Tom Burke Of "Ours" Volume Ii Part 12

I had scarcely seated myself to the humble supper of my bivouac, when an orderly came to command me to General d'Auvergne's quarters. The little sitting-room he occupied, in a peasant hut, was so filled with officers that it was some time before I could approach him; and my impatience was not lessened by more than once hearing my name mentioned aloud,--a circ.u.mstance not a little trying to a young man in the presence of his superiors in station.

"But here he is," said the general, beckoning to me to come forward.

"Burke, his Majesty has most graciously permitted me to include your name in the _compagnie d'elite_,--a testimony of his satisfaction you've every reason to be proud of. And just at the moment I was about to communicate the fact to you, I have received a message from Marshal Murat, requesting that I may permit you to serve on his own staff."

"Yes, Captain," said an officer in the uniform of a colonel,--it was the first time I had been addressed by my new t.i.tle, and I cannot express what a thrill of pleasure the word gave me,--"Marshal Murat witnessed with pleasure the alacrity and steadiness of your conduct on the 2d, and has sent me with an offer which I fancy few officers would not deem a flattering one."

"Unquestionably it is, Colonel," said General d'Auvergne; "nay, more, I will say I regard it as the making of a young man's fortune, thus early in his career to have attracted such high notice. But I must be pa.s.sive here; Captain Burke shall decide for himself."

"In that case, sir, I shall cause you but little delay, if you will still permit me to serve on your own staff."

"But stay, my boy, do not be rash in this affair. I will not insult your better feeling by dwelling on the little power I possess, and the very great enjoyed by Marshal Murat, of serving your interests; but I must say, that with him, and on his personal staff, opportunities of distinction--"

"And here I must interpose," said the colonel, smiling courteously: "with no officer in this army can a man expect to see service, in its boldest and most heroic colors, rather than with General d'Auvergne."

"I know it,--I feel it, too; and with him, if he will allow me--"

"Enough, my dear boy," said the old man, grasping my hand in his.

"Colonel, you must explain to the marshal how stands this matter; and he is too kind of heart and too n.o.ble of soul to think the worse of any of us for our obstinacy. And now, my young friend, make your arrangements to join the _compagnie d'elite_; they march to-morrow afternoon,--and this is a service you cannot decline. Leave me to make your acknowledgments to the marshal, and lose no more time here."

Short as had been my absence from my quarters, when I re-entered, I descried Tascher seated at the table, and busily employed in discussing the last fragments of my supper.

"You see, my dear friend," said he, speaking with his mouth full,--"you see what it is to have a _salmi_ for supper. I sat eating a confounded mess of black bread, and blacker veal, for fifteen minutes, when the breeze brought me the odor of your delicious _plat_. It was in vain I summoned all my virtue to resist it; if there ever was a dish made to seduce a subaltern on service, it is this. But, I say, won't you eat something?"

"I fear not," said I, half angrily.

"And why?" replied he. "See what a capital wing that is,--a little bare, to be sure; and there's the back of a pigeon. _Ma foi!_ you have no reason to complain. I say, is it true you are named among the _compagnie d'elite_?"

I nodded, and ate on.

"_Diable!_ there never was such fortune. What a glorious exchange for this confounded swamp, with its everlasting drill from morning to night,--s.h.i.+vering under arms for four hours, and shaking with the ague the rest of the day after,--marching, mid-leg in water, half frozen, and trying quick movements, when the very blood is in icicles! And then you 'll be enjoying Paris,--delightful Paris!--dining at the 'Rocher,'

supping at the 'Cadran,' lounging into the _salons_, at the very time we shall be hiding ourselves amidst the straw of our bivouacs. I go mad to think of it. And, what's worse than all, there you sit, as little elated as if the whole thing were only the most natural in the world. I believe, on my word, you 'd not condescend to be surprised if you were gazetted Marechal de France in to-morrow's gazette."

"When I can bear, without testifying too much astonishment, to see my supper eaten by the man who does nothing but rate me into the bargain, perhaps I may plume myself on some equanimity of temper."

"Confound your equanimity! It's very easy to be satisfied when one has everything his own way."

"And so, Tascher, you deem me such a fortunate fellow?"

