The Man With The Broken Ear

"I did well to come," said he; "there's work to do."

The African wars did not interest him much, although in them the 23d had won a good share of glory.

"As a school, it's very well," said he. "The soldier ought to train himself in other ways than in the Tivoli gardens, behind nurses' petticoats. But why the devil are not five hundred thousand men flung upon the back of England? England is the soul of the coalition, I can tell you that."

How many explanations were necessary to make him understand the Crimean war, where the English had fought by our sides!

"I can understand," said he, "why we took a crack at the Russians—they made me eat my best horse. But the English are a thousand times worse. If this young man" (the Emperor Napoleon III.) "doesn't know it, I'll tell him. There is no quarter possible after what they did at St. Helena! If I had been commander-in-chief in the Crimea, I would have begun by properly squelching the Russians, after which I would have turned upon the English, and hurled them into the sea. It's their element, anyhow."

They gave him some details of the Italian campaign, and he was charmed to learn that the 23d had taken a redoubt under the eyes of the Marshal the Duke of Solferino.

"That's the habit of the regiment," said he, shedding tears in his napkin. "That brigand of a 23d will never act in any other way. The goddess of Victory has touched it with her wing."

One of the things, for example, which greatly astonished him, was that a war of such importance was finished up in so short a time. He had yet to learn that within a few years the world had learned the secret of transporting a hundred thousand men, in four days, from one end of Europe to the other.

"Good!" said he; "I admit the practicability of it. But what astonishes me is, that the Emperor did not invent this affair in 1810; for he had a genius for transportation, a genius for administration, a genius for office details, a genius for everything. But (to resume your story) the Austrians are fortified at last, and you cannot possibly get to Vienna in less than three months."

"We did not go so far, in fact."

"You did not push on to Vienna?"

"No."

"Well, then, where did you sign the treaty of peace?"

"At Villafranca."

"At Villafranca? That's the capital of Austria, then?"

"No; it's a village of Italy."

"Monsieur, I don't admit that treaties of peace are signed anywhere but in capitals. That was our principle, our A B C, the first paragraph of our theory. It seems as if the world must have changed a good deal while I was not in it. But patience!"

And now truth obliges me to confess that Fougas got drunk at dessert. He had drunk and eaten like a Homeric hero, and talked more fluently than Cicero in his best days. The fumes of wine, spices, and eloquence mounted into his brain. He became familiar, spoke affectionately to some and rudely to others, and poured out a torrent of absurdities big enough to turn forty mills. His drunkenness, however, had in it nothing brutal, or even ignoble; it was but the overflowing of a spirit young, affectionate, vain-glorious, and unbalanced. He proposed five or six toasts—to Glory, to the Extension of our Frontiers, to the Destruction of the last of the English, to Mlle. Mars—the hope of the French stage, to Affection—the tie, fragile but dear, which unites the lover to his sweetheart, the father to his son, the colonel to his regiment!

His style, a singular mixture of familiarity and impressiveness, provoked more than one smile among the auditory. He noticed it, and a spark of defiance flashed up at the bottom of his heart. From time to time he loudly asked if "those people there" were not abusing his ingenuousness.

"Confusion!" cried he, "Confusion to those who want me to take bladders for lanterns! The lantern may blaze out like a bomb, and carry consternation in its path!"

After a series of such remarks, there was nothing left for him to do but to roll under the table, and this dénoûement was generally expected. But the Colonel belonged to a robust generation, accustomed to more than one kind of excess, and strong to resist pleasure as well as dangers, privations, and fatigues. So when Madame Renault pushed back her chair, in indication that the repast was finished, Fougas arose without difficulty, gracefully offered his arm, and conducted his partner to the parlor. His gait was a little stiff and oppressively regular, but he went straight ahead, and did not oscillate the least bit. He took a couple of cups of coffee, and spirits in moderation, after which he began to talk in the most reasonable manner in the world. About ten o'clock, M. Martout, having expressed a wish to hear his history, he placed himself on a stool, collected his ideas for a moment, and asked for a glass of water and sugar. The company seated themselves in a circle around him, and he commenced the following narrative, the slightly antiquated style of which craves your indulgence.

CHAPTER XIII.

