Виктор Мари Гюго
Ninety-Three
XI
Spirits at the mercy of the wind, – but a wind of preternatural power!
It might be truthfully said, even of the chief among them, that to be a member of the Convention was like being a wave of the ocean. The impetus came from above. There was an inherent force in the Convention, which might be called a will, – not in the sense of an individual quality, but belonging to the Assembly as a body; and this will was an idea, indomitable and boundless, which from the heavens above descended into the darkness below. Men called it Revolution, and wherever it passed, some men were overthrown and others exalted; one would be scattered like foam, while another was dashed to pieces against the rocks. It kept its goal well in mind as it drove the maelstrom before it. To impute revolution to men is like attributing the tides to the waves.
Revolution is a manifestation of the unknown. You may call it good or evil, according as you aspire to the future or cling to the past; but leave it to its authors. It would seem to be the joint product of great events and great individualities, but is in reality the result of events alone. Events plan the expenditures for which men pay the bills. Events dictate, men sign. The 14th of July was signed by Camille Desmoulins, the 10th of August by Danton, the 2d September by Marat, the 21st of September by Grégoire, and the 21st of January by Robespierre; but Desmoulins, Danton, Marat, Grégoire, and Robespierre are merely clerks. The majestic and mysterious compiler of those grand pages was Almighty God, wearing the mask of destiny. Robespierre believed in God, – he did indeed.
Revolution is one form of the eternal phenomenon that circumscribes us on all sides, and which we call Necessity.
In the presence of this mysterious complication of benefits and wretchedness rises the wherefore of history.
Because. This answer may be the reply of one who knows nothing, as well as that of one who knows all.
In the presence of these monstrous catastrophes which both devastate and revivify civilization, one hesitates to sit in judgment on the details. To blame or to praise men on account of the result is very much like praising or criticising the ciphers on account of the sum total. The inevitable is sure to happen; if the wind is to blow, it will blow, but the eternal serenity remains untouched by these blasts. Like the starlit sky above the tempest, truth and justice sit enthroned above all revolutions.
XII
Such was this immeasurable Convention, like an intrenched encampment of the human race attacked simultaneously by all the powers of darkness; the camp-fires of an army of ideas besieged by its foes, an immense bivouac of human intellect on the slope of a precipice. Nothing in history can be compared to this Assembly, which contained within itself senate and people, conclave and street-crossing, Areopagus and public square, tribunal and accused.
The Convention always yielded to the wind; but this wind came from the mouth of the people, and it was the breath of God.
And to-day, after the lapse of eighty years, every time the Convention presents itself to the mind of any man whomsoever, whether philosopher or historian, he cannot but pause and meditate; since no man can be indifferent to that grand procession of shadows.
II
MARAT IN THE GREEN-ROOM
On the day following the interview in the Rue du Paon, Marat, according to the intention which he had announced to Simonne Évrard, went to the Convention.
There chanced to be present a certain marquis, Louis de Montaut, an admirer of Marat, – the same who afterwards presented to the Convention a decimal clock surmounted by a bust of Marat.
Just as Marat entered, Chabot approached Montant. "Ci-devant – " he said.
Montaut looked up.
"Why do you call me ci-devant?"
"Because that's what you are."
"I?"
"Of course, since you were once a marquis."
"Never!"
"Nonsense!"
"My father was a soldier; my grandfather was a weaver."
"What folly is this, Montaut?"
"My name is not Montaut."
"What is it, then?"
"My name is Maribon."
"Very well," declared Chabot; "it is all one to me."
And he added, between his teeth, —
"Every man, nowadays, pretends that he is no marquis."
Marat stopped in the left-hand corridor and looked at Montaut and Chabot.
Whenever he came in, a murmur would pass through the crowd, but always at a respectful distance; it was quiet in his immediate vicinity. Marat paid no attention whatever. He scorned the croaking of the frogs.
In this dim shadow obscuring the lower benches, Conpé de l'Oise, Prunelle, Villars, – a bishop who afterwards became a member of the French Academy, – Boutroue, Petit, Plaichard, Bonet, Thibaudeau, Valdruche, pointed him out to one another.
"Look! There is Marat!"
"He is not ill, then?"
"Probably he is, since he is here in a dressing-gown."
"In a dressing-gown?"
"Certainly."
"What liberties he allows himself!"
"That he should dare to come to the Convention in such a garb!"
"Since he came one day crowned with laurels, he might be expected to appear in a dressing-gown."
