Diary And Notes Of Horace Templeton, Esq. Volume I

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 nobles, 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 mass of a château 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 châteaux, 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 Vendée; the other, sentenced to banishment by the Directory, had died on the passage 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.

It is little to be wondered at if these children imbibed from the very cradle a horror of that system and of those men which had left them fatherless and almost friendless, destitute of rank, station, and fortune, and a proportionate attachment to those who, if they had been suffered to reign, would have preserved them in the enjoyment of all their time-honoured privileges and possessions.

If the members of the executive government were then remembered among the catalogue of persons accursed and to be hated, the names of the royal family were repeated among those saintly personages to whom honour and praise were rendered. The venerable Père Duclos, to whom their education was confided, certainly neglected no available means of instilling these two opposite principles of belief; and if Alfred de Vitry and Blanche were not impressed with this truth, it could not be laid to the charge of this single-hearted teacher; every trait and feature that could deform and disgrace humanity being attributed to one, and all the graces and ennobling virtues of the race associated with the name of the other. The more striking and impressive to make the lesson, the Père was accustomed to read a comment on the various events then occurring at Paris, and on the campaigns of the Republican army in Italy; dwelling, with pardonable condemnation, on the insults offered to the Church and all who adhered to its holy cause.

These appeals were made with peculiar force to Alfred, who was destined for an ecclesiastic, that being the only career which the old Count and his chaplain could satisfy themselves as offering any hope of safety; and now that the family possessions were all confiscated, and a mere remnant of the estate remaining, there was no use in hoping to perpetuate a name which must sink into poverty and obscurity. Blanche was also to become a member of a religious order in Italy, if, happily, even in that sacred land, the privileges of the Church were destined to escape.

The good Père, whose intentions were unalloyed by one thought unworthy of an angel, made the mistake that great zeal not unfrequently commits – he proved too much; he painted the Revolutionary party in colours so terrible, that no possible reality could sustain the truth of the portraiture. It is true, the early days of the Revolution warranted all he did or could say; but the party had changed greatly since that, or, rather, a new and a very differently minded class had succeeded. Marat, Danton, and Robespierre had no resemblance with Sieyes, Carnot, and Buonaparte. The simple-minded priest, however, recognised no distinction: he thought that, as the stream issued from a tainted source, the current could never become purer by flowing; and he delighted, with all the enthusiasm of a dévote, to exaggerate the evil traits of those whose exploits of heroism might have dazzled and fascinated unthinking understandings.

Alfred was about sixteen, when one evening, nigh sunset, a peasant approached the Château in eager haste to say that a party of soldiers were coming up the little road which led towards the house, instead of turning off, as they usually did, to the village of Puy de Dôme, half a league further down the valley.

Père Duclos, who assumed absolute authority over the household since the old Count had fallen into a state of childlike dotage, hastened to provide himself with the writ of exemption from billet the Directory had conferred on the château – an amende for the terrible misfortunes of the ruined family – and advanced to meet the party, the leading files of which were already in sight.

Nothing could less have suggested the lawless depredators of the Republic than the little column that now drew near. Four chasseurs-à-pied led the van, their clothes ragged and torn, their shoes actually in ribbons; one had his arm in a sling, and another carried his shako on his back, as his head was bound up in a handkerchief, whose blood-stained folds shewed the marks of a severe sabre-cut. Behind them came a litter, or, rather, a cart with a canvass awning, in which lay the wounded body of their officer; the rear consisting of about fourteen others, under the command of a sergeant.

They halted and formed as the old Père approached them, and the sergeant, stepping to the front, carried his hand to his cap in military salute; and then, without waiting for the priest to speak, he began a very civil, almost an humble, apology, for the liberty of their intrusion.

“We are,” said he, “an invalid party, en route for Paris, with an officer who was severely wounded at the bridge of Lodi.” And here he lowered his voice to a whisper: “The poor lieutenant’s case being hopeless, and his constant wish – his prayer, – being to see his mother before he dies, we are pushing on for her Château, which is near St. Jean de Luc, I hear.”

