The Chevalier

by The Chevalier (retail) (epub)

  “Oh, no, Lord please you, I was in the Army, sir, I was.” We wander into a narrow alley, with an oblique view of God’s mansion on earth. “You might not think it to look at me now, like, but I fought at Fontenoy. Bloody mess that were, I can tell you. Only one good thing came out of it. End of my time as a soldier. Invalided home I was after that one. Look at this leg now. That’s why I walk so funny these days.”

  “You must recount the story,” I say as he leads me at the hobble into a noisy tavern, the Miller’s Arms. “I intend to join the Dragoons when I am free to do so.”

  “And the very best of luck to you, sir. If that’s what you want. But it’s no easy ride for no one, war, make no mistake – unless you’re one of the senior bloody officers, of course. I make an exception of the King, God bless him. He came to visit us before the battle, when the English and the others were in sight, with the cannonballs almost ready to fall about our ears. He didn’t have to do that, you know. Right proper royal gesture, that were. The men was very appreciative.”

  The drinkers in the tavern stare at my fine coat with far less appreciation. I muster my courage and order us two ales, the light golden brew of the region. “Which regiment were you in, Yves?”

  “Now you come to ask, I was in a special one – the Grassins, we was called. Only formed the year before, on account of the crisis, like, but we had a lot of good men there.” He takes a large draught from his pewter mug. “After the King had ridden off back to his camp – and I can’t say I blame him, with his son there and all – we had to dig in on the edge of this wood. Over on the right flank of our line, we was, so I reckon it was an important job, mind. Anyways, soon enough these strange beings wearing skirts start marching at us, with a load of bloody dreadful noises coming from some odd patterned bags they had. Bit like a squeezing of wind through a grinding of the watermills. Horrible. Fair made you want to run and hide, that did. Still, we stood firm. Gave them a right pasting, we done. I don’t think they was expecting that, as it happens.”

  “I’m sure.” The inn’s ruffians appear to be used to me now. “Another glass?”

  “Thank you, don’t mind if I do.”

  “Is that when you received your injury?” I summon the barmaid again.

  “No, sir, that was a spot later. Just about driven them off, we had, so they turned to their cannon. You know, sort of a compensation, like. And that’s a lot more danger, you get me? It’s the uncertainty. Can’t often see it coming, you know? The doctor says it was just splinters, but I tell you, if they was just bleeding splinters, I’d hate to have the real thing. Couldn’t walk, I couldn’t, not for ages.” He brings out a curved pipe from his weathered jacket. “Well, since you’re asking, I do know what the full works can do to you – a few of my mates got smashed up. Nothing much of them left. Not bloody nice at all. Pleased to get back home, I was. Didn’t do much good for a while, though. About a year or so, it was, before I could bloody well use my legs.” He reaches for a candle and lights the foul-smelling device.

  “Well, Yves, I am most content that you are now recovered,” I say, between coughs. “Will you eat a supper with me?” Anything to stop the reek of tobacco.

  “That’s most generous of you, sir. Although maybe you’ll be so good as to answer me one question…”

  “With pleasure.” Now my eyes are starting to water.

  “It’s just you remind me of a woman I had on my barge last year. Dead alike she was. Any relation?”

  “She is my sister, Yves. She spoke most well of you. What are you having?”

  He proves to be a considerable trencherman, sparing me too many awkward questions. Some hours and several tales later, we return to the boat, Yves heavier by many kilos and my purse lighter by many livres. Now, of course, Marie looks most hurt at my deserting them. I think I spot some tearstains on her cheeks as she retires to her makeshift tent. We do not discuss our respective suppers.

  Chapter Twenty Two

  Marie

  Marie is languishing: she puts up a secure barrier throughout the day. We seem to be moving further apart in spirit. I try every means to attract her notice but she ignores my efforts. Our brave horse strains on till we come to a halt near the crumbling old walls of La Ferté-sous-Jouarre. In the balm of the evening we disembark beneath towering cliffs, climb up some slippery steps cut into stone, roam round the houses and at last find an inn – the Swan – on what is called the English Quay. Guerchy insists we stay the night there and break our silence over dinner. After the frost of our day’s journey, that is perhaps no bad thing.

