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移除书签For a month the hot sun has been parching the fields.
Nature is expanding beneath its rays;
the fields are green as far as the eye can see.
The big azure dome of the sky is unclouded.
The farms of Normandy, scattered over the plains and surrounded by a belt of tall beeches, look, from a distance, like little woods.
On closer view, after lowering the worm-eaten wooden bars, you imagine yourself in an immense garden, for all the ancient apple-trees, as gnarled as the peasants themselves, are in bloom.
The sweet scent of their blossoms mingles with the heavy smell of the earth and the penetrating odor of the stables.
It is noon.
The family is eating under the shade of a pear tree planted in front of the door;
father, mother, the four children, and the help—two women and three men are all there.
All are silent.
The soup is eaten and then a dish of potatoes fried with bacon is brought on.
From time to time one of the women gets up and takes a pitcher down to the cellar to fetch more cider.
The man, a big fellow about forty years old, is watching a grape vine, still bare, which is winding and twisting like a snake along the side of the house.
At last he says: “Father’s vine is budding early this year.
Perhaps we may get something from it.”
The woman then turns round and looks, without saying a word.
This vine is planted on the spot where their father had been shot.
It was during the war of 1870.
The Prussians were occupying the whole country.
General Faidherbe, with the Northern Division of the army, was opposing them.
The Prussians had established their headquarters at this farm.
The old farmer to whom it belonged, Father Pierre Milon, had received and quartered them to the best of his ability.
For a month the German vanguard had been in this village.
The French remained motionless, ten leagues away;
and yet, every night, some of the Uhlans disappeared.
Of all the isolated scouts, of all those who were sent to the outposts, in groups of not more than three, not one ever returned.
They were picked up the next morning in a field or in a ditch.
Even their horses were found along the roads with their throats cut.
These murders seemed to be done by the same men, who could never be found.
The country was terrorized.
Farmers were shot on suspicion, women were imprisoned;
children were frightened in order to try and obtain information.
Nothing could be ascertained.
But, one morning, Father Milon was found stretched out in the barn, with a sword gash across his face.
Two Uhlans were found dead about a mile and a half from the farm.
One of them was still holding his bloody sword in his hand.
He had fought, tried to defend himself.
A court-martial was immediately held in the open air, in front of the farm.
The old man was brought before it.
He was sixty-eight years old, small, thin, bent, with two big hands resembling the claws of a crab.
His colorless hair was sparse and thin, like the down of a young duck, allowing patches of his scalp to be seen.
The brown and wrinkled skin of his neck showed big veins which disappeared behind his jaws and came out again at the temples.
He had the reputation of being miserly and hard to deal with.
They stood him up between four soldiers, in front of the kitchen table, which had been dragged outside.
Five officers and the colonel seated themselves opposite him.
The colonel spoke in French:
“Father Milon, since we have been here we have only had praise for you.
You have always been obliging and even attentive to us.
But to-day a terrible accusation is hanging over you, and you must clear the matter up.
How did you receive that wound on your face?”
The peasant answered nothing.
The colonel continued:
“Your silence accuses you, Father Milon. But I want you to answer me!
Do you understand?
Do you know who killed the two Uhlans who were found this morning near Calvaire?”
The old man answered clearly
“I did.”
The colonel, surprised, was silent for a minute, looking straight at the prisoner.
Father Milon stood impassive, with the stupid look of the peasant, his eyes lowered as though he were talking to the priest.
Just one thing betrayed an uneasy mind;
he was continually swallowing his saliva, with a visible effort, as though his throat were terribly contracted.
The man’s family, his son Jean, his daughter-in-law and his two grandchildren were standing a few feet behind him, bewildered and affrighted.
The colonel went on:
“Do you also know who killed all the scouts who have been found dead, for a month, throughout the country, every morning?”
The old man answered with the same stupid look:
“I did.”
“You killed them all?”
“Uh huh! I did.”
“You alone? All alone?”
“Uh huh!”
“Tell me how you did it.”
This time the man seemed moved;
the necessity for talking any length of time annoyed him visibly.
He stammered:
“I dunno! I simply did it.”
The colonel continued:
“I warn you that you will have to tell me everything.
You might as well make up your mind right away.
