The Companions of Jehu, Alexandre Dumas [great books of all time .txt] 📗
- Author: Alexandre Dumas
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“Come, come,” said Bonaparte, catching Bourrienne by the ear, “that’s not bad.”
“When shall we move in, general?” asked Bourrienne.
“Oh, not tomorrow; it will take at least a week to prepare the Parisians to see me leave the Luxembourg for the Tuileries.”
“Eight days,” exclaimed Bourrienne; “that will do.”
“Especially if we begin at once. Come, Bourrienne, to the Luxembourg.”
With the rapidity that characterized all his movements when serious matters were in question, he passed through the suites of apartments he had already visited, ran down the stairs, and sprang into the carriage, calling out: “To the Luxembourg!”
“Wait, wait,” cried Bourrienne, still in the vestibule; “general, won’t you wait for me?”
“Laggard!” exclaimed Bonaparte. And the carriage started, as it had come, at a gallop.
When Bonaparte reentered his study he found the minister of police awaiting him.
“Well, what now, citizen Fouché? You look upset. Have I, perchance, been assassinated?”
“Citizen First Consul,” said the minister, “you seemed to attach the utmost importance to the destruction of those bands who call themselves the Companions of Jehu.”
“Evidently, since I sent Roland himself to pursue them. Have you any news of them?”
“We have.”
“From whom?”
“Their leader himself.”
“Their leader?”
“He has had the audacity to send me a report of their last exploit.”
“Against whom?”
“The fifty thousand francs you sent to the Saint-Bernard fathers.”
“What became of them?”
“The fifty thousand francs?”
“Yes.”
“They are in the possession of those brigands, and their leader informs me he will transfer them shortly to Cadoudal.”
“Then Roland is killed?”
“No.”
“How do you mean, no?”
“My agent is killed; Colonel Maurice is killed; but your aide-de-camp is safe and sound.”
“Then he will hang himself,” said Bonaparte.
“What good would that do? The rope would break; you know his luck.”
“Or his misfortune, yes—Where is the report?”
“You mean the letter?”
“Letter, report, thing—whatever it was that told you this news.”
The minister handed the First Consul a paper inclosed in a perfumed envelope.
“What’s this?”
“The thing you asked for.”
Bonaparte read the address: “To the citizen Fouché, minister of police. Paris.” Then he opened the letter, which contained the following.
CITIZEN MINISTER—I have the honor to inform you that the fifty thousand francs intended for the monks of Saint-Bernard came into our hands on the night of February 25, 1800 (old style), and that they will reach those of citizen Cadoudal within the week.
The affair was well-managed, save for the deaths of your agent and Colonel Saint-Maurice. As for M. Roland de Montrevel, I have the satisfaction of informing you that nothing distressing has befallen him. I did not forget that he was good enough to receive me at the Luxembourg.
I write you, citizen minister, because I presume that M. Roland de Montrevel is just now too much occupied in pursuing us to write you himself. But I am sure that at his first leisure moment you will receive from him a report containing all the details into which I cannot enter for lack of time and facilities for writing.
In exchange for the service I render you, citizen minister, I will ask you to do one for me; namely, inform Madame de Montrevel, without delay, that her son is in safety. MORGAN.
Maison-Blanche, on the road from Mâcon to Lyons, Saturday, 9 P.M.
“Ha, the devil!” said Bonaparte; “a bold scamp!” Then he added, with a sigh: “What colonels and captains those men would make me!”
“What are your orders, citizen First Consul?” asked the minister of police.
“None; that concerns Roland. His honor is at stake; and, as he is not killed, he will take his revenge.”
“Then the First Consul will take no further notice of the affair?”
“Not for the present, at any rate.” Then, turning to his secretary, he added, “We have other fish to fry, haven’t we, Bourrienne?”
Bourrienne nodded affirmatively.
“When does the First Consul wish to see me again?” asked the minister.
“Tonight, at ten o’clock. We move out in eight days.”
“Where are you going?”
“To the Tuileries.”
Fouché gave a start of amazement.
“Against your opinion, I know,” said the First Consul; “but I’ll take the whole business on myself; you have only to obey.”
Fouché bowed, and prepared to leave the room.
“By the way!” exclaimed Bonaparte.
Fouché turned round.
“Don’t forget to notify Madame de Montrevel that her son is safe and sound; that’s the least you can do for citizen Morgan after the service he has rendered you.”
And he turned his back on the minister of police, who retired, biting his lips till the blood came.
That same day, the First Consul, left alone with Bourrienne, dictated the following order, addressed to the Consulate guard and to the army at large:
Washington is dead! That great man fought against tyranny. He consolidated the liberty of America. His memory will ever be dear to the French people, to all free men in both hemispheres, but especially to the French soldiers, who, like Washington and his soldiers, have fought for Liberty and Equality. Consequently, the First Consul orders that the flags and banners of the Republic shall be hung with crape for ten days.
But the First Consul did not intend to confine himself to this order of the day.
