Chapter 9

I can recall with what splendour the sun rose next morning above a cornfield--it was the morning of the battle of Ligny. Zébédé and one or two comrades whom I had known in 1813 came and chattered while we lit our fires. We could see the Prussians before us, posting themselves behind hedges and walls, and preparing to defend the villages, and all the time we were kept roasting in the corn, waiting for the signal to attack. The emperor arrived, and held a short conference with the superior officers, and I saw him at close quarters before he rode off again to the village of Fleurus, already vacated by the Prussians.

And still we waited, though we knew the attack on St. Amand had begun.

At last came our turn to advance on Ligny. "Forward! Forward!" cried the officers. "Vive l'Empereur!" we shouted. The Prussian bullets whizzed like hail upon us, and then we could see or hear nothing till we were in the village.

No quarter was given that day; we fought in houses and gardens, in barns and lanes, with muskets and bayonets. Those who fell were lost. At one time fifteen of us were in possession of a barn, and the Prussians, for a time outnumbering us, drove us up a ladder. They fired up at our floor, and finally, when it seemed we were lost, and were all to be massacred we heard the shout of "Vive l'Empereur!" and the Prussians fled. Out of that fifteen only six were left alive, but Zébédé and Buche were among the survivors.

The battle still raged in the village streets, dead and dying were everywhere. Towards nightfall it was plain we were the victors; Ligny and St. Amand were in our hands, and the Prussians had moved away. On the plateau behind Ligny, where our cavalry had been at work, the slaughter had been terrible.

The dozen or so remaining of our company rested for a few hours that night in the ruins of a farmhouse, and next day came the roll-call of our battalion, and the sending off of the wounded. More than 360 of our men, including Commandant Gémeau and Captain Vidal, were disabled, and we were busy all day over the wounded.

It was wet and muddy that evening, and we were hungry and dispirited when we reached Quatre Bras, about eight o'clock. We were not allowed to halt here, but marched on to a village called Jemappes, and at midnight we settled down in a furrow to wait for morning.

The red coats of the English were visible before us when we awoke next morning; behind their lines was the village of Mont St. Jean, and they had also the farmhouses of La Haie-Sainte and Hougomont. At six o'clock I looked at their position, with Zébédé, Captain Florentin, and Buche, and it seemed to me it was a difficult task before us. It was Sunday, and I could hear the bells of villages, recalling Phalsbourg. But in a very little while we heard no more bells, for at half-past eight our battalion was on its way to the high road in front, and the battle of Waterloo had begun.

_IV.--The Hour of Disaster_

I have often heard veterans describe the order of battle given by the emperor. But all I remember of that terrible day is that we marched out with the bands playing, that we got to close quarters with the English, were repulsed, and were assisted by regiments of cuirassiers, that we carried La Haie-Sainte with terrible slaughter at Ney's command. Hougomont we could not carry. When we thought we were winning, the news was spread that Blücher, with 60,000 men, was advancing on our flank, and that unless Grouchy, with his 30,000, arrived in time to reinforce us the day might be lost.

All the world knows now that Grouchy did not arrive, that we threw ourselves again and again upon the English squares, and that at last, when regiment after regiment had tried in vain to break the enemy's line, the Old Guard were called up by the emperor. It was the last chance of retrieving the day, the grand stroke--and it failed.

The four battalions of the Guards, reduced from 3,000 to 1,200 men, were assailed by so fierce a fire that they were compelled to retire. They retired slowly, defending themselves with muskets and bayonets, but with their retirement, and the approach of night, the battle ended for us in the confusion of a rout. It was like a flood. We were surrounded on all sides when Blücher arrived. The Old Guard formed a square for the emperor and his officers, and the rest of us simply straggled away, back to France. The most awful thing of all was the beating of the drum of the Old Guard in that hour of disaster. It was like a fire-bell, the last appeal of a burning nation.