How did you begin?”
The man cast a troubled look toward his family, standing close behind him.
He hesitated a minute longer, and then suddenly made up his mind to obey the order.
“I was coming home one night at about ten o’clock, the night after you got here.
You and your soldiers had taken more than fifty ecus worth of forage from me, as well as a cow and two sheep.
I said to myself:
‘As much as they take from you;
just so much will you make them pay back.’ And then I had other things on my mind which I will tell you.
Just then I noticed one of your soldiers who was smoking his pipe by the ditch behind the barn.
I went and got my scythe and crept up slowly behind him, so that he couldn’t hear me.
And I cut his head off with one single blow, just as I would a blade of grass, before he could say ‘Booh!’ If you should look at the bottom of the pond, you will find him tied up in a potato-sack, with a stone fastened to it.
“I got an idea. I took all his clothes, from his boots to his cap, and hid them away in the little wood behind the yard.”
The old man stopped. The officers remained speechless, looking at each other. The questioning began again, and this is what they learned.
Once this murder committed, the man had lived with this one thought:
“Kill the Prussians!
” He hated them with the blind, fierce hate of the greedy yet patriotic peasant.
He had his idea, as he said. He waited several days.
He was allowed to go and come as he pleased, because he had shown himself so humble, submissive and obliging to the invaders.
Each night he saw the outposts leave.
One night he followed them, having heard the name of the village to which the men were going, and having learned the few words of German which he needed for his plan through associating with the soldiers.
He left through the back yard, slipped into the woods, found the dead man’s clothes and put them on.
Then he began to crawl through the fields, following along the hedges in order to keep out of sight, listening to the slightest noises, as wary as a poacher.
As soon as he thought the time ripe, he approached the road and hid behind a bush.
He waited for a while.
Finally, toward midnight, he heard the sound of a galloping horse.
The man put his ear to the ground in order to make sure that only one horseman was approaching, then he got ready.
An Uhlan came galloping along, carrying dispatches.
As he went, he was all eyes and ears.
When he was only a few feet away, Father Milon dragged himself across the road, moaning: “Hilfe! Hilfe!
” ( Help! Help!
) The horseman stopped, and recognizing a German, he thought he was wounded and dismounted, coming nearer without any suspicion, and just as he was leaning over the unknown man, he received, in the pit of his stomach, a heavy thrust from the long curved blade of the sabre.
He dropped without suffering pain, quivering only in the final throes.
Then the farmer, radiant with the silent joy of an old peasant, got up again, and, for his own pleasure, cut the dead man’s throat.
He then dragged the body to the ditch and threw it in.
The horse quietly awaited its master.
Father Milon mounted him and started galloping across the plains.
About an hour later he noticed two more Uhlans who were returning home, side by side. He rode straight for them, once more crying “Hilfe! Hilfe!”
The Prussians, recognizing the uniform, let him approach without distrust.
The old man passed between them like a cannon-ball, felling them both, one with his sabre and the other with a revolver.
Then he killed the horses, German horses!
After that he quickly returned to the woods and hid one of the horses.
He left his uniform there and again put on his old clothes;
then going back into bed, he slept until morning.
For four days he did not go out, waiting for the inquest to be terminated;
but on the fifth day he went out again and killed two more soldiers by the same stratagem.
From that time on he did not stop.
Each night he wandered about in search of adventure, killing Prussians, sometimes here and sometimes there, galloping through deserted fields, in the moonlight, a lost Uhlan, a hunter of men.
Then, his task accomplished, leaving behind him the bodies lying along the roads, the old farmer would return and hide his horse and uniform.
He went, toward noon, to carry oats and water quietly to his mount, and he fed it well as he required from it a great amount of work.
But one of those whom he had attacked the night before, in defending himself slashed the old peasant across the face with his sabre.
However, he had killed them both.
He had come back and hidden the horse and put on his ordinary clothes again;
but as he reached home he began to feel faint, and had dragged himself as far as the stable, being unable to reach the house.
They had found him there, bleeding, on the straw.
When he had finished his tale, he suddenly lifted up his head and looked proudly at the Prussian officers.
The colonel, who was gnawing at his mustache, asked:
“You have nothing else to say?”
