The Man with the broken Ear by Edmond About (phonics books .TXT) 📕

no quarter possible after what they did at St. Helena! If I had been commander-in-chief in the Crimea, I would have begun by properly squelching the Russians, after which I would have turned upon the English, and hurled them into the sea. It's their element, anyhow."

They gave him some details of the Italian campaign, and he was charmed to learn that the 23d had taken a redoubt under the eyes of the Marshal the Duke of Solferino.

"That's the habit of the regiment," said he, shedding tears in his napkin. "That brigand of a 23d will never act in any other way. The goddess of Victory has touched it with her wing."

One of the things, for example, which greatly astonished him, was that a war of such importance was finished up in so short a time. He had yet to learn that within a few years the world had learned the secret of transporting a hundred thousand men, in four days, from one end of Europe to the other.

"Good!" said he; "I admit the practicability of it. But what astonishes me is, that the Emperor did not invent this affair in 1810; for he had a genius for transportation, a genius for administration, a genius for office details, a genius for everything. But (to resume your story) the Austrians are fortified at last, and you cannot possibly get to Vienna in less than three months."

"We did not go so far, in fact."

"You did not push on to Vienna?"

"No."

"Well, then, where did you sign the treaty of peace?"

"At Villafranca."

"At Villafranca? That's the capital of Austria, then?"

"No; it's a village of Italy."

"Monsieur, I don't admit that treaties of peace are signed anywhere but in capitals. That was our principle, our A B C, the first paragraph of our theory. It seems as if the world must have changed a good deal while I was not in it. But patience!"

And now truth obliges me to confess that Fougas got drunk at dessert. He had drunk and eaten like a Homeric hero, and talked more fluently than Cicero in his best days. The fumes of wine, spices, and eloquence mounted into his brain. He became familiar, spoke affectionately to some and rudely to others, and poured out a torrent of absurdities big enough to turn forty mills. His drunkenness, however, had in it nothing brutal, or even ignoble; it was but the overflowing of a spirit young, affectionate, vain-glorious, and unbalanced. He proposed five or six toasts--to Glory, to the Extension of our Frontiers, to the Destruction of the last of the English, to Mlle. Mars--the hope of the French stage, to Affection--the tie, fragile but dear, which unites the lover to his sweetheart, the father to his son, the colonel to his regiment!

His style, a singular mixture of familiarity and impressiveness, provoked more than one smile among the auditory. He noticed it, and a spark of defiance flashed up at the bottom of his heart. From time to time he loudly asked if "those people there" were not abusing his ingenuousness.

"Confusion!" cried he, "Confusion to those who want me to take bladders for lanterns! The lantern may blaze out like a bomb, and carry consternation in its path!"

After a series of such remarks, there was nothing left for him to do but to roll under the table, and this dénoûement was generally expected. But the Colonel belonged to a robust generation, accustomed to more than one kind of excess, and strong to resist pleasure as well as dangers, privations, and fatigues. So when Madame Renault pushed back her chair, in indication that the repast was finished, Fougas arose without difficulty, gracefully offered his arm, and conducted his partner to the parlor. His gait was a little stiff and oppressively regular, but he went straight ahead, and did not oscillate the least bit. He took a couple of cups of coffee, and spirits in moderation, after which he began to talk in the most reasonable manner in the world. About ten o'clock, M. Martout, having expressed a wish to hear his history, he placed himself on a stool, collected his ideas for a moment, and asked for a glass of water and sugar. The company seated themselves in a circle around him, and he commenced the following narrative, the slightly antiquated style of which craves your indulgence.


CHAPTER XIII.

HISTORY OF COLONEL FOUGAS, RELATED BY HIMSELF.


"Do not expect that I will ornament my story with those flowers, more agreeable than substantial, which Imagination often uses to gloss over truth. A Frenchman and a soldier, I doubly ignore deception. Friendship interrogates me, Frankness shall answer.

"I was born of poor but honest parents at the beginning of the year which the Jeu de Paume [5] brightened with an aurora of liberty. The south was my native clime; the language dear to the troubadours was that which I lisped in my cradle. My birth cost my mother's life. The author of mine was the humble owner of a little farm, and moistened his bread in the sweat of labor. My first sports were not those of wealth. The many-colored pebbles which are found by the brooks, and that well-known insect which childhood holds fluttering, free and captive at the same time, at the end of a thread, stood me in stead of other playthings.

"An old minister at Devotion's altar, enfranchised from the shadowy bondage of fanaticism, and reconciled to the new institutions of France, was my Chiron and Mentor. He nourished me with the strong lion's marrow of Rome and Athens; his lips distilled into my ears the embalmed honey of wisdom. Honor to thee, learned and venerable man, who gavest me the first precepts of wisdom and the first examples of virtue!

