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An Historical Mystery (The Gondreville Mystery), a novel by Honore de Balzac |
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Part 2 - Chapter 19. The Emperor's Bivouac |
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_ PART II CHAPTER XIX. THE EMPEROR'S BIVOUAC Towards the end of September, after three sessions of the Court of Appeals in which the lawyers for the defence pleaded, and the attorney-general Merlin himself spoke for the prosecution, the appeal was rejected. The Imperial Court of Paris was by this time instituted. Monsieur de Grandville was appointed assistant attorney-general, and the department of the Aube coming under the jurisdiction of this court, it became possible for him to take certain steps in favor of the convicted prisoners, among them that of importuning Cambaceres, his protector. Bordin and Monsieur de Chargeboeuf came to his house in the Marais the day after the appeal was rejected, where they found him in the midst of his honeymoon, for he had married in the interval. In spite of all these changes in his condition, Monsieur de Chargeboeuf saw very plainly that the young lawyer was faithful to his late clients. Certain lawyers, the artists of their profession, treat their causes like mistresses. This is rare, however, and must not be depended on. As soon as they were alone in his study, Monsieur de Grandville said to the marquis: "I have not waited for your visit; I have already employed all my influence. Don't attempt to save Michu; if you do, you cannot obtain the pardon of the Messieurs de Simeuse. The law will insist on one victim." "Good God!" cried Bordin, showing the young magistrate the three petitions for mercy; "how can I take upon myself to withdraw the application for that man. If I suppress the paper I cut off his head." He held out the petition; de Grandville took it, looked it over, and said:-- "We can't suppress it; but be sure of one thing, if you ask all you will obtain nothing." "Have we time to consult Michu?" asked Bordin. "Yes. The order for execution comes from the office of the attorney-general; I will see that you have some days. We kill men," he said with some bitterness, "but at least we do it formally, especially in Paris." Monsieur de Chargeboeuf had already received from the chief justice certain information which added weight to these sad words of Monsieur de Grandville. "Michu is innocent, I know," continued the young lawyer, "but what can we do against so many? Remember, too, that my present influence depends on my keeping silent. I must order the scaffold to be prepared, or my late client is certain to be beheaded." Monsieur de Chargeboeuf knew Laurence well enough to be certain she would never consent to save her cousins at the expense of Michu; he therefore resolved on making one more effort. He asked an audience of the minister of foreign affairs to learn if salvation could be looked for through the influence of the great diplomat. He took Bordin with him, for the latter knew the minister and had done him some service. The two old men found Talleyrand sitting with his feet stretched out, absorbed in contemplation of his fire, his head resting on his hand, his elbow on the table, a newspaper lying at his feet. The minister had just read the decision of the Court of Appeals. "Pray sit down, Monsieur le marquis," said Talleyrand, "and you, Bordin," he added, pointing to a place at the table, "write as follows:--" Sire,--Four innocent gentlemen, declared guilty by a jury have just had their condemnation confirmed by your Court of Appeals. Your Imperial Majesty can now only pardon them. These gentlemen ask this pardon of your august clemency, in the hope that they may enter your army and meet their death in battle before your eyes; and thus praying, they are, of your Imperial and Royal Majesty, with reverence, etc. "None but princes can do such prompt and graceful kindness," said the Marquis de Chargeboeuf, taking the precious draft of the petition from the hands of Bordin that he might have it signed by the four gentlemen; resolving in his own mind that he would also obtain the signatures of several august names. "The life of your young relatives, Monsieur le marquis," said the minister, "now depends on the turn of a battle. Endeavor to reach the Emperor on the morning after a victory and they are saved." He took a pen and himself wrote a private and confidential letter to the Emperor, and another of ten lines to Marechal Duroc. Then he rang the bell, asked his secretary for a diplomatic passport, and said tranquilly to the old lawyer, "What is your honest opinion of that trial?" "Do you know, monseigneur, who was at the bottom of this cruel wrong?" "I presume I do; but I have reasons to wish for certainty," replied Talleyrand. "Return to Troyes; bring me the Comtesse de Cinq-Cygne, here, to-morrow at the same hour, but secretly; ask to be ushered into Madame de Talleyrand's salon; I will tell her you are