“Nothing more; I have finished my task;
I killed sixteen, not one more or less.”
“Do you know that you are going to die?”
“I haven’t asked for mercy.”
“Have you been a soldier?”
“Yes, I served my time. And then, you had killed my father, who was a soldier of the first Emperor.
And last month you killed my youngest son, Francois, near Evreux.
I owed you one for that; I paid. We are quits.”
The officers were looking at each other.
The old man continued:
“Eight for my father, eight for the boy—we are quits.
I did not seek any quarrel with you. I don’t know you.
I don’t even know where you come from. And here you are, ordering me about in my home as though it were your own.
I took my revenge upon the others. I’m not sorry.”
And, straightening up his bent back, the old man folded his arms in the attitude of a modest hero.
The Prussians talked in a low tone for a long time.
One of them, a captain, who had also lost his son the previous month, was defending the poor wretch.
Then the colonel arose and, approaching Father Milon, said in a low voice:
“Listen, old man, there is perhaps a way of saving your life, it is to—”
But the man was not listening, and, his eyes fixed on the hated officer, while the wind played with the downy hair on his head, he distorted his slashed face, giving it a truly terrible expression, and, swelling out his chest, he spat, as hard as he could, right in the Prussian’s face.
The colonel, furious, raised his hand, and for the second time the man spat in his face.
All the officers had jumped up and were shrieking orders at the same time.
In less than a minute the old man, still impassive, was pushed up against the wall and shot, looking smilingly the while toward Jean, his eldest son, his daughter-in-law and his two grandchildren, who witnessed this scene in dumb terror.
A COUP D’ETAT
Paris had just heard of the disaster at Sedan. A republic had been declared.
All France was wavering on the brink of this madness which lasted until after the Commune.
From one end of the country to the other everybody was playing soldier.
Cap-makers became colonels, fulfilling the duties of generals;
revolvers and swords were displayed around big, peaceful stomachs wrapped in flaming red belts;
little tradesmen became warriors commanding battalions of brawling volunteers, and swearing like pirates in order to give themselves some prestige.
The sole fact of handling firearms crazed these people, who up to that time had only handled scales, and made them, without any reason, dangerous to all.
Innocent people were shot to prove that they knew how to kill;
in forests which had never seen a Prussian, stray dogs, grazing cows and browsing horses were killed.
Each one thought himself called upon to play a great part in military affairs.
The cafes of the smallest villages, full of uniformed tradesmen, looked like barracks or hospitals.
The town of Canneville was still in ignorance of the maddening news from the army and the capital;
nevertheless, great excitement had prevailed for the last month, the opposing parties finding themselves face to face.
The mayor, Viscount de Varnetot, a thin, little old man, a conservative, who had recently, from ambition, gone over to the Empire, had seen a determined opponent arise in Dr. Massarel, a big, full-blooded man, leader of the Republican party of the neighborhood, a high official in the local masonic lodge, president of the Agricultural Society and of the firemen’s banquet and the organizer of the rural militia which was to save the country.
In two weeks, he had managed to gather together sixty-three volunteers, fathers of families, prudent farmers and town merchants, and every morning he would drill them in the square in front of the town-hall.
When, perchance, the mayor would come to the municipal building, Commander Massarel, girt with pistols, would pass proudly in front of his troop, his sword in his hand, and make all of them cry:
“Long live the Fatherland!
” And it had been noticed that this cry excited the little viscount, who probably saw in it a menace, a threat, as well as the odious memory of the great Revolution.
On the morning of the fifth of September, the doctor, in full uniform, his revolver on the table, was giving a consultation to an old couple, a farmer who had been suffering from varicose veins for the last seven years and had waited until his wife had them also, before he would consult the doctor, when the postman brought in the paper.
M. Massarel opened it, grew pale, suddenly rose, and lifting his hands to heaven in a gesture of exaltation, began to shout at the top of his voice before the two frightened country folks:
“Long live the Republic!
long live the Republic! long live the Republic!”
Then he fell back in his chair, weak from emotion.
And as the peasant resumed: “It started with the ants, which began to run up and down my legs—-” Dr. Massarel exclaimed:
“Shut up! I haven’t got time to bother with your nonsense.
