MEMOIRS OF A VOLUNTEER
By Anatole France
TO PAUL ARÈNE
I
I was born in seventeen hundred and seventy in the rural outskirts of a small town in the Langres district, where my father, half townsman and half peasant, dealt in cutlery and tended his orchards. In this place certain nuns, although they only educated girls, consented to teach me to read since I was but a child, and they were good friends of my mother. On leaving their hands I took lessons in Latin from a priest in the town, a shoemaker’s son, well grounded in the humanities. In the summer the shade of some old chestnut-trees served as a schoolroom, and close beside his hives the Abbé Lamadou interpreted Virgil’s Georgics to me. I never dreamed that any one could be happier than I, and between my master and Mlle. Rose, the marshal’s daughter, I lived in great contentment. But in this world no happiness is enduring. One morning, as my mother embraced me, she slipped an écu of six livres into my coat pocket. My luggage was packed. My father leaped on his horse and, taking me up behind him, carried me off to the college at Langres. All the time the journey lasted I was dreaming of my own little room, scented towards autumn time with the perfume of the fruit stored up in the loft; or of the close where my father took me on Sunday to gather apples from the trees he had grafted with his own hand; of Rose, of my sisters, of my mother; even of myself, unhappy exile! I could feel my heart thump, and it was with difficulty that I held back the tears which filled my eyelids. At length, after five hours’ journey, we reached the town and set foot to ground in front of a huge door, on which I read with a shudder the word College. The principal, Father Féval, of the Oratory, received us in a big saloon with whitewashed walls. He was still a young man, of impressive appearance, and I found his smile reassuring. On all such occasions my father had displayed a naturalness, vivacity, and candour which never deserted him.
- All the incidents in these memoirs are authentic, and may be traced to various documents of the eighteenth century. Not a single detail, however apparently insignificant, is made use of for which indubitable authority cannot be produced. (AUTHOR.)
“Reverend Father,” he said, placing his hand on me, “I bring you here my only son. His name is Pierre, after his godfather, and Aubier, his father’s name, which I have handed on to him as stainless as I received it from my late dear father. Pierre is my only boy; his mother, Madeleine Ordalu, having presented me with one son and three daughters, whom I am bringing up to the best of my ability. To my daughters will fall the lot which it shall please God in the first place, and later on their husbands, to assign to them. They are said to be pretty, and I can’t help believing it myself. But beauty is only a gay deceiver which it is best not to take into account. They will be handsome enough if they are only good enough. As to my son Pierre here before you (as he pronounced these words my father put his hand so heavily on my shoulder that he made me flinch), provided that he fears God and knows enough Latin, he is to be a priest. Very humbly then, reverend father, I beg you to examine him at your leisure, so as to ascertain his genuine capacities. If you find any merit in him, let him remain with you. I will willingly pay whatever is needful. If, on the contrary, you consider that you can make nothing of him, send me word, and I will come and fetch him away at once, and teach him how to make knives like his father. For I am a cutler, at your service, reverend sir.”
Father Féval agreed to undertake what was asked of him. And upon this assurance, my father took leave of the principal and of me also. As he was very moved, and had some trouble to restrain his sobs, he assumed a stiff and harsh expression, and under the semblance of a farewell embrace bestowed a terrific thump. When he was gone, Father Féval drew me away from the parlour into a garden surrounded by a thick hedge. Then, as we passed beneath the shade of the trees, he said to me—
“O Sylvaï dulces umbras frondosaï!”[5]
- O leafy woods diffusing grateful shade!
I was fortunate enough to recognize in these archaic inflexions and ponderous prosody a line from old Ennius, and I replied glibly to Father Féval that Virgil was even more worthy than his antique predecessor to celebrate the beauty of these cool shades, frigus opacum. The principal seemed quite gratified at this compliment. He questioned me benevolently upon some rudimentary points, and when he had heard my replies—
“That will do,” he said. “If you work hard, very hard indeed, you will be able to keep up with the fourth class. Come with me. I should like to introduce you myself to your master and your fellow-pupils.”
Whilst our little walk lasted, my forlornness had somewhat abated, and I was conscious of feeling supported in my distress. But no sooner did I find myself surrounded by my class-fellows and in the presence of Monsieur Joursanvault, my master, than I sank back into abject despair. Monsieur Joursanvault was neither easy of access nor the possessor of the principal’s fine simplicity. He appeared to me very much more impressed with his own importance, and also more harsh and reserved. He was a little man with a big head, and his words found egress with a whistling noise between two white lips and four yellow teeth. I decided immediately that such a mouth as his was never intended to pronounce the name Lavinia, a name which I loved even better than that of Rose. For I may as well own it, the idyllic and royal fiancée of the unfortunate Turnus had been decked by my imagination with the most august charms. The ideal image I had formed of her sufficed to eclipse the more everyday beauty of the marshal’s daughter. Monsieur Joursanvault then, the master of the fourth class, pleased me little enough. My class-fellows inspired me with fear: they had every appearance of being unspeakably venturesome, and it was not without reason that I dreaded that my simplicity might goad them to ridicule. I was very much inclined to cry.
Self-respect, a more powerful emotion than my grief, alone enabled me to restrain my tears.
When evening came, I left the college and went off into the town in search of the quarters which my father had bespoken for me. I was to lodge with five other scholars at the house of an artisan, whose wife would do our cooking. Every month each of us paid him twenty-five sous.
At the outset my schoolfellows tried to tease me about my ill-cut clothes and my rustic appearance, but they gave up their efforts when they saw that they did not vex me. One of their number alone, the consumptive son of a lawyer, continued insolently to imitate my lumpish, awkward carriage, but I punished him with a fist so unexpectedly weighty that he was not disposed to resume his performance. Monsieur Joursanvault did not take very kindly to me, but as I fulfilled my tasks with regularity, I provided him with no occasion for punishment. As he displayed his authority in a violent, uncertain, and irritating fashion, he invited rebellion, and, as a matter of fact, there were several mutinous episodes in his class in which I, however, took no part. One day, as I was walking in the garden with the principal, who showed himself very kindly disposed to me, unluckily it came into my head to boast to him of my good conduct.
“Father,” said I, “I took no part in the last escapade.”
“There’s nothing to boast about in that,” replied Father Féval, with a touch of contempt which rent my heart.
He hated meanness above everything in the world. I made up my mind as he spoke never again to say or do anything despicable. And if from that day forward I have managed to keep free from lying and mean-spiritedness, I owe it entirely to that excellent man.
Monsieur Féval was in no respect a philosopher-priest; he exercised the virtues, but not the doctrines, of Rousseau’s Vicaire Savoyard. He believed everything a priest ought to believe. But he had a horror of mummery, and could not endure the idea of demanding the interposition of God in trifling affairs. This appeared clearly enough on the Christmas Day when Monsieur Joursanvault came to him with a complaint against the impious jesters who, on the eve of the festival, had put ink in the holy water stoups.
The scandalized Joursanvault mumbled anathemas, and murmured—
“There is no disputing the fact, it is a black deed!”
“By reason of the ink,” replied our good principal calmly.
That upright man regarded weakness as the direct source of all ills. He often said: “Lucifer and the rebellious angels erred through pride. It is on that account that even in hell they have not ceased to hold rank as princes and kings, and to maintain an awful supremacy over the souls of the damned. If they had fallen through pettiness, in the midst of the flames they would now be the laughing-stock and sport of sinners, and the empery of evil would have slipped from their dishonoured hands.”
When the holidays came round it was a great joy to me to see my home once more. But I found it unaccountably shrunken. As I entered, my mother, bending over the hearth, was skimming the soup-kettle. She, too, my dear mother, seemed strangely diminutive to me, and I sobbed as I flung my arms round her.