Among the means he took to facilitate his removal from the Luxembourg to the Tuileries was one of those fêtes by which he knew, none better, how to amuse the eyes and also direct the minds of the spectator. This fête was to take place at the Invalides, or, as they said in those days, the Temple of Mars. A bust of Washington was to be crowned, and the flags of Aboukir were to be received from the hands of General Lannes.
It was one of those combinations which Bonaparte thoroughly understood—a flash of lightning drawn from the contact of contrasting facts. He presented the great man of the New World, and a great victory of the old; young America coupled with the palms of Thebes and Memphis.
On the day fixed for the ceremony, six thousand cavalry were in line from the Luxembourg to the Invalides. At eight o’clock, Bonaparte mounted his horse in the main courtyard of the Consular palace; issuing by the Rue de Tournon he took the line of the quays, accompanied by a staff of generals, none of whom were over thirty-five years of age.
Lannes headed the procession; behind him were sixty Guides bearing the sixty captured flags; then came Bonaparte about two horse’s-lengths ahead of his staff.
The minister of war, Berthier, awaited the procession under the dome of the temple. He leaned against a statue of Mars at rest, and the ministers and councillors of state were grouped around him. The flags of Denain and Fontenoy, and those of the first campaign in Italy, were already suspended from the columns which supported the roof. Two centenarian “Invalids” who had fought beside Maréchal Saxe were standing, one to the right and one to the left of Berthier, like caryatides of an ancient world, gazing across the centuries. To the right, on a raised platform, was the bust of Washington, which was now to be draped with the flags of Aboukir. On another platform, opposite to the former, stood Bonaparte’s armchair.
On each side of the temple were tiers of seats in which was gathered all the elegant society of Paris, or rather that portion of it which gave its adhesion to the order of ideas then to be celebrated.
When the flags appeared, the trumpets blared, their metallic sounds echoing through the arches of the temple,
Lannes entered first. At a sign from him, the Guides mounted two by two the steps of the platform and placed the staffs of the flags in the holders prepared for them. During this time Bonaparte took his place in the chair,
Then Lannes advanced to the minister of war, and, in that voice that rang out so clearly on the battlefield, crying “Forward!” he said:
“Citizen minister, these are the flags of the Ottoman army, destroyed before your eyes at Aboukir. The army of Egypt, after crossing burning deserts, surviving thirst and hunger, found itself before an enemy proud of his numbers and his victories, and believing that he saw an easy prey in our troops, exhausted by their march and incessant combats. He had yet to learn that the French soldier is greater because he knows how to suffer than because he knows how to vanquish, and that his courage rises and augments in danger. Three thousand Frenchmen, as you know, fell upon eighteen thousand barbarians, broke their ranks, forced them back, pressed them between our lines and the sea; and the terror of our bayonets is such that the Mussulmans, driven to choose a death, rushed into the depths of the Mediterranean.
“On that memorable day hung the destinies of Egypt, France and Europe, and they were saved by your courage,
“Allied Powers! if you dare to violate French territory, and if the general who was given back to us by the victory of Aboukir makes an appeal to the nation—Allied Powers! I say to you, that your successes would be more fatal to you than disasters! What Frenchman is there who would not march to victory again under the banners of the First Consul, or serve his apprenticeship to fame with him?”
Then, addressing the “Invalids,” for whom the whole lower gallery had been reserved, he continued in a still more powerful voice:
“And you, brave veterans, honorable victims of the fate of battles, you will not be the last to flock under the orders of him who knows your misfortunes and your glory, and who now delivers to your keeping these trophies won by your valor. Ah, I know you, veterans, you burn to sacrifice the half of your remaining lives to your country and its freedom!”
This specimen of the military eloquence of the conqueror of Montebello was received with deafening applause. Three times the minister of war endeavored to make reply; and three times the bravos cut him short. At last, however, silence came, and Berthier expressed himself as follows:
“To raise on the banks of the Seine these trophies won on the banks of the Nile; to hang beneath the domes of our temples, beside the flags of Vienna, of Petersburg, of London, the banners blessed in the mosques of Byzantium and Cairo; to see them here, presented by the same warriors, young in years, old in glory, whom Victory has so often crowned—these things are granted only to Republican France.
“Yet this is but a part of what he has done, that hero, in the flower of his age covered with the laurels of Europe, he, who stood a victor before the Pyramids, from the summits of which forty centuries looked down upon him while, surrounded by his warriors and learned men, he emancipated the native soil of art and restored to it the lights of civilization.
“Soldiers, plant in this temple of the warrior virtues those ensigns of the Crescent, captured on the rocks of Canopus by three thousand Frenchmen from eighteen thousand Ottomans, as brave as they were barbarous. Let them bear witness, not to the valor of the French soldier—the universe itself resounds to that—but to his unalterable constancy, his sublime devotion. Let the sight of these banners console you, veteran warriors, you, whose bodies, gloriously mutilated on the field of honor, deprive your courage of other exercise than hope and prayer. Let them proclaim from that dome above us, to all the enemies of France, the influence of genius, the value of the heroes who captured them; forewarning of the horrors of war all those who are deaf to our offers of peace. Yes, if they will have war, they shall have it—war, terrible
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