CHAPTER IV

General Exelmans--His trial--The two brothers Lallemand--Their conspiracy--They are arrested and led through Villers-Cotterets--The affronts to which they were subjected.

May we be permitted to go back a little further, since our dramatic training has accustomed us always and in every detail to prefer the clearest and most lucid style of presentation?

We know what spirit of reaction had been abroad under the government of Louis XVIII., and what persecution during the first restoration the men who had served under the usurper (as Napoleon was called) had had to undergo.

The indiscretion of a few prominent people in the party called the ultra-Royalists had revealed the intentions of the monarchy; one of these designs, they said, was to exterminate the Bonapartists, as the Protestants had been exterminated under Charles IX.

The more absurd the rumours were, the more readily were they believed: the Bourbons were thought capable of the most outrageous projects. And there was--I will not say a great fright among those who were menaced (the old comrades of the emperor were not so easily alarmed)--but many rumours were abroad. Many left Paris, hoping to rouse less hatred by going far from that everlasting seething pot of intrigues; others rallied together, armed themselves, and resolved to sell their lives dearly. The Government grew uneasy at these gatherings, wished to dissolve them, and, in order to attain this end, forbade all general officers to remain at Paris without leave; ordering all those who were not natives of the capital to return instantly to their own parts.

We can understand what exasperation this would cause at a time of violent dissensions; the retired officers protested against the measure, and banded together to resist it. Compelled by the minister to choose between Paris and half-pay, several, although poor, preferred independence to submission.

The Government, annoyed by this resistance, looked out for some occasion to make a public example; one soon came.

A letter from General Exelmans to Murat was seized and opened. He congratulated the King of Naples on the preservation of his crown, and told him that thousands of brave followers would hasten to defend his throne if it were again threatened.

Marshal Soult was minister for war. He immediately placed General Exelmans on the retired list, and ordered him to put sixty leagues between himself and Paris at once, and to stay away until further orders.

Exelmans declined to obey. The minister, he protested, had no right to exile officers who were not on the active service list.

The marshal arrested him, and denounced him before a court-martial of the twofold crime of disobeying his chief and of holding correspondence with the enemies of the State.

General Exelmans was acquitted.

This was a terrible blow for the Government.

Military men who were not on active service _did not owe the Government obedience._ Then, comprehending from the hatred they bore it, that its hatred for themselves would show itself in some dreadful ebullition, they resolved to forestall it.

A meeting was held at the house of one of the generals who was most deeply compromised by his Napoleonic opinions,--Drouet d'Erlon, I believe, was the man. At this meeting, which was composed of officers on half-pay, as well as of officers in active service, it was decided that all those in active service who had a command should march on Paris at a given moment, with as many men as they could muster. Fifty thousand men would be found ready at the right moment in the capital; more than necessary to dictate terms. They would demand from the king the dismissal of the ministry, and they would compel him to drive out of France all those who were pointed out by public opinion as enemies to the Charter, and disturbers of the public welfare and peace.

This meeting had taken place, and these resolutions were drawn up before Napoleon's landing; but, as the movement broke out simultaneously with his return from Elba, the two events were connected together in people's minds.

The generals who took the leading part in this conspiracy were Drouet d'Erlon, whom we have already mentioned, Lefèvre-Desnouettes, and the two brothers Lallemand.

The duc de Treviso, under whose command the comte d'Erlon served, had the command of the 16th military division, whose headquarters were at Lille. Towards the end of February he was absent from his post, and as that moment seemed favourable the comte d'Erlon decided to take advantage of it. The moment was, indeed, particularly favourable, as it was just at the time when the telegraph wires transmitted the news of Napoleon's landing. The garrison of Lille, deceived by supposed orders, set forth on the 8th March, conducted by the comte d'Erlon; but it was met _en route_ by the duc de Treviso, who, at Lille, had received the extraordinary news which was convulsing Europe; he questioned the generals who were leading the columns, guessed the plot, gave counter-orders, and re-entered the town with his army corps.

But all this time Lefèvre-Desnouettes had been acting too. Believing that the garrison of Lille had started on its way, and not knowing what had happened, he had moved the regiment of the old Chasseurs de la Garde, which he commanded; but when he reached Compiègne, about seven leagues from us, he found the 6th chasseurs--who bore the name of the duc de Berry--drawn up in battle array, with its colonel, M. de Talhouet, at its head. At this spectacle Lefèvre-Desnouettes was struck dumb, and did not know how to answer his officers and those of the 6th chasseurs, who asked the cause of his perplexity.

He left Compiègne abruptly, met General Lyom, major of the regiment of royal chasseurs, divulged a part of his projected plans to him, and suggested that they should join the conspiracy and help it forward. Major Lyom refused; Lefèvre-Desnouettes perceived that there was nothing further to be done in that quarter, and that he would but risk his life by persisting. He therefore exchanged his uniform for a peasant's dress, and set his face across country towards Châlons, where General Rigaut was in command, whom he knew to be a fanatical partisan of Napoleon.

