Maurice Tiernay, Soldier of Fortune

I handed him my brandy flask, which still contained a little, and he raised it to his lips with a slight nod of recognition. Invigorated by the stimulant, he supped again and again, but always cautiously, and with prudent reserve.

‘You have been a soldier?’ said I, taking my seat at his side.

‘I am a soldier,’ said he, with a strong emphasis on the verb.

‘I too have served,’ said I; ‘although, probably, neither as long nor as creditably as you have.’

He looked at me fixedly for a second or two, and then dropped his eyes without a reply.

‘You were probably with the army of the Meuse?’ said I, hazarding the guess, from remembering how many of that army had been invalided by the terrible attacks of ague contracted in North Holland.

‘I served on the Rhine,’ said he briefly; ‘but I made the campaign of Jemappes, too. I served the king also – King Louis,’ cried he sternly. ‘Is that avowal candid enough, or do you want more?’

Another Royalist, thought I, with a sigh. Whichever way I turn they meet me – the very ground seems to give them up.

‘And could you find no better trade than that of a mouchard? ‘asked he sneeringly.

‘I am not a mouchard– I never was one. I am a soldier like yourself; and, mayhap, if all were to be told, scarcely a more fortunate one.’

‘Dismissed the service – and for what?’ asked he bluntly.

‘If not broke, at least not employed,’ said I bitterly.

‘A Royalist?’

‘Not the least of one, but suspected.’

‘Just so. Your letters – your private papers ransacked, and brought in evidence against you. Your conversations with your intimates noted down and attested – every word you dropped in a moment of disappointment or anger; every chance phrase you uttered when provoked – all quoted; wasn’t that it?’

As he spoke this, with a rapid and almost impetuous utterance, I, for the first time, noticed that both the expressions and the accent implied breeding and education. Not all his vehemence could hide the evidences of former cultivation.

‘How comes it,’ asked I eagerly, ‘that such a man as you are is to be found thus? You certainly did not always serve in the ranks?’

‘I had my grade,’ was his short, dry reply.

‘You were a quartermaster – perhaps a sous-lieutenant?’ said I, hoping by the flattery of the surmise to lead him to talk further.

‘I was the colonel of a dragoon regiment,’ said he sternly – ‘and that neither the least brave nor the least distinguished in the French army.’

Ah! thought I, my good fellow, you have shot your bolt too high this time; and in a careless, easy way, I asked, ‘What might have been the number of your corps?’

‘How can it concern you?’ said he, with a savage vehemence. ‘You say that you are not a spy. To what end these questions? As it is, you have made this hovel, which has been my shelter for some weeks back, no longer of any service to me. I will not be tracked. I will not suffer espionage, by Heaven!’ cried he, as he dashed his clenched fist against the ground beside him. His eyes, as he spoke, glared with all the wildness of insanity, and great drops of sweat hung upon his damp forehead.

‘Is it too much,’ continued he, with all the vehemence of passion, ‘is it too much that I was master here? Are these walls too luxurious? Is there the sign of foreign gold in this tasteful furniture and the splendour of these hangings? Or is this’ – and he stretched out his lean and naked arms as he spoke – ‘is this the garb – is this the garb of a man who can draw at will on the coffers of royalty? Ay!’ cried he, with a wild laugh, ‘if this is the price of my treachery, the treason might well be pardoned.’

I did all I could to assuage the violence of his manner. I talked to him calmly and soberly of myself and of him, repeating over and over the assurance that I had neither the will nor the way to injure him. ‘You may be poor,’ said I, ‘and yet scarcely poorer than I am – friendless, and have as many to care for you as I have. Believe me, comrade, save in the matter of a few years the less on one side, and some services the more on the other, there is little to chose between us.’

These few words, wrung from me in sorrowful sincerity, seemed to do more than all I had said previously, and he moved the lamp a little to one side that he might have a better view of me as I sat; and thus we remained for several minutes staring steadfastly at each other, without a word spoken on either side. It was in vain that I sought in that face, livid and shrunk by famine – in that straggling matted hair, and that figure enveloped in rags, for any traces of former condition. Whatever might once have been his place in society, now he seemed the very lowest of that miserable tribe whose lives are at once the miracle and shame of our century.

