La Vendee by Anthony Trollope

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"Why, Jacques, I do not see it yet, certainly."

"Oh! Sir, it's a fact; they are dying to have a musket in their hands.
I pledge for them my word of honour," and Jacques laid his hand upon his
heart. "You will find they are with me, your reverence, when I meet you
at the cross-roads, within half a mile of Coron, on Monday morning. But,
M. Henri, they have a father."

"Have a father!" said the Cure, "of course they have."

"You don't mean to tell me that Michael Stein, the smith, is a
republican?"

"A republican!" said Jaques. "Oh! no, the heavens preserve us, he's
nothing so bad as that, or his own son wouldn't remain under his roof
another night, or his daughter either. No; Annot wouldn't remain with
him another hour, were he twenty times her father, if he turned
republican."

"Why does he prevent his sons joining the muster, then?" said Henri.

"He is very fond of money, M. Henri. Old Michael Stein is very fond of
money; and every one in the country who owns a franc at all, is buying
an old sword or a gun, or turning a reaping-hook into a sabre, or
getting a long pike made with an axe at the end of it; so Michael
Stein's smithy is turned into a perfect armoury, and he and his two sons
are at work at the anvil morning, noon, and night: they made Annot blow
the bellows this morning, till she looks for all the world like a
tinker's wife."

"That alters the case," said Father Jerome; "they are doing good
service, if they are making arms for our men; they are better employed
than though they joined us themselves."

"Don't say so, Father Jerome," said Jacques, "pray don't say so, Jean
and Peter would die were they not to be of the party at Saumur; but
Michael is so passionate and so headstrong, and he swears they shall not
go. Now go they will, and therefore I supplicate that my word may be
taken, and that I may be saved the dishonour of hearing the names of my
friends read out aloud with those of men who will disgrace their parish
and their country."

The request of Jacques was granted, and the names of Jean and Peter
Stein were erased from the top of the black list.

It was eight in the evening before the recruiting party had finished
their work, and it was not yet noon when they rode into the little
village. Henri and the Cure got their supper and slept at the Mayor's
house, and even there they were not allowed to be quiet; some of those
who were to be at Saumur, were continually calling for new instructions;
one wanted to know what arms he was to carry, another what provisions
he was to bring, a third was anxious to be a corporal, and a fourth and
fifth begged that they might not be separated, as one was going to marry
the sister of the other. None of these were turned away unanswered; the
door of the Mayor's house was not closed for a moment, and Henri, to be
enabled to eat his supper at all, was obliged to give his last military
orders with a crust of bread in his hand, and his mouth full of meat.

As might be supposed, Jacques spent the evening with Annot Stein, at
least it was his intention to have done so; but he had been so leading
a person in the day's transactions that he also was besieged by the
villagers, and was hardly able to whisper a word into his sweetheart's
ear. There he sat, however, very busy and supremely happy in the smith's
kitchen, with a pipe in his mouth and a bottle of wine before him. The
old smith sat opposite to him, while the two young men stood among a lot
of others round the little table, and Annot bustled in and out of the
room, now going close enough up to her lover to enable him. to pinch her
elbow unseen by her father, and then leaning against the dresser, and
listening to his military eloquence.

"And so, my friend," said Chapeau, "Jean and Peter are not to go to
Saumur?"

"Not a foot, Chapeau," said the old man, "not a foot, Chapeau; let ye
fight, we will make swords for you: is not that fair, neighbour?"

"I have nothing to say against it, M. Stein, not a word; only such
fellows as they, they would surely get promoted."

"Oh, ay; you will all be sergeants, no doubt. I have nothing to say
against that; only none of mine shall go waging wars in distant lands."

"Distant lands, say you! is not Saumur in Anjou? and is not Anjou within
three miles of you, here where you are sitting?"

"May be so, M. Chapeau; but still, with your leave, I say Saumur is
distant. Can you get there in one day from here?"

"Why no, not in one day."

"Nor in two?"

"Why, no again; though they might do it in two. They'll start from here
Monday morning with light, and they'll reach Saumur on Wednesday in time
to look about them, and learn what they have to do the next morning."

"That's three day's going, and three coming, and heaven only knows how
many days there; and you don't call that distant! Who's to feed them all
I'd like to know?"

"Feed them!" said Chapeau. "I wish you could see all the bullocks and
the wine at Durbelliere; they'll have rations like fighting-cocks. I
only pray that too much good living make them not lazy."

