Maurice Tiernay, Soldier of Fortune

‘How so, Eugène? you fancy the Republic will not endure in France. What, then, can replace it?’

‘Anything, everything; for the future all is possible. We have annihilated legitimacy, it is true, just as the Indians destroy a forest, by burning the trees; but the roots remain; and if the soil is incapable of sending up the giant stems as before, it is equally unable to furnish a new and different culture. Monarchy is just as firmly rooted in a Frenchman’s heart, but he will have neither patience for its tedious growth, nor can he submit to restore what has cost him so dearly to destroy. The consequences will, therefore, be a long and continued struggle between parties, each imposing upon the nation the form, of government that pleases it in turn. Meanwhile you and I, and others like us, must serve whatever is uppermost – the cleverest fellow he who sees the coming change, and prepares to take advantage of it.’

‘Then you are a Royalist?’ asked I.

‘A Royalist! What! stand by a monarch who deserted his aristocracy, and forgot his own order; defend a throne that he had reduced to the condition of a fauteuil de Bourgeois?’

‘You are then for the Republic?’

‘For what robbed me of my inheritance – what degraded me from my rank, and reduced me to a state below that of my own vassals! Is this a cause to uphold?’

‘You are satisfied with military glory, perhaps,’ said I, scarcely knowing what form of faith to attribute to him.

‘In an army where my superiors are the very dregs of the people; where the canaille have the command, and the chivalry of France is represented by a sans-culotte!’

‘The cause of the Church – ’

A hurst of ribald laughter cut me short, and laying his hand on my shoulder he looked me full in the face; while with a struggle to recover his gravity, he said —

‘I hope, my dear Maurice, you are not serious, and that you do not mean this for earnest. Why, my dear boy, don’t you talk of the Eleusinian Mysteries, the Delphic Oracle of Alchemy, Astrology – of anything, in short, of which the world, having amused itself, has at length grown weary? Can’t you see that the Church has passed away, and these good priests have gone the same road as their predecessors? Is any acuteness wanting to show that there is an end of this superstition that has enthralled men’s minds for a couple of thousand years? No, no, their game is up, and for ever. These pious men, who despised this world, and yet had no other hold upon the minds of others than by the very craft and subtlety that world taught them – these heavenly souls, whose whole machinations revolved about earthy objects and the successes of this grovelling planet! Fight for them! No, parbleu! we owe them but little love or affection. Their whole aim in life has been to disgust one with whatever is enjoyable, and the best boon they have conferred upon humanity, that bright thought of locking up the softest eyes and fairest cheeks of France in cloisters and nunneries! I can forgive our glorious Revolution much of its wrong when I think of the Prêtre; not but that they could have knocked down the church without suffering the ruins to crush the château!’

Such, in brief, were the opinions my companion held, and of which I was accustomed to hear specimens every day; at first, with displeasure and repugnance; later on, with more of toleration; and at last, with a sense of amusement at the singularity of the notions, or the dexterity with which he defended them. The poison of his doctrines was the more insidious, because it was mingled with a certain dash of good-nature, and a reckless, careless easiness of disposition always attractive to very young men. His reputation for courage, of which he had given signal proofs, elevated him in my esteem; and, ere long, all my misgivings about him, in regard of certain blemishes, gave way before my admiration of his heroic bearing and a readiness to confront peril, wherever to be found.

I had made him the confidant of my own history, of which I told him everything, save the passages which related to the Père Michel. These I either entirely glossed over, or touched so lightly as to render unimportant – a dread of ridicule restraining me from any mention of those earlier scenes of my life, which were alone of all those I should have avowed with pride. Perhaps it was from mere accident – perhaps some secret shame to conceal my forlorn and destitute condition may have had its share in the motive; but, for some cause or other, I gave him to understand that my acquaintance with Colonel Mahon had dated back to a much earlier period than a few days before, and, the impression once made, a sense of false shame led me to support it.

