Maurice Tiernay, Soldier of Fortune

Apparently the animal was accustomed to more gentle treatment, for he gave a loud snort, such as a surprised or frightened horse will give, and then bounded forward once or twice, as if to dismount me. This failing, he reared up perfectly straight, pawing madly, and threatening even to fall backwards. I saw that I had, indeed, selected a wicked one; for in every bound and spring, in every curvet and leap, the object was clearly to unseat the rider. At one instant he would crouch, as if to lie down, and then bound up several feet in the air, with a toss up of his haunches that almost sent me over the head. At another he would spring from side to side, writhing and twisting like a fish, till the saddle seemed actually slipping away from his lithe body. Not only did I resist all these attacks, but vigorously continued to punish with whip and spur the entire time – a proceeding, I could easily see, he was not prepared for. At last, actually maddened with his inability to throw me, and enraged by my continuing to spur him, he broke away, and dashing headlong forward, rushed into the very thickest of the grove. Fortunately for me, the trees were either shrubs or of stunted growth, so that I had only to keep my saddle to escape danger; but suddenly emerging from this, he gained the open sward, and as if his passion became more furious as he indulged in it, he threw up his head, and struck out in full gallop. I had but time to see that he was heading for the great fosse of the boulevard, when we were already on its brink. A shout, and a cry of I know not what, came from the tower; but I heard nothing more. Mad as the maddened animal himself, perhaps at that moment just as indifferent to life, I dashed the spurs into his flanks, and oyer we went, lighting on the green sward as easily as a seagull on a wave. To all seeming, the terrible leap had somewhat sobered him; but on me it had produced the very opposite effect. I felt that I had gained the mastery, and resolved to use it. With unrelenting punishment, then, I rode him forward, taking the country as it lay straight before me. The few fences which divided the great fields were too insignificant to be called leaps, and he took them in the ‘sling’ of his stretching gallop. He was now subdued, yielding to every turn of my wrist, and obeying every motive of my will like an instinct. It may read like a petty victory; but he who has ever experienced the triumph over an enraged and powerful horse, well knows that few sensations are more pleasurably exciting. High as is the excitement of being borne along in full speed, leaving village and spire, glen and river, bridge and mill behind you – now careering up the mountain-side, with the fresh breeze upon your brow; now diving into the dark forest, startling the hare from her cover, and sending the wild deer scampering before you – it is still increased by the sense of a victory; by feeling that the mastery is with you, and that each bound of the noble beast beneath you has its impulse in your own heart.

Although the cavalry squadrons I was despatched to overtake had quitted Nancy four hours before, I came up with them in less than an hour, and inquiring for the officer in command, rode up to the head of the division. He was a thin, gaunt-looking, stern-featured man, who listened to my message without changing a muscle.

‘Who sent you with this order?’ said he.

‘A general officer, sir, whose name I don’t know, but who told me to take his own horse and follow you.’

‘Did he tell you to kill the animal, sir?’ said he, pointing to the heaving flanks and shaking tail of the exhausted beast.

‘He bolted with me at first, major, and having cleared the ditch of the boulevard, rode away with me.’

‘Why, it’s Colonel Mahon’s Arab, Aleppo,’ said another officer; ‘what could have persuaded him to mount an orderly on a beast worth ten thousand francs?’

I thought I’d have fainted, as I heard these words; the whole consequences of my act revealed themselves before me, and I saw arrest, trial, sentence, imprisonment, and Heaven knew what afterwards, like a panorama rolling out to my view.

‘Tell the colonel, sir,’ said the major, ‘that I have taken the north road, intending to cross over at Beaumont; that the artillery trains have cut up the Metz road so deeply, cavalry cannot travel; tell him I thank him much for his politeness in forwarding this despatch to me; and tell him, that I regret the rules of active service should prevent my sending back an escort to place yourself under arrest for the manner in which you have ridden – you hear, sir?’

I touched my cap in salute.

‘Are you certain, sir, that you have my answer correctly?’

‘I am, sir.’

‘Repeat it, then.’

I repeated the reply, word for word, as he spoke it.

‘No, sir,’ said he as I concluded; ‘I said for unsoldier-like and cruel treatment to your horse.’