coming. If Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne, who shall be placed where she can see a man who will be standing before me, recognizes that man as an individual who came to her house during the conspiracy of de Polignac and Riviere, tell her to remember that, no matter what I say or what he answers me, she must not utter a word nor make a gesture. One thing more, think only of saving the de Simeuse brothers; don't embarrass yourself with that scoundrel of a bailiff--" "A sublime man, monseigneur!" exclaimed Bordin. "Enthusiasm! in you, Bordin! The man must be remarkable. Our sovereign has an immense self-love, Monsieur le marquis," he said, changing the conversation. "He is about to dismiss me that he may commit follies without warning. The Emperor is a great soldier who can change the laws of time and distance, but he cannot change men; yet he persists in trying to run them in his own mould! Now, remember this; the young men's pardon can be obtained by one person only--Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne." The marquis went alone to Troyes and told the whole matter to Laurence. She obtained permission from the authorities to see Michu, and the marquis accompanied her to the gates of the prison, where he waited for her. When she came out her face was bathed in tears. "Poor man!" she said; "he tried to kneel to me, praying that I would not think of him, and forgetting the shackles that were on his feet! Ah, marquis, I _will_ plead his cause. Yes, I'll kiss the boot of their Emperor. If I fail--well, the memory of that man shall live eternally honored in our family. Present his petition for mercy so as to gain time; meantime I am resolved to have his portrait. Come, let us go." The next day, when Talleyrand was informed by a sign agreed upon that Laurence was at her post, he rang the bell; his orderly came to him, and received orders to admit Monsieur Corentin. "My friend, you are a very clever fellow," said Talleyrand, "and I wish to employ you." "Monsiegneur--" "Listen. In serving Fouche you will get money, but never honor nor any position you can acknowledge. But in serving me, as you have lately done at Berlin, you can win credit and repute." "Monseigneur is very good." "You displayed genius in that late affair at Gondreville." "To what does Monseigneur allude?" said Corentin, with a manner that was neither too reserved nor too surprised. "Ah, Monsieur!" observed the minister, dryly, "you will never make a successful man; you fear--" "What, monseigneur?" "Death!" replied Talleyrand, in his fine, deep voice. "Adieu, my good friend." "That is the man," said the Marquis de Chargeboeuf entering the room after Corentin was dismissed; "but we have nearly killed the countess." "He is the only man I know capable of playing such a trick," replied the minister. "Monsieur le marquis, you are in danger of not succeeding in your mission. Start ostensibly for Strasburg; I'll send you double passports in blank to be filled out. Provide yourself with substitutes; change your route and above all your carriage; let your substitutes go on to Strasburg, and do you reach Prussia through Switzerland and Bavaria. Not a word--prudence! The police are against you; and you do not know what the police are--" Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne offered the then celebrated Robert Lefebvre a sufficient sum to induce him to go to Troyes and take Michu's portrait. Monsieur de Grandville promised to afford the painter every possible facility. Monsieur de Chargeboeuf then started in the old _berlingot_, with Laurence and a servant who spoke German. Not far from Nancy they overtook Mademoiselle Goujet and Gothard, who had preceded them in an excellent carriage, which the marquis took, giving them in exchange the _berlingot_. Talleyrand was right. At Strasburg the commissary-general of police refused to countersign the passport of the travellers, and gave them positive orders to return. By that time the marquis and Laurence were leaving France by way of Besancon with the diplomatic passport. Laurence crossed Switzerland in the first days of October, without paying the slightest attention to that glorious land. She lay back in the carriage in the torpor which overtakes a criminal on the eve of his execution. To her eyes all nature was shrouded in a seething vapor; even common things assumed fantastic shapes. The one thought, "If I do not succeed they will kill themselves," fell upon her soul with reiterated blows, as the bar of the executioner fell upon the victim's members when tortured on the wheel. She felt herself breaking; she lost her energy in this terrible waiting for the cruel moment, short and decisive, when she should find herself face to face with that man on whom the fate of the condemned depended. She chose to yield to her depression rather than waste her strength uselessly. The marquis, who was incapable of understanding this resolve of firm minds, which often assumes quite diverse aspects (for in such moments of tension certain superior minds give way