The Chouans

* * * * *

Mademoiselle de Verneuil met no one on her way, neither Blues nor Chouans.  Seeing the column of blue smoke which was rising from the half-ruined chimney of Galope-Chopine’s melancholy dwelling, her heart was seized with a violent palpitation, the rapid, sonorous beating of which rose to her throat in waves.  She stopped, rested her hand against a tree, and watched the smoke which was serving as a beacon to the foes as well as to the friends of the young chieftain.  Never had she felt such overwhelming emotion.

“Ah!  I love him too much,” she said, with a sort of despair.  “To-day, perhaps, I shall no longer be mistress of myself—­”

She hurried over the distance which separated her from the cottage, and reached the courtyard, the filth of which was now stiffened by the frost.  The big dog sprang up barking, but a word from Galope-Chopine silenced him and he wagged his tail.  As she entered the house Marie gave a look which included everything.  The marquis was not there.  She breathed more freely, and saw with pleasure that the Chouan had taken some pains to clean the dirty and only room in his hovel.  He now took his duck-gun, bowed silently to his guest and left the house, followed by his dog.  Marie went to the threshold of the door and watched him as he took the path to the right of his hut.  From there she could overlook a series of fields, the curious openings to which formed a perspective of gates; for the leafless trees and hedges were no longer a barrier to a full view of the country.  When the Chouan’s broad hat was out of sight Mademoiselle de Verneuil turned round to look for the church at Fougeres, but the shed concealed it.  She cast her eyes over the valley of the Couesnon, which lay before her like a vast sheet of muslin, the whiteness of which still further dulled a gray sky laden with snow.  It was one of those days when nature seems dumb and noises are absorbed by the atmosphere.  Therefore, though the Blues and their contingent were marching through the country in three lines, forming a triangle which drew together as they neared the cottage, the silence was so profound that Mademoiselle de Verneuil was overcome by a presentiment which added a sort of physical pain to her mental torture.  Misfortune was in the air.

At last, in a spot where a little curtain of wood closed the perspective of gates, she saw a young man jumping the barriers like a squirrel and running with astonishing rapidity.  “It is he!” she thought.

The Gars was dressed as a Chouan, with a musket slung from his shoulder over his goatskin, and would have been quite disguised were it not for the grace of his movements.  Marie withdrew hastily into the cottage, obeying one of those instinctive promptings which are as little explicable as fear itself.  The young man was soon beside her before the chimney, where a bright fire was burning.  Both were voiceless, fearing to look at each other, or even to make a movement.  One and the same hope united them, the same doubt; it was agony, it was joy.

“Monsieur,” said Mademoiselle de Verneuil at last, in a trembling voice, “your safety alone has brought me here.”

“My safety!” he said, bitterly.

“Yes,” she answered; “so long as I stay at Fougeres your life is threatened, and I love you too well not to leave it.  I go to-night.”

“Leave me! ah, dear love, I shall follow you.”

“Follow me!—­the Blues?”

“Dear Marie, what have the Blues got to do with our love?”

“But it seems impossible that you can stay with me in France, and still more impossible that you should leave it with me.”

“Is there anything impossible to those who love?”

“Ah, true! true! all is possible—­have I not the courage to resign you, for your sake.”

“What! you could give yourself to a hateful being whom you did not love, and you refuse to make the happiness of a man who adores you, whose life you fill, who swears to be yours, and yours only.  Hear me, Marie, do you love me?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Then be mine.”

“You forget the infamous career of a lost woman; I return to it, I leave you—­yes, that I may not bring upon your head the contempt that falls on mine.  Without that fear, perhaps—­”

“But if I fear nothing?”

“Can I be sure of that?  I am distrustful.  Who could be otherwise in a position like mine?  If the love we inspire cannot last at least it should be complete, and help us to bear with joy the injustice of the world.  But you, what have you done for me?  You desire me.  Do you think that lifts you above other men?  Suppose I bade you renounce your ideas, your hopes, your king (who will, perhaps, laugh when he hears you have died for him, while I would die for you with sacred joy!); or suppose I should ask you to send your submission to the First Consul so that you could follow me to Paris, or go with me to America,—­away from the world where all is vanity; suppose I thus tested you, to know if you loved me for myself as at this moment I love you?  To say all in a word, if I wished, instead of rising to your level, that you should fall to mine, what would you do?”