With the skimmer in her hand she told me how age and trouble had rendered my father inactive, so that he was no longer able to look after his orchard; how my eldest sister was promised in marriage to the cooper’s son; how the sacristan of the parish had been found dead in his chamber, with a bottle in his hand, which his stark fingers clutched so firmly by the neck that it was thought at first that it could never be loosened from his hold. Yet it was scarcely decent to bear the sacristan’s body to the church still grasping his bottle of wish-wash. As I listened to my mother a clear realization of the flight of time and the passing of things temporal for the first time reached my brain. I fell into a sort of reverie.
“Well, well, my boy,” said my mother, “you look flourishing. Why, with your dimity jacket, you are already the very spit of a little curé.”
At this moment Mademoiselle Rose came into the room, blushing and feigning to be completely surprised at the sight of me. I saw that she was interested in me, and felt secretly flattered. But in her presence I assumed the grave and reserved demeanour of the ecclesiastic. The greater part of these holidays I spent in walks with Monsieur Lamadou.
It had been agreed between us that we should talk nothing but Latin. So we went our ways through the midst of the lowly tasks of the tillers of the soil, with nature riotous around us, side by side, straight before us, grave, serious, guileless, disdainful of such utterly vain and common pleasures as we had knowledge of.
I returned to the college with the firm determination to take Holy Orders. Already I could see myself, like Monsieur Lamadou, wearing a great three-cornered hat and a cassock, with black breeches, woollen stockings, and buckled shoes, occupied now with the eloquence of Cicero, now with the doctrine of St. Augustine, and gravely acknowledging the salutes of the women and the poor folk who bowed to me as I threaded my way through the crowd. Alas! a woman’s shadow began to disturb this peaceful dream. Up to that time I had known nothing of women, except Lavinia in the Æneid and Mademoiselle Rose. Then I realized Dido, and flames seemed to rush through my veins. The image of the unhappy Queen, who, tortured by an irremediable wound, wandered in the forest of myrtles, bent at night over my troubled couch.
Moreover, if I walked out in the evening, I seemed to be aware of her dead white figure gliding between the bushes in the woods as the moon passes through the midst of the clouds. Obsessed by this dazzling image, I began to waver about taking Orders. Nevertheless, I assumed the dress of the ecclesiastic, which suited me admirably. When I visited my home for the first time thus attired, my mother curtsied to me, and Rose hid her face in her apron and wept. Then turning on me her lovely eyes, as pellucid as her tears, she said—
“I can’t think what I am crying about, Monsieur Pierre!”
In this mood she was touching. But she did not in the least resemble the moon seen through the clouds. I did not love her; it was Dido I loved.
That year was signalized to me by a dreadful calamity. I lost my father, who sank very suddenly under an attack of water on the chest.
In his last moments he adjured his children to live honestly and piously, and blessed them. He died with a degree of resignation which was not in the least consonant with his character. It appeared to be without regret, with cheerfulness even, that he quitted a life to which he was strongly attached by all the bonds of a nature essentially vivacious. From him I learnt that it is easier to die than one would think, if one is but a good man.
I resolved that I, in my turn, would act a father’s part to those elder sisters already marriageable, and to that tearful mother who, year by year, seemed to grow smaller, weaker, and more appealing.
Thus, then, in one moment, from a child I became a man. I finished my studies at the Oratory under excellent masters—Fathers Lance, Porriquet, and Marion, who had buried themselves in a wild and remote province to devote their brilliant faculties and a profound erudition which would have done honour to the Academy of Inscriptions to the education of a few poor children. The principal surpassed them all in loftiness of intellect and beauty of soul.
Whilst I was finishing my philosophical studies under those eminent teachers, a widespread rumour was conveyed to our distant province, and even penetrated the cloistral walls of the college. There was gossip about a convocation of the States General, and reforms were clamoured for, and great changes expected. Some of the new publications which our masters permitted us to read proclaimed the approaching return of the Golden Age.
When the moment came for me to leave the college, I wept as I embraced Father Féval.
He held me clasped in his arms with profound emotion. Then he led me to the hedge-sheltered path where six years previously I had had my first conversation with him.
There, taking me by the hand, he bent over me, and looked into my eyes and said—
“Remember, dear child, that without principle intellect goes for nothing. You will perhaps live long enough to see the dawn of a new régime in this land of ours. These great changes cannot be brought about without disturbances. May you bear in mind in the midst of them what I am telling you now: in difficult situations intellect is but a sorry shield: virtue alone can suffice to safeguard him who merits safety.”
Whilst he discoursed in this vein we emerged from the arbour, and the sun, already low on the horizon, bathed him in its warm crimson rays and lit up his handsome, thoughtful countenance. I was fortunate enough to retain a vivid impression of his words, which struck me forcibly, although at the time they were a little above my head. At that date I was only a schoolboy, and not a very brilliant one. Since then my eyes have been opened to the profundity and truth of his maxims by the terrible object-lesson of subsequent events.
II
İ had abandoned the idea of taking Orders. It was necessary to earn a livelihood. I had not learnt Latin with the idea of making cutlery in the suburbs of a small town. I indulged in ambitious dreams. Our little holding, our cows, our garden, were far from equal to the fulfilment of my ambitions. I discovered rusticity in Mademoiselle Rose. My mother conceived that a town such as Paris was necessary to the full development of my abilities. Without much difficulty I myself came to a similar conclusion. I ordered a coat from the best tailor in Langres. With this coat went a steel-hilted sword, which threw back the skirts and invested one with so smart an air that I doubted nothing I was on the road to fortune. Father Féval gave me a letter of recommendation to the Duc de Puybonne, and on the 12th of July, in the year of grace 1789, I climbed into the coach, not without tears, laden with Latin books, cakes, bacon, and kisses. I entered Paris by the Faubourg St. Antoine, which appeared to me more hideous than the most squalid hamlets in my own province. With all my heart I bewailed both the unhappy folk who had their dwelling there and myself who had forsaken my father’s house and orchard land to seek advancement amidst such a tatterdemalion crew. A wine merchant who had been my fellow-traveller explained, however, that these people were all in ecstasies over the destruction of an old prison known as the Bastille-St.-Antoine. He assured me that Monsieur Necker would soon bring back the Golden Age. But a wigmaker, who overheard our conversation, declared that, on the contrary, unless the King speedily dismissed him, Monsieur Necker would ruin the country.
“The Revolution,” he added, “is a terrible misfortune. Nobody now dresses his hair. And people who neglect that duty are below the level of the beasts.”
These words angered the wine merchant.
“Know, master barber,” he interposed, “that a rejuvenescent race disdains idle trappings. I would punish you for your impertinence, if I had time to do so; but I am on my way to supply wine to Monsieur Bailly, the Mayor of Paris, who honours me with his friendship.”
In this fashion they parted; and as for me, I betook myself on foot, with my Latin books, my bacon, and the memory of my mother’s kisses to the house of the Duc de Puybonne, to present my letter of recommendation. His mansion was situated at the other end of the city in the Rue de Grenelle. The passers-by vied with one another in supplying me with directions, for the Duke was celebrated for his benevolence.
He received me cordially. Everything in his dress and in his manners was of the utmost simplicity. He had that contented demeanour which one only meets with in men who labour assiduously without being compelled.
He read Father Féval’s letter, and remarked—
“This is a satisfactory letter of recommendation, but what are your acquirements?”
I replied that I was acquainted with Latin, a little Greek, ancient history, rhetoric, and poetry.
“What a list of accomplishments!” he rejoined, smiling. “But it would have been more to the point if you had had some notion of agriculture, the mechanical arts, commerce, banking, and industry. You are acquainted with the laws of Solon, now, I’ll wager?”
I signified that I was.
“Very good, very good. But you know nothing about the English constitution. But no matter. You are young, and of an age to acquire knowledge. I will give you a place about my person, with an allowance of five hundred écus. Monsieur Mille, my secretary, will instruct you as to the duties I shall expect you to perform. Au revoir, monsieur.”
