by Victor Hugo
CHAPTER III.
ON BOARD THE "ORION."
Toward the close of October, in the same year, 1823, the inhabitants ofToulon saw a vessel enter their port which had sustained some damage ina heavy storm. It was the "Orion," which at a later date was employedat Brest as a training school, but now formed part of the Mediterraneanfleet. This vessel, battered as it was, for the sea had ill-treatedit, produced an effect on entering the roads. It displayed some flagwhich obtained it the regulation salute of eleven guns, to which itreplied round for round,--a total of two-and-twenty rounds. It has beencalculated that in salvos, royal and military politeness, exchanges ofcourtesy signals, formalities of roads and citadels, sunrise and sunsetsaluted every day by all the fortresses and vessels of war, opening andclosing gates, etc., the civilized world fired every twenty-four hours,and in all parts of the globe, one hundred and fifty thousand uselessrounds. At six francs the round, this makes 900,000 francs a day. Threehundred millions a year expended in smoke. During this time poor peopleare dying of starvation.
The year 1823 was what the Restoration called "the epoch of the Spanishwar." This war contained many events in one, and many singularities.It was a great family affair for the House of Bourbon; the Frenchbranch succoring and protecting the Madrid branch, that is to say,proving its majority; an apparent return to national traditions,complicated by servitude and subjection to the northern cabinets. TheDuc d'Angoulême, surnamed by the liberal papers the "hero of Andujar,"repressing in a triumphal attitude, which what somewhat spoiled by hispeaceful looks, the old and very real terrorism of the Holy Office,which was contending with the chimerical terrorism of the liberals; the_sans culottes_ resuscitated to the great alarm of dowagers, under thename of _Descamisados_; monarchy offering an obstacle to the progresswhich it termed anarchy; the theories of '89 suddenly interrupted intheir sap; a European check given to the French idea which was makingits voyage round the world by the side of the Generalissimo son ofFrance; the Prince de Carignan, afterwards Charles Albert, enrollinghimself as a volunteer with the red wool epaulettes of a grenadier inthis crusade of the kings against the peoples; the soldiers of theempire taking the field again, after eight years rest, aged, sad, andwearing the white cockade; the tricolor waved in a foreign country byan heroic handful of Frenchmen, as the white flag had been at Coblentzthirty years previously; monks mingled with the French troopers;the spirit of liberty and novelty set right by bayonets; principlescheckmated by artillery; France undoing by her arms what she had doneby her mind; the enemy's leaders sold; the soldiers hesitating; townsbesieged by millions; no military perils, and yet possible explosions,as in every mine which is surprised and invaded; disgrace for a fewpersons, and glory for none,--such was this war, brought about byprinces who descended from Louis XIV., and conducted by generals whoissued from Napoleon. It had the sad fate of recalling neither thegreat war nor the great policy.
Some engagements were serious. The passage of the Trocadero, forinstance, was a brilliant military achievement; but on the whole, werepeat, the trumpets of that war have a cracked sound, the whole affairwas suspicious, and history agrees with France in the difficulty ofaccepting this false triumph. It seemed evident that certain Spanishofficers ordered to resist, yielded too easily, and the idea ofcorruption was evolved from the victory; it seemed as if generalsrather than battles had been gained, and the victorious soldierreturned home humiliated. It was, in truth, a diminishing war, andthe words "Bank of France" could be read in the folds of the flag.The soldiers of the war of 1808, on whom the ruins of Saragossa fellso formidably, frowned in 1823 at the easy opening of citadel gates,and began regretting Palafox. It is the humor of France to prefer aRostopchin before her rather than a Ballesteros. From a more seriouspoint of view, on which it is right to dwell here, this war, whichoffended the military spirit in France, humiliated the democraticspirit. It was undertaken on behalf of serfdom; in this campaign theobject of the French soldier, who was the son of democracy, was to bowothers under the yoke. This was a hideous mistake, for France has themission of arousing the soul of nations, and not stifling it. Since1792 all the revolutions of Europe have been the French Revolution, andliberty radiates from France. He must be blind who does not recognizethis. It was Bonaparte who said so.
