Kitabı oku: «The Last Vendée», sayfa 36

XVII.
AFTER THE FIGHT

Gaspard, having rejoined his companions, thanked them for their services, told them of the state of things, and dismissed them for better times, – advising them to disperse at once, and thus escape all pursuit by the soldiers. Then he returned to Petit-Pierre, whom he found in the same place, and around her the Marquis de Souday, Bertha, and a few Vendéans who would not think of their own safety till certain of hers.

"Well," asked Petit-Pierre when Gaspard returned to her alone, "have they gone?"

"Yes; they could do no more than they have done."

"Poor souls! what troubles await them!" said Petit-Pierre. "Why has God refused me the consolation of pressing them to my heart? But I should never have had the strength; they do right to leave me without farewell. Twice to suffer thus in life is too much agony. Those days at Cherbourg! – I hoped I might never see their like again."

"Now," said Gaspard, "we must think of your safety."

"Oh, never mind me personally," replied Petit-Pierre; "my sole regret is that the balls did not choose to come my way. My death would not have given you the victory, that is true; but at least the struggle would have been glorious. And now what are we to do?"

"Wait for better days. You have proved to the French people that a valiant heart is beating in your bosom. Courage is the principal virtue they demand of their rulers; they will remember your action, never fear."

"God wills it!" said Petit-Pierre, rising and leaning on Gaspard's arm, who led her from the hilltop into the road across the plain. The government troops, who did not know the country, were forced to keep to the main roads.

Gaspard guided the little company, which ran no risk in the open country, except from scouts-thanks to the knowledge Maître Jacques possessed of paths that were almost impassable; they reached the neighborhood of the Jacquet mill without so much as seeing a tricolor cockade.

As they went along, Bertha approached her father and asked him whether in the midst of the mêlée he had seen or heard of Baron Michel; but the old gentleman, horrified at the issue of the insurrection prepared with so much care and so quickly stifled, was in the worst of humors, and answered gruffly that for the last two days no one knew what had become of the Baron de la Logerie; probably he was frightened, and had basely renounced the glory he might have won and the alliance which would have been the reward of his glory.

This answer filled Bertha with consternation. Useless, however, to say that she did not believe one word of what her father said; but her heart trembled at an idea which alone seemed to her probable, – namely, that Michel had been killed, or at any rate grievously wounded. She resolved to make inquiries of every one until she discovered something as to the fate of the man she loved. She first questioned all the Vendéans. None of them had seen Michel; but some, impelled by the old hatred against his father, expressed themselves about the son in terms that were not less vehement than those of the marquis himself.

Bertha grew frantic with distress; nothing short of palpable, visible, undeniable proof could have forced her to admit that she had made a choice unworthy of her, and, though all appearances were against Michel, her love, becoming more ardent, more impetuous under the pressure of such accusations, gave her strength to regard them as calumnies. A few moments earlier her heart was torn, her brain maddened under the idea that Michel had met his death in the struggle; and now that glorious death had become a hope, a consolation to her grief. She was frantic to acquire the cruel certainty, and even thought of returning to Chêne, visiting the battlefield, in search of her lover's body, as Edith sought that of Harold; she even dreamed of avenging him on his murderers after vindicating his memory from her father's aspersions. The girl was reflecting on the pretext she could best employ to remain behind the rest and return to Chêne, when Aubin Courte-Joie and Trigaud, the rear-guard of the company, came up and were about to pass her. She breathed more freely; they, no doubt, could throw some light upon the matter.

"You, my brave friends," she said, "can you give me news of Monsieur de la Logerie?"

"Yes, indeed, my dear young lady," replied Courte-Joie.

"Ah!" cried Bertha, with the eagerness of hope, "he has not left the division as they say he has, has he?"

"He has left it," replied Courte-Joie.

"When?"

"The evening before the fight at Maisdon."

"Good God!" cried Bertha, in a tone of anguish. "Are you sure?"

"Quite sure. I saw him meet Jean Oullier at the Croix-Philippe; and we walked a little way together."

"With Jean Oullier!" cried Bertha. "Oh! then I am satisfied; Jean Oullier was not deserting. If Michel is with Jean Oullier he has done nothing cowardly or dishonorable."

Suddenly a terrible thought came into her mind. Why this sudden interest on Jean Oullier's part for the young man? Why had Michel followed Jean Oullier rather than the marquis? These questions, which the young girl put to herself, filled her heart with sinister forebodings.

