Volume I Part 4 (2/2)
”Then you evidently think Soult and some others owe their present favour, less to the eminence of their services than to the plasticity of their principles?”
”Who ever thought Soult a great general?” said he, abruptly answering my question by this transition. ”A great military organizer, certainly--the best head for the administration of an army, or the Emperor's staff--but nothing more. His capacity as a tactician was always third rate.”
I could not help acknowledging that such was the opinion of our own great captain, who has avowed that he regarded Ma.s.sena as the most accomplished and scientific general to whom he was ever opposed.
”And Ma.s.sena's daughter,” cried the veteran indignantly, ”lives now in the humblest poverty--the wife of a very poor man, who cultivates a little garden near Brussels, where _femmes de chambre_ are sent to buy bouquets for their mistresses! The daughter of a _Marechal de France_, a t.i.tle once that Kings loved to add to their royalty, as men love to enn.o.ble station by evidences of high personal desert!”
”How little fidelity, however, did these men shew to him who had made them thus great! how numerous were the desertions!--how rapid too!”
”Yes, there was an epidemic of treason at that time in France, just as you have seen at different epochs, here, other epidemics prevail: in the Revolution the pa.s.sion was for the guillotine; then came the l.u.s.t of military glory--that suited us best, and lasted longest; we indulged in it for twenty years: then succeeded that terrible revulsion, and men hastened to prove how false-hearted they could be. Then came the Restoration--and the pa.s.sion was to be Catholic; and now we have another order of things, whose worst feature is, that there is no prevailing creed. Men live for the day and the hour. The King's health--the state of Spain--a bad harvest--an awkward dispute between the commander of our squadron in the Pacific with some of your admirals,--anything may overturn the balance, and our whole political and social condition may have to be built up once more.”
”The great remedy against this uncertainty is out of your power,” said I: ”you abolished the claims of Sovereignty on the permanent affection of the people, and now you begin to feel the want of 'Loyalty.'”
”Our kings had ceased to merit the respect of the nation when they lost it.”
”Say, rather, you revenged upon them the faults and vices of their more depraved, but bolder, ancestors. You made the timid Louis XVI. pay for the hardy Louis XIV. Had that unhappy monarch but been like the Emperor, his court might have displayed all the excesses of the regency twice told, and you had never declared against them.”
”That may be true; but you evidently do not--I doubt, indeed, if any but a Frenchman and a soldier can--feel the nature of our attachment to the Emperor. It was something in which personal interest partook a large part, and the hope of future advancement, _through him_, bore its share. The army regarded him thus, and never forgave him perfectly, for preferring to be an Emperor rather than a General. Now, the very desertions you have lately alluded to, would probably never have occurred if the leader had not merged into the monarch.
”There was a fascination, a spirit of infatuating ecstasy, in serving one whose steps had so often led to glory, that filled a man's entire heart. One learned to feel, that the rays of his own splendid achievements shed a l.u.s.tre on all around him and each had his portion of undying fame. This feeling, as it became general, grew into a kind of superst.i.tion, and even to a man's own conscience it served to excuse many grave errors, and some direct breaches of true faith.”
”Then, probably, you regard Ney's conduct in this light?” said I.
”I know it was of this nature,” replied he, vehemently. ”Ney, like many others, meant to be faithful to the Bourbons when he took the command.
He had no thought of treachery in his mind; he believed he was marching against an enemy until he actually saw the Emperor, and then----”
”I find this somewhat difficult to understand,” said I, dubiously.
”Ney's new allegiance was no hasty step, but one maturely and well considered. He had weighed in his mind various eventualities, and doubtless among the number the possibility of the Emperor's return. That the mere sight of that low c.o.c.ked-hat and the _redingote gris_ could have at once served to overturn a sworn fealty and a plighted word---”
”Have you time to listen to a short story?” interrupted the old dragoon, with a degree of emotion in his manner that bespoke a deeper interest than I suspected in the subject of our conversation.
”Willingly,” said I. ”Will you come and sup with me at my hotel, and we can continue a theme in which I feel much interest?”
”Nay; with your permission, we will sit down here--on the ramparts.
I never sup: like an old campaigner, I only make one meal a-day, and mention the circ.u.mstance to excuse my performance at the table d'hote: and here, if you do not dislike it, we will take our places under this lime-tree.”
I at once acceded to this proposal, and he began thus:--
CHAPTER IV.
You are, perhaps, aware, that in no part of France was the cause of the exiled family sustained with more perseverance and courage than Auvergne. The n.o.bles, who, from generation to generation, had lived as seigneurs on their estates, equally remote from the attractions and advantages of a court, still preserved their devotion to the Bourbons as a part of religious faith; nor ever did the evening ma.s.s of a chateau conclude without its heartfelt prayer for the repose of that ”Saint Roi” Louis XVI., and for the blessing of heaven on him, his rightful successor, now a wanderer and an exile.
In one of these antique chateaux, whose dilapidated battlements and shattered walls shewed that other enemies than mere time had been employed against it, lived an old Count de Vitry: so old was he, that he could remember the time he had been a page at the court of Louis XV., and could tell many strange tales of the Regency, and the characters who flourished at that time.
His family consisted of two grandchildren, both of them orphans of his two sons. One had fallen in La Vendee; the other, sentenced to banishment by the Directory, had died on the pa.s.sage out to Guadaloupe.
The children were nearly of the same age--the boy a few months older than the girl--and regarded each other as brother and sister.
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