The Last Vendée

"Ha! damn it!" said the other. "She-wolf as she is, I never thought her so wily; but she gave me the slip, fool that I was."

"You might have been certain that the one we were after was in that group of peasant-women, and that Mary de Souday only stayed behind to meet and detain you."

"As for that, you are right enough; for when I asked that same group of women where the young girl was they said that she and her companion had lagged behind and left them on the road."

"What did you do then?"

"Hang it! I put up the pony at an inn, and hid myself at the farther end of Pirmile and waited for them."

"In vain, I suppose."

"In vain, – for more than two hours."

"They must have taken a cross-road and entered Nantes by the other bridge."

"Probably."

"It is very unfortunate. Who knows if such a piece of luck will ever happen to you again? Perhaps you may never find her now."

"Oh, yes. I shall. Let me alone for that."

"How will you do it?"

"Oh! – as my neighbor the Marquis de Souday, or my friend Jean Oullier would say-'God wants her soul;' and I have at home just the bloodhound we need for the hunt."

"Bloodhound?"

"Yes, a regular bloodhound. There is something the matter with one of his front paws, but as soon as that is well I'll put a chain round his neck and he'll take us straight in the direction we want to go, without any trouble to us, except taking care he does not pull too hard on the chain and break it in his hurry to get there."

"Come, stop joking; these are serious matters."

"Joking! what do you take me for? Do you suppose I joke in presence of the fifty thousand francs you have promised me? – for you really did say fifty thousand, didn't you?"

"You ought to be sure of it, for you have made me tell you a score of times."

"I know that; but I am never tired of hearing it, any more than I shall be tired of fingering the louis when I get them."

"Deliver us the person we want, and you shall have them."

"Bless me! I hear those yellow-boys chinking in my ears, – dzing! dzing!"

"Meantime, tell me what you mean by a bloodhound."

"Oh! I'd tell you willingly, but-"

"But what?"

"Give and take, you know."

"What do you mean by 'give and take'?"

"Well, as I told you the other day, I wish to oblige the government, partly because I respect it, and partly because I like to harass the nobles and all that belong to them-for I hate 'em all. But, all the same, while obliging the government of my choice, I should be glad to see the color of its money, – for, don't you see, thus far I have given it much more than I receive. Besides, how do I know that if the government lays hold of that person for whom they offer her weight in gold, how do I know, I say, that they will pay what they promised me, or rather promised you?"

"You are a fool."

"I should be a fool if I did not say what I am saying to you now. I like to make myself secure; and if I must speak frankly, I don't see much security in this affair."

"You run the same risks that I do. I have received from an eminent person the promise of one hundred thousand francs if I succeed."

"One hundred thousand francs! That's very little to have come so far to get. Come, own that it is two hundred thousand, and that you give me a quarter of it; because I am on the spot and don't have to travel for the money as you do. Two hundred thousand francs! You are pretty lucky! A good round sum and rings well. So be it, I'll have confidence in the government; but, let me ask, why should I have it in you? How can I be sure you won't slip off with the money when the government pays it? And if you should, where's the court or the judge before whom I could sue you, I'd like to know?"

"My good sir, political associates must trust each other; faith signs their contract."

"Is that why they are so wonderfully well kept? Frankly, I'd prefer another signature."

"Whose?"

"Yours, or that of the minister with whom you are dealing."

"Well, we'll try to satisfy you."

"Hush!"

"What?"

"Don't you hear something?"

"Yes; some one is coming this way. I think I hear the wheels of a cart."

The two men rose at once, and by the light of the moon, which was then shining, Jean Oullier, who had not lost a single word of the conversation, saw their faces. One of the men was a stranger to him; the other proved to be Courtin, – a fact he knew already by the tones of the farmer's voice and the mention he had made of Michel and the "she-wolves."

"Let us go," said the stranger.

"No," replied Courtin; "I've a number of things to say to you. Let us hide in this bush till the cart has gone by, and then we can finish our business."