to surprising gaiety), began to fear that he might never bring Laurence alive to the momentous interview, solemn to them only, and yet beyond the ordinary limits of private life. To Laurence, the necessity of humiliating herself before that man, the object of her hatred and contempt, meant the sacrifice of all her noblest feelings. "After this," she said, "the Laurence who survives will bear no likeness to her who is now to perish." The travellers could not fail to be aware of the vast movement of men and material which surrounded them the moment they entered Prussia. The campaign of Jena had just begun. Laurence and the marquis beheld the magnificent divisions of the French army deploying and parading as if at the Tuileries. In this display of military power, which can be adequately described only with the words and images of the Bible, the proportions of the Man whose spirit moved these masses grew gigantic to Laurence's imagination. Soon, the cry of victory resounded in her ears. The Imperial arms had just obtained two signal advantages. The Prince of Prussia had been killed the evening before the day on which the travellers arrived at Saalfeld on their endeavor to overtake Napoleon, who was marching with the rapidity of lightning. At last, on the 13th of October (date of ill-omen) Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne was skirting a river in the midst of the Grand Army, seeing nought but confusion, sent hither and thither from one village to another, from division to division, frightened at finding herself alone with one old man tossed about in an ocean of a hundred and fifty thousand armed men facing a hundred and fifty thousand more. Weary of watching the river through the hedges of the muddy road which she was following along a hillside, she asked its name of a passing soldier. "That's the Saale," he said, showing her the Prussian army, grouped in great masses on the other side of the stream. Night came on. Laurence beheld the camp-fires lighted and the glitter of stacked arms. The old marquis, whose courage was chivalric, drove the horses himself (two strong beasts bought the evening before), his servant sitting beside him. He knew very well he should find neither horses nor postilions within the lines of the army. Suddenly the bold equipage, an object of great astonishment to the soldiers, was stopped by a gendarme of the military gendarmerie, who galloped up to the carriage, calling out to the marquis: "Who are you? where are you going? what do you want?" "The Emperor," replied the Marquis de Chargeboeuf; "I have an important dispatch for the Grand-marechal Duroc." "Well, you can't stay here," said the gendarme. Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne and the marquis were, however, compelled to remain where they were on account of the darkness. "Where are we?" she asked, stopping two officers whom she saw passing, whose uniforms were concealed by cloth overcoats. "You are among the advanced guard of the French army," answered one of the officers. "You cannot stay here, for if the enemy makes a movement and the artillery opens you will be between two fires." "Ah!" she said, with an indifferent air. Hearing that "Ah!" the other officer turned and said: "How did that woman come here?" "We are waiting," said Laurence, "for a gendarme who has gone to find General Duroc, a protector who will enable us to speak to the Emperor." "Speak to the Emperor!" exclaimed the first officer; "how can you think of such a thing--on the eve of a decisive battle?" "True," she said; "I ought to speak to him on the morrow--victory would make him kind." The two officers stationed themselves at a little distance and sat motionless on their horses. The carriage was now surrounded by a mass of generals, marshals, and other officers, all extremely brilliant in appearance, who appeared to pay deference to the carriage merely because it was there. "Good God!" said the marquis to Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne; "I am afraid you spoke to the Emperor." "The Emperor?" said a colonel, beside them, "why there he is!" pointing to the officer who had said, "How did that woman get here?" He was mounted on a white horse, richly caparisoned, and wore the celebrated gray top-coat over his green uniform. He was scanning with a field-glass the Prussian army massed beyond the Saale. Laurence understood then why the carriage remained there, and why the Emperor's escort respected it. She was seized with a convulsive tremor--the hour had come! She heard the heavy sound of the tramp of men and the clang of their arms as they arrived at a quick step on the plateau. The batteries had a language, the caissons thundered, the brass glittered. "Marechal Lannes will take position with his whole corps in the advance; Marechal Lefebvre and the Guard will occupy this hill," said the other officer, who was Major-general Berthier. The Emperor dismounted. At his first motion Roustan, his famous mameluke, hastened to hold his horse. Laurence was stupefied