The war of 1823, an attempt upon the generous Spanish nation, wastherefore at the same time an attack on the French Revolution. Itwas France that committed this monstrous act of violence; for, withthe exception of wars of liberation, all that armies do they do byforce, as the words "passive obedience" indicate. An army is a strangemasterpiece of combination, in which strength results from an enormousamount of impotence. In this way can we explain war carried on byhumanity against humanity, in spite of humanity. The war of 1823 wasfatal to the Bourbons; they regarded it as a triumph, for they didnot see what danger there is in killing an idea by a countersign.In their simplicity they committed the mistake of introducing intothis establishment the immense weakness of a crime as an element ofstrength; the spirit of ambuscading entered into their policy, and 1830germinated in 1823. The Spanish campaign became in their councils anargument for oppression, and the government by right divine. France,having re-established _el rey neto_ in Spain, could establish theabsolute king at home. They fell into the formidable error of takingthe obedience of the soldier for the consent of the nation, and such aconfidence is the destruction of thrones. Men must go to sleep neitherin the shadow of a machineel-tree nor in that of an army.
Let us now return to the "Orion." During the operations of thearmy commanded by the Prince generalissimo a squadron cruised inthe Mediterranean, to which, as we said, the "Orion" belonged, andwas driven into Toulon roads to repair damages. The presence ofa man-of-war in a port has something about it which attracts andoccupies the mob. It is grand, and the multitude love anything that isgrand. A vessel of the line is one of the most magnificent encounterswhich the genius of man has with the might of nature; it is composedsimultaneously of what is the heaviest and lightest of things, becauseit has to deal with three forms of substance at once,--the solid, theliquid, and the fluid, and must contend against all three. It hascloven iron claws to seize the granite of the sea-bed, and more wingsand antennæ than the two-winged insect to hold the wind. Its breathissues from its one hundred and twenty guns as through enormous bugles,and haughtily replies to the thunder. Ocean tries to lead it astrayin the frightful similitude of its waves; but the vessel has its soulin its compass, which advises it and always shows it the north, andon dark nights its lanterns take the place of the stars. Hence it hastackle and canvas to oppose the wind, wood to oppose water, iron,copper, and lead to oppose the rocks, light to oppose darkness, anda needle to oppose immensity. If we wish to form an idea of all thegigantic proportions whose _ensemble_ constitute a vessel of the line,we need only enter one of the covered building-docks at Toulon orBrest. The vessels in construction are there under glass, so to speak.That colossal beam is a yard; that huge column of wood of enormouslength lying on the ground is the main-mast. Measuring from its rootin the keel to its truck in the clouds it is three hundred and sixtyfeet in length, and is three feet in diameter at its base. The navyof our fathers employed hemp cables, but ours has chains; the simplepile of chain cable for a hundred-gun vessel is four feet high andtwenty feet in width. And then, again, in building such a vessel threethousand loads of wood are used; it is a floating forest. And it mustnot be left out of sight that we are here describing a man-of-war offorty years ago, a simple sailing-vessel; steam, then in its infancy,has since added new miracles to the prodigy which is called a vesselof war. At the present day, for instance, the screw man-of-war is asurprising machine, impelled by a surface of canvas containing threethousand square yards, and a boiler of two thousand five hundredhorse power. Without alluding to these new marvels, the old vessel ofChristopher Columbus and De Ruyter is one of the great masterpiecesof man; it is inexhaustible in strength as infinity is in width; itgarners the wind in its sails, it is exact in the immense diffusion oft
he waves; it floats, and it reigns.
And yet the hour arrives when a gust breaks like a straw this yard,fifty feet in length; when the wind bends like a reed this mast, fourhundred feet in height; when this anchor, weighing thousands ofpounds, twists in the throat of the waves like a fisherman's hook inthe mouth of a pike; when these monstrous cannon utter plaintive anduseless groans, which the wind carries away into emptiness and night,and when all this power and majesty are swallowed up by a superiorpower and majesty. Whenever an immense force is displayed in attackingimmense weakness, it causes men to reflect. Hence at seaports curiouspersons throng around these marvellous machines of war and navigation,without exactly explaining the reason to themselves. Every day, then,from morning till night, the quays and piers of Toulon were coveredwith numbers of idlers, whose business it was to look at the "Orion."This vessel had long been in a sickly state. During previous voyagesbarnacles had collected on her hull to such an extent that she losthalf her speed; she had been taken into dry dock the year previousto scrape off these barnacles, and then put to sea again. But thisscraping had injured the bolts, and when off the Balearic Isles, shesprang a leak, and took in water, as vessels were not coppered in thosedays. A violent equinoctial gale supervened, which injured her larboardbows and destroyed the fore-chains. In consequence of this damage the"Orion" put into Toulon, and anchored near the arsenal for repairs. Thehull was uninjured, but a few planks had been unnailed here and thereto let air in, as is usually the case.
