CHAPTER III

My father rejoins his regiment--His portrait--His strength--His skill--The Nile serpent--The regiment of the King and the regiment of the Queen--Early days of the Revolution--Declaration of Pilnitz--The camp at Maulde--The thirteen Tyrolean chasseurs--My father's name is mentioned in the order of the day--France under Providence--Voluntary enlistments--St. Georges and Boyer--My father lieutenant-colonel--The camp of the Madeleine--The pistols of Lepage--My father General of Brigade in the Army of the North.

The new recruit rejoined his regiment, which was quartered at Laon, towards the end of the month of June 1786.

My father, as already stated, was twenty-four, and as handsome a young fellow as could be found anywhere. His complexion was dark, his eyes of a rich chestnut colour, and his well-shaped nose was of the kind only found in the crossing of Indian and Caucasian races. His teeth were white, his lips mobile, his neck well set on his powerful shoulders, and, in spite of his height of five feet nine inches, he had the hands and feet of a woman. These feet were the envy of his mistresses, whose shoes he was very rarely able to put on.

At the time of his marriage the calf of his leg was the same width as my mother's waist.

His free colonial life had developed his strength and prowess to an extraordinary degree; he was a veritable American horse-lad, a cowboy. His skill with gun or pistol was the envy of St. Georges and Junot. And his muscular strength became a proverb in the army. More than once he amused himself in the riding-school by passing under a beam, grasping it with his arms, and lifting his horse between his legs. I have seen him do it, and I recollect my childish amazement when I saw him carry two men standing up on his bent knee and hop across the room with these two men on him. I saw him once in a rage take a branch of considerable toughness in both his hands and break it between them by turning one hand to the right and the other to the left. Another time I remember going out one day from the little château des Fossés where we lived, and my father found he had forgotten the key of a gate: I recollect seeing him get out of the carriage, take up the gate crosswise, and at the second or third attempt break down the stone pillar in which it was fixed.

Dr. Ferus, who served under my father, has often told me that when about eighteen he, Ferus, was sent as assistant-surgeon to the Alpine army. On the first evening of his arrival, by the camp firelight he watched a soldier who, among other trials of strength, amused himself by putting his finger into the mouth of a heavy musket and lifting it up not by, his arm but on his extended finger.

A man wrapped in a cloak mingled among the onlookers and watched with them: then, laughing and flinging back his cloak, he said:

"That is not bad--but now bring four guns."

He was obeyed, for he was recognised as the commander-in-chief.

He then put his four fingers in the four gun holes and lifted the four guns with as much ease as the soldier had lifted one.

"See how easy it is," said he, placing them gently on the ground--"when one is in training for such exercises."

When Ferus told me this incident, he said he still marvelled how any man's muscles could bear such a weight.

Old Moulin, landlord of the Palais-Royal at Avignon, where Marshal Brune was murdered, was also possessed of immense strength. When trying to defend the marshal from assassination he took up one of the assassins, to use his own expression, "_by putting his hand under his ribs_, and threw him out of the window." This same Moulin told me once, when I was passing through Avignon, that when he was serving under my father in Italy orders were given forbidding the soldiers to go out without their sabres, under penalty of forty-eight hours in the guardroom.

This order was issued on account of the number of assassinations that had taken place.

My father was riding out, and met old Moulin, who was then a handsome, strapping fellow of twenty-five. Unluckily this handsome, strapping fellow had not his sword on.

Directly he caught sight of my father he set off at a run to try and slip down a side street; but my father had spied the fugitive and guessed the cause, so he put his horse to a gallop and, catching up with the culprit, he sang out, "You rascal, so you want to be murdered?" Then, seizing hold of him by his coat-collar, he raised him completely off the ground without either urging on or slackening his horse's pace, and carried him thus in a tight grip, just as a hawk swoops down on a lark, until, meeting a patrol, he threw down his burden and exclaimed:

"Forty-eight hours in the guardroom for this scoundrel!"

Old Moulin had his forty-eight hours in the guardroom, but it was not the forty-eight hours in prison that lived longest in his memory, it was that ten minutes' ride.

My father's skill as a hunter was equal to his strength; I have come across veterans who had hunted with him, when serving in the Alps, where, as we have just seen, he had been in command, and they preserved many traditions of his almost inconceivable agility as a good shot.

One example will suffice.

My father had selected from among his aides-de-camp Captain d'Horbourg de Marsanges, commandant of the crack company of the 15th regiment of dragoons, as an excellent and indefatigable sportsman.

He was my father's regular hunting companion.

