Chapter 12

When I left the château I took the mail-coach, and reached Tours that same night. People there could talk of nothing but the arrests of MM. de Peyronnet, of Chantelauze and of Guernon-Ranville; a host of details concerning these arrests were related to me with exultant volubility, which details shall be given in their due time and place. I continued my journey by steamer, and when I arrived at Ponts-de-Cé I landed in order to go to Angers. Here I had a friend named Victor Pavie, an excellent young fellow, warm-hearted and true. What has become of him now? I don't in the least know; I have hardly ever seen him since then. When I arrived at his house I learnt that he was at a sitting of the Assizes. They were trying a poor devil of a Vendean, from Beauprèau, who had silvered Republican sous with quicksilver, and tried to pass them off for thirty-sous pieces. The poor wretch's object in coining false money was to buy food for his starving children. A great interest was felt in the prisoner throughout the whole town; but at that date the penalty for false coining was terribly severe: it was not merely a matter of warning that I bank-notes bore an inscription threatening sentence of death on any who tried to forge them. In spite of the simplicity of his confession, and the tears of his wife and children, and the pleading of his counsel, the accused was sentenced tobetween twenty and thirty years' penal servitude. I was present when the sentence was passed, and, like everyone else, I received my share of the blow which smote the poor wretch. While I listened to that sentence, which, although severe, was not illegal, the idea came to me that Providence had sent me there on purpose to save the man. I returned to Pavie's house, and, without saying a word to anyone, I wrote two letters: one to Oudard, the other to Appert. I believe I have already mentioned Appert and have said that he was almoner of the private charities of the Duchesse d'Orléans. I laid the case before them and begged them to ask for the pardon of the condemned man: the one of the king, the other of the queen. I laid great stress upon the good effect, politically, an act of clemency towards a Vendean would produce, at a time when there was reason to fear trouble from that quarter of the country. I made known to both of them that I looked upon my petition as so just that I should remain at Angers until I obtained a favourable reply. Whilst waiting, I explored all the town and neighbourhood under Pavie's guidance. Excellent fellow, Pavie! He pointed out to me, with an indignation most characteristic of his national love of art, some workmen, who, by order of the préfet, under the direction of a local architect, were busy converting the grotesque figures on the cathedral into brackets! So what you now see, to your great satisfaction, if you do not appreciate the wonderful grimacing faces which the Middle Ages fixed to its cathedrals, is a Roman entablature upheld by Grecian brackets after the model of those on the Bourse, another modern marvel, a mixture of Greek and Roman styles, with nothing French about it but its stove-pipes. Furthermore, they were scraping the cathedral remorselessly without any respect for the brown colouring that eight centuries had spread over its surface; and this scraping gave it a sickly paleness which they called "rejuvenating it"! Alas! it takes twenty-five years to complete a man: a good Swiss royalist may fire upon him, and then he is killed! It takes six or eight centuries to colour a building, and then an architect with good taste arrives, and scrapesit!... Why does not the Swiss kill the architect? or why doesn't the architect scrape the Swiss? We went down to the promenade, and I walked past the tenth-century ancient castle, which is encircled by a moat and flanked by a dozen massive towers—the labour of a people, the asylum for an army. "Ah!" my poor Pavie said, sighing, "they are going to pull it down.... It spoils the view!"

On that day I received a letter from Oudard telling me the pardon was granted, and that only the formalities to be gone through with the Minister of Justice would retard the liberation of the prisoner; so I hastened to share the letter with the person most directly interested in its contents, and, nothing further detaining me at Angers, I jumped into a passing carriage, so great was my wish to quit a town of Vandal destroyers, and I was driven to Ponts-de-Cé.

To save Angers still further maledictions, let it be mentioned that it was the birthplace of Béclard and of David. Upon the journey we passed through a long village, called, I believe, la Mercerie; they were inaugurating a new mayor. Two worn old pieces of cannon, which exploded by the vent, saluted as we entered. Every house displayed its flag, and we passed under a tricolour canopy. The mayor and all his family were on the balcony, and the youthful mayoress, who, in her affection for his people, had stepped close to the edge of the terrace, looked to be the possessor of a very fine pair of legs; I cannot speak for her face, as the perpendicular position she occupied with regard to me prevented me from catching a sight of it.

The spot that I had picked out for my centre of operations was a small farmhouse belonging to M. Villenave. I have mentioned this farm before; it lay between Clisson and Torfou, and was called la Jarrie. Madame Waldor had been living there the last three or four months with her mother and daughter. My plan was to reach my objective by describing a large circle and touching Chemillé, Chollet and Beaupréau on my way. By this means, when I should finally reach la Jarrie, I should already have gained some idea of the temper of the country, and should know how to go to work upon individualsand also upon the people collectively. I intended to go short stages at a time, to stop just where fancy took me, to leave at the hours that should suit my own convenience and to stay when it pleased me to remain. There was, therefore, no other means of transport to adopt than to buy or hire a horse; for it was out of the question for me, wearing the uniform of the mounted National Guard, to go afoot. This uniform and a second, which was a shooting suit, was all the wardrobe I had thought it convenient to bring away with me. I hired a horse at Meurs. I stopped one day there to pay a visit to the battlefield of Ponts-de-Cé. There, in 1438, the Angevins defeated the English; and in 1620 Maréchal de Créquy defeated the troops of Marie de Médici; finally, in 1793, the Republicans were defeated here by the Vendeans—defeated, though with difficulty, since they were Republicans. That defeat of 26 July 1793 was a great one, a defeat equal to one of those that made Leonidas immortal, and yet nobody knows who was Commander Bourgeois. When it is my good fortune to come across one of these forgotten names upon my journey, names buried in the dust of the past, I take it up and breathe upon it till it shines out conspicuously before my contemporaries. It is both my right and my duty, the more so as Bourgeois is one of those brave heroes of '93 who are slandered when not forgotten.

After the rout of Vihiers, whilst our army was trying to reorganise itself again at Chinon, Bourgeois, who was in command of the 8th Parisian battalion, the one that was called the Lombard battalion, received orders to leave Ponts-de-Cé and to occupy the rock of Meurs. It was an odious position: to the north, the perpendicular rock, commanding one arm of the Louet, a little river which runs into the Loire; to the west, a small plain of undulating ground; to the south, a ravine, at the bottom of which the Aubance flows; on the other side were the heights of Mozé, of Soulaines and of Derrée. When camped on that unlucky plain, there is no possible way of retreat if one is attacked in front and on the flank. But the command was given, and he had to obey it. Bourgeois and his four hundred men were encamped on the rock of Meurs.

"What a queer name, la roche de Meurs, commandant!" one of the soldiers remarked.

"My good fellow, it is the imperative of the verbmourir(to die)," answered Bourgeois.

"What in the world is an imperative?"

"I will show you when the time comes."

The Vendeans debouched from the Brissac road. There were twelve thousand of them, commanded by Bonchamp and supported by d'Autichamp and Scépeaux. The Lombard battalion, as we have said, only numbered four hundred men. The fight lasted five hours. When the redoubts of the camp had been carried and the camp stormed, d'Autichamp shouted, "Stop killing!" but there were priests in the Vendean ranks who cried, "Give no quarter!" Three hundred and ninety-six men perished in the massacre! Bourgeois flung himself into the river with his three remaining men, two of these men were killed in the river by his side and he and his companion were both wounded. But, wounded though he was, Bourgeois made his way along the Angers road and caught up atl'Image de Morusthe 6th battalion of Paris which was also fleeing. He rallied the fugitives and stopped them. Just at that moment the Jemmapes battalion was marching out of Angers, and Bourgeois found himself at the head of a battalion and a half. He retraced his steps, in his turn attacked the Chouans and forced them to entrench themselves in the château and island. An eye-witness told me that, for more than a league, red serpents could be seen on the foam of the waves of the Loire! Whole squads were being carried by the river to the ocean.[5]

I left Meurs, as I have said, after a day's sojourn there.

