Tom Burke Of "Ours" Volume I Part 58

"A hundred times. There are no parties like his: one meets everybody; it is a kind of neutral territory for the Faubourg and the Jacobin, the partisan of our people and the followers of Heaven knows who. Fouch slips about, whispering the same anecdote in confidence to every one, and binding each to secrecy. Then, as every one comes there to spy his neighbor, the host has an excellent opportunity of pumping all in turn; and while they all persist in telling him nothing but lies, they forget that with him no readier road could lead to the detection of truth."

"The Consul!" said a servant, aloud, as the door opened and closed with a crash; and Bonaparte, dressed in the uniform of the Cha.s.seurs of the Guard, and covered with dust, entered.

"Was Decrs here?" And then, without waiting for a reply, continued: "It is settled, all finally arranged; I told you, Madame, the 'pear was ripe.' I start to-morrow for Boulogne; you, Murat, must accompany me; D'Auvergne, your division will march the day after. Who is this gentleman?"

This latter question, in all its abruptness, was addressed to me, while a dark and ominous frown settled on his features.

"My aide-de-camp, sir," said the old general, hastily, hoping thus to escape further inquiry.

"Your name, sir?" said the Consul, harshly, as he fixed his piercing eyes upon me.

"Burke, sir; sous-lieutenant--"

"Of the Eighth Hussars," continued he. "I know the rest, sir. Every conspiracy is made up of knaves and fools; you figured in the latter capacity. Mark me, sir, your name is yet to make; the time is approaching when you may have the opportunity. Still, General d'

Auvergne, it is not in the ranks of a _Chouan_ plot I should have gone to select my staff."

"Pardon me, sir; but this young man's devotion to you--"

"Is on record. General; I have seen it in Mehe de la Touche's own writing," added Bonaparte, with a sneer. "Give me the fidelity, sir, that has no tarnish,--like your own, D'Auvergne. Go, sir," said he, turning to me, while he waved his hand towards the door; "it will need all your bravery and all your heroism to make me acquit General d'Auvergne of an act of folly."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Napoleon sends Burke from the room]

I hung my head in shame, and with a low reverence and a tottering step moved from the room and closed the door behind me.

I had just reached the street when the general overtook me.

"Come, come, Burke," said he; "you must not mind this. I heard Lannes receive a heavier reproof because he only carried away three guns of an Austrian battery when there were four in all."

"Bonaparte never forgets, sir," muttered I, between my teeth, as the well-remembered phrase crossed my mind.

"Then there 's but one thing to do, my boy; give him a pleasanter souvenir to look back upon. Besides," added he, in a lower tone, "the general is ever harsh at the moment of victory; and such is the present. In a few days more, France will have an emperor; the Senate has declared, and the army wait but for the signal to salute their monarch.

And now for your own duties. Make your arrangements to start to-night by post for Mayence; I shall join you there in about ten days. You are, on your arrival, to report yourself to the general in command, and receive your instructions from him. A great movement towards the Rhine is in contemplation; but, of course, everything awaits the progress of political changes in Paris."

Thus conversing, we reached the corner of the Rue de Rohan, where the general's quarters were.

"You'll be here then punctually at eight to-night," said he; and we parted.

I walked on for some time without knowing which way I went, the strange conflict of my mind so completely absorbed me,--hope and fear, pride, shame, and sorrow, alternately swaying me with their impulses. I noticed not the gay and splendid streets through which I pa.s.sed, nor the merry groups which poured along. At length I remembered that but a few hours remained for me to make some purchases necessary for my journey. My new uniform as aide-de-camp, too, was yet to be ordered; and by some strange hazard I was exactly at the corner of the Rue de Richelieu on the Boulevard, at the very shop of Monsieur Grillac where some months before began the singular current of ill luck that had followed me ever since.

A half shudder of fear pa.s.sed across me for a second as I thought of all the dangers I had gone through; and the next moment I felt ashamed of my cowardice, and pus.h.i.+ng the gla.s.s door before me, walked in. I looked about me for the well-known face of the proprietor, but he was nowhere to be seen. A lean and wasted little old man, hung round with tapes and measures, was the only person there. Saluting me with a most respectful bow, he asked my orders.

"I thought this was Crillac's," said I, hesitatingly.

A shrug of the shoulders and a strange expression of the eyebrows was the only reply.

"I remember he lived here some eight or ten months ago," said I again, curious to find out the meaning of the man's ignorance of his predecessor.

"Monsieur has been away from Paris for some time then?" was the cautious question of the little man, as he peered curiously at me.

"Yes; I have been away," said I, after a pause.

"Monsieur knew Criliac probably when he was here?"

"I never saw him but once," said I.

"Ha!" cried he, after a long silence. "Then you probably never heard of the _Chouan_ conspiracy to murder the Chief Consul and overthrow the Government, nor of their trial at the Palais de Justice?"