"With his face of copper, and teeth of verdigris."
"His dressing-gown seems new."
"What is it made of?"
"A kind of rep."
"Striped?"
"Just see the lapels!"
"They are made of fur."
"Tiger-skin?"
"No, ermine."
"Imitation."
"He has stockings on."
"Remarkable!"
"And shoes with buckles."
"Silver buckles!"
"Camboulas' sabots will not soon forgive him that."
On the opposite benches they pretended not to see Marat, but continued to talk of other matters. Santhonax accosted Dussaulx.
"Have you heard, Dussaulx?"
"What?"
"The ci-devant Count de Brienne."
"The one who was at La Force with the ci-devant Duke de Villeroy?"
"Yes."
"I knew them both. What about them?"
"You know they were so frightened that they saluted all the red caps of the turnkeys, and one day refused to take a hand at piquet because a pack of cards with kings and queens was offered them."
"Well?"
"They were guillotined yesterday."
"Both of them?"
"Yes."
"Well, how did they behave in prison?"
"Like cowards!"
"And what sort of a figure did they cut on the scaffold?"
"Intrepid."
Whereupon Dussaulx exclaimed, —
"It's easier to die than to live."
Barère had begun to read a report on the subject of the Vendée. Nine hundred men from Morbihan had started with cannon to relieve Nantes. Redon was threatened by the peasants, and Paimboeuf had been attacked. A fleet was cruising in the vicinity of Maindrin to prevent invasions. From Ingrande to Maure the entire left bank of the Loire bristled with Royalist batteries. Three thousand peasants had taken possession of Pornic. They cried: "Vive les Anglais!" Barère read a letter from Santerre to the Convention ending with the following words:
"Seven thousand peasants attacked Vannes. We repulsed them, and they retreated, leaving four cannon in our hands."
"And how many prisoners?" interrupted a voice. Barère went on, —
"Postscript. We have no prisoners, because we have ceased to take them."8
Marat, as usual, stood motionless, paying no attention to what was going on, apparently absorbed in deep preoccupation.
He held a paper in his hand, crumpling it between his fingers. Had it been unfolded, certain words in the handwriting of Momoro, in answer, no doubt, to some question of Marat, might have been read: —
"Nothing can be done in opposition to the supreme authority of the delegated commissioners, especially those of the Committee of Public Safety. Although Génissieux said in the session of May 6th, 'Each commissioner is more than a king,' it had no effect. Life and death are in their hands. Massade at Angers, Trullard at Saint-Amand, Nyon with General Marcé, Parrein in the army of the 'Sables,' Millier in the army of Niort, are all-powerful. The Jacobin Club has gone so far as to appoint Parrein brigadier-general. Circumstances excuse everything. A delegate of the Committee of Public Safety may hold in check a commander-in-chief."
Marat ceased crumpling the paper, put it in his pocket, and walked slowly towards Montaut and Chabot, who had continued their conversation and had not seen him enter.
Chabot was just saying, —
"Maribon, or Montaut, listen to this: I have just left the Committee of Public Safety."
"And what are they doing there?"
"They are setting a priest to watch a noble."
"Ah!"
"A noble like yourself – "
"I am not a noble," said Montaut.
"To be watched by a priest – "
"Like you."
"I am not a priest," said Chabot.
And both men began to laugh.
"Please give us a more definite account."
"Well, here is the tale: a priest, Cimourdain by name, has been delegated with full powers to a Viscount Gauvain, who is in command of the exploring division of the army of the coast. Now, the difficulty is, to prevent the nobleman from cheating and the priest from betraying."
"There will be no trouble about that. You have only to make death the third party."
"That is what I came for," said Marat They looked up.
"Good-day, Marat," said Chabot; "we seldom see you at our sessions."
"My doctor has ordered baths," replied Marat.
"Ah, you had better beware of baths," continued Chabot. "Seneca died in a bath."
Marat smiled.
"There is no Nero here, Chabot."
"I should say there was, since you are here," said a gruff voice.
It was Danton, who was passing on his way towards his seat.
Marat did not turn round.
He thrust his head in between the faces of Montaut and Chabot.
"Listen, I have come on serious business; one of us three must propose the draft of a decree to the Convention to-day."
"I am not the man," said Montaut. "They pay no attention to me; I am a marquis."
"Neither will they listen to me; I am a Capuchin," said Chabot.
"Nor to me, for I am Marat"
A silence ensued.
Marat, absorbed in his own thoughts, was not accessible to questions; still, Montaut ventured upon one.
