La Vendee by Anthony Trollope

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"You're a great warrior, Peter, and it's a pity you didn't stay with the
army."

"Perhaps it is, perhaps it is. Perhaps I shouldn't have left it; but I
was driven away by little jealousies. Even great men have their
failings. But they certainly made some queer selections when they chose
the twelve captains at Saumur. There's not one of them left with the
army now but M. Henri, and what's he but a boy?"

"He has done a man's work at any rate!"

"He's brave, there's no denying that. He's very brave, but what then;
there's that impudent puppy of a valet of his, Chapeau; he's brave too:
at least they say so. But what's bravery? Can they lead an army? is
there anything of the General about them? Can they beat the blues?

"Didn't he manage to beat the blues at Amaillou and at Coron, and at
Durbelliere? Faith, I think he has done nothing but beat them these
three months."

"There's nothing of the General in him, I tell you. Haven't I seen him
in battle now; he's quite at home at a charge, I grant you; and he's not
bad in a breach; but Lord bless you, he can't command troops."

The landlord and his servant were still standing at the door of the inn,
when the party for whom they were waiting made its appearance in the
square of the town. It consisted of a waggon, in which the wounded man
was lying, of three or four men on horseback, among whom were Henri
Larochejaquelin and the little Chevalier, and a crowd of men on foot,
soldiers of the Vendean army, who had not left the side of their General
since he had fallen at Cholet.

During the latter part of his journey, de Lescure had been sensible, and
had suffered dreadfully both in mind and body. He had never felt so
confident of success as Henri and others had done, and had carried on
the war more from a sense of duty than from a hope of restoring the
power of the crown. He now gave way to that despondency which so often
accompanies bodily suffering. He felt certain that his own dissolution
was near, and on that subject his only anxiety was that he might see his
wife before he died. He had, since the power of speech had been restored
to him, more than once asserted that the cause of the royalists was
desperate, and had, by doing so, greatly added to the difficulties by
which Henri was now surrounded. He did not, however, despair; nothing
could make him despondent, or rob him of that elastic courage which, in
spite of all the sufferings he had endured, gave him a strange feeling
of delight in the war which he was waging.

An immense concourse of people gathered round the waggon, as de Lescure
was lifted from it and carried up to the bedroom, which had been
prepared for him; and they showed their grief at his sufferings, and
their admiration of his character as a soldier, by tears and prayers for
his recovery. The extreme popularity of M. de Lescure through the whole
war, and the love which was felt for him by all the peasants concerned
in it, proved their just appreciation of real merit; for he had not
those qualities which most tend to ingratiate an officer with his men.
He could not unbend among them, and talk to them familiarly of their
prowess, and of the good cause, as Henri did. He had the manners of an
austere, sombre man; and though always most anxious for the security and
good treatment of the prisoners, had more than once severely punished
men among his own followers for some breach of discipline. He had, on
one occasion, threatened to leave the army entirely if he was not obeyed
with the same exactness, as though he actually bore the King's
commission; and the general feeling that he would most certainly keep
his word, and that the army could not succeed without him, had greatly
tended to repress any inclination towards mutiny.

"God bless him, and preserve him, and restore him to us all!" said a
woman who had pushed her way through the crowd, so as to catch a glance
at his pale wasted face, one side of which was swathed in bandages,
which greatly added to the ghastliness of his appearance. "We have lost
our husbands, and our sons, and our sweethearts; but what matters, we
do not begrudge them to our King. The life of Monseigneur is more
precious than them all. La Vendee cannot afford to lose her great
General."

De Lescure heard and understood, but could not acknowledge, the sympathy
of the people; but Henri, as he tenderly raised his cousin's head, and
bore him in his arms from the waggon, spoke a word or two to the crowd
which satisfied them; and Arthur Mondyon remained among them a while to
tell them how bravely their countrymen had fought at Cholet, against
numbers more than double their own, before they would consent to own
themselves beaten.

There was an immense deal for Henri Larochejaquelin to do. In the first
place he had to collect together the fragments of the disbanded army;
to separate the men who were armed from those who had lost their arms,
and to divide the comparatively speaking small number of the former,
into such bands or regiments as would make them serviceable in case of
need.