I nodded slightly, and he went on.

"Monsieur Crillac's evidence was of great value in the proceeding: he knew Jules de Polignac and Charles de la Riviere well; and but for him, San Victor would have escaped."

"And what has become of him since?"

"He is gone back to the South; he has been promoted."

"Promoted! what do you mean?"

"_Parbleu!_ it is easy enough to understand. He was made chef de bureau in the department of--"

"What! was he not a tailor then?"

"A tailor! No," said the little man, laughing heartily; "he was a mouchard, a police spy, who knew all the Royalist party well at Bordeaux; and Fouche brought him up here to Paris, and established him in this house. Ah, mon Dieu!" said he, sighing, "he had a better and a pleasanter occupation than cutting out pantaloons."

Without heeding the reiterated professions of the little tailor of his desire for my patronage, I strolled out again, lost in reflection, and sick to the heart of a system based on such duplicity and deception.

At last in Mayence! What a change of life was this to me! A large fortress garrisoned by twelve thousand men, princ.i.p.ally artillery, awaited here the orders of the Consul; but whither the destination before them, or what the hour when the word to march was to summon them, none could tell. Meanwhile the activity of the troops was studiously kept up; battering trains of field artillery were exercised day after day; the men were practised in all the movements of the field; while the foundries were unceasingly occupied in casting guns and the furnaces rolled forth their myriads of sh.e.l.l and shot. Staff-officers came and went; expresses arrived from Paris; and orderlies, travel-stained and tired, galloped in from the other fortified places near; but still no whisper came to say where the great game of war was to open, for what quarter of the globe the terrible carnage was destined. From daylight till dark no moment of our time was unoccupied; reports innumerable were to be furnished on every possible subject; and frequently it was far in the night ere I returned to rest.

To others this unbroken monotony may have been wearisome and uninteresting; to me each incident bore upon the great cause I gloried in,--the dull rumble of the caissons, the heavy clattering of the bra.s.s guns, were music to my ear, and I never wearied of the din and clamor that spoke of preparation. Such was indeed the preoccupation of my thoughts that I scarcely marked the course of events which were even then pa.s.sing, or the mighty changes that already moved across the destinies of France. To my eyes the conqueror of Lodi needed no t.i.tle; what sceptre could equal his own sword? France might desire in her pride to unite her destinies with such a name as his; but he, the general of Italy and Egypt, could not be exalted by any dignity. Such were my boyish fancies; and as I indulged them, again there grew up the hope within me that a brighter day was yet to beam on my own fortunes, when I should do that which even in his eyes might seem worthy. His very reproaches stirred my courage and nerved my heart. There was a combat, there was a battlefield, before me, in which my whole fame and honor lay; and could I but succeed in making him confess that he had wronged me, what pride was in the thought? "Yes," said I, again and again, "a devotion to him such as I can offer must have success: one who, like me, has neither home nor friends nor country to share his heart, must have room in it for one pa.s.sion; and that shall be glory. She whom alone I could have loved,--I dared not confess I did love her,--never could be mine. Life must have its object; and what so n.o.ble as that before me?"

My very dreams caught up the infatuation of my waking thoughts, and images of battle, deadly contests, and terrific skirmishes were constantly pa.s.sing before me; and I actually went my daily rounds of duty buried in these thoughts, and lost to everything save what ministered to my excited imagination.

We who lived far away on the distant frontier could but collect from the journals the state of excitement and enthusiasm into which every cla.s.s of the capital was thrown by Napoleon's elevation to the Monarchy. Never perhaps in any country did the current of popular favor run in a stream so united. The army hailed him as their brother of the sword, and felt the proud distinction that the chief of the Empire was chosen from their ranks. The civilian saw the restoration of Monarchy as the pledge of that security which alone was wanting to consolidate national prosperity. The clergy, however they may have distrusted his sincerity, could not but acknowledge that to his influence was owing the return of the ancient faith; and, save the Vendeans, broken and discomfited, and the scattered remnants of the Jacobin party, discouraged by the fate of Moreau, none raised a voice against him. A few of the old Republicans, among whom was Camot, did, it is true, proclaim their dissent; but so moderately, and with so little of partisan spirit, as to call forth a eulogium on their honorable conduct from Napoleon himself.

The mighty change, which was to undo all the long and arduous struggles for liberty which took years in their accomplishments, was effected in one burst of national enthusiasm. Surrounded by nations on whose friends.h.i.+p they dared not reckon,--at war with their most powerful enemy, England,--France saw herself dependent on the genius of one great man; and beheld, too, the formidable conspiracy for his a.s.sa.s.sination, coupled with the schemes against her own independence. He became thus indissolubly linked with her fortunes; self-interest and grat.i.tude pointed both in the same direction to secure his services; and the Imperial Crowa was indeed less the reward of the past than the price of the future. Even they who loved him least, felt that in his guidance there was safety, and that without him the prospect was dark and dreary and threatening.

