The Women's War
‘The uniform of the light cavalry is blue, Pompée, and what we can see there is white.’
‘Yes, but they often put a smock over their uniform, which is what the wretches did who were broken on the wheel in Bordeaux recently. They are waving urgently, I think. They appear to be threatening: that’s their tactic, you see, Monsieur; they set up an ambush like that beside the road and, from a distance, with their guns in their hands, they force the traveller to throw down his purse.’
‘But my good Pompée,’ said the viscount, who was managing to keep his presence of mind, despite being very scared. ‘If they are threatening us from a distance with their guns, you do the same with yours.’
‘Yes, but they cannot see me, so my gestures would be useless.’
‘If they cannot see you, they cannot threaten you, I should have thought.’
‘You really don’t understand a single thing about war,’ the groom said, in a very bad mood. ‘The same thing is going to happen to me as at Corbie.’
‘Let’s hope not, Pompée, because if I remember rightly it was at Corbie that you were wounded, wasn’t it?’
‘Yes, and a dreadful wound it was. I was with Monsieur de Cambes, a reckless fellow. We were patrolling at night to reconnoitre the site of the coming battle. We saw some leather uniforms. I told him not to take any unnecessary risks, but he insisted and marched directly towards them. I turned my back as a sign of annoyance. At that moment, an accursed musket ball… Viscount, let’s be careful.’
‘Let’s be careful, Pompée, that’s all I ask. But they don’t seem to me to be moving very much.’
‘They are sniffing out their prey. Let’s wait.’
Fortunately for them, the travellers did not wait for long. After a short while, the moon came out from behind a black cloud, the edges of which it lit with silver, and splendidly lit up, at about fifty yards from the pair, were two or three shirts drying behind a hedge, with their arms extended.
These were the leather jerkins that had recalled Pompée’s fatal patrol in Corbie.
The viscount burst out laughing and spurred on his horse. Pompée followed, shouting: ‘Lucky I didn’t do what I originally intended! I was going to fire in that direction, and I’d have looked like Don Quixote.53 You see, Viscount, how useful it is to have gained caution and experience in war!’
There is always a moment of quiet after such excitements. After they had ridden past the shirts, the travellers covered two leagues quite calmly. The weather was glorious, and the shadows fell wide and black as ebony from the tips of the trees in a wood running along one side of the road.
‘I definitely don’t like a full moon,’ said Pompée. ‘When you can be seen from a distance, you are likely to be taken by surprise. I’ve always heard it said by soldiers that when two men are hunting one another, the moon only ever favours one of them. We are fully lit up, Viscount, which is unwise.’
‘Well, then, Pompée, let’s get into the shade.’
‘Yes, but suppose there were men lying in ambush on the edge of this wood: we should be literally heading straight for the lion’s… When you are campaigning, you never approach a wood until you have had it reconnoitred.’
‘Unfortunately,’ the viscount said, ‘we don’t have any scouts. Isn’t that what they call men who reconnoitre the woods, Pompée?’
‘True, true,’ the groom muttered. ‘Blast that Richon! Why didn’t he come? We could have sent him on ahead, while we stayed behind, making the body of the army.’
‘So, Pompée, what have we decided? Do we stay in the moonlight or go into the shade?’
‘Let’s head for the shade, Monsieur. As far as I can tell, that’s the wisest course.’
‘To the shade, then.’
‘You’re afraid, aren’t you, Viscount?’
‘Not at all, my dear Pompée, I swear.’
‘You would be wrong to worry, because I’m here and looking out for you. If I was alone, you understand, I wouldn’t worry too much. An old soldier doesn’t fear God or the devil. But as a companion you are as difficult to protect as the money I have on my saddle, and the double responsibility frightens me. Ah! Ah! What’s that black shadow over there? This time, it is moving.’
‘There’s no doubt of that,’ said the viscount.
‘You see what it means to be in the shadows: we can see the enemy, and he doesn’t see us. Doesn’t it appear to you that that wretch is carrying a musket?’
‘Yes, Pompée. But that man is alone, and there are two of us.’
