Александр Дюма
The Last Vendée
Then, turning away, as if such persons no longer existed for her, she said to Bertha, "Now tell me how you happened to come here just at the right moment."
"Your horse smelt his stable-mates," replied the young girl; "we caught him, and then turned aside, for we heard the chasseurs coming up. Seeing the two bundles of thorns tied to the poor beast, we thought that you wanted to be rid of the animal in order to mask your escape, and we all dispersed in different directions to find you, giving ourselves rendezvous at Banl[oe]uvre. I came through the forest; the lights attracted my attention, then the voices. I left my horse at some distance, for fear he might betray me; you know the rest, Madame."
"Very good," said Petit-Pierre; "and now if monsieur will be good enough to give us a guide to Banl[oe]uvre, Bertha, let us start; for, to tell you the truth, I am half-dead with fatigue."
"I will guide you myself, Madame," said Maître Jacques, respectfully.
Petit-Pierre bowed her head in assent; and Maître Jacques busied himself eagerly in his arrangements. Ten men marched in advance to see that the road was clear, while he himself with ten others escorted Petit-Pierre, who was mounted on Bertha's horse.
Two hours later, as Petit-Pierre, Bertha, and Michel were finishing their supper, the Marquis de Souday and Mary arrived, the former testifying the utmost joy at finding the person whom he called his "young friend" in safety. We must admit that the old gentleman's joy, sincere and genuine as it was, was expressed in the stiff, ceremonious sentences of the old school.
In the course of the evening Petit-Pierre had a long conference with the marquis in a corner of the large hall, which Bertha and Michel watched with deep interest; which was still further deepened when, on the sudden entrance of Jean Oullier, the marquis rose, came up to the young people, and taking Bertha's hand in his, said to Michel:
"Monsieur Petit-Pierre informs me that you aspire to the hand of my daughter Bertha. I may have had other ideas for her establishment, but in consequence of these gracious commands I can only assure you, monsieur, that after the campaign is over my daughter shall be your wife."
A thunderbolt falling at Michel's feet would not have stunned him more. While the marquis ceremoniously prepared to place Bertha's hand in his he turned to Mary, as if to implore her intervention; but her low voice murmured in his ears the terrible words, "I do not love you."
Overwhelmed with grief, bewildered and surprised, Michel mechanically took the hand the marquis presented to him.
II.
MAÎTRE MARC
The day on which all these events-namely, those in the house of the Widow Picaut, in the château de Souday, the forest of Touvois, and the farmhouse of Banl[oe]uvre-took place, the door of a house, No. 19 rue du Château, at Nantes, opened about five in the afternoon to give exit to two individuals, in one of whom we may recognize the civil commissioner Pascal, whose acquaintance we have already made at the château de Souday, and who, after leaving it, as we related, with the Duchesse de Berry, poor Bonneville, and the other Vendéan leaders, had returned without difficulty to his official and private residence at Nantes.
The other, and this is the one with whom we are for the present concerned, was a man about forty years of age, with a keen, intelligent, and penetrating eye, a curved nose, white teeth, thick and sensual lips, like those which commonly belong to imaginative persons; his black coat and white cravat and ribbon of the Legion of honor indicated, so far as one might judge by appearances, a man belonging to the magistracy. He was, in truth, one of the most distinguished members of the Paris bar, who had arrived at Nantes the evening before and gone straight to the house of his associate, the civil commissioner. In the royalist vocabulary he bore the name of Marc, – one of the several names of Cicero.
When he reached the street door, conducted, as we have said, by the civil commissioner, he found a cabriolet awaiting him. The two men shook hands affectionately, and the Parisian lawyer got into the vehicle, while the driver, leaning over to the civil commissioner, asked him, as if aware that the traveller was ignorant on the subject: -
"Where am I to take the gentleman?"
"Do you see that peasant at the farther end of the street on a dapple-gray horse?" asked the civil commissioner.
"Yes."
"Then all you have to do is to follow him."
