M. Nibor and his colleagues, after the usual compliments, requested to see the subject. They had no time to lose, as the experiment could hardly last less than three days. Leon hastened to conduct them to the laboratory and to open the three boxes containing the Colonel.
They found that the patient presented quite a favorable appearance. M. Nibor took off his clothes, which tore like tinder from having been too much dried in Father Meiser's furnace. The body, when naked, was pronounced entirely free from blemish and in a perfectly healthy condition. No one would yet have guaranteed success, but every one was full of hope.
After this preliminary examination, M. Renault put his laboratory at the service of his guests. He offered them all that he possessed, with a munificence which was not entirely free from vanity. In case the employment of electricity should appear necessary, he had a powerful battery of Leyden jars andforty of Bunsen's elements, which were entirely new. M. Nibor thanked him smilingly.
"Save your riches," said he. "With a bath-tub and caldron of boiling water, we will have everything we need. The Colonel needs nothing but humidity. The thing is to give him the quantity of water necessary to the play of the organs. If you have a small room where one can introduce a jet of vapor, we will be more than content.
M. Audret, the architect, had very wisely built a little bath-room near the laboratory, which was convenient and well lighted. The celebrated steam engine was not far off, and its boiler had not, up to this time, answered any other purpose than that of warming the baths of M. and Mme. Renault.
The Colonel was carried into this room, with all the care necessitated by his fragility. It was not intended to break his second ear in the hurry of moving. Leon ran to light the fire under the boiler, and M. Nibor created him Fireman, on the field of battle.
Soon a jet of tepid vapor streamed into the bath-room, creating around the Colonel a humid atmosphere which was elevated by degrees, and without any sudden increase, to the temperature of the human body. These conditions of heat and humidity were maintained with the greatest care for twenty-four hours. No one in the house went to sleep. The members of the Parisian Committee encamped in the laboratory. Leon kept up the fire; M. Nibor, M.Renault and M. Martout took turns in watching the thermometer. Madame Renault was making tea and coffee, and punch too. Gothon, who had taken communion in the morning, kept praying to God, in the corner of her kitchen, that this impious miracle might not succeed. A certain excitement already prevailed throughout the town, but one did not know whether it should be attributed to thefêteof the 15th, or the famous undertaking of the seven wise men of Paris.
By two o'clock on the 16th, encouraging results were obtained. The skin and muscles had recovered nearly all their suppleness, but the joints were still hard to bend. The collapsed condition of the walls of the abdomen and the interval between the ribs, still indicated that the viscera were far from having reabsorbed the quantity of water which they had previously lost with Herr Meiser. A bath was prepared and kept at a temperature of thirty-seven degrees and a half.[3]They left the Colonel in it two hours and a half, taking care to frequently pass over his head a fine sponge soaked with water.
M. Nibor removed him from the bath as soon as the skin, which was filled out sooner than the other tissues, began to assume a whitish tinge and wrinkle slightly. They kept him until the evening of the 16th in this humid room, where they arranged an apparatus which, from time to time, occasioned a fine rain of a temperature of thirty-seven and a half degrees. A new bath was given in the evening.During the night, the body was enveloped in flannel, but kept constantly in the same steaming atmosphere.
On the morning of the 17th, after a third bath of an hour and a half, the general characteristics of the figure and the proportions of the body presented their natural aspect: one would have called it a sleeping man. Five or six curious persons were admitted to see it, among others the colonel of the 23d. In the presence of these witnesses, M. Nibor moved successively all the joints, and demonstrated that they had recovered their flexibility. He gently kneaded the limbs, trunk and abdomen. He partly opened the lips, and separated the jaws, which were quite firmly closed, and saw that the tongue had returned to its ordinary size and consistency. He also partly opened the eyelids: the eye-balls were firm and bright.
"Gentlemen," said the philosopher, "these are indications which do not deceive; I prophesy success. In a few hours you shall witness the first manifestations of life."
"But," interrupted one of the bystanders, "why not immediately?"
"Because theconjunctivæare still a little paler than they ought to be. But the little veins traversing the whites of the eyes have already assumed a very encouraging appearance. The blood is almost entirely restored. What is the blood? Red globules floating in serum, or a sort of whey. The serum inpoor Fougas was dried up in his veins; the water which we have gradually introduced by a slow endosmose has saturated the albumen and fibrin of the serum, which is returned to the liquid state. The red globules which desiccation had agglutinated, had become motionless like ships stranded in shoal water. Now behold them afloat again: they thicken, swell, round out their edges, detach themselves from each other and prepare to circulate in their proper channels at the first impulse which shall be given them by the contractions of the heart."
"It remains to see," said M. Renault, "whether the heart will put itself in motion. In a living man, the heart moves under the impulse of the brain, transmitted by the nerves. The brain acts under the impulse of the heart, transmitted by the arteries. The whole forms a perfectly exact circle, without which there is no well-being. And when neither heart nor brain acts, as in the Colonel's case, I don't see which of the two can set the other in motion. You remember the scene in the 'Ecole des femmes,' where Arnolphe knocks at his door? The valet and the maid, Alain and Georgette, are both in the house. 'Georgette!' cries Alain.—'Well?' replies Georgette.—'Open the door down there!'—'Go yourself! Go yourself!'—'Gracious me! I shan't go!'—'I shan't go either!'—'Open it right away!'—'Open it yourself!' And nobody opens it. I am inclined to think, Monsieur, that we are attending a performance of this comedy. The house is the bodyof the Colonel; Arnolphe, who wants to get in, is the Vital Principle. The heart and brain act the parts of Alain and Georgette. 'Open the door!' says one.—'Open it yourself!' says the other. And the Vital Principle waits outside."