Buche was by my side in the retreat. Several times the Prussians attacked us. We heard that the emperor had departed for Paris, and we struggled on, only hoping to escape with our lives. At Charleroi the inhabitants shut the city gates in our face, and Buche shared in the general rage, and proposed to destroy the town. But I thought we had had enough massacres, and that it was not right we should be killing our own countrymen, and I persuaded Buche to come on with me.

In a few days we felt ourselves safe from pursuing Prussians, and at the village of Bouvigny I wrote a letter to Catherine, telling her I was safe. In this village some officers of our regiment, the 6th of the Line, found us, and we had to rejoin. Presently we saw all that was left of Grouchy's army corps in retreat, and a day or two later we heard of the emperor's abdication. On July 1, we reached Paris, and outside the city, near the village of Issy, we once more fell in with the Prussians; for two days we fought them with fury, and then some generals announced that peace had been made.

We believed that this truce was to give the enemy time to leave the country, and that otherwise France would rise, as it rose in '92, and drive them out.

Unhappily, we soon learnt that the Prussians and English were to occupy Paris, and that the remains of the French army were to be kept beyond the Loire. We all felt that we had been betrayed, and the old officers, pale with anger, wept in their misery. Paris in the hands of the Prussians! Besides, were we to go to the other side of the Loire at the command of Blücher?

Desertions began that very day, and I said to Buche, "Let us return to Phalsbourg and Harberg, and take up our work, and live like honest men." About fifty of us from Alsace-Lorraine were in the battalion, and we set off together on the road to Strasbourg.

On July 8 we heard that Louis XVIII. was to come back, and already the white banner of the Bourbons was being displayed in the villages.

In some places there were rascals who called us Buonapartists, and gendarmes who took us to the town hall and made us shout "Vive le Roi!" Buche and some of the old soldiers hated this; but what did it matter who was king, and what these fools wanted us to shout?

Our little company got smaller and smaller as men halted in their own villages, and when, on July 16, we reached Phalsbourg, Buche and I were alone.

Buche went on to break the news of my return, but I could not wait, and ran after him.

I heard people saying, "There's Joseph, Bertha," and in a moment I was in the house, and in Catherine's arms. Then I embraced M. Goulden, and an hour later Aunt Grédel arrived.

Jean Buche would not stay and dine with us, but hurried home to Harberg. I have often seen him since; and Zébédé, too, who remained in the army.

Many insulting things were said about us by the Pinacles, but I had happiness in my family circle, especially when Catherine presented me with a little Joseph.

I am an old man now, but M. Goulden always said the principles of freedom and liberty would triumph, and I have lived long enough to see his words come true.

* * * * *

OCTAVE FEUILLET

Romance of a Poor Young Man

Octave Feuillet, born at Saint Lô, in France, on August 11, 1821, was the son of a Norman gentleman who regarded literature as an ignoble profession. When Octave ran away to Paris in order to pursue a literary career, his father refused to help him, and for some years the young writer had a very hard struggle. But on taking to novel-writing, Feuillet quickly acquired fame and fortune. His "Romance of a Poor Young Man" ("Le Roman d'un Jeune Homme Pauvre"), which appeared in 1858, made him the most popular author of the day. Standing midway between the novelists of the romantic school and the writers of the realistic movement, he combined a sense of the poetry of life with a gift for analysing the finer shades of feeling. The plot of the "Romance of a Poor Young Man" is certainly extraordinary; but in the present case some allowance must be made for the fact that the hero is induced to accept the humble position in which he finds himself by his old family lawyer, who secretly designs to marry him to the daughter of his new employers. A scheme of this sort would not Strike a French reader as improbable, for marriage in France is often more a business arrangement than a love affair. Feuillet spent the latter part of his life in retirement, and died on December 29, 1890.

_I.--A Nobleman in Difficulties_

Here I am, then, in the situation that Lawyer Laubépin obtained for me. I am alone at last, thank goodness, sitting in a gloomy room in this old Breton castle, in which the former steward to the Laroque family used to live. My position is certainly very strange, but as Laubépin was discreet, and did not tell his clients that he was sending them a new steward in the person of the young Marquis of Champcey, perhaps I shall not find my post very difficult. I was afraid that the Laroques were a family of the vulgarly rich sort, like the dreadful persons who have bought my father's lands. Laroque is a picturesque figure in his old age, and though his widowed daughter-in-law is rather more commonplace, his grand-daughter, Marguerite Laroque, is a nobly beautiful girl.

