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La Vendee by Anthony Trollope

A >> Anthony Trollope >> La Vendee




"Surely God will not allow his enemies to prevail," said Agatha.

"God's ways are inscrutable," answered Cathelineau, "and his paths are
not plain to mortal eyes; but it is not the less our duty to struggle
on to do those things which appear to us to be acceptable to Him. But
should these sad days come, should atheism and the love of blood stride
without control through our villages; if it be doomed that our houses
are to be burnt and our women to be slaughtered, why should all remain
to be a prey to our enemies? Ah, Mademoiselle leave this devoted country
for a while, take your sweet cousin with you; bid M. de Lescure send
away his young wife: it is enough that men should have to fight with
demons; men can fight and die, and suffer comparatively but little, but
female beauty and female worth will be made to suffer ten thousand
deaths from the ruthless atrocities of republican foes."

Agatha shuddered at the picture which Cathelineau's words conjured up,
but her undaunted courage was not shaken.

"God will temper the wind to the shorn lamb," said she. "Neither I, nor
Marie will leave our brothers, nor will Madame de Lescure leave her
husband; it is little we can do to hasten victory, but we can lessen
suffering and administer comfort, when comfort is most required. Had
you, Cathelineau, loved some woman above all others, and been loved by
her; had you had with you in your struggle some dear sister, or perhaps
still dearer wife, would you have asked her to go from you, that you
might have battled on, and struggled, and at last have died alone?"

"By God's dear love, I would," said he, raising himself, as he spoke,
upon his bed. "My most earnest prayer to her should have been to leave
me."

"And when she refused to do so; when she also swore by God's dear love,
that she would stay with you till the last; as she would have done,
Cathelineau, if she loved you as--as you should have been loved; would
you then have refused the comfort her love so longed to give you?"

"I know not then what I would have done," said he, after lying with his
eyes closed for a few moments without answering. "I have never known
such love. Our women love their husbands and their brothers, but it is
only angels love with such a love as that."

"Such is the love a man deserves who gives his all for his King and his
country. If our husbands, and our brothers, and our dear friends,
Cathelineau, are brave and noble, we will endeavour to imitate them; as
long as there is an abiding-place for them in the country, there are
duties for us. If God vouchsafed to spare you your life a while, that
you might live to be the instrument of restoring His worship, do you
think that I would run from your bedside, because I heard that the
rebels were near you? Oh, Cathelineau! you do not know the passive
courage of a woman's heart."

Cathelineau listened to her with all his ears, and gazed on her with all
his eyes, as she spoke to him. It seemed to him as though another world
had opened to his view even before his death; as though paradise could
give him no holier bliss than to gaze on that face, and to listen to
that voice.

"I never knew what a woman was till now," said he; "and how much better
is it that I should die this moment, with your image before me, than
return to a world, such as mine has been, where all henceforward would
be distasteful to me."

"Should you live, Cathelineau, you would live to be honoured and valued.
If it be God's pleasure that you should die, your memory will be
honoured--and loved," said Agatha.

He did not answer her for a while, but lay still, with his eyes fixed
upon her, as she sat with her elbow leaning on the window. Oh! what an
unspeakable joy it was to him to hear such heavenly words spoken by her,
whom he had almost worshipped; and yet her presence and her words turned
his thoughts back from heaven to the earth which he had all but left.
Could she really have loved him had it been his lot to survive these
wars? Could she really have descended from her high pinnacle of state
and fortune to bless so lowly a creature as him with her beauty and her
excellence? As these thoughts passed through his brain, he began for the
first time to long for life, to think that the promised blessings of
heaven hardly compensated for those which he was forced to leave on
earth; but his mind was under too strong control to be allowed to wander
long upon such reflections. He soon recovered his wayward thoughts, and
remembered that his one remaining earthly duty was to die.

