The Last Vendée
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The fact is, Michel received this proposal with an insensibility which almost amounted to stupor. Go away? why, that was to part from Mary! At the mere idea of that separation his heart was so wrung that he fancied he would rather face the death to which he was condemned. Since Courtin had assisted in reviving his passion, he had in his heart conceived new hopes, and without saying a word of them to his farmer, he thought day and night on the means of getting to her. He could not endure the idea of once more renouncing her; and instead of replying to his mother as she developed her plan, he was simply strengthening his determination to be Mary's husband. Hence the silence which, naturally, made the baroness uneasy.
"Mother," said Michel at last, "I do not answer you because I cannot answer as I wish."
"How do you mean, as you wish?"
"Listen to me, mother," said the young man, with a firmness of which at any other time she would have thought him, and perhaps he might have thought himself, incapable.
"You don't refuse to go, I hope?"
"I don't refuse to go," said Michel, "but I put conditions to my going."
"Conditions where it concerns your life, your safety? Conditions before you consent to relieve your mother's agony?"
"Mother," said Michel, "since we last saw each other I have suffered much, and consequently I have learned much. I have learned, above all, that there are moments which decide the whole future happiness or misery of our lives. I am now in one of those moments, mother."
"And you mean to decide for my misery?"
"No; I shall speak to you as a man, that is all. Do not be surprised at that; I was thrown, a child, into the midst of these events, and I have come out of them a man. I know the duties I owe my mother; those duties are respect, tenderness, gratitude, – and those duties I will never evade. But in passing from youth to manhood, mother, horizons open and broaden the farther we go; there we find duties, succeeding those of youth, not exclusively to our family, but also to society. When a man reaches that stage in his life, though he still loves his mother, he must inevitably love another woman, who will be to him the mother of his children."
"Ah!" exclaimed the baroness, starting back from her son with an impulse that was stronger than her will.
"Yes, mother," said the young man, rising, "I have given that love; another love has replied to mine; our lives are indissolubly united; if I go, I will not go alone."
"You will go with your mistress?"
"I will go with my wife, mother."
"Do you suppose that I shall give my consent to that marriage?"
"You are free not to give your consent, mother, but I am free not to leave this place."
"Oh, wretched boy!" cried the baroness; "is this my reward for twenty years of care, and tenderness, and love?"
"That reward, mother," said Michel, his firmness increased by the knowledge that another ear was listening to his words, "you have in the respect I bear you, and the devotion of which I will give you proofs on every occasion. But true maternal love is not a usurer; it does not say, 'I will be twenty years thy mother in order to be thy tyrant;' it does not say, 'I will give thee life, youth, strength, intelligence, in order that all those powers shall be obedient to my will.' No, mother, true maternal love says: 'While thou wert feeble I supported thee; while thou wert ignorant I taught thee; while thou wert blind I led thee. To-day thou art strong and capable; make thy future life, not according to my will, but thine own; choose one among the many paths before thee, and wherever it may lead, love, bless, reverence the mother who made and trained thee to be strong;' that is the power of a mother over her son, as I see it; that is the respect and the duty which he owes to her."
The baroness was speechless; she would sooner have expected the skies to fall than to hear such firm and argumentative language from her son. She looked at him in stupefaction.
Proudly satisfied with himself, Michel looked at her calmly, with a smile upon his lips.
"So," she said, "nothing will induce you to give up this folly?"
"Say rather that nothing will induce me to break my word."
"Oh!" cried the baroness, pressing her hands upon her eyes, "unhappy mother that I am!"
Michel knelt beside her.
"I say to you: blessed mother you will be on the day you make the happiness of your son!"
"What is there so seductive about those wolves?" cried the baroness.
"By whatever name you call the woman I love," said Michel, "I shall reply to you: she has every quality that a man should seek in a wife; and it is not for you and me, mother, who have suffered so much from calumny, to seize, as readily as you have done, on the calumnies told of others."
"No, no, no!" cried the baroness, "never will I consent to such a marriage!"
"In that case, mother," said Michel, "take back those cheques and the letter to the captain of the vessel; they are useless to me, for I will not leave this place."