“Hush, Marie, be silent, do not slander yourself,” he cried.  “Poor child, I comprehend you.  If my first desire was passion, my passion now is love.  Dear soul of my soul, you are as noble as your name, I know it,—­as great as you are beautiful.  I am noble enough, I feel myself great enough to force the world to receive you.  Is it because I foresee in you the source of endless, incessant pleasure, or because I find in your soul those precious qualities which make a man forever love the one woman?  I do not know the cause, but this I know—­that my love for you is boundless.  I know I can no longer live without you.  Yes, life would be unbearable unless you are ever with me.”

“Ever with you!”

“Ah!  Marie, will you not understand me?”

“You think to flatter me by the offer of your hand and name,” she said, with apparent haughtiness, but looking fixedly at the marquis as if to detect his inmost thought.  “How do you know you would love me six months hence? and then what would be my fate?  No, a mistress is the only woman who is sure of a man’s heart; duty, law, society, the interests of children, are poor auxiliaries.  If her power lasts it gives her joys and flatteries which make the trials of life endurable.  But to be your wife and become a drag upon you,—­rather than that, I prefer a passing love and a true one, though death and misery be its end.  Yes, I could be a virtuous mother, a devoted wife; but to keep those instincts firmly in a woman’s soul the man must not marry her in a rush of passion.  Besides, how do I know that you will please me to-morrow?  No, I will not bring evil upon you; I leave Brittany,” she said, observing hesitation in his eyes.  “I return to Fougeres now, where you cannot come to me—­”

“I can! and if to-morrow you see smoke on the rocks of Saint-Sulpice you will know that I shall be with you at night, your lover, your husband,—­what you will that I be to you; I brave all!”

“Ah!  Alphonse, you love me well,” she said, passionately, “to risk your life before you give it to me.”

He did not answer; he looked at her and her eyes fell; but he read in her ardent face a passion equal to his own, and he held out his arms to her.  A sort of madness overcame her, and she let herself fall softly on his breast, resolved to yield to him, and turn this yielding to great results,—­staking upon it her future happiness, which would become more certain if she came victorious from this crucial test.  But her head had scarcely touched her lover’s shoulder when a slight noise was heard without.  She tore herself from his arms as if suddenly awakened, and sprang from the cottage.  Her coolness came back to her, and she thought of the situation.

“He might have accepted me and scorned me,” she reflected.  “Ah! if I could think that, I would kill him.  But not yet!” she added, catching sight of Beau-Pied, to whom she made a sign which the soldier was quick to understand.  He turned on his heel, pretending to have seen nothing.  Mademoiselle de Verneuil re-entered the cottage, putting her finger to her lips to enjoin silence.

“They are there!” she whispered in a frightened voice.

“Who?”

“The Blues.”

“Ah! must I die without one kiss!”

“Take it,” she said.

He caught her to him, cold and unresisting, and gathered from her lips a kiss of horror and of joy, for while it was the first, it might also be the last.  Then they went together to the door and looked cautiously out.  The marquis saw Gudin and his men holding the paths leading to the valley.  Then he turned to the line of gates where the first rotten trunk was guarded by five men.  Without an instant’s pause he jumped on the barrel of cider and struck a hole through the thatch of the roof, from which to spring upon the rocks behind the house; but he drew his head hastily back through the gap he had made, for Hulot was on the height; his retreat was cut off in that direction.  The marquis turned and looked at his mistress, who uttered a cry of despair; for she heard the tramp of the three detachments near the house.

“Go out first,” he said; “you shall save me.”

Hearing the words, to her all-glorious, she went out and stood before the door.  The marquis loaded his musket.  Measuring with his eye the space between the door of the hut and the old rotten trunk where seven men stood, the Gars fired into their midst and sprang forward instantly, forcing a passage through them.  The three troops rushed towards the opening through which he had passed, and saw him running across the field with incredible celerity.

“Fire! fire! a thousand devils!  You’re not Frenchmen!  Fire, I say!” called Hulot.