One day my father and his aide-de-camp left Cairo, by the Nile Gate, to go hunting on the isle of Rhodes; they had not gone more than five hundred steps from the walls before they met a captain of dromedaries, who, sinning against all the accepted codes of hunting, wished success to their expedition.

"Devil take the brute!" exclaimed Captain d'Horbourg, who was steeped in all the hunter's superstitions. "Our day is ruined, and I expect we had better turn back."

"What!" said my father. "Are you mad?"

"But, General, you know the proverb?"

"Of course I know it, but it is a French proverb and not an Arabian one. Now, if we were hunting over the plain of St. Denis I should not say anything. Come, let us go on."

They embarked, and reached the island.

Usually so abounding in game, the isle seemed barren.

Captain d'Horbourg consigned the captain of dromedaries to the infernal regions every five minutes.

Suddenly he stopped short, his eyes fixed and his gun arrested in his hand.

"General!" he cried to my father, who was about twenty-five paces from him.

"Well, what's the matter?"

"A snake!"

"What! a snake?"

"Yes, and such a size! It is thicker than my arm."

"Where is it?"

"In front of me!"

My father took a few steps forward, but although he looked most attentively, he could not see anything.

He shrugged his shoulders to indicate his inability.

"Why, there, there! Can't you see it?" said the captain. "It is curled round and round, sitting up on its coils with its head poised, hissing."

"Well, then, fire at it as quickly as you can, or it will spring."

Captain d'Horbourg rapidly raised his gun to his shoulder and drew the trigger.

Only the priming went off.

At the same moment the snake sprang, but before it had covered the distance that separated it from the captain, the gun went off, and the ball shattered its head.

The serpent fell at the captain's feet and coiled round his legs in its death convulsions, writhing in its agony.

The captain shrieked, for he did not see for the moment the state the snake was in.

When he had recovered himself and was somewhat reassured, Captain d'Horbourg took the snake to Cairo, skinned it and had the skin made into a sword-belt as a souvenir of his narrow escape.

But the whole way back he kept reiterating to my father--

"Ah! General--didn't I tell you that devil of a rider would bring us ill luck!"

As a matter of fact the two hunters shot nothing but the snake, and it could not be described as a good bag.

In the month of July 1843, on my return from Florence, I lodged at the hotel de _Paris_, in the rue de Richelieu, where I received a letter signed "Ludovic d'Horbourg," wherein the writer begged an interview with me to unburden his mind of a dying request made him by his father.

The next day was to be the first representation of _Les Demoiselles de Saint-Cyr_, so I put off the interview till the day after.

General Dumas's old Egyptian aide-de-camp had, on his deathbed, as a sign of his gratitude, ordered his son Ludovic d'Horbourg to give me after his death the skin of the serpent my father had killed so quickly and cleverly on the isle of Rhodes. It seems he had often related this adventure with the Nile serpent to his son, for, amidst the innumerable dangers Count d'Horbourg had encountered throughout his long military career, this one had remained the most deeply imprinted on his memory.

Thanks to this verbal account, I am able to give the story here in all its details.

My father had hardly rejoined his regiment before an occasion for displaying his skill as a pupil of Laboissière presented itself.

The King's and Queen's regiments, which had always been in rivalry with each other, both happened to be stationed in the same town. This afforded a grand opportunity for constant skirmishes between them, and you may be sure such worthy opponents were not going to lose their chances.

One day a soldier of the King's regiment passed one belonging to the Queen's regiment.

The former stopped the latter and said--

"Comrade, I can tell you something you do not know."

"Well," replied the other, "if you tell it me I shall know it."

"All right I the king ... the queen."

"That is a lie," replied the other,--"it is the other way round, the queen ... the king."

One insult was as gross as the other, and could only be wiped out by duels.

About a hundred duels took place during the next twenty-four hours--three fell to my father's account.

In one of them he was cut across the forehead. Luckily his head was as tough as Duguesclin's.

He took no notice of this wound at the time, but it led to grave complications later, which nearly drove him out of his mind.

My father took no part in the earlier events of the Revolution. The National Assembly was constituted, the Bastille fell, and Mirabeau sprang into fame, thundered and died. Meanwhile my father served as private soldier or corporal in provincial barracks.

About 1790 he came with a detachment to Villers-Collerets, and there he met my mother, whom, as we have stated, he married November 28, 1792.