A lackey conducted me to Monsieur Mille, who was writing at a table in the middle of a spacious white apartment. He signalled to me to wait. He was a little roundabout man, and his appearance was pleasant, but he rolled his eyes about ferociously, and seemed to be scolding under his breath as he wrote.
I heard him give utterance to the following words: “Tyrants, fetters, hell, man, Rome, slavery, liberty.”[6] I concluded he was mad. But when he had laid his pen aside he nodded his head to me and smiled.
- “Tyrans, fers, enfers, homme, Rome, esclavage, liberté.” Monsieur Mille is, of course, engaged in a search for rhymes. (TRANS.)
“Well?” he said. “You are examining the apartment. It is as severe as that of an ancient Roman. No gilding on the panels, no fal-lals on the mantelpiece; nothing is left to remind us of the detestable times of the late king, nothing remains that is derogatory to the dignity of a free man (un homme libre). Libre, Tibre. I must jot that rhyme down. It’s a good one, now, isn’t it? Are you fond of verse, Monsieur Pierre Aubier?”
I replied that I was only too much devoted to it, and that it would have served me better when I presented myself before the Duke if I had preferred Mr. Burke to Virgil.
“Virgil is a great man,” replied Monsieur Mille. “But what is your opinion of Monsieur Chénier? For my part I know nothing finer than his Charles IX. I will not attempt to conceal from you that I am myself experimenting in tragedy, and at the very moment you entered I was finishing a scene with which I am not a little pleased. You appear to me to be a very trustworthy person. I am quite willing to confide in you so far as to tell you what my tragedy is about, but you mustn’t breathe a word. You realize how far-reaching the least indiscretion might be. I am composing a tragedy upon the subject of Lucretia.”
Then taking up a large manuscript book he read out: “Lucretia, a tragedy in five acts, dedicated to Louis the Well Beloved, the restorer of liberty to France.”
He spouted some two hundred lines to me and then broke off, saying in excuse that the remainder was as yet uncorrected.
“The Duke’s post-bag,” he said with a sigh, “robs me of the best hours of the day. We are in correspondence with all the enlightened men in England, Switzerland, and America. And talking of this, I may tell you, Monsieur Aubier, that your employment will consist of copying and classifying letters. If you would like to be informed without delay as to the matters which are occupying our attention at this very moment, I will tell you. At Puybonne we are superintending a farm where certain English experts have been engaged to introduce into France such agricultural improvements as have been attained in Great Britain. We are importing from Spain a number of those silky-fleeced sheep the flocks of which have enriched Segovia with their wool. This is so arduous an undertaking that we have been compelled to enlist the co-operation of the King himself. Lastly, we are buying cows in Switzerland to present to our dependents.
“I can say nothing on the subject of our correspondence upon public affairs. Entire secrecy is preserved as to that. But you are, of course, aware that the efforts of the Duc de Puybonne are directed towards the introduction into France of the English constitutional system. Pardon my leaving you, Monsieur Aubier. I am due at the Comédie Française. Alzire is to be performed.”
That night I slept in fine linen sheets, and I did not sleep well. I dreamed that my mother’s bees were flying over the ruins of the Bastille and around the Duc de Puybonne, who smiled graciously, and was enveloped in an unearthly radiance.
The following morning at an early hour I betook myself to Monsieur Mille’s room, and asked him if he had enjoyed himself at the theatre. He replied that he ventured to believe that the performance of Alzire had given him a clue to some of the methods by which Monsieur de Voltaire stirred the emotions of his audience. Then he set me to work copying letters referring to the purchase of the Swiss cows, which the generous magnate was bestowing on his dependents. Whilst I occupied myself with this task, Monsieur Mille said to me—
“The Duke is kind-hearted. I have recorded his benevolent disposition in certain verses with which I am not ill-pleased. Are you acquainted with the Puybonne estate? No! It is a domain of enchantment. My lines may open your eyes to its charms. I will recite them to you—
Delightful valley, haven of repose,
Groves ever verdant, where the limpid stream
Peacefully onward flows,
Whose dulcet murmurings seem
Like note of birds, chanting their amorous woes;
How my heart thrills your rural charms to view,
And longings seize me, ’neath your sheltering boughs
Her cherished name i’ the beech’s bark to hew.
In this fair spot our Puybonne reigns,
And uprightness and charity
Silently bear him company,
His spirit our happiness sustains.
The frolic shepherds, at his call,
Under the elms together come,
Who to his bounty, one and all,
Owe flocks, and herds, and home.”[7]
- .sp 1
Vallon délicieux, asile du repos,
Bocages toujours verts, où l’onde la plus pure
Roule paisiblement ses flots,
Et vient mêler son doux murmure
Aux tendres concerts des oiseaux,
Que mon cœur est ému de vos beautés champêtres!
Que j’aime à confier, sous ces riants berceaux,
Le doux nom d’une nymphe à l’écorce des hêtres.
De ces beaux lieux Puybonne est possesseur;
Avec lui la bonté, la douce bienfaisance,
Dans ce palais habite en silence:
Le sentiment y retient le bonheur.
Puybonne enseigne aux folâtres bergères
A s’assembler sous les ormeaux,
Il se mêle parfois à leurs danses légères,
Puis il leur donne des troupeaux.
I was astounded. At Langres I had never heard anything so courtly, and I was impressed with the fact that the air of Paris contained a something inexpressible, which it was useless to seek elsewhere.
After dinner I set out to inspect the principal edifices of the town. The genius of art has spent two centuries in distributing his treasures on the glorious banks of the Seine. Hitherto I had only been acquainted with Gothic castles and churches, and their melancholy character, tinged with uncouthness, only awakens displeasing thoughts in the mind. Paris, it is true, still contains a certain number of these barbaric structures. The cathedral itself, which rises in that quarter of the town to which the term City is specially assigned, bears witness by the irregularity and confusion of its plan to the ignorance of the age in which it was erected. Parisians overlook its hideousness on the score of its antiquity. Father Féval was accustomed to say that everything antique is worthy of respect.
But what a different aspect do the buildings of the more cultured ages present! A regularity in plan, an exact proportion between the component parts, an uncrowded arrangement in the grouping, and then the charm of the various orders copied from the antique—all these qualities dazzle one in the creations of modern architects, and all unite to render the colonnade of the Louvre a masterpiece worthy of France and its kings. Ah, what a town is Paris! Monsieur Mille showed me the theatre where the finest actresses in the world ally their voices and their charms to the inspired compositions of Mozart and Gluck. And in addition, he even took me to the gardens of the Luxembourg, where beneath the shade of venerable trees I saw Raynal walking side by side with Dussaulx. Ah, my honoured principal, my master, my father, my beloved Monsieur Féval! Would that you were witness to the joy, the rapture of your pupil, your son!
For six weeks I led the pleasantest of lives. All around me I heard talk of the return of the Golden Age, and I began to believe in the approach of the car bearing Saturn and Rhea within it. In the mornings, under Monsieur Mille’s direction, I made copies of letters.
Monsieur Mille was a boon companion, always smiling, always uttering flowery speeches, always volatile as a zephyr.
After dinner I would read a few pages of the Encyclopædia to our worthy employer, and then I was free till the following morning. One night I went with Monsieur Mille to supper at the Porcherons. At the entrance of this place of amusement stood a group of women wearing the national colours in their caps, and carrying flowers in a basket. One of them, approaching me, took me by the arm and said, “See, little master, I make you a present of this bunch of roses.”
I blushed, and was at a loss what to say in reply. But Monsieur Mille, who knew the ways of the town, said to me—
“You must give a six-sous piece in exchange for those roses, and say something gallant to the pretty maiden.”