"That I do," replied he, quickly. "You have had more good luck, and made less of it, than any one I ever knew. What a career you had before you when we met first! There was that pretty girl at the Tuileries quite ready to fall in love with you; I know it, because she rather took an air of coldness with me. Well, you let her be carried off by an old general, with a white head and a queue,--unquestionably a bit of pique on her part. Then, somehow or other, you contrived to pink the best swordsman of the army, little Francois there; and I never heard that the circ.u.mstance gained you a single conquest."

"Quite true, my friend," said I, laughing; "I confess it all. And, what is far worse, I acknowledge that until this moment I did not even know the advantages I was wilfully wasting."

"And even now," continued he, not minding my interruption,--"even now, you are about to return to Paris as one of the _elite_. Well, I 'll wager twenty Naps that the only civil speeches you 'll hear will be from some musty old senators at the Luxembourg. Oh dear! if my amiable aunt, the Empress, would only induce my most benevolent uncle, the Emperor, to put me on that same list, depend upon it you 'd hear of Lieutenant Tascher in the 'Faubourg St. Honore.'"

"But you seem to forget," said I, half piqued at last by the impertinence of his tone, "that I have neither friends nor acquaintances; that, although a Frenchman by service, I am not so by birth."

"And I,--what am I?" interrupted he. "A Creole, come from Heaven knows what far-away place beyond seas; that there never was a man with more expensive tastes, and smaller means to supply them,--with worse prospects, and better connections; in short, a kind of live ant.i.thesis.

And yet, with all that, exchange places with me now, and see if, before a fortnight elapse, I have not more dinner invitations than any officer of the same grade within the Boulevards; watch if the prettiest girl at Paris is not at my side in the Opera. But here comes your official appointment, I take it."

As he said this, an orderly of the "Garde" delivered a sealed packet into my hands, which, on opening, I discovered was a letter from General Duroc, wherein I read, that "it was the wish of his Majesty, Emperor and King, that I, his well-beloved Thomas Burke, in conformity with certain instructions to be afterwards made known to me, should proceed with the _compagnie d'elite_ to Paris, then and there--"

As I read thus far aloud, Tascher interrupted me, s.n.a.t.c.hing the paper from my hands, and continued thus:--

"Then and there to mope, muse, and be _ennuye_ until such time as active service may again recall him to the army. My dear Burke, I am really sorry for you. Wars and campaigning may be--indeed they are--very fine things; but as the means, not the end. His Majesty, my uncle,--whom may Heaven preserve and soften his heart to his relations!--loves them for their own sake; but we,--you and I, for instance,--what possible reason can we have for risking our bones, and getting our flesh mangled, save the hope of promotion? And to what end that same promotion, if not for a wider sphere of pleasure and enjoyment? Think what a career a colonel, at our age, would have in Paris!"

"Come, Tascher, I will not believe you in all this. If there were not something higher to reward one for the fatigues and dangers of a campaign than the mere sensual delights you allude to, I, for one, would soon doff the epaulettes."

"You are impracticable," said he, half angrily; "but it is as much from the isolation in which you have lived as any conviction on the subject.

You must let me introduce you to some relatives of mine in Paris. They will be delighted to know you; for, as one of the _compagnie d'elite_, you might figure as a very respectable 'lion' for two, nay, three entire evenings. And you will have the _entree_ to the pleasantest house in Paris; they receive every evening, and all the best people resort there.

I only exact one condition."

"And that is--"

"You must not make love to Pauline. That you will fall in love with her yourself is a fact I can't help,--nor you either. But no advance on your part; promise me that."

"In such case, Tascher, it were best for all parties I should not know the lady. I have no fancy, believe me, for being smitten whether I will or no."

"I see, Master Burke, there is a bit of impertinence in all this. You sneer at my warnings about _la belle cousine_; now, I am determined you shall see her at least. Besides, you must do me a service with the countess I have had the bad luck to be for some time out of favor with my aunt Josephine,--some trumpery debts of mine they make a work about at the Tuileries. Well, perhaps you could persuade Madame de Lacostellerie to take up my cause; she has great influence with the Empress, and can make her do what she pleases. And, if I must confess it, it was this brought me over to your quarters tonight; and I ate your supper just to pa.s.s away time till you came back again. You 'll not refuse me?"

"Certainly not. But reflect for a moment, Tascher, and you will see that no man was ever less intended for a diplomate. It is only a few minutes since you laughed at my solitary habits and hermit propensities."

"I've thought of all that, Burke, and am not a whit discouraged. On the contrary, you are the more likely to think of my affairs because you have none of your own; and I don't know any one but yourself I should fancy to meet Pauline frequently and on terms of intimacy."