De Lescure was unable to give him any actual assistance in his work; but
his thoughtful brain, reflecting on all the difficulties of Henri's
situation, conceived how much they would be increased by the want of any
absolute title to authority; he therefore determined, ill as he was, to
invest him with the command-in-chief of the shattered army.

Early on the morning after their arrival he begged that all such men as
had acted as chief officers among the Vendeans, and who were now in St.
Florent, would form themselves into a council in his room, and that it
might be proclaimed to the army that they were about to nominate a
General-in-Chief. The council was not so numerously attended as that
which on a former occasion was held at Saumur. As Peter Berrier had
said, most of those who then sat around that council table were now
dead, or were, at any rate, hors-de-combat. Only four of the number were
now present. De Lescure was lying on his bed, and was a spectacle
dreadful to look upon. The hair had been all cut from his head. His face
was not only pale, but livid. The greater portion of it had been
enveloped in bandages, which he had partly removed with his own hand,
that his mouth might be free, so that he could use his weak voice to
address his comrades, perhaps for the last time. He uttered neither
complaint or groan, but the compressed lips, careworn cheeks, and sunken
eyes, gave too certain signs of the agony which he suffered. Henri was
there, but he knew the proposal which his cousin was about to make, and
he felt, not only that he was unequal to the heavy task which was about
to be put on his shoulders, but also that there were still some among
their number who were superior to him in skill, rank, and age, and who
were to be excluded from the dangerous dignity by the partial admiration
which was felt for himself He sat apart in a corner of the room, with
his face buried in his handkerchief; his manly heart was overcome; and
while de Lescure named him as the only person possessed of sufficient
nerve and authority to give the Vendeans a chance of an escape from
utter ruin, he was shedding tears like a child.

D'Autachamps and the Prince de Talmont were there also; men, who
throughout the war had lent every energy to its furtherance. At another
time, and under other circumstances, they might have expressed
indignation at being called on to serve under a man so much their
junior; but de Lescure's position checked, not only the expression of
any such feeling, but the feeling itself. They could not differ from a
man who had lost so much in the cause, and vas now sealing his devotion
with his life. There were five or six others in the room; officers who
were now well known in the army, whose courage history has not forgotten
to record, but whose names are unnecessary to our tale.

"Gentlemen," said de Lescure to them, as soon as he saw them seated
round his bed, and had contrived to get himself so propped up with
pillows as to be able to address them, "you all know why I have wished
to see you here; you all know the paramount importance of that duty
which requires us to provide, as far as may be possible, for the
security of the unfortunate peasants who have followed us with such
courage, who have shown so much generous loyalty, so much true
patriotism. Our first step must be to name some one whom we can all
obey. We all know that the army cannot act in unison without one
absolute Commander. He who was lately our Commander has fallen in the
performance of his duty. Our dear friend Bonchamps is no more. Had I
escaped from that awful battle unwounded, it is not improbable that you
might have chosen me to undertake the now unenviable duty of guiding a
broken army. You will not accuse a dying man of vanity in saying so;
but, gentlemen, you all see that such a chance is now impossible. My
wound is mortal. A few days, perhaps a few hours, and I shall be removed
from this anxious, painful, all but hopeless conflict, in which you, my
friends, must still engage; in which some of you will probably fall. I
cannot suffer with you future reverses, or lead you to future triumphs;
but, if you will allow me, I will use my last breath in naming to you
one, whom, I believe, every peasant in La Vendee, and every gentleman
engaged in the cause, will follow, if it be necessary, to death. Henri
Larochejaquelin is the only man whom all the peasants, all the soldiers,
all the officers, know intimately; and the last duty I can perform in
the service of my King is to implore you to put him at the head of your
troops. He is young, and you will assist his youth with your counsel.
He is diffident of himself, and you will encourage him with your
assurance and obedience; but he is brave, he is beloved, he is trusted;
and above all, he possesses that innate aptitude for war, that power of
infusing courage into the timid and lending strength to the weak, which
is the gift of God alone, and without which no General can command an
army."