One of his officers whispered something in his ear, and he quietly added —

‘I find that I had not used these words, but I ought to have done so; give the message, therefore, as you heard it at first.’

‘Mahon will shoot him, to a certainty,’ muttered one of the captains.

‘I’d not blame him,’ joined another; ‘that horse saved his life at Quiberon, when he fell in with a patrol; and look at him now!’

The major made a sign for me to retire, and I turned and set ont towards Nancy, with the feelings of a convict on the way to his fate.

If I did not feel that these brief records of a humble career were ‘upon honour,’ and that the only useful lesson a life so unimportant can teach, is the conflict between opposing influences, I might possibly be disposed to blink the avowal, that, as I rode along towards Nancy, a very great doubt occurred to me as to whether I ought not to desert! It is a very ignoble expression; but it must out. There were not in the French service any of those ignominious punishments which, once undergone, a man is dishonoured for ever, and no more admissible to rank with men of character than if convicted of actual crime; but there were marks of degradation, almost as severe, then in vogue, and which men dreaded with a fear nearly as acute – such, for instance, as being ordered for service at the Bagne de Brest, in Toulon – the arduous duty of guarding the galley-slaves, and which was scarcely a degree above the condition of the condemned themselves. Than such a fate as this, I would willingly have preferred death. It was, then, this thought that suggested desertion; but I soon rejected the unworthy temptation, and held on my way towards Nancy.

Aleppo, if at first wearied by the severe burst, soon rallied, while he showed no traces of his fiery temper, and exhibited few of fatigue; and as I walked along at his side, washing his mouth and nostrils at each fountain I passed, and slackening his saddle-girths to give him freedom, long before we arrived at the suburbs he had regained all his looks and much of his spirit.

At last we entered Nancy about nightfall, and, with a failing heart, I found myself at the gate of the ducal palace. The sentries suffered me to pass unmolested, and entering, I took my way through the courtyard, towards the small gate of the garden, which, as I had left it, was unlatched.

It was strange enough, the nearer I drew towards the eventful moment of my fate, the more resolute and composed my heart became. It is possible, thought I, that in a fit of passion he will send a ball through me, as the officer said. Be it so – the matter is the sooner ended. If, however, he will condescend to listen to my explanation, I may be able to assert my innocence, at least so far as intention went. With this comforting conclusion, I descended at the stable door. Two dragoons in undress were smoking, as they lay at full length upon a bench, and speedily arose as I came up.

‘Tell the colonel he’s come, Jacques,’ said one, in a loud voice, and the other retired; while the speaker, turning towards me, took the bridle from my hand, and led the animal in, without vouchsafing a word to me.

‘An active beast that,’ said I, affecting the easiest and coolest indifference. The soldier gave me a look of undisguised amazement, and I continued —

‘He has had a bad hand on him, I should say – some one too flurried and too fidgety to give confidence to a hot-tempered horse.’

Another stare was all the reply.

‘In a little time, and with a little patience, I’d make him as gentle as a lamb.’

‘I’m afraid you’ll not have the opportunity,’ replied he significantly; ‘but the colonel, I see, is waiting for you, and you can discuss the matter together.’

The other dragoon had just then returned, and made me a sign to follow him. A few paces brought us to the door of a small pavilion, at which a sentry stood; and having motioned to me to pass in, my guide left me. An orderly sergeant at the same instant appeared, and beckoning to me to advance, he drew aside a curtain, and pushing me forward, let the heavy folds close behind me; and now I found myself in a richly furnished chamber, at the farther end of which an officer was at supper with a young and handsome woman. The profusion of wax-lights on the table – the glitter of plate, and glass, and porcelain – the richness of the lady’s dress, which seemed like the costume of a ball – were all objects distracting enough, but they could not turn me from the thought of my own condition; and I stood motionless, while the officer, a man of about fifty, with dark and stern features, deliberately scanned me from head to foot. Not a word did he speak, not a gesture did he make, but sat, with his black eyes actually piercing me. I would have given anything for some outbreak of anger, some burst of passion, that would have put an end to this horrible suspense, but none came; and there he remained several minutes, as if contemplating something too new and strange for utterance. ‘This must have an end,’ thought I – ‘here goes’; and so, with my hand in salute, I drew myself full up, and said —

‘I carried your orders, sir, and received for answer that Major Roquelard had taken the north road advisedly, as that by Beaumont was cut up by the artillery trains; that he would cross over to the Metz Chaussée as soon as possible; that he thanked you for the kindness of your warning, and regretted that the rules of active service precluded his despatching an escort of arrest along with me, for the manner in which I had ridden with the order.’

