CHAPTER IX

The rout--The haricot mutton reappears--M. Picot the lawyer--By diplomatic means, he persuades my mother to let me go shooting with him--I despise sleep, food, and drink.

Had any doubt remained in the minds of the most obstinate of sceptics concerning the disaster at Waterloo, which had been announced at Villers-Cotterets by the fugitives whom we had seen bespattered with mud and blood, Napoleon's journey through would have dissipated them.

Besides, this advance guard of fugitives was merely the precursor of the rest of the army, which began to put in its appearance on the morning of the 22nd. They all passed through in a motley crowd, first those who had extricated themselves from that horrible carnage, safe and sound or slightly wounded, marching by in disorder, without drums, almost weaponless.

Next came those who were wounded more severely, but could yet manage either to walk or to ride.

It was a terrible yet an imposing sight, its very hideousness awe-inspiring.

And at the end came those who could neither walk nor sit on horseback: unfortunate creatures, who had lost their arms, or whose legs were broken, wretches with great wounds through their bodies, lying in waggons, either badly bandaged or else not bandaged at all, unhappy beings who lifted themselves up now and then, and, waving their blood-stained rags, cried, _"Vive l'empereur!"_

Many fell back dead: it was their last cry.

This funereal procession lasted for two or three days.

Where were all these men being taken? Why was their anguish prolonged by such an exposure to the burning June sun, by the jolting of waggons, and by the absence of proper medical attention?

Were there so many that all the towns between Waterloo and Villers-Cotterets were filled to overflowing?

Oh! what a hideous, mad, stupid thing war is, seen divorced from the blaring of trumpets and rolling of drums, the smoke of cannon and the fusillade of guns.

We could recognise among this débris the remains of those splendid regiments we had seen pass by so proud, so determined, whose bands had borne witness to their enthusiasm as they marched by playing _"Veillons au salut de l'empire!"_

Alas! the army was destroyed, and the Empire crushed.

Finally, fewer waggons went by, and soon there were no more.

Then the troops Jérôme had rallied under the walls of Laon began to file past; each regiment reduced by two-thirds.

Fifteen of the unfortunate Mamelukes had survived; the others had been either killed or scattered.

Two or three out of the twenty-five or thirty officers who had lodged with us called to see us as they passed through: the others were left behind, either at the farm of Hougoumont or at la Haie-Sainte, or in the famous ravine which served as a common ditch wherein ten thousand heroes were buried! My sister and her husband arrived in the midst of this rout. Thanks to M. Letellier's excellent conduct as mayor during the siege of Soissons, in 1814, his son had obtained promotion, and was made _contrôleur ambulant_ at Villers-Cotterets.

They came in by the Paris road just as the enemy was expected from the Soissons road.

The cruelty was not so great this time, as no resistance was offered.

Napoleon had abdicated, and Napoleon the Second had been proclaimed. No one seemed to put serious belief in that proclamation, not even those who had brought it about.

One day we heard clarions playing a strange air, and saw five or six thousand men enter the main square of our town.

They were Prussians of the grand-duchy of Baden, clad in their elegant uniform, faultless, save that it is too elegant for military purposes.

An English regiment marched in along with them, and two English officers fell to our lot.

The famous haricot mutton reappeared; our guests were two fine hearty young fellows, who did ample justice to it.

They spoke no French. I, of course, knew no English at that time. One of them began to talk to me in Latin.

At first, I confess, I thought he was still talking to me in English, and I admired his perseverance.

Finally I discovered that he was offering to drink a glass of wine with me, in Virgil's tongue.

I accepted, and for the rest of the day we managed to understand one another or very nearly so.

The workhouse that we had abused so much saved us from having a strange garrison; and the great stream of English, Russian, and Prussian soldiers passed through without stopping.

Then news reached us from Paris, from the provinces, and from abroad; much of it was of terrible import to us.

On the 2nd of July, while the allied powers were declaring Napoleon to be a prisoner of war, Marshal Brune was assassinated at Avignon.