‘Mahon can be a good friend to you,’ said Eugène; ‘he stands well with all parties. The Convention trust him, the sans-culottes are afraid of him, and the few men of family whom the guillotine has left look up to him as one of their stanchest adherents. Depend upon it, therefore, your promotion is safe enough, even if there were not a field open for every man who seeks the path to eminence. The great point, however, is to get service with the army of Italy. These campaigns here are as barren and profitless as the soil they are fought over; but, in the south, Maurice, in the land of dark eyes and tresses, under the blue skies, or beneath the trellised vines, there are rewards of victory more glorious than a grateful country, as they call it, ever bestowed. Never forget, my boy, that you or I have no cause! It is to us a matter of indifference what party triumphs, or who is uppermost. The Government may change to-morrow, and the day after, and so on for a month long, and yet we remain just as we were. Monarchy, Commonwealth, Democracy – what you will – may rule the hour, but the sous-lieutenant is but the servant who changes his master. Now, in revenge for all this, we have one compensation, which is, to “live for the day” – to make the most of that brief hour of sunshine granted us, and to taste of every pleasure, to mingle in every dissipation, and enjoy every excitement that we can. This is my philosophy, Maurice, and just try it.’

Such was the companion with whom chance threw me in contact, and I grieve to think how rapidly his influence gained the mastery over me.

CHAPTER XI. ‘THE PASSAGE OF THE RHINE’

I parted from my friend Eugène at Treves, where he remained in garrison, while I was sent forward to Coblentz to join my regiment, at that time forming part of Ney’s division.

Were I to adhere in my narrative to the broad current of great events, I should here have to speak of that grand scheme of tactics by which Kléber, advancing from the Lower Rhine, engaged the attention of the Austrian Grand-Duke, in order to give time and opportunity for Hoche’s passage of the river at Strasbourg, and the commencement of that campaign which had for its object the subjugation of Germany. I have not, however, the pretension to chronicle those passages which history has for ever made memorable, even were my own share in them of a more distinguished character. The insignificance of my station must, therefore, be my apology if I turn from the description of great and eventful incidents to the humble narrative of my own career.

Whatever the contents of Colonel Mahon’s letter, they did not plead very favourably for me with Colonel Hacque, my new commanding officer; neither, to all seeming, did my own appearance weigh anything in my favour. Raising his eyes at intervals from the letter to stare at me, he uttered some broken phrases of discontent and displeasure; at last he said – ‘What’s the object of this letter, sir; to what end have you presented it to me?’

‘As I am ignorant of its contents, mon colonel,’ said I calmly, ‘I can scarcely answer the question.’

‘Well, sir, it informs me that you are the son of a certain Count Tiernay, who has long since paid the price of his nobility; and that, being an especial protégé of the writer, he takes occasion to present you to me; now I ask again, with what object?’

‘I presume, sir, to obtain for me the honour which I now enjoy – to become personally known to you.’

‘I know every soldier under my command, sir,’ said he rebukingly, ‘as you will soon learn if you remain in my regiment. I have no need of recommendatory letters on that score. As to your grade of corporal, it is not confirmed; time enough when your services shall have shown that you deserve promotion. Parbleu! sir, you’ll have to show other claims than your ci-devant countship.’

Colonel Mahon gave me a horse, sir; may I be permitted to retain him as a regimental mount?’ asked I timidly.

‘We want horses – what is he like?’

‘Three-quarters Arab, and splendid in action, sir.’

‘Then, of course, unfit for service and field manoeuvres.

Send him to the état-major. The Republic will find a fitting mount for you; you may retire.’

And I did retire, with a heart almost bursting between anger and disappointment. What a future did this opening present to me! What a realisation this of all my flattering hopes!

This sudden reverse of fortune, for it was nothing less, did not render me more disposed to make the best of my new condition, nor see in the most pleasing light the rough and rude fraternity among which I was thrown. The Ninth Hussars were reputed to be an excellent service-corps, but, off duty, contained some of the worst ingredients of the army. Play, and its consequence, duelling, filled up every hour not devoted to regimental duty; and low as the tone of manners and morals stood in the service generally, ‘Hacque’s Tapageurs,’ as they were called, enjoyed the unflattering distinction of being the leaders. Self-respect was a quality utterly unknown amongst them – none felt ashamed at the disgrace of punishment; and as all knew that, at the approach of the enemy, prison-doors would open, and handcuffs fall off, they affected to think the ‘Salle de Police’ was a pleasant alternative to the fatigue and worry of duty. These habits not only stripped soldiering of all its chivalry, but robbed freedom itself of all its nobility. These men saw nothing but licentiousness in their newly won liberty. Their ‘Equality’ was the permission to bring everything down to a base and unworthy standard; their ‘Fraternity,’ the appropriation of what belonged to one richer than themselves.