"What else can you do, you miserable boy?"
"Oh, that's simple enough. I'd rather die than live separated from her I love. I am cured. I am able to shoulder a musket. The remains of the insurrectionary army are collected in the forest of Touvois under command of the Marquis de Souday. I will join them, and fight with them, and get myself killed at the first chance. This is the second time death has missed me," he added with a pallid smile. "The third time his aim may be true and his hand steady."
The young man laid the letters and cheques on his mother's knees. In his tones and gestures there was such resolution and firmness that his mother saw that she cherished in vain the hope of changing him. In presence of that conviction her strength gave way.
"Well," she said, "be it according to your will, and may God forget that you have forced your mother to yield to you."
"God will forget it, mother; and when you see the happiness of your son you will forget it yourself."
The baroness shook her head.
"Go," she said, "marry, far away from me, a stranger I do not know and have never seen."
"I shall marry, I hope, a woman whom you will know and appreciate, mother; and that great day of my happiness will be blessed by your sanction. You have offered to join me wherever I go; wherever that may be I shall expect you, mother."
The baroness rose and made a few steps toward the door.
"Going without a word of farewell, without a kiss, mother? Are you not afraid it may bring me evil?"
"My unhappy boy, come to my arms, to my heart!"
And she said the words with that maternal cry which, sooner or later, must come from a mother's heart. Michel pressed her tenderly to his breast.
"When will you go, my child?" she said.
"That must depend on her, mother."
"As soon as possible, will you not?"
"To-night, I hope."
"You will find a peasant's dress below in the carriage. Disguise yourself as best you can. It is twenty-four miles from here to Couéron. You could get there by five in the morning. Don't forget the vessel's name, – the 'Jeune Charles.'"
"Don't be anxious, mother. The moment I know my end is happiness I shall take every precaution to reach it."
"As for me, I shall go back to Paris and use all my influence to get that fatal sentence revoked. But you-I entreat you, and I repeat it-take care of your life, and remember that my life is wrapped up in yours."
Mother and son again kissed each other, and Michel took his mother to the door. Courtin, as a faithful servitor, was keeping watch below. Madame de la Logerie begged him to accompany her to the château.
When Michel, after locking the door, turned round he saw Bertha, with a smile of happiness on her lips, and a halo of love about her head. She was waiting the moment to throw herself into his arms. Michel received her in them; and if the little room had not been dark she must have seen the embarrassment on the young baron's face.
"And now," she said, "nothing can part us; we have my father's consent, and now your mother's."
Michel was silent.
"Shall we start to-night?"
Still Michel said nothing.
"Well," she said, "why don't you answer me?"
"Because nothing is less sure than our departure," he replied.
"But you promised your mother to go to-night."
"I told my mother it depended on her."
"That is, on me," said Bertha.
"What!" exclaimed Michel, "would Bertha, true royalist and so devoted to the cause, leave France without thinking of those she leaves behind her?"
"What can you mean?" asked Bertha.
"I mean something grander and more useful to the country than my own escape, my personal safety," said the young man.
Bertha looked at him in astonishment.
"I mean the escape and safety of Madame," added Michel.
Bertha gave a cry; she began to understand.
"Ah!" she ejaculated.
"That vessel my mother has chartered for me can take from France not only you and me, but the princess, your father, and," he added in a lower voice, "your sister."
"Oh, Michel, Michel!" cried the young girl, "forgive me for not thinking of that! Just now I loved you; now I admire you! Yes, yes, you are right; Providence itself inspired your mother; yes, I will forget all the hard and cruel things she said of me, for I see in her an instrument of God sent to our succor to save us all. Oh, my friend, how good you are! – more than that, you are grand for having thought of it."
The young man stammered unintelligible words.
"Ah!" continued Bertha, in her enthusiasm, "I knew you were the bravest and most loyal of men; but to-day you have gone beyond my hopes and expectations. Poor child! wounded, condemned to death, he thinks of others before he thinks of himself! Ah, friend, I was happy, now I am proud in my love!"