On this journey through la Vendée, the same phenomenon occurred to me a second time as that during my Soissons excursion—namely, the farther the distance increased between me and Paris, the nearer did I seem to advance towards the North Pole. My uniform excited enthusiasm in the neighbourhoodof Paris and at Blois I still found admirers; at Angers, this was reduced to mere curiosity; but at Meurs and Beaulieu and Beaumont I fell into frigid regions and felt that, as La Fayette had forewarned me, if it went on much longer there would be some danger in passing along within range of hedges and thickets. At Chemillé my uniform nearly caused a riot. As I have mentioned, I had with me a change of dress; it was a new shooting costume. After the three days and the journey to Soissons and the expedition to Rambouillet, the old one was not fit to wear again. Well, this costume was in a kind of long portmanteau, one compartment of which contained my rifle, which was taken to pieces. All I should have to do, then, would be to divest myself of my National Guard uniform, fold it up neatly and pack it into my portmanteau, in the place of my shooting suit, put that on my back and continue my journey, and, evidently, three-fourths of the dangers I might be running would disappear; but it seemed to me that to do such a thing would be an act of cowardice unworthy of one who had taken part in the fighting of July. So I stuck to my uniform and contented myself instead with airing my gun. Next day I ordered my horse for eight in the morning. I ostentatiously loaded my gun with two balls (which was a fresh imprudence), I slung it across my back, and I passed through half the town in the midst of what I felt was a distinctly menacing silence.

I did not mean to sleep at Chollet (it was hardly six leagues from Chemillé to Chollet), but to arrive at two in the afternoon and stop there until the following morning.

At eleven o'clock I had passed Saint-Georges-du-Puy, and Trémentines by noon; finally, about one o'clock, I approached a place which looked dangerous (should there be danger abroad at all), because the road I had to traverse ran between the wood of Saint-Léger and the forest of Breil-Lambert. I was debating in my mind whether it would be better to pass thismalo sitio, as they say in Spain, at a foot pace or at a gallop, when I thought I heard my name pronounced behind me in a panting voice. Directly I heard my name calledI felt no fear of the person who was uttering it. It was scarcely probable, however, that I had heard correctly. But I now heard it repeated a second time and more distinctly than the first. Who on earth could know me in the department of Maine-et-Loire, between Chemillé and Chollet? I turned my horse's head in the direction whence the voice came and soon saw a man running with breathless haste from the corner of the road to Nuaillé, signing to me with his hat that it was he was calling me to stop. There was no longer any doubt that the man wished to catch me up and that he was calling to me; but what could he possibly want? As he came nearer, I could distinguish his costume, which was that of a peasant. I waited, more puzzled than ever. The man ran as fast as his legs would carry him, and, as his voice failed him for want of breath, he put more and more expression into his gestures. At last he joined me, and flinging himself on my boot, began to kiss my knees.

Speech was altogether out of the question; I believe if he had had only fifty yards more to run he would have fallen dead on his arrival, like the Greek of Marathon. Finally, he got his breath again.

"You do not know me," he said, "but I, I know you: you are M. Alexandre Dumas, who saved me from the galleys!"

Whereupon he fell on his knees and thanked me in the name of his wife and children.

I jumped down, took him in my arms and embraced him. After a few moments he calmed down.

"Ah! monsieur," he said, "what recklessness! and what good luck that I was set at liberty in time!"

"What do you mean?"

"Whoever advised you to travel in la Vendée in such a uniform as that?"

"Nobody.... I acted according to my own wishes."

"But it is a miracle you have not been killed before this!"

"Ah, indeed! then are your Angevins as bad as that?"

"It is not that they are wicked, monsieur, but it is believedeverywhere that you want to set this country at defiance.... I was set free last night at four, monsieur; I tried to gain information as to where I could find you to thank you, and I was told you had taken the road to Chollet. At Ponts-de-Cé I asked for news of you, and was told you had stopped a day at Meurs: there is no doubt about it, you are easily recognised, and you are calledle monsieur tricolore. At Meurs I was told you had hired a horse, and that you left there yesterday morning. I only stopped at Beaumont. At break of day I started off again: by ten I reached Chemillé, and you had left the market-town at eight.... I learnt, moreover, that your visit had produced an extremely bad effect there; then I set off running till I was out of breath, and I have run like that since ten this morning.... Just as you were turning the corner at Nuaillé I caught sight of you and recognised you; that was why I called you.... I hoped to catch you up before the forest of Breil-Lambert, and, thank God, I succeeded! But now here you are, my dear monsieur.... In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, do not expose yourself any longer!"

"To what, my friend?"

"To the danger of assassination."

"Bah!"

"But I tell you they believe you have come to upset the countryside."

"Well, then, they have been badly brought up! And so much the worse for them!"

"Let me precede you or go with you, monsieur; and when they know that you have saved a Bocage man from the galleys, you can go wherever you desire, dressed just as you like. I will answer for it, on the faith of a Chouan, that no harm will come to you ... none whatever.... They will not touch a single hair of your head. Will you leave it to me?"

All things considered, I thought it was the best thing to do.

"Arrange things as you think proper," I said.

"Ah! that's right! Where are you going at this moment?"

"To la Jarrie, between Clisson and Torfou."

"You are not on the right road."

"I know it all right, but came a long way round on purpose."

"Are you going to friends?"

"Yes."

"Well, then, let me take you to your friends.... We can easily reach there the day after to-morrow. Stay a week with them; during that time, I will make such, good use of my feet and hands that you can resume your journey.... Do you agree?"

"Upon my word, yes.... I will give myself entirely into your care.... You know the country; you are a native! Now, if any accident happens to me it will be on your shoulders."

"Yes, monsieur, and from this moment I will answer for you to your guardian angel."

Two days later I reached la Jarrie, not only without accident, but, moreover, loaded with all kinds of good wishes received all along my route, freed from all danger, thanks to the story my man related a score of times, who went before me like a herald, telling everybody who would listen to his story, and even those who did not care to listen, the service I had done him. I confess with deep regret, bordering on remorse, that I, who can remember the name of M. Detours well enough, have completely forgotten the name of my Vendean.

[1]See first note at end of volume.

[2]See note at end of volume.

[3]I must say, in justice to myself, that recent archæological researches have proved the correctness of my opinion as against that of the concierge of the château de Blois.

[4]Owing to the efforts of King Louis-Philippe the cuirassiers have been moved elsewhere since my visit, and the château has been beautifully restored.

[5]I refer readers for fuller details to that curious work by M. Fr. Grille,La Vendée en 1793.

A warning to Parisian sportsmen—Clisson—The château of M. Lemot—My guide—The Vendean column—The battle of Torfou—Two omitted names—Piffanges—Tibulle and the Loire—Gilles de Laval—His edifying death—Means taken to engrave a remembrance on the minds of children

The day after my arrival at la Jarrie I dressed in my shooting outfit, and, with gun on shoulder and game bag on back, I set off for Clisson. Two hours later I arrived there with my thighs torn by furze, my hands bleeding from briars, without having killed even a single lark.