It would give me little pleasure to recount, and the reader, in all likelihood, as little to hear, the details of my life among such associates. They are the passages of my history most painful to recall, and least worthy of being remembered; nor can I even yet write without shame the confession, how rapidly their habits became my own. Eugene’s teachings had prepared me, in a manner, for their lessons. His scepticism, extending to everything and every one, had made me distrustful of all friendship, and suspicious of whatever appeared a kindness. Vulgar association, and daily intimacy with coarsely minded men, soon finished what he had begun; and in less time than it took me to break my troop-horse to regimental drill, I had been myself ‘broke in’ to every vice and abandoned habit of my companions. It was not in my nature to do things by halves; and thus I became, and in a brief space, too, the most inveterate Tapageur of the whole regiment. There was not a wild prank or plot in which I was not foremost, not a breach of discipline unaccompanied by my name or presence, and more than half the time of our march to meet the enemy, I passed in double irons under the guard of the provost-marshal.

It was at this pleasant stage of my education that our brigade arrived at Strasbourg, as part of the corps d’armée, under the command of General Moreau.

He had just succeeded to the command on the dismissal of Pichegru, and found the army not only dispirited by the defeats of the past campaign, but in a state of rudest indiscipline and disorganisation. If left to himself, he would have trusted much to time and circumstances for the reform of abuses that had been the growth of many months long. But Régnier, the second in command, was made of ‘different stuff’; he was a harsh and stern disciplinarian, who rarely forgave a first, never a second, offence, and who, deeming the ‘Salle de Police’ as an encumbrance to an army on service, which, besides, required a guard of picked men, that might be better employed elsewhere, usually gave the preference to the shorter sentence of ‘four paces and a fusillade.’ Nor was he particular in the classification of those crimes he thus expiated: from the most trivial excess to the wildest scheme of insubordination, all came under the one category. More than once, as we drew near to Strasbourg, I heard the project of a mutiny discussed, day after day. Some one or other would denounce the ‘scélérat Régnier,’ and proclaim his readiness to be the executioner; but the closer we drew to headquarters, the more hushed and subdued became these mutterings, till at last they ceased altogether, and a dark and foreboding dread succeeded to all our late boastings and denunciations.

This at first surprised and then utterly disgusted me with my companions. Brave as they were before the enemy, had they no courage for their own countrymen? Was all their valour the offspring of security, or could they only be rebellious when the penalty had no terrors for them? Alas! I was very young, and did not then know that men are never strong against the right, and that a bad cause is always a weak one.

It was about the middle of June when we reached Strasbourg, where now about forty thousand troops were assembled. I shall not readily forget the mingled astonishment and disappointment our appearance excited as the regiment entered the town. The Tapageurs, so celebrated for all their terrible excesses and insubordination, were seen to be a fine corps of soldierlike fellows, their horses in high condition, their equipments and arms in the very best order. Neither did our conduct at all tally with the reputation that preceded us. All was orderly and regular in the several billets; the parade was particularly observed; not a man late at the night muster. What was the cause of this sudden and remarkable change? Some said that we were marching against the enemy; but the real explanation lay in the few words of a general order read to us by our colonel the day before we entered the city: —

‘The 9th Hussars have obtained the unworthy reputation ofbeing an ill-disciplined and ill-conducted regiment, relyingupon their soldierlike qualities in face of the enemy tocover the disgrace of their misconduct in quarters. This isa mistake that must be corrected. All Frenchmen are brave; none can arrogate to themselves any prerogative of valour.If any wish to establish such a belief, a campaign canalways attest it. If any profess to think so without suchproof, and, acting in conformity with this impression, disobey their orders or infringe regimental discipline, Iwill have them shot.

‘Régnier, Adjutant-General.’

