The Companions of Jehu

“Pardon my keeping you waiting, sir,” said he. “You should not have considered me, I am so absent-minded. I am ready now.”

Then, a smile on his lips, his hair lifted by the evening breeze, unconcerned as if this were an ordinary promenade, while his opponent, on the contrary, took all the precaution usual in such a case, Roland advanced straight toward M. de Barjols.

Sir John’s face, despite his ordinary impassibility, betrayed a profound anxiety. The distance between the opponents lessened rapidly. M. de Barjols halted first, took aim, and fired when Roland was but ten paces from him.

The ball clipped one of Roland’s curls, but did not touch him. The young man turned toward his second:

“Well,” said he, “what did I tell you?”

“Fire, monsieur, fire!” said the seconds.

M. de Barjols stood silent and motionless on the spot where he had fired.

“Pardon me, gentlemen,” replied Roland; “but you will, I hope, permit me to be the judge of the time and manner of retaliating. Since I have felt M. de Barjols’ shot, I have a few words to say to him which I could not say before.” Then, turning to the young aristocrat, who was pale and calm, he said: “Sir, perhaps I was somewhat too hasty in our discussion this morning.”

And he waited.

“It is for you to fire, sir,” replied M. de Barjols.

“But,” continued Roland, as if he had not heard, “you will understand my impetuosity, and perhaps excuse it, when you hear that I am a soldier and General Bonaparte’s aide-de-camp.”

“Fire, sir,” replied the young nobleman.

“Say but one word of retraction, sir,” resumed the young officer. “Say that General Bonaparte’s reputation for honor and delicacy is such that a miserable Italian proverb, inspired by ill-natured losers, cannot reflect discredit on him. Say that, and I throw this weapon away to grasp your hand; for I recognize in you, sir, a brave man.”

“I cannot accord that homage to his honor and delicacy until your general has devoted the influence which his genius gives him over France as Monk did – that is to say, to reinstate his legitimate sovereign upon the throne.”

“Ah!” cried Roland, with a smile, “that is asking too much of a republican general.”

“Then I maintain what I said,” replied the young noble. “Fire! monsieur, fire!” Then as Roland made no haste to obey this injunction, he shouted, stamping his foot: “Heavens and earth! will you fire?”

At these words Roland made a movement as if he intended to fire in the air.

“Ah!” exclaimed M. de Barjols. Then with a rapidity of gesture and speech that prevented this, “Do not fire in the air, I beg, or I shall insist that we begin again and that you fire first.”

“On my honor!” cried Roland, turning as pale as if the blood had left his body, “this is the first time I have done so much for any man. Go to the devil! and if you don’t want to live, then die!”

At the same time he lowered his arm and fired, without troubling to take aim.

Alfred de Barjols put his hand to his breast, swayed back and forth, turned around and fell face down upon the ground. Roland’s bullet had gone through his heart.

Sir John, seeing M. de Barjols fall, went straight to Roland and drew him to the spot where he had thrown his hat and coat.

“That is the third,” murmured Roland with a sigh; “but you are my witness that this one would have it.”

Then giving his smoking pistol to Sir John, he resumed his hat and coat. During this time M. de Valensolle picked up the pistol which had escaped from his friend’s hand, and brought it, together with the box, to Sir John.

“Well?” asked the Englishman, motioning toward Alfred de Barjols with his eyes.

“He is dead,” replied the second.

“Have I acted as a man of honor, sir?” asked Roland, wiping away the sweat which suddenly inundated his brow at the announcement of his opponent’s death.

“Yes, monsieur,” replied M. de Valensolle; “only, permit me to say this: you possess the fatal hand.”

Then bowing to Roland and his second with exquisite politeness, he returned to his friend’s body.

“And you, my lord,” resumed Roland, “what do you say?”

“I say,” replied Sir John, with a sort of forced admiration, “you are one of those men who are made by the divine Shakespeare to say of themselves:

“‘Danger and I —We were two lions littered in one day,But I the elder.’”

CHAPTER V. ROLAND

The return was silent and mournful; it seemed that with the hopes of death Roland’s gayety had disappeared.