Here a word of warning, in passing, to Parisians who should imagine that la Vendée is still a country abounding in game, and who should make the journey of a hundred and twenty leagues under that belief: I have shot there for a month, and have not raised fifteen partridges! On the other hand, vipers swarm there; one comes across them at every step, and every sportsman ought to carry a flask of alkali in his pocket.

To return to Clisson, which I was in so great a hurry to see that I left my excellent hosts to visit it the day after my arrival. Well, Clisson, which people had praised so highly to me, would have been an extremely pretty town in Greece or Italy, but in France and in la Vendée it was not: there is something incompatible between the misty skies of the west and the flat roofs of the east, between the pretty Italian factories and our dirty French countrysides. The château de Clisson itself, thanks to the care of M. Lemot, the celebrated sculptor, is so well preserved that one is tempted to be angry with its owner for not having allowed a single spider's web to crawl over its walls. It reminded one of an oldman made up on shaving days, with false teeth and false hair and rouged. M. Lemot spent enormous sums to produce a picturesque effect, and only made an anomaly; and this anomaly was illustrated all the more forcibly by the presence of the tricolour flag floating over the eleventh-century ruin: the mayor would not allow it to be placed on the clock tower. The park is like every other park in existence—like Ermenonville or Mortefontaine: a river, rocks, grottoes, statues and temples to the Muses, to Apollo and to Diana. Instead of all these, imagine on both sides of the valley cottages grouped where the temples stand, some seeming to be climbing up the hillside and others descending it, dotted here and there according to the fancy or convenience of their owners; the river flowing at the bottom of the ravine, and, on the top of the hill, the castle: an old ruin rent by cracks, surrounded by stones which time has caused to roll down like dead leaves round the trunk of an oak tree. Add to this its old memories of Olivier de Clisson and its modern memories of the Chouans and the Blues; the vault which was used as a dungeon by the Barons, and the well that forms a tomb for four hundred Vendeans—and, if you possess a romantic turn of mind, you will have food for centuries of contemplation.

M. Lemot had done all he could to try and organise a National Guard at Clisson; he had already found ten volunteers, who were drilled in secret by the quarter-master and the gendarmerie. This quarter-master was an excellent fellow; though, for all that, he was extremely anxious to arrest me: telling the Liberals that I looked like a Chouan, and the Chouans that I looked like a Liberal; the consequence thereof being that the town would have been very pleased to see me marched off to gaol. I had my choice of a safeguard in my passport, which was perfectly correct, and in the letter from General La Fayette. I decided upon the passport, and I believe I was rightly inspired in my decision. I returned that same night to la Jarrie, although they did not expect me till next day and reproached meterribly for my imprudence; they could not get over their surprise that I had not rested during the journey. It was settled in council that I was to risk no more excursions without my guide, who had asked for a few days to go and visit his children and to spread abroad in the neighbouring villages the story of his adventure, which was to serve as a safeguard for me. He reappeared at the time arranged and put himself at my disposal, making himself answerable for everything. We took the road to Torfou. My man had made himself smart when he was to be condemned to penal servitude; for the type of his face and the style of his dress were those of a town dweller, which had not struck me before; but he adopted the costume of the countryside while acting as my guide. I now for the first time examined him with some attention. He had preserved the primitive type of the peasantry of the second race: from his narrow forehead, his serious face and his hair cut round, he looked like a peasant of the time of Charles le Gros. He scarcely opened his mouth, except it was to point out some topographical point on the right or left hand—

"It was here that the Blues were defeated!"

I don't think he had undertaken too much in promising me his protection, for, although he had been pardoned by King Louis-Philippe, the good man was a Chouan to the finger-tips. Moreover, in his eyes, it was I who had pardoned him and not the king at all.

A quarter of a league from Torfou, in the middle of a space made by four cross-roads, rose a stone column, twenty feet in height, almost after the pattern of that in the place Vendôme. M. de la Bretèche had it erected at his own expense at the time of the Restoration. Four names in bronze letters, enclosed in a crown of the same metal, were inscribed on it, each name facing one of the four roads, of which this pillar forms the meeting-place: the names are those of Charette, d'Elbée, Bonchamp and Lescure. I asked my guide for an explanation.

"Ah!" he said, in his own language, interspersed with oldwords which seemed to have come back to him as he stepped on the ground immortalised by these old memories, "because it was here that Kléber and histhirty-five thousand Mayençaiswere beaten by the Chouans."[1]

Then he burst out laughing, and, putting both hands close together, imitated the cry of the screech-owl.

I stood on the very spot where the famous battle of Torfou had taken place.

Then memories as befitted the son of a Republican came crowding upon me, and it was now my turn to relate and the peasant's to listen.

"Oh! yes!" I said to myself, looking at the inscription carved on the column, "'19 September 1793.' Yes, that's it."

Then I turned my eyes on the surrounding villages of Torfou, Buffière, Tiffanges and Roussay.

"Yes," I went on, "all that was in flames and formed a ring of fire on the horizon when Kléber arrived with the vanguard of the army of Mayence, and shouted to his three thousand men the command, 'Halt! To battle!' For, besides the noise of the conflagration, another loud sound like the trampling down of leaves and breaking of branches was heard ever coming nearer without anything being seen on the roads which converged to the centre of the forest. By this forest, which the Vendeans knew well, they drew slowly nearer and nearer; sometimes they were obliged to crawl, sometimes to cut a passage through with their swords, yet their line pressed closer and closer together and each minute lessened the distance which separated them from their enemies. Finally, they reached so near the outskirts of the wood that they could see the army, restless but resolute, within gunshot and could each pick out his own man before firing.... Suddenly, musketry-firing soared aloud in a radius of three quarters of a league, died down, then rose again, before anyone could tell either against whom, or how, they could best defend themselves. The Vendeans seized the opportunity this momentof disorder gave and rushed down the roads to charge the Blues. Three thousand men were attacked from four different sides by more than thirty thousand, who knew the geography of the country and were fighting for their hearths and their faith! Each one of the leaders whose name is inscribed on that column made his appearance by the road towards which his name now points. Directly our soldiers could distinguish the enemy, their courage returned. 'Come on, my brave fellows!' Kléber shouted, flinging himself at their head; 'let us give these beggars some lead and steel to digest!' He charged haphazard down one of these four roads, met Lescure's army corps, broke it up like glass and, whilst the latter was trying on foot, gun in hand, to rally the inhabitants of Aubiers, Courlé and Échauboignes, he rushed to his rearguard, which had followed up his action, and which was surrounded by the three corps led by Ellbeé, Bonchamp and Charette. The artillery had just arrived: fifteen pieces in position made holes at the rate of six rounds a minute in the masses, which soon closed up again; three charges of Vendean cavalry hurled themselves one after the other upon the brazen muzzles and disappeared. This lasted two hours, Kléber pushing Lescure before him, who always rallied his men again. Kléber himself, pressed hard by the three other Vendean leaders, valiantly carried on his retreat, until a fifth army of ten thousand men, led by Donniss and la Rochejaquelein, came and threw themselves on his flanks, firing point-blank, killing at every blow, and at last dealt confusion in the Republican ranks. The head of the army, still commanded by Kléber, reached la Sèvre; the heroic general captured the bridge, crossed it and, calling a quarter-master named Schewardin, cried out, 'Stop here and be killed with two hundred men.' 'Yes, general!' was Schewardin's reply. He picked his men, kept his word and saved the army!"

