La Vendee Part 29

"If you really love me," repeated Annot, nestling her head in her father's bosom, "you must, you must, you must--do something that I'll ask you, father."

"And what is it, child? I doubt much it's nonsense."

"You must love Jacques Chapeau too, father," and having uttered these important words, Annot clung fast to her father's arms, as if she feared he was going to throw her off, and sobbed and cried as though her heart were breaking.

The battle between the contending factions, namely, the father on one side, and the daughter with her lover on the other, was prolonged for a considerable time, but the success was altogether with Annot. Chapeau would have had no chance himself against the hard, dry, common sense of the smith; but Annot made her appearance just at the right moment, before the father had irrevocably pledged himself, and the old man was obliged to succ.u.mb; he couldn't bring himself to refuse his daughter when she was lying on his bosom and appealing to his love; so at last he gave way entirely, and promised that he would love Jacques Chapeau also; and then Chapeau, he also cried; and, I shudder as I write it, he also kissed the tough, bronzed, old wiry smith, and promised that he would be a good husband and son-in-law.

As soon as Annot had got her wish, and had heard Jacques received as her betrothed husband, she also was wonderfully dutiful and affectionate.

She declared that she didn't want to be married till the wars were nearly over, and the country was a little more quiet; that she would never go away and leave her father altogether, and that if ever she did go and live at Durbelliere, she would certainly make an agreement with her master and mistress that she should be allowed to walk over to eat her dinner with her father every Sunday.

As soon as the smith found himself completely conquered, he resigned himself to his fate, and became exceedingly happy and good-humoured. He shook Chapeau's hand fifty times, till he had nearly squeezed it off.

He sent to the inn for two bottles of the very best wine that was to be had; he made Annot prepare a second supper, and that not of simple bread and cheese, but of poached eggs and fried bacon, and then he did all that he possibly could to make Chapeau tipsy, and in the attempt he got very drunk himself, and so the day ended happily for them all.

CHAPTER V.

THE HOSPITAL OF ST. LAURENT.

De Lescure only remained three days at Durbelliere, and then started again for his own house at Clisson, and Henri accompanied him. They had both been occupied during these three days in making such accommodation as was in their power for the sick and wounded, who were brought back into the Bocage in considerable numbers from Saumur. The safe and sound and whole of limb travelled faster than those who had lost arms and legs in the trenches at Varin, or who had received cuts and slashes and broken ribs at the bridge of Fouchard, and therefore the good news was first received in the Bocage; but those miserable accompaniments of victory, low tumbrils, laden with groaning sufferers lying on straw, slowly moving carts, every motion of which opened anew the wounds of their wretched occupants, and every species of vehicle as could be collected through the country, crammed with the wounded and the dying, and some even with the dead, were not long in following the triumphal return of the victorious peasants.

A kind of hospital was immediately opened at a little town called St.

Laurent sur Sevre, about two leagues from Durbelliere, at which a convent of sisters of mercy had long been established. De Lescure and Larochejaquelin between them supplied the means, and the sisters of the establishment cheerfully gave their time, their skill, and tenderest attention to a.s.suage the miseries of their suffering countrymen. Agatha knew the superior of the convent well, and a.s.sisted in all the necessary preparations. She was there when the hospital was first opened, and for a long time afterwards visited it once or twice a week, on which occasions she stayed for the night in the convent; had it not been that she could not bring herself to leave her father, she would have remained there altogether, as long as the war continued to supply the little wards with suffering patients. They were seldom, or rather never, empty as long as the Vendeans kept their position in the country, the sick and the wounded were nursed with the tenderest care at St. Laurent. The sisters who had commenced the task never remitted their zeal, nor did Agatha Larochejaquelin. The wards were by degrees increased in number, the building was enlarged, surgical skill was procured, every necessary for a hospital was obtained, whatever might be the cost, and whatever the risk; till at last, in spite of the difficulties which had to be encountered, the dangers which surrounded them, the slenderness of their means, and the always increasing number of their patients, the hospital of St. Laurent might have rivalled the cleanliness, care, and comfort of the Hotel Dieu in its present perfection.