The catastrophe of which he had been the author played perhaps a part in his taciturnity. But let us hasten to say that in battle, and more especially during the last campaign against the Arabs, Roland had been too frequently obliged to jump his horse over the bodies of his victims to be so deeply impressed by the death of an unknown man.

His sadness was, due to some other cause; probably that which he confided to Sir John. Disappointment over his own lost chance of death, rather than that other’s decease, occasioned this regret.

On their return to the Hotel du Palais-Royal, Sir John mounted to his room with his pistols, the sight of which might have excited something like remorse in Roland’s breast. Then he rejoined the young officer and returned the three letters which had been intrusted to him.

He found Roland leaning pensively on a table. Without saying a word the Englishman laid the three letters before him. The young man cast his eyes over the addresses, took the one destined for his mother, unsealed it and read it over. As he read, great tears rolled down his cheeks. Sir John gazed wonderingly at this new phase of Roland’s character. He had thought everything possible to this many-sided nature except those tears which fell silently from his eyes.

Shaking his head and paying not the least attention to Sir John’s presence, Roland murmured:

“Poor mother! she would have wept. Perhaps it is better so. Mothers were not made to weep for their children!”

He tore up the letters he had written to his mother, his sister, and General Bonaparte, mechanically burning the fragments with the utmost care. Then ringing for the chambermaid, he asked:

“When must my letters be in the post?”

“Half-past six,” replied she. “You have only a few minutes more.”

“Just wait then.”

And taking a pen he wrote:

My DEAR GENERAL – It is as I told you; I am living and he is dead. You must admit that this seems like a wager. Devotion to death.

Your Paladin

ROLAND.

Then he sealed the letter, addressed it to General Bonaparte, Rue de la Victoire, Paris, and handed it to the chambermaid, bidding her lose no time in posting it. Then only did he seem to notice Sir John, and held out his hand to him.

“You have just rendered me a great service, my lord,” he said. “One of those services which bind men for all eternity. I am already your friend; will you do me the honor to become mine?”

Sir John pressed the hand that Roland offered him.

“Oh!” said he, “I thank you heartily. I should never have dared ask this honor; but you offer it and I accept.”

Even the impassible Englishman felt his heart soften as he brushed away the tear that trembled on his lashes. Then looking at Roland, he said: “It is unfortunate that you are so hurried; I should have been pleased and delighted to spend a day or two with you.”

“Where were you going, my lord, when I met you?”

“Oh, I? Nowhere. I am travelling to get over being bored. I am unfortunately often bored.”

“So that you were going nowhere?”

“I was going everywhere.”

“That is exactly the same thing,” said the young officer, smiling. “Well, will you do something for me?”

“Oh! very willingly, if it is possible.”

“Perfectly possible; it depends only on you.”

“What is it?”

“Had I been killed you were going to take me to my mother or throw me into the Rhone.”

“I should have taken you to your mother and not thrown you into the Rhone.”

“Well, instead of accompanying me dead, take me living. You will be all the better received.”

“Oh!”

“We will remain a fortnight at Bourg. It is my natal city, and one of the dullest towns in France; but as your compatriots are pre-eminent for originality, perhaps you will find amusement where others are bored. Are we agreed?”

“I should like nothing better,” exclaimed the Englishman; “but it seems to me that it is hardly proper on my part.”

“Oh! we are not in England, my lord, where etiquette holds absolute sway. We have no longer king nor queen. We didn’t cut off that poor creature’s head whom they called Marie Antoinette to install Her Majesty, Etiquette, in her stead.”

“I should like to go,” said Sir John.

“You’ll see, my mother is an excellent woman, and very distinguished besides. My sister was sixteen when I left; she must be eighteen now. She was pretty, and she ought to be beautiful. Then there is my brother Edouard, a delightful youngster of twelve, who will let off fireworks between your legs and chatter a gibberish of English with you. At the end of the fortnight we will go to Paris together.”

“I have just come from Paris,” said the Englishman.

“But listen. You were willing to go to Egypt to see General Bonaparte. Paris is not so far from here as Cairo. I’ll present you, and, introduced by me, you may rest assured that you will be well received. You were speaking of Shakespeare just now – ”

“Oh! I am always quoting him.”

“Which proves that you like comedies and dramas.”

“I do like them very much, that’s true.”