"It is God's will that I should die," said he at last, "and I feel that
He will soon release me from all worldly cares and sufferings; but you,
Mademoiselle, have made the last moments of my life happy," and again
he was silent for a minute or two, while he strove to find both courage
and words to express that which he wished to say. "How different have
been the last few weeks of my existence since first I was allowed to
look upon your face!" A faint blush suffused Agatha's brow as
Cathelineau spoke. "Yes, Mademoiselle," he continued," I know you will
forgive, when coming from a dying man, words which would have been
insane had they been spoken at any other time--my life has been wholly
different since that day when your brother led me, unwilling as I was,
into your presence at Durbelliere. Since that time I have had no other
thought than of you; it was you who gave me courage in battle, and, more
wonderful than that, enabled me to speak aloud, and with authority among
those who were all so infinitely my superiors. It was your beauty that
softened my rough heart, your spirit that made me dauntless, your
influence that raised me up so high. I have not dared to love you as
love is usually described, for they say that love without hope makes the
heart miserable, and my thoughts of you have made me more blessed than
I ever was before, and yet I hoped for nothing; but I have adored you
as I hardly dared to adore anything that was only human. I hardly know
why I should have had myself carried hither to tell you this, but I felt
that I should die more easily, when I had confessed to you the liberty
which my thoughts had taken with your image."

As he continued speaking, Agatha had risen from her seat, and she was
now kneeling at the foot of his bed, hiding her face between her hands,
and the tears were streaming fast down her cheeks.

"Tell me, Mademoiselle, that you forgive me," said he, "tell me that you
pardon my love, and above all, pardon me for speaking of it. I have now
but a few hours' breath, and in them I feel that I shall be but feeble;
but tell me that you forgive me, and, though dying, I shall be happy."

Agatha was too agitated to speak for a time, but she stretched her hand
out to him, and he grasped it in his own as forcibly as his strength
would allow.

"I know that you have pardoned my boldness," said he. "May God bless
you, and protect you in the dangers which are coming."

"May He bless you also, Cathelineau--dear Cathelineau," said Agatha,
still sobbing. "May He bless you, and receive you into His glory, and
seat you among His angels, and make you blessed and happy in His
presence for ever and ever through eternity." And she drew herself
nearer to him, and kissed the hand which she still held within her own,
and bathed it with her tears, and pressed it again and again to her
bosom. "The memory of the words you have spoken to me shall be dearer
to me than the love of man, shall be more precious to me than any homage
a living prince could lay at my feet--to remember that Cathelineau has
loved me--that the sainted Cathelineau has held my image in his heart,
shall be love enough for Agatha Larochejaquelin."

Cathelineau lingered on for the whole of that day, and the greater
portion of the night. Agatha did not leave his bed-side for a moment,
but sat during most of the time still holding his hand in hers. He spoke
no farther respecting the singular passion he had nursed in his heart,
nor did she allude to it; but when be spoke at all, he felt that he was
speaking to a dear, and tried, and valued friend, and he spoke,
therefore, without hesitation and without reserve. He desired her to
give various messages from him to the Vendean chiefs, but especially to
de Lescure, to whom he said he looked with most hope for a successful
issue to the struggle. He begged that they might be told that his last
breath was spent in advising that they should make one great, combined,
and final effort for the total overthrow of republicanism in France, and
not fritter away their strength in prolonged contests with an enemy so
infinitely their superior in numbers. Agatha promised faithfully to be
a true messenger of these last injunctions, and then she saw the Vendean
chief expire in perfect tranquillity, happy in an assured hope of
everlasting joy.

He died about three in the morning, and before five, Henri
Larochejaquelin arrived at St. Laurent from Clisson. He had ridden hard
through the previous day and the entire night, with the hope of once
more seeing the leader, whom he had followed with so much devotion, and
valued so truly; but he was too late.

He caught his sister in his arms as he ran up the hospital stairs.
"Where is he?" said he; "is he still alive? Is there any hope?"

"There is no hope for us," answered Agatha; "but there is perfect
certainty for him. The good Cathelineau has restored his spirit to Him
who gave it to avenge His glory."



