The Companions of Jehu by Alexandre Dumas (sneezy the snowman read aloud .txt) đź“•
The trial recommenced. It was at first attended by the same results as the preceding one. The four accused were protected by an alibi, patently false, but attested by a hundred signatures, and for which they could easily have obtained ten thousand. All moral convictions must fail in the presence of such authoritative testimony. An acquittal seemed certain, when a question, perhaps involuntarily insidious, from the president, changed the aspect of the trial.
"Madam," said he to the lady who had been so kindly assisted by one of the highwaymen, "which of these men was it who tendered you such thoughtful attention?"
This unexpected form of interrogation confused her ideas. It is probable that she believed the facts to be known, and saw in this a means of modifying the fate of the man who interested her.
"It w
Read free book «The Companions of Jehu by Alexandre Dumas (sneezy the snowman read aloud .txt) 📕» - read online or download for free at americanlibrarybooks.com
- Author: Alexandre Dumas
- Performer: -
Read book online «The Companions of Jehu by Alexandre Dumas (sneezy the snowman read aloud .txt) 📕». Author - Alexandre Dumas
Roland roared with rage. Branched’Or came up to him and put his hat in his hand.
“I do not surrender!” shouted Roland.
“Useless to do so, Monsieur de Montrevel,” replied Branched’Or with the utmost politeness.
“What do you mean?” demanded Roland, exhausting his strength in a struggle as desperate as it was useless.
“Because you are captured, sir.”
It was so true that there could be no answer.
“Then kill me!” cried Roland.
“We don’t want to kill you, sir,” replied Branched’Or.
“Then what do you want?”
“Give us your parole not to fight any more, and you are free.”
“Never!” exclaimed Roland.
“Excuse me, Monsieur de Montrevel,” said Branched’Or, “but that is not loyal!”
“What!” shrieked Roland, in a fury, “not loyal! You insult me, villain, because you know I can’t defend myself or punish you.”
“I am not a villain, and I didn’t insult you, Monsieur de Montrevel; but I do say that by not giving your word, you deprive the general of nine men, who might be useful to him and who are obliged to stay here to guard you. That’s not the way the Big Round Head acted toward you. He had two hundred men more than you, and he sent them away. Now we are only eighty-nine against one hundred.”
A flame crossed Roland’s face; then almost as suddenly he turned pale as death.
“You are right, Branched’Or,” he replied. “Succor or no succor, I surrender. You and your men can go and fight with your comrades.”
The Chouans gave a cry of joy, let go their hold of Roland, and rushed toward the Republicans, brandishing their hats and muskets, and shouting: “Vive le roi!”
Roland, freed from their grip, but disarmed physically by his fall, morally by his parole, went to the little eminence, still covered by the cloak which had served as a tablecloth for their breakfast, and sat down. From there he could see the whole combat; not a detail was lost upon him.
Cadoudal sat erect upon his horse amid fire and smoke, like the Demon of War, invulnerable and implacable.
Here and there the bodies of a dozen or more Chouans lay stretched upon the sod. But it was evident that the Republicans, still massed together, had lost double that number. Wounded men dragged themselves across the open space, meeting, rearing their bodies like mangled snakes, to fight, the Republicans with their bayonets, and the Chouans with their knives. Those of the wounded Chouans who were too far off to fight their wounded enemies hand to hand, reloaded their guns, and, struggling to their knees, fired and fell again.
On either side the struggle was pitiless, incessant, furious; civil war—that is war without mercy or compassion—waved its torch above the battlefield.
Cadoudal rode his horse around these living breastworks, firing at twenty paces, sometimes his pistols, sometimes a musket, which he discharged, cast aside, and picked up again reloaded. At each discharge a man fell. The third time he made this round General Hatry honored him with a fusillade. He disappeared in the flame and smoke, and Roland saw him go down, he and his horse, as if annihilated. Ten or a dozen Republicans sprang from the ranks and met as many Chouans; the struggle was terrible, hand to hand, body to body, but the Chouans, with their knives, were sure of the advantage.
Suddenly Cadoudal appeared, erect, a pistol in each hand; it was the death of two men; two men fell. Then through the gap left by these ten or twelve he flung himself forward with thirty men. He had picked up an army musket, and, using it like a club, he brought down a man with each blow. He broke his way through the battalion, and reappeared at the other side. Then, like a boar which returns upon the huntsman he has ripped up and trampled, he rushed back through the gaping wound and widened it. From that moment all was over.
General Hatry rallied a score of men, and, with bayonets down, they fell upon the circle that enveloped them. He marched at the head of his soldiers on foot; his horse had been killed. Ten men had fallen before the circle was broken, but at last he was beyond it. The Chouans wanted to pursue them, but Cadoudal, in a voice of thunder, called them back.
“You should not have allowed him to pass,” he cried, “but having passed he is free to retreat.”
The Chouans obeyed with the religious faith they placed in the words of their chief.
“And now,” said Cadoudal, “cease firing; no more dead; make prisoners.”
The Chouans drew together and surrounded the heaps of dead, and the few living men, more or less wounded, who lay among the dead.
Surrendering was still fighting in this fatal war, where on both sides the prisoners were shot—on the one side, because Chouans and Vendéans were considered brigands; on the other, because they knew not where to put the captives.
The Republicans threw their guns away, that they might not be forced to surrender them. When their captors approached them every cartridge-box was open; every man had fired his last shot.