Alas! he was the only one of all my father's friends who had remained faithful to us! I vowed then that one day, when I grew up, I would go to Avignon, and in some way or other I would make his murderers pay for their crime.

I kept my word.

On the 19th of August, as Napoleon reached the Straits of Gibraltar, Labédoyère was shot.

On the 13th of October Murat was shot at Pozzo, and on the 7th December Marshal Ney was shot in the walk leading to the Observatoire.

After these events everything settled down into its usual course, and in our little town, far removed from public news, isolated in the heart of a forest, one might readily believe that nothing had been changed; one or two folk had had nightmare, like Mocquet, and that was all.

We were among the number. It will be well understood that Napoleon's return and the events of the Hundred Days had made M. Deviolaine forget all about M. Creton's prosecution, and there was no longer any talk about either the fifty francs compensation or about the confiscation of my gun.

Nevertheless, my gun had been almost as completely confiscated as though it had fallen into the hands of the Inspector of the Forest. It had been hidden. Not for fear the Prussians would seize it as a weapon of war, but lest they should make off with it because of its beauty. It became rusty during its concealment, so I had to take it to my good friend Montagnon to be put right again.

When there, as can be imagined, it was always at my disposition.

Among the people who frequented our house was a M. Picot, a solicitor--brother of Picot de Noue and of Picot de l'Épée, a great hunter before the Lord, and almost as much envied by me as a sportsman in the open country as M. Deviolaine was as a hunter in the forest. His brother was very proud of his preserves, although he did not shoot at all and his son shot but little, and as the farm ran to three or four thousand hectares, M. Picot, the solicitor, and his pointer, had the freedom of three or four of the best stocked preserves round Villers-Cotterets. So, although he was not considered one of the best shots in our parts, he made splendid bags, which filled me with envy when their bulging sides revealed what had happened as he passed by our house to "_return to his own fireside_," as he used to put it.

I made up my mind that it was not sufficient that M. Picot should be one of our friends, but that it was very necessary I should be one of his. When this resolution was well fixed in my mind, I began coaxing him.

How did I manage it? I can hardly say, for the man was not easy to seduce; I only know that after a month's wheedling M. Picot offered to take me shooting with him.

But he would not take me without my mother's consent, and there lay the difficulty!

I laid my request before her, M. Picot, be it understood, being present when I did so, and my poor mother turned quite pale.

"Oh, M. Picot!" she said to him, "when we have the examples of M. Denré and of your poor nephew Stanislas before our eyes, how can you have the heart to take him from me?"

"Good gracious! I am not taking him away from you," M. Picot replied. "I do not want to be accused of leading away a child under age: I wanted to give him a bit of pleasure; the boy is crazy after shooting, and you know whom he takes after in that respect.... If you do not want him to enjoy himself we will say no more about it."

Although I did not appreciate his meaning at first, his way of putting things was clever; for, though brief (a great virtue in a lawyer's phrases), it contained two irresistible arguments: "_You know whom he takes after in that respect_," and "_If you do not want him to enjoy himself we will say no more about it._"

Now I "took after" my father, and to tell my mother that I was like my father, that I had my father's voice, that I had my father's tastes, was a great inducement.

My dear good mother would have given her last farthing to give me pleasure, and to suggest that she did not wish to let me enjoy myself was a great stab to her, and an additional argument in my favour.

Even his peroration was studied. The "we will say no more about it" was said in a careless manner, as though his thoughts ran thus: "Goodness me, keep your young rascal to yourself, if you wish; it was only out of good-nature I wanted to take him. And if you do not care for me to assist in his education as a sportsman, so much the less trouble for me; _we will say no more about it._"

And, to my intense amazement, instead of accepting the "_we will say no more about it_" as final, my mother sighed, and after a moment's thinking she began:

"Ah well! I know true enough that if he does not go shooting with you, he will go shooting with someone else, or even all alone. Taking everything into consideration, then, I would much rather confide him to you, for you are cautious."

M. Picot winked at me out of the corner of one eye, as though to say, "Be quick, snatch this tardy consent as though it were whole-hearted."

