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La Vendee by Anthony Trollope

A >> Anthony Trollope >> La Vendee




As soon as Annot had got her wish, and had heard Jacques received as her
betrothed husband, she also was wonderfully dutiful and affectionate.
She declared that she didn't want to be married till the wars were
nearly over, and the country was a little more quiet; that she would
never go away and leave her father altogether, and that if ever she did
go and live at Durbelliere, she would certainly make an agreement with
her master and mistress that she should be allowed to walk over to eat
her dinner with her father every Sunday.

As soon as the smith found himself completely conquered, he resigned
himself to his fate, and became exceedingly happy and good-humoured. He
shook Chapeau's hand fifty times, till he had nearly squeezed it off.
He sent to the inn for two bottles of the very best wine that was to be
had; he made Annot prepare a second supper, and that not of simple bread
and cheese, but of poached eggs and fried bacon, and then he did all
that he possibly could to make Chapeau tipsy, and in the attempt he got
very drunk himself, and so the day ended happily for them all.



CHAPTER V

THE HOSPITAL OF ST. LAURENT

De Lescure only remained three days at Durbelliere, and then started
again for his own house at Clisson, and Henri accompanied him. They had
both been occupied during these three days in making such accommodation
as was in their power for the sick and wounded, who were brought back
into the Bocage in considerable numbers from Saumur. The safe and sound
and whole of limb travelled faster than those who had lost arms and legs
in the trenches at Varin, or who had received cuts and slashes and
broken ribs at the bridge of Fouchard, and therefore the good news was
first received in the Bocage; but those miserable accompaniments of
victory, low tumbrils, laden with groaning sufferers lying on straw,
slowly moving carts, every motion of which opened anew the wounds of
their wretched occupants, and every species of vehicle as could be
collected through the country, crammed with the wounded and the dying,
and some even with the dead, were not long in following the triumphal
return of the victorious peasants.

A kind of hospital was immediately opened at a little town called St.
Laurent sur Sevre, about two leagues from Durbelliere, at which a
convent of sisters of mercy had long been established. De Lescure and
Larochejaquelin between them supplied the means, and the sisters of the
establishment cheerfully gave their time, their skill, and tenderest
attention to assuage the miseries of their suffering countrymen. Agatha
knew the superior of the convent well, and assisted in all the necessary
preparations. She was there when the hospital was first opened, and for
a long time afterwards visited it once or twice a week, on which
occasions she stayed for the night in the convent; had it not been that
she could not bring herself to leave her father, she would have remained
there altogether, as long as the war continued to supply the little
wards with suffering patients. They were seldom, or rather never, empty
as long as the Vendeans kept their position in the country, the sick and
the wounded were nursed with the tenderest care at St. Laurent. The
sisters who had commenced the task never remitted their zeal, nor did
Agatha Larochejaquelin. The wards were by degrees increased in number,
the building was enlarged, surgical skill was procured, every necessary
for a hospital was obtained, whatever might be the cost, and whatever
the risk; till at last, in spite of the difficulties which had to be
encountered, the dangers which surrounded them, the slenderness of their
means, and the always increasing number of their patients, the hospital
of St. Laurent might have rivalled the cleanliness, care, and comfort
of the Hotel Dieu in its present perfection.

As soon as the first arrangements for the commencement of this hospital
had been made, de Lescure and Henri went to Clisson. It may easily be
supposed that de Lescure was anxious to see his wife, and that she was
more than anxious to see him. Henri also was not sorry to hear the
praises of his valour sung by the sweet lips of Marie. He stayed one
short happy week at Clisson, basking in the smiles of beauty, and they
were the last hours of tranquillity that any of the party were destined
to enjoy for many a long sad day. De Lescure's recovery was neither slow
nor painful, and before the week was over, he was able to sit out on the
lawn before the chateau, with one arm in a sling, and the other round
his wife's waist, watching the setting of the sun, and listening to the
thrushes and nightingales. Every now and again he would talk of the
future battles to be fought, and of the enemies to be conquered, and of
the dangers to be encountered; but he did not speak so sadly of the
prospects of his party as he did when he had only just determined to
take up arms with the Vendeans. The taking of Thouars, and Fontenay, of
Montreuil, and Saumur, had inspirited even him, and almost taught him
to believe that La Vendee would be ultimately successful in
re-establishing the throne.