"Monsieur," replied Doctor Nibor smiling, "you forget the ending of the scene. Arnolphe gets angry, and cries out: 'Whichever of you two doesn't open the door, shan't have anything to eat for four days!' And forthwith Alain hurries himself, Georgette runs and the door is opened. Now bear in mind that I speak in this way only in order to conform to your own course of reasoning, for the term 'Vital Principle' is at variance with the actual assertions of science. Life will manifest itself as soon as the brain, or the heart, or any one of the organs which have the capacity of working spontaneously, shall have absorbed the quantity of water it needs. Organized matter has inherent properties which manifest themselves without the assistance of any foreign principle, whenever they are surrounded by certain conditions. Why do not M. Fougas' muscles contract yet? Why does not the tissue of the brain enter into action? Because they have not yet the amount of moisture necessary to them. In the fountain of life there is lacking, perhaps, a pint of water. But I shall be in no hurry to refill it: I am too much afraid of breaking it. Before giving this gallant fellow a final bath, it will be necessary to knead all his organs again, to subject his abdomen to regular compressions,in order that the serous membranes of the stomach, chest and heart may be perfectly disagglutinated and capable of slipping on each other. You are aware that the slightest tear in these parts, or the least resistance, would be enough to kill our subject at the moment of his revival."
While speaking, he united example to precept and kept kneading the trunk of the Colonel. As the spectators had too nearly filled the bath-room, making it almost impossible to move, M. Nibor begged them to move into the laboratory. But the laboratory became so full that it was necessary to leave it for the parlor: the Committee of the Biological Society, had scarcely a corner of the table on which to draw up their account of the proceedings. The parlor even was crowded with people, the dining room too, and so out to the court yard of the house. Friends, strangers, people not at all known to the family, elbowed each other and waited in silence. But the silence of a crowd is not much less noisy than the rolling of the sea. Fat Doctor Martout, apparently overwhelmed with responsibility, showed himself from time to time, and surged through the waves of curious people like a galleon laden with news. Every one of his words circulated from mouth to mouth, and spread even through the street, where several groups of soldiers and citizens were making a stir, in more senses than one. Never had the little "Rue de la Faisanderie" seen such a crowd. An astonished passer-by stopped and inquired:
"What's the matter here? Is it a funeral?"
"Quite the reverse, Sir."
"A christening, then?"
"With warm water!"
"A birth?"
"A being born again!"
An old judge of the Civil Court was recounting to a deputy the legend of Æson of old, who was boiled in Medea's caldron.
"This is almost the same experiment," said he, "and I am inclined to think that the poets have calumniated the sorceress of Colchis. There could be some fine Latin verses made appropriate to this occasion; but I no longer possess my old skill!
'Fabula Medeam cur crimine carpit iniquo?Ecce novus surgit redivivus Æson ab undisFortior, arma petens, juvenili pectore miles ...,
'Fabula Medeam cur crimine carpit iniquo?Ecce novus surgit redivivus Æson ab undisFortior, arma petens, juvenili pectore miles ...,
"Redivivus is taken in the active sense; it's a license, or at least a bold construction. Ah! Monsieur! there was a time when I was, even among those who made the most confident attempts,theman for Latin verses!"
"Corp'ral!" said a conscript of the levy of 1859.
"What is it, Freminot?"
"Is it true that they are boiling an old soldier in a pot, and that they are going to get him up again, Colonel's uniform and all?"
"True or not, subaltern, I'll run the risk of saying it's true."
"I fancy, with all proper deference, that they will not make much at it."
"You should know, Freminot, that nothing is impossible to your superiors! You are not unaware even now, that dried vegetables, on being boiled, recover their original and natural appearance!"
"But, Corp'ral, if one were to cook them, three days' time, they'd dissolve into broth."
"But, imbecile, why shouldn't one consider old soldiers hard to cook?"
At noon, the commisioner of police and the lieutenant ofgens-d'armesmade way through the crowd and entered the house. These gentlemen hastened to declare to M. Renault that their visit had nothing of an official character, but that they had come merely from curiosity. In the corridor, they met the Sub-prefect, the Mayor and Gothon, who was lamenting in loud tones that she should see the government lend its hand to such sorceries.
About one o'clock, M. Nibor caused a new and prolonged bath to be given the Colonel, on coming out of which, the body was subjected to a kneading harder and more complete than before.
"Now," said the Doctor, "we can carry M. Fougas into the laboratory, in order to give his resuscitation all the publicity desirable. But it will be well to dress him, and his uniform is in tatters."
"I think," answered good M. Renault, "that the Colonel is about my size; so I can lend him some ofmy clothes. Heaven grant that he may use them! But, between us, I don't hope for it."
Gothon brought in, grumbling, all that was necessary to dress an entirely naked man. But her bad humor did not hold out before the beauty of the Colonel:
"Poor gentleman!" she exclaimed, "he is young, fresh and fair as a little chicken. If he doesn't revive, it will be a great pity!"
There were about forty people in the laboratory when Fougas was carried thither. M. Nibor, assisted by M. Martout, placed him on a sofa, and begged a few moments of attentive silence. During these proceedings, Mme. Renault sent to inquire if she could come in. She was admitted.
"Madame and gentlemen," said Dr. Nibor, "life will manifest itself in a few minutes. It is possible that the muscles will act first, and that their action may be convulsive, on account of not yet being regulated by the influence of the nervous system. I ought to apprise you of this fact, in order that you may not be frightened if such a thing transpires. Madame, being a mother, ought to be less astonished at it than any one else; she has experienced, at the fourth month of pregnancy, the effect of those irregular movements which will, possibly, soon be presented to us on a larger scale. I am quite hopeful, however, that the first spontaneous contractions will take place in the fibres of the heart. Such is the case in the embryo, where the rhythmic movements of the heart, precede the nervous functions."
He again began making systematic compressions of the lower part of the chest, rubbing the skin with his hands, half opening the eyelids, examining the pulse, and auscultating the region of the heart.