‘Except that my senses are always playing me false,’ said he, as he passed his hand across his eyes, ‘I could say that I have seen your face before. What was your corps?’

‘The Ninth Hussars, “the Tapageurs,” as they called them.’

‘When did you join – and where?’ said he, with an eagerness that surprised me.

‘At Nancy,’ said I calmly.

‘You were there with the advanced guard of Moreau’s corps,’ said he hastily; ‘you followed the regiment to the Moselle.’

‘How do you know all this?’ asked I, in amazement.

‘Now for your name; tell me your name,’ cried he, grasping my hand in both of his – ‘and I charge you by all you care for here or hereafter, no deception with me. It is not a head that has been tried like mine can bear a cheat.’

‘I have no object in deceiving you; nor am I ashamed to say who I am,’ replied I, ‘My name is Tiernay – Maurice Tiernay.’

The word was but out when the poor fellow threw himself forward, and grasping my hands, fell upon and kissed them.

‘So, then, cried he passionately, ‘I am not friendless – I am not utterly deserted in life – you are yet left to me, my dear boy!’

This burst of feeling convinced me that he was deranged; and I was speculating in my mind how best to make my escape from him, when he pushed back the long and tangled hair from his face, and staring wildly at me, said, ‘You know me now – don’t you? Oh, look again, Maurice, and do not let me think that I am forgotten by all the world.

‘Good heavens!’ cried I, ‘it is Colonel Mahon!’

‘Ay, “Le Beau Mahon,”’ said he, with a burst of wild laughter; ‘Le Beau Mahon, as they used to call me long ago. Is this a reverse of fortune, I ask you?’ and he held out the ragged remnants of his miserable clothes. ‘I have not worn shoes for nigh a month. I have tasted food but once in the last thirty hours! I, that have led French soldiers to the charge full fifty times, up to the very batteries of the enemy, am reduced to hide and skulk from place to place like a felon, trembling at the clank of a gendarme’s boot, as never the thunder of an enemy’s squadron made me. Think of the persecution that has brought me to this, and made me a beggar and a coward together!’

A gush of tears burst from him at these words, and he sobbed for several minutes like a child.

Whatever might have been the original source of his misfortunes, I had very little doubt that now his mind had been shaken by their influence, and that calamity had deranged him. The flighty uncertainty of his manner, the incoherent rapidity with which he passed from one topic to another, increased with his excitement, and he passed alternately from the wildest expressions of delight at our meeting, to the most heart-rending descriptions of his own sufferings. By great patience and some ingenuity, I learned that he had taken refuge in the wood of Belleville, where the kindness of an old soldier of his own brigade – now a garde-chasse– had saved him from starvation. Jacques Gaillon was continually alluded to in his narrative. It was Jacques sheltered him when he came first to Belleville. Jacques had afforded him a refuge in the different huts of the forest, supplying him with food – acts not alone of benevolence, but of daring courage, as Mahon continually asserted. If it were but known, ‘they ‘d give him a peloton and eight paces.’ The theme of Jacques’ heroism was so engrossing, that he could not turn from it; every little incident of his kindness, every stratagem of his inventive good-nature, he dwelt upon with eager delight, and seemed half to forget his own sorrows in recounting the services of his benefactor. I saw that it would be fruitless to ask for any account of his past calamity, or by what series of mischances he had fallen so low. I saw – I will own with some chagrin – that, with the mere selfishness of misfortune, he could not speak of anything save what bore upon his own daily life, and totally forgot me and all about me.

The most relentless persecution seemed to follow him from place to place. Wherever he went, fresh spies started on his track, and the history of his escapes was unending. The very faggot-cutters of the forest were in league against him, and the high price offered for his capture had drawn many into the pursuit. It was curious to mark the degree of self-importance all these recitals imparted, and how the poor fellow, starving and almost naked as he was, rose into all the imagined dignity of martyrdom, as he told of his sorrows. If he ever asked a question about Paris, it was to know what people said of himself and of his fortunes. He was thoroughly convinced that Bonaparte’s thoughts were far more occupied about him than on that empire now so nearly in his grasp, and he continued to repeat with a proud delight, ‘He has caught them all but me! I am the only one who has escaped him!’ These few words suggested to me the impression that Mahon had been engaged in some plot or conspiracy, but of what nature, how composed, or how discovered, it was impossible to arrive at.