De Lescure was delighted to see what he thought was a growing attachment
between his sister and his friend. Had he had the power of choosing a
husband for Marie out of all France, he would have chosen Henri
Larochejaquelin: he loved him already as he could only love a brother,
and he knew that he had all those qualities which would most tend to
make a woman happy.

"Oh, if these wars were but over," said he to his wife, "how I would
rejoice to give her to him, he is such a brave and gallant fellow--but
as tender-hearted and kind as he is brave!"

"These weary, weary wars!" said Madame de Lescure, with a sigh, "would
they were over: would, with all my heart, they had never been begun. How
well does the devil do his work on earth, when he is able to drive the
purest, the most high-minded, the best of God's creatures to war and
bloodshed as the only means of securing to themselves the liberty of
worshipping their Saviour and honouring their King!"

Henri himself, however, had not considered the propriety of waiting
until the wars were over before he took a wife for himself, or at any
rate before he asked the consent of the lady's friends: for the day
before he left Clisson, he determined to speak to Charles on the
subject; though he had long known Marie so well, and had now been
staying a week in the house, he had never yet told her that he loved
her. It was the custom of the age and the country for a lover first to
consult the friends of the young lady, and though the peculiar
circumstances of his position might have emboldened Henri to dispense
with such a practice, he was the last man in the world to take advantage
of his situation.

"Charles," said he, the evening before his departure, as he stood close
to the garden seat, on which his cousin was sitting, and amused himself
with pitching stones into the river, which ran beneath the lawn at
Clisson. "Charles, I shall be off tomorrow; I almost envy you the broken
arm which keeps you here."

"It won't keep me long now, Henri," said he; "I shall be at Chatillon
in a week's time, unless you and d'Elbee have moved to Parthenay before
that. Cathelineau will by that time be master of Nantes, that is, if he
is ever to be master of it."

"Don't doubt it, Charles. I do not the least: think of all Charette's
army. I would wager my sword to a case-dagger, that Nantes is in his
hands this minute."

"We cannot always have the luck we had at Saumur, Henri?"

"No," said Henri, "nor can we always have a de Lescure to knock down for
us the gates of the republicans."

"Nor yet a Larochejaquelin to force his way through the breach," said
the other.

"Now we are even," said Henri, laughing; "but really, without joking,
I feel confident that the white flag is floating at this moment on the
castle at Nantes; but it is not of that, Charles, that I wish to speak
now. You have always been an elder brother to me. We have always been
like brothers, have we not?"

"Thank God, we have, Henri! and I do not think it likely that we shall
ever be more distant to each other."

"No, that I'm sure we never shall. You are too good either to quarrel
yourself, or to let me quarrel with you; but though we never can be more
distant, we may yet be more near to each other. You know what I mean,
Charles?"

"I believe I do," said de Lescure; "but why do you not speak out? You
are not likely, I think, to say or to propose anything that we shall not
approve of--that is, Victorine and I."

"God bless you both!" said Henri. "You are too kind to me; but can you
consent to give me your own dear favourite sister--your sweet Marie? You
know what I mean in saying that I would be nearer to you."

De Lescure was in the act of answering his cousin, when. the quick fall
of a horse's foot was heard in the avenue close to the house, and then
there was a sudden pause as the brute was pulled up violently in the
yard of the chateau, and the eager voices of domestics answering the
rapid questions of the man who had alighted.

Interested as the two friends were in their conversation, the times were
too full of important matters to allow of their remaining quiet, after
having heard such tokens of a hurried messenger. Larochejaqnelin ran off
to the yard of the chateau, and de Lescure followed him as quickly as
his wounded arm would allow.

Henri had hardly got off the lawn, when he met a couple of servants
coming from the yard, and between them a man booted, spurred, and armed,
covered with dust and spattered with fuam, whom he at once recognized
as Foret, the friend and townsman of Cathelineau.

