The Companions of Jehu, Alexandre Dumas [great books of all time .txt] 📗
- Author: Alexandre Dumas
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I cannot tell you—my researches (those who know me will do me the justice to admit that when I have an end in view, I do not count them)—my researches have not discovered an answer. It was a whim of Fashion, and Fashion is the one goddess more capricious than Fortune.
Our readers will hardly know to-day who Fréron was. The Fréron who was Voltaire’s assailant was better known than he who was the patron of these elegant assassins; one was the son of the other. Louis Stanislas was son of Elie-Catherine. The father died of rage when Miromesnil, Keeper of the Seals, suppressed his journal. The other, irritated by the injustices of which his father had been the victim, had at first ardently embraced the revolutionary doctrines. Instead of the “Année Littéraire,” strangled to death in 1775, he created the “Orateur du Peuple,” in 1789. He was sent to the Midi on a special mission, and Marseilles and Toulon retain to this day the memory of his cruelty. But all was forgotten when, on the 9th Thermidor, he proclaimed himself against Robespierre, and assisted in casting from the altar the Supreme Being, the colossus who, being an apostle, had made himself a god. Fréron, repudiated by the Mountain, which abandoned him to the heavy jaws of Moise Bayle; Fréron, disdainfully repulsed by the Girondins, who delivered him over to the imprecations of Isnard; Fréron, as the terrible and picturesque orator of the Var said, “Fréron naked and covered with the leprosy of crime,” was accepted, caressed and petted by the Thermidorians. From them he passed into the camp of the royalists, and without any reason whatever for obtaining that fatal honor, found himself suddenly at the head of a powerful party of youth, energy and vengeance, standing between the passions of the day, which led to all, and the impotence of the law, which permitted all.
It was to the midst of this jeunesse Fréron, mouthing its words, slurring its r’s, giving its “word of honor” about everything, that Morgan now made his way.
It must be admitted that this jeunesse, in spite of the clothes it wore, in spite of the memories these clothes evoked, was wildly gay. This seems incomprehensible, but it is true. Explain if you can that Dance of Death at the beginning of the fifteenth century, which, with all the fury of a modern galop, led by Musard, whirled its chain through the very Cemetery of the Innocents, and left amid its tombs fifty thousand of its votaries.
Morgan was evidently seeking some one.
A young dandy, who was dipping into the silver-gilt comfit-box of a charming victim, with an ensanguined finger, the only part of his delicate hand that had escaped the almond paste, tried to stop him, to relate the particulars of the expedition from which he had brought back this bloody trophy. But Morgan smiled, pressed his other hand which was gloved, and contented himself with replying: “I am looking for some one.”
“Important?”
“Company of Jehu.”
The young man with the bloody finger let him pass. An adorable Fury, as Corneille would have called her, whose hair was held up by a dagger with a blade as sharp as a needle, barred his way, saying: “Morgan, you are the handsomest, the bravest, the most deserving of love of all the men present. What have you to say to the woman who tells you that?”
“I answer that I love,” replied Morgan, “and that my heart is too narrow to hold one hatred and two loves.” And he continued on his search.
Two young men who were arguing, one saying, “He was English,” the other, “He was German,” stopped him.
“The deuce,” cried one; “here is the man who can settle it for us.”
“No,” replied Morgan, trying to push past them; “I’m in a hurry.”
“There’s only a word to say,” said the other. “We have made a bet, Saint-Amand and I, that the man who was tried and executed at the Chartreuse du Seillon, was, according to him, a German, and, according to me, an Englishman.”
“I don’t know,” replied Morgan; “I wasn’t there. Ask Hector; he presided that night.”
“Tell us where Hector is?”
“Tell me rather where Tiffauges is; I am looking for him.”
“Over there, at the end of the room,” said the young man, pointing to a part of the room where the dance was more than usually gay and animated. “You will recognize him by his waistcoat; and his trousers are not to be despised. I shall have a pair like them made with the skin of the very first hound I meet.”
Morgan did not take time to ask in what way Tiffauges’ waistcoat was remarkable, or by what queer cut or precious material his trousers had won the approbation of a man as expert in such matters as he who had spoken to him. He went straight to the point indicated by the young man, saw the person he was seeking dancing an été, which seemed, by the intricacy of its weaving, if I may be pardoned for this technical term, to have issued from the salons of Vestris himself.
Morgan made a sign to the dancer. Tiffauges stopped instantly, bowed to his partner, led her to her seat, excused himself on the plea of the urgency of the matter which called him away, and returned to take Morgan’s arm.
“Did you see him,” Tiffauges asked Morgan.
“I have just left him,” replied the latter.
“Did you deliver the King’s letter?”
“To himself.”
“Did he read it?”
“At once.”
“Has he sent an answer?”
“Two; one verbal, one written; the second dispenses with the first.”
“You have it?”
“Here it is.”
“Do you know the contents?”
“A refusal.”
“Positive?”
“Nothing could be more positive.”