"And you say you saw the two on their way to Clisson?" she said to Courte-Joie.

"With my own eyes."

"Do you know what is going on at Clisson?"

"It is too far from here to have got the details as yet," replied Courte-Joie; "but a gars from Sainte-Lumine overtook us just now and said that a devilish firing had been going on since ten o'clock in the morning over against Sèvre."

Bertha did not answer; her ideas had taken another course. She saw Michel led to his death by Jean Oullier's hatred; she fancied the poor lad wounded, panting, abandoned, lying helpless on some lonely and bloody moor, calling on her to save him.

"Do you know any one who could guide me to Jean Oullier?" she asked Courte-Joie.

"To-day?"

"Now, this instant."

"The roads are covered with the red-breeches."

"The wood-paths are not."

"But it is almost night."

"We shall be all the safer. Find me a guide; if not, I shall start alone."

The two men looked at each other.

"No one shall guide you but me," said Aubin Courte-Joie. "Do I not owe your family a debt of gratitude? Besides, Mademoiselle Bertha, you did me, no later than to-day, a service I shall never forget, – in knocking up the bayonet of that National guard who was going to split me."

"Very good; then drop behind and wait for me here in this wheat-field," said Bertha. "I shall be back in fifteen minutes."

Courte-Joie and Trigaud lay down among the wheat ears, and Bertha, hastening her steps, rejoined Petit-Pierre and the Vendéans just as they were about to enter the mill. She went rapidly up to the little room she occupied with her sister, and hurriedly changed her clothes, which were covered with blood, for the dress of a peasant-woman. Coming down, she found Mary busy among the wounded, and told her, without explaining her plan, not to feel uneasy if she did not see her again till the next day. She then returned to the wheat-field.

Reserved as she was in what she said to her sister, her face was so convulsed and agitated that Mary read upon it plainly the thoughts that filled her soul; she knew of Michel's disappearance, and she did not doubt that Bertha's sudden departure was caused by it. After the scene of the previous evening Mary dared not to question her sister; but a new anguish was added to those which already rent her heart, and when she was called to mount and attend Petit-Pierre in search of another refuge, she knelt down and prayed to God that her sacrifice might not be useless, and that it would please Him to protect both the life and honor of Bertha's affianced husband.

XVIII.
THE CHÂTEAU DE LA PÉNISSIÈRE

While the Vendéans were making their useless but not inglorious fight at Chêne, forty-two of their number were sustaining a struggle at Pénissière de la Cour, of which the memory survives in history.

These forty-two royalists, who were part of the Clisson division, left that town intending to march to the village of Cugan, and there disarm the National Guard. A frightful storm forced them to find shelter in the château de la Pénissière, where a battalion of the 29th regiment of the line, informed of their movements, lost no time in besieging them.

La Pénissière is an ancient building, with a single story between the ground-floor and garret. It has fifteen irregularly shaped windows. The chapel backs against one corner of the château. Beyond it, joining the valley, are meadow-lands divided by evergreen hedges, which heavy rains sometimes transform into a lake. A battlemented wall, built by the Vendéans, surrounded the building.

The commanding officer of the battalion of the line had no sooner reconnoitred the situation than he ordered an immediate attack. After a short defence the exterior wall was abandoned, and the Vendéans retreated to the château, within which they barricaded themselves. Each man took his place on the ground-floor, and on the main-floor; and on both floors a bugler was stationed, who never ceased to sound his instrument throughout the combat, which began with rapid volleys from the windows, so well directed and so vigorous as to conceal the small number of the besieged.

Picked men and the best shots were chosen to fire; they discharged, almost without stopping, the heavy blunderbusses which their comrades reloaded and handed back to them. Each blunderbuss carried a dozen balls. The Vendéans fired five or six at once; the effect was that of a discharge of grape-shot. Twice the regular troops attempted an assault; they came within twenty paces of the château, but were forced to retreat.

The commander ordered a third attack, and while it was preparing, four men, assisted by a mason, approached the château by a gable-end, which had no outlook on the garden, and was therefore undefended. Once at the foot of the wall, the soldiers raised a ladder, and reaching the roof uncovered it, flung down into the garret inflammable substances, to which they set fire, and then retreated. Immediately a column of smoke burst from the roof, through which the flames soon forced their way.