"What news, Foret, what news?" said Henri, rushing up to him, and
seizing him by the hand. "Pray God you bring with you good tidings."

"The worst news that ever weighed heavy on a poor man's tongue, M.
Henri," said Foret, sorrowfully.

"Cathelineau is not dead?" said Henri, but the tone of his inquiry
shewed plainly how much he feared what the reply would be.

"He was not dead," answered Foret, "when I left him five leagues on this
side Nantes, but he had not many days to live."

The two had turned back over the lawn, and now met de Lescure, as he
hastened to join them.

"Cathelineau," said Henri, "is mortally wounded! Victory will have been
bought too dear at such a price; but I know not yet even whether the
Vendeans have been victorious."

"They have not--they have not," said Foret. "How could they be
victorious when their great General had fallen?"

"Mortally wounded! Oh, Foret, you are indeed a messenger of evil," said
de Lescure, giving him his hand.

"Yes, mortally wounded," said Foret. "I fear before this he may have
ceased to breathe. I left him, gentlemen, a few leagues this side
Nantes, and at his own request hurried on to tell you these sad tidings.
Oh, M. de Lescure, our cause has had a heavy blow at Nantes, and yet at
one time we had almost beaten them; but when the peasants saw
Cathelineau fall, they would fight no longer."

"Where is he?" said Henri, "that is if he still lives."

"I crossed the river with him," answered Foret, "and brought him on as
far as Remouille. He wished to be carried to the hospital you have
opened at St. Laurent, and unless he has died since I left him, he is
there now. I hurried on by Montacue and Tiffauges to St. Laurent; and
there, M. Henri, I saw Mademoiselle Agatha, and told her what had
happened. If there be an angel upon earth she is one! When I told her
that the good Cathelineau was dying, every shade of colour left her
beautiful cheek; she became as pale as marble, and crossed her hands
upon her bosom; she spoke to me not a word, nor did I look for reply,
for I knew that in her heart she was praying that his soul might be
taken up to heaven."

Henri at that moment remembered the enthusiastic declaration of his
sister, that Cathelineau, despite his birth, was worthy of any woman's
love, and he did not begrudge her the only means which now remained to
her of proving her devotion to the character she had admired.

"I told her," continued Foret, "that if he lived so long, Cathelineau
would reach the hospital on the following day, and then I hurried on to
you. She told me I should find you here. It was then dark, but I reached
Chatillon that night, for they sent a guide with me from St. Laurent.
I left Chatillon again at the break of day, and have not lost much time
in arriving here."

"No, indeed, Foret; and surely you must need rest and refreshment," said
de Lescure. "Come into the chateau, and you shall have both."

"But tell us, Foret, of this reverse at Nantes," said Henri. "I will
at once start for St. Laurent; I will, if possible, see Cathelineau
before he dies; but let me know before I go to him how it has come to
pass that victory has at last escaped him."

"Victory did not escape him," said Foret: "he was victorious to the
last--victorious till he fell. You know, gentlemen, it had been arranged
that Nantes should be attacked at the same moment by Charette from the
southern banks of the Loire, and by Cathelineau from the northern, but
this we were not able to accomplish. Charette was at his post, and
entered the town gallantly over the Pont Rousseau, but we were unable
to be there at the appointed time. For ten hours we were detained by a
detachment of the blues at the little town of Nort, and though we
carried it at last, without losing many of our men, the loss of the
precious hours was very grievous. We pushed on to Nantes, however,
without losing another minute, and though we found the rebels ready to
receive us, they could not hold their ground against us at all. We drove
them from the town in every direction. We were already in the chief
square of Nantes, assured of our victory, and leading our men to one
last attack, when a musket ball struck Cathelineau on the arm, and
passing through the flesh entered his breast. He was on foot, in front
of the brave peasants whom he was leading, and they all saw him fall.
Oh, M. de Lescure, if you had heard the groan, the long wail of grief,
which his poor followers from St. Florent uttered, when they saw their
sainted leader fall before them, your ears would never forget the sound.
We raised him up between us, and carried him back to a part of the town
which was in our hands, and from thence over the Pont Rousseau to
Pirmil, where I left him for a while, and returned to the town, but I
could not get the peasants to follow me again--that is, his peasants;
and he was too weak to speak to them himself. It was not till two hours
after that he was able to speak a word."