The attention of the spectators was diverted an instant by a hubbub outside. A battalion of the 23d was passing, with music at the head, through the Rue de la Faisanderie. While the Sax-horns were shaking the windows, a sudden flash mantled on the cheeks of the Colonel. His eyes, which had stood half open, lit up with a brighter sparkle. At the same instant, Doctor Nibor, who had his ear applied to the chest, cried:
"I hear the beatings of the heart!"
Scarcely had he spoken, when the chest rose with a violent inspiration, the limbs contracted, the body straightened up, and out came a cry: "Vive l'Empereur."
But as if so great an effort had overtasked his strength, Colonel Fougas fell back on the sofa, murmuring in a subdued voice:
"Where am I? Waiter! Bring me a newspaper!"
Among all the persons present at this scene, there was not a single one who had ever seen a resuscitation. I leave you to imagine the surprise and joy which reigned in the laboratory. A triple round of applause, mingled with cheers, hailed the triumph of Doctor Nibor. The crowd, packed in the parlor, the passages, the court-yard, and even in the street, understood at this signal, that the miracle was accomplished. Nothing could hold them back, they forced the doors, cleared all obstacles, upset all the philosophers who tried to stop them, and finished by pouring into the chamber of Science.
"Gentlemen!" cried M. Nibor, "Do you want to kill him?"
But they let him talk. The wildest of all passions, curiosity, had long held dominion over the crowd: every one wanted to see, though at the risk of crushing the others. M. Nibor tumbled down, M. Renault and his son, in attempting to help him, were thrown on top of him; Madame Renault, inher turn, was thrown down at the feet of Fougas, and began screaming at the top of her voice.
"Damnation!" said Fougas, straightening himself up as if by a spring, "these scoundrels will suffocate us if some one doesn't squelch them!" His attitude, the glare of his eyes, and, above all, the prestige of the miraculous, cleared a space around him. One would have thought that the walls had been stretched or that the spectators had slid into one another!
"Out of here, every mother's son of you!" cried Fougas, in his fiercest tone of command. A tumult of cries, explanations, and remonstrances was raised around him; he fancied he heard menaces, he seized the first chair within reach, brandished it like a weapon, drove, hammered, upset the citizens, soldiers, officials,savants, friends, sight-seers, commissary of police—everybody, and urged the human torrent into the street with an uproar perfectly indescribable. This done, he shut the door and bolted it, returned to the laboratory, saw three men standing near Madame Renault, and said to the old lady, softening the tone of his voice:
"Well, good mother, shall I serve these three like the others?"
"No! No! No! Be careful!" cried the good old lady. "My husband and my son, Monsieur, and Doctor Nibor, who has restored you to life."
"In that case all honor to them, good mother! Fougas has never violated the laws of gratitudeand hospitality. As for you, my Esculapius, give me your hand!"
At the same instant, he noticed ten or a dozen inquisitive people on tiptoe on the pavement just by the windows of the laboratory. Forthwith he marched and opened them with a precipitation which upset the gazers among the crowd.
"People," said he, "I have knocked down a hundred beggarly pandours who respect neither sex nor infirmity. For the benefit of those who are not satisfied, I will state that I call myself colonel Fougas of the 23d. AndVive l'Empereur!"
A confused mixture of plaudits, cries, laughs, and jeers, answered this unprecedented allocution. Leon Renault hastened out to make apologies to all to whom they were due. He invited a few friends to dine the same evening with the terrible colonel, and, of course, he did not forget to send a special messenger to Clementine. Fougas, after speaking to the people, returned to his hosts, swinging himself along with a swaggering air, set himself astride a chair, took hold of the ends of his moustache, and said:
"Well! Come, let's talk this over. I've been sick then?"
"Very sick."
"That's fabulous! I feel entirely well. I'm hungry, and, moreover, while waiting for dinner, I'll even try a glass of your schnick."
Mme. Renault went out, gave an order, and returned in an instant.
"But tell me, then, where I am," resumed the colonel. "By these paraphernalia of work, I recognize a disciple of Urania; possibly a friend of Monge and Berthollet. But the cordial friendliness impressed on your countenances proves to me that you are not natives of this land of sour-krout. Yes, I believe it from the beatings of my heart. Friends, we have the same fatherland. The kindness of your reception, even were there no other indications, would have satisfied me that you are French. What accidents have brought you so far from our native soil? Children of my country, what tempest has thrown you upon this inhospitable shore?"
"My dear Colonel," replied M. Nibor, "if you want to become very wise, you will not ask so many questions at once. Allow us the pleasure of instructing you quietly and in order, for you have a great many things to learn."
The Colonel flushed with anger, and answered sharply:
"At all events, you are not the man to teach them to me, my little gentleman!"
A drop of blood which fell on his hand changed the current of his thoughts:
"Hold on!" said he; "am I bleeding?"
"That will amount to nothing; circulation is reëstablished, and your broken ear...."
He quickly carried his hand to his ear and said:
"It's certainly so. But Devil take me if I recollect this accident!"
"I'll make you a little dressing, and in a couple of days there will be no trace of it left!"
"Don't give yourself the trouble, my dear Hippocrates; a pinch of powder is a sovereign cure!"
M. Nibor set to work to dress the ear in a little less military fashion. During his operations, Leon reëntered.
"Ah! ah!" said he to the Doctor, "you are repairing the harm I did."
"Thunderation!" cried Fougas, escaping from the hands of M. Nibor so as to seize Leon by the collar, "was it you, you rascal, that hurt my ear?"
Leon was very good-natured, but his patience failed him. He pushed his man roughly aside.
"Yes, sir, it was I who tore your ear, in pulling it, and if that little misfortune had not happened to me, it is certain that you would have been, to-day, six feet under ground. It is I who saved your life, after buying you with my money when you were not valued at more than twenty-five louis. It is I who have passed three days and two nights in cramming charcoal under your boiler. It is my father who gave you the clothes you now have on. You are in our house. Drink the little glass of brandy Gothon just brought you; but for God's sake give up the habit of calling me rascal, of calling my mother 'Good Mother.' and of flinging our friends into the street and calling them beggarly pandours!"