CHAPTER VI

COMMISSIONERS OF THE REPUBLIC

The taking Saumur frightened the Convention much more than any of the
previous victories of the Vendeans. The republicans lost a vast quantity
of military stores, arms, gunpowder, cannons, and soldiers' clothing;
and, which was much worse than the loss itself these treasures had
fallen into the hands of an enemy, whose chief weakness consisted in the
want of such articles. The royalists since the beginning of the revolt
had always shewn courage and determination in action; but they had never
before been collected in such numbers, or combated with forces so fully
prepared for resistance, as those whom they had so signally conquered
at Saumur. The Convention began to be aware that some strong effort
would be necessary to quell the spirit of the Vendeans. France at the
time was surrounded by hostile troops. At the moment in which the
republicans were flying from the royalists at Saumur, the soldiers of
the Convention were marching out of Valenciennes, that fortified city
having been taken by the united arms of Austria and England. Conde also
had fallen, and on the Rhine, the French troops who had occupied Mayence
with so much triumph, were again on the point of being driven from it
by the Prussians.

The Committee of Public Safety, then the repository of the supreme power
in Paris, was aware that unless the loyalty of La Vendee was utterly
exterminated, the royalists of that district would sooner or later join
themselves to the allies, and become the nucleus of an overpowering
aristocratic party in France. There were at the time thousands, and tens
and hundreds of thousands in France who would gladly have welcomed the
extinction of the fearful Republic which domineered over them, had not
every man feared to express his opinion. The Republic had declared, that
opposition to its behests, in deed, or in word, or even in thought, as
far as thoughts could be surmised, should he punished with death; and
by adhering to the purport of this horrid decree, the voice of a nation
returning to its senses was subdued. Men feared to rise against the
incubus which oppressed them, lest others more cowardly than themselves
should not join them; and the Committee of Public Safety felt that their
prolonged existence depended on their being able to perpetuate this
fear. It determined, therefore, to strike terror into the nation by
exhibiting a fearful example in La Vendee. After full consideration, the
Committee absolutely resolved to exterminate the inhabitants of the
country--utterly to destroy them all, men, women, and children--to burn
every town, every village, and every house--to put an end to all life
in the doomed district, and to sweep from the face of the country man,
beast, and vegetable. The land was to be left without proprietors,
without a population, and without produce; it was to be converted into
a huge Golgotha, a burial-place for every thing that had life within it;
and then, when utterly purged by fire and massacre, it was to be given
up to new colonists, good children of the Republic, who should enjoy the
fertility of a land soaked with the blood of its former inhabitants.
Such was the deliberate resolution of the Committee of Public Safety,
and no time was lost in commencing the work of destruction.

Barrere, one of the members of the Committee, undertook to see the work
put in a proper train, and for this purpose he left Paris for the scene
of action. Westerman and Santerre accompanied him, and to them was
committed the task of accomplishing the wishes of the Committee. There
was already a republican army in La Vendee, under the command of General
Biron, but the troops of which it was composed were chiefly raw levies,
recruits lately collected by the conscription, without discipline, and,
in a great degree, without courage; but the men who were now brought to
carry on the war, were the best soldiers whom France could supply.
Westerman brought with him a legion of German mercenaries, on whom he
could rely for the perpetration of any atrocity, and Santerre was at the
head of the seven thousand men, whom the allied army had permitted to
march out of Valenciennes, and to return to Paris.

It was in the beginning of July that this worthy triumvirate met at
Angers, on their road to La Vendee. Cathelineau had driven the
republican garrison out of this town immediately after the victory at
Saumur, but the royalists made no attempt to keep possession of it, and
the troops who had evacuated it at their approach, returned to it almost
immediately. It was now thronged with republican soldiers of all
denominations, who exercised every species of tyranny over the
townspeople. Food, drink, forage, clothes, and even luxuries were
demanded, and taken in the name of the Convention from every shop, and
the slightest resistance to these requisitions, was punished as treason
to the Republic. The Vendeans, in possession of the same town only a
fortnight before, had injured no one, had taken nothing without paying
for it, aid had done everything to prevent the presence of their army
being felt as a curse; and yet Angers was a noted republican town; it
had shown no favours to the royalists, and received with open arms the
messengers of the Convention. Such was the way in which the republicans
rewarded their friends, and the royalists avenged themselves on their
enemies.

