He has been made to see that we are acting for the good of the
+Republic."
+
+"I should have thought him ambitious," said Roland.
+
+Lucien started and looked at the young man.
+
+"You are right," said he.
+
+"Then," remarked Josephine, "if he is ambitious he will not let
+Bonaparte seize the power."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because he will want it himself."
+
+"Yes; but he will wait till it comes to him ready-made, inasmuch as he
+doesn't know how to create it, and is afraid to seize it."
+
+During this time Bonaparte had joined the group which had formed around
+Talma after dinner, as well as before. Remarkable men are always the
+centre of attraction.
+
+"What are you saying, Talma?" demanded Bonaparte. "It seems to me they
+are listening to you very attentively."
+
+"Yes, but my reign is over," replied the artist.
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"I do as citizen Barras has done; I abdicate?"
+
+"So citizen Barras has abdicated?"
+
+"So rumor says."
+
+"Is it known who will take his place?"
+
+"It is surmised."
+
+"Is it one of your friends, Talma?"
+
+"Time was," said Talma, bowing, "when he did me the honor to say I was
+his."
+
+"Well, in that case, Talma, I shall ask for your influence."
+
+"Granted," said Talma, laughing; "it only remains to ask how it can
+serve you."
+
+"Get me sent back to Italy; Barras would not let me go."
+
+"The deuce!" said Talma; "don't you know the song, general, 'We won't go
+back to the woods when the laurels are clipped'?"
+
+"Oh! Roscius, Roscius!" said Bonaparte, smiling, "have you grown a
+flatterer during my absence?"
+
+"Roscius was the friend of Caesar, general, and when the conqueror
+returned from Gaul he probably said to him about the same thing I have
+said to you."
+
+Bonaparte laid his band on Talma's shoulder.
+
+"Would he have said the same words after crossing the Rubicon?"
+
+Talma looked Bonaparte straight in the face.
+
+"No," he replied; "he would have said, like the augur, 'Caesar, beware of
+the Ides of March!'"
+
+Bonaparte slipped his hand into his breast as if in search of
+something; finding the dagger of the Companions of Jehu, he grasped
+it convulsively. Had he a presentiment of the conspiracies of Arena,
+Saint-Regent, and Cadoudal?
+
+Just then the door opened and a servant announced: "General Bernadotte!"
+
+"Bernadotte," muttered Bonaparte, involuntarily. "What does he want
+here?"
+
+Since Bonaparte's return, Bernadotte had held aloof from him, refusing
+all the advances which the general-in-chief and his friends had made
+him. The fact is, Bernadotte had long since discerned the politician
+beneath the soldier's greatcoat, the dictator beneath the general, and
+Bernadotte, for all that he became king in later years, was at that time
+a very different Republican from Moreau. Moreover, Bernadotte believed
+he had reason to complain of Bonaparte. His military career had not
+been less brilliant than that of the young general; his fortunes were
+destined to run parallel with his to the end, only, more fortunate than
+that other--Bernadotte was to die on his throne. It is true, he did not
+conquer that throne; he was called to it.
+
+Son of a lawyer at Pau, Bernadotte, born in 1764--that is to say, five
+years before Bonaparte--was in the ranks as a private soldier when only
+eighteen. In 1789 he was only a sergeant-major. But those were the days
+of rapid promotion. In 1794, Kleber created him brigadier-general on the
+field of battle, where he had decided the fortunes of the day. Becoming
+a general of division, he played a brilliant part at Fleurus and
+Juliers, forced Maestricht to capitulate, took Altdorf, and protected,
+against an army twice as numerous as his own, the retreat of Joubert.
+In 1797 the Directory ordered him to take seventeen thousand men to
+Bonaparte. These seventeen thousand men were his old soldiers, veterans
+of Kleber, Marceau and Hoche, soldiers of the Sambre-et-Meuse; and yet
+Bernadotte forgot all rivalry and seconded Bonaparte with all his might,
+taking part in the passage of the Tagliamento, capturing Gradiska,
+Trieste, Laybach, Idria, bringing back to the Directory, after
+the campaign, the flags of the enemy, and accepting, possibly with
+reluctance, an embassy to Vienna, while Bonaparte secured the command of
+the army of Egypt.
+
+At Vienna, a riot, excited by the tri-color flag hoisted above the
+French embassy, for which the ambassador was unable to obtain redress,
+forced him to demand his passports. On his return to Paris, the
+Directory appointed him Minister of War. An underhand proceeding of
+Sieyes, who was offended by Bernadotte's republicanism, induced the
+latter to send in his resignation. It was accepted, and when Bonaparte
+landed at Frejus the late minister had been three months out of office.
+Since Bonaparte's return, some of Bernadotte's friends had sought to
+bring about his reinstatement; but Bonaparte had opposed it. The result
+was a hostility between the two generals, none the less real because not
+openly avowed.
+
+Bernadotte's appearance in Bonaparte's salon was therefore an event
+almost as extraordinary as the presence of Moreau. And the entrance of
+the conqueror of Maestricht caused as many heads to turn as had that of
+the conqueror of Rastadt. Only, instead of going forward to meet him, as
+he had Moreau, Bonaparte merely turned round and awaited him.
+
+Bernadotte, from the threshold of the door, cast a rapid glance around
+the salon. He divided and analyzed the groups, and although he must have
+perceived Bonaparte in the midst of the principal one, he went up to
+Josephine, who was reclining on a couch at the corner of the fireplace,
+like the statue of Agrippina in the Pitti, and, addressing her with
+chivalric courtesy, inquired for her health; then only did he raise his
+head as if to look for Bonaparte. At such a time everything was of too
+much importance for those present not to remark this affectation of
+courtesy on Bernadotte's part.
+
+Bonaparte, with his rapid, comprehensive intellect, was not the last
+to notice this; he was seized with impatience, and, instead of awaiting
+Bernadotte in the midst of the group where he happened to be, he
+turned abruptly to the embrasure of a window, as if to challenge the
+ex-minister of war to follow him. Bernadotte bowed graciously to right
+and left, and controlling his usually mobile face to an expression
+of perfect calmness, he walked toward Bonaparte, who awaited him as
+a wrestler awaits his antagonist, the right foot forward and his lips
+compressed. The two men bowed, but Bonaparte made no movement to extend
+his hand to Bernadotte, nor did the latter offer to take it.
+
+"Is it you?" asked Bonaparte. "I am glad to see you."
+
+"Thank you, general," replied Bernadotte. "I have come because I wish to
+give you a few explanations."
+
+"I did not recognize you at first."
+
+"Yet I think, general, that my name was announced by your servant in a
+voice loud enough to prevent any doubt as to my identity."
+
+"Yes, but he announced General Bernadotte."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, I saw a man in civilian's dress, and though I recognized you, I
+doubted if it were really you."
+
+For some time past Bernadotte had affected to wear civilian's dress in
+preference to his uniform.
+
+"You know," said he, laughing, "that I am only half a soldier now. I was
+retired by citizen Sieyes."
+
+"It seems that it was lucky for me that you were no longer minister of
+war when I landed at Frejus."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"You said, so I was told, that had you received the order to arrest me
+for violating quarantine you would have done so."
+
+"I said it, and I repeat it, general. As a soldier I was always a
+faithful observer of discipline. As a minister I was a slave to law."
+
+Bonaparte bit his lips. "And will you say, after that, that you have not
+a personal enmity to me?"
+
+"A personal enmity to you, general?" replied Bernadotte. "Why should
+I have? We have always gone together, almost in the same stride; I was
+even made general before you. While my campaigns on the Rhine were less
+brilliant than yours on the Adige, they were not less profitable for the
+Republic; and when I had the honor to serve under you, you found in
+me, I hope, a subordinate devoted, if not to the man, at least to the
+country which he served. It is true that since your departure, general,
+I have been more fortunate than you in not having the responsibility of
+a great army, which, if one may believe Kleber's despatches, you have
+left in a disastrous position."
+
+"What do you mean? Kleber's last despatches? Has Kleber written?"
+
+"Are you ignorant of that, general? Has the Directory not informed you
+of the complaints of your successor? That would be a great weakness on
+their part, and I congratulate myself to have come here, not only to
+correct in your mind what has been said of me, but to tell you what is
+being said of you."
+
+Bonaparte fixed an eye, darkling as an eagle's, on Bernadotte. "And what
+are they saying of me?" he asked.
+
+"They say that, as you must come back, you should have brought the army
+with you."
+
+"Had I a fleet? Are you unaware that De Brueys allowed his to be
+burned?"
+
+"They also say, general, that, being unable to bring back the army, it
+would have been better for your renown had you remained with it."
+
+"That is what I should have done, monsieur, if events had not recalled
+me to France."
+
+"What events, general?"
+
+"Your defeats."
+
+"Pardon me, general; you mean to say Scherer's defeats.
+
+"Yours as well."
+
+"I was not answerable for the generals commanding our armies on the
+Rhine and in Italy until I was minister of war. If you will enumerate
+the victories and defeats since that time you will see on which side the
+scale turns."
+
+"You certainly do not intend to tell me that matters are in a good
+condition?"
+
+"No, but I do say that they are not in so desperate state as you affect
+to believe."
+
+"As I affect!--Truly, general, to hear you one would think I had some
+interest in lowering France in the eyes of foreigners.
+
+"I don't say that; I say that I wish to settle the balance of our
+victories and defeats for the last three months; and as I came for that,
+and am now in your house, and in the position of an accused person--"
+
+"Or an accuser."
+
+"As the accused, in the first instance--I begin."
+
+"And I listen," said Bonaparte, visibly on thorns.
+
+"My ministry dates from the 30th Prairial, the 8th of June if you
+prefer; we will not quarrel over words."
+
+"Which means that we shall quarrel about things."
+
+Bernadotte continued without replying.
+
+"I became minister, as I said, the 8th of June; that is, a short time
+after the siege of Saint-Jean-d'Acre was raised."
+
+Bonaparte bit his lips. "I did not raise the siege until after I had
+ruined the fortifications," he replied.
+
+"That is not what Kleber wrote; but that does not concern me." Then he
+added, smiling: "It happened while Clark was minister."
+
+There was a moment's silence, during which Bonaparte endeavored to make
+Bernadotte lower his eyes. Not succeeding, he said: "Go on."
+
+Bernadotte bowed and continued: "Perhaps no minister of war--and the
+archives of the ministry are there for reference--ever received the
+portfolio under more critical circumstances: civil war within, a foreign
+enemy at our doors, discouragement rife among our veteran armies,
+absolute destitution of means to equip new ones. That was what I had
+to face on the 8th of June, when I entered upon my duties. An active
+correspondence, dating from the 8th of June, between the civil and
+military authorities, revived their courage and their hopes. My
+addresses to the armies--this may have been a mistake--were those, not
+of a minister to his soldiers, but of a comrade among comrades, just
+as my addresses to the administrators were those of a citizen to his
+fellow-citizens. I appealed to the courage of the army, and the heart of
+the French people; I obtained all that I had asked. The National Guard
+reorganized with renewed zeal; legions were formed upon the Rhine, on
+the Moselle. Battalions of veterans took the place of old regiments
+to reinforce the troops that were guarding our frontiers; to-day our
+cavalry is recruited by a remount of forty thousand horses, and one
+hundred thousand conscripts, armed and equipped, have received with
+cries of 'Vive la Republique!' the flags under which they will fight and
+conquer--"
+
+"But," interrupted Bonaparte bitterly, "this is an apology you are
+making for yourself."
+
+"Be it so. I will divide my discourse into two parts. The first will
+be a contestable apology; the second an array of incontestable facts.
+I will set aside the apology and proceed to facts. June 17 and 18, the
+battle of the Trebbia. Macdonald wished to fight without Moreau; he
+crossed the Trebbia, attacked the enemy, was defeated and retreated
+to Modena. June 20, battle of Tortona; Moreau defeated the Austrian
+Bellegarde. July 22, surrender of the citadel of Alexandria to the
+Austro-Russians. So far the scale turns to defeat. July 30, surrender of
+Mantua, another check. August 15, battle of Novi; this time it was more
+than a check, it was a defeat. Take note of it, general, for it is
+the last. At the very moment we were fighting at Novi, Massena was
+maintaining his position at Zug and Lucerne, and strengthening himself
+on the Aar and on the Rhine; while Lecourbe, on August 14 and 15, took
+the Saint-Gothard. August 19, battle of Bergen; Brune defeated the
+Anglo-Russian army, forty thousand strong, and captured the Russian
+general, Hermann. On the 25th, 26th and 27th of the same month, the
+battles of Zurich, where Massena defeated the Austro-Russians under
+Korsakoff. Hotze and three other generals are taken prisoners. The enemy
+lost twelve thousand men, a hundred cannon, and all its baggage; the
+Austrians, separated from the Russians, could not rejoin them until
+after they were driven beyond Lake Constance. That series of victories
+stopped the progress the enemy had been making since the beginning of
+the campaign; from the time Zurich was retaken, France was secure from
+invasion. August 30, Molitor defeated the Austrian generals, Jellachich
+and Luiken, and drove them back into the Grisons. September 1, Molitor
+attacked and defeated General Rosenberg in the Mutterthal. On the 2d,
+Molitor forced Souvaroff to evacuate Glarus, to abandon his wounded,
+his cannon, and sixteen hundred prisoners. The 6th, General Brune again
+defeated the Anglo-Russians, under the command of the Duke of York.
+On the 7th, General Gazan took possession of Constance. On the 8th you
+landed at Frejus.--Well, general," continued Bernadotte, "as France will
+probably pass into your hands, it is well that you should know the state
+in which you find her, and in place of receipt, our possessions bear
+witness to what we are giving you. What we are now doing, general,
+is history, and it is important that those who may some day have an
+interest in falsifying history shall find in their path the denial of
+Bernadotte."
+
+"Is that said for my benefit, general?"
+
+"I say that for flatterers. You have pretended, it is said, that you
+returned to France because our armies were destroyed, because France was
+threatened, the Republic at bay. You may have left Egypt with that fear;
+but once in France, all such fears must have given way to a totally
+different belief."
+
+"I ask no better than to believe as you do," replied Bonaparte, with
+sovereign dignity; "and the more grand and powerful you prove France to
+be, the more grateful am I to those who have secured her grandeur and
+her power."
+
+"Oh, the result is plain, general! Three armies defeated; the Russians
+exterminated, the Austrians defeated and forced to fly, twenty thousand
+prisoners, a hundred pieces of cannon, fifteen flags, all the baggage of
+the enemy in our possession, nine generals taken or killed, Switzerland
+free, our frontiers safe, the Rhine our limit--so much for Massena's
+contingent and the situation of Helvetia. The Anglo-Russian army twice
+defeated, utterly discouraged, abandoning its artillery, baggage,
+munitions of war and commissariat, even to the women and children who
+came with the British; eight thousand French prisoners; effective men,
+returned to France; Holland completely evacuated--so much for Brune's
+contingent and the situation in Holland. The rearguard of General Klenau
+forced to lay down its arms at Villanova; a thousand prisoners and three
+pieces of cannon fallen into our hands, and the Austrians driven back
+beyond Bormida; in all, counting the combats at la Stura and Pignerol,
+four thousand prisoners, sixteen cannon, Mondovi, and the occupation of
+the whole region between la Stura and Tanaro--so much for Championnet's
+contingent and the situation in Italy. Two hundred thousand men under
+arms, forty thousand mounted cavalry; that is my contingent, mine, and
+the situation in France."
+
+"But," asked Bonaparte satirically, "if you have, as you say, two
+hundred thousand soldiers under arms, why do you want me to bring back
+the fifteen or twenty thousand men I have in Egypt, who are useful there
+as colonizers?"
+
+"If I ask you for them, general, it is not for any need we may have of
+them, but in the fear of some disaster over taking them."
+
+"What disaster do you expect to befall them, commanded by Kleber?"
+
+"Kleber may be killed, general; and who is there behind Kleber? Menou.
+Kleber and your twenty thousand men are doomed, general!"
+
+"How doomed?"
+
+"Yes, the Sultan will send troops; he controls by land. The English will
+send their fleet; they control by sea. We, who have neither land nor
+sea, will be compelled to take part from here in the evacuation of Egypt
+and the capitulation of our army.
+
+"You take a gloomy view of things, general!"
+
+"The future will show which of us two have seen things as they are."
+
+"What would you have done in my place?"
+
+"I don't know. But, even had I been forced to bring them back by way
+of Constantinople, I should never have abandoned those whom France had
+intrusted to me. Xenophon, on the banks of the Tigris, was in a much
+more desperate situation than you on the banks of the Nile. He brought
+his ten thousand back to Ionia, and they were not the children of
+Athens, not his fellow citizens; they were mercenaries!"
+
+From the instant Bernadotte uttered the word Constantinople, Bonaparte
+listened no longer; the name seemed to rouse a new train of ideas in his
+mind, which he followed in solitary thought. He laid his hand on the arm
+of the astonished Bernadotte, and, with eyes fixed on space, like a man
+who pursues through space the phantom of a vanished project, he said:
+"Yes, yes! I thought of it. That is why I persisted in taking that
+hovel, Saint-Jean-d'Acre. Here you only thought it obstinacy, a useless
+waste of men sacrificed to the self-love of a mediocre general who
+feared that he might be blamed for a defeat. What should I have cared
+for the raising of the siege of Saint-Jean-d'Acre, if Saint-Jean-d'Acre
+had not been the barrier in the way of the grandest project ever
+conceived. Cities! Why, good God! I could take as many as ever did
+Alexander or Caesar, but it was Saint-Jean-d'Acre that had to be taken!
+If I had taken Saint-Jean-d'Acre, do you know what I should have done?"
+
+And he fixed his burning eyes upon Bernadotte, who, this time, lowered
+his under the flame of this genius.
+
+"What I should have done," repeated Bonaparte, and, like Ajax, he
+seemed to threaten Heaven with his clinched fist; "if I had taken
+Saint-Jean-d'Acre, I should have found the treasures of the pasha in the
+city and three thousand stands of arms. With that I should have raised
+and armed all Syria, so maddened by the ferocity of Djezzar that each
+time I attacked him the population prayed to God for his overthrow. I
+should have marched upon Damascus and Aleppo; I should have swelled my
+army with the malcontents. Advancing into the country, I should, step by
+step, have proclaimed the abolition of slavery, and the annihilation of
+the tyrannical government of the pashas. I should have overthrown the
+Turkish empire, and founded a great empire at Constantinople, which
+would have fixed my place in history higher than Constantine and
+Mohammed II. Perhaps I should have returned to Paris by way of
+Adrianople and Vienna, after annihilating the house of Austria. Well,
+my dear general, that is the project which that little hovel of a
+Saint-Jean-d'Acre rendered abortive!"
+
+And he so far forgot to whom he was speaking, as he followed the shadows
+of his vanished dream, that he called Bernadotte "my dear general." The
+latter, almost appalled by the magnitude of the project which Bonaparte
+had unfolded to him, made a step backward.
+
+"Yes," said Bernadotte, "I perceive what you want, for you have just
+betrayed yourself. Orient or Occident, a throne! A throne? So be it; why
+not? Count upon me to help you conquer it, but elsewhere than in France.
+I am a Republican, and I will die a Republican."
+
+Bonaparte shook his head as if to disperse the thoughts which held him
+in the clouds.
+
+"I, too, am a Republican," said he, "but see what has come of your
+Republic!"
+
+"What matter!" cried Bernadotte. "It is not to a word or a form that I
+am faithful, but to the principle. Let the Directors but yield me the
+power, and I would know how to defend the Republic against her internal
+enemies, even as I defended her from her foreign enemies."
+
+As he said these words, Bernadotte raised his eyes, and his glance
+encountered that of Bonaparte. Two naked blades clashing together never
+sent forth lightning more vivid, more terrible.
+
+Josephine had watched the two men for some time past with anxious
+attention. She saw the dual glance teeming with reciprocal menace. She
+rose hastily and went to Bernadotte.
+
+"General," said she.
+
+Bernadotte bowed.
+
+"You are intimate with Gohier, are you not?" she continued.
+
+"He is one of my best friends, madame," said Bernadotte.
+
+"Well, we dine with him the day after to-morrow, the 18th Brumaire; dine
+there yourself and bring Madame Bernadotte. I should be so glad to know
+her better."
+
+"Madame," said Bernadotte, "in the days of the Greeks you would have
+been one of the three graces; in the Middle Ages you would have been a
+fairy; to-day you are the most adorable woman I know."
+
+And making three steps backward, and bowing, he contrived to retire
+politely without including Bonaparte in his bow. Josephine followed him
+with her eyes until he had left the room. Then, turning to her husband,
+she said: "Well, it seems that it was not as successful with Bernadotte
+as with Moreau, was it?"
+
+"Bold, adventurous, disinterested, sincere republican, inaccessible
+to seduction, he is a human obstacle. We must make our way around him,
+since we cannot overthrow him."
+
+And leaving the salon without taking leave of any one, he went to his
+study, whither Roland and Bourrienne followed. They had hardly been
+there a quarter of an hour when the handle of the lock turned softly,
+the door opened, and Lucien appeared.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII. THE OUTLINE OF A DECREE
+
+Lucien was evidently expected. Bonaparte had not mentioned his name once
+since entering the study; but in spite of this silence he had turned his
+head three or four times with increasing impatience toward the door, and
+when the young man appeared an exclamation of contentment escaped his
+lips.
+
+Lucien, the general's youngest brother, was born in 1775, making him
+now barely twenty-five years old. Since 1797, that is, at the age of
+twenty-two and a half, he had been a member of the Five Hundred, who, to
+honor Bonaparte, had made him their president. With the projects he had
+conceived nothing could have been more fortunate for Bonaparte.
+
+Frank and loyal, republican to the core, Lucien believed that, in
+seconding his brother's plans, he was serving the Republic better than
+the future First Consul. In his eyes, no one was better fitted to save
+it a second time than he who had saved it the first. It was with these
+sentiments in his heart that he now came to confer with his brother.
+
+"Here you are," said Bonaparte. "I have been waiting for you
+impatiently."
+
+"So I suspected. But I was obliged to wait until I could leave without
+being noticed."
+
+"Did you manage it?"
+
+"Yes; Talma was relating a story about Marat and Dumouriez. Interesting
+as it was, I deprived myself of the pleasure, and here I am."
+
+"I have just heard a carriage driving away; the person who got in it
+couldn't have seen you coming up my private stairs, could he?"
+
+"The person who drove off was myself, the carriage was mine. If that is
+not seen every one will think I have left."
+
+Bonaparte breathed freer.
+
+"Well," said he, "let us hear how you have spent your day."
+
+"Oh! I haven't wasted my time, you may be sure."
+
+"Are we to have a decree or the Council?"
+
+"We drew it up to-day, and I have brought it to you--the rough draft at
+least--so that you can see if you want anything added or changed."
+
+"Let me see it," cried Bonaparte. Taking the paper hastily from Lucien's
+hand, he read:
+
+  Art. I. The legislative body is transferred to the commune of
+  Saint-Cloud; the two branches of the Council will hold their
+  sessions in the two wings of the palace.
+
+"That's the important article," said Lucien. "I had it placed first, so
+that it might strike the people at once."
+
+"Yes, yes," exclaimed Bonaparte, and he continued:
+
+  Art. II. They will assemble there to-morrow, the 20th Brumaire--
+
+"No, no," said Bonaparte, "to-morrow the 19th. Change the date,
+Bourrienne;" and he handed the paper to his secretary.
+
+"You expect to be ready for the 18th?"
+
+"I shall be. Fouche said day before yesterday, 'Make haste, or I won't
+answer for the result.'"
+
+"The 19th Brumaire," said Bourrienne, returning the paper to the
+general.
+
+Bonaparte resumed:
+
+  Art. II. They will assemble there to-morrow, the 19th Brumaire,
+  at noon. All deliberations are forbidden elsewhere and before
+  the above date.
+
+Bonaparte read the article a second time.
+
+"Good," said he; "there is no double meaning there." And he continued:
+
+  Art. III. General Bonaparte is charged with the enforcement of
+  this decree; he will take all necessary measures for the safety
+  of the National Legislature.
+
+A satirical smile flickered on the stony lips of the reader, but he
+continued almost immediately.
+
+  The general commanding the 17th military division, the guard of
+  the Legislature, the stationary national guard the troops of the
+  line within the boundaries of the Commune of Paris, and those in
+  the constitutional arrondissement, and throughout the limits of
+  the said 17th division, are placed directly under his orders, and
+  are directed to regard him as their commanding officer.
+
+"Bourrienne, add: 'All citizens will lend him assistance when called
+upon.' The bourgeois love to meddle in political matters, and when
+they really can help us in our projects we ought to grant them this
+satisfaction."
+
+Bourrienne obeyed; then he returned the paper to the general, who went
+on:
+
+  Art. IV. General Bonaparte is summoned before the Council to
+  receive a copy of the present decree, and to make oath thereto.
+  He will consult with the inspecting commissioners of both
+  branches of the Council.
+
+  Art. V. The present decree shall be transmitted immediate, by
+  messenger, to all the members of the Council of Five Hundred
+  and to the Executive Directory. It shall be printed and posted,
+  and promulgated throughout the communes of the Republic by
+  special messengers.
+
+  Done at Paris this....
+
+"The date is left blank," said Lucien.
+
+"Put 'the 18th Brumaire,' Bourrienne; the decree must take everybody by
+surprise. It must be issued at seven o'clock in the morning, and at the
+same hour or even earlier it must be posted on all the walls of Paris."
+
+"But suppose the Ancients won't consent to issue it?" said Lucien.
+
+"All the more reason to have it posted, ninny," said Bonaparte. "We must
+act as if it had been issued."
+
+"Am I to correct this grammatical error in the last paragraph?" asked
+Bourrienne, laughing.
+
+"Where?" demanded Lucien, in the tone of an aggrieved author.
+
+"The word 'immediate,'" replied Bourrienne. "You can't say 'transmitted
+immediate'; it ought to be 'immediately.'"
+
+"It's not worth while," said Bonaparte. "I shall act, you may be sure,
+as if it were 'immediately.'" Then, after an instant's reflection, he
+added: "As to what you said just now about their not being willing to
+pass it, there's a very simple way to get it passed."
+
+"What is that."
+
+"To convoke the members of whom we are sure at six o'clock in the
+morning, and those of whom we are not sure at eight. Having only our own
+men, it will be devilishly hard to lose the majority."
+
+"But six o'clock for some, and eight for the others--" objected Lucien.
+
+"Employ two secretaries; one of them can make a mistake." Then turning
+to Lucien, he said: "Write this."
+
+And walking up and down, he dictated without hesitating, like a man who
+has long thought over and carefully prepared what he dictates; stopping
+occasionally beside Bourrienne to see if the secretary's pen were
+following his every word:
+
+  CITIZENS--The Council of the Ancients, the trustee of the nation's
+  wisdom, has issued the subjoined decree: it is authorized by
+  articles 102 and 103 of the Constitution.
+
+  This decree enjoins me to take measures for the safety of the
+  National Legislature, and its necessary and momentary removal.
+
+Bourrienne looked at Bonaparte; _instantaneous_ was the word the
+latter had intended to use, but as the general did not correct himself,
+Bourrienne left _momentary_.
+
+Bonaparte continued to dictate:
+
+  The Legislature will find means to avoid the imminent danger into
+  which the disorganization of all parts of the administration has
+  brought us.
+
+  But it needs, at this crisis, the united support and confidence of
+  patriots. Rally around it; it offers the only means of establishing
+  the Republic on the bases of civil liberty, internal prosperity,
+  victory and peace.
+
+Bonaparte perused this proclamation, and nodded his head in sign of
+approval. Then he looked at his watch.
+
+"Eleven o'clock," he said; "there is still time."
+
+Then, seating himself in Bourrienne's chair, he wrote a few words in
+the form of a note, sealed it, and wrote the address: "To the Citizen
+Barras."
+
+"Roland," said he, when he had finished, "take a horse out of the
+stable, or a carriage in the street, and go to Barras' house. I have
+asked him for an interview tomorrow at midnight. I want an answer."
+
+Roland left the room. A moment later the gallop of a horse resounded
+through the courtyard, disappearing in the direction of the Rue du
+Mont-Blanc.
+
+"Now, Bourrienne," said Bonaparte, after listening to the sound,
+"to-morrow at midnight, whether I am in the house or not, you will take
+my carriage and go in my stead to Barras."
+
+"In your stead, general?"
+
+"Yes. He will do nothing all day, expecting me to accept him on my side
+at night. At midnight you will go to him, and say that I have such a bad
+headache I have had to go to bed, but that I will be with him at seven
+o'clock in the morning without fail. He will believe you, or he won't
+believe you; but at any rate it will be too late for him to act against
+us. By seven in the morning I shall have ten thousand men under my
+command."
+
+"Very good, general. Have you any other orders for me?"
+
+"No, not this evening," replied Bonaparte. "Be here early to-morrow."
+
+"And I?" asked Lucien.
+
+"See Sieyes; he has the Ancients in the hollow of his hand. Make all
+your arrangements with him. I don't wish him to be seen here, nor to
+be seen myself at his house. If by any chance we fail, he is a man to
+repudiate. After tomorrow I wish to be master of my own actions, and to
+have no ties with any one."
+
+"Do you think you will need me to-morrow?"
+
+"Come back at night and report what happens."
+
+"Are you going back to the salon?"
+
+"No. I shall wait for Josephine in her own room. Bourrienne, tell her,
+as you pass through, to get rid of the people as soon as possible."
+
+Then, saluting Bourrienne and his brother with a wave of the hand, he
+left his study by a private corridor, and went to Josephine's room.
+There, lighted by a single alabaster lamp, which made the conspirator's
+brow seem paler than ever, Bonaparte listened to the noise of the
+carriages, as one after the other they rolled away. At last the sounds
+ceased, and five minutes later the door opened to admit Josephine.
+
+She was alone, and held a double-branched candlestick in her hand. Her
+face, lighted by the double flame, expressed the keenest anxiety.
+
+"Well," Bonaparte inquired, "what ails you?"
+
+"I am afraid!" said Josephine.
+
+"Of what? Those fools of the Directory, or the lawyers of the two
+Councils? Come, come! I have Sieyes with me in the Ancients, and Lucien
+in the Five Hundred."
+
+"Then all goes well?"
+
+"Wonderfully so!"
+
+"You sent me word that you were waiting for me here, and I feared you
+had some bad news to tell me."
+
+"Pooh! If I had bad news, do you think I would tell you?"
+
+"How reassuring that is!"
+
+"Well, don't be uneasy, for I have nothing but good news. Only, I have
+given you a part in the conspiracy."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Sit down and write to Gohier."
+
+"That we won't dine with him?"
+
+"On the contrary, ask him to come and breakfast with us. Between those
+who like each other as we do there can't be too much intercourse."
+
+Josephine sat down at a little rosewood writing desk "Dictate," said
+she; "I will write."
+
+"Goodness! for them to recognize my style! Nonsense; you know better
+than I how to write one of those charming notes there is no resisting."
+
+Josephine smiled at the compliment, turned her forehead to Bonaparte,
+who kissed it lovingly, and wrote the following note, which we have
+copied from the original:
+
+  To the Citizen Gohier, President of the Executive Directory of the
+  French Republic--
+
+"Is that right?" she asked.
+
+"Perfectly! As he won't wear this title of President much longer, we
+won't cavil at it."
+
+"Don't you mean to make him something?"
+
+"I'll make him anything he pleases, if he does exactly what I want. Now
+go on, my dear."
+
+Josephine picked up her pen again and wrote:
+
+  Come, my dear Gohier, with your wife, and breakfast with us
+  to-morrow at eight o'clock. Don't fail, for I have some very
+  interesting things to tell you.
+
+  Adieu, my dear Gohier! With the sincerest friendship,
+  Yours, LA PAGERIE-BONAPARTE.
+
+"I wrote to-morrow," exclaimed Josephine. "Shall I date it the 17th
+Brumaire?"
+
+"You won't be wrong," said Bonaparte; "there's midnight striking."
+
+In fact, another day had fallen into the gulf of time; the clock chimed
+twelve. Bonaparte listened gravely and dreamily. Twenty-four hours only
+separated him from the solemn day for which he had been scheming for a
+month, and of which he had dreamed for years.
+
+Let us do now what he would so gladly have done, and spring over those
+twenty-four hours intervening to the day which history has not yet
+judged, and see what happened in various parts of Paris, where the
+events we are about to relate produced an overwhelming sensation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII. ALEA JACTA EST
+
+At seven in the morning, Fouche, minister of police, entered the bedroom
+of Gohier, president of the Directory.
+
+"Oh, ho!" said Gohier, when he saw him. "What has happened now, monsieur
+le ministre, to give me the pleasure of seeing you so early?"
+
+"Don't you know about the decree?" asked Fouche.
+
+"What decree?" asked honest Gohier.
+
+"The decree of the Council of the Ancients."
+
+"When was it issued?"
+
+"Last night."
+
+"So the Council of the Ancients assembles at night now?"
+
+"When matters are urgent, yes."
+
+"And what does the decree say."
+
+"It transfers the legislative sessions to Saint-Cloud."
+
+Gohier felt the blow. He realized the advantage which Bonaparte's daring
+genius might obtain by this isolation.
+
+"And since when," he asked Fouche, "is the minister of police
+transformed into a messenger of the Council of the Ancients?"
+
+"That's where you are mistaken, citizen president," replied the
+ex-Conventional. "I am more than ever minister of police this morning,
+for I have come to inform you of an act which may have the most serious
+consequences."
+
+Not being as yet sure of how the conspiracy of the Rue de la Victoire
+would turn out, Fouche was not averse to keeping open a door for retreat
+at the Luxembourg. But Gohier, honest as he was, knew the man too well
+to be his dupe.
+
+"You should have informed me of this decree yesterday, and not this
+morning; for in making the communication now you are scarcely in
+advance of the official communication I shall probably receive in a few
+moments."
+
+As he spoke, an usher opened the door and informed the president that a
+messenger from the Inspectors of the Council of the Ancients was there,
+and asked to make him a communication.
+
+"Let him come in," said Gohier.
+
+The messenger entered and handed the president a letter. He broke the
+seal hastily and read:
+
+  CITIZEN PRESIDENT--The Inspecting Commission hasten to inform
+  you of a decree removing the residence of the legislative body
+  to Saint-Cloud.
+
+  The decree will be forwarded to you; but measures for public
+  safety are at present occupying our attention.
+
+  We invite you to meet the Commission of the Ancients. You will
+  find Sieyes and Ducos already there.
+
+    Fraternal greetings
+      BARILLON,
+      FARGUES,
+      CORNET,
+
+"Very good," said Gohier, dismissing the messenger with a wave of his
+hand.
+
+The messenger went out. Gohier turned to Fouche.
+
+"Ah!" said he, "the plot is well laid; they inform me of the decree, but
+they do not send it to me. Happily you are here to tell me the terms of
+it."
+
+"But," said Fouche, "I don't know them."
+
+"What! do you the minister of police, mean to tell me that you know
+nothing about this extraordinary session of the Council of the Ancients,
+when it has been put on record by a decree?"
+
+"Of course I knew it took place, but I was unable to be present."
+
+"And you had no secretary, no amanuensis to send, who could give you an
+account, word for word, of this session, when in all probability this
+session will dispose of the fate of France! Ah, citizen Fouche, you are
+either a very deep, or a very shallow minister of police!"
+
+"Have you any orders to give me, citizen president?" asked Fouche.
+
+"None, citizen minister," replied the president. "If the Directory
+judges it advisable to issue any orders, it will be to men whom it
+esteems worthy of its confidence. You may return to those who sent you,"
+he added, turning his back upon the minister.
+
+Fouche went, and Gohier immediately rang his bell. An usher entered.
+
+"Go to Barras, Sieyes, Ducos, and Moulins, and request them to come to
+me at once. Ah! And at the same time ask Madame Gohier to come into my
+study, and to bring with her Madame Bonaparte's letter inviting us to
+breakfast with her."
+
+Five minutes later Madame Gohier entered, fully dressed, with the note
+in her hand. The invitation was for eight o'clock. It was then half-past
+seven, and it would take at least twenty minutes to drive from the
+Luxembourg to the Rue de la Victoire.
+
+"Here it is, my dear," said Madame Gohier, handing the letter to her
+husband. "It says eight o'clock."
+
+"Yes," replied Gohier, "I was not in doubt about the hour, but about the
+day."
+
+Taking the note from his wife's hand, he read it over:
+
+  Come, my dear Gohier, with your wife, and breakfast with me
+  to-morrow at eight o'clock. Don't fail, for I have some very
+  interesting things to tell you.
+
+"Ah," said Gohier, "there can be no mistake."
+
+"Well, my dear, are we going?" asked Madame Gohier.
+
+"You are, but not I. An event has just happened about which the citizen
+Bonaparte is probably well-informed, which will detain my colleagues and
+myself at the Luxembourg."
+
+"A serious event?"
+
+"Possibly."
+
+"Then I shall stay with you."
+
+"No, indeed; you would not be of any service here. Go to Madame
+Bonaparte's. I may be mistaken, but, should anything extraordinary
+happen, which appears to you alarming, send me word some way or other.
+Anything will do; I shall understand half a word."
+
+"Very good, my dear; I will go. The hope of being useful to you is
+sufficient."
+
+"Do go!"
+
+Just then the usher entered, and said:
+
+"General Moulins is at my heels; citizen Barras is in his bath, and will
+soon be here; citizens Sieyes and Ducos went out at five o'clock this
+morning, and have not yet returned."
+
+"They are the two traitors!" said Gohier; "Barras is only their dupe."
+Then kissing his wife, he added: "Now, go."
+
+As she turned round, Madame Gohier came face to face with General
+Moulins. He, for his character was naturally impetuous, seemed furious.
+
+"Pardon me, citizeness," he said. Then, rushing into Gohier's study, he
+cried: "Do you know what has happened, president?"
+
+"No, but I have my suspicions."
+
+"The legislative body has been transferred to Saint-Cloud; the execution
+of the decree has been intrusted to General Bonaparte, and the troops
+are placed under his orders."
+
+"Ha! The cat's out of the bag!" exclaimed Gohier.
+
+"Well, we must combine, and fight them."
+
+"Have you heard that Sieyes and Ducos are not in the palace?"
+
+"By Heavens! they are at the Tuileries! But Barras is in his bath; let
+us go to Barras. The Directory can issue decrees if there is a majority.
+We are three, and, I repeat it, we must make a struggle!"
+
+"Then let us send word to Barras to come to us as soon as he is out of
+his bath."
+
+"No; let us go to him before he leaves it."
+
+The two Directors left the room, and hurried toward Barras' apartment.
+They found him actually in his bath, but they insisted on entering.
+
+"Well?" asked Barras as soon as he saw them.
+
+"Have you heard?"
+
+"Absolutely nothing."
+
+They told him what they themselves knew.
+
+"Ah!" cried Barras, "that explains everything."
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Yes, that is why he didn't come last night."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"Why, Bonaparte."
+
+"Did you expect him last evening?"
+
+"He sent me word by one of his aides-de-camp that he would call on me at
+eleven o'clock last evening."
+
+"And he didn't come?"
+
+"No. He sent Bourrienne in his carriage to tell me that a violent
+headache had obliged him to go to bed; but that he would be here early
+this morning."
+
+The Directors looked at each other.
+
+"The whole thing is plain," said they.
+
+"I have sent Bollot, my secretary, a very intelligent fellow, to find
+out what he can," continued Barras.
+
+He rang and a servant entered.
+
+"As soon as citizen Bollot returns," said Barras, "ask him to come
+here."
+
+"He is just getting out of his carriage."
+
+"Send him up! Send him up!"
+
+But Bollot was already at the door.
+
+"Well?" cried the three Directors.
+
+"Well, General Bonaparte, in full uniform, accompanied by Generals
+Beurnonville, Macdonald and Moreau, are on their way to the Tuileries,
+where ten thousand troops are awaiting them."
+
+"Moreau! Moreau with him!" exclaimed Gohier.
+
+"On his right!"
+
+"I always told you that Moreau was a sneak, and nothing else!" cried
+Moulins, with military roughness.
+
+"Are you still determined to resist, Barras?" asked Gohier.
+
+"Yes," replied Barras.
+
+"Then dress yourself and join us in the council-room."
+
+"Go," said Barras, "I follow you."
+
+The two Directors hastened to the council-room. After waiting ten
+minutes Moulins said: "We should have waited for Barras; if Moreau is a
+sneak, Barras is a knave."
+
+Two hours later they were still waiting for Barras.
+
+Talleyrand and Bruix had been admitted to Barras' bathroom just after
+Gohier and Moulins had left it, and in talking with them Barras forgot
+his appointment.
+
+
+We will now see what was happening in the Rue de la Victoire.
+
+At seven o'clock, contrary to his usual custom, Bonaparte was up and
+waiting in full uniform in his bedroom. Roland entered. Bonaparte was
+perfectly calm; they were on the eve of a battle.
+
+"Has no one come yet, Roland?" he asked.
+
+"No, general," replied the young man, "but I heard the roll of a
+carriage just now."
+
+"So did I," replied Bonaparte.
+
+At that minute a servant announced: "The citizen Joseph Bonaparte, and
+the citizen General Bernadotte."
+
+Roland questioned Bonaparte with a glance; was he to go or stay? He
+was to stay. Roland took his stand at the corner of a bookcase like a
+sentinel at his post.
+
+"Ah, ha!" exclaimed Bonaparte, seeing that Bernadotte was still attired
+in civilian's clothes, "you seem to have a positive horror of the
+uniform, general!"
+
+"Why the devil should I be in uniform at seven in the morning," asked
+Bernadotte, "when I am not in active service?"
+
+"You will be soon."
+
+"But I am retired."
+
+"Yes, but I recall you to active service."
+
+"You?"
+
+"Yes, I."
+
+"In the name of the Directory?"
+
+"Is there still a Directory?"
+
+"Still a Directory? What do you mean?"
+
+"Didn't you see the troops drawn up in the streets leading to the
+Tuileries as you came here?"
+
+"I saw them, and I was surprised."
+
+"Those soldiers are mine."
+
+"Excuse me," said Bernadotte; "I thought they belonged to France."
+
+"Oh, to France or to me; is it not all one?"
+
+"I was not aware of that," replied Bernadotte, coldly.
+
+"Though you doubt it now, you will be certain of it tonight. Come,
+Bernadotte, this is the vital moment; decide!"
+
+"General," replied Bernadotte, "I am fortunate enough to be at this
+moment a simple citizen; let me remain a simple citizen."
+
+"Bernadotte, take care! He that is not for me is against me."
+
+"General, pay attention to your words! You said just now, 'Take care.'
+If that is a threat, you know very well that I do not fear them."
+
+Bonaparte came up to him, and took him by both hands.
+
+"Oh, yes, I know that; that is why I must have you with me. I not only
+esteem you, Bernadotte, but I love you. I leave you with Joseph; he is
+your brother-in-law. Between brothers, devil take it, there should be no
+quarrelling."
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"In your character of Spartan you are a rigid observer of the laws, are
+you not? Well, here is a decree issued by the Council of Five Hundred
+last night, which confers upon me the immediate command of the troops in
+Paris. So I was right," he added, "when I told you that the soldiers you
+met were mine, inasmuch as they are under my orders."
+
+And he placed in Bernadotte's hands the copy of the decree which had
+been sent to him at six o'clock that morning. Bernadotte read it through
+from the first line to the last.
+
+"To this," said he, "I have nothing to object. Secure the safety of the
+National Legislature, and all good citizens will be with you."
+
+"Then be with me now."
+
+"Permit me, general, to wait twenty-four hours to see how you fulfil
+that mandate."
+
+"Devil of a man!" cried Bonaparte. "Have your own way." Then, taking him
+by the arm, he dragged him a few steps apart from Joseph, and continued,
+"Bernadotte, I want to play above-board with you."
+
+"Why so," retorted the latter, "since I am not on your side?"
+
+"Never mind. You are watching the game, and I want the lookers-on to see
+that I am not cheating."
+
+"Do you bind me to secrecy?"
+
+"No."
+
+"That is well, for in that case I should have refused to listen to your
+confidences."
+
+"Oh! my confidences are not long! Your Directory is detested, your
+Constitution is worn-out; you must make a clean sweep of both, and turn
+the government in another direction. You don't answer me."
+
+"I am waiting to hear what you have to say."
+
+"All I have to say is, Go put on your uniform. I can't wait any longer
+for you. Join me at the Tuileries among our comrades."
+
+Bernadotte shook his head.
+
+"You think you can count on Moreau, Beurnonville, and Lefebvre," resumed
+Bonaparte. "Just look out of that window. Who do you see there, and
+there? Moreau and Beurnonville. As for Lefebvre, I do not see him, but
+I am certain I shall not go a hundred steps before meeting him. Now will
+you decide?"
+
+"General," replied Bernadotte, "I am not a man to be swayed by example,
+least of all when that example is bad. Moreau, Beurnonville, and
+Lefebvre may do as they wish. I shall do as I ought!"
+
+"So you definitively refuse to accompany me to the Tuileries?"
+
+"I do not wish to take part in a rebellion."
+
+"A rebellion! A rebellion! Against whom? Against a parcel of imbeciles
+who are pettifogging from morning till night in their hovels."
+
+"These imbeciles, general, are for the moment the representatives of the
+law. The Constitution protects them; they are sacred to me."
+
+"At least promise me one thing, iron rod that you are."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"To keep quiet."
+
+"I will keep quiet as a citizen, but--"
+
+"But what? Come, I made a clean breast of it to you; do you do
+likewise."
+
+"But if the Directory orders me to act, I shall march against the
+agitators, whoever they may be."
+
+"Ah! So you think I am ambitious?" asked Bonaparte.
+
+"I suspect as much," retorted Bernadotte, smiling.
+
+"Faith," said Bonaparte, "you don't know me. I have had enough of
+politics, and what I want is peace. Ah, my dear fellow! Malmaison and
+fifty thousand a year, and I'd willingly resign all the rest. You don't
+believe me. Well, I invite you to come and see me there, three months
+hence, and if you like pastorals, we'll do one together. Now, au revoir!
+I leave you with Joseph, and, in spite of your refusal, I shall expect
+you at the Tuileries. Hark! Our friends are becoming impatient."
+
+They were shouting: "Vive Bonaparte!"
+
+Bernadotte paled slightly. Bonaparte noticed this pallor.
+
+"Ah, ha," he muttered. "Jealous! I was mistaken; he is not a Spartan, he
+is an Athenian!"
+
+As Bonaparte had said, his friends were growing impatient. During the
+hour that had elapsed since the decree had been posted, the salon,
+the anterooms, and the courtyard had been crowded. The first person
+Bonaparte met at the head of the staircase was his compatriot, Colonel
+Sebastiani, then commanding the 9th Dragoons.
+
+"Ah! is that you, Sebastiani?" said Bonaparte. "Where are your men?"
+
+"In line along the Rue de la Victoire, general."
+
+"Well disposed?"
+
+"Enthusiastic! I distributed among them ten thousand cartridges which I
+had in store."
+
+"Yes; but you had no right to draw those cartridges out without an order
+from the commandant of Paris. Do you know that you have burned your
+vessels, Sebastiani?"
+
+"Then take me into yours, general. I have faith in your fortunes."
+
+"You mistake me for Caesar, Sebastiani!"
+
+"Faith! I might make worse mistakes. Besides, down below in the
+courtyard there are forty officers or more, of all classes, without pay,
+whom the Directory has left in the most complete destitution for the
+last year. You are their only hope, general; they are ready to die for
+you."
+
+"That's right. Go to your regiment, and take leave of it."
+
+"Take leave of it? What do you mean, general?"
+
+"I exchange it for a brigade. Go, go!"
+
+Sebastiani did not wait to be told twice. Bonaparte continued his way.
+At the foot of the stairs he met Lefebvre.
+
+"Here I am, general!" said Lefebvre.
+
+"You? And where is the 17th military division?"
+
+"I am waiting for my appointment to bring it into action."
+
+"Haven't you received your appointment?"
+
+"From the Directory, yes. But as I am not a traitor, I have just sent in
+my resignation, so that they may know I am not to be counted on."
+
+"And you have come for me to appoint you, so that I may count on you, is
+that it?"
+
+"Exactly."
+
+"Quick, Roland, a blank commission; fill in the general's name, so that
+I shall only have to put my name to it. I'll sign it on the pommel of my
+saddle."
+
+"That's the true sort," said Lefebvre.
+
+"Roland."
+
+The young man, who had already started obediently, came back to the
+general.
+
+"Fetch me that pair of double-barrelled pistols on my mantel-piece at
+the same time," said Bonaparte, in a low tone. "One never knows what may
+happen."
+
+"Yes, general," said Roland; "besides, I shan't leave you."
+
+"Unless I send you to be killed elsewhere."
+
+"True," replied the young man, hastening away to fulfil his double
+errand.
+
+Bonaparte was continuing on his way when he noticed a shadow in the
+corridor. He recognized Josephine, and ran to her.
+
+"Good God!" cried she, "is there so much danger?"
+
+"What makes you think that?"
+
+"I overheard the order you gave Roland."
+
+"Serves you right for listening at doors. How about Gohier?"
+
+"He hasn't come."
+
+"Nor his wife?"
+
+"She is here."
+
+Bonaparte pushed Josephine aside with his hand and entered the salon. He
+found Madame Gohier alone and very pale.
+
+"What!" said he, without any preamble, "isn't the President coming?"
+
+"He was unable to do so, general," replied Madame Gohier.
+
+Bonaparte repressed a movement of impatience. "He absolutely must come,"
+said he. "Write him that I await him, and I will have the note sent."
+
+"Thank you, general," replied Madame Gohier; "my servants are here, and
+they can attend to that."
+
+"Write, my dear friend, write," said Josephine, offering her paper and
+pen and ink.
+
+Bonaparte stood so that he could see over her shoulder what she wrote.
+Madame Gohier looked fixedly at him, and he drew back with a bow. She
+wrote the note, folded it, and looked about her for the sealing-wax;
+but, whether by accident or intention, there was none. Sealing the note
+with a wafer, she rang the bell. A servant came.
+
+"Give this note to Comtois," said Madame Gohier, "and bid him take it to
+the Luxembourg at once."
+
+Bonaparte followed the servant, or rather the letter, with his eyes
+until the door closed. Then, turning to Madame Gohier, he said: "I
+regret that I am unable to breakfast with you. But if the President has
+business to attend to, so have I. You must breakfast with my wife. Good
+appetite to you both."
+
+And he went out. At the door he met Roland.
+
+"Here is the commission, general," said the young man, "and a pen."
+
+Bonaparte took the pen, and using the back of his aide-de-camp's hat, he
+signed the commission. Roland gave him the pistols.
+
+"Did you look; to them?" asked Bonaparte.
+
+Roland smiled. "Don't be uneasy," said he; "I'll answer for them."
+
+Bonaparte slipped the pistols in his belt, murmuring as he did so: "I
+wish I knew what she wrote her husband."
+
+"I can tell you, word for word, what she wrote, general," said a voice
+close by.
+
+"You, Bourrienne?"
+
+"Yes. She wrote: 'You did right not to come, my dear; all that is
+happening here convinces me that the invitation was only a snare. I will
+rejoin you shortly.'"
+
+"You unsealed the letter?"
+
+"General, Sextus Pompey gave a dinner on his galley to Antony and
+Lepidus. His freedman said to him: 'Shall I make you emperor of the
+world?' 'How can you do it?' 'Easily. I will cut the cable of your
+galley, and Antony and Lepidus are prisoners.' 'You should have done so
+without telling me,' replied Sextus. 'Now I charge you on your life not
+to do it.' I remembered those words, general: '_You should have done so
+without telling me_.'"
+
+Bonaparte thought an instant; then he said: "You are mistaken; it was
+Octavius and not Antony who was on Sextus' galley with Lepidus." And he
+went on his way to the courtyard, confining his blame to the historical
+blunder.
+
+Hardly had the general appeared on the portico than cries of "Vive
+Bonaparte!" echoed through the courtyard into the street, where they
+were taken up by the dragoons drawn up in line before the gate.
+
+"That's a good omen, general," said Roland.
+
+"Yes. Give Lefebvre his commission at once; and if he has no horse,
+let him take one of mine. Tell him to meet me in the court of the
+Tuileries."
+
+"His division is already there."
+
+"All the more reason."
+
+Glancing about him, Bonaparte saw Moreau and Beurnonville, who were
+waiting for him, their horses held by orderlies. He saluted them with
+a wave of his hand, already that of a master rather than that of a
+comrade. Then, perceiving General Debel out of uniform, he went down the
+steps and approached him.
+
+"Why are you in civilian's dress?" he asked.
+
+"General, I was not notified. I chanced to be passing along the street,
+and, seeing the crowd before your house, I came in, fearing you might be
+in danger."
+
+"Go and put on your uniform quickly."
+
+"But I live the other side of Paris; it would take too long." But,
+nevertheless, he made as if to retire.
+
+"What are you going to do?"
+
+"Don't be alarmed, general."
+
+Debel had noticed an artilleryman on horseback who was about his size.
+
+"Friend," said he, "I am General Debel. By order of General Bonaparte
+lend me your uniform and your horse, and I'll give you furlough for
+the day. Here's a louis to drink the health of the commander-in-chief.
+To-morrow, come to my house for your horse and uniform. I live in the
+Rue Cherche-Midi, No. 11."
+
+"Will nothing be done to me?"
+
+"Yes, you shall be made a corporal."
+
+"Good!" said the artilleryman; and he quickly handed over his uniform
+and horse to General Debel.
+
+In the meantime, Bonaparte heard talking above him. He raised his head
+and saw Joseph and Bernadotte at a window.
+
+"Once more, general," he said to Bernadotte, "will you come with me?"
+
+"No," said the latter, firmly. Then, lowering his tone, he continued:
+"You told me just now to take care."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, I say to you, take care."
+
+"Of what?"
+
+"You are going to the Tuileries?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+"The Tuileries are very near the Place de la Revolution."
+
+"Pooh!" retorted Bonaparte, "the guillotine has been moved to the
+Barriere du Trone."
+
+"Never mind. The brewer Santerre still controls the Faubourg
+Saint-Antoine, and Santerre is Moulins' friend."
+
+"Santerre has been warned that at the first inimical movement he
+attempts I will have him shot. Will you come?"
+
+"No."
+
+"As you please. You are separating your fortunes from mine; I do not
+separate mine from yours." Then, calling to his orderly, he said: "My
+horse!"
+
+They brought his horse. Seeing an artillery private near him, he said:
+"What are you doing among the epaulets?"
+
+The artilleryman began to laugh.
+
+"Don't you recognize me, general?" he asked.
+
+"Faith, it's Debel! Where did you get that horse and the uniform?"
+
+"From that artilleryman you see standing there in his shirt. It will
+cost you a corporal's commission."
+
+"You are wrong, Debel," said Bonaparte; "it will cost me two
+commissions, one for the corporal, and one for the general of division.
+Forward, march, gentlemen! We are going to the Tuileries."
+
+And, bending forward on his horse, as he usually did, his left hand
+holding a slack rein, his right resting on his hip, with bent head
+and dreamy eyes, he made his first steps along that incline, at once
+glorious and fatal, which was to lead him to a throne--and to St.
+Helena.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV. THE EIGHTEENTH BRUMAIRE
+
+On entering the Rue de la Victoire, Bonaparte found Sebastiani's
+dragoons drawn up in line of battle. He wished to address them, but they
+interrupted him at the first words, shouting: "We want no explanations.
+We know that you seek only the good of the Republic. Vive Bonaparte!"
+
+The cortege followed the streets which led from the Rue de la Victoire
+to the Tuileries, amid the cries of "Vive Bonaparte!"
+
+General Lefebvre, according to promise, was waiting at the palace gates.
+Bonaparte, on his arrival at the Tuileries, was hailed with the same
+cheers that had accompanied him. Once there, he raised his head and
+shook it. Perhaps this cry of "Vive Bonaparte!" did not satisfy him. Was
+he already dreaming of "Vive Napoleon?"
+
+He advanced in front of the troop, surrounded by his staff, and read
+the decree of the Five Hundred, which transferred the sessions of the
+Legislature to Saint-Cloud and gave him the command of the armed forces.
+
+Then, either from memory, or offhand--Bonaparte never admitted any
+one to such secrets--instead of the proclamation he had dictated to
+Bourrienne two days earlier, he pronounced these words:
+
+"Soldiers--The Council of Ancients has given me the command of the city
+and the army.
+
+"I have accepted it, to second the measures to be adopted for the good
+of the people.
+
+"The Republic has been ill governed for two years. You have hoped for my
+return to put an end to many evils. You celebrated it with a unanimity
+which imposes obligations that I now fulfil. Fulfil yours, and second
+your general with the vigor, firmness and strength I have always found
+in you.
+
+"Liberty, victory, and peace will restore the French Republic to the
+rank it occupied in Europe, which ineptitude and treason alone caused
+her to lose!"
+
+The soldiers applauded frantically. It was a declaration of war against
+the Directory, and soldiers will always applaud a declaration of war.
+
+The general dismounted, amid shouts and bravos, and entered the
+Tuileries. It was the second time he had crossed the threshold of this
+palace of the Valois, whose arches had so ill-sheltered the crown
+and head of the last Bourbon who had reigned there. Beside him walked
+citizen Roederer. Bonaparte started as he recognized him, and said:
+
+"Ah! citizen Roederer, you were here on the morning of August 10."
+
+"Yes, general," replied the future Count of the Empire.
+
+"It was you who advised Louis XVI. to go before the National Assembly."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Bad advice, citizen Roederer! I should not have followed it."
+
+"We advise men according to what we know of them. I would not give
+General Bonaparte the same advice I gave King Louis XVI. When a king has
+the fact of his flight to Varennes and the 20th of June behind him, it
+is difficult to save him."
+
+As Roederer said these words, they reached a window opening on the
+garden of the Tuileries. Bonaparte stopped, and, seizing Roederer by
+the arm, he said: "On the 20th of June I was there," pointing with his
+finger to the terrace by the water, "behind the third linden. Through
+the open window I could see the poor king, with the red cap on his head.
+It was a piteous sight; I pitied him."
+
+"What did you do?"
+
+"Nothing, I could do nothing; I was only a lieutenant of artillery.
+But I longed to go in like the others, and whisper: 'Sire, give me four
+cannon, and I'll sweep the whole rabble out.'"
+
+What would have happened if Lieutenant Bonaparte had followed his
+impulse, obtained what he wanted from Louis XVI., and _swept the rabble
+out_, that is to say the people of Paris? Had his cannon made a
+clean sweep on June 20th, would he have had to make another the 13th
+Vendemiaire for the benefit of the Convention?
+
+While the ex-Syndic; who had grown grave, was outlining in his mind
+the opening pages of his future "History of the Consulate," Bonaparte
+presented himself at the bar of the Council of the Ancients, followed
+by his staff, and by all those who chose to do likewise. When the tumult
+caused by this influx of people had subsided, the president read over
+the decree which invested Bonaparte with the military power. Then, after
+requesting him to take the oath, the president added:
+
+"He who has never promised his country a victory which he did not
+win, cannot fail to keep religiously his new promise to serve her
+faithfully."
+
+Bonaparte stretched forth his hand and said solemnly:
+
+"I swear it!"
+
+All the generals repeated after him, each for himself:
+
+"I swear it!"
+
+The last one had scarcely finished, when Bonaparte recognized Barras'
+secretary, that same Bollot of whom Barras had spoken that morning
+to his two colleagues. He had come there solely to give his patron an
+account of all that was happening there, but Bonaparte fancied he was
+sent on some secret mission by Barras. He resolved to spare him the
+first advance, and went straight to him, saying:
+
+"Have you come on behalf of the Directors?" Then, without giving him
+time to answer, he continued: "What have they done with that France I
+left so brilliant? I left peace; I find war. I left victories; I find
+reverses. I left the millions of Italy, and I find spoliation and
+penury. What have become of the hundred thousand Frenchmen whom I knew
+by name? They are dead!"
+
+It was not precisely to Barras' secretary that these words should have
+been said; but Bonaparte wished to say them, needed to say them, and
+little he cared to whom he said them. Perhaps even, from his point of
+view, it was better to say them to some one who could not answer him. At
+that moment Sieyes rose.
+
+"Citizens," said he, "the Directors Moulins and Gohier ask to be
+admitted."
+
+"They are no longer Directors," said Bonaparte, "for there is no longer
+a Directory."
+
+"But," objected Sieyes, "they have not yet sent in their resignation."
+
+"Then admit them and let them give it," retorted Bonaparte.
+
+Moulins and Gohier entered. They were pale but calm. They knew they came
+to force a struggle, but behind their resistance may have loomed the
+Sinnamary. The exiles they sent there the 18th of Fructidor pointed the
+way.
+
+"I see with satisfaction," Bonaparte hastened to say, "that you have
+yielded to our wishes and those of your two colleagues."
+
+Gohier made a step forward and said firmly: "We yield neither to your
+wishes, nor to those of our two colleagues, who are no longer our
+colleagues, since they have resigned, but to the Law. It requires that
+the decree transferring the legislative body to Saint-Cloud shall be
+proclaimed without delay. We have come here to fulfil the duty which the
+law imposes on us, fully determined to defend it against all factious
+persons, whoever they may be, who attempt to attack it."
+
+"Your zeal does not astonish us," replied Bonaparte; "and because you
+are a man who loves his country you will unite with us."
+
+"Unite with you! And why?"
+
+"To save the Republic."
+
+"To save the Republic! There was a time, general, when you had the honor
+to be its prop. But to-day the glory of saving it is reserved for us."
+
+"You save it!" retorted Bonaparte. "How will you do that? With the means
+your Constitution gives you? Why, that Constitution is crumbling on all
+sides, and even if I did not topple it over, it could not last eight
+days."
+
+"Ah!" cried Moulins, "at last you avow your hostile intentions."
+
+"My intentions are not hostile!" shouted Bonaparte, striking the floor
+with the heel of his boot. "The Republic is in peril; it must be saved,
+and I shall do it."
+
+"You do it?" cried Gohier. "It seems to me it is for the Directory, not
+you, to say, 'I shall do it!'"
+
+"There is no longer a Directory."
+
+"I did indeed hear that you said so just a moment before we came in."
+
+"There is no longer a Directory, now that Sieyes and Ducos have
+resigned."
+
+"You are mistaken. So long as there are three Directors, the Directory
+still exists. Neither Moulins, Barras nor myself, have handed in our
+resignations."
+
+At that moment a paper was slipped in Bonaparte's hand, and a voice said
+in his ear: "Read it." He did so; then said aloud: "You, yourself, are
+mistaken. Barras has resigned, for here is his resignation. The law
+requires three Directors to make a Directory. You are but two, and, as
+you said just now, whoever resists the law is a rebel." Then handing
+the paper to the president, he continued: "Add the citizen Barras'
+resignation to that of citizens Sieyes and Ducos, and proclaim the fall
+of the Directory. I will announce it to my soldiers."
+
+Moulins and Gohier were confounded. Barras' resignation sapped the
+foundations of all their plans. Bonaparte had nothing further to do at
+the Council of Ancients, but there still remained much to be done in
+the court of the Tuileries. He went down, followed by those who had
+accompanied him up. His soldiers no sooner caught sight, of him than
+they burst into shouts of "Vive Bonaparte!" more noisily and more
+eagerly than ever. He sprang into his saddle and made them a sign that
+he wished to speak to them. Ten thousand voices that had burst into
+cries were hushed in a moment. Silence fell as if by enchantment.
+
+"Soldiers," said Bonaparte, in a voice so loud that all could hear it,
+"your comrades in arms on the frontiers are denuded of the necessaries
+of life. The people are miserable. The authors of these evils are the
+factious men against whom I have assembled you to-day. I hope before
+long to lead you to victory; but first we must deprive those who would
+stand in the way of public order and general prosperity of their power
+to do harm."
+
+Whether it was weariness of the government of the Directory, or the
+fascination exercised by the magic being who called them to victory--so
+long forgotten in his absence--shouts of enthusiasm arose, and like a
+train of burning powder spread from the Tuileries to the Carrousel,
+from the Carrousel to the adjacent streets. Bonaparte profited by this
+movement. Turning to Moreau, he said:
+
+"General, I will give you proof of the immense confidence I have in you.
+Bernadotte, whom I left at my house, and who refused to follow us, had
+the audacity to tell me that if he received orders from the Directory he
+should execute them against whosoever the agitators might be. General,
+I confide to you the guardianship of the Luxembourg. The tranquillity of
+Paris and the welfare of the Republic are in your hands."
+
+And without waiting for a reply he put his horse to a gallop, and rode
+off to the opposite end of the line.
+
+Moreau, led by military ambition, had consented to play a part in this
+great drama; he was now forced to accept that which the author assigned
+him. On returning to the Louvre, Gohier and Moulins found nothing
+changed apparently. All the sentries were at their posts. They retired
+to one of the salons of the presidency to consult together. But they had
+scarcely begun their conference, when General Jube, the commandant of
+the Luxembourg, received orders to join Bonaparte at the Tuileries with
+the guard of the Directory. Their places were filled by Moreau and
+a portion of the soldiers who had been electrified by Bonaparte.
+Nevertheless the two Directors drew up a message for the Council of the
+Five Hundred, in which they protested energetically against what had
+been done. When this was finished Gohier handed it to his secretary, and
+Moulins, half dead with exhaustion, returned to his apartments to take
+some food.
+
+It was then about four o'clock in the afternoon. An instant later
+Gohier's secretary returned in great perturbation.
+
+"Well," said Gohier, "why have you not gone?"
+
+"Citizen president," replied the young man, "we are prisoners in the
+palace."
+
+"Prisoners? What do you mean?"
+
+"The guard has been changed, and General Jube is no longer in command."
+
+"Who has replaced him?"
+
+"I think some one said General Moreau."
+
+"Moreau? Impossible! And that coward, Barras, where is he?"
+
+"He has started for his country-place at Grosbois."
+
+"Ah! I must see Moulins!" cried Gohier, rushing to the door. But at the
+entrance he found a sentry who barred the door. Gohier insisted.
+
+"No one can pass," said the sentry.
+
+"What! not pass?"
+
+"No."
+
+"But I am President Gohier!"
+
+"No one can pass," said the sentry; "that is the order."
+
+Gohier saw it would be useless to say more; force would be impossible.
+He returned to his own rooms.
+
+In the meantime, General Moreau had gone to see Moulins; he wished to
+justify himself. Without listening to a word the ex-Director turned his
+back on him, and, as Moreau insisted, he said: "General, go into the
+ante-chamber. That is the place for jailers."
+
+Moreau bowed his head, and understood for the first time into what a
+fatal trap his honor had fallen.
+
+At five o'clock, Bonaparte started to return to the Rue de la Victoire;
+all the generals and superior officers in Paris accompanied him. The
+blindest, those who had not understood the 13th Vendemiaire, those who
+had not yet understood the return from Egypt, now saw, blazing over
+the Tuileries, the star of his future, and as everybody could not be a
+planet, each sought to become a satellite.
+
+The shouts of "Vive Bonaparte!" which came from the lower part of the
+Rue du Mont Blanc, and swept like a sonorous wave toward the Rue de la
+Victoire, told Josephine of her husband's return. The impressionable
+Creole had awaited him anxiously. She sprang to meet him in such
+agitation that she was unable to utter a single word.
+
+"Come, come!" said Bonaparte, becoming the kindly man he was in his own
+home, "calm yourself. We have done to-day all that could be done."
+
+"Is it all over?"
+
+"Oh, no!" replied Bonaparte.
+
+"Must it be done all over again to-morrow?"
+
+"Yes, but to-morrow it will be merely a formality."
+
+That formality was rather rough; but every one knows of the events at
+Saint-Cloud. We will, therefore, dispense with relating them, and turn
+at once to the result, impatient as we are to get back to the real
+subject of our drama, from which the grand historical figure we have
+introduced diverted us for an instant.
+
+One word more. The 20th Brumaire, at one o'clock in the morning,
+Bonaparte was appointed First Consul for ten years. He himself selected
+Cambaceres and Lebrun as his associates under the title of Second
+Consuls, being firmly resolved this time to concentrate in his own
+person, not only all the functions of the two consuls, but those of the
+ministers.
+
+The 20th Brumaire he slept at the Luxembourg in president Gohier's bed,
+the latter having been liberated with his colleague Moulins.
+
+Roland was made governor of the Luxembourg.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV. AN IMPORTANT COMMUNICATION
+
+Some time after this military revolution, which created a great stir in
+Europe, convulsing the Continent for a time, as a tempest convulses
+the ocean--some time after, we say, on the morning of the 30th Nivoise,
+better and more clearly known to our readers as the 20th of January,
+1800, Roland, in looking over the voluminous correspondence which his
+new office entailed upon him, found, among fifty other letters asking
+for an audience, the following:
+
+  MONSIEUR THE GOVERNOR-I know your loyalty to your word, and you
+  will see that I rely on it. I wish to speak to you for five
+  minutes, during which I must remain masked.
+
+  I have a request to make to you. This request you will grant or
+  deny. In either case, as I shall have entered the Palace of the
+  Luxembourg in the interest oL the First Consul, Bonaparte, and
+  the royalist party to which I belong, I shall ask for your word
+  of honor that I be allowed to leave it as freely as you allow
+  me to enter.
+
+  If to-morrow, at seven in the evening, I see a solitary light
+  in the window over the clock, I shall know that Colonel Roland
+  de Montrevel has pledged me his word of honor, and I shall boldly
+  present myself at the little door of the left wing of the palace,
+  opening on the garden. I shall strike three blows at intervals,
+  after the manner of the free-masons.
+
+  In order that you may know to whom you engage or refuse your word,
+  I sign a name which is known to you, that name having been, under
+  circumstances you have probably not forgotten, pronounced before
+  you.
+
+    MORGAN,
+    Chief of the Companions of Jehu.
+
+Roland read the letter twice, thought it over for a few moments, then
+rose suddenly, and, entering the First Consul's study, handed it to him
+silently. The latter read it without betraying the slightest emotion,
+or even surprise; then, with a laconism that was wholly Lacedaemonian, he
+said: "Place the light."
+
+Then he gave the letter back to Roland.
+
+The next evening, at seven o'clock, the light shone in the window,
+and at five minutes past the hour, Roland in person was waiting at the
+little door of the garden. He had scarcely been there a moment when
+three blows were struck on the door after the manner of the free-masons;
+first two strokes and then one.
+
+The door was opened immediately. A man wrapped in a cloak was sharply
+defined against the grayish atmosphere of the wintry night. As for
+Roland, he was completely hidden in shadow. Seeing no one, the man in
+the cloak remained motionless for a second.
+
+"Come in," said Roland.
+
+"Ah! it is you, colonel!"
+
+"How do you know it is I?" asked Roland.
+
+"I recognize your voice."
+
+"My voice! But during those few moments we were together in the
+dining-room at Avignon I did not say a word."
+
+"Then I must have heard it elsewhere."
+
+Roland wondered where the Chief of the Companions of Jehu could have
+heard his voice, but the other said gayly: "Is the fact that I know your
+voice any reason why we should stand at the door?"
+
+"No, indeed," replied Roland; "take the lapel of my coat and follow me.
+I purposely forbade any lights being placed in the stairs and hall which
+lead to my room."
+
+"I am much obliged for the intention. But on your word I would cross the
+palace from one end to the other, though it were lighted _a giorno_, as
+the Italians say."
+
+"You have my word," replied Roland, "so follow me without fear."
+
+Morgan needed no encouragement; he followed his guide fearlessly. At
+the head of the stairs Roland turned down a corridor equally dark, went
+twenty steps, opened a door, and entered his own room. Morgan followed
+him. The room was lighted by two wax candles only. Once there, Morgan
+took off his cloak and laid his pistols on the table.
+
+"What are you doing?" asked Roland.
+
+"Faith! with your permission," replied Morgan, gayly, "I am making
+myself comfortable."
+
+"But those pistols you have just laid aside--"
+
+"Ah! did you think I brought them for you?"
+
+"For whom then?"
+
+"Why, that damned police! You can readily imagine that I am not disposed
+to let citizen Fouche lay hold of me, without burning the mustache of
+the first of his minions who lays hands on me."
+
+"But once here you feel you have nothing to fear?"
+
+"The deuce!" exclaimed the young man; "I have your word."
+
+"Then why don't you unmask?"
+
+"Because my face only half belongs to me; the other half belongs to my
+companions. Who knows if one of us being recognized might not drag the
+others to the guillotine? For of course you know, colonel, we don't hide
+from ourselves that that is the price of our game!"
+
+"Then why risk it?"
+
+"Ah! what a question. Why do you venture on the field of battle, where a
+bullet may plow through your breast or a cannon-ball lop off your head?"
+
+"Permit me to say that that is different. On the battlefield I risk an
+honorable death."
+
+"Ah! do you suppose that on the day I get my head cut off by the
+revolutionary triangle I shall think myself dishonored? Not the least in
+the world. I am a soldier like you, only we can't all serve our cause in
+the same way. Every religion has its heroes and its martyrs; happy the
+heroes in this world, and happy the martyrs in the next."
+
+The young man uttered these words with a conviction which moved, or
+rather astonished, Roland.
+
+"But," continued Morgan, abandoning his enthusiasm to revert to the
+gayety which seemed the distinctive trait of his character, "I did not
+come here to talk political philosophy. I came to ask you to let me
+speak to the First Consul."
+
+"What! speak to the First Consul?" exclaimed Roland.
+
+"Of course. Read my letter over; did I not tell you that I had a request
+to make?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Well, that request is to let me speak to General Bonaparte."
+
+"But permit me to say that as I did not expect that request--"
+
+"It surprises you; makes you uneasy even. My dear colonel, if you don't
+believe my word, you can search me from head to foot, and you will find
+that those pistols are my only weapons. And I haven't even got them,
+since there they are on your table. Better still, take one in each hand,
+post yourself between the First Consul and me, and blowout my brains at
+the first suspicious move I make. Will that suit you?"
+
+"But will you assure me, if I disturb the First Consul and ask him to
+see you, that your communication is worth the trouble?"
+
+"Oh! I'll answer for that," said Morgan. Then, in his joyous tones,
+he added: "I am for the moment the ambassador of a crowned, or rather
+discrowned, head, which makes it no less reverenced by noble hearts.
+Moreover, Monsieur Roland, I shall take up very little of your general's
+time; the moment the conversation seems too long, he can dismiss me. And
+I assure you he will not have to say the word twice."
+
+Roland was silent and thoughtful for a moment.
+
+"And it is to the First Consul only that you can make this
+communication?"
+
+"To the First Consul only, as he alone can answer me."
+
+"Very well. Wait until I take his orders."
+
+Roland made a step toward the general's room; then he paused and cast an
+uneasy look at a mass of papers piled on his table. Morgan intercepted
+this look.
+
+"What!" he said, "you are afraid I shall read those papers in your
+absence? If you only knew how I detest reading! If my death-warrant lay
+on that table, I wouldn't take the trouble to read it. I should consider
+that the clerk's business. And every one to his own task. Monsieur
+Roland, my feet are cold, and I will sit here in your easy-chair and
+warm them. I shall not stir till you return."
+
+"Very good, monsieur," said Roland, and he went to the First Consul.
+
+Bonaparte was talking with General Hedouville, commanding the troops of
+the Vendee. Hearing the door open, he turned impatiently.
+
+"I told Bourrienne I would not see any one."
+
+"So he told me as I came in, but I told him that I was not any one."
+
+"True. What do you want? Be quick."
+
+"He is in my room."
+
+"Who?"
+
+"The man of Avignon."
+
+"Ah, ha! And what does he want?"
+
+"To see you."
+
+"To see me?"
+
+"Yes, you, general. Does that surprise you?"
+
+"No. But what can he want to say to me?"
+
+"He refused obstinately to tell me. But I dare answer for it that he is
+neither importunate nor a fool."
+
+"No, but he may be an assassin."
+
+Roland shook his head.
+
+"Of course, since you introduce him--"
+
+"Moreover, he is willing that I should be present at the conference and
+stand between you and him."
