The Sword of Honor; or, The Foundation of the French Republic

by Eugène Sue

  CHAPTER IX.

  WATERLOO.

  The Hundred Days were over. They had passed like the lightning in astormy night. Relying only on his genius and his army, Napoleon hadstaked upon the turn of a battle his Empire and the independence of thecountry. This battle, of Waterloo, he lost, in spite of the super-humanheroism of his soldiers.

  May the name of Napoleon be accursed!

  Several days had passed since that great disaster. In the cloth shop ofJohn Lebrenn, in St. Denis Street, under the sign of the 'Sword ofBrennus,' the following scene was enacting.

  General Oliver, back wounded from the battle of Waterloo, where he hadbravely conducted himself, was engaged in conversation with his formermaster.

  "Well, Oliver," Lebrenn was saying to the wounded warrior, "yourBonaparte has led France to her doom. We have lost the frontiersconquered by the Republic. A second time the stranger is in the heart ofour country."

  "Ah, would that I had remained at Waterloo, like so many others of mycompanions-in-arms. But death would not take me!"

  "I reproach you not, Oliver. You are defeated and unhappy; you havereturned to us. Let us draw the curtain over the past."

  "How just were the forebodings of your valiant sister! I sought a titleof nobility, chivalric orders, and an income. To sustain the Empire Iwould have shot my parents and friends. When the Restoration took place,I did like the most of the Marshals and generals. In order to preservemy rank, my title, my crosses and my pay, I turned traitor to my past, Iserved the Bourbons, whom I despised. I would still have retained a faircompetency even if, which was almost impossible, I had been able to tearmyself away from the attraction of the army. But no, I had become aservile courtier. I had breathed the air of the court, I could livenowhere else. I cried 'Long live the King!' I went to mass, I followedthe processions, a wax taper in my hand, I swallowed the insults theEmigrants heaped upon us when they beheld us at court crooking the kneeto their princes. Ah, Victoria! Victoria! Shame and anguish have fallenupon me. I betrayed the Republic in Brumaire, I sold myself to theRestoration in 1814, I deserted it during the Hundred Days, and here Iam reduced to exile--a just punishment for my apostasies."

  "You have at least, Oliver, the conscience to repent that sad past. Butyou will see how few among the generals and Marshals of the Empire willrepent like you the acts whose memory now galls you. Yes, you will yetsee the Princes, the Dukes, and the Counts of the Empire, little as thenew Restoration will please them, take up again the white cockade asquickly as they threw it down three months ago for the tricolor. Most ofthe Marshals are gorged with wealth; dignity would be easy for them.But no, they must renounce it for vanities dearer to their pride. JustGod! There you have the fruits of Napoleon's maxim 'It is by rattlesthat men are led.'"

  "I see too late the abysses toward which Napoleon was driving France,"groaned Oliver.

  Martin the painter just then happened in. "Ah, my dear friend," heannounced from the threshold, "all hope is lost. Carnot despairs of thesituation."

  "Nevertheless, the situation is still good," protested Oliver. "Paris,considered as an immense entrenched camp, gives us the disposition ofthe five bridges across the Seine. It would be possible, by a nightmarch, to move our troops by either bank of the river and wipe out thePrussian army. But, to carry out that plan, the people would have to bearmed, which Napoleon does not want. The people in arms would meanrevolution and the Republic."

  "What Oliver says bears the stamp of reason," remarked Lebrenn.

  "Our friends said to Carnot," returned Martin, "'The Emperor will beforced to abdicate, his hopes of empire will be blasted. The allies willnot content themselves with sending him back again to Elba; he haseverything to fear at their hands. Well, despairing as our positionseems, never, if he wished it, will it have been so excellent! He canyet become the savior of France and the admiration of posterity. Let himagain transform himself into General Bonaparte, let him put himself atthe head of the troops and the armed people, with the battle-cry "Longlive the Republic! Long live the Nation!" Then liberty will triumph andFrance arise, as ever, victorious.'"

  "My heart leaps with enthusiasm at hearing such noble language," criedOliver. "Yes, yes, Long live the Republic! No more monarchs! NeitherKings nor masters!"

