The Companions of Jehu - Alexandre Dumas (best biographies to read txt) 📗
- Author: Alexandre Dumas
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“You know that General Hédouville is no longer in command at Nantes. General Brune has taken his place.”
“You may even say that General Brune commands at La Roche-Bernard, for a thousand Republican soldiers entered that town tonight about six o’clock, bringing with them a guillotine and the citizen commissioner-general Thomas Millière. Having the instrument, it was necessary to have the executioner.”
“Then you say, general, that I came to see the Abbé Bernier?”
“Yes; the Abbé Bernier had offered his mediation. But he forgot that at the present there are two Vendées—the Vendée of the left bank, and the Vendée of the right bank—and that, after treating with d’Autichamp, Châtillon, and Suzannet at Pouancé, it would still be necessary to negotiate with Frotté, Bourmont and Cadoudal—and where? That no one could tell—”
“Except you, general.”
“So, with the chivalry that is the basis of your nature, you undertook to bring me the treaty signed on the 25th. The Abbé Bernier, d’Autichamp, Châtillon, and Suzannet signed your pass, and here you are.”
“On my word, general, I must admit that you are perfectly well-informed. The First Consul desires peace with all his heart. He knows that in you he has a brave and honorable adversary, and being unable to meet you himself, since you were not likely to come to Paris, he expedited me to you in his behalf.”
“That is to say, to the Abbé Bernier.”
“That can hardly matter to you, general, if I bind myself to make the First Consul ratify what may be agreed upon between you and me. What are your conditions of peace?”
“They are very simple, colonel: that the First Consul shall restore his Majesty Louis XVIII. to the throne; that he himself be constable, lieutenant-general, general-in-chief by land and sea, and I his first subordinate.”
“The First Consul has already replied to that demand.”
“And that is why I have decided to reply myself to his response.”
“When?”
“This very night, if occasion offers.”
“In what way?”
“By resuming hostilities.”
“But are you aware that Châtillon, d’Autichamp and Suzannet have laid down their arms?”
“They are the leaders of the Vendéans, and in the name of the Vendéans they can do as they see fit. I am the leader of the Chouans, and in the name of the Chouans I shall do what suits me.”
“Then you condemn this unhappy land to a war of extermination, general!”
“It is a martyrdom to which I summon all Christians and royalists.”
“General Brune is at Nantes with the eight thousand prisoners just returned to us by the English after their defeats at Alkmaar and Castricum.”
“That is the last time they will have the chance. The Blues have taught us the bad habit of not making prisoners. As for the number of our enemies, we don’t care for that; it is a mere detail.”
“If General Brune with his eight thousand men, joined to the twenty thousand he has received from General Hédouville, is not sufficient, the First Consul has decided to march against you in person with one hundred thousand men.”
Cadoudal smiled.
“We will try to prove to him,” he said, “that we are worthy to fight against him.”
“He will burn your towns.”
“We shall retire to our huts.”
“He will burn your huts.”
“We will live in the woods.”
“Reflect, general.”
“Do me the honor to remain here forty-eight hours, colonel, and you will see that my reflections are already made.”
“I am tempted to accept.”
“Only, colonel, don’t ask for more than I can give; a night’s sleep beneath a thatched roof or wrapped in a cloak under an oak tree, a horse to follow me, and a safeguard when you leave me.”
“I accept.”
“Have I your word, colonel, that you will not interfere with any orders I give, and will do nothing to defeat the surprises I may attempt?”
“I am too curious to see for that. You have my word, general.”
“Whatever takes place before your eyes?”
“Whatever takes place before my eyes, I renounce the rôle of actor and confine myself wholly to that of spectator. I wish to say to the First Consul: ‘I have seen.’”
Cadoudal smiled.
“Well, you shall see,” said he.
At that moment the door opened, and two peasants brought in a table all laid, on which stood a smoking bowl of cabbage-soup and a piece of lard; an enormous pot of cider, just drawn from the cask, was foaming over the edges of the jug between two glasses. A few buckwheat cakes served as a desert to this modest repast. The table was laid for two.
“You see, Monsieur de Montrevel, that my lads hoped you would do me the honor to sup with me.”
“Faith! they were not far wrong. I should have asked for supper, had you not invited me; and I might have been forced to seize some had you not invited me.”
“Then fall to!”
The young colonel sat down gayly.
“Excuse the repast I offer you,” said Cadoudal; “unlike your generals, I don’t make prize money; my soldiers feed me. Have you anything else for us, Brise-Bleu?”
“A chicken fricassee, general.”
“That’s your dinner, Monsieur de Montrevel.”
“A feast! Now, I have but one fear, general.”
“What is it?”
“All will go well for the eating, but when it comes to drinking—”
“Don’t you like cider? The devil! I’m sorry; cider or water, that’s my cellar.”
“Oh! that’s not it; but whose health are we going to drink?”