This information was hardly given before the man on the gray horse, as though he had overheard the words of the legitimist agent, started, went down the rue du Château, and turned to the right, so as to keep along by the bank of the river, which flowed to his left. The coachman whipped up his horse, and the squeaking vehicle on which we have bestowed the unambitious name of "cabriolet," began to rattle over the uneven pavement of the capital of the Loire-Inférieure, following, as best it could, the mysterious guide before it.
Just as it reached the corner of the rue du Château and turned in the direction indicated, the traveller caught sight of the rider, who, without even glancing behind him, began to cross the Loire, by the pont Rousseau, which leads to the high-road of Saint-Philbert-de-Grand-Lieu. Once on the road the peasant put his horse to a trot, but a slow trot, such as the cabriolet could easily follow. The rider, however, never turned his head, and seemed not only quite indifferent as to what might be happening behind him, but also so ignorant of the mission he himself was performing that the traveller began to fancy himself the victim of a hoax.
As for the coachman, not being trusted with the secrets of the affair, he could give no information capable of quieting the uneasiness of Maître Marc. Having asked of the civil commissioner, "Where am I to go?" and being told, "Follow the man on the dapple-gray horse," he followed the man on the dapple-gray horse, seeming no more concerned about his guide than his guide was concerned about him.
They reached Saint-Philbert-de-Grand-Lieu in about two hours and just at dusk. The man on the gray horse stopped at the inn of the Cygne de la Croix, got off his horse, gave the animal to the hostler, and entered the inn. The traveller in the cabriolet arrived five minutes later and entered the same inn. As he crossed the kitchen the rider met him, and without appearing to take notice of him, slipped a little paper into his hand.
The traveller entered the common room, which happened at the moment to be empty; there he called for a light and a bottle of wine. They brought him what he asked for. He did not touch the bottle, but he opened the note, which contained these words: -
"I will wait for you on the high-road to Légé; follow me, but do not attempt to join me or speak to me. The coachman will stay at the inn with the cabriolet."
The traveller burned the note, poured himself out a glass of wine, with which he merely wet his lips, told the coachman to stay where he was and expect him on the following evening, and left the inn on foot, without attracting the inn-keeper's attention, or at any rate, without the inn-keeper's attention seeming to be attracted to him.
At the end of the village he saw his man, who was cutting a cane from a hawthorn hedge. The cane being cut, the peasant continued his way, stripping the twigs off the stick as he walked along. Maître Marc followed him for a mile and a half, or thereabout.
By this time it was quite dark, and the peasant entered an isolated house standing on the right of the road. The traveller hastened on and went in almost at the same moment as his guide. No one was there when he reached the threshold except a woman in the room that looked out on the high-road. The peasant was standing before her, apparently awaiting the traveller. As soon as the latter appeared the peasant said to the woman: -
"This is the gentleman to be guided."
Then, having said these words, he went out, not giving time to the traveller he had conducted to reward him with either thanks or money. When the traveller, who followed the man with his eyes, turned his astonished gaze on the mistress of the house, she merely signed to him to sit down, and then without taking further notice of his presence, and without addressing him a single word, she went on with her household avocations.
A silence of half an hour ensued, and the traveller was beginning to get impatient, when the master of the house returned home. Without showing any sign of surprise or curiosity, he bowed to his guest; but he looked at his wife, who repeated, verbatim, the words of the peasant: "This is the gentleman to be guided."
The master of the house then gave the stranger one of those uneasy, shrewd, and rapid glances, which belong exclusively to the Vendéan peasantry. Then, almost immediately, his face resumed its habitual expression, which was one of mingled good-humor and simplicity, as he approached his guest, cap in hand.
"Monsieur wishes to travel through this region?" he said.
"Yes, my friend," replied Maître Marc; "I am desirous of going farther."
"Monsieur has his papers, no doubt?"
"Of course."
"In order?"
"They cannot be more so."
"Under his war name, or his real name?"
"Under my real name."
"I am obliged, in order that I make no mistake, to ask monsieur to show me those papers."
"Is it absolutely necessary?"
"Yes; because until I have seen them I cannot tell monsieur whether he will be absolutely safe in travelling in these parts."
The traveller drew out his passport, which bore date the 28th of February.
"Here they are," he said.