"And you lost all the advantage you had gained?" asked de Lescure.

"We might still have been successful, for the blues would always rather
run than fight when they have the choice, but the Prince de Talmont, in
his eagerness, headed the fugitive rebels who were making for Savenay,
and drove them back into the town; when there, they had no choice but
to fight; indeed, their numbers were so much greater than our own, that
they surrounded us. Our hearts were nearly broken, and our arms were
weak; it ended in our retreating to Pirmil, and leaving the town in the
hands of the republicans."

"How truly spoke that General who said, 'build a bridge of gold for a
flying enemy!'" said de Lescure.

"And is Cathelineau's wound so surely mortal?" asked Henri.

"The surgeon who examined him in Pirmil said so; indeed, Cathelineau
never doubted it himself. He told me, as soon as he could speak, that
he should never live to see the Republic at an end. 'But,' added he,
'you, Foret, and others will; and it delights me to think that I have
given my life to so good a cause.'"

Henri's horse was now ready, and he made no longer delay than to say
adieu to his hostess, and to speak one or two last words to his cousin
Marie, and then he made the best of his way to Chatillon and St.
Laurent, hoping once more to see Cathelineau before he died. All his
spurring and his hurrying was in vain.

A few hours before Henri could reach the hospital, the Saint of Anjou
had breathed his last, and Agatha Larochejaquelin had soothed his dying
moments.

As Foret had related, Agatha, on hearing of Cathelineau's wound, had
turned deadly pale. It was not love that made her feel that the world
was darkened by his fall; that from henceforward nothing to her could
be bright and cheerful; at least not such love as that which usually
warms a woman's heart, for Agatha had never hoped, or even wished to be
more to Cathelineau than an admiring friend; nor yet was it grief for
the loss of services which she knew were invaluable to the cause she had
so warmly espoused. These two feelings were blended together in her
breast. She had taught herself to look to Cathelineau as the future
saviour of her country; she loved his virtue, his patriotism, and his
valour; and her heart was capable of no other love while that existed
in it so strongly. The idea of looking on Cathelineau as a lover, of
seeing him kneeling at her feet, or listening to him while he whispered
sweet praises of her beauty, had never occurred to her; had she dreamed
it possible that he could do so, half her admiration of him would have
vanished. No, there was nothing earthly, nothing mundane in Agatha's
love, for though she did love the fallen hero of La Vendee, the patriot
postillion of St. Florent, she did not shed a tear when she heard that
he was dragging his wounded body to St. Laurent, that he might have the
comfort of her tender care in his last moments; her hand did not shake
as she wrote a line to her father to say that she could not leave the
hospital that evening, or probably the next; nor did she for one half
hour neglect the duties which her less distinguished patients required
her to perform; but still she felt her heart was cold within her, and
that if God had so willed it, she could, without regret, take her place
in the grave beside the stricken idol of her admiration, who had fallen
at Nantes while fighting for his God and his King.