Henri had promised his cousin that he would neither interrupt him, or
raise any objection to the proposition about to be made. He kept his
word as long as de Lescure was speaking, but when he had finished he
could not restrain himself from expressing his own sense of his
unfitness for the duties they were calling on him to perform. He came
forward, and leaning against the head of the wounded man's bed, put his
hand upon his shoulder, and speaking almost in a whisper, like a young
girl pleading for delay before her lover, he said, "Charles, you
forget, I am but one-and-twenty."

No one, however, seconded his objection. No other voice was raised to
counteract the wishes of the man who had suffered so much in the cause,
and who, had he been spared, would have been at once chosen to guide
their future movements.

"With this exception," said the Prince de Talmont; "your case we know
is doubtful, but should you recover, should you again be able to come
among us before the war be over, Larochejaquelin shall then give place
to you."

"There is little chance of that, Prince," said de Lescure, smiling
sadly; "but should it occur, there will be no quarrel between me and
Henri. I will serve with him as his aide-de-camp."

Henri Larochejaquelin now found himself General-in-Chief of the Vendean
army. As he himself had said, he was but one-and-twenty, and yet never
was greater energy, firmness, and moral courage required from a General,
than was required from him at this moment. Eighty thousand people were
on that day told to look to him as the man who was to save them from
famine and from the enemy's sword, to protect their lives and the lives
of all whom they loved, and eventually to turn their present utter
misery and despair into victory and triumph.

Eighty thousand people were there collected in and around St. Florent,
men, women, and children; the old and infirm, the maimed and sick, the
mutilated and the dying. Poor wretches who had gotten themselves dragged
thither from the hospitals, in which they feared to remain, were lying
in every ditch, and under every wall, filling the air with their groans.
Everything was in confusion; no staff existed competent to arrange their
affairs, and to husband the poor means at their disposal. Food was
wasted by some, while hundreds were starving. Some houses in the town
were nearly empty, while others were crowded almost to suffocation.
There was very much to be done, yet every one was idle.

The great work to be accomplished was to transport the Vendean multitude
over to the other side of the Loire. It had been at first feared by some
that the men of Brittany would be unwilling to receive the beaten
royalist army, flying from the bloody vengeance of the republicans, but
their neighbours did not prove so unhospitable. A thousand welcomes were
sent over to them, and many a happy messenger of good tidings came,
assuring Henri that the people of Poitou should find arms, food,
clothing, and shelter on the other side of the water.

Henri sat himself to work in earnest. His first difficulty was to get
vessels or rafts sufficient to carry the people over. All he could
obtain was seven or eight little boats, each capable of holding about
six persons, besides the two men who rowed. Timber there was none of
size sufficient to make a raft; and though he sent messengers for
leagues, both up and down the river, he could not get a barge. He put
the small boats to work, but the passage of the river was so tedious
that it seemed to him that it would be impossible for him to take over
all those who crowded on the banks. The river is broad at St. Florent,
and between the marshes which lie on the southern side and the northern
bank there is a long island. Between St. Florent and the island the
water is broad and the stream slow, but between the island and the other
shore the narrow river runs rapidly. Henri at first contented himself
with sending the women and children, together with the sick and aged,
into the island, thinking that there they would be at any rate for a
time safe from the blues, and that some effort might probably be made
from the other shore to convey them across the narrow passage.
Gradually, however, the island became full, and he was obliged to send
his boats round to take the people from thence to the main land.

All day the work continued, and when the dark night came on, the boats
did not for a moment cease to ply. Immediately after sunset, the rain
began to fall in torrents, and as the anxious wretches did not like to
leave the close vicinity of the river, which they had spent the whole
day in struggling to attain, thousands of them remained there wet and
shivering until the morning. Mothers during the darkness were parted
from their children, and wives from their husbands. Those who, worn out
with fatigue and weakness, were forced to lie down upon the ground, were
trodden upon by others, who pressed on, to reach the river. Some were
pushed into the water and screamed aloud that they were about to drown,
and when the dawn of the morning came, misery, wretchedness, and fear
were to be seen on every face.