I understood; I flung my arms round my mother's neck, kissing and hugging her as I thanked her.

"Ah, my dear Madame Dumas," said M. Picot, "let me tell you, to overcome all scruples, that he knows a gun like a gunmaker! What the deuce do you imagine will happen to him?--it is far more likely that I run the risk of his putting an ounce of lead in me."

"Oh! is that likely?" said my mother.

"Yes, but I am not really afraid. I will put him a long distance off me, so don't be anxious."

"And you will load his gun for him?"

"I will load his gun for him--yes."

"Then, since you wish it!"

My poor mother might more truthfully have said, "Since he wishes it!"

I have had many desires fulfilled, many vanities gratified, many ambitions attained or even exceeded, but none of these desires, vanities, realised ambitions ever gave me such joy as those few words of my mother--"Then, since you wish it!"

M. Picot did not keep me long in suspense: he arranged a shooting party for the following Sunday.

True, it was only to shoot larks, but still it was shooting.

Directly permission was granted, I ran over to Montagnon to impart my good news to him and to ask him for my gun; then I took it to pieces and cleaned it, although it was clean and well oiled; finally, I took it to my room at night and put it by my bed.

It may be guessed that I did not close my eyes that night; from time to time I stretched out my hand, to make sure that my beloved gun was still there. Never was adored mistress more caressed than that lifeless block of wood and iron and steel.

Unfortunately it was the month of November, and day was long in coming; but, if the day looked in upon me as it broke, it found me an earlier riser than itself, and already dressed in my shooting costume.

The effect produced was a singular combination of elegance and shabbiness.

The gun was everything that could be desired; fit for a duchess, with its gilt and fluted barrel, its touchhole and two pans of platinum, its velvety smooth butt-end.

My powder horn for priming it was an Arabian one which my father had brought back from Egypt; it was made of a small elephant tusk, damascened with gold, and seemed, like everything Oriental, as though the sun had left its mark upon it.

My powder horn for loading from was of horn, as transparent as glass, and mounted in silver. The charge, or rather the vessel that held the charge, was in the shape of a fox lying down, carved as though Barye had done it: it had belonged to the Princess Pauline. All the rest of my accoutrement was extremely modest, and contrasted ill with these three luxurious objects.

But as I did not yet know what love was, so neither did I know the meaning of art.

I slept in the same room as my mother; she got up the same time I did, feeling both glad and sorrowful at the same time: happy in my gladness, sad at this first escape, so to speak, from her maternal care.

I ran to M. Picot's house; he was not up; I made such a fine racket that I awakened him.

"Oh! oh!" he said, as he got into his corduroy breeches and fine leather gaiters, "you here already, lad?"

"It is late, Monsieur Picot; it is seven o'clock."

"Yes, but it has been snowing, and the larks will not rise before noon."

"What! must we wait till noon?" I cried.

"Well, not quite so long as that; but we will have breakfast first."

"What for?"

"Why, to eat, child," M. Picot replied. "I am far too old a sportsman to set out on an empty stomach; it is well enough at your age."

And when I came to consider matters I was not very averse to breakfasting, especially at M. Picot's, where they did things well.

So we had breakfast, M. Picot sipping his coffee from the first to the last drop, like a true Sybarite of the eighteenth century.

Voltaire had made this drink very fashionable by poisoning himself with it regularly three times a day.

My eyes never left the window; I saw clearly that it was the overcast weather that caused M. Picot to linger.

Suddenly I uttered a cry of joy: a ray of sunshine began to pierce through the grey and snowy atmosphere.

"Oh! look, look!" I cried, "there's the sun!"

And at that moment I felt as devout as a Brahmin.

"Come, let us start," said M. Picot.

And we set off; the servant following us carrying the lure and the parcel of twine.

M. Picot went through his garden, which led into a poor quarter of the town called les _Buttes_, or rather les _Huttes_, for it was composed rather of huts than of houses.

I was terribly disappointed. I had hoped we should go through the town, and I should be seen in all my glory by my fellow-citizens.

We set up our establishment on the highest point on the plain. We set our lure, and we waited for results.