Early on the morning after Foret's departure for Clisson, the litter
which bore the wounded chief reached the hospital, and Agatha's arm
assisted him from the door-step to the death-bed, which she had prepared
for him. Agatha's feelings towards him have been imperfectly described;
but what were his feelings towards her? What was the nature of the
mysterious love, which no kind words had ever encouraged, which no look
had ever declared, which he had hardly dared to acknowledge to his own
heart, and which had yet induced the wounded man to make so painful a
journey, to travel over twenty long, long leagues, that he might once
more see the glorious face which had filled his breast with such an
unutterable passion? Not for a moment had he ever dreamt that Agatha
regarded him differently than she did the many others who had taken up
arms in the service of their country. His name he knew must be familiar
to her ears, for chance had made it prominent in the struggle; but
beyond that, it had never occurred to his humble mind that Agatha
Larochejaquelin had given one thought to the postillion of St. Florent.
For some time, Cathelineau had been unable to define to himself the
passion which he felt, but had gradually become aware that he loved
Agatha passionately, incurably, and hopelessly. Her image had been
present to him continually; it had been with him in the dead of night,
and in the heat of day; in the hour of battle, and at the council-table;
in the agony of defeat, and in the triumph of victory. When he found
himself falling in the square at Nantes, and all visible objects seemed
to swim before his eyes, still he saw Agatha's beautiful pale face, and
then she seemed to smile kindly on him, and to bid him hope. As soon as
his senses returned to him, he was made conscious that he was dying, and
then he felt that he should die more happily if he could see once more
the fair angel, who had illuminated and yet troubled the last few days
of his existence.

Cathelineau had heard that Agatha had taken under her own kind care the
hospital at St. Laurent, but he had not expected that she would be on
the step to meet him as he was lifted out of his litter; but hers was
the first face he saw on learning that his painful journey was at an
end. His wound had been pronounced to be inevitably mortal, and he had
been told that he might possibly live for two or three days, but that
in all probability his sufferings would not be protracted so long. The
fatal bullet had passed through his arm into his breast, had perforated
his lungs, and there, within the vitals of his body, the deadly missile
was still hidden. At some moments, his agony was extreme, but at others,
he was nearly free from pain; and as his life grew nearer to its close,
his intervals of ease became longer, and the periods of his suffering
were shortened. He had confessed, and received absolution and the
sacrament of his church at Remouille; and when he reached St. Laurent,
nothing was left for him but to die.

He tried to thank her, as Agatha assisted him to the little chamber
which she had prepared for him; but his own feelings, and his exertions
in moving were at first too much for him. The power of speech, however,
soon returned to him, and he said:

"How can I thank you, Mademoiselle, what am I to say to thank you for
such care as this?"

"You are not to thank us at all," said Agatha, (there was one of the
sisters of mercy with her in the room). "We are only doing what little
women can do for the cause, for which you have done so much."

Again he essayed to speak, but the sister stopped him with a kind yet
authoritative motion of her hand, and bade him rest tranquil a while,
and so he did. Sometimes Agatha sat by the window, and watched his bed,
and at others, she stole quietly out of the room to see her other
patients, and then she would return again, and take her place by the
window; and as long as she remained in the room, so that he could look
upon her face, Cathelineau felt that he was happy.

He had been at St. Laurent some few hours, and was aware that his
precious moments were fast ebbing. He hardly knew what it was that he
longed to say, but yet he felt that he could not die in peace without
expressing to the fair creature who sat beside him the gratitude he felt
for her tender care. Poor Cathelineau! he did not dream how difficult
he would find it to limit gratitude to its proper terms, when the heart
from which he spoke felt so much more than gratitude!

"Ah, Mademoiselle!" he began, but she interrupted him.

"Hush, hush, Cathelineau!" she said. "Did you not hear sister Anna say
that you should not speak."

"What avails it now for me to be silent?" said he. "I know,
Mademoiselle, that I am dying, and, believe me, I do not fear to die.
Your kind care can make my last few hours tranquil and easy, but it
cannot much prolong them. Let me have the pleasure of telling you that
I appreciate your kindness, and that I give you in return all that a
dying man can give--my prayers."

"And I will pray for you, Cathelineau," said Agatha. "But will not every
Vendean pray for the hero who first led them to victory, who first
raised his hand against the Republic?"

"How precious are the praises of such as you!" said he. "Pray for me
and for your other poor countrymen who have fallen in this contest; such
prayers as yours will assuredly find entrance into heaven."

He then again laid tranquil for a while, but his spirit was not quiet
within him; he felt that there was that which he longed to say before
he died, and that the only moments in which the power of speaking would
be left to him were fast passing from him.