"Oh! yes, that was how it happened," my Chouan answered, "for I was there.... I was not quite fifteen then.... Look, monsieur," he went on, taking off his hat and lifting hishair to show me a scar that furrowed his forehead, "I got that here"—he struck the ground with his foot.—"Here!... It was one of the general's aides-de-camp who struck me, quite a young fellow, almost as young as I was; but, before falling, I had time to thrust my bayonet in his body and to fire at the same moment.... When I came to my senses he was dead ... we had fallen on top of one another ... and all round us, for a radius of a league, lay Blues and Vendeans, so that you did not know where to place your foot for fear of stepping on them. They were buried where they had fallen, and that is why the trees here are so vigorous and the grass so green."

I turned towards the column: nothing on it made mention of Kléber's courage and Schewardin's devotion, nothing but just those four Vendean names. I forgot where I was, for this one-sidedness made the blood rise to my face.

"I do not know what it is prevents me from putting a bullet into the middle of that column, and signing it Schewardin and Kléber!" I said aloud, talking to myself without imparting to my man the reflections that led to this monologue.

I felt my guide put a trembling hand on my shoulder, and I turned round; he was very pale.

"For the Lord's sake, monsieur," he said, "don't do that; I have vowed to bring you through safe and sound, and if you were to commit any folly like that, I could no longer answer for you.... Do you know that those four men are our gods, and every Vendean peasant says his prayers here, as at the stations of the Virgin which you see at the entrance of our villages? Do not do that; or beware of the hedgerows!"

We reached Tiffanges without saying another word.

Tiffanges is an ancient Roman station. During Cæsar's wars with the Gauls, he sent Crassus, his lieutenant, there with the Seventh Legion; from thence Crassus proceeded to Theowald, the Doué of our day, where he pitched his camp.Crassus adolescens cum legione septimâ, proximusmare Oceanum in Andibus hiemârat.[2]This region of the Gauls was never wholly subdued by the Romans; the Pict kings always fought for their liberty there. Augustus had hardly ascended the throne before le Bocage uttered a fresh war-cry. Agrippa went there immediately, believed he had subjugated the inhabitants and returned to Rome. Again they rose in revolt. Messala succeeded him, and took Tibullus with him, who in his capacity of poet claims for himself a portion of the honours of the campaign—

"Non sine me est tibi partus honos: Tarbella Pyrene Testis, et Oceani littora Santonici; Testis Arar, Rhodanusque celer, magnusque Garumna, Carnuti et flavi, coerula lympha, Liger!"

—as much as to say, "You did not win this honour without me. Witness Tarbella the Pyrenean, and the coasts of the Santonic Ocean (Saintonge); remember also the Arar (the Saône) and the rapid Rhône and wide Garonne, and the Loire, the blue waters of the fair Carnute."

Possibly, too, Tibullus followed Messala in the same way that Boileau followed Louis XIV.; as to the Loire, if it was blue in the time of Augustus, it has changed its colour singularly since that day! Tiffanges is, indeed, a place full of memories of Cæsar, Adrian, Clovis and the Visigoths; near the Roman tomb springs the Frankish cradle, as can be clearly traced through the history of twenty long centuries. The château, the ruins of which we visited, seems to be an eleventh-century erection continued during the twelfth, and only finished at the end of the thirteenth century. The famous Gilles de Laval, Marshal of Raiz, who was known in the country under the name ofBarbe-Bleue, inhabited this castle, and by his way of living gave rise to a multitude of popular traditions that are still quite fresh in the neighbouring villages. In short, as there is justice in heaven, and a man who pillaged twenty churches, ravished fifty maidens and gained riches must always end badly, to acquit Providence you ought toknow that this Gilles de Laval was burnt in the meadow of Bièce, first being beheaded at the solicitation of his family, which had great influence with the sire de l'Hospital, who granted him this favour; but, previously, the condemned man made a speech, at the conclusion of which, says history, nothing could be heard but the sobbing of women. History also tells (but as it is history, you need not pin faith to it) that the fathers and mothers of high rank who heard Gilles de Laval's last words fasted three days to win Divine forgiveness for him, which, doubtless, he obtained, since his confessor was one of the cleverest of the time. That done, these same parents inflicted a whipping on their children, on the place of execution, to fix in their memories the recollection of the punishment that overtook the great criminal! History omits to tell us if the children of the sixteenth century were as fond of executions as those of the nineteenth.

[1]The army corp which had evacuated Mayence and which was ordered to la Vendée was really only composed of ten thousand four hundred men.

[2]Cæsar'sCommentaries, I. iii. § 7.

Le Bocage—Its deep lanes and hedges—The Chouan tactics—Vendean horses and riders—Vendean politics—The Marquis de la Bretèche and his farmers—The means I suggested to prevent a fresh Chouannerie—The tottering stone—I leave la Jarrie—Adieux to my guide

I have of course put on one side as well as I could, until now, particulars relating to statistics and the topography of the country; but one must come to it eventually. On the outskirts of Tiffanges, la Vendée is first seen with its undulating country, which proved so disastrous to us in the Chouan War.

Let me be permitted to reproduce here a part of the report which I submitted to General La Fayette on my return to Paris, which report, as will be seen later, was also submitted to the inspection of King Louis-Philippe:—