+
+Bonaparte reflected an instant.
+
+"Bring him in," he said.
+
+"You know, general, that except me--"
+
+"Yes, General Hedouville will be so kind as to wait a second. Our
+conversation is of a nature that is not exhausted in one interview. Go,
+Roland."
+
+Roland left the room, crossed Bourrienne's office, reentered his own
+room, and found Morgan, as he had said, warming his feet.
+
+"Come, the First Consul is waiting for you," said the young man.
+
+Morgan rose and followed Roland. When they entered Bonaparte's study the
+latter was alone. He cast a rapid glance on the chief of the Companions
+of Jehu, and felt no doubt that he was the same man he had seen at
+Avignon.
+
+Morgan had paused a few steps from the door, and was looking curiously
+at Bonaparte, convincing himself that he was the man he had seen at the
+table d'hote the day he attempted the perilous restoration of the two
+hundred louis stolen by an oversight from Jean Picot.
+
+"Come nearer," said the First Consul.
+
+Morgan bowed and made three steps forward. Bonaparte partly returned the
+bow with a slight motion of the head.
+
+"You told my aide-de-camp, Colonel Roland, that you had a communication
+to make me."
+
+"Yes, citizen First Consul."
+
+"Does that communication require a private interview?"
+
+"No, citizen First Consul, although it is of such importance--"
+
+"You would prefer to be alone."
+
+"Beyond doubt. But prudence--"
+
+"The most prudent thing in France, citizen Morgan, is courage."
+
+"My presence here, general, proves that I agree with you perfectly."
+
+Bonaparte turned to the young colonel.
+
+"Leave us alone, Roland," said he.
+
+"But, general--" objected Roland.
+
+Bonaparte went up to him and said in a low voice: "I see what it is. You
+are curious to know what this mysterious cavalier of the highroad has to
+say to me. Don't worry; you shall know."
+
+"That's not it. But suppose, as you said just now, he is an assassin."
+
+"Didn't you declare he was not. Come, don't be a baby; leave us."
+
+Roland went out.
+
+"Now that we are alone, sir," said the First Consul, "speak!"
+
+Morgan, without answering, drew a letter from his pocket and gave it
+to the general. Bonaparte examined it. It was addressed to him, and the
+seal bore the three fleurs-de-lis of France.
+
+"Oh!" he said, "what is this, sir?"
+
+"Read it, citizen First Consul."
+
+Bonaparte opened the letter and looked at the signature: "Louis," he
+said.
+
+"Louis," repeated Morgan.
+
+"What Louis?"
+
+"Louis de Bourbon, I presume."
+
+"Monsieur le Comte de Provence, brother of Louis XVI."
+
+"Consequently Louis XVIII., since his nephew, the Dauphin, is dead."
+
+Bonaparte looked at the stranger again. It was evident that Morgan was a
+pseudonym, assumed to hide his real name. Then, turning his eyes on the
+letter, he read:
+
+                                                  January 3, 1800.
+
+  Whatever may be their apparent conduct, monsieur, men like you
+  never inspire distrust. You have accepted an exalted post, and
+  I thank you for so doing. You know, better than others, that
+  force and power are needed to make the happiness of a great
+  nation. Save France from her own madness, and you will fulfil
+  the desire of my heart; restore her king, and future generations
+  will bless your memory. If you doubt my gratitude, choose your
+  own place, determine the future of your friends. As for my
+  principles, I am a Frenchman, clement by nature, still more so
+  by judgment. No! the conqueror of Lodi, Castiglione and Arcola,
+  the conqueror of Italy and Egypt, cannot prefer an empty
+  celebrity to fame. Lose no more precious time. We can secure
+  the glory of France. I say we, because I have need of Bonaparte
+  for that which he cannot achieve without me. General, the eyes
+  of Europe are upon you, glory awaits you, and I am eager to
+  restore my people to happiness.
+
+  LOUIS.
+
+Bonaparte turned to the young man, who stood erect, motionless and
+silent as a statue.
+
+"Do you know the contents of this letter?" he asked.
+
+The young man bowed. "Yes, citizen First Consul."
+
+"It was sealed, however."
+
+"It was sent unsealed under cover to the person who intrusted it to
+me. And before doing so he made me read it, that I might know its full
+importance."
+
+"Can I know the name of the person who intrusted it to you?"
+
+"Georges Cadoudal."
+
+Bonaparte started slightly.
+
+"Do you know Georges Cadoudal?" he asked.
+
+"He is my friend."
+
+"Why did he intrust it to you rather than to another?"
+
+"Because he knew that in telling me to deliver the letter to you with my
+own hand it would be done."
+
+"You have certainly kept your promise, sir."
+
+"Not altogether yet, citizen First Consul."
+
+"How do you mean? Haven't you delivered it to me?"
+
+"Yes, but I promised to bring back an answer."
+
+"But if I tell you I will not give one."
+
+"You will have answered; not precisely as I could have wished, but it
+will be an answer."
+
+Bonaparte reflected for a few moments. Then shaking his shoulders to rid
+himself of his thoughts, he said: "They are fools."
+
+"Who, citizen?" asked Morgan.
+
+"Those who write me such letters--fools, arch fools. Do they take me for
+a man who patterns his conduct by the past? Play Monk! What good would
+it do? Bring back another Charles II.? No, faith, it is not worth while.
+When a man has Toulon, the 13th Vendemiaire, Lodi, Castiglione, Arcola,
+Rivoli and the Pyramids behind him, he's no Monk. He has the right to
+aspire to more than a duchy of Albemarle, and the command by land and
+sea of the forces of his Majesty King Louis XVIII."
+
+"For that reason you are asked to make your own conditions, citizen
+First Consul."
+
+Bonaparte started at the sound of that voice as if he had forgotten that
+any one was present.
+
+"Not counting," he went on, "that it is a ruined family, a dead branch
+of a rotten trunk. The Bourbons have so intermarried with one another
+that the race is depraved; Louis XIV. exhausted all its sap, all its
+vigor.--You know history, sir?" asked Bonaparte, turning to the young
+man.
+
+"Yes, general," he replied; "at least as well as a _ci-devant_ can know
+it."
+
+"Well, you must have observed in history, especially in that of France,
+that each race has its point of departure, its culmination, and its
+decadence. Look at the direct line of the Capets; starting from Hugues
+Capet, they attained their highest grandeur in Philippe Auguste and
+Louis XI., and fell with Philippe V. and Charles IV. Take the Valois;
+starting with Philippe VI., they culminated in Francois I. and fell with
+Charles IX. and Henry III. See the Bourbons; starting with Henry IV.,
+they have their culminating point in Louis XIV. and fall with Louis
+XV. and Louis XVI.--only they fall lower than the others; lower in
+debauchery with Louis XV., lower in misfortune with Louis XVI. You talk
+to me of the Stuarts, and show me the example of Monk. Will you tell me
+who succeeded Charles II.? James II. And who to James II.? William of
+Orange, a usurper. Would it not have been better, I ask you, if Monk
+had put the crown on his own head? Well, if I was fool enough to restore
+Louis XVIII. to the throne, like Charles II. he would have no children,
+and, like James II., his brother Charles X. would succeed him, and like
+him would be driven out by some William of Orange. No, no! God has not
+put the destiny of this great and glorious country we call France into
+my hands that I should cast it back to those who have gambled with it
+and lost it."
+
+"Permit me, general, to remark that I did not ask you for all this."
+
+"But I, I ask you--"
+
+"I think you are doing me the honor to take me for posterity."
+
+Bonaparte started, turned round, saw to whom he was speaking, and was
+silent.
+
+"I only want," said Morgan, with a dignity which surprised the man whom
+he addressed, "a yes or a no."
+
+"And why do you want that?"
+
+"To know whether we must continue to war against you as an enemy, or
+fall at your feet as a savior."
+
+"War," said Bonaparte, "war! Madmen, they who war with me! Do they not
+see that I am the elect of God?"
+
+"Attila said the same thing."
+
+"Yes; but he was the elect of destruction; I, of the new era. The grass
+withered where he stepped; the harvest will ripen where I pass the plow.
+War? Tell me what has become of those who have made it against me? They
+lie upon the plains of Piedmont, of Lombardy and Cairo!"
+
+"You forget the Vendee; the Vendee is still afoot."
+
+"Afoot, yes! but her leaders? Cathelineau, Lescure, La Rochejaquelin,
+d'Elbee, Bonchamps, Stoffiet, Charette?"
+
+"You are speaking of men only; the men have been mown down, it is true;
+but the principle is still afoot, and for it are fighting Autichamp,
+Suzannet, Grignon, Frotte, Chatillon, Cadoudal. The younger may not be
+worth the elder, but if they die as their elders died, what more can you
+ask?"
+
+"Let them beware! If I determine upon a campaign against the Vendee I
+shall send neither Santerre nor Rossignol!"
+
+"The Convention sent Kleber, and the Directory, Hoche!"
+
+"I shall not send; I shall go myself."
+
+"Nothing worse can happen to them than to be killed like Lescure, or
+shot like Charette."
+
+"It may happen that I pardon them."
+
+"Cato taught us how to escape the pardon of Caesar."
+
+"Take care; you are quoting a Republican!"
+
+"Cato was one of those men whose example can be followed, no matter to
+what party they belong."
+
+"And suppose I were to tell you that I hold the Vendee in the hollow of
+my hand?"
+
+"You!"
+
+"And that within three months, she will lay down her arms if I choose?"
+
+The young man shook his head.
+
+"You don't believe me?"
+
+"I hesitate to believe you."
+
+"If I affirm to you that what I say is true; if I prove it by telling
+you the means, or rather the men, by whom I shall bring this about?"
+
+"If a man like General Bonaparte affirms a thing, I shall believe it;
+and if that thing is the pacification of the Vendee, I shall say in my
+turn: 'Beware! Better the Vendee fighting than the Vendee conspiring.
+The Vendee fighting means the sword, the Vendee conspiring means the
+dagger.'"
+
+"Oh! I know your dagger," said Bonaparte. "Here it is."
+
+And he drew from a drawer the dagger he had taken from Roland and laid
+it on the table within reach of Morgan's hand.
+
+"But," he added, "there is some distance between Bonaparte's breast and
+an assassin's dagger. Try."
+
+And he advanced to the young man with a flaming eye.
+
+"I did not come here to assassinate you," said the young man, coldly.
+"Later, if I consider your death indispensable to the cause, I shall do
+all in my power, and if I fail it will not be because you are Marius
+and I the Cimbrian. Have you anything else to say to me, citizen First
+Consul?" concluded the young man, bowing.
+
+"Yes. Tell Cadoudal that when he is ready to fight the enemy, instead
+of Frenchmen, I have a colonel's commission ready signed in my desk for
+him."
+
+"Cadoudal commands, not a regiment, but an army. You were unwilling to
+retrograde from Bonaparte to Monk; why should you expect him to descend
+from general to colonel? Have you nothing else to say to me, citizen
+First Consul?"
+
+"Yes. Have you any way of transmitting my reply to the Comte de
+Provence?"
+
+"You mean King Louis XVIII.?"
+
+"Don't let us quibble over words. To him who wrote to me."
+
+"His envoy is now at the camp at Aubiers."
+
+"Well, I have changed my mind; I shall send him an answer. These
+Bourbons are so blind that this one would misinterpret my silence."
+
+And Bonaparte, sitting down at his desk, wrote the following letter with
+a care that showed he wished to make it legible:
+
+  I have received your letter, monsieur. I thank you for the good
+  opinion you express in it of me. You must not wish for your return
+  to France; it could only be over a hundred thousand dead bodies.
+  Sacrifice your own interests to the repose and welfare of France.
+  History will applaud you. I am not insensible to the misfortunes of
+  your family, and I shall hear with pleasure that you are
+  surrounded with all that could contribute to the tranquillity of
+  your retreat.  BONAPARTE.
+
+Then, folding and sealing the letter, he directed it to "Monsieur le
+Comte de Provence," and handed it to Morgan. Then he called Roland, as
+if he knew the latter were not far off.
+
+"General?" said the young officer, appearing instantly.
+
+"Conduct this gentleman to the street," said Bonaparte. "Until then you
+are responsible for him."
+
+Roland bowed in sign of obedience, let the young man, who said not a
+word, pass before him, and then followed. But before leaving, Morgan
+cast a last glance at Bonaparte.
+
+The latter was still standing, motionless and silent, with folded arms,
+his eyes fixed upon the dagger, which occupied his thoughts far more
+than he was willing to admit even to himself.
+
+As they crossed Roland's room, the Chief of the Companions of Jehu
+gathered up his cloak and pistols. While he was putting them in his
+belt, Roland remarked: "The citizen First Consul seems to have shown you
+a dagger which I gave him."
+
+"Yes, monsieur," replied Morgan.
+
+"Did you recognize it?"
+
+"Not that one in particular; all our daggers are alike."
+
+"Well," said Roland, "I will tell you whence it came."
+
+"Ah! where was that?"
+
+"From the breast of a friend of mine, where your Companions, possibly
+you yourself, thrust it."
+
+"Possibly," replied the young man carelessly. "But your friend must have
+exposed himself to punishment."
+
+"My friend wished to see what was happening at night in the Chartreuse."
+
+"He did wrong."
+
+"But I did the same wrong the night before, and nothing happened to me."
+
+"Probably because some talisman protects you."
+
+"Monsieur, let me tell you something. I am a straight-forward man who
+walks by daylight. I have a horror of all that is mysterious."
+
+"Happy those who can walk the highroads by daylight, Monsieur de
+Montrevel!"
+
+"That is why I am going to tell you the oath I made, Monsieur Morgan.
+As I drew the dagger you saw from my friend's breast, as carefully
+as possible, that I might not draw his soul with it, I swore that
+henceforward it should be war to the death between his assassins and
+myself. It was largely to tell you that that I gave you a pledge of
+safety."
+
+"That is an oath I hope to see you forget, Monsieur de Montrevel."
+
+"It is an oath I shall keep under all circumstances, Monsieur Morgan;
+and you would be most kind if you would furnish me with an opportunity
+as soon as possible."
+
+"In what way, sir?"
+
+"Well, for example, by accepting a meeting with me, either in the Bois
+de Boulogne or at Vincennes. We don't need to say that we are fighting
+because you or one of your friends stabbed Lord Tanlay. No; we can say
+anything you please." (Roland reflected a moment.) "We can say the duel
+is on account of the eclipse that takes place on the 12th of next month.
+Does the pretext suit you?"
+
+"The pretext would suit me," replied Morgan, in a tone of sadness of
+which he seemed incapable, "if the duel itself could take place. You
+have taken an oath, and you mean to keep it, you say. Well, every
+initiate who enters the Company of Jehu swears that he will not expose
+in any personal quarrel a life that belongs to the cause and not to
+himself."
+
+"Oh! So that you assassinate, but will not fight."
+
+"You are mistaken. We sometimes fight."
+
+"Have the goodness to point out an occasion when I may study that
+phenomenon."
+
+"Easily enough. If you and five or six men, as resolute as yourself,
+will take your places in some diligence carrying government money, and
+will defend it against our attack, the occasion you seek will come. But,
+believe me, do better than that; do not come in our way."
+
+"Is that a threat, sir?" asked the young man, raising his head.
+
+"No," replied Morgan, in a gentle, almost supplicating voice, "it is an
+entreaty."
+
+"Is it addressed to me in particular, or would you include others?"
+
+"I make it to you in particular;" and the chief of the Companions of
+Jehu dwelt upon the last word.
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed the young man, "then I am so fortunate as to interest
+you?"
+
+"As a brother," replied Morgan, in the same soft, caressing tone.
+
+"Well, well," said Roland, "this is decidedly a wager."
+
+Bourrienne entered at that moment.
+
+"Roland," he said, "the First Consul wants you."
+
+"Give me time to conduct this gentleman to the street, and I'll be with
+him."
+
+"Hurry up; you know he doesn't like to wait."
+
+"Will you follow me, sir?" Roland said to his mysterious companion.
+
+"I am at your orders, sir."
+
+"Come, then," And Roland, taking the same path by which he had brought
+Morgan, took him back, not to the door opening on the garden (the garden
+was closed), but to that on the street. Once there, he stopped and said:
+"Sir, I gave you my word, and I have kept it faithfully, But that there
+may be no misunderstanding between us, have the goodness to tell me that
+you understand it to have been for this one time and for to-day only."
+
+"That was how I understood it, sir."
+
+"You give me back my word then?"
+
+"I should like to keep it, sir; but I recognize that you are free to
+take it back."
+
+"That is all I wish to know. Au revoir! Monsieur Morgan."
+
+"Permit me not to offer you the same wish, Monsieur de Montrevel."
+
+The two young men bowed with perfect courtesy, Roland re-entered the
+Luxembourg, and Morgan, following the line of shadow projected by the
+walls, took one of the little streets to the Place Saint-Sulpice.
+
+It is he whom we are now to follow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI. THE BALL OF THE VICTIMS
+
+After taking about a hundred steps Morgan removed his mask. He ran more
+risk of being noticed in the streets of Paris as a masked man than with
+uncovered face.
+
+When he reached the Rue Taranne he knocked at the door of a small
+furnished lodging-house at the corner of that street and the Rue du
+Dragon, took a candlestick from a table, a key numbered 12 from a
+nail, and climbed the stairs without exciting other attention than a
+well-known lodger would returning home. The clock was striking ten as he
+closed the door of his room. He listened attentively to the strokes, the
+light of his candle not reaching as far as the chimney-piece. He counted
+ten.
+
+"Good!" he said to himself; "I shall not be too late."
+
+In spite of this probability, Morgan seemed determined to lose no time.
+He passed a bit of tinder-paper under the heater on the hearth, which
+caught fire instantly. He lighted four wax-candles, all there were in
+the room, placed two on the mantel-shelf and two on a bureau opposite,
+and spread upon the bed a complete dress of the Incroyable of the very
+latest fashion. It consisted of a short coat, cut square across the
+front and long behind, of a soft shade between a pale-green and a
+pearl-gray; a waistcoat of buff plush, with eighteen mother-of-pearl
+buttons; an immense white cravat of the finest cambric; light trousers
+of white cashmere, decorated with a knot of ribbon where they buttoned
+above the calves, and pearl-gray silk stockings, striped transversely
+with the same green as the coat, and delicate pumps with diamond
+buckles. The inevitable eye-glass was not forgotten. As for the hat, it
+was precisely the same in which Carle Vernet painted his dandy of the
+Directory.
+
+When these things were ready, Morgan waited with seeming impatience. At
+the end of five minutes he rang the bell. A waiter appeared.
+
+"Hasn't the wig-maker come?" asked Morgan.
+
+In those days wig-makers were not yet called hair-dressers.
+
+"Yes, citizen," replied the waiter, "he came, but you had not yet
+returned, so he left word that he'd come back. Some one knocked just as
+you rang; it's probably--"
+
+"Here, here," cried a voice on the stairs.
+
+"Ah! bravo," exclaimed Morgan. "Come in, Master Cadenette; you must make
+a sort of Adonis of me."
+
+"That won't be difficult, Monsieur le Baron," replied the wig-maker.
+
+"Look here, look here; do you mean to compromise me, citizen Cadenette?"
+
+"Monsieur le Baron, I entreat you, call me Cadenette; you'll honor me
+by that proof of familiarity; but don't call me citizen. Fie; that's
+a revolutionary denomination! Even in the worst of the Terror I always
+called my wife Madame Cadenette. Now, excuse me for not waiting for you;
+but there's a great ball in the Rue du Bac this evening, the ball of the
+Victims (the wig-maker emphasized this word). I should have thought that
+M. le Baron would be there."
+
+"Why," cried Morgan, laughing; "so you are still a royalist, Cadenette?"
+
+The wig-maker laid his hand tragically on his heart.
+
+"Monsieur le Baron," said he, "it is not only a matter of conscience,
+but a matter of state."
+
+"Conscience, I can understand that, Master Cadenette, but state! What
+the devil has the honorable guild of wigmakers to do with politics?"
+
+"What, Monsieur le Baron?" said Cadenette, all the while getting ready
+to dress his client's hair; "you ask me that? You, an aristocrat!"
+
+"Hush, Cadenette!"
+
+"Monsieur le Baron, we _ci-devants_ can say that to each other."
+
+"So you are a _ci-devant_?"
+
+"To the core! In what style shall I dress M. le Baron's hair?"
+
+"Dog's ears, and tied up behind."
+
+"With a dash of powder?"
+
+"Two, if you like, Cadenette."
+
+"Ah! monsieur, when one thinks that for five years I was the only man
+who had an atom of powder '_a la marechale_.' Why, Monsieur le Baron, a
+man was guillotined for owning a box of powder!"
+
+"I've known people who were guillotined for less than that, Cadenette.
+But explain how you happen to be a _ci-devant_. I like to understand
+everything."
+
+"It's very simple, Monsieur le Baron. You admit, don't you, that among
+the guilds there were some that were more or less aristocratic."
+
+"Beyond doubt; accordingly as they were nearer to the higher classes of
+society."
+
+"That's it, Monsieur le Baron. Well, we had the higher classes by the
+hair of their head. I, such as you see me, I have dressed Madame de
+Polignac's hair; my father dressed Madame du Barry's; my grandfather,
+Madame de Pompadour's. We had our privileges, Monsieur; we carried
+swords. It is true, to avoid the accidents that were liable to crop up
+among hotheads like ourselves, our swords were usually of wood; but
+at any rate, if they were not the actual thing, they were very good
+imitations. Yes, Monsieur le Baron," continued Cadenette with a sigh,
+"those days were the good days, not only for the wig-makers, but for
+all France. We were in all the secrets, all the intrigues; nothing was
+hidden from us. And there is no known instance, Monsieur le Baron, of a
+wig-maker betraying a secret. Just look at our poor queen; to whom
+did she trust her diamonds? To the great, the illustrious Leonard, the
+prince of wig-makers. Well, Monsieur le Baron, two men alone overthrew
+the scaffolding of a power that rested on the wigs of Louis XIV., the
+puffs of the Regency, the frizettes of Louis-XV., and the cushions of
+Marie Antoinette."
+
+"And those two men, those levellers, those two revolutionaries, who were
+they, Cadenette? that I may doom them, so far as it lies in my power, to
+public execration."
+
+"M. Rousseau and citizen Talma: Monsieur Rousseau who said that
+absurdity, 'We must return to Nature,' and citizen Talma, who invented
+the Titus head-dress."
+
+"That's true, Cadenette; that's true."
+
+"When the Directory came in there was a moment's hope. M. Barras never
+gave up powder, and citizen Moulins stuck to his queue. But, you see,
+the 18th Brumaire has knocked it all down; how could any one friz
+Bonaparte's hair! Ah! there," continued Cadenette, puffing out the dog's
+ears of his client--"there's aristocratic hair for you, soft and fine as
+silk, and takes the tongs so well one would think you wore a wig. See,
+Monsieur le Baron, you wanted to be as handsome as Adonis! Ah! if Venus
+had seen you, it's not of Adonis that Mars would have been jealous!"
+
+And Cadenette, now at the end of his labors and satisfied with the
+result, presented a hand-mirror to Morgan, who examined himself
+complacently.
+
+"Come, come!" he said to the wig-maker, "you are certainly an artist,
+my dear fellow! Remember this style, for if ever they cut off my head
+I shall choose to have it dressed like that, for there will probably be
+women at my execution."
+
+"And M. le Baron wants them to regret him," said the wig-maker gravely.
+
+"Yes, and in the meantime, my dear Cadenette, here is a crown to reward
+your labors. Have the goodness to tell them below to call a carriage for
+me."
+
+Cadenette sighed.
+
+"Monsieur le Baron," said he, "time was when I should have answered:
+'Show yourself at court with your hair dressed like that, and I shall be
+paid.' But there is no court now, Monsieur le Baron, and one must live.
+You shall have your carriage."
+
+With which Cadenette sighed again, slipped Morgan's crown in his pocket,
+made the reverential bow of wig-makers and dancing-masters, and left the
+young man to complete his toilet.
+
+The head being now dressed, the rest was soon done; the cravat alone
+took time, owing to the many failures that occurred; but Morgan
+concluded the difficult task with an experienced hand, and as eleven
+o'clock was striking he was ready to start. Cadenette had not forgotten
+his errand; a hackney-coach was at the door. Morgan jumped into it,
+calling out: "Rue du Bac, No. 60."
+
+The coach turned into the Rue de Grenelle, went up the Rue du Bac, and
+stopped at No. 60.
+
+"Here's a double fare, friend," said Morgan, "on condition that you
+don't stand before the door."
+
+The driver took the three francs and disappeared around the corner of
+the Rue de Varennes. Morgan glanced up the front of the house; it seemed
+as though he must be mistaken, so dark and silent was it. But he did not
+hesitate; he rapped in a peculiar fashion.
+
+The door opened. At the further end of the courtyard was a building,
+brilliantly lighted. The young man went toward it, and, as he
+approached, the sound of instruments met his ear. He ascended a flight
+of stairs and entered the dressing-room. There he gave his cloak to the
+usher whose business it was to attend to the wraps.
+
+"Here is your number," said the usher. "As for your weapons, you are to
+place them in the gallery where you can find them easily."
+
+Morgan put the number in his trousers pocket, and entered the great
+gallery transformed into an arsenal. It contained a complete collection
+of arms of all kinds, pistols, muskets, carbines, swords, and daggers.
+As the ball might at any moment be invaded by the police, it was
+necessary that every dancer be prepared to turn defender at an instant's
+notice. Laying his weapons aside, Morgan entered the ballroom.
+
+We doubt if any pen could give the reader an adequate idea of the scene
+of that ball. Generally, as the name "Ball of the Victims" indicated, no
+one was admitted except by the strange right of having relatives who
+had either been sent to the scaffold by the Convention or the Commune of
+Paris, blown to pieces by Collot d'Herbois, or drowned by Carrier. As,
+however, the victims guillotined during the three years of the Terror
+far outnumbered the others, the dresses of the majority of those who
+were present were the clothes of the victims of the scaffold. Thus, most
+of the young girls, whose mothers and older sisters had fallen by
+the hands of the executioner, wore the same costume their mothers and
+sisters had worn for that last lugubrious ceremony; that is to say, a
+white gown and red shawl, with their hair cut short at the nape of the
+neck. Some added to this costume, already so characteristic, a detail
+that was even more significant; they knotted around their necks a thread
+of scarlet silk, fine as the blade of a razor, which, as in Faust's
+Marguerite, at the Witches' Sabbath, indicated the cut of the knife
+between the throat and the collar bone.
+
+As for the men who were in the same case, they wore the collars of their
+coats turned down behind, those of their shirt wide open, their necks
+bare, and their hair, cut short.
+
+But many had other rights of entrance to this ball besides that of
+having Victims in their families; some had made victims themselves.
+These latter were increasing. There were present men of forty or
+forty-five years of age, who had been trained in the boudoirs of the
+beautiful courtesans of the seventeenth century--who had known Madame du
+Barry in the attics of Versailles, Sophie Arnoult with M. de Lauraguais,
+La Duthe with the Comte d'Artois--who had borrowed from the courtesies
+of vice the polish with which they covered their ferocity. They were
+still young and handsome; they entered a salon, tossing their perfumed
+locks and their scented handkerchiefs; nor was it a useless precaution,
+for if the odor of musk or verbena had not masked it they would have
+smelled of blood.
+
+There were men there twenty-five or thirty years old, dressed with
+extreme elegance, members of the association of Avengers, who seemed
+possessed with the mania of assassination, the lust of slaughter, the
+frenzy of blood, which no blood could quench--men who, when the order
+came to kill, killed all, friends or enemies; men who carried their
+business methods into the business of murder, giving their bloody checks
+for the heads of such or such Jacobins, and paying on sight.
+
+There were younger men, eighteen and twenty, almost children, but
+children fed, like Achilles, on the marrow of wild beasts, like Pyrrhus,
+on the flesh of bears; here were the pupil-bandits of Schiller, the
+apprentice-judges of the Sainte-Vehme--that strange generation that
+follows great political convulsions, like the Titans after chaos, the
+hydras after the Deluge; as the vultures and crows follow the carnage.
+
+Here was the spectre of iron impassible, implacable, inflexible, which
+men call Retaliation; and this spectre mingled with the guests. It
+entered the gilded salons; it signalled with a look, a gesture, a nod,
+and men followed where it led. It was, as says the author from whom we
+have borrowed these hitherto unknown but authentic details, "a merry
+lust for extermination."
+
+The Terror had affected great cynicism in clothes, a Spartan austerity
+in its food, the profound contempt of a barbarous people for arts and
+enjoyments. The Thermidorian reaction was, on the contrary, elegant,
+opulent, adorned; it exhausted all luxuries, all voluptuous pleasures,
+as in the days of Louis XV.; with one addition, the luxury of vengeance,
+the lust of blood.
+
+Freron's name was given to the youth of the day, which was called the
+jeunesse Freron, or the _jeunesse doree_ (gilded youth). Why Freron? Why
+should he rather than others receive that strange and fatal honor?
+
+I cannot tell you--my researches (those who know me will do me the
+justice to admit that when I have an end in view, I do not count
+them)--my researches have not discovered an answer. It was a whim of
+Fashion, and Fashion is the one goddess more capricious than Fortune.
+
+Our readers will hardly know to-day who Freron was. The Freron who was
+Voltaire's assailant was better known than he who was the patron of
+these elegant assassins; one was the son of the other. Louis Stanislas
+was son of Elie-Catherine. The father died of rage when Miromesnil,
+Keeper of the Seals, suppressed his journal. The other, irritated by
+the injustices of which his father had been the victim, had at first
+ardently embraced the revolutionary doctrines. Instead of the "Annee
+Litteraire," strangled to death in 1775, he created the "Orateur du
+Peuple," in 1789. He was sent to the Midi on a special mission, and
+Marseilles and Toulon retain to this day the memory of his cruelty.
+But all was forgotten when, on the 9th Thermidor, he proclaimed himself
+against Robespierre, and assisted in casting from the altar the Supreme
+Being, the colossus who, being an apostle, had made himself a god.
+Freron, repudiated by the Mountain, which abandoned him to the heavy
+jaws of Moise Bayle; Freron, disdainfully repulsed by the Girondins,
+who delivered him over to the imprecations of Isnard; Freron, as the
+terrible and picturesque orator of the Var said, "Freron naked and
+covered with the leprosy of crime," was accepted, caressed and petted by
+the Thermidorians. From them he passed into the camp of the royalists,
+and without any reason whatever for obtaining that fatal honor, found
+himself suddenly at the head of a powerful party of youth, energy and
+vengeance, standing between the passions of the day, which led to all,
+and the impotence of the law, which permitted all.
+
+It was to the midst of this _jeunesse_ Freron, mouthing its words,
+slurring its r's, giving its "word of honor" about everything, that
+Morgan now made his way.
+
+It must be admitted that this _jeunesse_, in spite of the clothes it
+wore, in spite of the memories these clothes evoked, was wildly gay.
+This seems incomprehensible, but it is true. Explain if you can that
+Dance of Death at the beginning of the fifteenth century, which, with
+all the fury of a modern galop, led by Musard, whirled its chain through
+the very Cemetery of the Innocents, and left amid its tombs fifty
+thousand of its votaries.
+
+Morgan was evidently seeking some one.
+
+A young dandy, who was dipping into the silver-gilt comfit-box of
+a charming victim, with an ensanguined finger, the only part of his
+delicate hand that had escaped the almond paste, tried to stop him, to
+relate the particulars of the expedition from which he had brought back
+this bloody trophy. But Morgan smiled, pressed his other hand which
+was gloved, and contented himself with replying: "I am looking for some
+one."
+
+"Important?"
+
+"Company of Jehu."
+
+The young man with the bloody finger let him pass. An adorable Fury, as
+Corneille would have called her, whose hair was held up by a dagger with
+a blade as sharp as a needle, barred his way, saying: "Morgan, you are
+the handsomest, the bravest, the most deserving of love of all the men
+present. What have you to say to the woman who tells you that?"
+
+"I answer that I love," replied Morgan, "and that my heart is too narrow
+to hold one hatred and two loves." And he continued on his search.
+
+Two young men who were arguing, one saying, "He was English," the other,
+"He was German," stopped him.
+
+"The deuce," cried one; "here is the man who can settle it for us."
+
+"No," replied Morgan, trying to push past them; "I'm in a hurry."
+
+"There's only a word to say," said the other. "We have made a bet,
+Saint-Amand and I, that the man who was tried and executed at the
+Chartreuse du Seillon, was, according to him, a German, and, according
+to me, an Englishman."
+
+"I don't know," replied Morgan; "I wasn't there. Ask Hector; he presided
+that night."
+
+"Tell us where Hector is?"
+
+"Tell me rather where Tiffauges is; I am looking for him."
+
+"Over there, at the end of the room," said the young man, pointing to a
+part of the room where the dance was more than usually gay and animated.
+"You will recognize him by his waistcoat; and his trousers are not to be
+despised. I shall have a pair like them made with the skin of the very
+first hound I meet."
+
+Morgan did not take time to ask in what way Tiffauges' waistcoat was
+remarkable, or by what queer cut or precious material his trousers had
+won the approbation of a man as expert in such matters as he who had
+spoken to him. He went straight to the point indicated by the young
+man, saw the person he was seeking dancing an ete, which seemed, by the
+intricacy of its weaving, if I may be pardoned for this technical term,
+to have issued from the salons of Vestris himself.
+
+Morgan made a sign to the dancer. Tiffauges stopped instantly, bowed
+to his partner, led her to her seat, excused himself on the plea of
+the urgency of the matter which called him away, and returned to take
+Morgan's arm.
+
+"Did you see him," Tiffauges asked Morgan.
+
+"I have just left him," replied the latter.
+
+"Did you deliver the King's letter?"
+
+"To himself."
+
+"Did he read it?"
+
+"At once."
+
+"Has he sent an answer?"
+
+"Two; one verbal, one written; the second dispenses with the first."
+
+"You have it?"
+
+"Here it is."
+
+"Do you know the contents?"
+
+"A refusal."
+
+"Positive?"
+
+"Nothing could be more positive."
+
+"Does he know that from the moment he takes all hope away from us we
+shall treat him as an enemy?"
+
+"I told him so."
+
+"What did he answer?"
+
+"He didn't answer; he shrugged his shoulders."
+
+"What do you think his intentions are?"
+
+"It's not difficult to guess."
+
+"Does he mean to keep the power himself?"
+
+"It looks like it."
+
+"The power, but not the throne?"
+
+"Why not the throne?"
+
+"He would never dare to make himself king."
+
+"Oh! I can't say he means to be absolutely king, but I'll answer for it
+that he means to be something."
+
+"But he is nothing but a soldier of fortune!"
+
+"My dear fellow, better in these days to be the son of his deeds, than
+the grandson of a king."
+
+The young man thought a moment.
+
+"I shall report it all to Cadoudal," he said.
+
+"And add that the First Consul said these very words: 'I hold the Vendee
+in the hollow of my hand, and if I choose in three months not another
+shot will be fired.'"
+
+"It's a good thing to know."
+
+"You know it; let Cadoudal know it, and take measures."
+
+Just then the music ceased; the hum of the dancers died away; complete
+silence prevailed; and, in the midst of this silence, four names were
+pronounced in a sonorous and emphatic voice.
+
+These four names were Morgan, Montbar, Adler and d'Assas.
+
+"Pardon me," Morgan said to Tiffauges, "they are probably arranging some
+expedition in which I am to take part. I am forced, therefore, to my
+great regret, to bid you farewell. Only before I leave you let me look
+closer at your waistcoat and trousers, of which I have heard--curiosity
+of an amateur; I trust you will excuse it."
+
+"Surely!" exclaimed the young Vendean, "most willingly."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII. THE BEAR'S SKIN
+
+With a rapidity and good nature that did honor to his courtesy, he went
+close to the candelabra, which were burning on the chimney-piece. The
+waistcoat and trousers seemed to be of the same stuff; but what was that
+stuff? The most experienced connoisseur would have been puzzled.
+
+The trousers were tight-fitting as usual, of a light tint between buff
+and flesh color; the only remarkable thing about them was the absence
+of the seam, and the closeness with which they clung to the leg.
+The waistcoat, on the other hand, had two characteristic signs which
+attracted attention; it had been pierced by three balls, which had the
+holes gaping, and these were stained a carmine, so like blood, that it
+might easily have been mistaken for it. On the left side was painted a
+bloody heart, the distinguishing sign of the Vendeans. Morgan examined
+the two articles with the closest attention, but without result.
+
+"If I were not in such a hurry," said he, "I should like to look into
+the matter for myself. But you heard for yourself; in all probability,
+some news has reached the committee; government money probably. You
+can announce it to Cadoudal; only we shall have to take it first.
+Ordinarily, I command these expeditions; if I delay, some one may take
+my place. So tell me what your waistcoat and trousers are made of."
+
+"My dear Morgan," replied the Vendean, "perhaps you have heard that my
+brother was captured near Bressure, and shot by the Blues?"
+
+"Yes, I know that."
+
+"The Blues were retreating; they left the body at the corner of the
+hedge. We were pursuing them so closely that we arrived just after them.
+I found the body of my brother still warm. In one of his wounds a sprig
+was stuck with these words: 'Shot as a brigand by me, Claude Flageolet,
+corporal of the Third Battalion of Paris.' I took my brother's body, and
+had the skin removed from his breast. I vowed that this skin, pierced
+with three holes, should eternally cry vengeance before my eyes. I made
+it my battle waistcoat."
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Morgan, with a certain astonishment, in which, for
+the first time, was mingled something akin to terror--"Ah! then that
+waistcoat is made of your brother's skin? And the trousers?"
+
+"Oh!" replied the Vendean, "the trousers, that's another matter.
+They are made of the skin of Claude Flageolet, corporal of the Third
+Battalion of Paris."
+
+At that moment the voice again called out, in the same order, the names
+of Morgan, Montbar, Adler and d'Assas.
+
+Morgan rushed out of the study, crossed the dancing-hall from end
+to end, and made his way to a little salon on the other side of the
+dressing-room. His three companions, Montbar, Adler and d'Assas, were
+there already. With them was a young man in the government livery of
+a bearer of despatches, namely a green and gold coat. His boots were
+dusty, and he wore a visored cap and carried the despatch-box, the
+essential accoutrements of a cabinet courier.
+
+One of Cassini's maps, on which could be followed the whole lay of the
+land, was spread on the table.
+
+Before saying why this courier was there, and with what object the map
+was unfolded, let us cast a glance at the three new personages whose
+names had echoed through the ballroom, and who are destined to play an
+important part in the rest of this history.
+
+The reader already knows Morgan, the Achilles and the Paris of this
+strange association; Morgan, with his blue eyes, his black hair, his
+tall, well-built figure, graceful, easy, active bearing; his eye, which
+was never without animation; his mouth, with its fresh lips and white
+teeth, that was never without a smile; his remarkable countenance,
+composed of mingling elements that seemed so foreign to each
+other--strength and tenderness, gentleness and energy; and, through it
+all, that bewildering expression of gayety that was at times alarming
+when one remembered that this man was perpetually rubbing shoulders with
+death, and the most terrifying of all deaths--that of the scaffold.
+
+As for d'Assas, he was a man from thirty-five to thirty-eight years of
+age, with bushy hair that was turning gray, and mustaches as black as
+ebony. His eyes were of that wonderful shade of Indian eyes, verging
+on maroon. He was formerly a captain of dragoons, admirably built for
+struggle, whether physical or moral, his muscles indicating strength,
+and his face, obstinacy. For the rest, a noble bearing, great elegance
+of manners, scented like a dandy, carrying, either from caprice or
+luxury, a bottle of English smelling-salts, or a silver-gilt vinaigrette
+containing the most subtle perfumes.
+
+Montbar and Adler, whose real names were unknown, like those of d'Assas
+and Morgan, were commonly called by the Company "the inseparables."
+Imagine Damon and Pythias, Euryalus and Nisus, Orestes and Pylades at
+twenty-two--one joyous, loquacious, noisy, the other melancholy,
+silent, dreamy; sharing all things, dangers, money, mistresses; one the
+complement of the other; each rushing to all extremes, but forgetting
+self when in peril to watch over the other, like the Spartan youths on
+the sacred legions--and you will form an idea of Montbar and Adler.
+
+It is needless to say that all three were Companions of Jehu. They had
+been convoked, as Morgan suspected, on business of the Company.
+
+On entering the room, Morgan went straight to the pretended bearer of
+despatches and shook hands with him.
+
+"Ah! the dear friend," said the latter, with a stiff movement, showing
+that the best rider cannot do a hundred and fifty miles on post-hacks
+with impunity. "You are taking it easy, you Parisians. Hannibal at
+Capua slept on rushes and thorns compared to you. I only glanced at
+the ballroom in passing, as becomes a poor cabinet courier bearing
+despatches from General Massena to the citizen First Consul; but it
+seemed to me you were a fine lot of victims! Only, my poor friends, you
+will have to bid farewell to all that for the present; disagreeable,
+unlucky, exasperating, no doubt, but the House of Jehu before all."
+
+"My dear Hastier--" began Morgan.
+
+"Stop!" cried Hastier. "No proper names, if you please, gentlemen. The
+Hastiers are an honest family in Lyons, doing business, it is said, on
+the Place des Terreaux, from father to son, and would be much humiliated
+to learn that their heir had become a cabinet courier, and rode the
+highways with the national pack on his back. Lecoq as much as you
+please, but not Hastier. I don't know Hastier; and you, gentlemen,"
+continued the young man, addressing Montbar, Adler and d'Assas, "do you
+know him?"
+
+"No," replied the three young men, "and we ask pardon for Morgan, who
+did wrong."
+
+"My dear Lecoq," exclaimed Morgan.
+
+"That's right," interrupted Hastier. "I answer to that name! Well, what
+did you want to tell me?"
+
+"I wanted to say that if you are not the antipodes of the god
+Harpocrates, whom the Egyptians represent with a finger on his lips,
+you will, instead of indulging in a lot of declamations, more or less
+flowery, tell us why this costume, and why that map?"
+
+"The deuce!" retorted the young man. "If you don't know already, it's
+your fault and not mine. If I hadn't been obliged to call you twice,
+caught as you doubtless were in the toils of some beautiful Eumenides
+imploring vengeance of a fine young man for the death of her old
+parents, you'd know as much as these gentlemen, and I wouldn't have
+to sing an encore. Well, here's what it is: simply of the remaining
+treasure of the Berne bears, which General Lecourbe is sending to the
+citizen First Consul by order of General Massena. A trifle, only a
+hundred thousand francs, that they don't dare send over the Jura on
+account of M. Teysonnet's partisans, who, they pretend, are likely to
+seize it; so it will be sent by Geneva, Bourg, Macon, Dijon, and Troyes;
+a much safer way, as they will find when they try it."
+
+"Very good!"
+
+"We were informed of this by Renard, who started from Gex at full speed,
+and transmitted the news to l'Hirondelle, who is at present stationed at
+Chalon-sur-Saone. He transmitted it to me, Lecoq, at Auxerre, and I have
+done a hundred and fifty miles to transmit it in turn to you. As for the
+secondary details, here they are. The treasure left Berne last octodi,
+28th Nivose, year VIII. of the Republic triple and indivisible. It
+should reach Genoa to-day, duodi, and leave to-morrow, tridi, by the
+diligence from Geneva to Bourg; so that, by leaving this very night, by
+the day after to-morrow, quintide, you can, my dear sons of Israel,
+meet the treasure of messires the bears between Dijon and Troyes, near
+Bar-sur-Seine or Chatillon. What say you?"
+
+"By heavens!" cried Morgan, "we say that there seems to be no room for
+argument left; we say we should never have permitted ourselves to touch
+the money of their Highnesses the bears of Berne so long as it remained
+in their coffers; but as it has changed hands once, I see no objection
+to its doing so a second time. Only how are we to start?"
+
+"Haven't you a post-chaise?"
+
+"Yes, it's here in the coach-house."
+
+"Haven't you horses to get you to the next stage?"
+
+"They are in the stable."
+
+"Haven't you each your passports."
+
+"We have each four."
+
+"Well, then?"
+
+"Well, we can't stop the diligence in a post-chaise. We don't put
+ourselves to too much inconvenience, but we don't take our ease in that
+way."
+
+"Well, and why not?" asked Montbar; "it would be original. I can't see
+why, if sailors board from one vessel to another, we couldn't board a
+diligence from a post-chaise. We want novelty; shall we try it, Adler?"
+
+"I ask nothing better," replied the latter, "but what will we do with
+the postilion?"
+
+"That's true," replied Montbar.
+
+"The difficulty is foreseen, my children," said the courier; "a
+messenger has been sent to Troyes. You will leave your post-chaise at
+Delbauce; there you will find four horses all saddled and stuffed with
+oats. You will then calculate your time, and the day after to-morrow,
+or rather to-morrow, for it is past midnight, between seven and eight in
+the morning, the money of Messires Bruin will pass an anxious quarter of
+an hour."
+
+"Shall we change our clothes?" inquired d'Assas.
+
+"What for?" replied Morgan. "I think we are very presentable as we are.
+No diligence could be relieved of unnecessary weight by better dressed
+fellows. Let us take a last glance at the map, transfer a pate, a cold
+chicken, and a dozen of champagne from the supper-room to the pockets
+of the coach, arm to the teeth in the arsenal, wrap ourselves in warm
+cloaks, and--clack! postilion!"
+
+"Yes!" cried Montbar, "that's the idea."
+
+"I should think so," added Morgan. "We'll kill the horses if necessary,
+and be back at seven in the evening, in time to show ourselves at the
+opera."
+
+"That will establish an alibi," observed d'Assas.
+
+"Precisely," said Morgan, with his imperturbable gayety. "How could men
+who applaud Mademoiselle Clotilde and M. Vestris at eight o'clock in the
+evening have been at Bar and Chatillon in the morning settling accounts
+with the conductor of a diligence? Come, my sons, a last look at the map
+to choose our spot."
+
+The four young men bent over Cassini's map.
+
+"If I may give you a bit of topographical advice," said the courier, "it
+would be to put yourselves in ambush just beyond Massu; there's a ford
+opposite to the Riceys--see, there!"
+
+And the young man pointed out the exact spot on the map.
+
+"I should return to Chacource, there; from Chacource you have a
+department road, straight as an arrow, which will take you to Troyes; at
+Troyes you take carriage again, and follow the road to Sens instead of
+that to Coulommiers. The donkeys--there are plenty in the provinces--who
+saw you in the morning won't wonder at seeing you again in the evening;
+you'll get to the opera at ten instead of eight--a more fashionable
+hour--neither seen nor recognized, I'll warrant you."
+
+"Adopted, so far as I am concerned," said Morgan.
+
+"Adopted!" cried the other three in chorus.
+
+Morgan pulled out one of the two watches whose chains were dangling from
+his belt; it was a masterpiece of Petitot's enamel, and on the outer
+case which protected the painting was a diamond monogram. The pedigree
+of this beautiful trinket was as well established as that of an Arab
+horse; it had been made for Marie-Antoinette, who had given it to the
+Duchesse de Polastron, who had given it to Morgan's mother.
+
+"One o'clock," said Morgan; "come, gentlemen, we must relay at Lagny at
+three."
+
+From that moment the expedition had begun, and Morgan became its leader;
+he no longer consulted, he commanded.
+
+D'Assas, who in Morgan's absence commanded, was the first to obey on his
+return.
+
+Half an hour later a closed carriage containing four young men wrapped
+in their cloaks was stopped at the Fontainebleau barrier by the
+post-guard, who demanded their passports.
+
+"Oh, what a joke!" exclaimed one of them, putting his head out of the
+window and affecting the pronunciation of the day. "Passpawts to dwive
+to Gwobois to call on citizen _Ba-as_? 'Word of fluted honor!' you're
+cwazy, fwend! Go on, dwiver!"
+
+The coachman whipped up his horses and the carriage passed without
+further opposition.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII. FAMILY MATTERS
+
+Let us leave our four _hunters_ on their way to Lagny--where, thanks to
+the passports they owed to the obligingness of certain clerks in citizen
+Fouche's employ, they exchanged their own horses for post-horses and
+their coachman for a postilion--and see why the First Consul had sent
+for Roland.
+
+After leaving Morgan, Roland had hastened to obey the general's orders.
+He found the latter standing in deep thought before the fireplace. At
+the sound of his entrance General Bonaparte raised his head.
+
+"What were you two saying to each other?" asked Bonaparte, without
+preamble, trusting to Roland's habit of answering his thought.
+
+"Why," said Roland, "we paid each other all sorts of compliments, and
+parted the best friends in the world."
+
+"How does he impress you?"
+
+"As a perfectly well-bred man."
+
+"How old do you take him to be?"
+
+"About my age, at the outside."
+
+"So I think; his voice is youthful. What now, Roland, can I be mistaken?
+Is there a new royalist generation growing up?"
+
+"No, general," replied Roland, shrugging his shoulders; "it's the
+remains of the old one."
+
+"Well, Roland, we must build up another, devoted to my son--if ever I
+have one."
+
+Roland made a gesture which might be translated into the words, "I don't
+object." Bonaparte understood the gesture perfectly.
+
+"You must do more than not object," said he; "you must contribute to
+it."
+
+A nervous shudder passed over Roland's body.
+
+"In what way, general?" he asked.
+
+"By marrying."
+
+Roland burst out laughing.
+
+"Good! With my aneurism?" he asked.
+
+Bonaparte looked at him, and said: "My dear Roland, your aneurism looks
+to me very much like a pretext for remaining single."
+
+"Do you think so?"
+
+"Yes; and as I am a moral man I insist upon marriage."
+
+"Does that mean that I am immoral," retorted Roland, "or that I cause
+any scandal with my mistresses?"
+
+"Augustus," answered Bonaparte, "created laws against celibates,
+depriving them of their rights as Roman citizens."
+
+"Augustus--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I'll wait until you are Augustus; as yet, you are only Caesar."
+
+Bonaparte came closer to the young man, and, laying his hands on his
+shoulders, said: "Roland, there are some names I do not wish to see
+extinct, and among them is that of Montrevel."
+
+"Well, general, in my default, supposing that through caprice or
+obstinacy I refuse to perpetuate it, there is my little brother."
+
+"What! Your brother? Then you have a brother?"
+
+"Why, yes; I have a brother! Why shouldn't I have brother?"
+
+"How old is he?"
+
+"Eleven or twelve."
+
+"Why did you never tell me about him?"
+
+"Because I thought the sayings and doings of a youngster of that age
+could not interest you."
+
+"You are mistaken, Roland; I am interested in all that concerns my
+friends. You ought to have asked me for something for your brother."
+
+"Asked what, general?"
+
+"His admission into some college in Paris."
+
+"Pooh! You have enough beggars around you without my swelling their
+number."
+
+"You hear; he is to come to Paris and enter college. When he is old
+enough, I will send him to the Ecole Militare, or some other school
+which I shall have founded before then."
+
+"Faith, general," said Roland, "just as if I had guessed your good
+intentions, he is this very day on the point of, starting for Paris."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"I wrote to my mother three days ago to bring the boy to Paris. I
+intended to put him in college without mentioning it, and when he was
+old enough to tell you about him--always supposing that my aneurism had
+not carried me off in the meantime. But in that case--"
+
+"In that case?"
+
+"Oh! in that case I have left a bit of a will addressed to you, and
+recommending to your kindness my mother, and the boy and the girl--in
+short, the whole raft."
+
+"The girl! Who is she?"
+
+"My sister."
+
+"So you have a sister also?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"How old is she?"
+
+"Seventeen."
+
+"Pretty?"
+
+"Charming."
+
+"I'll take charge of her establishment."
+
+Roland began to laugh.
+
+"What's the matter?" demanded the First Consul.
+
+"General, I'm going to put a placard over the grand entrance to the
+Luxembourg."
+
+"What will you put on the placard?"
+
+"'Marriages made here.'"
+
+"Why not? Is it any reason because you don't wish to marry for your
+sister to remain an old maid? I don't like old maids any better than I
+do old bachelors."
+
+"I did not say, general, that my sister should remain an old maid; it's
+quite enough for one member of the Montrevel family to have incurred
+your displeasure."
+
+"Then what do you mean?"
+
+"Only that, as the matter concerns my sister, she must, if you will
+allow it, be consulted."
+
+"Ah, ha! Some provincial love-affair, is there?"
+
+"I can't say. I left poor Amelie gay and happy, and I find her pale and
+sad. I shall get the truth out of her; and if you wish me to speak to
+you again about the matter, I will do so."
+
+"Yes, do so--when you get back from the Vendee."
+
+"Ah! So I am going to the Vendee?"
+
+"Why, is that, like marriage, repugnant, to you?"
+
+"Not in the least."
+
+"Then you are going to the Vendee."
+
+"When?"
+
+"Oh, you need not hurry, providing you start to-morrow."
+
+"Excellent; sooner if you wish. Tell me what I am to do there."
+
+"Something of the utmost importance, Roland."
+
+"The devil! It isn't a diplomatic mission, I presume?"
+
+"Yes; it is a diplomatic mission for which I need a man who is not a
+diplomatist."
+
+"Then I'm your man, general! Only, you understand, the less a
+diplomatist I am, the more precise my instructions must be."
+
+"I am going to give them to you. Do you see that map?"
+
+And he showed the young man a large map of Piedmont stretched out on the
+floor, under a lamp suspended from the ceiling.
+
+"Yes, I see it," replied Roland, accustomed to follow the general along
+the unexpected dashes of his genius; "but it is a map of Piedmont."
+
+"Yes, it's a map of Piedmont."
+
+"So there is still a question of Italy?"
+
+"There is always a question of Italy."
+
+"I thought you spoke of the Vendee?"
+
+"Secondarily."
+
+"Why, general, you are not going to send me to the Vendee and go
+yourself to Italy, are you?"
+
+"No; don't be alarmed."
+
+"All right; but I warn you, if you did, I should desert and join you."
+
+"I give you permission to do so; but now let us go back to Melas."
+
+"Excuse me, general; this is the first time you have mentioned him."
+
+"Yes; but I have been thinking of him for a long time. Do you know where
+I shall defeat him?"
+
+"The deuce! I do."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Wherever you meet him."
+
+Bonaparte laughed.
+
+"Ninny!" he said, with loving familiarity. Then, stooping over the map,
+he said to Roland, "Come here."
+
+Roland stooped beside him. "There," resumed Bonaparte; "that is where I
+shall fight him."
+
+"Near Alessandria?"
+
+"Within eight or nine miles of it. He has all his supplies, hospitals,
+artillery and reserves in Alessandria; and he will not leave the
+neighborhood. I shall have to strike a great blow; that's the only
+condition on which I can get peace. I shall cross the Alps"--he pointed
+to the great Saint-Bernard--"I shall fall upon Melas when he least
+expects me, and rout him utterly."
+
+"Oh! trust you for that!"
+
+"Yes; but you understand, Roland, that in order to quit France with an
+easy mind, I can't leave it with an inflammation of the bowels--I can't
+leave war in the Vendee."
+
+"Ah! now I see what you are after. No Vendee! And you are sending me to
+the Vendee to suppress it."
+
+"That young man told me some serious things about the Vendee. They
+are brave soldiers, those Vendeans, led by a man of brains, Georges
+Cadoudal. I have sent him the offer of a regiment, but he won't accept."
+
+"Jove! He's particular."
+
+"But there's one thing he little knows."
+
+"Who, Cadoudal?"
+
+"Yes, Cadoudal. That is that the Abbe Bernier has made me overtures."
+
+"The Abbe Bernier?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Who is the Abbe Bernier?"
+
+"The son of a peasant from Anjou, who may be now about thirty-three or
+four years of age. Before the insurrection he was curate of Saint-Laud
+at Angers. He refused to take the oath and sought refuge among the
+Vendeans. Two or three times the Vendee was pacificated; twice she
+was thought dead. A mistake! the Vendee was pacificated, but the Abbe
+Bernier had not signed the peace; the Vendee was dead, but the Abbe
+Bernier was still alive. One day the Vendee was ungrateful to him.
+He wished to be appointed general agent to the royalist armies of the
+interior; Stofflet influenced the decision and got his old master,
+Comte Colbert de Maulevrier, appointed in Bernier's stead. When, at
+two o'clock in the morning, the council broke up, the Abbe Bernier had
+disappeared. What he did that night, God and he alone can tell; but
+at four o'clock in the morning a Republican detachment surrounded the
+farmhouse where Stofflet was sleeping, disarmed and defenceless. At
+half-past four Stofflet was captured; eight days later he was executed
+at Angers. The next day Autichamp took command, and, to avoid making the
+same blunder as Stofflet, he appointed the Abbe Bernier general agent.
+Now, do you understand?"
+
+"Perfectly."
+
+"Well, the Abbe Bernier, general agent of the belligerent forces, and
+furnished with plenary powers by the Comte d'Artois--the Abbe Bernier
+has made overtures to me."
+
+"To you, to Bonaparte, to the First Consul he deigns to--? Why, that's
+very kind of the Abbe Bernier? Have you accepted them?"
+
+"Yes, Roland; if the Vendee will give me peace, I will open her churches
+and give her back her priests."
+
+"And suppose they chant the _Domine, salvum fac regem?_"
+
+"That would be better than not singing at all. God is omnipotent, and he
+will decide. Does the mission suit you, now that I have explained it?"
+
+"Yes, thoroughly."
+
+"Then, here is a letter for General Hedouville. He is to treat with the
+Abbe Bernier as the general-in-chief of the Army of the West. But you
+are to be present at all these conferences; he is only my mouthpiece,
+you are to be my thought. Now, start as soon as possible; the sooner you
+get back, the sooner Melas will be defeated."
+
+"General, give me time to write to my mother, that's all."
+
+"Where will she stop?"
+
+"At the Hotel des Ambassadeurs."
+
+"When do you think she will arrive?"
+
+"This is the night of the 21st of January; she will be here the evening
+of the 23d, or the morning of the 24th."
+
+"And she stops at the Hotel des Ambassadeurs?"
+
+"Yes, general."
+
+"I take it all on myself."
+
+"Take it all on yourself, general?"
+
+"Certainly; your mother can't stay at a hotel."
+
+"Where should she stay?"
+
+"With a friend."
+
+"She knows no one in Paris."
+
+"I beg your pardon, Monsieur Roland; she knows citizen Bonaparte, First
+Consul, and his wife."
+
+"You are not going to lodge my mother at the Luxembourg. I warn you that
+that would embarrass her very much."
+
+"No; but I shall lodge her in the Rue de la Victoire."
+
+"Oh, general!"
+
+"Come, come; that's settled. Go, now, and get back as soon as possible."
+
+Roland took the First Consul's hand, meaning to kiss it; but Bonaparte
+drew him quickly to him.
+
+"Embrace me, my dear Roland," he said, "and good luck to you."
+
+Two hours later Roland was rolling along in a post-chaise on the road to
+Orleans. The next day, at nine in the morning, he entered Nantes, after
+a journey of thirty-three hours.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX. THE GENEVA DILIGENCE
+
+About the hour when Roland was entering Nantes, a diligence, heavily
+loaded, stopped at the inn of the Croix-d'Or, in the middle of the main
+street of Chatillon-sur-Seine.
+
+In those days the diligences had but two compartments, the coupe and the
+interior; the rotunda is an adjunct of modern times.
+
+The diligence had hardly stopped before the postilion jumped down and
+opened the doors. The travellers dismounted. There were seven in all,
+of both sexes. In the interior, three men, two women, and a child at the
+breast; in the coupe, a mother and her son.
+
+The three men in the interior were, one a doctor from Troyes, the second
+a watchmaker from Geneva, the third an architect from Bourg. The two
+women were a lady's maid travelling to Paris to rejoin her mistress, and
+the other a wet-nurse; the child was the latter's nursling, which she
+was taking back to its parents.
+
+The mother and son in the coupe were people of position; the former,
+about forty years of age, still preserving traces of great beauty, the
+latter a boy between eleven and twelve. The third place in the coupe was
+occupied by the conductor.
+
+Breakfast was waiting, as usual, in the dining-room; one of those
+breakfasts which conductors, no doubt in collusion with the landlords,
+never give travellers the time to eat. The woman and the nurse got out
+of the coach and went to a baker's shop nearby, where each bought a hot
+roll and a sausage, with which they went back to the coach, settling
+themselves quietly to breakfast, thus saving the cost, probably too
+great for their means, of a meal at the hotel.
+
+The doctor, the watchmaker, the architect and the mother and son
+entered the inn, and, after warming themselves hastily at the large
+kitchen-fire, entered the dining-room and took seats at the table.
+
+The mother contented herself with a cup of coffee with cream, and some
+fruit. The boy, delighted to prove himself a man by his appetite at
+least, boldly attacked the viands. The first few moments were, as usual,
+employed in satisfying hunger. The watchmaker from Geneva was the first
+to speak.
+
+"Faith, citizen," said he (the word citizen was still used in public
+places), "I tell you frankly I was not at all sorry to see daylight this
+morning."
+
+"Cannot monsieur sleep in a coach?" asked the doctor.
+
+"Oh, yes, sir," replied the compatriot of Jean-Jacques; "on the
+contrary, I usually sleep straight through the night. But anxiety was
+stronger than fatigue this time."
+
+"Were you afraid of upsetting?" asked the architect.
+
+"No. I'm very lucky in that respect; it seems enough for me to be in a
+coach to make it unupsettable. No, that wasn't it."
+
+"What was it, then?" questioned the doctor.
+
+"They say in Geneva that the roads in France are not safe."
+
+"That's according to circumstances," said the architect.
+
+"Ah! how's that?" inquired the watchmaker.
+
+"Oh!" replied the architect; "if, for example, we were carrying
+government money, we would surely be stopped, or rather we would have
+been already."
+
+"Do you think so?" queried the watchmaker.
+
+"That has never failed. I don't know how those devils of Companions of
+Jehu manage to keep so well posted; but they never miss an opportunity."
+
+The doctor nodded affirmatively.
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed the watchmaker, addressing the doctor; "do you think so,
+too?"
+
+"I do."
+
+"And if you knew there was government money in the coach, would you be
+so imprudent as to take passage in it?"
+
+"I must admit," replied the doctor, "that I should think twice about
+it."
+
+"And you, sir?" said the questioner to the architect.
+
+"Oh, I," replied the latter--"as I am on important business, I should
+have started anyway."
+
+"I am tempted," said the watchmaker "to take off my valise and my oases,
+and wait for to-morrow's diligence, because my boxes are filled with
+watches worth something like twenty thousand francs. We've been lucky so
+far, but there's no use tempting Providence."
+
+"Did you not hear these gentlemen say," remarked the lady, joining in
+the conversation for the first time, "that we run the risk of being
+stopped only when the coach carries government money?"
+
+"That's exactly it," replied the watchmaker, looking anxiously around.
+"We are carrying it."
+
+The mother blanched visibly and looked at her son. Before fearing for
+herself every mother fears for her child.
+
+"What! we are carrying it?" asked the doctor and the architect in
+varying tones of excitement. "Are you sure of what you are saying?"
+
+"Perfectly sure, gentlemen."
+
+"Then you should either have told us before, or have told us in a
+whisper now."
+
+"But perhaps," said the doctor, "the gentleman is not quite sure of what
+he says."
+
+"Or perhaps he is joking," added the architect.
+
+"Heaven forbid!"
+
+"The Genevese are very fond of a laugh," persisted the doctor.
+
+"Sir," replied the Genevese, much hurt that any one should think he
+liked to laugh, "I saw it put on the coach myself."
+
+"What?"
+
+"The money."
+
+"Was there much?"
+
+"A good many bags."
+
+"But where does the money come from?"
+
+"The treasury of the bears of Berne. You know, of course, that the bears
+of Berne received an income of fifty or even sixty thousand francs."
+
+The doctor burst out laughing.
+
+"Decidedly, sir, you are trying to frighten us," said he.
+
+"Gentlemen," said the watchmaker, "I give you my word of honor--"
+
+"Take your places gentlemen," shouted the conductor, opening the door.
+"Take your places! We are three-quarters of an hour late."
+
+"One moment, conductor, one moment," Said the architect; "we are
+consulting."
+
+"About what?"
+
+"Close the door, conductor, and come over here."
+
+"Drink a glass of wine with us, conductor."
+
+"With pleasure, gentlemen; a glass of wine is never to be refused."
+
+The conductor held out his glass, and the three travellers touched it;
+but just as he was lifting it to his lips the doctor stopped his arm.
+
+"Come, conductor, frankly, is it true?"
+
+"What?"
+
+"What this gentleman says?" And he pointed to the Genevese.
+
+"Monsieur Feraud?"
+
+"I don't know if that is his name."
+
+"Yes, sir, that is my name--Feraud & Company, No. 6 Rue du Rempart,
+Geneva, at your service," replied the watchmaker, bowing.
+
+"Gentlemen," repeated the conductor, "take your places!"
+
+"But you haven't answered."
+
+"What the devil shall I answer? You haven't asked me anything."
+
+"Yes, we asked you if it is true that you are carrying a large sum of
+money belonging to the French Government?"
+
+"Blabber!" said the conductor to watchmaker, "did you tell that?"
+
+"Confound it, my worthy fellow--"
+
+"Come, gentlemen, your places."
+
+"But before getting in we want to know--"
+
+"What? Whether I have government money? Yes I have. Now, if we are
+stopped, say nothing and all will be well."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"Leave me to arrange matters with these gentry."
+
+"What will you do if we are stopped?" the doctor asked the architect.
+
+"Faith! I shall follow the conductor's advice."
+
+"That's the best thing to do," observed the latter.
+
+"Well, I shall keep quiet," repeated the architect.
+
+"And so shall I," added the watchmaker.
+
+"Come, gentlemen, take your seats, and let us make haste."
+
+The boy had listened to this conversation with frowning brow and
+clinched teeth.
+
+"Well," he said to his mother, "if we are stopped, I know what I'll do."
+
+"What will you do?" she asked.
+
+"You'll see."
+
+"What does this little boy say?" asked the watchmaker.
+
+"I say you are all cowards," replied the child unhesitatingly.
+
+"Edouard!" exclaimed his mother, "what do you mean?"
+
+"I wish they'd stop the diligence, that I do!" cried the boy, his eye
+sparkling with determination.
+
+"Come, come, gentlemen, in Heaven's name, take your places," called the
+conductor once more.
+
+"Conductor," said the doctor, "I presume you have no weapons!"
+
+"Yes, I have my pistols."
+
+"Unfortunate!"
+
+The conductor stooped to the doctor's ear and whispered: "Don't be
+alarmed, doctor; they're only loaded with powder."
+
+"Good!"
+
+"Forward, postilion, forward!" shouted the conductor, closing the door
+of the interior. Then, while the postilion snapped his whip and started
+the heavy vehicle, he also closed that of the coupe.
+
+"Are you not coming with us, conductor?" asked the lady.
+
+"Thank you, no, Madame de Montrevel," replied the conductor; "I have
+something to do on the imperial." Then, looking into the window, he
+added: "Take care the Monsieur Edouard does not touch the pistols in the
+pocket of the carriage; he might hurt himself."
+
+"Pooh!" retorted the boy, "as if I didn't know how to handle a pistol. I
+have handsomer ones than yours, that my friend Sir John had sent me from
+England; haven't I, mamma?"
+
+"Never mind, Edouard," replied Madame de Montrevel, "I entreat you not
+to touch them."
+
+"Don't worry, little mother." Then he added softly, "All the same, if
+the Companions of Jehu stop us, I know what I shall do."
+
+The diligence was again rolling heavily on its way to Paris.
+
+It was one of those fine winter days which makes those who think that
+nature is dead at that season admit that nature never dies but only
+sleeps. The man who lives to be seventy or eighty years of age has his
+nights of ten or twelve hours, and often complains that the length
+of his nights adds to the shortness of his days. Nature, which has an
+everlasting existence; trees, which live a thousand years; have sleeping
+periods of four or five months, which are winters for us but only nights
+for them. The poets, in their envious verse, sing the immortality of
+nature, which dies each autumn and revives each spring. The poets are
+mistaken; nature does not die each autumn, she only falls asleep; she
+is not resuscitated, she awakens. The day when our globe really dies,
+it will be dead indeed. Then it will roll into space or fall into the
+abysses of chaos, inert, mute, solitary, without trees, without flowers,
+without verdure, without poets.
+
+But on this beautiful day of the 23d of February, 1800, sleeping nature
+dreamed of spring; a brilliant, almost joyous sun made the grass in the
+ditches on either side of the road sparkle with those deceptive pearls
+of the hoarfrost which vanish at a touch, and rejoice the heart of a
+tiller of the earth when he sees them glittering at the points of his
+wheat as it pushes bravely up through the soil. All the windows of the
+diligence were lowered, to give entrance to this earliest smile of the
+Divine, as though all hearts were saying: "Welcome back, traveller
+long lost in the clouds of the West, or beneath the heaving billows of
+Ocean!"
+
+Suddenly, about an hour after leaving Chatillon, the diligence stopped
+at a bend of the river without any apparent cause. Four horsemen quietly
+approached, walking their horses, and one of them, a little in advance
+of the others, made a sign with his hand to the postilion, ordering him
+to draw up. The postilion obeyed.
+
+"Oh, mamma!" cried Edouard, standing up and leaning out of the window
+in spite of Madame de Montrevel's protestations; "oh, mamma, what fine
+horses! But why do these gentlemen wear masks? This isn't carnival."
+
+Madame de Montrevel was dreaming. A woman always dreams a little; young,
+of the future; old, of the past. She started from her revery, put her
+head out of the window, and gave a little cry.
+
+Edouard turned around hastily.
+
+"What ails you, mother?" he asked.
+
+Madame de Montrevel turned pale and took him in her arms without a word.
+Cries of terror were heard in the interior.
+
+"But what is the matter?" demanded little Edouard, struggling to escape
+from his mother's encircling arms.
+
+"Nothing, my little man," said one of the masked men in a gentle voice,
+putting his head through the window of the coupe; "nothing but an
+account we have to settle with the conductor, which does not in the
+least concern you travellers. Tell your mother to accept our respectful
+homage, and to pay no more heed to us than if we were not here." Then
+passing to the door of the interior, he added: "Gentlemen, your servant.
+Fear nothing for your money or jewels, and reassure that nurse--we have
+not come here to turn her milk." Then to the conductor: "Now, then, Pere
+Jerome, we have a hundred thousand francs on the imperial and in the
+boxes, haven't we?"
+
+"Gentlemen, I assure you--"
+
+"That the money belongs to the government. It did belong to the bears of
+Berne; seventy thousand francs in gold, the rest in silver. The silver
+is on the top of the coach, the gold in the bottom of the coupe. Isn't
+that so? You see how well informed we are."
+
+At the words "bottom of the coupe" Madame de Montrevel gave another cry
+of terror; she was about to come in contact with men who, in spite of
+their politeness, inspired her with the most profound terror.
+
+"But what is the matter, mother, what is the matter?" demanded the boy
+impatiently.
+
+"Be quiet, Edouard; be quiet!"
+
+"Why must I be quiet?"
+
+"Don't you understand?"
+
+"No."
+
+"The coach has been stopped."
+
+"Why? Tell me why? Ah, mother, I understand."
+
+"No, no," said Madame de Montrevel, "you don't understand."
+
+"Those gentlemen are robbers."
+
+"Take care you don't say so."
+
+"What, you mean they are not robbers? Why, see they are taking the
+conductor's money."
+
+Sure enough, one of the four was fastening to the saddle of his horse
+the bags of silver which the conductor threw down from the imperial.
+
+"No," repeated Madame de Montrevel, "no, they are not robbers." Then
+lowering her voice, she added: "They are Companions of Jehu."
+
+"Ah!" cried the boy, "they are the ones who assassinated my friend, Sir
+John."
+
+And the child turned very pale, and his breath came hissing through his
+clinched teeth.
+
+At that moment one of the masked men opened the door of the coupe, and
+said with exquisite politeness: "Madame la Comtesse, to our great regret
+we are obliged to disturb you; but we want, or rather the conductor
+wants, a package from the bottom of the coupe. Will you be so kind as
+to get out for a moment? Jerome will get what he wants as quickly as
+possible." Then, with that note of gayety which was never entirely
+absent from that laughing voice, he added, "Won't you, Jerome?"
+
+Jerome replied from the top of the diligence, confirming these words.
+
+With an instinctive movement to put herself between the danger and her
+son, Madame de Montrevel, while complying with that request, pushed
+Edouard behind her. That instant sufficed for the boy to seize the
+conductor's pistols.
+
+The young man with the laughing voice assisted Madame de Montrevel from
+the coach with the greatest care, then signed to one of his companions
+to give her an arm, and returned to the coach.
+
+But at that instant a double report was heard. Edouard had fired a
+pistol with each hand at the Companion of Jehu, who disappeared in the
+smoke.
+
+Madame de Montrevel screamed, and fainted away. Various cries,
+expressive of diverse sentiments, echoed that of the mother.
+
+From the interior came one of terror; they had all agreed to offer no
+resistance, and now some one had resisted. From the three young men came
+a cry of surprise--it was the first time such a thing had happened.
+
+They rushed to their companion, expecting to find him reduced to
+pulp; but they found him safe and sound, laughing heartily, while the
+conductor, with clasped hands, was exclaiming: "Monsieur, I swear there
+were no balls; monsieur, I protest, they were only charged with powder."
+
+"The deuce," said the young man, "don't I see that? But the intention
+was good, wasn't it, my little Edouard?" Then, turning to his
+companions, he added: "Confess, gentlemen, that he is a fine boy--a true
+son of his father, and brother of his brother. Bravo, Edouard! you'll
+make a man some day!"
+
+Taking the boy in his arms, he kissed him, in spite of his struggles, on
+both cheeks.
+
+Edouard fought like a demon, thinking no doubt that it was very
+humiliating to be embraced by a man at whom he had just fired two
+pistols.
+
+In the meantime one of the Companions had carried Edouard's mother to
+the bank by the roadside a little distance from the diligence. The man
+who had kissed Edouard with so much affection and persistence now looked
+around for her.
+
+"Ah!" cried he, on perceiving her, "Madame de Montrevel still
+unconscious? We can't leave a woman in that condition, gentlemen.
+Conductor, take Master Edouard." Placing the boy in Jerome's arms, he
+turned to one of his companions: "Man of precautions," said he, "haven't
+you smelling salts or a bottle of essence with you?"
+
+"Here!" said the young man he had addressed, pulling a flask of toilet
+vinegar from his pocket.
+
+"Good," said the other, who seemed to be the leader of the band. "Do you
+finish up the matter with Master Jerome; I'll take charge of Madame de
+Montrevel."
+
+It was indeed time. The fainting fit was giving place to a violent
+nervous attack; spasmodic movements shook her whole body and strangled
+cries came from her throat. The young man leaned over her and made her
+inhale the salts.
+
+Madame de Montrevel presently opened her frightened eyes, and called
+out: "Edouard! Edouard!" With an involuntary movement she knocked aside
+the mask of the man who was supporting her, exposing his face.
+
+The courteous, laughing young man--our readers have already recognized
+him--was Morgan.
+
+Madame de Montrevel paused in amazement at sight of those beautiful blue
+eyes, the lofty brow, and the gracious lips smiling at her. She realized
+that she ran no danger from such a man, and that no harm could have
+befallen Edouard. Treating Morgan as a gentleman who had succored her,
+and not as a bandit who had caused her fainting-fit, she exclaimed: "Ah,
+sir! how kind you are."
+
+In the words, in the tones in which she uttered them, there lay a world
+of thanks, not only for herself, but for her child.
+
+With singular delicacy, entirely in keeping with his chivalric nature,
+Morgan, instead of picking up his fallen mask and covering his face
+immediately, so that Madame de Montrevel could only have retained a
+fleeting and confused impression of it--Morgan replied to her compliment
+by a low bow, leaving his features uncovered long enough to produce
+their impression; then, placing d'Assas' flask in Madame de Montrevel's
+hand--and then only--he replaced his mask. Madame de Montrevel
+understood the young man's delicacy.
+
+"Ah! sir," said she, "be sure that, in whatever place or situation I see
+you again, I shall not recognize you."