The peasant took the papers, cast his eyes over them to see if the description tallied with the individual before him, refolded the papers, and returned them, saying: -
"It is all right. Monsieur can go everywhere with those papers."
"And will you find some one to guide me?"
"Yes, monsieur."
"I wish to start as soon as possible."
"I will saddle the horses at once."
The master of the house went out. In ten minutes he returned.
"The horses are ready," he said.
"And the guide?"
"He is waiting."
The traveller went out and found a farm-hand already in his saddle, holding another horse by the bridle. Maître Marc perceived that the led horse was intended for his riding, the farm-hand for his guide. In fact, he had scarcely put his foot in the stirrup before his new conductor started, not less silently than his predecessor. It was nine o'clock, and the night was dark.
III.
HOW PERSONS TRAVELLED IN THE DEPARTMENT OF THE LOWER LOIRE IN MAY, 1832
After riding for an hour and a half, during which time not a word was exchanged between the traveller and his guide, they reached the gate of one of those buildings peculiar to that region, which are something between a farmhouse and a château. The guide stopped, and made a sign to the traveller to do likewise. Then he dismounted and rapped at the door. A servant opened it.
"Here is a gentleman who wishes to speak to monsieur," said the farm-hand.
"It is impossible," replied the servant. "Monsieur has gone to bed."
"Already!" exclaimed the traveller.
The servant came closer.
"Monsieur spent last night at a rendezvous, and has been nearly all day on horseback," he said.
"No matter," said the guide. "This gentleman must see him; he comes from Monsieur Pascal, and is going to join Petit-Pierre."
"In that case it is different," said the servant. "I will wake monsieur."
"Ask him," said the traveller, "if he can give me a safe guide; a guide is all I want."
"I do not think monsieur would do that," said the servant.
"Why not?"
"Because he will wish to guide monsieur himself," said the man.
He re-entered the house. In five minutes he returned.
"Monsieur wishes to know if monsieur will take anything, or whether he prefers to continue his journey without delay."
"I dined at Nantes and need nothing. I prefer to go on immediately."
The servant again disappeared. A few moments later a young man came out. This time it was not the servant, but the master.
"Under any other circumstances, monsieur," he said, "I should insist on your doing me the honor to rest a while under my roof; but you are no doubt the person whom Petit-Pierre expects from Paris?"
"I am, monsieur."
"Monsieur Marc, then?"
"Yes, Monsieur Marc."
"In that case, let us not lose a moment; you are expected with the utmost impatience." Turning to the farm-hand, he said, "Is your horse fresh?"
"He has only done five miles to-day."
"In that case I'll take him; my horses are all knocked up. Stay here and drink a bottle of wine with Louis. I'll be back in two hours. Louis, take care of your comrade." Then turning to the traveller, he added, "Are you ready, monsieur?"
At an affirmative sign from the latter they started. After a dead silence of a quarter of an hour a cry sounded about a hundred steps before them. Monsieur Marc started and asked what it was.
"It came from our scout," said the Vendéan leader. "He asks in his fashion if the road is clear. Listen, and you will hear the answer."
He stopped his horse and signed to Monsieur Marc to do the same. Almost immediately a second cry was heard coming from a much greater distance. It seemed the echo of the first, so exactly alike were the two sounds.
"We can safely go on; the road is clear," said the Vendéan leader.
"Then we are preceded by a scout?"
"Preceded and followed. We have a man two hundred steps before us and two hundred steps behind us."
"But who are they who answer the scouts?"
"Peasants, whose cottages are along the road. Look attentively at these cottages as you pass them, and you will see a small skylight open and the head of a man come up and remain there motionless, as if made of stone, until we are out of sight. If we were soldiers of some neighboring cantonment the man who looked at us would instantly leave his house by the back-door, and if there were any meeting or assemblage of any kind in the neighborhood warning would be given in time of the approach of the troops." Here the leader interrupted himself. "Listen!" he said.
The two riders stopped.
"This time," said the traveller, "I only heard one cry, I think, – that of our scout."
"You are right; no cry has answered his."
"Which means?"
"That troops are somewhere about."