The colonel, all dumbfounded, held out his hand to Leon, M. Renault and the doctor, gallantly kissedthe hand of Mme. Renault, swallowed at a gulp a claret glass filled to the brim with brandy, and said in a subdued voice:
"Most excellent friends, forget the vagaries of an impulsive but generous soul. To subdue my passions shall hereafter be my law. After conquering all the nations in the universe, it is well to conquer one's self."
This said, he submitted his ear to M. Nibor, who finished dressing it.
"But," said he, summoning up his recollections, "they did not shoot me then?"
"No."
"And I wasn't frozen to death in the tower?"
"Not quite."
"Why has my uniform been taken off? I see! I am a prisoner!"
"You are free."
"Free!Vive l'Empereur!But then, there's not a moment to lose! How many leagues is it to Dantzic?"
"It's very far."
"What do you call this chicken coop of a town?"
"Fontainebleau."
"Fontainebleau! In France?"
"Prefecture of Seine-et-Marne. We are going to introduce to you the sub-prefect, whom you just pitched into the street."
"What the Devil are your sub-prefects to me?I have a message from the Emperor for General Rapp, and I must start, this very day, for Dantzic. God knows whether I'll be there in time!"
"My poor Colonel, you will arrive too late. Dantzic is given up."
"That's impossible! Since when?"
"About forty-six years ago."
"Thunder! I did not understand that you were ... mocking me!"
M. Nibor placed in his hand a calendar, and said: "See for yourself! It is now the 17th of August, 1859; you went to sleep in the tower of Liebenfeld on the 11th of November, 1813; there have been, then, forty-six years, all to three months, during which the world has moved on without you."
"Twenty-four and forty-six; but then I would be seventy years old, according to your statement!"
"Your vitality clearly shows that you are still twenty-four."
He shrugged his shoulders, tore up the calendar and said, beating the floor with his foot: "Your almanac is a humbug!"
M. Renault ran to his library, took up half a dozen books at haphazard and made him read, at the foot of the title pages, the dates 1826, 1833, 1847, 1858.
"Pardon me!" said Fougas, burying his head in his hands. "What has happened to me is so new! I do not think that another human being was ever subjected to such a trial. I am seventy years old!"
Good Madame Renault went and got a looking-glass from the bath room, and gave it to him, saying:
"Look!"
He took the glass in both hands, and was silently occupied in resuming acquaintance with himself, when a hand-organ came into the court and began playing "Partant pour la Syrie!"
Fougas threw the mirror to the ground, and cried out:
"What is that you were telling me? I hear the little song of Queen Hortense!"[4]
M. Renault patiently explained to him, while picking up the pieces of the mirror, that the pretty little song of Queen Hortense had become a national air, and even an official one, since the regimental bands had substituted that gentle melody for the fierce Marsellaise, and that our soldiers, strange to say, had not fought any the worse for it. But the Colonel had already opened the window, and was crying out to the Savoyard:
"Eh! Friend! A napoleon for you if you will tell me in what year I am drawing the breath of life!"
The artist began dancing as lightly as possible playing on his musical instrument.
"Advance at the order!" cried the Colonel, "and keep that devilish machine still!"
"A little penny, my good monsieur!"
"It is not a penny that I'll give you, but a napoleon, if you'll tell me what year it is."
"Oh but that's funny! Hi—hi—hi!"
"And if you don't tell me quicker than this amounts to, I'll cut your ears off!"
The Savoyard ran away, but he came back pretty soon, having meditated, during his flight, on the maxim: "Nothing risk nothing gain."
"Monsieur," said he, in a wheedling voice, "this is the year Eighteen Hundred and Fifty-nine."
"Good!" cried Fougas. He felt in his pockets for money, and found nothing there. Leon saw his predicament, and flung twenty francs into the court. Before shutting the window, he pointed out, to the right, the façade of a pretty little new building where the Colonel could distinctly read
AUDRET ARCHITECTE.MDCCCLIX.
AUDRET ARCHITECTE.
MDCCCLIX.
A perfectly satisfactory piece of evidence, and one which did not cost twenty francs.
Fougas, a little confused, pressed Leon's hand, and said to him:
"My friend, I do not forget that Confidence is the first duty from Gratitude toward Beneficence. But tell me of our country! I tread the sacred soil where I received my being, and I am ignorant of the career of my native land. France is still the queen of the world, is she not?"
"Certainly," said Leon.
"How is the Emperor?"
"Well."
"And the Empress?"
"Very well."
"And the King of Rome?"
"The Prince Imperial? He is a very fine child."
"How? A fine child! And you have the face to say that this is 1859!"
M. Nibor took up the conversation, and explained in a few words that the reigning sovereign of France was not Napoleon I., but Napoleon III.
"But then," cried Fougas, "my Emperor is dead!"
"Yes."
"Impossible! Tell me anything you will but that! My Emperor is immortal."
M. Nibor and the Renaults, who were not quite professional historians, were obliged to give him a summary of the history of our century. Some one went after a big book written by M. de Norvins and illustrated with fine engravings by Raffet. He only believed in the presence of Truth when he could touch her with his hand, and still cried out almost every moment: "That's impossible! This is not history that you are reading to me: it is a romance written to make soldiers weep!"
