The Czar A tale of the Time of the First Napoleon 18
“Let us go home,” said Madame de Talmont, sighing heavily. The crowd
was increasing every moment, and the din and tumult were deafening.
With some impatience Henri pushed aside those who stood in his path,
and there was a sharp ring in his voice as he said, “Make way, make
way, good people!”
“Oh yes; make way for the new conscript. How well M. de Talmont will
look in the awkward squad!” cried some one.
Féron had crossed the street to the little inn opposite the Mairie, and
was about to drink the Emperor’s health in a cup of good red wine, a
practice much in favour with the conscripts, but before tasting it he
pushed through the throng, and offered the brimming goblet to Henri.
“Drink, M. de Talmont,” he said. “We are all comrades now, and the
sooner we learn good fellowship the better.”
Henri pushed the cup aside without a word; but Clémence spoke gently to
the village lad. “It is not that my brother would not drink with you,
Mathieu,” she said; “but he is troubled just now, and so are we--like
your mother and your sisters.”
No other word was spoken until the De Talmonts reached their home, and
even then very few. Madame de Talmont and Clémence arranged everything,
and Henri seemed quite passive in their hands. According to their plan,
he was to leave the cottage after nightfall, and travelling on foot
by unfrequented ways, to try to reach the neighbourhood of their old
home in the Bocage, where the faithful Grandpierre, who had been their
father’s steward, would receive and protect him. A little money and a
change of linen were concealed about his person, but on no account must
he look like a traveller. So long had Madame de Talmont contemplated
the necessity for this journey that she was able to give her son the
fullest and clearest directions.
At length all was done. The last meal was eaten together, or at least a
pretence was made of eating it. Henri embraced his mother, and received
her parting blessing; then Clémence, wrapping a shawl around her,
said, “The night is fine; I will go with you to the stile of the far
corn-field.”
They walked along in silence. They had worlds to say to each other,
and this might be their last opportunity on earth, yet neither found a
word. Not until the parting-place was reached did Clémence whisper, as
she slipped a purse into her brother’s hand, “There are five napoleons,
Henri; you will be sure to want them. And oh! write to us as soon as
you can. I will try to cheer and comfort our mother. Just one word
more, dearest of brothers. Pray to God, seek to have him for your
friend; then, whatever happens”-- But here her voice failed utterly.
Henri threw his arms around her, and his voice was hoarse and changed,
very unlike his own. “Clémence,” he said, “promise me one thing.”
“Yes.”
“That, _whatever happens_, you will not hate or curse me, or call me
traitor, but forgive and love me still; that you will plead with my
mother to forgive me”--
“Forgive you! love you still! What can you mean, Henri? It is not
possible we should ever change to each other. Not--_possible_,” she
sobbed, clinging to him, and straining him to her heart in an embrace
that seemed as if no power on earth could sunder it.
Somehow or other Henri freed himself at last. He said in a kind of
choked whisper, “Remember my words. Good-bye, and God--your God--bless
you.” One last lingering look, and he turned away, ran quickly down the
sloping corn-field, and was soon lost to sight.
But he did not take the path that Clémence supposed. He returned to
the village by a circuitous route, and about midnight tapped gently
at the curé’s door. The priest was evidently on the watch, for he
opened the door and admitted him at once, then shut and bolted it, and
extinguished the light he had kept burning in his window as a guide to
his expected guest.
CHAPTER XI.
ONE OF HALF A MILLION.
“It is not youth that turns
From the field of spears again,
For the boy’s high heart too proudly burns
Till it rests among the slain.”
It was evening in a crowded barrack-room in Paris. Recruits, not
yet clad in uniform, but wearing the blouses or the coarse fustian
jackets they had brought from their native villages, chatted, drank,
quarrelled, or dozed upon the benches or about the floor. One noisy
fellow was singing the Marseillaise at the top of his voice, another
was defying any man in France to beat him at single-stick, but by far
the greater number seemed dispirited and utterly weary.
A young lad had seated himself at the table, beneath one of the lamps
which, at long distances, lit up the darkness of the great bare room.
Writing materials were before him, and he had begun a letter, but
paused, as if unable to proceed, and shaded his face with his hand.