So saying, he put his horse to a trot; the traveller did the same. Almost at the same moment they heard a hurried step behind them; it was that of their rear scout, who now reached them, running as fast as his legs could carry him. At a fork of the road they found the man who preceded them standing still and undecided. His cry had not been answered from either road, and he was not sure which way was best to take. Both led to the same destination, but the one to left was the longest. After a moment's deliberation between the chief and the guide the latter took the path to the right. The Vendéan and the traveller followed him in about five minutes and were in turn followed by their rear-guard after the same lapse of time. These distances were carefully kept up between the advanced guard, the army corps, and the rear-guard.
Three hundred steps farther on the two royalists found their forward scout once more stationary. He made them a sign with his hand, requesting silence. Then, in a low voice, he said: -
"A patrol!"
Listening attentively they could hear, though at some distance, the regular tramp of marching men; it was, in fact, that of a small detachment of General Dermoncourt's column making a night inspection.
The traveller and the Vendéan leader were now in one of those sunken roads between banks and hedges so frequent in La Vendée at this period, and more especially during that of the great war, but which are now disappearing and giving place to well-constructed parish roads. The banks on either side were so steep that it would have been impossible to make the horses mount either of them, and there was no way of avoiding the patrol if they met it except by turning short round and gaining some open place where they might scatter to right or left. But in case of flight the patrol of foot-soldiers would, of course, hear the horsemen as plainly as the horsemen heard the foot-soldiers.
Suddenly the forward scout drew the attention of the Vendéan leader by a sign. He had seen, thanks to a momentary gleam of moonlight which instantly disappeared, the flash of bayonets; and his finger, pointing diagonally, showed the Vendéan leader and the traveller the course they ought to follow. The soldiers (to avoid the water which usually flowed through these sunken roads or lanes after rainy weather), instead of marching along the lane, had climbed the bank and were now behind the natural hedge which grew at the top of it. This was on the left of the horsemen. By continuing in this way they would pass within ten feet of the riders and the scouts, who were hidden below them in the sunken lane. If either of the two horses had neighed the little troop would have been taken prisoners; but, as if the animals understood the danger, they were as still as their masters, and the soldiers passed on, without suspecting that any one was near. When the sound of their footfalls died away the travellers breathed again, and once more resumed their march.
A quarter of an hour later they turned from the road and entered the forest of Machecoul. There they were more at their ease; it was not likely that the soldiers would enter the woods at night, or at any rate take any but the main-roads which, like great arteries, passed through it. By taking one of the wood-paths known to the country-people, they had little to fear.
The two gentlemen now dismounted, and left their horses in charge of one of the scouts, while the other disappeared rapidly in the darkness, rendered deeper still by the leafing out of the May foliage. The Vendéan leader and the traveller followed the same path. It was evident that they were nearing the end of their journey. The abandonment of the horses amply proved it.
In fact, Maître Marc and the Vendéan had hardly gone two hundred yards from the place where they left the horses before they heard the hoot of an owl. The Vendéan leader put his hands to his mouth, and in reply to the long, lugubrious howl, he gave the sharp and piercing cry of the screech-owl. The hoot of the horned owl answered back.
"There's our man," said the Vendéan leader.
A few moments later the sound of steps was heard on the path before them, and their advanced scout came in sight, accompanied by a stranger. This stranger was no other than our friend Jean Oullier, sole and consequently first huntsman to the Marquis de Souday, who had temporarily renounced hunting, occupied as he was by the political events now developing around him.
In his previous introductions the traveller had noticed the use of one formula: "Here is a gentleman who wishes to speak to monsieur." This formula was now changed; and the Vendéan leader said to Jean Oullier, "Here is a gentleman who wishes to speak to Petit-Pierre."
To this Jean Oullier merely replied: -
"Let him follow me."
The traveller stretched out his hand to the Vendéan leader, who shook it cordially. Then he felt in his pocket, intending to divide the contents of his purse between the guides; but the Vendéan gentleman guessed his intention, and laying a hand on his arm, made him a sign not to do a thing which would seem to the worthy peasants an insult.
Maître Marc understood the matter, and a friendly grasp of their hands paid his debt to the peasants, as it had to their leader. After which, Jean Oullier took the path by which he had come, saying two words, with the brevity of an order and the tone of an invitation: -
"Follow me."
