Ninety-Three

IV

A MISTAKE

Meanwhile, on this very day, before dawn, amid the dim shadows of the forest, the following scene took place on the bit of road that leads from Javené to Lécousse.

All the roads of the Bocage are shut in between high banks, and those enclosing the one that runs from Javené to Parigné by way of Lécousse are even higher than usual; indeed the road, winding as it does, might well be called a ravine. It leads from Vitré, and has had the honor of jolting Madame de Sévigné's carriage. Shut in as it is by hedges on the right and on the left, no better spot for an ambush could well be found.

That morning, one hour before Michelle Fléchard, starting from a different part of the forest, had reached the first village, where she beheld the funereal apparition of the wagon escorted by the gendarmes, a crowd of unseen men, concealed by the branches, crouched in the thickets through which the road from Javené runs after it crosses the bridge over the Couesnon. They were, peasants dressed in coats of skin, such as were worn by the kings of Brittany in the sixteenth century and by the peasants in the eighteenth. Some were armed with muskets, others with axes. Those who had axes had just built in a glade a kind of funeral pile of dry fagots and logs, which was only waiting to be set on fire. Those who had muskets were posted on both sides of the road, in the attitude of expectancy. Could one have seen through the leaves, he might have discovered on every side fingers resting on triggers and guns aimed through the openings made by the interlacing of the branches. These men were lying in wait. All the muskets converged towards the road, which had begun to whiten in the rising dawn.

Amid this twilight low voices were carrying on a dialogue: —

"Are you sure of this?"

"Well, that's what they say."

"She is about to go by?"

"They say she is in this neighborhood."

"She must not leave it."

"She must be burned."

"We three villages have come out for that very purpose."

"And how about the escort?"

"It is to be killed."

"But will she come by this road?"

"So they say."

"Then she is coming from Vitré."

"And why shouldn't she?"

"Because they said she was coming from Fougères."

"Whether she comes from Fougères or from Vitré, she certainly comes from the devil."

"That is true."

"And she must go back to him."

"I agree to that."

"Then she is going to Parigné?"

"So it seems."

"She will not get there."

"No."

"No, no, no!"

"Attention!"

It was the part of prudence to be silent now, since it was growing quite light.

Suddenly these men lurking in ambush held their breath, as they heard the sound of wheels and horses' feet. Peering through the branches, they caught an indistinct glimpse of a long wagon, a mounted escort, and something on the top of the wagon, all of which was coming towards them along the hollow road.

"There she is," cried the one who appeared to be the leader.

"Yes, and the escort too," said one of the men who lay in wait.

"How many are there?"

"Twelve."

"It was said that there were to be twenty."

"Twelve or twenty, let us kill them all."

"Wait till they are within our reach."

A little later and the wagon with its escort appeared at a turn of the road.

"Long live the King!" cried the peasant leader; and as he spoke, a hundred muskets were fired at the same instant. When the smoke scattered, the escort was scattered likewise. Seven horsemen had fallen, and the other five had made their escape. The peasants rushed to the wagon. "Hallo! this is not the guillotine," cried the leader; "it's a ladder."

In fact, there was nothing whatever in the wagon but a long ladder.

The two wounded horses had fallen, and the driver had been killed by accident.

"There is something suspicious about a ladder with an escort, all the same," said the leader. "It was going in the direction of Parigné. No doubt it was intended for scaling the Tourgue."

"Let us burn the ladder," cried the peasants.

As to the funereal wagon for which they were watching, it had taken another road, and was already two miles farther away, in the village where Michelle Fléchard had seen it pass at sunrise.

V

VOX IN DESERTO

After leaving the three children to whom she had given her bread, Michelle Fléchard started at random through the woods.