"Were I a man," said Annot, as she put on the table a fresh bottle of
wine, which she had just brought in from the little inn, "were I a man,
as I would I were, I would go, whether or no."

"Would you, minx," said the father; "it's well for you that your
petticoats keep you at home."

"Don't be too sure of her, Michael Stein," said Paul Rouel, the keeper
of the inn; "she'll marry a soldier yet before the wars are over."

"Let her do as her mother did before her, and marry an honest tradesman;
that is, if she can find one to take her."

"Find one!" said Annot, "if I can't get a husband without finding one,
indeed, I'm sure I'll not fash myself with seeking: let him find me that
wants me."

"And it wont be the first that finds you either, that'll be allowed to
take to you, will it Annot?" said the innkeeper.

"That's as may be, Master Rouel," said Annot. "Those who ask no
questions are seldom told many lies."

"I know Annot Stein loves a soldier in her heart," said another old man,
who was sitting inside the large open chimney. "The girls think there
is no trade like soldiering. I went for a soldier when I was young, and
it was all to oblige Lolotte Gobelin; and what think ye, when I was
gone, she got married to Jean Geldert, down at Petit Ange. There's
nothing for the girls like soldiering."

"You give us great encouragement truly," said Jacques. "I hope our
sweethearts will not all do as Lolotte did. You would not serve your
lover so, when he was fighting for his King and country--would you,
Annot?"

"I might, then, if I didn't like him," said she.

"She's no better than her neighbours, M. Chapeau," said one of her
brothers. "There was young Boullin, the baker, at St. Paul's. Till we
heard of these wars, Annot was as fond of him as could be. It was none
but he then; but now, she will not as much as turn her head if she sees
his white jacket."

"Hold thine unmannerly, loutish, stupid tongue, wilt thou, thou dolt,"
said Annot, deeply offended. "Boullin indeed! I danced with him last
harvest-home; I know not why, unless for sheer good-nature; and now,
forsooth, I am to have Boullin for ever thrust in my teeth. Bah! I hate
a baker. I would as lieve take a butcher at once."

Jacques Chapean also was offended.

"I wonder, Jean Stein," said he, "that you know not better than to liken
your sister to such as young Boullin--a very good young man in his way,
I have no doubt. You should remember there is a difference in these
things."

"I don't know," said Jean, "why a smith's daughter should not marry a
baker's son; but I did not mean to vex Annot, and will say no more about
him; only good bread is a very good thing to have in one's house."

"And a butcher is a good trade too," said the old man inside the
chimney. "Jean Geldert, he that Lolotte Gobelin ran off with, he was a
butcher."

CHAPTER VII

SUNDAY IN THE BOCAGE.

The remainder of that week was spent by Henri and the Cure as actively
and as successfully as the day in which they visited Echanbroignes. The
numbers they enrolled exceeded their hopes, and they found among the
people many more arms than they expected, though mostly of a very rude
kind. The party separated on the Saturday night, with the understanding
that they were to meet together at Done on the Tuesday evening, to
proceed from thence to the attack of Saumur. Henri Larochejaquelin
returned to Durbelliere. The Cure of St. Laud went to his own parish,
to perform mass among his own people on the following morning, and
Jacques Chapeau, according to agreement, took up his quarters at the
smith's house in Echanbroignes.

On the following morning, he and Annot, and most of the young men and
women of the village walked over to St. Laud's to receive mass from
Father Jerome, and to hear the discourse which he had promised to give
respecting the duties of the people in the coming times.

The people, as in olden days, were crowded round the church about
half-past ten o'clock; but the doors of the church were closed. The
revolt in La Vendee had already gone far enough to prevent the
possibility of the constitutional priests officiating in the churches
to which they had been appointed by the National Assembly; but it had
not yet gone far enough to enable the old nonjuring Cures to resume
generally their own places in their own churches: the people, however,
now crowded round the church of St. Laud's, till they should learn where
on that day Father Jerome would perform mass.

The church of St. Laud's did not stand in any village, nor was it
surrounded even by a cluster of cottages. It stood by itself on the side
of a narrow little road, and was so completely surrounded by beech and
flowering ash trees, that a stranger would not know that he was in the
neighbourhood of a place of worship till it was immediately in front of
him. Opposite to the door of the church and on the other side of the
road, was a cross erected on a little mound; and at its foot a Capuchin
monk in his arse brown frock, with his hood thrown back, and his eyes
turned to heaven, was always kneeling: the effigy at least of one was
doing so, for it was a painted wooden monk that was so perpetually at
his prayers.