The traveller was beginning to get accustomed to these curt, mysterious ways, hitherto unknown to him, which revealed if not actual conspiracy, at least approaching insurrection. Shaded as the Vendéan leader and the guides were by their broad hats, he had scarcely seen their faces; and now in the darkness it was with difficulty that he made out even the form of Jean Oullier, although the latter slackened his pace, little by little, until he fell back almost to the traveller's side. Maître Marc felt that his guide had something to say to him, and he listened attentively. Presently he heard these words, uttered like a murmur: -
"We are watched; a man is following us through the wood. Do not be disturbed if you see me disappear. Wait for me at the place where you lose sight of me."
The traveller answered by a simple motion of the head, which meant, "Very good; as you say."
They walked on fifty steps farther. Suddenly Jean Oullier darted into the wood. Thirty or forty feet in the depths of it a sound was heard like that of a deer rising in affright. The noise went off in the distance, as though it were indeed a deer that had made it. Jean Oullier's steps were heard in the same direction. Then all sounds died away.
The traveller leaned against an oak and waited. At the end of twenty minutes a voice said beside him: -
"Now, we'll go on."
He quivered. The voice was really that of Jean Oullier, but the old huntsman had come back so gently that not a single sound betrayed his return.
"Well?" said the traveller.
"Lost time!" exclaimed Jean Oullier.
"No one there?"
"Some one; but the villain knows the wood as well as I do."
"So that you didn't overtake him?"
Oullier shook his head as though it cost him too much to put into words that a man had escaped him.
"And you don't know who he was?"
"I suspect one man," said Jean Oullier, stretching his arm toward the south; "but in any case he is an evil one." Then, as they reached the edge of the woods, he added, "Here we are."
The traveller now saw the farmhouse of Banl[oe]uvre looming up before him. Jean Oullier looked attentively to both sides of the road. The road was clear; he crossed it alone. Then with a pass-key he opened the gate.
"Come!" he said.
Maître Marc crossed the highway rapidly and disappeared through the gate, which closed behind him. A white figure came out on the portico.
"Who's there?" asked a woman's voice, but a strong, imperative voice.
"I, Mademoiselle Bertha," responded Jean Oullier.
"You are not alone, my friend?"
"I have brought the gentleman from Paris who wishes to speak to Petit-Pierre."
Bertha came down the steps and met the traveller.
"Come in, monsieur," she said.
And she led the way into a salon rather poorly furnished, though the floor was admirably waxed and the curtains irreproachably clean. A great fire was burning, and near the fire was a table on which a supper was already served.
"Sit down, monsieur," said the young girl with perfect grace, which, however, was not without a certain masculine tone which gave it much originality. "You must be hungry and thirsty; pray eat and drink. Petit-Pierre is asleep; but he gave orders to be waked if any one arrived from Paris. You have just come from Paris, have you not?"
"Yes, mademoiselle."
"In ten minutes I will return."
And Bertha disappeared like a vision. The traveller remained a few seconds motionless with amazement. He was an observer, and never had he seen more grace and more charm mingled with strength of will than in Bertha's demeanor. She might be, thought he, the young Achilles, disguised as a woman, before he saw the blade of Ulysses. Absorbed in this thought or in others allied to it, the traveller forgot to eat or drink.
Bertha returned as she had promised.
"Petit-Pierre is ready to receive you, monsieur," she said.
The traveller rose; Bertha walked before him. She held in her hand a short taper, which she raised to light the staircase, and which lighted her own face at the same time. The traveller looked admiringly at her beautiful black hair and her fine black eyes, her ivory skin, with all its signs of youth and health, and the firm and easy poise of the figure, which seemed to typify a goddess.
He murmured with a smile, remembering his Virgil, – that man who himself is a smile of antiquity, – "Incessu patuit dea!"
The young girl rapped at the door of a bedroom.
"Come in," replied a woman's voice.
The door opened. The young girl bowed slightly and allowed the traveller to pass her. It was easy to see that humility was not her leading virtue.
The traveller then passed in. The door closed behind him, and Bertha remained outside.