"... In the first place, the wordVendée, politically speaking, comprises a much larger area of ground than it does topographically. And this was because the name of a single department christened a war which was really spread over four departments. So, under the collective name of Vendée the departments of Maine-et-Loire, Morbihan, Deux-Sèvres and la Vendée were all included. No other part of France at all resembles la Vendée; it is a country quite unique. But few main roads pass through it. I will speak further of them in due course. The other means of communication—and, consequently, those of commerce—consist of lanes of between four and five feet in width, edged on either side by steep banks, crowned by a quickset hedge trimmed to the height of a man, and at every twenty yards stand oak trees whose interlacing branches form an arbour over the road. Hedges bounding private fields intersect them at right angles here and there, thus forming enclosed spaces which hardly ever consist of more than one or two acres, always of an oblong shape. Each ofthese hedges has only one opening, calledéchalier, which is sometimes a kind of gate like those which enclose sheep-folds; more frequently it is made out of wood from the hedges themselves, and, set in the hedge, it does not look any different from the hedges themselves to the eye of a stranger, especially in winter. The native of the country will make straight for this hurdle, which he knows, but other persons have generally to go along all four sides of the fields before they can discover the way out. These hedges thoroughly explain the tactics employed in the Vendean War: to shoot accurately without being seen; to fly when the shot has been fired through the opening without the risk of being hit. Besides, with the exception of la Rochejaquelein's fine harangue: 'If I advance, follow; if I retreat, kill me; if I die, avenge me!' the leaders hardly ever uttered any other words before battle than the simpler and indeed clearer ones to the peasantry: 'Egayez-vous, mes gars!' which meant, 'Make yourselves scarce, my lads!' Then each copse would conceal a man with his gun—before, behind, on each side of the advancing army; the hedges would blaze forth, bullets whistle past one another and soldiers fall before they had time to discover from what side the storm of fire was coming! Finally, tired of seeing their dead lying in heaps at the bottom of these defiles, the Blues would rush off in each direction, climb the bank, scale the hedges and, losing half of their men in the process, would arrive at the top, only to see a sudden cessation of the firing: everything had disappeared as by magic, and nothing could be seen, far or near, but a country as prettily mapped out as an English garden, and here and there a sharp-pointed slate-roofed tower, piercing the misty western skies, or the red roof of a farmhouse standing out against a green background of oaks, beeches and walnut trees. These lanes or, properly speaking, defiles, which at first sight appear only to have been hollowed out by the hoofs of oxen, are natural staircases formed by the inequalities of the ground, over which only the little horses of the country can walk surefooted. We must say a little about these horses and the manner of driving them. In summer the lanes are picturesque enough, but in winter they are impracticable, as the slightest rainfall turns each of them into the bed of a torrent, and then, for nearly four months of the year, communication is established by foot and across country. But let us return to the horses. The cleverest riding-master inFranconi's would find himself at a disadvantage, I believe, if he were perched up on one of the huge Breton saddles, which rise out of the middle of the animal's back like a dromedary's hump. And as to the animal himself, the rider might imagine he could guide him by the help of bridle and knees; but he would very quickly find out that the legs of the Vendean rider are only used for preserving his balance, and that the bridle is of no use except to pull his mount up short by reining him in hard with both hands. After a little practice, however, he would learn to assist himself with the cudgel, and this it is which takes the place in Breton horsemanship of the use of one's knees and the bridle. In order to turn the horse to the right you must hit him over the left ear with the cudgel, andvice versâ; and in this manner, which simplifies the art of the Larives and the Pelliers enormously, one guides the animal by roads that would turn a Basque dizzy!"This picture, however, of the lanes and riders who frequent them, is beginning to change in the departments of la Vendée and of the Loire-Inférieure, where Bonaparte had roads cut; but it is still correct as regards the department of Deux-Sèvres and especially the southern half of the department of Maine-et-Loire."It is in these latter portions of the country, therefore, that the Vendean politicians took shelter. There, the opposition to any form of Liberal government is energetic and flagrant. Happily, as if in defiance, civilisation has surrounded them with a girdle of Liberal townships, which starts from Bourbon Vendée, crosses Chollet, Saumur and Angers, reappears at Nantes and even runs over into la Vendée itself, at Clisson, which is a sort of forlorn outpost from whence alarm could be given in case of a rising. A single road passes through this country at one corner, in the shape of a Y; the tail standing for the route from Chollet to Trémentines, and the two forks, those from Trémentines to Angers and Saumur—this latter road is not even a posting route. La Vendée, then, consists nowadays of a single department, without exit for attack or flight."Four very distinct classes of individuals are active in the midst of this political furnace: the nobles orgros, the clergy, the bourgeoisie and the peasantry or leasehold farmers."The nobility is entirely opposed to any form of constitutional system; its influence is practically evil with thebourgeoisie, but it has immense influence over the tenant farmers who are nearly all in its pay. For instance, here is a case in point: the Marquis of la Bretèche alone possesses one hundred and four farmsteads; suppose each farm contains merely three men capable of handling a gun, one word from him will bring into action three hundred and twelve armed peasants!"The clergy share the opinions of the nobles and have a greater influence still through their pulpits and the confessional."The bourgeoisie are, therefore, the interior of the triangle formed by the nobility, which lays down its laws, the clergy who preach them and the people who accept them."So the proportion of Liberals in this department (I am referring to the interior) is scarcely one to fifteen: the tricolour flag is nowhere to be seen, in spite of the formal order of the prefect; and the priests will not chant theDomine salvumexcept under special command of the bishop."The pole to which the white flag was affixed still exists, and by its very nakedness acts as a protest against the tricolour flag; but the priests recommend from their pulpits that Louis-Philippe should be prayed for,as he must inevitably be assassinated.So the agitation goes on incessantly. It is upheld by meetings of from forty to fifty nobles, which take place once or twice a week, either at Lavoirs, or at Herbiers, or at Combouros. The means they make use of for exciting the people is the withholding of newspapers, which are only brought by specially appointed agents, the post only passing through Beaupréau, Chemillé and Chollet. Among the towns and villages which make no kind of secret of their hopes of another insurrection must be reckoned, first and foremost, those of Beaupréau, Montfaucon, Chemillé, Saint-Macaire, le May and Trémentines. The heart of the Royalist revolution is centred at Montfaucon; were it extinguished throughout the whole of France, the pulse of civil war would still beat here. A revolution would infallibly break out if the dauphin or Madame appeared among the people, or even on a day when war should be declared between France and any foreign power, specially if that power were to be England, and if, for the third time, it were to pour men and arms along the coast, which is only from ten to eleven leagues' distance from the department of Maine-et-Loire, where it is aneasy matter to smuggle men and weapons in through the opening between Clisson and Chollet."The following seem to us to be the best means of preventing an insurrection:—"I. To make roads. Generally people only see in a road formed right across an impracticable country facility offered for the extension of commerce. The Government, if of liberal views, sees it as a political means to its own end; civilisation follows commerce, and liberty civilisation. Relations with other departments will deprive the one to be feared of its primitive wildness; reliable information will quickly spread and false reports be as quickly disproved; post-offices will be opened in all the chief towns of the district; the gendarmerie will be established in regular and active service; then, finally, troops will, in case of need, be marched all over the district in an impressive manner. The roads to be made in the department of Maine-et-Loire should run from Palet to Montfaucon, passing through Saint-Crespin. At Montfaucon the road should branch off into two, one going to Beaupréau by la Renaudiére, Villedieu and la Chapelle-au-Genêt; the other should proceed as far as Romagne, where it should rejoin the one from Chollet via la Jarrie and Roussay. The commerce that would spring up along these roads would be in Anjou wines, Bretagne cattle and the linens of Chollet. At the present time it can only be carried on by means of ox waggons which do not overturn, but which, by reason of the bad roads, have to be drawn by a team of eight or ten beasts for a single carriage very slightly loaded; or else goods are carried on the backs of men. These roads should be made by the workmen of the country itself, so as to distribute money among the poor classes; for the peasants know the places where the best road metal can be obtained; also because the nobles, whose positive intention it is to oppose the opening of such roads, would easily rouse the peasantry againt strange workmen, who would draw pay that the natives would regard as their own legitimate due; because, finally, the peasants chosen to make these roads would themselves oppose any attempts on the part of the nobility to prevent their execution."2. To transfer into villages across the Loire ten or twelve priests, raising their stipends some hundred francs or so to prevent them posing as martyrs—especially those from Tiffanges, Montauban, Torfou and Saint-Crespin. To sendinto the parishes in their place priests whom the Government can safely trust. These priests would have nothing to fear; their sacred office would protect them from the peasants, who might detest them as men, but would respect their cassocks."3. A large proportion of the nobles who meet together to discuss the means for renewing civil war enjoy very considerable pensions, which the Government continues paying them; nothing would be easier than to catch them in the very act, and then the Government could justifiably cease paying these pensions, and divide the money in equal proportions between the old Vendean and Republican soldiers, whose mutual hatred would gradually die down as quarter days succeeded one another."In this way, there would in the future be no possibility of fresh Vendean risings, since on the slightest outbreak the Government would only have to stretch out its arm and to scatter troops along the main roads to separate gatherings."If people think that these men, enlightened in their views since 1792, have reached the point of never rising again under the influence of fanaticism and superstition, they are strangely mistaken; even those that Bonaparte's conscription drew from their homes and took away out into the world have gradually lost their temporary enlightenment since they returned to their hearths again and resumed their primitive ignorance. I will cite one instance of this. I went shooting with a fine old soldier who had served a dozen years under Napoleon. On the slope of a hill near la Jarrie a stone was standing a dozen feet high that was in the shape of an inverted cone, touching the mountain by one of its upper edges and at its base, which was as narrow as the crown of a hat, resting on a large boulder of rock; although this stone weighed from seven and a half to ten tons, it was so perfectly balanced that a man could easily shake it with his hand. I thought it was a Druidical monument, but, not trusting to the false teaching of educated men, which so often is upset by the rude simplicity of peasants, I called to my companion and asked him what this stone was and who had put it there."'The devil!' he replied, with a conviction which did not seem to fear the faintest denial on my side."'The devil, did you say?' I repeated, in astonishment."'Yes,' he replied."'But what did he do it for?'"'You see from here the stream of la Maine ... over there down in the bottom of the valley?'"'Perfectly.'"'Well, then, you can make out a spot where one could cross it on stepping-stones which rise to the surface of the water were it not that just in the middle of these stones there is a gap.'"'Yes.'"'Well! that gap ought to be refilled by the rock we are now leaning against.'"'It is certainly hewn in such a way as to fit in exactly and to dissipate the effect of want of continuity caused by its absence.'"'I do not follow what you mean,' replied the peasant; 'but this is how it came about. The devil was building a bridge on which to cross over the river in order to steal the farmers' cows; he had finished it all but this one stone, which he was carrying on his shoulder, forgetting that the day he was going to finish his work was a Sunday, when, all of a sudden, he caught sight of the procession from Roussay, which also saw him. Whereat the priest made the sign of the cross, and very soon Satan's strength began to go from him; he was obliged to put the stone down here and for ever, just where we are, as he never will be able to raise it again. That is why the bridge is broken and why this stone shakes.'"As this explanation was as good as any other, I was obliged to be contented with it, since had I given him my own version, it would probably have sounded as absurd to him as his did to me."

