homme à l'oreille cassée. English
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CHAPTER XIII.
HISTORY OF COLONEL FOUGAS, RELATED BY HIMSELF.
"Do not expect that I will ornament my story with those flowers, moreagreeable than substantial, which Imagination often uses to gloss overtruth. A Frenchman and a soldier, I doubly ignore deception. Friendshipinterrogates me, Frankness shall answer.
"I was born of poor but honest parents at the beginning of the yearwhich the _Jeu de Paume_[5] brightened with an aurora of liberty. Thesouth was my native clime; the language dear to the troubadours was thatwhich I lisped in my cradle. My birth cost my mother's life. The authorof mine was the humble owner of a little farm, and moistened his breadin the sweat of labor. My first sports were not those of wealth. Themany-colored pebbles which are found by the brooks, and that well-knowninsect which childhood holds fluttering, free and captive at the sametime, at the end of a thread, stood me in stead of other playthings.
"An old minister at Devotion's altar, enfranchised from the shadowybondage of fanaticism, and reconciled to the new institutions of France,was my Chiron and Mentor. He nourished me with the strong lion's marrowof Rome and Athens; his lips distilled into my ears the embalmed honeyof wisdom. Honor to thee, learned and venerable man, who gavest me thefirst precepts of wisdom and the first examples of virtue!
"But already that atmosphere of glory which the genius of one man andthe valor of a nation had set floating over the country, filled all mysenses, and made my young heart throb. France, on the edge of thevolcano of civil war, had collected all her forces into a thunderbolt tolaunch upon Europe, and the world, astounded if not overwhelmed, wasshrinking from the surge of the unchained torrent. What man, whatFrenchman, could have heard with indifference that echo of victoryreverberating through millions of hearts?
"While scarcely leaving childhood, I felt that honor is more preciousthan life. The warlike music of the drums brought to my eyes brave andmanly tears. 'And I, too,' said I, following the music of the regimentsthrough the streets of Toulouse, 'will pluck laurels though I sprinklethem with my blood.' The pale olive of peace had from me nothing butscorn. The peaceful triumphs of the law, the calm pleasures of commerceand finance, were extolled in vain. To the toga of our Ciceros, to therobe of our magistrates, to the curule chair of our legislators, to theopulence of our Mondors, I preferred the sword. One would have said thatI had sucked the milk of Bellona. 'Victory or Death!' was already mymotto, and I was not sixteen years old.
"With what noble scorn I heard recounted the history of our Proteuses ofpolitics! With what disdainful glances I regarded the Turcarets offinance, lolling on the cushions of some magnificent carriage, andconducted by a laced automaton to the boudoir of some Aspasia. But if Iheard told the mighty deeds of the Knights of the Round Table, or thevalor of the crusaders celebrated in flowing verse; if chance placed inmy hand the great actions of our modern Rolands, recounted in an armybulletin by the successor of Charlemagne, a flame presaging the fire ofbattles rose in my young eyes.
"Ah, the inaction was too much, and my leading-strings, already worn byimpatience, would have broken, perhaps, had not a father's wisdom untiedthem.
"'Most surely,' said he to me, trying, but in vain, to restrain histears, 'it was no tyrant who begot you, and I will not poison the lifewhich I myself gave you. I had hoped that your hand would remain in ourcottage to close my eyes; but when Patriotism has spoken, Egotism mustbe still. My prayers will always follow you to the field where Marsharvests heroes. May you merit the guerdon of valor, and show yourself agood citizen, as you have been a good son!'
"Speaking thus, he opened his arms to me. I threw myself into them; wemingled our tears, and I promised to return to our hearthstone as soonas 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 wasalready gilding the thread of my days, pitilessly severed that of his. Astranger's hand closed his eyes, while I was gaining my first epauletteat the battle of Jena.
"Lieutenant at Eylau, captain at Wagram, and there decorated by theEmperor's own hand on the field of battle, major before Almieda,lieutenant-colonel at Badajoz, colonel at Moscow, I have drunk the cupof 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, thelast remnant of my regiment, forced to devour the mortal remains of thatfaithful friend who had so often carried me into the very heart of theenemy's battalions. Trusty and affectionate companion of my dangers,when rendered useless by an accident at Smolensk, he devoted his very_manes_ to the safety of his master, and made of his skin a protectionfor my frozen and lacerated feet.