They walked toward the ditch. Jean knew he was lost; but, unwilling to be caught like a hare on its form, he rose to his knees, and pulled his knife from his belt. It was blunt, to be sure, but in a hand to hand struggle could still be of use. He had no other weapon and supposed the two men to be unarmed. But Courtin, who had seen a man's form rise in the bush and heard the rustle of the reeds and brambles, made three steps backward, seized his gun hidden behind the fallen tree, cocked one barrel, lifted the weapon to his shoulder, and fired. A stifled cry followed the explosion.

"What have you done?" cried the stranger, who seemed to think Courtin's action rather too expeditious.

"See! see!" replied Courtin, trembling and very pale; "a man was watching us."

The stranger went to the bushes and parted the branches.

"Take care! take care!" said Courtin; "if it is a Chouan and he is not quite dead, he'll attack you."

So saying, Courtin, with his other barrel cocked, held himself ready to fire at a safe distance.

"It is a peasant," said the stranger, "but I think he is dead."

So saying, he took Jean Oullier by the arm and dragged him out of the ditch. Courtin, seeing that the man was motionless and apparently dead, ventured to approach.

"Jean Oullier!" he cried out, recognizing the Vendéan, "Jean Oullier! My faith! I never expected to kill a man, but since it was to be, it is a grand thing it was he instead of another. That, I can truly say, deserves to be called a lucky shot."

"Meantime," said the stranger, "here comes the cart."

"Yes, it is at the top of the hill, for the horse is trotting. Come, there's no time to lose; we had better be off. Is he really dead?"

"He seems so."

"Very good; forward then."

The stranger dropped Jean Oullier's arm, and the head fell back upon the ground with the heavy thud of a deadweight.

"Yes, yes, he's dead, sure enough!" said Courtin. Then, not daring to go nearer, he pointed his finger at the body. "There," said he, "that secures us our pay better than any signature; that dead body is worth two hundred thousand francs to us."

"How so?"

"He was the only man who could get that bloodhound I told you about away from me. I thought he was dead. I was mistaken. Now that I know it with my own eyes, we are safe. Forward! forward!"

"Yes, for here comes the cart."

The vehicle was now not a hundred steps from the body. The two men sprang into the bushes and disappeared in the darkness, while the widow Picaut, who was coming for Jean Oullier, alarmed by the shot, ran forward to the place where she had left him.

XXIV.

MAÎTRE COURTIN'S BATTERIES

A few weeks had sufficed to bring about a radical upsetting of the lives of all those personages who, from the beginning of this narrative, have successively passed under the eyes of the reader.

Martial law was proclaimed in the four departments of La Vendée. The general who commanded them issued a proclamation inviting the country-people to give in their submission, promising to receive it with indulgence. The attempt at insurrection had so miserably failed that the greater part of the Vendéans abandoned all hope for the future. A few of them, who were openly compromised, followed the advice of their own leaders, given when they disbanded them, and gave up their arms. But the civil authorities would not accept this capitulation; they seized the offered arms and arrested their owners. A goodly number of these confiding persons were thrown into prison, and this impolitic severity paralyzed the pacific intentions of those who with greater prudence were awaiting events.

Maître Jacques owed to these proceedings a large increase in the number of his troop; he made so much, and made it so cleverly, out of the conduct of his adversaries, that he finally gathered about him a body of men large enough to still hold out in the forests while the rest of La Vendée disarmed itself.

Gaspard, Louis Renaud, Bras-d'Acier, and other leaders put the sea between them and a stern government. The Marquis de Souday alone could not resolve upon that step. Ever since he had parted from Petit-Pierre-that is, ever since Petit-Pierre had left him-the unfortunate gentleman had completely lost the jovial good-humor with which, as a matter of honor, he had, up to the last moment, opposed the gloomy views of his co-leaders; but as soon as duty no longer forced him to be gay, the marquis dropped to the lower extreme and became, as we may say, sad unto death. The defeat at Chêne not only wounded him in his political sympathies, but it knocked over to their foundations all the castles in Spain he had been so gleefully erecting. He now saw in this partisan existence, which his imagination had been endowing with romantic charm, things he had never dreamed of, – reverses which overwhelmed him, obscure poverty, the mean and trivial privations of an exile's life. He reached a point, – even he, who so recently had thought life in his little castle insufferably insipid, – he reached a point at which he regretted the good, pleasant evenings which the caresses and chatter of his girls made so pleasant, – above all, he missed his gossip with Jean Oullier; and he was so unhappy over the latter's continued absence that he made inquiries about his huntsman's fate with a solicitude not in any way customary with him.

