The Last Vendée
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It was still worse in the districts where the peasantry had openly taken the field. Finding themselves abandoned by their own supporters, and not receiving the reinforcements on which they counted, they believed themselves betrayed, broke their guns in two, and returned, indignantly, to their cottages.
The Legitimist insurrection died in the womb. The cause of Henri V. lost two provinces before his flag was raised; but such was the courage of these sons of giants that, as we are now about to see, they did not yet despair.
Eight days had elapsed since the events recorded in our last chapter, and during those eight days the political turmoil going on around Machecoul was so violent that it swept into its orbit all the personages of our history whose own passions and interests might otherwise have kept them aloof from it.
Bertha, made uneasy at first by Michel's disappearance, was quite reassured when he returned; and her happiness was shown with such effusion and publicity that it was impossible for the young man, unless he broke the promise he had made to Mary, to do otherwise than appear, on his side, glad to see her. The many services she had to render to Petit-Pierre, the many details of the correspondence with which she was intrusted, so absorbed Bertha's time that she did not notice Michel's sadness and depression, or the constraint with which he yielded to the familiarity her masculine habits led her to show to the man whom she regarded as her betrothed husband.
Mary, who had rejoined her father and sister two hours after leaving Michel on the islet of Jonchère, avoided carefully all occasions of being alone with her lover. When the necessities of their daily life brought them together she took every possible means to put her sister at an advantage in Michel's eyes; and when her own eyes encountered those of the young baron she looked at him with so supplicating an expression that he felt himself gently but relentlessly held to the promise he had given.
If, by accident, Michel seemed to authorize by his silence the attentions with which Bertha overwhelmed him, Mary affected a joyous and demonstrative pleasure, which, though doubtless far from her own heart, was agonizing to that of Michel. Nevertheless, in spite of all her efforts, it was impossible for her to conceal the ravages which the struggle she was making against her love wrought in her appearance. The change would certainly have struck every one about her had they been less preoccupied, – Bertha with her love, Petit-Pierre and the marquis with the cares of State. Poor Mary's healthy freshness disappeared; dark circles of bluish bistre hollowed her eyes, her pale cheeks visibly grew thinner, and slender lines appearing on her beautiful forehead contradicted the smile that was ever on her lips.
Jean Oullier, whose loving solicitude could not have been deceived, was absent. The very day he returned to Banl[oe]uvre the marquis despatched him on a mission to the East, and, inexperienced as he was in matters of the heart, he had departed almost easy in mind, having no real conception, in spite of all he had heard, that the trouble was so deep.
The 3d of June had now arrived. On that day a great commotion took place at the Jacquet mill in the district of Saint-Colombin. From early morning the going and coming of women and beggars had been incessant, and by nightfall the orchard which surrounded the mill had all the appearance of an encampment.
Every few minutes men in blouses or hunting-jackets, armed with guns, sabres, and pistols, kept coming in; some through the fields, others by the roads. They said a word to the sentries posted around the farm, on which word they were allowed to pass. They stacked their guns along the hedge which separated the orchard from the courtyard, and prepared, as they severally arrived, to bivouac, under the apple-trees. Each and all came full of devotion; few with hope.
The courage and loyalty of such convictions make them sacred and worthy of respect. No matter to what opinions we may belong, we must be proud of finding such loyalty, such courage, among friends, and glad to recognize them among adversaries. That political faith for which men did not shrink from dying may be rebuked and denied; God was not with it and it fell. Nevertheless, it has won the right to be honored, even in defeat, without discussion.
Antiquity declared, "Ills to the vanquished!" but antiquity was pagan. Mercy never reigned among false gods.
As for us, – not concerning ourselves in the sentiments or convictions which animated them, – we feel it was a noble and chivalric devotion which these Vendéans of 1832 held up to France, then beginning to be invaded by the narrow, sordid, commercial spirit which has since then absorbed it. And above all it seems noble and chivalrous when we reflect that most of these Vendéans had no illusion as to the outcome of their struggle; they advanced without hope to certain death. However mistaken they may have been, whatever may be said of their action, the names of those men belong to history; and we here join hands with history, if not to glorify them, at least to absolve them, although their actual names must not be mentioned in our narrative.
