“They’ll get him if he’s there,” said Marcel with satisfaction, “and there won’t be much left of him afterwards, not with our lads.”
He clicked his tongue at the horse to go faster. This, I thought, was the man who had stood bareheaded at the font of le Plessis-Dorin not two months since, tears in his eyes, when his baby girl was christened.
“You hope they catch him, then?” I asked.
“Catch him and cook him, m’dame,” he answered. “The sooner the country is rid of all his kind the better.”
They never did find Monsieur de Chamoy. Indeed, he found his way back to Nancy, I believe, and on proving not to be a traitor was reinstated in the garrison there, though we did not hear this until later.
What degraded me in my own eyes was that, in driving back to Plessis, I thought I espied a humped figure in a ditch, and instead of keeping silent about it called out instantly to Marcel, in great excitement.
“There he is, crouching by the thornbush yonder. After him…” I cried, almost seizing the reins out of my driver’s hands to run the fugitive down. It was nothing but the stump of a long-dead tree, and my instinctive feeling of disappointment shocked me to silence.
This was only one of several expeditions on the part of the masters of le Chesne-Bidault and their workmen in the guise of the National Guard, and for his zeal and patriotism my brother Michel was made adjutant-general of the district of Mondoubleau. Sickened at first, I soon became resigned, accepting as natural these forays into the countryside, even feeling a thrill of pride when the women told me that “Messieurs Duval and Busson-Challoir were the most feared men between la Ferté-Bernard and Châteaudun.” Michel was still the leader, but François increased in stature too, with a new air of authority about him which was more pleasing to me, his wife, than his old air of submission used to be.
He looked well too in his uniform of the National Guard, being tall and broad, and I liked to think he had only to march with a company of men to one of the communes in our district, for all the inhabitants to be on their toes at sight of him.
My François, who, when I married him, was no more than a master glass-maker at a small foundry, now had the power to walk into a château and arrest the proprietor of it, should he be suspect—that same proprietor who, a few years back, would have shown him the door.
There was one occasion when the pair of them, my brother and my husband, with just a handful of the National Guard, arrested half the commune of St. Avit, seized two former members of the aristocracy, the brothers Belligny, and a third, Monsieur de Neveu, disarmed them, and packed them off under escort to Mondoubleau, on suspicion of being traitors to the nation. The municipality at Mondoubleau kept all three under arrest, for they dared not countermand the orders of the adjutant-general. A few days afterwards, visiting two or three of the families at le Chesne-Bidault, I saw they all had fine new knives and forks on display, some of them silver, with monograms upon them, and I thought no more of it than if they had been purchased in the marketplace.
Custom, it is said, makes all things acceptable. Gradually I came to look upon any fair-sized property as something the owner had no right to possess, if he had been a member of the aristocracy under the old régime. Like Michel and François, I began to suspect these people of harboring revenge, perhaps of storing arms, which one day they might decide to use upon us. The new laws, after all, had hit the aristocracy hard; it would not be surprising if they banded together in secret and worked for the overthrow of the new régime.
What Pierre thought of the forays I never heard. They were not discussed when we visited Le Mans, for he had so much news of his own to tell. He had become an ardent member of the Club des Minimes, a branch of the Jacobins Club in Paris, famous for its progressive views, started by those deputies of the Assembly who were forever agitating for further reforms to the Constitution. The sessions at the Club des Minimes were often stormy, and there was one towards the end of January of ’91 when Pierre rose to his feet and made an impassioned speech against some three hundred priests and as many ex-nobles in Le Mans who, he swore, were moving heaven and earth to destroy the Revolution.
I heard it all from Edmé when she came to stay for a few days at le Chesne-Bidault.
“Pierre had it from me in the first place,” she told me. “The wife of one of his clients, a Madame Foulard, came to me and said that when she went to Confession the priest ordered her to use her influence to prevent her husband from being a member of the Club des Minimes. If she did not so do, the priest said, he would refuse her absolution.”