The soldiers, uttering loud cries, again marched eagerly to the little citadel, which seemed to be flying a flag of flame. The besieged had discovered the conflagration, but there was no time to extinguish it; besides, the flames were pouring upward, and they trusted that after destroying the roof the fire might burn out of itself. Accordingly they replied to the shouts of their assailants with a terrible fusillade, – the bugles never ceasing for a single instant to sound their joyous and warlike notes.

The Whites could hear the Blues saying to each other: "They are not men, they are devils!" and this military praise inspired them with fresh ardor.

Nevertheless, a reinforcement of fifty men having reached the besiegers, the commanding officers ordered the drummers to beat the charge; and the soldiers, emulous of each other, rushed for the fourth time upon the château. This time they reached the doors, which the sappers began to batter in. The Vendéan leaders ordered their men on the ground-floor up to the first floor; the men obeyed; and while one half of the besieged continued the firing, the other half pulled up the boards and broke through the ceilings, so that when the soldiers entered the building they were greeted with a volley at close quarters, poured down upon them from above through the rafters. Again, and for the fourth time, they were forced to retreat.

The commander of the battalion then ordered his men to do on the ground-floor what they had done in the attic. Fascines of gorse and dried fagots were thrown through the windows into the rooms of the lower floor; lighted torches were flung after them, and in a few moments the Vendéans were inclosed in fire above and below them. And still they fought. The volumes of smoke which issued from the window were striped, every second or two, with the scarlet flame of the blunderbusses; but the firing now became the vengeance of despair rather than an effort of defence. It seemed impossible for the little garrison to escape death.

The place was no longer tenable; beams and joists were on fire and were cracking beneath the feet of the Vendéans; tongues of flame began to dart here and there through the floor; at any moment the roof might fall in and crush them from above, or the floor give way and precipitate them into a gulf of flame. The smoke was suffocating.

The Vendéan leaders took a desperate resolution. They determined to make a sortie; but to give it any chance of success, the firing would have to be kept up to protect the movement. The leaders asked if any would volunteer to sacrifice themselves for the safety of their comrades.

Eight men stepped forward.

The troop was then divided into two squads. Thirty-three men and a bugler were to gain, if possible, the farther extremity of the park, which was closed by a hedge only; the eight others, among them the second bugler, were left to protect the attempt.

In consequence of these arrangements, and while those who volunteered to remain were running from window to window and keeping up a vigorous fire, the others broke through the wall on the opposite side to where the soldiers were attacking, issued in good order with the bugler at their head, and made their way at a quick step toward the end of the park where the hedge stood. The soldiers fired upon them and rushed to intercept them. The Vendéans fired back, knocked over those who opposed them, escaped through the hedges, leaving five of their number dead, and scattered over the meadows, which were then under water. The bugler, who received three wounds, never ceased to sound his bugle.

As for the men who remained in the château, they still held out. Each time that the soldiers attempted to approach, a volley issued from the brazier and cut a swathe through their ranks. This lasted for half an hour. The bugle of the besieged never ceased to sound through the rattling of the volleys, the crackling of the flames, the rumbling of the falling timbers, like a sublime defiance hurled by these men at Death standing before them.

At last, an awful crash was heard; clouds of smoke and sparks rose high in air; the bugle was hushed, the firing ceased. The flooring had fallen in, and the little garrison were doubtless swallowed up in the burning gulf beneath them-unless a miracle had happened.

Such was the opinion of the soldiers, who, after watching the ruins for some moments, and hearing no cry or moan that betrayed the presence of a living Vendéan, abandoned the furnace which was burning up the bodies of both friends and enemies; so that nothing remained on the scene of the struggle, lately so turbulent and noisy, but the red and smoking flames dying down in silence, and a few dead bodies lighted by the last glare of the conflagration.

Thus the scene remained for several hours of the night. But about one o'clock a man of more than ordinary height, gliding beside the hedges, or crawling when obliged to cross a path, inspected cautiously the surroundings of the château. Seeing nothing that warranted distrust, he made the round of the devastated building, examining attentively all the bodies he found; after which he disappeared among the shadows. Presently, however, he returned, carrying a man upon his back and accompanied by a woman.

These men and this woman, as our readers are of course aware, were Bertha, Courte-Joie, and Trigaud.

Bertha was pale; her firmness and her habitual resolution had given way to a sort of restless bewilderment. From time to time she hurried before her guides, and Courte-Joie was obliged to recall her to prudence. When the three debouched from the wood into the meadow lately occupied by the soldiers, and saw in front of them the fifteen openings which stood out, red and gaping, from the blackened wall, like so many vent-holes out of hell, the young girl's strength gave way; she fell upon her knees and cried out a name which her agony transformed into a sob. Then, rising like a man, she rushed to the burning ruins.