In the meantime the Revolution was spreading throughout France, and coalitions were being formed between the foreign Powers. On August 27, 1791, four days after the first insurrection of the negroes at St. Domingo, Leopold I., Emperor of Germany, and Frederic-William II., King of Prussia, met at Pilnitz and, in the presence of M. de Bouillé, who enjoyed such a terrible celebrity in the affair of the Swiss at Nancy, drew up the following declaration:--

"Their Majesties, having listened to the petitions and remonstrances of their Royal Highnesses Monsieur and the comte d'Artois, brothers of the king, have jointly agreed in considering the present position of the King of France a question of common interest throughout Europe. They hope that this interest will not fail to be recognised by the Powers whose aid has been solicited, and that in consequence they will not withhold the use of the most efficacious means within their power, in conjunction with the undersigned Majesties, for the re-establishment of the King of France in a more stable position, within the limits of the most perfect freedom consistent with the basis of a monarchical government, equally befitting the rights of the sovereigns and the welfare of the French nation. Then, and in that case, their said Majesties the Emperor and the King of Prussia are mutually resolved to take prompt measures with the forces necessary to obtain the end proposed in common. In the meantime, they agree to give orders to their armies to prepare for active service."

These were the lines that kindled the fire at Quiévrain, which was not to be extinguished before the battle of Waterloo.

On January 14, 1792, an edict of the National Assembly invited King Louis XVI. to demand in the name of the nation explanations from the emperor. The 10th of February was the date fixed for his reply. "And, in default of such reply," the edict went on to say, "the silence of the emperor will, after the declaration of Pilnitz, be looked upon as an infraction of the treaties of 1756, and considered hostile."

On March 1st following, the Emperor Leopold died, worn out by debauchery, at the age of forty-five years, and his son François succeeded to the Hereditary Estates.

As no satisfactory reply was returned, the troops proceeded to the frontier, and the regiment of the Queen's Dragoons, in which my father always served (though since February 16th, 1792, in the rank of brigadier), was placed under the command of General Beurnonville.

It was while in camp at Maulde that my father found his first opportunity to distinguish himself. Commanding as brigadier a reconnoitring party of four dragoons, he unexpectedly encountered a patrol of the enemy, comprised of thirteen Tyrolean chasseurs and a corporal.

Despite his inferiority in numbers he did not hesitate for a second to order his men to charge as soon as he saw them. The Tyroleans, who were unprepared for such a sudden attack, retired into a small meadow, surrounded by a ditch large enough to arrest the progress of the cavalry. But, as I have said, my father was a first-rate horseman; he mounted his good horse Joseph, gathered up the reins, urged him on, and they leapt the ditch after the fashion of M. de Montmorency. My father instantly landed alone in the very midst of the thirteen chasseurs, who, completely dumbfounded by such boldness, delivered up their arms and surrendered. The victor piled up the thirteen carbines in a heap, placed them on his saddle-bow, made the thirteen men march to meet his four dragoons, who had stopped on the other side of the ditch, over which they could not jump, and, being the last to cross the ditch, he led his prisoners into the camp.

Prisoners were rare in these days and the apparition of four men leading in thirteen produced a great sensation in the camp. This proof of the courage of the young officer was much talked of. General Beurnonville desired to see him; made him _maréchal des logis_, invited him to dinner, and mentioned his name in the order of the day.

This was the first mark of distinction attached to the new name of Alexandre Dumas, adopted by the son of the marquis de la Pailleterie.

From that moment General Beurnonville promised my father his good-will, a promise he never failed to keep: he used to say when my father was on duty over the general's quarters:

"Oh! Dumas is watching over us, so I shall sleep peacefully to-night."

This was the time of Volunteer enrolment, and France set a unique example to the world.

Never had a nation been so near its downfall as was France in 1792, unless it were the France of 1428.

Two miracles saved this dearly loved daughter of God. In 1428 the Lord raised up a maiden to save France, as Christ by His death saved the world.

In 1792 He roused and inspired a whole nation.

Xerxes, on the rock of Salamis, was not more sure of Athens, when its fortunes rested on the waves and on the fleet of Themistocles; Louis XIV. at the gates of Amsterdam was not more sure of Holland, who was ready to drown herself to escape his conquest, than was King Frederic-William of conquering France at Longwy and at Verdun.

France felt the hand of death pressed on her, but, by a terrible and powerful convulsion, although her feet were already wrapped in her grave-clothes, she struggled out of her tomb.

She was betrayed on all sides.

By her king, who attempted to fly to Varennes to rejoin Bouillé at Montmédy; her nobility, who fought in the enemy's ranks and urged the Prussians on France; the priests, more terrible still, who spread abroad a spirit of civil war, not merely between citizens of the same country, province, or town, but between members of the same family, between husband and wife, between son and father, between brother and sister.