  “I heard you were talking to our bargee friend last night,” he opens, after taking it upon himself to request food for us before we sit.

  Marie gives me the solace of a little wince at his arrogance.

  “Indeed, Lord Douglas,” I say. “We enjoyed a most diverting conversation.”

  Despite the frown that skips across his features at this name, he remembers his manners well enough to draw back a chair for Marie. “He was regaling you about Fontenoy, was he not?”

  “Where he distinguished himself to a great degree.” I take my own place. “A messy affair, but another defeat for the Highlanders. Their ill luck is remarkable. Surely you were not present at two disasters in a single year?”

  The allusion to Culloden makes him flinch once more. “You should feel fortunate that I choose to ignore your impudent remarks. But, yes, I was present at Fontenoy. The battle was more glorious than your man says. It’s natural enough, since he did not see the real thing – he was only involved in a sideshow.”

  “Sideshow, maybe: but I still find there is more of the true martial atmosphere in his tales than in all the learned reminiscences of our Marshal de Saxe and his generals.” I smile at him in most provocative fashion. “The fighting men provide the real story.”

  Guerchy narrows his eyes and looks at me with bleak superiority. “So what do you know of warfare, sir?”

  I am goaded to bombast by his condescension. “Rather more than you, I suspect, despite my relative youth.”

  “Oh? Is that the case? More than a lieutenant-general?” He raises an eyebrow, and smirks sidelong in collusion at Marie, who remains impassive. “Most interesting.”

  “My lack of experience might be counted as a boon, sir.”

  “I see.” He pauses a moment, and starts again with a lawyer’s insidious relish. “You are, I seem to recall, a slavish devotee of Voltaire?”

  “He is a great writer, that’s a fact.”

  His huge finger jabs the air in front of me. “Would you agree that he is most likely to speak the truth?”

  “Of all those who’ve put down our nation’s history, he is the best. More perceptive than I suspect I’ll ever be – and far beyond your comprehension.”

  “Really? Then answer me this: in his panegyric upon our glorious victory at Fontenoy, your idol assigns a whole stanza to my exploits. Magnificence takes several forms, don’t you find?” He leans back in his chair, which tilts to an alarming degree.

  “Can you recall the verse?” I challenge him, my resolution faltering. I have read the poem, of course, at the time of its publication: the wretched thing has slipped from my mind over the years. I look to Marie for help but she does not respond. I am to be humiliated.

  Grinning in triumph, Guerchy stands to deliver his recital. “You think me devoid of literary understanding? I believe I can quote it verbatim:

  Most bloody God of Mars, our thanks we pay,

  That Colbert’s noble race escaped that day;

  E’en war’s fierce god in virtue takes delight,

  Since Guerchy strides uninjured from the fight…”

  He sits down to a smattering of applause from other diners. Smiling in self-satisfaction, he acknowledges it with a wave. The rendition leaves me speechless. Is it not unjust that so despicable a character should have acted heroically?

  “I have read the poem, too. He also mentions your wife’s father,” says Marie.


  “Monsieur de Harcourt was a fine general,” drawls Guerchy. “I’ve never tried to gainsay that. I deferred to him – you ask Lydia. She’ll back me to the hilt.”

  “I’d speak to Lydia if I could,” Marie admonishes him. “Do you not feel guilty for the way you’ve treated her?”

  “Not at all. On the contrary, I think you should share the blame.” Guerchy pours us each a glass of finest Burgundy – one sip tells me it’s Gevrey-Chambertin and I am thus compelled, in silent fury, to acknowledge his taste. “She was meant to be looking after you, granted, but you are worldly-wise enough to have been watching out for her. Anyway, this is beside the point. The young man here and I were talking of Fontenoy.”

  “Your secret’s out if anyone is following us,” I warn him. But I cannot deny that I am stunned by his revelation. My voice sinks lower out of grudging respect. “Perhaps you will tell us something of your adventures, sir?”