"What decree would you like the Assembly to pass, Marat?"
"A decree inflicting the penalty of death on any military chief who allows a rebel prisoner to escape."
Chabot interposed.
"There is such a decree already; it was made a law at the end of April."
"That amounts to nothing whatever," said Marat. "Everywhere throughout the Vendée prisoners are helped to escape, and any man may shelter them with impunity."
"That is because the decree is no longer in force, Marat."
"It must be revived, Chabot."
"No doubt it needs to be revived."
"And to accomplish this we must address the Convention."
"There will be no need to do that, Marat; the Committee of Public Safety will suffice."
"The object will be attained," added Montaut, "if the Committee of Public Safety order the decree to be placarded in every Commune of the Vendée, and make two or three suitable examples."
"Of men in authority," rejoined Chabot. "Of the generals."
Marat mumbled between his teeth, "Yes, I suppose that will answer."
"Marat," continued Chabot, "go and say that to the Committee of Public Safety yourself."
Marat gazed steadily at him, which was not pleasant, even for a Chabot.
"Chabot," he said, "the Committee of Public Safety meets at Robespierre's house; I do not visit Robespierre."
"Then I will go myself," said Montaut.
"Very well," replied Marat.
The next day a mandate from the Committee of Public Safety was sent in all directions, ordering the authorities of the cities and villages of the Vendée not only to publish, but also strictly to execute, a decree awarding the penalty of death to all who were known to aid and abet the escape of brigands and rebel prisoners.
This decree was but the first step. The Convention was to go still farther than that. Several months later, on the 11th Brumaire, in the year II. (November, 1793), when Laval opened its gates to the Vendean fugitives, it decreed that every city that sheltered rebels should be demolished and destroyed.
The princes of Europe, on their side, in the manifesto of the Duke of Brunswick, suggested by the Émigrés and drawn up by the Marquis of Linnon, steward to the Duke of Orleans, declared that every Frenchman taken with arms in his hand should be shot, and if but a hair fell from the head of the king, Paris should be razed to the ground.
Cruelty against barbarity.
PART III
IN THE VENDÉE
BOOK I
THE VENDÉE
I
THE FORESTS
There were in Brittany at that time seven much-dreaded forests. The Vendean war was a rebellion among priests, and the forest was their auxiliary. The spirits of darkness help one another.
The seven Black Forests of Brittany were the forest of Fougères, which bars the passage between Dol and Avranches; the forest of Princé, eight miles in circumference; the forest of Paimpont, abounding in ravines and brooks, and almost inaccessible in the direction of Baignon, with an easy retreat towards Concornet, which was a Royalist town; the forest of Rennes, whence could be heard the tocsin of the Republican parishes, always numerous in the neighborhood of cities, – there it was that Puysaye lost Focard; the forest of Machecoul, where Charette dwelt like a wild beast; the forest of La Garnache, belonging to the Trémoilles, the Gauvains, and the Rohans; and the forest of Brocéliande, that had been appropriated by the fairies.
One nobleman in Brittany was called the Seigneur des Sept-Forêts, and he was the Viscount de Fontenay, a Breton prince.
For the Breton prince was a creation quite distinct from the French prince. The Rohans were Breton princes. Gamier de Saintes, in his report to the Convention of the 15th Nivôse, year II., thus describes the Prince de Talmont, – "That Capet of brigands, the sovereign of Maine and Normandy."
The events that transpired in Breton forests from 1792 to 1800 would form a history in themselves, blending like a legend with the stupendous affair of the Vendée.
There is truth in legend as well as in history, but the nature of legendary truth differs from that of historic truth. The former may be invention; but its result is reality. Both, however, have the same aim, inasmuch as each strives to depict the eternal type of mankind under the transitory specimen.
The Vendée cannot be fully understood unless legend is allowed to supplement history; history must present the total effect, legend describe the details.
We cannot refuse to acknowledge that the Vendée is well worth the trouble, for it is a prodigy.
That War of the Ignorant, so dull and yet so splendid, so detestable and at the same time so magnificent, was at once the despair and the pride of the nation. In the act of wounding France, the Vendée covered her with glory. There are times when human society presents enigmas whose meaning becomes evident to the wise, while for the ignorant it remains obscure, signifying nothing more than violence and barbarism. A philosopher is slow to accuse. He takes into consideration the disturbances caused by these problems, which never pass without casting a shadow like a cloud.
He who would understand the Vendée must picture the antagonism of the French Revolution on the one hand, and the Breton peasant on the other.
