The Companions of Jehu by Alexandre Dumas

A >> Alexandre Dumas >> The Companions of Jehu

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43

This eBook was produced by Robert J. Hall

THE COMPANIONS OF JEHU

BY ALEXANDRE DUMAS

CONTENTS

An Introductory Word to the Reader.
Prologue--The City of Avignon.
I. A Table d'Hote.
II. An Italian Proverb.
III. The Englishman.
IV. The Duel.
V. Roland.
VI. Morgan.
VII. The Chartreuse of Seillon.
VIII. How the Money of the Directory was Used.
IX. Romeo and Juliet
X. The Family of Roland.
XI. Chateau des Noires-Fontaines.
XII. Provincial Pleasures.
XIII. The Wild-Boar.
XIV. An Unpleasant Commission.
XV. The Strong-Minded Man.
XVI. The Ghost.
XVII. Investigations.
XVIII. The Trial.
XIX. The Little House in the Rue de la Victoire.
XX. The Guests of General Bonaparte.
XXI. The Schedule of the Directory.
XXII. The Outline of a Decree.
XXIII. Alea Jacta Est.
XXIV. The Eighteenth Brumaire.
XXV. An Important Communication.
XXVI. The Ball of the Victims.
XXVII. The Bear's Skin.
XXVIII. Family Matters.
XXIX. The Geneva Diligence.
XXX. Citizen Fouche's Report.
XXXI. The Son of the Miller of Guerno.
XXXII. White and Blue.
XXXIII. The Law of Retaliation.
XXXIV. The Diplomacy of Georges Cadoudal.
XXXV. A Proposal of Marriage.
XXXVI. Sculpture and Painting.
XXXVII. The Ambassador.
XXXVIII. The Two Signals.
XXXIX. The Grotto of Ceyzeriat.
XL. A False Scent.
XLI. The Hotel de la Poste.
XLII. The Chambery Mail-Coach.
XLIII. Lord Grenville's Reply.
XLIV. Change of Residence.
XLV. The Follower of Trails.
XLVI. An Inspiration.
XLVII. A Reconnoissance.
XLVIII. In which Morgan's Presentiments are Verified.
XLIX. Roland's Revenge.
L. Cadoudal at the Tuileries.
LI. The Army of the Reserves.
LII. The Trial.
LIII. In which Amelie Keeps Her Word.
LIV. The Confession.
LV. Invulnerable.
LVI. Conclusion.

AN INTRODUCTORY WORD TO THE READER

Just about a year ago my old friend, Jules Simon, author of "Devoir,"
came to me with a request that I write a novel for the "Journal
pour Tous." I gave him the outline of a novel which I had in
mind. The subject pleased him, and the contract was signed on
the spot.

The action occurred between 1791 and 1793, and the first chapter
opened at Varennes the evening of the king's arrest.

Only, impatient as was the "Journal pour Tous," I demanded a
fortnight of Jules Simon before beginning my novel. I wished to
go to Varennes; I was not acquainted with the locality, and I
confess there is one thing I cannot do; I am unable to write a
novel or a drama about localities with which I am not familiar.

In order to write "Christine" I went to Fontainebleau; in writing
"Henri III." I went to Blois; for "Les Trois Mousquetaires" I went
to Boulogne and Bethune; for "Monte-Cristo" I returned to the
Catalans and the Chateau d'If; for "Isaac Laquedem" I revisited
Rome; and I certainly spent more time studying Jerusalem and
Corinth from a distance than if I had gone there.

This gives such a character of veracity to all that I write, that
the personages whom I create become eventually such integral parts
of the places in which I planted them that, as a consequence,
many end by believing in their actual existence. There are even
some people who claim to have known them.

In this connection, dear readers, I am going to tell you something
in confidence--only do not repeat it. I do not wish to injure
honest fathers of families who live by this little industry,
but if you go to Marseilles you will be shown there the house
of Morel on the Cours, the house of Mercedes at the Catalans,
and the dungeons of Dantes and Faria at the Chateau d'If.

When I staged "Monte-Cristo" at the Theatre-Historique, I wrote
to Marseilles for a plan of the Chateau d'If, which was sent
to me. This drawing was for the use of the scene painter. The
artist to whom I had recourse forwarded me the desired plan.
He even did better than I would have dared ask of him; he wrote
beneath it: "View of the Chateau d'If, from the side where Dantes
was thrown into the sea."