As soon as the first arrangements for the commencement of this hospital had been made, de Lescure and Henri went to Clisson. It may easily be supposed that de Lescure was anxious to see his wife, and that she was more than anxious to see him. Henri also was not sorry to hear the praises of his valour sung by the sweet lips of Marie. He stayed one short happy week at Clisson, basking in the smiles of beauty, and they were the last hours of tranquillity that any of the party were destined to enjoy for many a long sad day. De Lescure's recovery was neither slow nor painful, and before the week was over, he was able to sit out on the lawn before the chateau, with one arm in a sling, and the other round his wife's waist, watching the setting of the sun, and listening to the thrushes and nightingales. Every now and again he would talk of the future battles to be fought, and of the enemies to be conquered, and of the dangers to be encountered; but he did not speak so sadly of the prospects of his party as he did when he had only just determined to take up arms with the Vendeans. The taking of Thouars, and Fontenay, of Montreuil, and Saumur, had inspirited even him, and almost taught him to believe that La Vendee would be ultimately successful in re-establis.h.i.+ng the throne.

De Lescure was delighted to see what he thought was a growing attachment between his sister and his friend. Had he had the power of choosing a husband for Marie out of all France, he would have chosen Henri Larochejaquelin: he loved him already as he could only love a brother, and he knew that he had all those qualities which would most tend to make a woman happy.

"Oh, if these wars were but over," said he to his wife, "how I would rejoice to give her to him, he is such a brave and gallant fellow--but as tender-hearted and kind as he is brave!"

"These weary, weary wars!" said Madame de Lescure, with a sigh, "would they were over: would, with all my heart, they had never been begun. How well does the devil do his work on earth, when he is able to drive the purest, the most high-minded, the best of G.o.d's creatures to war and bloodshed as the only means of securing to themselves the liberty of wors.h.i.+pping their Saviour and honouring their King!"

Henri himself, however, had not considered the propriety of waiting until the wars were over before he took a wife for himself, or at any rate before he asked the consent of the lady's friends: for the day before he left Clisson, he determined to speak to Charles on the subject; though he had long known Marie so well, and had now been staying a week in the house, he had never yet told her that he loved her. It was the custom of the age and the country for a lover first to consult the friends of the young lady, and though the peculiar circ.u.mstances of his position might have emboldened Henri to dispense with such a practice, he was the last man in the world to take advantage of his situation.

"Charles," said he, the evening before his departure, as he stood close to the garden seat, on which his cousin was sitting, and amused himself with pitching stones into the river, which ran beneath the lawn at Clisson. "Charles, I shall be off tomorrow; I almost envy you the broken arm which keeps you here."

"It won't keep me long now, Henri," said he; "I shall be at Chatillon in a week's time, unless you and d'Elbee have moved to Parthenay before that. Cathelineau will by that time be master of Nantes, that is, if he is ever to be master of it."

"Don't doubt it, Charles. I do not the least: think of all Charette's army. I would wager my sword to a case-dagger, that Nantes is in his hands this minute."

"We cannot always have the luck we had at Saumur, Henri?"

"No," said Henri, "nor can we always have a de Lescure to knock down for us the gates of the republicans."

"Nor yet a Larochejaquelin to force his way through the breach," said the other.

"Now we are even," said Henri, laughing; "but really, without joking, I feel confident that the white flag is floating at this moment on the castle at Nantes; but it is not of that, Charles, that I wish to speak now. You have always been an elder brother to me. We have always been like brothers, have we not?"

"Thank G.o.d, we have, Henri! and I do not think it likely that we shall ever be more distant to each other."

"No, that I'm sure we never shall. You are too good either to quarrel yourself, or to let me quarrel with you; but though we never can be more distant, we may yet be more near to each other. You know what I mean, Charles?"

"I believe I do," said de Lescure; "but why do you not speak out? You are not likely, I think, to say or to propose anything that we shall not approve of--that is, Victorine and I."

"G.o.d bless you both!" said Henri. "You are too kind to me; but can you consent to give me your own dear favourite sister--your sweet Marie? You know what I mean in saying that I would be nearer to you."

De Lescure was in the act of answering his cousin, when the quick fall of a horse's foot was heard in the avenue close to the house, and then there was a sudden pause as the brute was pulled up violently in the yard of the chateau, and the eager voices of domestics answering the rapid questions of the man who had alighted.

Interested as the two friends were in their conversation, the times were too full of important matters to allow of their remaining quiet, after having heard such tokens of a hurried messenger. Larochejaqnelin ran off to the yard of the chateau, and de Lescure followed him as quickly as his wounded arm would allow.