This was, at least, a very straightforward and intelligible announcement, and as such my comrades generally acknowledged it. I, however, regarded it as a piece of monstrous and intolerable tyranny, and sought to make converts to my opinion by declaiming about the rights of Frenchmen, the liberty of free discussion, the glorious privilege of equality, and so on; but these arguments sounded faint in presence of the drumhead; and while some slunk away from the circle around me, others significantly hinted that they would accept no part of the danger my doctrines might originate.

However I might have respected my comrades had they been always the well-disciplined body I now saw them, I confess that this sudden conversion through fear was in nowise to my taste, and rashly confounded their dread of punishment with a base and ignoble fear of death. ‘And these are the men,’ thought I, ‘who talk of their charging home through the dense squares of Austria – who have hunted the leopard into the sea, and have carried the flag of France over the high Alps?’

A bold rebel, whatever may be the cause against which he revolts, will always be sure of a certain ascendency. Men are prone to attribute power to pretension, and he who stands foremost in the breach will at least win the suffrages of those whose cause he assumes to defend. In this way it happened that exactly, as my comrades fell in my esteem, I was elevated in theirs; and while I took a very depreciating estimate of their courage, they conceived a very exalted opinion of mine.

It was altogether inexplicable to see these men, many of them the bronzed veterans of a dozen campaigns – the wounded and distinguished soldiers in many a hard-fought field, yielding up their opinions and sacrificing their convictions to a raw and untried stripling who had never yet seen an enemy.

With a certain fluency of speech I possessed also a readiness at picking up information, and arraying the scattered fragments of news into a certain consistence, which greatly imposed upon my comrades. A quick eye for manoeuvres, and a shrewd habit of combining in my own mind the various facts that came before me, made me appear to them a perfect authority on military matters, of which I talked, I shame to say, with all the confidence and presumption of an accomplished general. A few lucky guesses, and a few half hints, accidentally confirmed, completed all that was wanting; and what says ‘Le Jeune Maurice,’ was the inevitable question that followed each piece of flying gossip, or every rumour that rose of a projected movement.

I have seen a good deal of the world since that time, and I am bound to confess, that not a few of the great reputations I have witnessed have stood upon grounds very similar, and not a whit more stable than my own. A bold face, a ready tongue, a promptness to support, with my right hand, whatever my lips were pledged to, and, above all, good-luck, made me the king of my company; and although that sovereignty only extended to half a squadron of hussars, it was a whole universe to me.

So stood matters when, on the 23rd of June, orders came for the whole corps d’armée to hold itself in readiness for a forward movement. Rations for two days were distributed, and ammunition given out as if for an attack of some duration. Meanwhile, to obviate any suspicion of our intentions, the gates of Strasbourg, on the eastern side, were closed – all egress in that direction forbidden – and couriers and estafettes sent off towards the north, as if to provide for the march of our force in that direction. The arrival of various orderly dragoons during the previous night, and on that morning early, told of a great attack in force on Mannheim, about sixty miles lower down the Rhine, and the cannonade of which some avowed that they could hear at that distance. The rumour, therefore, seemed confirmed, that we were ordered to move to the north, to support this assault.

The secret despatch of a few dismounted dragoons and some riflemen to the hanks of the Rhine, however, did not strike me as according with this view, and particularly as I saw that, although all were equipped, and in readiness to move, the order to march was not given, a delay very unlikely to be incurred if we were destined to act as the reserve of the force already engaged.

Directly opposite to us, on the right bank of the river, and separated from it by a low flat of about two miles in extent, stood the fortress of Kehl, at that time garrisoned by a strong Austrian force; the banks of the river, and the wooded islands in the stream, which communicated with the right by bridges, or fordable passes, being also held by the enemy in force.

These we had often seen, by the aid of telescopes, from the towers and spires of Strasbourg; and now I remarked that the general and his staff seemed more than usually intent on observing their movements. This fact, coupled with the not less significant one that no preparations for a defence of Strasbourg were in progress, convinced me that, instead of moving down the Rhine to the attack on Mannheim, the plan of our general was to cross the river where we were, and make a dash at the fortress of Kehl. I was soon to receive the confirmation of my suspicion, as the orders came for two squadrons of the 9th to proceed, dismounted, to the bank of the Rhine, and, under shelter of the willows, to conceal themselves there. Taking possession of the various skiffs and fishing-boats along the bank, we were distributed in small parties, to one of which, consisting of eight men under the orders of a corporal, I belonged.