This young man must indeed have had a strong and well-tempered soul, for he learned in forty minutes all the woful events which Fortune had scattered through eighteen years, from the first abdication up to the death of the King of Rome. Less happy than his old companions in arms, he had no intervalof repose between these terrible and repeated shocks, all beating upon his heart at the same time. One could have feared that the blow might prove mortal, and poor Fougas die in the first hour of his recovered life. But the imp of a fellow yielded and recovered himself in quick succession like a spring. He cried out with admiration on hearing of the five battles of the campaign in France; he reddened with grief at the farewells of Fontainebleau. The return from the Isle of Elba transfigured his handsome and noble countenance; at Waterloo his heart rushed in with the last army of the Empire, and there shattered itself. Then he clenched his fists and said between his teeth: "If I had been there at the head of the 23d, Blucher and Wellington would have seen another fate!" The invasion, the truce, the martyr of St. Helena, the ghastly terror of Europe, the murder of Murat—the idol of the cavalry, the death of Ney, Bruno, Mouton Duvernet, and so many other whole-souled men whom he had known, admired, and loved, threw him into a series of paroxysms of rage, but nothing upset him. In hearing of the death of Napoleon, he swore that he would eat the heart of England; the slow agony of the pale and interesting heir of the Empire, inspired him with a passion to tear the vitals out of Austria. When the drama was over and the curtain fell on Schoenbrunn, he dashed away his tears and said: "It is well. I have lived in a moment a man's entire life. Now show me the map of France!"
Leon began to turn over the leaves of an atlas, while M. Renault attempted to continue narrating to the colonel the history of the Restoration, and of the monarchy of 1830. But Fougas' interest was in other things.
"What do I care," said he, "if a couple of hundred babblers of deputies put one king in place of another? Kings! I've seen enough of them in the dirt. If the Empire had lasted ten years longer, I could have had a king for a boot-black."
When the atlas was placed before him, he at once cried out with profound disdain: "That, France!" But soon two tears of pitying affection escaping from his eyes, swelled the rivers Ardeche and Gironde. He kissed the map and said, with an emotion which communicated itself to nearly all present:
"Forgive me, poor old love, for insulting your misfortunes. Those scoundrels whom we always whipped have profited by my sleep to pare down your frontiers; but little or great, rich or poor, you are my mother, and I love you as a faithful son! Here is Corsica, where the giant of our age was born; here is Toulouse, where I first saw the light; here is Nancy where I felt my heart awakened, where, perhaps, she whom I call my Ægle waits for me still! France! Thou hast a temple in my soul; this arm is thine; thou shalt find me ever ready to shed my blood to the last drop in defending or avenging thee!"
The messenger whom Leon had sent to Moret, could not reach there before seven o'clock. Supposing that he would find the ladies at table with their hosts, that the great news would cut the dinner short, and that there would be a carriage handy, Clementine and her aunt would probably be at Fontainebleau between ten and eleven o'clock. Young Renault rejoiced in advance over the happiness of hisfiancée. What a joy it would be for her and for him when he should present to her the miraculous man whom she had protected against the horrors of the tomb, and whom he had resuscitated in answer to her entreaty!
Meanwhile Gothon, proud and happy to the same degree that she had before been scandalized and annoyed, spread the table for a dozen persons. Her yoke-fellow, a young rustic of eighteen, half-fledged in the commune of Sablons, helped her with all his might, and amused her with his conversation.
"Well, now, Ma'm'selle Gothon," said he, setting down a pile of empty plates, "this is what one might call a ghost coming out of its box to upset the commissary and the sub-prefect!"
"Ghost, if you'll have it so, Célestin; it's certain-sure that he comes from a good ways, poor young man! But perhaps 'ghost' isn't a proper word to use in speaking of our masters."
"Is it true, then, that he has come to be our master too? Too many ofthemcome every day. I'd like it better if more servants and help would come!"
"Shut up, you lizard of laziness! When the gentlemen leaves tips for us on going away, you don't complain because there's only two to divide 'em."
"That's all well enough as far as it goes! I've carried more than fifty buckets of water for him to simmer in, that Colonel of yours, and I know mighty well that he won't give me a cent, for he hasn't a farthing in his pockets. We've got to believe that money isn't plenty in the country he just came from!"
"They say there's wills in his favor in Strasburg; a gentleman who'd hurt his fortune——"
"Tell me now, Ma'm'selle Gothon—you who read a little book every Sunday—where he could have been, our Colonel, while he was not in this world."
"Eh! In purgatory, of course!"
"Then why don't you ask him about that famous Baptiste, your sweetheart in 1837, who let himselftumble off a roof, and on whose account you have so many masses said? They ought to have met each other down there!"
"That's very possible."
"Unless Baptiste has left there since the time when you paid so much money to get him out."
"Very well. I'll go this very evening to the Colonel's chamber, and, since he's not proud, he'll tell me all he knows about it.—But, Célestin, are'nt you never going to act different? Here you've rubbed my silver pickle knives on the grindstone again!"
The guests came into the parlor, where the Renault family with M. Nibor and the Colonel were already assembled. There were successively presented to M. Fougas the mayor of the city, Doctor Martout, Master Bonnivet the notary, M. Audret, and three members of the Paris committee; the other three had been obliged to return before dinner. The guests were not entirely at their ease; their sides, bruised by the first movements of Fougas, left room for them to suppose that possibly they were dining with a maniac. But curiosity was stronger than fear. The Colonel soon reassured them by a most cordial reception. He excused himself for acting the part of a man just returned from the other world. He talked a great deal—a little too much, perhaps; but they were so well pleased to listen to him, and his words borrowed such an importance from the singularity of recent events, that he gained an unqualified success. He was told that Dr. Martout had been oneof the principal agents of his resuscitation, in conjunction with another person whom they promised soon to present to him. He thanked M. Martout warmly, and asked how soon he could evince his gratitude to the other person.
"I hope," said Leon, "that you will see her this evening."
No one came later than the colonel of the 23d of the line, M. Rollon. He made his way with no little difficulty through the crowds of people who filled the Rue de la Faisanderie. He was a man of forty-five, with a quick voice, and full figure. His hair was a little grizzled, but his brown mustache, full, and twisted at the ends, looked as young as ever. He said little, spoke to the point, knew a great deal, and did no boasting—all in all, he was a fine specimen of a colonel. He came right up to Fougas, and held out his hand like an old acquaintance.