The church itself was small, but it boasted of a pretty grey tower; and
on each side of the door of the church were two works of art, much
celebrated in the neighbourhood. On the left side, beneath the window,
a large niche was grated in with thick, rusty iron bars. It occupied the
whole extent from the portico to the corner of the church, and from the
ground to the window; and, within the bars, six monster demons--spirits
of the unrepentent dead, the forms of wretches who had died without
owning the name of their Saviour, were withering in the torments of
hell-fire; awful indeed was the appearance of these figures; they were
larger than human, and twisted into every variety of contortion which
it was conceived possible that agony could assume. Their eyes were made
to protrude from their faces, their fiery tongues were hanging from
their scorched lips; the hairs of each demon stood on end and looked
like agonized snakes; they were of various hideous colours; one was a
dingy blue; another a horrid dirty yellow, as though perpetual jaundice
were his punishment; another was a foul unhealthy green; a fourth was
of a brick-dust colour; a fifth was fiery red, and he was leaping high
as though to escape the flame; but in vain, for a huge blue flake of
fire had caught him by the leg, and bound him fast; his fiery red hands
were closed upon the bars, his tortured face was pressed against them,
and his screeching mouth was stretched wide open so as to display two
awful rows of red-hot teeth; the sixth a jet black devil, cowered in a
corner and grinned, as though even there he had some pleasure in the
misery of his companions.

The space occupied on the other side was much larger, for it was carried
up so far as to darken a great portion of the window. That on the left
represented the misery of hell--torment without hope. That on the right
contained two tableaus: the lower one was purgatory, here four recumbent
figures lay in the four corners, uncomfortably enough; for the bed of
each figure was six sharp spikes, each of which perforated the occupier
of it. But yet these dead men were not horrible to look at as those six
other wretches; their eyes were turned on a round aperture above, the
edge of which was all gilt and shining, for the glory of heaven shone
into it. This aperture entered into paradise. Through the aperture the
imaginative artist had made a spirit to be passing---his head and
shoulders were in paradise; these were also gilt and glorious, and on
his shoulders two little seraphims were fixing wings; his nether parts
below the aperture, were still brown and dingy, as were the four
recumbent spirits who rested on their gridirons till the time should
come that they also should be passed through.

Above the aperture was to be seen paradise in all its blazon of glory,
numberless little golden-headen cherubims encircled a throne, on which
was seated the beneficent majesty of Heaven. From the towers and roofs
projected numerous brazen-mouthed instruments, which welcomed into
everlasting joy the purified spirit which was ascending from purgatory.

Thus were paradise, purgatory and pandemonium represented at St. Laud's,
and abominable as such representations now appear to be, they had, to
a certain extent, a salutary effect with the people who were in the
habit of looking at them. That they were absolute accurate
representations of the places represented, they never for a moment
presumed to doubt; and if the joys of heaven, as displayed there, were
not of much avail in adding to the zeal of the faithful, the horrors of
hell were certainly most efficacious in frightening the people into
compliance with the rules laid down for them, and in preventing them
from neglecting their priests and religious duties.

The people were crowded round the church; some were kneeling with the
wooden monk at the foot of the cross, and some round the bars of
purgatory. Others were prostrated before the six condemned demons, and
some sat by the road-side, on the roots of the trees, telling their
beads. Many men were talking of the state of the times, and of the wars
to come; some were foretelling misery and desolation, and others were
speaking of the happy days about to return, when their King and their
priests should have their own, and La Vendee should be the most honoured
province in France.

They made a pretty scene, waiting there beneath the shade till their
priest should come to lead them to some rural chapel. The bright colours
worn by the women in their Sunday clothes, and the picturesque forms of
the men, in their huge broad-brimmed flapping hats, harmonized well with
the thick green foliage around them. They shewed no sign of impatience,
they were quite content to wait there, and pray, or gossip, or make love
to each other, till such time as Father Jerome should please to come;
they had no idea that their time was badly spent in waiting for so good
a man.