‘Viscount, those who walk alone are the most dangerous, because solitude suggests a resolute character. The famous Baron des Adrets54 always went alone. Ah! Look! I think he’s aiming at us. He’s going to fire. Get down!’
‘No, no, Pompée. He’s just changing his musket from one shoulder to the other.’
‘So? Let’s duck anyway, it’s the done thing. We’re facing enemy fire.’
‘But you can very well see that he is not firing, Pompée.’
‘Not firing?’ The groom sat upright. ‘Good! He must have been scared and our resolute air frightened him. Yes, he’s afraid. Let me talk to him and you can talk afterwards, raising your voice.’
The shadow continued to advance.
‘Hey there, Friend, who are you?’ Pompée called.
The shadow stopped with a clear sign of fear.
‘Now, you shout to him,’ said Pompée.
‘No point,’ said the viscount. ‘The poor devil is frightened enough already.’
‘So! He’s frightened, is he?’ said Pompée, charging forward with his gun in his hand.
‘Spare me, Monsieur!’ the man said, falling to his knees. ‘Spare me! I’m a poor pedlar who hasn’t sold a pocket handkerchief in the past week, so I don’t have a penny on me.’
What Pompée had imagined was a musket had in fact been the yardstick against which the poor devil measured his goods.
‘I must inform you, my friend,’ Pompée said – pompously, ‘that we are not robbers, but soldiers, travelling by night because we fear nothing. So continue easy on your way. You are free.’
‘Here, my friend,’ the viscount added in a gentler voice. ‘Here is a half pistole for the fear that we caused you. And may God go with you.’
The viscount gave the man half a pistole with his little white hand, and the poor devil set off, thanking heaven for a lucky encounter.
‘You were wrong, Viscount, you were very wrong,’ said Pompée, after another twenty yards.
‘Wrong! Wrong? Why?’
‘Giving half a pistole to that man. At night, one should never admit to having money. Did you see? That coward’s first cry was to tell us that he did not have a penny on him.’
‘That’s right,’ said the viscount. ‘But he was a coward, as you said, while we, as you also said, are soldiers who fear nothing.’
‘There is as great a difference between fearing and bewaring, Monsieur, as there is between fear and prudence. And, I repeat, it is not prudent to show a stranger whom one meets on the highway that one has gold.’
‘Even if the stranger is alone and unarmed?’
‘He may belong to an armed gang. He could be just a spy sent forward to reconnoitre the ground… He may return with a bunch of men, and what do you expect two men, however brave, to do against dozens?’
This time, the viscount acknowledged the truth of Pompée’s reprimand, or rather, in order to cut short the admonition, seemed to admit his error, and they arrived on the banks of the little river Saye, near Saint-Genès.
There was no bridge, so they had to cross the ford.
At that, Pompée confided to the viscount a learned theory of river crossings, but since a theory is not a bridge, it was no less necessary, once the theory had been expounded, to cross the ford.
Luckily the river was not deep and this fresh incident was further proof for the viscount that seen from afar, especially by night, things are a lot more terrifying than seen close up.
 
; So the viscount was seriously starting to be reassured – and, in any case, daylight would come in around an hour – when, in the middle of the woods around Marsas, the two travellers stopped suddenly: they had heard in the distance, far behind them, but quite distinctly, the sound of several galloping horses.
At the same time, their own horses raised their heads, and one whinnied.
‘This time,’ Pompée said in a strangled voice, grasping his companion’s bridle, ‘this time, Viscount, I hope that you will show a little more obedience and let an old soldier’s experience decide the situation. I can hear a troop of horsemen. We are being followed. There! You see! It’s the gang of that pretended pedlar. I told you so, rash as you are! Come on, no bravura, let’s save your life and our money. Flight is often the means to victory. Horatius pretended to flee.’55
‘Very well, let’s flee, Pompée,’ said the viscount, trembling all over.
Pompée dug in his spurs, and his mount, an excellent Roman horse, responded to them with an enthusiasm that fired the ardour of the viscount’s Barb;56 and the two of them vied with one another as they thundered along, the rhythmical thud of their shoes striking sparks off the roadway.
