CHAPTER XIII.
CONCLUSION.
We have told our tale of La Vendee; we have married our hero and ourheroine; and, as is usual in such cases, we must now bid them adieu. Wecannot congratulate ourselves on leaving them in a state of happyprosperity, as we would have wished to have done; but we leave them withhigh hopes and glorious aspirations. We cannot follow the Vendeansfarther in their gallant struggle, but we part from them, while theystill confidently expect that success which they certainly deserved, andare determined to deserve that glory, which has since been so fullyaccorded to them.
In the foregoing pages much fiction has been blended with history, butstill the outline of historical facts has been too closely followed toallow us now to indulge the humanity of our readers by ascribing to thefriends we are quitting success which they did not achieve, or a stateof happiness which they never were allowed to enjoy. It would be easyto speak of the curly haired darlings, two of course, who blessed theunion of Henri Larochejaquelin and Marie de Lescure; and the joy withwhich they restored their aged father to the rural delights of hischateau at Durbelliere. We might tell of the recovery of that modernPaladine, Charles de Lescure, and of the glorious rebuilding of thehouse of Clisson, of the ecclesiastical honours of Father Jerome, andof the happy marriage, or with more probability, the happier celibacyof the divine Agatha. But we cannot do so with propriety: facts, stern,untoward, cruel facts, stare us in the face, and would make even thenovelist blush, were he, in total disregard of well-thumbed history, toattempt so very false a fiction.
Still it is necessary that something should be said of the subsequentadventures of those with whom we have for a while been so intimate, someshort word spoken of the manner in which they adhered to the cause whichwas so dear to them. We cannot leave them in their temporary sojourn atLaval, as though a residence there was the goal of their wishes, the endof their struggle, the natural and appropriate term of their story; butas, unfortunately, their future career was not a happy one, we will begthe reader to advance with us at once over many years; and then, as helooks back upon La Vendee, through the softening vista of time, themelancholy termination of its glorious history will be less painful.
On the 7th July, 1815, the united English and Prussian armies marchedinto Paris, after the battle of Waterloo, and took military possessionof the city. It was a remarkable but grievous day for Paris; thecitizens generally stayed within their houses, and left the streets tothe armed multitude, whom they could not regard as friends, and withwhom they were no longer able to contend as enemies. In spite of theenthusiasm with which Napoleon was greeted in Paris on his return fromElba, there were very many royalists resident in the city; men, wholonged to welcome back to France the family of the Bourbons, and to liveagain beneath the shelter and shade of an ancient throne. But even thesecould not greet with a welcome foreigners, who by force had takenpossession of their capital. It was a sad and gloomy day in Paris, forno man knew what would be the fate, either of himself or of his country:shops were closed, and trade was silenced; the clanking of arms and thejingling of spurs was heard instead of the busy hum of busy men.
On the evening of this day, a stout, fresh-coloured, good-looking woman,of about forty years of age, was sitting in a perruquier's shop, at thecorner of the Rue St. Honore and the Rue St. Denis, waiting for thereturn of her husband, who had been called upon to exercise his skillon the person of some of the warriors with whom Paris was now crowded.The shutters of the little shop were up, as were those of all the housesin the street, and the place was therefore dark and triste; and thestout, good-looking woman within was melancholy and somewhat querulous.A daughter, of about twenty years of age, the exact likeness of hermother, only twenty years less stout, and twenty years more pretty, satwith her in the shop, and patiently listened to her complaints.
"Well, Annot," she said, "I wonder at your father. He had a littlespirit once, but it has all left him now. Had he been said by me, hewouldn't have raised a bit of steel over an English chin for the bestday's hire that ever a man was paid--unless, indeed, it was to cut thefellow's throat!"
"If he didn't, mother, another would; and what's the good of throwingaway their money?"
"No matter--it's a coward's work to go and shave one's country'senemies. Do you think he'd have shaved any of the blues' officers in LaVendee twenty years ago, for all the money they could have offered him?He'd have done it with a sword, if he had done it at all. Well, Isuppose it's all right! I suppose he's only fit to use a razor now."
"But you always say those were horrid days in La Vendee; that you hadnothing to eat, and no bed to sleep in, nor shoes to your feet; and thatyou and father couldn't get married for ever so long, because of thewars?"
"So they were horrid days. I don't think any one will live to see thelike again. But still, one don't like to see a man, who once had alittle spirit, become jacky to every one who has a dirty chin to bescraped. Oh, Annot, if you'd seen the men there were in La Vendee, inthose days; if you'd seen the great Cathelineau, you would have seen aman."
After having read this conversation, no one will be surprised to hearthat on the board over the shop window, the following words, in yellowletters, were decently conspicuous:
JACQUES CHAPEAU,
PERRUQUIER.
Madame Chapeau was now disturbed in her unreasonable grumbling by aknock at the closed door, and on her opening it, an officer in undressuniform, about fifty years of age, politely greeted her, and asked herif that was not the house of M. Jacques Chapeau. From his language, thevisitor might at first have been taken for a Frenchman; his dress,however, plainly told that he belonged to the English army.