“Well, then, General Bonaparte is going to produce one in his own style which will not be wanting in interest, I answer for it!”

“So that,” said Sir John, still hesitating, “I may accept your offer without seeming intrusive?”

“I should think so. You will delight us all, especially me.”

“Then I accept.”

“Bravo! Now, let’s see, when will you start?”

“As soon as you wish. My coach was harnessed when you threw that unfortunate plate at Barjols’ head. However, as I should never have known you but for that plate, I am glad you did throw it at him!”

“Shall we start this evening?”

“Instantly. I’ll give orders for the postilion to send other horses, and once they are here we will start.”

Roland nodded acquiescence. Sir John went out to give his orders, and returned presently, saying they had served two cutlets and a cold fowl for them below. Roland took his valise and went down. The Englishman placed his pistols in the coach box again. Both ate enough to enable them to travel all night, and as nine o’clock was striking from the Church of the Cordeliers they settled themselves in the carriage and quitted Avignon, where their passage left a fresh trail of blood, Roland with the careless indifference of his nature, Sir John Tanlay with the impassibility of his nation. A quarter of an hour later both were sleeping, or at least the silence which obtained induced the belief that both had yielded to slumber.

We shall profit by this instant of repose to give our readers some indispensable information concerning Roland and his family.

Roland was born the first of July, 1773, four years and a few days later than Bonaparte, at whose side, or rather following him, he made his appearance in this book. He was the son of M. Charles de Montrevel, colonel of a regiment long garrisoned at Martinique, where he had married a creole named Clotilde de la Clémencière. Three children were born of this marriage, two boys and a girl: Louis, whose acquaintance we have made under the name of Roland, Amélie, whose beauty he had praised to Sir John, and Edouard.

Recalled to France in 1782, M. de Montrevel obtained admission for young Louis de Montrevel (we shall see later how the name of Louis was changed to Roland) to the Ecole Militaire in Paris.

It was there that Bonaparte knew the child, when, on M. de Keralio’s report, he was judged worthy of promotion from the Ecole de Brienne to the Ecole Militaire. Louis was the youngest pupil. Though he was only thirteen, he had already made himself remarked for that ungovernable and quarrelsome nature of which we have seen him seventeen years later give an example at the table d’hôte at Avignon.

Bonaparte, a child himself, had the good side of this character; that is to say, without being quarrelsome, he was firm, obstinate, and unconquerable. He recognized in the child some of his own qualities, and this similarity of sentiments led him to pardon the boy’s defects, and attached him to him. On the other hand the child, conscious of a supporter in the Corsican, relied upon him.

One day the child went to find his great friend, as he called Napoleon, when the latter was absorbed in the solution of a mathematical problem. He knew the importance the future artillery officer attached to this science, which so far had won him his greatest, or rather his only successes.

He stood beside him without speaking or moving. The young mathematician felt the child’s presence, and plunged deeper and deeper into his mathematical calculations, whence he emerged victorious ten minutes later. Then he turned to his young comrade with that inward satisfaction of a man who issues victorious from any struggle, be it with science or things material.

The child stood erect, pale, his teeth clinched, his arms rigid and his fists closed.

“Oh! oh!” said young Bonaparte, “what is the matter now?”

“Valence, the governor’s nephew, struck me.”

“Ah!” said Bonaparte, laughing, “and you have come to me to strike him back?”

The child shook his head.

“No,” said he, “I have come to you because I want to fight him – ”

“Fight Valence?”

“Yes.”

“But Valence will beat you, child; he is four times as strong as you.”

“Therefore I don’t want to fight him as children do, but like men fight.”

“Pooh!”

“Does that surprise you?” asked the child.

“No,” said Bonaparte; “what do you want to fight with?”

“With swords.”

“But only the sergeants have swords, and they won’t lend you one.”

“Then we will do without swords.”

“But what will you fight with?”

The child pointed to the compass with which the young mathematician had made his equations.

“Oh! my child,” said Bonaparte, “a compass makes a very bad wound.”

“So much the better,” replied Louis; “I can kill him.”

“But suppose he kills you?”

“I’d rather that than bear his blow.”

Bonaparte made no further objections; he loved courage, instinctively, and his young comrade’s pleased him.