The marquis was in this frame of mind when he one day encountered Maître Jacques loitering about the environs of Grand-Lieu and watching the movements of a column of soldiers. The Marquis de Souday had never had much liking for the master of "rabbits," whose first act of discipline had been to defy his authority. The independent spirit displayed by Maître Jacques had always seemed to the old gentleman a fatal example set to the Vendéans. Maître Jacques, on the other hand, hated the marquis, as he hated all whose birth or social position gave them naturally the position of leaders; and yet he was so touched by the misery to which he saw the old gentleman reduced in the cottage where, after Petit-Pierre's departure, the marquis had taken refuge, that he offered to hide him in the forest of Touvois; promising, besides the good cheer which always reigned in his little camp, and which he proposed to share with him, some amusement in occasional frays indulged in with the soldiers of King Louis-Philippe. Needless to say that the marquis always bluntly called that king "Philippe."

It was the last consideration we have mentioned which determined Monsieur de Souday to accept Maître Jacques' proposals. He burned to avenge the ruin of his hopes, and to make some one pay for his disappointments, for the annoyance his separation from his daughters caused him, and for the grief he felt at Jean Oullier's disappearance. He accordingly accompanied the lord of the burrows, who, from being his subordinate-or rather his insubordinate-now became his protector; and the latter, really touched by the simplicity and good-nature of the marquis, showed him much more considerate attention than his rough exterior and ways of life would seem to promise.

As for Bertha, the day after her retreat to Courtin's house, and as soon as she recovered some strength, she plainly perceived that to be under the same roof with the man she loved, far from the protection of her father, and without Jean Oullier, who could in a way replace him, was, to say the least of it, an impropriety; and, in spite of the fact that Michel was wounded, might be interpreted in a way to injure her reputation. She therefore left the farmhouse and installed herself with Rosine in the Tinguy cottage. This was about three quarters of a mile distant from Courtin's house, where she went daily to give Michel all the care of a sister, and the delicate attentions of a loving woman.

The tenderness, devotion, and self-abnegation of which Bertha gave Michel so many proofs touched the young man deeply; but as they did not in any degree affect his feelings for Mary, his situation became more and more difficult and embarrassing. He dared not think of the despair he might bring into the heart of the young girl to whom he owed his life. Nevertheless, little by little, a gentle resignation did succeed the bitter and violent repulsion he had felt at first, and without habituating himself to the idea of the sacrifice Mary demanded of him, he replied by smiles, which he tried to make affectionate, to the attentions which Bertha showered on him; and when she left his bedside the sigh that escaped him, and which she interpreted as meant for her, alone testified to his inward feelings.

If it had not been for Courtin, who always came to his room as soon as Bertha had disappeared through the trees of the garden, and sitting beside him talked of Mary, Michel's tender and impressionable soul might have ended in resigning itself to the necessities of the situation, and in accepting the fate they made for him. But Courtin talked to his young master so incessantly of Mary, he showed so earnest a wish to see him happy according to his heart's desire, that Michel, as the wound in his arm healed and his strength returned, felt his inward wound reopening, and his gratitude to Bertha disappearing before the image of her sister.

Courtin was doing a work analogous to that of Penelope; he undid at night that which Bertha, with so much care, had done by day. When he brought the young baron to his house the latter's feebleness precluded all necessity of asking pardon for his former conduct; and now, having, as we have heard him tell, got possession of Michel's secret, he managed, by protestations of devotion to his interests and by cleverly encouraging the young man's love for Bertha's sister, to worm himself back entirely into his master's confidence. Michel had suffered as much from not being able to tell his woes as from the woes themselves. Courtin seemed to be so sympathizing, he flattered his dreams so pleasantly, he seemed to admire Mary so truly, that, little by little, he led Michel to betray, if not to confess, what had passed between him and the sisters.