If it were not for my accursed pride, I should now feel happier than I have ever felt since that day of disaster, misery, and shame when Laubépin told me that my poor dead father had lost his fortune in speculations, and left nothing but his title and his debts. Well, I have paid the debts, and if I can now only earn enough money to keep my little sister Hélène at school, I shall not grumble at my lot. I feel the loss of my friends, it is true. There is not a soul I can confide in, and I must find some outlet for the thoughts and feelings that oppress me; so I will keep this diary.

It will be at least a silent confidant, and perhaps when I am older I shall be able to read with a certain pleasurable interest its record of my singular adventures. No other man in France, on May 1, 1857, can have been transformed so suddenly, as by the wand of a witch, from a powerful and wealthy young nobleman of ancient lineage into a humble and despised domestic servant. Perhaps a good fairy will appear and restore me to my proper shape; but I wish she had appeared at dinner this evening. There were twenty guests, and it was the first time since the change of my fortunes that I took part in a society affair. Nobody spoke to me, except the pretty little governess of the family, Mlle. Hélouin; and we were placed at the end of the table. The position of honour was given to a young and brilliant nobleman, M. de Bévallan, whose estate joined that of the Laroque family. I gathered from Mlle. Hélouin that it was his ambition to unite the two estates by marrying Mlle. Marguerite Laroque. I was, therefore, surprised when the lovely heiress led her grandfather into the room when everybody was seated, placed him in a chair by Bévallan, and came and sat by my side.

"She can't," I thought to myself, "be much in love with her wooer," and I began to study her with a certain curiosity. Her fine, clear-cut features and large dark eyes attracted me; and by way of opening the conversation I spoke of the wildly beautiful scenery through which I had passed on my way to the castle. It was a bad beginning.

"I see," she said, with a singular expression of irony, "that you are a poet. You must talk about the forests and moorlands with Mlle. Hélouin, who also adores these things. For my part I do not love them."

"What is it, then, that you really love?" I said.

She gave me a supercilious look and said, in a hard voice, "Nothing, sir."

I must confess I was hurt. I could not see that I had done anything to lay myself open to so harsh an answer. No doubt I was only a servant. But why had she come and sat beside me if she did not want to talk? I was glad when the dinner was over and we went into the drawing-room. Madame Laroque, the widowed mother of Marguerite, began to ask M. Bévallan about the new opera in Paris; he was unable to reply, so, as I had seen the work in Italy before it was produced in France, I gave her a description of it. I am afraid I forgot myself with Madame Laroque--a fine-looking, cultivated woman of forty years of age. Flattered by the way in which she treated me entirely as her equal, I insensibly glided from theatrical topics to fashionable gossip, and just stopped in time in an anecdote about my tour in Russia. A few more words and she would have learnt that her humble steward, Maxime Odiot--as I am now called-- was a man with very aristocratic connections.

In order to hide my embarrassment, I moved towards the table where some of the guests were playing whist. This led to my committing a blunder which, I fear, may make my position a difficult one. Among the whist- players was a Mlle. de Porhoet-Gael, eighty-eight years of age and full of strange crotchets. The last descendant of the noblest of Breton families, she lived, so Madame Laroque told me, on an income of forty pounds a year, her fortune having been spent in vainly fighting for the succession to a great estate in Spain. She was talking about it to her partner when I came up.

"The estate belongs to me," she was saying. "My father told me so a hundred times, and the persons who are trying to take it from me have no more connection with my family than this handsome young gentleman has."

And she designated me with a look and a movement of her head. No doubt she did not mean to imply that because I was a steward I was of mean birth; but I was stung by her remark, and forgetting myself, I replied rather sharply, "You are mistaken, madam, in thinking that I am unrelated to your family."

"You will have to prove that to me, young man."