+
+"Then, madame," replied Morgan, "it is for me to thank you and repeat,
+'How kind you are.'"
+
+"Come, gentlemen, take your seats!" said the conductor, in his customary
+tone, as if nothing unusual had happened.
+
+"Are you quite restored, madame, or should you like a few minutes more
+to rest?" asked Morgan. "The diligence shall wait."
+
+"No, that is quite unnecessary; I feel quite well, and am much indebted
+to you."
+
+Morgan offered Madame de Montrevel his arm, and she leaned upon it to
+reach the diligence. The conductor had already placed little Edouard
+inside. When Madame de Montrevel had resumed her seat, Morgan, who had
+already made his peace with the mother, wished to do so with the son.
+
+"Without a grudge, my young hero," he said, offering his hand.
+
+But the boy drew back.
+
+"I don't give my hand to a highway robber," he replied. Madame de
+Montrevel gave a start of terror.
+
+"You have a charming boy, madame," said Morgan; "only he has his
+prejudices." Then, bowing with the utmost courtesy, he added, "A
+prosperous voyage, madame," and closed the door.
+
+"Forward!" cried the conductor.
+
+The carriage gave a lurch.
+
+"Oh! pardon me, sir!" exclaimed Madame de Montrevel; "your flask!"
+
+"Keep it, madame," said Morgan; "although I trust you are sufficiently
+recovered not to need it."
+
+But Edouard, snatching the flask from his mother's hands, flung it out
+of the window, crying: "Mamma doesn't receive presents from robbers."
+
+"The devil!" murmured Morgan, with the first sigh his Companions had
+ever heard him give. "I think I am right not to ask for my poor
+Amelie in marriage." Then, turning to his Companions, he said: "Well,
+gentlemen, is it finished?"
+
+"Yes," they answered with one voice.
+
+"Then let us mount and be off. Don't forget we have to be at the Opera
+at nine o'clock this evening."
+
+Springing into his saddle, he was the first to jump the ditch, reach
+the river, and there unhesitatingly took the ford which the pretended
+courier had pointed out on Cassini's map.
+
+When he reached the opposite bank, followed by the other young men,
+d'Assas said to him: "Say, didn't your mask falloff?"
+
+"Yes; but no one saw my face but Madame de Montrevel."
+
+"Hum!" muttered d'Assas. "Better no one had seen it."
+
+Putting their horses to a gallop, all four disappeared across the fields
+in the direction of Chacource.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX. CITIZEN FOUCHE'S REPORT
+
+On arriving the next day, toward eleven in the morning, at the Hotel
+des Ambassadeurs, Madame de Montrevel was astonished to find, instead of
+Roland, a stranger awaiting her. The stranger approached her.
+
+"Are you the widow of General de Montrevel, madame?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, monsieur," replied Madame de Montrevel, not a little astonished.
+
+"And you are looking for your son?"
+
+"Yes; and I do not understand, after the letter he wrote me--"
+
+"Man proposes, the First Consul disposes," replied the stranger,
+laughing. "The First Consul has disposed of your son for a few days, and
+has sent me to receive you in his stead."
+
+Madame de Montrevel bowed.
+
+"To whom have I the honor of speaking?" she asked.
+
+"To citizen Fauvelet de Bourrienne, his first secretary," replied the
+stranger.
+
+"Will you thank the First Consul for me," replied Madame de Montrevel,
+"and have the kindness to express to him the profound regret I feel at
+not being able to do so myself?"
+
+"But nothing can be more easy, madame."
+
+"How so?"
+
+"The First Consul has ordered me to bring you to the Luxembourg."
+
+"Me?"
+
+"You and your son."
+
+"Oh! I am going to see General Bonaparte; I am going to see General
+Bonaparte!" cried the child, jumping for joy and clapping his hands.
+"What happiness!"
+
+"Edouard, Edouard!" exclaimed Madame de Montrevel. Then, turning to
+Bourrienne, "You must excuse him, sir; he is a little savage from the
+Jura Mountains."
+
+Bourrienne held out his hand to the boy.
+
+"I am a friend of your brother's," said he. "Will you kiss me?"
+
+"Oh! willingly, sir," replied Edouard. "You are not a thief, I know."
+
+"Why, no; I trust not," replied the secretary, laughing.
+
+"You must excuse him once again, sir. Our diligence was stopped on the
+way."
+
+"Stopped?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"By robbers?"
+
+"Not exactly."
+
+"Monsieur," asked Edouard, "when people take other people's money, are
+they not thieves?"
+
+"That is what they are generally called, my dear child."
+
+"There, you see, mamma."
+
+"Come, Edouard, be quiet, I beg of you."
+
+Bourrienne glanced at Madame de Montrevel, and saw clearly from the
+expression of her face that the subject was disagreeable to her; he
+therefore dropped it.
+
+"Madame," said he, "may I remind you that I have I orders to take you to
+the Luxembourg, and to add that Madame Bonaparte is expecting you?"
+
+"Pray give me time to change my gown and to dress Edouard, sir."
+
+"How long will that take, madame?"
+
+"Is half an hour too much to ask?"
+
+"No, indeed; if half an hour really suffices I shall think you most
+reasonable."
+
+"Be easy, sir; it will be sufficient."
+
+"Well, madame," said the secretary, bowing, "I will attend to an errand,
+and return in half an hour to place myself at your orders."
+
+"Thank you, sir."
+
+"Don't be annoyed if I should be punctual."
+
+"I shall not keep you waiting."
+
+Bourrienne left. Madame de Montrevel dressed Edouard first, then
+herself, and was ready five minutes before Bourrienne reappeared.
+
+"Take care, madame," said Bourrienne laughing, "lest I tell the First
+Consul of your extreme punctuality."
+
+"What should I have to fear if you did?"
+
+"He would keep you near him to give lessons in punctuality to Madame
+Bonaparte."
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Madame de Montrevel, "you must forgive unpunctuality in
+a Creole."
+
+"But I believe you are a Creole also, madame."
+
+"Madame Bonaparte sees her husband every day," said Madame de Montrevel,
+laughing, "whereas I am to see the First Consul for the first time."
+
+"Come, mother, let us go!" said Edouard.
+
+The secretary drew aside to allow Madame de Montrevel to pass out.
+Fifteen minutes later they had reached the Luxembourg.
+
+Bonaparte occupied the suite of rooms on the ground floor to the right.
+Josephine's chamber and boudoir were on the first floor; a stairway led
+from the First Consul's study to her room.
+
+She was expecting Madame de Montrevel, for as soon as she saw her
+she opened her arms as to a friend. Madame de Montrevel had stopped
+respectfully at the door.
+
+"Oh! come in, come in, madame!" said Josephine. "To-day is not the
+first that I know you; I have long known you through your excellent son,
+Roland. Shall I tell you what comforts me when Bonaparte leaves me? It
+is that Roland goes with him; for I fancy that, so long as Roland is
+with him, no harm will befall him. Well, won't you kiss me?"
+
+Madame de Montrevel was confused by so much kindness.
+
+"We are compatriots, you know," continued Josephine. "Oh! how well
+I remember M. de la Clemenciere, and his beautiful gardens with the
+splendid fruit. I remember having seen a young girl who seemed its
+queen. You must have married very young, madame?"
+
+"At fourteen."
+
+"Yes, you could not have been older to have a son of Roland's age. But
+pray sit down."
+
+She led the way, making a sign to Madame de Montrevel to sit beside her.
+
+"And that charming boy," she said, pointing to Edouard, "is he also your
+son?" And she gave a sigh. "God has been prodigal to you, madame, and as
+He has given you all you can desire, will you not implore Him to send me
+a son."
+
+She pressed her lips enviously to Edouard's forehead.
+
+"My husband will be delighted to see you, he is so fond of your son,
+madame! You would not have been brought to me in the first instance, if
+he were not engaged with the minister of police. For that matter,"
+she added, laughing, "you have arrived at an unfortunate moment; he is
+furious!"
+
+"Oh!" cried Madame de Montrevel, frightened; "if that is so, I would
+rather wait."
+
+"No, no! On the contrary, the sight of you will calm him. I don't know
+just what is the matter; but it seems a diligence was stopped on the
+outskirts of the Black Forest in broad daylight. Fouche will find his
+credit in danger if the thing goes on."
+
+Madame de Montrevel was about to answer when the door opened and an
+usher appeared.
+
+"The First Consul awaits Madame de Montrevel," he said.
+
+"Go," said Josephine; "Bonaparte's time is so precious that he is almost
+as impatient as Louis XV., who had nothing to do. He does not like to
+wait."
+
+Madame de Montrevel rose hastily and turned to take Edouard with her.
+
+"No," said Josephine; "leave this beautiful boy with me. You will stay
+and dine with us, and Bonaparte can see him then. Besides, if my husband
+takes a fancy to see him, he can send for him. For the time, I am his
+second mamma. Come, what shall we do to amuse ourselves?"
+
+"The First Consul must have a fine lot of weapons, madame," replied the
+boy.
+
+"Yes, very fine ones. Well, I will show you the First Consul's arms."
+
+Josephine, leading the child, went out of one door, and Madame de
+Montrevel followed the usher through the other.
+
+On the way the countess met a fair man, with a pale face and haggard
+eye, who looked at her with an uneasiness that seemed habitual to him.
+She drew hastily aside to let him pass. The usher noticed her movement.
+
+"That is the minister of police," he said in a low voice. Madame de
+Montrevel watched him as he disappeared, with a certain curiosity.
+Fouche was already at that time fatally celebrated. Just then the door
+of Bonaparte's study opened and his head was seen through the aperture.
+He caught sight of Madame de Montrevel.
+
+"Come in, madame," he said; "come in."
+
+Madame de Montrevel hastened her steps and entered the study.
+
+"Come in," said Bonaparte, closing the door himself. "I have kept you
+waiting much against my will; but I had to give Fouche a scolding. You
+know I am very well satisfied with Roland, and that I intend to make a
+general of him at the first opportunity. When did you arrive?"
+
+"This very moment, general."
+
+"Where from? Roland told me, but I have forgotten."
+
+"From Bourg."
+
+"What road?"
+
+"Through Champagne."
+
+"Champagne! Then when did you reach Chatillon?"
+
+"Yesterday morning at nine o'clock."
+
+"In that case, you must have heard of the stoppage of the diligence."
+
+"General--"
+
+"Yes, a diligence was stopped at ten in the morning, between Chatillon
+and Bar-sur-Seine."
+
+"General, it was ours."
+
+"Yours?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You were in the diligence that was stopped?"
+
+"I was."
+
+"Ah! now I shall get the exact details! Excuse me, but you understand my
+desire for correct information, don't you? In a civilized country which
+has General Bonaparte for its chief magistrate, diligences can't be
+stopped in broad daylight on the highroads with impunity, or--"
+
+"General, I can tell you nothing, except that those who stopped it were
+on horseback and masked."
+
+"How many were there?"
+
+"Four."
+
+"How many men were there in the diligence?"
+
+"Four, including the conductor."
+
+"And they didn't defend themselves?"
+
+"No, general."
+
+"The police report says, however, that two shots were fired."
+
+"Yes, general, but those two shots--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Were fired by my son."
+
+"Your son? Why, he is in Vendee!"
+
+"Roland, yes; but Edouard was with me."
+
+"Edouard! Who is Edouard?"
+
+"Roland's brother."
+
+"True, he spoke of him; but he is only a child."
+
+"He is not yet twelve, general."
+
+"And it was he who fired the two shots?"
+
+"Yes, general."
+
+"Why didn't you bring him with you?"
+
+"I did."
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"I left him with Madame Bonaparte."
+
+Bonaparte rang, and an usher appeared.
+
+"Tell Josephine to bring the boy to me." Then, walking up and down his
+study, he muttered, "Four men! And a child taught them courage! Were any
+of the robbers wounded?"
+
+"There were no balls in the pistols."
+
+"What! no balls?"
+
+"No; they belonged to the conductor, and he had taken the precaution to
+load them with powder only."
+
+"Very good; his name shall be known."
+
+Just then the door opened, and Madame Bonaparte entered, leading the boy
+by the hand.
+
+"Come here," Bonaparte said to him.
+
+Edouard went up to him without hesitation and made a military salute.
+
+"So you fired at the robbers twice, did you?"
+
+"There, you see, mamma, they were robbers!" interrupted the child.
+
+"Of course they were robbers; I should like to hear any one declare they
+were not! Was it you who fired at them, when the men were afraid?"
+
+"Yes, it was I, general. But unfortunately that coward of a conductor
+had loaded his pistols only with powder; otherwise I should have killed
+their leader."
+
+"Then you were not afraid?"
+
+"I?" replied the boy. "No, I am never afraid."
+
+"You ought to be named Cornelia, madame," exclaimed Bonaparte, turning
+to Madame de Montrevel, who was leaning on Josephine's arm. Then he said
+to the child, kissing him: "Very good; we will take care of you. What
+would you like to be?"
+
+"Soldier first."
+
+"What do you mean by first?"
+
+"Why, first a soldier, then later a colonel like my brother, and then a
+general like my father."
+
+"It won't be my fault if you are not," answered the First Consul.
+
+"Nor mine," retorted the boy.
+
+"Edouard!" exclaimed Madame de Montrevel, timidly.
+
+"Now don't scold him for answering properly;" and Bonaparte, lifting the
+child to the level of his face, kissed him.
+
+"You must dine with us," said he, "and to-night Bourrienne, who met you
+at the hotel, will install you in the Rue de la Victoire. You must stay
+there till Roland gets back; he will then find you suitable lodgings.
+Edouard shall go to the Prytanee, and I will marry off your daughter."
+
+"General!"
+
+"That's all settled with Roland." Then, turning to Josephine, he
+said: "Take Madame de Montrevel with you, and try not to let her be
+bored.--And, Madame de Montrevel, if _your friend_ (he emphasized the
+words) wishes to go to a milliner, prevent it; she can't want bonnets,
+for she bought thirty-eight last month."
+
+Then, giving Edouard a friendly tap, he dismissed the two women with a
+wave of the hand.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI. THE SON OF THE MILLER OF LEGUERNO
+
+We have said that at the very moment when Morgan and his three
+companions stopped the Geneva diligence between Bar-sur-Seine and
+Chatillon, Roland was entering Nantes.
+
+If we are to know the result of his mission we must not grope our way,
+step by step, through the darkness in which the Abbe Bernier wrapped
+his ambitious projects, but we must join him later at the village of
+Muzillac, between Ambon and Guernic, six miles above the little bay into
+which the Vilaine River falls.
+
+There we find ourselves in the heart of the Morbihan; that is to say, in
+the region that gave birth to the Chouannerie. It was close to Laval, on
+the little farm of the Poiriers, that the four Chouan brothers were
+born to Pierre Cottereau and Jeanne Moyne. One of their ancestors, a
+misanthropical woodcutter, a morose peasant, kept himself aloof from the
+other peasants as the _chat-huant_ (screech-owl) keeps aloof from the
+other birds; hence the name Chouan, a corruption of _chat-huant_.
+
+The name became that of a party. On the right bank of the Loire they
+said Chouans when they meant Bretons, just as on the left bank they said
+brigands when they meant Vendeans.
+
+It is not for us to relate the death and destruction of that heroic
+family, nor follow to the scaffold the two sisters and a brother, nor
+tell of battlefields where Jean and Rene, martyrs to their faith, lay
+dying or dead. Many years have elapsed since the executions of Perrine,
+Rene and Pierre, and the death of Jean; and the martyrdom of the
+sisters, the exploits of the brothers have passed into legends. We have
+now to do with their successors.
+
+It is true that these gars (lads) are faithful to their traditions. As
+they fought beside la Rouerie, Bois-Hardy and Bernard de Villeneuve, so
+did they fight beside Bourmont, Frotte, and Georges Cadoudal. Theirs
+was always the same courage, the same devotion--that of the Christian
+soldier, the faithful royalist. Their aspect is always the same, rough
+and savage; their weapons, the same gun or cudgel, called in those
+parts a "ferte." Their garments are the same; a brown woollen cap, or a
+broad-brimmed hat scarcely covering the long straight hair that fell in
+tangles on their shoulders, the old _Aulerci Cenomani_, as in Caesar's
+day, _promisso capillo_; they are the same Bretons with wide breeches of
+whom Martial said:
+
+  _Tam laxa est..._
+  _Quam veteres braccoe Britonis pauperis._
+
+To protect themselves from rain and cold they wore goatskin garments,
+made with the long hair turned outside; on the breasts of which, as
+countersign, some wore a scapulary and chaplet, others a heart, the
+heart of Jesus; this latter was the distinctive sign of a fraternity
+which withdrew apart each day for common prayer.
+
+Such were the men, who, at the time we are crossing the borderland
+between the Loire-Inferieure and Morbihan, were scattered from La
+Roche-Bernard to Vannes, and from Quertemberg to Billiers, surrounding
+consequently the village of Muzillac.
+
+But it needed the eye of the eagle soaring in the clouds, or that of the
+screech-owl piercing the darkness, to distinguish these men among the
+gorse and heather and underbrush where they were crouching.
+
+Let us pass through this network of invisible sentinels, and after
+fording two streams, the affluents of a nameless river which flows into
+the sea near Billiers, between Arzal and Dangau, let us boldly enter the
+village of Muzillac.
+
+All is still and sombre; a single light shines through the blinds of
+a house, or rather a cottage, which nothing distinguishes from its
+fellows. It is the fourth to the right on entering the village.
+
+Let us put our eye to one of these chinks and look in.
+
+We see a man dressed like the rich peasants of Morbihan, except that
+gold lace about a finger wide stripes the collar and buttonholes of his
+coat and also the edges of his hat. The rest of his dress consists of
+leathern trousers and high-topped boots. His sword is thrown upon a
+chair. A brace of pistols lies within reach of his hand. Within the
+fireplace the barrels of two or three muskets reflect the light of a
+blazing fire.
+
+The man is seated before a table; a lamp lights some papers which he is
+reading with great attention, and illuminates his face at the same time.
+
+The face is that of a man of thirty. When the cares of a partisan
+warfare do not darken it, its expression must surely be frank and
+joyous. Beautiful blond hair frames it; great blue eyes enliven it;
+the head, of a shape peculiarly Breton, seems to show, if we believe in
+Gall's system, an exaggerated development of the organs of self-will.
+And the man has two names. That by which he is known to his soldiers,
+his familiar name, is Round-head; and his real name, received from
+brave and worthy parents, Georges Cadudal, or rather Cadoudal, tradition
+having changed the orthography of a name that is now historic.
+
+Georges was the son of a farmer of the parish of Kerleano in the commune
+of Brech. The story goes that this farmer was once a miller. Georges had
+just received at the college of Vannes--distant only a few leagues from
+Brech--a good and solid education when the first appeals for a royalist
+insurrection were made in Vendee. Cadoudal listened to them, gathered
+together a number of his companions, and offered his services to
+Stofflet. But Stofflet insisted on seeing him at work before he accepted
+him. Georges asked nothing better. Such occasions were not long to seek
+in the Vendean army. On the next day there was a battle; Georges went
+into it with such determination and made so desperate a rush that M. de
+Maulevrier's former huntsman, on seeing him charge the Blues, could not
+refrain from saying aloud to Bonchamp, who was near him:
+
+"If a cannon ball doesn't take off that _Big Round Head_, it will roll
+far, I warrant you."
+
+The name clung to Cadoudal--a name by which, five centuries earlier, the
+lords of Malestroit, Penhoel, Beaumanoir and Rochefort designated the
+great Constable, whose ransom was spun by the women of Brittany.
+
+"There's the Big Round Head," said they; "now we'll exchange some good
+sword-play with the English."
+
+Unfortunately, at this time it was not Breton sword-thrusts against
+English, but Frenchmen against Frenchmen.
+
+Georges remained in Vendee until after the defeat of Savenay. The whole
+Vendean army was either left upon the battlefield or vanished in smoke.
+For three years, Georges had performed prodigies of valor, strength and
+dexterity; he now crossed the Loire and re-entered Morbihan with only
+one man left of all who had followed him.
+
+That man became his aide-de-camp, or rather his brother-in-arms.
+He never left him, and in memory of the hard campaign they had made
+together he changed his name from Lemercier to Tiffauges. We have seen
+him at the ball of the Victims charged with a message to Morgan.
+
+As soon as Cadoudal returned to his own part of the country, he fomented
+insurrection on his own responsibility. Bullets respected that big
+round head, and the big round head justified Stofflet's prediction. He
+succeeded La Rochejacquelin, d'Elbee, Bonchamp, Lescure, even Stofflet
+himself, and became their rival for fame, their superior in power; for
+it happened (and this will give an idea of his strength) that Cadoudal,
+almost single-handed, had been able to resist the government of
+Bonaparte, who had been First Consul for the last three months. The two
+leaders who continued with him, faithful to the Bourbon dynasty, were
+Frotte and Bourmont.
+
+At the time of which we are now speaking, that is to say, the 26th of
+January, 1800, Cadoudal commanded three or four thousand men with whom
+he was preparing to blockade General Hatry in Vannes.
+
+During the time that he awaited the First Consul's answer to the letter
+of Louis XVIII. he had suspended hostilities; but Tiffauges had arrived
+a couple of days before with it.
+
+That letter was already on the way to England, whence it would be sent
+to Mittau; and since the First Consul would not accept peace on the
+terms dictated by Louis XVIII., Cadoudal, commander-in-chief of Louis
+XVIII. in the West, renewed his warfare against Bonaparte, intending
+to carry it on alone, if necessary, with his friend Tiffauges. For
+the rest, the latter was at Pouance, where conferences were being
+held between Chatillon, d'Autichamp, the Abbe Bernier, and General
+Hedouville.
+
+He was reflecting--this last survivor of the great warriors of the civil
+war--and the news he had just received was indeed a matter for deep
+reflection.
+
+General Brune, the conqueror of Alkmaar and Castricum, the savior of
+Holland, had just been appointed to the command of the Republican forces
+in the West. He had reached Nantes three days previous, intending, at
+any cost, to annihilate Cadoudal and his Chouans.
+
+At any cost, therefore, Cadoudal and his Chouans must prove to the
+commander-in-chief that they knew no fear, and had nothing to expect
+from intimidation.
+
+Just then the gallop of a horse was heard; the rider no doubt had
+the countersign, for he passed without difficulty the various patrols
+stationed along the toad to La Roche-Bernard, and entered the village of
+Muzillac, also without difficulty.
+
+He stopped before the door of the cottage in which Georges was sitting.
+The latter raised his head, listened, and, by way of precaution, laid
+his hands on his pistols, though it was probable that the new-comer was
+a friend.
+
+The rider dismounted, strode up the path, and opened the door of the
+room where Georges was waiting.
+
+"Ah! it's you, Coeur-de-Roi," said Cadoudal. "Where do you come from?"
+
+"From Pouance, general."
+
+"What news?"
+
+"A letter from Tiffauges."
+
+"Give it to me."
+
+Georges snatched the letter hastily from Coeur-de-Roi's hand and read
+it.
+
+"Ah!" he exclaimed.
+
+Then he read it a second time,
+
+"Have you seen the man whose coming he speaks of?" inquired Cadoudal.
+
+"Yes, general," replied the courier.
+
+"What sort of a man is he?"
+
+"A handsome young fellow of twenty-six or seven."
+
+"What manner?"
+
+"Determined."
+
+"That's it. When does he arrive?"
+
+"Probably to-night."
+
+"Did you safe-guard him along the road?"
+
+"Yes; he'll come safely."
+
+"Do it again. Nothing must happen to him; he is protected by Morgan."
+
+"That's understood, general."
+
+"Anything more to say?"
+
+"The advanced guard of the Republicans has reached La Roche-Bernard."
+
+"How many men?"
+
+"About a thousand. They have a guillotine with them, and the
+commissioner of the executive power, Milliere."
+
+"Are you sure?"
+
+"I met them on the road. The commissioner was riding near the colonel,
+and I recognized him perfectly. He executed my brother, and I have sworn
+he shall die by my own hand."
+
+"And you'll risk your life to keep your oath?"
+
+"At the first opportunity."
+
+"Perhaps it won't be long coming."
+
+The gallop of a horse echoed through the street.
+
+"Ah!" said Coeur-de-Roi, "that is probably the man you expect."
+
+"No," replied Cadoudal, "this rider comes from the direction of Vannes."
+
+The sound became more distinct, and it proved that Cadoudal was right.
+
+The second horseman, like the first, halted at the gate, dismounted, and
+came into the room. The royalist leader recognized him at once, in spite
+of the large cloak in which he was wrapped.
+
+"Is it you, Benedicite?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, general."
+
+"Where do you come from?"
+
+"From Vannes, where you sent me to watch the Blues.
+
+"Well, what are the Blues doing?"
+
+"Scaring themselves about dying of hunger if you blockade the town.
+In order to procure provisions General Hatry intends to carry off the
+supplies at Grandchamp. The general is to command the raid in person;
+and, to act more quickly, only a hundred men are to go."
+
+"Are you tired, Benedicite?"
+
+"Never, general."
+
+"And your horse?"
+
+"He came fast, but he can do twelve or fifteen miles more without
+killing himself."
+
+"Give him two hours' rest, a double feed of oats, and make him do
+thirty."
+
+"On those conditions he can do them."
+
+"Start in two hours. Be at Grandchamp by daybreak. Give the order in my
+name to evacuate the village. I'll take care of General Hatry and his
+column. Is that all you have to say?"
+
+"No, I heard other news."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"That Vannes has a new bishop."
+
+"Ha! so they are giving us back our bishops?"
+
+"So it seems; but if they are all like this one, they can keep them."
+
+"Who is he?"
+
+"Audrein!"
+
+"The regicide?"
+
+"Audrein the renegade."
+
+"When is he coming?"
+
+"To-night or to-morrow."
+
+"I shall not go to meet him; but let him beware of falling into my men's
+hands."
+
+Benedicite and Coeur-de-Roi burst into a laugh which completed
+Cadoudal's thought.
+
+"Hush!" cried Cadoudal.
+
+The three men listened.
+
+"This time it is probably he," observed Georges.
+
+The gallop of a horse could be heard coming from the direction of La
+Roche-Bernard.
+
+"It is certainly he," repeated Coeur-de-Roi.
+
+"Then, my friends, leave me alone. You, Benedicite, get to Grandchamp as
+soon as possible. You, Coeur-de-Roi, post thirty men in the courtyard;
+I want messengers to send in different directions. By the way, tell some
+one to bring the best that can be got for supper in the village."
+
+"For how many, general?"
+
+"Oh! two."
+
+"Are you going out?"
+
+"No, only to meet the man who is coming."
+
+Two or three men had already taken the horses of the messengers into the
+courtyard. The messengers themselves disappeared.
+
+Georges reached the gate on the street just as a horseman, pulling up
+his horse, looked about him and seemed to hesitate.
+
+"He is here, sir," said Georges.
+
+"Who is here?"
+
+"He whom you seek."
+
+"How do you know whom I am seeking?"
+
+"I presume it is Georges Cadoudal, otherwise called Round-head."
+
+"Exactly."
+
+"Then I bid you welcome, Monsieur Roland de Montrevel, for I am the
+person you seek."
+
+"Ah, ah!" exclaimed the young man, amazed.
+
+Then, dismounting, he looked about as if for some one to take his mount.
+
+"Throw the bridle over your horse's neck, and don't be uneasy about him.
+You will find him when you want him. Nothing is ever lost in Brittany;
+you are in the land of honesty."
+
+The young man made no remark, threw the bridle over his horse's neck as
+he had been told, and followed Cadoudal, who walked before him.
+
+"Only to show you the way, colonel," said the leader of the Chouans.
+
+They both entered the cottage, where an invisible hand had just made up
+the fire.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII. WHITE AND BLUE
+
+Roland entered, as we have said, behind Georges, and as he entered cast
+a glance of careless curiosity around him. That glance sufficed to show
+him that they were alone.
+
+"Are these your quarters, general?" asked Roland with a smile, turning
+the soles of his boots to the blaze.
+
+"Yes, colonel."
+
+"They are singularly guarded."
+
+Georges smiled in turn.
+
+"Do you say that because you found the road open from La Roche-Bernard
+here?" he asked.
+
+"I did not meet a soul."
+
+"That does not prove that the road was not guarded."
+
+"Unless by the owls, who seemed to fly from tree to tree, and
+accompanied me all the way, general. In that case, I withdraw my
+assertion."
+
+"Exactly," replied Cadoudal. "Those owls were my sentinels, sentinels
+with good eyes, inasmuch as they have this advantage over the eyes of
+men, they can see in the dark."
+
+"It is not the less true that I was fortunate in having inquired my way
+at La Roche-Bernard; for I didn't meet even a cat who could have told me
+where to find you."
+
+"But if you had raised your voice at any spot on the road and asked:
+'Where shall I find Georges Cadoudal?' a voice would have answered: 'At
+the village of Muzillac, fourth house to the right.' You saw no one,
+colonel; but at that very moment fifteen hundred men, or thereabout,
+knew that Colonel Roland, the First Consul's aide-de-camp, was on his
+way to a conference with the son of the miller of Leguerno."
+
+"But if they knew that I was a colonel in the Republican service and
+aide-de-camp to the First Consul, how came they to let me pass?"
+
+"Because they were ordered to do so."
+
+"Then you knew that I was coming?"
+
+"I not only knew that you were coming, but also why you have come."
+
+Roland looked at him fixedly.
+
+"Then it is useless for me to tell you; and you will answer me even
+though I say nothing?"
+
+"You are about right."
+
+"The deuce! I should like to have a proof of this superiority of your
+police over ours."
+
+"I will supply it, colonel."
+
+"I shall receive it with much satisfaction, especially before this
+excellent fire, which also seems to have been expecting me."
+
+"You say truer than you know, colonel; and it is not the fire only that
+is striving to welcome you warmly."
+
+"Yes, but it does not tell me, any more than you have done, the object
+of my mission."
+
+"Your mission, which you do me the honor to extend to me, was primarily
+intended for the Abbe Bernier alone. Unhappily the Abbe Bernier, in
+the letter he sent his friend Martin Duboys, presumed a little on his
+strength. He offered his mediation to the First Consul."
+
+"Pardon me," interrupted Roland, "you tell me something I did not know;
+namely that the Abbe Bernier had written to General Bonaparte."
+
+"I said he wrote to his friend Martin Duboys, which is very different.
+My men intercepted the letter and brought it to me. I had it copied, and
+forwarded the original, which I am certain reached the right hands. Your
+visit to General Hedouville proves it."
+
+"You know that General Hedouville is no longer in command at Nantes.
+General Brune has taken his place."
+
+"You may even say that General Brune commands at La Roche-Bernard, for
+a thousand Republican soldiers entered that town to-night about
+six o'clock, bringing with them a guillotine and the citizen
+commissioner-general Thomas Milliere. Having the instrument, it was
+necessary to have the executioner."
+
+"Then you say, general, that I came to see the Abbe Bernier?"
+
+"Yes; the Abbe Bernier had offered his mediation. But he forgot that at
+the present there are two Vendees--the Vendee of the left bank, and the
+Vendee of the right bank--and that, after treating with d'Autichamp,
+Chatillon, and Suzannet at Pouance, it would still be necessary to
+negotiate with Frotte, Bourmont and Cadoudal--and where? That no one
+could tell--"
+
+"Except you, general."
+
+"So, with the chivalry that is the basis of your nature, you
+undertook to bring me the treaty signed on the 25th. The Abbe Bernier,
+d'Autichamp, Chatillon, and Suzannet signed your pass, and here you
+are."
+
+"On my word, general, I must admit that you are perfectly well-informed.
+The First Consul desires peace with all his heart. He knows that in you
+he has a brave and honorable adversary, and being unable to meet you
+himself, since you were not likely to come to Paris, he expedited me to
+you in his behalf."
+
+"That is to say, to the Abbe Bernier."
+
+"That can hardly matter to you, general, if I bind myself to make the
+First Consul ratify what may be agreed upon between you and me. What are
+your conditions of peace?"
+
+"They are very simple, colonel: that the First Consul shall restore
+his Majesty Louis XVIII. to the throne; that he himself be constable,
+lieutenant-general, general-in-chief by land and sea, and I his first
+subordinate."
+
+"The First Consul has already replied to that demand."
+
+"And that is why I have decided to reply myself to his response."
+
+"When?"
+
+"This very night, if occasion offers."
+
+"In what way?"
+
+"By resuming hostilities."
+
+"But are you aware that Chatillon, d'Autichamp and Suzannet have laid
+down their arms?"
+
+"They are the leaders of the Vendeans, and in the name of the Vendeans
+they can do as they see fit. I am the leader of the Chouans, and in the
+name of the Chouans I shall do what suits me."
+
+"Then you condemn this unhappy land to a war of extermination, general!"
+
+"It is a martyrdom to which I summon all Christians and royalists."
+
+"General Brune is at Nantes with the eight thousand prisoners just
+returned to us by the English after their defeats at Alkmaar and
+Castricum."
+
+"That is the last time they will have the chance. The Blues have taught
+us the bad habit of not making prisoners. As for the number of our
+enemies, we don't care for that; it is a mere detail."
+
+"If General Brune with his eight thousand men, joined to the twenty
+thousand he has received from General Hedouville, is not sufficient, the
+First Consul has decided to march against you in person with one hundred
+thousand men."
+
+Cadoudal smiled.
+
+"We will try to prove to him," he said, "that we are worthy to fight
+against him."
+
+"He will burn your towns."
+
+"We shall retire to our huts."
+
+"He will burn your huts."
+
+"We will live in the woods."
+
+"Reflect, general."
+
+"Do me the honor to remain here forty-eight hours, colonel, and you will
+see that my reflections are already made."
+
+"I am tempted to accept."
+
+"Only, colonel, don't ask for more than I can give; a night's sleep
+beneath a thatched roof or wrapped in a cloak under an oak tree, a horse
+to follow me, and a safe-guard when you leave me."
+
+"I accept."
+
+"Have I your word, colonel, that you will not interfere with any orders
+I give, and will do nothing to defeat the surprises I may attempt?"
+
+"I am too curious to see for that. You have my word, general."
+
+"Whatever takes place before your eyes?"
+
+"Whatever takes place before my eyes, I renounce the role of actor and
+confine myself wholly to that of spectator. I wish to say to the First
+Consul: 'I have seen.'"
+
+Cadoudal smiled.
+
+"Well, you shall see," said he.
+
+At that moment the door opened, and two peasants brought in a table all
+laid, on which stood a smoking bowl of cabbage-soup and a piece of lard;
+an enormous pot of cider, just drawn from the cask, was foaming over the
+edges of the jug between two glasses. A few buckwheat cakes served as a
+desert to this modest repast. The table was laid for two.
+
+"You see, Monsieur de Montrevel, that my lads hoped you would do me the
+honor to sup with me."
+
+"Faith! they were not far wrong. I should have asked for supper, had you
+not invited me; and I might have been forced to seize some had you not
+invited me."
+
+"Then fall to!"
+
+The young colonel sat down gayly.
+
+"Excuse the repast I offer you," said Cadoudal; "unlike your generals, I
+don't make prize money; my soldiers feed me. Have you anything else for
+us, Brise-Bleu?"
+
+"A chicken fricassee, general."
+
+"That's your dinner, Monsieur de Montrevel."
+
+"A feast! Now, I have but one fear, general."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"All will go well for the eating, but when it comes to drinking--"
+
+"Don't you like cider? The devil! I'm sorry; cider or water, that's my
+cellar."
+
+"Oh! that's not it; but whose health are we going to drink?"
+
+"Is that all, sir?" said Cadoudal, with great dignity. "We will drink
+to the health of our common mother, France. We are serving her with
+different minds, but, I hope, the same hearts. To _France_, Monsieur,"
+said Cadoudal, filling the two glasses.
+
+"To _France_, general!" replied Roland, clinking his glass against that
+of Georges.
+
+And both gayly reseated themselves, their consciences at rest, and
+attacked the soup with appetites that were not yet thirty years old.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII. THE LAW OF RETALIATION
+
+"Now, general," said Roland, when supper was over and the two young men,
+with their elbows on the table and their legs stretched out before the
+blazing fire, began to feel that comfortable sensation that comes of a
+meal which youth and appetite have seasoned. "Now for your promise to
+show me things which I can report to the First Consul."
+
+"You promised, remember, not to object to them."
+
+"Yes, but I reserve the right, in case you wound my conscience too
+severely, to withdraw."
+
+"Only give time to throw a saddle on the back of your horse, or of mine,
+if yours is too tired, colonel, and you are free."
+
+"Very good."
+
+"As it happens," said Cadoudal, "events will serve you. I am here, not
+only as general, but as judge, though it is long since I have had a case
+to try. You told me, colonel, that General Brune was at Nantes; I knew
+it. You told me his advanced guard was only twelve miles away, at La
+Roche-Bernard; I knew that also. But a thing you may not know is that
+this advanced guard is not commanded by a soldier like you and me, but
+by citizen Thomas Milliere, Commissioner of the Executive authorities.
+Another thing of which you may perhaps be ignorant is that citizen
+Thomas Milliere does not fight like us with cannon, guns, bayonets,
+pistols and swords, but with an instrument invented by your Republican
+philanthropists, called the guillotine."
+
+"It is impossible, sir," cried Roland, "that under the First Consul any
+one can make that kind of war."
+
+"Ah! let us understand each other, colonel. I don't say that the First
+Consul makes it; I say it is made in his name."
+
+"And who is the scoundrel that abuses the authority given him, to make
+war with a staff of executioners?"
+
+"I have told you his name; he is called Thomas Milliere. Question whom
+you please, colonel, and throughout all Vendee and Brittany you'll hear
+but one voice on that man. From the day of the rising in Vendee and
+Brittany, now six years ago, Milliere has been, always and everywhere,
+the most active agent of the Terror. For him the Terror did not end with
+Robespierre. He denounced to his superiors, or caused to be denounced
+to himself, the Breton and Vendean soldiers, their parents, friends,
+brothers, sisters, wives, even the wounded and dying; he shot or
+guillotined them all without a trial. At Daumeray, for instance, he left
+a trail of blood behind him which is not yet, can never be, effaced.
+More than eighty of the inhabitants were slaughtered before his eyes.
+Sons were killed in the arms of their mothers, who vainly stretched
+those bloody arms to Heaven imploring vengeance. The successive
+pacifications of Brittany and Vendee have never slaked the thirst for
+murder which burns his entrails. He is the same in 1800 that he was in
+1793. Well, this man--"
+
+Roland looked at the general.
+
+"This man," continued the general, with the utmost calmness, "is to die.
+Seeing that society did not condemn him, I have condemned him."
+
+"What! Die at La Roche-Bernard, in the midst of the Republicans; in
+spite of his bodyguard of assassins and executioners?"
+
+"His hour has struck; he is to die."
+
+Cadoudal pronounced these words with such solemnity that no doubt
+remained in Roland's mind, not only as to the sentence, but also the
+execution of it. He was thoughtful for an instant.
+
+"And you believe that you have, the right to judge and condemn that man,
+guilty as he is?"
+
+"Yes; for that man has judged and condemned, not the guilty but the
+innocent."
+
+"If I said to you: 'On my return to Paris I will demand the arrest and
+trial of that man,' would you not trust my word?"
+
+"I would trust your word; but I should say to you: 'A maddened wild
+beast escapes from its cage, a murderer from his prison; men are men,
+subject to error. They have sometimes condemned the innocent, they might
+spare the guilty.' My justice is more certain than yours, colonel, for
+it is the justice of God. The man will die."
+
+"And by what right do you claim that your justice, the justice of a man
+liable to error like other men, is the justice of God?"
+
+"Because I have made God a sharer in that justice. Oh! my condemnation
+of that man is not of yesterday."
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"In the midst of a storm when thunder roared without cessation, and the
+lightning flashed from minute to minute, I raised my arms to heaven, and
+I said to God: 'O God! whose look is that lightning, whose voice is that
+thunder, if this man ought to die, extinguish that lightning, still the
+thunder for ten minutes. The silence of the skies, the darkness of the
+heavens shall be thy answer!' Watch in hand, I counted eleven minutes
+without a flash or a sound. I saw at the point of a promontory a boat,
+tossed by a terrible tempest, a boat with but one man in it, in danger
+every minute of sinking; a wave lifted it as the breath of an infant
+lifts a plume, and cast it on the rocks. The boat flew to pieces; the
+man clung to the rock, and all the people cried out: 'He is lost!' His
+father was there, his two brothers were there, but none dared to succor
+him. I raised my arms to the Lord and said: 'If Milliere is condemned by
+Thee as by me, O God, let me save that man; with no help but thine let
+me save him!' I stripped, I knotted a rope around my arm, and I swam to
+the rock. The water seemed to subside before my breast. I reached the
+man. His father and brothers held the rope. He gained the land. I could
+have returned as he did, fastening the rope to the rocks. I flung it
+away from me; I trusted to God and cast myself into the waves. They
+floated me gently and surely to the shore, even as the waters of the
+Nile bore Moses' basket to Pharaoh's daughter. The enemy's outposts were
+stationed around the village of Saint-Nolf; I was hidden in the woods of
+Grandchamp with fifty men. Recommending my soul to God, I left the woods
+alone. 'Lord God,' I said, 'if it be Thy will that Milliere die, let
+that sentry fire upon me and miss me; then I will return to my men and
+leave that sentry unharmed, for Thou wilt have been with him for an
+instant.' I walked to the Republican; at twenty paces he fired and
+missed me. Here is the hole in my hat, an inch from my head; the hand
+of God had aimed that weapon. That happened yesterday. I thought that
+Milliere was at Nantes. To-night they came and told me that Milliere and
+his guillotine were at La Roche-Bernard. Then I said: 'God has brought
+him to me; he shall die.'"
+
+Roland listened with a certain respect to the superstitious narrative
+of the Breton leader. He was not surprised to find such beliefs and such
+poetry in a man born in face of a savage sea, among the Druid monuments
+of Karnac. He realized that Milliere was indeed condemned, and that God,
+who had thrice seemed to approve his judgment, alone could save him. But
+one last question occurred to him.
+
+"How will you strike him?" he asked.
+
+"Oh!" said Georges, "I do not trouble myself about that; he will be
+executed."
+
+One of the two men who had brought in the supper table now entered the
+room.
+
+"Brise-Bleu," said Cadoudal, "tell Coeur-de-Roi that I wish to speak to
+him."
+
+Two minutes later the Breton presented himself.
+
+"Coeur-de-Roi," said Cadoudal, "did you not tell me that the murderer
+Thomas Milliere was at Roche-Bernard?"
+
+"I saw him enter the town side by side with the Republican colonel, who
+did not seem particularly flattered by such companionship."
+
+"Did you not add that he was followed by his guillotine?"
+
+"I told you his guillotine followed between two cannon, and I believe if
+the cannon could have got away the guillotine would have been left to go
+its way alone."
+
+"What precautions does Milliere take in the towns he visits?"
+
+"He has a special guard about him, and the streets around his house are
+barricaded. He carries pistols always at hand."
+
+"In spite of that guard, in spite of that barricade and the pistols,
+will you undertake to reach him?"
+
+"I will, general."
+
+"Because of his crimes, I have condemned that man; he must die."
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed Coeur-de-Roi, "the day of justice has come at last!"
+
+"Will you undertake to execute my sentence, Coeur-de-Roi?"
+
+"I will, general."
+
+"Go then, Coeur-de-Roi. Take the number of men you need; devise what
+stratagem you please, but reach the man, and strike."
+
+"If I die, general--"
+
+"Fear not; the curate of Leguerno shall say enough masses in your
+behalf to keep your poor soul out of purgatory. But you will not die,
+Coeur-de-Roi."
+
+"That's all right, general. Now that I am sure of the masses, I ask
+nothing more. I have my plan."
+
+"When will you start?"
+
+"To-night."
+
+"When will he die?"
+
+"To-morrow."
+
+"Go. See that three hundred men are ready to follow me in half an hour."
+
+Coeur-de-Roi went out as simply as he had entered.
+
+"You see," said Cadoudal, "the sort of men I command. Is your First
+Consul as well served as I, Monsieur de Montrevel?"
+
+"By some, yes."
+
+"Well, with me it is not some, but all."
+
+Benedicite entered and questioned Georges with a look.
+
+"Yes," replied Georges, with voice and nod.
+
+Benedicite went out.
+
+"Did you see any one on your way here?" asked Cadoudal.
+
+"Not one."
+
+"I asked for three hundred men in half an hour, and they will be here
+in that time. I might have asked for five hundred, a thousand, two
+thousand, and they would have responded as promptly."
+
+"But," said Roland, "you have, in number at least, a limit you cannot
+exceed."
+
+"Do you want to know my effective? It is easily told, I won't tell you
+myself, for you wouldn't believe me. Wait. I will have some one tell
+you."
+
+He opened the door and called out: "Branche-d'Or!"
+
+Two seconds later Branche-d'Or appeared.
+
+"This is my major-general," said Cadoudal, laughing. "He fulfils the
+same functions for me that General Berthier does for the First Consul.
+Branche-d'Or--"
+
+"General."
+
+"How many men are stationed along the road from here to La
+Roche-Bernard, which the gentleman followed in coming to see me?"
+
+"Six hundred on the Arzal moor, six hundred among the Marzan gorse,
+three hundred at Peaule, three hundred at Billiers."
+
+"Total, eighteen hundred. How many between Noyal and Muzillac?"
+
+"Four hundred."
+
+"Two thousand two hundred. How many between here and Vannes?"
+
+"Fifty at Theix, three hundred at the Trinite, six hundred between the
+Trinite and Muzillac."
+
+"Three thousand two hundred. And from Ambon to Leguerno?"
+
+"Twelve hundred."
+
+"Four thousand four hundred. And in the village around me, in the
+houses, the gardens, the cellars?"
+
+"Five to six hundred, general."
+
+"Thank you, Benedicite."
+
+He made a sign with his head and Benedicite went out.
+
+"You see," said Cadoudal, simply, "about five thousand. Well, with those
+five thousand men, all belonging to this country, who know every tree,
+every stone, every bush, I can make war against the hundred thousand men
+the First Consul threatens to send against me."
+
+Roland smiled.
+
+"You think that is saying too much, don't you?"
+
+"I think you are boasting a little, general; boasting of your men,
+rather."
+
+"No; for my auxiliaries are the whole population. None of your generals
+can make a move unknown to me; send a despatch without my intercepting
+it; find a retreat where I shall not pursue him. The very soil is
+royalist and Christian! In default of the inhabitants, it speaks and
+tells me: 'The Blues passed here; the slaughterers are hidden there!'
+For the rest, you can judge for yourself."
+
+"How?"
+
+"We are going on an expedition about twenty-four miles from here. What
+time is it?"
+
+Both young men looked at their watches.
+
+"Quarter to twelve," they said together.
+
+"Good!" said Georges, "our watches agree; that is a good sign. Perhaps
+some day our hearts will do the same."
+
+"You were saying, general?"
+
+"I was saying that it was a quarter to twelve, colonel; and that at six
+o'clock, before day, we must be twenty miles from here. Do you want to
+rest?"
+
+"I!"
+
+"Yes; you can sleep an hour."
+
+"Thanks; it's unnecessary."
+
+"Then we will start whenever you are ready."
+
+"But your men?"
+
+"Oh! my men are ready."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"Everywhere."
+
+"I should like to see them."
+
+"You shall."
+
+"When?"
+
+"Whenever agreeable to you. My men are very discreet, and never show
+themselves till I make the signal."
+
+"So that whenever I want to see them--"
+
+"You will tell me; I shall give the signal and they'll appear."
+
+"Let us start, general."
+
+"Yes, let us start."
+
+The two young men wrapped themselves in their cloaks and went out. At
+the door Roland collided against a small group of five men. These five
+men wore Republican uniforms; one of them had sergeant stripes on his
+sleeve.
+
+"What is all this?" asked Roland.
+
+"Nothing," replied Cadoudal, laughing.
+
+"But who are these men?"
+
+"Coeur-de-Roi and his party; they are starting on that expedition you
+know of."
+
+"Then they expect by means of this uniform--"
+
+"Oh! you shall know all, colonel; I have no secrets from you." Then,
+turning to the little group, Cadoudal called: "Coeur-de-Roi!"
+
+The man with the stripes on his sleeves left the group, and came to
+Cadoudal.
+
+"Did you call me, general?" asked the pretended sergeant.
+
+"Yes, I want to know your plan."
+
+"Oh! general, it is very simple."
+
+"Let me judge of that."
+
+"I put this paper in the muzzle of my gun." Coeur-de-Roi showed a large
+envelope with an official red seal, which had once, no doubt, contained
+some Republican despatch intercepted by the Chouans. "I present myself
+to the sentries, saying: 'Despatch from the general of division.'
+I enter the first guardhouse and ask to be shown the house of the
+citizen-commissioner; they show me, I thank them; always best to be
+polite. I reach the house, meet a second sentry to whom I tell the same
+tale as to the first; I go up or down to citizen Milliere accordingly
+as he lives in the cellar or the garret. I enter without difficulty, you
+understand--'Despatch from the general of division'. I find him in his
+study or elsewhere, present my paper, and while he opens it, I kill him
+with this dagger, here in my sleeve."
+
+"Yes, but you and your men?"
+
+"Ah, faith! In God's care; we are defending his cause, it is for him to
+take care of us."
+
+"Well, you see, colonel," said Cadoudal, "how easy it all is. Let us
+mount, colonel! Good luck, Coeur-de-Roi!"
+
+"Which of these two horses am I to take?" asked Roland.
+
+"Either; one is as good as the other; each has an excellent pair of
+English pistols in its holsters."
+
+"Loaded?"
+
+"And well-loaded, colonel; that's a job I never trust to any one."
+
+"Then we'll mount."
+
+The two young men were soon in their saddles, and on the road to Vannes;
+Cadoudal guiding Roland, and Branche-d'Or, the major-general of the
+army, as Georges called him, following about twenty paces in the rear.
+
+When they reached the end of the village, Roland darted his eyes along
+the road, which stretches in a straight line from Muzillac to the
+Trinite. The road, fully exposed to view, seemed absolutely solitary.
+
+They rode on for about a mile and a half, then Roland said: "But where
+the devil are your men?"
+
+"To right and left, before and behind us."
+
+"Ha, what a joke!"
+
+"It's not a joke, colonel; do you think I should be so rash as to risk
+myself thus without scouts?"
+
+"You told me, I think, that if I wished to see your men I had only to
+say so."
+
+"I did say so."
+
+"Well, I wish to see them."
+
+"Wholly, or in part?"
+
+"How many did you say were with you?"
+
+"Three hundred."
+
+"Well, I want to see one hundred and fifty."
+
+"Halt!" cried Cadoudal.
+
+Putting his hands to his mouth he gave the hoot of the screech-owl,
+followed by the cry of an owl; but he threw the hoot to the right and
+the cry to the left.
+
+Almost instantly, on both sides of the road, human forms could be seen
+in motion, bounding over the ditch which separated the bushes from the
+road, and then ranging themselves beside the horses.
+
+"Who commands on the right?" asked Cadoudal.
+
+"I, Moustache," replied a peasant, coming near.
+
+"Who commands on the left?" repeated the general.
+
+"I, Chante-en-hiver," replied another peasant, also approaching him.
+
+"How many men are with you, Moustache?"
+
+"One hundred."
+
+"How many men are with you, Chante-en-hiver?"
+
+"Fifty."
+
+"One hundred and fifty in all, then?" asked Georges.
+
+"Yes," replied the two Breton leaders.
+
+"Is that your number, colonel?" asked Cadoudal laughing.
+
+"You are a magician, general."
+
+"No; I am a poor peasant like them; only I command a troop in which
+each brain knows what it does, each heart beats singly for the two great
+principles of this world, religion and monarchy." Then, turning to his
+men, Cadoudal asked: "Who commands the advanced guard?"
+
+"Fend-l'air," replied the two Chouans.
+
+"And the rear-guard?"
+
+"La Giberne."
+
+The second reply was made with the same unanimity as the first.
+
+"Then we can safely continue our way?"
+
+"Yes, general; as if you were going to mass in your own village."
+
+"Let us ride on then, colonel," said Cadoudal to Roland. Then turning to
+his men he cried: "Be lively, my lads."
+
+Instantly every man jumped the ditch and disappeared. For a few seconds
+the crackling of twigs on the bushes, and the sound of steps among the
+underbrush, was heard. Then all was silent.
+
+"Well," asked Cadoudal, "do you think that with such men I have anything
+to fear from the Blues, brave as they may be?"
+
+Roland heaved a sigh; he was of Cadoudal's opinion.
+
+They rode on. About three miles from Trinite they caught sight of a
+black spot approaching along the road with great rapidity. As it became
+more distinct this spot stopped suddenly.
+
+"What is that?" asked Roland.
+
+"As you see, a man," replied Cadoudal.
+
+"Of course; but who is this man?"
+
+"You might have guessed from the rapidity of his coming; he is a
+messenger."
+
+"Why does he stop?"
+
+"Because he has seen us, and does not know whether to advance or
+retreat."
+
+"What will he do?"
+
+"Wait before deciding."
+
+"For what?"
+
+"A signal."
+
+"Will he answer the signal?"
+
+"He will not only answer but obey it. Will you have him advance or
+retreat; or will you have him step aside."
+
+"I wish him to advance; by that means we shall know the news he brings."
+
+Cadoudal gave the call of the cuckoo with such perfection that Roland
+looked about him for the bird.
+
+"It was I," said Cadoudal, "you need not look for it."
+
+"Is the messenger going to come?"
+
+"Not-going to, he is coming."
+
+The messenger had already started, and was rapidly approaching; in a few
+seconds he was beside his general.
+
+"Ah!" said the latter, "is that you, Monte-a-l'assaut?"
+
+The general stooped, and Monte-a-l'assaut said a few words in his ear.
+
+"Benedicite has already warned me," said Georges. Then turning to
+Roland, he said, "Something of importance is to happen in the village of
+the Trinite in a quarter of an hour, which you ought to see. Come, hurry
+up."
+
+And, setting the example, he put his horse to a gallop. Roland did the
+same.
+
+When they reached the village they could see from a distance, by the
+light of some pine torches, a tumultuous mob in the market square. The
+cries and movements of this mob bespoke some grave occurrence.
+
+"Fast, fast!" cried Cadoudal.
+
+Roland asked no better; he dug his spurs in his horse's belly.
+
+At the clatter of horses' hoofs the peasants scattered. There were five
+or six hundred of them at least, all armed.
+
+Cadoudal and Roland found themselves in a circle of light in the midst
+of cries and agitation.
+
+The crowd was pressing more particularly toward the opening of a street
+which led to the village of Tridon. A diligence was coming down that
+street escorted by a dozen Chouans; two on either side of the postilion,
+ten others guarding the doors. The carriage stopped in the middle of the
+market-square. All were so intent upon the diligence that they paid but
+scant attention to Cadoudal.
+
+"Hola," shouted Georges. "What is all this?"
+
+At this well known voice, everyone turned round, and heads were
+uncovered.
+
+"The Big Round Head!" they murmured.
+
+"Yes," said Cadoudal.
+
+A man went up to Georges.
+
+"Didn't Benedicite and Monte-a-l'assaut notify you?" he inquired.
+
+"Yes. Is that the diligence from Ploermel to Vannes that you are
+bringing back?"
+
+"Yes, general. It was stopped between Trefleon and Saint-Nolf."
+
+"Is he in it?"
+
+"We think so."
+
+"Act according to your consciences; if it is a crime toward God, take
+it on yourselves; I take only the responsibility toward men. I will
+be present at what takes place; but I will not share in it--either to
+hinder or help."
+
+"Well," demanded a hundred voices, "what does he say, Sabre-tout?"
+
+"He says we must act according to our consciences, and that he washes
+his hands of it."
+
+"Long live the Big Round Head!" cried all the people, rushing toward the
+diligence.
+
+Cadoudal remained motionless in the midst of this crowd. Roland stood
+near him, also motionless, but full of curiosity; for he was completely
+ignorant of who, or what, was in question.
+
+The man who had just spoken to Cadoudal, and whom his companions called
+Sabre-tout, opened the door. The travellers were huddled together and
+trembling in the darkness within.
+
+"If you have nothing to reproach yourselves with against God or the
+king," said Sabre-tout in a full sonorous voice, "descend without fear.
+We are not brigands, we are Christians and royalists."
+
+This declaration no doubt reassured the travellers, for a man got
+out, then two women, then a mother pressing her child in her arms, and
+finally another man. The Chouans examined them attentively as they came
+down the carriage steps; not finding the man they wanted, they said to
+each traveller, "Pass on."
+
+One man alone remained in the coach. A Chouan thrust a torch in the
+vehicle, and by its light they could see he was a priest.
+
+"Minister of the Lord," said Sabre-tout, "why did you not descend with
+the others? Did you not hear me say we were Christians and royalists?"
+
+The priest did not move; but his teeth chattered.
+
+"Why this terror?" continued Sabre-tout. "Does not your cloth plead for
+you? The man who wears a cassock can have done nothing against royalty
+or religion."
+
+The priest crouched back, murmuring: "Mercy! mercy!"
+
+"Why mercy?" demanded Sabre-tout, "do you feel that you are guilty,
+wretch?"
+
+"Oh! oh!" exclaimed Roland, "is that how you royalists and Christians
+speak to a man of God!"
+
+"That man," said Cadoudal, "is not a man of God, but a man of the
+devil."
+
+"Who is he, then?"
+
+"Both an atheist and a regicide; he denied his God and voted for the
+death of the king. That is the Conventional Audrein."
+
+Roland shuddered. "What will they do?" he asked.
+
+"He gave death, he will receive death," answered Cadoudal.
+
+During this time the Chouans had pulled Audrein out of the diligence.
+
+"Ha! is it you, bishop of Vannes?" cried Sabre-tout.
+
+"Mercy!" begged the bishop.
+
+"We were informed of your arrival, and were waiting for you."
+
+"Mercy!" repeated the bishop for the third time.
+
+"Have you your pontifical robes with you?"
+
+"Yes, my friends, I have."
+
+"Then dress yourself as a prelate; it is long since we have seen one."
+
+A trunk marked with the prelate's name was taken from the diligence
+and opened. They took the bishop's robes from it, and handed them to
+Audrein, who put them on. Then, when every vestment was in its place,
+the peasants ranged themselves in a circle, each with his musket in his
+hand. The glare of the torches was reflected on the barrels, casting
+evil gleams.
+
+Two men took the priest and led him into the circle, supporting him
+beneath his arms. He was pale as death. There was a moment of lugubrious
+silence.
+
+A voice broke it. It was that of Sabre-tout.
+
+"We are about to judge you," said the Chouan. "Priest of God, you have
+betrayed the Church; child of France, you have condemned your king to
+death."
+
+"Alas! alas!" stammered the priest.
+
+"Is it true?"
+
+"I do not deny it."
+
+"Because it is impossible to deny. What have you to say in
+justification?"
+
+"Citizens--"
+
+"We are not citizens," cried Sabre-tout, in a voice thunder, "we are
+royalists."
+
+"Gentlemen--"
+
+"We are not gentlemen; we are Chouans."
+
+"My friends--"
+
+"We are not your friends; we are your judges. You judges are questioning
+you; answer."
+
+"I repent of what I did, and I ask pardon of God and men."
+
+"Men cannot pardon you," replied the same implacable voice; "for,
+pardoned to-day, you would sin to-morrow. You may change your skin, but
+never your heart. You have nothing to expect from men but death; as for
+God, implore his mercy."
+
+The regicide bowed his head; the renegade bent his knee. But suddenly
+drawing himself up, he cried: "I voted the king's death, it is true, but
+with a reservation--"
+
+"What reservation?"
+
+"The time of the execution."
+
+"Sooner or later, it was still the king's death which you voted, and the
+king was innocent."
+
+"True, true," said the priest, "but I was afraid."
+
+"Then you are not only a regicide, and an apostate, but also a coward.
+We are not priests, but we are more just than you. You voted the death
+of the innocent; we vote the death of the guilty. You have ten minutes
+in which to prepare to meet your God."
+
+The bishop gave a cry of terror and fell upon both knees; the church
+bells rang, as if of their own impulse, and two of the men present,
+accustomed to the offices of the church, intoned the prayers for the
+dying. It was some time before the bishop found words with which to
+respond. He turned affrighted glances in supplication to his judges one
+after the other, but, not one face met his with even the consolation
+of mere pity. The torches, flickering in the wind, lent them, on the
+contrary, a savage and terrible expression. Then at last he mingled his
+voice with the voices that were praying for him.
+
+The judges allowed him time to follow the funeral prayer to its close.
+In the meantime others were preparing a pile of wood.
+
+"Oh!" cried the priest, beholding these preparations with growing
+terror; "would you have the cruelty to kill me thus?"
+
+"No," replied his inflexible accuser, "flames are the death of martyrs;
+you are not worthy of such a death. Apostate, the hour has come!"
+
+"Oh, my God! my God!" cried the priest, raising his arms to heaven.
+
+"Stand up!" said the Chouan.
+
+The priest tried to obey, but his strength failed him, and he fell again
+to his knees.
+
+"Will you let that murder be done before your eyes?" Roland asked
+Cadoudal.
+
+"I said that I washed my hands of it," replied the latter.
+
+"Pilate said that, and Pilate's hands are to this day red with the blood
+of Jesus Christ."
+
+"Because Jesus Christ was a righteous man; this man is a Barabbas."
+
+"Kiss your cross! kiss your cross!" cried Sabre-tout.
+
+The prelate looked at him with a terrified air, but without obeying. It
+was evident that he no longer saw, no longer heard.
+
+"Oh!" cried Roland, making an effort to dismount, "it shall never be
+said that I let a man be murdered before me, and did not try to, save
+him."
+
+A threatening murmur rose around him; his words had been overheard. That
+was all that was needed to excite the young man.
+
+"Ah! is that the way of it?" he cried, carrying his hand to one of his
+holsters.
+
+But with a movement rapid as thought, Cadoudal seized his hand, and,
+while Roland struggled vainly to free himself from this grip of iron, he
+shouted: "Fire!"
+
+Twenty shots resounded instantly, and the bishop fell, an inert mass.
+
+"Ah!" cried Roland. "What have you done?"
+
+"Forced you to keep your promise," replied Cadoudal; "you swore to see
+all and hear all without offering any opposition."
+
+"So perish all enemies of God and the king," said Sabre-tout, in a
+solemn voice.
+
+"Amen!" responded the spectators with one voice of sinister unanimity.
+
+Then they stripped the body of its sacerdotal ornaments, which they
+flung upon the pile of wood, invited the other travellers to take their
+places in the diligence, replaced the postilion in his saddle, and,
+opening their ranks to give passage to the coach, cried: "Go with God!"
+
+The diligence rolled rapidly away.
+
+"Come, let us go," cried Cadoudal, "we have still twelve miles to do,
+and we have lost an hour here." Then, addressing the executioners, he
+said: "That man was guilty; that man is punished. Human justice and
+divine justice are satisfied. Let prayers for the dead be said over his
+body, and give him Christian burial; do you hear?" And sure of being
+obeyed, Cadoudal put his horse to a gallop.
+
+Roland seemed to hesitate for a moment whether to follow him or not;
+then, as if resolving to accomplish a duty, he said: "I will go to the
+end."
+
+Spurring his horse in the direction taken by Cadoudal he reached the
+Chouan leader in a few strides. Both disappeared in the darkness, which
+grew thicker and thicker as the men left the place where the torches
+were illuminating the dead priest's face and the fire was consuming his
+vestments.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIV. THE DIPLOMACY OF GEORGES CADOUDAL
+
+The feeling that Roland experienced as he followed Georges Cadoudal
+resembled that of a man half-awakened, who is still under the influence
+of a dream, and returns gradually from the confines which separate night
+from day. He strives to discover whether the ground he walks on is that
+of fiction or reality, and the more he burrows in the dimness of his
+brain the further he buries himself in doubt.
+
+A man existed for whom Roland felt a worship almost divine. Accustomed
+to live in the atmosphere of glory which surrounded that man, to see
+others obey his orders, and to obey them himself with a promptness
+and abnegation that were almost Oriental, it seemed amazing to him to
+encounter, at the opposite ends of France, two organized powers, enemies
+of the power of that man, and prepared to struggle against it. Suppose
+a Jew of Judas Maccabeus, a worshipper of Jehovah, having, from his
+infancy, heard him called the King of kings, the God of strength, of
+vengeance, of armies, the Eternal, coming suddenly face to face with
+the mysterious Osiris of the Egyptians, or the thundering Jupiter of the
+Greeks.
+
+His adventures at Avignon and Bourg with Morgan and the Company of Jehu,
+his adventures in the villages of Muzillac and the Trinite with Cadoudal
+and his Chouans, seemed to him some strange initiation in an unknown
+religion; but like those courageous neophytes who risk death to learn
+the secrets of initiation, he resolved to follow to the end.
+
+Besides he was not without a certain admiration for these exceptional
+characters; nor did he measure without a certain amazement these
+revolted Titans, challenging his god; he felt they were in no sense
+common men--neither those who had stabbed Sir John in the Chartreuse of
+Seillon, nor those who had shot the bishop of Vannes at the village of
+the Trinite.
+
+And now, what was he to see? He was soon to know, for they had ridden
+five hours and a half and the day was breaking.
+
+Beyond the village of Tridon they turned across country; leaving
+Vannes to the left, they reached Trefleon. At Trefleon, Cadoudal, still
+followed by his major-general, Branche-d'Or, had found Monte-a-l'assaut
+and Chante-en-hiver. He gave them further orders, and continued on his
+way, bearing to the left and skirting the edges of a little wood which
+lies between Grandchamp and Larre. There Cadoudal halted, imitated,
+three separate times in succession, the cry of an owl, and was presently
+surrounded by his three hundred men.
+
+A grayish light was spreading through the sky beyond Trefleon and
+Saint-Nolf; it was not the rising of the sun, but the first rays of
+dawn. A heavy mist rose from the earth and prevented the eye from seeing
+more than fifty feet beyond it.
+
+Cadoudal seemed to be expecting news before risking himself further.
+
+Suddenly, about five hundred paces distant, the crowing of a cock was
+heard. Cadoudal pricked up his ears; his men looked at each other and
+laughed.
+
+The cock crowed again, but nearer.
+
+"It is he," said Cadoudal; "answer him."
+
+The howling of a dog came from within three feet of Roland, but so
+perfectly imitated that the young man, although aware of what it was,
+looked about him for the animal that was uttering such lugubrious
+plaints. Almost at the same moment he saw a man coming rapidly through
+the mist, his form growing more and more distinct as he approached. The
+new-comer saw the two horsemen, and went toward them.
+
+Cadoudal rode forward a few paces, putting his finger to his lips, as
+if to request the man to speak low. The latter, therefore, did not pause
+until he was close beside his general.
+
+"Well, Fleur-d'epine," asked Georges, "have we got them?"
+
+"Like a mouse in a trap; not one can re-enter Vannes, if you say the
+word."
+
+"I desire nothing better. How many are there?"
+
+"One hundred men, commanded by the general himself."
+
+"How many wagons?"
+
+"Seventeen."
+
+"When did they start?"
+
+"They must be about a mile and three-quarters from here."
+
+"What road have they taken?"
+
+"Grandchamp to Vannes."
+
+"So that, if I deploy from Meucon to Plescop--"
+
+"You'll bar the way."
+
+"That's all."
+
+Cadoudal called his four lieutenants, Chante-en-hiver, Monte-a-l'assaut,
+Fend-l'air, and La Giberne, to him, gave each of them fifty men, and
+each with his men disappeared like shadows in the heavy mist, giving the
+well-known hoot, as they vanished. Cadoudal was left with a hundred men,
+Branche-d'Or and Fleur-d'epine. He returned to Roland.
+
+"Well, general," said the latter, "is everything satisfactory?"
+
+"Yes, colonel, fairly so," replied the Chouan; "but you can judge for
+yourself in half an hour."
+
+"It will be difficult to judge of anything in that mist."
+
+Cadoudal looked about him.
+
+"It will lift in half an hour," said he. "Will you utilize the time by
+eating a mouthful and drinking a glass?"
+
+"Faith!" said the young man, "I must admit that the ride has hollowed
+me."
+
+"I make a point," said Georges, "of eating the best breakfast I can
+before fighting."
+
+"Then you are going to fight?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"Against whom?"
+
+"Why, the Republicans, and as we have to do with General Hatry, I doubt
+if he surrenders without resistance."
+
+"Do the Republicans know they are going to fight you?"
+
+"They haven't the least idea."
+
+"So it is to be a surprise?"
+
+"Not exactly, inasmuch as when the fog lifts they will see us as soon as
+we see them." Then, turning to the man who seemed to be in charge of
+the provisions, Cadoudal added, "Brise-Bleu, is there anything for
+breakfast?"
+
+Brise-Bleu nodded affirmatively, went into the wood, and came out
+dragging after him a donkey loaded with two baskets. He spread a cloak
+on a rise of the ground, and placed on it a roast chicken, a bit of
+cold salt pork, some bread and buckwheat cakes. This time Brise-Bleu had
+provided luxury in the shape of a bottle of wine and a glass.
+
+Cadoudal motioned Roland to the table and the improvised repast. The
+young man sprang from his horse, throwing the bridle to a Chouan.
+Cadoudal did likewise.
+
+"Now," said the latter, turning to his men, "you have half an hour to
+do as we do. Those who have not breakfasted in half an hour are notified
+that they must fight on empty stomachs."
+
+The invitation seemed equivalent to an order, so promptly and precisely
+was it executed. Every man pulled from his bag or his pocket a bit of
+bread or a buckwheat cake, and followed the example of his general, who
+had already divided the chicken between Roland and himself. As there was
+but one glass, both officers shared it.
+
+While they were thus breakfasting, side by side, like two friends on a
+hunt, the sun rose, and, as Cadoudal had predicted, the mist became less
+and less dense. Soon the nearest trees could be distinguished; then the
+line of the woods, stretching to the right from Meucon to Grand-champ,
+while to the left the plain of Plescop, threaded by a rivulet, sloped
+gradually toward Vannes. This natural declivity of the ground became
+more and more perceptible as it neared the ocean.
+
+On the road from Grandchamp to Plescop, a line of wagons were now
+visible, the tail of which was still hidden in the woods. This line was
+motionless; evidently some unforeseen obstacle had stopped it.
+
+In fact, about a quarter of a mile before the leading wagon
+they perceived the two hundred Chouans, under Monte-a-l'assaut,
+Chante-en-hiver, Fend-l'air, and Giberne, barring the way.
+
+The Republicans, inferior in number--we said that there were but a
+hundred--had halted and were awaiting the complete dispersion of the
+fog to determine the number and character of the men they were about to
+meet. Men and wagons were now in a triangle, of which Cadoudal and his
+hundred men formed one of the angles.
+
+At sight of this small number of men thus surrounded by triple forces,
+and of the well-known uniform, of which the color had given its name
+to the Republican forces, Roland sprang hastily to his feet. As for
+Cadoudal, he remained where he was, nonchalantly finishing his meal. Of
+the hundred men surrounding the general, not one seemed to perceive the
+spectacle that was now before their eyes; it seemed almost as if they
+were waiting for Cadoudal's order to look at it.
+
+Roland had only to cast his eyes on the Republicans to see that they
+were lost. Cadoudal watched the various emotions that succeeded each
+other on the young man's face.
+
+"Well," asked the Chouan, after a moment's silence, "do you think my
+dispositions well taken?"
+
+"You might better say your precautions, general," replied Roland, with a
+sarcastic smile.
+
+"Isn't it the First Consul's way to make the most of his advantages when
+he gets them?" asked Cadoudal.
+
+Roland bit his lips; then, instead of replying to the royalist leader's
+question, he said: "General, I have a favor to ask which I hope you will
+not refuse."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Permission to let me go and be killed with my comrades."
+
+Cadoudal rose. "I expected that request," he said.
+
+"Then you will grant it?" cried Roland, his eyes sparkling with joy.
+
+"Yes; but, first, I have a favor to ask of you," said the royalist
+leader, with supreme dignity.
+
+"Ask it, sir."
+
+"To bear my flag of truce to General Hatry."
+
+"For what purpose?"
+
+"I have several proposals to make to him before the fight begins."
+
+"I presume that among those proposals which you deign to intrust to me
+you do not include that of laying down his arms?"
+
+"On the contrary, colonel, you understand that that is the first of my
+proposals."
+
+"General Hatry will refuse it."
+
+"That is probable."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Then I shall give him his choice between two others, either of which he
+can, I think, accept without forfeiting his honor."
+
+"What are they?"
+
+"I will tell you in due time. Begin with the first."
+
+"State it."
+
+"General Hatry and his hundred men are surrounded by a triple force. I
+offer them their lives; but they must lay down their arms, and make oath
+not to serve again in the Vendee for five years."
+
+Roland shook his head.
+
+"Better that than to see his men annihilated."
+
+"Maybe so; but he would prefer to have his men annihilated, and be
+annihilated with them."
+
+"Don't you think," asked Cadoudal, laughing, "that it might be as well,
+in any case, to ask him?"
+
+"True," said Roland.
+
+"Well, colonel, be so good as to mount your horse, make yourself known
+to him, and deliver my proposal."
+
+"Very well," replied Roland.
+
+"The colonel's horse," said Cadoudal, motioning to the Chouan who
+was watching it. The man led it up. The young man sprang upon it, and
+rapidly covered the distance which separated him from the convoy.
+
+A group of men were gathered on its flank, evidently composed of General
+Hatry and his officers. Roland rode toward them, scarcely three gunshots
+distant from the Chouans. General Hatry's astonishment was great when
+he saw an officer in the Republican uniform approaching him. He left the
+group and advanced three paces to meet the messenger.
+
+Roland made himself known, related how he came to be among the Whites,
+and transmitted Cadoudal's proposal to General Hatry.
+
+As he has foreseen, the latter refused it. Roland returned to Cadoudal
+with a proud and joyful heart. "He refuses!" he cried, as soon as his
+voice could be heard.
+
+Cadoudal gave a nod that showed he was not surprised by the refusal.
+
+"Then, in that case," he answered, "go back with my second proposition.
+I don't wish to have anything to reproach myself with in answering to
+such a judge of honor as you."
+
+Roland bowed. "What is the second proposition?"
+
+"General Hatry shall meet me in the space that separates the two troops,
+he shall carry the same arms as I--that is, his sabre and pistols--and
+the matter shall be decided between us. If I kill him, his men are to
+submit to the conditions already named, for we cannot take prisoners;
+if he kills me his men shall pass free and be allowed to reach Vannes
+safely. Come, I hope that's a proposition you would accept, colonel?"
+
+"I would accept it myself," replied Roland.
+
+"Yes," exclaimed Cadoudal, "but you are not General Hatry. Content
+yourself with being a negotiator this time, and if this proposition,
+which, if I were he, I wouldn't let escape me, does not please him, come
+to me. I'm a good fellow, and I'll make him a third."
+
+Roland rode off a second time; his coming was awaited by the Republicans
+with visible impatience. He transmitted the message to General Hatry.
+
+"Citizen," replied the general, "I must render account of my conduct
+to the First Consul. You are his aide-de-camp, and I charge you on your
+return to Paris to bear testimony on my behalf to him. What would you do
+in my place? Whatever you would do, that I shall do."
+
+Roland started; his face assumed the grave expression of a man who is
+arguing a point of honor in his own mind. Then, at the end of a few
+seconds, he said: "General, I should refuse."
+
+"Your reasons, citizen?" demanded the general.
+
+"The chances of a duel are problematic; you cannot subject the fate of
+a hundred brave men to a doubtful chance. In an affair like this, where
+all are concerned, every man had better defend his own skin as best he
+can."
+
+"Is that your opinion, colonel?"
+
+"On my honor."
+
+"It is also mine; carry my reply to the royalist general."
+
+Roland galloped back to Cadoudal, and delivered General Hatry's reply.
+
+Cadoudal smiled. "I expected it," he said.
+
+"You couldn't have expected it, because it was I who advised him to make
+it."
+
+"You thought differently a few moments ago."
