Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 193 — page 21: what you’re looking at

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dj CHAPTER XXIX. A NEST OF TRAITORS. THE apartments of Madame St. Jean in the palace were large and commodious, and opened on a wide and handsome terrace, bordered by a stone balustrade, and overlooking the formal ace garden. ae Gabriel approached the steps that led up The Man in Red. dwindled into a turbid stream. They were thin and puny, flat of chest, pale of face, with small white hands, clean-shaven faces and a gen- eral air of delicate refinement that suggested satin and snuff-boxes, rather than steel armor and gold spurs. The older gentlemen among 21 Grand Forester? I have not seen him here as I expected to do.” “The baron? Ah, yes—well—in fact—count, the baron and I have quarreled.” ** About what?’ ‘* A bout—well, about this—he insists that he them still wore the costume of the previous | eats the emperor’s bread and cannot betray century and some old ladies had their hair _ powdere?, the terrace he heard the sound of many voices, | 'spirators, and the two cuirassiers had the as- with laughter and the clink of tea cups, and surmised that madame bad a gathering of some sort. The windows of her saloon, going on the ter- race, were wide open, and he could see people sing in and out. Just beyond the terrace was the paved walk leading to the stables, and he saw Cassa Tete there, with little Gabriel on his shoulders, coming toward the windows. As the cuirassier passed the place of the revelry two or three men hurried out to peep after bim, and when Gabriel met him, Casse Tete growled out: ‘Tete Dieu! wy general. All the Chouans in France are in there. They forget that the lion is not dead yet.” ‘*Tnez, take the child,” commanded her husband, sternly. ‘‘ We'll see if his majesty’s palace is to be turned into a Chouan rendezvous ye’, or if they will wait awhile.” When that look was on his face Inez did not dare tointerfere, The fact is, she was mortally afraid of her husband; had ealled him ‘‘monsieur” for years after marriage, and the last year’s absence had only served to lessen still further her familiarity. So she caught away little Gabriel, who was beginning to howl a remonstrance at being dis- mounted from Casse Tete’s shoulders, and whispered: 43 Hush, hush, or papa will scold!” Then she remained on the terrace, palpitating, while Gabriel! and Casse Tete, their sabers clashing behind them, stalled up to the long windows and entered the saloon of Madame St. Jean, which they found full of ladies and gentlemen, who were all a Ao but wore the well-known Royalist badge of the white cockade. The men had itin their hats, the ladies wore it pinned on the breast, but not a person in the room failed to have it in some form, and a deep silence fell on them all as the general entered. Madame la Marquise was the first to recover herself as ‘soon as she perceived who it was that had come in. ' She rose nervously and exclaimed with an affectation of cordiality: ae dear count, what a surprise to see you and what a pleasure! We feared you had been killed or taken prisoner in some of those terri- ble defeats the butcher led you to.” She did not seem to care about the white cockades now; but to be anxious, for all that, to show a welcome to Gabriel. He had been scanning the room sharply with- out removing the cuirassier helmet he wore, and every where met cold stares. Now he spoke out: “This palace belongs to the Emperor of the French. I propose that we all shout ‘‘ Vive ‘| Empereur.’ The man that refuses I shall hold personally and physically responsible.” Then he took off his helmet. The glances be- came sullen and lowering; but no man stirred. He watched them amid dead silence for a few seconds, and then suddenly shouted, with a stamp of his foot: “STAND UP !” At the same moment Casse Tete, with a sav- age scowl, clapped his hand on his sword so hard that all his armor rattled, and up jumped every nin in the room as if he had been struck. Then Gabriel and Casse Tete waved their helmets in the air and shouted ‘ Vive Em- pereur,” atid a faint murmur of the same words was heard from the gentlemen with the white cockades. Gabriel heard it and clapped on his helmet again, with a proud smile. Then he turned on Madame St. Jean: ‘IT came to see you, Madame la Marquise, to inform you that his majesty the Emperor Na- poleon will ver iikely be here this evening, with the Duke §Otranto, and that the police mance ast .he wearing of Chouan badges be enfor:: .d with