Face to face with these unparalleled events, – this tremendous promise of every advantage at once, this fit of rage on the part of civilization, this excess of infuriated progress, to be accompanied by an improvement that could neither be measured nor understood, – stands this serious and peculiar savage, this man with the keen eyes and long hair, who lives on milk and chestnuts; whose ideas are bounded by his roof, by his hedge, and by his ditch; who can distinguish each village by the sound of its bells; who drinks nothing but water, yet wears a leather waistcoat worked with silken arabesques, – a man uncultivated, dressed in embroidered garments, who tattoes his clothes as his ancestors the Celts used to tattoo their faces; who respects his master in the person of his executioner; who speaks a dead language, which is equivalent to keeping his mind in a tomb, goading his oxen, sharpening his scythe, hoeing his black grain, kneading his buckwheat cake; reverencing, first his plough, and secondly his grandmother; believing in the Blessed Virgin, and in the White Lady no less; worshipping before the altar, and also before the tall mysterious stone set up in the midst of the moor, – a laborer in the plain, a fisherman on the coast, a poacher in the thicket, devoted to his kings, his priests, his lords, and to his very lice; a man of pensive mood, often standing motionless for hours on the wide deserted shore, listening gloomily to the sounding sea.
Is it then strange that this blind man failed to appreciate the light?
II
MEN
The peasant has confidence in the field that nourishes him, no less than in the wood that serves to hide him. It is no easy matter to conceive an idea of the forests of Brittany. They were cities in themselves. Nothing could be more secret, more silent, or more impenetrable than those tangled thickets of briers and branches offering shelter, repose, and silence. No solitude could seem more death-like and sepulchral; if one could, like a flash of lightning, have felled the entire forest at a single stroke, a swarm of human beings would have stood forth revealed within those shades.
Concealed on the outside by coverings of stones and branches were wells, round and narrow, sinking at first vertically and then horizontally, widening under the ground like funnels, and ending in dark chambers. Wells like these discovered by Westermann in Brittany were also found in Egypt by Cambyses, – with this difference, that while the Egyptian caves in the desert held dead men only, those in the forests of Brittany contained living human beings. One of the wildest glades in the woods of Misdon, intersected by subterranean passages and cells, wherein a mysterious population moved to and fro, was called "la Grande Ville." Another glade, just as deserted above ground, and no less populous below, was called "la Place Royale."
This subterranean life in Brittany had existed from time immemorial. Man had there sought refuge from his brother man. Hence these hiding-places, like the dens of reptiles, hollowed out under the trees. They dated from the times of the Druids, and some of the crypts were as old as the dolmens. All the evil spirits of legend and the monsters of history passed over this gloomy land, – Teutates, Cæsar, Hoël, Néomène, Geoffrey of England, Alain of the iron glove, Pierre Mauclerc, the French house of Blois and the English house of Montfort, kings and dukes, the nine barons of Brittany, the judges of the Great Days, the counts of Nantes who wrangled with the counts of Rennes, highwaymen, banditti, Free Lances, René II., the Viscount de Rohan, the king's governors, the "good Duke de Chaulnes" who hung the peasants under the windows of Madame de Sévigné, the seignorial butcheries in the fifteenth century, religious wars in the sixteenth and seventeenth, and the thirty thousand dogs trained to hunt men in the eighteenth. During this wild trampling, the people made up their minds that it would be better for them to disappear. One after the other, the troglodytes seeking to escape from the Celts, the Celts from the Romans, the Bretons from the Normans, the Huguenots from the Catholics, and the smugglers from the excise officers, had sought refuge first in the forests, then underground. It is thus that tyranny forces the nations to the last resource of the hunted beast. For two thousand years had despotism, in all its varied forms, – of conquest, vassalage, fanaticism, and taxation, – hunted down this unfortunate and distracted Brittany; it was like an inexorable battue constantly changing its method of attack. Men disappeared underground. While that terror which is a sort of rage was brooding in human souls, and the dens in the forests were in waiting for them, the French Republic sprang into existence. Brittany, thinking this compulsory deliverance but a new form of oppression, broke into open rebellion, – a mistake usually made by enslaved peoples.
III
CONNIVANCE OF MEN AND FORESTS
Thus the tragic forests of Brittany once more resumed their ancient rôle of servant and accomplice to revolution.