“Does he know that from the moment he takes all hope away from us we shall treat him as an enemy?”
“I told him so.”
“What did he answer?”
“He didn’t answer; he shrugged his shoulders.”
“What do you think his intentions are?”
“It’s not difficult to guess.”
“Does he mean to keep the power himself?”
“It looks like it.”
“The power, but not the throne?”
“Why not the throne?”
“He would never dare to make himself king.”
“Oh! I can’t say he means to be absolutely king, but I’ll answer for it that he means to be something.”
“But he is nothing but a soldier of fortune!”
“My dear fellow, better in these days to be the son of his deeds, than the grandson of a king.”
The young man thought a moment.
“I shall report it all to Cadoudal,” he said.
“And add that the First Consul said these very words: ‘I hold the Vendée in the hollow of my hand, and if I choose in three months not another shot will be fired.’”
“It’s a good thing to know.”
“You know it; let Cadoudal know it, and take measures.”
Just then the music ceased; the hum of the dancers died away; complete silence prevailed; and, in the midst of this silence, four names were pronounced in a sonorous and emphatic voice.
These four names were Morgan, Montbar, Adler and d’Assas.
“Pardon me,” Morgan said to Tiffauges, “they are probably arranging some expedition in which I am to take part. I am forced, therefore, to my great regret, to bid you farewell. Only before I leave you let me look closer at your waistcoat and trousers, of which I have heard—curiosity of an amateur; I trust you will excuse it.”
“Surely!” exclaimed the young Vendéan, “most willingly.”
With a rapidity and good nature that did honor to his courtesy, he went close to the candelabra, which were burning on the chimney-piece. The waistcoat and trousers seemed to be of the same stuff; but what was that stuff? The most experienced connoisseur would have been puzzled.
The trousers were tight-fitting as usual, of a light tint between buff and flesh color; the only remarkable thing about them was the absence of the seam, and the closeness with which they clung to the leg. The waistcoat, on the other hand, had two characteristic signs which attracted attention; it had been pierced by three balls, which had the holes gaping, and these were stained a carmine, so like blood, that it might easily have been mistaken for it. On the left side was painted a bloody heart, the distinguishing sign of the Vendéans. Morgan examined the two articles with the closest attention, but without result.
“If I were not in such a hurry,” said he, “I should like to look into the matter for myself. But you heard for yourself; in all probability, some news has reached the committee; government money probably. You can announce it to Cadoudal; only we shall have to take it first. Ordinarily, I command these expeditions; if I delay, some one may take my place. So tell me what your waistcoat and trousers are made of.”
“My dear Morgan,” replied the Vendéan, “perhaps you have heard that my brother was captured near Bressure, and shot by the Blues?”
“Yes, I know that.”
“The Blues were retreating; they left the body at the corner of the hedge. We were pursuing them so closely that we arrived just after them. I found the body of my brother still warm. In one of his wounds a sprig was stuck with these words: ‘Shot as a brigand by me, Claude Flageolet, corporal of the Third Battalion of Paris.’ I took my brother’s body, and had the skin removed from his breast. I vowed that this skin, pierced with three holes, should eternally cry vengeance before my eyes. I made it my battle waistcoat.”
“Ah!” exclaimed Morgan, with a certain astonishment, in which, for the first time, was mingled something akin to terror—“Ah! then that waistcoat is made of your brother’s skin? And the trousers?”
“Oh!” replied the Vendéan, “the trousers, that’s another matter. They are made of the skin of Claude Flageolet, corporal of the Third Battalion of Paris.”
At that moment the voice again called out, in the same order, the names of Morgan, Montbar, Adler and d’Assas.
Morgan rushed out of the study, crossed the dancing-hall from end to end, and made his way to a little salon on the other side of the dressing-room. His three companions, Montbar, Adler and d’Assas, were there already. With them was a young man in the government livery of a bearer of despatches, namely a green and gold coat. His boots were dusty, and he wore a visored cap and carried the despatch-box, the essential accoutrements of a cabinet courier.
One of Cassini’s maps, on which could be followed the whole lay of the land, was spread on the table.
Before saying why this courier was there, and with what object the map was unfolded, let us cast a glance at the three new personages whose names had echoed through the ballroom, and who are destined to play an important part in the rest of this history.
The reader already knows Morgan, the Achilles and the Paris of this strange association; Morgan, with his blue eyes, his black hair, his tall, well-built figure, graceful, easy, active bearing; his eye, which was never without animation; his mouth, with its fresh lips and white teeth, that was never without a smile; his remarkable countenance, composed of mingling elements that seemed so foreign to each other—strength and tenderness, gentleness and energy; and, through it all, that bewildering expression of gayety that was at times alarming when one remembered that this man was perpetually rubbing shoulders with death, and the most terrifying of all deaths—that of the scaffold.
As for d’Assas, he was a man from thirty-five to thirty-eight years of age, with bushy hair that was turning gray, and mustaches as black as ebony. His eyes were of that wonderful
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