Perhaps the mention of the word Château – the claim of one whose rank was even thus vaguely hinted at – had nearly an equal influence on the Père with the duties of humanity. Certain is it he laid less stress than he might have done on the writ of exemption, and blandly said that the out-offices of the Château should be at their disposal for the night; apologising if late events had not left its inhabitants in better circumstances to succour the unfortunate.

“We ask very little, Père,” said the sergeant, respectfully – “some straw to sleep on, some rye-bread and a little water for supper; and to-morrow, ere sunrise, you shall see the last of us.”

The humility of the request, rendered even more humble by the manner in which it was conveyed, did not fail to strike the Père Duclos, who began to wonder what reverses had overtaken the “Blues” (the name the Republicans were called), that they were become thus civil and respectful; nor could he be brought to believe the account the sergeant gave of a glorious victory at the Ada, nor credit a syllable of the bulletin which, in letters half-a-foot long, proclaimed the splendid achievement.

A little pavilion in the garden was devoted to the reception of the wounded lieutenant, and the soldiers bivouacked in the farm-buildings, and some even in the open air, for it was the vintage-time, and the weather delightful. There was nothing of outrage or disturbance committed by the men; not even any unusual noise disturbed the peaceful quiet of the old Château; and, except that a lamp burned all night in the garden-pavilion, nothing denoted the presence of strangers.

Before day broke the men were mustered in the court of the Château; and the sergeant, having seen that his party were all regularly equipped for the march, demanded to speak a few words to the Père Duclos. The Père, who was from his window watching these signs of approaching departure with some anxiety, hastily descended on hearing the request.

“We are about to march, reverend father,” said the sergeant, saluting, “all of us, save one – our poor lieutenant; his next billet will be for another, and, we hope, a better place.”

“Is he dead?” asked the Père, eagerly.

“Not yet, father; but the event cannot now be far off. He raved all through the night, and this morning the fever has left him, but without strength, and evidently going fast. To take him along with us would be inhuman, were it even possible – to delay would be against my orders; so that nothing else is to be done than leave him among those who would be kind to his last hours, and minister to the wants of a death-bed.”

The Père, albeit very far from gratified by his charge, promised to do all in his power; and the sergeant, having commanded a “present arms” to the Château, wheeled right-about and departed.

For some days the prediction of the sergeant seemed to threaten its accomplishment at every hour. The sick man, reduced to the very lowest stage of debility, appeared at moments as if struggling for a last breath; but by degrees these paroxysms grew less frequent and less violent: he slept, too, at intervals, and awoke seemingly refreshed; and thus between the benefits derived from tranquillity and rest, a mild and genial air, and his own youth, his recovery became at length assured, accompanied, however, by a degree of feebleness that made the least effort impossible, and even the utterance of a few words a matter of great pain and difficulty.

If, during the most sad and distressing periods of the sick bed, the Père indirectly endeavoured to inspire Alfred’s mind with a horror of a soldier’s life – depicting, by the force of the terrible example before him, the wretchedness of one who fell a victim to its ambition – so did he take especial care, as convalescence began to dawn, to forbid the youth from ever approaching the pavilion, or holding any intercourse with its occupant. That part of the garden was strictly interdicted to him, and the very mention of the lieutenant at last forbidden, or only alluded to when invoking a Christian blessing upon enemies.

In this way matters continued till the end of autumn, when the Père, who had long been anxiously awaiting the hour when the sick man should take his leave, had one morning set off for the town to make arrangements for his departure, and order post-horses to be ready on the following day.

It was a calm and mellow day of autumn, and Alfred, who had at first determined to set out on a fishing excursion, without any reason, changed his mind, and sauntered into the garden. Loitering listlessly for some time, from walk to walk, he was at length returning to the Château, when he beheld, seated under the shade of a walnut-tree, a young man, whose pale and languid look at once bespoke the invalid, even had not the fact been proclaimed by his dress, the uniform of a Lander rouge.