If the room had been lighted Bertha must have seen the flush on Michel's cheek; he knew what his disinterestedness really was. It is true that after obtaining his mother's consent to marry the woman he loved, Michel had really dreamed of something else, – namely, the idea of rendering to Petit-Pierre the greatest service the most devoted follower could do for her at that moment, and afterward avow all and ask her, as a reward for that service, to procure for him Mary's hand. We can readily imagine his shame and confusion of face in Bertha's presence, and why, to all these demonstrations of the young girl the baron, cold in spite of himself, replied merely: -
"Now that all is arranged for us, Bertha, we have no time to lose."
"No," she said, "you are right. Give your orders. Now that I recognize the superiority not only of your heart but of your mind, I am ready to obey."
"Well," said Michel, "we must part here."
"Why so?" asked Bertha.
"Because you must go to the forest of Touvois and notify your father of what has happened, and bring him away with you. From there you must get to the bay of Bourgneuf, where the 'Jeune Charles' shall stop and pick you up. I shall go to Nantes and tell the duchess."
"You, in Nantes! Do you forget that you are condemned to death and that the authorities are watching for you? It is I who must go to Nantes and you to Touvois."
"But the 'Jeune Charles' expects me, Bertha, and in all probability the captain would obey no one but me; seeing a woman in place of a man he might suspect some trap and throw us into inextricable difficulties."
"But just reflect on the dangers you run in Nantes."
"On the contrary, it may be, if you think of it, Bertha, the very place where I should run the least. They will never suppose that, being condemned to death in Nantes, I should enter the town which condemned me. You know very well that there are times when the greatest boldness is the greatest safety. This is one of those times; and you must let me do as I choose."
"I told you I would obey you, Michel; I obey."
And the proud and beautiful young girl, submissive as a child, awaited the orders of the man who, thanks to an appearance of devotion, had just acquired almost gigantic proportions in her eyes.
Nothing was simpler than the decision they had made and its mode of execution. Bertha gave Michel the address of the duchess in Nantes and the different passwords by which he could gain admittance to her. She herself, dressed in Rosine's clothes, was to reach the forest of Touvois. Michel, of course, was to wear the peasant's costume brought to him by his mother. If nothing occurred to interfere with these arrangements the "Jeune Charles" would be able to sail at five o'clock on the following morning, carrying Petit-Pierre away from France, and with her the last vestiges of civil war.
Ten minutes later Michel was astride of Courtin's pony, saddled and bridled by himself, and taking leave, by a wave of his hand, of Bertha, who returned to the Tinguy cottage, from which she intended to start immediately by a cross-road toward the Touvois forest.
XXVI.
MARCHES AND COUNTER-MARCHES
In spite of the adornment of wind-galls and spavin, with which age and toil had favored Maître Courtin's pony, that brave beast showed energy enough in the amble which served him for a trot to bring Michel into Nantes before nine o'clock at night. His first stopping-place was to be the tavern of the Point du Jour.
He had hardly crossed the pont Bousseau before he began to look about him for the said tavern. Recognizing its sign, – a star lengthened by a ray of the most beautiful yellow ochre painter ever used, – he stopped his pony, or rather the pony of Maître Courtin, before a wooden trough where the horses of the wagoners, who wanted to halt without unharnessing, were watered.
No one appeared at the door of the inn. Forgetting the humble clothes which he wore, and remembering only the alacrity with which the servants at La Logerie welcomed his arrival, Michel rapped impatiently on the trough with the heavy stick he held in his hand. At the sound a man in his shirt-sleeves came out of the courtyard and advanced to Michel; he wore on his head a blue cotton cap pulled down to his eyes. Michel fancied that what he saw of the face was not unknown to him.
"The devil!" cried the man in a grumbling tone; "are you too much of a lord, my young gars, to take your horse to the stable yourself? However, no matter; you shall be served as well as any."
"Serve me as you please, but answer a question."
"Ask it," said the man, folding his arms.
"I want to see Père Eustache," added Michel, sinking his voice.