HISTORY OF COLONEL FOUGAS, RELATED BY HIMSELF

"Do not expect that I will ornament my story with those flowers, more agreeable than substantial, which Imagination often uses to gloss over truth. A Frenchman and a soldier, I doubly ignore deception. Friendship interrogates me, Frankness shall answer.

"I was born of poor but honest parents at the beginning of the year which the Jeu de Paume6 brightened with an aurora of liberty. The south was my native clime; the language dear to the troubadours was that which I lisped in my cradle. My birth cost my mother's life. The author of mine was the humble owner of a little farm, and moistened his bread in the sweat of labor. My first sports were not those of wealth. The many-colored pebbles which are found by the brooks, and that well-known insect which childhood holds fluttering, free and captive at the same time, at the end of a thread, stood me in stead of other playthings.

"An old minister at Devotion's altar, enfranchised from the shadowy bondage of fanaticism, and reconciled to the new institutions of France, was my Chiron and Mentor. He nourished me with the strong lion's marrow of Rome and Athens; his lips distilled into my ears the embalmed honey of wisdom. Honor to thee, learned and venerable man, who gavest me the first precepts of wisdom and the first examples of virtue!

"But already that atmosphere of glory which the genius of one man and the valor of a nation had set floating over the country, filled all my senses, and made my young heart throb. France, on the edge of the volcano of civil war, had collected all her forces into a thunderbolt to launch upon Europe, and the world, astounded if not overwhelmed, was shrinking from the surge of the unchained torrent. What man, what Frenchman, could have heard with indifference that echo of victory reverberating through millions of hearts?

"While scarcely leaving childhood, I felt that honor is more precious than life. The warlike music of the drums brought to my eyes brave and manly tears. 'And I, too,' said I, following the music of the regiments through the streets of Toulouse, 'will pluck laurels though I sprinkle them with my blood.' The pale olive of peace had from me nothing but scorn. The peaceful triumphs of the law, the calm pleasures of commerce and finance, were extolled in vain. To the toga of our Ciceros, to the robe of our magistrates, to the curule chair of our legislators, to the opulence of our Mondors, I preferred the sword. One would have said that I had sucked the milk of Bellona. 'Victory or Death!' was already my motto, and I was not sixteen years old.

"With what noble scorn I heard recounted the history of our Proteuses of politics! With what disdainful glances I regarded the Turcarets of finance, lolling on the cushions of some magnificent carriage, and conducted by a laced automaton to the boudoir of some Aspasia. But if I heard told the mighty deeds of the Knights of the Round Table, or the valor of the crusaders celebrated in flowing verse; if chance placed in my hand the great actions of our modern Rolands, recounted in an army bulletin by the successor of Charlemagne, a flame presaging the fire of battles rose in my young eyes.

"Ah, the inaction was too much, and my leading-strings, already worn by impatience, would have broken, perhaps, had not a father's wisdom untied them.

"'Most surely,' said he to me, trying, but in vain, to restrain his tears, 'it was no tyrant who begot you, and I will not poison the life which I myself gave you. I had hoped that your hand would remain in our cottage to close my eyes; but when Patriotism has spoken, Egotism must be still. My prayers will always follow you to the field where Mars harvests heroes. May you merit the guerdon of valor, and show yourself a good citizen, as you have been a good son!'

"Speaking thus, he opened his arms to me. I threw myself into them; we mingled our tears, and I promised to return to our hearthstone as soon as I could bring the star of honor suspended from my breast. But alas! my unhappy father was destined to see me no more. The fate which was already gilding the thread of my days, pitilessly severed that of his. A stranger's hand closed his eyes, while I was gaining my first epaulette at the battle of Jena.

"Lieutenant at Eylau, captain at Wagram, and there decorated by the Emperor's own hand on the field of battle, major before Almieda, lieutenant-colonel at Badajoz, colonel at Moscow, I have drunk the cup of victory to the full. But I have also tasted the chalice of adversity. The frozen plains of Russia saw me alone with a platoon of braves, the last remnant of my regiment, forced to devour the mortal remains of that faithful friend who had so often carried me into the very heart of the enemy's battalions. Trusty and affectionate companion of my dangers, when rendered useless by an accident at Smolensk, he devoted his very manes to the safety of his master, and made of his skin a protection for my frozen and lacerated feet.