On her way she stumbled over something; that something was a dead body. With a horrible expression of anguish she stooped to look at the livid face, turning it toward her by the hair. Then, seeing other bodies scattered on the ground, she went wildly from one to another as if beside herself.

"Alas! mademoiselle," said Courte-Joie, "he is not here. To spare you this dreadful sight, I had already ordered Trigaud, who came here first, to look at those bodies. He has seen Monsieur de la Logerie two or three times, and idiot though he be, you can be sure he would have recognized him were he here among the dead."

"Yes, yes, you are right; and if he is anywhere-" cried Bertha, pointing to the ruins; and before the two men could stop her, she sprang upon the sill of a window on the ground-floor, and there, standing on the heated stone, she looked down into the gulf of fire still belching at her feet, into which it almost seemed as though she were about to fling herself.

At a sign from Courte-Joie Trigaud seized the girl round her waist and placed her at some distance on the grass. Bertha made no resistance, for an idea had just crossed her brain which paralyzed her will.

"My God!" she cried, as if with a last expiring sigh of her former strength, "you denied me the power to defend him or to die with him; and you now deny me the consolation of giving burial to his body."

"But mademoiselle," said Courte-Joie, "if it is the will of the good God you must resign yourself to it."

"Never! never! never!" cried Bertha, with the excitement of despair.

"Alas!" said the cripple, "my heart is heavy too; for if Monsieur de la Logerie is down there, so is poor Jean Oullier."

Bertha groaned; in the selfishness of her grief she had never once thought of Jean Oullier. "It's true," continued Courte-Joie, "he dies as he wished to die-with arms in his hand; but that doesn't console me for thinking he is down there."

"Is there no hope?" cried Bertha. "Couldn't they have escaped in some way? Oh, let us look! let us search!"

Courte-Joie shook his head.

"I think it is impossible. After what that man of the thirty-three others who did escape told us, it does not seem possible. Five of those who made the sortie were killed."

"But Jean Oullier and Monsieur Michel were among those who remained," said Bertha.

"No doubt; and that is why I have so little hope. See," said Courte-Joie, pointing to the walls, which rose from their foundations to the eaves without a fissure, and then recalling Bertha's eyes by a gesture to the furnace of the ground-floor, where the roof and the floors were still burning; "see, there is nothing left but charred remains and walls that threaten ruin. Courage, mademoiselle, courage, for there is not one chance in a hundred that your lover and Jean Oullier have escaped that wreck."

"No, no!" cried Bertha, rising. "No! I say he cannot, he shall not be dead! If it needed a miracle to save him God has performed it. I will dig those embers, I will sound those walls. I will have him, dead or living! I say I will; do you hear me Courte-Joie?"

Seizing in her white hands a beam which protruded its charred end through a window, Bertha made superhuman efforts to draw it toward her, as if with that lever she could lift the enormous mass of material and discover what it concealed.

"Don't think of it!" cried Courte-Joie, desperately; "the work is beyond your strength, mademoiselle, and above mine and even Trigaud's. Besides, we haven't time for it; the soldiers will return by daybreak, and they mustn't find us here. Let us go, mademoiselle; for Heaven's sake let us go at once!"

"You may go if you like," said Bertha, in a tone that allowed of no objections. "I shall stay here."

"Stay here!" exclaimed Courte-Joie, horrified.

"I shall stay. If the soldiers return it will no doubt be for the purpose of searching the ruins. I will throw myself at the feet of their commander; my prayers, my tears will persuade them to let me share in the work, and I shall find him-oh, yes, I shall find him!"

"You are mistaken, mademoiselle; the red-breeches will know you as the daughter of the Marquis de Souday. If they don't shoot you, they'll take you prisoner. Come away! it will be daylight soon. Come, and if necessary," added Courte-Joie, alarmed at the girl's determination, "if necessary, I promise to bring you back to-morrow night."

"No, I tell you, no, – I will not go away!" answered the young girl. "Something tells me here" (and she struck her breast) "that he is calling me, he wants me."

Then, as Trigaud advanced, on a sign from Courte-Joie, apparently to seize her, she cried out, springing once more to the sill of the window: -

"Come a step nearer, and I will jump into that furnace."

