The Last Cavalier: Being the Adventures of Count Sainte-Hermine in the Age of Napoleon
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“Well, now,” said the chief, “finally someone who’s reasonable. And do you have a lot of money?”
“No, because a week ago I paid all my bills.”
“The devil take you! Those are not the kind of words I want to hear.”
“They may not be what you want to hear, but they are the truth.”
“Well, then, we were given bad information. For we were told that you’d have a large sum of money here.”
“Someone lied to you.”
“No one ever lies to George Cadoudal.”
By now, they had gotten closer to the farmhouse and were pushing Jacques Doley into the kitchen. The brigands, unused to such coolness from one of their prey, were looking in astonishment at the farmer.
“Oh, gentlemen, gentlemen,” said Madame Doley, who had once again gotten up and left the bedroom, “we’ll give you everything you want, but please you won’t hurt us, will you?”
“Say,” said one of the brigands, “you’re like an Auray eel, crying before you’re skinned alive.”
“Enough words,” said the chief. “The money!”
“Woman,” said Doley, “give them the keys. These gentlemen will look themselves. That way they cannot accuse us of trying to fool them.”
The woman looked at her husband with surprise, and made no move to obey. “Give them the keys!” he said again. “When I say give them, you give them.”
Agape, the poor woman could not understand why her husband was so readily acquiescing to the brigands’ demands. But she gave the leader the keys, then watched in fear as he walked over to the huge walnut wardrobe, the kind in which farmers usually lock up their most valuable possessions, beginning with their linens.
In one drawer they found silverware. The chief grabbed it up and tossed it onto the middle of the tiled kitchen floor. To Madame Doley’s great surprise, she counted only six place settings when there should have been eight. In another drawer they’d had a sack of silver and a sack of gold, about fifteen thousand francs in all. But however much the chief dug through the drawer, to the woman’s great astonishment, all he came up with was the sack of silver.
The wife tried to exchange a look with her husband, but he did not look back. One of the brigands, however, caught the flash of her glance. “Well, now, Mother,” he said, “is your august husband trying to trick us?”
“Oh, no, gentlemen!” she cried. “I swear.”
“Perhaps you know more than he does. Very well, we’ll start with you then.”
The brigands emptied the wardrobe but found nothing else of value to them. They emptied a second wardrobe as well and found only four louis, five or six six-pound crowns, and a few coins hidden in a bowl. “I think you might be right,” said the chief to the brigand who had accused the woman of trying to trick them.
“Someone warned him we were coming,” said one of the bandits, “and he has buried his money.”
“Thunderation!” said the chief. “We have ways of getting money to come out of the ground. Come, bring me a bundle of wood and some straw.”
“Why?” cried the woman in terror.
“Have you ever seen a pig roast?” the chief asked her.
“Jacques! Jacques!” the woman cried. “Do you hear what they’re saying?”
“Of course I can hear,” said the farmer. “But what do you expect? They are the masters, and we have no choice but to let them do whatever they want.”
“Oh, Jesus!” cried the woman in desperation, as two brigands came from the bake house, one carrying a bundle of straw, the other some sticks. “How can you be so compliant?”
“I trust that God will not permit such an abominable crime as the destruction of two creatures whom I cannot call innocent of any sin, but certainly they’re innocent of any crime.”
“What do you mean?” asked the chief. “Is God going to send an angel to protect you?”
“It would not be the first time,” said Jacques, “that God would show himself through a miracle.”
“Well, we’ll see about that,” said the chief, “and to give him the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, we’ll burn the sow along with the boar.” Shouts of laughter greeted his joke, all the more so because it was crude.
The brigands grabbed Jacques Doley, tore off his shoes, pants, and stockings. They ripped off the woman’s skirt. They tied them up separately but similarly, with their hands behind their backs and made them sit on the floor with their legs stretched out. When the fire had caught, they pushed the farmer and his wife by the shoulders until their feet were just a few inches away from the flames. Both cried in pain at the same time.
“Wait!” said one of the brigands, “I’ve just found the piglets. We need to roast them along with the father and mother.” Into the room he dragged a child in each hand; he’d found them quaking and weeping on the floor behind their mother’s bed.