"My tongue refuses to repeat the story of our perils in that terrible campaign. Perhaps some day I will write it with a pen dipped in tears—tears, the tribute of feeble humanity. Surprised by the season of frosts in a zone of ice, without fire, without bread, without shoes, without means of transportation, denied the succor of Esculapius' art, harassed by the Cossacks, robbed by the peasants—positive vampires, we saw our mute thunderers, which had fallen into the enemy's hands, belch forth death upon ourselves. What more can I tell you? The passage of the Beresina, the opposition at Wilna—Oh, ye gods of Thunder!– But I feel that grief overcomes me, and that my language is becoming tinged with the bitterness of these recollections.

"Nature and Love were holding in reserve for me brief but precious consolations. Released from my fatigues, I passed a few happy days in my native land among the peaceful vales of Nancy. While our phalanxes were preparing themselves for fresh combats, while I was gathering around my flag three thousand young but valorous warriors, all resolved to open to posterity the path of honor, a new emotion, to which I had before been a stranger, furtively glided into my soul.

"Beautified by all Nature's gifts, enriched by the fruits of an excellent education, the young and interesting Clementine had scarcely passed from the uncertain shadows of childhood into the sweet illusions of youth. Eighteen springs composed her life. Her parents extended to some of the army officers a hospitality which, though it was not gratuitous, was far from lacking in cordiality. To see their child and love her, was for me the affair of a day. Her virgin heart smiled upon my love. At the first avowals dictated to me by my passion, I saw her forehead color with a lovely modesty. We exchanged our vows one lovely evening in June, under an arbor where her happy father sometimes dispensed to the thirsty officers the brown liquor of the North. I swore that she should be my wife, and she promised to be mine; she yielded still more. Our happiness, regardless of all outside, had the calmness of a brook whose pure wave is never troubled by the storm, and which rolls sweetly between flowery banks, spreading its own freshness through the grove that protects its modest course.

"A lightning stroke separated us from each other at the moment when Law and Religion were about adding their sanction to our sweet communion. I departed before I was able to give my name to her who had given me her heart. I promised to return; she promised to wait for me; and, all bathed in her tears, I tore myself from her arms, to rush to the laurels of Dresden and the cypresses of Leipzic. A few lines from her hand reached me during the interval between the two battles. 'You are to be a father,' she told me. Am I one? God knows! Has she waited for me? I believe she has. The waiting must have appeared to be a long one since the birth of this child, who is forty-six years old to-day, and who could be, in his turn, my father.

"Pardon me for having troubled you so long with misfortunes. I wished to pass rapidly over this sad history, but the unhappiness of virtue has in it something sweet to temper the bitterness of grief.

"Some days after the disaster of Leipzic, the giant of our age had me called into his tent, and said to me:

"'Colonel, are you a man to make your way through four armies?'

"'Yes, sire.'

"'Alone, and without escort?'

"'Yes, sire.'

"'There must be a letter carried to Dantzic.'

"'Yes, sire.'

"'You will deliver it into General Rapp's own hands?'

"'Yes, sire.'

"'It is probable you will be taken, or killed.'

"'Yes, sire.'

"'For that reason I send two other officers with copies of the same despatch. There are three of you; the enemy will kill two, the third will get there, and France will be saved.'

"'Yes, sire.'

"'The one who returns shall be a brigadier-general.'

"'Yes, sire.'

"Every detail of this interview, every word of the Emperor, every response which I had the honor to address to him, is still engraved upon my memory. All three of us set out separately. Alas! not one of us reached the goal aimed at by his valor, and I have learned to-day that France was not saved. But when I see these blockheads of historians asserting that the Emperor forgot to send orders to General Rapp, I feel a terrible itching to cut their – story short, at least.