About an hour’s march brought us to the river-side, in a little clump of alder willows, where, moored to a stake, lay a fishing-boat with two short oars in her. Lying down beneath the shade, for the afternoon was hot and sultry, some of us smoked, some chatted, and a few dozed away the hours that somehow seemed unusually slow in passing.

There was a certain dogged sullenness about my companions, which proceeded from their belief that we and all who remained at Strasbourg were merely left to occupy the enemy’s attention, while greater operations were to be carried on elsewhere.

‘You see what it is to be a condemned corps,’ muttered one; ‘it’s little matter what befalls the old 9th, even should they be cut to pieces.’

‘They didn’t think so at Enghien,’ said another, ‘when we rode down the Austrian cuirassiers.’

‘Plain enough,’ cried a third, ‘we are to have skirmishers’ duty here, without skirmishers’ fortune in having a force to fall back upon.’

‘Eh! Maurice, is not this very like what you predicted for us?’ broke in a fourth ironically.

‘I’m of the same mind still,’ rejoined I coolly: ‘the general is not thinking of a retreat; he has no intention of deserting a well-garrisoned, well-provisioned fortress. Let the attack on Mannheim have what success it may, Strasbourg will be held still. I overheard Colonel Guyon remark that the waters of the Rhine have fallen three feet since the drought set in, and Régnier replied ‘that we must lose no time, for there will come rain and floods ere long.’ Now what could that mean but the intention to cross over yonder?’

‘Cross the Rhine in face of the fort of Kehl!’ broke in the corporal.

‘The French army have done bolder things before now!’ was my reply; and, whatever the opinion of my comrades, the flattery ranged them on my side. Perhaps the corporal felt it beneath his dignity to discuss tactics with an inferior, or perhaps he felt unable to refute the specious pretensions I advanced; in any case he turned away, and either slept, or affected sleep, while I strenuously laboured to convince my companions that my surmise was correct.

I repeated all my former arguments about the decrease in the Rhine, showing that the river was scarcely two-thirds of its habitual breadth, that the nights were now dark, and well suited for a surprise, that the columns which issued from the town took their departure with a pomp and parade far more likely to attract the enemy’s attention than escape his notice, and were, therefore, the more likely to be destined for some secret expedition, of which all this display was but the blind. These, and similar facts, I grouped together with a certain ingenuity, which, if it failed to convince, at least silenced my opponents. And now the brief twilight, if so short a struggle between day and darkness deserved the name, passed off, and night suddenly closed around us – a night black and starless, for a heavy mass of lowering cloud seemed to unite with the dense vapour that arose from the river, and the low-lying grounds alongside of it. The air was hot and sultry, too, like the precursor of a thunderstorm, and the rush of the stream as it washed among the willows sounded preternaturally loud.

A hazy, indistinct flame, the watch-fire of the enemy, on the island of Eslar, was the only object visible in the murky darkness. After a while, however, we could detect another fire on a smaller island, a short distance higher up the stream. This, at first dim and uncertain, blazed up after a while, and at length we descried the dark shadows of men as they stood around it.

It was but the day before that I had been looking on a map of the Rhine, and remarked to myself that this small island, little more than a mere rock in the stream, was so situated as to command the bridge between Eslar and the German bank, and I could not help wondering that the Austrians had never taken the precaution to strengthen it, or at least place a gun there, to enfilade the bridge. Now, to my extreme astonishment, I saw it occupied by the soldiery, who, doubtless, were artillery, as in such a position small arms would prove of slight efficiency. As I reflected over this, wondering within myself if any intimation of our movements could have reached the enemy, I heard along the ground on which I was lying the peculiar tremulous, dull sound communicated by a large body of men marching. The measured tramp could not be mistaken, and as I listened I could perceive that a force was moving towards the river from different quarters. The rumbling roll of heavy guns and the clattering noise of cavalry were also easily distinguished, and awaking one of my comrades I called his attention to the sounds.