Presently the tears dropped slowly down between his fingers, blistering
the paper; then once more he seized the pen, and wrote eagerly and
rapidly:--
“Dearest mother, forgive me. I could not--no, I could not expose you
and Clémence to the terrible sufferings inflicted upon the families of
the refractory, even if, for myself, I was strong enough to encounter
the horrors of a convict prison. There was no way but the way I took.
M. le Curé answered for me to the maire, and concealed me in his
house until marching orders came. As we started in the gray dawn of a
winter’s morning, I hoped to pass unnoticed; but so many villagers were
there to bid farewell to their friends, that I know you must have heard
all. Mother, Clémence, pray for me; and oh, mother, forgive me if you
can! It is not for Napoleon I am going to fight, but for France.”
“Conscript, do you want that letter put into the post to-night?” asked
a short, thick-set, red-haired man with a corporal’s badge on his
sleeve; “because, if you do, I am going out, and I am a very obliging
fellow.”
Henri looked up quickly. He might perhaps have doubted the corporal’s
word, but five or six other letters which he held in his hand seemed to
corroborate his statement; besides, he knew that for him there would be
no leave to go out that night.
“Then I shall be very much obliged to you, corporal,” he said.
“Quick with you then. Sign your name and give it to me. I cannot wait
all night. You may make my compliments to your sweetheart while you are
about it, however.”
Henri hastily folded and sealed his letter, and put it in the
corporal’s outstretched hand.
“Peste, man!” said the other impatiently; “where is the postage?”
Henri took out half a franc. “That is it, I think,” he said, without
noticing the signs one of his comrades was making to attract his
attention. The corporal flung the coin upon the table, and caught it
again, as if to try whether it was genuine, muttered a curse, and went
his way.
“Fool!” said Henri’s neighbour. “Did you not see he wanted something to
drink? What else should he take your letter for? Look out for yourself
on parade to-morrow; he will do you a mischief if he can.”
“And who cares?” cried the chanter of the Marseillaise. “We want no
aristocrats among us. ‘Çà ira! çà ira!’”
“We want no bad companions either,” said Féron, who was standing near,
“so you may keep your breath for your eternal ‘Çà ira,’ Guillaume St.
Luc.” Then, going over to Henri, he sat down beside him, and laying his
hand on his shoulder, said in a low voice, “Keep up your heart, M. de
Talmont. Who knows but you have a marshal’s bâton in your knapsack?”
Henri felt grateful for the kind words, and perhaps yet more so for the
form of address, which had not fallen upon his ear since the miserable
morning when he marched out of Brie--a conscript. He placed his white,
delicate hand in the rough palm of the blacksmith’s son. “You are a
good comrade,” he said.
“I vowed you should find me that, the day Mademoiselle Clémence spoke
to me so kindly,” returned Féron.
“But as to the marshal’s bâton,” resumed Henri, “that is a fine story.
Six feet of Russian clay to lie in is what more of us are likely to
get, I fancy.”
“No good comes of burying ourselves before we are dead,” returned the
cheery Féron. “Of course, some are killed in every war. It is their
luck. If a Russian bullet has my name upon it, why, then, I shall have
the consolation of falling in the greatest war of the greatest captain
that ever lived. I shall see his eagles flap their wings over Moscow
and St. Petersburg. I shall die in the hour of victory, and I shall
die shouting, ‘Vive l’Empereur!’” In fact, the last words so nearly
approached a shout already, that they were taken up and re-echoed by
those around.
Then Féron resumed his low tone. “M. de Talmont, may I give you a word
of advice?”
“Certainly, comrade.”
“When you hear other people shouting, always shout too; and the greater
fools you think them, the louder you ought to shout, if only by way of
drowning their foolish voices.”
For the first time since the day of the conscription Henri laughed;
and Féron presently continued, “But as for me, I do not shout ‘Vive
l’Empereur!’ like a fool. I know very well what I am about. I am only
a conscript, it is true, but I am a soldier. The whole world is before
me, and if I am brave, active, and resolute, the marshal’s bâton is
no impossible dream for me. If we had lived in the old times, M. de
Talmont, you would have ridden a fine horse and worn a beautiful sword;
and I should have been like the dust beneath your feet--a private all
my days, and no more. Thanks to the Revolution and the Empire, we have
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