I have learned since that a worthy man, a guide attached to the
Chateau d'If, sells pens made of fish-bone by the Abbe Faria
himself.

There is but one unfortunate circumstance concerning this; the
fact is, Dantes and the Abbe Faria have never existed save in my
imagination; consequently, Dantes could not have been precipitated
from the top to the bottom of the Chateau d'If, nor could the
Abbe Faria have made pens. But that is what comes from visiting
these localities in person.

Therefore, I wished to visit Varennes before commencing my novel,
because the first chapter was to open in that city. Besides,
historically, Varennes worried me considerably; the more I perused
the historical accounts of Varennes, the less I was able to
understand, topographically, the king's arrest.

I therefore proposed to my young friend, Paul Bocage, that he
accompany me to Varennes. I was sure in advance that he would
accept. To merely propose such a trip to his picturesque and
charming mind was to make him bound from his chair to the tram.
We took the railroad to Chalons. There we bargained with a
livery-stable keeper, who agreed, for a consideration of ten
francs a day, to furnish us with a horse and carriage. We were
seven days on the trip, three days to go from Chalons to Varennes,
one day to make the requisite local researches in the city, and
three days to return from Varennes to Chalons.

I recognized with a degree of satisfaction which you will easily
comprehend, that not a single historian had been historical,
and with still greater satisfaction that M. Thiers had been the
least accurate of all these historians. I had already suspected
this, but was not certain. The only one who had been accurate,
with absolute accuracy, was Victor Hugo in his book called "The
Rhine." It is true that Victor Hugo is a poet and not a historian.
What historians these poets would make, if they would but consent
to become historians!

One day Lamartine asked me to what I attributed the immense success
of his "Histoire des Girondins."

"To this, because in it you rose to the level of a novel," I
answered him. He reflected for a while and ended, I believe, by
agreeing with me.

I spent a day, therefore, at Varennes and visited all the localities
necessary for my novel, which was to be called "Rene d'Argonne."
Then I returned. My son was staying in the country at Sainte-Assise,
near Melun; my room awaited me, and I resolved to go there to
write my novel.

I am acquainted with no two characters more dissimilar than
Alexandre's and mine, which nevertheless harmonize so well. It
is true we pass many enjoyable hours during our separations;
but none I think pleasanter than those we spend together.

I had been installed there for three or four days endeavoring
to begin my "Rene d'Argonne," taking up my pen, then laying
it aside almost immediately. The thing would not go. I consoled
myself by telling stories. Chance willed that I should relate
one which Nodier had told me of four young men affiliated with
the Company of Jehu, who had been executed at Bourg in Bresse
amid the most dramatic circumstances. One of these four young
men, he who had found the greatest difficulty in dying, or rather
he whom they had the greatest difficulty in killing, was but
nineteen and a half years old.

Alexandre listened to my story with much interest. When I had
finished: "Do you know," said he, "what I should do in your place?"

"What?"

"I should lay aside 'Rene d'Argonne,' which refuses to materialize,
and in its stead I should write 'The Companions of Jehu.'"

"But just think, I have had that other novel in mind for a year
or two, and it is almost finished."

"It never will be since it is not finished now."

"Perhaps you are right, but I shall lose six months regaining
my present vantage-ground."

"Good! In three days you will have written half a volume."

"Then you will help me."

"Yes, for I shall give you two characters."

"Is that all?"

"You are too exacting! The rest is your affair; I am busy with
my 'Question d'Argent.'"

"Well, who are your two characters, then?"

"An English gentleman and a French captain."

"Introduce the Englishman first."

"Very well." And Alexandre drew Lord Tanlay's portrait for me.

"Your English gentleman pleases me," said I; "now let us see your
French captain."

"My French captain is a mysterious character, who courts death
with all his might, without being able to accomplish his desire;
so that each time he rushes into mortal danger he performs some
brilliant feat which secures him promotion."

"But why does he wish to get himself killed?"

"Because he is disgusted with life."

"Why is he disgusted with life?"

"Ah! That will be the secret of the book."

"It must be told in the end."

"On the contrary, I, in your place, would not tell it."

"The readers will demand it."

"You will reply that they have only to search for it; you must
leave them something to do, these readers of yours."

"Dear friend, I shall be overwhelmed with letters."

"You need not answer them."

"Yes, but for my personal gratification I, at least, must know
why my hero longs to die."

"Oh, I do not refuse to tell you."

"Let me hear, then."

"Well, suppose, instead of being professor of dialectics, Abelard
had been a soldier."

"Well?"

