The Whites and the Blues (32 page)

"Ah!" exclaimed Charles, **I know her, she is our fam ily seamstress. She is a kind-hearted woman about thirty, who limps a little."

"Exactly," said Pichegru, smiling. "The other day she sent me six fine linen shirts which she had made herself. I should like to send her something in return.''

"That is a good idea, general.'*

"But what shall I send? I do not know what would please her."

*' Take the advice that the weather itself gives you—buy her a good umbrella. We will use it on the way home. Then I will tell her that you have used it, and it will be all the more precious to her.' '

"You are right; it will be most useful to her when she goes out. Poor Eose, she has no carriage. Let us go in here."

They were just opposite an umbrella-shop. Pichegru opened and shut ten or twelve, finally selecting a magnifi cent sky-blue one. He paid thirty-eight francs in paper money at par for it. This was the gift which the first general of the Eepublic sent to his best friend. The reader will readily understand that I should not have related this incident if it were not historic.

When they returned at night, Pichegru busied himself with his correspondence, telling Charles, who was to start the next day, to sleep well.

It was on this evening that the curious occurrence which I am about to relate took place. It was told to me by little Charles himself, after he had grown to be a man of forty-five, and had become a learned writer, with the great library-he had wished for so many years before.

Charles, obeying Saint-Just's decree, threw himself up on his bed all dressed. Like all who wore the uniform, he customarily had a black cravat tied tight around his neck. It was like that which Pichegru himself wore, and

which all the staff had adopted; in the first place, out of compliment to the general, and, secondly, in protest against Saint-Just's voluminous neckpieces. Charles, in order to copy the general more exactly, tied his in a little knot on the left side—a fashion which he continued to follow until his death.

Half an hour later, Pichegru, who was working, heard Charles moan. At first he paid no attention to it, thinking that the boy was dreaming; but as the groans became more pronounced, and'changed to a rattling in the throat, Piche-gru rose, went to the boy, whom he found lying face down, raised his head after slipping his hand under his neck, and untied the knot which was strangling him.

The boy awoke, and, recognizing Pichegru, who was bending over him, asked: "Is it you, general; do you need me?"

"No," replied the general, laughing, "it is you, on the contrary, who needed me. You were uneasy and groaned, and when I came to look at you I had no difficulty in find ing what was the matter with you. Any one who wears a tight cravat like us must take care to loosen it a little before going to sleep. I will explain to you some other time how neglect of this precaution might cause apoplexy and sudden death. It is one method of suicide.''

And we shall see that it was the one which Pichegru adopted later.

On the next day Abatucci started for Paris, Faraud and his two comrades for Chateauroux, and Charles and Falou for Besangon. A fortnight later Faraud sent word that distribution had been made throughout the Department of the Indre.

The general had already received a letter from Abatucci, written ten days after his departure, telling how he had pre sented the five flags to the President amid cries of "Long live the Eepublic!" from all the members of the Convention and the spectators, adding that the President had thereupon confirmed his rank.

Finally, on the fourth day after Charles's departure, be fore he heard from any one else, Pichegru received the fol lowing letter on the 14th Nivose (3d of January):

MY DEAR GENERAL —The new calendar made me forget one thing, that, by reaching Besangon on the 31st of Decem ber, I should be able to wish all my family a happy New Year on the following day.

You, however, did not forget it, and my father feels grate ful to you for your kindness and thanks you heartily.

On the 1st of January (old style), after we had wished one another a happy new year, and had embraced each other, Falou and I set out for the village of Boussieres. There, as you had directed, we stopped the carriage at the burgo master's house to whom your letter was addressed; he forth with summoned the village drummer who announces all im portant news to the people. He directed him to read your letter over three times so that no mistake should be made, and then he sent him to beat his drum before old Mother Falou's door, who, at the first tap, came to the threshold leaning on her stick. Falou and I were only a few steps away.

As soon as the roll ceased the proclamation began. "When she heard her son's name the poor old woman, who had not understood very well, began to cry, asking: "Is he dead? Is he dead?"

An oath, big enough to crack the sky, made her turn, and then, seeing the uniform dimly, she cried: "There he is! There he is!"

And then she fell into her son's arms, and he embraced her amid the applause of the whole village. Thereupon, as the proclamation, which had been interrupted by this little scene, had not been fully understood, it was begun all over again. As the drummer read the last sentence, the burgo master, who wished to make his little sensation, came for ward with a wreath in one hand and the purse in the other. He put the laurel-wreath on Falou's head and the purse in Ids mother's hand. I could not stay any longer, but I heard later that the village of Boussieres had a celebration that day with illuminations, a ball, and fire-works, and that Falou went about among his fellow-citizens with his laurel-wreath on his head, like Caesar, until two o'clock in the morning.

As for me, general, I returned to Besan9on to carry out

the sad duty which you know about, and of which I will tell you the full particulars when I see you again.

Not until then did I find time 'to attend to your com mission; but after that I hastened to the Kue Collombier, No. 7, and went up to the third floor. Kose recognized me and received me as a little friend; but when she knew that I came from her great friend, then I tell you, general, poor Kose could not say enough. She took me in her arms, kissed me, and wept over me.