‘Anything more?’ asked the colonel, in a voice that sounded thick and guttural with passion.

‘Nothing more, sir.’

‘No further remark or observation?’ ‘None, sir – at least from the major.’

‘What then – from any other?’

‘A captain, sir, whose name I do not know, did say something.’

‘What was it?’

‘I forget the precise words, sir, but their purport was, that Colonel Mahon would certainly shoot me when I got back.’

‘And you replied?’

‘I don’t believe I made any reply at the time, sir.’

‘But you thought, sir – what were your thoughts?’

‘I thought it very like what I’d have done myself in a like case, although certain to be sorry for it afterwards.’

Whether the emotion had been one for some time previous restrained, or that my last words had provoked it suddenly, I cannot tell, but the lady here burst out into a fit of laughter, but which was as suddenly checked by some sharp observation of the colonel, whose stern features grew sterner and darker every moment.

‘There we differ, sir,’ said he, ‘for I should not’ At the same instant he pushed his plate away, to make room on the table for a small portfolio, opening which, he prepared to write.

‘You will bring this paper,’ continued he, ‘to the provost-marshal. To-morrow morning you shall be tried by a regimental court-martial, and as your sentence may probably be the galleys and hard labour – ’

‘I ‘ll save them the trouble,’ said I, quietly drawing my sword; but scarcely was it clear of the scabbard when a shriek broke from the lady, who possibly knew not the object of my act; at the same instant the colonel bounded across the chamber, and striking me a severe blow upon the arm, dashed the weapon from my hand to the ground.

‘You want the fusillade – is that what you want?’ cried he, as, in a towering fit of passion, he dragged me forward to the light. I was now standing close to the table; the lady raised her eyes towards me, and at once broke out into a burst of laughter – such hearty, merry laughter, that, even with the fear of death before me, I could almost have joined in it.

‘What is it – what do you mean, Laure?’ cried the colonel angrily.

‘Don’t you see it?’ said she, still holding her kerchief to her face – ‘can’t you perceive it yourself? He has only one moustache!’

I turned hastily towards the mirror beside me, and there was the fatal fact revealed – one gallant curl disported proudly over the left cheek, while the other was left bare.

‘Is the fellow mad – a mountebank?’ said the colonel, whose anger was now at its white heat.

‘Neither, sir,’ said I, tearing off my remaining moustache, in shame and passion together. ‘Among my other misfortunes I have that of being young; and what’s worse, I was ashamed of it; but I begin to see my error, and know that a man may be old without gaining either in dignity or temper.’

With a stroke of his closed fist upon the table, the colonel made every glass and decanter spring from their places, while he uttered an oath that was only current in the days of that army. ‘This is beyond belief,’ cried he. ‘Come, gredin, you have at least had one piece of good fortune: you’ve fallen precisely into the hands of one who can deal with you. – Your regiment?’

‘The Ninth Hussars.’

‘Your name?’

‘Tiernay.’

‘Tiernay; that’s not a French name?’

‘Not originally; we were Irish once.’

‘Irish,’ said he, in a different tone from what he had hitherto used. ‘Any relative of a certain Comte Maurice de Tiernay, who once served in the Royal Guard?’

‘His son, sir.’

‘What – his son! Art certain of this, lad? You remember your mother’s name then – what was it?’

‘I never knew which was my mother,’ said I. ‘Mademoiselle de la Lasterie or – ’

He did not suffer me to finish, but throwing his arms around my neck, pressed me to his bosom.

‘You are little Maurice, then,’ said he, ‘the son of my old and valued comrade! Only think of it, Laure – I was that boy’s godfather.’