One hot July evening, five men were seated in a parlour of the Mayor's
house in Angers, but the poor Mayor himself was not allowed, nor
probably did he wish, to be one of the party. Glasses were on the table
before them, and the empty bottles, which were there also, showed, that
however important the subjects might be which they were discussing, they
still considered that some degree of self-indulgence was compatible with
their duties. The air of the room was heavy with tobacco smoke, and one
or two of the number still had cigars between their lips. They were all
armed, though two of them were not in uniform, and the manner in which
they had their arms disposed, showed that they did not quite conceive
themselves to be in security in these their convivial moments. The men
were Barrere, Westerman, and Santerre, and two of the republican
Generals, Chouardin and Bourbotte.

Westerman and the two latter were in uniform, and the fact of their
having arms, was only in keeping with their general appearance: but the
other two were in plain clothes, and their pistols, which were lying
among the glasses on the table, and the huge swords which stood upright
against their chairs, gave a hideous aspect to the party, and made them
look as though they were suspicious of each other.

Barrere alone had no sword. His hand was constantly playing with a
little double-barrelled pistol, which he continually cocked and
uncocked, the fellow of which lay immediately before him. He was a tall,
well built, handsome man, about thirty years of age, with straight black
hair, brushed upright from his forehead; his countenance gave the idea
of eagerness and impetuosity, rather than cruelty or brutality. He was,
however, essentially egotistical and insincere; he was republican, not
from conviction, but from prudential motives; he adhered to the throne
a while, and deserted it only when he saw that it was tottering; for a
time he belonged to the moderate party in the Republic, and voted with
the Girondists; he gradually joined the Jacobins, as he saw that they
were triumphing over their rivals, and afterwards was one of those who
handed over the leaders of the Reign of Terror to the guillotine, and
assisted in denouncing Robespierre and St. Just. He was one of the very
few who managed to outlive the Revolution, which he did for nearly half
a century.

His face was hardly to be termed prepossessing, but it certainly did not
denote the ruthless ferocity which the nature of the task he had
undertaken would require, and which he exercised in its accomplishment.
Nature had not formed him to be a monster gloating in blood; the
Republic had altered the disposition which nature had given him, and he
learnt among those with whom he had associated, to delight in the work
which they required at his hands. Before the Reign of Terror was over,
he had become one of those who most loudly called for more blood, while
blood was running in torrents on every side; it was he who demanded the
murder of the Queen, when even Robespierre was willing to save her. It
was he who declared in the Convention that the dead were the only
enemies who never returned; and yet this same man lived to publish a
pamphlet, in which he advocated the doctrine, that under no
circumstances could one human being be justified in taking the life of
another.

He was dressed in a blue dress-coat, which in spite of the heat of the
weather, was buttoned close round his body; he was rather a dandy in his
costume, for his tightly-fitted breeches were made to show the form of
his well-formed leg, and his cravat was without a wrinkle. Before the
Revolution, Barrere had been a wealthy aristocrat.

Santerre, who sat next to him, was in every respect unlike the ci-devant
nobleman. He was a large, rough, burly man, about forty years of age;
his brown hair was long and uncombed, his face was coarse and hot, and
the perspiration was even now running down it, though drinking and
smoking was at present his hardest work; his lips were thick and
sensual, and his face was surrounded by huge whiskers, which made him
look uncouth and savage; his cravat was thrown off, and his shirt was
open at the neck, so as to show his brown throat and brawny chest; a
huge horse pistol lay before him close to his glass, and a still huger
sword stood up against his chair. He was drinking hard and talking
loudly, and was evidently quite at ease with his company; he was as
completely at home in the Mayor's parlour at Angers, as when rushing
into the Tuilleries at the head of his fellow citizens from the faubourg
St. Antoine.