"My dear comrade," said he, "I have taken great interest in your resurrection, as much on my own account as on account of the regiment. The 23d which I have the honor to command, yesterday venerated you as an ancestor. From to-day, it will cherish you as a friend."—Not the slightest allusion to the affair of the morning, in which M. Rollon had undergone his pummelling with the rest.
Fougas answered becomingly, but with, a tinge of coldness:
"My dear comrade, I thank you for your kindly sentiments. It is singular that Destiny places me inthe presence of my successor on the very day that I reopen my eyes to the light; for, after all, I am neither dead nor a general; I have not been transferred, nor have I been retired; yet I see another officer, more worthy, doubtless, at the head of my noble 23d. But if you have for your motto 'Honor and Courage,' as I am well satisfied you have, I have no right to complain, and the regiment is in good hands."
Dinner was ready. Mme. Renault took Fougas' arm. She had him sit at her right, and M. Nibor at her left. The Colonel and the Mayor took their places at the sides of M. Renault; the rest of the company distributed themselves as it happened, regardless of etiquette.
Fougas gulped down the soup andentrées, helping himself to every dish, and drinking in proportion. An appetite of the other world! "Estimable Amphitryon," said he to M. Renault, "don't get frightened at seeing me fall upon the rations. I always ate just so; except during the retreat in Russia. Consider, too, that I went to sleep last night, at Liebenfeld, without any supper."
He begged M. Nibor to explain to him by what course of circumstances he had come from Liebenfeld to Fontainebleau.
"Do you remember," said the doctor, "an old German who acted as interpreter for you before the court-martial?"
"Perfectly. An excellent man, with a violet-colored wig. I'll remember him all my life, for there are not two wigs of that color in existence."
"Very well; it was the man with the violet wig, otherwise known as the celebrated Doctor Meiser, who saved your life."
"Where is he? I want to see him, to fall into his arms, to tell him——"
"He was sixty-eight years old when he did you that little service; he would then be, to-day, in his hundred and fifteenth year, if he had waited for your acknowledgments."
"And so, then, he is no more! Death has robbed him of my gratitude!"
"You do not yet know all that you owe to him. He bequeathed you, in 1824, a fortune of seventy-five thousand francs, of which you are the rightful owner. Now, since a sum invested at five per cent, doubles itself in fourteen years—thanks to compound interest—you were worth, in 1838, a trifle of seven hundred and fifty thousand francs; and in 1852, a million and a half. In fine, if you are satisfied to leave your property in the hands of Herr Nicholas Meiser, of Dantzic, that worthy man will owe you three millions at the commencement of 1866—that is to say, in seven years. We will give you, this evening, a copy of your benefactor's will; it is a very instructive document, and you can consider it when you go to bed."
"I'll read it willingly," said Colonel Fougas. "But gold has no attractions for my eyes. Wealth engenders weakness. Me, to languish in the sluggishidleness of Sybaris!—to enervate my senses on a bed of roses! Never! The smell of powder is dearer to me than all the perfumes of Arabia. Life would have no charm or zest for me, if I had to give up the inspiriting clash of arms. On the day when you are told that Fougas no longer marches in the columns of the army, you can safely answer, 'It is because Fougas is no more!'"
He turned to the new colonel of the 23d, and said:
"Oh! do you, my dear comrade, tell them that the proud pomp of wealth is a thousand times less sweet than the austere simplicity of the soldier—of a colonel, more than all. Colonels are the kings of the army. A colonel is less than a general, but nevertheless he has something more. He lives more with the soldier; he penetrates further into the intimacy of his command. He is the father, the judge, the friend of his regiment. The welfare of each one of his men is in his hands; the flag is placed under his tent or in his chamber. The colonel and the flag are not two separate existences; one is the soul, the other is the body."
He asked M. Rollon's permission to go to see and embrace the flag of the 23d.
"You shall see it to-morrow morning," said the new colonel, "if you will do me the honor to breakfast with me in company with some of my officers."
He accepted the invitation with enthusiasm, and flung himself into the midst of a thousand questionstouching pay, the amount retained for clothing, promotion, roster, reserve, uniform, full and fatigue dress, armament, and tactics. He understood, without difficulty, the advantages of the percussion gun, but the attempt to explain rifled cannon to him was in vain. Artillery was not his forte; but he avowed, nevertheless, that Napoleon had owed more than one victory to his fine artillery.
While the innumerable roasts of Mme. Renault were succeeding each other on the table, Fougas asked—but without ever losing a bite—what were the principal wars in progress, how many nations France had on her hands, and if it was not intended ultimately to recommence the conquest of the world? The answers which he received, without completely satisfying him, did not entirely deprive him of hope.
"I did well to come," said he; "there's work to do."
The African wars did not interest him much, although in them the 23d had won a good share of glory.
"As a school, it's very well," said he. "The soldier ought to train himself in other ways than in the Tivoli gardens, behind nurses' petticoats. But why the devil are not five hundred thousand men flung upon the back of England? England is the soul of the coalition, I can tell you that."
How many explanations were necessary to make him understand the Crimean war, where the English had fought by our sides!
"I can understand," said he, "why we took a crack at the Russians—they made me eat my best horse. But the English are a thousand times worse. If this young man" (the Emperor Napoleon III.) "doesn't know it, I'll tell him. There is no quarter possible after what they did at St. Helena! If I had been commander-in-chief in the Crimea, I would have begun by properly squelching the Russians, after which I would have turned upon the English, and hurled them into the sea. It's their element, anyhow."
They gave him some details of the Italian campaign, and he was charmed to learn that the 23d had taken a redoubt under the eyes of the Marshal the Duke of Solferino.
"That's the habit of the regiment," said he, shedding tears in his napkin. "That brigand of a 23d will never act in any other way. The goddess of Victory has touched it with her wing."