‘There!’ said he, at last, ‘there is the dawn breaking! I must be off. I must now make for the thickest part of the wood till nightfall There are hiding-places there known to none save myself. The bloodhounds cannot track me where I go.’

His impatience became now extreme. Every instant seemed full of peril to him now – every rustling leaf and every waving branch a warning. I was unable to satisfy myself how far this might be well-founded terror, or a vague and causeless fear. At one moment I inclined to this – at another, to the opposite impression. Assuredly nothing could be more complete than the precautions he took against discovery. His lamp was concealed in the hollow of a tree; the leaves that formed his bed he scattered and strewed carelessly on every side; he erased even the foot-tracks on the clay, and then gathering up his tattered cloak, prepared to set out.

‘When are we to meet again, and where?’ said I, grasping his hand.

He stopped suddenly, and passed his hand over his brow, as if reflecting. ‘You must see Caillon; Jacques will tell you all,’ said he solemnly. ‘Good-bye. Do not follow me. I will not be tracked’; and with a proud gesture of his hand he motioned me back.

Poor fellow! I saw that any attempt to reason with him would be in vain at such a moment; and determining to seek out the garde-chasse, I turned away slowly and sorrowfully.

‘What have been my vicissitudes of fortune compared to his?’ thought I. ‘The proud colonel of a cavalry regiment, a beggar and an outcast!’ The great puzzle to me was, whether insanity had been the cause or the consequence of his misfortunes. Caillon will, perhaps, be able to tell me his story, said I to myself; and thus ruminating, I returned to where I had picketed my horse three hours before. My old dragoon experiences had taught me how to ‘hobble’ a horse, as it is called, by passing the bridle beneath the counter before tying it, and so I found him just as I left him.

The sun was now up, and I could see that a wide track led off through the forest straight before me. I accordingly mounted, and struck into a sharp canter. About an hour’s riding brought me to a small clearing, in the midst of which stood a neat and picturesque cottage, over the door of which was painted the words ‘Station de Chasse – No. 4.’ In a little garden in front, a man was working in his shirt sleeves, but his military trousers at once proclaimed him the garde. He stopped as I came up, and eyed me sharply.

‘Is this the road to Belleville?’ said I.

‘You can go this way, but it takes you two miles of a round,’ replied he, coming closer, and scanning me keenly.

‘You can tell me, perhaps, where Jacques Caillon, garde-chaase, is to be found?’

‘I am Jacques Caillon, sir,’ was the answer, as he saluted in soldier fashion, while a look of anxiety stole over his face.

‘I have something to speak to you about,’ said I, dismounting, and giving him the bridle of my horse. ‘Throw him some corn, if you have got it, and then let us talk together’; and with this I walked into the garden, and seated myself on a bench.

If Jacques be an old soldier, thought I, the only way is to come the officer over him; discipline and obedience are never forgotten, and whatever chances I may have of his confidence will depend on how much I seem his superior. It appeared as if this conjecture was well founded, for as Jacques came back, his manner betrayed every sign of respect and deference. There was an expression of almost fear in his face as, with his hand to his cap, he asked ‘What were my orders?’

The very deference of his air was disconcerting, and so, assuming a look of easy cordiality, I said —

‘First, I will ask you to give me something to eat; and secondly, to give me your company for half an hour.’

Jacques promised both, and learning that I preferred my breakfast in the open air, proceeded to arrange the table under a blossoming chestnut-tree.

‘Are you quite alone here?’ asked I, as he passed back and forward.

‘Quite alone, sir; and except a stray faggot-cutter or a chance traveller who may have lost his way, I never see a human face from year’s end to year’s end. It’s a lonely thing for an old soldier, too,’ said he, with a sigh.

‘I know more than one who would envy you, Jacques,’ said I; and the words made him almost start as I spoke them. The coffee was now ready, and I proceeded to make my breakfast with all the appetite of a long fast.