"Well, let us suppose that a bullet--"

"Excellent!"

"You understand? Instead of withdrawing to Paraclet, he would
have courted death at every possible opportunity."

"Hum! That will be difficult."

"Difficult! In what way?"

"To make the public swallow that."

"But since you are not going to tell the public."

"That is true. By my faith, I believe you are right. Wait."

"I am waiting."

"Have you Nodier's 'Souvenirs de la Revolution'? I believe he
wrote one or two pages about Guyon, Lepretre, Amiet and Hyvert."

"They will say, then, that you have plagiarized from Nodier."

"Oh! He loved me well enough during his life not to refuse me
whatever I shall take from him after his death. Go fetch me the
'Souvenirs de la Revolution.'"

Alexandre brought me the book. I opened it, turned over two or
three pages, and at last discovered what I was looking for. A
little of Nodier, dear readers, you will lose nothing by it.
It is he who is speaking:

The highwaymen who attacked the diligences, as mentioned in the
article on Amiet, which I quoted just now, were called Lepretre,
Hyvert, Guyon and Amiet.

Lepretre was forty-eight years old. He was formerly a captain
of dragoons, a knight of St. Louis, of a noble countenance,
prepossessing carriage and much elegance of manner. Guyon and
Amiet have never been known by their real names. They owe that to
the accommodating spirit prevailing among the vendors of passports
of those days. Let the reader picture to himself two dare-devils
between twenty and thirty years of age, allied by some common
responsibility, the sequence, perhaps of some misdeed, or, by
a more delicate and generous interest, the fear of compromising
their family name. Then you will know of Guyon and Amiet all that
I can recall. The latter had a sinister countenance, to which,
perhaps, he owes the bad reputation with which all his biographers
have credited him. Hyvert was the son of a rich merchant of Lyons,
who had offered the sub-officer charged with his deportation
sixty thousand francs to permit his escape. He was at once the
Achilles and the Paris of the band. He was of medium height but
well formed, lithe, and of graceful and pleasing address. His
eyes were never without animation nor his lips without a smile.
His was one of those countenances which are never forgotten, and
which present an inexpressible blending of sweetness and strength,
tenderness and energy. When he yielded to the eloquent petulance
of his inspirations he soared to enthusiasm. His conversation
revealed the rudiments of an excellent early education and much
natural intelligence. That which was so terrifying in him was his
tone of heedless gayety, which contrasted so horribly with his
position. For the rest, he was unanimously conceded to be kind,
generous, humane, lenient toward the weak, while with the strong
he loved to display a vigor truly athletic which his somewhat
effeminate features were far from indicating. He boasted that he
had never been without money, and had no enemies. That was his
sole reply to the charges of theft and assassination. He was
twenty-two years old.

To these four men was intrusted the attack upon a diligence conveying
forty thousand francs of government money. This deed was transacted
in broad daylight, with an exchange of mutual courtesy almost;
and the travellers, who were not disturbed by the attack, gave
little heed to it. But a child of only ten years of age, with
reckless bravado, seized the pistol of the conductor and fired
it into the midst of the assailants. As this peaceful weapon,
according to the custom, was only charged with powder, no one
was injured; but the occupants of the coach quite naturally
experienced a lively fear of reprisals. The little boy's mother
fell into violent hysterics. This new disturbance created a general
diversion which dominated all the preceding events and particularly
attracted the attention of the robbers. One of them flew to the
woman's side, reassuring her in the most affectionate manner,
while complimenting her upon her son's precocious courage, and
courteously pressed upon her the salts and perfumes with which
these gentlemen were ordinarily provided for their own use. She
regained consciousness. In the excitement of the moment her
travelling companions noticed that the highwayman's mask had fallen
off, but they did not see his face.

The police of those days, restricted to mere impotent supervision,
were unable to cope with the depredations of these banditti, although
they did not lack the means to follow them up. Appointments were
made at the cafes, and narratives relating to deeds carrying
with them the penalty of death circulated freely through all
the billiard-halls in the land. Such was the importance which
the culprits and the public attached to the police.

These men of blood and terror assembled in society in the evening,
and discussed their nocturnal expeditions as if they had been
mere pleasure-parties.

Lepretre, Hyvert, Amiet and Guyon were arraigned before the tribunal
of a neighboring department. No one save the Treasury had suffered
from their attack, and there was no one to identify them save the
lady who took very good care not to do so. They were therefore
acquitted unanimously.

