The Whites and the Blues (16 page)

"Have you anything to say ?"

"No; but I have a few favors to ask."

"As I told you, anything in my power I will grant."

''Thank you, captain."

The captain came closer to the count. "We may serve under different flags," said he, "but we are still French men, and brave men recognize each other at a glance. Speak then; what do you want?"

"First, I want you to take off these cords which make me look like a galley-slave."

"You are right," said the captain. "Unbind the pris oner. ''

Two men stepped forward; but Charles had already' darted toward the count and freed his hands.

"Ah!" exclaimed the count, stretching out his arms, and shaking himself beneath his mantle, "how good it feels to be free."

"And now?" asked the captain.

"I want to give the word of command."

"You shall give it. And then ?"

"I should like to send some souvenir to my family."

"You know that we are forbidden to take any letters from political prisoners who are condemned to death; but anything else, yes."

"I do not wish to give you any trouble on that score. Here is my compatriot Charles, who, as you have already promised, is to accompany me to the place of execution; he will undertake to deliver something to my family; let it be, not a letter, but an article that has belonged to me—my old foraging cap, for instance."

The count named his cap in the same careless tone he would have employed in speaking of any other article of his apparel, and the captain did not hesitate to grant his request.

"Is that all?" he asked.

"Faith, yes," answered the count, "and it is time. My feet are growing cold, and there is nothing in the world I

dislike so much as cold feet. Come, captain; for you ars coming with us, I presume."

"It is my duty."

The count bowed, smilingly pressed little Charles's hand, and looked inquiringly at the captain to know what direc tion to take.

"This way," said the captain, placing himself at the head of the squad.

They followed him, passing through a postern gate into a second court, upon the ramparts of which sentinels wers pacing back and forth. At the end was a tall wall riddled with balls at about the height of a man's head.

"Ah! there it is," said the prisoner; and he went toward the wall of his own accord. Four steps from it he stopped.

"Here we are," said the captain. "Clerk, read the sen tence to the condemned man."

After the reading the count bowed his head, as if to acknowledge its justice. Then he said: "I beg your par don, captain; I have a few words to say by myself."

The captain and the soldiers drew aside. The count put the elbow of his right arm in his left hand, leaned his fore head upon his right hand, shut his eyes, and remained mo tionless, his lips moving silently. He was praying.

There is something holy about a man who is about to die, and who is praying, which even the most unbelieving respect. Not a word, not a smile, not a jest, disturbed the count's last communion with Grod. When he raised his head his face wore a smile; he embraced his young com patriot, and, like Charles I., his last injunction was: "Ee-member!"

Charles bowed his head, weeping.

Then the count said in a firm voice: "Attention!"

The soldiers fell into two ranks at ten paces from him, the captain and Charles placing themselves at either side. The condemned man, as if he did not wish to give the order to fire while his head was still covered, took off his foraging cap and tossed it carelessly aside. It fell at Charles's feet

"Are you ready ?" asked the count.

"Yes," replied the soldiers.

*' Present arms! Keady! Fire 1—Long live tlie k—''

He had not time to finish; a report was heard; seven bullets had pierced his breast; he fell face down upon the ground. Charles picked up the foraging cap, put it inside his vest, and buttoned the latter over it; and, as he put it in his vest, he made sure that the letter was there.

A quarter of an hour later he entered citizen-general Pichegru's cabinet.

CHAPTEE XVII

PICHEGRU

PICHEGEU is destined to play so important a part in this story that we must fix the eyes of the reader upon him with more attention than we have done with the secondary characters that we have hitherto put upon the scene.

Charles Pichegru was born on the 16th of February, 1761, in the village of Planches, near Arbois. His family were poor and rustic; his forefathers had been known for three or four hundred years as honest day-laborers, and they had derived their name from the character of their work. They reaped their gru or grain, with the pic or mattock; from these two words, pic and grit,, the name of Pichegru had been derived.

Pichegru, who early showed traces of that precocious disposition which marks the distinguished man, began his education at the school of the Paulist Fathers at Arbois; they, seeing his rapid progress, particularly in mathematics, sent him, with Father Patrault, one of their professors, to the College of Brienne. There he made such progress that at the end of two years he was appointed assistant profes sor. At this period his whole ambition was to be a monk; but Father Patrault, who divined Napoleon's genius, saw,

THE WHITES AND THE BLUES

with equal clearness, Pichegru's possibilities, and induced him to turn his attention to military life.