I could hardly believe a priest would go thus far, but Edmé assured me that this was not the only case; she had heard the story repeated by other women.
“There’s an ugly spirit of reaction in Le Mans,” she said, “and I blame the officers of the Dragons de Chartres. There is a brigadier quartered in my old house at the Abbey of St. Vincent, and he told me that the officers have forbidden the men to fraternize with the National Guard. Pierre agrees with me. He says the Club des Minimes wants to get rid of the regiment altogether. They’ve served their original purpose, and too many of the officers have relations who are émigrés and have joined the Prince de Condé in Coblenz.”
The Prince de Condé, the King’s cousin, and the comte d’Artois were both in Prussia attempting to raise an army of volunteers from among the émigrés who had followed them into exile, and with the help of the Prussian prince, the duke of Brunswick, hoped in time to invade France and overthrow the new régime.
I had heard nothing from Robert for many months, and my fear was that he might have left England and gone, as so many had done, to Coblenz. Living, as he must be doing, among little groups of reactionaries who would not rest until the aristocracy and the clergy had been reinstated, he would inevitably become tainted with their ideas, and learn nothing of what had been achieved here at home for the good of the country.
Whenever I saw Pierre he would look at me first, before embracing me, and raise his eyebrows in a question, and I would shake my head. No more would be said unless we found ourselves alone. It was a stigma, a mark of shame, to have a relative who was an émigré.
Edmé was right, though, when she said that there were forces of reaction in Le Mans. This was very easily seen at the theater—we were told that exactly the same thing happened in Paris—when allusions to liberty and equality in a play would be loudly applauded by all the patriots in the audience, but if the subject should turn upon loyalty to a throne or to princes there would be counter-cheers and applause from those who felt that our own King and Queen were facing difficulties in Paris.
I happened to be staying with Pierre early in February of ’91—just about the time Michel bought his piece of Church property beyond Mondoubleau, so neither he nor François could accompany me to Le Mans. I arrived on the Monday, and on the next day Pierre and Edmé returned home to dine, full of an uproar there had been at the salle de Comédie the night before. The band of the Dragons de Chartres, engaged as orchestra, had refused to play the popular song “Ça Ira,” although requested to do so by a crowd of spectators in the cheap seats.
“The municipality are furious,” announced Pierre, “and have already complained to the officer commanding the parade of the Dragons this morning. If you want to see some fun, Sophie, come to the theater with Edmé and me on Thursday, when they are giving Semiramis, followed by a ballet. The band of the Dragons are to play, and if we don’t have ‘Ça Ira’ I’ll get up on the stage and sing it myself.”
The song “Ça Ira” was the rage of Paris, and now everyone in the country was either whistling it or humming it, though it had been written as a carillon, and should have been played on bells. Heaven knows it was infectious. I had it from morning till night at the foundry with the apprentice boys in the yard, and even from Madame Verdelet in the kitchen, though a good deal out of tune. I suppose it was the words that pleased the boys, and it must have been the words too that offended the conservative band of
the Dragons de Chartres. If I remember rightly, the opening verse began thus:
“Ah! Ça ira! Ça ira! Ça ira!
Les aristocrates à la lanterne,
Ah! Ça ira! Ça ira! Ça ira!
Les aristocrates on les pendra!”
At first this song had been sung lightly, as a sort of jest—the Parisians had always been famous for their mockery—but as the weeks passed, and feeling grew against the émigrés and those at home who might be thinking of following their example, the words of this nonsense song began to hold more meaning. Michel had adopted it as his marching song for the National Guard at le Plessis-Dorin, and when he had his men formed up outside the foundry and they started out on some foray, legitimate or otherwise, I must confess that the words and the tune with it, shouted by some sixty fellows stamping their feet, would have made me bolt my door and hide had I been suspected of non-patriotism.