Nevertheless, the evidence against them so obviously called for
conviction, that the Ministry was forced to appeal from this
decision. The verdict was set aside; but such was the government's
vacillation, that it hesitated to punish excesses that might
on the morrow be regarded as virtues. The accused were cited
before the tribunal of Ain, in the city of Bourg, where dwelt a
majority of their friends, relatives, abettors and accomplices.
The Ministry sought to propitiate the one party by the return
of its victims, and the other by the almost inviolate safeguards
with which it surrounded the prisoners. The return to prison
indeed resembled nothing less than a triumph.

The trial recommenced. It was at first attended by the same results
as the preceding one. The four accused were protected by an alibi,
patently false, but attested by a hundred signatures, and for
which they could easily have obtained ten thousand. All moral
convictions must fail in the presence of such authoritative
testimony. An acquittal seemed certain, when a question, perhaps
involuntarily insidious, from the president, changed the aspect
of the trial.

"Madam," said he to the lady who had been so kindly assisted by
one of the highwaymen, "which of these men was it who tendered
you such thoughtful attention?"

This unexpected form of interrogation confused her ideas. It
is probable that she believed the facts to be known, and saw
in this a means of modifying the fate of the man who interested
her.

"It was that gentleman," said she, pointing to Lepretre. The
four accused, who were included in a common alibi, fell by this
one admission under the executioner's axe. They rose and bowed
to her with a smile.

"Faith!" said Hyvert, falling back upon his bench with a burst
of laughter, "that, Captain, will teach you to play the gallant."

I have heard it said that the unhappy lady died shortly after
of chagrin.

The customary appeal followed; but, this time, there was little
hope. The Republican party, which Napoleon annihilated a month
later, was in the ascendency. That of the Counter-Revolution was
compromised by its odious excesses. The people demanded examples,
and matters were arranged accordingly, as is ordinarily the custom
in strenuous times; for it is with governments as with men, the
weakest are always the most cruel. Nor had the Companies of Jehu
longer an organized existence. The heroes of these ferocious
bands, Debeauce, Hastier, Bary, Le Coq, Dabri, Delbourbe and
Storkenfeld, had either fallen on the scaffold or elsewhere. The
condemned could look for no further assistance from the daring
courage of these exhausted devotees, who, no longer capable of
protecting their own lives, coolly sacrificed them, as did Piard,
after a merry supper. Our brigands were doomed to die.

Their appeal was rejected, but the municipal authorities were
not the first to learn of this. The condemned men were warned
by three shots fired beneath the walls of their dungeon. The
Commissioner of the Executive Directory, who had assumed the
role of Public Prosecutor at the trial, alarmed at this obvious
sign of connivance, requisitioned a squad of armed men of whom
my uncle was then commander. At six o'clock in the morning sixty
horsemen were drawn up before the iron gratings of the prison
yard.

Although the jailers had observed all possible precautions in
entering the dungeon where these four unfortunate men were confined,
and whom they had left the preceding day tightly pinioned and
heavily loaded with chains, they were unable to offer them a
prolonged resistance. The prisoners were free and armed to the
teeth. They came forth without difficulty, leaving their guardians
under bolts and bars, and, supplied with the keys, they quickly
traversed the space that separated them from the prison yard.
Their appearance must have been terrifying to the populace awaiting
them before the iron gates.

To assure perfect freedom of action, or perhaps to affect an
appearance of security more menacing even than the renown for
strength and intrepidity with which their names were associated,
or possibly even to conceal the flow of blood which reveals itself
so readily beneath white linen, and betrays the last agonies of
a mortally wounded man, their breasts were bared. Their braces
crossed upon the chest--their wide red belts bristling with
arms--their cry of attack and rage, all that must have given a
decidedly fantastic touch to the scene. Arrived in the square,
they perceived the gendarmerie drawn up in motionless ranks,
through which it would have been impossible to force a passage.
They halted an instant and seemed to consult together. Lepretre,
who was, as I have said, their senior and their chief, saluted
the guard with his hand, saying with that noble grace of manner
peculiar to him:

"Very well, gentlemen of the gendarmerie!"