Inside the Jacquet mill the concourse, though less numerous than without, was not less noisily busy. Some of the leaders were receiving their last instructions and concerting with each other for the morrow; others were relating the occurrences of the day, which had not been uneventful. A gathering had taken place on the moors of Les Vergeries, and several encounters with the government troops had occurred.
The Marquis de Souday made himself conspicuous among the various groups by his enthusiastic loquacity. Once more he was a youth of twenty. In his feverish impatience it seemed to him that the sun of the morrow would never dawn; and he was profiting by the time the earth consumed in making its revolution to give a lesson in military tactics to the young men about him.
Michel, sitting in the chimney-corner, was the only person present whose mind was not completely absorbed in the events that were impending. His situation was growing more complicated every moment. A few friends and neighbors of the marquis had congratulated him on his approaching marriage with Mademoiselle de Souday. At every step he made he felt he was entangling himself more and more in the net he had blindly entered head foremost; and at the same time he felt that all his efforts to keep the promise Mary had wrung from him were hopeless. He knew it was in vain to attempt to drive from his heart the gentle image that had taken possession of it.
His sadness grew deeper and heavier, and presented at this moment a curious contrast with the eager countenances of those about him. The noise and the excitement soon became intolerable to him, and he rose and went out without exciting notice. He crossed the courtyard and passing behind the mill-wheel entered the miller's garden, followed the water-course, and finally sat down on the rail of a little bridge some two or three hundred yards from the house.
He had been sitting there about an hour, indulging in all the dismal ideas which the consciousness of his unfortunate position suggested to him, when he noticed a man who was coming toward him along the path he himself had just taken.
"Is that you, Monsieur Michel?" asked the man.
"Jean Oullier!" cried Michel. "Jean Oullier! Heaven has sent you. When did you get back?"
"Half an hour ago."
"Have you seen Mary?"
"Yes, I have seen Mademoiselle Mary."
And the old keeper raised his eyes to heaven and sighed. The tone in which he said the words, the gesture, and the sigh which accompanied them, showed that his deep solicitude was not blind to the cause of the young girl's fading appearance, and also that he fully appreciated the gravity of the situation.
Michel understood him; he covered his face with his hands and merely murmured: -
"Poor Mary!"
Jean Oullier looked at him with a certain compassion; then, after a moment's silence he said: -
"Have you decided on a course?"
"No; but I hope that to-morrow a musket-ball will save me the necessity."
"Oh," said Jean Oullier, "you can't count on that; balls are so capricious, – they never go to those who call them."
"Ah, Monsieur Jean!" exclaimed Michel, shaking; "we are very unhappy."
"Yes, so it seems; you are making terrible trouble for yourselves, all of you. What you call love is nothing but unreasonableness. Good God! who could have told me that these two children, who thought of nothing but roaming the woods bravely and merrily with their father and me, would fall in love with the first hat that came in their way, – and that, too, when the man it covered was more of a girl in his sex than they were in theirs!"
"Alas! it is fatality, my good Jean."
"No," said the Vendéan, "you needn't blame fate; it was I. But come, as you haven't the nerve to face that foolish Bertha, and speak the truth, how do you expect to remain an honest man?"
"I shall do all I can to get nearer to Mary; you can count on me for that so long as you act in that direction."
"Who says anything about your keeping near to Mary? Poor child! she has more good sense than all of you. She cannot be your wife, – she told you so the other day, or rather the other night; and she was perfectly right, – only, her love for Bertha is carrying her too far. She is condemning herself to the torture she wishes to spare her sister; and that is what neither you nor I must allow."
"How can we help it, Jean Oullier?"
"Easily. As you cannot be the husband of the woman you love, you must not be the husband of the woman you don't love. Now it is my opinion that Mary's grief will get easier when that pain is taken away from her. For she may say what she pleases; there's always a touch of jealousy at the bottom of a woman's heart, however tender it may be."
"Renounce both the hope of making Mary my wife and the consolation of seeing her? Impossible! I can't do it. I tell you, Jean Oullier, that to get nearer to Mary I would go through hell-fire."