Henri had hardly got off the lawn, when he met a couple of servants coming from the yard, and between them a man booted, spurred, and armed, covered with dust and spattered with foam, whom he at once recognized as Foret, the friend and townsman of Cathelineau.

"What news, Foret, what news?" said Henri, rus.h.i.+ng up to him, and seizing him by the hand. "Pray G.o.d you bring with you good tidings."

"The worst news that ever weighed heavy on a poor man's tongue, M.

Henri," said Foret, sorrowfully.

"Cathelineau is not dead?" said Henri, but the tone of his inquiry shewed plainly how much he feared what the reply would be.

"He was not dead," answered Foret, "when I left him five leagues on this side Nantes, but he had not many days to live."

The two had turned back over the lawn, and now met de Lescure, as he hastened to join them.

"Cathelineau," said Henri, "is mortally wounded! Victory will have been bought too dear at such a price; but I know not yet even whether the Vendeans have been victorious."

"They have not--they have not," said Foret. "How could they be victorious when their great General had fallen?"

"Mortally wounded! Oh, Foret, you are indeed a messenger of evil," said de Lescure, giving him his hand.

"Yes, mortally wounded," said Foret. "I fear before this he may have ceased to breathe. I left him, gentlemen, a few leagues this side Nantes, and at his own request hurried on to tell you these sad tidings.

Oh, M. de Lescure, our cause has had a heavy blow at Nantes, and yet at one time we had almost beaten them; but when the peasants saw Cathelineau fall, they would fight no longer."

"Where is he?" said Henri, "that is if he still lives."

"I crossed the river with him," answered Foret, "and brought him on as far as Remouille. He wished to be carried to the hospital you have opened at St. Laurent, and unless he has died since I left him, he is there now. I hurried on by Montacue and Tiffauges to St. Laurent; and there, M. Henri, I saw Mademoiselle Agatha, and told her what had happened. If there be an angel upon earth she is one! When I told her that the good Cathelineau was dying, every shade of colour left her beautiful cheek; she became as pale as marble, and crossed her hands upon her bosom; she spoke to me not a word, nor did I look for reply, for I knew that in her heart she was praying that his soul might be taken up to heaven."

Henri at that moment remembered the enthusiastic declaration of his sister, that Cathelineau, despite his birth, was worthy of any woman's love, and he did not begrudge her the only means which now remained to her of proving her devotion to the character she had admired.

"I told her," continued Foret, "that if he lived so long, Cathelineau would reach the hospital on the following day, and then I hurried on to you. She told me I should find you here. It was then dark, but I reached Chatillon that night, for they sent a guide with me from St. Laurent.

I left Chatillon again at the break of day, and have not lost much time in arriving here."

"No, indeed, Foret; and surely you must need rest and refreshment," said de Lescure. "Come into the chateau, and you shall have both."

"But tell us, Foret, of this reverse at Nantes," said Henri. "I will at once start for St. Laurent; I will, if possible, see Cathelineau before he dies; but let me know before I go to him how it has come to pa.s.s that victory has at last escaped him."

"Victory did not escape him," said Foret: "he was victorious to the last--victorious till he fell. You know, gentlemen, it had been arranged that Nantes should be attacked at the same moment by Charette from the southern banks of the Loire, and by Cathelineau from the northern, but this we were not able to accomplish. Charette was at his post, and entered the town gallantly over the Pont Rousseau, but we were unable to be there at the appointed time. For ten hours we were detained by a detachment of the blues at the little town of Nort, and though we carried it at last, without losing many of our men, the loss of the precious hours was very grievous. We pushed on to Nantes, however, without losing another minute, and though we found the rebels ready to receive us, they could not hold their ground against us at all. We drove them from the town in every direction. We were already in the chief square of Nantes, a.s.sured of our victory, and leading our men to one last attack, when a musket ball struck Cathelineau on the arm, and pa.s.sing through the flesh entered his breast. He was on foot, in front of the brave peasants whom he was leading, and they all saw him fall.

Oh, M. de Lescure, if you had heard the groan, the long wail of grief, which his poor followers from St. Florent uttered, when they saw their sainted leader fall before them, your ears would never forget the sound.

We raised him up between us, and carried him back to a part of the town which was in our hands, and from thence over the Pont Rousseau to Pirmil, where I left him for a while, and returned to the town, but I could not get the peasants to follow me again--that is, his peasants; and he was too weak to speak to them himself. It was not till two hours after that he was able to speak a word."