Then after a brief, energetic farewell to his comrades, he stepped
in front of them and blew out his brains. Guyon, Amiet and Hyvert
assumed a defensive position, their double-barrelled pistols
levelled upon their armed opponents. They did not fire; but the
latter, considering this demonstration as a sign of open hostility,
fired upon them. Guyon fell dead upon Lepretre's body, which had
not moved. Amiet's hip was broken near the groin. The "Biographie
des Contemporains" says that he was executed. I have often heard
it said that he died at the foot of the scaffold. Hyvert was
left alone, his determined brow, his terrible eye, the pistol
in each practiced and vigorous hand threatening death to the
spectators. Perhaps it was involuntary admiration, in his desperate
plight, for this handsome young man with his waving locks, who
was known never to have shed blood, and from whom the law now
demanded the expiation of blood; or perhaps it was the sight of
those three corpses over which he sprang like a wolf overtaken
by his hunters, and the frightful novelty of the spectacle, which
for an instant restrained the fury of the troop. He perceived
this and temporized with them for a compromise.

"Gentlemen," said he, "I go to my death! I die with all my heart!
But let no one approach me or I shall shoot him--except this
gentleman," he continued, pointing to the executioner. "This
is an affair that concerns us alone and merely needs a certain
understanding between us."

This concession was readily accorded, for there was no one present
who was not suffering from the prolongation of this horrible
tragedy, and anxious to see it finished. Perceiving their assent,
he placed one of his pistols between his teeth, and drawing a
dagger from his belt, plunged it in his breast up to the hilt.
He still remained standing and seemed greatly surprised. There
was a movement toward him.

"Very well, gentlemen!" cried he, covering the men who sought
to surround him with his pistols, which he had seized again,
while the blood spurted freely from the wound in which he had
left his poniard. "You know our agreement; either I die alone
or three of us will die together. Forward, march!" He walked
straight to the guillotine, turning the knife in his breast as
he did so.

"Faith," said he, "my soul must be centred in my belly! I cannot
die. See if you can fetch it out."

This last was addressed to his executioner. An instant later
his head fell. Be it accident or some peculiar phenomenon of
the vitality, it rebounded and rolled beyond the circle of the
scaffolding, and they will still tell you at Bourg, that Hyvert's
head spoke.

Before I had finished reading I had decided to abandon Rene d'Argonne
for the Companions of Jehu. On the morrow I came down with my
travelling bag under my arm.

"You are leaving?" said Alexandre to me.

"Yes."

"Where are you going?"

"To Bourg, in Bresse."

"What are you going to do there?"

"Study the neighborhood and consult with the inhabitants who saw
Lepretre, Amiet, Guyon and Hyvert executed."

* * * * *

There are two roads to Bourg--from Paris, of course; one may
leave the train at Macon, and take stage from Macon to Bourg,
or, continuing as far as Lyons, take train again from Lyons to
Bourg.

I was hesitating between these two roads when one of the travellers
who was temporarily occupying my compartment decided me. He was
going to Bourg, where he frequently had business. He was going
by way of Lyons; therefore, Lyons was the better way.

I resolved to travel by the same route. I slept at Lyons, and
on the morrow by ten in the morning I was at Bourg.

A paper published in the second capital of the kingdom met my
eye. It contained a spiteful article about me. Lyons has never
forgiven me since 1833, I believe, some twenty-four years ago,
for asserting that it was not a literary city. Alas! I have in
1857 the same opinion of Lyons as I had in 1833. I do not easily
change my opinion. There is another city in France that is almost
as bitter against me as Lyons, that is Rouen. Rouen has hissed
all my plays, including Count Hermann.

One day a Neapolitan boasted to me that he had hissed Rossini
and Malibran, "The Barbiere" and "Desdemona."

"That must be true," I answered him, "for Rossini and Malibran
on their side boast of having been hissed by Neapolitans."

So I boast that the Rouenese have hissed me. Nevertheless, meeting
a full-blooded Rouenese one day I resolved to discover why I had
been hissed at Rouen. I like to understand these little things.

My Rouenese informed me: "We hiss you because we are down on you."

Why not? Rouen was down on Joan of Arc. Nevertheless it could
not be for the same reason. I asked my Rouenese why he and his
compatriots were ill-disposed to me; I had never said anything
evil of apple sugar, I had treated M. Barbet with respect during
his entire term as mayor, and, when a delegate from the Society
of Letters at the unveiling of the statue of the great Corneille,
I was the only one who thought to bow to him before beginning my
speech. There was nothing in that which could have reasonably
incurred the hatred of the Rouenese.

Therefore to this haughty reply, "We hiss you because we have
a grudge against you," I asked humbly:

"But, great Heavens! why are you down on me?"

"Oh, you know very well," replied my Rouenese.

"I?" I exclaimed.

"Yes, you."