At any rate he came before they were tired, and with him came a man who
was a stranger to them all, except to Jacques Chapeau. This man was but
little, if anything, better dressed than themselves; he looked like one
of their own farmers of the better days; certainly from his dress and
manner he had no pretensions to be called a gentleman, and yet he walked
and talked with Father Jerome as though he were his equal.

"God bless you, my children, God bless you," said the Cure, in answer
to the various greetings he received from his flock. "Follow me, my
children, and we will worship God beneath the canopy of his holy
throne," and then turning to the stranger, he added: "the next time you
visit me at St. Laud's, M. d'Elbee, we shall, I doubt not, have our
church again. I could now desire the people to force the doors for me,
and no one would dare to hinder them; but I have been thrust from my
altar and pulpit by a self-constituted vain authority--but yet by
authority; and I will not resume them till I do so by the order of the
King or of his servants."

"I reverence the house of God," replied M. d'Elbee, "because his spirit
has sanctified it; but walls and pillars are not necessary to my
worship; a cross beneath a rock is as perfect a church to them who have
the will to worship, as though they had above them the towers of Notre
Dame, or the dome of St. Peter's."

"You are right, my son; it is the heart that God regards; and where that
is in earnest, his mercy will dispense with the outward symbols of our
religion; but still it is our especial duty to preserve to his use
everything which the piety of former ages has sanctified; to part
willingly with nothing which appertains in any. way to His church. The
best we have is too little for His glory. It should be our greatest
honour to give to Him; it is through His great mercy that He receives
our unworthy offerings. Come, my children, follow me; our altar is
prepared above."

The priest led the way through a little shaded path at the back of the
church; behind a farmhouse and up a slight acclivity, on the side of
which the rocks in different places appeared through the green turf, and
the crowd followed him at a respectful distance.

"And who is that with Father Jerome--who is the stranger, M. Chapeau?"
said one and another of them, crowding round Jacques--for it soon got
abroad among them, that Jacques Chapeau had seen the stranger in some
of his former military movements in La Vendee. Chapeau was walking
beside his mistress, and was not at all sorry of the opportunity of
shewing off.

"Who is he, indeed?" said Jacques. "Can it be that none of you know M.
d'Elbee?"

"D'Elbee!--d'Elbee!--indeed; no, then, I never heard the name till this
moment," said one.

"Nor I," said another; "but he must be a good man, or Father Jerome
would not walk with him just before performing mass."

"You are right there, Jean," said Jacques, "M. d'Elbee is a good man;
he has as much religion as though he were a priest himself."

"And he must be a thorough royalist," said another, "or Father Jerome
wouldn't walk with him at all."

"You are right, too, my friend; M. d'Elbee is a great royalist. He is
the especial friend of our good Cathelineau."

"The friend of Cathelineau and of Father Jerome," said a fourth, "then
I am sure M. d'Elbee must be something out of the common way."

"You are right again, he is very much out of the common way, he is one
of our great generals," said Chapeau.

"One of our great generals, is he," said two or three at once. "I knew
he was going to Saumur," said Jean, "or Father Jerome wouldn't have
walked so peaceable with him, great as he may be."

"But if he is a great general," said Annot, "why has he no lace upon his
coat; why doesn't he wear a sword and look smart like M.
Larochejaquelin? At any rate he is a very shabby general."

"He has a terrible long nose too," said another girl. "And he has not
a morsel of starch in his shirt ruffles, I declare," said a third, who
officiated as laundress to the Mayor of Echanbroignes.

"I'm sure the republicans will never be afraid of such a general as he
is. You are joking with us now, Jacques. I am sure he is not a general;
he is more like a grocer from Nantes."

"And is not Cathelineau like a postilion?" said Jacques, "and I hope you
will allow he is a great soldier. You know nothing of these things yet,
Annot. M. Larochejaquelin is so smart because he is a young nobleman;
not because he is a general."

"And is not M. d'Elbee a nobleman?" said one of the girls.

"Not a bit of it," said Chapeau.

"Well, I think the generals should all be noblemen; I declare," said the
laundress, "M. Larochejaquelin did look so nice last Wednesday, when he
was getting off his horse."

"That is all; but Cathelineau," said Annot, "he is the finest fellow of
them all. I'd sooner have Cathelinean for my lover, than the Duc de
Chartres, and he's the king's cousin."

"You are a foolish girl, Annot," said Chapeau. "You might as well want
the picture of St. John out of the church window down yonder, and take
that for your lover, as Cathelineau. Don't you know he's the Saint of
Anjou?"

