‘I beg! Please!’ the captain cried as he tried to crawl away. ‘Spare me.’
Henri grunted. ‘I pity the bastard. Perhaps he could go to the Austrians, die of dysentery in a prison camp?’ I was shocked at the suggestion, staring up the hill where some enemy cannon were still pointed our way, the clamor in the camp evident as they were evacuating. Some white uniforms were seen flitting in the semi-dark.
‘He tried to rape me,’ I shrieked at Henri, but the captain shrugged and I almost screamed.
He pulled Voclain up. ‘Go to the Austrians, fucker. Never come back.’
‘Henri!’ I yelled, angry, as Voclain smiled at me victoriously, and began to run up the hill unsteadily, bleeding. I wrestled with Henri, trying to aim my pistol, and he had to pin me down. He kept me on my back, and took a cigar, sitting over me. ‘Do not let the vermin go! How can you? I…’
‘Watch,’ he said, and light his cigar, which glowed dangerously in the dark. I turned to look at the fleeing captain, and saw someone point downhill from the Austrian ranks, men were scrambling and then they saw Voclain running for them, his hands up, hollering about surrender.
An Austrian officer raised his hand, Henri raised his and then the hands went down.
A cannon roared, canister shot ripped leaves and branches near us, and I saw a shuddering corpse on its belly, dying and shredded. Henri waved his hand again in thanks. ‘A classmate of mine, up there.’
I laughed and kissed him with a passion, and Voclain died.
That night, I made love to Henri, this time on the bed in his tent. It was excellent, careful, for he still had pains. He was a lover and an arrogant, protective man, with many issues, and I knew it would not be easy, Marie. We might fail, but I was not afraid to try. I was a soldier, and soldiers, Marie, face their battles.
Gilbert was alive; we would have to deal with him. The siblings were alive, and would get them back, and things would work out one way, or the other.
What happened in Italy from 1795 to 1797, Marie, was a miracle. We survived one of the most savage wars imaginable. Most of the company, the family I knew, did not.
After Loano, Napoleon took over, and he led us through brilliant campaigns. We crushed Piedmont and chased the Austrians off Italy. We beat Papal armies, Naples even. We marched through long nights, sodden and scorching days, through biting snow, beating rain, and endured endless diseases as Napoleon showed us what it means to surprise stagnant, slow enemies. We fought glorious battles we will never forget, like the one at Lodi. We despaired under the dread fort of Mantua, crying in hunger, unable to take the castle of four lakes. We fought the best Austrian generals of the age, one after another, and beat them all, with no food, medicine and in the end, devoid of some twenty thousand men, we won the war in Italy.
The company of some sixty men was down to fifteen when we were told by Napoleon we would attack Austria itself, so we all made our wills and accepted death. When it was finally over, we did not care if October 17th 1797, Peace of Campo Formio gave Belgium to France, or that it agreed that the left bank of Rhine is French. It mattered little to us that we received the Ionian Islands as well. What we cared about for was the creation of Cisalpine Republic, formed of Milan, Bologna, and Modena. There we had bled, it was our creation.
That is who I was, and who I am, Marie. I am your grandmother, a soldier, a Revenant like my cousin and a woman who learned how to overcome terrible fear, how to nurture love and a woman, who forsake her innocence and served the devil for her loved ones.
Now, dear, I will take a break, and God willing, I will tell you of things that happened later. I will tell you what I endured as my fight with Gilbert continued. You will know of Napoleon and you will learn of the hard choices I endured and of things I had to do to survive. You will learn of Henri, and other men, including my first husband. You will learn of swords and love, Marie as the 4th Light went to Egypt with our illustrious, if unhappy general Bonaparte
AFTERWORD
Writing a novel set on the terrible French Revolution and bloody and glorious Napoleonic wars is a dream I always nurtured. I wanted to create a simple to understand, easy to read novel set in the terrific turmoil of this age, building a story not from the know-it-all eagle-eyed academic view, but perhaps from a simpler view of someone who was there. Often, perversely, a person who was present in the great events of the past likely knows less about the events than modern historians and had simpler opinions on the causes and effects of the tumultuous events.
The hard part was who were to be the main character, one with flaws and fears, but one who would overcome them. I only knew this person would have to serve in the hard-fighting, glorious French army.
So I thought about it. I love the cavalry of the period; it had many, many possibilities. I thought of the masses of the fine infantry, it’s various branches. The much enduring sailors in their huge fleets were certainly another possibility. Artillery, why not? Those gents had fine adventures all across Europe. You can scrounge up a great story from all these service lines and make it fabulously exciting, colorfully dashing, very sexy, and utterly brave.
Then I stopped and thought about the cantiniére.
There are many soldier heroes in the deep pages of history, but there are not many stories of heroines of this age, or in fact, of any age. Cantiniére are just that, the all-enduring female military personnel of the Napoleonic age and these hard women served in the tough army just like the men did. They suffered terribly, lost loved husbands and dear sons and daughters to disease, cold, heat and ball and sometimes, they died themselves. They knew how to fight fiercely, how to loot the dead and living, how to survive in incredibly horrid places and how to make their family, the company a happy one, no matter the climate. They overcame incredible hardships with the men, often taking care of wild children in the heat of the desert, the snowy mountains of Italy and the vast steppes of Russia.
Therefore, this is a tribute to them.
On the accuracy of the story, one could make a very fine non-fiction book on the French Revolution. There are, of course, many unknowns in the stories passed on to us, for it was the period of chaos, but most things are very well recorded and the revolution did bring with it the age of technological advancement and new ways of doing and thinking, often very efficient ways, to add. This is, however the story of a woman who was caught up in the turmoil of the age.
For her, it was not so much about ideology that drove the revolution. True, she was mixed up in the Clubs, especially the Cordeliers Club that was the driving force of the radicals of the French Revolution, and for her, there is but Georges Danton and Camille Desmoulins, if one would ask her about the great revolutionary leaders. There were, of course, many, many others, all mixed up in a huge power struggle, all tearing at king’s fallen mantle, but for Jeanette, the matter is much more simple.
Many things happen outside of Jeanette’s understanding, and for her, the revolution is mostly about hunger and trying to survive the unfortunate events that put her against the dread Committee of Public Safety and Gilbert, her devious, dangerous and mad cousin with secrets to hide and personal shame to cover.
As Jeanette is desperate to survive, I do not dwell on the ideology that much. Nor do I comment much on what Jacobinism was about, and I doubt many truly understood its core concepts back in the Revolution. It was in it’s core a very fundamentalist radical movement, while opposing moderate and conservative forces were many, and often the lines between the various parties were very, very hazy. Even the royalists had a good chance of reinstating the king, but this did not come to pass until 1814, thanks to the hard fighting French army that beat both the external and internal foes.
Even if the military is an important part of the story, I do not dwell too much on the military organizations and campaigns of the age, or the constant confusing changes the units went through. I did try to build the greater events into this story, but one could easily write several books of the Italian Campaign alone. Alas, it
is hard to leave out stories that are so incredible.
It is a story of a girl in the age of revolution and one of stubborn refusal to be beaten and coved by power-hungry, determined men. It’s a story of love and a story of fear and also a story of change, for one must join demons in order to beat them.
The story continues in Swords and Love, and is set in Egyptian campaign of Napoleon.
In any case, I hope you enjoy this novel.
Reign of Fear: Story of French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars (Cantiniére Tales) Page 42