The race lasted about half an hour, but far from them gaining ground, it seemed to the two fugitives that their enemies were catching up.
Suddenly, a voice called through the darkness, a voice that, mingling with the whistling of the wind as the two riders cut the air, seemed to carry the mournful threat of spirits of the night. The voice made Pompée’s grey hair stand on end.
‘They are shouting “Stop!” ’ he muttered. ‘They are shouting “Stop!” ’
‘Well, then, should we stop?’ asked the viscount.
‘On the contrary,’ Pompée yelled. ‘Let’s go twice as fast, if possible. Forward! Forward!’
‘Yes, yes! Forward! Forward!’ the viscount cried, now as terrified as his defender.
‘They’re catching up,’ said Pompée. ‘Can you hear them?’
‘Alas, I can…’
‘There are more than thirty of them… Listen, they’re calling again… We’re done for!’
‘Let’s kill the horses, if we must,’ said the viscount, more dead than alive.
‘Viscount! Viscount! Stop!’ cried the voice. ‘Stop. Stop, old Pompée!’
‘It’s someone who knows us, it’s someone who knows that we are carrying money to the princess, it’s someone who knows that we are conspirators – we’ll be broken on the wheel!’
‘Stop, stop!’ the voices said again.
‘They’re shouting for someone to stop us,’ said Pompée. ‘They have people up ahead. We’re surrounded.’
‘What if we were to ride off that way into the field, and let the ones who are following us go past.’
‘It’s an idea,’ said Pompée. ‘Off we go!’
The two riders put pressure on their mounts with knees and reins at the same time, and they turned to the left. The viscount’s horse, which had been skilfully broken, leapt the ditch, but the heavier animal that Pompée was riding left it too late, the earth crumbled under its hooves and he fell, taking his master down with him. The poor groom gave a cry of complete despair.
The viscount, already fifty yards into the field, heard this cry of distress and, although himself very scared, turned his horse round and rode back towards his companion.
‘Mercy!’ Pompée was crying. ‘Ransom! I surrender. I belong to the house of Cambes.’
A huge roar of laughter was the only reply to this pathetic designation, and the viscount, riding up at that moment, saw Pompée clasping the victor’s stirrup, while the latter, in a voice stifled by laughter, was trying to reassure him.
‘The Baron de Canolles!’ the viscount exclaimed.
‘I am that! Sarpejeu! Come now, Viscount, it’s not right to make those who are looking for you run like that.’
‘The Baron de Canolles!’ Pompée repeated, still not sure of his good fortune. ‘Monsieur the Baron de Canolles and Monsieur Castorin!’
‘That’s me, Monsieur Pompée,’ said Castorin, standing up in his stirrups to see over the shoulder of his master, who was lying, helpless with laughter, on the pommel of his saddle. ‘And what are you doing in this ditch?’
‘You can see what,’ said Pompée. ‘My horse fell just as I was entrenching, thinking you were some enemy, and preparing to make a vigorous defence. Viscount,’ he went on, getting up and shaking himself down. ‘It’s Monsieur de Canolles.’
‘What, Monsieur! Are you here?’ the viscount muttered, a sort of joy involuntarily creeping into his voice.
‘My word, yes, it’s me,’ Canolles replied, looking at the viscount with a stare that was explained by the discovery of the glove. ‘I was becoming terribly bored in that inn. Richon left after winning my money from me, and I learned that you had set off along the Paris road. By good fortune, I had business in the same direction, so I started off intending to join up with you. I did not suspect that I should have to ride my horse into the ground to do so. Curses! What a rider you are, my lad!’
The viscount smiled and stammered a few words.
‘Castorin,’ Canolles went on, ‘why don’t you help Monsieur Pompée to remount. You can see that, despite his agility, he can’t manage it.’
Castorin dismounted and gave Pompée a hand, so that eventually he was back in the saddle.
‘Now,’ said the viscount, ‘let’s be going, if you please.’
‘One second,’ said Pompée, in a state of some confusion. ‘Viscount, I think I’m missing something.’
‘I think so, too,’ said the viscount. ‘You haven’t got the bag.’