Yielding to his advice, Pichegru, in 1783, entered the first foot artillery, where, thanks to his incontestable merit, he promptly rose to the rank of adjutant, in which grade he made his first campaign in America. Upon his return to France he ardently embraced the principles of 1789, and was a leader in a popular society in Besan§ori, when a regiment 'of the Volunteer Guards, passing through the city, chose him for their commander. Two months later Pichegru was commander-in-chief of the Army of the Ehine.

M. de Narbonne, Minister of War, having missed him, asked one day in speaking of him: "What became of that young officer to whom all the colonels were tempted to take off their hats when they spoke to him ?''

This young officer had become commander-in-chief of the Army of the Khine, a promotion that had not tended to make him any prouder than he had been before. And, in deed, Pichegru's rapid advancement, his fine education, and the exalted position he held in the army had not changed in the least the simplicity of his heart. As a sub-officer, he had had a mistress, and had always provided for her; her name was Kose, she was thirty years old, a dressmaker, lame, and not at all pretty. She lived at Besangon. Once a week she wrote to the general, always in the most respect ful manner.

These letters were always full of good counsel and tender advice; she admonished the general not to be dazzled by his good fortune, and to remain the same Chariot that he had , always been at home; she urged him to economy, not for her sake, but for that of his parents. She, (rod be thanked, could take care of herself; she had made six dresses for the wiie of a representative, and was to make six more for the wife of a general. She had in addition three pieces of gold, which represented fifteen or sixteen hundred francs in paper money,

Pichegru, whatever his occupation, always read these

letters as soon as he received them, and put them away in his portfolio carefully, saying: ''Poor dear girl, 1 myself taught her how to spell."

We crave permission to enlarge upon these details. We are about to bring actively upon the stage men who, for a long time, have been more or less prominently before the eyes of Europe, who have been praised or blamed as the different parties wished to elevate or abase them. Histori ans themselves have judged these men more or less super ficially, thanks to their habit of accepting ready-made opin ions ; but it is different with the novelist, constrained as he is to descend to the veriest details, since in the most insig nificant he may sometimes find the thread that will guide him through the most inextricable labyrinth—that of the human heart. We therefore dare to affirm that in showing them in their private life, which historians altogether neg lect to do, as well as in their public life, to which too much attention is often paid, although it is sometimes but the mask of the other, we shall bring these illustrious dead be fore the reader's eyes, for the first time as they really were —these dead whom political passions have cast into the hands of calumny to be buried and forgotten.

Thus history tells us that Pichegru betrayed France, for the sake of the government of Alsace, the red ribbon, the Chateau of Chambord, its park, and its dependencies, to gether with twelve pieces of cannon, a million in ready money, two thousand francs of income, half of which was revertible at his death to his wife, and five thousand to each of his children; and finally the territory of Arbois, which was to bear the title of Pichegru, and was to be exempt from taxes for ten years.

The material reply to this accusation is that, as Pichegru was never married, he had neither wife nor children to pro vide for; the moral reply is, to show him in his private life that we may know what his needs and ambitions really were.

Eose, as we have seen, gave two pieces of advice to her lover: One was to practice economy for his parents' sake,

and the other was to remain the same good and simple Chariot that he had always been.

Pichegru received during the campaign a daily sum of one hundred and fifty thousand francs in paper money. The sum for the whole month arrived on the 1st in great sheets divided off. Every morning enough was cut off for the needs of the day, and the sheet was laid upon a table with a pair of scissors upon it. Any one who wished had access to it, and the result was that the sheet rarely lasted the whole month. When it was gone, on the 24th or 25th, as frequently happened, every one had to get along as best he could for the remainder of the time.

One of his secretaries wrote of him: "The great mathe matician of Brienne was incapable of calculating in ready money the account of his washerwoman." And he added: 1 'An empire would have been too small for his genius; a farm was too great for his indolence."

As for Eose's advice to remain "the same good Chariot," we shall see whether he needed the advice.

Two or three years after the time of which we are writing, Pichegru, then at the height of his popularity, on his return to his beloved Franche-Comte, to revisit his natal town of Planche, was stopped at the entrance of Arbois, beneath a triumphal arch, by a deputation which came to compliment him and to invite him to a state dinner and a grand ball.

Pichegru listened smilingly to the orator, and when he had finished, said:

"My dear compatriot, I have only a few hours to pass in the place where I was born, and I must devote most of them to my relatives in the neighboring villages; if the friendship which exists between us should lead me to neglect them, you would be the first to blame me, and you would be right. You have come to invite me to a dinner and a ball, and, although I have not been in the habit of indulging in those pleasures lately, I should be delighted to participate in them. I should be pleased to drink a few glasses of our excellent new wine in such good company, and to watch the young