Since no one would show her the way, she must find it without help. From time to time she paused, and sat down to rest; then up and away again. She was overcome by that intense weariness which one feels first in the muscles, then in the bones, – like the fatigue of a slave. And a slave indeed she was, – the slave of her lost children. They must be found; each passing moment might be fatal to them. A duty like this debars one from the right to breathe freely; yet she was very weary. When one has reached this stage of fatigue it becomes a question whether another step can be taken. Could she do it? She had been walking since morning without finding either a village or a house. When she first started she had followed the right path, but soon wandered into the wrong one, and at last quite lost her way among the thick branches, where one tree looked just like another. Was she drawing near her goal? Were her sufferings almost over? She was following the way of the Cross, and felt all the languor and exhaustion of the final station. Was she doomed to fall dead on the road? At one time it seemed to her impossible to take another step: the sun was low, the forest dark, the paths no longer visible in the grass, and God only knew what was to become of her. She began to call, but there was no reply.

Looking around, she perceived an opening among the branches, and no sooner had she started in that direction than she found herself out of the wood.

Before her lay a valley no wider than a trench, across whose stony bottom flowed a slender stream of clear water. Then she realized that she was excessively thirsty, and approaching it knelt to drink; and while thus kneeling she thought she would say her prayers.

When she rose she tried to get her bearings, and crossed the brook.

As far as the eye could reach on the farther side of the little valley stretched a limitless plain overgrown with a stubbly underbrush, which rose from the brook like an inclined plane, occupying the entire horizon. If the forest were a solitude, this plateau might be called a desert. In the forest there was a chance that one might encounter a human being behind any bush; but across the plateau not an object could be descried within reach of human vision. A few birds were flying across the heather, as if making an effort to escape.

Then, in the presence of this utter desolation, feeling her knees give way beneath her, the poor bewildered mother cried out amid the solitude, like one suddenly gone mad, —

"Is there no one here?"

She paused for an answer, and the answer came.

A deep and muffled voice burst forth from the distant horizon, caught and repeated by echo upon echo. It was like a thunderbolt; but it might have been the firing of a cannon, or a voice answering the mother's question, and replying, "Yes."

Then silence reigned once more.

The mother rose with renewed energy. She felt reassured by a sense of companionship. Having quenched her thirst and said her prayers, her strength returned, and she began to climb the plateau in the direction from whence the voice of distant thunder had reached her ears. Suddenly she caught sight of a lofty tower looming up against the far-away horizon. It stood alone amid this wild landscape, and a ray of the setting sun cast a crimson glow across it. It was more than a league away. Beyond it stretched the forest of Fougères, its vast expanse of verdure half hidden by the mist.

Could it have been this tower that made the noise? – for it seemed to her to stand on the very spot whence came the thundering sound that had rung in her ears like a call.

Michelle Fléchard had now reached the summit of the plateau, and the plain alone lay before her.

VI

THE SITUATION

The moment had finally come when Cimourdain held Lantenac in his grasp. The inexorable had conquered the pitiless. The old rebel Royalist was caught in his own lair, with no possible chance of escape; and Cimourdain had determined to behead the Marquis in the home of his ancestors, on his own estate, upon his very hearthstone, so to speak, that the feudal mansion might look upon the downfall of its feudal lord, and thus present an example not soon to be forgotten.

For this reason he sent to Fougères for the guillotine, which we saw on its way.

To kill Lantenac was to kill the Vendée; the death of the Vendée meant safety for France. Cimourdain was a man utterly calm in the performance of duty, however ferocious it might be, and not for a moment did he hesitate.

In regard to the ruin of the Marquis he felt quite at ease; but he had another cause for anxiety. The struggle would no doubt be a fearful one; Gauvain would direct the assault, and perhaps take part in it. This young chief had all the fire of a soldier; he was the very man to throw himself headlong into this hand-to-hand encounter. And what if he were killed, – Gauvain, his child, the only being on earth whom he loved! Gauvain had been fortunate thus far; but fortune sometimes grows weary. Cimourdain trembled. Strange enough was his destiny, thus placed between these two Gauvains, longing for the death of the one, and praying for the life of the other.

The cannon that had started Georgette in her cradle and summoned the mother from the depths of the woods, did more than that. Whether by accident or intentionally on the part of the man who pointed the gun, the ball, though intended only as a warning, struck, broke, and partly wrenched away the iron bars that defended and closed the great loop-hole on the first floor of the tower, and the besieged had had no time to repair this damage.