"Yes, Monsieur, this is the humble shop of Chapeau, perruquier," saidour old friend, the elder Annot, who, in spite of her feelings ofhostility to the English, was somewhat mollified by the politeness andhandsome figure of her visitor: she then informed him that Chapeau wasnot at home; that she expected him in immediately; and that hisassistant, who was, in some respects, almost as talented as his master,was below, and would wait upon Monsieur immediately; and she rang alittle bell, which was quickly responded to by some one ascending froma lower region.
The visitor informed Madame Chapeau that he had not called at presentas a customer, but that he had taken the liberty to intrude himself uponher for the purpose of learning some facts of which, he was informed,her husband could speak with more accuracy than any other person inParis.
"It is respecting the battles of La Vendee," said he, "that I wish tospeak to him. I believe that he saw more of them than any person nowalive."
Madame Chapeau was considering within herself whether there would be anyimprudence in confessing to the English officer the important part herhusband had played in La Vendee, when the officer's question wasanswered by another person, whose head and shoulders now dimly appearedupon the scene.
These were the head and shoulders of Chapeau's assistant, who had beensummoned from his own region by the sound of his mistress's bell; thestairs from this subterraneous recess did not open on to any passage,but ascended at once abruptly into the shop, so that the assistant, whencalled on, found himself able to answer, and to make even a personalappearance, as far as his head was concerned, without troubling himselfto mount the three or four last stairs. From this spot he was in thehabit of holding long conversations with his master and mistress; andnow perceiving that neither the head nor chin of the strange gentlemanwere to be submitted to his skill, he arrested his steps, and astonishedthe visitor by a voice which seemed to come out of the earth.
Indeed he did, Monsieur, more than any one now alive--more even thanmyself, and that is saying a great deal. Jacques Chapeau was an officerhigh in command through the whole Vendean war; and I, even I, humble asI am now, I also was thought not unworthy to lead brave men into battle.I, Monsieur, am Auguste Plume; and though now merely a perruquier's poorassistant, I was once the officer second in command in the army of LaPetite Vendee.
The gentleman turned r
ound and gazed at the singular apparition, whichthe obscurity of the shop only just permitted him to distinguish.Auguste Flume was now above sixty years old, and completely bald; hisface was thin, lanternjawed, and cadaverous; and his eyes, which wereweak with age, were red and bleared; still he had not that ghastly, sickappearance, which want both of food and rest had given him in theglorious days to which he alluded: after the struggle in La Vendee, hehad lived for some time a wretched life, more like that of a beast thana man; hiding in woods, living on roots, and hunting with the appetiteof a tiger after the blood of stray republicans; his wife and childrenhad perished in Carrier's noyades in the Loire; he himself had existedthrough two years of continued suffering, with a tenacity of life whichalmost reached to a miracle. He had joined the Chouans, and had takenan active part in the fiercest of their fierce acts of vengeance. Buthe had lived through it all; and now, in his old age, he had plenty andcomfort; yet he looked back with a fond regret to the days of hisimagined glory and power; he spoke with continual rapture of his ownbrave achievements, and regretted that he had not been allowed tocontinue a life, the miseries of which it would be impossible toexaggerate.
"Bah, Auguste," said his mistress; "the gentleman does not care to hearof your La Petite Vendee; it is of M. Henri--that is, of the youngMarquis de Larochejaquelin, and of Madame and of Mademoiselle Agatha,and of M. de Lescure, and of Charette, and the Prince de Talmont, thatMonsieur will want to hear!"
The stranger was in the act of explaining that the hostess was right inher surmise, when the master of the house himself returned. In spite ofwhat he had suffered, years had sat lightly on Chapeau, as they had doneon his wife. He was now a fat, good-humoured, middle-aged, comfortableman, who made the most, in his trade, of the eclat which attended him,as having been the faithful servant of the most popular among theVendean leaders. He never wearied his customers with long tales of hisown gallantry; he even had the unusual tact to be able to sink himself,in speaking, as he was often invited to do, of the civil war: he wasknown to have been brave, faithful, and loyal, and he was accordinglyvery popular among the royalists of Paris, who generally preferred hisscissors and razors to those of any other artist in the city.
The officer, who was now seated in the shop, his wife and daughter, andhis assistant, began at once to explain to him the service which he wasrequired to perform; and Chapeau, bowing low to the compliments whichthe stranger paid to him, declared with his accustomed mixture ofpoliteness and frank good nature, that he would be happy to tellanything that he knew.
The gentleman explained, that in his early years he had known de Lescureintimately; that he had met Larochejaquelin in Paris, and that he hadmade one of a party of Englishmen, who had done their best to send arms,money, and men from his own country into La Vendee. Chapeau was too wellbred to allude to the disappointment which they had all so keenly felt,from the want of that very aid; he merely bowed again, and said that hewould tell Monsieur all he knew.