Low as the tone was, the man showed signs of annoyance; he looked furtively about him, and though there was no one to be seen but a few children who were gazing with their hands behind their backs in naïve curiosity at the new-comer, he took the horse hastily by the bridle and led him into the courtyard.
"I told you I wanted to see Père Eustache," said Michel, getting off the pony as soon as the man in the blue cap had led him to the shed which served as stable to the hôtel Point du Jour.
"I know that," said the latter. "I heard it, confound you; but I don't keep your Père Eustache in my oat-bin. Besides, before I tell you where to find him I'd like to know where you come from."
"The South."
"Where are you going?"
"To Rosny."
"Very good; then you must go to the church of Saint-Sauveur, and there you will find the man you want. Go; and try not to speak so loud, Monsieur de la Logerie, when you talk in the street-if you want to gain the object of your journey."
"Ah, ha!" cried Michel, somewhat astonished; "so you know me?"
"I should think so!" said the man.
"I must have that horse taken back to its home."
"It shall be done."
Michel put a louis into the man's hand, who seemed delighted with the fee and made him many offers of service; then he boldly went out into the town. When he reached the church of Saint-Sauveur the sexton was in the act of shutting the gates. The lesson the young baron had just received at the gate of the inn bore fruits; Michel waited cautiously and looked about him before putting any questions.
Four or five beggars, before leaving the church porch, where they had asked alms all day of the faithful, were kneeling beneath the organ to say their evening prayer. No doubt Père Eustache was among them; for besides two or three women with their cotton capes, patched with various colors, thrown over their heads, there were three male beggars, each with a holy-water sprinkler in his hand. Either of the three might be the man Michel was in search of; luckily he knew the sign of recognition. He took the branch of holly that was fastened in his hat, which Bertha had told him was the sign by which Père Eustache would know him, and let it drop before the door. Two of the beggars passed without taking the least notice of it; the third, who was a little old man, thin and weakly, whose enormous nose projected boldly beyond a black silk cap, stopped when he saw the holly on the pavement, picked it up, and looked about him uneasily. Michel issued from behind the pillar which concealed him.
Père Eustache (for it was he) cast a sidelong look at the young man; then, without a word, he walked toward the cloister. Michel understood that the holly was not a sufficient sign to the distrustful giver of holy water; after following for about ten yards, he hastened his steps and accosted him, saying: -
"I am from the South."
The beggar stopped.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"To Rosny," replied Michel.
The beggar turned round and retraced his steps; this time he went toward the town. A look from a corner of his eye told Michel it was all right. The latter then let his guide pass him and followed him at a distance of five or six paces. They returned past the portal of the church, and soon after, having entered a dark and narrow alley, the beggar stopped for a few seconds before a low door placed in the wall of a garden; then he continued his way.
Michel was about to follow him; but the beggar made him a sign as if to point out the little door, and rapidly disappeared. The young man then saw that Père Eustache had slipped the holly branch he had picked up through the iron ring that served as a knocker.
So this was the end of his journey. He raised the knocker and let it fall. At the sound a small wicket made in the door itself opened and a man's voice was heard asking what was wanted. Michel repeated the passwords, and he was shown into a room on the ground-floor, where a gentleman, whom he recognized as having seen at the château de Souday on the evening when General Dermoncourt ate the supper prepared for Petit-Pierre, and seen again, gun in hand, before the fight at Chêne, was quietly reading a newspaper, sitting before a large fire with his feet on the fender, wrapped in his dressing-gown.
In spite of his very pacific appearance and occupation, a pair of pistols lay within reach of his hand on a table where there were also, laid out for use, pens, ink, and paper. The gentleman recognized Michel at once and rose to receive him.
"I think I have seen you in our ranks, monsieur," he said.
"Yes, monsieur," replied Michel, "the evening before the fight at Chêne."
"And the day of the fight?" asked he of the dressing-gown, smiling.
"I was fighting at La Pénissière, where I was wounded."
The gentleman bowed.
"Will you have the goodness to tell me your name?" he said.