"Do not bid me be silent," he said; "did I not know that no earthly
power could prolong my life, I would do nothing to defeat the object of
my kind nurses; but as it is, a few moments' speech are of value to me,
but an extra hour or so of torpid life can avail me nothing. Ah,
Mademoiselle, though I cannot but rejoice to see our cause assisted by
the nobility and excellence of the country, though I know that the
angelic aid of such as thou art--"

"Stop, stop," said Agatha, interrupting him, "if you will speak, at any
rate do not flatter; your last words are too precious to be wasted in
such idleness."

"It does not seem to be flattery in me to praise you, Mademoiselle;
heaven knows that I do not wish to flatter; but my rude tongue knows not
how to express what my heart feels. I would say, that valuable as is
your aid to our poor peasants, I almost regret to see you embarked in
a cause which will bathe the country in blood, and which, unless
speedily victorious, will bring death and desolation on the noble
spirits who have given to it all their energies and all their courage."

"Do you think so badly, Cathelineau, of the hopes of the royalists?"

"If we could make one great and glorious effort," said he, and his eyes
shone as brightly as ever while he spoke; "if we could concentrate all
our forces, and fill them with the zeal which, at different times, they
all have shewn, we might still place the King upon his throne, and the
white flag might still wave for ages from our churches, as a monument
of the courage of La Vendee. But if, as I fear, the war become one of
detached efforts, despite the wisdom of de Lescure, the skill of
Bonchamps, the piety of d'Elbee, the gallant enthusiasm of
Larochejaquelin, and the devoted courage of them all, the Republic by
degrees will devour their armies, will consume their strength, will
desolate the country, and put to the sword even their wives and
children: neither high nobility, nor illustrious worth, nor surpassing
beauty will shield the inhabitants of this devoted country from the
brutality of the conquerors, who have abjured religion, and proclaimed
that blood alone can satisfy their appetites."

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Stephen King fan publishes Shining's Jack Torrance's novel
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A Stephen King fan has published an 80-page version of the book which novelist Jack Torrance obsessively writes during King's The Shining, where his descent into madness is revealed when his wife discovers that his work consists of just one phrase, endlessly repeated.

Torrance, played by Jack Nicholson in terrifying form in Stanley Kubrick's 1980 film, is a frustrated writer who goes with his wife and son to spend the winter in the isolated Overlook Hotel in an attempt to get the novel he has always wanted to write started. But the hotel's grisly past and unquiet ghosts have their way with him, and his wife Wendy eventually finds that the manuscript he has been working on actually only contains the phrase "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy", typed over and over again.

Now New York artist Phil Buehler, who describes himself as "a big fan of Stanley Kubrick and Stephen King", has self-published a book credited to Torrance, repeating the phrase throughout but formatting each page differently, using the words to create different shapes from zigzags to spirals.

"The idea has probably been marinating for years, because I loved the movie and the Stephen King book," said Buehler. "I'd just finished my own obsessive art project [and] it was an idea I had over the Christmas holidays."

He said he decided to stick to type and formatting that could have been created on a typewriter, with the first ten pages duplicating shots of Torrance's work from the film. "I thought 'if he continues to get crazier, what would those pages look like?'" he said. "I hit writer's block about 60 pages in, and I had to get to 80 - that went on for about a week." His fiancée, who had neither read the book nor seen the film, became a little concerned about his actions. "I finally showed her the movie, and she realised I wasn't really losing it," said Buehler.

He's included a spoof review from the blog OverThinkingIt.com on the book's back jacket, which compares it to "the best of Beckett" in its "lack of forward momentum", and considers the struggles of the author, "heroically pitting himself against the Sisyphusean sentence". "It's that metatextual struggle of Man vs. Typewriter that gives this book its spellbinding power," the review says. "Some will dismiss it as simplistic; that's like dismissing a Pollack canvas as mere splatters of paint."

So far, Buehler says that around 1,000 people have viewed the book, for sale on Blurb.com for $8.95 in paperback, or $22.95 in hardback, and he's sold "a few" copies, with sales now starting to pick up steam. "A few people have asked me to sign it - they're looking it as a piece of art rather than a funny thing to give to a Kubrick fan," he said. "If you're not a Kubrick or King fan, you might not even get it."

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