Mindful of the Father’s precept, and fully impressed with an obedience never violated, the youth was turning hastily away, when the wounded man slowly arose from his seat, and removing his cap, made a salute of deep and most respectful meaning.

Alfred returned it, and stood irresolute. The eyes of the sick man, full of an expression of mild and thankful beaming, were on him. What should he do? to retire without speaking would be a rudeness, even a cruelty: beside, what possible harm could there be in a few words of friendly greeting with one so long their guest? Ere he could resolve the point, the wounded officer was slowly advancing towards him, still uncovered, and in an attitude betokening a most respectful gratitude.

“I pray you will permit me, Mons. le Comte,” said he, “to express my heartfelt thanks for the hospitality and kindness of your treatment. I feared that I should leave this without the occasion of saying how grateful I feel for the remnant of life your care has been the means of preserving.”

Alfred tried to answer: but a dread of his disobedience and its consequences, and a strange sense of admiration for the stranger, whose manner and appearance had deeply impressed him, made him silent.

“I see,” said the lieutenant smiling, “that you are indisposed to receive an acknowledgment for what you set such small store by – a kindness to a mere ‘soldier of the Republic;’ but when you wear a sword yourself, Mons. le Comte, as you will doubtless one of these days – ”

“No,” said Alfred, hastily interrupting him, “never! I shall never wear one.”

“How, never! What can you mean?”

“That I shall never be a soldier,” said Alfred. “I am to be a priest.”

“A priest! You, Mons. le Comte de Vitry, of the best blood of Auvergne – you, a monk!”

“I did not say a monk,” said Alfred, proudly; “there are other ranks among churchmen. I have heard tell of Prince-bishops and Cardinals.”

“And if one were to begin life at the age they usually take leave of it, such a career might not be held so cheaply; but for a young man of good birth and blood, with a heart to feel proudly, and a hand to wield a weapon – no, no, this were a shame not to be thought of.”

Stung alike by the severity of the sarcasm, and animated by the old spirit of the Père’s teaching, Alfred hastily answered: —

“And if men of rank and station no longer carry arms as their forefathers did, with whom lies the blame? Why do they now bend to adopt a path that in former days was only trodden by the weak-hearted and the timid? Because they would not draw the sword in a cause they abhor, and for a faction they despised; neither would they shed their blood to assure the triumph of a rabble.”

“Nor would I,” interposed the lieutenant, while a slight flush coloured his cheek. “The cause in which I perilled life was that of France, my country. You may safely trust, that the nation capable of such conquests will neither be disgraced by bad rulers, nor dishonoured by cowardly ones.”

“I have no faith in Republicans,” said Alfred, scornfully.

“Because they were not born to a title, perhaps! But do you know how many of those who now carry victory into foreign lands belong to this same class that includes all your sympathy? – prouder, far prouder, that they sustain the honour of France against her enemies than that they carry the blazon of a marquis or the coronet of a duke on their escutcheon? You look incredulous! Nay, I speak no more than what I well know: for instance, the humble lieutenant who now addresses you can claim rank as high and ancient as your own. You have heard of the Liancourts?”

“Le Duc de Liancourt?”

“Yes; I am, or rather I was, the Duc de Liancourt,” said the lieutenant, with an almost imperceptible struggle: “my present rank is Sous-Lieutenant of the Third Lancers. Now listen to me calmly for a few moments, and I hope to shew you, that in a country where a dreadful social earthquake has uprooted every foundation of rank, and strewed the ground with the ruins of every thing like prescription, it is nobler and better to shew that nobility could enter the lists, unaided by its prestige, and win the palm, among those who vainly boasted themselves better and braver. This we have done, not by assuming the monk’s cowl and the friar’s cord, but by carrying the knapsack and the musket; not by shirking the struggle, but by confronting it. Where is the taunt now against the nobility of France? whose names figure oftenest in the lists of killed and wounded? whose lot is it most frequently to mount first to the assault or the breach? No, no, take to the alb and the surplice if your vocation prompt it, but do not assume to say that no other road is open to a Frenchman because his heart is warmed by noble blood.”