Santerre was of Flemish descent, and by trade a brewer. He was possessed
of considerable wealth, which he freely spent among the poor, while
famine pressed sore upon them; he was consequently loved, followed, and
obeyed. He was the King of the Faubourgs; and though the most ruthless
in his animosity to the royalists, he was not altogether a bad man,
neither was he by nature absolutely cruel. He had adopted the Revolution
from a belief that the great mass of the people would be better off in
the world without kings, nobility, or aristocrats; and having made
himself firm in this belief, he used to the utmost his coarse, huge,
burly power in upsetting these encumbrances on the nation. His love of
liberty had become a fanaticism. He had gone with the current, and he
had no fine feelings to be distressed at the horrid work which he had
to do, no humanity to be shocked; but he was not one of those who
delighted in bloodshed and revelled in the tortures which he inflicted
on others. He had been low in the world's esteem, and the Revolution had
raised him to a degree of eminence; this gratified his ambition, and
made him a ready tool in the hands of those who knew how to use his
well-known popularity, his wealth, his coarse courage and great physical
powers.

Westerman sat at the window a little away from the others. He was a man
of indomitable courage and undying perseverance. He was a German, who
had been banished from Prussia, and having entered the French army as
a private soldier had gradually risen to be an officer. A short time
before the storming of the Tuilleries he had foreseen that the
democratic party was prevailing, and he had joined it. Danton and
Santerre had discovered and appreciated his courage and energy, and he
soon found himself a leader of the people. It was he who directed the
movements of the populace on the 10th of August, when the Tuilleries was
sacked, and the Swiss guards were massacred on the steps of the King's
palace. Since that time Westerman had been a successful soldier in the
republican army, not that he was by any means a vehement democrat: his
object had been military success, and that only. He had neither
political theories or political ambition. Chance had thrown him in the
way of the Republic, and he had become a republican. He was then
attached to the army of Dumourier as aide-de-camp to that General, and
was in the confidence of him and of Danton, at the moment that Dumourier
was endeavouring to hand over the armies of the Republic to the power
of Prussia and of Austria. He again, however, was wise in time.
Dumourier calculated too entirely on the affection of the army to
himself and failed; but before he failed, Westerman had left him. He was
now again a trustworthy servant of the Republic, and as such was sent
to assist in the fearful work which the tyranny of the democrats
required.

His unnatural ruthlessness and prompt obedience were of no avail to him.
Soon after his return from the western provinces he perished under the
guillotine.

"And so the good Cathelineau is dead," said Santerre. "The invincible,
the invulnerable, the saint! ha, ha! What sweet names these dear friends
of ours have given themselves."

"Yes," said General Bourbotte; "the messenger who told me had come
direct from their hospital; Cathelineau breathed his last the day before
yesterday at St. Laurent."

"Let us drink to his health, gentlemen; his spiritual health," said
Santerre; "and to his safe journey;" and the brewer raised his glass to
his lips, and drank the toast which he had proposed.

"Bon voyage, my dear Cathelineau," said Bourbotte, following his
example.

"Cathelineau was a brave man," said Chouardin. "I am glad he died of his
wounds; I should have been sorry that so gallant a fellow should have
had to submit his neck to the sharp embraces of Mademoiselle
Guillotine."

"That is hardly a patriotic sentiment, citizen General," said Barrere.
"Gallantry on the part of an insurgent royalist is an inspiration of
the devil, sent to induce man to perpetuate the degradation and misery
of his fellow-men. Such gallantry, or rather such frenzy, should give
rise to anything but admiration in the breast of a patriot."

"My fidelity to the Republic will not be doubted, I believe," said
Chouardin, "because, as a soldier, I admire high courage when I find it
in a soldier."

"If your fidelity be unimpeachable, your utility will be much
questioned, if you wish to spare a royalist because he is a brave man,"
said Barrere. "By the same argument, I presume, you would refrain from
knocking an adder on the head, because he rose boldly in your path."

"Who talked of sparing?" said Chouardin. "I only said that I would
sooner that a brave enemy should die in battle than be handled by an
executioner. Talk as you will, you cannot disgrace such a man as
Cathelineau."