I did both one and the other, and then inquired of Monsieur Mille if he thought the flower-seller was a well-conducted girl. He replied that there was very little likelihood of it, but that it was a duty to show courtesy to all women. Day by day I became more attached to the excellent Duc de Puybonne. He was the best and the most childlike of men. He did not consider that he had given anything whatever to the unfortunate unless it had cost him some self-sacrifice. He lived like a man of the people, and regarded the luxury of the rich as a preying upon the poor. His benefactions were well considered. One day, addressing us both, he said—
“No pleasure is more gratifying than to labour for the happiness of people unknown to you, whether by planting some useful tree, or by grafting on young saplings in the woods buds from which one day may spring fruit to assuage the thirst of some traveller astray.”
The worthy Duke found no interests except in works of philanthropy. He laboured ardently to secure new constitutional forms to the kingdom. As a representative peer in the National Assembly he took his seat in the ranks of those admirers of English liberty who were styled monarchical, by the side of Malouet and Stanislas de Clermont-Tonnerre. And although his party appeared even then defeated, he awaited with all the fervour of indomitable hope the oncoming of revolution in its most humane aspect. We shared his aspirations.
Despite numerous causes for uneasiness, we continued during the following year to be upheld by this enthusiasm. I accompanied Monsieur Mille to the Champ de Mars at the beginning of July. On this spot two hundred thousand persons of all ranks—men, women, children—were erecting with their own hands the altar upon which all were to swear that they would live free, or, if needs must, die free. Wig-makers in bluejackets, water-carriers, abbés, coal-heavers, capuchins, opera-singers in brocaded dresses with ribbons and feathers in their hair, all these side by side delved the sacred soil of their country. What an object-lesson in fraternity! We saw Monsieur Sieyès and Monsieur de Beauharnais trundling the same cart; we saw Father Gérard, passing like an ancient Roman from the Senate to the plough, wielding the spade and preparing the ground; we saw an entire family at work in the same spot—the father digging, the mother filling the wheelbarrow, and the children pushing it turn and turn about, whilst the youngest, only four years of age, borne in the arms of his grandfather aged ninety-three, lisped out: “Ah! ça ira! ça ira!” We saw the Society of Journeymen Gardeners marching in procession with lettuces and daisies attached to the ends of their spades. Several other corporations followed them, preceded by a band: the Printers, whose banner bore this inscription: Printing, foremost ensign of Liberty. Then the Butchers: upon their standard was painted a large knife, with these words: Tremble, aristocrats! Behold the Journeymen Butchers.
And even this took on the appearance for us of fraternity.
“Aubier, my friend, my brother,” exclaimed Monsieur Mille, “I am fired with poetical enthusiasm. I am about to compose an ode which shall be dedicated to you. Listen:—
Friend, behold the concourse grand,
From far and wide assembled there,
The mainstays of our own loved land,
Whose banners proudly take the air:
Love it is directs their path
Toward the patriot altar-fires,
Each his bounden service hath
Vowed, till Life’s last flame expires.”[8]
8.
Ami, vois tu ce peuple immense,
Comme il accourt de toutes parts:
Des artisans chers à la France
Vois-tu flotter les étendards?
C’est à l’autel de la Patrie.
Que l’amour dirige leurs pas;
Tous vont à leur mère chérie
Se dévouer jusqu’au trépas.
Monsieur Mille recited these lines heroically; he was little, but his gestures were magnificent. He was wearing an amaranth-coloured coat. These circumstances combined to draw attention to him, and by the time he had finished the foregoing he was surrounded by a ring of inquisitive people. He was applauded. In ecstasies, he went on—
“Unseal your eyes, direct your minds
Upon this solemn spectacle …”[9]
But scarcely had he uttered these words before a lady, decked with an immense black hat and feathers, flung herself into his arms and clasped him close against the fichu she wore round her shoulders.
9.
Ouvre tes yeux, fixe ton âme
Sur ce spectacle solennel ...
“Ah, how splendid!” she cried. “Monsieur Mille, permit me to embrace you.”
A Capuchin who occupied a place in the ring of onlookers, bent his chin down on to his spade and clapped his hands at the sight of such a capacious embrace. Then some of the young patriots who stood by pushed him laughingly in the direction of the demonstrative lady, who transferred her embraces to him in the midst of popular acclamations. Monsieur Mille embraced me, and I embraced Monsieur Mille.
“Such splendid lines!” cried the lady with the outrageous hat. “Bravo, Mille! They are worthy of Jean Baptiste.”
“Oh!” said Monsieur Mille, bashfully hanging his head, his cheeks round and red as apples.
“Yes, absolutely worthy of Jean Baptiste,” repeated Madame. “They must be set to the tune of ‘Le serin qui te fait envie.’”[10]
- The canary which spurs you to rivalry.
“You are too flattering,” Monsieur Mille replied. “Permit me, Madame Berthemet, to present to you my friend Pierre Aubier, a Limousin gentleman. He is a man of parts, and will soon be accustomed to the ways of Paris.”
“The dear creature,” Madame Berthemet rejoined, as she pressed my hand. “Let him come to see us. You must bring him, Monsieur Mille. We have a little music always on Thursdays. Is he fond of music? But what a foolish question! Only a barbarian given over to every savage passion could fail to love music. Come this next Thursday, Monsieur Aubier; my daughter Amélie will sing you a ballad.”
As she spoke, Madame Berthemet motioned to a young lady dressed in white, with a Greek headdress, whose fair hair and blue eyes seemed to me the loveliest in the world. I blushed as I bowed. But she did not appear to notice my embarrassment.
As we returned to the Puybonne mansion I did not attempt to conceal from Monsieur Mille the profound impression the beauty of this charming creature had made on me.
“In that case,” replied Monsieur Mille, “I shall have to add a strophe to my ode.”
And after reflecting for a few seconds, he added, “There now, I have managed it.
If some maiden, fair and fond,
To your wooing yields consent,
Only wedlock’s sacred bond
Must your mutual vows cement.
But the altar where you hie
Must a patriot altar be,
Or the Heaven you dare defy
Will avenge your treachery.”[11]
11.
Si d’une belle honnête et sage
Tu sais un jour te faire aimer,
Le nœud sacré du mariage
Est le seul que tu dois former;
Mais à l’autel de la Patrie
Courez tous deux pour vous unir,
Que jamais votre foi trahie
N’ordonne au ciel de vous punir.
Alas! Monsieur Mille did not possess that gift of foretelling future events which was in former ages ascribed to poets. Our days of happiness were already numbered, and all our dazzling illusions were doomed to extinction. The day following the Federation fête the nation awakened to a sense of harrowing dissension. Weak and narrow-minded, the king ill fulfilled the limitless trust the people had placed in him.
The criminal emigration of princes and nobility was impoverishing the country, antagonizing the people, and conducing to war. The political clubs overawed the National Assembly. The acrimony of the populace became more and more menacing. And whilst the nation was a prey to agitators, neither did I possess my heart in peace. I had met Amélie again. I had become the constant guest of her family, and never a week passed that did not find me two or three times a visitor at the house they lived in, in the Rue Neuve St. Eustache. Their fortunes, at one time flourishing, had flagged considerably owing to the Revolution, and I may venture to say that ill-luck ripened our friendship. As Amélie became poorer I found myself more sympathetic, and I loved her. I loved without hope. Who was I, poor little peasant lad, that I should be pleasing to so charming a townswoman?
I marvelled at her gifts. By composing music, painting, or translating some English romance, she courageously shut out the consciousness of misfortune, both public and private. Whenever she saw any one she displayed an aloofness which, so far as I was concerned, would relapse freely into playful banter. It was clear that though her heart was untouched she found my company diverting. Her father was the handsomest grenadier in the district, but in all other respects a nonentity. As to Madame Berthemet, she was, despite a petulant disposition, the best of women. She was brimming with enthusiasm. She appreciated parakeets, political economists, and Monsieur Mille’s poetry to the swooning point. She was fond of me when she could spare time, but much of hers was taken up by the gazettes and the opera. Next to her daughter there was no one in the world whom it gave me greater pleasure to meet.