‘Oh, my God!’ said Pompée, pretending complete astonishment.
‘You wretch!’ said the viscount. ‘Can you have lost it?’
‘It cannot be far away, Monsieur,’ said Pompée.
‘Could this be it?’ Castorin asked, picking up the object in question, though with some difficulty.
‘That’s it!’ said the viscount.
‘That’s it!’ cried Pompée.
‘It’s not his fault,’ said Canolles, wishing to make a friend of the old groom. ‘In the fall, the straps must have broken, and the bag fell off.’
‘The straps are not broken, Monsieur, but cut,’ said Castorin. ‘Look!’
‘Ah, ha, Monsieur Pompée,’ asked Canolles. ‘What does this mean?’
‘What it means,’ the viscount said sternly, ‘is that in his fear of being chased by thieves, Pompée skilfully cut the straps so that he would no longer have the responsibility of being treasurer. In military terminology, what’s that manoeuvre called, Pompée?’
Pompée wanted to excuse himself for his hunting knife, which he had incautiously taken out, but since he could not give a sufficient explanation, he remained, as far as the viscount was concerned, under the suspicion of having wanted to sacrifice the bag to his own safety.
Canolles was more lenient.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘It happens. But tie the bag on again. Come on, Castorin, help Monsieur Pompée. You were right, Pompée, to be afraid of thieves: this bag is heavy and would be a good catch.’
‘Don’t joke, Monsieur,’ said Pompée, with a shudder. ‘At night, all jokes have a double meaning.’
‘You’re right, Pompée, right as usual. So,’ Canolles continued. ‘I want to escort you, you and the viscount. Two men as reinforcements will be useful to you.’
‘Surely,’ said Pompée. ‘There’s safety in numbers.’
‘And you, Viscount, what do you think of my offer?’ Canolles asked, seeing that the master appeared less enthusiastic than the groom about the generous offer that he was making.
‘I find you as obliging as ever, Baron,’ said the viscount. ‘And I thank you for it from my heart, but we are not going in the same direction, and I am afraid of taking you out of your way.’
‘What!’ said Canolles, disappointed, seeing that the struggle at the inn was going to start
again on the highway. ‘What? We’re not going in the same direction? Aren’t you going to…?’
‘To Chantilly,’ Pompée hastened to say, terrified at the idea of continuing the journey with no companion except the viscount.
The latter made a very emphatic and impatient gesture: if it had been daylight, they could have seen the blush of anger rising to his cheeks.
‘But Chantilly is right on my way!’ Canolles exclaimed, without apparently noticing the furious look that the viscount directed against poor Pompée. ‘I’m going to Paris… or rather,’ he added with a laugh, ‘the fact is, Viscount, that I have nothing to do, and I don’t know where I’m going. Are you going to Paris? I’ll go to Paris. Are you going to Lyon? Then I’ll go there. Are you going to Marseille? I’ve long had an urge to see Provence – I’m going to Marseille. Are you going to Stenay, where His Majesty’s army is? Though I was born in the south, I’ve always had a taste for the north.’
‘Monsieur,’ the viscount announced, with a note of insistence that he doubtless owed to the irritable mood that Pompée had put him in. ‘Do I have to tell you? I am travelling without companions, on private business of the highest importance and for very serious reasons. So forgive me for saying that if you insist, you will force me, to my great regret, to tell you that you are getting in my way.’
Only the memory of the little glove that Canolles kept hidden on his chest between his jerkin and his shirt kept the baron from bursting, being as impetuous and spirited as any Gascon, but he repressed his anger.
‘Monsieur,’ he continued more seriously, ‘I have never heard tell that the highway belongs especially to any one person rather than another. I believe, if I am not mistaken, that it is even called “the king’s highway”, to indicate that all His Majesty’s subjects are equally entitled to use it. So I am on the king’s highway, with no intention of getting in your way; I am even here to do you a service because you are young, weak and nearly defenceless. I was not aware that I could be taken for a footpad. But since that is your view, I shall blame my unfortunate features. So excuse my importunity, Viscount. I have the honour to present my compliments. Bon voyage!’