Jacques Doley could stand no more. “If you are a man,” he shouted, “it is time to keep the promise you made!”
Scarcely had he pronounced those words than the milk house door was thrown open. A man came out, his arms extended, and in each hand he held a double-barrelled pistol.
“Who is the man they call George Cadoudal?” the man asked.
“I am,” said the tallest and heaviest of the masked men, getting to his feet.
“You’re lying,” said the stranger. And he shot the bandit point-blank in the chest.
“I myself am Cadoudal,” he said. The impostor fell, dead.
The bandits took a step backward. They had indeed recognized the real Cadoudal, who, they’d assumed, was still in England.
XXIV Counterorders
IT WAS CADOUDAL, and not a man among the band of indenciaries—or in all of the Morbihan—who would dare to raise a hand against him or hesitate to obey a single one of his orders. So the second in command, who was still holding the children, released them and walked over to Cadoudal. “General,” he said. “What are your orders?”
“First of all, untie those two poor people.”
The bandits quickly did Cadoudal’s bidding. Madame Doley collapsed in an armchair, then drew her two children into her arms and pulled them to her breast. Her husband rose to his feet, walked over to Cadoudal, and shook his hand.
“And now?” asked the second in command.
“Now,” said Cadoudal, “I’ve been told that there are three brigades like yours.”
“Yes, General.”
“Who had the audacity to gather you together to do this odious work?”
“A man came from Paris; he told us that you would be back to join us within a month; he said that we should gather in your name.”
“Fighting against the government as Chouans I could understand. But burning, never! Am I an arsonist?”
“We were even told to choose the man among us who most resembled you, so that people would believe you were already here. We called him George II. What must we do now to atone for our mistake?”
“Your mistake was to believe that I could ever become the leader of a band of brigands like you, and there is no way to atone for that. Carry my orders to the other groups: They must disband and cease their odious activities immediately. Then send word to all the former leaders, and especially to Sol de Grisolles and Guillemot, asking them to take up arms and prepare once again to embark on a campaign under my command. However, they must not make a move or raise their white flag until I say so.”
The bandits withdrew without a word.
The farmer and his wife restored order to their wardrobes. The linen once more took its place on the shelves and the silverware in the drawers. A half hour later, the room looked as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened there at all.
Madame Doley had not been mistaken. Her husband had indeed taken precautions. He had hidden some of the silverware as well as the sack of gold, which contained probably twelve thousand francs. The Breton peasant, among all peasants, is the most defiant and perhaps the most provident. In spite of Cadoudal’s promise, Doley had worried that things might turn out badly, and in that case, he wanted to protect at least some of his fortune. And so he had done.
After seeing to Jean and his wife and then carrying out George II’s body, Monsieur and Madame Doley relocked their doors. Cadoudal, who had eaten nothing since morning, now sat at a simple supper, as if his day had passed without event. Refusing the bed the farmer offered, he stretched out on fresh straw in the barn.
The next day, scarcely had he arisen when Sol de Grisolles arrived. Living in Auray, about two and a half leagues from Plescop, he had been roused by one of the brigands who’d hoped to please Cadoudal by telling Grisolles without delay that Cadoudal was nearby. The news greatly astonished Grisolles, for he believed, like everyone else, that Cadoudal was in London.
Cadoudal told him the whole story and showed him the traces of fire and blood on the kitchen’s tile floor. These burning brigades had surely been a police plot, devised to nullify the treaty that Cadoudal had signed with Bonaparte by accusing the Breton general of breaking it. So Cadoudal concluded; and in light of that, he said, he was once more free to act as he wished: which was what he wanted to talk to Sol de Grisolles about.
His first intention was to inform Bonaparte that by virtue of what had recently happened in Brittany, he was withdrawing his word. Still, with proof incontrovertible that he had nothing to do with the new wave of banditry in the west—for indeed he had stopped it at his own life’s peril—he would not declare a war between sovereign powers, since that would be impossible for him to carry out; rather, he would undertake vengeance Corsican style. He wished to charge Sol de Grisolles with communicating the vendetta. It was a charge that Grisolles accepted immediately, for he was a man who never backed away from what he believed to be his duty.