  “You’re sure you won’t think it lacks the common touch?” My Lord sneers and raises his glass to me. “Oh, very well. Yet for one moment let me set the scene. I must tell you a little of the progress of the battle; it’s vital you know how the forces were balanced before I played my part.” Behind his back, Marie pulls a sickened face.

  “We should be much obliged to you,” I say, with rare, unfeigned humility.

  Guerchy throws out a magnanimous arm. “Your crippled warrior was right as far as he goes. The enemy attack began where he was stationed: his Grassins held off the Scots without too much trouble. All along the line de Saxe’s deployment had been masterly. It appeared inevitable we would carry the day, since the Dutch were already manoeuvring to head off to check their dikes, as usual. We had the English and Austrians bottled up, without question. There was one exception. A patch of boggy ground lay undefended at the centre of our line, our good Marshal having decided no reasonable adversary would countenance attacking across it. Yet the Duke of Cumberland, as he was to prove again in the Scottish Highlands, was no reasonable adversary. He forced – yes, forced – a large body of foot across this apparently impassable terrain, penetrating our centre and putting our whole battle line at risk. Fortune, which had deserted us, came at last to our rescue. His troops floundered into a deepening marsh that really was unbridgeable and there they stayed – in the middle of our army. They could not branch out, sinking as they were into the mud, and we could not dislodge them. Impasse.” He moves the salt cellar between his knife and fork to illustrate the situation.

  Despite my hatred of Guerchy, I am impressed with his account and feel my interest rise. “So how do you fit in, sir?”

  “This is where the great feat of arms starts. De Saxe orders the bold Duc de Richelieu to lead a cavalry charge against this hostile wedge to drive them back. Aware of my valour, Richelieu summons me, and bids me command my regiment to take the English by storm. Quickly, I survey the ground and find the fundamental position to my liking.” He brings a bowl of sugar into play upon the table. “Yes, the bog is a problem, but otherwise all bodes well. We have the advantage of a slight slope: I order the attack upon the instant and, sabres aloft, the hooves of our mounts drumming a rhythm on the harder turf, we plunge pell-mell and at the gallop down towards the redcoats. No finer sight could be imagined: I swear their square shivers as one by one their soldiers begin to recoil in trepidation at our onslaught. That is as nothing to the mighty quake that strikes them when we hit home. Our charge is a complete success: although we lose some brave men in the morass, the enemy is routed. Within a few minutes the battle is turned. The devil Cumberland could have claimed victory if his men had stood. As it is, their remnants are compelled to turn about and leave the battleground. The day is ours.”

  I glance down at the table. Sugar controls the field. “Sir, I must congratulate you on behalf of France.”

  “Think nothing of it. Just doing my duty.”

  That awful word – I manage to avoid Marie’s eye.

  We celebrate the victory once again, the hero with much vigour and many more glasses; his cheeks are flushed dark crimson when we retire. He reels up the stairs, catapulting from wall to banister to wall. My suspicion is that the General sleeps better than either Marie or I do in the poky rooms above the inn.

  The next morning we set off late and decide to halt for supplies at Courcelles, Guerchy uttering the name with a groan. Marie, out of her tent today, is wearing a pale yellow dress that echoes the spring sunshine. I smile at her across the barge.

  However, her response is cold, as though she’s able to read my intentions. “I do believe you’d take my name as well as my clothes,” she says.

  “Why, Madame, would you not take mine?”

  “If a woman takes a man’s name, she tends to wake up with a husband.”

  I bow my head. “That has been the custom.”

  “Whereas if a man assumes a woman’s name,” she adds with hostile emphasis, “a thinking woman always questions his motives.”

  Guerchy is oblivious, now dozing in the shadow of cases near the barge’s stern. I move close to her, my voice a whisper. “Marie, I thought you understood me?”

  “And so did I, yet it seems I was in error. You are an adventurer, sir, nothing but a vagabond upon the highways and waterways of Europe. Your only loyalty is to your precious self.”