"This picture, however, of the lanes and riders who frequent them, is beginning to change in the departments of la Vendée and of the Loire-Inférieure, where Bonaparte had roads cut; but it is still correct as regards the department of Deux-Sèvres and especially the southern half of the department of Maine-et-Loire.

"It is in these latter portions of the country, therefore, that the Vendean politicians took shelter. There, the opposition to any form of Liberal government is energetic and flagrant. Happily, as if in defiance, civilisation has surrounded them with a girdle of Liberal townships, which starts from Bourbon Vendée, crosses Chollet, Saumur and Angers, reappears at Nantes and even runs over into la Vendée itself, at Clisson, which is a sort of forlorn outpost from whence alarm could be given in case of a rising. A single road passes through this country at one corner, in the shape of a Y; the tail standing for the route from Chollet to Trémentines, and the two forks, those from Trémentines to Angers and Saumur—this latter road is not even a posting route. La Vendée, then, consists nowadays of a single department, without exit for attack or flight.

"Four very distinct classes of individuals are active in the midst of this political furnace: the nobles orgros, the clergy, the bourgeoisie and the peasantry or leasehold farmers.

"The nobility is entirely opposed to any form of constitutional system; its influence is practically evil with thebourgeoisie, but it has immense influence over the tenant farmers who are nearly all in its pay. For instance, here is a case in point: the Marquis of la Bretèche alone possesses one hundred and four farmsteads; suppose each farm contains merely three men capable of handling a gun, one word from him will bring into action three hundred and twelve armed peasants!

"The clergy share the opinions of the nobles and have a greater influence still through their pulpits and the confessional.

"The bourgeoisie are, therefore, the interior of the triangle formed by the nobility, which lays down its laws, the clergy who preach them and the people who accept them.

"So the proportion of Liberals in this department (I am referring to the interior) is scarcely one to fifteen: the tricolour flag is nowhere to be seen, in spite of the formal order of the prefect; and the priests will not chant theDomine salvumexcept under special command of the bishop.

"The pole to which the white flag was affixed still exists, and by its very nakedness acts as a protest against the tricolour flag; but the priests recommend from their pulpits that Louis-Philippe should be prayed for,as he must inevitably be assassinated.So the agitation goes on incessantly. It is upheld by meetings of from forty to fifty nobles, which take place once or twice a week, either at Lavoirs, or at Herbiers, or at Combouros. The means they make use of for exciting the people is the withholding of newspapers, which are only brought by specially appointed agents, the post only passing through Beaupréau, Chemillé and Chollet. Among the towns and villages which make no kind of secret of their hopes of another insurrection must be reckoned, first and foremost, those of Beaupréau, Montfaucon, Chemillé, Saint-Macaire, le May and Trémentines. The heart of the Royalist revolution is centred at Montfaucon; were it extinguished throughout the whole of France, the pulse of civil war would still beat here. A revolution would infallibly break out if the dauphin or Madame appeared among the people, or even on a day when war should be declared between France and any foreign power, specially if that power were to be England, and if, for the third time, it were to pour men and arms along the coast, which is only from ten to eleven leagues' distance from the department of Maine-et-Loire, where it is aneasy matter to smuggle men and weapons in through the opening between Clisson and Chollet.

"The following seem to us to be the best means of preventing an insurrection:—

"I. To make roads. Generally people only see in a road formed right across an impracticable country facility offered for the extension of commerce. The Government, if of liberal views, sees it as a political means to its own end; civilisation follows commerce, and liberty civilisation. Relations with other departments will deprive the one to be feared of its primitive wildness; reliable information will quickly spread and false reports be as quickly disproved; post-offices will be opened in all the chief towns of the district; the gendarmerie will be established in regular and active service; then, finally, troops will, in case of need, be marched all over the district in an impressive manner. The roads to be made in the department of Maine-et-Loire should run from Palet to Montfaucon, passing through Saint-Crespin. At Montfaucon the road should branch off into two, one going to Beaupréau by la Renaudiére, Villedieu and la Chapelle-au-Genêt; the other should proceed as far as Romagne, where it should rejoin the one from Chollet via la Jarrie and Roussay. The commerce that would spring up along these roads would be in Anjou wines, Bretagne cattle and the linens of Chollet. At the present time it can only be carried on by means of ox waggons which do not overturn, but which, by reason of the bad roads, have to be drawn by a team of eight or ten beasts for a single carriage very slightly loaded; or else goods are carried on the backs of men. These roads should be made by the workmen of the country itself, so as to distribute money among the poor classes; for the peasants know the places where the best road metal can be obtained; also because the nobles, whose positive intention it is to oppose the opening of such roads, would easily rouse the peasantry againt strange workmen, who would draw pay that the natives would regard as their own legitimate due; because, finally, the peasants chosen to make these roads would themselves oppose any attempts on the part of the nobility to prevent their execution.

"2. To transfer into villages across the Loire ten or twelve priests, raising their stipends some hundred francs or so to prevent them posing as martyrs—especially those from Tiffanges, Montauban, Torfou and Saint-Crespin. To sendinto the parishes in their place priests whom the Government can safely trust. These priests would have nothing to fear; their sacred office would protect them from the peasants, who might detest them as men, but would respect their cassocks.

"3. A large proportion of the nobles who meet together to discuss the means for renewing civil war enjoy very considerable pensions, which the Government continues paying them; nothing would be easier than to catch them in the very act, and then the Government could justifiably cease paying these pensions, and divide the money in equal proportions between the old Vendean and Republican soldiers, whose mutual hatred would gradually die down as quarter days succeeded one another.

"In this way, there would in the future be no possibility of fresh Vendean risings, since on the slightest outbreak the Government would only have to stretch out its arm and to scatter troops along the main roads to separate gatherings.