Another element which greatly contributed to the same effect, was the social ruin caused by the Revolution; the destruction of all commerce, the forfeiture of property, had thrown every cla.s.s into the service of the Government. Men gladly advocated a change by which the ancient forms of a Monarchy might be restored; and with them the long train of patronage and appointments, their inevitable attendants. Even the old families of the kingdom hailed the return of an order of things which might include them in the favors of the Crown; and the question now was, what rank or cla.s.s should be foremost in tendering their allegiance to the new sovereign. We should hesitate ere we condemn the sudden impulse by which many were driven at this period. Confiscation and exile had done much to break the spirit of even the hardiest; and the very return to the inst.i.tutions in which all their ancient prejudices were involved seemed a pledge against the tyranny of the ma.s.s.

As for Napoleon himself, each step in his proud career seemed to evoke the spirit necessary to direct it; the resources of his mighty intellect appeared, with every new drain on them, only the more inexhaustible.

Animated through his whole life by the one great principle,--the aggrandizement of France,--his vast intelligence gathering strength with his own increase of power, enabled him to cultivate every element of national greatness, and mould their energies to his will; till at length the nation seemed but one vast body, of which he was the heart, the impulse, that sent the life-blood bounding through all its arteries, and with whose beating pulses every, even the most remote portion, throbbed in unison.

The same day that established the Empire, declared the rank and dignity accorded to each member of the royal family, with the t.i.tles to be borne by the ministers and other high officers of the Crown. The next step was the creation of a new order of n.o.bility,--one which, without ancient lineage or vast possessions, could still command the respect and admiration of all,--the marshals of France. The names of Berthier, Murat, Augereau, Ma.s.sena, Bernadotte, Ney, Soult, Lannes, Mortier, Davoust, Bessieres, were enough to throw a blaze of l.u.s.tre on the order. And had it not been for the omission of Macdonald's name in this glorious list, public enthusiasm had been complete; but then he was the friend of Moreau, and Bonaparte "did not forgive."

The restoration of the old t.i.tles so long in abeyance, the return to the pomp and state of Monarchy, seemed like a national fte, and Paris became the scene of a splendid festivity and a magnificence unknown for many years past. It was necessary for the new Court to make its impression on the world; and the endeavor was to eclipse, by luxury and splendor, the grandeur which in the days of the Bourbons was an heirloom of royalty. To this end functionaries and officers of the Palace were appointed in myriads; brilliant and costly uniforms adopted; courtly t.i.tles and ceremonial observances increased without end; and etiquette, carried to a pitch of strictness which no former reign had ever exhibited, now regulated every department of the state.

While, however, nothing was too minute or too trivial, provided that it bore, even in the remotest way, on the re-establishment of that throne he had so long and so ardently desired, Napoleon's great mind was eagerly bent upon the necessity of giving to the Empire one of those astounding evidences of his genius which marked him as above all other men. He wished to show to France that the Crown had devolved upon the rightful successor to Charlemagne, and to prove to the army that the purple mantle of royalty could not conceal the spur of the warrior; and thus, while all believed him occupied with the ordinary routine of the period, his ambitious thoughts were carrying him away across the Pyrenees or beyond the Danube, to battlefields of even greater glory than ever, and to conquests prouder than all his former ones.

The same power of concentrativeness that he so eminently possessed himself, he imparted, as if by magic, to his Government. Paris was France; to the capital flocked all whose talent or zeal prompted them to seek for advancement. The Emperor was not only the fountain of all honor, but of all emolument and place. So patronage was exercised without his permission; and none was conferred without the conviction that some stanch adherent was secured whose friends.h.i.+p was ratified, or whose former enmity was conciliated.

Thus pa.s.sed the year that followed his accession to the throne,--that brilliant pageant of a nation's enthusiasm rendering tribute to the majesty of intellect. At length the period of inaction seemed drawing to a close; and a greater activity in the war department, and a new levy of troops, betokened the approach of some more energetic measures.

Men whispered that the English expedition was about to sail, and reinforcements of ammunition and artillery were despatched to the coast, when suddenly came the news of Trafalgar. Villeneuve was beaten,-- his fleet annihilated,--the whole combination of events destroyed; and England, again triumphant on the element she had made her own, hurled defiance at the threats of her enemy. The same despatch that brought the intelligence to Mayence told us to be in readiness for a movement; but when, or where to, none of us could surmise. Still detachments from various corps stationed about were marched into the garrison, skeleton regiments commanded to make up their deficiencies, and a renewed energy was everywhere perceptible. At last, towards the middle of August, I was sent for by the general in command of the fortress, and informed that General d'Auvergne had been promoted to the command of a cavalry brigade stationed at Coblentz.