At this period, when French Rome was struggling, we will not say against the world, but against Europe, there was scarcely a house which did not contain its Camille cursing her brother or weeping for her lover.

Oh! it is at such moments as these that France is great, and it is evident she has a true mission from Providence, since she rose up, struggled and triumphed, when all other nations would have succumbed.

All historians refer to Paris at this period as though it were Paris that did everything and sent the army of the Revolution to march to the frontiers.

Of course Paris did much, Paris with its enlistment offices in every public square, Paris with its recruiting sergeants going from house to house, Paris with its roaring cannons, its beating drums, its clanging bells, Paris with its proclamations of the country's danger, Paris with the great folds of its flag of distress floating from the windows of the hôtel de Ville, Paris with the stentorian tones of Danton calling the people to arms; but the provinces did quite as much as Paris, and they had not passed through those terrible days of the 2nd and 3rd of September.

Two departments alone, le Gard and le Haute-Saône, levied two armies among themselves.

Two men unaided, each equipped and armed a squadron of cavalry.

One village gave every single man it had, and offered besides a sum of three hundred thousand francs.

The mothers did more than give themselves or their money, they gave their sons, a more terrible and heartrending travail than that of giving them birth.

Eight hundred thousand men enlisted; France, which had been under great difficulty to raise an army to defend her Thermopylæ of the Argonne and to win the battle of Valmy, had a dozen armies at her command, and a year later began the march to conquer Europe. Frederic-William and Leopold made a grave error when they declared war against the Revolution; had they been satisfied with drawing a kind of protective cordon round France and with surrounding her with an armed girdle, France would in all probability have preyed upon herself. The volcano which threw up such fire and lava would have engulfed everything in the heart of that deep crater called Paris, wherein such days as the 5th and 6th October, as the 20th June, as the 10th August, as the 2nd and 3rd September, as the 21st January, had seethed and burst forth. But they broke open the mountain with two strokes of their swords, and laid bare a channel by which the Revolution flowed out over the whole world.

New regiments, whose very existence had been unsuspected hitherto, kept pouring into the army daily, regiments whose names were not entered on any list.

Only created the day before, they were totally inexperienced, but on they marched against the enemy.

St. Georges had been made colonel of the Free Legion of American cavalry in the South.

Boyer raised the regiment of the hussars _de la Liberté et de l'Égalité_ as his contribution.

They both knew my father, and both wanted to have him under their orders.

St. Georges took him first, as second lieutenant, on the 1st September 1792.

Boyer made him a lieutenant the next day.

Finally St. Georges, wishing to keep him at any price, made him lieutenant-colonel on January 10th, 1793.

My father was in reality in command of the regiment, for St. Georges, who was no fire eater, remained at Lille under the pretext of superintending the organisation of his troops (using for his own purposes the money given him to buy horses). Placed, as I have said, at the head of the regiment, my father saw before him a vast field for the display of his sagacity and his courage. The squadrons of men trained by him were noted for their patriotism and their good military discipline. Always under fire, very few engagements took place in the camp of la Madeleine without his squadrons taking part, and wherever they went they left an honourable, and often a glorious record behind them. Once, for example, the regiment was in the van-guard when suddenly it came across a Dutch regiment hidden in the rye which, at that season and in that part of the country, grew as high as a man. The presence of this regiment was revealed by the movement of a sergeant who was about fifteen paces from my father, and who raised his gun to fire. But my father saw this movement, realised that at such a distance the sergeant could not fail to hit him, drew a pistol from his holster and pulled the trigger with such rapidity and good luck that before the weapon was levelled its barrel was pierced clean through by the pistol bullet.

This pistol shot was the signal for a magnificent charge, in which the Dutch regiment was cut to pieces.

My father picked up the bullet-pierced firelock on the battlefield, and it was only held together on both sides by two fragments of iron. I had it in my possession a long time, but in the end it was stolen from me in a house-moving.

The pistols which had wrought this miracle of accuracy had been given by my mother, and came from the workshops of Lepage. They acquired further renown in the Italian campaign, and we shall have more to say concerning them when we come to that chapter in our history.

My father received his commission as brigadier-general of the Army of the North on July 30, 1793.

On September the 3rd of the same year he was appointed general of division of the same army.

Finally, five days later, he was made general commander-in-chief of the Army of the Western Pyrenees.

So when my mother married my father, on November 28th, 1792, he was lieutenant-colonel of hussars; and in less than a year afterwards he had been appointed general-in-command.

It had taken him but twenty months to rise from the lowest rung of the ladder, where he was nothing but a simple soldier, to one of the highest positions in the army.