  “This is unfair.” I raise my hands in metaphorical defence. “I perform my duties in the name of France. And every night, as I told you, I was thinking of you.”

  “Most persuasive,” she spits out. “So when you’re with the Empress, her eyes are my eyes, her face my face, her lips my lips, her breasts my breasts and her thighs my thighs?”

  “Yes! Well, not exactly – it’s difficult to describe…”

  “I’m sure it must be. You have yet to give me a convincing story.”

  “My experiences are not what one would call orthodox. To live undetected through such an ordeal demands a degree of empathy from those not there. I believe you are withholding this empathy, one you really feel, with wilful stubbornness.”

  “You call your philandering unorthodox! How very original…”

  “Indeed I do, although I deny again I’m a philanderer. I preserved my chastity at all times. And we have not yet discussed your horseplay with the King. That showed excessive loyalty, I must say.”

  “So typical of a man to change the subject when he’s in trouble – and, moreover, in the wrong.”

  “Change the subject? Hardly! Your liaison is more blameworthy than mine. Too true, you may have had to please a rapacious monarch. You might even claim duress. At least your life was not at stake. I had to walk a tightrope with a tyrant mistress in a foreign land. No one was there to save me if I failed.”

  “I don’t deny you have extravagant gifts,” she says. “You have all the gifts save understanding. You just don’t understand the human heart at all.”

  Now I know I’ve said too much. “I’m sorry. Please help me to understand you.”

  I hope that I can take her silence for assent, but I fear otherwise. On board, we eat some bread and cheese in a collective froideur, the revived Guerchy beaming on us in a most disagreeable fashion. After our luncheon, Yves and his carthorse guide us along the final stretch of the river to Épernay, where he tells us the river becomes unnavigable. We make ready to depart.

  “What do you do now?” I enquire of Yves.

  “Why, sir, I unload all the fancy goods I’ve brought from Paris, like, then I fill her up with logs and wines, and set off downriver again. I might put up here for the night, or I might not. Depends on what’s for carrying.”

  “Admirable. Well, thank you, Yves, it has been an education.”

  “Mind yourself, sir, and you’ll be all right.”

  So this part of our journey is at an end. Once the General has paid off our bargee, we wander on foot along the town’s main street towards the coaching inn. It lies hard by the clock tower and seems to bear its name.

  “Time for a drink,” says our t
hirsty Lord, scarcely recovered from the night before.

  “I think I’ll try some of the bubbling Champagne,” says Marie. “My friends,” here she glowers at her oppressor, “tell me it’s delicious.”

  “Overrated froth,” pronounces Guerchy.

  “You wouldn’t say that if you knew it was a favourite of the Marquise.”

  “I would. No woman can dictate to any man what he should drink.”

  She shoots me a glance of complicity. “My husband has not the head for it.”

  “I just prefer a proper bottle of wine, that’s all,” says Guerchy

  “Don’t you mean several bottles, sir?” She giggles.

  “Look here. I don’t have to listen to any insolence from you.” He halts her on the roadway. “Wives should be tolerant of their husbands. A man is allowed to refresh himself.”

  “Modest refreshment is fine, no doubt, but drinking to excess…?” She shakes herself free. “And I’m no wife to you.”

  His face begins to redden with frustration. “Never try to come between a man and his pleasures, my dear.”

  “By all the Saints, how pompous you can be!” She strides ahead into the inn. I cannot but admire her pluck. She is trying, with all the many arts at her disposal, to exert the strange dominion of the weak over the strong. It is a lesson I have learned before and must now learn again.

  * * *

  From Épernay we take one of these new coaches where the interior seating is circular, leaving us no corner to relax in. The regular battering from the poor roads in this part of the country does nothing to improve our nerves; or at least Marie’s and mine. In contrast, our General’s spirits are flourishing under such hardship. As we rumble into Alsace, Guerchy is waxing philosophical, a dangerous sign of his growing confidence. “That was an enjoyable argument you young people were having aboard the barge. It throws up a nice point for our thinkers.”

  “Eavesdropping should be beneath you, sir,” objects Marie. “This was a private discussion.”