During the whole day and night, Henri was either on the bank, or passing
between it and the town. He had, early in the day, stripped himself of
his coat, and when the evening came, he could not find it. Wet through,
in his shirt sleeves, this young generalissimo passed the first night
of his command, guarding the entrance into his little vessels;
prohibiting more than eight from embarking at a time; striving to his
uttermost that none but the weak and aged should be taken over; solacing
the sufferings of those near him; bidding the wretched not to despair,
and pointing to the opposite shore as the land of hope, where they would
soon again find plenty, comfort, and triumph.

He was still at the same duty on the following morning, reckoning up,
with something like despair, the small number of those who had as yet
passed over, and the multitude who were yet to pass, when the young
Chevalier came down to him with the news that Madame de Lescure, and her
sister-in-law were in St. Florent. Even the work, on which he was so
intent, could not keep him from those respecting whom he was so anxious,
and he hurried into town for an hour or two, leaving the Chevalier in
his place.

CHAPTER VI

THE PASSAGE OF THE LOIRE.

M. de Lescure had been two days in St. Florent, when his wife and sister
arrived there on horseback, attended by Chapeau. None of the party had
ever been in the town before, but it was not long before they were
recognized, and the two ladies soon found themselves standing in the inn
yard. Madame de Lescure had as yet asked no question about her husband;
indeed she had not had opportunity to do so, for she had been hurried
through a dense throng of people, none of whom she knew, and when she
was lifted from her horse by a strange hand, she had no idea that the
window immediately above her head looked from the room in which her
husband lay. Chapeau, however, with considerate tact, did not lose a
moment in finding the aubergiste, and learning from him enough to enable
him to whisper a word of comfort to her.

"He is here, Madame," said he, standing close behind her, "in the room
above there. He is somewhat better than he has been, and as strong in
his mind as ever. He has been most anxious for your arrival," and then
he led the way into the hotel, pushing aside the crowd to the right and
to the left; and within five minutes from the time of their entering the
town, the two ladies found themselves on the stairs immediately outside
the chamber in which was lying the object of all their present anxiety.

For the last four days and four nights, it had been the first and only
desire of Madame de Lescure to be with her husband; and now that she was
so near him she dreaded to open the door. "Who is with him?" said she,
speaking in a whisper, and trembling from head to foot, so that she
could hardly stand.

"The little Chevalier is with him always," said the aubergiste, who had
followed them up the stairs: "he never leaves him, now that M. Henri is
obliged to be away."

"Hadn't I better go in, perhaps," said Chapeau, "and send the Chevalier
out? I can tell M. de Lescure that Madame is here; it might be too much
for Monsieur to see her all at once."

Without waiting for an answer, Chapeau knocked at the door and went in,
while the two ladies sat down on the nearest step, dreading almost to
breathe in their intense anxiety; in a few seconds Arthur Mondyon came
out, and taking a hand of each of his two friends, pressed them to his
lips.

"He knows you are here," said he to Madame de Lescure, "and you are to
go into him alone. Marie and I wifi go down stairs until he sends for
us. Be tranquil as you can, while you are with him; you will find him
as calm as ever."

She rose, and entered the room on tiptoe, as Chapeau left it; her face
was as pale as marble, and her heart beat so violently that she felt
that she would hardly be able to reach the chair at the bed-side. De
Lescure was lying on a decent but very humble bed, at the farthest end
of a large room, in which there were three or four other bedsteads, and
an enormous number of common deal chairs and tables piled one a-top of
another. He was propped up in the bed on pillows, and as he turned his
eyes towards the door, the full light of the sun shone upon his face,
and gave an especial ghastliness to its pallor.

Madame de Lescure tried to control herself; but in such moments the
feelings of the heart overcome the reason, and the motions of the body
are governed by passion alone. In an instant her face was on his bosom,
and her arms were locked closely round his body.

"Victorine--my own Victorine," said he, "my greatest grief is over now.
I feared that we were not to meet again, and that thought alone was
almost too much for my courage."

She was for a time unable to articulate a word. He felt her warm tears
as she convulsively pressed her cheek against his breast; he felt the
violent throbs of her loving heart, and allowed her a few minutes before
he asked her to speak to him. She had thrown off the hat which she had
worn before entering the room, and he now gently smoothed her ruffled
hair with his hand, and collected together the loose tresses which had
escaped down her neck.