Cadoudal walked back to Roland.
During the whole of this desperate struggle the young man had remained on the mound. With his eyes fixed on the battle, his hair damp with sweat, his breast heaving, he waited for the result. Then, when he saw the day was lost, his head fell upon his hands, and he still sat on, his forehead bowed to the earth.
Cadoudal reached him before he seemed to hear the sound of footsteps. He touched the young man’s shoulder. Roland raised his head slowly without attempting to hide the two great tears that were rolling down his cheeks.
“General,” said Roland, “do with me what you will. I am your prisoner.”
“I can’t make the First Consul’s ambassador a prisoner,” replied Cadoudal, laughing, “but I can ask him to do me a service.”
“Command me, general.”
“I need a hospital for the wounded, and a prison for prisoners; will you take the Republican soldiers, wounded and prisoners, back to Vannes.”
“What do you mean, general?” exclaimed Roland.
“I give them, or rather I confide them to you. I regret that your horse was killed; so is mine. But there is still that of Brise-Bleu; accept it.”
The young man made a motion of rejection.
“Until you can obtain another, of course,” added Cadoudal, bowing.
Roland felt that he must put himself, at least in simplicity, on a level with the man with whom he was dealing.
“Shall I see you again, general?” he asked, rising.
“I doubt it, sir. My operations call me to the coast near Port-Louis; your duty recalls you to the Luxembourg.”
“What shall I tell the First Consul, general?”
“What you have seen, sir. He must judge between the Abbé Bernier’s diplomacy and that of Georges Cadoudal.”
“After what I have seen, sir, I doubt if you ever have need of me,” said Roland; “but in any case remember that you have a friend near the First Consul.”
And he held out his hand to Cadoudal. The royalist took it with the same frankness and freedom he had shown before the battle.
“Farewell, Monsieur de Montrevel,” said he, “I need not ask you to justify General Hatry. A defeat like that is fully as glorious as a victory.”
During this time Brise-Bleu’s horse had been led up for the Republican colonel.
He sprang into the saddle.
“By the bye,” said Cadoudal, “as you go through La Roche-Bernard, just inquire what has happened to citizen Thomas Millière.”
“He is dead,” said a voice.
Coeur-de-Roi and his four men, covered with mud and sweat, had just arrived, but too late for the battle.
Roland cast a last glance at the battlefield, sighed, and, waving a last farewell to Cadoudal, started at a gallop across the fields to await, on the road to Vannes, the wagon-load of wounded and the prisoners he was asked to deliver to General Hatry.
Cadoudal had given a crown of six sous to each man.
Roland could not help reflecting that the gift was made with the money of the Directory sent to the West by Morgan and the Companions of Jehu.
Roland’s first visit on arriving in Paris was to the First Consul. He brought him the twofold news of the pacification of the Vendée, and the increasingly bitter insurrection in Brittany.
Bonaparte knew Roland; consequently the triple narrative of Thomas Millière’s murder, the execution of Bishop Audrein, and the fight at Grandchamp, produced a deep impression upon him. There was, moreover, in the young man’s manner a sombre despair in which he could not be mistaken.
Roland was miserable over this lost opportunity to get himself killed. An unknown power seemed to watch over him, carrying him safe and sound through dangers which resulted fatally to others. Sir John had found twelve judges and a death-warrant, where he had seen but a phantom, invulnerable, it is true, but inoffensive.
He blamed himself bitterly for singling out Cadoudal in the fight, thus exposing himself to a pre-arranged plan of capture, instead of flinging himself into the fray and killing or being killed.
The First Consul watched him anxiously as he talked; the longing for death still lingered in his mind, a longing he hoped to cure by this return to his native land and the endearments of his family.
He praised and defended General Hatry, but, just and impartial as a soldier should be, he gave full credit to Cadoudal for the courage and generosity the royalist general had displayed.
Bonaparte listened gravely, almost sadly; ardent as he was for foreign war with its glorious halo, his soul revolted at the internecine strife which drained the life-blood of the nation and rent its bowels. It was a case in which, to his thinking, negotiation should be substituted for war. But how negotiate with a man like Cadoudal?
Bonaparte was not unaware of his own personal seductions when he chose to exercise them. He resolved to see Cadoudal, and without saying anything on the subject to Roland, he intended to make use of him for the interview when the time came. In the meantime he wanted to see if Brune, in whose talent he had great confidence, would be more successful than his predecessors.
He dismissed Roland, after telling him of his mother’s arrival and her installation in the little house in the Rue de la Victoire.
Roland sprang into a coach and was driven there at once. He found Madame de Montrevel as happy and as proud as a woman and a mother could be. Edouard had gone, the day before, to the Prytanée Français, and she herself was preparing to return to Amélie, whose health continued to give her much anxiety.
As for Sir John, he was not only out of danger, but almost well again. He was in Paris, had called upon Madame de Montrevel, and, finding that she had gone with Edouard to the Prytanée, he had left his card. It bore his address, Hôtel Mirabeau, Rue de Richelieu.
It was eleven o’clock, Sir John’s breakfast hour, and Roland had every chance of finding him at that hour. He got back into his carriage, and ordered the coachman to stop at the Hôtel Mirabeau.
He found Sir John sitting before an English breakfast, a thing rarely seen in those days, drinking large cups of tea and eating bloody chops.
Comments (0)