Courtin was very careful, however, not to assume a position hostile to Bertha. He managed, cleverly enough, to make her think he was devoted to the idea of her marriage with his young master. When they met away from Michel he always spoke to her as though to his future mistress; and he did this so well that Bertha, knowing nothing of his antecedents, was constantly talking to Michel of the great devotion of his farmer, whom she called "our good Courtin."

But no sooner was he alone with Michel than he entered, as we have said, into all the latter's secret feelings. He pitied him; and Michel, under the influence of that pity, allowed himself to tell his farmer the incidents of his relation to Mary. Courtin constantly repeated to him, "She loves you;" insinuating that he, Michel, ought to force Mary with a gentle violence, for which she would certainly be grateful, to follow the dictates of her own heart. He even went beyond Michel's own hopes and assured him that as soon as he was well and communications were once more open, he could so arrange matters that, without ingratitude to Bertha, she could be brought to renounce, of herself, the projected marriage.

Michel's convalescence did not progress as rapidly as Courtin desired. He saw, with deep anxiety, the days go by without affording any clue as to Petit-Pierre's actual hiding-place; and he restlessly awaited the moment when he could let loose his young master on Mary's traces, – for, of course, the reader has understood that Michel was the "bloodhound" he had talked of using.

Bertha, relieved of all anxiety about Michel's wound, had made, with Rosine, several trips into the forest of Touvois to see her father in his present refuge. Two or three times after such excursions Courtin had led the conversation to persons concerned in the insurrection in whom the sisters would probably take an interest; but Bertha remained impenetrable; and the farmer was too well aware that the topic was dangerous, and that the slightest imprudence on his part would speedily awaken suspicion, to press such inquiries. Still, as Michel grew better and stronger, he urged him, whenever they were alone together, to come to a determination; offering to take a letter at any time to Mary and bring back her answer, doing his best to make it favorable.

This state of things lasted six weeks. At the end of that time Michel was almost well; his wound had healed and his strength returned. The neighborhood of the post which the general had established at La Logerie prevented the young man from showing himself during the daytime; but as soon as it was dark he walked about the orchard leaning on Bertha's arm. These evening promenades annoyed Courtin, who, so long as Bertha and Michel talked together in the house, could overhear what they said by eavesdropping; and one day he told them positively that their nocturnal rambles must cease. On being asked why, he produced a judgment by default which condemned Michel de la Logerie to death.

This communication produced but little effect on Michel, but Bertha was terror-stricken. She almost flung herself at the young man's feet, and begged his pardon for having enticed him into this fatal position; and that night when she left the farmhouse she was in a state of pitiable agitation.

The next day she came early. All night she had dreamed dreadful dreams, and they followed her waking. She saw Michel discovered, arrested, shot! Two hours earlier than usual she was at the farmhouse. Nothing had happened; nothing seemed to make that day more alarming than other days. It passed as usual, – full of charm mingled with anguish for Bertha; full of melancholy internal aspirations for Michel.

Evening came, – a beautiful summer's evening. Bertha was leaning against a little window looking out into the orchard; she was watching the sunset beyond the great trees of the forest of Machecoul, the tops of which were undulating like waves of verdure. Michel was sitting on his bed breathing in the soft odors of the coming night. Suddenly they heard the wheels of a carriage coming up the avenue.

The young man darted to the window. Both saw a calèche entering the courtyard. Courtin ran to the carriage, hat in hand; a head looked out, – it was that of the Baronne de la Logerie.

Michel, on seeing his mother, felt a cold chill run through his veins; it was evident that she had come for him. Bertha questioned him with her eyes to ask what she ought to do. Michel pointed to a dark corner, – a sort of closet or recess without a door, – where she might hide, and hear all without being seen herself. He thought he should gather strength from her secret presence. Five minutes later the stairs creaked under his mother's step.

Bertha had rushed to her hiding-place and Michel had seated himself near the window, as if he had neither seen nor heard anything. The door opened and the baroness appeared.