If Alfred was at first shocked by hearing assertions so opposed to all the precepts of his venerated tutor, he was soon ashamed of offering opposition to one so far more capable than himself of forming a just judgment on the question, while he felt, inwardly, the inequality of the cause for which he would do battle against – that glorious and triumphant one of which the young officer assumed the championship.

Besides, De Liancourt’s history was his own; he had been bred up with convictions precisely like his, and might, had he followed out the path intended for him, been a priest at the very hour that he led a charge at Lodi.

“I was saved by an accident,” said he. “In the march of Berthault’s division through Chalons, a little drummer-boy fell off a waggon when asleep, and was wounded by a wheel passing over him: they brought him to our château, where we nursed and tended him till he grew well. The Curé, wishing to snatch him as a brand saved from the burning, adopted him, and made him an acolyte; and so he remained till one Sunday morning, when the ‘Chasseurs gris’ marched through the town during mass. Pierre stole out to see the soldiers; he heard a march he had often listened to before; he saw the little drummers stepping out gaily in front; worse, too, they saw him, and one called out to his comrades, ‘Regarde donc le Prêtre; ce petit drôle là – c’est un Prêtre.’

“‘Du tout,’ cried he; tearing off his white robe, and throwing it behind him, ‘Je suis tambour comme toi,’ and snatching the drum, he beat his ‘Ran tap-plan’ so vigorously and so well, that the drum-major patted him on the head and cheek, and away marched Pierre at the head of the troop, leaving Chalons, and Curé, and all behind him, without a thought or a pang.

“I saw it all from the window of the church; and suddenly, as my eyes turned from the grand spectacle of the moving column, with its banners flying and bayonets glistening, to the dim, half-lighted aisles of the old church, with smoky tapers burning faintly, amid which an old decrepid priest was moving slowly, a voice within me cried, – ‘Better a tambour, than this!’ I stole out, and reached the street just as the last files were passing: I mingled with the crowd that followed, my heart beating time to the quick march. I tracked them out of the town, further and further, till we reached the wide open country.

“‘Will you not come back, Pierre?’ said I, pulling him by the sleeve, as, at last, I reached the leading files, where the little fellow marched, proud as the tambour-major.

“‘I go back, and the regiment marching against the enemy!’ exclaimed he, indignantly; and a roar of laughter and applause from the soldiers greeted his words.

“‘Nor I either!’ cried I. And thus I became a soldier, never to regret the day I belted on the knapsack. But here comes the Père Duclos: I hope he may not be displeased at your having kept me company. I know well he loves not such companionship for his pupil – perhaps he has reason.”

Alfred did not wait for the priest’s arrival, but darted from the spot and hastened to his room, where, bolting the door, he threw himself upon his bed and wept bitterly. Who knows if these tears decided not all his path in life?

That same evening the lieutenant left the château; and in about two months after came a letter, expressing his gratitude for all the kindness of his host, and withal a present of a gun and a chasseur’s accoutrement for Alfred.. They were very handsome and costly, and he was never weary of trying them on his shoulder and looking how they became him; when, in examining one of the pockets for the twentieth time, he discovered a folded paper: he opened it, and found it was an appointment for a cadet in the military school of St. Cyr. Alfred de Vitry was written in pencil where the name should be inscribed, but very faintly, and so that it required sharp looking to detect the letters. It was enough, however, for him who read the words: he packed up a little parcel of clothes, and, with a few francs in his pocket, he set out that night for Chalons, where he took the malle. The third day, when he was tracked by the Père, he was already enrolled a cadet, and not all the interest in France could have removed him against his consent.