"Look up, love," he said; "I haven't seen your face yet, or heard your
voice. Come, Victorine, you were not used to be so weak. We must all
string our nerves now, dearest: we must all be brave now. We used to
praise you for your courage; now is the time for you to show it."

"Oh, Charles! oh, my poor stricken love!" and then she raised her face
and gazed into his, till the tears made her eyes so dim that she could
hardly see him. "I knew it would come at last," she said; "I knew this
fearful blow would come at last. Oh, that we had gone when others went!
at any rate I should not have lived to see you thus."

"Do no say that, Victorine; do not speak so--do not allow yourself to
think so--or you will rob both of us of our dearest comfort. No, my
love; were it to do again, I again would stand by the throne, and you
again would counsel me to do so. A doubt on that point would be
calamity, indeed; but, thank God, there is no doubt."

"But the misery to see you thus--torn, and mangled, and tortured. And
for what? What good have we done with our hot patriotism? Is the King
nearer his throne? Are the murders of the Republic less frequent?"

"I fear you are selfish now, love. Did we not know, when we first took
up our arms, that many happy wives would be widowed--that numberless
children would be made fatherless--that hundreds of mothers would have
to weep for their sons. We must not ourselves complain of that fate, to
which we have knowingly, and thoughtfully, consigned so many others."

Madame de. Lescure had no answer to make to her husband's remonstrance.
She sat herself upon the bed, so that she could support his head upon
her bosom; and pressing her lips to his clammy brow, she said in a low
voice: "God's will be done, Charles: with all my heart I pity those who
have suffered as I now suffer."

She remained sitting there in silence for a considerable time; weeping,
indeed, but stifling her sobs, that the sound of her grief might not
agitate him, while he enjoyed the inexpressible comfort of having her
close to him. He closed his eyes as he leant against the sweet support
which she afforded him, but not in sleep; he was thinking over all it
might be most necessary for him to say to her, before the power of
speech had left him, and taking counsel with himself as to the advice
which he would give her.

"Victorine," he said, and then paused a moment for a reply, but, as she
did not answer him, he went on. "Victorine, I want you to be all
yourself now, while I speak to you. Can you listen to me calmly, love,
while I speak to you seriously?"

She said that she would, but the tone in which she said it, hardly gave
confirmation to her promise.

"I hardly know what account you have yet heard of that unfortunate
battle."

"Oh! I have heard that it was most unfortunate: unfortunate to all, but
most unfortunate to us."

"It was unfortunate. I hope those who spoke to you of it, deceived you
with no false hopes, for that would have been mere cruelty. Give me your
hand, my love; I hope they told you the truth. You know, dearest, do you
not, that--that--that my wound is mortal?"

She strove hard to control her feelings. She bit her under lip between
her teeth; she pressed her feet against the bed, and grasped the loose
clothes with the hand which was disengaged. The virtue on which her
husband most prided himself was calmness and self-possession in
affliction. She knew that he now expected that virtue from her, and that
nothing would so grieve him as to see her render herself weakly up to
her sorrow, and she strove hard to control it; but all her exertion did
not enable her to answer him. It seemed almost miraculous to herself
that she could sit there, and retain her consciousness, and hear him
utter such words. Had she attempted to speak, the effort would have
overcome her.

"For heaven's sake, Victorine, let nothing, let nobody deceive you; know
the worst, and look to Christ for power to bear it, and you will find
the burden not too heavy to be borne. You and I, love, must part in this
world. We have passed our lives together without one shadow to darken
the joy of our union: we have been greatly blessed beyond others. Can
we complain because our happiness on earth is not eternal? Is it not a
great comfort that we can thus speak together before we part; that I
have been allowed to live to see your dear face, to feel your breath on
my cheek, and to hear your voice? to tell you, with the assurance which
the approach of death gives me, that these sorrows are but for a time,
and that our future joys shall be everlasting? And I must thank you,
Victorine, for your tender care, your constant love. You have made me
happy here; you have helped to fit me for happiness hereafter. It is
owing to you that even this hour has but little bitterness for me. Are
we not happy, dearest; are we not happy even now in each other's love?"

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