with amazement; she had never dreamed of such simplicity. "I shall pass the night on the plateau," said the Emperor. Just then the Grand-marechal Duroc, whom the gendarme had finally found, came up to the Marquis de Chargeboeuf and asked the reason of his coming. The marquis replied that a letter from the Prince de Talleyrand, of which he was the bearer, would explain to the marshal how urgent it was that Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne and himself should obtain an audience of the Emperor. "His Majesty will no doubt dine at his bivouac," said Duroc, taking the letter, "and when I find out what your object is, I will let you know if you can see him. Corporal," he said to the gendarme, "accompany this carriage, and take it close to that hut at the rear." Monsieur de Chargeboeuf followed the gendarme and stopped his horses behind a miserable cabin, built of mud and branches, surrounded by a few fruit-trees, and guarded by pickets of infantry and cavalry. It may be said that the majesty of war appeared here in all its grandeur. From this height the lines of the two armies were visible in the moonlight. After an hour's waiting, the time being occupied by the incessant coming and going of the aides-de-camp, Duroc himself came for Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne and the marquis, and made them enter the hut, the floor of which was of battened earth like that of a stable. Before a table with the remains of dinner, and before a fire made of green wood which smoked, Napoleon was seated in a clumsy chair. His muddy boots gave evidence of a long tramp across country. He had taken off the famous top-coat; and his equally famous green uniform, crossed by the red cordon of the Legion of honor and heightened by the white of his kerseymere breeches and of his waistcoat, brought out vividly his pale and terrible Caesarian face. One hand was on a map which lay unfolded on his knees. Berthier stood near him in the brilliant uniform of the vice-constable of the Empire. Constant, the valet, was offering the Emperor his coffee from a tray. "What do you want?" said Napoleon, with a show of roughness, darting his eye like a flash through Laurence's head. "You are no longer afraid to speak to me before the battle? What is it about?" "Sire," she said, looking at him with as firm an eye, "I am Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne." "Well?" he replied, in an angry voice, thinking her look braved him. "Do you not understand? I am the Comtesse de Cinq-Cygne, come to ask mercy," she said, falling on her knees and holding out to him the petition drawn up by Talleyrand, endorsed by the Empress, by Cambaceres and by Malin. The Emperor raised her graciously, and said with a keen look: "Have you come to your senses? Do you now understand what the French Empire is and must be?" "Ah! at this moment I understand only the Emperor," she said, vanquished by the kindly manner with which the man of destiny had said the words that foretold to her ears success. "Are they innocent?" asked the Emperor. "Yes, all of them," she said with enthusiasm. "All? No, that bailiff is a dangerous man, who would have killed my senator without taking your advice." "Ah, Sire," she said, "if you had a friend devoted to you, would you abandon him? Would you not rather--" "You are a woman," he said, interrupting her in a faint tone of ridicule. "And you, a man of iron!" she replied with a passionate sternness which pleased him. "That man has been condemned to death by the laws of his country," he continued. "But he is innocent!" "Child!" he said. He took Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne by the hand and led her from the hut to the plateau. "See," he continued, with that eloquence of his which changed even cowards to brave men, "see those three hundred thousand men--all innocent. And yet to-morrow thirty thousand of them will be lying dead, dead for their country! Among those Prussians there is, perhaps, some great mathematician, a man of genius, an idealist, who will be mown down. On our side we shall assuredly lose many a great man never known to fame. Perhaps even I shall see my best friend die. Shall I blame God? No. I shall bear it silently. Learn from this, mademoiselle, that a man must die for the laws of his country just as men die here for her glory." So saying, he led her back into the hut. "Return to France," he said, looking at the marquis; "my orders shall follow you." Laurence believed in a commutation of Michu's punishment, and in her gratitude she knelt again before the Emperor and kissed his hand. "You are the Marquis de Chargeboeuf?" said Napoleon, addressing the marquis. "Yes, Sire." "You have children?" "Many children." "Why not give me one of your grandsons? he shall be my page." "Ah!" thought Laurence, "there's the sub-lieutenant after all; he wants to be paid for his mercy." The marquis bowed without replying. Happily at this moment General Rapp rushed into the hut. "Sire, the cavalry of the Guard, and that of the Grand-duc