I had progressed greatly in the good graces of the Duc de Puybonne. I was no longer engaged in the copying of letters: he entrusted me with the most delicate transactions, and often confided to me matters as to which Monsieur Mille himself was left in ignorance.
Moreover, he had lost faith, if not courage. The humiliating flight of Louis XVI distressed him more than I can say; yet after the return from Varennes he appeared unintermittently in the entourage of the royal prisoner, who had despised his advice and been suspicious of his loyalty. My dear master remained immutably faithful to moribund royalty. On the 10th of August he was at the Château, and it was by a sort of miracle that he eluded the mob and managed to get back to his house. During the night I was summoned to him. I found him disguised in the clothes of one of his stewards.
“Farewell,” he said to me. “I am leaving a country delivered over to all sorts of abominations and crimes. The day after to-morrow I shall have landed on the coast of England. I am taking with me three hundred louis; it is all I have been able to get together of what I own. I am leaving behind me property to a considerable amount. I have no one to trust my interests to but yourself. Mille is a fool. Take my affairs into your keeping. I know that you will incur danger in doing so; but I think highly enough of you to burden you with a compromising load.”
I seized his hands, kissed them, and bathed them with tears; it was my only answer.
Whilst he escaped from Paris under cover of his disguise and a forged passport with which he was provided, I burned in the various fireplaces in the house papers which would have sufficed to compromise whole families, and cost the lives of hundreds of people. During the days that followed I was lucky enough to be able to dispose—at very poor prices, it is true—of the Duc de Puybonne’s carriages, horses, and plate, and in this fashion I salvaged some seventy or eighty thousand livres, which crossed the Channel. It was not without encountering the greatest dangers that I carried these delicate negotiations through. My life hung in the balance. The Terror prevailed in the capital the day following the 10th of August. In those streets which only the previous evening were enlivened by the motley variety of costumes, where the cries of hawkers and the clatter of horses had resounded, solitude and silence now reigned. All the shops were closed; the citizens, concealed in their dwellings, trembled both for their friends and for themselves.
The barriers were guarded, and it was impossible for any one to leave the appalling city. Patrols of men armed with pikes paraded the streets. Domiciliary inspections were the only subject of conversation. In my chamber, high up in the roof of the mansion, I could hear the tramp of the armed citizens, the hammering of pikes and the butts of muskets against the neighbouring doors, and the wailing and screaming of the occupants, who were dragged off to the sections. And after the sans-culottes had terrorized the peaceable dwellers in the neighbourhood throughout the day, they would assemble in the shop of my neighbour the grocer; there they would drink, dance the carmagnole, and shriek the Ça ira till morning dawned, so that it was impossible for me to close my eyes all night. My uneasiness increased the distress of insomnia. I could not but fear that some valet might have betrayed me, and that my arrest was already ordered.
Just then a fever of denunciation spread through the town. Never a scullion but believed himself a Brutus for the betrayal of the masters who had furnished him with a living.
I was continuously on the alert, and a faithful servant was ready to warn me at the first sound of the knocker. Fully dressed I would throw myself on my bed or into an arm-chair. I carried about with me the key of the small gate in the garden. But as those execrable September days dragged on, when I learned that hundreds of prisoners had been massacred without the least public protest, and under the approving eyes of the magistrates, horror at length got the better of fear in my mind, and I blushed to be taking such precautions for my safety, and defending with so much forethought an existence which the crimes of my country should have rendered worthless.
No longer did I shrink from showing myself in the streets or encountering the patrols. Nevertheless, I clung to life. I possessed a powerful charm against my anguish and grief. One delightful vision banished from my sight the whole sombre panorama which unrolled itself before me. I loved Amélie, and her youthful countenance omnipresent to my imagination, held me spell-bound. I loved without hope. Nevertheless, I seemed to myself less unworthy of her now that I was acting like a man of courage. I dared, too, to fancy that the dangers to which I was exposed might render me more interesting to her.
In this frame of mind then I went to see her one morning. I found her alone. She talked to me with more benignity than she had ever before displayed. Her eyes were cast heavenwards, and tears fell from them. At the sight I was plunged in the most indescribable distress. I threw myself at her feet, seized her hand, and bathed it with tears.
“O, my brother!” she exclaimed, compelling me to rise. I had not realized up to that moment the bitter sweetness the name of brother can hold. I addressed her with my whole soul’s tenderness.
“Yes,” I cried, “the times are frightful. Mankind is steeped in wickedness. Let us away. Happiness is to be sought in solitude. There are still distant islands where it is possible to live in innocence and freedom from oppression. Let us depart. We will seek for happiness beneath the palms that cast their shade over the tomb of Virginia.”
As I talked in this fashion she seemed to be in a dream, and her eyes had a far-away look; but I could not tell whether her dream and mine were one and the same.
III
I spent the rest of the day in the most harrowing suspense. I was powerless either to indulge in rest or to engage in any occupation. Solitude was repellent, and company uncongenial. In this mood I wandered haphazard along the streets and quays of the town, sorrowfully gazing at the mutilated armorial achievements on the fronts of the houses, and at the decapitated saints in the church porches. Thus preoccupied I found myself unconsciously in the garden of the Palais Royal, where a motley crowd of pedestrians had gathered to drink coffee and glance over the gazettes. The wooden galleries, by the way, had not ceased to present a festal appearance at all hours.
In consequence of the declaration of war and the progress of the allied armies, the Parisians had fallen into the habit of seeking for news at the Tuileries and the Palais Royal. In fine weather the crowd would be considerable, and anxiety even brought in its train a certain degree of distraction.
Many of the women, simply attired after the Greek fashion, wore the national colours, either at the waist or in the head-dress. I felt more lonely than ever in this crowd; all the noise, the movement which surrounded me, only served, so to say, to drive back and concentrate my thoughts upon myself.
“Alas!” I said to myself, “have I said enough? Have I shown my feelings unmistakably? Or rather, have I said too much? Will she ever consent to receive me again, now that she knows I love her? But does she know it? and does she care to know it?”
In this fashion I groaned over the uncertainty of my fate, when my attention was violently diverted by the tones of a familiar voice. I raised my eyes and saw Monsieur Mille standing up in a café and singing in the midst of a group of women “patriots” and “citizens.” He was dressed as a national guard, and with his left arm he encircled a young woman, in whom I recognized one of the flower-sellers from Ramponneau. To the tune of Lisette he was singing these words:—
“Though patriots hundreds strong
To break our bonds are fain,
Women, in thousands, long
To readjust the chain;
Tradition holds them fast,
With pitying scorn they view
Whoso abhors the past
And welcomes in the new.”[12]
12.
S’il est douze cents députés
Qui brisent nos entraves,
Le vœu de cent mille beautés
Est de nous rendre esclaves:
Toutes nos dames ont regret
A l’ancien régime,
Et louer un nouveau décret
C’est perdre leur estime.
This verse was received with a murmur of approval. Monsieur Mille smiled, bowed gracefully, and then, turning to his companion, recommenced his song—
“Ah! not with such join hands,
Sophie, beloved maid!
Philosophy’s commands
Yield kindlier, holier aid:
Her guidance she outpours
On those—O happy chance!—
Who to Her rights restores
Our own, our much wronged France.”[13]
Applause followed, and Monsieur Mille, drawing from his pocket a bunch of ribbons, handed it to Sophie as he resumed his song—
“Hasten then, far and wide,
This gay cockade to show,
Which fills my breast with pride,
When to my guard I go.
What’s gold, with tawdry glint,
To the bud which half uncloses?
