The Erckmann-Chatrian Megapack: 20 Classic Novels and Short Stories

by Émile Erckmann

  And yet we were compelled to say to ourselves, these are the victors of Jemmapes, of Fleurus, of Zurich, of Hohenlinden, of Marengo, of Austerlitz, and of Friedland and Wagram. If we are proud of being Frenchmen, neither the Comte d’Artois nor the Duke de Berry can boast of being the cause; on the contrary, it is these men, and now they leave them to perish, they even refuse them bread and put the émigrés in their place. It does not need any extraordinary amount of common-sense, or heart, or of justice to discover that this is contrary to nature.

  I never could look at these unhappy men; it made me miserable. If you have been a soldier for only six months, your respect for your old chiefs, for those whom you have seen in the very front under fire, always remains. I was ashamed of my country for permitting such indignities.

  One circumstance I shall never forget: it was the last of January, 1815, when two of these half-pay officers—one was a large, austere, gray-haired man, known as Colonel Falconette, who appeared to have served in the infantry, the other was short and thick and they called him Commandant Margarot, and he still wore his hussar whiskers—came to us and proposed to sell a splendid watch. It might have been ten o’clock in the morning. I can see them now as they came gravely in, the colonel with his high collar, and the other one with his head down between his shoulders.

  The watch was a gold one, with double case; a repeater which marked the seconds, and was wound up only once in eight days. I had never seen such a fine one.

  While Mr. Goulden examined it I turned round on my chair and looked at the men, who seemed to be in great need of money, especially the hussar. His brown, bony face, his big red mustaches, and his little brown eyes, his broad shoulders and long arms, which hung down to his knees, inspired me with great respect. I thought that when he took his sabre his long arm would reach a good way, that his eyes would burn under his heavy brows, and that the parry and thrust would come like lightning. I imagined him in a charge, half hidden behind his horse’s head, with the point advanced, and my admiration was greater still. I suddenly remembered that Colonel Falconette and Commandant Margarot had killed some Russian and Austrian officers in a duel in the rear of the “Green Tree,” when the allies were passing through the town six months ago.

  The large man too, without any shirt-collar, although he was thin, wrinkled, and pale, and his temples were gray and his manner cold, seemed respectable too.

  I waited to hear what Father Goulden would say about the watch. He did not raise his eyes, but looked at it with profound admiration, while the men waited quietly like those who suffer from not being able to conceal their pain. At last he said:

  “This, gentlemen, is a beautiful watch, fit for a prince?”

  “Indeed it is,” said the hussar, “and it was from a prince I received it after the battle of Rabbe,” and he glanced at his companion, who said nothing.

  Mr. Goulden saw that they were in great need. He took off his black silk bonnet, and said, as he rose slowly from his seat:

  “Gentlemen, do not take offence at what I am going to say. I am like you an old soldier, I served France under the Republic, and I am sure it must be heart-breaking to be forced to sell such a thing as that, an object which recalls some noble action, the souvenir of a chief whom we revere.”

  I had never heard Father Goulden speak with such emotion, his bald head was bowed sadly, and his eyes were on the ground, so that he might not see the pain of those to whom he was speaking.

  The commandant grew quite red, his eyes were dim, his great fingers worked, and the colonel was pale as death. I wished myself away.

  Mr. Goulden went on, “This watch is worth more than a thousand francs, I have not so much money in hand, and besides you would doubtless regret to part with such a souvenir. I will make you this offer, leave the watch with me, I will hang it in my window—it shall always be yours—and I will advance you two hundred francs, which you shall repay me when you take it away.”

  On hearing this, the hussar extended his two great hairy hands, as if to embrace Father Goulden.

  “You are a good patriot,” he exclaimed, “Colin told us so. Ah! sir, I shall never forget the service you have rendered me. This watch I received from Prince Eugène for bravery in action, it is dear to me as my own blood, but poverty—”

  “Commandant!” exclaimed the other, turning pale.

  “Colonel, permit me! we are old comrades together. They are starving us, they treat us like Cossacks. They are too cowardly to shoot us outright.”

  He could be heard all over the house. Catherine and I ran into the kitchen in order not to see the sad spectacle. Mr. Goulden soothed him, and we heard him say:

  “Yes, yes, gentlemen, I know all that, and I put myself in your place.”

  “Come! Margarot, be quiet,” said the colonel. And this went on for a quarter of an hour.

  At last we heard Mr. Goulden count out the money, and the hussar said:

  “Thank you, sir, thank you! If ever you have occasion, remember the Commandant Margarot.”

  We were glad to hear the door open, and to hear them go downstairs, for Catherine and I were much pained by what we had heard and seen. We went back to the room, and Mr. Goulden, who had been to show the officers out, came back with his head bare. He was very much disturbed.

  “These unhappy men are right,” said he, “the conduct of the government toward them is horrible, but it will have to pay for it sooner or later.”

  We were sad all day, but Mr. Goulden showed me the watch and explained its beauties, and told me, we ought always to have such models before us, and then we hung it in our window.