Grisolles would then join Laurent, wherever Laurent happened to be, and have him put his Companions of Jehu back into operation at once, with the understanding that Cadoudal himself would lose no time in going first to London and then returning to Paris to set his own plans into execution.
Once he had given his instructions to Sol de Grisolles, Cadoudal said good-bye to his hosts, begged their forgiveness for having used their home as the theater for the horrors the day before, and mounted his horse. While Grisolles was heading to Vannes, Cadoudal was galloping to the beaches at Erdeven and Carnac, where his boat, only apparently a fishing boat, was plying along the coast.
Three days later, Sol de Grisolles was in Paris, requesting from the First Consul a safe-conduct and a meeting for a matter of the greatest importance. The First Consul sent Duroc to his hotel, but Grisolles, apologizing politely like a true gentleman, declared that he could repeat only to General Bonaparte the message he carried from General Cadoudal. Duroc reported back to the First Consul and then returned to escort Grisolles to the Tuileries.
Bonaparte, it turned out, was quite upset about the Cadoudal matter. “So,” he said without allowing Sol de Grisolles time to speak, “that is how your general keeps his word. He agrees to leave for London, and instead he stays in the Morbihan where he raises bands of burning brigades who rampage all over, as if he were Mandrin or Poulailler. But I have given orders. All the authorities have been alerted. If he is taken, he will be shot like a bandit without a trial. Don’t tell me it’s not true. Le Journal de Paris has published an article, and my police reports agree. Besides, people have recognized him.”
“Will the First Consul permit me to answer,” said Sol de Grisolles, “and to prove my friend’s innocence with a few words?” Bonaparte shrugged.
“And if in five minutes you admit that your newspapers and your police reports are wrong and I am in the right, what will you say?”
“I will say… I will say that Régnier is an idiot, that is all.”
“Well, General. A copy of Le Journal de Paris reporting that Cadoudal had never left France and was raising burning brigades in the Morbihan ended up in his hands in London. He immediately boarded a fishing boat and came back to France, landing on the Quiberon peninsula. He hid at a farm that was to be burned that very night, and he burst from his hiding place just as the leader of the brigade, who claimed himself to be Cadoudal, was about to torture the farmer. The farmer’s name is Jacques Doley; the farm is called Plescop. Cadoudal walked straight up to the man who had usurped his name and blew out his brains, saying: ‘You are lying. I am Cadoudal.’
“And then he asked me to tell you, General, that in fact it was you, or at least your police, who had tried to sully his name by placing at the head of the burning brigades a man of his size and stature, a man who looked enough like him to be mistaken for him. He took vengeance on the man by killing him right there on the spot. That done, he ran the others off the farm they had presumed to seize, although there were twenty of them and he was but one.”
“What you are telling me is impossible.”
“I saw the body, and here is a letter from two farmers attesting to it all.” Grisolles placed under the First Consul’s eyes the written account of the night’s events. It was signed by Jacques Doley and his wife.
“So,” Grisolles continued, “Cadoudal now frees you from your promise and takes back his own. He is unable to declare war since you have stripped him of all his means of defense, but he declares upon you a Corsican vendetta. For you he adopts the code of your own country: Defend yourself! He will defend himself!”
“Citizen,” Duroc cried, “do you know whom you are speaking to?”
“I am speaking to a man who gave us his word as we gave him ours, who was bound as we were, and who had no more right to violate that word than did we.”
“He is right, Duroc,” said Bonaparte. “Still, we need to know if he’s telling the truth.”
“General, when a Breton gives his word.…” Sol de Grisolles cried.
“A Breton can be mistaken or tricked. Duroc, go get Fouché.”
Ten minutes later, Fouché was in the First Consul’s office. The former Minister of Police had scarcely cleared the doorway when Bonaparte called out, “Monsieur Fouché, where is Cadoudal?”
Fouché began to laugh. “I could answer that I have no idea.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because I am no longer Minister of Police.”
“You still hold the office.…”
“… but am on the way out.”
“No more joking, Fouché. But, yes, you are on the way out. I am still paying you, however, and you still have the same agents, so you can still tell me what I need to know as you still are, technically, officially minister. I asked you where Cadoudal was.”
“As of now, he must be back in London.”
“So he had left England?”
“Yes.”
“For what reason?”