"My tongue refuses to repeat the story of our perils in that terriblecampaign. Perhaps some day I will write it with a pen dipped intears--tears, the tribute of feeble humanity. Surprised by the season offrosts in a zone of ice, without fire, without bread, without shoes,without means of transportation, denied the succor of Esculapius' art,harassed by the Cossacks, robbed by the peasants--positive vampires, wesaw our mute thunderers, which had fallen into the enemy's hands, belchforth death upon ourselves. What more can I tell you? The passage of theBeresina, the opposition at Wilna--Oh, ye gods of Thunder!--- But I feelthat grief overcomes me, and that my language is becoming tinged withthe bitterness of these recollections.
"Nature and Love were holding in reserve for me brief but preciousconsolations. Released from my fatigues, I passed a few happy days in mynative land among the peaceful vales of Nancy. While our phalanxes werepreparing themselves for fresh combats, while I was gathering around myflag three thousand young but valorous warriors, all resolved to open toposterity the path of honor, a new emotion, to which I had before been astranger, furtively glided into my soul.
"Beautified by all Nature's gifts, enriched by the fruits of anexcellent education, the young and interesting Clementine had scarcelypassed from the uncertain shadows of childhood into the sweet illusionsof youth. Eighteen springs composed her life. Her parents extended tosome of the army officers a hospitality which, though it was notgratuitous, was far from lacking in cordiality. To see their child andlove her, was for me the affair of a day. Her virgin heart smiled uponmy love. At the first avowals dictated to me by my passion, I saw herforehead color with a lovely modesty. We exchanged our vows one lovelyevening in June, under an arbor where her happy father sometimesdispensed to the thirsty officers the brown liquor of the North. I sworethat she should be my wife, and she promised to be mine; she yieldedstill more. Our happiness, regardless of all outside, had the calmnessof a brook whose pure wave is never troubled by the storm, and whichrolls sweetly between flowery banks, spreading its own freshness throughthe grove that protects its modest course.
"A lightning stroke separated us from each other at the moment when Lawand Religion were about adding their sanction to our sweet communion. Ideparted before I was able to give my name to her who had given me herheart. I promised to return; she promised to wait for me; and, allbathed in her tears, I tore myself from her arms, to rush to the laurelsof Dresden and the cypresses of Leipzic. A few lines from her handreached me during the interval between the two battles. 'You are to be afather,' she told me. Am I one? God knows! Has she waited for me? Ibelieve she has. The waiting must have appeared to be a long one sincethe birth of this child, who is forty-six years old to-day, and whocould be, in his turn, my father.
"Pardon me for having troubled you so long with misfortunes. I wished topass rapidly over this sad history, but the unhappiness of virtue has init something sweet to temper the bitterness of grief.
"Some days after the disaster of Leipzic, the giant of our age had mecalled 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?'
&
nbsp; "'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 samedespatch. There are three of you; the enemy will kill two, the thirdwill 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, everyresponse which I had the honor to address to him, is still engraved uponmy memory. All three of us set out separately. Alas! not one of usreached the goal aimed at by his valor, and I have learned to-day thatFrance was not saved. But when I see these blockheads of historiansasserting 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, Ihad the consolation of finding an old philosopher, who gave me therarest proofs of friendship. Who would have told me, when I succumbed tothe numbness of the cold in the tower of Liebenfeld, that that sleepwould not be the last? God is my witness, that in then addressing, fromthe bottom of my heart, a last farewell to Clementine, I did not evenhope to see her again. I will see you again, then, O sweet and confidingClementine--best of spouses, and, probably, of mothers! What do I say? Isee her now! My eyes do not deceive me! This is surely she! There sheis, 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 notdead, and the world has not grown forty-six years older, for Clementineis still the same!"
The betrothed of Leon Renault was about entering the room, and stoppedpetrified at finding herself so overwhelmingly received by the Colonel.