unusual strictness.” The marquise looked thuuderstruck. “The emperor! Here? Why, we thought—” “You thought him in Germany. He is at Paris, and the army is to be increased by a new levy. His majesty orders that all persons wearing Chouan badges be sent to the front at pal to work on the forts as Strasbourg and " While he was speaking he could hardly help laughing to see the sly way in which one man after another picked up his hat and put it be- hind his back, where he began fumbling about to take off the white cockade. They were not a formidable set, these sons of the haughty nobles of Francis I, whose ances- tors had driven the English from France, and swelled at the court of Louis XIV. The nobility of their blood had long ago ———$_$_$_$_—$ KL een ee Truly they were not a formidable set of con- | pect of giants by contrast. him till the nation declares him deposed from the throne,” ‘‘The baron is an honorable gentleman, and it is no more than I expected from him. ave you lately seen anything of the general that When he saw that there was not a white | used to live in the secret chamber in the tower cockade visible on the hat of a man, Gabriel continued to the marquise: ‘The Duke of Otranto, as you are aware, is a very brutal person with the old Jacobin man- ners, and he told me, only this morning, that the women were giving so much trouble in the Faubourg St. Germain with their tea-party lots, welcoming Prussian spies and so on, that e had determined in future to hold the male members of their families to a strict account for the deeds of the ladies, as if done by them- selves,” The marquise looked disturbed. ‘*] do not understand you, my dear count. To what does he object, for example?” ‘* Well, for example, if seems that there are some ladies indiscreet enough to wear Chouan badges in France.” * Yes, and what then?” ‘* Well, Fouche says thatif hecatches a woman with one on, he will order her arrest at once, find out who she is, and then arrest and publicly whip all the male members of her family he can find.” ‘* Ah, the monster! Ah, the ruffian!” cried several excited female voices. ‘‘Exactly. It is, as you sav, ruffianly, but what would you have, marquise? The duke has the power and will use it. I hope you will waro any of your friends that may be indis- creet that unless they wish to see their brothers, husbands, fathers and sons publicly whipped, they would do well to hide their white cockades till the Bourbons come back.” Without a word of remonstrance, the white badges disappeared from the breasts of the ladies as rapidly as they had from the hats of the men, and then Gabriel took off his helmet and said, veg tf ‘‘ And now, Madame la Marquise, I will take my leave, I have just returned from the front. The army is retreating and the enemy will soon be on the soilof France, I do not intend to deceive you on this point. The country is in dang°*r and itis the duty of every Frenchman to take up arms in ber defense.” Then he suddenly wheeled round, “These gentlemen are French, I presume?” They were silent and confused, but one stam- mered out: ** Yes, yes, to be sure. We are French.” ‘The guard will be here to-night and all able- ied men will be put into the ranks at once,” said Gabriel, coolly. “‘I would advise you gentlemen to leave this village as soon as possible and get into Normandy or Brittany to avoid the conscription, It will sweep clean this time, I assure you. “And you say the guard will be here to- night,” asked a young man, nervously. ‘Ilexpect them every minute, monsieur.” The young man caught up his hat and said hurriedly: ‘“* Will madame excuse my further—?” “Certainly, M. le Duc, certainly. It is a case of urgency,” smiled she, but her face was pale through the rouge as she spoke, Then the young man bolted out of the window and several others rose up as Gabriel asked: ‘** And who was that, madame, for example?” “That? That was the Duke de Grammont,” she whispered SaeReneneveny “For God's sake don’t expose him.” Then, first one, then another, of the guests began to get up and bow their excuses till a regular stampede set in, and at last Gabriel found h mself alone with the marquise, Casse Tete having vanished to look after the outsiders and Inez peeping apprehensively in at the window. As for the marquise, she looked haggard and her eyes fell beneath his when she found herself alone. till he asked her abruptly: ‘Wel, madame, do you wish to remain in these apartments or not?” “I do not understand, monsieur, I—” “You hold them by the bounty of his ma- jesty, the Emperor of the French, who pays ros & pension; yet I find you in the midst of houans and wearing a Chouan badge. Do you wish to leave France?” ** No, no, for Heaven's sake, no, monsieur! [ do not. It would be ruin. The villainous Jacobins robbed me of my estates and the emperor has not restored them. I have nothing to live on and I am old.” ‘Then let that keep you from plotting. I will not conceal from you that it is possible the emperor may fall, but it will not be from Royalist plots. It will take all the armies of Europe to master him, and till then he is not a man to suffer treason in his rear. Now, madame, where is the Baron dev Belleville, , man. of Francis I., madame?’ ) The marquise threw herself back, glaring at him as if frightened to death. ‘**My God! what do you know of him?” ‘‘I know him to bea person in whom you take a great interest, one closer than any one else of whom I know, and he informed me not many months ago that he was my own kins- Do you know him?’ She was positively haggard now. ‘7 don’t know him—I don’t. It is false!” “Tamsorry. I hoped to get some informa- tion on the subject. I thoughtI might evem find him here.” ‘‘He is not; I have not seen him for a long time. He is in Russia.” The words came by jerks, as if forced out against her will, and Gabriel answered: ‘*T thought you did not know him,” ‘*T do not—that is—” She kept staring at him like a hunted animal, and he saw that she was very much afraid of any reference to the absent general, so he said, soothingly: “Never mind, madame, I came home to see my family, not to spy into any one’s affairs. eep your white badges out of sight for the present. Good-by.” CHAPTER XXX. THE LAST RETURN, In the midst of a winter campaign; the ene- my on the soil of France. Mud everywhere, the roads trodden into a sticky quagmire by the hoofs of thousands of horses, and cut up by - trains of guns and wagons. The quiet civilian, sitting on his summer piazza, reading of a winter campaign, does not realize what those two words mean. The sol- dier who has been through one never wishes to repeat the experience. , t is a constant struggle with nature and the = and nature is equally hard on friend and foe. It means short, crawling marches, in mud up | to the knees, where one mile is worse than five in summer; camps where sullen men sit round in more mud, shivering by their fires; where the horses re: along with sore heels, their ribs sticking out, their he»ds drooping; where the one object of man’s life is to find a dry place and to stay there, and where both armies are speadily developed into academies of the finest kind of swearing at the misery. Battles in such weather are grim, dogged, in- lorious slaughters; into which men move slow- y, with rusty weapons, and where pursuit of a beaten enemy is a confessed im ility. ind it was into such a campaign that unt of Friedland, found himself f. January, 1814. Of all the immensehost of the Grand Army that had marched through Europe so proudly ; after all the reinforcements of conscripts that: could be assembled, only seventy thousand men could be brought to bear against nearly three hundred thousand Russians, Prussians, Austrians, Bavarians, Belgians, and all the hosts that had bowed to the conqueror in his aa dain and deserted him in hour of his ri To Gabriel, who had been hitherto associated _ with the astonishing rise of a human marvel to become the first man in Europe the change was one that was hard to realize. ! Every one seemed to have deserted the em- peror, save those he had treated the worst. Murat, his favorite, whom he had made s king, had concluded a shameful peace with the allies, while Eugene, who had seen his mother repudiated and replaced by a princess of Aus- - fought still on the side of his father-in- Ww, Bernadotte, whom Napoleon had made a marshal and a prince, turned against him and. was leading an army to fight Pi. geo French- men, while Macdonald, the la made of all the marshals, stood like a rock iu defense of his master. And the emperor himself. There was a change from the man who led half a million of men to Moscow! General Bonaparte, when he invaded Italy, twenty years before, had more men under his: orders than the Emperor of the French could muster in asingle army, of less than forty thousand men. The allies were in Lorraine and had won it without firing ashot. The French had fallen back to Chalons and all expected rest for awhile. Blucher in Christmas week, n his march. toward Paris, and by the end of January two hundred thousand foes were in Alsace, ecolm El KOO) KS, (EC) ee