“Well, so be it!” he replied; “I will tell Valence that you wish to fight him, but not till to-morrow.”

“Why to-morrow?”

“You will have the night to reflect.”

“And from now till to-morrow,” replied the child, “Valence will think me a coward.” Then shaking his head, “It is too long till to-morrow.” And he walked away.

“Where are you going?” Bonaparte asked him.

“To ask some one else to be my friend.”

“So I am no longer your friend?”

“No, since you think I am a coward.”

“Very well,” said the young man rising.

“You will go?”

“I am going.”

“At once?”

“At once.”

“Ah!” exclaimed the child, “I beg your pardon; you are indeed my friend.” And he fell upon his neck weeping. They were the first tears he had shed since he had received the blow.

Bonaparte went in search of Valence and gravely explained his mission to him. Valence was a tall lad of seventeen, having already, like certain precocious natures, a beard and mustache; he appeared at least twenty. He was, moreover, a head taller than the boy he had insulted.

Valence replied that Louis had pulled his queue as if it were a bell-cord (queues were then in vogue) – that he had warned him twice to desist, but that Louis had repeated the prank the third time, whereupon, considering him a mischievous youngster, he had treated him as such.

Valence’s answer was reported to Louis, who retorted that pulling a comrade’s queue was only teasing him, whereas a blow was an insult. Obstinacy endowed this child of thirteen with the logic of a man of thirty.

The modern Popilius to Valence returned with his declaration of war. The youth was greatly embarrassed; he could not fight with a child without being ridiculous. If he fought and wounded him, it would be a horrible thing; if he himself were wounded, he would never get over it so long as he lived.

But Louis’s unyielding obstinacy made the matter a serious one. A council of the Grands (elder scholars) was called, as was usual in serious cases. The Grands decided that one of their number could not fight a child; but since this child persisted in considering himself a young man, Valence must tell him before all his schoolmates that he regretted having treated him as a child, and would henceforth regard him as a young man.

Louis, who was waiting in his friend’s room, was sent for. He was introduced into the conclave assembled in the playground of the younger pupils.

There Valence, to whom his comrades had dictated a speech carefully debated among themselves to safeguard the honor of the Grands toward the Petits, assured Louis that he deeply deplored the occurrence; that he had treated him according to his age and not according to his intelligence and courage, and begged him to excuse his impatience and to shake hands in sign that all was forgotten.

But Louis shook his head.

“I heard my father, who is a colonel, say once,” he replied, “that he who receives a blow and does not fight is a coward. The first time I see my father I shall ask him if he who strikes the blow and then apologizes to avoid fighting is not more of a coward than he who received it.”

The young fellows looked at each other. Still the general opinion was against a duel which would resemble murder, and all, Bonaparte included, were unanimously agreed that the child must be satisfied with what Valence had said, for it represented their common opinion. Louis retired, pale with anger, and sulked with his great friend, who, said he, with imperturbable gravity, had sacrificed his honor.

The morrow, while the Grands were receiving their lesson in mathematics, Louis slipped into the recitation-room, and while Valence was making a demonstration on the blackboard, he approached him unperceived, climbed on a stool to reach his face, and returned the slap he had received the preceding day.

“There,” said he, “now we are quits, and I have your apologies to boot; as for me, I shan’t make any, you may be quite sure of that.”

The scandal was great. The act occurring in the professor’s presence, he was obliged to report it to the governor of the school, the Marquis Tiburce Valence. The latter, knowing nothing of the events leading up to the blow his nephew had received, sent for the delinquent and after a terrible lecture informed him that he was no longer a member of the school, and must be ready to return to his mother at Bourg that very day. Louis replied that his things would be packed in ten minutes, and he out of the school in fifteen. Of the blow he himself had received he said not a word.

The reply seemed more than disrespectful to the Marquis Tiburce Valence. He was much inclined to send the insolent boy to the dungeon for a week, but reflected that he could not confine him and expel him at the same time.

The child was placed in charge of an attendant, who was not to leave him until he had put him in the coach for Mâcon; Madame de Montrevel was to be notified to meet him at the end of the journey.

Bonaparte meeting the boy, followed by his keeper, asked an explanation of the sort of constabulary guard attached to him.