Here was a sudden change in my fortunes; nor was it without a great effort that I could credit the reality of it, as I saw myself seated between the colonel and his fair companion, both of whom overwhelmed me with attention.

It turned out that Colonel Mahon had been a fellow-guardsman with my father, for whom he had ever preserved the warmest attachment. One of the few survivors of the Garde du Corps, he had taken service with the Republic, and was already reputed as one of the most distinguished cavalry officers.

‘Strange enough, Maurice,’ said he to me, ‘there was something in your look and manner, as you spoke to me there, that recalled your poor father to my memory; and without knowing or suspecting why, I suffered you to bandy words with me, while at another moment I would have ordered you to be ironed and sent to prison.’

Of my mother, of whom I wished much to learn something, he would not speak, but adroitly changed the conversation to the subject of my own adventures, and these he made me recount from the beginning. If the lady enjoyed all the absurdities of my chequered fortune with a keen sense of the ridiculous, the colonel apparently could trace in them but so many resemblances to my father’s character, and constantly broke out into exclamations of ‘How like him!’ ‘Just what he would have done himself!’ ‘His own very words! ‘and so on.

It was only in a pause of the conversation, as the clock on the mantelpiece struck eleven, that I was aware of the lateness of the hour, and remembered that I should be on the punishment-roll the next morning for absence from quarters.

‘Never fret about that, Maurice – I ‘ll return your name as on a special service; and to have the benefit of truth on our side, you shall be named one of my orderlies, with the grade of corporal.’

‘Why not make him a sous-lieutenant?’ said the lady, in a half-whisper. ‘I’m sure he is better worth his epaulettes than any I have seen on your staff.’

‘Nay, nay,’ muttered the colonel, ‘the rules of the service forbid it. He’ll win his spurs time enough, or I ‘m much mistaken.’

While I thanked my new and kind patron for his goodness, I could not help saying that my heart was eagerly set upon the prospect of actual service; and that proud as I should be of his protection, I would rather merit it by my conduct than owe my advancement to favour.

‘Which simply means that you are tired of Nancy, and riding drill, and want to see how men comport themselves where the manoeuvres are not arranged beforehand. Well, so far you are right, boy. I shall, in all likelihood, be stationed here for three or four months, during which you might have advanced a stage or so towards those epaulettes my fair friend desires to see upon your shoulders. You shall, therefore, be sent forward to your own corps. I’ll write to the colonel to confirm the rank of corporal; the regiment is at present on the Moselle, and, if I mistake not, will soon be actively employed Come to me to-morrow before noon, and be prepared to march with the first detachments that are sent forward.’

A cordial shake of the hand followed these words; and the lady having also vouchsafed me an equal token of her good-will, I took my leave, the happiest fellow that ever betook himself to quarters after hours, and as indifferent to the penalties annexed to the breach of discipline as if the whole code of martial law were a mere fable.

CHAPTER X. AN ARISTOCRATIC REPUBLICAN

If the worthy reader would wish to fancy the happiest of all youthful beings, let him imagine what I must have been, as, mounted upon Aleppo, a present from my godfather, with a purse of six shining louis in my pocket, and a letter to my colonel, I set forth for Metz. I had breakfasted with Colonel Mahon, who, amid much good advice for my future guidance, gave me, half slyly, to understand that the days of Jacobinism had almost run their course, and that a reactionary movement had already set in. The Republic, he added, was as strong, perhaps stronger, than ever, but that men had grown weary of mob tyranny, and were, day by day, reverting to the old loyalty, in respect for whatever pretended to culture, good-breeding, and superior intelligence. ‘As, in a shipwreck, the crew instinctively turn for counsel and direction to the officers, you will see that France will, notwithstanding all the libertinism of our age, place her confidence in the men who have been the tried and worthy servants of former governments. So far, then, from suffering on account of your gentle blood, Maurice, the time is not distant when it will do you good service, and when every association that links you with family and fortune will be deemed an additional guarantee of your good conduct. I mention these things,’ continued he, ‘because your colonel is what they call a “Grosbleu “ – that is, a coarse-minded, inveterate republican, detesting aristocracy and all that belongs to it. Take care, therefore, to give him no just cause for discontent, but be just as steady in maintaining your position as the descendant of a noble house, who has not forgotten what were once the privileges of his rank. Write to me frequently and freely, and I’ll take care that you want for nothing, so far as my small means go, to sustain whatever grade you occupy. Your own conduct shall decide whether I ever desire to have any other inheritor than the son of my oldest friend in the world.’