One of the things, for example, which greatly astonished him, was that a war of such importance was finished up in so short a time. He had yet to learn that within a few years the world had learned the secret of transporting a hundred thousand men, in four days, from one end of Europe to the other.
"Good!" said he; "I admit the practicability of it. But what astonishes me is, that the Emperor did not invent this affair in 1810; for he had a genius for transportation, a genius for administration, a genius for office details, a genius for everything.But (to resume your story) the Austrians are fortified at last, and you cannot possibly get to Vienna in less than three months."
"We did not go so far, in fact."
"You did not push on to Vienna?"
"No."
"Well, then, where did you sign the treaty of peace?"
"At Villafranca."
"At Villafranca? That's the capital of Austria, then?"
"No; it's a village of Italy."
"Monsieur, I don't admit that treaties of peace are signed anywhere but in capitals. That was our principle, our A B C, the first paragraph of our theory. It seems as if the world must have changed a good deal while I was not in it. But patience!"
And now truth obliges me to confess that Fougas got drunk at dessert. He had drunk and eaten like a Homeric hero, and talked more fluently than Cicero in his best days. The fumes of wine, spices, and eloquence mounted into his brain. He became familiar, spoke affectionately to some and rudely to others, and poured out a torrent of absurdities big enough to turn forty mills. His drunkenness, however, had in it nothing brutal, or even ignoble; it was but the overflowing of a spirit young, affectionate, vain-glorious, and unbalanced. He proposed five or six toasts—to Glory, to the Extension of our Frontiers, to the Destruction of the last of the English, to Mlle. Mars—the hope of the French stage, to Affection—the tie, fragile but dear, which unites the lover to his sweetheart, the father to his son, the colonel to his regiment!
His style, a singular mixture of familiarity and impressiveness, provoked more than one smile among the auditory. He noticed it, and a spark of defiance flashed up at the bottom of his heart. From time to time he loudly asked if "those people there" were not abusing his ingenuousness.
"Confusion!" cried he, "Confusion to those who want me to take bladders for lanterns! The lantern may blaze out like a bomb, and carry consternation in its path!"
After a series of such remarks, there was nothing left for him to do but to roll under the table, and thisdénoûementwas generally expected. But the Colonel belonged to a robust generation, accustomed to more than one kind of excess, and strong to resist pleasure as well as dangers, privations, and fatigues. So when Madame Renault pushed back her chair, in indication that the repast was finished, Fougas arose without difficulty, gracefully offered his arm, and conducted his partner to the parlor. His gait was a little stiff and oppressively regular, but he went straight ahead, and did not oscillate the least bit. He took a couple of cups of coffee, and spirits in moderation, after which he began to talk in the most reasonable manner in the world. About ten o'clock, M. Martout, having expressed a wish to hear hishistory, he placed himself on a stool, collected his ideas for a moment, and asked for a glass of water and sugar. The company seated themselves in a circle around him, and he commenced the following narrative, the slightly antiquated style of which craves your indulgence.
"Do not expect that I will ornament my story with those flowers, more agreeable than substantial, which Imagination often uses to gloss over truth. A Frenchman and a soldier, I doubly ignore deception. Friendship interrogates me, Frankness shall answer.
"I was born of poor but honest parents at the beginning of the year which theJeu de Paume[5]brightened with an aurora of liberty. The south was my native clime; the language dear to the troubadours was that which I lisped in my cradle. My birth cost my mother's life. The author of mine was the humble owner of a little farm, and moistened his bread in the sweat of labor. My first sports were not those of wealth. The many-colored pebbles which are found by the brooks, and that well-known insect which childhood holds fluttering, free and captive at the same time, at the end of a thread, stood me in stead of other playthings.
"An old minister at Devotion's altar, enfranchised from the shadowy bondage of fanaticism, and reconciled to the new institutions of France, was myChiron and Mentor. He nourished me with the strong lion's marrow of Rome and Athens; his lips distilled into my ears the embalmed honey of wisdom. Honor to thee, learned and venerable man, who gavest me the first precepts of wisdom and the first examples of virtue!
"But already that atmosphere of glory which the genius of one man and the valor of a nation had set floating over the country, filled all my senses, and made my young heart throb. France, on the edge of the volcano of civil war, had collected all her forces into a thunderbolt to launch upon Europe, and the world, astounded if not overwhelmed, was shrinking from the surge of the unchained torrent. What man, what Frenchman, could have heard with indifference that echo of victory reverberating through millions of hearts?
"While scarcely leaving childhood, I felt that honor is more precious than life. The warlike music of the drums brought to my eyes brave and manly tears. 'And I, too,' said I, following the music of the regiments through the streets of Toulouse, 'will pluck laurels though I sprinkle them with my blood.' The pale olive of peace had from me nothing but scorn. The peaceful triumphs of the law, the calm pleasures of commerce and finance, were extolled in vain. To the toga of our Ciceros, to the robe of our magistrates, to the curule chair of our legislators, to the opulence of our Mondors, I preferred the sword. One would have said that I had sucked the milk ofBellona. 'Victory or Death!' was already my motto, and I was not sixteen years old.
"With what noble scorn I heard recounted the history of our Proteuses of politics! With what disdainful glances I regarded the Turcarets of finance, lolling on the cushions of some magnificent carriage, and conducted by a laced automaton to the boudoir of some Aspasia. But if I heard told the mighty deeds of the Knights of the Round Table, or the valor of the crusaders celebrated in flowing verse; if chance placed in my hand the great actions of our modern Rolands, recounted in an army bulletin by the successor of Charlemagne, a flame presaging the fire of battles rose in my young eyes.
"Ah, the inaction was too much, and my leading-strings, already worn by impatience, would have broken, perhaps, had not a father's wisdom untied them.