“To blow out the brains of a fellow who had assumed his identity.”
“And did he kill him?”
“Right in the presence of the fellow’s twenty men at the Plescop farm. But this man,” he said, pointing to Sol de Grisolles, “can tell you more than I can about the matter. He was close by when it happened. Plescop, I believe, is only two and a half leagues from Auray.”
“What?! You knew all that and you did not alert me?”
“Monsieur Régnier is prefect of police. It was his job to let you know. I am just an ordinary citizen, a senator.”
“So it’s clear, the prefecture is a job honest men will never know properly how to do,” said Bonaparte.
“Thank you, General,” said Fouché.
“Indeed. All you need is for people to think that you’re an honest man. In your place, Fouché, I would aim for something higher.
“Monsieur de Grisolles, you are free to go. As a man and as a Corsican, I accept the vendetta that Cadoudal announces. Let him defend himself, and I will defend myself. But, if he is captured, there shall be no mercy.”
“That is exactly how he expects it to be,” said the Breton with a bow, and took his leave.
“Did you hear, Monsieur Fouché?” said Bonaparte when the door had closed on the two of them. “He has declared a vendetta. It’s your job to protect me.”
“Make me Minister of Police once again, and I’ll be happy to protect you.”
“You’re a fool, Monsieur Fouché. As bright as you think you are, you’re a fool. For the less you are Minister of Police, visibly at least, the easier it will be for you to protect me, since no one will mistrust you. Besides, it has been only two months since I abolished the Ministry of Police, so I cannot very well restore it without good reason. Save me from some great danger; then I shall restore it. Meanwhile, I shall open for you a credit line of five hundred thousand francs from secret funds. Use it as you need, and when it runs out, let me know. Above all, I want you to see to it that no misfortune befalls Cadoudal. I want him taken alive!”
“We shall try. But to do that, he first needs to come back to France.”
“Oh, he’ll be back!—you can be sure of that. I’ll be expecting to hear from you.”
Fouché bowed to the First Consul, and, returning to his carriage as quickly as possible, he leaped up onto it rather than climbing inside, and called out, “Back to my office!” Once there, as he climbed down, he said to his coachman, “Go get Monsieur Dubois. And if possible, make sure he brings Victor along.”
A half hour later, the two men Fouché had summoned were in his office. Although Monsieur Dubois reported to the new prefect of police, he had remained faithful to Fouché, not on principle but for reasons of self-interest. He realized that Fouché’s disfavor would not last forever, so he was careful not to betray Fouché: not Fouché the man, but rather Fouché the minister who might make him his fortune. He, along with three or four of his best agents, like the especially skillful Victor, had remained completely at Fouché’s service.
There were two piles of gold stacked on the fireplace mantel when Dubois and his agent entered the office of the real Minister of Police. Victor, a man of the people, had not had the time even to change his clothes.
“We did not want to waste a single moment,” said Dubois. “I bring you one of my most reliable men, dressed just as he was when I received your message.”
Without answering, Fouché walked over to the agent, and, attending Victor with his cross-eyed gaze, he said, “Damn it, Dubois. This may not be the man we need after all.”
“What kind of man do you need, Citizen Fouché?”
“I’ve got a Breton leader we have to follow, perhaps to Germany, certainly to England. I need a respectable man, someone who can shadow him with ease, inconspicuously, in cafés, in clubs, and even in parlors. I need a gentleman, and you have brought me a bumpkin from the Limousin.”
“Oh, how true!” said the agent. “I’m not one for cafés, clubs, and parlors very much, but drop me into taverns, popular dances, and cabarets and you’ll find me in my element sure.” He winked at Dubois, who had been regarding his agent with surprise but was quick to understand.
“So,” said Fouché, “you must immediately send me a man who could comfortably attend an evening party at the regent’s. To him I shall give my instructions.” Taking two louis from a third stack of gold, he said to Victor, “Here, my friend. This is for the trouble you’ve taken. If I ever need you for more ordinary observations, I shall ask for you. But not a word to anyone about coming to see me here today.”
“Not a word,” said the agent, speaking in the accent of his region, “and I accept with pleasure. You ask for me, you say nothing to me, and you give me two louis to keep silent. Nothing simpler.”