Confused and ashamed, I withdrew into the corner and tried to talk to Mlle. Hélouin about poetry and art, but at last, upset and distracted, I arose and walked out of the room. Mlle. de Porhoet followed me.

"Monsieur Odiot," she said, "would you mind seeing me home? My servant has not arrived, and I am growing too feeble now to walk without help."

Naturally, I went with her.

"What did you mean," she said, as we walked on together, "by claiming to be a relation of mine?"

"I hope," I replied very humbly, "that you will pardon a jest that--"

"A jest!" she interrupted. "Is a matter touching my honour a jest? I see; a remark which would be an insult if addressed to a man becomes only a jest when it is levelled at an old, unprotected woman."

After that, nothing was left to me, as a man of honour, but to entrust her with my secret. There had been several marriages between our families, and after listening with great interest to the story of my troubles, she became wonderfully kind in her manner to me.

"You must come and see me to-morrow, cousin," she said, when we parted. "My law-suit is going very badly and I should like you to go through all my papers, and see if you can discover any new documents in support of my claim. Do not despair, my dear, over your own misfortunes. I think I shall be able to help you."

_II.--Love and Jealousy_

I am afraid I lack the industry necessary for keeping a diary. It is now two months since I wrote the last entry. If I had made every night a brief note of the events of the day, I should now have a better view of my position. Has Mlle. de Porhoet betrayed my secret? There has certainly been a curious change in my relations with the Laroques. I fancy it began on the day when Marguerite and I met at last on an equal footing at Mlle. de Porhoet's house. The document which I had just then found may not be as important as we thought, but our common joy in what we considered was a discovery of tremendous value brought us closer together.

But I cannot understand Marguerite. Sometimes she still goes out of her way to be insulting towards me, and sometimes she treats me with a sweet frankness which has something sisterly in it. One day, for instance, she came to my window and asked me if I would go for a walk with her. "Bring your sketch-book, Monsieur Odiot," she called out gaily, "and I will take you to Merlin's Tomb in the Enchanted Valley."

As a matter of fact, the woods around the castle of the Laroques were the remains of the famous forest of Broceliande, and I had always been promising myself a long ramble through this region of romance, but I had never found time to explore it. I was now glad I had waited, for Marguerite was a charming guide. Never had I seen her so light-hearted. When we reached a great block of stone in the depth of the wood, under which the wizard Merlin is said to be imprisoned by Vivien, Marguerite made herself a garland of oak-leaves, and standing like a lovely priestess clad all in white against the Druidic monument, she asked me to make a sketch of her. With what joy did I paint the poetic vision before me! I think she was pleased with the drawing, but on our way back to the castle a foolish word of mine brought our friendship to an end. We came to a picturesque little lake, at the end of which was a waterfall, overgrown with brambles. In order to show what a good swimmer her dog was, Marguerite threw something in the current and told him to fetch it, but he got carried over the waterfall and caught in the whirlpool below.

"Come away! He is drowning--come away! I can't bear to see it!" cried Marguerite, seizing me by the arm. "No, do not attempt to save him. The pool is very dangerous."

I am a good swimmer, however, and with a little trouble I managed to rescue the dog.

"What madness!" she murmured. "You might have been drowned, and just for a dog!"

"It was yours," I answered in a low voice.

Her manner at once changed.

"You had better run home, Monsieur Odiot," she said very coldly, "or you will get a chill. Do not wait for me."

So I returned alone, and for some days Marguerite never spoke a word to me. What was still worse, M. Bévallan appeared at the castle, and she went for walks with him, leaving me in the company of Mlle. Hélouin. I am afraid that I became very friendly with the pretty governess. Nothing, however, that I ever said to her, or that she said to me, prepared me for the strange scene that happened to-night. As I was walking along the terrace, she came up and took my arm, and said, "Are you really my friend, Maxime?"

"Yes," I said.

"Then tell me the truth," she exclaimed. "Do you love me, or do you love Mademoiselle Marguerite?"

"Why do you bring in her name?" I said.