"Cannot I, indeed, citizen General?" said Westerman, rising from his
seat and coming into the middle of the room. "I do then utterly despise,
scorn, and abominate him, and all such as him. I can conceive nothing
in human form more deplorably low, more pitiably degraded, than such a
poor subservient slave as he was."

"There, Westerman, you are grossly wrong," said Santerre. "Your cowardly
Marquis, run-fling from the throne which he pretends to reverence, but
does not dare to protect; whose grand robes and courtly language alone
have made him great; who has not heart enough even to love the gay
puppets who have always surrounded him, or courage enough to fight for
the unholy wealth he has amassed: this man I say is contemptible. Such
creatures are as noxious vermin, whom one loathes, and loathing them
destroys. You no less destroy the tiger, who ravages the green fields
which your labour has adorned; who laps the blood of your flocks, and
threatens the life of your children and servants, but you do not despise
the tiger; you keep his hide, as a monument of your victory over a brave
and powerful enemy. Cathelineau was the tiger, who was destroying,
before it had ripened, the precious fruit of the Revolution."

Poetry Workshop creature features

For many years my local corner shop displayed a large sign in its window telling local residents to "use us or lose us!" It always looked a rather toothless threat to me. After all, if I didn't use them, what difference would it make to me if they weren't there? And surely a corner shop, one that had been there for years, would have enough customers to survive without recourse to such apocalyptic warning? But it didn't and was soon converted into flats.

This community shop was destroyed not so much by the pressures of the supermarkets or people's commuting patterns, but simply by customer apathy. It's something to think about as crime writers and readers across the world mourn the imminent passing of Maxim Jakubowski's celebrated Charing Cross Road bookshop in London, Murder One.

Apathy is a strange word to connect to a bookstore that thrives on passion. It's noticeable when you walk through the door, when you speak to the friendly, knowledgeable staff, when you look at the shelves and see the vast range of titles on offer. This isn't your regular kind of bookstore: the first time I visited spent a whole lunch break looking up and down, from floor to ceiling from table to table; it was an hour that changed my perception of both crime writing and of bookselling.

Murder One was – and for a few weeks will remain – a shop that took crime seriously. Not in the sense that it intellectualised it, or made unsubstantiated claims for its importance, but in the way that it treated crime writing with the respect it was due. With a genre that has so many off-shoots, branches and sub-genres, it took a shop of Murder One's calibre to show just how diverse, interesting and mentally stimulating crime could be – far more than the guilty pleasure I had, until then, considered it.

Thanks to judicious recommendations, enticing table displays and hours of foraging among the stacks, I discovered writers that I would never have picked up, let alone read. You could always get the latest blockbuster, but delve a little deeper and you'd find books that were not stocked anywhere else, novels that, like the perfect crime, were hidden from public view. The Martin Beck novels by Sjöwall & Wahlöö – probably my favourite sequence of novels in any genre – were introduced to me via Murder One, as were Kem Nunn, Sue Grafton, and Henning Mankell. It's also the staff of Murder One who piqued my interest in the inimitable Fred Vargas, and I can't thank them enough for the introduction.

Inclusive and without snobbery, Murder One amply demonstrated that the best bookshops are places not just of commerce, but of community; places that make feel you belong. It's the kind of store that bibliophiles dream about: well-stocked, well-staffed and shabby enough to lose days browsing within. It's just unfortunate that such shops don't have enough paying customers to keep them afloat, or that these customers visit all too infrequently – something of which I'm certainly guilty.

These kinds of shops are facing a long, bloody battle – and one which, without significant reinforcements, they are likely to lose. As we hear of the travesty of another brilliant independent going down, we'll mourn the loss, wring our hands and damn Amazon and the supermarkets and Waterstone's. Yet perhaps the most important detail we'll probably keep under wraps: the last time we actually spent any money there.

Murder One closing its doors for the final time is undoubtedly a .38 shell for independent bookshops, but whether it's body blow or a warning shot all depends upon us, the consumers. No one, no matter how iconic or established, can exist on fond memories alone: just ask Woolworths. Use these shops now, because it doesn't take a master sleuth to deduce what will happen if we don't.

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