"Phrases, my young gentleman, phrases! The world has been consoled for being turned out of paradise, and at your age a man can always forget the woman he loves. Besides, the thing that ought to separate you from Mary is something else than hell-fire. It may be the dead body of her sister; for you don't yet know what an undisciplined child it is that goes by the name of Bertha, nor of what she is capable, I don't understand, poor fool of a peasant that I am, all your fine sentiments; but it seems to me the grandest of them ought to pause before an obstacle of this sort."
"But what can I do, my friend? What shall I do? Advise me."
"All the trouble comes, as I think, from your not having the character of your sex. You must now do what a person of the sex to which by your manners and your weakness you seem to belong would do under the circumstances. You have not known how to master the situation in which fate placed you; and now you must flee from it."
"Flee from it! But did you hear Mary say the other day that if I renounced her sister she would never see me again?"
"What of that, if she respects you?"
"But think of all I shall have to suffer!"
"You won't suffer at a distance more than you will suffer here."
"Here, at least, I can see her."
"Do you think the heart knows distance? No, not even when those we are parted from have bid us their last farewell. Thirty years ago and over I lost my poor wife, but there are days when I see her as plain as I now see you. Mary's image will remain on your heart, and you will hear her voice thanking you for what you now do."
"Ah! I would rather you talked to me of death."
"Come, Monsieur Michel, make an effort. I'd go on my knees to you if necessary-I who have many a cause of hatred against you; I beg you, I implore you, give peace, as far as it is now possible, to those poor creatures!"
"What do you want me to do?"
"I want you to go. I have said it, and I repeat it."
"Go? Go away? You can't mean it. Why, they fight to-morrow, and to go to-day would be deserting, – it would be dishonor."
"No, I don't want you to dishonor yourself. If you go it shall not be desertion."
"How so?"
"In the absence of a captain of the Clisson division I have been appointed to take his command; you shall come with me."
"Oh, I hope the first ball to-morrow may carry me off."
"You will fight under my eyes," continued Jean Oullier; "and if any one doubts your bravery, I'll bear witness to it. Will you come?"
"Yes," replied Michel, in so low a voice that the old man could scarcely hear him.
"Good! in three hours we start."
"Start! without bidding her farewell?"
"Yes. In the face of such circumstances she might not have the strength to let you go. Come, take courage!"
"I will take it, Oullier; you shall be satisfied with me."
"Then I can rely upon you?"
"You can. I give you my word of honor."
"I shall be waiting at the cross ways of Belle-Passe in three hours from now."
"I will be there."
Jean Oullier made Michel a farewell sign that was almost friendly; then springing across the little bridge, he went to the orchard and mingled with the other Vendéans.
XIV.
JEAN OULLIER LIES FOR THE GOOD OF THE CAUSE
The young baron remained for several minutes in a state of utter prostration. Jean Oullier's words rang in his ears like a knell sounding his own death. He thought he dreamed, and he kept repeating, as if to convince himself of the reality of his sorrow, "Go away? Go away?"
Presently, the chill idea of death, which he had lately invoked as a succor from heaven, an idea adopted as we fasten upon such thoughts at twenty, passed from his brain to his heart and froze him. He shuddered from head to foot. He saw himself separated from Mary, not merely by a distance he dared not cross, but by that wall of granite which incloses a man eternally in his last abode.
His pain grew so intense that he thought it a presentiment. He now accused Jean Oullier of cruelty and injustice. The sternness of the old Vendéan in refusing him the consolation of a last farewell seemed to him intolerable; it was surely impossible that he should be actually denied a last look. He rebelled at the thought, and resolved to see Mary, no matter what might come of it.
Michel knew the internal arrangements of the miller's house. Petit-Pierre's room was the miller's own, above the grindstones. This was, naturally, the place of honor in the establishment. The sisters slept in a little room adjoining this chamber. A narrow window in the smaller room looked down upon the outside mill-wheel which kept the machinery at work. For the present, however, all was still, lest the noise should prevent the sentries from hearing other sounds.