This badge of triple tint
Outvies the fairest roses.”[14]
Ah! ne les imitez jamais,
Adorable Sophie,
Et connaissez mieux les bienfaits
De la philosophie;
C’est elle qui dicte les lois
Aux Solons de la France,
Et qui fera dans tous ses droits
Rentrer un peuple immense.
14.
Hâtez-vouz donc de l’arborer
Cette belle cocarde,
Dont j’aime tant à me parer
Quand je monte ma garde:
Vous devez préférer à l’or
Les fleurs à peine écloses;
Ce joli ruban tricolor
A tout l’éclat des roses.
Sophie fastened the ribbon in her cap, and swept the audience with a glance comprehending both triumph and vacancy. Again there was applause. Monsieur Mille bowed. He gazed at the crowd without recognizing me or anybody else; or, rather, in that crowd he was conscious only of himself.
“Ah! monsieur,” exclaimed my neighbour, who in his enthusiasm was bestowing on me a tender embrace; “ah! if the Prussians or the Austrians could see that! They would shudder, monsieur! We were betrayed into their hands at Longwy and Verdun. But if they reached Paris it would be their tomb. The spirit of the populace is altogether martial. I have just come from the Tuileries gardens, monsieur. There I heard some singers stationed in front of the statue of Liberty giving voice to the war song of the Marseillais. A frenzied crowd was shouting in chorus the refrain ‘Aux armes; citoyens!’ If the Prussians had only been there! They would have disappeared underground!”
The man who thus discoursed to me was a very ordinary person, neither handsome nor ugly, neither short nor tall. He was as like his neighbour as two peas, and there was nothing about him individual or distinctive. As he spoke rather loudly he was soon surrounded. After coughing impressively, he continued—
“The enemy is approaching from Chalons. We must encircle them with a ring of steel. Citizens, it is we who must have an eye to the public welfare. Put not your trust in generals, nor in staff officers and troops of the line, nor in ministers of State, even though you have elected them yourselves; no, not even in your representatives at the Convention. We must be our own salvation.”
“Bravo!” cried some one in the audience; “let us fly to Chalons!”
A little man here made a spirited interruption.
“Patriots have no business to leave Paris until the traitors have been exterminated.”
These words were uttered in a voice which I instantly recognized. On that point I could not be deceived. That tremendous head waggling about on a narrow pair of shoulders, that dull livid face, that shape at once mean and monstrous, could belong to none other than my old schoolmaster—Father Joursanvault. His cassock had given place to a wretched jacket. His countenance sweated hate and apostasy. I looked in another direction, but I could not avoid hearing the old Oratorian continue his discourse in this manner:
“Enough blood was not shed during the glorious days of September. The populace is ever too inclined to magnanimity, and has been too tender towards conspirators and traitors.”
At these terrible words I took to my heels horror-struck. In my childhood I had suspected Monsieur Joursanvault of being neither just nor benevolent. I disliked him, indeed. But I was far from fathoming the blackness of his soul. At the discovery that my old master was nothing but an unprincipled rascal, I was overwhelmed with mingled bitterness and grief.
“Oh, that I were still but a child!” I exclaimed. “What is the use of life if it cannot bring us to anything better than dilemmas such as this? Dear principal, dear Father Féval, my recollections of you must temper the sorrows that overwhelm me! Into what dangers has the tempest cast you, my dear and only master? This I know, at any rate, that wherever you may be, humanity, pity, and heroism prevail all around you. You taught me, reverend master, the worth of rectitude and courage. You foresaw the days of trial and strengthened my heart. May your pupil, your son, never show himself too unworthy of your care!”
I had hardly concluded this mental invocation when I felt inspired with fresh courage. And my thoughts harking back by a natural inclination to my dear Amélie, I realized all in a moment what my duty was, and resolved to fulfil it. I had disclosed my feelings to Amélie; was I not bound to make the same declaration to Madame Berthemet?
I was only a few paces from the door, for in my self-communing I had naturally drifted towards the house which contained my Amélie. I entered and made my avowal.
Madame Berthemet smilingly replied that my conduct was very praiseworthy. Then, adopting a graver tone, she said—
“I am going to make you my confidant since I cannot otherwise satisfy you. Do not delude yourself; you must abandon all hope. My daughter is beloved by the Chevalier de St. Ange, and I believe that she is not insensible to his devotion. I should be glad enough, however, if she were to dismiss him from her thoughts. For our fortunes are on the wane from day to day, and the Chevalier’s love is consequently put to a test which the most ardent sentiments are not always proof against.”
The Chevalier de St. Ange! I shuddered at the name. I had a rival, and that rival the most fascinating of poets, the most attractive of novelists. Birth, connections, good looks, talents, he possessed everything calculated to smooth his path. Only the previous evening I had observed in a lady’s hands a tortoiseshell box, with a portrait in miniature, mounted on the lid, of the Chevalier de St. Ange, in the uniform of a dragoon.
As I caught sight of it I envied him, as did every other man of his acquaintance, his manly elegance and inimitable grace. Every morning I could hear my neighbour, the mercer’s wife, singing at her doorstep the immortal ballad known as The Pledge—
Thou who shouldst never have seen the light,
Pledge, beloved, that my fault endears;
Never, ah never, thou luckless wight,
Frailty of mine to thine eyes bring tears.[15]
15.
O toi qui n’eus jamais dû naître,
Gage trop cher d’un fol amour;
Puisses-tu ne jamais connaître,
L’erreur qui le donna te jour! (Le Gage.)
But a little while since I had been reading with delight the philosophical romance which opened the doors of the French Academy to the Chevalier de St. Ange; that admirable Cynégyre which leaves far behind it the Numa Pompilius of Monsieur Florian. “Your Cynégyre,” said the venerable Monsieur Sedaine to the Chevalier de St. Ange, as he received him into the illustrious company, “your Cynégyre was dedicated to the manes of Fénelon, and the offering was not unworthy of the altar.” Such was my rival—the impassioned author of The Pledge—a man of whom people spoke in one breath with Fénelon and Voltaire! I could not overcome my embarrassment; astonishment numbed my distress.
“What, Madame!” I exclaimed, “the Chevalier de St. Ange!”
“Yes,” rejoined Madame Berthemet, shaking her head, “a brilliant writer. But do not imagine for a moment that he is personally the man you would conjecture from his heroical poems. Alas! as our fortunes diminish his love ebbs with them.”
She added kindly that she regretted that her daughter’s choice had not fallen upon me.
“Talents,” she said, “do not make for happiness. On the contrary, men endowed with extraordinary powers, poets and orators, ought to live single. What need of companions have they who cannot mate with their equals. Their genius alone is sufficient to foster egoism. One cannot be an eminent man without incurring the penalties.”
But I was no longer heedful of her remarks. I could not shake off my astonishment. Her disclosure had killed my love. I had never hoped for its return, and, without hope, love is not endued with any considerable vitality. Mine died at the utterance of a single word.
The Chevalier de St. Ange! Shall I admit it? Although my heart bled, my self-esteem experienced a sort of satisfaction at the thought that, forestalled by such a rival, anybody else, no matter who, would have met the same fate as myself. I pressed a hundred kisses on Madame Berthemet’s hands, and left her house calmly, silently, slowly, a mere shadow of the ardent lover who had entered but an hour before, determined to make a clean breast of his scruples and his passion to the mother of Amélie. I was disconsolate. Not that I suffered. I was simply filled with surprise, shame, and fear at the discovery that I could outlive what had seemed the best part of me, my love.