“I’d tell you if you were still my friend,” replied the child; “but you are not. Why do you bother about what happens to me, whether good or bad?”

Bonaparte made a sign to the attendant, who came to the door while Louis was packing his little trunk. He learned then that the child had been expelled. The step was serious; it would distress the entire family, and perhaps ruin his young comrade’s future.

With that rapidity of decision which was one of the distinctive characteristics of his organization, he resolved to ask an audience of the governor, meantime requesting the keeper not to hasten Louis’s departure.

Bonaparte was an excellent pupil, beloved in the school, and highly esteemed by the Marquis Tiburce Valence. His request was immediately complied with. Ushered into the governor’s presence, he related everything, and, without blaming Valence in the least, he sought to exculpate Louis.

“Are you sure of what you are telling me, sir?” asked the governor.

“Question your nephew himself. I will abide by what he says.”

Valence was sent for. He had already heard of Louis’s expulsion, and was on his way to tell his uncle what had happened. His account tallied perfectly with what you Bonaparte had said.

“Very well,” said the governor, “Louis shall not go, but you will. You are old enough to leave school.” Then ringing, “Bring me the list of the vacant sub-lieutenancies,” he said.

That same day an urgent request for a sub-lieutenancy was made to the Ministry, and that same night Valence left to join his regiment. He went to bid Louis farewell, embracing him half willingly, half unwillingly, while Bonaparte held his hand. The child received the embrace reluctantly.

“It’s all right now,” said he, “but if ever we meet with swords by our sides – ” A threatening gesture ended the sentence.

Valence left. Bonaparte received his own appointment as sub-lieutenant October 10, 1785. His was one of fifty-eight commissions which Louis XVI. signed for the Ecole Militaire. Eleven years later, November 15, 1796, Bonaparte, commander-in-chief of the army of Italy, at the Bridge of Arcola, which was defended by two regiments of Croats and two pieces of cannon, seeing his ranks disseminated by grapeshot and musket balls, feeling that victory was slipping through his fingers, alarmed by the hesitation of his bravest followers, wrenched the tri-color from the rigid fingers of a dead color-bearer, and dashed toward the bridge, shouting: “Soldiers! are you no longer the men of Lodi?” As he did so he saw a young lieutenant spring past him who covered him with his body.

This was far from what Bonaparte wanted. He wished to cross first. Had it been possible he would have gone alone.

Seizing the young man by the flap of his coat, he drew him back, saying: “Citizen, you are only a lieutenant, I a commander-in-chief! The precedence belongs to me.”

“Too true,” replied the other; and he followed Bonaparte instead of preceding him.

That evening, learning that two Austrian divisions had been cut to pieces, and seeing the two thousand prisoners he had taken, together with the captured cannons and flags, Bonaparte recalled the young man who had sprung in front of him when death alone seemed before him.

“Berthier,” said he, “tell my aide-de-camp, Valence, to find that young lieutenant of grenadiers with whom I had a controversy this morning at the Bridge of Arcola.”

“General,” stammered Berthier, “Valence is wounded.”

“Ah! I remember I have not seen him to-day. Wounded? Where? How? On the battlefield?”

“No, general,” said he, “he was dragged into a quarrel yesterday, and received a sword thrust through his body.”

Bonaparte frowned. “And yet they know very well I do not approve of duels; a soldier’s blood belongs not to himself, but to France. Give Muiron the order then.”

“He is killed, general.”

“To Elliot, in that case.”

“Killed also.”

Bonaparte drew his handkerchief from his pocket and passed it over his brow, which was bathed with sweat.

“To whom you will, then; but I want to see that lieutenant.”

He dared not name any others, fearing to hear again that fatal “Killed!”

A quarter of an hour later the young lieutenant was ushered into his tent, which was lighted faintly by a single lamp.

“Come nearer, lieutenant,” said Bonaparte.

The young man made three steps and came within the circle of light.

“So you are the man who wished to cross the bridge before me?” continued Bonaparte.

“It was done on a wager, general,” gayly answered the young lieutenant, whose voice made the general start.

“Did I make you lose it?”

“Maybe, yes; maybe, no.”

“What was the wager?”

“That I should be promoted captain to-day.”

“You have won it.”