Michel waited till it was dark, – an hour perhaps; then he went to the buildings. A light could be seen in the narrow window. He threw a plank on a paddle of the wheel and managed, by resting his body against the wall, to climb spoke by spoke to the highest point of the wheel; there he found himself on a level with the narrow casement. He raised his head and looked into the tiny room.
Mary was alone, sitting on a stool, her elbow resting on the bed, her head in her hands. Now and then a heavy sigh escaped her; from time to time her lips moved as though she were murmuring a prayer. The young man tapped against a window-pane. At the sound she raised her head, recognized him through the glass, and ran to him.
"Hush!" he said.
"You! you here!" cried Mary.
"Yes, I."
"Good God! what do you want?"
"Mary, it is more than a week since I have spoken to you, almost a week since I have seen you. I have come to bid you farewell before I go to meet my fate."
"Farewell! and why farewell?"
"I have come to say farewell, Mary," said the youth, firmly.
"Oh, you do not mean to die?"
Michel did not answer.
"No, no; you will not die," continued Mary. "I have prayed so much that God must hear me. But now that you have seen me, now that you have spoken to me, you must go, – go!"
"Why must I leave you so soon? Do you hate me so intensely that you cannot bear to see me?"
"No, you know it is not that, my friend;" said Mary. "But Bertha is in the next room; she may have heard you come. She may be hearing what you say. Good God! what would become of me-of me who have sworn to her that I did not love you!"
"You may have sworn that to her, but to me you swore otherwise. You swore that you loved me, and it was upon the faith of that love that I consented to conceal my own."
"Michel, I entreat you, go away!"
"No, Mary, I will not go until your lips have repeated to me again what they said on the island of Jonchère."
"But that love is almost a crime!" said Mary, desperately. "Michel, my friend, I blush, I weep, when I think of that momentary weakness."
"Mary! I swear to you that to-morrow you shall have no such remorse, you shall shed no tears of that kind."
"Oh, you mean to die! No, no; do not say it! Leave me the hope that my sufferings may bring you a better fate than mine. Hush! Don't you hear? Some one is coming! Go, Michel; go, go!"
"One kiss, Mary!"
"No."
"Yes, yes; a last kiss-the last!"
"Never, my friend."
"Mary, it is to a dying man!"
Mary gave a cry; her lips touched his forehead; but the instant they had done so, and while she was closing the window hastily, Bertha appeared in the doorway.
When the latter saw her sister, pale, perturbed, scarcely able to support herself, she rushed, with the terrible instinct of jealousy, to the window, opened it violently, leaned out, and saw a shadow disappearing in the darkness.
"Michel was with you, Mary!" she cried, with trembling lips.
"Sister," said Mary, falling on her knees; "I swear-"
Bertha interrupted her.
"Don't swear, don't lie. I heard his voice."
Bertha pushed Mary away from her with such violence that the latter fell flat upon the floor. Then Bertha, springing over her sister's body, furious as a lioness deprived of her young, rushed from the room and down the stairs, crossed the mill, and reached the courtyard. There, to her astonishment, she saw Michel sitting on the doorstep beside Jean Oullier. She went straight up to him.
"How long have you been here?" she said in a curt, harsh voice.
Michel made a gesture as if to say, "I leave Jean Oullier to reply."
"Monsieur le baron and I have been talking here for the last half hour or more."
Bertha looked fixedly at the old Vendéan.
"That is singular!" she said.
"Why singular?" asked Jean Oullier, fixing his own eyes steadily upon her.
"Because," said Bertha, addressing Michel and not Jean Oullier. "because I thought I heard you talking with my sister at her window, and saw you climbing down the mill-wheel which you had mounted to reach her."
"Monsieur le baron doesn't look as if he had just performed such an acrobatic feat," said Jean Oullier, sarcastically.
"Then who do you suppose it was, Jean?" said Bertha, stamping her foot impatiently.
"Oh, some of those drunkards over there, who were playing a trick."
"But I tell you that Mary was pale and trembling."
"With fright," said Jean Oullier. "She hasn't got your iron nerves."
Bertha grew thoughtful. She knew the feelings that Jean Oullier cherished against the young baron; therefore she could hardly suppose he was in league with him against her. After a moment's silence her thoughts reverted to Mary, and she remembered that she had left her almost fainting.