I will not dwell on a career which was in no respect different from that of hundreds of others. Alfred joined the army in the second Italian campaign – was part of Dessaix’s division at Marengo – was wounded at Aspern, and finally accompanied the Emperor in his terrible march to Moscow. He saw more service than his promotion seemed to imply, however; for, after Leipsig, Dresden, Bautzen, he was carried on a litter, with some other dying comrades, into a little village of Alsace – a lieutenant of hussars, nothing more.

An hospital, hastily constructed of planks, had been fitted up outside the village – there were many such, on the road between Strasbourg and Nancy; and here poor Alfred lay, with many more, their sad fate rendered still sadder by the daily tidings, which told them that the cause for which they had shed their blood was hourly becoming more hopeless.

The army that never knew defeat now counted nothing but disasters. Before Alfred had recovered from his wound, the allies bivouacked in the Place Carrousel, and Napoleon was at Elba!

When little dreaming that he could take any part in that general joy by which France, in one of her least-thinking moments, welcomed back the Bourbons, Alfred was loitering listlessly along one of the quays of Paris, wondering within himself by what process of arithmetic he could multiply seven sous – they were all he had – into the price of a supper and a bed; and while his eyes often dwelt with lingering fondness on the windows of the restaurants, they turned, too, with a dreadful instinct towards the Seine, whose eddies had closed over many a sorrow and crime.

As he wandered thus, a cry arose for help: an unfortunate creature – one whose woes were greater, or whose courage to bear them less, than his own – had thrown herself from the Pont-Neuf into the river, and her body was seen to rise and sink several times in the current of the rapid stream, It was from no prompting of humanity – it was something like a mere instinct, and no more – mayhap, too, his recklessness of life had some share in the act; – whatever the reason, he sprung into the river, and, after a long and vigorous struggle, he brought her out alive; and then, forcing through the crowd that welcomed him, he drew his miserable and dripping hat over his eyes. He continued his road – Heaven knows he had little purpose or object to warrant the persistence!

He had not gone far when a number of voices were heard behind him, calling out, —

“That is he! – there he is!” and at the same instant an officer rode up beside him, and, saluting him politely, said that her royal highness the Duchess of Berri desired to speak to him; – her carriage was just by.

Alfred was in that humour when, so indifferent is every object in life, that he would have turned at the bidding of the humblest gamin of the streets; and, wet and weary, he stood beside the door of the splendid equipage.

“It was thou that saved the woman?” said the Duchess, addressing him, and using the conventional “Du,” as suitable to his mean appearance.

“Madame,” said Alfred, removing his tattered hat, “I am a gentleman! These rags were once – the uniform of the Guard.”

“My God! – my cousin!” cried a voice beside the Duchess; and, at the same instant, a young girl held out her hands towards him, and exclaimed, —

“Knowest thou not me, Alfred? I am Alice – Alice de Vitry – thy cousin and thy sister!”

It would little interest you to dwell on the steps that followed, and which, in a few weeks, made of a wretched outcast – without a home or a meal – an officer of the Guard du Corps, with the order of St. Louis at his breast.

Time sped on, and his promotion with it; and at length his Majesty, graciously desiring to see the old nobility resume their place and grade, consented to the union of Alfred with his cousin. There was no violent love on either side, but there was sincere esteem and devoted friendship; and if they neither of them felt that degree of attachment which becomes a passion, they regarded each other with true affection.

Alice was a devoted Royalist: all that she had suffered for the cause had endeared it to her; and she could forgive, but not forget, that her future husband had shed his blood for the Usurper.

Alfred was what every one, and with reason, called a most fortunate fellow: a colonel at twenty-eight – a promotion that, under the Empire, nothing but the most distinguished services could have gained – and yet he was far from happy. He remembered with higher enthusiasm his first grade of “corporal,” won at Aspern, and his epaulettes that he gained at Wilna. His soldiering had been learned in another school than in the parade-ground at Versailles, or the avenue of the Champs Elysées.