"This, at least, is not a compliment," said I, laughing.

He shrugged his shoulders, and threw up his eyebrows with a French expression, as though to say, it can't be helped; and then continued:--

"And now remember, Burke, I count on you. Get me out of this confounded place; I 'd rather be back at Toulon again, if need be. And as I shall not see you again before you leave, farewell. I 'll send the letter for the countess early to-morrow."

We shook hands warmly and parted: he to return to his quarters; and I to sit down beside my fire, and muse over the events that had just occurred, and think of Tascher himself, whose character had never been so plainly exposed to me before.

If De Beauvais, with his hot-headed impetuosity, his mad devotion to the cause of the Legitimists, was a type of the followers of the Bourbons; so, in all the easy indifference and quiet selfishness of his nature, was Tascher a specimen of another cla.s.s of his countrymen,--a cla.s.s which, wrapped up in its own circle of egotistical enjoyments, believed Paris the only habitable spot of the whole globe. Without any striking traits of character, or any very decided vices, they led a life of pleasure and amus.e.m.e.nt, rendering every one and everything around them, so far as they were able, subservient to their own plane and wishes; and perfectly unconscious the while how glaring their selfishness had become, and how palpable, even to the least observant, was the self-indulgence they practised on every occasion. Without cleverness or tact enough to conceal their failings, they believed they imposed on others because they imposed on themselves,--just as the child deems himself unseen when he closes his eyes.

Josephine's followers were, many of them, like this, and formed a striking contrast to the young men of the Napoleonite party, who, infatuated by the glorious successes of their chief, deemed the career of arms alone honorable. St. Cyr and the Polytechnique were the nurseries of these,--the principles instilled there were perpetuated in after life; and however exaggerated their ideas of France and her destiny, their undoubted heroism and devotion might well have palliated even heavier errors.

It was in ruminating thus over the different characters of the few I had ever known intimately, that I came to think seriously on my own condition, which, for many a day before, I had rather avoided than sought to reflect on. I felt,--as how many must have done!--that the bond of a common country, the inborn patriotism of the native of the soil, is the great resource on which men fall back when they devote themselves to the career of arms; that the alien's position, disguise it how he will, is that of the mere mercenary. How can he identify himself with interests on which he is but half-informed, or feel attachment to a land wherein he has neither hearth nor home? In the very glory he wins he can scarce partic.i.p.ate. In a word, his is a false position, which no events nor accidents of fortune can turn to good account, and he must rest satisfied with a life of isolation and estrangement.

I felt how readily, if I had been a Frenchman born, I could have excused and palliated to my conscience many things which now were matters of reproach. Aggressive war had lost its horrors in the glory of enlarged dominions; the greatness of France and the honor of her arms had made me readily forget the miseries entailed on other nations by her l.u.s.t of conquest. But I--the stranger, the alien--had no part in the inheritance of glory; and personal ambition,--what means it, save to stand high amongst those we once looked up to as superiors? For me there were no traditions of a childhood pa.s.sed amid great names, revered and wors.h.i.+pped; no early teachings of ill.u.s.trious examples beside the paternal hearth. And yet there was one, although lost to me forever, before whose eyes I would gladly seem to hold a high place. Yes! could I but think that she had not forgotten me,--would hear my name with interest, or feel one throb of pleasure if I were spoken of with honor,--I asked no more!

"A letter, Monsieur le Capitaine," said my servant, as he deposited a package on my table. Supposing it was the epistle of which Tascher spoke, I paid but slight attention to it, when by chance I remarked it was in General d'Auvergne's handwriting. I opened it at once, and read as follows:--

Bivouac, 11 o'clock.

My dear Burke,--No one ever set off for Paris without being troubled with commissions for his country friends, and you must not escape the ills of common humanity. Happily for you, however, the debt is easily acquitted; I have neither undiscovered shades of silk to be matched, nor impossible bargains to be effected. I shall simply beg of you to deliver with your own hand the enclosed letter to its address at the Tuileries; adding, if you think fit, the civil attentions of a visit.

We shall both, in all likelihood, be much hurried when we meet to-morrow,--for I also have received orders to march,-- so that I take the present opportunity to enclose you a check on Paris for a trifle in advance of your pay; remembering too well, in my own aide-de-camp days, the dilatory habits of the War Office with new captains.

Yours ever, dear Burke,