“Fine, fine, my man,” said Fouché. “Now you may go.”
Both men returned to Fouché’s carriage. Fouché himself was a little annoyed to have wasted time, but since he had not told Dubois the sort of surveillance he required, he realized the fault was mostly his own fault.
Still, he did not have to wait long for the second man. Within a quarter of an hour, he was announced. “I said to let him come in!” he shouted impatiently. “Send him in!”
“Here I am, here I am, Citizen,” said a young man, about twenty-five or twenty-six years old, with dark hair and bright, intelligent eyes; he was impeccably dressed and looked to be quite familiar with high society. “I lost no time getting here, and here I am!”
“It’s about time!” said Fouché, as he studied him through his lorgnette. “You are just the man I need.”
After a moment’s silence. during which he continued his examination, Fouché asked, “Do you know what this is all about?”
“Yes! It’s about following a suspicious citizen, maybe go to Germany and surely to England. Nothing easier. I speak German like a German and English like an Englishman. Be assured, too, I shall never let him out of my sight. So all I need is for someone to point him out to me, or to see him once, or to know where he is and who he is.”
“His name is Sol de Grisolles, and he is Cadoudal’s aide-de-camp. He lives on Rue de la Loi, and his hotel is called L’Unité. He has perhaps already left the city. In that case it will be necessary to pick up his trail. I need to know everything he does.” Taking the two stacks of gold from the fireplace mantel, Fouché added, “Here. This will help you gather information.”
The young man held out his perfectly gloved hand and put the money in his pocket without counting it. “And now,” said the young dandy, “should I give back the Limousin’s two louis?”
“What do you mean? The Limousin’s two louis?” asked Fouché.
“The two louis you gave me a few minutes ago.”
“I gave them to you?”
“Yes, and to prove it, here they are.”
“Well,” said Fouché, “in that case this third stack is also yours—consider it a bonus. Now, go on, waste no more time. I want information this evening.”
“You will have what you need.” The agent walked out as pleased with Fouché as Fouché was pleased with him.
Later that evening, Fouché received the first dispatch:
I’ve taken a room in the Hotel L’Unité, Rue de la Loi, and my neighbor is Sol de Grisolles. From the balcony that connects our four windows, I was able to see how his room is arranged. A sofa, ideal for conversation, is set right against my wall. I’ve made a hole, almost invisible, allowing me to see and hear everything. The citizen Sol de Grisolles, who did not find the person he was looking for at the Mont-Blanc Hotel, will wait for him until two in the morning. He has alerted the Hotel L’Unité that one of his friends would be coming to see him late.
I will be the unsuspected third party to their conversation.
The Limousin
PS: Tomorrow, first thing, I’ll send a second dispatch.
The next morning as day was breaking, Fouché was greeted with a second message with the following information:
The friend the citizen Sol de Grisolles was expecting is the famous Laurent, called handsome Laurent, head of the Companions of Jehu. The order that Cadoudal’s aide-de-camp delivered to Laurent was that all the affiliates of the famous company should be reminded of the oaths they have taken. Next Saturday they will be resuming their attacks, first by stopping the stagecoach from Rouen to Paris in the Vernon forest. Whoever is not at his post will be punished by death.
The citizen Sol de Grisolles is leaving at ten in the morning for Germany. I’ll be leaving with him. We will pass through Strasbourg, and as best I can understand, we are going to the residence of Monsieur le Duc d’Enghien.
The Limousin
The two messages fell like two rays of sunshine on Fouché’s chessboard, and they allowed the Minister of Police who was “on the way out” a clearpicture of Cadoudal’s own chess game. Cadoudal had not made an empty threat to Bonaparte by declaring a vendetta. For at the same time he was reactivating the Companions of Jehu, to whom he had given conditional leave, and he was now sending his aide-de-camp all the way to see the Duc d’Enghien. He was tired, no doubt, of the way the Comte d’Artois and his son kept hesitating. They were the only princes with whom Cadoudal had been in contact, and though they were always promising to send him money and men and to grant him their royal protection, they had never come through. Now he was going directly to the last member of the Condé family, that warrior race, to find out if he would be willing to provide more effective aid than simply his encouragement and best wishes.