Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 193 — page 25: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

4‘ see his majesty by stealth. You arenot angry, now itis all over, are you? I did not want you ‘to be looking so anxious and miserable, and I knew you were too proud to go yourself. But we women can afford to lower our pride for our children, you know. You are not angry, are you, mon cher?” “No, Ineawj lam notangry. It had to bedone sooner or later. Were you granted an audience by the king?’ “‘ Indeed, yes, mon cher, and his majesty was most kind. He had heard of you often, he said, as one of the best soldiers in nce, and ho yet to see you at court. He took up the child too, You know he has no children, Gabriel. t felt sorry for him. And then I thought of my own child, and I felt bold enough to speak.” ‘“ And what did you say?” “IT told him how you had won your way up from a private soldier to be a general of France anda noble of the field of battle, and how you bad refused to enter the service of the Czar Alexander.” ‘And what said the king to that?” ‘‘He seemed pleased! I told him that you had been Master of the Horse, but he inter- rupted me there and said, ‘It is impossible. The place is promised.’” Gabriel smiled. ‘“‘T doubt it not. There are swarms of men for every place. What next?’ “I told him you did not wish to be at court now, but would prefer to serve with your regi- ment if they would trust you with no higher piace. And then he said quickly: ‘ Yes, yes, he can have the regiment if he will recruit it up to full strength. I want to see good regi- ments. Tell him he shall have that, certainly. He can retain his rank of general, but only b brevet. 1 want to have each of my generals also a colonel. Give the full name to Prince Polignac. He will see to it. Good-morning.’ Then he dismissed me, and I went to the prince, you may be sure. He gave me this.” And she handed him a parchment, with the anc ent arms of France thereon, which con- tained his commission as General of Cavalry, and Colonel of the ‘‘ Death’s Head Cuirassiers of the King.” It was the first return be had seen to the old method which had prevailed before the Revolu- tion, when the colonels were all generals, and the lieutenant-colonels were left in command. But, besides the commission, there was a let- + ter from the Prince of Polignac, the Minister of War, directing ‘‘General Lenoir, Count of Friedland, and Colonel of the Death’s Head Cuirassiers of the King,” to proceed at once to Grenoble, in the Province of Dauphiny, and there to recruit up bis regiment tothe maximum of its numbers as soon as possible. A private postscript assured him that his ma- jesty desired to treat. him ‘‘ as well as was con- EEE sistent with his known Bonapartist principles,” | and that his pay would continue as if he had never been out of the service. The news came so cheeringly to Gabriel that for a few moments he felt inclined to bless evea the Bourbons he had heen accustomed to hate so much. Then he turned to Casse Tete. **Old comrade, what say you? Will the old Death’s Heads feel at home under the white flag? They are ordered to Grenoble, and we are to recruit there.” ‘At Grenoble!” echoed Casse Tete. ‘‘ Why, my general, it will ruin the regiment. Where shall we get Gascons in Grenoble? It is mon- strous, We shall be ruined.” Madame laughed and shook her finger at the veteran. ‘Traitor, are you grumbling already? You swore to me that you would aid in persuading monsieur to accept the place.” Casse Tete looked mortified. ““I beg pardon, ma generale, but I did not know we were to go to Grenoble. It will ruin the regiment. But, after all, what matters it now? The emperor is gone, and the army is dead. ‘Yes, my general, let us go. We are no longer any Um to the country, we old ones. It will be the young. count’s turn next, and we cannot live on nothing. But what is that horse doing there? Who has had the impudence to ring it here in front of your honor’s terrace? It is infamous!” He had noticed for the first time that the horse standing at the post was not one of his master’s chargers, and was angry and touchy in proportion to the fall in that master’s fortunes. Take that horse away into the forest, Casse Tete,” said Gabriel, calmly, ‘‘ and you will meet on the road to Charlemagne’s Oak, a gentleman who owns it. He has on the uniform of a Russian general, and it is the same near Moscow under the flag of truce.’ Tete fixed his eyes on his master with a singular expression, as he muttered: He here again? It is singular.” Then he saluted briskly. pe ge oy. neral, I will take the horse.” it to the f en mounted it and rode awa ey ea Then Gabriel said consolin ly to his wife: ‘Be not cast down, ma t the | I accep place. There is nothing else left for us to do ou saw ‘The Man in Red. now, alas. Let uscomein. At least we shall be able to educate Gabriel so that, when the time comes, he may be able to serve France better than his father was able to do.” : ‘“*That can never be,” she retorted fondly. “Tf he does half as well, he will be a hero.” So they went into the old palace, where they had s0 many happy days when France was in the heyday of prosperity, and where they bad seen the sad drama of the fall of Na- poleon enacted before their eyes. They looked regretfully over the old rooms they were soon about to leave forever, and Inez said: ‘*] tried to gain permission to keep our a here, as under the emperor, but it was useless, The Prince told me that the orders were strict. Tbe palaces of the king were to be given up entirely to the members of the old noblesse. You see already they begin to make distinctions between the old and the new, and you will gain more honor as the Chevalier Lenoir, of the “ld family of Alsace, than as the Count of Friedland, created on the field of battle.” ‘“*T expected we should have to go away,” he answered, ‘‘ but none the less I am sorry to leave the old place. I shall miss the forest and even the old baron, By-the-by, where ishe? I have not seen him since the emperor’s abdication.” “The baron was at court with the rest, and I heard that he had obtained your old place of Grand Louvetier in the Forest. Ifso, we shall see him before we go away.” They passed the rest of the morning talking over plans for the future, and Casse Tete came in soon after, looking very quict and taciturn, unusually so for him, Generally, while as grim as a cast-iron man in feature, bis conversation was quite voluble. He went to the kitchen and officiated as cook— for in their fallen fortunes their regular cook had deserted them to go to Paris with the Mar- quise de 8t. Jean—and when the meal was ready, he served it up as waiter, in a white apron. Casse Tete was as much of a factotum to the family as he had been to his colonel in campaign, and on the same principle. that it would be below the dignity of an officer of the Death’s Head Cuirassiers to do anything for himself. If Inez tried to lay a cloth on the table, Casse Tete was always there to whisk it away from her with an: ‘**Excuse me, Madame la Generale, but it is not usuol in the army to permit that. It spoils the hands.” ‘*But what were hands made for?’ would ask, laughingly. Casse Tete kept on laying the table, and talking all the time. ‘‘ Hands, ma generale, hands? Well, let me see; oh, yes, hands. Well, hands were made for various purposes, Mine, for instance, are big and rougb, made for work. Yours are small and white, so as to look pretty on the keys of a piano, or sewing worsted work. The gener:l’s were meant to write his dispatches in a bold hand, and to hold the reins in a firm p. And so on till the cloth was laid. But that afternoon Casse Tete said nothing, and Gabriel knew why. He had seen the mysterious stranger. CHAPTER XXXVI. GRENOBLE, S0 the Lenoirs went to Grenoble at last, and lived in a musty old chateau by the rapid Isere, under the shadow cf Mont Cenis, where they saw no one but the stupid old sub-prefect of the town, and the few officers that remained out of the old regiment, but where they bid fair to be happy, in a quiet way. Casse Tete had of course come with them, but, besides Casse Tete, there was another per- son who made her appearance in Grenoble one ie with a ee 4 cap and a great many lushes and smiles, clinging very close to the arm of the grim old cuirassier, and looking excessively scared as she courtesied to the pale, grave young colonel of the Death’s Heads. Gabriel looked up from his writing and said in wonder: “Why, Casse Tete, what does this mean? In the name of fortune, who is this?” Casse Tete, usually so grim and self reliant, looked as foolish as the young person beside him. He was dressed up n his best uniform, and wore a white bow of ribbon at his button- bole, almost hiding his cross. He had bis forage cap in his hand, and was fumbling it nervous- ly, as he said, in a voice like a very young lamb: ‘**Please, my general, it is—it is—Madame Forton, Fanchette Gasperin that was. We were married yesterday.” Then the colonel rose up and hugged his old comrade with rare good-will, after which he kissed the blushing bride, and called to his own wife to come and see who was there. Casse Tete interposed blandly: “Pardon, my colonel, but it is unnecessary to call madame. In fact—in fact—it was by ma- dame’s assistance that we were enabled to get marr’ed; and my wife here is coming on pur- pose to live with us, and take care of the little count. It is not fitting for Madame la Generale