Michel told his name; the gentleman in the dressing-gown consulted a pocket-book, gave signs of satisfaction, and turning to the young man asked: -
"Will you now tell me what has brought you?"
"The wish to see Petit-Pierre, and do her a great service."
"Pardon me, monsieur; but no one can see the person of whom you speak, at least not so easily. You are indeed one of us; I know that you may be relied on so far; but you will readily understand that all going and coming about a retreat which has hitherto been able to keep its secret successfully, would soon attract the attention of the police. Have the kindness, therefore, to tell me your plans, and I will see that you receive an answer."
Michel then related what had passed between himself and his mother; how she had chartered a vessel for his escape, and how the idea had occurred to him that it might be used to put Petit-Pierre in safety. The man in the dressing-gown listened with ever-increasing interest, and as soon as the young baron had given full information he exclaimed: -
"It really seems as though Providence had sent you. It is impossible-no matter what precautions we take to conceal the place where Petit-Pierre is hidden-it is really impossible to escape the police investigations much longer. For the good of the cause, for Petit-Pierre's own sake and for ours, it is much better that she should leave the country; and as the difficulty of chartering a vessel is thus removed, I will at once see Petit-Pierre, explain the circumstances, and receive her orders."
"Shall I go with you?" asked Michel.
"No; your peasant's dress beside me would immediately attract the attention of the police spies, by whom we are surrounded. What inn are you stopping at?"
"The Point du Jour."
"That is where Joseph Picaut is hostler; there is nothing to fear there."
"Ah!" exclaimed Michel, "I knew his face was not unknown to me; but I thought he lived in the open country between the river Boulogne and the forest of Machecoul!"
"You were right; he is only a tavern hostler as occasion demands. Wait there for me. I will go to you in two hours from now, – either alone, or accompanied by Petit-Pierre, – alone, if Petit-Pierre rejects your proposal; with her, if she accepts."
"Are you perfectly sure of that man Picaut?" asked Michel.
"Yes, as we are of ourselves. If there is any fault to find with him it is that he is too zealous. Remember that since Petit-Pierre has been in La Vendée more than six hundred peasants have known at different times of her various hiding-places; and the noblest claim of those poor people to honor, is that not one, poor as he was, thought of betraying her. Let Joseph know that you expect friends, and that he must be on the watch for them. If you merely say to him the words, 'Rue du Château, No. 3,' you will obtain from him, and all connected with the inn, the most absolute and also the most passive obedience."
"Have you any other advice to give me?"
"Perhaps it may be prudent for the persons who will accompany Petit-Pierre to leave the house where she is hidden singly, and go singly to the tavern of the Point du Jour. Ask them to give you a room with a window looking on the quay; have no light in your room, but keep the window open."
"You have forgotten nothing?"
"Nothing. Adieu, monsieur, or rather, au revoir! If we succeed in reaching your vessel safely you will have done an immense service to the cause. As for me, I am in continual fear. They say enormous sums have been offered for the betrayal of the princess, and I tremble lest some one may yet be tempted to sacrifice her."
Michel was ushered out; but instead of taking him by the door through which he had entered, they took him through an entrance which opened on another street. Thence he rapidly crossed the town and returned to the quay. When he reached the tavern of the Point du Jour he found that Joseph Picaut had engaged a boy to take Courtin's pony back to the farmhouse as Michel had requested.
On entering the stable Michel made Joseph a sign, which the latter understood perfectly; he sent the boy away, postponing the return of the horse till the next day.
"You said you knew me," remarked Michel as soon as they were alone.
"I did more, Monsieur de la Logerie; I called you by your name."
"Well, I'm not sorry to know that we have equal advantages in that respect. I know your name; it is Joseph Picaut."
"I don't say it isn't," said the peasant, with a sly look.
"Are you to be trusted, Joseph?"
"That depends on who trusts me, – blues and reds, no; whites, yes."
"Then you are white?"
Picaut shrugged his shoulders.
"If I were not, should I be here, – I who am condemned to death as you are? That's so; they have done me the honor of a sentence by default. Yes, you and I are equal before the law now."
"And you are here-"
"As hostler, neither more nor less."