"Yes," she said; "yes. Jean Oullier, you are right. The poor child must have been frightened, and I, with my rough ways, have made matters worse. Oh," she muttered, "this love is making me beside myself!"
Then, without another word to Michel or Jean Oullier, she rushed into the mill.
Jean Oullier looked at Michel, who lowered his eyes.
"I shall not reproach you," he said to the young man, "but you must see now on what a powder-barrel you are stepping. What would have happened if I had not been here to lie, God forgive me! as if I were a liar born."
"Yes," said Michel, "you are right, Jean, – I know it; and the proof is that I swear to follow you, for I see plainly I can't stay here any longer."
"That's right. The Nantes men will start in a few moments; the marquis joins them with his division; start yourself at the same time, but fall behind and join me, you know where."
Michel went off to fetch his horse, and Jean Oullier, meantime, obtained his last instructions from the marquis. The Vendéans camping in the orchard now formed in line, their arms sparkling in the shadows. A quiver of repressed impatience ran through the ranks.
Presently Petit-Pierre, followed by the principal leaders, came out of the house and advanced to the Vendéans. She was hardly recognized before a mighty cry of enthusiasm burst from every mouth. Sabres were drawn to salute her for whose cause each man was prepared to die.
"My friends," said Petit-Pierre, advancing, "I promised I would be present at the first armed meeting; and here I am, never to leave you. Fortunate or unfortunate, your fate shall be mine henceforth. If I cannot-as my son would have done-rally you to where my white plume shines, I can-as he would-die with you! Go, sons of giants, go where duty and honor call you!"
Frantic cries of "Vive Henri V! Vive Marie-Caroline!" welcomed this allocution. Petit-Pierre addressed a few more words to those of the leaders whom she knew; and then the little troop on which rested the fate of the oldest monarchy in Europe took its way in the direction of Vieille-Vigne.
During this time Bertha had been showering attentions on her sister, all the more eager because of her sudden change of feeling. She carried her to her bed and bathed her face in cold water. Mary opened her eyes and looked about her in a bewildered way, murmuring in a low voice Michel's name. Her heart revived before her reason.
Bertha shuddered. She was about to ask Mary to forgive her violence, but Michel's name on her sister's lips stopped the words in her throat. For the second time the serpents of jealousy were gnawing at her heart.
Just then the acclamations with which the Vendéans welcomed the address of Petit-Pierre reached her ears. She went to the window of the next room and saw the waving line of a dark mass among the trees, lighted here and there with flashes. It was the column just beginning its march. The thought struck her that Michel, who was certainly with that column, had gone without bidding her good-bye; and she returned, thoughtful, uneasy, and gloomy to her sister's bedside.
XV.
JAILER AND PRISONER ESCAPE TOGETHER
At daybreak on the 4th of June the tocsin sounded from all the bell-towers in the districts of Clisson, Montaigu, and Machecoul. The tocsin is the drum-call of the Vendéans. Formerly, that is to say in the days of the great war, when its harsh and sinister clang resounded through the land the whole population rose in a mass and ran to meet the enemy.
How many noble things those people must have done to enable us to forget, almost forget, that their enemy was-France!
Happily, – and this proves the immense progress we have made in the past forty years, – happily, we say, in 1832 the tocsin appeared to have lost its power. If a few peasants, answering its impious call, left their ploughs and seized the guns hidden in the hedges, the majority continued calmly along the furrows, and contented themselves by listening to the signal for revolt with that profoundly meditative air which suits so well with the Vendéan cast of countenance.
And yet, by ten o'clock that morning, a rather numerous body of insurgents had already fought an engagement with the regular army. Strongly intrenched in the village of Maisdon, this troop sustained a strong attack directed against it, and had only given way before superior numbers. It then effected its retreat in better order than was customary with the Vendéans even after a slight or momentary reverse.
The reason was, and we repeat it, that La Vendée was no longer fighting for the triumph of a great principle, but simply from a great devotion. If we are now making ourselves the historian of this war (after our usual fashion of writing history) it is because we hope to draw from the very facts we relate the satisfactory conclusion that civil war will soon be impossible in France.