Such were his last words to me as I set forth, in company with a large party, consisting for the most part of under-officers and employés attached to the medical staff of the army. It was a very joyous and merry fraternity, and, consisting of ingredients drawn from different pursuits and arms of the service, infinitely amusing from contrast of character and habits. My chief associate amongst them was a young sous-lieutenant of dragoons, whose age, scarcely much above my own, joined to a joyous, reckless temperament, soon pointed him out as the character to suit me; his name was Eugène Santron. In appearance he was slightly formed, and somewhat undersized, but with handsome features, their animation rendered sparkling by two of the wickedest black eyes that ever glistened and glittered in a human head. I soon saw that, under the mask of affected fraternity and equality, he nourished the most profound contempt for the greater number of associates, who, in truth, were, however braves gens, the very roughest and least-polished specimens of the polite nation. In all his intercourse with them, Eugène affected the easiest tone of camaraderie and equality, never assuming in the slightest, nor making any pretensions to the least superiority on the score of position or acquirements, but on the whole consoling himself, as it were, by ‘playing them off’ in their several eccentricities, and rendering every trait of their vulgarity and ignorance tributary to his own amusement. Partly from seeing that he made me an exception to this practice, and partly from his perceiving the amusement it afforded me, we drew closer towards each other, and before many days elapsed, had become sworn friends.

There is probably no feature of character so very attractive to a young man as frankness. The most artful of all flatteries is that which addresses itself by candour, and seems at once to select, as it were by intuition, the object most suited for a confidence. Santron carried me by a coup de main of this kind, as, taking my arm one evening as I was strolling along the banks of the Moselle, he said —

‘My dear Maurice, it’s very easy to see that the society of our excellent friends yonder is just as distasteful to you as to me. One cannot always be satisfied laughing at their solecisms in breeding and propriety. One grows weary at last of ridiculing their thousand absurdities; and then there comes the terrible retribution in the reflection of what the devil brought me into such company? a question that, however easily answered, grows more and more intolerable the oftener it is asked. To be sure, in my case there was little choice in the matter, for I was not in any way the arbiter of my own fortune. I saw myself converted from a royal page to a printer’s devil by a kind old fellow, who saved my life by smearing my face with ink, and covering my scarlet uniform with a filthy blouse; and since that day I have taken the hint, and often found the lesson a good one – the dirtier the safer!

‘We were of the old nobility of France, but as the name of our family was the cause of its extinction, I took care to change it. I see you don’t clearly comprehend me, and so I’ll explain myself better. My father lived unmolested during the earlier days of the Revolution, and might so have continued to the end, if a detachment of the Garde Républicaine had not been despatched to our neighbourhood of Saarlouis, where it was supposed some lurking regard for royalty yet lingered. These fellows neither knew nor cared for the ancient noblesse of the country, and one evening a patrol of them stopped my father as he was taking his evening walk along the ramparts. He would scarcely deign to notice the insolent ‘Qui va là? of the sentry, a summons he at least thought superfluous in a town which had known his ancestry for eight or nine generations. At the repetition of the cry, accompanied by something that sounded ominous, in the sharp click of a gun-lock, he replied haughtily, “Je suis le Marquis de Saint-Trône.”

‘"There are no more marquises in France!” was the savage answer.

‘My father smiled contemptuously, and briefly said “Saint-Trône.”

‘"We have no saints either,” cried another.

‘"Be it so, my friend,” said he, with mingled pity and disgust. “I suppose some designation may at least be left to me, and that I may call myself Trône.”

‘"We are done with thrones long ago,” shouted they in chorus, “and we ‘ll finish you also.”

‘Ay, and they kept their word, too. They shot him that same evening, on very little other charge than his own name! If I have retained the old sound of my name, I have given it a more plebeian spelling, which is, perhaps, just as much of an alteration as any man need submit to for a period that will pass away so soon.’