As I crossed the Pont Neuf to regain my deserted faubourg, I saw in the open space, at the foot of the pedestal upon which the statue of Henri IV had recently been erected, a singer from the Academy of Music, who was declaiming in a moving voice the hymn of the Marseillais. The crowd which had collected round him, with bare heads, took up the refrain in chorus, “Aux armes, citoyens!” But when the singer struck up the last verse, “Amour sacré de la Patrie,” in slow and solemn tones, a shiver of unearthly exaltation passed through the crowd. At the line—
Liberté, liberté chérie …
I fell on my knees upon the pavement, and beheld all the people around me likewise fallen prostrate. O, my country, my country! what spells do you weave that your children worship you so? Even from out the mire and the blood your image rises radiant. My country! happy are they who die for you. The sun, which was now dipping towards the horizon, surrounded by blood-hued clouds, lit into liquid flame the waters of the most famous of rivers. Hail to you, ultimate illumination of my days of happiness!
Alack! into what a winter of discontent I passed that night! When I closed the door of my little chamber in the roof of the Duc de Puybonne’s mansion, I felt as though I were cementing the stone over my own tomb.
“All is over!” I said through my sobs. “I love Amélie no longer. But how is it that I am forced to remind myself of the fact so untiringly? How is it that, loving her no longer, I cannot turn my thoughts away from her? Why do I lament so bitterly the uprooting of my wretched love?”
Cruel anxieties were added to my personal sorrows. The state of public affairs was driving me to desperation. My destitution was extreme, and, far from cherishing the hope of obtaining work, I was reduced to concealing myself for fear of being arrested as a suspicious character.
Monsieur Mille had not put in an appearance at the house since the 10th of August. I have no idea where he lodged; but he never missed a single sitting of the Commune, and every day before the municipality, amid enthusiastic applause from the tricoteuses[16] and sans-culottes, he would recite a new patriotic hymn. Indeed he was the most patriotic of poets, and citizen Dorat-Cubières himself, beside him, was a timid Feuillant,[17] under the grave suspicion of the demagogues. I had been engaged in incriminating transactions; moreover, Monsieur Mille made no attempt to visit me, and my own scruples made it an easy duty for me not to go in search of him. Nevertheless, being a good-hearted man, he sent me his collection of songs when the printing was completed. Ah, how slight the resemblance between his second muse and his first! The latter had been powdered, painted, perfumed. The new one resembled a fury, with serpents for locks of hair. I can still recall the song of the sans-culottes, which aimed at being very malicious. It began thus—
Long, long enough, yea far too long
Dread tyranny has claimed our song,
And despots swayed our lot.
Now breaks the dawn of Liberty,
Of Law, and fair Equality:
All hail! the Sans-Culottes![18]
- The women who formed part of the revolutionary mobs were known as tricoteuses from their habit of knitting at all seasons, even at the foot of the guillotine; the sans-culottes were the men of the same class. Their nether garments, of course, were rather in rags and tatters than wanting altogether. (TRANS.)
- A member of an anti-Jacobin Society, known as Feuillants. (TRANS.)
18.
Amis, assez et trop longtemps,
Sous le règne affreux des tyrans,
On chanta les despotes.
Sous celui de l’Egalité,
Des Lois et de la Liberté,
Chantons les Sans-Culottes.
The trial of the king aroused me to indescribable distress. My days rolled by in horror. One morning there was a knock at the door. I divined somehow that it proceeded from a gentle and friendly hand. I opened, and Madame Berthemet flung herself into my arms.
“Save me, save us!” she said. “My brother, Monsieur Eustance, my only brother, was scheduled as an émigré,[19] and came to seek shelter in my house. He was denounced and arrested. He has been in prison now for five days. Luckily the accusation which hangs over him is vague and ill-founded. My brother was never an émigré. To effect his release, all that is necessary is that some one who can vouch for his unbroken residence in France will give evidence in his favour. I begged the Chevalier de St. Ange to do me this service. He prudently begged to be excused. Well! my friend, my son, that service which it would be perilous to him to render me, to you will be still more perilous; yet I come to ask it of you.”
- A person who had left France without a licence from the Government. (TRANS.)
I thanked her for her request as if it had been a favour. And, indeed, it was so to be regarded, and of a quality so inestimable that an upright man could scarcely be honoured by a greater.
“Well enough I knew that you would not refuse!” exclaimed Madame Berthemet, embracing me. “But this is not all,” she added. “You will need to procure a second witness; they demand that two shall come forward if my brother is to be released. Oh, my friend, what times we are living in! Monsieur de St. Ange keeps aloof from us; our misfortunes embarrass him; and Monsieur Mille would be afraid to visit folks under suspicion. Who would have thought it, my friend—who would have thought it? Do you remember Federation Day? We were all brimful of enthusiasm about fraternity, and I had on a very becoming dress.”
She was in tears when she left me. I descended the stairs almost immediately after her to go in search of a guarantor, and to tell the truth I was considerably puzzled to put my hands on one. As I bowed my head in my hands I realized that I had a beard of eight days’ growth, which might render me an object of suspicion; so I betook myself at once to my barber’s at the corner of the Rue St. Guillaume. This barber was a very worthy fellow named Larisse, as tall as a poplar and as restless as an aspen. When I entered his shop he was attending to a wine merchant of the neighbourhood, who with his face smothered in lather was pouring out all sorts of playful threats.
“Ah, my fine fellow, you dandifier of fine ladies,” he was saying, “your head will be cut off and stuck on the end of a pike to gratify your aristocratic inclinations. Every enemy of the people must add his quota to the basket,[20] from the fat Capet to the slim Larisse. And, ça ira, so it will be!”
- The basket into which the heads of the guillotined fell. (TRANS.)
Monsieur Larisse, paler than moonshine and fluttering like a leaf, observed the utmost precautions as he shaved the chin of the abusive patriot. I can affirm that never did barber experience greater terror. And from this circumstance I drew a happy augury for the success of the design I had suddenly conceived. It was my intention, to be plain, to ask Monsieur Larisse to accompany me before the committee as the second guarantor.
“He is such a coward,” I reflected, “that he will never dare to protest.”
The wine merchant withdrew muttering fresh threats, and left me alone with the barber, who, still trembling, fastened a napkin round my neck.
“Ah, monsieur!” he whispered in my ear, in a voice feebler than a sigh, “hell is let loose upon us! Was it for the accommodation of demons like this that I studied the art of hairdressing? The heads which did honour to my skill are now in London or in Coblentz. How is Monseigneur le Duc de Puybonne? He was a good master.”
I informed him that the Duke was living in London, and giving writing lessons. Indeed, the Duke had managed recently to convey to me a paper in which he told me that he was living, perfectly contented, in London, on four shillings and sixpence a day.
“It may be so,” replied Monsieur Larisse, “but in London hairdressing is not performed as it is in Paris. The English can make constitutions, but they don’t know how to make wigs, and their powder is not nearly white enough.”
Monsieur Larisse soon had me shaven. I had not a very harsh beard at that time. Scarcely had he closed his razor than, seizing him by the wrist, I said to him firmly—
“My dear Monsieur Larisse, you are a valiant man; you are coming with me before the General Assembly of the Section des Postes in the one-time church of St. Eustache. There you will bear witness jointly with me that Monsieur Eustance has never been an émigré.”
At these words Monsieur Larisse grew pale, and murmured in inanimate tones—
“But I am not acquainted with Monsieur Eustance.”
“For that matter, neither am I,” I replied.
Which was indeed strictly true. I had correctly diagnosed the character of Monsieur Larisse. He was dumbfounded. His very fear thrust him into the perilous emprise. I took him by the arm and he followed me unresistingly.
“But you are leading me to my death,” he said softly.
“To glory rather,” I replied.
I don’t know whether he was familiar with the ragedians, but he was sensible of the honour and appeared flattered. He had some knowledge of literature, for loosing my arm to go into his back shop, he said—
“A moment, dear sir; let me at least put on my best coat. In the olden times the victims were decked with flowers. I find it recorded in the Almanack for Honest Men.”
From his chest of drawers he took a blue coat which he flung round his long, mobile body. Thus attired he accompanied me to the General Assembly of the Section des Postes, which was sitting continuously.