Inez a Se LL SSS SSS SSS SSS to have to take care even of alittle count. It is her business to look beautiful and make all the regiment adore her.” And after it was settled they had great com- fort at Grenoble, for Fanchette turned out to be a regular hardy Norman t girl, who adored children and believed in obeying her husband; so that monsieur and madame, after her arrival, had no trouble with their little household, and became the envy of the married officers of the regiment for the completeness of their arrangements. Casse Tete was groom, valet and coachman in one; Fanchette cook, waitress and nurse at a single time, and it was almost ludicrous to see the anxiety with which these worthy people in- sisted on the absolute laziness of their master and mistress. “Madame la Generale will spoil her pretty hands,” Fanchette would cry, if she caugat ber mistress at even the innocent task of washing her own child’s face. ‘‘ Soap and water all the time draws the hands in wrinkles. Look at mine, madame. What's the use of having pretty hands if one spoils them?” ‘But we are poor now,” Inez would object. ‘“‘T must learn to do these things for fear you should go away some day from me.” ‘* Madame need not fear tha*. I can’t leave my husband, and I believe he’! beat me if 1 said a word about goingaway. Besides, I knew all that when I married Casse Tete.” ‘* And how came you to marry Casse Tete?” Gabriel asked, one day, as he watched the trim op figure of Madame Forton clearing the ta- Fanchette tossed her head with a laugh, * Oh, mon Dieu, he teased me so.” ‘* But where did he get time to tease you? I never even knew that he saw you more than once,” ‘* Kh, monsieur, but he used to be over in the kitchen of Madame St. Jean all the time. after that night when he knocked down the gendarme forme, Casse Tete is a very kind mar, mon- sieur. One can’t help loving him, when one knows him.” ‘You're right, Fanchette. Still I should have thougbt that bis age—” Fanchette bridled up. “Age, mon general? My busband is not fifty yet, and bis white head is all owing to the air of the marshes in Holland, where he went with General Pichegru, when Hie was a young man. indeed he is not so old as he looks, mon:ieur.” Fanchette bad become quite earnest in de- fense of her husband’s juvenility, and, to tease her, Gabriel went on: . “To my certain knowledge Casse Tete was in the army at the breaking out of the Revolution, and it is now twenty-five years since then, so that—” ‘Yes, monsieur, that is just it; twenty-one and twenty-five are forty six. Weadmit that, monsieur—forty-six. Not a year more, And Tam twenty-eight, monsieur, quite old enough for him, indeed,” And Fanchette looked indignantly prepared to swear on any amount of Bibles to the truth of her asseverations, though Gabriel felt sure she could not be much over twenty, if she had indeed reached that interesting age. So he did not attempt to contradict ber: and the Lenoir household continued its peaceful course under the walls of Grenoble. The regiment, too, led a quiet life and slowly err in numbers, as man after man came in rom the hospitals, or from the German and Russian prisons in which they had been con- fined, after the battle of giants in 1813-14. From two small squadrons they rose to four and the four swelled till the ranks were full of the veterans of fifty baitles, but in all the months of that dull summer no recruits came in, The old Death’s Heads were there, battle, scarred and as grim as ever; but no conscripts joined them, and the remount depot was empty. At first Gabriel did not understand this; but as he had nothing to do to amuse himself but reading the papers, he began to realize, after a while, that all was not right in France under re is ge : e king accepted a dishonorable peace at the hands of the Pen who put him on his throne; but they were not ready yet to fulfill their part of the bargain. France was to be circumscribed to the limits of 1790, but the settlement of Germany was not so easy. England and Prussia were squabbling over Hanover, and the general disarmament lagged on the way. The French fortresses wera occupied by foreign troops, and they hesitated to give them up. And then even the craven Louis XVITI had some spirit left, and stopped the general dis- bandment of the French army. ere was no money to spare for recruits; but the old soldiers were sent back to the colors. And them came rumors of trouble all over France, as the nobles of the old kingdom, who had lost their estates in the Revolution, came baek to reclaim them, and found others in their places fortified by twenty-five years’ ion. Every day there were accounts of riots in the country, and mobs had been heard to shout ** Vive VEmpereur.” EOMUIE OOO me te oe