The subsoil of such a forest was like a madrepore pierced and intersected in all directions by a secret labyrinth of mines, cells, and galleries. Each of these hidden cells was large enough to shelter five or six men; the only difficulty was in breathing. Certain mysterious ciphers have been preserved that give us a clew to this powerful organization of the peasant rebellion. In Ille-et-Vilaine, in the forest of Pertre, where the Prince de Talmont had taken refuge, not a breath could be heard, not a trace of human life was visible; and yet Focard had there mustered six thousand men. In Morbihan, in the forest of Meulac, not a man of all the eight thousand there was to be seen. These two forests, le Pertre and Meulac, are not, however, to be reckoned among the great Breton forests. It would have been dangerous walking over their explosive soil. These treacherous copses, with their multitudes of combatants lurking in a sort of subterranean labyrinth, were like great black sponges, from which, beneath the pressure of Revolution's giant foot, civil war gushed forth. Invisible battalions were lying in wait. This army, unknown to the world, wound its way along under the feet of the Republican armies, leaping out of the ground at times in vast numbers, and disappearing as suddenly, – possessing the power of vanishing at will no less than the gift of ubiquity. It was like the descending avalanche that leaves but a cloud of dust behind, colossi with a marvellous genius for contraction, giants in warfare, dwarfs in flight, jaguars with the habits of moles. Moreover, there were woods as well as forests. As the village ranks below the city, so the woods, bear a similar relation to the forests, which they serve to connect after the fashion of a labyrinth. Old castles, fortresses once upon a time, hamlets that had been camps, farms covered with ambushes and snares, divided by ditches and fenced in by trees, formed the meshes of the net in which the Republican armies were caught.
All this was called the Bocage.
There was the wood of Misdon, with a pond in its midst, held by Jean Chouan; the wood of Gennes, held by Taillefer; the wood of La Huisserie, held by Gouge-le-Bruant; the wood of La Charnie, held by Courtillé-le-Bâtard, called the apostle Saint Paul, chief of the camp of the Vache-Noire; the wood of Burgault, in possession of that enigmatical Monsieur Jacques, who was to meet with a mysterious death in the vault of Juvardeil; the wood of Charreau, where Pimousse and Petit-Prince, when attacked by the garrison of Châteauneuf, captured the grenadiers from the ranks of the Republicans in a hand-to-hand encounter; the wood of La Heureuserie, which witnessed the defeat of the military post of Longue-Faye; the wood of L'Aulne, whence the road between Rennes and Laval could be watched; the wood of La Gravelle, won by a Prince of La Tremoille in a bowling-match; the wood of Lorges in the Côtes-du-Nord, where Charles de Boishardy succeeded Bernard de Villeneuve; the wood of Bagnard, near Fontenay, where Lescure offered battle to Chalbos, – a challenge accepted by the latter although they were five to one against him; the wood of La Durondais, over which Alain le Redru and Hérispoux, sons of Charles the Bald, quarrelled in former times; the wood of Croque-loup, on the edge of that moor where Coupereau used to shear the prisoners; the wood of La Croix-Bataille, witness to the Homeric insults hurled against each other by Jambe d'Argent and Morière; the wood of La Saudraie, which the reader will remember was reconnoitred by the Paris battalion; and many others besides.
In several of these forests and woods there were not only subterranean villages grouped around the burrow-like headquarters of the chief, but actual hamlets composed of low cabins hidden under the trees in such numbers that the forest was often filled with them. Sometimes the smoke betrayed their presence. Two among these hamlets in the forest of Misdon have become famous, – Lorrière, near Létang, and the group of huts called La Rue-de-Bau, in the direction of Saint-Ouen-les-Toits.
The women lived in the huts, and the men in the caves. The galleries of the fairies and the old Celtic mines were utilized for purposes of warfare. Food was conveyed to the dwellers underground, and some there were who, forgotten, died of hunger. They, however, were awkward fellows, who had not sense enough to uncover their wells. This cover, usually made of moss and branches, and arranged so skilfully that it was impossible to distinguish it on the outside from the surrounding grass, was yet easily opened and closed from the inside. A den like this, known under the name of "la loge," was hollowed out with great care, and the earth taken therefrom thrown into some neighboring pond. The inside walls and the floor were afterwards lined with ferns and moss. It was fairly comfortable, save for the lack of light, fire, bread, and air.
To rise from underground and appear among the living without due precaution, possibly to disinter themselves at an inappropriate moment, would be a serious business. They might chance to encounter an army on the march. Those were dangerous woods, snares with a double trap. The Blues dared not enter, and the Whites dared not come out.