On the threshold of the desecrated church, on the door of which was inscribed the motto, “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, or Death,” Monsieur Larisse felt the sweat break out on his forehead; nevertheless he went in. One of the citizens who was sleeping there on a heap of empty bottles, half aroused himself to inquire our business, and then sent us on to the revolutionary committee of the Section.
I knew this committee through having accompanied Monsieur Berthemet there on two occasions. The president of it was a small lodging-house keeper in the Rue de la Truanderie, whose most regular customers were ladies of easy virtue. Amongst the members there were an itinerant knife-grinder, a porter, and a dyer and cleaner named Bistac. It was with the knife-grinder that we had to do. He was seated informally with his sleeves turned up; we found him a good-natured fellow.
“Citizens,” he said, “from the moment you place before me an attestation in due form, I have no objections to raise, because I am a magistrate and consequently the proper formalities are all I demand. I would only add one word. A man who has intelligence and character ought not to be authorized to leave Paris at a moment like this. Because, you see, citizens——”
He hesitated, and then, making use of gesture to express his meaning, he stretched out his bare and muscular arm and then moved it to his forehead, which he tapped with a finger, and continued—“It is not of this alone” (here he indicated his arm, the working tool) “that we have need, but of this also” (here he motioned to his forehead, the seat of intellect).
He then boasted of his natural gifts, and lamented that his parents had not contrived to give him any instruction. Then he set himself to the task of signing our declaration. Despite his good will this was a long process. Whilst, with hands accustomed to the grindstone, he painfully manipulated the pen, Bistac the cleaner came into the room. Bistac had not the genial nature of the grinder. His soul was all Jacobin. At sight of us his forehead puckered and his nostrils swelled: he scented the aristocrat.
“Who are you?” he demanded of me.
“Pierre Aubier.”
“Oh, oh! Pierre Aubier, and I suppose you flatter yourself that you will sleep in your own bed to-night?”
I put a cool face on the situation, but my companion began to shudder in every limb. His bones rattled so loudly that Bistac’s attention was attracted, and, forgetting me, he turned his scrutiny on to poor Larisse.
“You have all the marks of a conspirator, in my opinion,” said Bistac in a terrible voice. “What is your profession?”
“A barber, at your service, citizen.”
“All barbers are Feuillants!”
Terror commonly inspired Monsieur Larisse to the most courageous actions. He has since confessed to me that at this moment he had all the difficulty in the world to prevent himself from shouting “Long live the King!” As a matter of fact, he did no such thing, but replied proudly that he owed small thanks to the Revolution, which had suppressed wigs and powder, and that he was tired of living in a continual state of apprehension.
“Take off my head,” he added. “I should prefer to get my dying over, rather than to live in constant fear.”
Bistac became perplexed at talk like this.
Meanwhile, the knife-grinder, who was revolving many confused but kindly thoughts in his brain, recommended us to withdraw.
“Off with you, citizens,” he said; “but bear in mind that the Republic has need of this.”
And he pointed to his forehead.
Madame Berthemet’s brother was released next day. The mother of Amélie expressed abundance of gratitude and embraced me—it was a way she had. She did better.
“You have,” said she, “acquired a right to the gratitude of Amélie. I am desirous that my daughter should herself come and express her indebtedness to you. She owes you an uncle. It is less than a mother, it is true; but what commendations does not your courage deserve….”
She went in search of Amélie.
Left alone in the drawing-room, I waited. I asked myself whether I had the strength to see her once more. I feared, I hoped. I died a thousand deaths.
In about five minutes Madame Berthemet reappeared, alone.
“You must excuse an ungrateful girl,” she said. “My daughter refuses to come. ‘I could not endure his presence,’ she declared. ‘The sight of him would be torture to me; henceforth I hate him. By showing greater courage than the man I love, he has gained a cruel advantage. I will never see him again while I live. He is generous: he will forgive me.’”
After she had repeated this speech to me Madame Berthemet concluded with these words:
“Forget the ungrateful child!”
I promised to endeavour to do so, and I kept my word. Events contributed to my success. The Terror reigned. That appalling day, the 31st of May, snatched their last hopes from those of the moderate party.
Several times I was denounced as a conspirator on the score of the correspondence I maintained with the Duc de Puybonne, and I was continually risking both liberty and life.
I had no longer a certificate of citizenship, and, not daring to apply for one for fear of being instantly put under arrest, my existence had become unendurable.
There was a demand just then for twelve hundred thousand men between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. I entered my name. On the 7th of Brumaire in the year II, at six o’clock in the morning, I set out on the way to Nancy to join my regiment. With a policeman’s cap on my head, a knapsack on my back, and wearing the jacket called a carmagnole, I felt myself fairly martial in appearance.
From time to time I turned my gaze back on the great city where I had suffered so much and loved so profoundly. Then, wiping away a tear, I resumed my journey. I decided to sing in order to cheer myself up, and I began the hymn of the Marseillais—
Allons, enfants de la Patrie!
At the first halting-place I presented my credentials to some peasants, who sent me to pass the night in the stable on the straw. There I enjoyed a delicious sleep, and as I awakened I thought—
“Well, this is better. I am no longer in danger of the guillotine. So far as I can judge, I am no longer in love with Amélie—or rather I never have been in love with her. I am going to carry a sword and a gun. I shall have nothing else to fear but the Austrian bullets. Brindamour and Trompelamort are right: there is no finer calling than that of a soldier. But who would have dreamed when I was studying Latin under the flowering apple trees at Monsieur Lamadou’s that one day I should take arms in defence of the Republic? Ah! Monsieur Féval, who could have foreseen that your little pupil Pierre would march away to the wars?”
At the next halt a worthy woman put me to sleep in white sheets because I reminded her of her son.
The following day I lodged with a canoness who put me in a loft open to the wind and rain, and even this she did with a very perturbed mind, for a defender of the Republic seemed to her so very near to a dangerous species of brigand.
Finally, I came up with my corps on the banks of the Meuse. I received a sword. At this I reddened with gratification, and felt myself at least a foot taller. Do not laugh at me on that account; it was a case of vanity, I admit it; but vanity goes to the making of a hero. We were scarcely fitted out before we received orders to start for Maubeuge.
We arrived on the Sambre on a dark night. Silence was all around. We could see fires flickering on the hills on the opposite side of the river. I was told that they were the bivouacs of the enemy. Then my heart thumped as if it would burst.
It was from Titus Livy that I had got my ideas of war. But I call you to witness, woods, meadows, hills, banks of the Sambre and the Meuse, that those ideas were delusive. War, such as I took part in, consists of passing through burnt-up villages, sleeping in the mire, listening to the whistle of bullets through the long and melancholy sentry duty of nights; but of single combats and ordered battlefields I saw never a sign. We slept but little, and did not eat at all. Floridor, my sergeant, an old soldier of the French Guard, swore that the life we were leading was festive; he exaggerated, but we were not unhappy, for we had the consciousness of doing our duty and being useful to our country.
We were justly proud of our regiment, which had covered itself with glory at Wattignies. For the greater part it was made up of soldiers of the old régime, stout and well instructed. As a large number of men had perished in various engagements, the gaps had been filled up anyhow with youthful recruits. Without the veterans who encircled us we should have been worth nothing. It takes a good deal of time to make a soldier, and in war enthusiasm is no substitute for experience.
My colonel was a one-time nobleman from my native province. He treated me kindly. A lifelong Royalist, a countryman not a townsman, a soldier not a courtier, he had long delayed exchanging the white coat of His Majesty’s troops for the blue coat of the soldiers of the year II. He detested the Republic, and dedicated the remainder of his life to it.
I bless Providence for having guided me to the frontier, since there virtue still survives.
[Written in bivouac, on the Sambre, between septidi the 27th of Frimaire, and sextidi the 6th of Nivôse, in the year II of the French Republic, by Pierre Aubier, volunteer.]