  "'The Emperor is resolved to abdicate,' replied Carnot to us," Martincontinued. "'He knows well enough that he has only to don the red bonnetand cry To arms! for the whole people to rise. But he does not desire anew revolution, he does not want to go outside the law. He has no longerany authority. The Chamber of Deputies has seized the executive power,and is treating with the allies. The Emperor's part is played, he can donothing more for France. Without his concurrence, I consider it futileto engage upon a struggle.' Such was the response of Carnot."

  Castillon and Duchemin were the next to come into the cloth shop. Thefirst, in his working clothes, still had on his leather apron, blackenedby smoke from the forge. Duchemin, whose moustache had grown quite greyin the interim, wore a veteran's uniform. He had been placed in thatcorps after the Russian campaign, in which he served as quartermaster inthe artillery of the Imperial Guard.

  "Well, my friends, what news from the suburbs?" asked Lebrenn.

  "In St. Antoine they are demanding arms to run to the defense of thebarrier of La Villette, which they say is already threatened by thePrussians. 'Guns! Your Emperor will never give them to you!' I toldthem," answered Castillon. And catching sight of General Oliver, hegazed at him a moment open-mouthed and concluded: "Well, I am notblind! There is Oliver! What a strange encounter!"

  "It is indeed Oliver, our old apprentice," said Lebrenn, smiling.

  "Ah, it is really you, my fine fellow!" returned Castillon. "Well, well!It seems you have become a general. Well, that is nothing wrong, for youare a brave one. But I also learned--and this, on my faith, would make ahen smile--I also read that you had become a Count! Is it possible! You,a Count! an ex-ragamuffin who used to ply the bellows for our forge, andto whom I taught the song of those fine days: '_Ah ca ira, ca ira_, tothe lamp-post with the aristocrats!'"

  Instead this time of getting angry, Oliver smiled sadly and extended hishand to Castillon, saying, "Amuse yourself at my expense, my oldCastillon; it is your right. Your quips are merited, I confess mywrongs. But be indulgent toward your old comrade. To-day, I wish tofight for the Republic."

  "Heaven be thanked! You have sung me an air there that has brought thetears to my eyes," exclaimed Castillon with emotion as he eagerlypressed the general's hand.

  Duchemin smiled genially and gave the military salute. "Present,general," he said. "Still another of the Army of the Rhine and Moselle.You do not recall me at the passage of the Beresina?"

  "Well! Well!" replied Oliver warmly. "Well do I remember you, andCarmagnole, your sweetheart of a spit-fire."

  "Here is an ex-member of the battalion of Paris Volunteers--a triedpatriot, and a republican of the old school," raid Castillon, indicatingto General Oliver Duresnel, who just then entered.

  "Ah, my friend," said John Lebrenn to the new arrival, "if you do notbring me better news than Martin has just given us, our reunion to-daywill lack its flavor. The masses lie indifferent."

  "_Consummatum est!_" Duresnel sighed by way of answer. "It is finished.I have just left the Chamber of Deputies; the Emperor has issued hisabdication, and is preparing, they say, to set out for his residence ofMalmaison, where he will remain while the allies settle upon his fate."

  "And what news of the army?"

  "The Prince of Eckmuehl, who commands the troops united under the wallsof Paris, assembled his generals this morning, and all or nearly allhave gone over to the Bourbon government. No more hope for it; we mustendure the ignominy of a second Restoration."

  "In which case, friend John, what shall we do? Without arms, withoutheadship, without leaders, the people can do nothing," sighed Castillon.

  "The old sans-culottes of the St. Antoine suburb ask nothing better thanto go to the front. In desperation for the cau
se, they were to marchto-day in mass to the Elysian Fields, in the hope that Napoleon wouldyield to the acclamations of the populace," commented Duchemin.

  "I am on guard at the Elysian Fields at six o'clock!" exclaimed JohnLebrenn, looking at his watch. "Like an old National Guard, I must to mypost. Adieu, friends!" And he continued to Oliver, "Come to supper thisevening with us and with our old comrades here. We shall take ouradieus of the banished soldier, and before we part, Oliver, we willdrain a last bumper of wine to the re-birth of the Republic. NeitherKings nor masters! The Commune, the Federation, and the Red Flag!"

  "Till this evening, then," replied Oliver. "Long live the Republic! Warupon Kings! Down with the Bourbons!"