There was indeed but little to inspire awe, or even deference, in my personal appearance – a threadbare undress frock and a worn-out old foraging-cap were all the marks of my soldierlike estate; and yet, from Jacques’s manner, one might have guessed me to be a general at the least. He attended me with the stiff propriety of the parade, and when, at last, induced to take a seat, he did so full two yards off from the table, and arose almost every time he was spoken to. Now it was quite clear that the honest soldier did not know me either as the hero of Kehl, of Ireland, or of Genoa. Great achievements as they were, they were wonderfully little noised about the world, and a man might frequent mixed companies every day of the week, and never hear of one of them. So far, then, was certain – it could not be my fame had imposed on him; and, as I have already hinted, it could scarcely be my general appearance. Who knows, thought I, but I owe all this obsequious deference to my horse? If Jacques be an old cavalry-man, he will have remarked that the beast is of great value, and doubtless argue to the worth of the rider from the merits of his ‘mount.’ If this explanation was not the most flattering, it was, at all events, the best I could hit on; and with a natural reference to what was passing in my own mind, I asked him if he had looked to my horse.

‘Oh yes, sir,’ said he, reddening suddenly, ‘I have taken off the saddle, and thrown him his corn.’

What the deuce does his confusion mean? thought I; the fellow looks as if he had half a mind to run away, merely because I asked him a simple question.

‘I ‘ve had a sharp ride,’ said I, rather by way of saying something, ‘and I shouldn’t wonder if he was a little fatigued.’

‘Scarcely so, sir,’ said he, with a faint smile; ‘he’s old, now, but it’s not a little will tire him.’

‘You know him, then?’ said I quickly.

‘Ay, sir, and have known him for eighteen years. He was in the second squadron of our regiment; the major rode him two entire campaigns!’

The reader may guess that his history was interesting to me, from perceiving the impression the reminiscence made on the relator, and I inquired what became of him after that.

‘He was wounded by a shot at Neuwied, and sold into the train, where they couldn’t manage him; and after three years, when horses grew scarce, he came back into the cavalry. A serjeant-major of lancers was killed on him at “Zwei Brücken.” That was the fourth rider he brought mishap to, not to say a farrier whom he dashed to pieces in his stable.’

Ah, Jack, thought I, I have it; it is a piece of old-soldier superstition about this mischievous horse has inspired all the man’s respect and reverence; and, if a little disappointed in the mystery, I was so far pleased at having discovered the clue.

‘But I have found him quiet enough,’ said I; ‘I never backed him till yesterday, and he has carried me well and peaceably.’

‘Ah, that he will now, I warrant him; since the day a shell burst under him at Waitzen he never showed any vice. The wound nearly left the ribs bare, and he was for months and months invalided; after that he was sold out of the cavalry, I don’t know where or to whom. The next I saw of him was in his present service.’

‘Then you are acquainted with the present owner?’ asked I eagerly.

‘As every Frenchman is!’ was the curt rejoinder.

‘Parbleu! it will seem a droll confession, then, when I tell you that I myself do not even know his name.’

The look of contempt these words brought to my companion’s face could not, it seemed, be either repressed or concealed, and although my conscience acquitted me of deserving such a glance, I own that I felt insulted by it.

‘You are pleased to disbelieve me, Master Caillon,’ said I sternly, ‘which makes me suppose that you are neither so old nor so good a soldier as I fancied; at least in the corps I had the honour to serve with, the word of an officer was respected like an “order of the day.”’

He stood erect, as if on parade, under this rebuke, but made no answer.

‘Had you simply expressed surprise at what I said, I would have given you the explanation frankly and freely; as it is, I shall content myself with repeating what I said – I do not even know his name.’

The same imperturbable look and the same silence met me as before.

‘Now, sir, I ask you how this gentleman is called, whom I, alone of all France, am ignorant of?’

‘Monsieur Fouché,’ said he calmly.

‘What! Fouché, the Minister of Police?’

This time, at least, my agitated looks seemed to move him, for he replied quietly —

‘The same, sir. The horse has the brand of the “Ministère” on his haunch.’

‘And where is the Ministère?’ cried I eagerly.

‘In the Rue des Victoires, monsieur.’

‘But he lives in the country, in a château near this very forest.’

‘Where does he not live, monsieur? At Versailles, at St. Germain, in the Luxembourg, in the Marais, at Neuilly, the Batignolles. I have carried despatches to him in every quarter of Paris. Ah, monsieur, what secret are you in possession of, that it was worth while to lay so subtle a trap to catch you?’

This question, put in all the frank abruptness of a sudden thought, immediately revealed everything before me.