Perhaps she had come with the intention of being harsh and stern as usual; but on seeing Michel by the paling light, pale himself as the twilight, she abandoned all severity, and opening her arms, cried out: -

"Oh, my unhappy child! have I found you?"

Michel, who did not expect this reception, was greatly moved; and he flung himself into his mother's open arms crying: -

"Oh, mother, – mother! My good mother!"

She, too, was greatly changed; traces were plainly to be seen upon her face of incessant tears and sleepless nights.

XXV.

MADAME LA BARONNE DE LA LOGERIE, THINKING TO SERVE HER SON'S INTERESTS, SERVES THOSE OF PETIT-PIERRE

The baroness sat down, or rather, fell into a chair, drawing Michel to his knees before her, and taking his head, which she pressed to her lips. At last the words which she seemed unable to bring out came to her.

"Is it possible that you are here in this place, not a hundred steps away from the château, which is full of soldiers?"

"The nearer I am to them, mother," replied Michel, "the less they'll look for me here."

"But don't you know what has taken place in Nantes?"

"What has taken place there?"

"The military courts have passed sentence after sentence."

"That only signifies to those they catch," said Michel, laughing.

"It signifies to every one," said his mother; "for those who are not taken may be taken at any moment."

"Not when they are hiding in the house of a mayor well-known for his Philippist opinions."

"You are none the less-"

The baroness stopped, as if her mouth refused to utter the words.

"Go on, mother!"

"You are none the less condemned-"

"Condemned to death; I know that."

"What! you know it, unhappy boy, and you stay here quietly?"

"I tell you, mother, that as long as I am with Courtin I'm quite safe."

"Then he has been kind to you, has he, that man?"

"He has been simply a second providence. He found me wounded and dying of hunger; he brought me home, and since then he has fed and hidden me."

"I must own I have distrusted him."

"Then you are wrong, mother."

"Maybe so. But talk of our own affairs, my dear child. No matter how well hidden you may be, you cannot stay here."

"Why not?"

"Because a mere chance, the slightest imprudence would betray you." Michel shook his head. "You don't want me to die of terror, do you?" said his mother.

"No no; I will listen to you."

"Well, I shall die of terror if you stay in France."

"But, mother, have you reflected on the difficulties of flight?"

"Yes; and I have surmounted them."

"How so?"

"I have chartered a small Dutch vessel which is now lying in the river opposite to Couéron. Get on board of her and go. God grant that you are strong enough for the journey." Michel did not answer. "You will go to England," continued his mother. "You will leave this cursed land which drank your father's blood; say you will, my son! So long as you stay here I cannot have an easy moment; I fancy at all hours I see the hand of the executioner stretched out to tear you from my arms." Still Michel kept silence. "Here," continued the baroness, "is a letter to the captain; and here too is an order for fifty thousand francs to your credit in England or America. Wherever you are, write to me, so that I may follow and join you. But what is the matter? Why don't you answer me?"

The fact is, Michel received this proposal with an insensibility which almost amounted to stupor. Go away? why, that was to part from Mary! At the mere idea of that separation his heart was so wrung that he fancied he would rather face the death to which he was condemned. Since Courtin had assisted in reviving his passion, he had in his heart conceived new hopes, and without saying a word of them to his farmer, he thought day and night on the means of getting to her. He could not endure the idea of once more renouncing her; and instead of replying to his mother as she developed her plan, he was simply strengthening his determination to be Mary's husband. Hence the silence which, naturally, made the baroness uneasy.

"Mother," said Michel at last, "I do not answer you because I cannot answer as I wish."

"How do you mean, as you wish?"

"Listen to me, mother," said the young man, with a firmness of which at any other time she would have thought him, and perhaps he might have thought himself, incapable.

"You don't refuse to go, I hope?"

"I don't refuse to go," said Michel, "but I put conditions to my going."

"Conditions where it concerns your life, your safety? Conditions before you consent to relieve your mother's agony?"

"Mother," said Michel, "since we last saw each other I have suffered much, and consequently I have learned much. I have learned, above all, that there are moments which decide the whole future happiness or misery of our lives. I am now in one of those moments, mother."