The truth was that, in spite of their loud boasting, their ammunition was nearly exhausted; and their situation, let it be remembered, was more critical than the besiegers suspected. Their dream had been to blow up the Tourgue when the enemy was once fairly within the walls; but their store of powder was running low, – not more than thirty rounds left for each man. They had plenty of muskets, blunderbusses, and pistols, but few cartridges. All the guns were loaded, that they might keep up a steady fire. But how long could this last? To keep up the firing and economize their resources at one and the same time would be a somewhat difficult combination. Fortunately (a gloomy kind of fortune) it would be for the most part a hand-to-hand encounter, in which the cold steel of sabre and dagger would take the place of firearms. They would have a chance to hack the enemy in pieces, and therein lay their chief hope.

The interior of the tower seemed impregnable. In the low hall where the breach had been made the entrance was defended by that barricade so skilfully constructed by Lantenac, called that retirade. Behind it stood a long table covered with loaded weapons, blunderbusses, carbines, muskets, sabres, hatchets, and daggers. Having been unable to make use of the oubliette prison communicating with the lower hall, for the purpose of blowing up the tower, the Marquis had ordered the door of this dungeon to be closed. Above the hall was the round chamber of the first story, which could only be reached by a very narrow spiral staircase. This room, provided like the lower hall with a table covered with weapons ready for use, was lighted by the wide embrasure whose grating had just been crushed by a cannon-ball. Below this room the spiral staircase led to the round chamber on the second story, from which the iron door opened into the bridge-castle. This room on the second floor was called indiscriminately "the room with the iron door," or "the mirror room", on account of the numerous little mirrors hung from rusty old nails against the naked stone walls, – an odd medley of elegance and barbarism. As there were no means by which the upper rooms could be successfully defended, this mirror-room was what Manesson-Mallet, the authority on fortifications, calls "the last post where the besieged may capitulate." The object was, as we have already stated, to prevent the besiegers from reaching it.

This round chamber on the second floor was lighted by embrasures, but a torch was burning there also. This torch, stuck in an iron torch-holder, like the one in the lower hall, had been lighted by the Imânus and placed quite near the end of the sulphur-match. Appalling solicitude.

At the end of the hall, on a long board raised on trestles, food had been placed as in a Homeric cavern; great dishes of rice, a porridge of some kind of dark grain, hashed veal, a boiled pudding made of flour and fruit, and jugs of cider. Whoever wished to eat and drink could do so.

The cannon had set them all on the alert, and now they had but half an hour of repose before them.

From the top of the tower the Imânus kept watch of the enemy's approach. Lantenac had given orders that the besiegers should be allowed to advance unmolested.

"They are four thousand five hundred," he said; "it would be useless to kill them outside. Wait till they are within the walls, where we shall be equal to them." And he added, laughing, "Equality, Fraternity."

It had been agreed that when the enemy began to advance, the Imânus should give warning on his horn.

Posted behind the retirade and on the steps of the staircase, they waited in silence, with a musket in one hand and a rosary in the other.

The situation might be summed up as follows: —

On one side of the besiegers a breach to scale, a barricade to carry, three rooms in succession, one above the other, to be taken by main force, two spiral staircases to be climbed, step by step, under a shower of bullets; the besieged meanwhile standing face to face with death.

VII

PRELIMINARIES

Gauvain on his side was preparing for the attack. He had given his last instructions to Cimourdain, who, it will be remembered, was to guard the plateau, taking no part in the action, as well as to Guéchamp, who with the main body of the army was to be stationed in the forest camp. It was agreed that neither the lower battery of the wood nor the higher one of the plateau was to fire, unless a sortie or an attempt to escape were made. Gauvain reserved for himself the command of the storming column, and this it was that troubled Cimourdain.

The sun had just set.