"What I did he really think of me ?"

"Yes, Mademoiselle Rose."

11 Of his own accord?"

"I assure you that it is so."

"And did'he choose this beautiful umbrella himself?"

"He himself."

"And he used it when he returned to the hotel ?"

"Well, we both used it, but he held it."

Without another word she looked at the handle, kissed it and wept over it. I did not try to check her tears, but wept with her; they were tears of joy, and it would have pained her had I said: "Stop!" Then I told her how satis-tied you were with the shirts she had sent you and that you would wear no others. This made her all the worse. Then how we did talk about you! She is going to write you her self and thank you, but she bade me say all sorts of kind things to you from her.

I must also say in regard to my father that you must have told him some pretty stories i'n regard to his son, for while he was reading he looked at me queerly, and I noticed that his eyes were wet. Like Mademoiselle Eose, he will write to you.

I fear that I have taken more of your time than I de serve; but you have made an important personage of me by intrusting me with three commissions, and so I hope you will pardon this chatter from your little friend.

CHAKLES NODIER.

THE THIRTEENTH VENDEMIAIRE

CHAPTEK I A BIRD'S-EYE VIEW

NEAELY two years have elapsed since the events recorded in our first volume. In order that our readers may clearly understand those which are to follow we must take a rapid bird's-eye view of the two terri ble though inevitable years of 1794 and 1795.

As Yergniaud, and after him Pichegru, had prophesied, the Eevolution had devoured her own children. Let us watch the terrible harpy at her work.

On the 5th of April, 1795, the Cordeliers were executed. Danton, Camille Desmoulins, Bazire, Chabot, Lacroix, He-rault de Sechelles, and the poet-martyr Fabre d'Eglantine, author of the most popular of our popular songs, "II pleut, il pleut, bergere," died together on the same scaffold whither Eobespierre, Saint-Just, Merlin (of Douai), Couthon, Collot d'Herbois, Fouche (of Nantes) and Yadier sent them.

Then came the Jacobins turn. Yadier, Tallien, Billaud and Fr^ron accused Eobespierre of having usurped the dic tatorship; and Eobespierre, his jaw shattered by a pistol-ball, Saint-Just, with lofty countenance, Couthon, both of whose legs had been crushed, Lebas—in short their friends to the number of twenty-two—were executed on the day following the tumultuous one which is known in history as the fatal day of the 9th Thermidor.

On the 10th Thermidor the Eevolution was still alive, because the Eevolution was immortal, and no rise or fall

of parties could kill it. The Kevolution still lived, though the Kepublic was dead. With Kobespierre and Saint-Just the Eepublic was beheaded. On the evening of their exe cution, the boys were shouting at the doors of the theatres, "Carriages? Who wants a carriage? Want a carriage, bourgeois?" On the next day and the day after that eighty-two Jacobins followed Eobespierre, Saint-Just and their friends to the Place de la Revolution.

Pichegru, who was then commander-in-chief of the Army of the North, learned of this bloody reaction. He saw that the hour for blood had passed and the time for filth had come, with Yadier, Tallien, Billaud and Freron. He sent privately to Mulheim, and Fauche-Borel, the prince's mes senger, hastened to him.

Pichegru divined correctly that the ascending period of the Revolution was past. The reactionary or descending period had arrived; blood was still to be shed, but it was the blood of reprisals.

On the 17th of May the hall of the Jacobins—the cradle of the Revolution, the strength of the Republic—was finally closed by a decree. Fouquier-Tinville, the public prosecutor, the colleague of the executioner's knife, who was no more guilty than it, since he simply obeyed the orders of the Revolutionary Tribunal as the knife obeyed his own— Fouquier-Tinville was executed, together with fifteen judges of the Revolutionary Tribunal. In order to make the reaction complete the execution took place on the Place de Greve. M. Guillotin's ingenious invention resumed its former place, but the gallows had disappeared—equality in death was decreed.

On the 1st Prairial, Paris discovered that it was starv ing. Famine drove the inhabitants of the faubourgs to the Convention. Haggard, in tatters, and famished, they in vaded the chamber, and the deputy Feraud was killed in trying to defend the president, Boissy d'Anglas. Seeing the confusion which this event brought about in the Con vention, Boissy d'Anglas put on his hat. Then they

showed him Fraud's head on the end of a pike, where upon he took off his hat, bowed reverently, and put it no again. But during that performance, Boissy d'Anglas, who had sympathized largely with the Eevolution, almost became converted to royalism.

On the 16th of the same month, Louis Charles of France, Due de Normandie, pretender to the throne under the name of Louis XVII., he of whom the Due d'Orleans said at a supper: "The son of the Due de Coigny shall never be my king!" died of scrofula at the Temple, at the age of ten years two months and twelve days. But even in the times of the Kepublic the old axiom of the French monarchy sur vived: "The king is dead, long live the king!" and at once Louis de Provence proclaimed himself, on his own private authority, king of France and Navarre, under the title of Louis XVIII.