The Chouans by Honoré de Balzac (open ebook txt) 📕

marquis encountered in his eyes, made the young leader observe the man, whom he then recognized as Major Brigaut, and he went suddenly up to him.

“And you, what do you want?” he said.

“Oh, monsieur le marquis, if the king comes back that’s all I want.”

“But for yourself?”

“For myself? are you joking?”

The marquis pressed the horny hand of the Breton, and said to Madame du Gua, who was near them: “Madame, I may perish in this enterprise before I have time to make a faithful report to the king on the Catholic armies of Brittany. I charge you, in case you live to see the Restoration, not to forget this honorable man nor the Baron du Guenic. There is more devotion in them than in all those other men put together.”

He pointed to the chiefs, who were waiting with some impatience till the marquis should reply to their demands. They were all holding papers in their hands, on which, no doubt, their services were recorded over the signatures of the various generals of the former war; and all were murmuring. The Abbe Gudin, the Comte de Bauvan, and the Baron du Guenic were consulting how best to help the marquis in rejecting these extravagant demands, for they felt the position of the young leader to be extremely delicate.

Suddenly the marquis ran his blue eyes, gleaming with satire, over the whole assembly, and said in a clear voice: “Gentlemen, I do not know whether the powers which the king has graciously assigned to me are such that I am able to satisfy your demands. He doubtless did not foresee such zeal, such devotion, on your part. You shall judge yourselves of the duties put upon me,—duties which I shall know how to accomplish.”

So saying, he left the room and returned immediately holding in his hand an open letter bearing the royal seal and signature.

“These are the letters-patent in virtue of which you are to obey me,” he said. “They authorize me to govern the provinces of Brittany, Normandy, Maine, and Anjou, in the king’s name, and to recognize the services of such officers as may distinguish themselves in his armies.”

A movement of satisfaction ran through the assembly. The Chouans approached the marquis and made a respectful circle round him. All eyes fastened on the king’s signature. The young chief, who was standing near the chimney, suddenly threw the letters into the fire, and they were burned in a second.

“I do not choose to command any,” cried the young man, “but those who see a king in the king, and not a prey to prey upon. You are free, gentlemen, to leave me.”

Madame du Gua, the Abbe Gudin, Major Brigaut, the Chevalier du Vissard, the Baron du Guenic, and the Comte de Bauvan raised the cry of “Vive le roi!” For a moment the other leaders hesitated; then, carried away by the noble action of the marquis, they begged him to forget what had passed, assuring him that, letters-patent or not, he must always be their leader.

“Come and dance,” cried the Comte de Bauvan, “and happen what will! After all,” he added, gaily, “it is better, my friends, to pray to God than the saints. Let us fight first, and see what comes of it.”

“Ha! that’s good advice,” said Brigaut. “I have never yet known a day’s pay drawn in the morning.”

The assembly dispersed about the rooms, where the guests were now arriving. The marquis tried in vain to shake off the gloom which darkened his face. The chiefs perceived the unfavorable impression made upon a young man whose devotion was still surrounded by all the beautiful illusions of youth, and they were ashamed of their action.

However, a joyous gaiety soon enlivened the opening of the ball, at which were present the most important personages of the royalist party, who, unable to judge rightly, in the depths of a rebellious province, of the actual events of the Revolution, mistook their hopes for realities. The bold operations already begun by Montauran, his name, his fortune, his capacity, raised their courage and caused that political intoxication, the most dangerous of all excitements, which does not cool till torrents of blood have been uselessly shed. In the minds of all present the Revolution was nothing more than a passing trouble to the kingdom of France, where, to their belated eyes, nothing was changed. The country belonged as it ever did to the house of Bourbon. The royalists were the lords of the soil as completely as they were four years earlier, when Hoche obtained less a peace than an armistice. The nobles made light of the revolutionists; for them Bonaparte was another, but more fortunate, Marceau. So gaiety reigned. The women had come to dance. A few only of the chiefs, who had fought the Blues, knew the gravity of the situation; but they were well aware that if they talked of the First Consul and his power to their benighted companions, they could not make themselves understood. These men stood apart and looked at the women with indifference. Madame du Gua, who seemed to do the honors of the ball, endeavored to quiet the impatience of the dancers by dispensing flatteries to each in turn. The musicians were tuning their instruments and the dancing was about to begin, when Madame du Gua noticed the gloom on de Montauran’s face and went hurriedly up to him.

“I hope it is not that vulgar scene you have just had with those clodhoppers which depresses you?” she said.

She got no answer; the marquis, absorbed in thought, was listening in fancy to the prophetic reasons which Marie had given him in the midst of the same chiefs at La Vivetiere, urging him to abandon the struggle of kings against peoples. But the young man’s soul was too proud, too lofty, too full perhaps of conviction, to abandon an enterprise he had once begun, and he decided at this moment, to continue it boldly in the face of all obstacles. He raised his head haughtily, and for the first time noticed that Madame du Gua was speaking to him.

“Your mind is no doubt at Fougeres,” she remarked bitterly, seeing how useless her efforts to attract his attention had been. “Ah, monsieur, I would give my life to put her within your power, and see you happy with her.”

“Then why have you done all you could to kill her?”

“Because I wish her dead or in your arms. Yes, I may have loved the Marquis de Montauran when I thought him a hero, but now I feel only a pitying friendship for him; I see him shorn of all his glory by a fickle love for a worthless woman.”

“As for love,” said the marquis, in a sarcastic tone, “you judge me wrong. If I loved that girl, madame, I might desire her less; if it were not for you, perhaps I should not think of her at all.”

“Here she is!” exclaimed Madame du Gua, abruptly.

The haste with which the marquis looked round went to the heart of the woman; but the clear light of the wax candles enabled her to see every change on the face of the man she loved so violently, and when he turned back his face, smiling at her woman’s trick, she fancied there was still some hope of recovering him.

“What are