A tower in the open country is like a ship in mid-ocean, and must be attacked in the same way. It is more like boarding than assaulting. Cannon is of no avail, for of what use would it be to cannonade walls fifteen feet thick? A port-hole through which men struggle to force a way, while others defend the entrance with axes, knives, pistols, fists, and teeth, – this was the kind of combat that might be expected, and Gauvain knew that by no other means could the Tourgue be taken. Nothing can be more deadly than an attack where the combatants can look into one another's eyes. He was familiar with the formidable interior of the tower, having lived there as a child.

He stood wrapped in deep thought.

A few paces from him, his lieutenant, Guéchamp, with a spy-glass in his hand, was scanning the horizon in the direction of Parigné. Suddenly he cried, —

"Ah! At last!"

This exclamation roused Gauvain from his reverie.

"What is it, Guéchamp?"

"The ladder is coming, commander."

"The escape-ladder?"

"Yes."

"Is it possible that it has not arrived till now?"

"No, commander; and I felt anxious about it. The courier whom I sent to Javené returned."

"I am aware of that."

"He reported that he had found in a carpenter-shop at Javené a ladder of the required dimensions, that he had taken possession of it, and having had it put on a wagon, demanded an escort of twelve horsemen; that he had waited to see them set out for Parigné, – the wagon, the escort, and the ladder, – and had then started for home at full speed."

"And reported the same to us, adding that the team was a good one and had started about two o'clock in the morning, and would therefore be here before sunset. Yes, I know all that. What else?"

"Well, commander, the sun has just set and the wagon that is to bring the ladder has not yet arrived."

"Is it possible? But we must begin the attack. The hour has come. If we are late, the besieged will think that we have retreated."

"We can attack, commander."

"But we must have the escape-ladder."

"Certainly."

"But we have not got it"

"Yes, we have."

"How is that?"

"That's what made me say, 'Ah! at last!' As the wagon had not arrived, I took my spy-glass and have been watching the road from Parigné to the Tourgue, and now I am content; for the wagon and the escort are yonder descending the hill. You can see them."

Gauvain took the spy-glass and looked.

"Yes, there it is. It is hardly light enough to see it all distinctly, but I can distinguish the escort; it is certainly that. Only it seems to me larger than you said, Guéchamp?"

"Yes, it does."

"They are about a quarter of a league distant."

"The escape-ladder will be here in a quarter of an hour, commander."

"Then we can attack."

It was indeed a wagon approaching, but not the one they supposed it to be.

As he turned, Gauvain saw behind him Sergeant Radoub standing with downcast eyes, in the attitude of military salute.

"What is it, Sergeant Radoub?"

"Citizen commander, we, the men of the battalion of the Bonnet-Rouge, have a favor to ask of you."

"What is it?"

"To be killed."

"Ah!" exclaimed Gauvain.

"Will you grant us this favor?"

"Well, that depends," said Gauvain.

"It is just this, commander. Since the affair at Dol, you have been too careful of us. There are twelve of us still."

"Well?"

"It humiliates us."

"You are the reserved force."

"We would rather be in the vanguard."

"I need you to insure success at the close of the engagement. That is why I keep you back."

"There is too much of this keeping back."

"It is all the same. You are in the column. You march."

"In the rear. Paris has a right to march at the head."

"I will consider the matter, Sergeant Radoub."

"Consider it to-day, commander. The occasion is at hand. Hard knocks will be given on both sides; it will be lively work. He who lays a finger on the Tourgue will get himself burned; we request the favor of being in the thick of it."

The sergeant paused, twisted his moustache, and continued in a changed voice: —

"And then you know, commander, our little ones are in this tower. Our children are there, – the children of the battalion, our three children. That abominable wretch Brise-Bleu, called the Imânus, that Gouge-le-Bruand, Bouge-le-Gruand, Fouge-le-Truand, that thundering devil of a man, threatens our children, – our children, our puppets, commander! No harm must come to them, whatever convulsion shakes the Tourgue. Do you understand that, commander? We will not endure it. Just now I took advantage of the truce, and climbing up the plateau, I looked at them through the window. Yes, they are certainly there, – you can see them from the edge of the ravine; I saw them, and frightened the darlings. Commander, if a single hair falls from the heads of those little cherubs, – I swear it by the thousand names of all that is sacred, – I, Sergeant Radoub, will demand an account of God Almighty! And this is what the battalion says: we want the babies to be saved, or else we all want to be killed. We have a right to ask it. Yes, that every man of us be killed! And now I salute you, and present my respects."