"'When a prisoner in the hands of the Russians in a German village, I had the consolation of finding an old philosopher, who gave me the rarest proofs of friendship. Who would have told me, when I succumbed to the numbness of the cold in the tower of Liebenfeld, that that sleep would not be the last? God is my witness, that in then addressing, from the bottom of my heart, a last farewell to Clementine, I did not even hope to see her again. I will see you again, then, O sweet and confiding Clementine—best of spouses, and, probably, of mothers! What do I say? I see her now! My eyes do not deceive me! This is surely she! There she is, just as I left her! Clementine! In my arms! On my heart! Look here! What's this you've been whining to me, the rest of you? Napoleon is not dead, and the world has not grown forty-six years older, for Clementine is still the same!"

The betrothed of Leon Renault was about entering the room, and stopped petrified at finding herself so overwhelmingly received by the Colonel.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE GAME OF LOVE AND WAR

As she was evidently backward in falling into his arms, Fougas imitated Mahomet, and ran to the mountain.

"Oh, Clementine!" said he, covering her with kisses, "the friendly Fates give you back to my devotion. I clasp once more the partner of my life and the mother of my child!"

The young lady was so astounded, that she did not even dream of defending herself. Happily, Leon Renault extricated her from the hands of the Colonel, and placed himself between them, determined to defend his own.

"Monsieur," cried he, clenching his fists, "you deceive yourself entirely, if you think you know Mademoiselle. She is not a person of your time, but of ours; she is not your fiancée, but mine; she has never been the mother of your child, and I trust that she will be the mother of mine!"

Fougas was iron. He seized his rival by the arm, sent him off spinning like a top, and put himself face to face with the young girl.

"Are you Clementine?" he demanded of her.

"Yes, Monsieur."

"I call you all to witness that she is my Clementine!"

Leon returned to the charge, and seized the Colonel by the collar, at the risk of getting himself dashed against the walls.

"We've had joking enough!" said he. "Possibly you don't pretend to monopolize all the Clementines in the world? Mademoiselle's name is Clementine Sambucco; she was born at Martinique, where you never set your foot, if I am to believe what you have said within an hour. She is eighteen years old–"

"So was the other!"

"Eh! The other is sixty-four to-day, since she was eighteen in 1813. Mlle. Sambucco is of an honorable and well-known family. Her father, M. Sambucco, was a magistrate; her grandfather was a functionary of the war department. You see, she is in no way connected with you, nearly or remotely; and good sense and politeness, to say nothing of gratitude, make it your duty to leave her in peace."

He gave the Colonel a shove, in his turn, and made him tumble between the arms of a sofa.

Fougas bounded up as if he had been thrown on a million springs. But Clementine stopped him, with a gesture and a smile.

"Monsieur," said she in her most caressing voice, "do not get angry with him; he loves me."

"So much the more reason why I should! Damnation!"

He cooled down, nevertheless, made the young lady sit down beside him, and regarded her from head to foot with the most absorbed attention.

"This is surely she," said he. "My memory, my eyes, my heart, everything in me, recognizes her, and tells me that it is she. And nevertheless the testimony of mankind, the calculation of times and distances, in a word, the very soul of evidence, seems to have made it a special point to convict me of error.

"Is it possible, then, that two women should so resemble each other? Am I the victim of an illusion of the senses? Have I recovered life only to lose reason? No; I know myself, I find myself the same; my judgment is firm and accurate, and can make its way in this world so new and topsy-turvy. It is on but one point that my reason wavers—Clementine!—I seem to see you again, and you are not you! Well, what's the difference, after all? If the Destiny which snatched me from the tomb has taken care to present to my awaking sense the image of her I loved, it must be because it had resolved to give me back, one after another, all the blessings which I had lost. In a few days, my epaulettes; to-morrow, the flag of the 23d of the line; to-day this adorable presence which made my heart beat for the first time! Living image of all that is sweetest and clearest in the past, I throw myself at your feet! Be my wife!"

The devil of a fellow joined the deed to the word, and the witnesses of the unexpected scene opened their eyes to the widest. But Clementine's aunt, the austere Mlle. Sambucco, thought that it was time to show her authority. She stretched out her big, wrinkled hands, seized Fougas, jerked him sharply to his feet, and cried in her shrillest voice:

"Enough, sir; it is time to put an end to this scandalous farce! My niece is not for you; I have promised her and given her away. Know that, day after to-morrow, the 19th of this month, at ten o'clock in the morning, she will marry M. Leon Renault, your benefactor!"