The Republic has been proclaimed, the emperor has been taken prisoner, France is saved! Long live the Republic!”
Running to the door, he howled:
“Celeste, quick, Celeste!”
The servant, affrighted, hastened in;
he was trying to talk so rapidly, that he could only stammer:
“My boots, my sword, my cartridge-box and the Spanish dagger which is on my night-table! Hasten!”
As the persistent peasant, taking advantage of a moment’s silence, continued, “I seemed to get big lumps which hurt me when I walk, ” the physician, exasperated, roared:
“Shut up and get out! If you had washed your feet it would not have happened!”
Then, grabbing him by the collar, he yelled at him:
“Can’t you understand that we are a republic, you brass-plated idiot!”
But professional sentiment soon calmed him, and he pushed the bewildered couple out, saying:
“Come back to-morrow, come back to-morrow, my friends. I haven’t any time to-day.”
As he equipped himself from head to foot, he gave a series of important orders to his servant:
“Run over to Lieutenant Picart and to Second Lieutenant Pommel, and tell them that I am expecting them here immediately.
Also send me Torchebeuf with his drum. Quick! quick!”
When Celeste had gone out, he sat down and thought over the situation and the difficulties which he would have to surmount.
The three men arrived together in their working clothes.
The commandant, who expected to see them in uniform, felt a little shocked.
“Don’t you people know anything?
The emperor has been taken prisoner, the Republic has been proclaimed.
We must act. My position is delicate, I might even say dangerous.”
He reflected for a few moments before his bewildered subordinates, then he continued:
“We must act and not hesitate;
minutes count as hours in times like these.
All depends on the promptness of our decision.
You, Picart, go to the cure and order him to ring the alarm-bell, in order to get together the people, to whom I am going to announce the news.
You, Torchebeuf beat the tattoo throughout the whole neighborhood as far as the hamlets of Gerisaie and Salmare, in order to assemble the militia in the public square.
You, Pommel, get your uniform on quickly, just the coat and cap.
We are going to the town-hall to demand Monsieur de Varnetot to surrender his powers to me.
Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Now carry out those orders quickly.
I will go over to your house with you, Pommel, since we shall act together.”
Five minutes later, the commandant and his subordinates, armed to the teeth, appeared on the square, just as the little Viscount de Varnetot, his legs encased in gaiters as for a hunting party, his gun on his shoulder, was coming down the other street at double-quick time, followed by his three green-coated guards, their swords at their sides and their guns swung over their shoulders.
While the doctor stopped, bewildered, the four men entered the town-hall and closed the door behind them.
“They have outstripped us,” muttered the physician, “we must now wait for reenforcements.
There is nothing to do for the present.”
Lieutenant Picart now appeared on the scene.
“The priest refuses to obey,” he said.
“He has even locked himself in the church with the sexton and beadle.”
On the other side of the square, opposite the white, tightly closed town-hall, stood the church, silent and dark, with its massive oak door studded with iron.
But just as the perplexed inhabitants were sticking their heads out of the windows or coming out on their doorsteps, the drum suddenly began to be heard, and Torchebeuf appeared, furiously beating the tattoo.
He crossed the square running, and disappeared along the road leading to the fields.
The commandant drew his sword, and advanced alone to half way between the two buildings behind which the enemy had intrenched itself, and, waving his sword over his head, he roared with all his might:
“Long live the Republic! Death to traitors!”
Then he returned to his officers.
The butcher, the baker and the druggist, much disturbed, were anxiously pulling down their shades and closing their shops.
The grocer alone kept open.
However, the militia were arriving by degrees, each man in a different uniform, but all wearing a black cap with gold braid, the cap being the principal part of the outfit.
They were armed with old rusty guns, the old guns which had hung for thirty years on the kitchen wall;
and they looked a good deal like an army of tramps.
When he had about thirty men about him, the commandant, in a few words, outlined the situation to them.
Then, turning to his staff: “Let us act,” he said.
The villagers were gathering together and talking the matter over.
The doctor quickly decided on a plan of campaign.
“Lieutenant Picart, you will advance under the windows of this town-hall and summon Monsieur de Varnetot, in the name of the Republic, to hand the keys over to me.”