+
+"Yes; but you yourself reminded me that I was not General Hatry. Come,
+what is your third proposition?" said Roland impatiently; for he began
+to perceive, or rather he had perceived from the beginning, that the
+noble part in the affair belonged to the royalist general.
+
+"My third proposition," said Cadoudal, "is not a proposition but an
+order; an order for two hundred of my men to withdraw. General Hatry
+has one hundred men; I will keep one hundred. My Breton forefathers
+were accustomed to fight foot to foot, breast to breast, man to man, and
+oftener one to three than three to one. If General Hatry is victorious,
+he can walk over our bodies and tranquilly enter Vannes; if he is
+defeated, he cannot say it is by numbers. Go, Monsieur de Montrevel, and
+remain with your friends. I give them thus the advantage of numbers, for
+you alone are worth ten men."
+
+Roland raised his hat.
+
+"What are you doing, sir?" demanded Cadoudal.
+
+"I always bow to that which is grand, general; I bow to you."
+
+"Come, colonel," said Cadoudal, "a last glass of wine; let each of us
+drink to what we love best, to that which we grieve to leave behind, to
+that we hope to meet in heaven."
+
+Taking the bottle and the one glass, he filled it half full, and offered
+it to Roland. "We have but one glass, Monsieur de Montrevel; drink
+first."
+
+"Why first?"
+
+"Because, in the first place, you are my guest, and also because there
+is a proverb that whoever drinks after another knows his thought."
+Then, he added, laughing: "I want to know your thought, Monsieur de
+Montrevel."
+
+Roland emptied the glass and returned it to Cadoudal. The latter filled
+his glass half full, as he had done for Roland, and emptied it in turn.
+
+"Well," asked Roland, "now do you know my thought, general?"
+
+"My thought," said Roland, with his usual frankness, "is that you are a
+brave man, general. I shall feel honored if, at this moment when we are
+going to fight against each other, you will give me your hand."
+
+The two young men clasped hands, more like friends parting for a long
+absence than two enemies about to meet on the battlefield. There was a
+simple grandeur, full of majesty, in this action. Each raised his hat.
+
+"Good luck!" said Roland to Cadoudal; "but allow me to doubt it. I must
+even confess that it is from my lips, not my heart."
+
+"God keep you, sir," said Cadoudal, "and I hope that my wish will be
+realized. It is the honest expression of my thoughts."
+
+"What is to be the signal that you are ready?" inquired Roland.
+
+"A musket shot fired in the air, to which you will reply in the same
+way."
+
+"Very good, general," replied Roland. And putting his horse to a gallop,
+he crossed the space between the royalist general and the Republican
+general for the third time.
+
+"Friends," said Cadoudal, pointing to Roland, "do you see that young
+man?"
+
+All eyes were bent upon Roland. "Yes," came from every mouth.
+
+"He came with a safe-guard from our brothers in the Midi; his life is
+sacred to you; he may be captured, but it must be living--not a hair of
+his head must be touched."
+
+"Very good, general," replied the Chouans.
+
+"And now, my friends, remember that you are the sons of those thirty
+Bretons who fought the thirty British between Ploermel and Josselin, ten
+leagues from here, and conquered them." Then, in a low voice, he added
+with a sigh, "Unhappily we have not to do with the British this time."
+
+The fog had now lifted completely, and, as usually happens, a few rays
+of the wintry sun tinged the plain of Plescop with a yellow light.
+
+It was easy therefore to distinguish the movements of the two troops.
+While Roland was returning to the Republicans, Branche-d'Or galloped
+toward the two hundred men who were blocking the way. He had hardly
+spoken to Cadoudal's four lieutenants before a hundred men were seen to
+wheel to the right and a hundred more to wheel to the left and march in
+opposite directions, one toward Plumergat, the other toward Saint-Ave,
+leaving the road open. Each body halted three-quarters of a mile down
+the road, grounded arms and remained motionless. Branche-d'Or returned
+to Cadoudal.
+
+"Have you any special orders to give me, general?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, one," answered Cadoudal, "take eight men and follow me. When you
+see the young Republican, with whom I breakfasted, fall under his horse,
+fling yourself upon him, you and your eight men, before he has time to
+free himself, and take him prisoner."
+
+"Yes, general."
+
+"You know that I must have him safe and sound."
+
+"That's understood, general"
+
+"Choose your eight men. Monsieur de Montrevel once captured, and his
+parole given, you can do as you like."
+
+"Suppose he won't give his parole?"
+
+"Then you must surround him so that he can't escape, and watch him till
+the fight is over."
+
+"Very well," said Branche-d'Or, heaving a sigh; "but it'll be a little
+hard to stand by with folded arms while the others are having their
+fun."
+
+"Pooh! who knows?" said Cadoudal; "there'll probably be enough for every
+body."
+
+Then, casting a glance over the plain and seeing his own men stationed
+apart, and the Republicans massed for battle, he cried: "A musket!"
+
+They brought one. Cadoudal raised it above his head and fired in the
+air. Almost at the same moment, a shot fired in the same manner from the
+midst of the Republicans answered like an echo to that of Cadoudal.
+
+Two drums beating the advance and a bugle were heard. Cadoudal rose in
+his stirrups.
+
+"Children," he cried, "have you all said your morning prayers?"
+
+"Yes, yes!" answered almost every voice. "If any of you forgot them, or
+did not have time, let them pray now."
+
+Five or six peasants knelt down and prayed.
+
+The drums and bugle drew nearer.
+
+"General, general," cried several voices impatiently, "they are coming."
+
+The general motioned to the kneeling peasants.
+
+"True," replied the impatient ones.
+
+Those who prayed rose one by one, according as their prayers had been
+long or short. By the time they were all afoot, the Republicans had
+crossed nearly one-third of the distance. They marched, bayonets fixed,
+in three ranks, each rank three abreast.
+
+Roland rode at the head of the first rank, General Hatry between the
+first and second. Both were easily recognized, being the only men on
+horseback. Among the Chouans, Cadoudal was the only rider, Branche-d'Or
+having dismounted to take command of the eight men who were to follow
+Georges.
+
+"General," said a voice, "the prayer is ended, and every one is
+standing."
+
+Cadoudal looked around him to make sure it was true; then he cried in a
+loud voice: "Forward! Enjoy yourselves, my lads!"
+
+This permission, which to Vendeans and Chouans, was equivalent to
+sounding a charge, was scarcely given before the Chouans spread over the
+fields to cries of "Vive le roi!" waving their hats with one hand and
+their guns with the other.
+
+Instead of keeping in rank like the Republicans, they scattered like
+sharpshooters, forming an immense crescent, of which Georges and his
+horse were the centre.
+
+A moment later the Republicans were flanked and the firing began.
+Cadoudal's men were nearly all poachers, that is to say, excellent
+marksmen, armed with English carbines, able to carry twice the length of
+the army musket. Though the first shots fired might have seemed wide of
+range, these messengers of death nevertheless brought down several men
+in the Republican ranks.
+
+"Forward!" cried the general.
+
+The soldiers marched on, bayonets fixed; but in a few moments there was
+no enemy before them. Cadoudal's hundred men had turned skirmishers;
+they had separated, and fifty men were harassing both of the enemy's
+flanks. General Hatry ordered his men to wheel to the right and left.
+Then came the order: "Fire!"
+
+Two volleys followed with the precision and unanimity of well
+disciplined troops; but they were almost without result, for the
+Republicans were firing upon scattered men. Not so with the Chouans, who
+fired on a mass; with them every shot told.
+
+Roland saw the disadvantage of the position. He looked around and, amid
+the smoke, distinguished Cadoudal, erect and motionless as an equestrian
+statue. He understood that the royalist leader was waiting for him.
+
+With a cry he spurred his horse toward him. As if to save him part of
+the way, Cadoudal put his horse to a gallop. But a hundred feet from
+Cadoudal he drew rein. "Attention!" he said to Branche-d'Or and his
+companions.
+
+"Don't be alarmed, general; here we are," said Branche-d'Or.
+
+Cadoudal drew a pistol from his holster and cocked it. Roland, sabre in
+hand, was charging, crouched on his horse's neck. When they were twenty
+paces apart, Cadoudal slowly raised his hand in Roland's direction. At
+ten paces he fired.
+
+The horse Roland was riding had a white star on its forehead. The ball
+struck the centre of that star, and the horse, mortally wounded, rolled
+over with its rider at Cadoudal's feet.
+
+Cadoudal put spurs to his own horse and jumped both horse and rider.
+
+Branche-d'Or and his men were ready. They sprang, like a pack of
+jaguars, upon Roland, entangled under the body of his horse. The young
+man dropped his sword and tried to seize his pistols, but before he
+could lay hand upon the holsters two men had him by the arms, while the
+four others dragged his horse from between his legs. The thing was
+done with such unanimity that it was easy to see the manoeuvre had been
+planned.
+
+Roland roared with rage. Branche-d'Or came up to him and put his hat in
+his hand.
+
+"I do not surrender!" shouted Roland.
+
+"Useless to do so, Monsieur de Montrevel," replied Branche-d'Or with the
+utmost politeness.
+
+"What do you mean?" demanded Roland, exhausting his strength in a
+struggle as desperate as it was useless.
+
+"Because you are captured, sir."
+
+It was so true that there could be no answer.
+
+"Then kill me!" cried Roland.
+
+"We don't want to kill you, sir," replied Branche-d'Or.
+
+"Then what do you want?"
+
+"Give us your parole not to fight any more, and you are free."
+
+"Never!" exclaimed Roland.
+
+"Excuse me, Monsieur de Montrevel," said Branche-d'Or, "but that is not
+loyal!"
+
+"What!" shrieked Roland, in a fury, "not loyal! You insult me, villain,
+because you know I can't defend myself or punish you."
+
+"I am not a villain, and I didn't insult you, Monsieur de Montrevel; but
+I do say that by not giving your word, you deprive the general of nine
+men, who might be useful to him and who are obliged to stay here to
+guard you. That's not the way the Big Round Head acted toward you. He
+had two hundred men more than you, and he sent them away. Now we are
+only eighty-nine against one hundred."
+
+A flame crossed Roland's face; then almost as suddenly he turned pale as
+death.
+
+"You are right, Branche-d'Or," he replied. "Succor or no succor, I
+surrender. You and your men can go and fight with your comrades."
+
+The Chouans gave a cry of joy, let go their hold of Roland, and
+rushed toward the Republicans, brandishing their hats and muskets, and
+shouting: "Vive le roi!"
+
+Roland, freed from their grip, but disarmed physically by his fall,
+morally by his parole, went to the little eminence, still covered by
+the cloak which had served as a tablecloth for their breakfast, and sat
+down. From there he could see the whole combat; not a detail was lost
+upon him.
+
+Cadoudal sat erect upon his horse amid fire and smoke, like the Demon of
+War, invulnerable and implacable.
+
+Here and there the bodies of a dozen or more Chouans lay stretched upon
+the sod. But it was evident that the Republicans, still massed together,
+had lost double that number. Wounded men dragged themselves across the
+open space, meeting, rearing their bodies like mangled snakes, to fight,
+the Republicans with their bayonets, and the Chouans with their knives.
+Those of the wounded Chouans who were too far off to fight their wounded
+enemies hand to hand, reloaded their guns, and, struggling to their
+knees, fired and fell again.
+
+On either side the struggle was pitiless, incessant, furious; civil
+war--that is war without mercy or compassion--waved its torch above the
+battlefield.
+
+Cadoudal rode his horse around these living breastworks, firing at
+twenty paces, sometimes his pistols, sometimes a musket, which he
+discharged, cast aside, and picked up again reloaded. At each discharge
+a man fell. The third time he made this round General Hatry honored him
+with a fusillade. He disappeared in the flame and smoke, and Roland
+saw him go down, he and his horse, as if annihilated. Ten or a dozen
+Republicans sprang from the ranks and met as many Chouans; the struggle
+was terrible, hand to hand, body to body, but the Chouans, with their
+knives, were sure of the advantage.
+
+Suddenly Cadoudal appeared, erect, a pistol in each hand; it was the
+death of two men; two men fell. Then through the gap left by these ten
+or twelve he flung himself forward with thirty men. He had picked up an
+army musket, and, using it like a club, he brought down a man with each
+blow. He broke his way through the battalion, and reappeared at the
+other side. Then, like a boar which returns upon the huntsman he has
+ripped up and trampled, he rushed back through the gaping wound and
+widened it. From that moment all was over.
+
+General Hatry rallied a score of men, and, with bayonets down, they
+fell upon the circle that enveloped them. He marched at the head of his
+soldiers on foot; his horse had been killed. Ten men had fallen before
+the circle was broken, but at last he was beyond it. The Chouans wanted
+to pursue them, but Cadoudal, in a voice of thunder, called them back.
+
+"You should not have allowed him to pass," he cried, "but having passed
+he is free to retreat."
+
+The Chouans obeyed with the religious faith they placed in the words of
+their chief.
+
+"And now," said Cadoudal, "cease firing; no more dead; make prisoners."
+
+The Chouans drew together and surrounded the heaps of dead, and the few
+living men, more or less wounded, who lay among the dead.
+
+Surrendering was still fighting in this fatal war, where on both sides
+the prisoners were shot--on the one side, because Chouans and Vendeans
+were considered brigands; on the other, because they knew not where to
+put the captives.
+
+The Republicans threw their guns away, that they might not be forced to
+surrender them. When their captors approached them every cartridge-box
+was open; every man had fired his last shot.
+
+Cadoudal walked back to Roland.
+
+During the whole of this desperate struggle the young man had remained
+on the mound. With his eyes fixed on the battle, his hair damp with
+sweat, his breast heaving, he waited for the result. Then, when he saw
+the day was lost, his head fell upon his hands, and he still sat on, his
+forehead bowed to the earth.
+
+Cadoudal reached him before he seemed to hear the sound of footsteps. He
+touched the young man's shoulder. Roland raised his head slowly without
+attempting to hide the two great tears that were rolling down his
+cheeks.
+
+"General," said Roland, "do with me what you will. I am your prisoner."
+
+"I can't make the First Consul's ambassador a prisoner," replied
+Cadoudal, laughing, "but I can ask him to do me a service."
+
+"Command me, general."
+
+"I need a hospital for the wounded, and a prison for prisoners; will you
+take the Republican soldiers, wounded and prisoners, back to Vannes."
+
+"What do you mean, general?" exclaimed Roland.
+
+"I give them, or rather I confide them to you. I regret that your horse
+was killed; so is mine. But there is still that of Brise-Bleu; accept
+it."
+
+The young man made a motion of rejection.
+
+"Until you can obtain another, of course," added Cadoudal, bowing.
+
+Roland felt that he must put himself, at least in simplicity, on a level
+with the man with whom he was dealing.
+
+"Shall I see you again, general?" he asked, rising.
+
+"I doubt it, sir. My operations call me to the coast near Port-Louis;
+your duty recalls you to the Luxembourg."
+
+"What shall I tell the First Consul, general?"
+
+"What you have seen, sir. He must judge between the Abbe Bernier's
+diplomacy and that of Georges Cadoudal."
+
+"After what I have seen, sir, I doubt if you ever have need of me," said
+Roland; "but in any case remember that you have a friend near the First
+Consul."
+
+And he held out his hand to Cadoudal. The royalist took it with the same
+frankness and freedom he had shown before the battle.
+
+"Farewell, Monsieur de Montrevel," said he, "I need not ask you to
+justify General Hatry. A defeat like that is fully as glorious as a
+victory."
+
+During this time Brise-Bleu's horse had been led up for the Republican
+colonel.
+
+He sprang into the saddle.
+
+"By the bye," said Cadoudal, "as you go through La Roche-Bernard, just
+inquire what has happened to citizen Thomas Milliere."
+
+"He is dead," said a voice.
+
+Coeur-de-Roi and his four men, covered with mud and sweat, had just
+arrived, but too late for the battle.
+
+Roland cast a last glance at the battlefield, sighed, and, waving a last
+farewell to Cadoudal, started at a gallop across the fields to await, on
+the road to Vannes, the wagon-load of wounded and the prisoners he was
+asked to deliver to General Hatry.
+
+Cadoudal had given a crown of six sous to each man.
+
+Roland could not help reflecting that the gift was made with the money
+of the Directory sent to the West by Morgan and the Companions of Jehu.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXV. A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE
+
+Roland's first visit on arriving in Paris was to the First Consul. He
+brought him the twofold news of the pacification of the Vendee, and the
+increasingly bitter insurrection in Brittany.
+
+Bonaparte knew Roland; consequently the triple narrative of Thomas
+Milliere's murder, the execution of Bishop Audrein, and the fight at
+Grandchamp, produced a deep impression upon him. There was, moreover,
+in the young man's manner a sombre despair in which he could not be
+mistaken.
+
+Roland was miserable over this lost opportunity to get himself killed.
+An unknown power seemed to watch over him, carrying him safe and sound
+through dangers which resulted fatally to others. Sir John had found
+twelve judges and a death-warrant, where he had seen but a phantom,
+invulnerable, it is true, but inoffensive.
+
+He blamed himself bitterly for singling out Cadoudal in the fight, thus
+exposing himself to a pre-arranged plan of capture, instead of flinging
+himself into the fray and killing or being killed.
+
+The First Consul watched him anxiously as he talked; the longing for
+death still lingered in his mind, a longing he hoped to cure by this
+return to his native land and the endearments of his family.
+
+He praised and defended General Hatry, but, just and impartial as a
+soldier should be, he gave full credit to Cadoudal for the courage and
+generosity the royalist general had displayed.
+
+Bonaparte listened gravely, almost sadly; ardent as he was for foreign
+war with its glorious halo, his soul revolted at the internecine strife
+which drained the life-blood of the nation and rent its bowels. It was
+a case in which, to his thinking, negotiation should be substituted for
+war. But how negotiate with a man like Cadoudal?
+
+Bonaparte was not unaware of his own personal seductions when he chose
+to exercise them. He resolved to see Cadoudal, and without saying
+anything on the subject to Roland, he intended to make use of him for
+the interview when the time came. In the meantime he wanted to see if
+Brune, in whose talent he had great confidence, would be more successful
+than his predecessors.
+
+He dismissed Roland, after telling him of his mother's arrival and her
+installation in the little house in the Rue de la Victoire.
+
+Roland sprang into a coach and was driven there at once. He found Madame
+de Montrevel as happy and as proud as a woman and a mother could be.
+Edouard had gone, the day before, to the Prytanee Francais, and she
+herself was preparing to return to Amelie, whose health continued to
+give her much anxiety.
+
+As for Sir John, he was not only out of danger, but almost well again.
+He was in Paris, had called upon Madame de Montrevel, and, finding that
+she had gone with Edouard to the Prytanee, he had left his card. It bore
+his address, Hotel Mirabeau, Rue de Richelieu.
+
+It was eleven o'clock, Sir John's breakfast hour, and Roland had every
+chance of finding him at that hour. He got back into his carriage, and
+ordered the coachman to stop at the Hotel Mirabeau.
+
+He found Sir John sitting before an English breakfast, a thing rarely
+seen in those days, drinking large cups of tea and eating bloody chops.
+
+As soon as the Englishman saw Roland he gave a cry of joy and ran
+to meet him. Roland himself had acquired a deep affection for that
+exceptional nature, where the noblest qualities of the heart seemed
+striving to hide themselves beneath national eccentricities.
+
+Sir John was pale and thin, but in other respects he was well. His wound
+had completely healed, and except for a slight oppression, which was
+diminishing daily and would soon disappear altogether, he had almost
+recovered his former health. He now welcomed Roland with a tenderness
+scarcely to be expected from that reserved nature, declaring that the
+joy he felt in seeing him again was all he wanted for his complete
+recovery.
+
+He begged Roland to share the meal, telling him to order his own
+breakfast, a la Francaise. Roland accepted. Like all soldiers who had
+fought the hard wars of the Revolution, when bread was often lacking,
+Roland cared little for what he ate; he had acquired the habit of eating
+whatever was put before him as a precaution against the days when there
+might be nothing at all. Sir John's attention in asking him to make a
+French breakfast was scarcely noticed by him at all.
+
+But what Roland did notice was Sir John's preoccupation of mind. It was
+evident that Sir John had something on his lips which he hesitated to
+utter. Roland thought he had better help him.
+
+So, when breakfast was nearly over, Roland, with his usual frankness,
+which almost bordered upon brutality at times, leaned his elbows on the
+table, settled his chin in his hands, and said: "Well, my dear Sir John,
+you have something to say to your friend Roland that you don't dare put
+into words."
+
+Sir John started, and, from pale as he was, turned crimson.
+
+"Confound it!" continued Roland, "it must be hard to get out; but, Sir
+John, if you have many things to ask me, I know but few that I have the
+right to refuse you. So, go on; I am listening."
+
+And Roland closed his eyes as if to concentrate all his attention on
+what Sir John was about to say. But the matter was evidently, from Sir
+John's point of view, so extremely difficult to make known, that at the
+end of a dozen seconds, finding that Sir John was still silent, Roland
+opened his eyes.
+
+The Englishman was pale again; but this time he was paler than before.
+Roland held out his hand to him.
+
+"Why," he said, "I see you want to make some compliment about the way
+you were treated at the Chateau des Noires-Fontaines."
+
+"Precisely, my friend; for the happiness or misery of my life will date
+from my sojourn at the chateau."
+
+Roland looked fixedly at Sir John. "The deuce!" he exclaimed, "can I be
+so fortunate--" Then he stopped, remembering that what he was about to
+say was most unconventional from the social point of view.
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed Sir John, "my dear Roland, finish what you were saying."
+
+"You wish it?"
+
+"I implore you."
+
+"But if I am mistaken; if I should say something nonsensical."
+
+"My friend, my friend, go on."
+
+"Well, as I was saying, my lord, can I be so fortunate as to find your
+lordship in love with my sister?"
+
+Sir John gave a cry of joy, and with a rapid movement, of which so
+phlegmatic a man might have been thought incapable, he threw himself in
+Roland's arms.
+
+"Your sister is an angel, my dear Roland," he exclaimed, "and I love her
+with all my heart."
+
+"Are you entirely free to do so, my lord?"
+
+"Entirely. For the last twelve years, as I told you, I have had my
+fortune under my own control; it amounts to twenty-five thousand pounds
+sterling a year."
+
+"Too much, my dear fellow, for a woman who can only bring you fifty
+thousand francs."
+
+"Oh!" said the Englishman, with that national accent that returned to
+him occasionally in moments of strong excitement, "if I must get rid of
+a part of it, I can do so."
+
+"No," replied Roland, laughing, "that's not necessary. You're rich; it's
+unfortunate, but what's to be done?--No, that's not the question. Do you
+love my sister?"
+
+"I adore her."
+
+"And she," resumed Roland, "does she love you?"
+
+"Of course you understand," returned Sir John, "that I have not asked
+her. I was bound, my dear Roland, to speak to you first, and if the
+matter were agreeable, to beg you to plead my cause with your mother.
+After I have obtained the consent of both, I shall make my offer. Or
+rather, you will make it for me, for I should never dare."
+
+"Then I am the first to receive your confidence?"
+
+"You are my best friend, and it ought to be so."
+
+"Well, my dear friend, as far as I am concerned, your suit is
+won--naturally."
+
+"Your mother and sister remain."
+
+"They will be one. You understand that my mother will leave Amelie free
+to make her own choice; and I need not tell you that if it falls
+upon you she will be delighted. But there is a person whom you have
+forgotten."
+
+"Who is that?" said Sir John, in the tone of a man who, having weighed
+all chances for and against, believes he knows them all, and is met by
+an obstacle he has never thought of.
+
+"The First Consul," said Roland.
+
+"God--" ejaculated the Englishman, swallowing the last words of the
+national oath.
+
+"He spoke to me just before I left for the Vendee of my sister's
+marriage," continued Roland; "saying that it no longer concerned my
+mother and myself, for he would take charge of it."
+
+"Then," said Sir John, "I am lost."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"The First Consul does not like the English."
+
+"Say rather that the English do not like the First Consul."
+
+"But who will present my wishes to the First Consul?"
+
+"I will."
+
+"And will you speak of them as agreeable to yourself?"
+
+"I'll turn you into a dove of peace between the two nations," said
+Roland, rising.
+
+"Oh! thank you," cried Sir john, seizing the young man's hand. Then he
+added, regretfully, "Must you leave me?"
+
+"My friend, I have only a few hours' leave. I have given one to my
+mother, two to you, and I owe one to your friend Edouard. I want to
+kiss him and ask his masters to let him scuffle as he likes with his
+comrades. Then I must get back to the Luxembourg."
+
+"Well, take him my compliments, and tell him I have ordered another pair
+of pistols for him, so that the next time he is attacked by bandits he
+needn't use the conductor's."
+
+Roland looked at Sir John.
+
+"Now, what is it?" he asked.
+
+"What! Don't you know?"
+
+"No. What is it I don't know?"
+
+"Something that nearly killed our poor Amelie?"
+
+"What thing?"
+
+"The attack on the diligence."
+
+"But what diligence?"
+
+"The one which your mother was in."
+
+"The diligence my mother was in?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"The diligence my mother was in was attacked?"
+
+"You have seen Madame de Montrevel, and she didn't tell you?"
+
+"Not a word about that, anyway."
+
+"Well, my dear Edouard proved a hero; as no one else defended the coach,
+he did. He took the conductor's pistols and fired."
+
+"Brave boy!" exclaimed Roland.
+
+"Yes, but, unluckily or luckily the conductor had taken the precaution
+to remove the bullets. Edouard was praised and petted by the Companions
+of Jehu as the bravest of the brave; but he neither killed nor wounded
+them."
+
+"Are you sure of what you are telling me?"
+
+"I tell you your sister almost died of fright."
+
+"Very good," said Roland.
+
+"How very good?" exclaimed Sir John.
+
+"I mean, all the more reason why I should see Edouard."
+
+"What makes you say that."
+
+"A plan."
+
+"Tell me what it is."
+
+"Faith! no. My plans don't turn out well for you."
+
+"But you know, my dear Roland, that if there are any reprisals to
+make--"
+
+"I shall make them for both. You are in love, my dear fellow; live in
+your love."
+
+"You promise me your support?"
+
+"That's understood! I am most anxious to call you brother."
+
+"Are you tired of calling me friend?"
+
+"Faith, yes; it is too little."
+
+"Thanks."
+
+They pressed each other's hands and parted.
+
+A quarter of an hour later Roland reached the Prytanee Francais, which
+stood then on the present site of the Lyceum of Louis-le-Grand--that is
+to say, at the head of the Rue Saint-Jacques, behind the Sorbonne. At
+the first words of the director, Roland saw that his young brother had
+been especially recommended to the authorities. The boy was sent for.
+Edouard flung himself into the arms of his "big brother" with that
+passionate adoration he had for him.
+
+After the first embraces were over, Roland inquired about the stoppage
+of the diligence. Madame de Montrevel had been chary of mentioning it;
+Sir John had been sober in statement, but not so Edouard. It was
+his Iliad, his very own. He related it with every detail--Jerome's
+connivance with the bandits, the pistols loaded with powder only, his
+mother's fainting-fit, the attention paid to her by those who had caused
+it, his own name known to the bandits, the fall of the mask from the
+face of the one who was restoring his mother, his certainty that she
+must have seen the man's face.
+
+Roland was above all struck with this last particular. Then the boy
+related their audience with the First Consul, and told how the latter
+had kissed and petted him, and finally recommended him to the director
+of the Prytanee Francais.
+
+Roland learned from the child all that he wished to know, and as it took
+but five minutes to go from the Rue Saint Jacques to the Luxembourg, he
+was at the palace in that time.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVI. SCULPTURE AND PAINTING
+
+When Roland returned to the Luxembourg, the clock of the palace marked
+one hour and a quarter after mid-day.
+
+The First Consul was working with Bourrienne.
+
+If we were merely writing a novel, we should hasten to its close, and in
+order to get there more expeditiously we should neglect certain details,
+which, we are told, historical figures can do without. That is not our
+opinion. From the day we first put pen to paper--now some thirty years
+ago--whether our thought were concentrated on a drama, or whether it
+spread itself into a novel, we have had a double end--to instruct and to
+amuse.
+
+And we say instruct first, for amusement has never been to our mind
+anything but a mask for instruction. Have we succeeded? We think so.
+Before long we shall have covered with our narratives an enormous
+period of time; between the "Comtesse de Salisbury" and the "Comte de
+Monte-Cristo" five centuries and a half are comprised. Well, we assert
+that we have taught France as much history about those five centuries
+and a half as any historian.
+
+More than that; although our opinions are well known; although, under
+the Bourbons of the elder branch as under the Bourbons of the younger
+branch, under the Republic as under the present government, we have
+always proclaimed them loudly, we do not believe that that opinion has
+been unduly manifested in our books and dramas.
+
+We admire the Marquis de Posa in Schiller's "Don Carlos"; but, in his
+stead, we should not have anticipated the spirit of that age to the
+point of placing a philosopher of the eighteenth century among the
+heroes of the sixteenth, an encyclopedist at the court of Philippe II.
+Therefore, just as we have been--in literary parlance--monarchical
+under the Monarchy, republican under the Republic, we are to-day
+reconstructionists under the Consulate.
+
+That does not prevent our thought from hovering above men, above their
+epoch, and giving to each the share of good and evil they do. Now that
+share no one, except God, has the right to award from his individual
+point of view. The kings of Egypt who, at the moment they passed into
+the unknown, were judged upon the threshold of their tombs, were not
+judged by a man, but by a people. That is why it is said: "The judgment
+of a people is the judgment of God."
+
+Historian, novelist, poet, dramatic author, we are nothing more than the
+foreman of a jury who impartially sums up the arguments and leaves the
+jury to give their verdict. The book is the summing up; the readers are
+the jury.
+
+That is why, having to paint one of the most gigantic figures, not only
+of modern times but of all times; having to paint the period of his
+transition, that is to say the moment when Bonaparte transformed himself
+into Napoleon, the general into an emperor--that is why we say, in
+the fear of becoming unjust, we abandon interpretations and substitute
+facts.
+
+We are not of those who say with Voltaire that, "no one is a hero to his
+valet."
+
+It may be that the valet is near-sighted or envious--two infirmities
+that resemble each other more closely than people think. We maintain
+that a hero may become a kind man, but a hero, for being kind, is none
+the less a hero.
+
+What is a hero in the eyes of the public? A man whose genius is
+momentarily greater than his heart. What is a hero in private life? A
+man whose heart is momentarily greater than his genius.
+
+Historians, judge the genius!
+
+People, judge the heart!
+
+Who judged Charlemagne? The historians. Who judged Henri IV.? The
+people. Which, in your opinion, was the most righteously judged?
+
+Well, in order to render just judgment, and compel the court of
+appeals, which is none other than posterity, to confirm contemporaneous
+judgments, it is essential not to light up one side only of the figure
+we depict, but to walk around it, and wherever the sunlight does not
+reach, to hold a torch, or even a candle.
+
+Now, let us return to Bonaparte.
+
+He was working, as we said, with Bourrienne. Let us inquire into the
+usual division of the First Consul's time.
+
+He rose at seven or eight in the morning, and immediately called one of
+his secretaries, preferably Bourrienne, and worked with him until ten.
+At ten, breakfast was announced; Josephine, Hortense and Eugene
+either waited or sat down to table with the family, that is with the
+aides-de-camp on duty and Bourrienne. After breakfast he talked with
+the usual party, or the invited guests, if there were any; one hour was
+devoted to this intercourse, which was generally shared by the
+First Consul's two brothers, Lucien and Joseph, Regnault de
+Saint-Jean-d'Angely, Boulay (de la Meurthe), Monge, Berthollet,
+Laplace and Arnault. Toward noon Cambaceres arrived. As a general thing
+Bonaparte devoted half an hour to his chancellor; then suddenly, without
+warning, he would rise and say: "Au revoir, Josephine! au revoir,
+Hortense! Come, Bourrienne, let us go to work."
+
+This speech, which recurred almost regularly in the same words, was no
+sooner uttered than Bonaparte left the salon and returned to his study.
+There, no system of work was adopted; it might be some urgent matter or
+merely a caprice. Either Bonaparte dictated or Bourrienne read, after
+which the First Consul went to the council.
+
+In the earlier months of the Consulate, he was obliged to cross the
+courtyard of the little Luxembourg to reach the council-chamber, which,
+if the weather were rainy, put him in bad humor; but toward the end
+of December he had the courtyard covered; and from that time he almost
+always returned to his study singing. Bonaparte sang almost as false as
+Louis XV.
+
+As soon as he was back he examined the work he had ordered done, signed
+his letters, and stretched himself out in his armchair, the arms of
+which he stabbed with his penknife as he talked. If he was not inclined
+to talk, he reread the letters of the day before, or the pamphlets of
+the day, laughing at intervals with the hearty laugh of a great child.
+Then suddenly, as one awakening from a dream, he would spring to his
+feet and cry out: "Write, Bourrienne!"
+
+Then he would sketch out the plan for some building to be erected, or
+dictate some one of those vast projects which have amazed--let us say
+rather, terrified the world.
+
+At five o'clock he dined; after dinner the First Consul ascended to
+Josephine's apartments, where he usually received the visits of the
+ministers, and particularly that of the minister of foreign affairs, M.
+de Talleyrand. At midnight, sometimes earlier, but never later, he gave
+the signal for retiring by saying, brusquely: "Let us go to bed."
+
+The next day, at seven in the morning, the same life began over again,
+varied only by unforeseen incidents.
+
+After these details of the personal habits of the great genius we are
+trying to depict under his first aspect, his personal portrait ought, we
+think, to come.
+
+Bonaparte, First Consul, has left fewer indications of his personal
+appearance than Napoleon, Emperor. Now, as nothing less resembles the
+Emperor of 1812 than the First Consul of 1800; let us endeavor, if
+possible, to sketch with a pen those features which the brush has never
+fully portrayed, that countenance which neither bronze nor marble has
+been able to render. Most of the painters and sculptors who flourished
+during this illustrious period of art--Gros, David, Prud'hon, Girodet
+and Bosio--have endeavored to transmit to posterity the features of
+the Man of Destiny, at the different epochs when the vast providential
+vistas which beckoned him first revealed themselves. Thus, we have
+portraits of Bonaparte, commander-in-chief, Bonaparte, First Consul, and
+Napoleon, Emperor; and although some painters and sculptors have caught
+more or less successfully the type of his face, it may be said that
+there does not exist, either of the general, the First Consul, or the
+emperor, a single portrait or bust which perfectly resembles him.
+
+It was not within the power of even genius to triumph over an
+impossibility. During the first part of Bonaparte's life it was possible
+to paint or chisel Bonaparte's protuberant skull, his brow furrowed
+by the sublime line of thought, his pale elongated face, his granite
+complexion, and the meditative character of his countenance. During
+the second part of his life it was possible to paint or to chisel his
+broadened forehead, his admirably defined eyebrows, his straight nose,
+his close-pressed lips, his chin modelled with rare perfection, his
+whole face, in short, like a coin of Augustus. But that which neither
+his bust nor his portrait could render, which was utterly beyond the
+domain of imitation, was the mobility of his look; that look which is to
+man what the lightning is to God, namely, the proof of his divinity.
+
+In Bonaparte, that look obeyed his will with the rapidity of lightning;
+in one and the same minute it dared from beneath his eyelids, now keen
+and piercing as the blade of a dagger violently unsheathed, now soft as
+a sun ray or a kiss, now stern as a challenge, or terrible as a threat.
+
+Bonaparte had a look for every thought that stirred his soul. In
+Napoleon, this look, except in the momentous circumstances of his life,
+ceased to be mobile and became fixed, but even so it was none the less
+impossible to render; it was a drill sounding the heart of whosoever he
+looked upon, the deepest, the most secret thought of which he meant to
+sound. Marble or painting might render the fixedness of that look, but
+neither the one nor the other could portray its life--that is to say,
+its penetrating and magnetic action. Troubled hearts have veiled eyes.
+
+Bonaparte, even in the days of his leanness, had beautiful hands, and
+he displayed them with a certain coquetry. As he grew stouter his hands
+became superb; he took the utmost care of them, and looked at them when
+talking, with much complacency. He felt the same satisfaction in his
+teeth, which were handsome, though not with the splendor of his hands.
+
+When he walked, either alone or with some one, whether in a room or in
+a garden, he always bent a little forward, as though his head were heavy
+to carry, and crossed his hands behind his back. He frequently made an
+involuntary movement with the right shoulder, as if a nervous shudder
+had passed through it, and at the same time his mouth made a curious
+movement from right to left, which seemed to result from the other.
+These movements, however, had nothing convulsive about them, whatever
+may have been said notwithstanding; they were a simple trick indicative
+of great preoccupation, a sort of congestion of the mind. It was chiefly
+manifested when the general, the First Consul, or the Emperor, was
+maturing vast plans. It was after such promenades, accompanied by this
+twofold movement of the shoulders and lips, that he dictated his most
+important notes. On a campaign, with the army, on horseback, he was
+indefatigable; he was almost as much so in ordinary life, and would
+often walk five or six hours in succession without perceiving it.
+
+When he walked thus with some one with whom he was familiar, he commonly
+passed his arm through that or his companion and leaned upon him.
+
+Slender and thin as he was at the period when we place him before our
+readers' eyes, he was much concerned by the fear of future corpulence;
+it was to Bourrienne that he usually confided this singular dread.
+
+"You see, Bourrienne, how slim and abstemious I am. Well, nothing can
+rid me of the idea that when I am forty I shall be a great eater and
+very fat. I foresee that my constitution will undergo a change. I take
+exercise enough, but what will you!--it's a presentiment; and it won't
+fail to happen."
+
+We all know to what obesity he attained when a prisoner at Saint Helena.
+
+He had a positive passion for baths, which no doubt contributed not a
+little to make him fat; this passion became an irresistible need. He
+took one every other day, and stayed in it two hours, during which time
+the journals and pamphlets of the day were read to him. As the
+water cooled he would turn the hot-water faucet until he raised the
+temperature of his bathroom to such a degree that the reader could
+neither bear it any longer, nor see to read. Not until then would he
+permit the door to be opened.
+
+It has been said that he was subject to epileptic attacks after his
+first campaign in Italy. Bourrienne was with him eleven years, and never
+saw him suffer from an attack of this malady.
+
+Bonaparte, though indefatigable when necessity demanded it, required
+much sleep, especially during the period of which we are now writing.
+Bonaparte, general or First Consul, kept others awake, but he slept, and
+slept well. He retired at midnight, sometimes earlier, as we have said,
+and when at seven in the morning they entered his room to awaken him
+he was always asleep. Usually at the first call he would rise; but
+occasionally, still half asleep, he would mutter: "Bourrienne, I beg of
+you, let me sleep a little longer."
+
+Then, if there was nothing urgent, Bourrienne would return at eight
+o'clock; if it was otherwise, he insisted, and then, with much
+grumbling, Bonaparte would get up. He slept seven, sometimes eight,
+hours out of the twenty-four, taking a short nap in the afternoon. He
+also gave particular instruction for the night.
+
+"At night," he would say, "come in my room as seldom as possible. Never
+wake me if you have good news to announce--good news can wait; but if
+there is bad news, wake me instantly, for then there is not a moment to
+be lost in facing it."
+
+As soon as Bonaparte had risen and made his morning ablutions, which
+were very thorough, his valet entered and brushed his hair and shaved
+him; while he was being shaved, a secretary or an aide-de-camp read the
+newspapers aloud, always beginning with the "Moniteur." He gave no real
+attention to any but the English and German papers.
+
+"Skip that," he would say when they read him the French papers; "_I know
+what they say, because they only say what I choose._"
+
+His toilet completed, Bonaparte went down to his study. We have seen
+above what he did there. At ten o'clock the breakfast as announced,
+usually by the steward, in these words: "The general is served." No
+title, it will be observed, not even that of First Consul.
+
+The repast was a frugal one. Every morning a dish was served which
+Bonaparte particularly liked--a chicken fried in oil with garlic;
+the same dish that is now called on the bills of fare at restaurants
+"Chicken a la Marengo."
+
+Bonaparte drank little, and then only Bordeaux or Burgundy, preferably
+the latter. After breakfast, as after dinner, he drank a cup of black
+coffee; never between meals. When he chanced to work until late at
+night they brought him, not coffee, but chocolate, and the secretary who
+worked with him had a cup of the same. Most historians, narrators, and
+biographers, after saying that Bonaparte drank a great deal of coffee,
+add that he took snuff to excess.
+
+They are doubly mistaken. From the time he was twenty-four, Bonaparte
+had contracted the habit of taking snuff: but only enough to keep his
+brain awake. He took it habitually, not, as biographers have declared,
+from the pocket of his waistcoat, but from a snuff-box which he changed
+almost every day for a new one--having in this matter of collecting
+snuff-boxes a certain resemblance to the great Frederick. If he ever did
+take snuff from his waistcoat pocket, it was on his battle days, when it
+would have been difficult, while riding at a gallop under fire, to hold
+both reins and snuff-box. For those days he had special waistcoats, with
+the right-hand pocket lined with perfumed leather; and, as the sloping
+cut of his coat enabled him to insert his thumb and forefinger into this
+pocket without unbuttoning his coat, he could, under any circumstances
+and at any gait, take snuff when he pleased.
+
+As general or First Consul, he never wore gloves, contenting himself
+with holding and crumpling them in his left hand. As Emperor, there was
+some advance in this propriety; he wore one glove, and as he changed his
+gloves, not once, but two or three times a day, his valet adopted the
+habit of giving him alternate gloves; thus making one pair serve as two.
+
+Bonaparte had two great passions which Napoleon inherited--for war and
+architectural monuments to his fame.
+
+Gay, almost jolly in camp, he was dreamy and sombre in repose. To escape
+this gloom he had recourse to the electricity of art, and saw visions
+of those gigantic monumental works of which he undertook many, and
+completed some. He realized that such works are part of the life of
+peoples; they are history written in capitals, landmarks of the ages,
+left standing long after generations are swept away. He knew that Rome
+lives in her ruins, that Greece speaks by her statues, that Egypt,
+splendid and mysterious spectre, appeared through her monuments on the
+threshold of civilized existence.
+
+What he loved above everything, what he hugged in preference to all
+else, was renown, heroic uproar; hence his need of war, his thirst for
+glory. He often said:
+
+"A great reputation is a great noise; the louder it is, the further it
+is heard. Laws, institutions, monuments, nations, all fall; but sound
+remains and resounds through other generations. Babylon and Alexandria
+are fallen; Semiramis and Alexander stand erect, greater perhaps through
+the echo of their renown, waxing and multiplying through the ages, than
+they were in their lifetimes." Then he added, connecting these ideas
+with himself: "My power depends on my fame and on the battles I win.
+Conquest has made me what I am, and conquest alone can sustain me. A new
+born government must dazzle, must amaze. The moment it no longer flames,
+it dies out; once it ceases to grow, it falls."
+
+He was long a Corsican, impatient under the conquest of his country;
+but after the 13th Vendemiaire he became a true Frenchman, and ended by
+loving France with true passion. His dream was to see her great, happy,
+powerful, at the head of the nations in glory and in art. It is true
+that, in making France great, he became great with her, and attached
+his name indissolubly to her grandeur. To him, living eternally in this
+thought, actuality disappeared in the future; wherever the hurricane
+of war may have swept him, France, above all things else, above all
+nations, filled his thoughts. "What will my Athenians think?" said
+Alexander, after Issus and Arbela. "I hope the French will be content
+with me," said Bonaparte, after Rivoli and the Pyramids.
+
+Before battle, this modern Alexander gave little thought to what he
+should do in case of victory, but much in case of defeat. He, more than
+any man, was convinced that trifles often decide the greatest events; he
+was therefore more concerned in foreseeing such events than in producing
+them. He watched them come to birth, and ripen; then, when the right
+time came, he appeared, laid his hand on them, mastered and guided them,
+as an able rider roasters and guides a spirited horse.
+
+His rapid rise in the midst of revolutions and political changes he had
+brought about, or seen accomplished, the events which he had controlled,
+had given him a certain contempt for men; moreover, he was not inclined
+by nature to think well of them. His lips were often heard to utter the
+grievous maxim--all the more grievous because he personally knew
+its truth--"There are two levers by which men are moved, fear and
+self-interest."
+
+With such opinions Bonaparte did not, in fact, believe in friendship.
+
+"How often," said Bourrienne, "has he said to me, 'Friendship is only a
+word; I love no one, not even my brothers--Joseph a little possibly; but
+if I love him it is only from habit, and because he is my elder. Duroc,
+yes, I love him; but why? Because his character pleases me; because he
+is stern, cold, resolute; besides, Duroc never sheds a tear. But why
+should I love any one? Do you think I have any true friends? As long as
+I am what I am, I shall have friends--apparently at least; but when my
+luck ceases, you'll see! Trees don't have leaves in winter. I tell you,
+Bourrienne, we must leave whimpering to the women, it's their business;
+as for me, no feelings. I need a vigorous hand and a stout heart; if
+not, better let war and government alone.'"
+
+In his familiar intercourse, Bonaparte was what schoolboys call a tease;
+but his teasings were never spiteful, and seldom unkind. His ill-humor,
+easily aroused, disappeared like a cloud driven by the wind; it
+evaporated in words, and disappeared of its own will. Sometimes,
+however, when matters of public import were concerned, and his
+lieutenants or ministers were to blame, he gave way to violent anger;
+his outbursts were then hard and cruel, and often humiliating. He gave
+blows with a club, under which, willingly or unwillingly, the recipient
+had to bow his head; witness his scene with Jomini and that with the Duc
+de Bellune.
+
+Bonaparte had two sets of enemies, the Jacobins and the royalists; he
+detested the first and feared the second. In speaking of the Jacobins,
+he invariably called them the murderers of Louis XVI.; as for the
+royalists, that was another thing; one might almost have thought he
+foresaw the Restoration. He had about him two men who had voted the
+death of the king, Fouche and Cambaceres.
+
+He dismissed Fouche, and, if he kept Cambaceres, it was because he
+wanted the services of that eminent legist; but he could not endure him,
+and he would often catch his colleague, the Second Consul, by the ear,
+and say: "My poor Cambaceres, I'm so sorry for you; but your goose is
+cooked. If ever the Bourbons get back they will hang you."
+
+One day Cambaceres lost his temper, and with a twist of his head he
+pulled his ear from the living pincers that held it.
+
+"Come," he said, "have done with your foolish joking."
+
+Whenever Bonaparte escaped any danger, a childish habit, a Corsican
+habit, reappeared; he always made a rapid sign of the cross on his
+breast with the thumb.
+
+Whenever he met with any annoyance, or was haunted with a disagreeable
+thought, he hummed--what air? An air of his own that was no air at all,
+and which nobody ever noticed, he sang so false. Then, still singing, he
+would sit down before his writing desk, tilting in his chair, tipping it
+back till he almost fell over, and mutilating, as we have said, its arms
+with a penknife, which served no other purpose, inasmuch as he never
+mended a pen himself. His secretaries were charged with that duty, and
+they mended them in the best manner possible, mindful of the fact that
+they would have to copy that terrific writing, which, as we know, was
+not absolutely illegible.
+
+The effect produced on Bonaparte by the ringing of bells is known. It
+was the only music he understood, and it went straight to his heart. If
+he was seated when the vibrations began he would hold up his hand for
+silence, and lean toward the sound. If he was walking, he would
+stop, bend his head, and listen. As long as the bell rang he remained
+motionless; when the sound died away in space, he resumed his work,
+saying to those who asked him to explain this singular liking for the
+iron voice: "It reminds me of my first years at Brienne; I was happy
+then!"
+
+At the period of which we are writing, his greatest personal interest
+was the purchase he had made of the domain of Malmaison. He went there
+every night like a schoolboy off for his holiday, and spent Sunday and
+often Monday there. There, work was neglected for walking expeditions,
+during which he personally superintended the improvements he had
+ordered. Occasionally, and especially at first, he would wander beyond
+the limits of the estate; but these excursions were thought dangerous by
+the police, and given up entirely after the conspiracy of the Arena and
+the affair of the infernal machine.
+
+The revenue derived from Malmaison, calculated by Bonaparte himself, on
+the supposition that he should sell his fruits and vegetables, did not
+amount to more than six thousand francs.
+
+"That's not bad," he said to Bourrienne; "but," he added with a sigh,
+"one must have thirty thousand a year to be able to live here."
+
+Bonaparte introduced a certain poesy in his taste for the country. He
+liked to see a woman with a tall flexible figure glide through the dusky
+shrubberies of the park; only that woman must be dressed in white. He
+hated gowns of a dark color and had a horror of stout women. As for
+pregnant women, he had such an aversion for them that it was very seldom
+he invited one to his soirees or his fetes. For the rest, with little
+gallantry in his nature, too overbearing to attract, scarcely civil to
+women, it was rare for him to say, even to the prettiest, a pleasant
+thing; in fact, he often produced a shudder by the rude remarks he made
+even to Josephine's best friends. To one he remarked: "Oh! what red arms
+you have!" To another, "What an ugly headdress you are wearing!" To a
+third, "Your gown is dirty; I have seen you wear it twenty times"; or,
+"Why don't you change your dressmaker; you are dressed like a fright."
+
+One day he said to the Duchesse de Chevreuse, a charming blonde, whose
+hair was the admiration of everyone:
+
+"It's queer how red your hair is!"
+
+"Possibly," replied the duchess, "but this is the first time any man has
+told me so."
+
+Bonaparte did not like cards; when he did happen to play it was always
+vingt-et-un. For the rest, he had one trait in common with Henry IV.,
+he cheated; but when the game was over he left all the gold and notes he
+had won on the table, saying:
+
+"You are ninnies! I have cheated all the time we've been playing, and
+you never found out. Those who lost can take their money back."
+
+Born and bred in the Catholic faith, Bonaparte had no preference for any
+dogma. When he re-established divine worship it was done as a political
+act, not as a religious one. He was fond, however, of discussions
+bearing on the subject; but he defined his own part in advance by
+saying: "My reason makes me a disbeliever in many things; but the
+impressions of my childhood and the inspirations of my early youth have
+flung me back into uncertainty."
+
+Nevertheless he would never hear of materialism; he cared little what
+the dogma was, provided that dogma recognized a Creator. One beautiful
+evening in Messidor, on board his vessel, as it glided along between the
+twofold azure of the sky and sea, certain mathematicians declared there
+was no God, only animated matter. Bonaparte looked at the celestial
+arch, a hundred times more brilliant between Malta and Alexandria than
+it is in Europe, and, at a moment when they thought him unconscious of
+the conversation, he exclaimed, pointing to the stars: "You may say what
+you please, but it was a God who made all that."
+
+Bonaparte, though very exact in paying his private debts, was just the
+reverse about public expenses. He was firmly convinced that in all past
+transactions between ministers and purveyors or contractors, that if the
+minister who had made the contract was not a dupe, the State at any rate
+was robbed; for this reason he delayed the period of payment as long as
+possible; there were literally no evasions, no difficulties he would not
+make, no bad reasons he would not give. It was a fixed idea with him, an
+immutable principle, that every contractor was a cheat.
+
+One day a man who had made a bid that was accepted was presented to him.
+
+"What is your name?" he asked, with his accustomed brusqueness.
+
+"Vollant, citizen First Consul."
+
+"Good name for a contractor."
+
+"I spell it with two l's, citizen."
+
+"To rob the better, sir," retorted Bonaparte, turning his back on him.
+
+Bonaparte seldom changed his decisions, even when he saw they were
+unjust. No one ever heard him say: "I was mistaken." On the contrary,
+his favorite saying was: "I always believe the worst"--a saying more
+worthy of Simon than Augustus.
+
+But with all this, one felt that there was more of a desire in
+Bonaparte's mind to seem to despise men than actual contempt for them.
+He was neither malignant nor vindictive. Sometimes, it is true, he
+relied too much upon necessity, that iron-tipped goddess; but for
+the rest, take him away from the field of politics and he was kind,
+sympathetic, accessible to pity, fond of children (great proof of a kind
+and pitying heart), full of indulgence for human weakness in private
+life, and sometimes of a good-humored heartiness, like that of Henri IV.
+playing with his children in the presence of the Spanish ambassador.
+
+If we were writing history we should have many more things to say
+of Bonaparte without counting those which--after finishing with
+Bonaparte--we should still have to say of Napoleon. But we are writing
+a simple narrative, in which Bonaparte plays a part; unfortunately,
+wherever Bonaparte shows himself, if only for a moment, he becomes, in
+spite of himself, a principal personage.
+
+The reader must pardon us for having again fallen into digression; that
+man, who is a world in himself, has, against our will, swept us along in
+his whirlwind.
+
+Let us return to Roland, and consequently to our legitimate tale.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVII. THE AMBASSADOR
+
+We have seen that Roland, on returning to the Luxembourg, asked for the
+First Consul and was told that he was engaged with Fouche, the minister
+of police.
+
+Roland was a privileged person; no matter what functionary was with
+Bonaparte, he was in the habit, on his return from a journey, or merely
+from an errand, of half opening the door and putting in his head. The
+First Consul was often so busy that he paid no attention to this head.
+When that was the case, Roland would say "General!" which meant, in
+the close intimacy which still existed between the two schoolmates:
+"General, I am here; do you need me? I'm at your orders." If the First
+Consul did not need him, he replied: "Very good." If on the contrary he
+did need him, he said, simply: "Come in." Then Roland would enter,
+and wait in the recess of a window until the general told him what he
+wanted.
+
+On this occasion, Roland put his head in as usual, saying: "General!"
+
+"Come in," replied the First Consul, with visible satisfaction; "come
+in, come in!"
+
+Roland entered. Bonaparte was, as he had been told, busy with the
+minister of police. The affair on which the First Consul was engaged,
+and which seemed to absorb him a great deal, had also its interest for
+Roland.
+
+It concerned the recent stoppages of diligences by the Companions of
+Jehu.
+
+On the table lay three _proces-verbaux_ relating the stoppage of one
+diligence and two mail-coaches. Tribier, the paymaster of the Army of
+Italy, was in one of the latter. The stoppages had occurred, one on the
+highroad between Meximieux and Montluel, on that part of the road which
+crosses the commune of Bellignieux; the second, at the extremity of the
+lake of Silans, in the direction of Nantua; the third, on the highroad
+between Saint-Etienne and Bourg, at a spot called Les Carronnieres.
+
+A curious fact was connected with these stoppages. A sum of four
+thousand francs and a case of jewelry had been mixed up by mistake with
+the money-bags belonging to the government. The owners of the money had
+thought them lost, when the justice of the peace at Nantua received
+an unsigned letter telling him the place where these objects had been
+buried, and requesting him to return them to their rightful owners,
+as the Companions of Jehu made war upon the government and not against
+private individuals.
+
+In another case; that of the Carronnieres--where the robbers, in order
+to stop the mail-coach, which had continued on its way with increased
+speed in spite of the order to stop, were forced to fire at a horse--the
+Companions of Jehu had felt themselves obliged to make good this loss to
+the postmaster, who had received five hundred francs for the dead horse.
+That was exactly what the animal had cost eight days before; and this
+valuation proved that they were dealing with men who understood horses.
+
+The _proces-verbaux_ sent by the local authorities were accompanied by
+the affidavits of the travellers.
+
+Bonaparte was singing that mysterious tune of which we have spoken;
+which showed that he was furious. So, as Roland might be expected to
+bring him fresh information, he had called him three times to come in.
+
+"Well," said he, "your part of the country is certainly in revolt
+against me; just look at that."
+
+Roland glanced at the papers and understood at once.
+
+"Exactly what I came to speak to you about, general," said he.
+
+"Then begin at once; but first go ask Bourrienne for my department
+atlas."
+
+Roland fetched the atlas, and, guessing what Bonaparte desired to look
+at, opened it at the department of the Ain.
+
+"That's it," said Bonaparte; "show me where these affairs happened."
+
+Roland laid his finger on the edge of the map, in the neighborhood of
+Lyons.
+
+"There, general, that's the exact place of the first attack, near the
+village of Bellignieux."
+
+"And the second?"
+
+"Here," said Roland, pointing to the other side of the department,
+toward Geneva; "there's the lake of Nantua, and here's that of Silans."
+
+"Now the third?"
+
+Roland laid his finger on the centre of the map.
+
+"General, there's the exact spot. Les Carronnieres are not marked on the
+map because of their slight importance."
+
+"What are Les Carronnieres?" asked the First Consul.
+
+"General, in our part of the country the manufactories of tiles are
+called _carronnieres_; they belong to citizen Terrier. That's the place
+they ought to be on the map."
+
+And Roland made a pencil mark on the paper to show the exact spot where
+the stoppage occurred.
+
+"What!" exclaimed Bonaparte; "why, it happened less than a mile and a
+half from Bourg!"
+
+"Scarcely that, general; that explains why the wounded horse was taken
+back to Bourg and died in the stables of the Belle-Alliance."
+
+"Do you hear all these details, sir!" said Bonaparte, addressing the
+minister of police.
+
+"Yes, citizen First Consul," answered the latter.
+
+"You know I want this brigandage to stop?"
+
+"I shall use every effort--"
+
+"It's not a question of your efforts, but of its being done."
+
+The minister bowed.
+
+"It is only on that condition," said Bonaparte, "that I shall admit you
+are the able man you claim to be."
+
+"I'll help you, citizen," said Roland.
+
+"I did not venture to ask for your assistance," said the minister.
+
+"Yes, but I offer it; don't do anything that we have not planned
+together."
+
+The minister looked at Bonaparte.
+
+"Quite right," said Bonaparte; "you can go. Roland will follow you to
+the ministry."
+
+Fouche bowed and left the room.
+
+"Now," continued the First Consul, "your honor depends upon your
+exterminating these bandits, Roland. In the first place, the thing is
+being carried on in your department; and next, they seem to have some
+particular grudge against you and your family."
+
+"On the contrary," said Roland, "that's what makes me so furious; they
+spare me and my family."
+
+"Let's go over it again, Roland. Every detail is of importance; it's a
+war of Bedouins over again."
+
+"Just notice this, general. I spend a night in the Chartreuse of
+Seillon, because I have been told that it was haunted by ghosts. Sure
+enough, a ghost appears, but a perfectly inoffensive one. I fire at it
+twice, and it doesn't even turn around. My mother is in a diligence
+that is stopped, and faints away. One of the robbers pays her the most
+delicate attentions, bathes her temples with vinegar, and gives her
+smelling-salts. My brother Edouard fights them as best he can; they take
+him in their arms, kiss him, and make him all sorts of compliments on
+his courage; a little more and they would have given him sugar-plums as
+a reward for his gallant conduct. Now, just the reverse; my friend Sir
+John follows my example, goes where I have been; he is treated as a spy
+and stabbed, as they thought, to death."
+
+"But he didn't die."
+
+"No. On the contrary, he is so well that he wants to marry my sister."
+
+"Ah ha! Has he asked for her?"
+
+"Officially."
+
+"And you answered?"
+
+"I answered that the matter depended on two persons."
+
+"Your mother and you; that's true."
+
+"No; my sister herself--and you."
+
+"Your sister I understand; but I?"
+
+"Didn't you tell me general, that you would take charge of marrying
+her?"
+
+Bonaparte walked up and down the room with his arms crossed; then,
+suddenly stopping before Roland, he said: "What is your Englishman
+like?"
+
+"You have seen him, general."
+
+"I don't mean physically; all Englishmen are alike--blue eyes, red hair,
+white skin, long jaws."
+
+"That's their _th_," said Roland, gravely.
+
+"Their _th_?"
+
+"Yes. Did you ever learn English, general?"
+
+"Faith! I tried to learn it."
+
+"Your teacher must have told you that the _th_ was sounded by pressing
+the tongue against the teeth. Well, by dint of punching their teeth with
+their tongues the English have ended by getting those elongated jaws,
+which, as you said just now, is one of the distinctive characteristics
+of their physiognomy."
+
+Bonaparte looked at Roland to see if that incorrigible jester were
+laughing or speaking seriously. Roland was imperturbable.
+
+"Is that your opinion?" said Bonaparte.
+
+"Yes, general, and I think that physiologically it is as good as any
+other. I have a lot of opinions like it, which I bring to light as the
+occasion offers."
+
+"Come back to your Englishman."
+
+"Certainly, general."
+
+"I asked you what he was like."
+
+"Well, he is a gentleman; very brave, very calm, very impassible, very
+noble, very rich, and, moreover--which may not be a recommendation
+to you--a nephew of Lord Grenville, prime minister to his Britannic
+Majesty."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"I said, prime minister to his Britannic Majesty."
+
+Bonaparte resumed his walk; then, presently returning to Roland, he
+said: "Can I see your Englishman?"
+
+"You know, general, that you can do anything."
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"In Paris."
+
+"Go find him and bring him here."
+
+Roland was in the habit of obeying without reply; he took his hat and
+went toward the door.
+
+"Send Bourrienne to me," said the First Consul, just as Roland passed
+into the secretary's room.
+
+Five minutes later Bourrienne appeared.
+
+"Sit down there, Bourrienne," said the First Consul, "and write."
+
+Bourrienne sat down, arranged his paper, dipped his pen in the ink, and
+waited.
+
+"Ready?" asked the First Consul, sitting down upon the writing table,
+which was another of his habits; a habit that reduced his secretary to
+despair, for Bonaparte never ceased swinging himself back and forth all
+the time he dictated--a motion that shook the table as much as if it had
+been in the middle of the ocean with a heaving sea.
+
+"I'm ready," replied Bourrienne, who had ended by forcing himself to
+endure, with more or less patience, all Bonaparte's eccentricities.
+
+"Then write." And he dictated:
+
+  Bonaparte, First Consul of the Republic, to his Majesty the King
+  of Great Britain and Ireland.
+
+  Called by the will of the French nation to the chief magistracy
+  of the Republic, I think it proper to inform your Majesty
+  personally of this fact.
+
+  Must the war, which for two years has ravaged the four quarters
+  of the globe, be perpetuated? Is there no means of staying it?
+
+  How is it that two nations, the most enlightened of Europe,
+  more powerful and strong than their own safety and
+  independence require; how is it that they sacrifice to their
+  ideas of empty grandeur or bigoted antipathies the welfare
+  of commerce, eternal prosperity, the happiness of families?
+  How is it that they do not recognize that peace is the first
+  of needs and the first of a nation's glories?
+
+  These sentiments cannot be foreign to the heart of a king who
+  governs a free nation with the sole object of rendering it happy.
+
+  Your Majesty will see in this overture my sincere desire to
+  contribute efficaciously, for the second time, to a general
+  pacification, by an advance frankly made and free of those
+  formalities which, necessary perhaps to disguise the dependence
+  of feeble states, only disclose in powerful nations a mutual
+  desire to deceive.
+
+  France and England can, for a long time yet, by the abuse of
+  their powers, and to the misery of their people, carry on the
+  struggle without exhaustion; but, and I dare say it, the fate
+  of all the civilized nations depends on the conclusion of a
+  war which involves the universe.
+
+Bonaparte paused. "I think that will do," said he. "Read it over,
+Bourrienne."
+
+Bourrienne read the letter he had just written. After each paragraph the
+First Consul nodded approvingly; and said: "Go on."
+
+Before the last words were fairly uttered, he took the letter from
+Bourrienne's hands and signed it with a new pen. It was a habit of his
+never to use the same pen twice. Nothing could be more disagreeable to
+him than a spot of ink on his fingers.
+
+"That's good," said he. "Seal it and put on the address: 'To Lord
+Grenville.'"
+
+Bourrienne did as he was told. At the same moment the noise of a
+carriage was heard entering the courtyard of the Luxembourg. A moment
+later the door opened and Roland appeared.
+
+"Well?" asked Bonaparte.
+
+"Didn't I tell you you could have anything you wanted, general?"
+
+"Have you brought your Englishman?"
+
+"I met him in the Place de Buci; and, knowing that you don't like to
+wait, I caught him just as he was, and made him get into the carriage.
+Faith! I thought I should have to drive round to the Rue Mazarine, and
+get a guard to bring him. He's in boots and a frock-coat."
+
+"Let him come in," said Bonaparte.
+
+"Come in, Sir John," cried Roland, turning round.
+
+Lord Tanlay appeared on the threshold. Bonaparte had only to glance at
+him to recognize a perfect gentleman. A trifling emaciation, a slight
+pallor, gave Sir John the characteristics of great distinction. He
+bowed, awaiting the formal introduction, like the true Englishman he
+was.
+
+"General," said Roland, "I have the honor to present to you Sir John
+Tanlay, who proposed to go to the third cataract for the purpose of
+seeing you, but who has, to-day, obliged me to drag him by the ear to
+the Luxembourg."
+
+"Come in, my lord; come in," said Bonaparte. "This is not the first time
+we have seen each other, nor the first that I have expressed the wish to
+know you; there was therefore positive ingratitude in trying to evade my
+desire."
+
+"If I hesitated," said Sir John, in excellent French, as usual, "it was
+because I could scarcely believe in the honor you do me."
+
+"And besides, very naturally, from national feeling, you detest me,
+don't you, like the rest of your countrymen?"
+
+"I must confess, general," answered Sir John, smiling, "that they have
+not got beyond admiration."
+
+"And do you share the absurd prejudice that claims that national honor
+requires you to hate to-day the enemy who may be a friend to-morrow?"
+
+"France has been almost a second mother country to me, and my friend
+Roland will tell you that I long for the moment when, of my two
+countries, the one to which I shall owe the most will be France."
+
+"Then you ought to see France and England shaking hands for the good of
+the world, without repugnance."
+
+"The day when I see that will be a happy day for me."
+
+"If you could contribute to bring it about would you do so?"
+
+"I would risk my life to do it."
+
+"Roland tells me you are a relative of Lord Grenville."
+
+"His nephew."
+
+"Are you on good terms with him?"
+
+"He was very fond of my mother, his eldest sister."
+
+"Have you inherited the fondness he bore your mother?"
+
+"Yes; only I think he holds it in reserve till I return to England."
+
+"Will you deliver a letter for me?"
+
+"To whom?"
+
+"King George III."
+
+"I shall be greatly honored."
+
+"Will you undertake to say to your uncle that which cannot be written in
+a letter?"
+
+"Without changing a syllable; the words of General Bonaparte are
+history."
+
+"Well, tell him--" but, interrupting himself, he turned to Bourrienne,
+saying: "Bourrienne, find me the last letter from the Emperor of
+Russia."
+
+Bourrienne opened a box, and, without searching, laid his hand on a
+letter that he handed to Bonaparte.
+
+The First Consul cast his eye over the paper and then gave it to Lord
+Tanlay.
+
+"Tell him," said he, "first and before all, that you have read this
+letter."
+
+Sir John bowed and read as follows:
+
+  CITIZEN FIRST CONSUL--I have received, each armed and newly
+  clothed in the uniform of his regiment, the nine thousand
+  Russians, made prisoners in Holland, whom you have returned
+  to me without ransom, exchange, or condition of any kind.
+
+  This is pure chivalry, and I boast of being chivalrous.
+
+  I think that which I can best offer you in exchange for this
+  magnificent present, citizen First Consul, is my friendship.
+  Will you accept it?
+
+  As an earnest of that friendship, I am sending his passports
+  to Lord Whitworth, the British Ambassador to Saint Petersburg.
+
+  Furthermore, if you will be, I do not say my second, but my
+  witness, I will challenge personally every king who will not
+  take part against England and close his ports to her.
+
+  I begin with my neighbor the King of Denmark, and you will
+  find in the "Gazette de la Cour" the ultimatum I have sent him.
+
+  What more can I say to you? Nothing, unless it be that you and
+  I together can give laws to the world.
+
+  I am your admirer and sincere friend,  PAUL.
+
+Lord Tanlay turned to the First Consul. "Of course you know," said he,
+"that the Emperor of Russia is mad."
+
+"Is it that letter that makes you think so, my lord?" asked Bonaparte.
+
+"No; but it confirms my opinion."
+
+"It was a madman who gave Henry VI. of Lancaster the crown of
+Saint-Louis, and the blazon of England still bears--until I scratch them
+out with my sword--the fleur-de-lis of France."
+
+Sir John smiled; his national pride revolted at this assumption in the
+conqueror of the Pyramids.
+
+"But," said Bonaparte, "that is not the question to-day; everything in
+its own time."
+
+"Yes," murmured Sir John, "we are too near Aboukir."
+
+"Oh, I shall never defeat you at sea," said Bonaparte; "it would take
+fifty years to make France a maritime nation; but over there," and he
+motioned with his hand to the East, "at the present moment, I repeat,
+that the question is not war but peace. I must have peace to accomplish
+my dream, and, above all, peace with England. You see, I play
+aboveboard; I am strong enough to speak frankly. If the day ever comes
+when a diplomatist tells the truth, he will be the first diplomatist in
+the world; for no one will believe him, and he will attain, unopposed,
+his ends."
+
+"Then I am to tell my uncle that you desire peace."
+
+"At the same time letting him know that I do not fear war. If I can't
+ally myself with King George, I can, as you see, do so with the Emperor
+Paul; but Russia has not reached that point of civilization that I
+desire in an ally."
+
+"A tool is sometimes more useful than an ally."
+
+"Yes; but, as you said, the Emperor is mad, and it is better to disarm
+than to arm a madman. I tell you that two nations like France and
+England ought to be inseparable friends or relentless enemies; friends,
+they are the poles of the world, balancing its movements with perfect
+equilibrium; enemies, one must destroy the other and become the world's
+sole axis."
+
+"But suppose Lord Grenville, not doubting your genius, still doubts your
+power; if he holds the opinion of our poet Coleridge, that our island
+needs no rampart, no bulwark, other than the raucous murmur of the
+ocean, what shall I tell him?"
+
+"Unroll the map of the world, Bourrienne," said Bonaparte.
+
+Bourrienne unrolled a map; Bonaparte stepped over to it.
+
+"Do you see those two rivers?" said he, pointing to the Volga and the
+Danube. "That's the road to India," he added.
+
+"I thought Egypt was, general," said Sir John.
+
+"So did I for a time; or, rather, I took it because I had no other. But
+the Czar opens this one; your government can force me to take it. Do you
+follow me?"
+
+"Yes; citizen; go on."
+
+"Well, if England forces me to fight her, if I am obliged to accept this
+alliance with Catherine's successor, this is what I shall do: I shall
+embark forty thousand Russians on the Volga; I shall send them down
+the river to Astrakhan; they will cross the Caspian and await me at
+Asterabad."
+
+Sir John bowed in sign of deep attention. Bonaparte continued: "I shall
+embark forty thousand Frenchmen on the Danube."
+
+"Excuse me, citizen First Consul, but the Danube is an Austrian river."
+
+"I shall have taken Vienna."
+
+Sir John stared at Bonaparte.
+
+"I shall have taken Vienna," continued the latter. "I shall then embark
+forty thousand Frenchmen on the Danube; I find Russian vessels at its
+mouth ready to transport them to Taganrog; I march them by land along
+the course of the Don to Pratisbianskaia, whence they move to Tzaritsin;
+there they descend the Volga in the same vessels that have transported
+the forty thousand Russians to Asterabad; fifteen days later I have
+eighty thousand men in western Persia. From Asterabad, these united
+corps will march to the Indus; Persia, the enemy of England, is our
+natural ally."
+
+"Yes; but once in the Punjab, the Persian alliance will do you no good;
+and an army of eighty thousand men cannot drag its provisions along with
+it."
+
+"You forget one thing," said Bonaparte, as if the expedition were
+already under way, "I have left bankers at Teheran and Caboul. Now,
+remember what happened nine years ago in Lord Cornwallis' war with Tippo
+Saib. The commander-in-chief fell short of provisions, and a simple
+captain--I forget his name."
+
+"Captain Malcolm," said Lord Tanlay.
+
+"That's it!" cried Bonaparte. "You know the story! Captain Malcolm had
+recourse to the Brinjaries, those Bohemians of India, who cover the
+whole Hindostan peninsula with their encampments, and control the grain
+supplies. Well, those Bohemians are faithful to the last penny to those
+who pay them; they will feed me."
+
+"You must cross the Indus."
+
+"What of that!" exclaimed Bonaparte, "I have a hundred and eighty miles
+of bank between Dera-Ismael-Khan and Attok to choose from. I know the
+Indus as well as I do the Seine. It is a slow current flowing about
+three miles an hour; its medium depth is, I should say, at the point I
+mentioned, from twelve to fifteen feet, and there are ten or more fords
+on the line of my operations."
+
+"Then your line is already traced out?" asked Sir John smiling.
+
+"Yes, in so far as it follows a broad uninterrupted stretch of fertile,
+well-watered provinces; that I avoid the sandy deserts which separate
+the lower valley of the Indus from Rajputana; and also that I follow the
+general bases of all invasions of India that have had any success, from
+Mahmoud of Ghazni, in the year 1000, to Nadir Shah, in 1739. And how
+many have taken the route I mean to take between the two epochs! Let us
+count them. After Mahmoud of Ghazni came Mohammed Ghori, in 1184, with
+one hundred and twenty thousand men; after him, Timur Tang, or Timur the
+Lame, whom we call Tamerlane, with sixty thousand men; after Tamerlane,
+Babar; after Babar, Humajan, and how many more I can't remember. Why,
+India is there for whoever will go and take it!"
+
+"You forget, citizen First Consul, that all the conquerors you have
+named had only the aboriginal populations to deal with, whereas you have
+the English. We hold India--"
+
+"With from twenty to twenty-two thousand men."
+
+"And a hundred thousand Sepoys."
+
+"I have counted them all, and I regard England and India, the one with
+the respect, the other with the contempt, they merit. Wherever I meet
+European infantry, I prepare a second, a third, and if necessary, a
+fourth line of reserves, believing that the first three might give way
+before the British bayonets; but wherever I find the Sepoys, I need only
+the postilion's whip to scatter the rabble. Have you any other questions
+to put to me, my lord?"
+
+"One, citizen First Consul: are you sincerely desirous of peace?"
+
+"Here is the letter in which I ask it of your king, my lord, and it is
+to be quite sure that it reaches his Britannic Majesty that I ask Lord
+Grenville's nephew to be my messenger."
+
+"It shall be done as you desire, citizen; and were I the uncle, instead
+of the nephew, I should promise more."
+
+"When can you start?"
+
+"In an hour I shall be gone."
+
+"You have no wish to express to me before leaving?"
+
+"None. In any case, if I have any, I leave my affairs to my friend,
+Roland."
+
+"Shake hands with me, my lord; it will be a good omen, as you represent
+England and I France."
+
+Sir John accepted the honor done him by Bonaparte, with the exact
+measure of cordiality that indicated both his sympathy for France, and
+his mental reserves for the honor of his own nation.
+
+Then, having pressed Roland's hand with fraternal effusion, he
+bowed again to the First Consul and went out. Bonaparte followed him
+reflectively with his eyes; then he said suddenly: "Roland, I not only
+consent to your sister's marriage with Lord Tanlay, but I wish it. Do
+you understand? _I wish it_."
+
+He laid such emphasis upon those three words, that to any one who knew
+him they signified plainly, not "I wish," but "I will."
+
+The tyranny was sweet to Roland, and he accepted it with grateful
+thanks.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXVIII. THE TWO SIGNALS
+
+Let us now relate what happened at the Chateau des Noires-Fontaines
+three days after the events we have just described took place in Paris.
+
+Since the successive departures of Roland, then Madame de Montrevel and
+her son, and finally Sir John--Roland to rejoin his general, Madame de
+Montrevel to place Edouard in school, and Sir John to acquaint Roland
+with his matrimonial plans--Amelie had remained alone with Charlotte at
+the Chateau des Noires-Fontaines. We say _alone_, because Michel and his
+son Jacques did not live in the house, but in the little lodge at the
+gate where he added the duties of porter to those of gardener.
+
+It therefore happened that at night all the windows, excepting those of
+Amelie, which, as we have said, were on the first floor overlooking the
+garden, and that of Charlotte in the attic, were left in darkness.
+
+Madame de Montrevel had taken the second chambermaid with her. The two
+young girls were perhaps rather isolated in their part of the house,
+which consisted of a dozen bedrooms on three floors, especially at a
+time when so many rumors of robberies on the highroads reached them.