"If people think that these men, enlightened in their views since 1792, have reached the point of never rising again under the influence of fanaticism and superstition, they are strangely mistaken; even those that Bonaparte's conscription drew from their homes and took away out into the world have gradually lost their temporary enlightenment since they returned to their hearths again and resumed their primitive ignorance. I will cite one instance of this. I went shooting with a fine old soldier who had served a dozen years under Napoleon. On the slope of a hill near la Jarrie a stone was standing a dozen feet high that was in the shape of an inverted cone, touching the mountain by one of its upper edges and at its base, which was as narrow as the crown of a hat, resting on a large boulder of rock; although this stone weighed from seven and a half to ten tons, it was so perfectly balanced that a man could easily shake it with his hand. I thought it was a Druidical monument, but, not trusting to the false teaching of educated men, which so often is upset by the rude simplicity of peasants, I called to my companion and asked him what this stone was and who had put it there.

"'The devil!' he replied, with a conviction which did not seem to fear the faintest denial on my side.

"'The devil, did you say?' I repeated, in astonishment.

"'Yes,' he replied.

"'But what did he do it for?'

"'You see from here the stream of la Maine ... over there down in the bottom of the valley?'

"'Perfectly.'

"'Well, then, you can make out a spot where one could cross it on stepping-stones which rise to the surface of the water were it not that just in the middle of these stones there is a gap.'

"'Yes.'

"'Well! that gap ought to be refilled by the rock we are now leaning against.'

"'It is certainly hewn in such a way as to fit in exactly and to dissipate the effect of want of continuity caused by its absence.'

"'I do not follow what you mean,' replied the peasant; 'but this is how it came about. The devil was building a bridge on which to cross over the river in order to steal the farmers' cows; he had finished it all but this one stone, which he was carrying on his shoulder, forgetting that the day he was going to finish his work was a Sunday, when, all of a sudden, he caught sight of the procession from Roussay, which also saw him. Whereat the priest made the sign of the cross, and very soon Satan's strength began to go from him; he was obliged to put the stone down here and for ever, just where we are, as he never will be able to raise it again. That is why the bridge is broken and why this stone shakes.'

"As this explanation was as good as any other, I was obliged to be contented with it, since had I given him my own version, it would probably have sounded as absurd to him as his did to me."

At the end of six weeks, thanks to my guide, who accompanied me all over, I knew the country as well as, and perhaps even a good deal better than, one of its own inhabitants, both la Vendée of the past and la Vendée of the future. I said good-bye to Madame Villenave and her daughter, kissed little Élisa on her forehead and set off to Nantes. The company of my Vendean was unnecessary farther than Clisson, and I parted with him after trying to make him accept some reward for the services he had rendered me; but he obstinately refused, saying that, no matter what he had done or mightstill be able to do for me, he should be eternally my debtor. We embraced and I took my departure, but he stood where I left him, waving to me whenever I turned round. I lost sight of him round a corner, and all was ended between us. I do not know whether he is alive or dead, whether he has forgotten me or still keeps at the bottom of his heart that precious stone called gratitude, or whether he has cast it so far away from him that he will never be able to find it again. I reached Nantes an hour and a half after I left him.

The Nantes Revolution—Régnier—Paimbœuf—Landlords and travellers—Jacomety—The native of la Guadeloupe and his wife—Gull shooting—Axiom for sea-bird shooting—The captain ofla Pauline—Woman and swallow—Lovers' superstition—Getting under sail

Nantes, like Paris, had had its revolution; its Raguse, who had given orders to fire upon the people; and its people, who had crushed Raguse. They pointed out houses to me that were almost as much marked as the Louvre or the Institut; the firing was so well maintained by the Royal troops that a young man named Petit had from a single discharge received three bullets in his arm, one in his chest and a gunshot wound right down his face; the latter had been fired from a window by a compatriot of his. The wounded man was recovering well; but one of his friends who had only received a charge of buckshot was at the point of death. If he died, he would make the eleventh who had lost his life in that secondary affray.

Régnier—who was at that time a charming comedian and who later became one of the main pillars of the Comédie-Française—happened to be at Nantes at the time, giving a series of representations, that were much run after.

I spent two or three days in the midst of old recollections of the Revolution, renewed for me by M. Villenave, who, as we know, nearly played the part of victim in the great drama composed by the Convention, which was put into action by Carrier. If there is a name on earth execrated by the public, it is that of Carrier!

I left Nantes for Paimbœuf. I had only seen the sea at Havre, where I was told it scarcely deserved the name; so Iwas curious to behold a real sea, a stormy sea, one which even sailors callla mer sauvage.I do not know anything more melancholy on earth than that band of houses, called Paimbœuf, which fringes the Loire for five or six hundred yards! One seems to be a thousand miles from Paris, and outside the pale of civilisation, confronted with these brave fellows who live by a river as wide as a sea almost, and who seem occupied with nothing outside the mending of their nets and going fishing. I wondered how the revolutions of the Parisian crater could possibly matter to them, seeing that its lava could not reach them, nor could they ever see even its flame or smoke.

But that did not matter to them, for at Paimbœuf they were boldly talking of another Vendean insurrection. Furthermore, the distance that separates Paimbœuf from Paris makes the very essentials of life of such a price as is beyond the conception of people in the central provinces of France to realise. The traveller who has heard of the cheapness of its fish; of lobsters being sold at six to eight sous, turbots at two francs, and skates—which no one will eat—and shrimps being flung at your feet, is labouring under a mythical delusion: for him, the prices at inns are very nearly the same all over; north, south, east and west, landlords adopt an even tariff which never lets the traveller come off too well in the matter of expenses.

We dined at thePhilippeof the place, which was called Jacomety; our table d'hôte dinner cost us fifty sous—only between ten to twenty sous difference between other table-d'hôte tariffs all over the kingdom. At this meal, near me, a young, sad-looking woman was dining; or, rather, was not dining, for she ate nothing. Her husband, on her right hand, was attending to her with the solicitude of a lover, and yet, every few minutes, the breast of the lovely one in distress would heave with sobs, tears would come to her eyelids and, in spite of her efforts to restrain them, they rolled down her cheeks. I could not refrain from listening to the conversation of my two neighbours; I soon learnt that the young man was a native ofGuadeloupe, and had just married this charming young woman from the neighbourhood of Tours, whom he was transplanting from the garden of France to that of the Antilles. The poor child, apart from the confidence which she had just placed in that blind side of life which we call the future, knew nothing of the country to which she was going, and, until she could have children who would suck her milk and dry her tears, she mourned for the friends and relatives she was leaving behind in the old land of Europe and, probably, for the old continent itself too. At the same table was dining the captain of the vessel which was to take the young married pair over seas; and it was from him that I learnt most of these details. They were to set sail the next day. I asked his leave to go on board and to stay till his ship sailed, which he readily granted me. The boat was at anchor between Paimbœuf and Saint-Nazaire, and was calledla Pauline.She was a pretty three-masted trader with very graceful lines, and of five or six hundred tons.

I did not say anything of my plan to my two neighbours, certain that, indifferent to them as I was, the next day at the moment of leaving I should become even more to them than a fellow-countryman—namely, a friend! I spent the rest of that day by the river banks shooting at ordinary gulls and blackheaded gulls, amazed that they did not fall. A native sportsman, amused at my disappointment, whom I approached to question as to whether the Loire, like the Styx, had the property of rendering invulnerable the men and animals which bathed in its waters, informed me, to my great surprise, that, for want of the knowledge of measuring maritime distances, I was firing from double the ordinary length of range. He laid down the following rules as essential:—

Never fire at a sea-bird unless you can distinctly see its eye; when you see its eye, its body is within range of your lead.