But the lieutenant, a master mason, refused:
“You’re smart, you are.
I don’t care to get killed, thank you.
Those people in there shoot straight, don’t you forget it. Do your errands yourself.”
The commandant grew very red.
“I command you to go in the name of discipline!”
The lieutenant rebelled:
“I’m not going to have my beauty spoiled without knowing why.”
All the notables, gathered in a group near by, began to laugh. One of them cried:
“You are right, Picart, this isn’t the right time.”
The doctor then muttered:
“Cowards!”
And, leaving his sword and his revolver in the hands of a soldier, he advanced slowly, his eye fastened on the windows, expecting any minute to see a gun trained on him.
When he was within a few feet of the building, the doors at both ends, leading into the two schools, opened and a flood of children ran out, boys from one side, girls from the ether, and began to play around the doctor, in the big empty square, screeching and screaming, and making so much noise that he could not make himself heard.
As soon as the last child was out of the building, the two doors closed again.
Most of the youngsters finally dispersed, and the commandant called in a loud voice:
“Monsieur de Varnetot!”
A window on the first floor opened and M. de Varnetot appeared.
The commandant continued:
“Monsieur, you know that great events have just taken place which have changed the entire aspect of the government.
The one which you represented no longer exists.
The one which I represent is taking control.
Under these painful, but decisive circumstances, I come, in the name of the new Republic, to ask you to turn over to me the office which you held under the former government.”
M. de Varnetot answered:
“Doctor, I am the mayor of Canneville, duly appointed, and I shall remain mayor of Canneville until I have been dismissed by a decree from my superiors.
As mayor, I am in my place in the townhall, and here I stay.
Anyhow, just try to get me out.”
He closed the window.
The commandant returned to his troop.
But before giving any information, eyeing Lieutenant Picart from head to foot, he exclaimed:
“You’re a great one, you are!
You’re a fine specimen of manhood!
You’re a disgrace to the army!
I degrade you.”
“I don’t give a——!”
He turned away and mingled with a group of townspeople.
Then the doctor hesitated. What could he do? Attack?
But would his men obey orders? And then, did he have the right to do so?
An idea struck him. He ran to the telegraph office, opposite the town-hall, and sent off three telegrams:
To the new republican government in Paris.
To the new prefect of the Seine-Inferieure, at Rouen.
To the new republican sub-prefect at Dieppe.
He explained the situation, pointed out the danger which the town would run if it should remain in the hands of the royalist mayor;
offered his faithful services, asked for orders and signed, putting all his titles after his name.
Then he returned to his battalion, and, drawing ten francs from his pocket, he cried:
“Here, my friends, go eat and drink;
only leave me a detachment of ten men to guard against anybody’s leaving the town-hall.”
But ex-Lieutenant Picart, who had been talking with the watchmaker, heard him; he began to laugh, and exclaimed:
“By Jove, if they come out, it’ll give you a chance to get in.
Otherwise I can see you standing out there for the rest of your life!”
The doctor did not reply, and he went to luncheon.
In the afternoon, he disposed his men about the town as though they were in immediate danger of an ambush.
Several times he passed in front of the town-hall and of the church without noticing anything suspicious;
the two buildings looked as though empty.
The butcher, the baker and the druggist once more opened up their stores.
Everybody was talking about the affair.
If the emperor were a prisoner, there must have been some kind of treason.
They did not know exactly which of the republics had returned to power.
Night fell.
Toward nine o’clock, the doctor, alone, noiselessly approached the entrance of the public building, persuaded that the enemy must have gone to bed; and, as he was preparing to batter down the door with a pick-axe, the deep voice of a sentry suddenly called:
“Who goes there?”
And M. Massarel retreated as fast as his legs could carry him.
Day broke without any change in the situation.
Armed militia occupied the square.
All the citizens had gathered around this troop awaiting developments.
Even neighboring villagers had come to look on.
Then the doctor, seeing that his reputation was at stake, resolved to put an end to the matter in one way or another;
and he was about to take some measures, undoubtedly energetic ones, when the door of the telegraph station opened and the little servant of the postmistress appeared, holding in her hands two papers.