The two brothers Lallemand had not been idle. One of them, a general of artillery, had gone to la Fère with the two other squadrons of royal chasseurs, and his brother had accompanied him. Their intention was to seize the arsenal and park of artillery. They first tried to seduce the gunners, then to entice General d'Aboville, who commanded the artillery school, to their cause; but both these attempts were unsuccessful--soldiers and general held to their posts. General d'Aboville, seconded by Major Pion of the 2nd regiment of artillery, ordered arms to be taken to the garrison, placed a portion of the troops in the arsenal and others at the gates of the town, armed them, and had cannons mounted in the battery. It was effort wasted, as that of Lefèvre-Desnouettes had been. The two brothers retired, followed by a little band of gunners who had come over to their side, but who dispersed when an organised pursuit began, so that the two brothers Lallemand were obliged to fly without even knowing, as Lefèvre-Desnouettes had done, where to go, and losing themselves in a country which was strange to them.

All this happened within only thirteen leagues of Villers-Cotterets.

The attempt was made on March 10th.

On the 12th the police force at Villers-Cotterets received orders to search the countryside; it had been reported that the fugitives had been seen in the direction of Ferté-Milon.

We saw the police pass by, and we knew the object of their expedition, through a friend of mine, named Stanislas Leloir, the son of an old sergeant who had been killed near Villers-Cotterets during the campaign of 1814.

It may well be believed that all this news--whether from Paris or from Compiègne or la Fère--put our little hole of a town into a great ferment. The epithet of _Bonapartist_, now used definitely as an accusation, sounded more often than ever in my ears, but under the circumstances my mother had strongly urged upon me not to resist it. I therefore let them call me Bonapartist as much as they liked. At night, gangs of street boys, twenty-five to thirty in number, would collect, open the doors of suspected persons, come right into the house and shout out "_Vive le roi!"_: compelling the inmates to shout with them. Ten times a night our door, which opened on the street, would be assailed by hooligans in this way, and their cries sounded in our ears with an angry persistence which was most disquieting.

By day everybody collected in the squares. Villers-Cotterets, being on the high road from Paris to Mézières, by way of Soissons and Laon, is one of the vital arteries which feed Northern France; numberless carriages, diligences and couriers use it; each often bringing some bit of special news not given us in the papers. It was by these means we learnt, on the 13th and 14th March, of Napoleon's entry into Grenoble and Lyons, to which the papers either did not refer at all, or which they only mentioned to contradict.

Thus, on the 14th, we learnt that Napoleon had entered Lyons, that the comte d'Artois, even as the duc d'Orléans, had been forced to return without an army; and, suddenly, we heard a great noise towards the end of the rue de Largny. As the street forms a perfectly straight line, we turned to look in the direction from whence the noise came; we saw three carriages, harnessed like post-chaises and escorted by a strong piquet of police.

Everybody rushed towards these conveyances. In each carriage sat a general officer between two policemen, and besides these six policemen, seated opposite the three prisoners, were six more as escort.

The carriages came at a fast trot. So long as they were in the rue de Largny, which is quite wide, they were able to keep up the pace, but, when they reached the entrance to the rue de Soissons, a narrow and uneven street, they were obliged to go slower, on account of the hindrances they met.

We had asked and found out, in the meantime, that these general officers were the brothers Lallemand, for whom the police had been set to hunt the day before; that they had found them about six o'clock that morning, near a little village called Mareuil, riding on worn-out horses; they were harassed by a journey of three days' duration across country and through woodland, and had given themselves up without much show of resistance.

The two brothers Lallemand were in the first two carriages; the third, so far as I can recollect, was occupied by an ordinary aide-de-camp, captain, or orderly officer.

They were being taken to la Fère, we were told, to be shot.

They looked pale, but seemed collected.

When they entered our town they were greeted with furious cries, and the postilions, at a sign from the police, quickened the pace; but when, as I have said, they came to the rue de Soissons, they had almost to pull up, or to go at a foot pace; and the procession walked slowly in the middle of the population, which crowded each side of the street. The generals, who had doubtless believed that the whole of France would be unanimously in favour of Napoleon, seemed amazed that almost the entire population of that little town should surge round them in so hostile a fashion, and suddenly from the hatter's shop issued a furious woman, livid with anger, with dishevelled locks like one of the Eumenides; she scattered the people far and wide, dived between the horses of the police escort, sprang upon the step of the first carriage and spat in the face of General Lallemand, stretching forth, at the same time, her hand to tear off his epaulettes, and hurling the most indecent epithets at him in strident shrieks.

The general leant back in the carriage, and, in a voice charged rather with pity than with anger, asked:

"What is the matter with that unhappy woman?"

The police soon drove her away, but she began to run after the carriages, which would have to stop at the post, for fresh horses, about a hundred yards farther on.

However, her husband, her children and three or four neighbours caught hold of her, and prevented her from going farther.

This horrible scene, I need hardly say, had made a painful impression throughout the town, and from that moment the shouting ceased; the crowds still followed the prisoners and watched them with curiosity, but they kept silence.

The prisoners were being taken to la Fère, as we have explained, to be court-martialled and then shot, but they would have to spend the night at Soissons.

It was necessary to search the road in order to make sure that no seditious party was in waiting to carry off the prisoners.

In the midst of all this commotion and of all these painful scenes, as I was watching the carriages disappear along the Soissons road, I felt someone take hold of my hand, and, turning round, I found it was my mother.

"Come," she said in a whisper, making a sign with her head as she spoke, and I knew something important lay behind that word "_Come_," and her gesture.

She seemed terribly agitated, and she led me straight home.