+Michel, therefore, proposed to his young mistress that he sleep in the
+main building, so as to be near her in case of need. But she, in a firm
+voice, assured him that she felt no fear, and desired no change in the
+customary routine of the chateau.
+
+Michel did not insist, and retired, saying that Mademoiselle might, in
+any case, sleep in peace, for he and Jacques would make the rounds of
+the house during the night.
+
+Amelie at first seemed anxious about those rounds; but she soon noticed
+that Michel and Jacques contented themselves with watching on the edge
+of the forest of Seillon, and the frequent appearance of a jugged hare,
+or a haunch of venison on the table, proved to her that Michel kept his
+word regarding the promised rounds.
+
+She therefore ceased to trouble about Michel's rounds, which were always
+on the side of the house opposite to that where she feared them.
+
+Now, as we have said, three days after the events we have just related,
+or, to speak more correctly, during the night following the third day,
+those who were accustomed to see no light save in Amelie's windows on
+the first floor and Charlotte's on the third, might have observed with
+surprise that, from eleven o'clock until midnight, the four windows on
+the first floor were illuminated. It is true that each was lighted by a
+single wax-candle. They might also have seen the figure of a young
+girl through the shades, staring in the direction of the village of
+Ceyzeriat.
+
+This young girl was Amelie, pale, breathing with difficulty, and seeming
+to watch anxiously for a signal.
+
+At the end of a few minutes she wiped her forehead and drew a joyous
+breath. A fire was lighted in the direction she had been watching. Then
+she passed from room to room, putting out the three candles one after
+the other, leaving only the one which was burning in her own room. As if
+the fire awaited this return signal, it was now extinguished.
+
+Amelie sat down by her window and remained motionless, her eyes fixed
+on the garden. The night was dark, without moon or stars, and yet at
+the end of a quarter of an hour she saw, or rather divined, a shadow
+crossing the lawn and approaching the window. She placed her single
+candle in the furthest corner of her room, and returned to open her
+window.
+
+He whom she was awaiting was already on the balcony.
+
+As on the first night when we saw him climb it, the young man put his
+arm around the girl's waist and drew her into the room. She made but
+slight resistance; her hand sought the cord of the Venetian blind,
+unfastened it from the hook that held it, and let it fall with more
+noise than prudence would have counselled.
+
+Behind the blind, she closed the window; then she fetched the candle
+from the corner where she had hidden it. The light illuminated her face,
+and the young man gave a cry of alarm, for it was covered with tears.
+
+"What has happened?" he asked.
+
+"A great misfortune!" replied the young girl.
+
+"Oh, I feared it when I saw the signal by which you recalled me after
+receiving me last night. But is it irreparable?"
+
+"Almost," answered Amelie.
+
+"I hope, at least, that it threatens only me."
+
+"It threatens us both."
+
+The young man passed his hand over his brow to wipe away the sweat that
+covered it.
+
+"Tell me," said he; "you know I am strong."
+
+"If you have the strength to hear it," said she, "I have none to tell
+it." Then, taking a letter from the chimney-piece, she added: "Read
+that; that is what I received by the post to-night."
+
+The young man took the letter, opened it, and glanced hastily at the
+signature.
+
+"From Madame de Montrevel," said he.
+
+"Yes, with a postscript from Roland."
+
+The young man read:
+
+  MY DEAREST DAUGHTER--I hope that the news I announce will give
+  you as much joy as it has already given our dear Roland and me.
+  Sir John, whose heart you doubted, claiming that it was only a
+  mechanical contrivance, manufactured in the workshops at
+  Vaucanson, admits that such an opinion was a just one until the
+  day he saw you; but he maintains that since that day he has a
+  heart, and that that heart adores you.
+
+  Did you suspect it, my dear Amelie, from his aristocratic and
+  polished manners, when your mother's eyes failed to discern this
+  tenderness.
+
+  This morning, while breakfasting with your brother, he formally
+  asked your hand. Your brother received the offer with joy, but
+  he made no promises at first. The First Consul, before Roland's
+  departure for the Vendee, had already spoken of making himself
+  responsible for your establishment. But since then he has asked to
+  see Lord Tanlay, and Sir John, though he maintained his national
+  reserve, was taken into the first Consul's good graces at once, to
+  such a degree that he received from him, at their first interview,
+  a mission to his uncle, Lord Grenville. Sir John started for
+  England immediately.
+
+  I do not know how many days Sir John will be absent, but on his
+  return he is certain to present himself to you as your betrothed.
+
+  Lord Tanlay is still young, pleasing in appearance, and immensely
+  rich; he is highly connected in England, and Roland's friend. I
+  do not know a man who has more right, I will not say to your love,
+  but to your profound esteem.
+
+  The rest of my news I can tell you in two words. The First Consul
+  is still most kind to me and to your two brothers, and Madame
+  Bonaparte has let me know that she only awaits your marriage to
+  place you near her.
+
+  There is talk of leaving the Luxembourg, and removing to the
+  Tuileries. Do you understand the full meaning of this change of
+  domicile?
+
+  Your mother, who loves you,
+  CLOTILDE DE MONTREVEL.
+
+Without pausing, the young man turned to Roland's postscript. It was as
+follows:
+
+  You have read, my dear little sister, what our good mother has
+  written. This marriage is a suitable one under all aspects. It
+  is not a thing to be childish about; the First Consul _wishes_
+  you to become Lady Tanlay; that is to say, he _wills_ it.
+
+  I am leaving Paris for a few days. Though you may not see me,
+  you will hear of me.
+
+  I kiss you, ROLAND.
+
+"Well, Charles," asked Amelie, when the young man had finished reading,
+"what do you think of that?"
+
+"That it is something we had to expect from day to day, my poor angel,
+but it is none the less terrible."
+
+"What is to be done?"
+
+"There are three things we can do."
+
+"Tell me."
+
+"In the first place, resist if you have the strength; it is the shortest
+and surest way."
+
+Amelie dropped her head.
+
+"You will never dare, will you?"
+
+"Never."
+
+"And yet you are my wife, Amelie; a priest has blessed our union."
+
+"But they say that marriage before a priest is null before the law."
+
+"Is it not enough for you, the wife of a proscribed man?" asked Morgan,
+his voice trembling as he spoke.
+
+Amelie flung herself into his arms.
+
+"But my mother," said she; "our marriage did not have her presence and
+blessing."
+
+"Because there were too many risks to run, and we wished to run them
+alone."
+
+"But that man--Did you notice that my brother says he _wills_ it?"
+
+"Oh, if you loved me, Amelie, that man would see that he may change the
+face of the State, carry war from one end of the world to the other,
+make laws, build a throne, but that he cannot force lips to say yes when
+the heart says no."
+
+"If I loved you!" said Amelie, in a tone of soft reproach. "It is
+midnight, you are here in my room, I weep in your arms--I, the daughter
+of General de Montrevel and the sister of Roland--and you say, 'If you
+loved me.'"
+
+"I was wrong, I was wrong, my darling Amelie. Yes, I know that you were
+brought up in adoration of that man; you cannot understand that any one
+should resist him, and whoever does resist him is a rebel in your eyes."
+
+"Charles, you said there were three things that we could do. What is the
+second?"
+
+"Accept apparently the marriage they propose to you, and gain time, by
+delaying under various pretexts. The man is not immortal."
+
+"No; but is too young for us to count on his death. The third way, dear
+friend?"
+
+"Fly--but that is a last resource, Amelie; there are two objections:
+first, your repugnance."
+
+"I am yours, Charles; I will surmount my repugnance."
+
+"And," added the young man, "my engagements."
+
+"Your engagements?"
+
+"My companions are bound to me, Amelie; but I, too, am bound to them. We
+also have a man to whom we have sworn obedience. That man is the future
+king of France. If you accept your brother's devotion to Bonaparte,
+accept ours to Louis XVIII."
+
+Amelie let her face drop into her hands with a sigh.
+
+"Then," said she, "we are lost."
+
+"Why so? On various pretexts, your health above all, you can gain a
+year. Before the year is out Bonaparte will probably be forced to begin
+another war in Italy. A single defeat will destroy his prestige; in
+short, a great many things can happen in a year."
+
+"Did you read Roland's postscript, Charles?"
+
+"Yes; but I didn't see anything in it that was not in your mother's
+letter."
+
+"Read the last sentence again." And Amelie placed the letter before him.
+He read:
+
+  I am leaving Paris for a few days; though you may not see me,
+  you will hear of me.
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Do you know what that means?"
+
+"No."
+
+"It means that Roland is in pursuit of you."
+
+"What does that matter? He cannot die by the hand of any of us."
+
+"But you, unhappy man, you can die by his!"
+
+"Do you think I should care so very much if he killed me, Amelie?"
+
+"Oh! even in my gloomiest moments I never thought of that."
+
+"So you think your brother is on the hunt for us?"
+
+"I am sure of it."
+
+"What makes you so certain?"
+
+"Because he swore over Sir John's body, when he thought him dead, to
+avenge him."
+
+"If he had died," exclaimed the young man, bitterly, "we should not be
+where we are, Amelie."
+
+"God saved him, Charles; it was therefore good that he did not die."
+
+"For us?"
+
+"I cannot fathom the ways of the Lord. I tell you, my beloved Charles,
+beware of Roland; Roland is close by."
+
+Charles smiled incredulously.
+
+"I tell you that he is not only near here, but he has been seen."
+
+"He has been seen! Where? Who saw him?"
+
+"Who saw him?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Charlotte, my maid, the jailer's daughter. She asked permission to
+visit her parents yesterday, Sunday; you were coming, so I told her she
+could stay till this morning."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"She therefore spent the night with her parents. At eleven o'clock the
+captain of the gendarmerie brought in some prisoners. While they were
+locking them up, a man, wrapped in a cloak, came in and asked for the
+captain. Charlotte thought she recognized the new-comer's voice. She
+looked at him attentively; his cloak slipped from his face, and she saw
+that it was my brother."
+
+The young man made a movement.
+
+"Now do you understand, Charles? My brother comes to Bourg,
+mysteriously, without letting me know; he asks for the captain of
+the gendarmerie, follows him into the prison, speaks only to him, and
+disappears. Is that not a threatening outlook for our love? Tell me,
+Charles!"
+
+As Amelie spoke, a dark cloud spread slowly over her lover's face.
+
+"Amelie," said he, "when my companions and I bound ourselves together,
+we did not deceive ourselves as to the risks we ran."
+
+"But, at least," said Amelie, "you have changed your place of refuge;
+you have abandoned the Chartreuse of Seillon?"
+
+"None but our dead are there now."
+
+"Is the grotto of Ceyzeriat perfectly safe?"
+
+"As safe as any refuge can be that has two exit."
+
+"The Chartreuse of Seillon had two exits; yet, as you say, you left your
+dead there."
+
+"The dead are safer than the living; they are sure not to die on the
+scaffold."
+
+Amelie felt a shudder go through her.
+
+"Charles!" she murmured.
+
+"Listen," said the young man. "God is my witness, and you too, that I
+have always put laughter and gayety between your presentiments and my
+fears; but to-day the aspect of things has changed; we are coming face
+to face with the crisis. Whatever the end brings us, it is approaching.
+I do not ask of you, my Amelie, those selfish, unreasonable things that
+lovers in danger of death exact from their mistresses; I do not ask you
+to bind your heart to the dead, your love to a corpse--"
+
+"Friend," said the young girl, laying her hand on his arm, "take care;
+you are doubting me."
+
+"No; I do you the highest honor in leaving you free to accomplish the
+sacrifice to its full extent; but I do not want you to be bound by an
+oath; no tie shall fetter you."
+
+"So be it," said Amelie.
+
+"What I ask of you," continued the young man, "and I ask you to swear
+it on our love, which has been, alas! so fatal to you, is this: if I
+am arrested and disarmed, if I am imprisoned and condemned to death, I
+implore you, Amelie, I exact of you, that in some way you will send me
+arms, not only for myself, but for my companions also, so that we may
+still be masters of our lives."
+
+"But in such a case, Charles, may I not tell all to my brother? May I
+not appeal to his tenderness; to the generosity of the First Consul?"
+
+Before the young girl had finished, her lover seized her violently by
+the wrist.
+
+"Amelie," said he, "it is no longer one promise I ask of you, there are
+two. Swear to me, in the first place, and above all else, that you will
+not solicit my pardon. Swear it, Amelie; swear it!"
+
+"Do I need to swear, dear?" asked the young girl, bursting into tears.
+"I promise it."
+
+"Promise it on the hour when I first said I loved you, on the hour when
+you answered that I was loved!"
+
+"On your life, on mine, on the past, on the future, on our smiles, on
+our tears."
+
+"I should die in any case, you see, Amelie, even though I had to beat my
+brains out against the wall; but I should die dishonored."
+
+"I promise you, Charles."
+
+"Then for my second request, Amelie: if we are taken and condemned, send
+me arms--arms or poison, the means of dying, any means. Coming from you,
+death would be another joy."
+
+"Far or near, free or a prisoner, living or dead, you are my master, I
+am your slave; order and I obey."
+
+"That is all, Amelie; it is simple and clear, you see, no pardon, and
+the means of death."
+
+"Simple and clear, but terrible."
+
+"You will do it, will you not?"
+
+"You wish me to?"
+
+"I implore you."
+
+"Order or entreaty, Charles, your will shall be done."
+
+The young man held the girl, who seemed on the verge of fainting, in his
+left arm, and approached his mouth to hers. But, just as their lips
+were about to touch, an owl's cry was heard, so close to the window
+that Amelie started and Charles raised his head. The cry was repeated a
+second time, and then a third.
+
+"Ah!" murmured Amelie, "do you hear that bird of ill-omen? We are
+doomed, my friend."
+
+But Charles shook his head.
+
+"That is not an owl, Amelie," he said; "it is the call of our
+companions. Put out the light."
+
+Amelie blew it out while her lover opened the window.
+
+"Even here," she murmured; "they seek you even here!"
+
+"It is our friend and confidant, the Comte de Jayat; no one else knows
+where I am." Then, leaning from the balcony, he asked: "Is it you,
+Montbar?"
+
+"Yes; is that you, Morgan?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+A man came from behind a clump of trees.
+
+"News from Paris; not an instant to lose; a matter of life and death to
+us all."
+
+"Do you hear, Amelie?"
+
+Taking the young girl in his arms, he pressed her convulsively to his
+heart.
+
+"Go," she said, in a faint voice, "go. Did you not hear him say it was a
+matter of life and death for all of you?"
+
+"Farewell, my Amelie, my beloved, farewell!"
+
+"Oh! don't say farewell."
+
+"No, no; au revoir!"
+
+"Morgan, Morgan!" cried the voice of the man waiting below in the
+garden.
+
+The young man pressed his lips once more to Amelie's; then, rushing to
+the window, he sprang over the balcony at a bound and joined his friend.
+
+Amelie gave a cry, and ran to the balustrade; but all she saw was two
+moving shadows entering the deepening shadows of the fine old trees that
+adorned the park.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIX. THE GROTTO OF CEYZERIAT
+
+The two young men plunged into the shadow of the trees. Morgan guided
+his companion, less familiar than he with the windings of the park,
+until they reached the exact spot where he was in the habit of scaling
+the wall. It took but an instant for both of them to accomplish that
+feat. The next moment they were on the banks of the Reissouse.
+
+A boat was fastened to the foot of a willow; they jumped into it, and
+three strokes of the oar brought them to the other side. There a path
+led along the bank of the river to a little wood which extends from
+Ceyzeriat to Etrez, a distance of about nine miles, and thus forms, on
+the other side of the river, a pendant to the forest of Seillon.
+
+On reaching the edge of the wood they stopped. Until then they had been
+walking as rapidly as it was possible to do without running, and neither
+of them had uttered a word. The whole way was deserted; it was probable,
+in fact certain, that no one had seen them. They could breathe freely.
+
+"Where are the Companions?" asked Morgan.
+
+"In the grotto," replied Montbar.
+
+"Why don't we go there at once?"
+
+"Because we shall find one of them at the foot of that beech, who will
+tell us if we can go further without danger."
+
+"Which one?"
+
+"D'Assas."
+
+A shadow came from behind the tree.
+
+"Here I am," it said.
+
+"Ah! there you are," exclaimed the two young men.
+
+"Anything new?" inquired Montbar.
+
+"Nothing; they are waiting for you to come to a decision."
+
+"In that case, let us hurry."
+
+The three young men continued on their way. After going about three
+hundred yards, Montbar stopped again, and said softly: "Armand!"
+
+The dry leaves rustled at the call, and a fourth shadow stepped from
+behind a clump of trees, and approached his companions.
+
+"Anything new?" asked Montbar.
+
+"Yes; a messenger from Cadoudal."
+
+"The same one who came before?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"With the brothers, in the grotto."
+
+"Come."
+
+Montbar rushed on ahead; the path had grown so narrow that the four
+young men could only walk in single file. It rose for about five hundred
+paces with an easy but winding slope. Coming to an opening, Montbar
+stopped and gave, three times, the same owl's cry with which he had
+called Morgan. A single hoot answered him; then a man slid down from the
+branches of a bushy oak. It was the sentinel who guarded the entrance
+to the grotto, which was not more than thirty feet from the oak. The
+position of the trees surrounding it made it almost impossible of
+detection.
+
+The sentinel exchanged a few whispered words with Montbar, who seemed,
+by fulfilling the duties of leader, desirous of leaving Morgan entirely
+to his thoughts. Then, as his watch was probably not over, the bandit
+climbed the oak again, and was soon so completely blended with the body
+of the tree that those he had left might have looked for him in vain in
+that aerial bastion.
+
+The glade became narrower as they neared the entrance to the grotto.
+Montbar reached it first, and from a hiding-place known to him he took a
+flint, a steel, some tinder, matches, and a torch. The sparks flew, the
+tinder caught fire, the match cast a quivering bluish flame, to which
+succeeded the crackling, resinous flames of the torch.
+
+Three or four paths were then visible. Montbar took one without
+hesitation. The path sank, winding into the earth, and turned back upon
+itself, as if the young men were retracing their steps underground,
+along the path that had brought them. It was evident that they were
+following the windings of an ancient quarry, probably the one from which
+were built, nineteen hundred years earlier, the three Roman towns which
+are now mere villages, and Caesar's camp which overlooked them.
+
+At intervals this subterraneous path was cut entirely across by a deep
+ditch, impassable except with the aid of a plank, that could, with
+a kick, be precipitated into the hollow beneath. Also, from place to
+place, breastworks could still be seen, behind which men could intrench
+themselves and fire without exposing their persons to the sight or
+fire of the enemy. Finally, at five hundred yards from the entrance, a
+barricade of the height of a man presented a final obstacle to those who
+sought to enter a circular space in which ten or a dozen men were now
+seated or lying around, some reading, others playing cards.
+
+Neither the readers nor the players moved at the noise made by the
+new-comers, or at the gleam of their light playing upon the walls of
+the quarry, so certain were they that none but friends could reach this
+spot, guarded as it was.
+
+For the rest, the scene of this encampment was extremely picturesque;
+wax candles were burning in profusion (the Companions of Jehu were too
+aristocratic to make use of any other light) and cast their reflection
+upon stands of arms of all kinds, among which double-barrelled muskets
+and pistols held first place. Foils and masks were hanging here and
+there upon the walls; several musical instruments were lying about,
+and a few mirrors in gilt frames proclaimed the fact that dress was a
+pastime by no means unappreciated by the strange inhabitants of that
+subterranean dwelling.
+
+They all seemed as tranquil as though the news which had drawn Morgan
+from Amelie's arms was unknown to them, or considered of no importance.
+
+Nevertheless, when the little group from outside approached, and the
+words: "The captain! the captain!" were heard, all rose, not with the
+servility of soldiers toward their approaching chief, but with the
+affectionate deference of strong and intelligent men for one stronger
+and more intelligent than they.
+
+Then Morgan shook his head, raised his eyes, and, passing before
+Montbar, advanced to the centre of the circle which had formed at his
+appearance, and said:
+
+"Well, friends, it seems you have had some news."
+
+"Yes, captain," answered a voice; "the police of the First Consul does
+us the honor to be interested in us."
+
+"Where is the messenger?" asked Morgan.
+
+"Here," replied a young man, wearing the livery of a cabinet courier,
+who was still covered with mud and dust.
+
+"Have you any despatches?"
+
+"Written, no, verbal, yes."
+
+"Where do they come from?"
+
+"The private office of the minister of police."
+
+"Can they be trusted?"
+
+"I'll answer for them; they are positively official."
+
+("It's a good thing to have friends everywhere," observed Montbar,
+parenthetically.)
+
+"Especially near M. Fouche," resumed Morgan; "let us hear the news."
+
+"Am I to tell it aloud, or to you privately?"
+
+"I presume we are all interested, so tell it aloud."
+
+"Well, the First Consul sent for citizen Fouche at the Louvre, and
+lectured him on our account."
+
+"Capital! what next?"
+
+"Citizen Fouche replied that we were clever scamps, very difficult to
+find, and still more difficult to capture when we had been found, in
+short, he praised us highly."
+
+"Very amiable of him. What next?"
+
+"Next, the First Consul replied that that did not concern him, that we
+were brigands, and that it was our brigandage which maintained the war
+in Vendee, and that the day we ceased sending money to Brittany there
+would be no more Brittany."
+
+"Excellent reasoning, it seems to me."
+
+"He said the West must be fought in the East and the Midi."
+
+"Like England in India."
+
+"Consequently he gave citizen Fouche full powers, and, even if it cost a
+million and he had to kill five hundred men, he must have our heads."
+
+"Well, he knows his man when he makes his demand; remains to be seen if
+we let him have them."
+
+"So citizen Fouche went home furious, and vowed that before eight days
+passed there should not be a single Companion of Jehu left in France."
+
+"The time is short."
+
+"That same day couriers started for Lyons, Macon, Sons-le-Saulnier,
+Besancon and Geneva, with orders to the garrison commanders to do
+personally all they could for our destruction; but above all to obey
+unquestioningly M. Roland de Montrevel, aide-de-camp to the First
+Consul, and to put at his disposal as many troops as he thought
+needful."
+
+"And I can add," said Morgan, "that M. Roland de Montrevel is already in
+the field. He had a conference with the captain of the gendarmerie, in
+the prison at Bourg, yesterday."
+
+"Does any one know why?" asked a voice.
+
+"The deuce!" said another, "to engage our cells."
+
+"Do you still mean to protect him?" asked d'Assas.
+
+"More than ever."
+
+"Ah! that's too much!" muttered a voice.
+
+"Why so," retorted Morgan imperiously, "isn't it my right as a
+Companion?"
+
+"Certainly," said two other voices.
+
+"Then I use it; both as a Companion and as your leader."
+
+"But suppose in the middle of the fray a stray ball should take him?"
+said a voice.
+
+"Then, it is not a right I claim, nor an order that I give, but an
+entreaty I make. My friends, promise me, on your honor, that the life of
+Roland de Montrevel will be sacred to you."
+
+With unanimous voice, all stretching out their hands, they replied: "We
+swear on our honor!"
+
+"Now," resumed Morgan, "let us look at our position under its true
+aspect, without deluding ourselves in any way. Once an intelligent
+police force starts out to pursue us, and makes actual war against us,
+it will be impossible for us to resist. We may trick them like a fox, or
+double like a boar, but our resistance will be merely a matter of time,
+that's all. At least that is my opinion."
+
+Morgan questioned his companions with his eyes, and their acquiescence
+was unanimous, though it was with a smile on their lips that they
+recognized their doom. But that was the way in those strange days. Men
+went to their death without fear, and they dealt it to others without
+emotion.
+
+"And now," asked Montbar, "have you anything further to say?"
+
+"Yes," replied Morgan, "I have to add that nothing is easier than to
+procure horses, or even to escape on foot; we are all hunters and more
+or less mountaineers. It will take us six hours on horse back to get
+out of France, or twelve on foot. Once in Switzerland we can snap our
+fingers at citizen Fouche and his police. That's all I have to say."
+
+"It would be very amusing to laugh at citizen Fouche," said Montbar,
+"but very dull to leave France."
+
+"For that reason, I shall not put this extreme measure to a vote until
+after we have talked with Cadoudal's messenger."
+
+"Ah, true," exclaimed two or three voices; "the Breton! where is the
+Breton?"
+
+"He was asleep when I left," said Montbar.
+
+"And he is still sleeping," said Adler, pointing to a man lying on a
+heap of straw in a recess of the grotto.
+
+They wakened the Breton, who rose to his knees, rubbing his eyes with
+one hand and feeling for his carbine with the other.
+
+"You are with friends," said a voice; "don't be afraid."
+
+"Afraid!" said the Breton; "who are you, over there, who thinks I am
+afraid?"
+
+"Some one who probably does not know what fear is, my dear
+Branche-d'Or," said Morgan, who recognized in Cadoudal's messenger the
+same man whom they had received at the Chartreuse the night he himself
+arrived from Avignon. "I ask pardon on his behalf."
+
+Branche-d'Or looked at the young men before him with an air that left
+no doubt of his repugnance for a certain sort of pleasantry; but as
+the group had evidently no offensive intention, their gayety having no
+insolence about it, he said, with a tolerably gracious air: "Which of
+you gentlemen is captain? I have a letter for him from my captain."
+
+Morgan advanced a step and said: "I am."
+
+"Your name?"
+
+"I have two."
+
+"Your fighting name?"
+
+"Morgan."
+
+"Yes, that's the one the general told me; besides, I recognize you.
+You gave me a bag containing sixty thousand francs the night I saw the
+monks. The letter is for you then."
+
+"Give it to me."
+
+The peasant took off his hat, pulled out the lining, and from between
+it and the felt he took a piece of paper which resembled another lining,
+and seemed at first sight to be blank. Then, with a military salute, he
+offered the paper to Morgan, who turned it over and over and could see
+no writing; at least none was apparent.
+
+"A candle," he said.
+
+They brought a wax light; Morgan held the paper to the flame. Little
+by little, as the paper warmed, the writing appeared. The experience
+appeared familiar to the young men; the Breton alone seemed surprised.
+To his naive mind the operation probably seemed like witchcraft; but so
+long as the devil was aiding the royalist cause the Chouan was willing
+to deal with him.
+
+"Gentlemen," said Morgan, "do you want to know what the master says?"
+
+All bowed and listened, while the young man read:
+
+  MY DEAR MORGAN--If you hear that I have abandoned the cause, and
+  am in treaty with the government of the First Consul and the
+  Vendean leaders, do not believe it. I am a Breton of Brittany,
+  and consequently as stubborn as a true Breton. The First Consul
+  sent one of his aides-de-camp to offer me an amnesty for all my
+  men, and the rank of colonel for myself. I have not even consulted
+  my men, I refused for them and for me.
+
+  Now, all depends on us; as we receive from the princes neither
+  money nor encouragement, you are our only treasurer; close your
+  coffers, or rather cease to open those of the government for us,
+  and the royalist opposition, the heart of which beats only in
+  Brittany, will subside little by little, and end before long.
+
+  I need not tell you that my life will have ended first.
+
+  Our mission is dangerous; probably it will cost us our heads; but
+  what can be more glorious than to hear posterity say of us, if
+  one can hear beyond the grave: "All others despaired; but they,
+  never!"
+
+  One of us will survive the other, but only to succumb later. Let
+  that survivor say as he dies: _Etiamsi omnes, ego non._
+
+  Count on me as I count on you.   CADOUDAL.
+
+  P.S.--You know that you can safely give Branche-d'Or all the money
+  you have for the Cause. He has promised me not to let himself be
+  taken, and I trust his word.
+
+A murmur of enthusiasm ran through the group, as Morgan finished the
+last words of the letter.
+
+"You have heard it, gentlemen?" he said.
+
+"Yes, yes, yes," repeated every voice.
+
+"In the first place, how much money have we to give to Branche-d'Or?"
+
+"Thirteen thousand francs from the Lake of Silans, twenty-two thousand
+from Les Carronnieres, fourteen thousand from Meximieux, forty-nine
+thousand in all," said one of the group.
+
+"You hear, Branche-d'Or?" said Morgan; "it is not much--only half what
+we gave you last time, but you know the proverb: 'The handsomest girl in
+the world can only give what she has.'"
+
+"The general knows what you risk to obtain this money, and he says that,
+no matter how little you send, he will receive it gratefully."
+
+"All the more, that the next will be better," said a young man who had
+just joined the group, unperceived, so absorbed were all present
+in Cadoudal's letter. "More especially if we say two words to the
+mail-coach from Chambery next Saturday."
+
+"Ah! is that you, Valensolle?" said Morgan.
+
+"No real names, if you please, baron; let us be shot, guillotined, drawn
+and quartered, but save our family honor. My name is Adler; I answer to
+no other."
+
+"Pardon me, I did wrong--you were saying?"
+
+"That the mail-coach from Paris to Chambery will pass through
+Chapelle-de-Guinchay and Belleville next Saturday, carrying fifty
+thousand francs of government money to the monks of Saint-Bernard; to
+which I may add that there is between those two places a spot called the
+Maison-Blanche, which seems to me admirably adapted for an ambuscade."
+
+"What do you say, gentlemen?" asked Morgan, "Shall we do citizen Fouche
+the honor to worry about his police? Shall we leave France? Or shall we
+still remain faithful Companions of Jehu?"
+
+There was but one reply--"We stay."
+
+"Right!" said Morgan. "Brothers, I recognize you there. Cadoudal points
+out our duty in that admirable letter we have just received. Let us
+adopt his heroic motto: _Etiamsi omnes, ego non._" Then addressing the
+peasant, he said, "Branche-d'Or, the forty-nine thousand francs are at
+your disposal; you can start when you like. Promise something better
+next time, in our name, and tell the general for me that, wherever he
+goes, even though it be to the scaffold, I shall deem it an honor to
+follow, or to precede him. Au revoir, Branche-d'Or." Then, turning to
+the young man who seemed so anxious to preserve his incognito, "My dear
+Adler," he said, like a man who has recovered his gayety, lost for an
+instant, "I undertake to feed and lodge you this night, if you will
+deign to accept me as a host."
+
+"Gratefully, friend Morgan," replied the new-comer. "Only let me tell
+you that I could do without a bed, for I am dropping with fatigue, but
+not without supper, for I am dying of hunger."
+
+"You shall have a good bed and an excellent supper."
+
+"Where must I go for them."
+
+"Follow me."
+
+"I'm ready."
+
+"Then come on. Good-night, gentlemen! Are you on watch, Montbar?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Then we can sleep in peace."
+
+So saying, Morgan passed his arm through that of his friend, took a
+torch in his other hand, and passed into the depths of the grotto,
+where we will follow him if our readers are not too weary of this long
+session.
+
+It was the first time that Valensolle, who came, as we have said,
+from the neighborhood of Aix, had had occasion to visit the grotto of
+Ceyzeriat, recently adopted as the meeting-place of the Companions of
+Jehu. At the preceding meetings he had occasion to explore only the
+windings and intricacies of the Chartreuse of Seillon, which he now knew
+so well that in the farce played before Roland the part of ghost was
+intrusted to him. Everything was, therefore, curious and unknown to him
+in this new domicile, where he now expected to take his first sleep,
+and which seemed likely to be, for some days at least, Morgan's
+headquarters.
+
+As is always the case in abandoned quarries--which, at the first glance,
+partake somewhat of the character of subterranean cities--the different
+galleries excavated by the removal of the stone end in a cul de sac;
+that is to say, at a point in the mine where the work stops. One of
+these streets seemed to prolong itself indefinitely. Nevertheless, there
+came a point where the mine would naturally have ended, but there, in
+the angle of the tunnelled way, was cut (For what purpose? The thing
+remains a mystery to this day among the people of the neigbborhood) an
+opening two-thirds the width of the gallery, wide enough, or nearly so,
+to give passage to two men abreast.
+
+The two friends passed through this opening. The air there became
+so rarefied that their torch threatened to go out at every step.
+Vallensolle felt drops of ice-cold water falling on his hands and face.
+
+"Bless me," said he, "does it rain down here?"
+
+"No," replied Morgan, laughing; "only we are passing under the
+Reissouse."
+
+"Then we are going to Bourg?"
+
+"That's about it."
+
+"All right; you are leading me; you have promised me supper and a bed,
+so I have nothing to worry about--unless that light goes out," added the
+young man, looking at the paling flame of the torch.
+
+"That wouldn't matter; we can always find ourselves here."
+
+"In the end!" said Valensolle. "And when one reflects that we are
+wandering through a grotto under rivers at three o'clock in the morning,
+sleeping the Lord knows where, with the prospect of being taken, tried,
+and guillotined some fine morning, and all for princes who don't even
+know our names, and who if they did know them one day would forget them
+the next--I tell you, Morgan, it's stupid!"
+
+"My dear fellow," said Morgan, "what we call stupid, what ordinary
+minds never do understand in such a case, has many a chance to become
+sublime."
+
+"Well, well," said Valensolle, "I see that you will lose more than I do
+in this business; I put devotion into it, but you put enthusiasm."
+
+Morgan sighed.
+
+"Here we are," said he, letting the conversation drop, like a burden too
+heavy to be carried longer. In fact, his foot had just struck against
+the first step of a stairway.
+
+Preceding Valensolle, for whom he lighted the way, Morgan went up ten
+steps and reached the gate. Taking a key from his pocket, he opened it.
+They found themselves in the burial vault. On each side of the vault
+stood coffins on iron tripods: ducal crowns and escutcheons, blazoned
+azure, with the cross argent, indicated that these coffins belonged to
+the family of Savoy before it came to bear the royal crown. A flight of
+stairs at the further end of the cavern led to an upper floor.
+
+Valensolle cast a curious glance around him, and by the vacillating
+light of the torch, he recognized the funereal place he was in.
+
+"The devil!" said he, "we are just the reverse of the Spartans, it
+seems."
+
+"Inasmuch as they were Republicans and we are royalists?" asked Morgan.
+
+"No; because they had skeletons at the end of their suppers, and we have
+ours at the beginning."
+
+"Are you sure it was the Spartans who proved their philosophy in that
+way?" asked Morgan, closing the door.
+
+"They or others--what matter?" said Vallensolle. "Faith! My citation is
+made, and like the Abbe Vertot, who wouldn't rewrite his siege, I'll not
+change it."
+
+"Well, another time you had better say the Egyptians."
+
+"Well," said Valensolle, with an indifference that was not without
+a certain sadness, "I'll probably be a skeleton myself before I have
+another chance to display my erudition. But what the devil are you
+doing? Why did you put out the torch? You're not going to make me eat
+and sleep here I hope?"
+
+Morgan had in fact extinguished the torch at the foot of the steps
+leading to the upper floor.
+
+"Give me your hand," said the young man.
+
+Valensolle seized his friend's band with an eagerness that showed how
+very slight a desire he had to make a longer stay in the gloomy vaults
+of the dukes of Savoy, no matter what honor there might be in such
+illustrious companionship.
+
+Morgan went up the steps. Then, by the tightening of his hand,
+Valensolle knew he was making an effort. Presently a stone was raised,
+and through the opening a trembling gleam of twilight met the eyes of
+the young men, and a fragrant aromatic odor came to comfort their sense
+of smell after the mephitic atmosphere of the vaults.
+
+"Ah!" cried Valensolle, "we are in a barn; I prefer that."
+
+Morgan did not answer; he helped his companion to climb out of the
+vault, and then let the stone drop back in its place.
+
+Valensolle looked about him. He was in the midst of a vast building
+filled with hay, into which the light filtered through windows of such
+exquisite form that they certainly could not be those of a barn.
+
+"Why!" said Valensolle, "we are not in a barn!"
+
+"Climb up the hay and sit down near that window," replied Morgan.
+
+Valensolle obeyed and scrambled up the hay like a schoolboy in his
+holidays; then he sat down, as Morgan had told him, before a window. The
+next moment Morgan placed between his friend's legs a napkin containing
+a pate, bread, a bottle of wine, two glasses, two knives and two forks.
+
+"The deuce!" cried Valensolle, "'Lucullus sups with Lucullus.'"
+
+Then gazing through the panes at a building with numberless windows,
+which seemed to be a wing of the one they were in, and before which a
+sentry was pacing, he exclaimed: "Positively, I can't eat my supper till
+I know where we are. What is this building? And why that sentry at the
+door?"
+
+"Well," said Morgan, "since you absolutely must know, I will tell
+you. We are in the church of Brou, which was converted into a fodder
+storehouse by a decree of the Municipal Council. That adjoining building
+is now the barracks of the gendarmerie, and that sentry is posted to
+prevent any one from disturbing our supper or surprising us while we
+sleep."
+
+"Brave fellows," said Valensolle, filling his glass; "their health,
+Morgan!"
+
+"And ours!" said the young man, laughing; "the devil take me if any one
+could dream of finding us here."
+
+Morgan had hardly drained his glass, when, as if the devil had accepted
+the challenge, the sentinel's harsh, strident voice cried: "_Qui vive!_"
+
+"Hey!" exclaimed the two young men, "what does this mean?"
+
+A body of thirty men came from the direction of Pont d'Ain, and, after
+giving the countersign to the sentry, at once dispersed; the larger
+number, led by two men, who seemed to be officers, entered the barracks;
+the others continued on their way.
+
+"Attention!" said Morgan.
+
+And both young men, on their knees, their ears alert, their eyes at the
+window, waited.
+
+Let us now explain to the reader the cause of this interruption of a
+repast which, though taken at three o'clock in the morning, was not, as
+we have seen, over-tranquil.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XL. A FALSE SCENT
+
+The jailer's daughter had not been mistaken; it was indeed Roland whom
+she had seen in the jail speaking to the captain of the gendarmerie.
+Neither was Amelie wrong in her terror. Roland was really in pursuit of
+Morgan.
+
+Although he avoided going to the Chateau des Noires-Fontaines, it was
+not that he had the slightest suspicion of the interest his sister had
+in the leader of the Companions of Jehu; but he feared the indiscretion
+of one of his servants. He had recognized Charlotte at the jail, but as
+the girl showed no astonishment, he believed she had not recognized him,
+all the more because, after exchanging a few words with the captain,
+he went out to wait for the latter on the Place du Bastion, which was
+always deserted at that hour.
+
+His duties over, the captain of gendarmerie joined him. He found Roland
+impatiently walking back and forth. Roland had merely made himself
+known at the jail, but here he proceeded to explain the matter, and to
+initiate the captain into the object of his visit.
+
+Roland had solicited the First Consul, as a favor to himself, that the
+pursuit of the Companions of Jehu be intrusted to him personally, a
+favor he had obtained without difficulty. An order from the minister
+of war placed at his disposal not only the garrison of Bourg, but also
+those of the neighboring towns. An order from the minister of police
+enjoined all the officers of the gendarmerie to render him every
+assistance.
+
+He naturally applied in the first instance to the captain of the
+gendarmerie at Bourg, whom he had long known personally as a man of
+great courage and executive ability. He found what he wanted in him.
+The captain was furious against the Companions of Jehu, who had stopped
+diligences within a mile of his town, and on whom he was unable to lay
+his hand. He knew of the reports relating to the last three stoppages
+that had been sent to the minister of police, and he understood the
+latter's anger. But Roland brought his amazement to a climax when he
+told him of the night he had spent at the Chartreuse of Seillon, and
+of what had happened to Sir John at that same Chartreuse during the
+succeeding night.
+
+The captain had heard by common rumor that Madame de Montrevel's guest
+had been stabbed; but as no one had lodged a complaint, he did not think
+he had the right to investigate circumstances which it seemed to
+him Roland wished to keep in the dark. In those troublous days more
+indulgence was shown to officers of the army than they might have
+received at other times.
+
+As for Roland, he had said nothing because he wished to reserve for
+himself the satisfaction of pursuing the assassins and sham ghosts of
+the Chartreuse when the time came. He now arrived with full power to put
+that design into execution, firmly resolved not to return to the
+First Consul until it was accomplished. Besides, it was one of those
+adventures he was always seeking, at once dangerous and picturesque, an
+opportunity of pitting his life against men who cared little for their
+own, and probably less for his. Roland had no conception of Morgan's
+safe-guard which had twice protected him from danger--once on the night
+he had watched at the Chartreuse, and again when he had fought against
+Cadoudal. How could he know that a simple cross was drawn above his
+name, and that this symbol of redemption guaranteed his safety from one
+end of France to the other?
+
+For the rest, the first thing to be done was to surround the Chartreuse
+of Seillon, and to search thoroughly into its most secret places--a
+thing Roland believed himself perfectly competent to do.
+
+The night was now too far advanced to undertake the expedition, and it
+was postponed until the one following. In the meantime Roland remained
+quietly in hiding in the captain's room at the barracks that no one
+might suspect his presence at Bourg nor its cause. The following night
+he was to guide the expedition. In the course of the morrow, one of the
+gendarmes, who was a tailor, agreed to make him a sergeant's uniform. He
+was to pass as a member of the brigade at Sons-le-Saulnier, and, thanks
+to the uniform, could direct the search at the Chartreuse without being
+recognized.
+
+Everything happened as planned. Roland entered the barracks with the
+captain about one o'clock, ascended to the latter's room, where he slept
+on a bed on the floor like a man who has just passed two days and two
+nights in a post-chaise. The next day he restrained his impatience
+by drawing a plan of the Chartreuse of Seillon for the captain's
+instruction, with which, even without Roland's help, that worthy officer
+could have directed the expedition without going an inch astray.
+
+As the captain had but eighteen men under him, and it was not possible
+to surround the monastery completely with that number, or rather, to
+guard the two exits and make a thorough search through the interior,
+and, as it would have taken three or four days to bring in all the men
+of the brigade scattered throughout the neighborhood, the officer, by
+Roland's order, went to the colonel of dragoons, garrisoned at Bourg,
+told him of the matter in hand, and asked for twelve men, who, with his
+own, made thirty in all.
+
+The colonel not only granted the twelve men, but, learning that
+the expedition was to be commanded by Colonel Roland de Montrevel,
+aide-de-camp to the First Consul, he proposed that he himself should
+join the party at the head of his twelve men.
+
+Roland accepted his co-operation, and it was agreed that the colonel (we
+employ the words colonel and chief of brigade indifferently, both being
+interchangeable terms indicating the same rank) and his twelve dragoons
+should pick up Roland, the captain, and his eighteen men, the barracks
+being directly on their road to the Chartreuse. The time was set for
+eleven that night.
+
+At eleven precisely, with military punctuality, the colonel of dragoons
+and his twelve men joined the gendarmes, and the two companies, now
+united in one, began their march. Roland, in his sergeant's uniform,
+made himself known to his brother colonel; but to the dragoons and
+gendarmes he remained, as agreed upon, a sergeant detached from the
+brigade at Sons-le-Saulnier. Only, as it might otherwise have seemed
+extraordinary that a sergeant, wholly unfamiliar with these localities,
+should be their guide, the men were told that Roland had been in his
+youth a novice at Seillon, and was therefore better acquainted than most
+persons with the mysterious nooks of the Chartreuse.
+
+The first feeling of these brave soldiers had been a slight humiliation
+at being guided by an ex-monk; but, on the other hand, as that ex-monk
+wore the three-cornered hat jauntily, and as his whole manner and
+appearance was that of a man who has completely forgotten that he
+formerly wore a cowl, they ended by accepting the humiliation, and
+reserved their final judgment on the sergeant until they could see how
+he handled the musket he carried on his arm, the pistols he wore in his
+belt, and the sword that hung at his side.
+
+The party was supplied with torches, and started in perfect silence.
+They were divided into three squads; one of eight men, led by the
+captain of gendarmerie, another of ten, commanded by the colonel, and
+the third of twelve men, with Roland at its head. On leaving the town
+they separated.
+
+The captain of the gendarmerie, who knew the localities better than
+the colonel of dragoons, took upon himself to guard the window of La
+Correrie, giving upon the forest of Seillon, with his eight men.
+The colonel of dragoons was commissioned by Roland to watch the main
+entrance of the Chartreuse; with him were five gendarmes and five
+dragoons. Roland was to search the interior, taking with him five
+gendarmes and seven dragoons.
+
+Half an hour was allowed each squad to reach its post; it was more
+than was needed. Roland and his men were to scale the orchard wall when
+half-past eleven was ringing from the belfry at Peronnaz. The captain
+of gendarmerie followed the main road from Pont d'Ain to the edge of
+the woods, which he skirted until he reached his appointed station. The
+colonel of dragoons took the crossroad which branches from the highway
+of Pont d'Ain and leads to the great portal of the Chartreuse. Roland
+crossed the fields to the orchard wall which, as the reader will
+remember, he had already climbed on two occasions.
+
+Punctually at half-past eleven he gave the signal to his men to scale
+the wall. By the time they reached the other side the men, if they
+did not yet know that Roland was brave, were at least sure that he was
+active.
+
+Roland pointed in the dusk to a door--the one that led from the orchard
+into the cloister. Then he sprang ahead through the rank grasses; first,
+he opened the door; first, he entered the cloister.
+
+All was dark, silent and solitary. Roland, still guiding his men,
+reached the refectory. Absolute solitude; utter silence.
+
+They crossed the hall obliquely, and returned to the garden without
+alarming a living creature except the owls and the bats. There still
+remained the cistern, the mortuary vault, and the pavilion, or rather,
+the chapel in the forest, to be searched. Roland crossed the open space
+between the cistern and the monastery. After descending the steps, he
+lighted three torches, kept one, and handed the other two, one to
+a dragoon, the other to a gendarme; then he raised the stone that
+concealed the stairway.
+
+The gendarmes who followed Roland began to think him as brave as he was
+active.
+
+They followed the subterranean passage to the first gate; it was closed
+but not locked. They entered the funereal vault. Here was more than
+solitude, more than silence; here was death. The bravest felt a shiver
+in the roots of their hair.
+
+Roland went from tomb to tomb, sounding each with the butt of the pistol
+he held in his hand. Silence everywhere. They crossed the vault, reached
+the second gate, and entered the chapel. The same silence, the same
+solitude; all was deserted, as it seemed, for years. Roland went
+straight to the choir; there lay the blood on the stones; no one had
+taken the trouble to efface it. Here was the end of his search, which
+had proved futile. Roland could not bring himself to retreat. He fancied
+he was not attacked because of his numerous escort; he therefore left
+ten men and a torch in the chapel, told them to put themselves in
+communication, through the ruined window, with the captain of the
+gendarmerie, who was ambushed in the forest within a few feet of the
+window, while he himself, with two men, retraced his steps.
+
+This time the two men who followed Roland thought him more than brave,
+they considered him foolhardy. But Roland, caring little whether they
+followed or not, retraced his own steps in default of those of the
+bandits. The two men, ashamed, followed him.
+
+Undoubtedly the Chartreuse was deserted. When Roland reached the great
+portal, he called to the colonel of dragoons; he and his men were
+at their post. Roland opened the door and joined them. They had seen
+nothing, heard nothing. The whole party entered the monastery, closing
+and barricading the door behind them to cut off the bandits' retreat,
+if they were fortunate enough to meet any. Then they hastened to rejoin
+their comrades, who, on their side, had united with the captain and his
+eight men, and were waiting for them in the choir.
+
+There was nothing for it but to retire. Two o'clock had just struck;
+nearly three hours had been spent in fruitless search. Roland,
+rehabilitated in the estimation of the gendarmes and the dragoons, who
+saw that the ex-novice did not shirk danger, regretfully gave the signal
+for retreat by opening the door of the chapel which looked toward the
+forest.
+
+This time Roland merely closed the door behind him, there being no
+longer any hope of encountering the brigands. Then the little troop
+returned to Bourg at a quick step. The captain of gendarmerie, with his
+eighteen men and Roland, re-entered the barracks, while the colonel and
+his twelve men continued on their way toward the town.
+
+It was the sentinel's call, as he challenged the captain and his party,
+which had attracted the attention of Morgan and Valensolle; and it was
+the noise of their return to the barracks which interrupted the
+supper, and caused Morgan to cry out at this unforeseen circumstance:
+"Attention!"
+
+In fact, in the present situation of these young men, every circumstance
+merited attention. So the meal was interrupted. Their jaws ceased to
+work to give the eyes and ears full scope. It soon became evident that
+the services of their eyes were alone needed.
+
+Each gendarme regained his room without light. The numerous barrack
+windows remained dark, so that the watchers were able to concentrate
+their attention on a single point.
+
+Among those dark windows, two were lighted. They stood relatively back
+from the rest of the building, and directly opposite to the one where
+the young men were supping. These windows were on the first floor, but
+in the position the watchers occupied at the top of bales of hay, Morgan
+and Valensolle were not only on a level, but could even look down into
+them. These windows were those of the room of the captain of gendarmes.
+
+Whether from indifference on the worthy captain's part, or by reason of
+State penury, the windows were bare of curtains, so that, thanks to the
+two candles which the captain had lighted in his guest's honor, Morgan
+and Valensolle could see everything that took place in this room.
+
+Suddenly Morgan grasped Valensolle's arm, and pressed it with all his
+might.
+
+"Hey" said Valensolle "what now?"
+
+Roland had just thrown his three-cornered hat on a chair and Morgan had
+recognized him.
+
+"Roland de Montrevel!" he exclaimed, "Roland in a sergeant's uniform!
+This time we are on his track while he is still seeking ours. It
+behooves us not to lose it."
+
+"What are you going to do?" asked Valensolle, observing that his friend
+was preparing to leave him.
+
+"Inform our companions. You stay here and do not lose sight of him. He
+has taken off his sword, and laid his pistols aside, therefore it is
+probable he intends to spend the night in the captain's room. To-morrow
+I defy him to take any road, no matter which, without one of us at his
+heels."
+
+And Morgan sliding down the declivity of the hay, disappeared from
+sight, leaving his companion crouched like a sphinx, with his eyes fixed
+on Roland de Montrevel.
+
+A quarter of an hour later Morgan returned. By this time the officer's
+windows were dark like all the others of the barracks.
+
+"Well?" asked Morgan.
+
+"Well," replied Valensolle, "it ended most prosaically. They undressed
+themselves, blew out the candles, and lay down, the captain on his bed,
+Roland on a mattress. They are probably trying to outsnore each other at
+the present moment."
+
+"In that case," said Morgan, "good-night to them, and to us also."
+
+Ten minutes later the wish was granted, and the two young men were
+sleeping, as if they did not have danger for a bed-fellow.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLI. THE HOTEL DE LA POSTE
+
+That same morning, about six o'clock, at the cold gray breaking of a
+February day, a rider, spurring a post-hack and preceded by a postilion
+who was to lead back the horse, left Bourg by the road to Macon or
+Saint-Julien.
+
+We say Macon _or_ Saint-Julien, because about three miles from the
+capital of Bresse the road forks; the one to the right keeping straight
+on to Saint-Julien, the other, which deviates to the left, leading to
+Macon.
+
+When the rider reached this bifurcation, he was about to take the road
+leading to Macon, when a voice, apparently coming from beneath an upset
+cart, implored his pity. The rider called to the postilion to see what
+the matter was.
+
+A poor market-man was pinned down under a load of vegetables. He had
+evidently attempted to hold up the cart just as the wheel, sinking into
+the ditch, overbalanced the vehicle. The cart had fallen on him, but
+fortunately, he said, he thought no limbs were broken, and all he wanted
+was to get the cart righted, and then he could recover his legs.
+
+The rider was compassionate to his fellow being, for he not only
+allowed the postilion to stop and help the market-man, but he himself
+dismounted, and with a vigor one would hardly have expected from so
+slight a man, he assisted the postilion not only to right the cart, but
+to replace it on the roadbed. After which he offered to help the man to
+rise; but the latter had said truly; he really was safe and sound, and
+if there were a slight shaking of the legs, it only served to prove
+the truth of the proverb that God takes care of drunkards. The man was
+profuse in his thanks, and took his horse by the bridle, as much, it was
+evident, to hold himself steady as to lead the animal.
+
+The riders remounted their homes, put them to a gallop, and soon
+disappeared round a bend which the road makes a short distance before it
+reaches the woods of Monnet.
+
+They had scarcely disappeared when a notable change took place in the
+demeanor of our market-man. He stopped his horse, straightened up, put
+the mouthpiece of a tiny trumpet to his lips, and blew three times. A
+species of groom emerged from the woods which line the road, leading
+a gentleman's horse by the bridle. The market-man rapidly removed his
+blouse, discarded his linen trousers, and appeared in vest and breeches
+of buckskin, and top boots. He searched in his cart, drew forth a
+package which he opened, shook out a green hunting coat with gold
+braidings, put it on, and over it a dark-brown overcoat; took from
+the servant's hands a hat which the latter presented him, and which
+harmonized with his elegant costume, made the man screw his spurs to
+his boots, and sprang upon his horse with the lightness and skill of an
+experienced horseman.
+
+"To-night at seven," he said to the groom, "be on the road between
+Saint-Just and Ceyzeriat. You will meet Morgan. Tell him that he _whom
+he knows of_ has gone to Macon, but that I shall be there before him."
+
+Then, without troubling himself about his cart and vegetables, which he
+left in his servant's charge, the ex-marketman, who was none other than
+our old acquaintance Montbar, turned his horse's head toward the Monnet
+woods, and set out at a gallop. His mount was not a miserable post hack,
+like that on which Roland was riding. On the contrary, it was a blooded
+horse, so that Montbar easily overtook the two riders, and passed them
+on the road between the woods of Monnet and Polliat. The horse, except
+for a short stop at Saint-Cyr-sur-Menthon, did the twenty-eight or
+thirty miles between Bourg and Macon, without resting, in three hours.
+
+Arrived at Macon, Montbar dismounted at the Hotel de la Poste, the only
+one which at that time was fitted to receive guests of distinction. For
+the rest, from the manner in which Montbar was received it was evident
+that the host was dealing with an old acquaintance.
+
+"Ah! is it you, Monsieur de Jayat?" said the host. "We were wondering
+yesterday what had become of you. It's more than a month since we've
+seen you in these parts."
+
+"Do you think it's as long as that, friend?" said the young man,
+affecting to drop his r's after the fashion of the day. "Yes, on
+my honor, that's so! I've been with friends, the Trefforts and the
+Hautecourts. You know those gentlemen by name, don't you?"
+
+"By name, and in person."
+
+"We hunted to hounds. They're finely equipped, word of honor! Can I
+breakfast here this morning?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Then serve me a chicken, a bottle of Bordeaux, two cutlets, fruit--any
+trifle will go."
+
+"At once. Shall it be served in your room, or in the common room?"
+
+"In the common room, it's more amusing; only give me a table to myself.
+Don't forget my horse. He is a fine beast, and I love him better than I
+do certain Christians, word of honor!"
+
+The landlord gave his orders. Montbar stood before the fire, his
+coat-tails drawn aside, warming his calves.
+
+"So you still keep to the posting business?" he said to the landlord, as
+if desirous of keeping up the conversation.
+
+"I should think so!"
+
+"Then you relay the diligences?"
+
+"Not the diligences, but the mail-coaches."
+
+"Ah! tell me--I want to go to Chambery some of these days--how many
+places are there in the mail-coach?"
+
+"Three; two inside, and one out with the courier."
+
+"Do I stand any chance of finding a vacant seat?"
+
+"It may happen; but the safest way is to hire your own conveyance."
+
+"Can't I engage a place beforehand?"
+
+"No; for don't you see, Monsieur de Jayat, that if travellers take
+places from Paris to Lyons, they have the first right."
+
+"See, the aristocrats!" said Montbar, laughing. "Apropos of aristocrats,
+there is one behind me posting here. I passed him about a mile the other
+side of Polliat. I thought his hack a little wind-broken."
+
+"Oh!" exclaimed the landlord, "that's not astonishing; my brothers in
+the business have a poor lot of horses."
+
+"Why, there's our man!" continued Montbar; "I thought I had more of a
+lead of him."
+
+Roland was, in fact, just passing the windows at a gallop.
+
+"Do you still want chamber No. 1, Monsieur de Jayat?" asked the
+landlord.
+
+"Why do you ask?"
+
+"Because it is the best one, and if you don't take it, I shall give it
+to that man, provided he wants to make any stay."
+
+"Oh! don't bother about me; I shan't know till later in the day whether
+I go or stay. If the new-comer means to remain give him No. l. I will
+content myself with No. 2."
+
+"The gentleman is served," said the waiter, looking through the door
+which led from the kitchen to the common room.
+
+Montbar nodded and accepted the invitation. He entered the common room
+just as Roland came into the kitchen. The dinner was on the table.
+Montbar changed his plate and sat down with his back to the door.
+The precaution was useless. Roland did not enter the common room,
+and Montbar breakfasted without interruption. When dessert was over,
+however, the host himself brought in his coffee. Montbar understood that
+the good man was in talkative humor; a fortunate circumstance, for there
+were certain things he was anxious to hear about.
+
+"Well," said Montbar, "what became of our man? Did he only change
+horses?"
+
+"No, no, no," said the landlord; "as you said, he's an aristocrat. He
+ordered breakfast in his own room."
+
+"His room or my room?" asked Montbar; "for I'm certain you put him in
+that famous No. 1."
+
+"Confound it! Monsieur de Jayat, it's your own fault. You told me I
+could do as I liked."
+
+"And you took me at my word; that was right. I shall be satisfied with
+No. 2."
+
+"You'll be very uncomfortable. It's only separated from No. 1 by a
+partition, and you can hear everything that happens from one room to the
+other."
+
+"Nonsense, my dear man, do you think I've come here to do improper
+things, or sing seditious songs, that you are afraid the stranger should
+hear or see what I do?"
+
+"Oh! that's not it."
+
+"What is it then?"
+
+"I'm not afraid you'll disturb others. I'm afraid they'll disturb you."
+
+"So your new guest is a roisterer?"
+
+"No; he looks to me like an officer."
+
+"What makes you think so?"
+
+"His manner, in the first place. Then he inquired what regiment was in
+garrison at Macon; and when I told him it was the 7th mounted Chasseurs,
+he said: 'Good! the colonel is a friend of mine. Can a waiter take him
+my card and ask him to breakfast with me?'"
+
+"Ah, ha!"
+
+"So you see how it is. When officers get together they make so much
+racket and noise. Perhaps they'll not only breakfast, but dine and sup
+together."
+
+"I've told you already, my good man, that I am not sure of passing the
+night here. I am expecting letters from Paris, _paste restante_, which
+will decide me. In the meantime, light a fire in No. 2, and make as
+little noise as possible, to avoid annoying my neighbors. And, at the
+same time, send me up pen and ink, and some paper. I have letters to
+write."
+
+Montbar's orders were promptly executed, and he himself followed the
+waiter to see that Roland was not disturbed by his proximity.
+
+The chamber was just what the landlord had said. Not a movement could
+be made, not a word uttered in the next room, that was not heard.
+Consequently Montbar distinctly heard the waiter announce Colonel
+Saint-Maurice, then the resounding steps of the latter in the corridor,
+and the exclamations of the two friends, delighted to meet again.
+
+On the other hand, Roland, who had been for a moment disturbed by the
+noise in the adjoining room, forgot it as soon as it had ceased, and
+there was no danger of its being renewed. Montbar, left alone, seated
+himself at the table, on which were paper, pen and ink, and remained
+perfectly motionless.
+
+The two officers had known each other in Italy, where Roland was under
+the command of Saint-Maurice, the latter being then a captain and Roland
+a lieutenant. At present their rank was equal, but Roland had beside
+a double commission from the First Consul and the minister of police,
+which placed all officers of his own rank under his command, and even,
+within the limits of his mission, those of a higher rank.
+
+Morgan had not been mistaken in supposing that Amelie's brother was in
+pursuit of the Companions of Jehu. If Roland's nocturnal search at the
+Chartreuse of Seillon was not convincing, the conversation between the
+young officer and his colleague was proof positive. In it, it developed
+that the First Consul was really sending fifty thousand francs as a
+gift to the monks of Saint-Bernard, by post; but that this money was in
+reality a trap devised for the capture of the Companions of Jehu, if all
+means failed to surprise them in the Chartreuse of Seillon or some other
+refuge.
+
+It now-remained to be seen how these bandits should be captured.
+The case was eagerly debated between the two officers while they had
+breakfast. By the time dessert was served they were both agreed upon a
+plan.
+
+That same evening, Morgan received the following letter:
+
+  Just as Adler told us, next Friday at five o'clock the mail-coach
+  will leave Paris with fifty thousand francs for the fathers of
+  Saint-Bernard.
+
+  The three places, the one in the coupe and the two in the interior,
+  are already engaged by three travellers who will join the coach,
+  one at Sens, the other two at Tonnerre. The travellers are, in the
+  coupe, one of citizen Fouche's best men: in the interior M. Roland
+  de Montrevel and the colonel of the 7th Chasseurs, garrisoned at
+  Macon. They will be in civilians' clothes not to excite suspicion,
+  but armed to the teeth.
+
+  Twelve mounted Chasseurs, with muskets, pistols, and sabres, will
+  escort the coach, but at some distance behind it, so as to arrive
+  during the fray. The first pistol fired will be the signal for
+  putting their horses to a gallop and falling upon us.
+
+  Now my advice is that, in spite of these precautions, in fact
+  because of these precautions, the attack should be made at the
+  place agreed upon, namely the Maison-Blanche. If that is also the
+  opinion of the comrades, let me know it. I will myself take the
+  coach, as postilion, from Macon to Belleville. I will undertake
+  to settle the colonel, and one of you must be responsible for
+  Fouche's agent.
+
+  As for M. Roland de Montrevel, no harm will befall him, for I
+  have a means, known to me alone and by me invented, by which he
+  can be prevented from leaving the coach.
+
+  The precise day and hour at which the mail to Chambery will pass
+  the Maison-Blanche is Saturday at six in the evening. Answer in
+  these words, "Saturday, six of the evening," and all will go on
+  rollers.  MONTBAR.
+
+At midnight Montbar, who had complained of the noise his neighbor made,
+and had removed to a room at the opposite end of the inn, was awakened
+by a courier, who was none other than the groom who had brought him his
+horse ready bridled and saddled in the morning. The letter contained
+only these words, followed by a postscript:
+
+  Saturday, six of the evening.  MORGAN.
+
+  P.S.--Do not forget, even when fighting, above all when fighting,
+  that Roland de Montrevel's life is safeguarded.
+
+The young man read this reply with visible satisfaction. The matter was
+no longer a mere stoppage of a diligence, but a species of affair of
+honor among men of differing opinions, with clashes of courage and
+bravery. It was no longer a matter of gold spilled upon the highroad,
+but of blood to be shed--not of pistols loaded with powder, and wielded
+by a child's hands, but of deadly weapons handled by soldiers accustomed
+to their use.
+
+For the rest, as Montbar had all the day that was dawning and the morrow
+before him in which to mature his plans, he contented himself with
+asking his groom to inquire which postilion would take the coach at
+Macon at five o'clock for the two stages between Macon and Belleville.
+He also sent him to buy four screw-rings and two padlocks fastening with
+keys.
+
+He already knew that the mail was due at Macon at half past four, waited
+for the travellers to dine, and started again punctually at five.
+No doubt all his plans were previously laid, for, after giving these
+directions, Montbar dismissed his servant and went to sleep like a man
+who has long arrears of slumber to make up.
+
+The next morning he did not wake, or rather did not come downstairs
+until nine o'clock. He asked casually what had become of his noisy
+neighbor, and was told that he had started in the Lyons mail at six
+in the morning, with his friend the colonel of the Chasseurs; but the
+landlord thought they had only engaged places as far as Tonnerre.
+
+If Monsieur de Jayat had interested himself in the young officer,
+the latter, in turn, had made inquiries about him, asking who he was,
+whether he came habitually to the hotel, and whether he would be willing
+to sell his horse. The landlord had replied that he knew Monsieur de
+Jayat well, for he was in the habit of coming to the hotel whenever
+business brought him to Macon, and that, as for the horse, he did not
+believe, considering the affection the young gentleman showed for the
+animal, that he would consent to part with him for any price. On which
+the traveller had departed without saying any more.
+
+After breakfast M. de Jayat, who seemed to find time hanging heavily on
+his hands, ordered his horse, mounted it, and rode out from Macon by the
+Lyons road. As long as he was in the town he allowed his horse to take
+the pace his fancy dictated, but once beyond it, he gathered up the
+reins and pressed the animal with his knees. The hint sufficed, and the
+animal broke into a gallop.
+
+Montbar passed through the villages of Varennes, La Creche,
+and Chapelle-de-Guinchay, and did not stop until he reached the
+Maison-Blanche. The spot was exactly as Valensolle had described it, and
+was admirably adapted for an ambuscade.
+
+The Maison-Blanche stood in a tiny valley between a sharp declivity and
+a rise in the ground. A little rivulet without a name flowed past the
+corner of the garden and made its way to the Saone just above Challe.
+Tall bushy trees followed the course of the little stream, and described
+a half-circle, inclosing the house on three sides. The house itself was
+formerly an inn which proved unproductive to the innkeeper. It had been
+closed for seven or eight years, and was beginning to fall into decay.
+Before reaching it, the main road coming from Macon made a sharp turn.
+
+Montbar examined the locality with the care of an engineer choosing
+his ground for a battlefield. He drew a pencil and a note-book from his
+pocket and made an accurate plan of the position. Then he returned to
+Macon.
+
+Two hours later his groom departed, carrying the plan to Morgan, having
+informed his master that Antoine was the name of the postilion who was
+to take the coach from Macon to Belleville. The groom also gave him the
+four screw-rings and the two padlocks he had purchased.
+
+Montbar ordered up a bottle of old Burgundy, and sent for Antoine.
+
+Ten minutes later Antoine appeared. He was a fine, handsome fellow,
+twenty-five or six years of age, about Montbar's height; a fact which
+the latter, in looking him over from head to foot, remarked with
+satisfaction. The postilion paused at the threshold, and, carrying his
+hand to his hat in a military salute, he said: "Did the citizen send for
+me?"
+
+"Are you the man they call Antoine?" asked Montbar.
+
+"At your service, and that of your company."
+
+"Well, you can serve me, friend. But close the door and come here."
+
+Antoine closed the door, came within two steps of Montbar, saluted
+again, and said: "Ready, master."
+
+"In the first place," said Montbar, "if you have no objections, we'll
+drink a glass of wine to the health of your mistress."
+
+"Oh! oh! My mistress!" cried Antoine. "Can fellows like me afford
+mistresses? They're all very well for gentlemen such as you."
+
+"Come, you scamp!" said Montbar. "You can't make me believe that, with
+your make-up, you've made a vow of chastity."
+
+"Oh! I don't say I'm a monk in that particular. I may have a bit of a
+love-affair here and there along the high-road."
+
+"Yes, at every tavern; and that's why we stop so often with our return
+horses to drink a drop or fill a pipe."
+
+"Confound it!" said Antoine, with an indescribable twist of the
+shoulders. "A fellow must have his fun."
+
+"Well, taste the wine, my lad. I'll warrant it won't make you weep." And
+filling a glass, Montbar signed to the postilion to fill the other.
+
+"A fine honor for me! To your health and that of your company!"
+
+This was an habitual phrase of the worthy postilion, a sort of extension
+of politeness which did not need the presence of others to justify it in
+his eyes.
+
+"Ha!" said he, after drinking and smacking his lips, "there's
+vintage for you--and I have gulped it down at a swallow as if it were
+heel-taps!"
+
+"That was a mistake, Antoine."
+
+"Yes, it was a mistake."
+
+"Luckily," said Montbar, refilling his glass, "you can repair it."
+
+"No higher than my thumb, citizen," said the facetious postilion, taking
+care that his thumb touched the rim of the glass.
+
+"One minute," said Montbar, just as Antoine was putting his glass to his
+lips.
+
+"Just in time," said the postilion; "it was on its way. What is it?"
+
+"You wouldn't let me drink to the health of your mistress, but I hope
+you won't refuse to drink to mine."
+
+"Oh! that's never refused, especially with such wine. To the health of
+your mistress and her company."
+
+Thereupon citizen Antoine swallowed the crimson liquor, tasting and
+relishing it this time.
+
+"Hey!" exclaimed Montbar, "you're in too much of a hurry, my friend."
+
+"Pooh!" retorted the postilion.
+
+"Yes. Suppose I have several mistresses. If I don't name the one we
+drink to what good will it do her?"
+
+"Why, that's true!"
+
+"Sad; but you'll have to try again, my friend."
+
+"Ha! Try again, of course! Can't do things half-way with a man like you.
+The sin's committed; we'll drink again." And Antoine held out his glass.
+Montbar filled it to the brim.
+
+"Now," said Antoine, eying the bottle, and making sure it was empty,
+"there must be no mistake. Her name?"
+
+"To the beautiful Josephine!" said Montbar.
+
+"To the beautiful Josephine!" repeated Antoine.
+
+And he swallowed the Burgundy with increasing satisfaction. Then, after
+drinking, and wiping his lips on his sleeve, he said, as he set the
+glass on the table: "Hey! one moment, citizen."
+
+"What now?" exclaimed Montbar. "Anything wrong this time?"
+
+"I should say so. We've made a great blunder but it's too late now."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"The bottle is empty."
+
+"That one, yes; but not this one."
+
+So saying, Montbar took from the chimney corner another bottle, already
+uncorked.
+
+"Ah! ah!" exclaimed Antoine, a radiant smile lighting his face.
+
+"Is there any remedy for it?" asked Montbar.
+
+"There is," replied Antoine, holding out his glass.
+
+Montbar filled it as scrupulously full as he had the first three.
+
+"Well," said the postilion, holding the ruby liquid to the light and
+admiring its sparkle, "as I was saying, we drank to the health of the
+beautiful Josephine--"
+
+"Yes," said Montbar.
+
+"But," said Antoine, "there are a devilish lot of Josephines in France."
+
+"True. How many do you suppose there are, Antoine?"
+
+"Perhaps a hundred thousand."
+
+"Granted. What then?"
+
+"Well, out of that hundred thousand a tenth of them must be beautiful."
+
+"That's a good many."
+
+"Say a twentieth."
+
+"All right."
+
+"That makes five thousand."
+
+"The devil! You're strong in arithmetic!"
+
+"I'm the son of a schoolmaster."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Well, to which of those five thousand did we drink, hey?"
+
+"You're right, Antoine. The family name must follow. To the beautiful
+Josephine--"
+
+"Stop. This glass was begun; it won't do. If the health is to do her any
+good, we'll have to empty it and fill it again."
+
+He put the glass to his lips.
+
+"There, it's empty," he said.
+
+"And full," added Montbar, putting the bottle to the glass.
+
+"I'm ready. To the beautiful Josephine--"
+
+"To the beautiful Josephine--Lollier!"
+
+And Montbar emptied his glass.
+
+"By the Lord!" exclaimed Antoine. "Wait a moment. Josephine Lollier!
+Why, I know her."
+
+"I didn't say you didn't."
+
+"Josephine Lollier! Why, she's the daughter of the man who keeps the
+post-horses at Belleville."
+
+"Exactly."
+
+"Damn it!" exclaimed the postilion, "you're not to be pitied--a pretty
+slip of a girl! To the health of beautiful Josephine Lollier."
+
+And he swallowed his fifth glass of Burgundy.
+
+"Now," asked Montbar, "do you understand why I had you sent up here, my
+lad?"
+
+"No; but I don't bear you any grudge for it, all the same."
+
+"That's very kind of you."
+
+"Oh! I'm a pretty good devil."
+
+"Well, I'll tell you why I sent for you."
+
+"I'm all ears."
+
+"Wait. You'll hear better if your glass is full than if it's empty."
+
+"Are you a doctor for deaf folk?" asked the postilion, banteringly.
+
+"No; but I've lived a good deal among drunkards," replied Montbar,
+filling Antoine's glass again.
+
+"A man is not a drunkard because he likes wine," said Antoine.
+
+"I agree with you, my good fellow," replied Montbar. "A man is only a
+drunkard when he can't carry his liquor."
+
+"Well said," cried Antoine, who seemed to carry his pretty well. "I'm
+listening."
+
+"You told me that you didn't understand why I had sent for you."
+
+"That's what I said."
+
+"Still, you must have suspected that I had an object?"
+
+"Every man has an object, good or bad, according to our priest,"
+observed Antoine, sententiously.
+
+"Well, my friend," resumed Montbar, "mine is to make my way by night,
+without being recognized, into the courtyard of Master Nicolas-Denis
+Lollier, postmaster at Belleville."
+
+"At Belleville," repeated Antoine, who had followed Montbar's words
+with all the attention he was capable of. "You wish to make your way
+by night, without being recognized, into the courtyard of Master
+Nicolas-Denis Lollier, postmaster at Belleville, in order to see the
+beautiful Josephine? Ah, ha! my sly dog!"
+
+"You have it, my dear Antoine; and I wish to get in without being
+recognized, because Father Lollier has discovered everything, and has
+forbidden his daughter to see me."
+
+"You don't say so. Well, what can I do about it?"
+
+"Your wits are still muddled, Antoine. Drink another glass of wine to
+brighten them up."
+
+"Right you are," exclaimed Antoine.
+
+And he swallowed his sixth glass of wine.
+
+"You ask what you can do, Antoine?"
+
+"Yes, what can I do? That's what I ask."
+
+"Everything, my friend."
+
+"I?"
+
+"You."
+
+"Ha! I'm curious to know what. Clear it up, clear it up!" And he held
+out his glass.
+
+"You drive the mail to Chambery to-morrow, don't you?"
+
+"Yes; at six o'clock."
+
+"Well, suppose that Antoine is a good fellow?"
+
+"No supposing about it; he is!"
+
+"Well, this is what Antoine does--"
+
+"Go on; what does he do?"
+
+"In the first place, he empties his glass."
+
+"Done! that's not difficult."
+
+"Then he takes these ten louis."
+
+Montbar spread ten louis on the table.
+
+"Ah, ha!" exclaimed Antoine, "yellow boys, real ones. I thought those
+little devils had all emigrated."
+
+"You see there are some left."
+
+"And what is Antoine to do to put them in his pocket?"
+
+"Antoine must lend me his best postilion's suit."
+
+"To you?"
+
+"And let me take his place to-morrow night."
+
+"Ah, yes; so that you can see the beautiful Josephine to-morrow night."
+
+"Of course. I reach Belleville at eight, drive into the courtyard, and
+say the horses are tired and must rest from eight till ten, and from
+eight to ten--"
+
+"You can fool Pere Lollier."
+
+"Well, there you are, Antoine!"
+
+"There I am! When a fellow's young he goes with the young 'uns; when
+he's a bachelor he's in with the bachelors; when he's old and a papa, he
+can go with the papas, and cry, 'Long live the papas.'"
+
+"Then, my good Antoine, you'll lend me your best jacket and breeches?"
+
+"I've just got a new jacket and breeches that I've never worn."
+
+"And you'll let me take your place?"
+
+"With pleasure."
+
+"Then I'll give you five louis for earnest money."
+
+"And the rest?"
+
+"Tomorrow, when I pull on the boots; only--there's one precaution you
+must take."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"There's talk of brigands robbing diligences; you'll be careful to put
+the holsters on the saddle."
+
+"What for?"
+
+"For pistols."
+
+"No, no! Don't you go and shoot those fine young fellows."
+
+"What! do you call robbers who pillage diligences fine young men?"
+
+"A man's not a robber because he takes government money."
+
+"Is that your opinion?"
+
+"I should say so; besides, it's the opinion of a good many other people,
+too. As for me, if I were a judge, I'd never in the world condemn them."
+
+"Perhaps you would drink to their health?"
+
+"Of course, if the wine was good."
+
+"I dare you to do it," said Montbar, emptying the last of the second
+bottle into Antoine's glass.
+
+"You know the proverb?" said the postilion.
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Never defy a fool to commit his folly. To the health of the Companions
+of Jehu."
+
+"Amen!" responded Montbar.
+
+"And the five louis?" asked Antoine, putting his glass on the table.
+
+"There they are."
+
+"Thank you; you shall have the holsters on your saddle; but take my
+advice and don't put pistols in 'em; or if you do, follow Pere Jerome's
+example--he's the conductor of the Geneva diligence--and put powder and
+no balls in 'em."
+
+And with that philanthropic advice, the postilion took his leave, and
+went down the stairway singing a postilion's song in a vinous voice.