"And I forbid it—do you hear, Madame Aunt? And if she pretends to marry this boy–"

"What will you do?"

"I'll curse her!"

Leon could not help laughing. The malediction of this twenty-five-year-old Colonel appeared rather more comic than terrible. But Clementine grew pale, burst into tears, and fell, in her turn, at the feet of Fougas.

"Monsieur," cried she, kissing his hands, "do not overwhelm a poor girl who venerates you, who loves you, who will sacrifice her happiness if you demand it! By all the marks of tenderness which I have lavished upon you for a month, by the tears I have poured upon your coffin, by the respectful zeal with which I have urged on your resuscitation, I conjure you to pardon our offences. I will not marry Leon if you forbid me; I will do anything to please you; I will obey you in everything; but, for God's sake, do not pour upon me your maledictions!"

"Embrace me," said Fougas. "You yield; I pardon."

Clementine raised herself, all radiant with joy, and held up her beautiful forehead. The stupefaction of the spectators, especially of those most interested, can be better imagined than described. An old mummy dictating laws, breaking off marriages, and imposing his desires on the whole house! Pretty little Clementine, so reasonable, so obedient, so happy in the prospect of marrying Leon Renault, sacrificing, all at once, her affections, her happiness, and almost her duty, to the caprice of an interloper. M. Nibor declared that it was madness. As for Leon, he would have butted his head into all the walls, if his mother had not held him back.

"Ah, my poor child!" said she, "why did you bring that thing from Berlin?"

"It's my fault!" cried old Monsieur Renault.

"No," interrupted Dr. Martout, "it's mine."

The members of the Parisian committee discussed with M. Rollon the new aspect of the case. "Had they resuscitated a madman? Had the revivification produced some disorder of the nervous system? Had the abuse of wine and other drinkables during the first repast caused a delirium? What an interesting autopsy it would be, if they could dissect M. Fougas at the next regular meeting!"

"You would do very well as far as you would go, gentlemen," said the Colonel of the 23d. "The autopsy might explain the delirium of our unfortunate friend, but it would not account for the impression produced upon the young lady. Is it fascination, magnetism, or what?"

While the friends and relations were weeping, counselling, and buzzing around him, Fougas, serene and smiling, gazed at himself in Clementine's eyes, while they, too, regarded him tenderly.

"This must be brought to an end!" cried Mlle. Sambucco the severe. "Come, Clementine!"

Fougas seemed surprised.

"She doesn't live here, then?"

"No, sir; she lives with me."

"Then I will escort her home. Angel! will you take my arm?"

"Oh, yes, Monsieur, with great pleasure!"

Leon gnashed his teeth.

"This is admirable! He presumes on such familiarity, and she takes it all as a matter of course!"

He went to get his hat, for the purpose of, at least, going home with the aunt, but his hat was not in its place; Fougas, who had not yet one of his own, had helped himself to it without ceremony. The poor lover crowded his head into a cap, and followed Fougas and Clementine, with the respectable Virginie, whose arm cut like a scythe.

By an accident which happened almost daily, the Colonel of cuirassiers met Clementine on the way home. The young lady directed Fougas' attention to him.

"That's M. du Marnet," said she. "His restaurant is at the end of our street, and his room at the side of the park. I think he is very much taken with my little self, but he has never even bowed to me. The only man for whom my heart has ever beaten is Leon Renault."

"Ah, indeed! And me?" said Fougas.

"Oh! as for you, that's another matter. I respect you, and stand in awe of you. It seems to me as if you were a good and respectable parent."

"Thank you!"

"I'm telling you the truth, as far as I can read it in my heart. All this is not very clear, I confess, but I do not understand myself."

"Azure flower of innocence, I adore your sweet perplexity! Let love take care of itself; it will speak to you in master tones."

"I don't know anything about that; it's possible! Here we are at home. Good evening, Monsieur; embrace me.—Good night, Leon; don't quarrel with M. Fougas. I love him with all my heart, but I love you in a different way!"

The aunt Virginie made no response to the "Good evening" of Fougas. When the two men were alone in the street, Leon marched along without saying a word, till they reached the next lamp-post. There, planting himself resolutely opposite the Colonel, he said,