One morning the crowd witnessed an accident. The crew were engaged inbending the sails, and the top-man, who had charge of the starboardtack of the main-top-sail, lost his balance. He was seen to totter,the crowd on the arsenal quay uttered a cry, his head dragged himdownwards, and he turned round the yard, with his hands stretched downto the water; but he caught hold of the foot-rope as he passed it,first with one hand then with the other, and remained hanging from it.The sea was below him at a dizzy depth, and the shock of his fall hadgiven the foot-rope a violent swinging movement. The man swung at theend of the rope like a stone in a sling. To go to his assistance wouldbe running a frightful risk, and not one of the sailors, all coastfishermen lately called in for duty, dared to venture it. Still theunhappy top-man was growing tired: his agony could not be seen in hisface, but his exhaustion could be distinguished in all his limbs, andhis arms were awfully dragged. Any effort he made to raise himself onlycaused the foot-rope to oscillate the more, and he did not cry out, forfear of exhausting his strength. The minute was close at hand when hemust let go the rope, and every now and then all heads were turned awaynot to see it happen. There are moments in which a rope, a pole, thebranch of a tree, is life itself, and it is a fearful thing to see aliving being let go of it and fall like ripe fruit. All at once a mancould be seen climbing up the shrouds with the agility of a tiger-cat.As he was dressed in red, this man was a convict; as he wore a greencap, he was a convict for life. On reaching the top a puff of wind blewaway his cap and displayed a white head; hence he was not a young man.
A convict, employed on board with a gang, had in fact at once runup to the officer of the watch, and in the midst of the troubleand confusion, while all the sailors trembled and recoiled, askedpermission to risk his life in saving the top-man. At a nod of assentfrom the officer he broke with one blow of a hammer the chain rivetedto his ankle, took up a rope, and darted up the shrouds. No one noticedat the moment with what ease this chain was broken; and the fact wasnot remembered till afterwards. In a second he was upon the yard, wherehe stood for a little while as if looking round him. These seconds,during which the wind swung the top-man at the end of a thread, seemedages to the persons who were looking at him. At length the convictraised his eyes to heaven and advanced a step. The crowd breathedagain, as they saw him run along the yard. On reaching the end hefastened to it the rope he had brought with him, let it hang down,and then began going down it hand over hand. This produced a feelingof indescribable agony, for instead of one man hanging over the gulf,there were now two. He resembled a spider going to seize a fly; but inthis case the spider brought life and not death. Ten thousand eyes werefixed on the group: not a cry, not a word could be heard; every mouthheld its breath, as if afraid of increasing in the slightest degree thewind that shook the two wretched men. The convict, in the interim, hadmanaged to get close to the sailor, and it was high time, for a minutelater the man, exhausted and desperate, would have let himself dropinto the sea. The convict fastened him securely with the rope to whichhe clung with one hand, while he worked with the other. At length hewas seen to climb back to the yard and haul the sailor up: he supportedhim there for a moment to let him regain his strength, then took himin his arms and carried him along the yard to the cap, and thence tothe top, where he left him with his comrades. The crowd applauded him,and several old sergeants of the chain-gang had tears in their eyes:women embraced each other on the quay, and every voice could be heardshouting with a species of frenzy,--"Pardon for that man!"
The convict, however, began going down again immediately to rejoin hisgang. In order to do so more rapidly he slid down a rope and ran alonga lower yard. All eyes followed him, and at one moment the spectatorsfelt afraid, for they fancied they could see him hesitate and totter,either through fatigue or dizziness; all at once the crowd uttereda terrible cry,--the convict had fallen into the sea. The fall wasa dangerous one, for the frigate "Algésiras" was anchored near the"Orion," and the poor galley-slave had fallen between the two ships,and might be sucked under one of them. Four men hastily got into aboat, and the crowd encouraged them, for all felt anxious again. Theman did not come to the surface again, and disappeared in the seawithout making a ripple, just as if he had fallen into a barrel ofoil. They dragged for him, but in vain; they continued the searchtill nightfall, but his body was not even found. The next day theToulon paper printed the following lines: "Nov. 17, 1823.--Yesterdaya convict, one of a gang on board the "Orion," fell into the sea andwas drowned, as he was returning from assisting a sailor. His bodyhas not been found, and is supposed to be entangled among the piles atarsenal point. The man was imprisoned as No. 9430, and his name theJean Valjean."
BOOK III.
THE PROMISE TO THE DEAD FULFILLED.