I instantly applied this maxim to practice. I waited patiently; I let a gull come near enough for me to see its eye distinctly like a little black speck, then I fired, and; the bird fell. The purveyor of these counsels bowed andcontinued his shooting, pleased with himself for having taught something to a Parisian.

I reproduce the lesson just as it was given me; one cannot spread abroad a truth too widely, no matter whether small or great.

I forget which philosopher it was who said that, if he had his hands full of truths, he would have them surrounded by a circle of fire for fear he should open them absent-mindedly and let the truths escape. I should open both my hands and blow the truths abroad with all my might. Nothing flies so slowly and haltingly as the real truth! But, as a truth always costs something to somebody, the one I have just divulged cost the life of three or four great gulls.

Upon my return to the hotel I did not see our bride and bridegroom; they had retired into their own room.

After eight o'clock in the evening, at the end of September, there are not many diversions in Paimbœuf, so I followed the example of the young couple and retired to my room, giving orders that I was to be waked in time to take advantage of the first ship's boat that was going out tola Pauline.The captain himself knocked at my door. I think the worthy man had, during the night, under the sweet and deceiving dew of sleep, let the hope spring up in his heart of taking me on the voyage with him. He extolled the delights of a long voyage on board a good vessel, spoke of his cook, whom he rated far higher than Jacomety's, and praised his table, which was unrivalled by any other than that of theRocher de Cancalein Paris. The captain had dined once at theRocher de Cancale, and he never missed a chance of putting in a good word as to the excellence of Borel's cuisine.

It was still lovely late summer weather, and, as I simply meant to pay a short call onla Pauline, I was clad only in nankeen trousers, a white piqué waistcoat and a velvet jacket. These details, as will soon be seen, are not without their importance to those who have learnt to their cost what it is to suffer from cold. This was the first time I had seen at such close quarters a ship that was on the point of sailing. I had indeed beenover one or two steamers at Havre that were bound for Boston or New Orleans; but the elegance of these boats, which are fitted up for carrying passengers, makes them seem more like hotels, like furnished apartments and like the corridors of theatres, than like ships. But thePauline, on the contrary, was a thoroughbred three-master. I examined every little thing about her with a curiosity that enabled me to hope that some day, if occasion offered itself, I might be able to write novels connected with the sea, like Cooper's, or, at any rate, like those of Eugène Sue. I was in the full flush of my examination when the boat came alongside for the second time, bringing the young couple and their luggage. The young wife made no attempt to restrain her tears, but wept abundantly and openly. So she did not see me come towards the starboard companion, and when I gave her my hand to help her from the ladder to the bridge she uttered a little cry of surprise.

"Ah! monsieur!" she said, "are you also going to Guadeloupe?"

"Alas! no, madame," I said; "greatly to my regret I am not; but it is precisely because I am remaining behind that you find me here."

"I do not understand you, monsieur."

"I noticed your sadness, and know that you are leaving those who are very dear to you. Therefore, as I am a fellow-countryman of yours, I thought I would take your last messages to your friends."

"Oh, monsieur," she said, "how good of you!"

And she looked at her husband as if to ask him how far she might enter into a conversation of this nature with a stranger.

He smiled, and held out his hand, and with one quick glance gave his wife leave to do what she liked.

"Yes," he said, "be so good as to take my dear Pauline's last farewell messages to her family; and tell her mother especially, if you see her, that in less than three years' time we will come back and pay her a visit."

"Three years!" murmured the young wife dubiously.

"And tell this foolish child, monsieur," he went on, kissinghis wife's forehead, "that it is easier to get to and from Guadeloupe now than it was in old days to get to Saint-Cloud.... I am not yet thirty, and I have already made a dozen voyages between Pointe-à-Pître and Nantes."

"Yes, my dear! You tell me that now, but eighteen hundred leagues is a long way!"

"Six weeks' voyage ... that isn't much surely?"

I pointed out to the young wife a swallow which was skimming about the masts.

"That bird takes just such a voyage twice a year, madame," I said to her, "guided by its instinct alone."

"Yes, but it is a bird," she said, sighing.

I tried to give a fresh turn to the conversation.

"Monsieur," I said to the husband, "I heard you addressing madame as Pauline...La Paulineis the name of the boat on which we are standing; is it a mere coincidence or by your own selection that the names are the same?"

"It was my own choice, monsieur; there were three or four ships in the river, and I decided on this one.... I thought that besides her saintly patron I would give her one in addition.... Are you amused at my superstition?"

"Not at all, monsieur, quite the reverse. I appreciate all superstitions—particularly those which have love as their basis. It has always seemed to me impossible to love sincerely without feeling vague terrors on behalf of the beloved object, that make even the stoutest hearted a prey to superstitious feelings."

The young wife listened to me for a little while.

"Oh, monsieur," she then began, holding out her hand, "what a kind idea it was of yours to see us off!"

"I hope then, madame, that you will depute me to carry any last messages to your family."

"I wrote to my mother this morning, monsieur, but if you happen to be stopping at Tours, and have a little time to spare, be so good as to inquire for the house of Madame M——, and tell her you met us and saw us on the ship, and that you were witness" (she smiled rather doubtfully) "that Léopold promised to bring me back to France in three years' time."

"I will tell her, madame; and I will undertake to be surety for your husband's word."

Meantime, operations were taking place on board preparatory to sailing. The wind was east-south-east, just right for sailing out of the river; they had only been waiting for the tide to turn before making a quick start with the combined assistance of both wind and tide. Thus, all of a sudden, the captain's voice made us start. The pilot had just arrived from Saint-Nazaire, and the captain was issuing his first order: "Heave short at the anchor!" At this unexpected order, the poor traveller seemed as though she realised for the first time that she must actually leave France. She uttered a little cry, and threw herself on her husband's breast and burst into sobs. I took advantage of this renewed outflow of tears to quit the newly-married pair, and to tell the captain I was ready to return to shore at his convenience.

"Eh!" he said, "are you in such a hurry to leave us? I had counted on keeping you to luncheon and to dinner—or at any rate to luncheon; for," he added, looking at the sky, "I doubt there won't be many passengers dining to-day."

"Good!" I replied; "but, when at sea, how did you propose to get rid of me?"

"The easiest way imaginable: you would have returned to land with the coasting pilot."

"Stop! Is that really possible?"

"Everything is possible that one wants very much."

"Well then, I will have luncheon with you."

"Then you will not leave us until we get to Piliers; you will return with the pilot, to whom you can give a crown-piece, and you will pass for an Englishman who wanted a taste of sea-sickness."

"Done! Arrange matters with him for me."

He called to the pilot, spoke a few words to him in a whisper, pointed me out with a glance, and the pilot nodded in sign of acquiescence.

"There," said the captain, "that matter is fixed up all right!"

Then, addressing the sailors who had been heaving the anchor apeak, he said—

"Up aloft with you and let go the top-sails and the courses, the jibs and the spanker!"

"Ah, captain," I said, "do not go and serve me the trick that Bougainville did to his friend the curé of Boulogne!"

"Oh, no fear of that! Besides, I am not going all round the world!"[1]

Lastly, turning to his men, he shouted—

"Get ready to hoist and haul in the top-sails!"

The story of Bougainville and the curé of Boulogne is a popular one in the French navy, and, as you see, the captain answered me just as a communicant answers a question on the Catechism. Now, as it is quite possible that my reader may not be a sailor, and that ladies, in particular, may be quite unacquainted with the legend to which I have just referred, I will tell in as few words as possible the story of Bougainville and the curé of Boulogne. Then we will return to our two Paulines.

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