Courte-Joie, perceiving that nothing could be obtained of Bertha by force, was about to resort to prayers, when Trigaud, who had remained standing with his arms stretched out in the position he had taken to seize the young girl, made a sign to his companion to be silent.

Courte-Joie, who knew by experience the extraordinary acuteness of the poor fool's senses, obeyed him. Trigaud listened.

"Are the soldiers returning?" asked Courte-Joie.

"No; it is not that," replied Trigaud.

Then, unbinding Courte-Joie, who was strapped as usual to his shoulders, he lay down flat on his stomach with his ear to the ground. Bertha, without coming down from her present post, turned her head to the mendicant and watched him. The movement he had made, the words he had said, caused her heart, she knew not why, to beat violently.

"Do you hear anything extraordinary?" asked Courte-Joie.

"Yes," replied Trigaud.

Then he made a sign to Courte-Joie and Bertha to listen likewise. Trigaud, as we know, was stingy of words.

Courte-Joie lay down with his ear to the earth. Bertha sprang down from the window, and it was but a second after she had laid her ear to the ground before she rose again, crying out: -

"They are alive! they are alive! Oh, my God, I thank thee!"

"Don't let us hope too soon," said Courte-Joie; "but I do hear a dull sound which seems to come from the depths of those ruins. But there were eight of them; we can't be sure the sound comes from the two we seek."

"Not sure, Aubin! My presentiment, which would not let me go away when you begged me, makes me sure of it. Our friends are there, I tell you; they found a shelter in some cellar where they are now imprisoned by the fall of these materials."

"It may be so," replied Courte-Joie.

"It is certainly so!" cried Bertha. "But how can we release them? How shall we reach the place where they are?"

"If they are in a vault, the vault must have an opening; if they are in a cellar, the cellar has a window."

"Well, then, if we can't find either we must dig out the earth and through the foundation-wall."

So saying, Bertha began to go round the building, dragging aside with frenzied motions the beams, stones, tiles, and other fragments which had fallen beside the outer wall and now hid its base.

Suddenly she gave a cry. Trigaud and Courte-Joie ran to her, – one on his great legs, the other on his stumps and hands, with the rapidity of a batrachian.

"Listen!" said Bertha, triumphantly.

Sure enough, on the spot where she stood they heard distinctly a dull but continued sound coming from the depths of the ruined building, – a sound like that of some tool or instrument striking steady and regular blows on the foundations.

"This is the place," said Bertha, pointing to an enormous pile of rubbish heaped against the wall. "We shall find them here."

Trigaud set to work. He began by pushing away a whole section of the roof which had slid down outside the building and now lay vertically against the wall. Then he threw aside the loose stones piled there by the fall of a window-casing on the first floor; and finally, after wonderful feats of strength, he laid bare an opening through which the sounds of the labor of the buried men came to them distinctly.

Bertha wanted to pass through the opening as soon as it was practicable; but Trigaud held her back. He took a fallen lath, lit it by the embers, fastened the girth, which usually held Courte-Joie to his shoulders, round the latter's waist, and lowered him into the cavity.

Bertha and Trigaud held their breaths. Courte-Joie's voice was heard, speaking to some one; then he gave a signal to be hoisted up. Trigaud obeyed with the alacrity of a well-fed animal.

"Living? are they living?" cried Bertha, in anguish.

"Yes, mademoiselle, but for God's sake don't attempt to go down there; they are not in the cellar, but in a sort of niche beyond it. The opening through which they got there is blocked. We must break through the wall to reach them; and I am very much afraid that may bring down the roof of the cellar upon them. Let me direct Trigaud."

Bertha fell on her knees and prayed. Courte-Joie collected a number of dry laths and returned to the cellar; Trigaud followed him.

At the end of ten minutes, which seemed to Bertha as many centuries, a loud noise of crashing stones was heard. A cry of anguish escaped her; she darted to the opening and there met Trigaud coming up, bearing on his shoulder the body of a man bent double, whose pale face was hanging down upon the giant's breast. Bertha recognized Michel.

"He is dead! Oh, my God! he is dead!" she cried, not daring to go up to him.

"No, no," said a voice from below, which Bertha recognized as that of Jean Oullier, "no, he is not dead."

At these words the girl sprang forward, took Michel from Trigaud's hands, laid him on the grass, and quite reassured by the beating of his heart, endeavored to bring back his senses by bathing his forehead with water from a pool.