First she went to the commandant and gave him one of the despatches;
then she crossed the empty square, confused at seeing the eyes of everyone on her, and lowering her head and running along with little quick steps, she went and knocked softly at the door of the barricaded house, as though ignorant of the fact that those behind it were armed.
The door opened wide enough to let a man’s hand reach out and receive the message;
and the young girl returned blushing, ready to cry at being thus stared at by the whole countryside.
In a clear voice, the doctor cried:
“Silence, if you please.”
When the populace had quieted down, he continued proudly:
“Here is the communication which I have received from the government.”
And lifting the telegram he read:
Former mayor dismissed. Inform him immediately, More orders
following.
For the sub-prefect:
SAPIN, Councillor.
He was-triumphant; his heart was throbbing with joy and his hands were trembling;
but Picart, his former subordinate, cried to him from a neighboring group:
“That’s all right; but supposing the others don’t come out, what good is the telegram going to do you?”
M. Massarel grew pale. He had not thought of that;
if the others did not come out, he would now have to take some decisive step.
It was not only his right, but his duty.
He looked anxiously at the town-hall, hoping to see the door open and his adversary give in.
The door remained closed. What could he do?
The crowd was growing and closing around the militia.
They were laughing.
One thought especially tortured the doctor. If he attacked, he would have to march at the head of his men;
and as, with him dead, all strife would cease, it was at him and him only that M. de Varnetot and his three guards would aim.
And they were good shots, very good shots, as Picart had just said.
But an idea struck him and, turning to Pommel, he ordered:
“Run quickly to the druggist and ask him to lend me a towel and a stick.”
The lieutenant hastened.
He would make a flag of truce, a white flag, at the sight of which the royalist heart of the mayor would perhaps rejoice.
Pommel returned with the cloth and a broom-stick.
With some twine they completed the flag, and M. Massarel, grasping it in both hands and holding it in front of him, again advanced in the direction of the town-hall.
When he was opposite the door, he once more called: “Monsieur de Varnetot!
” The door suddenly opened and M. de Varnetot and his three guards appeared on the threshold.
Instinctively the doctor stepped back;
then he bowed courteously to his enemy, and, choking with emotion, he announced:
“I have come, monsieur, to make you acquainted with the orders which I have received.”
The nobleman, without returning the bow, answered:
“I resign, monsieur, but understand that it is neither through fear of, nor obedience to, the odious government which has usurped the power.
” And, emphasizing every word, he declared:
“I do not wish to appear, for a single day, to serve the Republic. That’s all.”
Massarel, stunned, answered nothing; and M. de Varnetot, walking quickly, disappeared around the corner of the square, still followed by his escort.
The doctor, puffed up with pride, returned to the crowd.
As soon as he was near enough to make himself heard, he cried:
“Hurrah! hurrah! Victory crowns the Republic everywhere.”
There was no outburst of joy.
The doctor continued: “We are free, you are free, independent!
Be proud!”
The motionless villagers were looking at him without any signs of triumph shining in their eyes.
He looked at them, indignant at their indifference, thinking of what he could say or do in order to make an impression to electrify this calm peasantry, to fulfill his mission as a leader.
He had an inspiration and, turning to Pommel, he ordered:
“Lieutenant, go get me the bust of the ex-emperor which is in the meeting room of the municipal council, and bring it here with a chair.”
The man presently reappeared, carrying on his right shoulder the plaster Bonaparte, and holding in his left hand a cane-seated chair.
M. Massarel went towards him, took the chair, placed the white bust on it, then stepping back a few steps, he addressed it in a loud voice:
“Tyrant, tyrant, you have fallen down in the mud.
The dying fatherland was in its death throes under your oppression.
Vengeful Destiny has struck you.
Defeat and shame have pursued you;
you fall conquered, a prisoner of the Prussians;
and from the ruins of your crumbling empire, the young and glorious Republic arises, lifting from the ground your broken sword——”
He waited for applause. Not a sound greeted his listening ear.
The peasants, nonplussed, kept silent;
and the white, placid, well-groomed statue seemed to look at M. Massarel with its plaster smile, ineffaceable and sarcastic.
Thus they stood, face to face, Napoleon on his chair, the physician standing three feet away.
Anger seized the commandant.