de Berg cannot be set up before midday to-morrow." "Never mind," said Napoleon, turning to Berthier, "we, too, get our reprieves; let us profit by them." At a sign of his hand the marquis and Laurence retired and again entered their carriage; the corporal showed them their road and accompanied them to a village where they passed the night. The next day they left the field of battle behind them, followed by the thunder of the cannon,--eight hundred pieces,--which pursued them for ten hours. While still on their way they learned of the amazing victory of Jena. Eight days later, they were driving through the faubourg of Troyes, where they learned that an order of the chief justice, transmitted through the _procureur imperial_ of Troyes, commanded the release of the four gentlemen on bail during the Emperor's pleasure. But Michu's sentence was confirmed, and the warrant for his execution had been forwarded from the ministry of police. These orders had reached Troyes that very morning. Laurence went at once to the prison, though it was two in the morning, and obtained permission to stay with Michu, who was about to undergo the melancholy ceremony called "the toilet." The good abbe, who had asked permission to accompany him to the scaffold, had just given absolution to the man, whose only distress in dying was his uncertainty as to the fate of his young masters. When Laurence entered his cell he uttered a cry of joy. "I can die now," he said. "They are pardoned," she said; "I do not know on what conditions, but they are pardoned. I did all I could for you, dear friend--against the advice of others. I thought I had saved you; but the Emperor deceived me with his graciousness." "It was written above," said Michu, "that the watch-dog should be killed on the spot where his old masters died." The last hour passed rapidly. Michu, at the moment of parting, asked to kiss her hand, but Laurence held her cheek to the lips of the noble victim that he might sacredly kiss it. Michu refused to mount the cart. "Innocent men should go afoot," he said. He would not let the abbe give him his arm; resolutely and with dignity he walked alone to the scaffold. As he laid his head on the plank he said to the executioner, after asking him to turn down the collar of his coat, "My clothes belong to you; try not to spot them." * * * * * The four gentlemen had hardly time to even see Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne. An orderly of the general commanding the division to which they were assigned, brought them their commissions as sub-lieutenants in the same regiment of cavalry, with orders to proceed at once to Bayonne, the base of supplies for its particular army-corps. After a scene of heart-rending farewells, for they all foreboded what the future should bring forth, Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne returned to her desolate home. The two brothers were killed together under the eyes of the Emperor at Sommo-Sierra, the one defending the other, both being already in command of their troop. The last words of each were, "Laurence, _cy meurs_!" The elder d'Hauteserre died a colonel at the attack on the redoubt at Moscow, where his brother took his place. Adrien d'Hauteserre, appointed brigadier-general at the battle of Dresden, was dangerously wounded there and was sent to Cinq-Cygne for proper nursing. While endeavoring to save this relic of the four gentlemen who for a few brief months had been so happy around her, Laurence, then thirty-two years of age, married him. She offered him a withered heart, but he accepted it; those who truly love doubt nothing or doubt all. The Restoration found Laurence without enthusiasm. The Bourbons returned too late for her. Nevertheless, she had no cause for complaint. Her husband, made peer of France with the title of Marquis de Cinq-Cygne, became lieutenant-general in 1816, and was rewarded with the blue ribbon for the eminent services which he then performed. Michu's son, of whom Laurence took care as though he were her own child, was admitted to the bar in 1817. After practising two years he was made assistant-judge at the court of Alencon, and from there he became _procureur-du-roi_ at Arcis in 1827. Laurence, who had also taken charge of Michu's property, made over to the young man on the day of his majority an investment in the public Funds which yielded him an income of twelve thousand francs a year. Later, she arranged a marriage for him with Mademoiselle Girel, an heiress at Troyes. The Marquis de Cinq-Cygne died in 1829, in the arms of his wife, surrounded by his father and mother, and his children who adored him. At the time of his death no one had ever fathomed the mystery of the senator's abduction. Louis XVIII. did not neglect to repair, as far as possible, the wrongs done by that affair; but he was silent as to the causes of the disaster. From that time forth the Marquise de Cinq-Cygne believed him to have been an accomplice in the catastrophe. _ |
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