"Ah, you love her!" she cried fiercely; "or, rather, you love her fortune. But you shall never have it, Monsieur de Champcey. I know why you came here under a false name, and so shall she."

With a movement of anger she departed. I cannot continue here under suspicion of being a fortune-hunter, so I have written to Laubépin to obtain another situation for me.

_III.--Two on a Tower_

It is all over. Was it because she still only half believed the slanders spread against me that Marguerite again asked me to go for a walk with her? Oh, what an unfortunate wretch I am! We rode through the forest together to one of the most magnificent monuments in Brittany, the Castle of Elven. Finding the door unlocked, we tethered our horses in the deserted courtyard, and climbed up the narrow, winding staircase to the battlements. The sea of autumnal foliage below was bathed in the light of the setting sun, and for a long time we sat side by side in silence, gazing at the infinite distances.

"Come!" she said at last, in a low whisper, as the light died out of the sky. "It is finished!"

But on descending the dark staircase we found that the door of the keep was locked. No doubt the shepherd boy who looked after the castle had come and shut up the place while we were sitting, watching the sunset.

"Monsieur de Champcey," she said, in a cold, hard voice, "were there any scoundrels in your family before you?"

"Marguerite!" I cried.

"You paid that boy to lock us in," she exclaimed. "You think you will force me to marry you by compromising me in this manner. Do you think you will win my hand--and, what is more important to you still, my wretched wealth--by this trick? Rather than marry a scoundrel like you, I will shut myself up in a convent!"

Carried away by my feelings, I seized her two hands, and said, "Now listen, Marguerite. I love you, it is true. Never did man love more devotedly, yes, and more disinterestedly, than I do. But I swear that if I get out of this place alive I will never marry you until you are as poor as I am, or I as rich as you are. If you love me, as I think you do, fall on your knees and pray, for unless a miracle happens you will never see me again alive."

But a miracle did happen. I threw myself out of the window, and fell upon a branch of an oak-tree. It bent beneath my weight, and then broke; but it came so near the earth before breaking that if my left arm had not struck against the masonry I should have escaped uninjured. As it was, my arm was smashed, and I swooned away with the pain. When I came to, Marguerite was leaning out of the window, calling, "Maxime, speak to me! For the love of heaven, speak to me, and say you pardon me!"

I arose, saying, "I am not hurt. If you will only wait another hour, I will go home and get some one to let you out. Believe me, I will save your honour as I have saved my own."

Binding up my arm, I got on my horse, and galloped back to Laroque Castle. On the way I met Bévallan.

"Have you seen Mlle. Marguerite?" he said. "We are afraid she has got lost."

"I met her this afternoon," I replied. "She told me she was going for a ride to Elven Castle."

He rode off in the direction from which I had come, and when I returned from the doctor with my broken arm set and bandaged, Marguerite and Bévallan entered.

Hearing that I had had an accident, Madame Laroque came up late to-night to see me. Old Laroque has had a stroke of paralysis, she tells me, and she wishes to get the marriage contract between her daughter and Bévallan signed to-morrow. Laubépin is bringing the document.

_IV.---A Test Case_

I don't know why I take the trouble to go on with this diary, but having begun it I may as well finish it. Laubépin wanted me to go into the drawing-room to witness the signing of the marriage contract, but happily I was too ill to leave my bed; not only was my arm very painful, but I was suffering from the shock of the fall. What an hour of misery I passed before Mlle. de Porhoet-Gael appeared with the news of what had happened! Her sweet, kind old eyes were bright with joy.

"It is all over," she said. "Bévallan has gone, and young Hélouin has also been turned out of the house."

I started up with surprise.

"Yes," she continued, with a smile, "the contract has not been signed. Our friend Laubépin drew it up in such a way that the husband was not able to touch a penny of the wife's money. M. Bévallan objected to this; while he and his lawyer were arguing the matter with Laubépin, Marguerite rose up.

"'Throw the contract in the fire,' she said, 'and, mother, give this gentleman back the presents he sent to me.'

"Laubépin threw the deed in the flames, and Marguerite and her mother walked out of the room.