"But already that atmosphere of glory which the genius of one man and the valor of a nation had set floating over the country, filled all my senses, and made my young heart throb. France, on the edge of the volcano of civil war, had collected all her forces into a thunderbolt to launch upon Europe, and the world, astounded if not overwhelmed, was shrinking from the surge of the unchained torrent. What man, what Frenchman, could have heard with indifference that echo of victory reverberating through millions of hearts?

"While scarcely leaving childhood, I felt that honor is more precious than life. The warlike music of the drums brought to my eyes brave and manly tears. 'And I, too,' said I, following the music of the regiments through the streets of Toulouse, 'will pluck laurels though I sprinkle them with my blood.' The pale olive of peace had from me nothing but scorn. The peaceful triumphs of the law, the calm pleasures of commerce and finance, were extolled in vain. To the toga of our Ciceros, to the robe of our magistrates, to the curule chair of our legislators, to the opulence of our Mondors, I preferred the sword. One would have said that I had sucked the milk of Bellona. 'Victory or Death!' was already my motto, and I was not sixteen years old.

"With what noble scorn I heard recounted the history of our Proteuses of politics! With what disdainful glances I regarded the Turcarets of finance, lolling on the cushions of some magnificent carriage, and conducted by a laced automaton to the boudoir of some Aspasia. But if I heard told the mighty deeds of the Knights of the Round Table, or the valor of the crusaders celebrated in flowing verse; if chance placed in my hand the great actions of our modern Rolands, recounted in an army bulletin by the successor of Charlemagne, a flame presaging the fire of battles rose in my young eyes.

"Ah, the inaction was too much, and my leading-strings, already worn by impatience, would have broken, perhaps, had not a father's wisdom untied them.

"'Most surely,' said he to me, trying, but in vain, to restrain his tears, 'it was no tyrant who begot you, and I will not poison the life which I myself gave you. I had hoped that your hand would remain in our cottage to close my eyes; but when Patriotism has spoken, Egotism must be still. My prayers will always follow you to the field where Mars harvests heroes. May you merit the guerdon of valor, and show yourself a good citizen, as you have been a good son!'

"Speaking thus, he opened his arms to me. I threw myself into them; we mingled our tears, and I promised to return to our hearthstone as soon as I could bring the star of honor suspended from my breast. But alas! my unhappy father was destined to see me no more. The fate which was already gilding the thread of my days, pitilessly severed that of his. A stranger's hand closed his eyes, while I was gaining my first epaulette at the battle of Jena.

"Lieutenant at Eylau, captain at Wagram, and there decorated by the Emperor's own hand on the field of battle, major before Almieda, lieutenant-colonel at Badajoz, colonel at Moscow, I have drunk the cup of victory to the full. But I have also tasted the chalice of adversity. The frozen plains of Russia saw me alone with a platoon of braves, the last remnant of my regiment, forced to devour the mortal remains of that faithful friend who had so often carried me into the very heart of the enemy's battalions. Trusty and affectionate companion of my dangers, when rendered useless by an accident at Smolensk, he devoted his very manes to the safety of his master, and made of his skin a protection for my frozen and lacerated feet.

"My tongue refuses to repeat the story of our perils in that terrible campaign. Perhaps some day I will write it with a pen dipped in tears--tears, the tribute of feeble humanity. Surprised by the season of frosts in a zone of ice, without fire, without bread, without shoes, without means of transportation, denied the succor of Esculapius' art, harassed by the Cossacks, robbed by the peasants--positive vampires, we saw our mute thunderers, which had fallen into the enemy's hands, belch forth death upon ourselves. What more can I tell you? The passage of the Beresina, the opposition at Wilna--Oh, ye gods of Thunder!--- But I feel that grief overcomes me, and that my language is becoming tinged with the bitterness of these recollections.

"Nature and Love were holding in reserve for me brief but precious consolations. Released from my fatigues, I passed a few happy days in my native land among the peaceful vales of Nancy. While our phalanxes were preparing themselves for fresh combats, while I was gathering around my flag three thousand young but valorous warriors, all resolved to open to posterity the path of honor, a new emotion, to which I had before been a stranger, furtively glided into my soul.

"Beautified by all Nature's gifts, enriched by the fruits of an excellent education, the young and interesting Clementine had scarcely passed from the uncertain shadows of childhood into the sweet illusions of youth. Eighteen springs composed her life. Her parents extended to some of the army officers a hospitality which, though it was not gratuitous, was far from lacking in cordiality. To see their child and love her, was for me the affair of a day. Her virgin heart smiled upon my love. At the first avowals dictated to me by my passion, I saw her forehead color with a lovely modesty. We exchanged our vows one lovely evening in June, under an arbor where her happy father sometimes dispensed to the thirsty officers the