What could he do to move this crowd and definitely to win over public opinion?
He happened to carry his hand to his stomach, and he felt, under his red belt, the butt of his revolver.
Not another inspiration, not another word cane to his mind.
Then, he drew his weapon, stepped back a few steps and shot the former monarch.
The bullet made a little black hole: like a spot, in his forehead. No sensation was created.
M. Massarel shot a second time and made a second hole, then a third time, then, without stopping, he shot off the three remaining shots.
Napoleon’s forehead was blown away in a white powder, but his eyes, nose and pointed mustache remained intact.
Then in exasperation, the doctor kicked the chair over, and placing one foot on what remained of the bust in the position of a conqueror, he turned to the amazed public and yelled:
“Thus may all traitors die!”
As no enthusiasm was, as yet, visible, the spectators appearing to be dumb with astonishment, the commandant cried to the militia:
“You may go home now.” And he himself walked rapidly, almost ran, towards his house.
As soon as he appeared, the servant told him that some patients had been waiting in his office for over three hours.
He hastened in.
They were the same two peasants as a few days before, who had returned at daybreak, obstinate and patient.
The old man immediately began his explanation:
“It began with ants, which seemed to be crawling up and down my legs——”
LIEUTENANT LARE’S MARRIAGE
Since the beginning of the campaign Lieutenant Lare had taken two cannon from the Prussians.
His general had said: “Thank you, lieutenant, ” and had given him the cross of honor.
As he was as cautious as he was brave, wary, inventive, wily and resourceful, he was entrusted with a hundred soldiers and he organized a company of scouts who saved the army on several occasions during a retreat.
But the invading army entered by every frontier like a surging sea.
Great waves of men arrived one after the other, scattering all around them a scum of freebooters.
General Carrel’s brigade, separated from its division, retreated continually, fighting each day, but remaining almost intact, thanks to the vigilance and agility of Lieutenant Lare, who seemed to be everywhere at the same moment, baffling all the enemy’s cunning, frustrating their plans, misleading their Uhlans and killing their vanguards.
One morning the general sent for him.
“Lieutenant,” said he, “here is a dispatch from General de Lacere, who will be destroyed if we do not go to his aid by sunrise to-morrow.
He is at Blainville, eight leagues from here.
You will start at nightfall with three hundred men, whom you will echelon along the road.
I will follow you two hours later.
Study the road carefully;
I fear we may meet a division of the enemy.”
It had been freezing hard for a week.
At two o’clock it began to snow, and by night the ground was covered and heavy white swirls concealed objects hard by.
At six o’clock the detachment set out.
Two men walked alone as scouts about three yards ahead.
Then came a platoon of ten men commanded by the lieutenant himself.
The rest followed them in two long columns.
To the right and left of the little band, at a distance of about three hundred feet on either side, some soldiers marched in pairs.
The snow, which was still falling, covered them with a white powder in the darkness, and as it did not melt on their uniforms, they were hardly distinguishable in the night amid the dead whiteness of the landscape.
From time to time they halted.
One heard nothing but that indescribable, nameless flutter of falling snow—a sensation rather than a sound, a vague, ominous murmur.
A command was given in a low tone and when the troop resumed its march it left in its wake a sort of white phantom standing in the snow.
It gradually grew fainter and finally disappeared.
It was the echelons who were to lead the army.
The scouts slackened their pace.
Something was ahead of them.
“Turn to the right,” said the lieutenant;
“it is the Ronfi wood;
the chateau is more to the left.”
Presently the command “Halt” was passed along.
The detachment stopped and waited for the lieutenant, who, accompanied by only ten men, had undertaken a reconnoitering expedition to the chateau.
They advanced, creeping under the trees.
Suddenly they all remained motionless.
Around them was a dead silence.
Then, quite near them, a little clear, musical young voice was heard amid the stillness of the wood.
“Father, we shall get lost in the snow.
We shall never reach Blainville.”
A deeper voice replied:
“Never fear, little daughter;
I know the country as well as I know my pocket.”
The lieutenant said a few words and four men moved away silently, like shadows.
All at once a woman’s shrill cry was heard through the darkness.
Two prisoners were brought back, an old man and a young girl.