“Come, mon ami!” said Alice, gaily, to him one morning, about ten days before the time appointed for their marriage; “thou art about to have some occasion for thy long-rusting sword: the Usurper has landed at Cannes.”

“The Emperor at Cannes!”

“The Emperor, if thou wilt – but without an Empire.”

“No matter. Is he without an army?” said Alfred.

“Alone – with some half-dozen followers, at most. Ney has received orders to march against him, and thou art to command a brigade.”

“This is good news!” said Alfred; for the very name of war had set his heart a-throbbing; and as he issued forth into the streets, the stirring sounds of excitement and rapid motion of troops increased his ardour.

Wondering groups were gathered in every street, some, discussing the intelligence, others, reading the great placards, which, in letters of portentous size, announced that “the Monster” had once more polluted by his presence the soil of France.

Whatever the enthusiasm of the old Royalists to the Bourbon cause, there seemed an activity and determination on the part of the Buonapartists who had taken service with the King to exhibit their loyalty to the new sovereign; and Ney rode from one quarter of Paris to the other, with a cockade of most conspicuous size, followed by a staff equally remarkable.

That same day Alfred left Paris for Lyons, where his regiment lay, with orders to move to the south, by forced marches, and arrest the advance of the small party which formed the band of the invader. It was Alice herself fastened the knot of white ribbon in his shako, and bade him adieu with a fondness of affection he had never witnessed before.

From Paris to Lyons, and to Grenoble, Alfred hastened with promptitude. At Lesseim, at last, he halted for orders.

His position was a small village, three leagues in advance of Lesseim, called Dulaure, where, at nightfall on the 18th of March, Alfred arrived with two companies of his regiment, his orders being to reconnoitre the valley towards Lesseim, and report if the enemy should present himself in that quarter.

After an anxious night on the alert, Alfred lay down to sleep towards morning, when he was awoke by the sharp report of a musket, followed immediately after by the roll of the drum and the call for the guard to “turn out.” He rushed out, and hastened towards the advanced picket. All was in confusion: some were in retreat; others stood at a distance from their post, looking intently towards it; and at the picket itself were others, again, with piled arms, standing in a close group. What could this mean? Alfred called out, but no answer was returned. The men stared in stupid amazement, and each seemed waiting for the other to reply.

“Where is your officer?” cried De Vitry, in an angry voice.

“He is here!” said a pale, calm-featured man, who, buttoned up in a grey surtout, and with a low chapeau on his head, advanced towards him.

“You the officer!” replied Alfred, angrily: “you are not of our regiment, sir.”

“Pardon me, Colonel,” rejoined the other; “I led the twenty-second at Rovigo, and they were with me at Wagram.”

“Grand Dieu!” said Alfred, trembling; “who are you, then?”

“Your Emperor, Colonel de Vitry!”

Alfred stepped back at the words. The order to arrest and make him prisoner was almost on his lips. He turned towards his men, who instinctively had resumed their formation; his head was maddened by the conflict within it; his eyes turned again towards Napoleon – the struggle was over-he knelt and presented his sword.

“Take mine in exchange, General de Vitry,” said the Emperor; “I know you will wear it with honour.”

And thus, in a moment, was all forgotten – plighted love and sworn faith – for who could resist the Emperor?

The story is now soon told. Waterloo came, and once more the day of defeat descended, never to dawn upon another victory. Alfred, rejected and scorned, lived years in poverty and obscurity. When the fortunes of the Revolution brought up once more the old soldiers of the Empire, he fought at the Quai Voltaire and was wounded severely. The Three Days over, he was appointed to a sous-lieutenancy in the dragoons. He is now chef-d’escadron, the last of his race, weary of a world whose vicissitudes have crushed his hopes and made him broken-hearted.

The relator of this tale was Alfred de Vitry himself, who, under the name of his maternal grandfather, St. Amand, served in the second regiment of Carabiniers.