"He might marry a wife, and have a house full of children, for all that;
that's the difference between being a saint and a priest; there's no
harm in being in love with a saint, and I am very much in love with
Cathelineau."

"Why, you little ninny, you never saw him," said Chapean.

"No matter," said Annot; "ninny, or no ninny, I'll go where I'm like to
see him; and I'm sure I'll never bear the sight of another man
afterwards; the dear, good, sweet Cathelineau, with his curly hair, and
fine whiskers, and black bright eyes; he's better than all the noblemen:
I declare I dreamed of him these last two nights."

Chapeau left the side of his mistress, muttering something about stupid
foolish chits of girls, and continued his description of M. d'Elbee to
the men.

"Indeed he is a very great general. I don't know very well where he came
from, but I believe somewhere down in the Marais, from his being such
a friend of M. Charette; but he has been fighting against the
republicans this long time, even before Cathelineau began, I believe,
though I don't exactly know where. I know he was made a prisoner in
Paris, and nearly killed there by some of those bloody-minded rebels;
then he escaped, and he was at the siege of Machecoult, and got
honourably wounded, and was left for dead: and then he was at
Thouars--no, not at Thouars; we heard he was coming, but he didn't come;
but he was at Fontenay, and that's where I first saw him. M. Bonchamps
brought him in and introduced him to M. de Lescure, and our M.
Larochejaquelin, and I was astonished to see how much they made of him,
for he was dressed just as he is now, and had no sword or anything.
Well, as soon as he came in they all went to work talking, and settling
how Fontenay was to be attacked, for though its a little place, and not
walled and fortified like Saumur, we had a deal of trouble with it; but
before a word was spoken, M. d'Elbee stood up and said, 'Brethren,' said
he, 'let us ask the assistance of our Saviour:' so down they went on
their knees, and he said an awful long prayer, for all the world like
a priest. And then again before we fired a shot, he bade all the
soldiers kneel down, and down we went, the republicans firing at us all
the time. The soldiers call him Old Providence, for they say he talks
a deal about Providence when he is fighting."

"You may be sure that's what makes Father Jerome so fond of him," said
Jean. "I knew he was a good man."

"And he was a desperate fellow to fight afterwards," continued Chapeau.
"But he walked into the thick of the fighting just as he is now."

"But he had a sword, or a gun, or a spear?" said Jean.

"Neither the one or the other; he was just as he is this minute, giving
orders, and directing some of the men there who knew him well.
Presently, he said to a young gentleman who was near him: 'Lend me that
sword a moment, will you?' and he took it out of his hands, and made a
rush through the gate of Fontenay, and I saw no more of him that day."

"Why did you not rush after him, then, M. Chapeau?"

"Rush after him! Why, you simpleton; do you think in wars like that
every man is to rush just where he pleases; you'll soon be taught the
difference. M. d'Elbee was a general, and might go where he liked; but
I was a corporal under M. Henri, with ten men under me. We had to remain
where we were, and cut off the republicans, if they showed their noses
at a point in the street which we covered; it's only the generals that
go rushing about in that way. But here we are at Father Jerome's altar.
Well; I'm very hot. I'm sure its nearly half a league up here from the
church."

They had now come to a rude altar, constructed on a piece of rock, in
front of which was a small space of green turf: the whole spot was
closely surrounded by beech and ash-trees; so closely, indeed, that the
sun hardly made its way into it, and the rocks around it rising up
through the grass afforded ample accommodation for the people. In a
moment, they were on their knees on the grass; some almost immediately
before the altar; others kneeling against the rocks; others again with
their heads and hands resting against the trunk of a huge beech-tree.

Hither had been brought the necessary appurtenances for the performance
of mass. A small, but beautifully white cloth was spread upon a flat
portion of the rock; bread was there, and a small quantum of wine; a
little patina and a humble chalice. M. d'Elbee took his place among the
crowd before the altar, and Father Jerome, having dressed himself in his
robes, performed, with a fine, full, sonorous voice, the morning service
of his church. When so occupied, he had no longer the look of the
banished priest: his sacred vestments had not shared the decay which had
fallen on his ordinary clothes. No bishop rising from his throne to
bless the congregation assembled in his cathedral, could assume more
dignity, or inspire more solemnity than the Cure of St. Laud, as he
performed mass at his sylvan altar in La Vendee.

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