As it was…“Ah! Ça ira! Ça ira! Ça ira!” rattled round my head, as it did everyone else’s. It became a kind of catchphrase among us at le Chesne-Bidault and in Pierre’s circle at Le Mans—whenever we heard of a new piece of legislation likely to offend the forces of reaction, or if at home one or the other of us had some plan which we were determined to put into practice, we said “Ça ira!” and there was no further argument.
On the night of Thursday the 10th of February Pierre, Edmé, and I set forth for the salle de Comédie—Pierre’s wife had remained with the children, and had tried to persuade me to do the same, for I was four months pregnant again and she feared a crush. It was lucky that Pierre had had the foresight to buy tickets, for the crowd was so great outside the building that we could barely force our way inside.
We had the best seats, stalls, near the orchestra, and the whole house was packed. The play—Voltaire’s Semiramis—was well acted and passed off without incident, and it was in the entr’acte that Edmé nudged me, and murmured, “Watch out—they’re going to begin.”
Edmé, for a young woman of the provinces, was always ahead of fashion. Tonight, scoring the elaborate coiffure of the day, with hair piled on top of the head like a haystack decorated with ribbons, she wore a little jaunty Phrygian cap in velvet, set on the one side, for all the world like an errand lad in the street. How she thought of it I do not know, but it was certainly a forerunner of the “bonnet rouge” worn by the Paris crowds in later months.
We looked about us in the stalls and tried to guess which among the audience were reactionaries. Edmé insisted she could spot them at a glance. Pierre, who had risen from his seat to talk to friends, came back and whispered that the National Guard were gathered in force by the only entrance to the street.
Suddenly a stamping of feet began in the cheap seats behind us, and members of the National Guard, in uniform, standing by the gangways, called out: “Monsieur le chef d’orchestre! If you please, the people want to hear ‘Ça Ira.’ ”
The conductor took no notice. He lifted his baton, and the band of the Dragons began to play a brisk military march of no political implication.
The stamping of feet grew louder, with the slow clapping of hands, and voices started the inevitable rhythm of “Ça ira! Ça ira! Ça ira!”
It had a menacing sound, sung thus, in a low chant to the stamping of feet, and against the discordant background of the military march. People stood up in the audience, shouting instructions at cross-purposes, some calling for “Ça Ira,” others to let the Dragons continue their program.
Finally members of the National Guard approached the rostrum, and the conductor was obliged to order his band to cease playing.
“These interruptions are a scandal to the city,” he cried. “Let those who have no wish to listen to music leave the building.”
There were cheers and counter-cheers, boos and stamping of feet.
The officer commanding the National Guard, a friend of Pierre’s, called out, “ ‘Ça Ira’ is a national tune. Every patriot in the house wants to hear it.”
The conductor turned red and looked down into the audience. “There are also those present who do not,” he answered. “The words of ‘Ça Ira!’ constitute an offence to all loyal subjects of the King.”
Hoots and howls greeted his retort, Edmé beside me joining in, much to the embarrassment of her neighbors on the other side, and people from every section of the audience began to call out and wave their programs in the air.
Then those officers of the Dragons who were among us in the stalls, and some of them in the boxes too, sprang to their feet and drew their swords, and one of them, a captain, calling at the top of his voice, ordered any of the regiment present to fall in under the officers’ box close to the stage, and see that no harm came to the musicians.
The National Guard were ranged opposite, fully armed. A shiver of apprehension could be felt among the audience, for if the two sides fell to fighting what would happen to all of us seated there, unable to get out, with the exit barred?
It was my ill luck, I thought, to be caught in crowds when I was pregnant, and yet this time, for some reason unknown to myself, I was without fear.
Like Edmé, I hated the sight of the supercilious Dragon officers, whom I would see strolling about the streets of Le Mans as if the place belonged to them. I glanced up at Pierre, who had donned his uniform of the National Guard for the occasion, and thought how well it became him. He was not yet forty, but his light hair had turned nearly white, which gave him greater distinction than before, and his blue eyes, so like my mother’s, were blazing now in indignation.