+
+Montbar followed the song conscientiously through two verses, then, as
+the voice died away in the distance, he was obliged to forego the rest
+of the song, however interesting he may have found it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLII. THE CHAMBERY MAIL-COACH
+
+The next day, at five in the afternoon, Antoine, anxious, no doubt, not
+to be late, was in the courtyard of the Hotel de la Poste, harnessing
+the three horses which were to relay the mail-coach.
+
+Shortly after, the coach rumbled into the courtyard at a gallop, and was
+pulled up under the windows of a room close to the servants' stairway,
+which had seemed greatly to occupy Antoine's attention. If any one had
+paid attention to so slight a detail it might have been observed that
+the window-curtain was somewhat imprudently drawn aside to permit the
+occupant of the room to see the persons who got out of the coach. There
+were three men, who, with the haste of famished travellers, made their
+way toward the brilliantly lighted windows of the common room.
+
+They had scarcely entered, when a smart postilion came down the kitchen
+staircase, shod simply with thin pumps over which he intended to pull
+his heavy riding-boots, These he received from Antoine, slipping five
+louis into his hand at the same time, and turned for the man to throw
+his riding cape over his shoulders, a protection rendered necessary by
+the severity of the weather.
+
+This completed, Antoine returned hastily to the stables and hid in the
+darkest corner. As for the man who had taken his place, reassured no
+doubt by the high collar of the cape that concealed half of his face,
+he went straight to the horses which stood ready harnessed, slipped his
+pistols into the holsters, and, profitting by the moment when the other
+horses were being led into the stable by their postilion, he took a
+gimlet, which might in case of need serve as a dagger, from his pocket,
+and screwed the four rings into the woodwork of the coach, one into each
+door, and the other two into the body of the coach. After which he
+put the horses to with a rapidity and skill which bespoke in him a
+man familiar from childhood with all the details of an art pushed to
+extremes in our day by that honorable class of society which we call
+"gentlemen riders."
+
+That done, he waited, quieting his restless horses by voice and whip,
+judiciously combined, or used in turn.
+
+Everyone knows the rapidity with which the meals of the unhappy beings
+condemned to travel by mail are hurried through. The half-hour was not
+up, when the voice of the conductor was heard, calling:
+
+"Come, citizen travellers, take your places."
+
+Montbar placed himself close to the carriage door and recognized Roland
+and the colonel of the 7th Chasseurs, perfectly, in spite of their
+disguise, as they jumped into the coach, paying no attention whatever to
+the postilion.
+
+The latter closed the door upon them, slipped the padlock through
+the two rings and turned the key. Then, walking around the coach, he
+pretended to drop his whip before the other door, and, in stooping for
+it, slipped the second padlock through the rings, deftly turned the key
+as he straightened up, and, assured that the two officers were securely
+locked in, he sprang upon his horse, grumbling at the conductor who had
+left him to do his work. In fact the conductor was still squabbling with
+the landlord over his bill when the third traveller got into his place
+in the coupe.
+
+"Are you coming this evening, to-night, or to-morrow morning, Pere
+Francois?" cried the pretended postilion, imitating Antoine as best he
+could.
+
+"All right, all right, I'm coming," answered the conductor; then,
+looking around him: "Why, where are the travellers?" he asked.
+
+"Here," replied the two officers from the interior and the agent from
+the coupe.
+
+"Is the door properly closed?" persisted Pere Francois.
+
+"I'll answer for that," said Montbar.
+
+"Then off you go, baggage!" cried the conductor, as he climbed into the
+coupe and closed the door behind him.
+
+The postilion did not wait to be told twice; he started his horses,
+digging his spurs into the belly of the one he rode and lashing the
+others vigorously. The mail-coach dashed forward at a gallop.
+
+Montbar drove as if he had never done anything else in his life; as he
+crossed the town the windows rattled and the houses shook; never did
+real postilion crack his whip with greater science.
+
+As he left Macon he saw a little troop of horse; they were the twelve
+chasseurs told off to follow the coach without seeming to escort it.
+The colonel passed his head through the window and made a sign to the
+sergeant who commanded them.
+
+Montbar did not seem to notice anything; but after going some four or
+five hundred yards, he turned his head, while executing a symphony with
+his whip, and saw that the escort had started.
+
+"Wait, my babes!" said Montbar, "I'll make you see the country." And he
+dug in his spurs and brought down his whip. The horses seemed to have
+wings, and the coach flew over the cobblestones like the chariot of
+thunder rumbling past. The conductor became alarmed.
+
+"Hey, Master Antoine," cried he, "are you drunk?"
+
+"Drunk? fine drinking!" replied Montbar; "I dined on a beetroot salad."
+
+"Damn him! If he goes like that," cried Roland, thrusting his head
+through the window, "the escort can't keep up."
+
+"You hear what he says!" shrieked the conductor.
+
+"No," replied Montbar, "I don't."
+
+"Well, he says that if you keep this up the escort can't follow."
+
+"Is there an escort?" asked Montbar.
+
+"Of course; we're carrying government money."
+
+"That's different; you ought to have said so at first."
+
+But instead of slacking his pace the coach was whirled along as before;
+if there was any change, it was for greater velocity than before.
+
+"Antoine, if there's an accident, I'll shoot you through the head,"
+shouted the conductor.
+
+"Run along!" exclaimed Montbar; "everybody knows those pistols haven't
+any balls in them."
+
+"Possibly not; but mine have!" cried the police agent.
+
+"That remains to be seen," replied Montbar, keeping on his way at the
+same pace without heed to these remonstrances.
+
+On they went with the speed of lightning through the village of
+Varennes, then through that of La Creche and the little town of
+Chapelle-de-Guinchay; only half a mile further and they would reach the
+Maison-Blanche. The horses were dripping, and tossed the foam from their
+mouths as they neighed with excitement.
+
+Montbar glanced behind him; more than a mile back the sparks were flying
+from the escort's horses. Before him was the mountainous declivity. Down
+it he dashed, gathering the reins to master his horses when the time
+came.
+
+The conductor had ceased expostulating, for he saw that the hand which
+guided the horses was firm and capable. But from time to time the
+colonel thrust his head through the window to look for his men.
+
+Half-way down the slope Montbar had his horses under control, without,
+however, seeming to check their course. Then he began to sing, at the
+top of his voice, the "Reveil du Peuple," the song of the royalists,
+just as the "Marseillaise" was the song of the Jacobins.
+
+"What's that rogue about?" cried Roland, putting his head through the
+window. "Tell him to hold his tongue, conductor, or I'll put a ball
+through his loins."
+
+Perhaps the conductor might have repeated Roland's threat to Montbar,
+but he suddenly saw a black line blocking the road. "Halt, conductor!"
+thundered a voice the next moment.
+
+"Postilion, drive over the bellies of those bandits!" shouted the police
+agent.
+
+"Drive on yourself!" said Montbar. "Do you suppose I'm going over the
+stomachs of friends? Who-o-ah!"
+
+The mail coach stopped as if by magic.
+
+"Go on! go on!" cried Roland and the colonel, aware that the escort was
+too far behind to help them.
+
+"Ha! You villain of a postilion," cried the police agent, springing out
+of the coupe, and pointing his pistol at Montbar, "you shall pay for
+this."
+
+The words were scarcely uttered when Montbar, forestalling him, fired,
+and the agent rolled, mortally wounded, under the wheels of the coach.
+His fingers, convulsed by death, touched the trigger and the pistol went
+off, but the ball touched no one.
+
+"Conductor," shouted the two officers, "by all the powers of heaven,
+open, open, open quickly!"
+
+"Gentlemen," said Morgan, advancing, "we are not attacking your persons,
+we merely want the government money. Conductor! that fifty thousand
+francs, and quickly too!"
+
+Two shots from the interior made answer for the officers, who, after
+vainly shaking the doors, were still more fruitlessly attempting to
+force themselves through the windows. No doubt one of their shots took
+effect, for a cry of rage was heard and a flash illuminated the road.
+The colonel gave a sigh, and fell back against Roland. He was killed
+outright.
+
+Roland fired again, but no one replied to him. His pistols were both
+discharged; locked in as he was he could not use his sabre, and he
+howled with rage.
+
+Meantime the conductor was forced, with a pistol at his throat, to
+give up the money. Two men took the bags containing the fifty thousand
+francs, and fastened them on Montbar's horse, which his groom had
+brought ready saddled and bridled, as if to a meet. Montbar kicked off
+his heavy boots and sprang into the saddle.
+
+"My compliments to the First Consul, Monsieur de Montrevel!" cried
+Morgan. Then, turning to his companions, he cried: "Scatter which way
+you will, you know the rendezvous for to-morrow night."
+
+"Yes, yes," replied ten or a dozen voices.
+
+And the band dispersed like a flock of birds, disappearing down the
+valley into the shadow of the trees that lined the banks of the little
+river and surrounded the Maison-Blanche.
+
+At that moment the gallop of horses was heard, and the escort, alarmed
+by the pistol shots, appeared on the crest of the hill and came down
+the slope like an avalanche. But it came too late; it found only the
+conductor sitting dazed by the roadside, the bodies of the colonel and
+of Fouche's agent, and Roland a prisoner, roaring like a lion gnawing at
+the bars of its cage.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIII. LORD GRENVILLE'S REPLY
+
+While the events we have just recorded were transpiring, and occupying
+the minds and newspapers of the provinces, other events, of very
+different import, were maturing in Paris, which were destined to occupy
+the minds and newspapers of the whole world.
+
+Lord Tanlay had returned, bringing the reply of his uncle, Lord
+Grenville. This reply consisted of a letter addressed to M. de
+Talleyrand, inclosing a memorandum for the First Consul. The letter was
+couched in the following terms:
+
+  DOWNING STREET, February 14, 1800
+
+  Sir--I have received and placed before the King the letter
+  which you transmitted to me through my nephew, Lord Tanlay.
+  His Majesty, seeing no reason to depart from the
+  long-established customs of Europe in treating with foreign
+  states, directs me to forward you in his name the official
+  reply which is herewith inclosed.
+
+  I have the honor to be, with the highest esteem, your very
+  humble and obedient servant,  GRENVILLE.
+
+The letter was dry; the memorandum curt. Moreover, the First Consul's
+letter to King George was autographic, and King George, not "departing
+from the long-established customs of Europe in treating with foreign
+States," replied by a simple memorandum written by a secretary.
+
+True, the memorandum was signed "Grenville." It was a long recrimination
+against France; against the spirit of disorder, which disturbed the
+nation; against the fears which that spirit of disorder inspired in all
+Europe; and on the necessity imposed on the sovereigns of Europe, for
+the sake of their own safety, to repress it. In short, the memorandum
+was virtually a continuation of the war.
+
+The reading of such a dictum made Bonaparte's eyes flash with the flame
+which, in him, preceded his great decisions, as lightning precedes
+thunder.
+
+"So, sir," said he, turning to Lord Tanlay, "this is all you have
+obtained?"
+
+"Yes, citizen First Consul."
+
+"Then you did not repeat verbally to your uncle all that I charged you
+to say to him?"
+
+"I did not omit a syllable."
+
+"Did you tell him that you had lived in France three years, that you had
+seen her, had studied her; that she was strong, powerful, prosperous and
+desirous of peace while prepared for war?"
+
+"I told him all that."
+
+"Did you add that the war which England is making against France is
+a senseless war; that the spirit of disorder of which they speak, and
+which, at the worst, is only the effervescence of freedom too long
+restrained, which it were wiser to confine to France by means of a
+general peace; that that peace is the sole _cordon sanitaire_ which can
+prevent it from crossing our frontiers; and that if the volcano of war
+is lighted in France, France will spread like lava over foreign lands.
+Italy is delivered, says the King of England; but from whom? From her
+liberators. Italy is delivered, but why? Because I conquered Egypt from
+the Delta to the third Cataract; Italy is delivered because I was no
+longer in Italy. But--I am here: in a month I can be in Italy. What do I
+need to win her back from the Alps to the Adriatic? A single battle. Do
+you know what Massena is doing in defending Genoa? Waiting for me. Ha!
+the sovereigns of Europe need war to protect their crowns? Well, my
+lord, I tell you that I will shake Europe until their crowns tremble on
+their heads. Want war, do they? Just wait--Bourrienne! Bourrienne!"
+
+The door between the First Consul's study and the secretary's office
+opened precipitately, and Bourrienne rushed in, his face terrified, as
+though he thought Bonaparte were calling for help. But when he saw him
+highly excited, crumpling the diplomatic memorandum in one hand and
+striking with the other on his desk, while Lord Tanlay was standing
+calm, erect and silent near him, he understood immediately that
+England's answer had irritated the First Consul.
+
+"Did you call me, general?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," said the First Consul, "sit down there and write."
+
+Then in a harsh, jerky voice, without seeking his words, which, on the
+contrary, seemed to crowd through the portal of his brain, he dictated
+the following proclamation:
+
+  SOLDIERS!--In promising peace to the French people, I was your
+  mouthpiece; I know your power.
+
+  You are the same men who conquered the Rhine, Holland and Italy,
+  and granted peace beneath the walls of astounded Vienna.
+
+  Soldiers, it is no longer our own frontiers that you have to
+  defend; it is the enemy's country you must now invade.
+
+  Soldiers, when the time comes, I shall be among you, and
+  astounded Europe shall remember that you belong to the race
+  of heroes!
+
+Bourrienne raised his head, expectant, after writing the last words.
+
+"Well, that's all," said Bonaparte.
+
+"Shall I add the sacramental words: 'Vive la Republique!'?"
+
+"Why do you ask that?"
+
+"Because we have issued no proclamation during the last four months, and
+something may be changed in the ordinary formulas."
+
+"The proclamation will do as it is," said Bonaparte, "add nothing to
+it."
+
+Taking a pen, he dashed rather than wrote his signature at the bottom of
+the paper, then handing it to Bourrienne, he said: "See that it appears
+in the 'Moniteur' to-morrow."
+
+Bourrienne left the room, carrying the proclamation with him.
+
+Bonaparte, left alone with Lord Tanlay, walked up and down the room for
+a moment, as though he had forgotten the Englishman's presence; then he
+stopped suddenly before him.
+
+"My lord," he asked, "do you think you obtained from your uncle all that
+another man might have obtained in your place?"
+
+"More, citizen First Consul."
+
+"More! more! Pray, what have you obtained?"
+
+"I think that the citizen First Consul did not read the royal memorandum
+with all the attention it deserves."
+
+"Heavens!" exclaimed Bonaparte, "I know it by heart."
+
+"Then the citizen First Consul cannot have weighed the meaning and the
+wording of a certain paragraph."
+
+"You think so?"
+
+"I am sure of it; and if the citizen First Consul will permit me to read
+him the paragraph to which I allude--"
+
+Bonaparte relaxed his hold upon the crumpled note, and handed it to Lord
+Tanlay, saying: "Read it."
+
+Sir John cast his eyes over the document, with which he seemed to be
+familiar, paused at the tenth paragraph, and read:
+
+  The best and surest means for peace and security, and for their
+  continuance, would be the restoration of that line of princes who
+  for so many centuries have preserved to the French nation its
+  internal prosperity and the respect and consideration of foreign
+  countries. Such an event would have removed, and at any time will
+  remove, the obstacles which are now in the way of negotiations
+  and peace; it would guarantee to France the tranquil possession
+  of her former territory, and procure for all the other nations of
+  Europe, through a like tranquillity and peace, that security which
+  they are now obliged to seek by other means.
+
+"Well," said Bonaparte, impatiently, "I have read all that, and
+perfectly understood it. Be Monk, labor for another man, and your
+victories, your renown, your genius will be forgiven you; humble
+yourself, and you shall be allowed to remain great!"
+
+"Citizen First Consul," said Lord Tanlay, "no one knows better than
+I the difference between you and Monk, and how far you surpass him in
+genius and renown."
+
+"Then why do you read me that?"
+
+"I only read that paragraph," replied Sir John, "to lead you to give to
+the one following its due significance."
+
+"Let's hear it," said Bonaparte, with repressed impatience.
+
+Sir John continued:
+
+  But, however desirable such an event may be for France and for
+  the world, it is not to this means alone that his Majesty
+  restricts the possibility of a safe and sure pacification.
+
+Sir John emphasized the last words.
+
+"Ah! ah!" exclaimed Bonaparte, stepping hastily to Sir John's side.
+
+The Englishman continued:
+
+  His Majesty does not presume to prescribe to France her form
+  of government, nor the hands into which she may place the
+  necessary authority to conduct the affairs of a great and
+  powerful nation.
+
+"Read that again, sir," said Bonaparte, eagerly.
+
+"Read it yourself," replied Sir John.
+
+He handed him the note, and Bonaparte re-read it.
+
+"Was it you, sir," he asked, "who added that paragraph?"
+
+"I certainly insisted on it."
+
+Bonaparte reflected.
+
+"You are right," he said; "a great step has been taken; the return of
+the Bourbons is no longer a condition _sine qua non_. I am accepted, not
+only as a military, but also as a political power." Then, holding out
+his hand to Sir John, he added: "Have you anything to ask of me, sir?"
+
+"The only thing I seek has been asked of you by my friend Roland."
+
+"And I answered, sir, that I shall be pleased to see you the husband of
+his sister. If I were richer, or if you were less so, I would offer to
+dower her"--Sir John made a motion--"but as I know your fortune will
+suffice for two," added Bonaparte, smiling, "or even more, I leave you
+the joy of giving not only happiness, but also wealth to the woman you
+love. Bourrienne!" he called.
+
+Bourrienne appeared.
+
+"I have sent it, general," he said.
+
+"Very good," replied the First Consul; "but that is not what I called
+you for."
+
+"I await your orders."
+
+"At whatever hour of the day or night Lord Tanlay presents himself,
+I shall be happy to receive him without delay; you hear me, my dear
+Bourrienne? You hear me, my lord?"
+
+Lord Tanlay bowed his thanks.
+
+"And now," said Bonaparte, "I presume you are in a hurry to be off to
+the Chateau des Noires-Fontaines. I won't detain you, but there is one
+condition I impose."
+
+"And that is, general?"
+
+"If I need you for another mission--"
+
+"That is not a condition, citizen First Consul; it is a favor."
+
+Lord Tanlay bowed and withdrew.
+
+Bourrienne prepared to follow him, but Bonaparte called him back. "Is
+there a carriage below?" he asked.
+
+Bourrienne looked into the courtyard. "Yes, general."
+
+"Then get ready and come with me."
+
+"I am ready, general; I have only my hat and overcoat to get, and they
+are in the office."
+
+"Then let us go," said Bonaparte.
+
+He took up his hat and coat, went down the private staircase, and signed
+to the carriage to come up. Notwithstanding Bourrienne's haste, he got
+down after him. A footman opened the door; Bonaparte sprang in.
+
+"Where are we going, general?" asked Bourrienne.
+
+"To the Tuileries," replied Bonaparte.
+
+Bourrienne, amazed, repeated the order, and looked at the First Consul
+as if to seek an explanation; but the latter was plunged in thought, and
+the secretary, who at this time was still the friend, thought it best
+not to disturb him.
+
+The horses started at gallop--Bonaparte's usual mode of progression--and
+took the way to the Tuileries.
+
+The Tuileries, inhabited by Louis XVI. after the days of the 5th and 6th
+of October, and occupied successively by the Convention and the Council
+of Five Hundred, had remained empty and devastated since the 18th
+Brumaire. Since that day Bonaparte had more than once cast his eyes
+on that ancient palace of royalty; but he knew the importance of not
+arousing any suspicion that a future king might dwell in the palace of
+the abolished monarchy.
+
+Bonaparte had brought back from Italy a magnificent bust of Junius
+Brutus; there was no suitable place for it at the Luxembourg, and toward
+the end of November, Bonaparte had sent for the Republican, David, and
+ordered him to place the bust in the gallery of the Tuileries. Who could
+suppose that David, the friend of Marat, was preparing the dwelling of a
+future emperor by placing the bust of Caesar's murderer in the gallery of
+the Tuileries? No one did suppose, nor even suspect it.
+
+When Bonaparte went to see if the bust were properly placed, he noticed
+the havoc committed in the palace of Catherine of Medicis. The Tuileries
+were no longer the abode of kings, it is true, but they were a national
+palace, and the nation could not allow one of its palaces to become
+dilapidated. Bonaparte sent for citizen Lecomte, the architect, and
+ordered him to _clean_ the Tuileries. The word might be taken in both
+senses--moral and physical.
+
+The architect was requested to send in an estimate of the cost of the
+cleaning. It amounted to five hundred thousand francs. Bonaparte asked
+if for that sum, the Tuileries could be converted into a suitable
+"palace for the government." The architect replied that the sum
+named would suffice not only to restore the Tuileries to their former
+condition, but to make them habitable.
+
+A habitable palace, that was all Bonaparte wanted. How should he, a
+Republican, need regal luxury? The "palace of the government" ought to
+be severely plain, decorated with marbles and statues only. But what
+ought those statues to be? It was the First Consul's duty to select
+them.
+
+Accordingly, Bonaparte chose them from the three great ages and the
+three great nations: from the Greeks, from the Romans, from France and
+her rivals. From the Greeks he chose Alexander and Demosthenes; the
+genius of conquest and the genius of eloquence. From the Romans he chose
+Scipio, Cicero, Cato, Brutus and Caesar, placing the great victim side
+by side with the murderer, as great almost as himself. From the
+modern world he chose Gustavus Adolphus, Turenne, the great Conde,
+Duguay-Trouin, Marlborough, Prince Eugene, and the Marechal de
+Saxe; and, finally, the great Frederick and George Washington--false
+philosophy upon a throne, and true wisdom founding a free state.
+
+To these he added warlike heroes--Dampierre, Dugommier, Joubert--to
+prove that, while he did not fear the memory of a Bourbon in the great
+Conde, neither was he jealous of his brothers-in-arms, the victims of a
+cause already no longer his.
+
+Matters were in this state at the period of which we are now speaking;
+that is, the last of February, 1800. The Tuileries had been cleaned,
+the busts were in their niches, the statues were on their pedestals; and
+only a favorable occasion was wanting.
+
+That occasion came when the news of Washington's death was received. The
+founder of the liberty of the United States had ceased to breathe on the
+14th of December, 1799.
+
+It was that event of which Bonaparte was thinking, when Bourrienne
+saw by the expression of his face that he must be left entirely to the
+reflections which absorbed him.
+
+The carriage stopped before the Tuileries. Bonaparte sprang out with the
+same haste with which he had entered it; went rapidly up the stairs, and
+through the apartments, examining more particularly those which had been
+inhabited by Louis XVI. and Marie-Antoinette. In the private study of
+Louis XVI. he stopped short.
+
+"Here's where we will live, Bourrienne," he said, suddenly, as if
+the latter had followed him through the mental labyrinth in which he
+wandered, following the thread of Ariadne which we call thought. "Yes,
+we will lodge here; the Third Consul can have the Pavilion of Flora, and
+Cambaceres will remain at the Chancellerie."
+
+"In that way," said Bourrienne, "when the time comes, you will have only
+one to turn out."
+
+"Come, come," said Bonaparte, catching Bourrienne by the ear, "that's
+not bad."
+
+"When shall we move in, general?" asked Bourrienne.
+
+"Oh, not to-morrow; it will take at least a week to prepare the
+Parisians to see me leave the Luxembourg for the Tuileries."
+
+"Eight days," exclaimed Bourrienne; "that will do."
+
+"Especially if we begin at once. Come, Bourrienne, to the Luxembourg."
+
+With the rapidity that characterized all his movements when serious
+matters were in question, he passed through the suites of apartments he
+had already visited, ran down the stairs, and sprang into the carriage,
+calling out: "To the Luxembourg!"
+
+"Wait, wait," cried Bourrienne, still in the vestibule; "general, won't
+you wait for me?"
+
+"Laggard!" exclaimed Bonaparte. And the carriage started, as it had
+come, at a gallop.
+
+When Bonaparte re-entered his study he found the minister of police
+awaiting him.
+
+"Well, what now, citizen Fouche? You look upset. Have I, perchance, been
+assassinated?"
+
+"Citizen First Consul," said the minister, "you seemed to attach the
+utmost importance to the destruction of those bands who call themselves
+the Companions of Jehu."
+
+"Evidently, since I sent Roland himself to pursue them. Have you any
+news of them?"
+
+"We have."
+
+"From whom?"
+
+"Their leader himself."
+
+"Their leader?"
+
+"He has had the audacity to send me a report of their last exploit."
+
+"Against whom?"
+
+"The fifty thousand francs you sent to the Saint-Bernard fathers."
+
+"What became of them?"
+
+"The fifty thousand francs?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"They are in the possession of those brigands, and their leader informs
+me he will transfer them shortly to Cadoudal."
+
+"Then Roland is killed?"
+
+"No."
+
+"How do you mean, no?"
+
+"My agent is killed; Colonel Maurice is killed; but your aide-de-camp is
+safe and sound."
+
+"Then he will hang himself," said Bonaparte.
+
+"What good would that do? The rope would break; you know his luck."
+
+"Or his misfortune, yes--Where is the report?"
+
+"You mean the letter?"
+
+"Letter, report, thing--whatever it was that told you this news."
+
+The minister handed the First Consul a paper inclosed in a perfumed
+envelope.
+
+"What's this?"
+
+"The thing you asked for."
+
+Bonaparte read the address: "To the citizen Fouche, minister of police.
+Paris." Then he opened the letter, which contained the following.
+
+  CITIZEN MINISTER--I have the honor to inform you that the fifty
+  thousand francs intended for the monks of Saint-Bernard came
+  into our hands on the night of February 25, 1800 (old style),
+  and that they will reach those of citizen Cadoudal within the
+  week.
+
+  The affair was well-managed, save for the deaths of your agent
+  and Colonel Saint-Maurice. As for M. Roland de Montrevel, I have
+  the satisfaction of informing you that nothing distressing has
+  befallen him. I did not forget that he was good enough to receive
+  me at the Luxembourg.
+
+  I write you, citizen minister, because I presume that M. Roland
+  de Montrevel is just now too much occupied in pursuing us to
+  write you himself. But I am sure that at his first leisure moment
+  you will receive from him a report containing all the details
+  into which I cannot enter for lack of time and facilities for
+  writing.
+
+  In exchange for the service I render you, citizen minister, I
+  will ask you to do one for me; namely, inform Madame de Montrevel,
+  without delay, that her son is in safety.  MORGAN.
+
+  Maison-Blanche, on the road from Macon to Lyons, Saturday, 9 P.M.
+
+"Ha, the devil!" said Bonaparte; "a bold scamp!" Then he added, with a
+sigh: "What colonels and captains those men would make me!"
+
+"What are your orders, citizen First Consul?" asked the minister of
+police.
+
+"None; that concerns Roland. His honor is at stake; and, as he is not
+killed, he will take his revenge."
+
+"Then the First Consul will take no further notice of the affair?"
+
+"Not for the present, at any rate." Then, turning to his secretary, he
+added, "We have other fish to fry, haven't we, Bourrienne?"
+
+Bourrienne nodded affirmatively.
+
+"When does the First Consul wish to see me again?" asked the minister.
+
+"To-night, at ten o'clock. We move out in eight days."
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"To the Tuileries."
+
+Fouche gave a start of amazement.
+
+"Against your opinion, I know," said the First Consul; "but I'll take
+the whole business on myself; you have only to obey."
+
+Fouche bowed, and prepared to leave the room.
+
+"By the way!" exclaimed Bonaparte.
+
+Fouche turned round.
+
+"Don't forget to notify Madame de Montrevel that her son is safe and
+sound; that's the least you can do for citizen Morgan after the service
+he has rendered you."
+
+And he turned his back on the minister of police, who retired, biting
+his lips till the blood came.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIV. CHANGE OF RESIDENCE
+
+That same day, the First Consul, left alone with Bourrienne, dictated
+the following order, addressed to the Consulate guard and to the army at
+large:
+
+  Washington is dead! That great man fought against tyranny. He
+  consolidated the liberty of America. His memory will ever be dear
+  to the French people, to all free men in both hemispheres, but
+  especially to the French soldiers, who, like Washington and his
+  soldiers, have fought for Liberty and Equality. Consequently, the
+  First Consul orders that the flags and banners of the Republic
+  shall be hung with crape for ten days.
+
+But the First Consul did not intend to confine himself to this order of
+the day.
+
+Among the means he took to facilitate his removal from the Luxembourg to
+the Tuileries was one of those fetes by which he knew, none better, how
+to amuse the eyes and also direct the minds of the spectator. This fete
+was to take place at the Invalides, or, as they said in those days, the
+Temple of Mars. A bust of Washington was to be crowned, and the flags of
+Aboukir were to be received from the hands of General Lannes.
+
+It was one of those combinations which Bonaparte thoroughly
+understood--a flash of lightning drawn from the contact of contrasting
+facts. He presented the great man of the New World, and a great victory
+of the old; young America coupled with the palms of Thebes and Memphis.
+
+On the day fixed for the ceremony, six thousand cavalry were in line
+from the Luxembourg to the Invalides. At eight o'clock, Bonaparte
+mounted his horse in the main courtyard of the Consular palace; issuing
+by the Rue de Tournon he took the line of the quays, accompanied by a
+staff of generals, none of whom were over thirty-five years of age.
+
+Lannes headed the procession; behind him were sixty Guides bearing the
+sixty captured flags; then came Bonaparte about two horse's-lengths
+ahead of his staff.
+
+The minister of war, Berthier, awaited the procession under the dome
+of the temple. He leaned against a statue of Mars at rest, and the
+ministers and councillors of state were grouped around him. The flags
+of Denain and Fontenoy, and those of the first campaign in Italy,
+were already suspended from the columns which supported the roof.
+Two centenarian "Invalids" who had fought beside Marechal Saxe were
+standing, one to the right and one to the left of Berthier, like
+caryatides of an ancient world, gazing across the centuries. To the
+right, on a raised platform, was the bust of Washington, which was now
+to be draped with the flags of Aboukir. On another platform, opposite to
+the former, stood Bonaparte's armchair.
+
+On each side of the temple were tiers of seats in which was gathered all
+the elegant society of Paris, or rather that portion of it which gave
+its adhesion to the order of ideas then to be celebrated.
+
+When the flags appeared, the trumpets blared, their metallic sounds
+echoing through the arches of the temple,
+
+Lannes entered first. At a sign from him, the Guides mounted two by
+two the steps of the platform and placed the staffs of the flags in the
+holders prepared for them. During this time Bonaparte took his place in
+the chair,
+
+Then Lannes advanced to the minister of war, and, in that voice that
+rang out so clearly on the battlefield, crying "Forward!" he said:
+
+"Citizen minister, these are the flags of the Ottoman army, destroyed
+before your eyes at Aboukir. The army of Egypt, after crossing burning
+deserts, surviving thirst and hunger, found itself before an enemy proud
+of his numbers and his victories, and believing that he saw an easy prey
+in our troops, exhausted by their march and incessant combats. He had
+yet to learn that the French soldier is greater because he knows how to
+suffer than because he knows how to vanquish, and that his courage rises
+and augments in danger. Three thousand Frenchmen, as you know, fell
+upon eighteen thousand barbarians, broke their ranks, forced them
+back, pressed them between our lines and the sea; and the terror of our
+bayonets is such that the Mussulmans, driven to choose a death, rushed
+into the depths of the Mediterranean.
+
+"On that memorable day hung the destinies of Egypt, France and Europe,
+and they were saved by your courage,
+
+"Allied Powers! if you dare to violate French territory, and if the
+general who was given back to us by the victory of Aboukir makes an
+appeal to the nation--Allied Powers! I say to you, that your successes
+would be more fatal to you than disasters! What Frenchman is there who
+would not march to victory again under the banners of the First Consul,
+or serve his apprenticeship to fame with him?"
+
+Then, addressing the "Invalids," for whom the whole lower gallery had
+been reserved, he continued in a still more powerful voice:
+
+"And you, brave veterans, honorable victims of the fate of battles, you
+will not be the last to flock under the orders of him who knows your
+misfortunes and your glory, and who now delivers to your keeping these
+trophies won by your valor. Ah, I know you, veterans, you burn to
+sacrifice the half of your remaining lives to your country and its
+freedom!"
+
+This specimen of the military eloquence of the conqueror of Montebello
+was received with deafening applause. Three times the minister of war
+endeavored to make reply; and three times the bravos cut him short. At
+last, however, silence came, and Berthier expressed himself as follows:
+
+"To raise on the banks of the Seine these trophies won on the banks of
+the Nile; to hang beneath the domes of our temples, beside the flags of
+Vienna, of Petersburg, of London, the banners blessed in the mosques of
+Byzantium and Cairo; to see them here, presented by the same warriors,
+young in years, old in glory, whom Victory has so often crowned--these
+things are granted only to Republican France.
+
+"Yet this is but a part of what he has done, that hero, in the flower
+of his age covered with the laurels of Europe, he, who stood a victor
+before the Pyramids, from the summits of which forty centuries looked
+down upon him while, surrounded by his warriors and learned men, he
+emancipated the native soil of art and restored to it the lights of
+civilization.
+
+"Soldiers, plant in this temple of the warrior virtues those ensigns
+of the Crescent, captured on the rocks of Canopus by three thousand
+Frenchmen from eighteen thousand Ottomans, as brave as they were
+barbarous. Let them bear witness, not to the valor of the French
+soldier--the universe itself resounds to that--but to his unalterable
+constancy, his sublime devotion. Let the sight of these banners console
+you, veteran warriors, you, whose bodies, gloriously mutilated on the
+field of honor, deprive your courage of other exercise than hope and
+prayer. Let them proclaim from that dome above us, to all the enemies
+of France, the influence of genius, the value of the heroes who captured
+them; forewarning of the horrors of war all those who are deaf to our
+offers of peace. Yes, if they will have war, they shall have it--war,
+terrible and unrelenting!
+
+"The nation, satisfied, regards the Army of the East with pride.
+
+"That invincible army will learn with joy that the First Consul is
+watchful of its glory. It is the object of the keenest solicitude on the
+part of the Republic. It will hear with pride that we have honored it
+in our temples, while awaiting the moment when we shall imitate, if need
+be, on the fields of Europe, the warlike virtues it has displayed on the
+burning sands of Africa and Asia.
+
+"Come, in the name of that army, intrepid general, come in the name of
+those heroes among whom you now appear, and receive an embrace in token
+of the national gratitude.
+
+"And in the moment when we again take up our arms in defence of our
+independence (if the blind fury of kings refuses the peace we offer),
+let us cast a branch of laurel on the ashes of Washington, that hero who
+freed America from the yoke of our worst and most implacable enemy.
+Let his illustrious shade tell us of the glory which follows a nation's
+liberator beyond the grave!"
+
+Bonaparte now came down from his platform, and in the name of France was
+embraced by Berthier.
+
+M. de Fontanes, who was appointed to pronounce the eulogy on Washington,
+waited courteously until the echoes of the torrent of applause, which
+seemed to fall in cascades through the vast amphitheatre, had died away.
+In the midst of these glorious individualities, M. de Fontanes was a
+curiosity, half political, half literary. After the 18th Fructidor he
+was proscribed with Suard and Laharpe; but, being perfectly hidden in a
+friend's house, and never going out except at night, he managed to avoid
+leaving France. Nevertheless, an accident, impossible to foresee, had
+betrayed him. He was knocked down one night on the Place du Carrousel
+by a runaway horse, and was recognized by a policeman, who ran to
+his assistance. But Fouche, who was at once informed, not only of his
+presence in France, but also of his actual hiding-place, pretended to
+know nothing of him.
+
+A few days after the 18th Brumaire, Maret, who became later the Duc
+de Bassano, Laplace, who continued to be simply a man of science, and
+Regnault de Saint-Jean-d'Angely, who died mad, spoke to the First Consul
+of M. de Fontanes and of his presence in Paris,
+
+"Present him to me," replied the First Consul simply.
+
+M. de Fontanes was presented to Bonaparte, who, recognizing his supple
+nature and the unctuous flattery of his eloquence, chose him to deliver
+the eulogy on Washington, and perhaps something of his own at the same
+time.
+
+M. de Fontanes' address was too long to be reported here; all that we
+shall say about it is, that it was precisely what Bonaparte desired.
+
+That evening there was a grand reception at the Luxembourg. During the
+ceremony a rumor was spread that the First Consul contemplated removing
+to the Tuileries. Persons who were either bold or curious ventured on
+a few words to Josephine. She, poor woman, who still saw before her the
+tumbrel and the scaffold of Marie Antoinette, had an instinctive horror
+of all that might connect her with royalty; she therefore hesitated to
+reply and referred all questions to her husband.
+
+Then another rumor began to be bruited about which served as a
+counterpoise to the former. Murat, it was said, had asked the hand of
+Mademoiselle Caroline Bonaparte in marriage. But this marriage was not
+without its obstacles; Bonaparte had had a quarrel, lasting over a year,
+with the man who aspired to the honor of becoming his brother-in-law.
+The cause of this quarrel will seem rather strange to our readers.
+
+Murat, the lion of the army; Murat, whose courage had become proverbial;
+Murat, who might well have been taken by a sculptor as a model for
+the god of war; Murat, on one occasion, when he must have slept ill or
+breakfasted badly, had a moment of weakness.
+
+It happened before Mantua, in which city Wurmser, after the battle of
+Rivoli, was forced to shut himself up with twenty-eight thousand men;
+General Miollis, with four thousand only, was investing the place.
+During a sortie attempted by the Austrians, Murat, at the head of five
+hundred men, received an order to charge three thousand. Murat charged,
+but feebly. Bonaparte, whose aide-de-camp he then was, was so irritated
+that he would not suffer him to remain about him. This was a great blow
+to Murat, all the more because he was at that time desirous of becoming
+the general's brother-in-law; he was deeply in love with Caroline
+Bonaparte.
+
+How had that love come about? It can be told in two words. Perhaps
+those who read our books singly are surprised that we sometimes dwell on
+certain details which seem somewhat long drawn out for the book in which
+they appear. The fact is, we are not writing isolated books, but, as we
+have already said, we are filling, or trying to fill, an immense frame.
+To us, the presence of our characters is not limited to their appearance
+in one book. The man you meet in one book may be a king in a second
+volume, and exiled or shot in a third.
+
+Balzac did a great and noble work with a hundred aspects, and he
+called it the "Comedie Humaine." Our work, begun at the same time as
+his--although, be it understood, we do not praise it--may fitly be
+called "The Drama of France."
+
+Now, let us return to Murat, and tell how this love, which had so
+glorious and, possibly, so fatal an influence on his destiny, came to
+him.
+
+In 1796, Murat was sent to Paris, charged with the duty of presenting
+to the Directory the flags and banners taken by the French army at the
+battles of Dego and Mondovi. During this voyage he made the acquaintance
+of Madame Bonaparte and Madame Tallien. At Madame Bonaparte's house he
+again met Mademoiselle Caroline Bonaparte. We say _again_, for that was
+not the first time he had met the woman who was to share the crown of
+Naples with him. They had met in Rome, at her brother's house, and, in
+spite of the rivalry of a young and handsome Roman prince, she had shown
+him a marked preference.
+
+The three women combined to obtain for him the rank of general of
+brigade from the Directory. Murat returned to the Army of Italy, more in
+love than ever, and, in spite of his new rank, he solicited and obtained
+the favor of remaining with the general-in-chief as aide-de-camp.
+Unhappily, the fatal sortie took place soon after, in consequence of
+which he fell in disgrace with Bonaparte. This disgrace had for awhile
+all the characteristics of actual enmity. Bonaparte dismissed him from
+his service as aide-de-camp, and transferred him to Neille's division,
+and then to that of Baraguey-d'Hilliers. The result was, that when
+Bonaparte returned to Paris after the treaty of Tolentino, Murat did not
+accompany him.
+
+This did not at all suit the female triumvirate, who had taken the young
+general under its direction. The beautiful intriguers entered into
+the campaign, and as the expedition to Egypt was then preparing, they
+induced the minister of war to send Murat with it. He embarked in the
+same ship as Bonaparte, namely the "Orient," but the latter did not
+address a single word to him during the voyage. After they reached
+Alexandria, Murat was at first unable to break the icy barrier opposed
+to him by the general, who, more to put him at a distance from his
+own person than to give him an opportunity to distinguish himself,
+confronted him with Mourad Bey. But, during that campaign, Murat
+performed such prodigies of valor that he effaced, by such bravery, the
+memory of that momentary weakness; he charged so intrepidly, so madly at
+Aboukir, that Bonaparte had not the heart to bear him further malice.
+
+Consequently Murat had returned to France with Bonaparte. He had
+powerfully co-operated with him on the 18th and especially on the 19th
+Brumaire. He was, therefore, restored to full favor, and, as a proof of
+that favor, had received the command of the Consular guard.
+
+He thought this the moment to declare his love, a love already
+well-known to Josephine, who favored it; for which she had two reasons.
+In the first place, she was a woman in the most charming acceptation
+of the word; that is to say, all the gentler passions of women were
+attractive to her. Joachim loved Caroline, Caroline loved Joachim; that
+was enough to make her wish to protect their love. In the second place,
+Bonaparte's brothers detested Josephine; Joseph and Lucien were her
+bitterest enemies, and she was not sorry to make herself two ardent
+friends in Caroline and Murat. She therefore encouraged the latter to
+approach Bonaparte on the subject.
+
+Three days before the ceremony we have just described, Murat had entered
+Bonaparte's study, and, after endless hesitation and circumlocution, had
+proffered his request.
+
+It is probable that the love of the young pair was no news to Bonaparte,
+who, however, received it with stern gravity, and contented himself
+with replying that he would think it over. The matter, in fact, required
+thinking over. Bonaparte came of a noble family, Murat was the son of an
+innkeeper. The alliance at such a moment might have great significance.
+Was the First Consul, in spite of his noble birth, in spite of the
+exalted rank to which he had raised himself, not only sufficiently
+republican, but also sufficiently democratic to mingle his blood with
+that of the common people.
+
+He did not reflect long; his strong, good sense, and his logical mind,
+told him that he had every interest in allowing the marriage, and he
+gave his consent to it the same day.
+
+The double news of this marriage and of the removal to the Tuileries was
+launched on the public at the same time; the one was to counterpoise
+the other. The First Consul was about to occupy the palace of the former
+kings, to sleep in the bed of the Bourbons, as they said at that time,
+but he gave his sister to the son of an innkeeper!
+
+And now, it may be asked, what dowry did the future Queen of Naples
+bring to the hero of Aboukir? Thirty thousand francs and a diamond
+necklace, which the First Consul took from his wife, being too poor to
+buy one. Josephine, who was very fond of her necklace, pouted a little;
+but the gift, thus obtained, was a triumphant reply to those who claimed
+that Bonaparte had made a fortune in Italy; besides, why had she taken
+the interests of the young couple so to heart? She had insisted on
+marrying them, and she ought to contribute to the dowry.
+
+The result of this clever combination was that on the day when the
+Consuls left the Luxembourg for the "palace of the government," escorted
+by the _son of an innkeeper_, soon to be Bonaparte's brother-in-law, it
+did not occur to those who saw the procession pass to do otherwise than
+admire and applaud. And, in truth, what could be more admirable and
+worthy of applause than those processions, which had at their head such
+men as Murat, Moreau, Junot, Duroc, Augereau, and Massena?
+
+A grand review had been ordered to take place that same day in the
+square of the Carrousel. Madame Bonaparte was to be present--not, to be
+sure, in the balcony of the clock-tower, that being evidently too royal,
+but at the window of Lebrun's apartment in the Pavilion of Flora.
+
+Bonaparte started at one o'clock precisely from the Luxembourg, escorted
+by three thousand picked men, among them the splendid regiment of the
+Guides, created three years earlier as a bodyguard to Bonaparte during
+the Italian campaign, in consequence of a great danger he had escaped
+on one occasion. He was resting in a small chateau, after the exhaustion
+attendant upon the passage of the Mincio, and was preparing to take a
+bath, when a retreating Austrian detachment, losing its way, invaded
+the chateau, which had no other guard than the sentries. Bonaparte had
+barely time to escape in his shirt.
+
+A curious difficulty, which deserves to be recorded, arose on the
+morning of this removal, which took place the 30th Pluviose, year
+VIII. The generals, of course, had their horses and the ministers their
+carriages, but the other functionaries had not yet judged it expedient
+to go to such an expense. Carriages were therefore lacking. They were
+supplied from the hackney coach-stands, and slips of paper of the same
+color as the carriages were pasted over their numbers.
+
+The carriage of the First Consul alone was harnessed with six white
+horses, but as the three consuls were in the same carriage, Bonaparte
+and Cambaceres on the front seat, and Lebrun on the back, it was, after
+all, but two horses apiece. Besides, were not these six white horses
+given to the commander-in-chief by the Emperor Francis himself, after
+the treaty of Campo-Formio, a trophy in themselves?
+
+The carriage crossed a part of Paris, following the Rue de Thionville,
+the Quai Voltaire, and the Pont-Royal. From the archway of the Carrousel
+to the great portal of the Tuileries the Consular guard lined the way.
+As Bonaparte passed through the archway, he raised his head and read the
+inscription it bore. That inscription was as follows:
+
+          AUGUST 10, 1792.
+  ROYALTY IS ABOLISHED IN FRANCE
+    AND SHALL NEVER RISE AGAIN.
+
+An almost imperceptible smile flickered on the First Consul's lips.
+
+At the door of the Tuileries, Bonaparte left the carriage and sprang
+into the saddle to review the troops. When he appeared on his war-horse
+the applause burst forth wildly on all sides.
+
+After the review was over, he placed himself in front of the
+clock-tower, with Murat on his right, Lannes at his left, and the
+glorious staff of the Army of Italy behind him. Then began the march
+past.
+
+And now it was that one of those inspirations came to him which engrave
+themselves forever on the hearts of soldiers. As the flags of the 30th,
+the 96th, and the 33d demi-brigades were borne past him, and he saw
+that, of those banners, there remained but a stick and a few rags,
+riddled with balls and blackened with powder, he took his hat from his
+head and bowed.
+
+Then, when the march was over, he dismounted from his horse, and, with
+a firm step, he walked up the grand stairway of the Valois and the
+Bourbons.
+
+That night, when he was alone with Bourrienne, the latter asked: "Well,
+general, are you satisfied?"
+
+"Yes," replied Bonaparte, dreamily, "everything went off nicely, didn't
+it?"
+
+"Wonderfully well."
+
+"I saw you standing near Madame Bonaparte at the ground-floor window of
+the Pavilion of Flora."
+
+"I saw you, too, general; you were reading the inscription on the arch
+of the Carrousel."
+
+"Yes," said Bonaparte, "'August 10,1792. Royalty is abolished in France,
+and shall never rise again.'"
+
+"Shall I have it removed?" asked Bourrienne.
+
+"Useless," replied the First Consul, "it will fall of itself." Then,
+with a sigh, he added: "Bourrienne, do you know whom I missed to-day?"
+
+"No, general."
+
+"Roland. What the devil is he doing that he doesn't give me any news of
+himself?"
+
+We are about to see what Roland was doing.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLV. THE FOLLOWER OF TRAILS
+
+The reader will not have forgotten the situation in which the escort of
+chasseurs found the Chambery mail-coach.
+
+The first thing they did was to look for the obstacle which prevented
+Roland from getting out. They found the padlock and wrenched off the
+door.
+
+Roland bounded from the coach like a tiger from its cage. We have said
+that the ground was covered with snow. Roland, hunter and soldier, had
+but one idea--to follow the trail of the Companions of Jehu. He had seen
+them disappear in the direction of Thoissy; but he believed they were
+not likely to continue in that direction because, between them and the
+little town ran the Saone, and there were no bridges across the river
+between Belleville and Macon. He ordered the escort and the conductor
+to wait for him on the highroad, and alone and on foot, without even
+waiting to reload his pistols, he started on the tracks of Morgan and
+his companions.
+
+He was not mistaken. A mile from the highroad the fugitives had come
+to the river; there they had halted, probably deliberating, for the
+trampling of their horses' hoofs was plainly visible; then they had
+separated into two troops, one going up the river to Macon, and the
+other descending it in the direction of Belleville.
+
+This separation was doubtless intended to puzzle their pursuers, if
+they were pursued. Roland had heard the parting call of the leader:
+"To-morrow night, you know where!" He had no doubt, therefore, that
+whichever trail he followed, whether up or down--if the snow did not
+melt too fast--would lead him to the rendezvous, where, either together
+or singly, the Companions of Jehu were certain to assemble.
+
+He returned upon his own tracks, ordered the conductor to put on the
+boots thrown aside by the pretended postilion, mount the horse and
+take the coach to the next relay, namely Belleville. The sergeant of
+chasseurs and four of his men, who knew how to write, were to accompany
+the conductor and sign his report of what had occurred. Roland forbade
+all mention of himself and where he had gone, lest the brigands should
+get word of his future plans. The rest of the escort were to carry back
+their colonel's body, and make deposition on their own account, along
+the same lines as the conductor, to the authorities, and equally without
+mention of Roland.
+
+These orders given, the young man dismounted a chasseur and took his
+horse, selecting the one he thought most serviceable. Then he reloaded
+his pistols, and put them in the holsters in place of the regulation
+weapons of the dismounted chasseur. Having done this, and promised the
+conductor and the chasseurs a speedy vengeance, conditioned, however, on
+their keeping his present proceedings secret, he mounted the horse and
+rode off in the direction he had already investigated.
+
+When he reached the spot where the two troops had separated, he had to
+decide between the different trails. He chose that which descended the
+Saone toward Belleville. He had excellent reason for making this choice,
+although it might possibly take him out of his way for six or eight
+miles. In the first place he was nearer Belleville than Macon; then he
+had spent twenty-four hours at Macon, and might be recognized there,
+whereas he had never stopped at Belleville longer than the time required
+to change horses when accident brought him there by post.
+
+The events we have just recorded had taken barely an hour to happen.
+Eight o'clock was striking from the church clock at Thoissy when Roland
+started in pursuit of the fugitives. The way was plain; five or six
+horses had left their imprint on the snow; one of these horses had
+paced.
+
+Roland jumped the two or three brooks which watered the space he had to
+cross to reach Belleville. A hundred yards from the town he paused, for
+here the trail separated again; two of the six travellers had turned to
+the right, that is to say, they had struck away from the river, the
+four others to the left, continuing on their way to Belleville. At the
+outskirts of the town, another secession had taken place; three of the
+riders had gone round the town, one had entered it.
+
+Roland followed the latter, sure that he could recover the traces of the
+others. The one who had entered the town and followed the main street
+had stopped at a pretty house between court and garden, numbered 67. He
+had rung and some one had let him in; for through the iron grating could
+be seen traces of footsteps, and beside them the tracks of a horse being
+led to the stable.
+
+It was quite evident that one, at least, of the Companions of Jehu
+had stopped there. By going to the mayor of the town, exhibiting his
+authority, and asking for gendarmes, Roland could have arrested him at
+once. But that was not his object; he did not wish to arrest a solitary
+individual; he wanted to catch the whole company in a trap.
+
+He made a note in his mind of No. 67, and continued on his way. He
+crossed the entire town and rode a few hundred paces beyond it without
+meeting any fresh traces. He was about to return, when it occurred to
+him that, if the tracks of the three riders reappeared anywhere, it
+would be at the head of the bridge. And there, sure enough, he found the
+hoof-prints of three horses, which were undoubtedly those he sought, for
+one of them paced.
+
+Roland galloped in pursuit. On reaching Monceaux--same precaution,
+the riders had skirted the village; but Roland was too good a scout to
+trouble himself about that. He kept on his way, and at the other end of
+Monceaux he recovered the fugitives' tracks. Not far from Chatillon one
+of the three horses had left the highroad, turning to the right toward
+a little chateau, standing on a hill a short distance from the road
+between Chatillon and Trevoux. This time the three remaining riders,
+evidently believing they had done enough to mislead any one who might be
+following, had kept straight on through Chatillon and taken the road to
+Neuville.
+
+The direction taken by the fugitives was eminently satisfactory to
+Roland; they were undoubtedly on their way to Bourg; if they had not
+intended to go there they would have taken the road to Marlieux. Now,
+Bourg was the headquarters Roland had himself chosen for the centre
+of his own operations; it was his own town, and he knew, with the
+minuteness of boyish knowledge, every bush, every ruin, every cavern in
+the neighborhood.
+
+At Neuville the riders had skirted the village. Roland did not trouble
+himself about a ruse, already known and thwarted; but on the other side
+he found but one trail. He could not be mistaken in that horse, however;
+it was the pacer. Certain of recovering the trail again, Roland retraced
+his steps. The two riders had separated at a road leading off to Vannes;
+one had taken that road, the other had skirted the village, which, as
+we have said, was on the road to Bourg. This was the one to follow;
+besides, the gait of the horse made it easier, as it could not be
+confused with any other. Moreover, he was on his way to Bourg, and
+between Neuville and Bourg there was but one other village, that of
+Saint-Denis. For the rest, it was not probable that the solitary rider
+intended to go further than Bourg.
+
+Roland continued on his way with more eagerness than ever, convinced
+that he was nearing the end. In fact the rider had not skirted Bourg,
+but had boldly entered the town. There, it seemed to Roland that the
+man had hesitated, unless this hesitation were a last ruse to hide his
+tracks. But after ten minutes spent in following his devious tracks
+Roland was sure of his facts; it was not trickery but hesitation.
+
+The print of a man's steps came from a side street; the traveller and
+the pedestrian had conferred together for a moment, and then the former
+had evidently employed the latter as a guide. From that point on, the
+footsteps of a man went side by side with those of the horse. Both came
+to an end at the hotel de la Belle-Alliance. Roland remembered that the
+horse wounded in the attack at Les Carronnieres had been brought to this
+inn. In all probability there was some connivance between the inn-keeper
+and the Companion of Jehu. For the rest, in all probability the rider
+would stay there until the next evening. Roland felt by his own fatigue
+that the man he was following must need rest. And Roland, in order
+not to force his horse and the better to reconnoitre the tracks he was
+following, had taken six hours to do thirty miles.
+
+Three o'olock was striking from the truncated bell-tower of Notre-Dame.
+Roland debated what to do. Should he stop at some inn in the town?
+Impossible, he was too well known in Bourg; besides, his horse with
+its cavalry saddle-cloth would excite suspicion. It was one of the
+conditions of success that his presence at Bourg should remain unknown.
+
+He could hide at the Chateau des Noires-Fontaines and keep on the watch,
+but could he trust the servants? Michel and Jacques would hold their
+tongues, Roland was sure of them; but Charlotte, the jailer's daughter,
+she might gossip. However, it was three o'clock in the morning, every
+one was asleep, and the safest plan was certainly to put himself in
+communication with Michel. Michel would find some way of concealing his
+presence.
+
+To the deep regret of his horse, who had no doubt scented a stable,
+Roland wheeled about and rode off in the direction of Pont-d'Ain. As he
+passed the church of Brou he glanced at the barrack of the gendarmes,
+where, in all probability, they and their captain were sleeping the
+sleep of the righteous.
+
+Roland cut through the little strip of forest which jutted into the
+road. The snow deadened the sound of his horse's hoofs. Branching into
+the road from the other side, he saw two men slinking along in the
+ditch, carrying a deer slung by its forelegs to a sapling. He thought he
+recognized the cut of the two men, and he spurred his horse to overtake
+them. The men were on the watch; they turned, saw the rider, who was
+evidently making for them, flung the animal into the ditch, and made for
+the shelter of the forest of Seillon.
+
+"Hey, Michel!" cried Roland, more and more convinced that he had to do
+with his own gardener.
+
+Michel stopped short; the other man kept on his way across the fields.
+
+"Hey, Jacques!" shouted Roland.
+
+The other man stopped. If they were recognized, it was useless to fly;
+besides, there was nothing hostile in the call; the voice was friendly,
+rather than threatening.
+
+"Bless me!" said Jacques, "it sounds like M. Roland."
+
+"I do believe it is he," said Michel.
+
+And the two men, instead of continuing their flight, returned to the
+highroad.
+
+Roland had not heard what the two poachers had said, but he had guessed.
+
+"Hey, the deuce! of course it is I," he shouted.
+
+A minute more and Michel and Jacques were beside him. The questions
+of father and son were a crossfire, and it must be owned they had good
+reason for amazement. Roland, in civilian's dress, on a cavalry horse,
+at three in the morning, on the road from Bourg to the chateau! The
+young officer cut short all questions.
+
+"Silence, poachers!" said he, "put that deer behind me and be off at
+trot to the chateau. No one must know of my presence there, not even my
+sister."
+
+Roland spoke with military precision, and both men knew that when he
+gave an order there was no replying. They picked up the deer, put it
+behind his saddle, and followed the gentle trot of the horse at a run.
+There was less than a mile to do, and it took but ten minutes. At a
+short distance from the chateau, Roland pulled up. The two men went
+forward as scouts to see if all were quiet. Satisfied on that point,
+they made a sign to Roland to advance.
+
+Roland came, dismounted, found the door of the lodge open, and entered.
+Michel took the horse to the stable and carried the deer to the kitchen;
+for Michel belonged to that honorable class of poachers, who kill game
+for the pleasure of killing, and not for the selfish interest of sale.
+There was no need for precaution, either for horse or deer; for Amelie
+took no more notice of what went on in the stable than of what they
+served her to eat.
+
+During this time Jacques lighted the fire. When Michel returned he
+brought the remains of a leg of mutton and some eggs for an omelet.
+Jacques made up a bed in the office.
+
+Roland warmed himself and ate his supper without saying a word. The two
+men looked at each other with an astonishment that was not devoid of a
+certain degree of anxiety. A rumor of the expedition to Seillon had got
+about, and it was whispered that Roland had led it. Apparently, he had
+returned for another similar expedition.
+
+When Roland had finished his supper he looked up and saw Michel.
+
+"Ah! so there you are?" he exclaimed.
+
+"I am waiting for Monsieur's orders."
+
+"Here they are; listen carefully."
+
+"I'm all ears."
+
+"It's a question of life or death; of more than that, of my honor."
+
+"Speak, Monsieur Roland."
+
+Roland pulled out his watch.
+
+"It is now five o'clock. When the inn of the Belle-Alliance opens, be
+there, as if you were just sauntering by; then stop a minute to chat
+with whoever opens it."
+
+"That will probably be Pierre."
+
+"Pierre or another; find out from him who the traveller is who arrived
+last night on a pacing horse. You know what pacing is, don't you?"
+
+"The deuce! You mean a horse that goes like a bear, both feet forward at
+the same time."
+
+"Bravo! You can also find out whether the traveller is leaving this
+morning, or whether he proposes to spend the day at the hotel, can't
+you?"
+
+"Of course I can find that out."
+
+"Well, when you have found out all that, come and tell me; but remember,
+not a word about my being here. If any one asks about me, say that they
+had a letter from me yesterday, and that I was in Paris with the First
+Consul."
+
+"That's understood."
+
+Michel departed. Roland went to bed and to sleep, leaving Jacques to
+guard the building.
+
+When Roland awoke Michel had returned. He had found out all that his
+master desired to know. The horseman who had arrived in the night was
+to leave the next morning, and on the travellers' register, which
+every innkeeper was obliged by law to keep in those days, was entered:
+"Saturday, 30th Pluviose, _ten at night_; the citizen Valensolle, from
+Lyons going to Geneva." Thus the alibi was prepared; for the register
+would prove that the citizen Valensolle had arrived at ten o'clock, and
+it was impossible that he could have assisted in robbing the mail-coach
+near the Maison-Blanche at half-past eight and yet have reached the
+Hotel de la Belle-Alliance at ten.
+
+But what impressed Roland the most was that the man he had followed
+through the night, and whose name and retreat he had just discovered,
+was none other than the second of Alfred de Barjols, whom he himself
+had killed in a duel near the fountain of Vaucluse; and that that second
+was, in all probability, the man who had played the part of ghost at the
+Chartreuse of Seillon.
+
+So, then, the Companions of Jehu were not mere thieves, but, on the
+contrary, as rumor said, gentlemen of good family, who, while the noble
+Bretons were laying down their lives for the royalist cause in the West,
+were, here in the East, braving the scaffold to send to the combatants
+the money they took from the government.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVI. AN INSPIRATION
+
+We have seen that during the pursuit of the preceding night Roland could
+have arrested one or two of the men he was pursuing. He could now do
+the same with M. de Valensolle, who was probably, like Roland himself,
+taking a day's rest after a night of great fatigue.
+
+To do it he had only to write a line to the captain of gendarmes, or to
+the colonel of dragoons, who had assisted him during that ineffectual
+search at Seillon. Their honor was concerned in the affair. They could
+instantly surprise M. de Valensolle in bed, and at the cost of two
+pistol shots--two men killed or wounded--he would be taken.
+
+But M. de Valensolle's arrest would give warning to the rest of the
+band, who would instantly put themselves in safety beyond the frontier.
+It was better, therefore, to keep to his first idea; to go slowly, to
+follow the different trails which must converge to one centre, and, at
+the risk of a general engagement, throw a net over the whole company.
+
+To do that, M. de Valensolle must not be arrested. It was better to
+follow him on his pretended journey to Geneva, which was probably but a
+blind to foil investigation. It was therefore agreed that Roland, whose
+disguise, however good, was liable to be penetrated, should remain
+at the lodge, and Michel and Jacques should head off the game. In all
+probabilities, M. de Valensolle would not set out from the inn before
+nightfall.
+
+Roland made inquiries of Michel about the life his sister had led since
+her mother's departure. He learned that she had never once left the
+grounds during that time. Her habits were still the same, except for the
+walks and visits she had made with Madame de Montrevel.
+
+She rose at seven or eight in the morning, sketched or practiced her
+music till breakfast, and afterward read or employed herself at some
+kind of embroidery, or took advantage of the sunshine to go out with
+Charlotte to the river. Sometimes she bade Michel unfasten the little
+boat, and then, well wrapped in furs, would row up the Reissouse as far
+as Montagnac or down to Saint-Just. During these trips she spoke to no
+one. Then she dined. After dinner, she retired to her bedroom and did
+not appear again.
+
+By half-past six, therefore, Michel and Jacques could decamp without
+arousing any suspicion as to their where-about; and, accordingly, at
+that hour they took their blouses, game-bags and guns, and started.
+Roland had given them their instructions. They were to follow the pacing
+horse until they had ascertained his destination, or until they had
+lost all trace of him. Michel was to lie in wait opposite the inn of the
+Belle-Alliance; Jacques was to station himself outside of Bourg,
+just where the main road divides into three branches, one going to
+Saint-Amour, another to Saint-Claude, and the third to Nantua. This last
+was at the same time the highroad to Geneva. It was evident that unless
+M. de Valensolle returned upon his steps, which was not probable, he
+would take one or another of these three roads.
+
+The father started in one direction, the son in another. Michel went
+toward the town by the road to Pont-d'Ain, passing the church of Brou.
+Jacques crossed the Reissouse, followed the right bank of the little
+river, and found himself, after walking a few hundred yards beyond the
+town, at the sharp angle made by the parting of the three roads. Father
+and son reached their separate posts at about the same time.
+
+At this particular moment, that is to say, about seven o'clock, the
+stillness and solitude surrounding the Chateau des Noires-Fontaines was
+broken by the arrival of a post-chaise, which stopped before the iron
+gate. A servant in livery got off the box and pulled the chain of the
+bell.
+
+It was Michel's business to open the gate, but Michel was away, as we
+know. Amelie and Charlotte probably counted on him, for the bell was
+rung three times before any one answered it. At last the maid appeared
+at the head of the stairs calling Michel. Michel made no reply. Finally,
+protected by the locked gates, Charlotte ventured to approach them. In
+spite of the obscurity she recognized the servant.
+
+"Ah, is it you, Monsieur James?" she cried, somewhat reassured. James
+was Sir John's confidential valet.
+
+"Yes, mademoiselle, it is I, or rather it is Sir John."
+
+The carriage door opened at this moment, and his master's voice was
+heard saying: "Mademoiselle Charlotte, will you tell your mistress that
+I have just arrived from Paris, that I have called to leave my card, and
+to ask permission, not to be received this evening, but to be allowed to
+call to-morrow, if she will grant me that favor. Ask her at what hour I
+shall least inconvenience her."
+
+Mademoiselle Charlotte had a high opinion of Sir John, consequently
+she acquitted herself of the commission with the utmost alacrity. Five
+minutes later she returned to announce that Sir John would be received
+the next day between twelve and one o'clock.
+
+Roland knew what the Englishman had come for. In his mind the marriage
+was an accomplished fact, and he regarded Sir John already as his
+brother-in-law. He hesitated a moment as to whether he should or should
+not make himself known to Sir John, and tell his friend about his
+projects; but he reflected that Sir John was not a man to let him work
+them out alone. He, too, had a revenge to take on the Companions of
+Jehu; he would certainly insist on taking part in the expedition,
+whatever it was. And that expedition, however it might result, was
+certain to be dangerous, and another disaster might befall him. Roland's
+luck, as Roland well knew, did not extend to his friends. Sir John,
+grievously wounded, had barely escaped with his life, and the colonel
+of dragoons had been killed outright. He therefore allowed Sir John to
+drive away without giving any sign of his own proximity.
+
+As for Charlotte, she did not seem in the least surprised that Michel
+was not there to open the gate. Evidently they were accustomed to his
+absences, and they did not disturb either the mistress or the maid.
+For the rest, Roland knew his sister well enough to understand this
+indifference. Amelie, feeble under a moral suffering wholly unsuspected
+by Roland, who attributed to simple nervous crises the fluctuations of
+his sister's character, Amelie was strong and brave before real danger.
+That was no doubt why she felt no fear about remaining with Charlotte
+alone in the lonely house, without other protection than that afforded
+by the two gardeners, who spent their nights in poaching.
+
+As for ourselves, we know that Michel and his son did really serve their
+mistress' desire more in absenting themselves thus frequently from the
+chateau than in staying near it. Their absence left the coast clear
+for Morgan, [and that] was all Amelie really cared about.
+
+That evening and part of the night went by without bringing Roland any
+news. He tried to sleep, but succeeded ill. He fancied every minute that
+he heard some one at the door. The day was just beginning to glimmer
+through the shutters when the door did actually open. Michel and Jacques
+were returning, and this is what had happened to them:
+
+They had each gone to his post, Michel at the inn door, Jacques to the
+junction of the roads. Twenty paces from the door Michel had met Pierre,
+and three words sufficed to show him that M. de Valensolle was still at
+the inn. The latter had announced that, as he had a long journey before
+him, he would let his horse rest and would not start until nightfall.
+Pierre did not doubt that he was going to Geneva, as he said.
+
+Michel proposed a glass of wine to Pierre. Pierre accepted. After that,
+Michel was sure of being warned of any change. Pierre was the hostler,
+and nothing could be done in the stable without his knowledge. A lad
+attached to the inn promised to convey the news to Michel, in return
+for which Michel gave him three charges of powder with which to make
+firecrackers.
+
+At midnight the traveller had not yet started; they had drunk four
+bottles of wine, but Michel had partaken sparingly of them. He had found
+means to pour three of the four bottles into Pierre's glass, where they
+did not long remain. At midnight the wine-shop closed, and Michel having
+nowhere to go for the four hours that still remained until daybreak,
+Pierre offered him a bed of straw in the stable. Michel accepted. The
+two friends went back arm-in-arm; Pierre staggering, Michel pretending
+to stagger.
+
+At three o'clock in the morning the servant of the hotel awakened
+Michel. The traveller wanted his horse. Michel, pretending that he must
+be off to see to his game, also rose. His toilet was not long in making;
+he had only to shake the straw from his hair, game-bag, and blouse,
+after which he took leave of his friend Pierre and hid himself at the
+corner of the street.
+
+Fifteen minutes later the gate opened and a man rode out on a pacing
+horse. It was M. de Valensolle. He took the street that led to the
+Geneva road. Michel followed without concealment, whistling a hunting
+air. Only, as Michel could not run for fear of attracting the rider's
+notice, he lost sight of him before long. But Jacques was there, thought
+he, waiting at the fork of the roads. Yes, Jacques had been there,
+but he had been there for over six hours of a winter's night, in five
+degrees of cold. Had he the courage to stand six hours in the snow and
+kick his soles against a tree?
+
+Thinking thus, Michel took a short cut through the streets and lanes,
+running at full speed; but horse and rider, in spite of his haste, had
+gone faster than he. He reached the fork of the roads. All was silent
+and solitary. The snow, trampled the day before, a Sunday, no longer
+showed distinct tracks. The steps of the horse were lost in the mud of
+the road. Nor did he waste further time in vain searching. He wondered
+what had become of Jacques; but his poacher's eye soon told him.
+
+Jacques had stood on watch at the foot of a tree. For how long? It was
+difficult to say, but long enough to become very cold. The snow was well
+beaten down by his heavy hunting-boots. He had evidently tried to keep
+warm by walking up and down. Then suddenly he must have remembered a
+little mud hut on the other side of the road, such as the road-menders
+build as a shelter against the rain. He had gone down the ditch and
+crossed the road. His trail, lost for a moment in the centre of the
+road, was visible on the snow at either side. This trail formed a
+diagonal line, making straight for the hut. It was evidently in the hut
+that Jacques had passed the night. But when had he left it? And why
+had he left it? The first question was unanswerable. But to the most
+inexperienced scout the second was plain enough. He had left it to
+follow M. de Valensolle. The same footsteps that had approached the hut
+were to be seen going, as they left it, in the direction of Ceyzeriat.
+
+The traveller had really taken the road to Geneva. Jacques' footsteps
+showed it plainly. The stride was long, like that of a man running, and
+he had followed the road behind the trees, evidently to conceal himself
+from the rider. At a wretched tavern, one of those with the legend
+inscribed over its door: "Here we give food and drink, equestrian and
+pedestrian lodgings," the trail stopped. It was clear that the rider had
+stopped before this inn, for Jacques had also paused behind a tree some
+twenty feet distant, where the snow was-trampled. Then, probably after
+the gate had closed on horse and rider, Jacques had left his tree,
+crossed the road, this time with hesitation, his short steps leading,
+not to the door, but to the window.
+
+Michel put his own feet in his son's footprints and reached the window.
+Through the chinks in the shutter the interior, when lighted, could be
+seen; but now all was dark, and Michel could see nothing. But Jacques
+had certainly looked through the window; no doubt it was then lighted,
+and he had been able to see something.
+
+Where had he gone on leaving the window? Round the house, close to the
+wall. This excursion was easy to follow. The snow was virgin. As for
+his purpose in going round the house that was not difficult to make out.
+Jacques, like a lad of sense, had concluded that the traveller had not
+left a good hotel, saying that he was going to Geneva, to put up at a
+miserable tavern a mile from the town.
+
+He must have ridden through the yard and gone out by some other exit.
+Jacques had, therefore, skirted the house in the hope of recovering the
+trail, if not of the horse, at least of the rider on the other side.
+
+Sure enough, from a small gate in the rear, opening toward the forest
+that extends from Coterz to Ceyzeriat, footsteps could be seen advancing
+in a straight line to the edge of the woods. They were those of a man
+elegantly shod, wearing spurs on his heels, for the spurs had left their
+marks upon the snow.
+
+Jacques had not hesitated to follow these marks. The track of his heavy
+shoes could be seen near the prints of the delicate boot--the large foot
+of the peasant near the slender foot of the city man.
+
+It was now five o'clock. Day was breaking, and Michel resolved to go no
+further. Jacques was on the trail, and the young poacher was worth as
+much as the old one. Michel circled the open as if he were returning
+from Ceyzeriat, resolving to enter the inn and wait for Jacques' return;
+certain that his son would know he had followed him and had stopped
+short at this isolated house.
+
+Michel knocked on the window-shutter and was soon admitted. He knew the
+landlord, who was well accustomed to his nocturnal habits, asked for a
+bottle, complaining bitterly of his poor luck, and asked permission to
+wait for his son, who was in the woods on the other side, and who, he
+hoped, had been more successful in tracking the game. It goes without
+saying that this permission was readily accorded. Michel opened the
+window-shutters, in order to look out on the road.
+
+It was not long before some one knocked on the glass. It was Jacques.
+His father called him.
+
+Jacques had been as unfortunate as his father. No game; and he was
+frozen. An armful of wood was thrown on the fire and a second bottle of
+wine was brought. Jacques warmed himself and drank.
+
+Then, as it was necessary that the two poachers should be back at the
+chateau before daylight, that their absence might not be noticed, Michel
+paid for the wine and the wood, and the pair departed.
+
+Neither had said one word before the landlord of the subject that filled
+their minds. He was not to suspect that they were on other trail than
+that of game. But no sooner were they outside of the house than Michel
+drew close to his son. Jacques recounted how he had followed the tracks
+until they had reached a crossroad in the forest. There a man, armed
+with a gun, had suddenly appeared and asked him what he was doing in
+the forest at that hour. Jacques replied that he was watching for game.
+"Then go further," said the man; "don't you see that this place is
+taken?"
+
+Jacques admitted the justice of this claim, and went on about a hundred
+rods further, but, just as he was slanting to the left to return to the
+crossroad, another man, armed like the first, had suddenly started up
+with the same inopportune question. Jacques gave him the same answer:
+"Watching for game." The man had then pointed to the edge of the woods,
+saying in a threatening manner: "If I have any advice to give you, my
+young friend, it is to go over there. It will be safer for you than
+here."
+
+Jacques had taken this advice, or at least had pretended to take it, for
+as soon as he had reached the edge of the woods he had crept along in
+the ditch, until, convinced that it would be impossible to recover M. de
+Valensolle's track, he had struck into the open, and returned by fields
+and the highroad to the tavern, where he hoped to, and in fact did, find
+his father.
+
+They reached the Chateau des Noires-Fontaines, as we have seen, just as
+day was breaking.
+
+All that we have related was repeated to Roland with a multiplicity of
+detail which we must omit, and convinced the young officer that the two
+armed men, who had warned off Jacques, were not poachers as they seemed,
+but Companions of Jehu. But where was their haunt located?
+
+There was no deserted convent, no ruin, in that direction.
+
+Suddenly Roland clapped his hand to his head. "Idiot that I am!" he
+cried, "why did I never think of that?"
+
+A smile of triumph crossed his lips, and addressing the two men, who
+were mortified at having brought him no more definite news, he cried:
+"My lads, I know all I want to know. Go to bed and sleep sound; my word,
+you deserve to!" He himself, setting the example, slept like a man
+whose brain has solved a problem of the utmost importance which has long
+harassed it.
+
+The thought had just flashed through his mind that the Companions
+of Jehu had abandoned the Chartreuse of Seillon for the grottoes of
+Ceyzeriat; and at the same time he recalled the subterranean passage
+leading from these grottoes to the church of Brou.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVII. A RECONNOISSANCE
+
+That same day, Sir John, making use of the permission accorded him the
+night before, presented himself at the Chateau des Noires-Fontaines
+between twelve and one o'clock.
+
+Everything occurred as Morgan had advised. Sir John was received as the
+friend of the family, Lord Tanlay as a suitor whose attentions were most
+flattering. Amelie made no opposition to the wishes of her mother and
+brother, and to the commands of the First Consul, further than to dwell
+on the state of her health and to ask for delay on that account. Sir
+John bowed and submitted; he had obtained more than he had hoped to
+obtain. He was accepted.
+
+He felt that his presence in Bourg, if prolonged, would be an
+impropriety, Amelie being (still on the plea of ill-health) parted from
+her mother and brother. He therefore announced that he would pay her a
+second visit on the morrow, and leave Bourg that same evening. He would
+delay further visits until Amelie came to Paris, or until Madame
+de Montrevel returned to Bourg. The latter arrangement was the more
+probable of the two, for Amelie assured him she needed the country air
+and the spring-like weather to assist her in recovering her health.
+
+Thanks to Sir John's considerate delicacy, the plan arranged between
+Amelie and Morgan was thus carried out, and the two lovers had before
+them a period of solitude and a respite in which to form their plans.
+
+Michel learned these details from Charlotte and imparted them in turn
+to Roland. The latter determined to await Sir John's departure before he
+took any decisive steps against the Companions of Jehu. But this did not
+prevent him from endeavoring to set at rest any remaining doubts.