“Is that all, sir?” said Cadoudal, with great dignity. “We will drink to the health of our common mother, France. We are serving her with different minds, but, I hope, the same hearts. To France, Monsieur,” said Cadoudal, filling the two glasses.
“To France, general!” replied Roland, clinking his glass against that of Georges.
And both gayly reseated themselves, their consciences at rest, and attacked the soup with appetites that were not yet thirty years old.
“Now, general,” said Roland, when supper was over and the two young men, with their elbows on the table and their legs stretched out before the blazing fire, began to feel that comfortable sensation that comes of a meal which youth and appetite have seasoned. “Now for your promise to show me things which I can report to the First Consul.”
“You promised, remember, not to object to them.”
“Yes, but I reserve the right, in case you wound my conscience too severely, to withdraw.”
“Only give time to throw a saddle on the back of your horse, or of mine, if yours is too tired, colonel, and you are free.”
“Very good.”
“As it happens,” said Cadoudal, “events will serve you. I am here, not only as general, but as judge, though it is long since I have had a case to try. You told me, colonel, that General Brune was at Nantes; I knew it. You told me his advanced guard was only twelve miles away, at La Roche-Bernard; I knew that also. But a thing you may not know is that this advanced guard is not commanded by a soldier like you and me, but by citizen Thomas Millière, Commissioner of the Executive authorities. Another thing of which you may perhaps be ignorant is that citizen Thomas Millière does not fight like us with cannon, guns, bayonets, pistols and swords, but with an instrument invented by your Republican philanthropists, called the guillotine.”
“It is impossible, sir,” cried Roland, “that under the First Consul any one can make that kind of war,”
“Ah! let us understand each other, colonel. I don’t say that the First Consul makes it; I say it is made in his name.”
“And who is the scoundrel that abuses the authority given him, to make war with a staff of executioners?”
“I have told you his name; he is called Thomas Millière. Question whom you please, colonel, and throughout all Vendée and Brittany you’ll hear but one voice on that man. From the day of the rising in Vendée and Brittany, now six years ago, Millière has been, always and everywhere, the most active agent of the Terror. For him the Terror did not end with Robespierre. He denounced to his superiors, or caused to be denounced to himself, the Breton and Vendéan soldiers, their parents, friends, brothers, sisters, wives, even the wounded and dying; he shot or guillotined them all without a trial. At Daumeray, for instance, he left a trail of blood behind him which is not yet, can never be, effaced. More than eighty of the inhabitants were slaughtered before his eyes. Sons were killed in the arms of their mothers, who vainly stretched those bloody arms to Heaven imploring vengeance. The successive pacifications of Brittany and Vendée have never slaked the thirst for murder which burns his entrails. He is the same in 1800 that he was in 1793. Well, this man—”
Roland looked at the general.
“This man,” continued the general, with the utmost calmness, “is to die. Seeing that society did not condemn him, I have condemned him.”
“What! Die at La Roche-Bernard, in the midst of the Republicans; in spite of his bodyguard of assassins and executioners?”
“His hour has struck; he is to die.”
Cadoudal pronounced these words with such solemnity that no doubt remained in Roland’s mind, not only as to the sentence, but also the execution of it. He was thoughtful for an instant.
“And you believe that you have, the right to judge and condemn that man, guilty as he is?”
“Yes; for that man has judged and condemned, not the guilty but the innocent.”
“If I said to you: ‘On my return to Paris I will demand the arrest and trial of that man,’ would you not trust my word?”
“I would trust your word; but I should say to you: ‘A maddened wild beast escapes from its cage, a murderer from his prison; men are men, subject to error. They have sometimes condemned the innocent, they might spare the guilty.’ My justice is more certain than yours, colonel, for it is the justice of God. The man will die.”
“And by what right do you claim that your justice, the justice of a man liable to error like other men, is the justice of God?”
“Because I have made God a sharer in that justice. Oh! my condemnation of that man is not of yesterday.”
“How do you mean?”
“In the midst of a storm when thunder roared without cessation, and the lightning flashed from minute to minute, I raised my arms to heaven, and I said to God: ‘O God! whose look is that lightning, whose voice is that thunder, if this man ought to die, extinguish that lightning, still the thunder for ten minutes. The silence of the skies, the darkness of the heavens shall be thy answer!’ Watch in hand, I counted eleven minutes without a flash or a sound. I saw at the point of a promontory a boat, tossed by a terrible tempest, a boat with but one man in it, in danger every minute of sinking; a wave lifted it as the breath of an infant lifts a plume, and cast it on the rocks. The boat flew to pieces; the man clung to the rock, and all the people cried out: ‘He is lost!’ His father was there, his two brothers were there, but none dared to succor him. I raised my arms to the Lord and said: ‘If Millière is condemned by Thee as by me, O God, let me save that man; with no help but thine let me save him!’ I stripped, I knotted a
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