“Let those among the audience who don’t wish to hear ‘Ça Ira!’ stand up, and let us see them,” he called out. “In that way we shall quickly discover who are the enemies of the people.”
Shouts of approval greeted this suggestion, and I felt a glow of pride. Pierre, our impractical Pierre, was not going to be bullied by the Dragons.
A few halfhearted figures stumbled to their feet, only to be pulled down hastily by their companions, afraid no doubt of the epithet “aristocrat.” Shouts and arguments filled the air, with the Dragons, sabers in hand, preparing to drive in among us all and cut us down.
The mayor of Le Mans, dressed in his municipal scarf, marched down the gangway to the stage, in company with another official, and in a firm voice he bade the officer commanding the Dragons to put up his sword and order his men to do likewise.
“Tell your musicians,” he said, “to play ‘Ça Ira!’ ”
“I am sorry,” replied the officer—a Major de Rouillon, so someone whispered beside Edmé—“but the song ‘Ça Ira!’ is not in the repertoire of the band of the Dragons de Chartres.”
Immediately a chorus of, “Ça n’ira pas” came from every officer present, and from many of the audience too, while those opposed to the Dragons continued with the stamping of their feet and their own rendering of the song without the music.
Finally, there was a compromise. Major de Rouillon agreed to allow his band to play the song if they could follow it up with the famous air “Richard, O mon roy; l’univers t’abandonne.” This was known to be a great favorite during the days when the King and Queen held court at Versailles, and the implications were obvious. For the sake of peace, and in order to proceed with the ballet, which was the rest of the evening’s entertainment, the mayor of Le Mans conceded.
I thought the singing of “Ça Ira!” would lift the roof. I even joined in myself, wondering inconsequentially what my mother would have said if she could see me. “Richard, O mon roy” sounded like a whisper in comparison, the only singers being the Dragons de Chartres themselves and one or two women in the stalls who wished to make a show of themselves.
We left before the ballet began—it would have been anticlimax after the scene we had witnessed—and walked home from the salle de Comédie, the three of us, arms linked, Pierre between us sisters, singing—
“Ah! Ça ira! Ça ira! Ça ira!
Les aristocrates à la lanterne,
Ah! Ça ira! Ça ira! Ça ira!
Les aristocrates on les pendra!”
The next day there was a great demonstration in the city, the crowds demanding the expulsion of the Dragons de Chartres, and Pierre and Edmé began a house-to-house petition to obtain signatures for the same purpose. Le Mans was divided on the subject. Many citizens, in the municipality too, held the opinion that the Dragons had given good service to the city, and had guarded it through perilous times; the rest, Pierre, Edmé and all their circle, were insistent that a counterrevolutionary spirit was rife among the officers, and that the National Guard was sufficient to keep the peace.
For the moment the problem was shelved, but during my week’s visit we had one more excitement, and this was election of the new bishop to the episcopal seat—Monseigneur Prudhomme de la Boussinière—who was obliged to swear his oath to the Constitution.
We went out into the streets to watch the procession, and cheer the bishop on his way to the cathedral to attend the Constitution Mass. He was escorted by a detachment of the National Guard—Pierre among them—and by the Dragons de Chartres as well, and this time there was no mistaking the roll of the drums, and whistle of the fife, as the band struck up “Ça ira!”
At the end of the cortège marched a long line of ordinary citizens, armed with pistols for fear of trouble, and women carrying rods, threatening those among us who might hold old-fashioned views about the clergy.
As for the Dragons de Chartres, matters came to a crisis three months later in mid-May, when I was once more on a visit to Pierre, this time accompanied by both François and Michel. The ceremony of planting a May tree had taken place in the place des Jacobins a few days before our arrival, and, as a symbol of the times, it had been draped with the tricolor. The tree was sawn to pieces during the night, and the Dragons were at once suspected of this act of vandalism, the more so as a bunch of them, that same evening, had insulted an officer of the National Guard.