Gauvain held out his hand to Radoub as he exclaimed: —

"You are brave fellows! You will join the attacking column. I shall divide you into two parties; six of you I shall place in the vanguard to insure the advance, and six in the rear-guard to prevent a retreat."

"And am I still to command the twelve?"

"Of course."

"Thank you, commander. In that case, I join the vanguard."

Radoub made the military salute, and returned to the ranks. Gauvain drew out his watch, whispered a few words to Guéchamp, and the attacking column began to form.

VIII

THE SPEECH AND THE ROAR

Meanwhile, Cimourdain who had not yet taken his position on the plateau, and who stood beside Gauvain, approached a trumpeter.

"Sound the trumpet!" he said to him.

The clarion sounded, the horn replied.

Again the clarion and the trumpet exchanged calls.

"What does that mean?" asked Gauvain of Guéchamp. "What does Cimourdain want?"

Cimourdain, with a white handkerchief in his hand, approached the tower; and as he drew near, he cried aloud, —

"You men in the tower, do you know me?"

And the voice of the Imânus made answer from the heights, —

"We do."

These two voices were now heard exchanging question and reply as follows: —

"I am the ambassador of the Republic,'

"You are the former curé of Parigné."

"I am a delegate of the Committee of Public Safety."

"You are a priest."

"I am a representative of the law."

"You are a renegade."

"I am a commissioner of the Revolution."

"You are an apostate."

"I am Cimourdain."

"You are a demon."

"Do you know me?"

"We abominate you."

"Would you like to have me in your power?"

"There are eighteen of us here who would give our heads to have yours."

"Well, then, I have come to give myself up to you."

A burst of savage laughter rang out from the top of the tower, with the derisive cry, —

"Come!"

A deep silence of expectancy reigned in the camp.

Cimourdain continued, —

"On one condition."

"What is that?"

"Listen."

"Speak."

"You hate me?"

"Yes."

"And I love you; I am your brother."

The voice from above replied, —

"Yes – our brother Cain."

Cimourdain went on, with a peculiar inflection of voice, – soft, but penetrating: —

"Insult me, if you will, but listen to my words. I come here protected by a flag of truce. Poor misguided men, you are in very truth my brothers, and I am your friend. I am the light, trying to illumine your ignorance. Light is the essence of brotherhood. Moreover, have we not all one common mother, – our native land? Then listen to me. Sooner or later, you – or at least your children or grandchildren – will know that every event of this present time is the result of the higher law, and that this revolution is the work of God himself. But while we wait for the time when, to the inner sense of every man, even unto yours, all these things will be made plain, and when all fanaticisms, including our own, will vanish before the powerful light that is to dawn, is there none to take pity on your ignorance? Behold, I come to you, and I offer you my head; more than this, I hold out my hand. I beg of you to take my life and spare your own. All power is vested in me, and what I promise I can fulfil. I make one final effort in this decisive moment. He who speaks to you is both citizen and priest. The citizen contends with you, but the priest implores you. I beseech you to hear me. Many among you have wives and children. It is in their behalf that I entreat you. Oh, my brothers – "

"Go on with your preaching!" sneered the Imânus.

Cimourdain continued: —

"My brethren, avert this fatal hour. There will be frightful slaughter here. Many of us who stand before you will not see to-morrow's sun; yes, many indeed will perish, and you, – you will all die. Have mercy on yourselves. Why shed all this blood to no avail? Why kill so many men when two would suffice?"

"Two?" asked the Imânus.

"Yes, two."

"Who are they?"

"Lantenac and myself."

Here Cimourdain raised his voice.

"We are the two men whose deaths would be most pleasing to our respective parties. This is my offer; accept it and you are saved. Give Lantenac to us and take me in his place; he will be guillotined, and with me you may do what you will."

"Priest," howled the Imânus, "if we but had you, we would roast you over a slow fire."