  From that moment the idea never left me that matters would end badly, and that even if the émigrés stopped here, they had done too much mischief already. I could still hear the commandant exclaiming, that they treated the army like Cossacks. All those processions and expiations and sermons about the rebellion of twenty-five years, seemed to me to be a terrible confusion, and I felt that the restoration of the national property and the rebuilding of the convents would be productive of no good.

  CHAPTER X

  It was about the beginning of March, when a rumor began to circulate that the Emperor had just landed at Cannes. This rumor was like the wind, nobody ever could tell where it came from. Pfalzbourg is two hundred leagues from the sea, and many a mountain and valley lies between them. An extraordinary circumstance, I remember, happened on the 6th of March. When I rose in the morning, I pushed open the window of our little chamber which was just under the eaves, and looked across the street at the old black chimneys of Spitz the baker, and saw that a little snow still remained behind them. The cold was sharp, though the sun was shining, and I thought, “What fine weather for a march!” Then I remembered how happy we used to be in Germany, as we put out our campfires and set off on such fine mornings as this, with our guns on our shoulders, listening to the footfalls of the battalion echoing from the hard frozen ground. I do not know how it was, but suddenly the Emperor came into my mind, and I saw him with his gray coat and round shoulders, with his hat drawn over his eyes, marching along with the Old Guard behind him.

  Catherine was sweeping our little room, and I was almost dreaming as I leaned out into the dry, clear air, when we heard some one coming up the stairs. Catherine stopped her sweeping and said:

  “It is Mr. Goulden.”

  I also recognized his step, and was surprised, as he seldom came into our chamber. He opened the door and said in a low voice:

  “My children, the Emperor landed on the 1st of March at Cannes, near Toulon, and is marching upon Paris.”

  He said no more, but sat down to take breath. We looked at each other in astonishment, but a moment after Catherine asked:

  “Is it in the gazette, Mr. Goulden?”

  “No,” he replied, “either they know nothing of it over there, or else they conceal it from us. But, in Heaven’s name, not a word of all this, or we shall be arrested. This morning, about five o’clock, Zébédé, who mounte
d guard at the French gate, came to let me know of it; he knocked downstairs, did you hear him?”

  “No! we were asleep, Mr. Goulden.”

  “Well! I opened the window to see what was the matter, and then I went down and unlocked the door. Zébédé told it to me as a fact, and says the soldiers are to be confined to the barracks till further orders. It seems they are afraid of the soldiers, but how can they stop Bonaparte without them? They cannot send the peasants, whom they have stripped of everything, against him, nor the bourgeoisie, whom they have treated like Jacobins. Now is a good time for the émigrés to show themselves. But silence, above all things, the most profound silence!”

  He rose, and we all went down to the workshop. Catherine made a good fire, and everyone went about his work as usual.

  That day everything was quiet, and the next day also. Some neighbors, Father Riboc and Offran, came in to see us, under pretence of having their watches cleaned.

  “Anything new, neighbor?” they inquired.

  “No, indeed!” replied Mr. Goulden. “Everything is quiet. Do you hear anything?”

  “No.”

  But you could see by their eyes, that they had heard the news. Zébédé stayed at the barracks. The half-pay officers filled the café from morning till night, but not a word transpired, the affair was too serious. On the third day these officers, who were boiling over with impatience, were seen running back and forth, their very faces showing their terrible anxiety. If they had had horses or even arms, I am sure they would have attempted something. But the guards went and came also, with old Chancel at their head, and a courier was sent off hourly to Saarbourg. The excitement increased, nobody felt any interest in his work. We soon learned through the commercial travellers, who arrived at the “City of Basle,” that the upper Rhine provinces and the Jura had risen, and that regiments of cavalry and infantry were following each other from Besançon, and that heavy forces had been sent against the usurper.

  One of these travellers having spoken rather too freely, was ordered to quit the town at once, the brigadier in command having examined his passport and, fortunately for him, found it properly made out.

  I have seen other revolutions since then, but never such excitement as reigned on the 8th of March between four and five in the evening, when the order arrived for the departure of the first and second battalions fully equipped for service for Lons-le-Saulnier. It was only then that the danger was fully realized, and every one thought, “It is not the Duke d’Angoulême nor the Duke de Berry that we need to arrest the progress of Bonaparte, but the whole of Europe.”

  The faces of the officers on half-pay lighted up as with a burst of sunshine, and they breathed freely again. About five o’clock the first roll of the drum was heard on the square, when suddenly Zébédé rushed in.

  “Well!” said Father Goulden to him.

  “The first two battalions are going away,” he replied. He was very pale.

  “They are sent to stop him,” said Mr. Goulden.

  “Yes,” said Zébédé, winking, “they are going to stop him.”

  The drums still rolled. He went downstairs, four at a time. I followed him. At the foot of the stairs, and while he was on the first step, he seized me by the arm, and raising his shako, whispered in my ear:

  “Look, Joseph, do you recognize that?”

  I saw the old tri-colored cockade in the lining.

  “That is ours,” he said, “all the soldiers have it.”