As he shouted these words from the height above, his men and Gudin’s fired a volley, which was fortunately ill-aimed.  The marquis reached the gate of the next field, but as he did so he was almost caught by Gudin, who was close upon his heels.  The Gars redoubled his speed.  Nevertheless, he and his pursuer reached the next barrier together; but the marquis dashed his musket at Gudin’s head with so good an aim that he stopped his rush.  It is impossible to depict the anxiety betrayed by Marie, or the interest of Hulot and his troops as they watched the scene.  They all, unconsciously or silently, repeated the gestures which they saw the runners making.  The Gars and Gudin reached the little wood together, but as they did so the latter stopped and darted behind a tree.  About twenty Chouans, afraid to fire at a distance lest they should kill their leader, rushed from the copse and riddled the tree with balls.  Hulot’s men advanced at a run to save Gudin, who, being without arms, retreated from tree to tree, seizing his opportunity as the Chouans reloaded.  His danger was soon over.  Hulot and the Blues met him at the spot where the marquis had thrown his musket.  At this instant Gudin perceived his adversary sitting among the trees and out of breath, and he left his comrades firing at the Chouans, who had retreated behind a lateral hedge; slipping round them, he darted towards the marquis with the agility of a wild animal.  Observing this manoeuvre the Chouans set up a cry to warn their leader; then, having fired on the Blues and their contingent with the gusto of poachers, they boldly made a rush for them; but Hulot’s men sprang through the hedge which served them as a rampart and took a bloody revenge.  The Chouans then gained the road which skirted the fields and took to the heights which Hulot had committed the blunder of abandoning.  Before the Blues had time to reform, the Chouans were entrenched behind the rocks, where they could fire with impunity on the Republicans if the latter made any attempt to dislodge them.

While Hulot and his soldiers went slowly towards the little wood to meet Gudin, the men from Fougeres busied themselves in rifling the dead Chouans and dispatching those who still lived.  In this fearful war neither party took prisoners.  The marquis having made good his escape, the Chouans and the Blues mutually recognized their respective positions and the uselessness of continuing the fight; so that both sides prepared to retreat.

“Ha! ha!” cried one of the Fougeres men, busy about the bodies, “here’s a bird with yellow wings.”

And he showed his companions a purse full of gold which he had just found in the pocket of a stout man dressed in black.

“What’s this?” said another, pulling a breviary from the dead man’s coat.

“Communion bread—­he’s a priest!” cried the first man, flinging the breviary on the ground.

“Here’s a wretch!” cried a third, finding only two crowns in the pockets of the body he was stripping, “a cheat!”

“But he’s got a fine pair of shoes!” said a soldier, beginning to pull them off.

“You can’t have them unless they fall to your share,” said the Fougeres man, dragging the dead feet away and flinging the boots on a heap of clothing already collected.

Another Chouan took charge of the money, so that lots might be drawn as soon as the troops were all assembled.  When Hulot returned with Gudin, whose last attempt to overtake the Gars was useless as well as perilous, he found about a score of his own men and thirty of the contingent standing around eleven of the enemy, whose naked bodies were thrown into a ditch at the foot of the bank.

“Soldiers!” cried Hulot, sternly.  “I forbid you to share that clothing.  Form in line, quick!”

“Commandant,” said a soldier, pointing to his shoes, at the points of which five bare toes could be seen on each foot, “all right about the money, but those boots,” motioning to a pair of hobnailed boots with the butt of his gun, “would fit me like a glove.”

“Do you want to put English shoes on your feet?” retorted Hulot.

“But,” said one of the Fougeres men, respectfully, “we’ve divided the booty all through the war.”

“I don’t prevent you civilians from following your own ways,” replied Hulot, roughly.

“Here, Gudin, here’s a purse with three louis,” said the officer who was distributing the money.  “You have run hard and the commandant won’t prevent your taking it.”

Hulot looked askance at Gudin, and saw that he turned pale.

“It’s my uncle’s purse!” exclaimed the young man.

Exhausted as he was with his run, he sprang to the mound of bodies, and the first that met his eyes was that of his uncle.  But he had hardly recognized the rubicund face now furrowed with blue lines, and seen the stiffened arms and the gunshot wound before he gave a stifled cry, exclaiming, “Let us be off, commandant.”

The Blues started.  Hulot gave his arm to his young friend.

“God’s thunder!” he cried.  “Never mind, it is no great matter.”

“But he is dead,” said Gudin, “dead!  He was my only relation, and though he cursed me, still he loved me.  If the king returns, the neighborhood will want my head, and my poor uncle would have saved it.”

“What a fool Gudin is,” said one of the men who had stayed behind to share the spoils; “his uncle was rich, and he hasn’t had time to make a will and disinherit him.”

The division over, the men of Fougeres rejoined the little battalion of the Blues on their way to the town.