The lieutenant questioned them, still in a low tone:
“Your name?”
“Pierre Bernard.”
“Your profession?”
“Butler to Comte de Ronfi.”
“Is this your daughter?”
‘Yes!’
“What does she do?”
“She is laundress at the chateau.”
“Where are you going?”
“We are making our escape.”
“Why?”
“Twelve Uhlans passed by this evening.
They shot three keepers and hanged the gardener.
I was alarmed on account of the little one.”
“Whither are you bound?”
“To Blainville.”
“Why?”
“Because there is a French army there.”
“Do you know the way?”
“Perfectly.”
“Well then, follow us.”
They rejoined the column and resumed their march across country.
The old man walked in silence beside the lieutenant, his daughter walking at his side.
All at once she stopped.
“Father,” she said, “I am so tired I cannot go any farther.”
And she sat down. She was shaking with cold and seemed about to lose consciousness.
Her father wanted to carry her, but he was too old and too weak.
“Lieutenant,” said he, sobbing, “we shall only impede your march.
France before all. Leave us here.”
The officer had given a command. Some men had started off.
They came back with branches they had cut, and in a minute a litter was ready.
The whole detachment had joined them by this time.
“Here is a woman dying of cold,” said the lieutenant.
“Who will give his cape to cover her?”
Two hundred capes were taken off.
The young girl was wrapped up in these warm soldiers’ capes, gently laid in the litter, and then four’ hardy shoulders lifted her up, and like an Eastern queen borne by her slaves she was placed in the center of the detachment of soldiers, who resumed their march with more energy, more courage, more cheerfulness, animated by the presence of a woman, that sovereign inspiration that has stirred the old French blood to so many deeds of valor.
At the end of an hour they halted again and every one lay down in the snow.
Over yonder on the level country a big, dark shadow was moving.
It looked like some weird monster stretching itself out like a serpent, then suddenly coiling itself into a mass, darting forth again, then back, and then forward again without ceasing.
Some whispered orders were passed around among the soldiers, and an occasional little, dry, metallic click was heard.
The moving object suddenly came nearer, and twelve Uhlans were seen approaching at a gallop, one behind the other, having lost their way in the darkness.
A brilliant flash suddenly revealed to them two hundred men lying on the ground before them.
A rapid fire was heard, which died away in the snowy silence, and all the twelve fell to the ground, their horses with them.
After a long rest the march was resumed.
The old man whom they had captured acted as guide.
Presently a voice far off in the distance cried out:
“Who goes there?”
Another voice nearer by gave the countersign.
They made another halt; some conferences took place.
It had stopped snowing.
A cold wind was driving the clouds, and innumerable stars were sparkling in the sky behind them, gradually paling in the rosy light of dawn.
A staff officer came forward to receive the detachment.
But when he asked who was being carried in the litter, the form stirred;
two little hands moved aside the big blue army capes and, rosy as the dawn, with two eyes that were brighter than the stars that had just faded from sight, and a smile as radiant as the morn, a dainty face appeared.
“It is I, monsieur.”
The soldiers, wild with delight, clapped their hands and bore the young girl in triumph into the midst of the camp, that was just getting to arms.
Presently General Carrel arrived on the scene.
At nine o’clock the Prussians made an attack.
They beat a retreat at noon.
That evening, as Lieutenant Lare, overcome by fatigue, was sleeping on a bundle of straw, he was sent for by the general.
He found the commanding officer in his tent, chatting with the old man whom they had come across during the night.
As soon as he entered the tent the general took his hand, and addressing the stranger, said:
“My dear comte, this is the young man of whom you were telling me just now;
he is one of my best officers.”
He smiled, lowered his tone, and added:
“The best.”
Then, turning to the astonished lieutenant, he presented “Comte de Ronfi-Quedissac.”
The old man took both his hands, saying:
“My dear lieutenant, you have saved my daughter’s life. I have only one way of thanking you.
You may come in a few months to tell me—if you like her.”
One year later, on the very same day, Captain Lare and Miss Louise-Hortense-Genevieve de Ronfi-Quedissac were married in the church of St. Thomas Aquinas.
She brought a dowry of six thousand francs, and was said to be the prettiest bride that had been seen that year.