"'Most surely,' said he to me, trying, but in vain, to restrain his tears, 'it was no tyrant who begot you, and I will not poison the life which I myself gave you. I had hoped that your hand would remain in our cottage to close my eyes; but when Patriotism has spoken, Egotism must be still. My prayers will always follow you to the field where Mars harvests heroes. May you merit the guerdon of valor, and show yourself a good citizen, as you have been a good son!'
"Speaking thus, he opened his arms to me. I threw myself into them; we mingled our tears, andI promised to return to our hearthstone as soon as I could bring the star of honor suspended from my breast. But alas! my unhappy father was destined to see me no more. The fate which was already gilding the thread of my days, pitilessly severed that of his. A stranger's hand closed his eyes, while I was gaining my first epaulette at the battle of Jena.
"Lieutenant at Eylau, captain at Wagram, and there decorated by the Emperor's own hand on the field of battle, major before Almieda, lieutenant-colonel at Badajoz, colonel at Moscow, I have drunk the cup of victory to the full. But I have also tasted the chalice of adversity. The frozen plains of Russia saw me alone with a platoon of braves, the last remnant of my regiment, forced to devour the mortal remains of that faithful friend who had so often carried me into the very heart of the enemy's battalions. Trusty and affectionate companion of my dangers, when rendered useless by an accident at Smolensk, he devoted his verymanesto the safety of his master, and made of his skin a protection for my frozen and lacerated feet.
"My tongue refuses to repeat the story of our perils in that terrible campaign. Perhaps some day I will write it with a pen dipped in tears—tears, the tribute of feeble humanity. Surprised by the season of frosts in a zone of ice, without fire, without bread, without shoes, without means of transportation, denied the succor of Esculapius' art, harassed by theCossacks, robbed by the peasants—positive vampires, we saw our mute thunderers, which had fallen into the enemy's hands, belch forth death upon ourselves. What more can I tell you? The passage of the Beresina, the opposition at Wilna—Oh, ye gods of Thunder!—- But I feel that grief overcomes me, and that my language is becoming tinged with the bitterness of these recollections.
"Nature and Love were holding in reserve for me brief but precious consolations. Released from my fatigues, I passed a few happy days in my native land among the peaceful vales of Nancy. While our phalanxes were preparing themselves for fresh combats, while I was gathering around my flag three thousand young but valorous warriors, all resolved to open to posterity the path of honor, a new emotion, to which I had before been a stranger, furtively glided into my soul.
"Beautified by all Nature's gifts, enriched by the fruits of an excellent education, the young and interesting Clementine had scarcely passed from the uncertain shadows of childhood into the sweet illusions of youth. Eighteen springs composed her life. Her parents extended to some of the army officers a hospitality which, though it was not gratuitous, was far from lacking in cordiality. To see their child and love her, was for me the affair of a day. Her virgin heart smiled upon my love. At the first avowals dictated to me by my passion, I saw her forehead color with a lovely modesty. We exchanged ourvows one lovely evening in June, under an arbor where her happy father sometimes dispensed to the thirsty officers the brown liquor of the North. I swore that she should be my wife, and she promised to be mine; she yielded still more. Our happiness, regardless of all outside, had the calmness of a brook whose pure wave is never troubled by the storm, and which rolls sweetly between flowery banks, spreading its own freshness through the grove that protects its modest course.
"A lightning stroke separated us from each other at the moment when Law and Religion were about adding their sanction to our sweet communion. I departed before I was able to give my name to her who had given me her heart. I promised to return; she promised to wait for me; and, all bathed in her tears, I tore myself from her arms, to rush to the laurels of Dresden and the cypresses of Leipzic. A few lines from her hand reached me during the interval between the two battles. 'You are to be a father,' she told me. Am I one? God knows! Has she waited for me? I believe she has. The waiting must have appeared to be a long one since the birth of this child, who is forty-six years old to-day, and who could be, in his turn, my father.
"Pardon me for having troubled you so long with misfortunes. I wished to pass rapidly over this sad history, but the unhappiness of virtue has in it something sweet to temper the bitterness of grief.
"Some days after the disaster of Leipzic, thegiant of our age had me called into his tent, and said to me:
"'Colonel, are you a man to make your way through four armies?'
"'Yes, sire.'
"'Alone, and without escort?'
"'Yes, sire.'
"'There must be a letter carried to Dantzic.'
"'Yes, sire.'
"'You will deliver it into General Rapp's own hands?'
"'Yes, sire.'
"'It is probable you will be taken, or killed.'
"'Yes, sire.'
"'For that reason I send two other officers with copies of the same despatch. There are three of you; the enemy will kill two, the third will get there, and France will be saved.'
"'Yes, sire.'
"'The one who returns shall be a brigadier-general.'
"'Yes, sire.'
"Every detail of this interview, every word of the Emperor, every response which I had the honor to address to him, is still engraved upon my memory. All three of us set out separately. Alas! not one of us reached the goal aimed at by his valor, and I have learned to-day that France was not saved. But when I see these blockheads of historians asserting that the Emperor forgot to send orders to General Rapp, Ifeel a terrible itching to cut their —— story short, at least.
"'When a prisoner in the hands of the Russians in a German village, I had the consolation of finding an old philosopher, who gave me the rarest proofs of friendship. Who would have told me, when I succumbed to the numbness of the cold in the tower of Liebenfeld, that that sleep would not be the last? God is my witness, that in then addressing, from the bottom of my heart, a last farewell to Clementine, I did not even hope to see her again. I will see you again, then, O sweet and confiding Clementine—best of spouses, and, probably, of mothers! What do I say? I see her now! My eyes do not deceive me! This is surely she! There she is, just as I left her! Clementine! In my arms! On my heart! Look here! What's this you've been whining to me, the rest of you? Napoleon is not dead, and the world has not grown forty-six years older, for Clementine is still the same!"
The betrothed of Leon Renault was about entering the room, and stopped petrified at finding herself so overwhelmingly received by the Colonel.