+
+When night came he put on a hunting-suit, and over it Michel's blouse,
+concealed his face beneath a broad-brimmed hat, slipped a pair of
+pistols in his knife-belt, hidden by the blouse, and boldly took the
+road from Noires-Fontaines to Bourg. He stopped at the barracks of the
+gendarmerie and asked to see the captain.
+
+The captain was in his room. Roland went up and made himself known.
+Then, as it was only eight o'clock, and some one passing might recognize
+him, he blew out the light, and the two men talked in the dark. The
+captain knew already what had happened on the Lyons road three days
+earlier, and, certain that Roland was not killed, was expecting him. To
+his great astonishment, Roland asked him for only one, or rather for two
+things: the key of the church of Brou and a crowbar.
+
+The captain gave him the required articles, and offered to accompany
+him, but Roland refused. It was evident to his mind that he had been
+betrayed by some one connected with the affair of the Maison-Blanche,
+and he would not expose himself to a second defeat. He therefore begged
+the captain to tell no one of his presence in Bourg, and to await his
+return, even if it were delayed some hours. The captain agreed.
+
+Roland, the key in his right hand, the crowbar in his left, reached
+the side door of the church without making any noise. This he unlocked,
+entered, relocked it behind him, and found himself facing a wall of hay.
+He listened. The most profound silence reigned.
+
+He remembered his boyish habits, took his bearings, put the key in his
+pocket, and scrambled up the wall of hay, which was about fifteen feet
+high and formed a sort of platform. When he reached the top he slid
+down on the other side, as though he were descending the scarp of a
+fortification, and reached the flooring of the church, which was almost
+wholly composed of mortuary stones.
+
+The choir was empty, thanks to a rood-screen which protected it on one
+side, and also to the walls which inclosed it to right and left.
+The door of the screen was open and Roland entered the choir without
+difficulty. He came face to face with the monument of Philippe le Beau.
+At the head of the tomb was a large square flagstone. It covered the
+steps which led to the burial vaults.
+
+Roland must have known the way, for as soon as he reached the stone he
+knelt down and felt with his hand for the edge of it. When he found it
+he stood up, inserted his lever and raised the slab. With one hand he
+held it up while he went down the steps. Then he lowered it slowly.
+It seemed as though this nocturnal visitor were voluntarily separating
+himself from the land of the living, and descending into the world of
+the dead. And strange indeed to him, who sees by night as by day, on
+the earth and beneath it, must the impassibility of this young man have
+seemed, who passed among the dead in search of the living, and who,
+in spite of darkness and solitude, did not shudder at the touch of the
+mortuary marbles.
+
+He walked on, feeling his way among the tombs, until he came to the iron
+gate leading to the subterranean passage. He looked for the lock. It was
+only bolted. He inserted the end of his lever between the bolt and the
+staple, and pushed it gently. The gate opened. He drew it close after
+him, but did not lock it, so as to avoid delay on his return. The
+crowbar he left at the corner of the gate.
+
+Then, with straining ears, dilated pupils, every sense tense with this
+effort to hear, the need to breathe, the impossibility of seeing, he
+advanced slowly, a pistol in one hand, touching the wall with the other
+to guide himself. He walked thus for fifteen minutes. A few drops of
+ice-cold water fell through the roof on his hands and shoulders, and
+told him he was passing under the river.
+
+At the end of this time he found the door which opened from the passage
+into the quarry. There he halted a moment. He could now breathe more
+freely, and, moreover, he fancied that he heard distant sounds, and
+could see flickering lights, like will-o'-the-wisps, on the pillars that
+supported the roof. An observer might have thought, not distinguishing
+the face of the silent listener, that he showed hesitation; but
+the moment his countenance was seen, no one could have mistaken its
+expression of hope.
+
+He then resumed his way, heading toward the light he thought he had
+seen. As he advanced, the lights and the noises grew more distinct. It
+was evident that the quarry was inhabited. By whom? He did not yet know,
+but he would know.
+
+He was already within ten feet of that open clearing in the midst of
+the granite walls which we described on our first visit to the grotto
+of Ceyzeriat. Roland clung closely to the wall, and moved forward
+almost imperceptibly. In the dim half-light he looked like a gliding
+bass-relief.
+
+At last his head passed beyond an angle of the wall, and his glance
+rested upon what we may call the camp of the Companions of Jehu.
+
+A dozen or more of the members sat there at supper. Roland was seized
+with a wild desire to precipitate himself into their midst, attacking
+them singly, and fighting until he died. But he repressed the insensate
+thought, withdrew his head as slowly as he had advanced it, and, with
+beaming eyes and heart full of joy, returned, unseen and unsuspected,
+along the way he had come. Everything was now explained; the deserted
+Chartreuse, M. de Valensolle's disappearance, and the counterfeit
+poachers near the entrance to the grotto of Ceyzeriat.
+
+This time he was sure of his vengeance, his deadly, terrible
+vengeance--deadly, because, in like manner as he had been spared (he
+suspected intentionally), he meant to spare others; with this difference
+that, whereas he had been spared for life, he would order these men
+spared for death, death on the scaffold.
+
+Half-way back he thought he heard a noise behind him. He turned and was
+certain he saw a gleam of light. He quickened his steps. The gate once
+passed, there was no danger of losing his way. It was no longer a quarry
+with a thousand windings; it was a straight and narrow vaulted passage
+leading to the mortuary grating. At the end of ten minutes he again
+passed under the river; a couple of minutes later, his outstretched hand
+touched the iron gate.
+
+He took the crowbar from the place where he had left it, entered the
+vault, pulled the gate to, closed it gently and noiselessly, and,
+guiding himself by the tombs, he regained the staircase, pushed up the
+flagstone with his head, and stood once more in the land of the living.
+
+There it was comparative daylight. He left the choir, closed the door of
+the screen as he had found it, scaled the hay, crossed the platform, and
+slid down the other side. The key was still in his pocket. He unlocked
+the door and stepped out into the street.
+
+The captain of gendarmerie was anxiously awaiting him. They conferred
+together for a few moments, and then they returned to Bourg by the
+outer road to avoid being seen. Here they entered the town through
+the market-gate, and followed the Rue de la Revolution, the Rue de la
+Liberte, and the Rue d'Espagne, since called the Rue Simonneau. There
+Roland ensconced himself in a corner of the Rue du Greffe and waited.
+The captain continued on his way alone. He went down the Rue des Ursules
+(for the last seven years called the Rue des Casernes). This was where
+the colonel of dragoons lived. He had just gone to bed when the captain
+of the gendarmerie entered his room; in two words the latter told all,
+and he rose at once and dressed in haste.
+
+When the colonel of dragoons and the captain of gendarmerie appeared in
+the square, a shadow detached itself from the opposite wall and came up
+to them. That shadow was Roland. The three men stood talking for about
+ten minutes, Roland giving his orders, the other two listening and
+approving.
+
+Then they separated. The colonel returned home. Roland and the captain
+followed the Rue de l'Etoile, climbed the steps of the Jacobins, passed
+down the Rue du Bourgneuf, and reached the outer road once more. Then
+they struck diagonally across to the highroad of Pont-d'Ain. The captain
+stopped at the barracks, which were on the way, and Roland continued
+alone to the chateau.
+
+Twenty minutes later--in order not to awaken Amelie--instead of ringing
+the bell he knocked on Michel's window-blind. Michel opened, and with
+one bound Roland, devoured by that fever which took possession of him
+whenever he incurred, or merely dreamed of some danger, sprang into the
+room.
+
+He would not have awakened Amelie had he rung, for Amelie was not
+asleep. Charlotte had been into town ostensibly to see her father, but
+really to take a letter from her mistress to Morgan. She had seen Morgan
+and brought back his answer.
+
+Amelie was reading that answer, which was as follows:
+
+  DEAR LOVE OF MINE--Yes, all goes well on your side, for you are
+  an angel; but I greatly fear that all may go ill on mine, for I
+  am the demon.
+
+  I must see you, I must hold you in my arms and press you to my
+  Heart. I know not what presentiment hangs over me; but I am sad,
+  sad as death.
+
+  Send Charlotte to-morrow to make sure that Sir John is gone, and
+  then, if you are certain, make the accustomed signal. Do not be
+  alarmed; do not talk to me of the snow, or tell me that my
+  footsteps will be seen. This time it is not I who will go to you,
+  but you who must come to me. Do you understand? You can safely
+  walk in the park, and no one will notice your footsteps.
+
+  Put on your warmest shawl and your thickest furs. Then we will
+  spend an hour in the boat under the willows together, and change
+  our roles for once. Usually I tell you of my hopes and you tell
+  me of your fears; but to-morrow, you will tell me of your hopes
+  and I will tell you of my fears, my darling Amelie.
+
+  Only, be sure to come out as soon as you have made the signal. I
+  will await it at Montagnac, and from Montagnac to the Reissouse
+  it will not take a love like mine five minutes to reach you.
+
+  Au revoir, my poor Amelie; had you never met me you would have
+  been the happiest of the happy. Fatality placed me in your path,
+  and I have made a martyr of you.
+
+  Your CHARLES.
+
+  P.S.--To-morrow without fail, unless some insurmountable obstacle
+  prevents.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLVIII. IN WHICH MORGAN'S PRESENTIMENTS ARE VERIFIED
+
+It often happens that the skies are never so calm or so serene as before
+a storm. The day was beautiful and still; one of those glorious days of
+February when, in spite of the tingling cold of the atmosphere, in spite
+of a winding-sheet of snow covering the earth, the sun smiles down upon
+mankind with a promise of spring.
+
+Sir John came at noon to make his farewell visit to Amelie. He had, or
+thought he had, her promise, and that satisfied him. His impatience was
+altogether personal; but Amelie, in accepting his suit, even though she
+relegated the period of her marriage to the vaguest possible future,
+had crowned his hopes. He trusted to the First Consul and to Roland's
+friendship for the rest. He therefore returned to Paris to do much of
+his courting with Madame de Montrevel, not being able to remain at Bourg
+and carry it on with Amelie.
+
+A quarter of an hour after he had left the Chateau des Noires-Fontaines,
+Charlotte was also on her way to Bourg. At four o'clock she returned,
+bringing word that she had seen Sir John with her own eyes getting into
+his travelling carriage, and that he had taken the road to Macon.
+
+Amelie could therefore feel perfectly at ease on that score. She
+breathed freer. She had tried to inspire Morgan with a peace of mind
+which she herself did not share. Since the day that Charlotte had
+brought back the news of Roland's presence at Bourg, she had had a
+presentiment, like that of Morgan himself, that they were approaching
+some terrible crisis. She knew all that had happened at the Chartreuse
+of Seillon. She foresaw the struggle between her brother and her
+lover, and, with her mind at rest about her brother, thanks to Morgan's
+protection, she, knowing Roland's character, trembled for her lover's
+life.
+
+Moreover, she had heard of the stoppage of the Chambery mail-coach and
+the death of the colonel of Chasseurs. She also knew that her brother
+had escaped, but that he had disappeared since that time. She had
+received no letter from him herself. This disappearance and silence, to
+her who knew her brother so well, was even worse than open and declared
+war.
+
+As for Morgan, she had not seen him since the scene we have narrated,
+when she promised to send him arms wherever he might be, in case he were
+condemned to death. Amelie therefore awaited this interview, for which
+Morgan had asked, with as much impatience as he who had asked it. As
+soon as she thought Michel and his son were in bed, she lighted the four
+windows with the candles which were to summon Morgan to her.
+
+Then, following her lover's injunctions, she wrapped herself in a
+cashmere shawl, which Roland had brought her from the battlefield of the
+Pyramids, and which he had unwound from the head of a chieftain whom he
+had killed. Over this she flung a fur mantle, left Charlotte behind to
+keep her informed in case of eventualities, which she trusted would not
+be forthcoming, opened the park gate, and hastened toward the river.
+
+During the day she had gone to the Reissouse and back several times to
+trace a line of footsteps, among which the nocturnal ones would not be
+noticed. She now descended, if not tranquilly at least boldly, the slope
+leading to the river. Once there, she looked about her for the boat
+beneath the willows. A man was waiting in it--Morgan. With two strokes
+of the oar he reached a spot where Amelie could come to him. The young
+girl sprang down and he caught her in his arms.
+
+The first thing the young girl noticed was the joyous radiance which
+illuminated, if we may say so, the face of her lover.
+
+"Oh!" she cried, "you have something nice to tell me." "What makes you
+think so, dearest?" asked Morgan with his tenderest smile.
+
+"There is something in your face, my darling Charles, something more
+than the mere happiness of seeing me."
+
+"You are right," said Morgan, throwing the boat-chain around a willow
+and letting the oars float idly beside the boat. Then, taking Amelie in
+his arms, he said, "You were right, my Amelie. Oh! blind weak beings! It
+is at the very moment that happiness knocks at our door that we despair
+and doubt."
+
+"Oh, speak, speak!" said Amelie, "tell me what has happened."
+
+"Do you remember, my Amelie, how you answered me the last time we met,
+when I asked you to fly and spoke to you of your probable repugnance to
+the step?"
+
+"Yes, I remember, Charles. I said that I was yours, and that, though I
+felt that repugnance, I would conquer it for your sake."
+
+"And I replied that I had engagements which would prevent my leaving the
+country; that I was bound to others, and they to me; that our duty
+was to one man to whom we owed absolute obedience--the future King of
+France, Louis XVIII."
+
+"Yes, you told me that."
+
+"Well, we are now released from our pledges, Amelie, not only by the
+King, but by our general, Georges Cadoudal."
+
+"Oh! my friend, then you will be as other men, only above all others."
+
+"I shall become a simple exile, Amelie. There is no hope of our being
+included in the Breton or Vendean amnesty."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"We are not soldiers, my darling child. We are not even rebels. We are
+Companions of Jehu."
+
+Amelie sighed.
+
+"We are bandits, brigands, highwaymen," said Morgan, dwelling on the
+words with evident intention.
+
+"Hush!" said Amelie, laying her hand on her lover's lips. "Hush! don't
+let us speak of that. Tell me how it is that your king has released you,
+and your general also."
+
+"The First Consul wished to see Cadoudal. In the first place, he sent
+your brother to him with certain proposals. Cadoudal refused to come
+to terms; but, like ourselves, he received orders from Louis XVIII. to
+cease hostilities. Coincident with that order came another message
+from the First Consul to Cadoudal. It was a safeguard for the Vendean
+general, and an invitation to come to Paris; an overture from one power
+to another power. Cadoudal accepted, and is now on his way to Paris. If
+it is not peace, it is at least a truce."
+
+"Oh, what joy, my Charles!"
+
+"Don't rejoice too much, my love."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Do you know why they have issued this order to suspend hostilities?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Because M. Fouche is a long-headed man. He realized that, since
+he could not defeat us, he must dishonor us. He has organized false
+companies of Jehu, which he has set loose in Maine and Anjou, who don't
+stop at the government money, but pillage and rob travellers, and invade
+the chateaux and farms by night, and roast the feet of the owners to
+make them tell where their treasure is hidden. Well, these men, these
+bandits, these _roasters_, have taken our name, and claim to be fighting
+for the same principles, so that M. Fouche and his police declare that
+we are not only beyond the pale of the law, but beyond that of honor."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+"That is what I wished to tell you before I ask you to fly with me, my
+Amelie. In the eyes of France, in the eyes of foreigners, even in the
+eyes of the prince we have served, and for whom we have risked the
+scaffold, we shall be hereafter, and probably are now, dishonored men
+worthy of the scaffold."
+
+"Yes; but to me you are my Charles, the man of devoted convictions, the
+firm royalist, continuing to struggle for a cause when other men have
+abandoned it. To me you are the loyal Baron de Sainte-Hermine, or, if
+you like it better, you are to me the noble, courageous, invincible
+Morgan."
+
+"Ah! that is what I longed to hear, my darling. If you feel thus, you
+will not hesitate, in spite of the cloud of infamy that hangs over our
+honor, you will not hesitate--I will not say to give yourself to me, for
+that you have already done--but to become my wife."
+
+"Hesitate! No, not for an instant, not for a second! To do it is the joy
+of my soul, the happiness of my life! Your wife? I am your wife in the
+sight of God, and God will have granted my every prayer on the day that
+he enables me to be your wife before men."
+
+Morgan fell on his knees.
+
+"Then," he said, "here at your feet, with clasped hands and my whole
+heart supplicating, I say to you, Amelie, will you fly with me? Will you
+leave France with me? Will you be my wife in other lands?"
+
+Amelie sprang erect and clasped her head in her hands, as though her
+brain were bursting with the force of the blood that rushed to it.
+Morgan caught both her hands and looked at her anxiously.
+
+"Do you hesitate?" he asked in a broken, trembling voice.
+
+"No, not an instant!" she cried resolutely. "I am yours in the past, in
+the present, in the future, here, everywhere. Only the thought convulses
+me. It is so unexpected."
+
+"Reflect well, Amelie. What I ask of you is to abandon country and
+family, all that is dear to you, all that is sacred. If you follow me,
+you leave the home where you were born, the mother who nurtured you, the
+brother who loves you, and who, perhaps, when he hears that you are the
+wife of a brigand, will hate you. He will certainly despise you."
+
+As he spoke, Morgan's eyes were anxiously questioning Amelie's face.
+Over that face a tender smile stole gradually, and then it turned from
+heaven to earth, and bent upon Morgan, who was still on his knees before
+her.
+
+"Oh, Charles!" she murmured, in a voice as soft as the clear limpid
+river flowing at her feet, "the love that comes direct from the Divine
+is very powerful indeed, since, in spite of those dreadful words you
+have just uttered, I say to you without hesitation, almost without
+regret: Charles, I am here; Charles, I am yours. Where shall we go?"
+
+"Amelie, our fate is not one to discuss. If we go, if you follow me, it
+must be at once. To-morrow we must be beyond the frontier."
+
+"How do we go?"
+
+"I have two horses, ready saddled at Montagnac, one for you, Amelie, and
+one for me. I have letters of credit for two hundred thousand francs on
+London and Vienna. We will go wherever you prefer."
+
+"Wherever you are, Charles. What difference does it make so long as you
+are there?"
+
+"Then come."
+
+"Can I have five minutes, Charles; is that too much?"
+
+"Where are you going?"
+
+"To say good-by to many things, to fetch your precious letters and the
+ivory chaplet used at my first communion. Oh! there are many sacred
+cherished souvenirs of my childhood which will remind me over there of
+my mother, of France. I will fetch them and return."
+
+"Amelie!"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"I cannot leave you. If I part with you an instant now I feel that I
+shall lose you forever. Amelie, let me go with you."
+
+"Yes, come. What matter if they see your footsteps now? We shall be far
+enough away to-morrow. Come!" The young man sprang from the boat and
+gave his hand to Amelie to help her out. Then he folded his arm about
+her and they walked to the house.
+
+On the portico Charles stopped.
+
+"Go on alone," said he; "memory is a chaste thing. I know that, and I
+will not embarrass you by my presence. I will wait here and watch for
+you. So long as I know you are close by me I do not fear to lose you.
+Go, dear, and come back quickly."
+
+Amelie answered with a kiss. Then she ran hastily up to her room, took
+the little coffer of carved oak clamped with iron, her treasury, which
+contained her lover's letters from first to last, unfastened from the
+mirror above her bed the white and virginal chaplet that hung there;
+put into her belt a watch her father had given her, and passed into her
+mother's bedchamber. There she stooped and kissed the pillow where her
+mother's head had lain, knelt before the Christ at the foot of the bed,
+began a thanksgiving she dared not finish, changed it to a prayer, and
+then suddenly stopped--she fancied she heard Charles calling her.
+
+She listened and heard her name a second time, uttered in a tone of
+agony she could not understand. She quivered, sprang to her feet, and
+ran rapidly down the stairs.
+
+"What is it?" cried Amelie, seizing the young man's hand.
+
+"Listen, listen!" said he.
+
+Amelie strained her ears to catch the sound which seemed to her like
+musketry. It came from the direction of Ceyzeriat.
+
+"Oh!" cried Morgan, "I was right in doubting my happiness to the last.
+My friends are attacked. Adieu, Amelie, adieu!"
+
+"Adieu!" cried Amelie, turning pale. "What, will you leave me?"
+
+The sound of the firing grew more distinct.
+
+"Don't you hear them? They are fighting, and I am not there to fight
+with them."
+
+Daughter and sister of a soldier, Amelie understood him and she made no
+resistance.
+
+"Go!" she said, letting her hands drop beside her. "You were right, we
+are lost."
+
+The young man uttered a cry of rage, caught her to his breast, and
+pressed her to him as though he would smother her. Then, bounding from
+the portico, he rushed in the direction of the firing with the speed of
+a deer pursued by hunters.
+
+"I come! I come, my friends!" he cried. And he disappeared like a shadow
+beneath the tall trees of the park.
+
+Amelie fell upon her knees, her hands stretched toward him without the
+strength to recall him, or, if she did so, it was in so faint a voice
+that Morgan did not stop or even check his speed to answer her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XLIX. ROLAND'S REVENGE
+
+It is easy to guess what had happened. Roland had not wasted his time
+with the captain of gendarmerie and the colonel of dragoons. They on
+their side did not forget that they had their own revenge to take.
+
+Roland had informed them of the subterranean passage that led from the
+church of Brou to the grotto of Ceyzeriat. At nine in the evening the
+captain and the eighteen men under his command were to go to the church,
+descend into the burial vault of the Dukes of Savoy, and prevent with
+their bayonets all communication between the subterranean passage and
+the quarry.
+
+Roland, at the head of twenty men, was to inclose the woods in a
+semicircle, drawing in upon it until the two ends should meet at the
+grotto of Ceyzeriat. The first movement of the party was to be made at
+nine o'clock, in conjunction with the captain of the gendarmerie.
+
+We have seen, from what Morgan told Amelie, the nature of the present
+intentions of the Companions of Jehu. The news brought from Mittau and
+from Brittany had put them at ease. Each man felt that he was free, and,
+knowing that the struggle had been a hopeless one, he rejoiced in his
+liberty.
+
+There was therefore a full meeting at the grotto of Ceyzeriat, almost
+a fete. At twelve o'clock the Companions of Jehu were to separate, and
+each one, according to his facilities, was to cross the frontier and
+leave France.
+
+We know how their leader employed his last moments. The others, who had
+not the same ties of the heart, were supping together in the broad open
+space of the quarry, brilliantly illuminated--a feast of separation and
+farewell; for, once out of France, the Vendee and Brittany pacificated,
+Conde's army destroyed, who knew when and where they should meet again
+in foreign lands.
+
+Suddenly the report of a shot fell upon their ears.
+
+Every man sprang to his feet as if moved by an electric shock. A second
+shot, and then through the depths of the quarry rang the cry, quivering
+on the wings of the bird of ill-omen, "To arms!"
+
+To the Companions of Jehu, subjected to all the vicissitudes of life of
+an outlaw, the occasional rest they snatched was never that of peace.
+Pistols, daggers, carbines, were ever near at hand. At the cry, given
+no doubt by the sentinel, each man sprang to his weapons and stood with
+panting breast and strained ears, waiting.
+
+In the midst of the silence a step as rapid as well could be in the
+darkness was heard. Then, within the circle of light thrown by the
+torches and candles, a man appeared.
+
+"To arms!" he cried again, "we are attacked!"
+
+The two shots the Companions of Jehu had heard were from the
+double-barrelled gun of the sentry. It was he who now appeared, his
+smoking gun in his hand.
+
+"Where is Morgan?" cried twenty voices.
+
+"Absent," replied Montbar; "consequently I command. Put out the lights
+and retreat to the church. A fight is useless now. It would only be
+waste of blood."
+
+He was obeyed with an alacrity that showed that every one appreciated
+the danger. The little company drew together in the darkness.
+
+Montbar, who knew the windings of the subterranean passage almost as
+well as Morgan, directed the troop, and, followed by his companions, he
+plunged into the heart of the quarry. Suddenly, as he neared the gate of
+the passage, he fancied he heard an order given in a low tone not fifty
+feet away, then a sound like the cocking of guns. He stretched out both
+arms and muttered in a low voice:
+
+"Halt!" At the same instant came the command, this time perfectly
+audible: "Fire!"
+
+It was hardly given before the cavern was lighted with a glare, followed
+by a frightful volley. Ten carbines had been discharged at once into the
+narrow passage. By their light Montbar and his companions recognized the
+uniform of the gendarmes.
+
+"Fire!" cried Montbar in turn.
+
+Seven or eight shots answered the command. Again the darkness was
+illuminated. Two of the Companions of Jehu lay upon the ground, one
+killed outright, the other mortally wounded.
+
+"Our retreat is cut off, my friends," cried Montbar. "To the
+right-about! If we have a chance, it is through the forest."
+
+The movement was executed with the precision of a military manoeuvre.
+Montbar, again at the head of his companions, retraced his steps. At
+that moment the gendarmes fired again. But no one replied. Those who had
+discharged their guns reloaded them. Those who had not, reserved their
+fire for the real struggle which was to come. One or two sighs alone
+told that the last volley of the gendarmes had not been without result.
+
+At the end of five minutes Montbar stopped. The little party had reached
+the open space of the quarry.
+
+"Are your pistols and guns all loaded?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," answered a dozen voices.
+
+"Remember the order for those who fall into the hands of the police. We
+belong to the army of M. de Teyssonnet, and we are here to recruit
+men for the royalist cause. If they talk to us of mail-coaches and
+diligences, we don't know what they mean."
+
+"Agreed."
+
+"In either case it will be death. We know that well enough; but the
+death of a soldier is better than that of thieves--the volley of a
+platoon rather than the guillotine."
+
+"Yes, yes," cried a mocking voice, "we know what that is--Vive la
+fusillade!"
+
+"Forward, friends!" said Montbar, "and let us sell our lives for what
+they are worth; that is to say, as dearly as possible."
+
+"Forward!" they all cried.
+
+Then, as rapidly as was possible in the profound darkness, the little
+troop resumed its march, still under the guidance of Montbar. As they
+advanced, the leader noticed a smell of smoke which alarmed him. At the
+same time gleams of light began to flicker on the granite walls at the
+angles of the path, showing that something strange was happening at the
+opening of the grotto.
+
+"I believe those scoundrels are smoking us out," exclaimed Montbar.
+
+"I fear so," replied Adler.
+
+"They think we are foxes."
+
+"Oh!" replied the same voice, "they shall know by our claws that we are
+lions."
+
+The smoke became thicker and thicker, the light more and more vivid.
+
+They turned the last corner. A pile of dried wood had been lighted in
+the quarry about fifty feet from the entrance, not for the smoke, but
+for the light it gave. By the blaze of that savage flame the weapons of
+the dragoons could be seen gleaming at the entrance of the grotto.
+
+Ten steps in advance of the men stood an officer, waiting. He was
+leaning on his carbine, not only exposed to attack, but apparently
+courting it. It was Roland. He was easily recognized. He had flung his
+cap away, his head was bare, and the fitful light of the flames played
+upon his features. But that which should have cost him his life saved
+him. Montbar recognized him and stepped backward.
+
+"Roland de Montrevel!" he said. "Remember Morgan's injunction."
+
+"Yes," replied the other Companions, in muffled tones.
+
+"And now," said Montbar, "let us die, but dearly!"
+
+And he sprang forward into the space illuminated by the fire, and
+discharged one barrel of his gun at the dragoons, who replied with a
+volley.
+
+It would be impossible to relate all that followed. The grotto was
+filled with smoke, which the flame of each weapon pierced like a flash
+of lightning. The two bands clinched and fought hand to hand, pistols
+and daggers serving them in turn. At the noise of the struggle, the
+gendarmes poured in from the rear--few more demons added to this fight
+of devils--but the groups of friends and enemies were so confused they
+dared not fire. They struggled in the red and lurid atmosphere, fell
+down and rose again; a roar of rage was heard, then a cry of agony--the
+death sigh of a man. The survivor sought another man, and the struggle
+was renewed.
+
+This work of death lasted fifteen minutes, perhaps twenty. At the end
+of those twenty minutes twenty corpses could be counted in the grotto of
+Ceyzeriat. Thirteen were those of the gendarmes and the dragoons,
+nine belonged to the Companions of Jehu. Five of the latter were still
+living; overwhelmed by numbers, crippled by wounds, they were taken
+alive. The gendarmes and the dragoons, twenty-five in number, surrounded
+them.
+
+The captain of gendarmes had his arm shattered, the colonel of dragoons
+was wounded in the thigh. Roland alone, covered with blood that was
+not his own, had not a scratch. Two of the prisoners were so grievously
+wounded that it was impossible for them to walk, and the soldiers were
+obliged to carry them on an improvised litter. Torches were lighted, and
+the whole troop, with the prisoners, took the road to the town.
+
+As they were leaving the forest to branch into the high-road, the gallop
+of a horse was heard. It came on rapidly. "Go on," said Roland; "I will
+stay here and find out what this means."
+
+It was a rider, who, as we have said, was advancing at full speed.
+
+"Who goes there?" cried Roland, raising his carbine when the rider was
+about twenty paces from him.
+
+"One more prisoner, Monsieur de Montrevel," replied the rider, "I could
+not be in at the fight, but I will at least go to the scaffold. Where
+are my friends?"
+
+"There, sir," replied Roland, who had recognized, not the face, but the
+voice of the rider, a voice which he now heard for the third time. As he
+spoke, he pointed to the little group in the centre of the soldiers who
+were making their way along the road from Ceyzeriat to Bourg.
+
+"I am glad to see that no harm has befallen you, M. de Montrevel,"
+said the young man, with great courtesy; "I assure you it gives me
+much happiness." And spurring his horse, he was beside the soldiers and
+gendarmes in a few strides. "Pardon me, gentlemen," he said, springing
+from his horse, "I claim a place among my three friends, the Vicomte de
+Jayat, the Comte de Valensolle, and the Marquis de Ribier."
+
+The three prisoners gave a cry of admiration and held out their hands to
+their friend. The two wounded men lifted themselves up on their litters,
+and murmured: "Well done, Sainte-Hermine, well done!"
+
+"I do believe, God help me!" cried Roland, "that those brigands will
+have the nobler side of the affair!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER L. CADOUDAL AT THE TUILERIES
+
+The day but one after the events which we have just related took place,
+two men were walking side by side up and down the grand salon of the
+Tuileries. They were talking eagerly, accompanying their words with
+hasty and animated gestures. These men were the First Consul, Bonaparte,
+and Cadoudal.
+
+Cadoudal, impelled by the misery that might be entailed by a prolonged
+struggle in Brittany, had just signed a peace with Brune. It was after
+this signing of the peace that he had released the Companions of Jehu
+from their obligations. Unhappily, this release had reached them, as we
+have seen, twenty-four hours too late.
+
+When treating with Brune, Cadoudal had asked nothing for himself
+save the liberty to go immediately to England. But Brune had been so
+insistent, that he had consented to an interview with the First Consul.
+He had, in consequence, come to Paris. The very morning of his arrival
+he went to the Tuileries, sent in his name, and had been received. It
+was Rapp who, in Roland's absence, introduced him. As the aide-de-camp
+withdrew, he left both doors open, so as to see everything from
+Bourrienne's room, and to be able to go to the assistance of the First
+Consul if necessary.
+
+But Bonaparte, who perfectly understood Rapp's motive, closed the door.
+Then, returning hastily to Cadoudal's side, he said: "Ah! so it is you
+at last! One of your enemies, my aide-de-camp, Roland de Montrevel, has
+told me fine things of you."
+
+"That does not surprise me," replied Cadoudal. "During the short time I
+saw M. de Montrevel, I recognized in him a most chivalrous nature."
+
+"Yes; and that touched you?" asked the First Consul, fixing his falcon
+eye on the royalist chief. "Listen, Georges. I need energetic men like
+you to accomplish the work I have undertaken. Will you be one of them?
+I have already offered you the rank of colonel, but you are worth more
+than that. I now offer you the rank of general of division."
+
+"I thank you from the bottom of my heart, citizen First Consul," replied
+Cadoudal; "but you would despise me if I accepted."
+
+"Why so?" queried Bonaparte, hastily.
+
+"Because I have pledged myself to the House of Bourbon; and I shall
+remain faithful to it under all circumstances."
+
+"Let us discuss the matter," resumed the First Consul. "Is there no way
+to bind you?"
+
+"General," replied the royalist leader, "may I be permitted to repeat to
+you what has been said to me?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because it touches upon the deepest political interests."
+
+"Pooh! some nonsense," said the First Consul, smiling uneasily.
+
+Cadoudal stopped short and looked fixedly at his companion.
+
+"It is said that an agreement was made between you and Commodore Sidney
+Smith at Alexandria, the purport of which was to allow you to return to
+France on the condition, accepted by you, of restoring the throne to our
+former kings."
+
+Bonaparte burst out laughing.
+
+"How astonishing you are, you plebeians!" he said, "with your love for
+your former kings! Suppose that I did re-establish the throne (a thing,
+I assure you, I have not the smallest desire to do), what return will
+you get, you who have shed your blood for the cause? Not even the
+confirmation of the rank you have won in it, colonel. Have you ever
+known in the royalist ranks a colonel who was not a noble? Did you ever
+hear of any man rising by his merits into that class of people? Whereas
+with me, Georges, you can attain to what you will. The higher I raise
+myself, the higher I shall raise those who surround me. As for seeing me
+play the part of Monk, dismiss that from your mind. Monk lived in an
+age in which the prejudices we fought and overthrew in 1789 were in full
+force. Had Monk wished to make himself king, he could not have done
+so. Dictator? No! It needed a Cromwell for that! Richard could not
+have maintained himself. It is true that he was the true son of a great
+man--in other words a fool. If I had wished to make myself king, there
+was nothing to hinder me; and if ever the wish takes me there will be
+nothing to hinder. Now, if you have an answer to that, give it."
+
+"You tell me, citizen First Consul, that the situation in France in 1800
+is not the same as England in 1660. Charles I. was beheaded in 1649,
+Louis XVI. in 1793. Eleven years elapsed in England between the death
+of the king and the restoration of his son. Seven years have already
+elapsed in France since the death of Louis XVI. Will you tell me
+that the English revolution was a religious one, whereas the French
+revolution was a political one? To that I reply that a charter is as
+easy to make as an abjuration."
+
+Bonaparte smiled.
+
+"No," he said, "I should not tell you that. I should say to you simply
+this: that Cromwell was fifty years old when Charles I. died. I was
+twenty-four at the death of Louis XVI. Cromwell died at the age of
+fifty-nine. In ten years' time he was able to undertake much, but to
+accomplish little. Besides, his reform was a total one--a vast political
+reform by the substitution of a republican government for a monarchical
+one. Well, grant that I live to be Cromwell's age, fifty-nine; that is
+not too much to expect; I shall still have twenty years, just the
+double of Cromwell. And remark, I change nothing, I progress; I do
+not overthrow, I build up. Suppose that Caesar, at thirty years of age,
+instead of being merely the first roue of Rome, had been its greatest
+citizen; suppose his campaign in Gaul had been made; that his campaign
+in Egypt was over, his campaign in Spain happily concluded; suppose that
+he was thirty years old instead of fifty--don't you think he would have
+been both Caesar and Augustus?"
+
+"Yes, unless he found Brutus, Cassius, and Casca on his path."
+
+"So," said Bonaparte, sadly, "my enemies are reckoning on assassination,
+are they? In that case the thing is easy, and you, my enemy, have the
+first chance. What hinders you at this moment, if you feel like Brutus,
+from striking me as he struck Caesar? I am alone with you, the doors
+are shut; and you would have the time to finish me before any one could
+reach you."
+
+Cadoudal made a step backward.
+
+"No," said he, "we do not count upon assassination, and I think our
+extremity must be great indeed before any of us would become a murderer;
+but there are the chances of war. A single reverse would destroy your
+prestige. One defeat would bring the enemy to the heart of France. The
+camp-fires of the Austrians can already be seen from the frontiers
+of Provence. A cannon-ball may take off your head, as it did that of
+Marshal Berwick, and then what becomes of France? You have no children,
+and your brothers--"
+
+"Oh!" cried Bonaparte, "from that point of view you are right enough;
+but, if you don't believe in Providence, I do. I believe that nothing
+happens by chance. I believe that when, on the 15th of August, 1769 (one
+year, day for day, after Louis XV. issued the decree reuniting Corsica
+to France), a child was born in Ajaccio, destined to bring about the
+13th Vendemiaire and the 18th Brumaire, and that Providence had great
+designs, mighty projects, in view for that child. I am that child. If
+I have a mission, I have nothing to fear. My mission is a buckler. If I
+have no mission, if I am mistaken, if, instead of living the twenty-five
+or thirty years I need to accomplish my work, I am stabbed to the heart
+like Caesar, or knocked over by a cannon-ball like Berwick, Providence
+will have had its reasons for acting so, and on Providence will devolve
+the duty of providing for France. We spoke just now of Caesar. When Rome
+followed his body, mourning, and burned the houses of his murderers,
+when the Eternal City turned its eyes to the four quarters of the globe,
+asking whence would come the genius to stay her civil wars, when she
+trembled at the sight of drunken Antony and treacherous Lepidus, she
+never thought of the pupil of Apollonius, the nephew of Caesar, the young
+Octavius. Who then remembered that son of the Velletri banker, whitened
+with the flour of his ancestors? No one; not even the far-sighted
+Cicero. '_Orandum et tollendum_,' he said. Well, that lad fooled all
+the graybeards in the Senate, and reigned almost as long as Louis XIV.
+Georges, Georges! don't struggle against the Providence which created
+me, or that Providence will destroy you."
+
+"Then I shall be destroyed while following the path and the religion of
+my fathers," replied Cadoudal, bowing; "and I hope that God will pardon
+my error, which will be that of a fervent Christian and a faithful son."
+
+Bonaparte laid his hands on the shoulders of the young leader.
+
+"So be it," said he; "but at least remain neuter. Leave events to
+complete themselves. Watch the thrones as they topple, the crowns as
+they fall. Usually spectators pay for a show; I will pay you to look
+on."
+
+"And what will you pay me for that, citizen First Consul?" asked
+Cadoudal, laughing.
+
+"One hundred thousand francs a year," replied Bonaparte.
+
+"If you would give a hundred thousand francs to one poor rebel leader,"
+said Cadoudal, "what would you give to the prince for whom he fought?"
+
+"Nothing, sir. I pay you for your courage, not for the principle for
+which you fought. I prove to you that I, man of my own works, judge men
+solely by theirs. Accept, Georges, I beg of you."
+
+"And suppose I refuse?"
+
+"You will do wrong."
+
+"Will I still be free to depart when I please?"
+
+Bonaparte went to the door and opened it.
+
+"The aide-de-camp on duty," he said.
+
+He waited, expecting to see Rapp. Roland appeared.
+
+"Ah, is it you!" he cried. Then, turning to Cadoudal, he said: "Colonel,
+I do not need to present to you my aide-de-camp, M. Roland de Montrevel.
+He is already one of your acquaintances. Roland, tell the colonel that
+he is as free in Paris as you were in his camp at Muzillac, and that if
+he wishes a passport for any country in the world, Fouche has orders to
+give it to him."
+
+"Your word suffices, citizen First Consul," replied Cadoudal, bowing. "I
+leave to-night."
+
+"May I ask where you are going?"
+
+"To London, general."
+
+"So much the better."
+
+"Why so much the better?"
+
+"Because there you will be near the men for whom you have fought."
+
+"And then?"
+
+"Then, when you have seen them--"
+
+"What?"
+
+"You will compare them with those against whom you have fought. But,
+once out of France, colonel--"
+
+Bonaparte paused.
+
+"I am waiting," said Cadoudal.
+
+"Do not return without warning me, or, if you do, do not be surprised if
+I treat you as an enemy."
+
+"That would be an honor, general. By treating me so you will show that
+you consider me a man to be feared."
+
+So saying, Georges bowed to the First Consul, and retired.
+
+"Well, general," asked Roland, after the door had closed on the Breton
+leader, "is he the man I represented him to be?"
+
+"Yes," responded Bonaparte, thoughtfully; "only he sees things awry. But
+the exaggeration of his ideas arises from noble sentiments, which must
+give him great influence over his own people." Then he added, in a
+low voice, "But we must make an end of him. And now what have you been
+doing, Roland?"
+
+"Making an end of my work," replied Roland.
+
+"Ah, ha! Then the Companions of Jehu--"
+
+"No longer exist, general. Three-fourths are dead, the rest prisoners."
+
+"And you are safe and sound?"
+
+"Don't speak of it, general. I do verily believe I have a compact with
+the devil."
+
+That same evening Cadoudal, as he said, left Paris for England. On
+receiving the news that the Breton leader was in London, Louis XVIII.
+wrote him the following letter:
+
+  I have learned with the greatest satisfaction, general, that
+  you have at last _escaped_ from the bands of the tyrant who
+  misconceived you so far as to offer you service under him. I
+  deplore the unhappy circumstances which obliged you to treat
+  with him; but I did not feel the slightest uneasiness; the
+  heart of my faithful Bretons, and yours in particular, are
+  too well known to me. To-day you are free, you are near my
+  brother, all my hopes revive. I need not say more to such a
+  Frenchman as you.
+
+  LOUIS.
+
+To this letter were added a lieutenant-general's commission and the
+grand cordon of Saint-Louis.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LI. THE ARMY OF THE RESERVES
+
+The First Consul had reached the point he desired. The Companions of
+Jehu were destroyed and the Vendee was pacificated.
+
+When demanding peace from England he had hoped for war. He understood
+very well that, born of war, he could exist only by war. He seemed to
+foresee that a poet would arise and call him "The Giant of War."
+
+But war--what war? Where should he wage it? An article of the
+constitution of the year VIII. forbade the First Consul to command the
+armies in person, or to leave France.
+
+In all constitutions there is inevitably some absurd provision. Happy
+the constitutions that have but one! The First Consul found a means to
+evade this particular absurdity.
+
+He established a camp at Dijon. The army which occupied this camp was
+called the Army of the Reserves. The force withdrawn from Brittany and
+the Vendee, some thirty thousand men in all, formed the nucleus of
+this army. Twenty thousand conscripts were incorporated in it; General
+Berthier was appointed commander-in-chief. The plan which Bonaparte
+explained to Roland in his study one day was still working in his mind.
+He expected to recover Italy by a single battle, but that battle must be
+a great victory.
+
+Moreau, as a reward for his co-operation on the 18th Brumaire, received
+the command he had so much desired. He was made commander-in-chief of
+the Army of the Rhine, with eighty thousand men under him. Augereau,
+with twenty-five thousand more, was on the Dutch frontier. And Massena,
+commanding the Army of Italy, had withdrawn to the country about Genoa,
+where he was tenaciously maintaining himself against the land forces of
+the Austrian General Ott, and the British fleet under Admiral Keith.
+
+While the latter movements were taking place in Italy, Moreau had
+assumed the offensive on the Rhine, and defeated the enemy at Stockach
+and Moeskirch. A single victory was to furnish an excuse to put the Army
+of Reserves under waiting orders. Two victories would leave no doubt
+as to the necessity of co-operation. Only, how was this army to be
+transported to Italy?
+
+Bonaparte's first thought was to march up the Valais and to cross the
+Simplon. He would thus turn Piedmont and enter Milan. But the operation
+was a long one, and must be done overtly. Bonaparte renounced it. His
+plan was to surprise the Austrians and to appear with his whole army on
+the plains of Piedmont before it was even suspected that he had
+crossed the Alps. He therefore decided to make the passage of the
+Great Saint-Bernard. It was for this purpose that he had sent the fifty
+thousand francs, seized by the Companions of Jehu, to the monks whose
+monastery crowns that mountain. Another fifty thousand had been sent
+since, which had reached their destination safely. By the help of this
+money the monastery was to be amply provisioned for an army of fifty
+thousand men halting there for a day.
+
+Consequently, toward the end of April the whole of the artillery was
+advanced to Lauzanne, Villeneuve, Martigny, and Saint-Pierre. General
+Marmont, commanding the artillery, had already been sent forward to
+find a means of transporting cannon over the Alps. It was almost an
+impracticable thing to do; and yet it must be achieved. No precedent
+existed as a guide. Hannibal with his elephants, Numidians, and Gauls;
+Charlemagne with his Franks, had no such obstacles to surmount.
+
+During the campaign in Italy in 1796, the army had not crossed the Alps,
+but turned them, descending from Nice to Cerasco by the Corniche road.
+This time a truly titanic work was undertaken.
+
+In the first place, was the mountain unoccupied? The mountain without
+the Austrians was in itself difficult enough to conquer! Lannes was
+despatched like a forlorn hope with a whole division. He crossed
+the peak of the Saint-Bernard without baggage or artillery, and took
+possession of Chatillon. The Austrians had left no troops in Piedmont,
+except the cavalry in barracks and a few posts of observation. There
+were no obstacles to contend with except those of nature. Operations
+were begun at once.
+
+Sledges had been made to transport the guns; but narrow as they might
+be, they were still too wide for the road. Some other means must be
+devised. The trunks of pines were hollowed and the guns inserted. At one
+end was a rope to pull them, at the other a tiller to guide them. Twenty
+grenadiers took the cables. Twenty others carried the baggage of those
+who drew them. An artilleryman commanded each detachment with absolute
+power, if need be, over life and death. The iron mass in such a case was
+far more precious than the flesh of men.
+
+Before leaving each man received a pair of new shoes and twenty
+biscuits. Each put on his shoes and hung his biscuits around his neck.
+The First Consul, stationed at the foot of the mountain, gave to each
+cannon detachment the word to start.
+
+A man must traverse the same roads as a tourist, on foot or on
+mule-back, he must plunge his eye to the depth of the precipice, before
+he can have any idea of what this crossing was. Up, always up those
+beetling slopes, by narrow paths, on jagged stones, which cut the shoes
+first, the feet next!
+
+From time to time they stopped, drew breath, and then on again without a
+murmur. The ice-belt was reached. Before attempting it the men received
+new shoes; those of the morning were in shreds. A biscuit was eaten, a
+drop of brandy from the canteen was swallowed, and on they went. No man
+knew whither he was climbing. Some asked how many more days it would
+take; others if they might stop for a moment at the moon. At last they
+came to the eternal snows. There the toil was less severe. The gun-logs
+slid upon the snow, and they went faster.
+
+One fact will show the measure of power given to the artilleryman who
+commanded each gun.
+
+General Chamberlhac was passing. He thought the advance not fast enough.
+Wishing to hasten it, he spoke to an artilleryman in a tone of command.
+
+"You are not in command here," replied the man; "I am. I am responsible
+for the gun; I direct its march. Pass on."
+
+The general approached the artilleryman as if to take him by the throat.
+But the man stepped back, saying: "General, don't touch me, or I will
+send you to the bottom of that precipice with a blow of this tiller."
+
+After unheard-of toil they reached the foot of the last rise, at the
+summit of which stands the convent. There they found traces of Lannes'
+division. As the slope was very steep, the soldiers had cut a sort of
+stairway in the ice. The men now scaled it. The fathers of Saint-Bernard
+were awaiting them on the summit. As each gun came up the men were taken
+by squads into the hospice. Tables were set along the passage with bread
+and Gruyere cheese and wine.
+
+When the soldiers left the convent they pressed the hands of the monks
+and embraced the dogs.
+
+The descent at first seemed easier than the ascent, and the officers
+declared it was their turn to drag the guns. But now the cannon
+outstripped the teams, and some were dragged down faster than they
+wished. General Lannes and his division were still in the advance. He
+had reached the valley before the rest of the army, entered the Aosta,
+and received his orders to march upon Ivrea, at the entrance to the
+plains of Piedmont. There, however, he encountered an obstacle which no
+one had foreseen.
+
+The fortress of Bard is situated about twenty-four miles from Aosta. On
+the road to Ivrea, a little behind the village, a small hill closes the
+valley almost hermetically. The river Dora flows between this hill and
+the mountain on the right. The river, or rather, the torrent, fills
+the whole space. The mountain on the left presents very much the same
+aspect; only, instead of the river, it is the highroad which passes
+between the hill and the mountain. It is there that the fortress of Bard
+stands. It is built on the summit of the hill, and extends down one side
+of it to the highroad.
+
+How was it that no one had thought of this obstacle which was well nigh
+insurmountable? There was no way to assault it from the bottom of the
+valley, and it was impossible to scale the rocks above it.
+
+Yet, by dint of searching, they did find a path that they were able to
+level sufficiently for the cavalry and the infantry to pass; but they
+tried in vain to get the artillery over it, although they took the guns
+apart as at the Mont Saint-Bernard.
+
+Bonaparte ordered two cannon levelled on the road, and opened fire on
+the fortress; but it was soon evident that these guns made no effect.
+Moreover, a cannon ball from the fortress struck one of the two cannon
+and shattered it. The First Consul then ordered an assault by storm.
+
+Columns formed in the village, and armed with ladders dashed up at a run
+and reached the fortress at several points; but to insure success, not
+only celerity, but silence was needed. It ought to have been a surprise;
+but Colonel Dufour, who commanded one column, ordered the advance to be
+sounded, and marched boldly to the assault. The column was repulsed, and
+the colonel received a ball through his body.
+
+Then a company of picked marksmen were chosen. They were supplied
+with provisions and cartridges, and crept between the rocks until they
+reached a ledge, from which they commanded the fort. From this ledge
+they discovered another, not quite so high, but which also overlooked
+the fort. To this they contrived, with extreme difficulty, to hoist two
+guns, with which they formed a battery. These two pieces on one side,
+and the sharpshooters on the other, began to make the enemy uneasy.
+
+In the meantime, General Marmont proposed a plan to the First Consul,
+so bold that the enemy could not suspect it. It was nothing less than
+to move the artillery along the highroad, notwithstanding that the enemy
+could rake it.
+
+Manure and wool from the mattresses were found in the villages and
+were spread upon the road. The wheels and chains, and all the jingling
+portions of the gun-carriages were swathed in hay. The horses belonging
+to the guns and caissons were taken out, and fifty men supplied their
+places. This latter precaution had two advantages: first, the horses
+might neigh, while the men had every interest in keeping dead silence;
+secondly, a dead horse will stop a whole convoy, whereas a dead man, not
+being fastened to the traces, can be pushed aside and his place taken
+without even stopping the march. An officer and a subordinate officer
+of artillery were placed in charge of each carriage or caisson, with
+the promise of six hundred francs for the transport of each gun or wagon
+beyond the range of the fort.
+
+General Marmont, who had proposed the plan, superintended the first
+operation himself. Happily, a storm prevailed and made the night
+extremely dark. The first six cannon and the first six caissons passed
+without a single shot from the fortress. The men returned, picking their
+steps silently, one after another, in single file; but this time the
+enemy must have heard some noise, and, wishing to knew the cause, threw
+hand-grenades. Fortunately, they fell beyond the road.
+
+Why should these men, who had once passed, return? Merely to get their
+muskets and knapsacks. This might have been avoided had they been
+stowed on the caissons; but no one can think of everything, and, as it
+happened, no one in the fort at Bard had thought at all.
+
+As soon as the possibility of the passage was demonstrated, the
+transport of the artillery became a duty like any other; only, now
+that the enemy were warned, it was more dangerous. The fort resembled a
+volcano with its belching flames and smoke; but, owing to the vertical
+direction in which it was forced to fire, it made more noise than it did
+harm. Five or six men were killed to each wagon; that is to say, a tenth
+of each fifty; but the cannon once safely past, the fate of the campaign
+was secure.
+
+Later it was discovered that the pass of the Little Saint-Bernard would
+have been practicable, and that the whole artillery could have crossed
+it without dismounting a gun or losing a man. It is true, however, that
+the feat would have been less glorious because less difficult.
+
+The army was now in the fertile plains of Piedmont. It was reinforced on
+the Ticino by a corps of twelve thousand men detached from the Army of
+the Rhine by Moreau, who, after the two victories he had just won, could
+afford to lend this contingent to the Army of Italy. He had sent them
+by the Saint-Gothard. Thus strengthened, the First Consul entered Milan
+without striking a blow.
+
+By the bye, how came the First Consul, who, according to a provision
+of the constitution of the year VIII., could not assume command of the
+army, nor yet leave France, to be where he was? We shall now tell you.
+
+The evening before the day on which he left Paris--that is to say,
+the 15th of May, or, according to the calendars of the time, the 15th
+Floreal--he had sent for the two other consuls and all the ministers,
+saying to Lucien: "Prepare a circular letter to the prefects to-morrow."
+Then he said to Fouche: "You will publish the circular in all the
+newspapers. You are to say that I have left for Dijon to inspect the
+Army of the Reserves. Add, but without affirming it positively, that
+I may go as far as Geneva. In any case, let it be well impressed on
+everyone that I shall not be absent more than a fortnight. If anything
+unusual happens I shall return like a thunderclap. I commend to your
+keeping all the great interests of France; and I hope you will soon hear
+of me by way of Vienna and London."
+
+On the 6th he started. From that moment his strong determination was to
+make his way to the plains of Piedmont, and there to fight a decisive
+battle. Then, as he never doubted that he would conquer, he would
+answer, like Scipio, to those who accused him of violating the
+constitution: "On such a day, at such an hour, I fought the
+Carthagenians; let us go to the capitol, and render thanks to the gods."
+
+Leaving France on the 6th of May, the First Consul was encamped with his
+whole army between Casale and Turin on the 26th of the same month. It
+had rained the whole day; but, as often happens in Italy, toward evening
+the sky had cleared, changing in a few moments from murky darkness to
+loveliest azure, and the stars came sparkling out.
+
+The First Consul signed to Roland to follow him, and together they
+issued from the little town of Chivasso and walked along the banks of
+the river. About a hundred yards beyond the last house a tree, blown
+down by the wind, offered a seat to the pedestrians. Bonaparte sat down
+and signed to Roland to join him. He apparently had something to say,
+some confidence to make to his young aide-de-camp.
+
+Both were silent for a time, and then Bonaparte said: "Roland, do you
+remember a conversation we had together at the Luxembourg?"
+
+"General," said Roland, laughing, "we had a good many conversations
+together at the Luxembourg; in one of which you told me we were to cross
+into Italy in the spring, and fight General Melas at Torre di Gallifolo
+or San-Guiliano. Does that still hold good?"
+
+"Yes; but that is not the conversation I mean."
+
+"What was it, general?"
+
+"The day we talked of marriage."
+
+"Ah, yes! My sister's marriage. That has probably taken place by this
+time, general."
+
+"I don't mean your sister's marriage; I mean yours."
+
+"Good!" said Roland, with a bitter smile. "I thought that had been
+disposed of, general." And he made a motion as if to rise. Bonaparte
+caught him by the arm.
+
+"Do you know whom I meant you to marry at that time, Roland?" he said,
+with a gravity that showed he was determined to be heard.
+
+"No, general."
+
+"Well, my sister Caroline."
+
+"Your sister?"
+
+"Yes. Does that astonish you?"
+
+"I had no idea you had ever thought of doing me that honor."
+
+"Either you are ungrateful, Roland, or you are saying what you do not
+mean. You know that I love you."
+
+"Oh! my general!"
+
+He took the First Consul's two hands and pressed them with the deepest
+gratitude.
+
+"Yes, I should have liked you for my brother-in-law."
+
+"Your sister and Murat love each other, general," said Roland. "It is
+much better that the plan should have gone no further. Besides," he
+added, in muffled tones, "I thought I told you that I did not care to
+marry."
+
+Bonaparte smiled. "Why don't you say offhand that you intend becoming a
+Trappist father?"
+
+"Faith, general, re-establish the cloisters and remove these
+opportunities for me to try to get myself killed, which, thank God! are
+not lacking, and you have guessed what my end will be."
+
+"Are you in love? Is this the result of some woman's faithlessness?"
+
+"Good!" said Roland, "so you think I am in love! That is the last
+straw!"
+
+"Do you complain of my affection when I wished to marry you to my
+sister?"
+
+"But the thing is impossible now! Your three sisters are all
+married--one to General Leduc, one to Prince Bacciocchi, and the third
+to Murat."
+
+"In short," said Bonaparte, laughing, "you feel easy and settled in your
+mind. You think yourself rid of my alliance."
+
+"Oh, general!" exclaimed Roland.
+
+"You are not ambitious, it seems?"
+
+"General, let me love you for all the good you have done to me, and not
+for what you seek to do."
+
+"But suppose it is for my own interests that I seek to bind you to me,
+not by the ties of friendship alone, but also by those of matrimony.
+Suppose I say to you: In my plans for the future I cannot rely upon my
+two brothers, whereas I could never for one instant doubt you?"
+
+"In heart, yes, you are right."
+
+"In all respects! What can I do with Leclerc--a commonplace man;
+with Bacciocchi--who is not French; with Murat--lion-hearted and
+feather-brained? And yet some day I shall have to make princes of them
+because they are my sisters' husbands. When that time comes, what can I
+make of you?"
+
+"A marshal of France."
+
+"And afterward?"
+
+"Afterward? I should say that was enough."
+
+"And then you would be one of twelve, and not a unity of your own."
+
+"Let me be simply your friend. Let me always thresh out the truth with
+you, and then I'll warrant I shall be out of the crowd."
+
+"That may be enough for you, Roland, but it is not enough for me,"
+persisted Bonaparte. Then, as Roland said nothing, he continued, "I have
+no more sisters, Roland, it is true; but I have dreamed that you might
+be something more to me than a brother." Then, as Roland still said
+nothing, he went on: "I know a young girl, Roland, a charming child,
+whom I love as a daughter. She is just seventeen. You are twenty-six,
+and a brigadier-general _de facto_. Before the end of the campaign you
+will be general of division. Well, Roland, when the campaign is over, we
+will return together to Paris, and you shall marry her--"
+
+"General," interrupted Roland, "I think I see Bourrienne looking for
+you."
+
+And in fact the First Consul's secretary was already within two feet of
+the friends.
+
+"Is that you, Bourrienne?" asked Bonaparte, somewhat impatiently.
+
+"Yes, general, a courier from France."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"And a letter from Madame Bonaparte."
+
+"Good!" said the First Consul, rising eagerly, "give it to me." And he
+almost snatched the letter from Bourrienne's hand.
+
+"And for me?" asked Roland. "Nothing for me?"
+
+"Nothing."
+
+"That is strange," said the young man, pensively.
+
+The moon had risen, and by its clear, beautiful light Bonaparte was
+able to read his letters. Through the first two pages his face expressed
+perfect serenity. Bonaparte adored his wife; the letters published
+by Queen Hortense bear witness to that fact. Roland watched these
+expressions of the soul on his general's face. But toward the close
+of the letter Bonaparte's face clouded; he frowned and cast a furtive
+glance at Roland.
+
+"Ah!" exclaimed the young man, "it seems there is something about me in
+the letter."
+
+Bonaparte did not answer and continued to read. When he had finished,
+he folded the letter and put it in the side pocket of his coat. Then,
+turning to Bourrienne, he said: "Very well, we will return. I shall
+probably have to despatch a courier. Go mend some pens while you are
+waiting for me."
+
+Bourrienne bowed and returned to Chivasso.
+
+Bonaparte then went up to Roland and laid his hand on his shoulder,
+saying: "I have no luck with the marriages I attempt to make."
+
+"How so?" asked Roland.
+
+"Your sister's marriage is off."
+
+"Has she refused?"
+
+"No; she has not."
+
+"She has not? Can it be Sir John?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Refused to marry my sister after asking her of me, of my mother, of
+you, of herself?"
+
+"Come, don't begin to get angry. Try to see that there is some mystery
+in all this."
+
+"I don't see any mystery, I see an insult!"
+
+"Ah! there you are, Roland. That explains why your mother and sister did
+not write to you. But Josephine thought the matter so serious that you
+ought to be informed. She writes me this news and asks me to tell you of
+it if I think best. You see I have not hesitated."
+
+"I thank you sincerely, general. Does Lord Tanlay give any reason for
+this refusal?"
+
+"A reason that is no reason."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"It can't be the true one."
+
+"But what is it?"
+
+"It is only necessary to look at the man and to talk with him for five
+minutes to understand that."
+
+"But, general, what reason does he give for breaking his word?"
+
+"That your sister is not as rich as he thought she was."
+
+Roland burst into that nervous laugh which was a sign with him of
+violent agitation.
+
+"Ha!" said he, "that was the very first thing I told him."
+
+"What did you tell him?"
+
+"That my sister hadn't a penny. How can the children of republican
+generals be rich?"
+
+"And what did he answer?"
+
+"That he was rich enough for two."
+
+"You see, therefore, that that was not the real reason for his refusal."
+
+"And it is your opinion that one of your aides-de-camp can receive such
+an insult, and not demand satisfaction?"
+
+"In such situations the person who feels affronted must judge of the
+matter for himself, my dear Roland."
+
+"General, how many days do you think it will be before we have a
+decisive action?"
+
+Bonaparte calculated.
+
+"Not less than fifteen days, or three weeks," he answered.
+
+"Then, general, I ask you for a furlough of fifteen days."
+
+"On one condition."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"That you will first go to Bourg and ask your sister from which side the
+refusal came."
+
+"That is my intention."
+
+"In that case you have not a moment to lose."
+
+"You see I lose none," said the young man, already on his way to the
+village.
+
+"One moment," said Bonaparte; "you will take my despatches to Paris,
+won't you?"
+
+"Ah! I see; I am the courier you spoke of just now to Bourrienne."
+
+"Precisely."
+
+"Come then."
+
+"Wait one moment. The young men you arrested--"
+
+"The Companions of Jehu?"
+
+"Yes. Well, it seems that they were all of noble families. They were
+fanatics rather than criminals. It appears that your mother has been
+made the victim of some judicial trick or other in testifying at their
+trial and has called their conviction."
+
+"Possibly. My mother was in the coach stopped by them, as you know, and
+saw the face of their leader."
+
+"Well, your mother implores me, through Josephine, to pardon those poor
+madmen--that is the very word she uses. They have appealed their case.
+You will get there before the appeal can be rejected, and, if you think
+it desirable, tell the minister of Justice for me to suspend matters.
+After you get back we can see what is best to be done."
+
+"Thank you, general. Anything more?"
+
+"No," said Bonaparte, "except to think over our conversation."
+
+"What was it about?"
+
+"Your marriage."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LII. THE TRIAL
+
+"Well, I'll say as you did just now, we'll talk about it when I return,
+if I do."
+
+"Bless me!" exclaimed Bonaparte, "I'm not afraid; you'll kill him as you
+have the others; only this time, I must admit, I shall be sorry to have
+him die."
+
+"If you are going to feel so badly about it, general, I can easily be
+killed in his stead."
+
+"Don't do anything foolish, ninny!" cried Bonaparte; hastily; "I should
+feel still worse if I lost you."
+
+"Really, general, you are the hardest man to please that I know of,"
+said Roland with his harsh laugh.
+
+And this time he took his way to Chivasso without further delay.
+
+Half an hour later, Roland was galloping along the road to Ivrae in a
+post-chaise. He was to travel thus to Aosta, at Aosta take a mule, cross
+the Saint-Bernard to Martigny, thence to Geneva, on to Bourg, and from
+Bourg to Paris.
+
+While he is galloping along let us see what has happened in France,
+and clear up the points in the conversation between Bonaparte and his
+aide-de-camp which must be obscure to the reader's mind.
+
+The prisoners which Roland had made at the grotto of Ceyzeriat had
+remained but one night in the prison at Bourg. They had been immediately
+transferred to that of Besancon, where they were to appear before a
+council of war.
+
+It will be remembered that two of these prisoners were so grievously
+wounded that they were carried into Bourg on stretchers. One of them
+died that same night, the other, three days after they reached Besancon.
+The number of prisoners was therefore reduced to four; Morgan, who had
+surrendered himself voluntarily and who was safe and sound, and Montbar,
+Adler, and d'Assas, who were more or less wounded in the fight, though
+none of them dangerously. These four aliases hid, as the reader will
+remember, the real names of the Baron de Sainte-Hermine, the Comte de
+Jayat, the Vicomte de Valensolle, and the Marquis de Ribier.
+
+While the evidence was being taken against the four prisoners before
+the military commission at Besancon, the time expired when under the
+law such cases were tried by courts-martial. The prisoners became
+accountable therefore to the civil tribunals. This made a great
+difference to them, not only as to the penalty if convicted, but in the
+mode of execution. Condemned by a court-martial, they would be shot;
+condemned by the courts, they would be guillotined. Death by the first
+was not infamous; death by the second was.
+
+As soon as it appeared that their case was to be brought before a jury,
+it belonged by law to the court of Bourg. Toward the end of March the
+prisoners were therefore transferred from the prison of Besancon to that
+of Bourg, and the first steps toward a trial were taken.
+
+But here the prisoners adopted a line of defence that greatly
+embarrassed the prosecuting officers. They declared themselves to be the
+Baron de Sainte-Hermine, the Comte de Jayat, the Vicomte de Valensolle,
+and the Marquis de Ribier, and to have no connection with the pillagers
+of diligences, whose names were Morgan, Montbar, Adler, and d'Assas.
+They acknowledged having belonged to armed bands; but these forces
+belonged to the army of M. de Teyssonnet and were a ramification of the
+army of Brittany intended to operate in the East and the Midi, while the
+army of Brittany, which had just signed a peace, operated in the North.
+They had waited only to hear of Cadoudal's surrender to do likewise, and
+the despatch of the Breton leader was no doubt on its way to them when
+they were attacked and captured.
+
+It was difficult to disprove this. The diligences had invariably been
+pillaged by masked, men, and, apart from Madame de Montrevel and Sir
+John Tanlay, no one had ever seen the faces of the assailants.
+
+The reader will recall those circumstances: Sir John, on the night they
+had tried, condemned, and stabbed him; Madame de Montrevel, when the
+diligence was stopped, and she, in her nervous struggle, had struck off
+the mask of the leader.
+
+Both had been summoned before the preliminary court and both had been
+confronted with the prisoners; but neither Sir John nor Madame de
+Montrevel had recognized any of them. How came they to practice this
+deception? As for Madame de Montrevel, it was comprehensible. She felt a
+double gratitude to the man who had come to her assistance, and who had
+also forgiven, and even praised, Edouard's attack upon himself. But
+Sir John's silence was more difficult to explain, for among the four
+prisoners he must have recognized at least two of his assailants.
+
+They had recognized him, and a certain quiver had run through their
+veins as they did so, but their eyes were none the less resolutely fixed
+upon him, when, to their great astonishment, Sir John, in spite of the
+judge's insistence, had calmly replied: "I have not the honor of knowing
+these gentlemen."
+
+Amelie--we have not spoken of her, for there are sorrows no pen can
+depict--Amelie, pale, feverish, almost expiring since that fatal night
+when Morgan was arrested, awaited the return of her mother and Sir
+John from the preliminary trial with dreadful anxiety. Sir John arrived
+first. Madame de Montrevel had remained behind to give some orders to
+Michel. As soon as Amelie saw him she rushed forward, crying out: "What
+happened?"
+
+Sir John looked behind him, to make sure that Madame de Montrevel could
+neither see nor hear him, then he said: "Your mother and I recognized no
+one."
+
+"Ah! how noble you are I how generous! how good, my lord!" cried the
+young girl, trying to kiss his hand.
+
+But he, withdrawing his hand, said hastily: "I have only done as I
+promised you; but hush--here is your mother."
+
+Amelie stepped back. "Ah, mamma!" she said, "so you did not say anything
+to compromise those unfortunate men?"
+
+"What!" replied Madame de Montrevel; "would you have me send to the
+scaffold a man who had helped me, and who, instead of punishing Edouard,
+kissed him?"
+
+"And yet," said Amelie, trembling, "you recognized him, did you not?"
+
+"Perfectly," replied Madame de Montrevel. "He is the fair man with the
+black eyebrows who calls himself the Baron de Sainte-Hermine."
+
+Amelie gave a stifled cry. Then, making an effort to control herself,
+she said: "Is that the end of it for Sir John and you? Will you be
+called to testify again?"
+
+"Probably not," replied Madame de Montrevel.
+
+"In any case," observed Sir John, "as neither your mother nor I
+recognized any one, she will persist in that declaration."
+
+"Oh! most certainly," exclaimed Madame de Montrevel. "God keep me from
+causing the death of that unhappy young man. I should never forgive
+myself. It is bad enough that Roland should have been the one to capture
+him and his companions."
+
+Amelie sighed, but nevertheless her face assumed a calmer expression.
+She looked gratefully at Sir John, and then went up to her room, where
+Charlotte was waiting for her. Charlotte had become more than a maid,
+she was now Amelie's friend. Every day since the four young men had
+returned to the prison at Bourg she had gone there to see her father
+for an hour or so. During these visits nothing was talked of but the
+prisoners, whom the worthy jailer, royalist as he was, pitied with
+all his heart. Charlotte made him tell her everything, even to their
+slightest words, and later reported all to Amelie.
+
+Matters stood thus when Madame de Montrevel and Sir John arrived at
+Noires-Fontaines. Before leaving Paris, the First Consul had informed
+Madame de Montrevel, both through Josephine and Roland, that he approved
+of her daughter's marriage, and wished it to take place during his
+absence, and as soon as possible. Sir John had declared to her that
+his most ardent wishes were for this union, and that he only awaited
+Amelie's commands to become the happiest of men. Matters having reached
+this point, Madame de Montrevel, on the morning of the day on which
+she and Sir John were to give their testimony, had arranged a private
+interview between her daughter and Sir John.
+
+The interview lasted over an hour, and Sir John did not leave Amelie
+until the carriage came to the door which was to take Madame de
+Montrevel and himself to the court. We have seen that his deposition was
+all in the prisoners' favor, and we have also seen how Amelie received
+him on his return.
+
+That evening Madame de Montrevel had a long conversation with her
+daughter. To her mother's pressing inquiries, Amelie merely replied that
+the state of her health was such that she desired a postponement of her
+marriage, and that she counted on Sir John's delicacy to grant it.
+
+The next day Madame de Montrevel was obliged to return to Paris,
+her position in Madame Bonaparte's household not admitting of longer
+absence. The morning of her departure she urged Amelie to accompany her;
+but again the young girl dwelt upon the feebleness of her health. The
+sweetest and most reviving months in the year were just opening, and she
+begged to be allowed to spend then in the country, for they were sure,
+she said, to do her good.
+
+Madame de Montrevel, always unable to deny Amelie anything, above all
+where it concerned her health, granted her request.
+
+On her return to Paris, Madame de Montrevel travelled as before, with
+Sir John. Much to her surprise, during the two days' journey he did not
+say anything to her about his marriage to Amelie. But Madame Bonaparte,
+as soon as she saw her friend, asked the usual question: "Well, when
+shall we marry Amelie and Sir John? You know how much the First Consul
+desires it."
+
+To which Madame de Montrevel replied: "It all depends on Sir John."
+
+This response furnished Madame Bonaparte with much food for reflection.
+Why should a man who had been so eager suddenly grow cold? Time alone
+could explain the mystery.
+
+Time went by, and the trial of the prisoners began. They were confronted
+with all the travellers who had signed the various depositions, which,
+as we have seen, were in the possession of the minister of police. No
+one had recognized them, for no one had seen their faces uncovered.
+Moreover, the travellers asserted that none of their property, either
+money or jewels, had been taken. Jean Picot testified that the two
+hundred louis which had been taken from him by accident had been
+returned.
+
+These preliminary inquiries lasted over two months. At the end of that
+time the accused, against whom there was no evidence connecting them
+with the pillage of the coaches, were under no accusation but that
+of their own admissions; that is to say, of being affiliated with the
+Breton and Vendean insurrection. They were simply one of the armed bands
+roaming the Jura under the orders of M. de Teyssonnet.
+
+The judges delayed the final trial as long as possible, hoping that some
+more direct testimony might be discovered. This hope was balked. No one
+had really suffered from the deeds imputed to these young men, except
+the Treasury, whose misfortunes concerned no one. The trial could not be
+delayed any longer.
+
+The prisoners, on their side, had made the best of their time. By means,
+as we have seen, of an exchange of passports, Morgan had travelled
+sometimes as Ribier, and Ribier as Sainte-Hermine, and so with the
+others. The result was a confusion in the testimony of the innkeepers,
+which the entries in their books only served to increase. The arrival
+of travellers, noted on the registers an hour too early or an hour too
+late, furnished the prisoners with irrefutable alibis. The judges were
+morally convinced of their guilt; but their conviction was impossible
+against such testimony.
+
+On the other hand, it must be said that public sympathy was wholly with
+the prisoners.
+
+The trial began. The prison at Bourg adjoins the courtroom. The
+prisoners could be brought there through the interior passages. Large as
+the hall was, it was crowded on the opening day. The whole population
+of Bourg thronged about the doors, and persons came from Macon,
+Sons-le-Saulnier, Besancon, and Nantua, so great was the excitement
+caused by the stoppages, and so popular were the exploits of the
+Companions of Jehu.
+
+The entrance of the four prisoners was greeted by a murmur in which
+there was nothing offensive. Public sentiment seemed equally divided
+between curiosity and sympathy. Their presence, it must be admitted, was
+well calculated to inspire both. Very handsome, dressed in the latest
+fashion of the day, self-possessed without insolence, smiling toward the
+audience, courteous to their judges, though at times a little sarcastic,
+their personal appearance was their best defence.
+
+The oldest of the four was barely thirty. Questioned as to their names,
+Christian and family, their age, and places of birth, they answered as
+follows:
+
+"Charles de Sainte-Hermine, born at Tours, department of the
+Indre-et-Loire, aged twenty-four."
+
+"Louis-Andre de Jayat, born at Bage-le-Chateau, department of the Ain,
+aged twenty-nine."
+
+"Raoul-Frederic-Auguste de Valensolle, born at Sainte-Colombe,
+department of the Rhone, aged twenty-seven."
+
+"Pierre-Hector de Ribier, born at Bollene, department of Vaucluse, aged
+twenty-six."
+
+Questioned as to their social condition and state, all four said they
+were of noble rank and royalists.
+
+These fine young men, defending themselves against death on the
+scaffold, not against a soldier's death before the guns--who asked the
+death they claimed to have merited as insurrectionists, but a death
+of honor--formed a splendid spectacle of youth, courage, and gallant
+bearing.
+
+The judges saw plainly that on the accusation of being insurrectionists,
+the Vendee having submitted and Brittany being pacificated, they would
+have to be acquitted. That was not a result to satisfy the minister of
+police. Death awarded by a council of war would not have satisfied him;
+he had determined that these men should die the death of malefactors, a
+death of infamy.
+
+The trial had now lasted three days without proceeding in the direction
+of the minister's wishes. Charlotte, who could reach the courtroom
+through the prison, was there each day, and returned each night to
+Amelie with some fresh word of hope. On the fourth day, Amelie could
+bear the suspense no longer. She dressed herself in a costume similar
+to the one that Charlotte wore, except that the black lace of the
+head-dress was longer and thicker than is usual with the Bressan peasant
+woman. It formed a veil and completely hid her features.
+
+Charlotte presented Amelie to her father as one of her friends who was
+anxious to see the trial. The good man did not recognize Mademoiselle de
+Montrevel, and in order to enable the young girls to see the prisoners
+well he placed them in the doorway of the porter's room, which opened
+upon the passage leading to the courtroom. This passage was so narrow
+at this particular point that the four gendarmes who accompanied the
+prisoners changed the line of march. First came two officers, then the
+prisoners one by one, then the other two officers. The girls stood in
+the doorway.
+
+When Amelie heard the doors open she was obliged to lean upon
+Charlotte's shoulder for support, the earth seemed to give way under
+her feet and the wall at her back. She heard the sound of feet and the
+rattle of the gendarmes' sabres, then the door of the prison opened.
+
+First one gendarme appeared, then another, then Sainte-Hermine, walking
+first, as though he were still Morgan, the captain of the Companions of
+Jehu.
+
+As he passed Amelie murmured: "Charles!"
+
+The prisoner recognized the beloved voice, gave a faint cry, and felt
+a paper slip into his hand. He pressed that precious hand, murmured her
+name, and passed on.
+
+The others who followed did not, or pretended not to, notice the two
+girls. As for the gendarmes, they had seen and heard nothing.