  I hardly had time to glance at it when he shook my hand and, turning away, hurried to Fouquet’s corner. I went upstairs, saying to myself, “Now for another breaking up, in which Europe will be involved; now for the conscription, Joseph, the abolition of all permits and all the other things that we read of in the gazettes. In the place of quiet, we must be plunged in confusion; instead of listening to the ticking of clocks, we must hear the thunder of cannon; instead of talking of convents, we must talk of arsenals; instead of smelling flowers and incense, we must smell powder. Great God! will this never come to an end? Everything would go prosperously without missionaries and émigrés. What a calamity! What a calamity! We who work and ask for nothing are always the ones who have to pay. All these crimes are committed for our happiness, while they mock us and treat us like brutes.” A great many other ideas passed through my head, but what good did they do me? I was not the Comte d’Artois, nor was I the Duke de Berry; and one must be a prince in order that his ideas may be of consequence, and that every word he speaks may pass for a miracle.

  Father Goulden could not keep still a moment that afternoon. He was just as impatient as I was when I was expecting my permit to marry. He would look out of the window every moment and say, “There will be great news to-day; the orders have been given, and there is no need of hiding anything from us any longer.” And from time to time he would exclaim, “Hush! here is the mail coach!” We would listen, but it was Lanche’s cart with his old horses, or Baptiste’s boat at the bridge. It was quite dark and Catherine had laid the cloth, when for the twentieth time Mr. Goulden exclaimed, “Listen!”

  This time we heard a distant rumbling, which came nearer every moment. Without waiting an instant, he ran to the alcove and slipped on his big waistcoat, crying:

  “Joseph, it has come.”

  He rolled down the stairs, as it were, and from seeing him in such a hurry the desire to hear the news seized me, and I followed him. We had hardly reached the street when the coach came through the dark gateway, with its two red lanterns, and rushed past us like a thunder-bolt. We ran after it, but we were not alone; from all sides we heard the people running and shouting, “There it is, there it is!” The post-office was in the rue des Foins, near the German gate, and the coach went straight down to the college and turned there to the right. The farther we went the greater was the crowd; it poured from every door.

  The old mayor, Mr. Parmentier, his secretary, Eschbach, and Cauchois, the tax-gatherer, and many other notables were in the crowd, talking together and saying:

  “The decisive moment has come.”

  When we turned into the Place d’Armes, we saw the crowd already gathered in front of the postoffice; innumerable faces were leaning over the iron balustrade, one trying to get before the other, and interrogating the courier, who did not answer a word.

  The postmaster, Mr. Pernette, opened the window, which was lighted up from the inside, and the package of letters and papers flew from the coach through this window into the room; the window closed, and the crack of the postilion’s whip warned the crowd to get out of the way.

  “The papers, the papers!” shouted the crowd from every side. The coach set off again and disappeared through the German gate.

  “Let us go to Hoffman’s café,” said Mr. Goulden. “Hurry! the papers will go there, and if we wait we shall not be able to get in.”

  As we crossed the square we heard some one running behind us, and the clear, strong voice of Margarot, saying:

  “They have come, I have them.”

  All the half-pay officers were following him, and as the moon was shining we could see they were coming at a great pace. We rushed into the café and were hardly seated near the great stove of Delft ware, when the crowd at once poured in through both doors. You should have seen the faces of the half-pay officers at that moment. Their great three-cornered hats, defiling under the lamps, their thin faces with their long mustaches hanging down, their sparkling eyes peering into the darkness, made them look like savages in pursuit of something. Some of them squinted in their impatience and anxiety, and I think that they did not see anything at all, and that their thoughts were elsewhere with Bonaparte;—that was fearful.

  The people kept coming and coming, till we were suffocating, and were obliged to open the windows. Outside in the street, where the cavalry barracks were, and on the Fountain Square, there was a great tumult.

  “We did well to come at once,” said Mr. Goulden, springing on a chair and steadying himself with his hand on the s
tove. Others were doing the same thing, and I followed his example. Nothing could be seen but the eager faces and the big hats of the officers, and the great crowd on the square outside in the moonlight. The tumult increased and a voice cried, “Silence.” It was the Commandant Margarot, who had mounted upon a table. Behind him the gendarmes Keltz and Werner looked on, and at all the open windows people were leaning in to hear. On the square at the same instant somebody repeated, “Silence, silence.” And it was at once so still that you would have said, there was not a soul there.

  The commandant read the gazette, his clear voice pronouncing every word with a sort of quaver in it, resembling the tic-tac of our clock in the middle of the night, and it could be distinctly heard in the square. The reading lasted a long time, for the commandant omitted nothing. I remember it commenced by declaring that the one called Bonaparte, a public enemy, who for fifteen years had held France in despotic slavery, had escaped from his island, and had had the audacity to set his foot on the soil deluged with blood through his own crimes, but that the troops—faithful to the King and to the nation—were on the march to stop him, and that in view of the general horror, Bonaparte, with the handful of beggars that accompanied him, had fled into the mountains, but that he was surrounded on all sides and could not escape.

  I remember too, according to that gazette all the marshals had hastened to place their glorious swords at the service of the King, the father of the people and of the nation, and that the illustrious Marshal Ney, Prince of Moscowa, had kissed the King’s hand and promised to bring Bonaparte to Paris dead or alive. After that there were some Latin words which no doubt had been put there for the priests.