‘Is it not as I have said?’ resumed he, still looking at my agitated face; ‘is it not as I have said – monsieur is in the web of the mouchards?’

‘Good heavens! is such baseness possible?’ was all that I could utter.

‘I’ll wager a piece of five francs I can read the mystery,’ said Jacques. ‘You served on Moreau’s staff, or with Pichegru in Holland; you either have some of the general’s letters, or you can be supposed to have them, at all events; you remember many private conversations held with him on politics; you can charge your memory with a number of strong facts; and you can, if needed, draw up a memoir of all your intercourse. I know the system well, for I was a mouchard myself.’

‘You a police spy, Jacques?’

‘Ay, sir; I was appointed without knowing what services were expected from me, or the duties of my station. Two months’ trial, however, showed that I was “incapable,” and proved that a smart, sous-offieier is not necessarily a scoundrel. They dismissed me as impracticable, and made me garde-chasse; and they were right, too. Whether I was dressed up in a snuff-brown suit, like a bourgeois of the Rue St. Denis; whether they attired me as a farmer from the provinces, a retired maître de poste, an old officer, or the conducteur of a diligence, I was always Jacques Gaillon. Through everything – wigs and beards, lace or rags, jackboots or sabots, it was all alike; and while others could pass weeks in the Pays Latin as students, country doctors, or notaires de village, I was certain to be detected by every brat that walked the streets.’

‘What a system! And so these fellows assume every disguise?’ asked I, my mind full of my late rencontre.

‘That they do, monsieur. There is one fellow, a Provencal by birth, has played more characters than ever did Brunet himself. I have known him as a laquais de place, a cook to an English nobleman, a letter-carrier, a flower-girl, a cornet-à-piston in the opera, and a curé from the Ardèche.’

‘A curé from the Ardèche!’ exclaimed I. ‘Then I am a ruined man.’

‘What! has monsieur fallen in with Paul?’ cried he, laughing. ‘Was he begging for a small contribution to repair the roof of his little chapel, or was it a fire that had devastated his poor village? Did the altar want a new covering, or the curé a vestment? Was it a canopy for the Fête of the Virgin, or a few sous towards the “Orphelines de St. Jude?”’

‘None of these,’ said I, half angrily, for the theme was no jesting one to me. ‘It was a poor girl that had been carried away.’

‘Lisette, the miller’s daughter, or the schoolmaster’s niece?’ broke he in, laughing. ‘He must have known you were new to Paris, monsieur, that he took so little trouble about a deception. And you met him at the “Charrette Rouge” in the Marais?’

‘No; at a little ordinary in the Quai Voltaire.’

‘Better again. Why, half the company there are mouchards. It is one of their rallying-points, where they exchange tokens and information. The labourers, the beggars, the fishermen of the Seine, the hawkers of old books, the vendors of gilt ornaments, are all spies; the most miserable creature that implored charity behind your chair as you sat at dinner has, perhaps, his ten francs a day on the roll of the Préfecture! Ah, monsieur! if I had not been a poor pupil of that school, I ‘d have at once seen that you were a victim, and not a follower; but I soon detected my error – my education taught me at least so much!’

I had no relish for the self-gratulation of honest Jacques, uttered, as it was, at my own expense. Indeed I had no thought for anything but the entanglement into which I had so stupidly involved myself; and I could not endure the recollection of my foolish credulity, now that all the paltry machinery of the deceit was brought before me. All my regard, dashed as it was with pity for the poor curé; all my compassionate interest for the dear Lisette; all my benevolent solicitude for the sick count, who was neither more nor less than Monsieur Fouché himself, were anything but pleasant reminiscences now, and I cursed my own stupidity with an honest sincerity that greatly amused my companion.

‘And is France come to this?’ cried I passionately, and trying to console myself by inveighing against the Government.

‘Even so, sir,’ said Jacques. ‘I heard Monsieur de Talleyrand say as much the other day, as I waited behind his chair. It is only dans les bonnes maisons, said he, “that servants ever listen at the doors.” Depend upon it, then, that a secret police is a strong symptom that we are returning to a monarchy.’

It was plain that even in his short career in the police service, Caillon had acquired certain shrewd habits of thought, and some power of judgment, and so I freely communicated to him the whole of my late adventure, from the moment of my leaving the Temple to the time of my setting out for the château.