+
+As soon as the party stepped into the light, Morgan unfolded the note
+and read as follows:
+
+  Do not be anxious, my beloved Charles; I am and ever will be
+  your faithful Amelie, in life or death. I have told all to Lord
+  Tanlay. He is the most generous man on earth; he has promised me
+  to break off the marriage and to take the whole responsibility
+  on himself. I love you.
+
+Morgan kissed the note and put it in his breast. Then he glanced down
+the corridor and saw the two Bressan women leaning against the door.
+Amelie had risked all to see him once more. It is true, however, that at
+this last session of the court no additional witnesses were expected who
+could injure the accused, and in the absence of proof it was impossible
+to convict them.
+
+The best lawyers in the department, those of Lyons and Besancon, had
+been retained by the prisoners for their defence. Each had spoken in
+turn, destroying bit by bit the indictment, as, in the tournaments of
+the Middle Ages, a strong and dexterous knight was wont to knock off,
+piece by piece, his adversary's armor. Flattering applause had followed
+the more remarkable points of their arguments, in spite of the usher's
+warnings and the admonitions of the judge.
+
+Amelie, with clasped hands, was thanking God, who had so visibly
+manifested Himself in the prisoners' favor. A dreadful weight was lifted
+from her tortured breast. She breathed with joy, and looked through
+tears of gratitude at the Christ which hung above the judge's head.
+
+The arguments were all made, and the case about to be closed. Suddenly
+an usher entered the courtroom, approached the judge, and whispered
+something in his ear.
+
+"Gentlemen," said the judge, "the court is adjourned for a time. Let the
+prisoners be taken out."
+
+There was a movement of feverish anxiety among the audience. What could
+have happened? What unexpected event was about to take place? Every
+one looked anxiously at his neighbor. Amelie's heart was wrung by a
+presentiment. She pressed her hand to her breast; it was as though an
+ice-cold iron had pierced it to the springs of life.
+
+The gendarmes rose. The prisoners did likewise, and were then marched
+back to their cells. One after the other they passed Amelie. The hands
+of the lovers touched each other; those of Amelie were as cold as death.
+
+"Whatever happens, thank you," said Charles, as he passed.
+
+Amelie tried to answer, but the words died on her lips.
+
+During this time the judge had risen and passed into the
+council-chamber. There he found a veiled woman, who had just descended
+from a carriage at the door of the courthouse, and had not spoken to any
+one on her way in.
+
+"Madame," said the judge, "I offer you many excuses for the way in which
+I have brought you from Paris; but the life of a man depends upon it,
+and before that consideration everything must yield."
+
+"You have no need to excuse yourself, sir," replied the veiled lady, "I
+know the prerogatives of the law, and I am here at your orders."
+
+"Madame," said the judge, "the court and myself recognize the feeling of
+delicacy which prompted you, when first confronted with the prisoners,
+to decline to recognize the one who assisted you when fainting. At
+that time the prisoners denied their identity with the pillagers of the
+diligences. Since then they have confessed all; but it is our wish to
+know the one who showed you that consideration, in order that we may
+recommend him to the First Consul's clemency."
+
+"What!" exclaimed the lady, "have they really confessed?"
+
+"Yes, madame, but they will not say which of their number helped you,
+fearing, no doubt, to contradict your testimony, and thus cause you
+embarrassment."
+
+"What is it you request of me, sir?"
+
+"That you will save the gentleman who assisted you."
+
+"Oh! willingly," said the lady, rising; "what am I to do?"
+
+"Answer a question which I shall ask you."
+
+"I am ready, sir."
+
+"Wait here a moment. You will be sent for presently."
+
+The judge went back into the courtroom. A gendarme was placed at each
+door to prevent any one from approaching the lady. The judge resumed his
+seat.
+
+"Gentlemen," said he, "the session is reopened."
+
+General excitement prevailed. The ushers called for silence, and silence
+was restored.
+
+"Bring in the witness," said the judge.
+
+An usher opened the door of the council-chamber, and the lady, still
+veiled, was brought into court. All eyes turned upon her. Who was she?
+Why was she there? What had she come for? Amelie's eyes fastened upon
+her at once.
+
+"O my God!" she murmured, "grant that I be mistaken."
+
+"Madame," said the judge, "the prisoners are about to be brought in.
+Have the goodness to point out the one who, when the Geneva diligence
+was stopped, paid you those attentions."
+
+A shudder ran through the audience. They felt that some fatal trap had
+been laid for the prisoners.
+
+A dozen voices began to shout: "Say nothing!" but the ushers, at a sign
+from the judge, cried out imperatively: "Silence!"
+
+Amelie's heart turned deadly cold. A cold sweat poured from her
+forehead. Her knees gave way and trembled under her.
+
+"Bring in the prisoners," said the judge, imposing silence by a look
+as the usher had with his voice. "And you, madame, have the goodness to
+advance and raise your veil."
+
+The veiled lady obeyed.
+
+"My mother!" cried Amelie, but in a voice so choked that only those near
+her heard the words.
+
+"Madame de Montrevel!" murmured the audience.
+
+At that moment the first gendarme appeared at the door, then the second.
+After him came the prisoners, but not in the same order as before.
+Morgan had placed himself third, so that, separated as he was from the
+gendarmes by Montbar and Adler in front and d'Assas behind, he might be
+better able to clasp Amelie's hand.
+
+Montbar entered first.
+
+Madame de Montrevel shook her head.
+
+Then came Adler.
+
+Madame de Montrevel made the same negative sign.
+
+Just then Morgan passed before Amelie.
+
+"We are lost!" she said.
+
+He looked at her in astonishment as she pressed his hand convulsively.
+Then he entered.
+
+"That is he," said Madame de Montrevel, as soon as she saw Morgan--or,
+if the reader prefers it, Baron Charles de Sainte-Hermine--who was
+now proved one and the same man by means of Madame de Montrevel's
+identification.
+
+A long cry of distress burst from the audience. Montbar burst into a
+laugh.
+
+"Ha! by my faith!" he cried, "that will teach you, dear friend, to play
+the gallant with fainting women." Then, turning to Madame de Montrevel,
+he added: "With three short words, madame, you have decapitated four
+heads."
+
+A terrible silence fell, in the midst of which a groan was heard.
+
+"Usher," said the judge, "have you warned the public that all marks of
+approbation or disapproval are forbidden?"
+
+The usher inquired who had disobeyed the order of the court. It was a
+woman wearing the dress of a Bressan peasant, who was being carried into
+the jailer's room.
+
+From that moment the accused made no further attempt at denial; but,
+just as Morgan had united with them when arrested, they now joined with
+him. Their four heads should be saved, or fall together.
+
+That same day, at ten in the evening, the jury rendered a verdict of
+guilty, and the court pronounced the sentence of death.
+
+Three days later, by force of entreaties, the lawyers obtained
+permission for the accused to appeal their case; but they were not
+admitted to bail.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIII. IN WHICH AMELIE KEEPS HER WORD
+
+The verdict rendered by the jury of the town of Bourg had a terrible
+effect, not only in the courtroom, but throughout the entire town. The
+four prisoners had shown such chivalric brotherhood, such noble bearing,
+such deep conviction in the faith they professed, that their enemies
+themselves admired the devotion which had made robbers and highwaymen of
+men of rank and family.
+
+Madame de Montrevel, overwhelmed by the part she had been made to play
+at the crucial point of this drama, saw but one means of repairing the
+evil she had done, and that was to start at once for Paris and fling
+herself at the feet of the First Consul, imploring him to pardon the
+four condemned men. She did not even take time to go to the Chateau des
+Noires-Fontaines to see Amelie. She knew that Bonaparte's departure was
+fixed for the first week in May, and this was already the 6th. When she
+last left Paris everything had been prepared for that departure.
+
+She wrote a line to Amelie explaining by what fatal deception she had
+been instrumental in destroying the lives of four men, when she intended
+to save the life of one. Then, as if ashamed of having broken the pledge
+she had made to Amelie, and above all to herself, she ordered fresh
+post-horses and returned to Paris.
+
+She arrived there on the morning of the 8th of May. Bonaparte had
+started on the evening of the 6th. He said on leaving that he was only
+going to Dijon, possibly as far as Geneva, but in any case he should
+not be absent more than three weeks. The prisoners' appeal, even if
+rejected, would not receive final consideration for five or six weeks.
+All hope need not therefore be abandoned.
+
+But, alas! it became evident that the review at Dijon was only a
+pretext, that the journey to Geneva had never been seriously thought of,
+and that Bonaparte, instead of going to Switzerland, was really on his
+way to Italy.
+
+Then Madame de Montrevel, unwilling to appeal to her son, for she had
+heard his oath when Lord Tanlay had been left for dead, and knew the
+part he had played in the capture of the Companions of Jehu--then Madame
+de Montrevel appealed to Josephine, and Josephine promised to write to
+the First Consul. That same evening she kept her promise.
+
+But the trial had made a great stir. It was not with these prisoners as
+with ordinary men. Justice made haste, and thirty-five days after the
+verdict had been rendered the appeal was rejected. This decision was
+immediately sent to Bourg with an order to execute the prisoners within
+twenty-four hours. But notwithstanding the haste of the minister of
+police in forwarding this decision, the first intimation of the fatal
+news was not received by the judicial authorities at Bourg. While the
+prisoners were taking their daily walk in the courtyard a stone was
+thrown over the outer wall and fell at their feet. Morgan, who still
+retained in relation to his comrades the position of leader, picked
+it up, opened the letter which inclosed the stone, and read it. Then,
+turning to his friends, he said: "Gentlemen, the appeal has been
+rejected, as we might have expected, and the ceremony will take place in
+all probability to-morrow."
+
+Valensolle and Ribier, who were playing a species of quoits with
+crown-pieces and louis, left off their game to hear the news. Having
+heard it they returned to their game without remark.
+
+Jayat, who was reading "La Nouvelle Heloise," resumed his book, saying:
+"Then, I shall not have time to finish M. Jean-Jacques Rousseau's
+masterpiece, and upon my word I don't regret it, for it is the most
+utterly false and wearisome book I ever read in my life!"
+
+Sainte-Hermine passed his hand over his forehead, murmuring: "Poor
+Amelie!" Then observing Charlotte, who was at the window of the jailer's
+room overlooking the courtyard, he went to her. "Tell Amelie that she
+must keep the promise she made me, to-night."
+
+The jailer's daughter closed the window, kissed her father, and told him
+that in all probability he would see her there again that evening. Then
+she returned to Noires-Fontaines, a road she had taken twice every day
+for the last two months, once at noon on her way to the prison, once in
+the evening on returning to the chateau.
+
+Every night she found Amelie in the same place, sitting at the window
+which, in happier days, had given admittance to her beloved Charles.
+Since the day she had fainted in the courtroom she had shed no tears,
+and, we may almost add, had uttered no word. Unlike the marble of
+antiquity awakening into life, she might have been compared to a living
+woman petrifying into stone. Every day she grew paler.
+
+Charlotte watched her with astonishment. Common minds, always impressed
+by noisy demonstrations, that is to say, by cries and tears, are unable
+to understand a mute sorrow. Dumbness to them means indifference. She
+was therefore astonished at the calmness with which Amelie received the
+message she was charged to deliver. She did not see in the dimness of
+the twilight that Amelie's face from being pale grew livid. She did not
+feel the deadly clutch which, like an iron wrench, had seized her heart.
+She did not know that as her mistress walked to the door an automatic
+stiffness was in her limbs. Nevertheless she followed her anxiously. But
+at the door Amelie stretched out her hand.
+
+"Wait for me there," she said.
+
+Charlotte obeyed. Amelie closed the door behind her, and went up to
+Roland's room.
+
+Roland's room was veritably that of a soldier and a huntsman, and its
+chief adornments were trophies and weapons. Arms of all kinds were here,
+French and foreign, from the blue-barrelled pistol of Versailles to the
+silver-handled pistol of Cairo, from the tempered blade of Catalonia to
+the Turkish cimeter.
+
+Amelie took down from this arsenal four daggers, sharp-edged and
+pointed, and eight pistols of different shapes. She put balls in a bag
+and powder in a horn. Thus supplied she returned to her own room. There
+Charlotte assisted her in putting on the peasant gown. Then she waited
+for the night.
+
+Night comes late in June. Amelie stood motionless, mute, leaning against
+the chimney-piece, and looking through the open window at the village
+of Ceyzeriat, which was slowly disappearing in the gathering shades
+of night. When she could no longer distinguish anything but the lights
+which were being lighted one by one, she said:
+
+"Come, it is time to go."
+
+The two young girls went out. Michel paid no attention to Amelie,
+supposing her to be some friend of Charlotte's, who had called to see
+her and whom the jailer's daughter was now escorting home.
+
+Ten o'clock was striking as they passed the church of Brou. It was
+quarter past when Charlotte knocked at the prison door. Old Courtois
+opened it.
+
+We have already shown the political opinions of the worthy jailer. He
+was a royalist. He therefore felt the deepest sympathy for the four
+condemned men, and had hoped, like nearly every one in Bourg--like
+Madame de Montrevel, whose despair at what she had done was known to
+him--that the First Consul would pardon them. He had therefore mitigated
+their captivity as much as possible, without failing in his duty, by
+relieving them of all needless restrictions. On the other hand, it is
+true that he had refused a gift of sixty thousand francs (a sum which
+in those days was worth nearly treble what it is now) to allow them to
+escape.
+
+We have seen how, being taken into confidence by his daughter, he had
+allowed Amelie, disguised as a Bressan peasant, to be present at the
+trial. The reader will also remember the kindness the worthy man had
+shown to Amelie and her mother when they themselves were prisoners.
+This time, as he was still ignorant of the rejection of the appeal, he
+allowed his feelings to be worked upon. Charlotte had told him that her
+young mistress was to start that night for Paris to endeavor to hasten
+the pardon, and that she desired before leaving to see the Baron de
+Sainte-Hermine and obtain his last instructions.
+
+There were five doors to break through to reach the street, a squad of
+guards in the courtyard, and sentinels within and without the prison.
+Consequently Pere Courtois felt no anxiety lest his prisoners escape. He
+therefore consented that Amelie should see Morgan.
+
+We trust our readers will excuse us if we use the names Morgan, Charles,
+and the Baron de Sainte-Hermine, interchangeably, since they are aware
+that by that triple appellation we intend to designate the same man.
+
+Courtois took a light and walked before Amelie. The young girl, as
+though prepared to start by the mail-coach at once on leaving the
+prison, carried a travelling bag in her hand. Charlotte followed her
+mistress.
+
+"You will recognize the cell, Mademoiselle de Montrevel," said Courtois.
+"It is the one in which you were confined with your mother. The leader
+of these unfortunate young men, the Baron Charles de Sainte-Hermine,
+asked me as a favor to put them in cage No. 1. You know that's the
+name we give our cells. I did not think I ought to refuse him that
+consolation, knowing how the poor fellow loved you. Oh, don't be
+uneasy, Mademoiselle Amelie, I will never breathe your secret. Then he
+questioned me, asking which had been your mother's bed, and which yours.
+I told him, and then he wanted his to stand just where yours did. That
+wasn't hard, for the bed was not only in the same place, but it was the
+very one you had used. So, since the poor fellow entered your cell, he
+has spent nearly all his time lying on your bed."
+
+Amelie gave a sigh that resembled a groan. She felt--and it was long
+since she had done so--a tear moisten her eyelids. Yes! she was loved as
+she loved, and the lips of a disinterested stranger gave her the proof
+of it. At this moment of eternal separation this conviction shone like a
+diamond of light in its setting of sorrow.
+
+The doors opened one by one before Pere Courtois. When they reached the
+last one, Amelie laid her hand on the jailer's shoulder. She thought
+she heard a chant. Listening attentively, she became aware that it was a
+voice repeating verses.
+
+But the voice was not Morgan's; it was unknown to her. Here is what it
+said:
+
+  I have bared all my heart to the God of the just,
+    He has witnessed my penitent tears;
+  He has stilled my remorse, He has armed me with trust,
+    He has pitied and calmed all my fears.
+
+  My enemies, scoffing, have said in their rage:
+    "Let him die, be his mem'ry accursed!"
+  Saith the merciful Father, my grief to assuage,
+    "Their hatred hath now done its worst.
+
+  "I have heard thy complaints, and I know that the ban
+    Of remorse hath e'en brought thee so low;
+  I can pity the soul of the penitent man
+    That was weak in this valley of woe;
+
+  "I will crown thy lost name with the just acclaim
+    Of the slow-judging righteous years;
+  Their pity and justice in time shall proclaim
+    Thine honor; then layoff thy fears!"
+
+  I bless thee, O God! who hast deigned to restore
+    Mine honor that Thou hast made whole
+  From shame and remorse; as I enter Death's door
+    To Thee I commend my poor soul!
+
+  To the banquet of life, an unfortunate guest,
+    I came for a day, and I go--
+  I die in my vigor; I sought not to rest
+    In the grave where the weary lie low.
+
+  Farewell to thee, earth! farewell, tender verdure
+    Of woodland! Farewell, sunny shore!
+  Green fields that I love, azure skies, smiling Nature,
+    Farewell! I shall see thee no more.
+
+  May thy beauty still gladden the friends that I love,
+    Whom I long for--but stern fate denies;
+  May they pass full of years, though I wait them above;
+    May a last loving hand close their eyes.
+
+The voice was silent; no doubt the last verse was finished. Amelie, who
+would not interrupt the last meditations of the doomed men, and who had
+recognized Gilbert's beautiful ode written on a hospital bed the night
+before his death, now signed to the jailer to open the door. Pere
+Courtois, jailer as he was, seemed to share the young girl's emotion,
+for he put the key in the lock and turned it as softly as he could. The
+door opened.
+
+Amelie saw at a glance the whole interior of the cell, and the persons
+in it.
+
+Valensolle was standing, leaning against the wall, and still holding the
+book from which he had just read the lines that Amelie had overheard.
+Jayat was seated near a table with his head resting on his hands.
+Ribier was sitting on the table itself. Near him, but further back,
+Sainte-Hermine, his eyes closed as if in sleep, was lying on the bed. At
+sight of the young girl, whom they knew to be Amelie, Ribier and Jayat
+rose. Morgan did not move; he had heard nothing.
+
+Amelie went directly to him, and, as if the love she felt for him were
+sanctified by the nearness of death, she gave no heed to the presence of
+his friends, but pressed her lips to his, murmuring: "Awake, my Charles,
+it is I, Amelie. I have come to keep my promise."
+
+Morgan gave a cry of joy and clasped her in his arms.
+
+"Monsieur Courtois," said Montbar, "you are a worthy man. Leave those
+poor young people alone. It would be sacrilege to trouble their last
+moments together on earth by our presence."
+
+Pere Courtois, without a word, opened the door of the adjoining cell.
+Valensolle, Jayat and Ribier entered it, and the door was closed upon
+them. Then, making a sign to Charlotte, Courtois himself went away. The
+lovers were alone.
+
+There are scenes that should not be described, words that must not be
+repeated. God, who sees and hears them from his immortal throne, alone
+knows what sombre joys, what bitter pleasures they contain.
+
+At the end of an hour the two young people heard the key turn once
+more in the lock. They were sad but calm. The conviction that their
+separation would not be for long gave them a sweet serenity. The worthy
+jailer seemed more grieved and distressed at his second appearance than
+at his first; but Morgan and Amelie thanked him with a smile.
+
+He went to the cell where the others were locked up and opened it,
+murmuring to himself: "Faith! It would have been hard if they couldn't
+have been alone together on their last night."
+
+Valensolle, Jayat and Ribier returned. Amelie, with her left arm wound
+around Morgan, held out her right hand to them. All three, one after the
+other, kissed that cold, damp hand. Then Morgan led her to the door.
+
+"Au revoir!" he said.
+
+"Soon!" she answered.
+
+And then this parting at the gates of death was sealed by a long kiss,
+followed by a groan so terrible that it seemed to rend their hearts in
+twain.
+
+The door closed again, the bolts and bars shot into their places.
+
+"Well?" cried Valensolle, Jayat and Ribier with one accord.
+
+"Here!" replied Morgan, emptying the travelling bag upon the table.
+
+The three young men gave a cry of joy as they saw the shining pistols
+and gleaming blades. It was all that they desired next to liberty--the
+joy, the dolorous precious joy of knowing themselves masters of their
+own lives, and, if need be, that of others.
+
+During this time the jailer led Amelie to the street. When they reached
+it he hesitated a moment, then he touched Amelie's arm, saying as he did
+so: "Mademoiselle de Montrevel, forgive me for causing you so much pain,
+but it is useless for you to go to Paris."
+
+"Because the appeal has been rejected and the execution takes place
+to-morrow, I suppose you mean," said Amelie.
+
+The jailer in his astonishment stepped back a pace.
+
+"I knew it, my friend," said Amelie. Then turning to Charlotte, she
+said: "Take me to the nearest church and come for me to-morrow after all
+is over."
+
+The nearest church was not far off. It was that of Sainte-Claire. For
+the last three months it had been opened for public worship under the
+decree of the First Consul. As it was now nearly midnight, the doors
+were closed; but Charlotte knew where the sexton lived and she went to
+wake him. Amelie waited, leaning against the walls as motionless as the
+marble figures that adorned its frontal.
+
+The sexton arrived at the end of half an hour. During that time the girl
+had seen a dreadful sight. Three men had passed her, dragging a cart,
+which she saw by the light of the moon was painted red. Within this cart
+she perceived shapeless objects, long planks and singular ladders,
+all painted the same color. They were dragging it toward the bastion
+Montrevel, the place used for the executions. Amelie divined what it
+was, and, with a cry, she fell upon her knees.
+
+At that cry the men in black turned round. They fancied for a moment
+that one of the sculptured figures of the porch had descended from
+its niche and was kneeling there. The one who seemed to be the leader
+stepped close to the young girl.
+
+"Don't come near me!" she cried. "Don't come near me!"
+
+The man returned humbly to his place and continued on his way. The cart
+disappeared round the corner of the Rue des Prisons; but the noise of
+its wheels still sounded on the stones and echoed in the girl's heart.
+
+When the sacristan and Charlotte returned they found the young girl on
+her knees. The man raised some objections against opening the church
+at that hour of the night; but a piece of gold and Mademoiselle de
+Montrevel's name dispelled his scruples. A second gold piece decided him
+to light a little chapel. It was the one in which Amelie had made her
+first communion. There, kneeling before the altar, she implored them to
+leave her alone.
+
+Toward three in the morning she saw the colored window above the altar
+of the Virgin begin to lighten. It looked to the east, so that the first
+ray of light came direct to her eyes as a messenger from God.
+
+Little by little the town awoke. To Amelie the noise seemed louder than
+ever before. Soon the vaulted ceiling of the church shook with the tramp
+of a troop of horsemen. This troop was on its way to the prison.
+
+A little before nine the young girl heard a great noise, and it seemed
+to her that the whole town must be rushing in the same direction.
+She strove to lose herself in prayer, that she might not hear these
+different sounds that spoke to her in an unknown language of which her
+anguish told her she understood every word.
+
+In truth, a terrible thing was happening at the prison. It was no wonder
+that the whole town had rushed thither.
+
+At nine o'clock Pere Courtois entered the jail to tell the prisoners at
+one and the same time that their appeal had been rejected and that they
+must prepare for immediate death. He found the four prisoners armed to
+the teeth.
+
+The jailer, taken unawares, was pulled into the cell and the door locked
+behind him. Then the young men, without any defence on his part,
+so astonished was he, seized his keys, and passing through the door
+opposite to the one by which he had entered they locked it on him.
+Leaving him in their cell, they found themselves in the adjoining one,
+in which he had placed three of them during Amelie's interview with
+Morgan.
+
+One of the keys on the jailer's bunch opened the other door of this
+cell, and that door led to the inner courtyard of the prison. This
+courtyard was closed by three massive doors, all of which led to a sort
+of lobby, opening upon the porter's lodge, which in turn adjoined the
+law-courts. From this lodge fifteen steps led down into a vast courtyard
+closed by an iron gate and railing. Usually this gate was only locked at
+night. If it should happen to be open on this occasion it would offer a
+possibility of escape.
+
+Morgan found the key of the prisoners' court, opened the door, and
+rushed with his companions to the porter's lodge and to the portico,
+from which the fifteen steps led down into the courtyard. From there the
+three young men could see that all hope was lost.
+
+The iron gate was closed, and eighty men, dragoons and gendarmes, were
+drawn up in front of it.
+
+When the four prisoners, free and armed to the teeth, sprang from the
+porter's lodge to the portico, a great cry, a cry of astonishment and
+terror, burst from the crowd in the street beyond the railing.
+
+Their aspect was formidable, indeed; for to preserve the freedom of
+their movements, perhaps to hide the shedding of blood, which would have
+shown so quickly on their white linen, they were naked to the waist. A
+handkerchief knotted around their middle bristled with weapons.
+
+A glance sufficed to show them that they were indeed masters of their
+own lives, but not of their liberty. Amid the clamoring of the crowd and
+the clanking of the sabres, as they were drawn from their scabbards, the
+young men paused an instant and conferred together. Then Montbar, after
+shaking hands with his companions, walked down the fifteen steps and
+advanced to the gate.
+
+When he was within four yards of the gate he turned, with a last glance
+at his comrades, bowed graciously to the now silent mob, and said to
+the soldiers: "Very well, gentlemen of the gendarmerie! Very well,
+dragoons!"
+
+Then, placing the muzzle of his pistol to his mouth, he blew out his
+brains.
+
+Confused and frantic cries followed the explosion, but ceased almost
+immediately as Valensolle came down the steps, holding in his hand a
+dagger with a straight and pointed blade. His pistols, which he did not
+seem inclined to use, were still in his belt.
+
+He advanced to a sort of shed supported on three pillars, stopped at the
+first pillar, rested the hilt of his dagger upon it, and, with a last
+salutation to his friends, clasped the column with one arm till
+the blade had disappeared in his breast. For an instant he remained
+standing, then a mortal pallor overspread his face, his arm loosened its
+hold, and he fell to the ground, stone-dead.
+
+The crowd was mute, paralyzed with horror.
+
+It was now Ribier's turn. He advanced to the gate, and, once there,
+aimed the two pistols he held at the gendarmes. He did not fire, but the
+gendarmes did. Three or four shots were heard, and Ribier fell, pierced
+by two balls.
+
+Admiration seized upon the spectators at sight of these successive
+catastrophes. They saw that the young men were willing to die, but
+to die with honor, and as they willed, and also with the grace of the
+gladiators of antiquity. Silence therefore reigned when Morgan, now left
+alone, came smiling down the steps of the portico and held up his hand
+in sign that he wished to speak. Besides, what more could it want--this
+eager mob; watching for blood?
+
+A greater sight had been given to it than it came to see. Four dead men
+had been promised to it; four heads were to be cut off; but here was
+variety in death, unexpected, picturesque. It was natural, therefore,
+that the crowd should keep silence when Morgan was seen to advance.
+
+He held neither pistols nor daggers in his hands; they were in his belt.
+He passed the body of Valensolle, and placed himself between those of
+Jayat and Ribier.
+
+"Gentlemen," said he, "let us negotiate."
+
+The hush that followed was so great that those present seemed scarcely
+to breathe. Morgan said: "There lies a man who has blown out his brains
+[he pointed to Jayat]; here lies one who stabbed himself [he designated
+Valensolle]; a third who has been shot [he indicated Ribier]; you want
+to see the fourth guillotined. I understand that."
+
+A dreadful shudder passed through the crowd.
+
+"Well," continued Morgan, "I am willing to give you that satisfaction. I
+am ready, but I desire to go to the scaffold in my own way. No one
+shall touch me; if any one does come near me I shall blow out his
+brains--except that gentleman," continued Morgan, pointing to the
+executioner. "This is his affair and mine only."
+
+The crowd apparently thought this request reasonable, for from all sides
+came the cry, "Yes, yes, yes."
+
+The officer saw that the quickest way to end the matter was to yield to
+Morgan's demand.
+
+"Will you promise me," he asked, "that if your hands and feet are not
+bound you will not try to escape?"
+
+"I give my word of honor," replied Morgan.
+
+"Then," said the officer; "stand aside, and let us take up the bodies of
+your comrades."
+
+"That is but right," said Morgan, and he turned aside to a wall about
+ten paces distant and leaned against it.
+
+The gate opened. Three men dressed in black entered the courtyard and
+picked up the bodies one after the other. Ribier was not quite dead; he
+opened his eyes and seemed to look for Morgan.
+
+"Here I am," said the latter. "Rest easy, dear friend, I follow."
+
+Ribier closed his eyes without uttering a word.
+
+When the three bodies had been removed, the officer of the gendarmerie
+addressed Morgan.
+
+"Are you ready, sir?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," replied Morgan, bowing with exquisite politeness.
+
+"Then come."
+
+"I come."
+
+And he took his place between a platoon of gendarmerie and a detachment
+of dragoons.
+
+"Will you mount the cart, sir, or go on foot?" asked the captain.
+
+"On foot, on foot, sir. I am anxious that all shall see it is my
+pleasure to be guillotined, and that I am not afraid."
+
+The sinister procession crossed the Place des Lisses and skirted the
+walls of the Hotel Montbazon. The cart bearing the three bodies came
+first, then the dragoons, then Morgan walking alone in a clear space of
+some ten feet before and behind him, then the gendarmes. At the end of
+the wall they turned to the left.
+
+Suddenly, through an opening that existed at that time between the wall
+and the market-place, Morgan saw the scaffold raising its two posts to
+heaven like two bloody arms.
+
+"Faugh!" he exclaimed, "I have never seen a guillotine, and I had no
+idea it was so ugly."
+
+Then, without further remark, he drew his dagger and plunged it into his
+breast up to the hilt.
+
+The captain of the gendarmerie saw the movement without being in time
+to prevent it. He spurred his horse toward Morgan, who, to his own
+amazement and that of every one else, remained standing. But Morgan,
+drawing a pistol from his belt and cocking it, exclaimed: "Stop! It was
+agreed that no one should touch me. I shall die alone, or three of us
+will die together."
+
+The captain reined back his horse.
+
+"Forward!" said Morgan.
+
+They reached the foot of the guillotine. Morgan drew out his dagger and
+struck again as deeply as before. A cry of rage rather than pain escaped
+him.
+
+"My soul must be riveted to my body," he said.
+
+Then, as the assistants wished to help him mount the scaffold on which
+the executioner was awaiting him, he cried out: "No, I say again, let no
+one touch me."
+
+Then he mounted the three steps without staggering.
+
+When he reached the platform, he drew out the dagger again and struck
+himself a third time. Then a frightful laugh burst from his lips;
+flinging the dagger, which he had wrenched from the third ineffectual
+wound, at the feet of the executioner, he exclaimed: "By my faith! I
+have done enough. It is your turn; do it if you can."
+
+A minute later the head of the intrepid young man fell upon the
+scaffold, and by a phenomenon of that unconquerable vitality which he
+possessed it rebounded and rolled forward beyond the timbers of the
+guillotine.
+
+Go to Bourg, as I did, and they will tell you that, as the head rolled
+forward, it was heard to utter the name of Amelie.
+
+The dead bodies were guillotined after the living one; so that the
+spectators, instead of losing anything by the events we have just
+related, enjoyed a double spectacle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LIV. THE CONFESSION
+
+Three days after the events we have just recited, a carriage covered
+with dust and drawn by two horses white with foam stopped about seven of
+the evening before the gate of the Chateau des Noires-Fontaines. To the
+great astonishment of the person who was in such haste to arrive, the
+gates were open, a crowd of peasants filled the courtyard, and men and
+women were kneeling on the portico. Then, his sense of hearing being
+rendered more acute by astonishment at what he had seen, he fancied he
+heard the ringing of a bell.
+
+He opened the door of the chaise, sprang out, crossed the courtyard
+rapidly, went up the portico, and found the stairway leading to the
+first floor filled with people.
+
+Up the stairs he ran as he had up the portico, and heard what seemed to
+him a murmured prayer from his sister's bedroom. He went to the room.
+The door was open. Madame de Montrevel and little Edouard were kneeling
+beside Amelie's pillow; Charlotte, Michel, and his son Jacques were
+close at hand. The curate of Sainte-Claire was administering the last
+sacraments; the dismal scene was lighted only by the light of the
+wax-tapers.
+
+The reader has recognized Roland in the traveller whose carriage stopped
+at the gate. The bystanders made way for him; he entered the room with
+his head uncovered and knelt beside his mother.
+
+The dying girl lay on her back, her hands clasped, her head raised on
+her pillows, her eyes fixed upon the sky, in a sort of ecstasy. She
+seemed unconscious of Roland's arrival. It was as though her soul were
+floating between heaven and earth, while the body still belonged to this
+world.
+
+Madame de Montrevel's hand sought that of Roland, and finding it, the
+poor mother dropped her head on his shoulder, sobbing. The sobs passed
+unnoticed by the dying girl, even as her brother's arrival had done.
+She lay there perfectly immovable. Only when the viaticum had been
+administered, when the priest's voice promised her eternal blessedness,
+her marble lips appeared to live again, and she murmured in a feeble but
+intelligible voice: "Amen!"
+
+Then the bell rang again; the choir-boy, who was carrying it, left the
+room first, followed by the two acolytes who bore the tapers, then the
+cross-bearer, and lastly the priest with the Host. All the strangers
+present followed the procession, and the family and household were
+left alone. The house, an instant before so full of sound and life, was
+silent, almost deserted.
+
+The dying girl had not moved; her lips were closed, her hands clasped,
+her eyes raised to heaven. After a few minutes Roland stooped to his
+mother's ear, and whispered: "Come out with me, mother, I must speak
+to you." Madame de Montrevel rose. She pushed little Edouard toward the
+bed, and the child stood on tiptoe to kiss his sister on the forehead.
+Then the mother followed him, and, leaning over, with a sob she
+pressed a kiss upon the same spot. Roland, with dry eyes but a breaking
+heart--he would have given much for tears in which to drown his
+sorrow--kissed his sister as his mother and little brother had done. She
+seemed as insensible to this kiss as to the preceding ones.
+
+Edouard left the room, followed by Madame de Montrevel and Roland. Just
+as they reached the door they stopped, quivering. They had heard the
+name of Roland, uttered in a low but distinct tone.
+
+Roland turned. Amelie called him a second time.
+
+"Did you call me, Amelie?" he asked.
+
+"Yes," replied the dying girl.
+
+"Alone, or with my mother?"
+
+"Alone."
+
+That voice, devoid of emphasis, yet perfectly intelligible, had
+something glacial about it; it was like an echo from another world.
+
+"Go, mother," said Roland. "You see that she wishes to be alone with
+me."
+
+"O my God!" murmured Madame de Montrevel, "can there still be hope?"
+
+Low as these words were, the dying girl heard them.
+
+"No, mother," she said. "God has permitted me to see my brother again;
+but to-night I go to Him."
+
+Madame de Montrevel groaned.
+
+"Roland, Roland!" she said, "she is there already."
+
+Roland signed to her to leave them alone, and she went away with little
+Edouard. Roland closed the door, and returned to his sister's bedside
+with unutterable emotion.
+
+Her body was already stiffening in death; the breath from her lips would
+scarcely have dimmed a mirror; the eyes only, wide-open, were fixed and
+brilliant, as though the whole remaining life of the body, dead before
+its time, were centred, there. Roland had heard of this strange state
+called ecstasy, which is nothing else than catalepsy. He saw that Amelie
+was a victim of that preliminary death.
+
+"I am here, sister," he said. "What can I do for you?"
+
+"I knew you would come," she replied, still without moving, "and I
+waited for you."
+
+"How did you know that I was coming?" asked Roland.
+
+"I saw you coming."
+
+Roland shuddered.
+
+"Did you know why I was coming?" he asked.
+
+"Yes; I prayed God so earnestly in my heart that He gave me strength to
+rise and write to you."
+
+"When was that?"
+
+"Last night."
+
+"Where is the letter?"
+
+"Under my pillow. Take it, and read it."
+
+Roland hesitated an instant. Was his sister delirious?
+
+"Poor Amelie!" he murmured.
+
+"Do not pity me," she said, "I go to join him."
+
+"Whom?" asked Roland.
+
+"Him whom I loved, and whom you killed."
+
+Roland uttered a cry. This was delirium; or else--what did his sister
+mean?
+
+"Amelie," said he, "I came to question you--"
+
+"About Lord Tanlay; yes, I know," replied the young girl.
+
+"You knew! How could you know?"
+
+"Did I not tell you I saw you coming, and knew why you came?"
+
+"Then answer me."
+
+"Do not turn me from God and from him, Roland. I have written it all;
+read my letter."
+
+Roland slipped his hand beneath the pillow, convinced that his sister
+was delirious.
+
+To his great astonishment he felt a paper, which he drew out. It was
+a sealed letter; on it were written these words: "For Roland, who will
+come to-morrow."
+
+He went over to the night-light in order to read the letter, which was
+dated the night before at eleven o'clock in the evening.
+
+  My brother, we have each a terrible thing to forgive the
+  other.
+
+Roland looked at his sister; she was still motionless. He continued to
+read:
+
+  I loved Charles de Sainte-Hermine; I did more than
+  love him, he was my lover.
+
+"Oh!" muttered the young man between his teeth, "he shall die."
+
+"He is dead," said Amelie.
+
+The young man gave a cry of astonishment. He had uttered the words to
+which Amelie had replied too low even to hear them himself. His eyes
+went back to the letter.
+
+  There was no legal marriage possible between the sister
+  of Roland de Montrevel and the leader of the Companions
+  of Jehu: that was the terrible secret which I bore--and
+  it crushed me.
+
+  One person alone had to know it, and I told him; that
+  person was Sir John Tanlay.
+
+  May God forever bless that noble-hearted man, who
+  promised to break off an impossible marriage, and who
+  kept his word. Let his life be sacred to you, Roland; he
+  has been my only friend in sorrow, and his tears have
+  mingled with mine.
+
+  I loved Charles de Saint-Hermine; I was his mistress;
+  that is the terrible thing you must forgive.
+
+  But, in exchange, you caused his death; that is the
+  terrible thing I now forgive you.
+
+  Oh! come fast, Roland, for I cannot die till you are
+  here.
+
+  To die is to see him again; to die is to be with him and
+  never to leave him again. I am glad to die.
+
+All was clearly and plainly written; there was no sign of delirium in
+the letter.
+
+Roland read it through twice, and stood for an instant silent,
+motionless, palpitating, full of bitterness; then pity got the better
+of his anger. He went to Amelie, stretched his hand over her, and said:
+"Sister, I forgive you."
+
+A slight quiver shook the dying body.
+
+"And now," she said, "call my mother, that I may die in her arms."
+
+Roland opened the door and called Madame de Montrevel. She was waiting
+and came at once.
+
+"Is there any change?" she asked, eagerly.
+
+"No," replied Roland, "only Amelie wishes to die in your arms."
+
+Madame de Montrevel fell upon her knees beside her daughter's bed.
+
+Then Amelie, as though an invisible hand had loosened the bonds that
+held her rigid body to the bed, rose slowly, parted the hands that
+were clasped upon her breast, and let one fall slowly into those of her
+mother.
+
+"Mother," she said, "you gave me life and you have taken it from me; I
+bless you. It was a mother's act. There was no happiness possible for
+your daughter in this life."
+
+Then, letting her other hand fall into that of Roland, who was kneeling
+on the other side of the bed, she said: "We have forgiven each other,
+brother?"
+
+"Yes, dear Amelie," he replied, "and from the depths of our hearts, I
+hope."
+
+"I have still one last request to make."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Do not forget that Lord Tanlay has been my best friend."
+
+"Fear nothing," said Roland; "Lord Tanlay's life is sacred to me."
+
+Amelie drew a long breath; then in a voice which showed her growing
+weakness, she said: "Farewell, mother; farewell, Roland; kiss Edouard
+for me."
+
+Then with a cry from her soul, in which there was more of joy than
+sadness, she said: "Here I am, Charles, here I am!"
+
+She fell back upon her bed, withdrawing her two hands as she did so, and
+clasping them upon her breast again.
+
+Roland and his mother rose and leaned over her. She had resumed her
+first position, except that her eyelids were closed and her breath
+extinguished. Amelie's martyrdom was over, she was dead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LV. INVULNERABLE
+
+Amelie died during the night of Monday and Tuesday, that is to say,
+the 2d and 3d of June. On the evening of Thursday, the 5th of June, the
+Grand Opera at Paris was crowded for the second presentation of "Ossian,
+or the Bards."
+
+The great admiration which the First Consul professed for the poems of
+Macpherson was universally known; consequently the National Academy,
+as much in flattery as from literary choice, had brought out an opera,
+which, in spite of all exertions, did not appear until a month after
+General Bonaparte had left Paris to join the Army of the Reserves.
+
+In the balcony to the left sat a lover of music who was noticeable
+for the deep attention he paid to the performance. During the interval
+between the acts, the door-keeper came to him and said in a low voice:
+
+"Pardon me, sir, are you Sir John Tanlay?"
+
+"I am."
+
+"In that case, my lord, a gentleman has a message to give you; he says
+it is of the utmost importance, and asks if you will speak to him in the
+corridor."
+
+"Oh!" said Sir John, "is he an officer?"
+
+"He is in civilian's dress, but he looks like an officer."
+
+"Very good," replied Sir John; "I know who he is."
+
+He rose and followed the woman. Roland was waiting in the corridor. Lord
+Tanlay showed no surprise on seeing him, but the stern look on the young
+man's face repressed the first impulse of his deep affection, which was
+to fling himself upon his friend's breast.
+
+"Here I am, sir," said Sir John.
+
+Roland bowed.
+
+"I have just come from your hotel," he said. "You have, it seems, taken
+the precaution to inform the porter of your whereabout every time you
+have gone out, so that persons who have business with you should know
+where to find you."
+
+"That is true, sir."
+
+"The precaution is a good one, especially for those who, like myself,
+come from a long distance and are hurried and have no time to spare."
+
+"Then," said Sir John, "was it to see me that you left the army and came
+to Paris?"
+
+"Solely for that honor, sir; and I trust that you will guess my motives,
+and spare me the necessity of explaining them."
+
+"From this moment I am at your service, sir," replied Sir John.
+
+"At what hour to-morrow can two of my friends wait upon you?"
+
+"From seven in the morning until midnight; unless you prefer that it
+should be now."
+
+"No, my lord; I have but just arrived, and I must have time to find my
+friends and give them my instructions. If it will not inconvenience you,
+they will probably call upon you to-morrow between ten and eleven. I
+shall be very much obliged to you if the affair we have to settle could
+be arranged for the same day."
+
+"I believe that will be possible, sir; as I understand it to be your
+wish, the delay will not be from my side."
+
+"That is all I wished to know, my lord; pray do not let me detain you
+longer."
+
+Roland bowed, and Sir John returned the salutation. Then the young man
+left the theatre and Sir John returned to his seat in the balcony. The
+words had been exchanged in such perfectly well modulated voices, and
+with such an impassible expression of countenance on both sides, that
+no one would have supposed that a quarrel had arisen between the two men
+who had just greeted each other so courteously.
+
+It happened to be the reception day of the minister of war. Roland
+returned to his hotel, removed the traces of his journey, jumped into a
+carriage, and a little before ten he was announced in the salon of the
+citizen Carnot.
+
+Two purposes took him there: in the first place, he had a verbal
+communication to make to the minister of war from the First Consul; in
+the second place, he hoped to find there the two witnesses he was in
+need of to arrange his meeting with Sir John.
+
+Everything happened as Roland had hoped. He gave the minister of war all
+the details of the crossing of the Mont Saint-Bernard and the situation
+of the army; and he himself found the two friends of whom he was in
+search. A few words sufficed to let them know what he wished; soldiers
+are particularly open to such confidences.
+
+Roland spoke of a grave insult, the nature of which must remain a secret
+even to his seconds. He declared that he was the offended party, and
+claimed the choice of weapons and mode of fighting--advantages which
+belong to the challenger.
+
+The young fellows agreed to present themselves to Sir John the following
+morning at the Hotel Mirabeau, Rue de Richelieu, at nine o'clock, and
+make the necessary arrangements with Sir John's seconds. After that they
+would join Roland at the Hotel de Paris in the same street.
+
+Roland returned to his room at eleven that evening, wrote for about an
+hour, then went to bed and to sleep.
+
+At half-past nine the next morning his friends came to him. They had
+just left Sir John. He admitted all Roland's contentions; declared that
+he would not discuss any of the arrangements; adding that if Roland
+regarded himself as the injured party, it was for him to dictate the
+conditions. To their remark that they had hoped to discuss such matters
+with two of his friends and not with himself, he replied that he knew no
+one in Paris intimately enough to ask their assistance in such a matter,
+and that he hoped, once on the ground, that one of Roland's seconds
+would consent to act in his behalf. The two officers were agreed that
+Lord Tanlay had conducted himself with the utmost punctiliousness in
+every respect.
+
+Roland declared that Sir John's request for the services of one of his
+two seconds was not only just but suitable, and he authorized either
+one of them to act for Sir John and to take charge of his interests. All
+that remained for Roland to do was to dictate his conditions. They were
+as follows!
+
+Pistols were chosen. When loaded the adversaries were to stand at five
+paces. At the third clap of the seconds' hands they were to fire. It
+was, as we see, a duel to the death, in which, if either survived, he
+would be at the mercy of his opponent. Consequently the young officers
+made many objections; but Roland insisted, declaring that he alone
+could judge of the gravity of the insult offered him, and that no other
+reparation than this would satisfy him. They were obliged to yield
+to such obstinacy. But the friend who was to act as Sir John's second
+refused to bind himself for his principal, declaring that unless Sir
+John ordered it he would refuse to be a party to such a murder.
+
+"Don't excite yourself, dear friend," said Roland, "I know Sir John, and
+I think he will be more accommodating than you."
+
+The seconds returned to Sir John; they found him at his English
+breakfast of beefsteak, potatoes and tea. On seeing them he rose,
+invited them to share his repast, and, on their refusing, placed himself
+at their disposal. They began by assuring him that he could count upon
+one of them to act as his second. The one acting for Roland announced
+the conditions. At each stipulation Sir John bowed his head in token of
+assent and merely replied: "Very good!"
+
+The one who had taken charge of his interests attempted to make some
+objections to a form of combat that, unless something impossible to
+foresee occurred, must end in the death of both parties; but Lord Tanlay
+begged him to make no objections.
+
+"M. de Montrevel is a gallant man," he said; "I do not wish to thwart
+him in anything; whatever he does is right."
+
+It only remained to settle the hour and the place of meeting. On these
+points Sir John again placed himself at Roland's disposal. The two
+seconds left even more delighted with him after this interview than they
+had been after the first. Roland was waiting for them and listened to
+what had taken place.
+
+"What did I tell you?" he asked.
+
+They requested him to name the time and place. He selected seven o'clock
+in the evening in the Allee de la Muette. At that hour the Bois was
+almost deserted, but the light was still good enough (it will be
+remembered that this was in the month of June) for the two adversaries
+to fight with any weapon.
+
+No one had spoken of the pistols. The young men proposed to get them at
+an armorer's.
+
+"No," said Roland, "Sir John has an excellent pair of duelling pistols
+which I have already used. If he is not unwilling to fight with those
+pistols I should prefer them to all others."
+
+The young man who was now acting as Sir John's second went to him with
+the three following questions: Whether the time and place suited him,
+and whether he would allow his pistols to be used.
+
+Lord Tanlay replied by regulating his watch by that of his second and by
+handing him the box of pistols.
+
+"Shall I call for you, my lord?" asked the young man.
+
+Sir John smiled sadly.
+
+"Needless," he replied; "you are M. de Montrevel's friend, and you will
+find the drive pleasanter with him than with me. I will go on horseback
+with my servant. You will find me on the ground."
+
+The young officer carried this reply to Roland.
+
+"What did I tell you?" observed Roland again.
+
+It was then mid-day, there were still seven hours before them, and
+Roland dismissed his friends to their various pleasures and occupations.
+At half-past six precisely they were to be at his door with three horses
+and two servants. It was necessary, in order to avoid interference, that
+the trip should appear to be nothing more than an ordinary promenade.
+
+At half-past six precisely the waiter informed Roland that his friends
+were in the courtyard. Roland greeted them cordially and sprang into his
+saddle. The party followed the boulevards as far as the Place Louis XV.
+and then turned up the Champs Elysees. On the way the strange phenomenon
+that had so much astonished Sir John at the time of Roland's duel with
+M. de Barjols recurred. Roland's gayety might have been thought an
+affectation had it not been so evidently genuine. The two young
+men acting as seconds were of undoubted courage, but even they were
+bewildered by such utter indifference. They might have understood it
+had this affair been an ordinary duel, for coolness and dexterity insure
+their possessor a great advantage over his adversary; but in a combat
+like this to which they were going neither coolness nor dexterity would
+avail to save the combatants, if not from death at least from some
+terrible wound.
+
+Furthermore, Roland urged on his horse like a man in haste, so that
+they reached the end of the Allee de la Muette five minutes before the
+appointed time.
+
+A man was walking in the allee. Roland recognized Sir John. The seconds
+watched the young man's face as he caught sight of his adversary. To
+their great astonishment it expressed only tender good-will.
+
+A few more steps and the four principal actors in the scene that was
+about to take place met.
+
+Sir John was perfectly calm, but his face wore a look of profound
+sadness. It was evident that this meeting grieved him as deeply as it
+seemed to rejoice Roland.
+
+The party dismounted. One of the seconds took the box of pistols from
+the servants and ordered them to lead away the horses, and not to return
+until they heard pistol-shots. The principals then entered the part of
+the woods that seemed the thickest, and looked about them for a suitable
+spot. For the rest, as Roland had foreseen, the Bois was deserted; the
+approach of the dinner hour had called every one home.
+
+They found a small open spot exactly suited to their needs. The seconds
+looked at Roland and Sir John. They both nodded their heads in approval.
+
+"Is there to be any change?" one of the seconds asked Sir John.
+
+"Ask M. de Montrevel," replied Lord Tanlay; "I am entirely at his
+disposal."
+
+"Nothing," said Roland.
+
+The seconds took the pistols from the box and loaded them. Sir
+John stood apart, switching the heads of the tall grasses with his
+riding-whip.
+
+Roland watched him hesitatingly for a moment, then taking his resolve,
+he walked resolutely toward him. Sir John raised his head and looked at
+him with apparent hope.
+
+"My lord," said Roland, "I may have certain grievances against you, but
+I know you to be, none the less, a man of your word."
+
+"You are right," replied Sir John.
+
+"If you survive me will you keep the promise that you made me at
+Avignon?"
+
+"There is no possibility that I shall survive you, but so long as I have
+any breath left in my body, you can count upon me."
+
+"I refer to the final disposition to be made of my body."
+
+"The same, I presume, as at Avignon?"
+
+"The same, my lord."
+
+"Very well, you may set your mind at rest."
+
+Roland bowed to Sir John and returned to his friends.
+
+"Have you any wishes in case the affair terminates fatally?" asked one
+of them.
+
+"One only."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"That you permit Sir John to take entire charge of the funeral
+arrangements. For the rest, I have a note in my left hand for him. In
+case I have not time to speak after the affair is over, you are to open
+my hand and give him the note."
+
+"Is that all?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"The pistols are loaded, then."
+
+"Very well, inform Sir John."
+
+One of the seconds approached Sir John. The other measured off five
+paces. Roland saw that the distance was greater than he had supposed.
+
+"Excuse me," he said, "I said three paces."
+
+"Five," replied the officer who was measuring the distance.
+
+"Not at all, dear friend, you are wrong."
+
+He turned to Sir John and to the other second questioningly.
+
+"Three paces will do very well," replied Sir John, bowing.
+
+There was nothing to be said if the two adversaries were agreed. The
+five paces were reduced to three. Then two sabres were laid on the
+ground to mark the limit. Sir John and Roland took their places,
+standing so that their toes touched the sabres. A pistol was then handed
+to each of them.
+
+They bowed to say that they were ready. The two seconds stepped aside.
+They were to give the signal by clapping their hands three times. At the
+first clap the principals were to cock their pistols; at the second to
+take aim; at the third to fire.
+
+The three claps were given at regular intervals amid the most profound
+silence; the wind itself seemed to pause and the rustle of the trees
+was hushed. The principals were calm, but the seconds were visibly
+distressed.
+
+At the third clap two shots rang out so simultaneously that they seemed
+but one. But to the utter astonishment of the seconds the combatants
+remained standing. At the signal Roland had lowered his pistol and fired
+into the ground. Sir John had raised his and cut the branch of a tree
+three feet behind Roland. Each was clearly amazed--amazed that he
+himself was still living, after having spared his antagonist.
+
+Roland was the first to speak.
+
+"Ah!" he cried, "my sister was right in saying that you were the most
+generous man on earth."
+
+And throwing his pistol aside he opened his arms to Sir John, who rushed
+into them.
+
+"Ah! I understand," he said. "You wanted to die; but, God be thanked, I
+am not your murderer."
+
+The two seconds came up.
+
+"What is the matter?" they asked together.
+
+"Nothing," said Roland, "except that I could not die by the hand of the
+man I love best on earth. You saw for yourselves that he preferred to
+die rather than kill me."
+
+Then throwing himself once more into Sir John's arms, and grasping the
+hands of his two friends, he said: "I see that I must leave that to the
+Austrians. And now, gentlemen, you must excuse me. The First Consul is
+on the eve of a great battle in Italy, and I have not a moment to lose
+if I am to be there."
+
+Leaving Sir John to make what explanations he thought suitable to the
+seconds, Roland rushed to the road, sprang upon his horse, and returned
+to Paris at a gallop.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER LVI. CONCLUSION
+
+In the meantime the French army continued its march, and on the 5th of
+June it entered Milan.
+
+There was little resistance. The fort of Milan was invested. Murat,
+sent to Piacenza, had taken the city without a blow. Lannes had defeated
+General Ott at Montebello. Thus disposed, the French army was in the
+rear of the Austrians before the latter were aware of it.
+
+During the night of the 8th of June a courier arrived from Murat,
+who, as we have said, was occupying Piacenza. Murat had intercepted a
+despatch from General Melas, and was now sending it to Bonaparte. This
+despatch announced the capitulation of Genoa; Massena, after eating
+horses, dogs, cats and rats, had been forced to surrender. Melas spoke
+of the Army of the Reserves with the utmost contempt; he declared that
+the story of Bonaparte's presence in Italy was a hoax; and asserted that
+he knew for certain that the First Consul was in Paris.
+
+Here was news that must instantly be imparted to Bonaparte, for it came
+under the category of bad news. Consequently, Bourrienne woke him up at
+three o'clock in the morning and translated the despatch. Bonaparte's
+first words were as follows:
+
+"Pooh! Bourrienne, you don't understand German."
+
+But Bourrienne repeated the translation word for word. After this
+reading the general rose, had everybody waked up, gave his orders, and
+then went back to bed and to sleep.
+
+That same day he left Milan and established his headquarters at
+Stradella; there he remained until June 12th, left on the 13th, and
+marched to the Scrivia through Montebello, where he saw the field
+of-battle, still torn and bleeding after Lannes' victory. The traces of
+death were everywhere; the church was still overflowing with the dead
+and wounded.
+
+"The devil!" said the First Consul to the victor, "you must have made it
+pretty hot here."
+
+"So hot, general, that the bones in my division were cracking and
+rattling like hail on a skylight."
+
+Desaix joined the First Consul on the 11th of June, while he was still
+at Stradella. Released by the capitulation of El-Arish, he had reached
+Toulon the 6th of May, the very day on which Bonaparte left Paris. At
+the foot of the Mont Saint-Bernard Bonaparte received a letter from him,
+asking whether he should march to Paris or rejoin the army.
+
+"Start for Paris, indeed!" exclaimed Bonaparte; "write him to rejoin the
+army at headquarters, wherever that may be."
+
+Bourrienne had written, and, as we have seen, Desaix joined the army the
+11th of June, at Stradella. The First Consul received him with twofold
+joy. In the first place, he regained a man without ambition, an
+intelligent officer and a devoted friend. In the second place, Desaix
+arrived just in the nick of time to take charge of the division lately
+under Boudet, who had been killed. Through a false report, received
+through General Gardannes, the First Consul was led to believe that the
+enemy refused to give battle and was retiring to Genoa. He sent Desaix
+and his division on the road to Novi to cut them off.
+
+The night of the 13th passed tranquilly. In spite of a heavy storm, an
+engagement had taken place the preceding evening in which the Austrians
+had been defeated. It seemed as though men and nature were wearied
+alike, for all was still during the night. Bonaparte was easy in his
+mind; there was but one bridge over the Bormida, and he had been assured
+that that was down. Pickets were stationed as far as possible along the
+Bormida, each with four scouts.
+
+The whole of the night was occupied by the enemy in crossing the river.
+At two in the morning two parties of scouts were captured; seven of the
+eight men were killed, the eighth made his way back to camp crying: "To
+arms!"
+
+A courier was instantly despatched to the First Consul, who was sleeping
+at Torre di Galifo. Meanwhile, till orders could be received, the drums
+beat to arms all along the line. A man must have shared in such a scene
+to understand the effect produced on a sleeping army by the roll of
+drums calling to arms at three in the morning. The bravest shuddered.
+The troops were sleeping in their clothes; every man sprang up, ran to
+the stacked arms, and seized his weapons.
+
+The lines formed on the vast plains of Marengo. The noise of the drums
+swept on like a train of lighted powder. In the dim half-light the hasty
+movements of the pickets could be seen. When the day broke, the French
+troops were stationed as follows:
+
+The division Gardannes and the division Chamberlhac, forming the extreme
+advance, were encamped around a little country-place called Petra Bona,
+at the angle formed by the highroad from Marengo to Tortona, and the
+Bormida, which crosses the road on its way to the Tanaro.
+
+The corps of General Lannes was before the village of San Giuliano, the
+place which Bonaparte had pointed out to Roland three months earlier,
+telling him that on that spot the fate of the campaign would be decided.
+
+The Consular guard was stationed some five hundred yards or so in the
+rear of Lannes.
+
+The cavalry brigade, under General Kellermann, and a few squadrons of
+chasseurs and hussars, forming the left, filled up, along the advanced
+line, the gap between the divisions of Gardannes and Chamberlhac.
+
+A second brigade, under General Champeaux, filled up the gap on the
+right between General Lannes' cavalry.
+
+And finally the twelfth regiment of hussars, and the twenty-first
+chasseurs, detached by Murat under the orders of General Rivaud,
+occupied the opening of the Valley of Salo and the extreme right of the
+position.
+
+These forces amounted to about twenty-five or six thousand men, not
+counting the divisions Monnet and Boudet, ten thousand men in all,
+commanded by Desaix, and now, as we have said, detached from the main
+army to cut off the retreat of the enemy to Genoa. Only, instead of
+making that retreat, the enemy were now attacking.
+
+During the day of the 13th of June, General Melas, commander-in-chief of
+the Austrian army, having succeeded in reuniting the troops of Generals
+Haddich, Kaim and Ott, crossed the Tanaro, and was now encamped before
+Alessandria with thirty-six thousand infantry, seven thousand cavalry,
+and a numerous well-served and well-horsed artillery.
+
+At four o'clock in the morning the firing began and General Victor
+assigned all to their line of battle. At five Bonaparte was awakened
+by the sound of cannon. While he was dressing, General Victor's
+aide-de-camp rode up to tell him that the enemy had crossed the Bormida
+and was attacking all along the line of battle.
+
+The First Consul called for his horse, and, springing upon it, galloped
+off toward the spot where the fighting was going on. From the summit of
+the hill he could overlook the position of both armies.
+
+The enemy was formed in three columns; that on the left, comprising all
+the cavalry and light infantry, was moving toward Castel-Ceriolo by the
+Salo road, while the columns of the right and centre, resting upon each
+other and comprising the infantry regiments under Generals Haddich, Kaim
+and O'Reilly, and the reserve of grenadiers under command of General
+Ott, were advancing along the Tortona road and up the Bormida.
+
+The moment they crossed the river the latter columns came in contact
+with the troops of General Gardannes, posted, as we have said, at
+the farmhouse and the ravine of Petra Bona. It was the noise of the
+artillery advancing in this direction that had brought Bonaparte to the
+scene of battle. He arrived just as Gardannes' division, crushed under
+the fire of that artillery, was beginning to fall back, and General
+Victor was sending forward Chamberlhac's division to its support.
+Protected by this move, Gardannes' troops retreated in good order, and
+covered the village of Marengo.
+
+The situation was critical; all the plans of the commander-in-chief
+were overthrown. Instead of attacking, as was his wont, with troops
+judiciously massed, he was attacked himself before he could concentrate
+his forces. The Austrians, profiting by the sweep of land that lay
+before them, ceased to march in columns, and deployed in lines parallel
+to those of Gardannes and Chamberlhac--with this difference, that
+they were two to the French army's one. The first of these lines was
+commanded by General Haddich, the second by General Melas, the third by
+General Ott.
+
+At a short distance from the Bormida flows a stream called the
+Fontanone, which passes through a deep ravine forming a semicircle round
+the village of Marengo, and protecting it. General Victor had already
+divined the advantages to be derived from this natural intrenchment, and
+he used it to rally the divisions of Gardannes and Chamberlhac.
+
+Bonaparte, approving Victor's arrangements, sent him word to defend
+Marengo to the very last extremity. He himself needed time to prepare
+his game on this great chess-board inclosed between the Bormida, the
+Fontanone, and Marengo.
+
+His first step was to recall Desaix, then marching, as we have said,
+to cut the retreat to Genoa. General Bonaparte sent off two or three
+aides-de-camp with orders not to stop until they had reached that corps.
+Then he waited, seeing clearly that there was nothing to do but to fall
+back in as orderly a manner as possible, until he could gather a compact
+mass that would enable him, not only to stop the retrograde movement,
+but to assume the offensive.
+
+But this waiting was horrible.
+
+Presently the action was renewed along the whole line. The Austrians
+had reached one bank of the Fontanone, of which the French occupied
+the other. Each was firing on the other from either side of the ravine;
+grape-shot flew from side to side within pistol range. Protected by its
+terrible artillery, the enemy had only to extend himself a little more
+to overwhelm Bonaparte's forces. General Rivaud, of Gardannes' division,
+saw the Austrians preparing for this manoeuvre. He marched out from
+Marengo, and placed a battalion in the open with orders to die there
+rather than retreat, then, while that battalion drew the enemy's fire,
+he formed his cavalry in column, came round the flank of the battalion,
+fell upon three thousand Austrians advancing to the charge, repulsed
+them, threw them into disorder, and, all wounded as he was by a
+splintered ball, forced them back behind their own lines. After that
+he took up a position to the right of the battalion, which had not
+retreated a step.
+
+But during this time Gardannes' division, which had been struggling with
+the enemy from early morning, was driven back upon Marengo, followed by
+the first Austrian line, which forced Chamberlhac's division to retreat
+in like manner. There an aide-de-camp sent by Bonaparte ordered the two
+divisions to rally and retake Marengo at any cost.
+
+General Victor reformed them, put himself at their head, forced his way
+through the streets, which the Austrians had not had time to barricade,
+retook the village, lost it again, took it a third time, and then,
+overwhelmed by numbers, lost it for the third time.
+
+It was then eleven o'clock. Desaix, overtaken by Bonaparte's
+aide-de-camp, ought at that hour to be on his way to the battle.
+
+Meanwhile, Lannes with his two divisions came to the help of his
+struggling comrades. This reinforcement enabled Gardannes and
+Chamberlhac to reform their lines parallel to the enemy, who had now
+debouched, through Marengo, to the right and also to the left of the
+village.
+
+The Austrians were on the point of overwhelming the French.
+
+Lannes, forming his centre with the divisions rallied by Victor,
+deployed with his two least exhausted divisions for the purpose of
+opposing them to the Austrian wings. The two corps--the one excited
+by the prospect of victory, the other refreshed by a long rest--flung
+themselves with fury into the fight, which was now renewed along the
+whole line.
+
+After struggling an hour, hand to hand, bayonet to bayonet, General
+Kaim's corps fell back; General Champeaux, at the head of the first and
+eighth regiments of dragoons, charged upon him, increasing his disorder.
+General Watrin, with the sixth light infantry and the twenty-second and
+fortieth of the line, started in pursuit and drove him nearly a thousand
+rods beyond the rivulet. But this movement separated the French from
+their own corps; the centre divisions were endangered by the victory on
+the right, and Generals Watrin and Champeaux were forced to fall back to
+the lines they had left uncovered.
+
+At the same time Kellermann was doing on the left wing what Champeaux
+and Watrin had done on the right. Two cavalry charges made an opening
+through the enemy's line; but behind that first line was a second. Not
+daring to go further forward, because of superior numbers, Kellermann
+lost the fruits of that momentary victory.
+
+It was now noon. The French army, which undulated like a flaming serpent
+along a front of some three miles, was broken in the centre. The centre,
+retreating, abandoned the wings. The wings were therefore forced to
+follow the retrograde movement. Kellermann to the left, Watrin to the
+right, had given their men the order to fall back. The retreat was made
+in squares, under the fire of eighty pieces of artillery which preceded
+the main body of the Austrian army. The French ranks shrank visibly; men
+were borne to the ambulances by men who did not return.
+
+One division retreated through a field of ripe wheat; a shell burst and
+fired the straw, and two or three thousand men were caught in the midst
+of a terrible conflagration; cartridge-boxes exploded, and fearful
+disorder reigned in the ranks.
+
+It was then that Bonaparte sent forward the Consular guard.
+
+Up they went at a charge, deployed in line of battle, and stopped the
+enemy's advance. Meantime the mounted grenadiers dashed forward at a
+gallop and overthrew the Austrian cavalry.
+
+Meanwhile the division which had escaped from the conflagration received
+fresh cartridges and reformed in line. But this movement had no other
+result than to prevent the retreat from becoming a rout.
+
+It was two o'clock.
+
+Bonaparte watched the battle, sitting on the bank of a ditch beside the
+highroad to Alessandria. He was alone. His left arm was slipped through
+his horse's bridle; with the other he flicked the pebbles in the road
+with the tip of his riding-whip. Cannon-balls were plowing the earth
+about him. He seemed indifferent to this great drama on which hung all
+his hopes. Never had he played so desperate a game--six years of victory
+against the crown of France!
+
+Suddenly he roused from his revery. Amid the dreadful roar of cannon and
+musketry his ear caught the hoof-beats of a galloping horse. He raised
+his head. A rider, dashing along at full speed, his horse covered with
+white froth, came from the direction of Novi. When he was within fifty
+feet, Bonaparte gave one cry:
+
+"Roland!"
+
+The latter dashed on, crying: "Desaix! Desaix! Desaix!"
+
+Bonaparte opened his arms; Roland sprang from his horse, and flung
+himself upon the First Consul's neck.
+
+There was a double joy for Bonaparte in this arrival--that of again
+seeing a man whom he knew would be devoted to him unto death, and
+because of the news he brought.
+
+"And Desaix?" he questioned.
+
+"Is within three miles; one of your aides met him retracing his steps
+toward the cannon."
+
+"Then," said Bonaparte, "he may yet come in time."
+
+"How? In time?"
+
+"Look!"
+
+Roland glanced at the battlefield and grasped the situation in an
+instant.
+
+During the few moments that had elapsed while they were conversing,
+matters had gone from bad to worse. The first Austrian column, the one
+which had marched on Castel-Ceriolo and had not yet been engaged, was
+about to fall on the right of the French army. If it broke the line the
+retreat would be flight--Desaix would come too late.
+
+"Take my last two regiments of grenadiers," said Bonaparte. "Rally
+the Consular guard, and carry it with you to the extreme right--you
+understand? in a square, Roland!--and stop that column like a stone
+redoubt."
+
+There was not an instant to lose. Roland sprang upon his horse, took the
+two regiments of grenadiers, rallied the Consular guard, and dashed to
+the right. When he was within fifty feet of General Elsnitz's column, he
+called out: "In square! The First Consul is looking at us!"
+
+The square formed. Each man seemed to take root in his place.
+
+General Elsnitz, instead of continuing his way in the movement to
+support Generals Melas and Kaim--instead of despising the nine
+hundred men who present no cause for fear in the rear of a victorious
+army--General Elsnitz paused and turned upon them with fury.
+
+Those nine hundred men were indeed the stone redoubt that General
+Bonaparte had ordered them to be. Artillery, musketry, bayonets, all
+were turned upon them, but they yielded not an inch.
+
+Bonaparte was watching them with admiration, when, turning in the
+direction of Novi, he caught the gleam of Desaix's bayonets. Standing on
+a knoll raised above the plain, he could see what was invisible to the
+enemy.
+
+He signed to a group of officers who were near him, awaiting orders;
+behind stood orderlies holding their horses. The officers advanced.
+Bonaparte pointed to the forest of bayonets, now glistening in the
+sunlight, and said to one of the officers: "Gallop to those bayonets and
+tell them to hasten. As for Desaix, tell him I am waiting for him here."
+
+The officer galloped off. Bonaparte again turned his eyes to the
+battlefield. The retreat continued; but Roland and his nine hundred
+had stopped General Elsnitz and his column. The stone redoubt was
+transformed into a volcano; it was belching fire from all four sides.
+Then Bonaparte, addressing three officers, cried out: "One of you to the
+centre; the other two to the wings! Say everywhere that the reserves are
+at hand, and that we resume the offensive."
+
+The three officers departed like arrows shot from a bow, their ways
+parting in direct lines to their different destinations. Bonaparte
+watched them for a few moments, and when he turned round he saw a rider
+in a general's uniform approaching.
+
+It was Desaix--Desaix, whom he had left in Egypt, and who that very
+morning had said, laughing: "The bullets of Europe don't recognize me;
+some ill-luck is surely impending over me."
+
+One grasp of the hand was all that these two friends needed to reveal
+their hearts.
+
+Then Bonaparte stretched out his arm toward the battlefield.
+
+A single glance told more than all the words in the world.
+
+Twenty thousand men had gone into the fight that morning, and now
+scarcely more than ten thousand were left within a radius of six
+miles--only nine thousand infantry, one thousand cavalry, and ten cannon
+still in condition for use. One quarter of the army was either dead or
+wounded, another quarter was employed in removing the wounded; for the
+First Consul would not suffer them to be abandoned. All of these forces,
+save and excepting Roland and his nine hundred men, were retreating.
+
+The vast space between the Bormida and the ground over which the army
+was now retreating was covered with the dead bodies of men and horses,
+dismounted cannon and shattered ammunition wagons. Here and there rose
+columns of flame and smoke from the burning fields of grain.
+
+Desaix took in these details at a glance.
+
+"What do you think of the battle?" asked Bonaparte.
+
+"I think that this one is lost," answered Desaix; "but as it is only
+three o'clock in the afternoon, we have time to gain another."
+
+"Only," said a voice, "we need cannon!"
+
+This voice belonged to Marmont, commanding the artillery.
+
+"True, Marmont; but where are we to get them?"
+
+"I have five pieces still intact from the battlefield; we left five more
+at Scrivia, which are just coming up."
+
+"And the eight pieces I have with me," said Desaix.
+
+"Eighteen pieces!" said Marmont; "that is all I need." An aide-de-camp
+was sent to hasten the arrival of Desaix's guns. His troops were
+advancing rapidly, and were scarcely half a mile from the field of
+battle. Their line of approach seemed formed for the purpose at hand; on
+the left of the road was a gigantic perpendicular hedge protected by a
+bank. The infantry was made to file in a narrow line along it, and it
+even hid the cavalry from view.
+
+During this time Marmont had collected his guns and stationed them
+in battery on the right front of the army. Suddenly they burst forth,
+vomiting a deluge of grapeshot and canister upon the Austrians. For an
+instant the enemy wavered.
+
+Bonaparte profited by that instant of hesitation to send forward the
+whole front of the French army.
+
+"Comrades!" he cried, "we have made steps enough backward; remember, it
+is my custom to sleep on the battlefield!"
+
+At the same moment, and as if in reply to Marmont's cannonade, volleys
+of musketry burst forth to the left, taking the Austrians in flank.
+It was Desaix and his division, come down upon them at short range and
+enfilading the enemy with the fire of his guns.
+
+The whole army knew that this was the reserve, and that it behooved them
+to aid this reserve by a supreme effort.
+
+"Forward!" rang from right to left. The drums beat the charge. The
+Austrians, who had not seen the reserves, and were marching with their
+guns on their shoulders, as if at parade, felt that something strange
+was happening within the French lines; they struggled to retain the
+victory they now felt to be slipping from their grasp.
+
+But everywhere the French army had resumed the offensive. On all sides
+the ominous roll of the charge and the victorious Marseillaise were
+heard above the din. Marmont's battery belched fire; Kellermann dashed
+forward with his cuirassiers and cut his way through both lines of the
+enemy.
+
+Desaix jumped ditches, leaped hedges, and, reaching a little eminence,
+turned to see if his division were still following him. There he fell;
+but his death, instead of diminishing the ardor of his men, redoubled
+it, and they charged with their bayonets upon the column of General
+Zach.
+
+At that moment Kellermann, who had broken through both of the enemy's
+lines, saw Desaix's division struggling with a compact, immovable mass.
+He charged in flank, forced his way into a gap, widened it, broke the
+square, quartered it, and in less than fifteen minutes the five thousand
+Austrian grenadiers who formed the mass were overthrown, dispersed,
+crushed, annihilated. They disappeared like smoke. General Zach and his
+staff, all that was left, were taken prisoners.
+
+Then, in turn, the enemy endeavored to make use of his immense cavalry
+corps; but the incessant volleys of musketry, the blasting canister, the
+terrible bayonets, stopped short the charge. Murat was manoeuvring on
+the flank with two light-battery guns and a howitzer, which dealt death
+to the foe.
+
+He paused for an instant to succor Roland and his nine hundred men. A
+shell from the howitzer fell and burst in the Austrian ranks; it opened
+a gulf of flame. Roland sprang into it, a pistol in one hand, his sword
+in the other. The whole Consular guard followed him, opening the enemy's
+ranks as a wedge opens the trunk of an oak. Onward he dashed, till
+he reached an ammunition wagon surrounded by the enemy; then, without
+pausing an instant, he thrust the hand holding the pistol through
+the opening of the wagon and fired. A frightful explosion followed, a
+volcano had burst its crater and annihilated those around it.
+
+General Elsnitz's corps was in full flight; the rest of the Austrian
+army swayed, retreated, and broke. The generals tried in vain to stop
+the torrent and form up for a retreat. In thirty minutes the French army
+had crossed the plain it had defended foot by foot for eight hours.
+
+The enemy did not stop until Marengo was reached. There they made a
+vain attempt to reform under fire of the artillery of Carra-Saint-Cyr
+(forgotten at Castel-Ceriolo, and not recovered until the day was over);
+but the Desaix, Gardannes, and Chamberlhac divisions, coming up at a
+run, pursued the flying Austrians through the streets.
+
+Marengo was carried. The enemy retired on Petra Bona, and that too was
+taken. Then the Austrians rushed toward the bridge of the Bormida; but
+Carra-Saint-Cyr was there before them. The flying multitudes sought the
+fords, or plunged into the Bormida under a devastating fire, which did
+not slacken before ten that night.
+
+The remains of the Austrian army regained their camp at Alessandria. The
+French army bivouacked near the bridge. The day had cost the Austrian
+army four thousand five hundred men killed, six thousand wounded, five
+thousand prisoners, besides twelve flags and thirty cannon.
+
+Never did fortune show herself under two such opposite aspects as
+on that day. At two in the afternoon, the day spelt defeat and its
+disastrous consequences to Bonaparte; at five, it was Italy reconquered
+and the throne of France in prospect.
+
+That night the First Consul wrote the following letter to Madame de
+Montrevel:
+
+  MADAME--I have to-day won my greatest victory; but
+  it has cost me the two halves of my heart, Desaix and
+  Roland.
+
+  Do not grieve, madame; your son did not care to live,
+  and he could not have died more gloriously.
+
+  BONAPARTE.
+
+Many futile efforts were made to recover the body of the young
+aide-de-camp: like Romulus, he had vanished in a whirlwind.
+
+None ever knew why he had pursued death with such eager longing.
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Companions of Jehu, by Alexandre Dumas, pere
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