And so he did. From the time when Henri Larochejaquelin left Laval forGranville, nothing prospered with the Vendeans; the army, as it wasagreed, had left that place for Granville, and their first misfortunehad been the death of de Lescure.
"He died in Laval?" asked the officer.
"No," said Chapeau. "When the moment for starting came, he insisted onbeing carried with the army; he followed us in a carriage, but thejolting of the road was too much for him--the journey killed him. Hedied at Fougeres, on the third day after we left Laval."
"And Madame?" asked the stranger.
"It is impossible for me now," said Chapeau, "to tell you all thedangers through which she passed, all the disguises which she had touse, and the strange adventures which for a long time threatened almostdaily to throw her in the hands of those who would have been delightedto murder her; but of course you know that she escaped at last."
"I am told that she still lives in Poitou, and I think I heard that,some years after M. de Lescure's death, she married M. LouisLarochejaquelin."
"She did so--the younger brother of my own dear lord. He was a boy inEngland during our hot work in La Vendee."
"Yes; and he served in an English regiment."
"So I had heard, Monsieur; but you know, don't you, that he also has nowfallen."
"Indeed no!--for years and years I have heard nothing of the family."
"It was only two months since: he fell last May at the head of theVendeans, leading them against the troops which the Emperor sent downthere. The Vendeans could not endure the thoughts of the Emperor'sreturn from Elba. M. Louis was the first to lift his sword, and Madameis, a second time, a widow. Poor lady, none have suffered as she hasdone!" He then paused a while in his narrative, but as the stranger didnot speak, he continued: "but of M. Henri, of course, Monsieur, youheard the fate of our dear General?"
"I only know that he perished, as did so many hundred others, who werealso so true and brave."
"I will tell you then," said Chapeau, "for I was by him when he died;he fell, when he was shot, close at my feet: he never spoke one word,or gave one groan, but his eyes, as they closed for the last time,looked up into the face of one--one who, at any rate, loved him verywell," and Chapeau took a handkerchief from a little pocket in hiswife's apron, and applied it to his eyes.
"Yes," he continued, "when the bullet struck him, I was as near to himas I am to her," and he put his hand to his wife's head. "It might havebeen me as well as him, only for the chance. I'll tell you how themanner of it was. You know how we all strove to cross back into LaVendee, first at Angers and afterwards at Ancenis; and how M. Henri gotdivided from the army at Ancenis. Well, after that, the Vendean army wasno more; the army was gone, it had melted away; the most of those whowere still alive were left in Brittany, and they joined the Chouans.Here is my friend, Auguste, he was one of them."
"Indeed I was, Monsieur, for a year and eight months."
"Never mind now, Auguste, you can tell the gentleman by and bye; but,as I was saying, M. Henri was left all but alone on the southern bankof the river--there were, perhaps, twenty with him altogether--not more;and there were as many hundreds hunting those twenty from day to day."
"And you were one of them, Chapeau?"
"I was, Monsieur. My wife here remained with her father in Laval; he wasa crafty man, and he made the blues believe he was a republican; but,bless you, he was as true a royalist all the time as I was. Well, therewe were, hunted, like wolves, from one forest to another, till about themiddle of winter, we fixed ourselves for a while in the wood of Vesins,about three leagues to the east of Cholet, a little to the south of thegreat road from Saumur. From this place M. Henri harassed them mosteffectually; about fifty of the old Vendeans had joined him, and withthese he stopped their provisions, interrupted their posts, and on oneoccasion, succeeded in getting the despatches from Paris to therepublican General. We were at this work for about six weeks; and he,as he always did, exposed himself to every possible danger. One morningwe came upon two republican grenadiers; there were M. Henri, two othersand myself there, and we wanted immediately to fire upon them; but M.Henri would not have it so; he said that he would save them, and rushedforward to bid them lay down their arms; as he did so, the foremost ofthem fired, and M. Henri fell dead without a groan."
"And the two men--did they escape?"
"No, neither of them," said Chapeau; and for a moment, a gleam of savagesatisfaction flashed across his face; "the man who fired the shot hadnot one minute spared him for his triumph; I had followed close upon mymaster, and I avenged him."
"And where was his young wife all this time?"
"She was with Madame de Lescure, in Brittany; and so was MademoiselleAgatha; they were living disguised almost as peasants, at an old chateaucalled Dreneuf; after that they all escaped to Spain; they are bothstill alive, and now in Poitou; and I am told, that though they have notchosen absolutely to seclude themselves, they both pass the same holylife, as though they were within the walls of a convent."
It was l
ong before Chapeau discontinued his narrative, but it isunnecessary for us to follow farther in the sad details which he had togive of the loss of the brave Vendean leaders. The Prince de Talinont,Charette, Stofflet, Marigny, all of them fell: "And yet," said Chapeau,with a boast, which evidently gave him intense satisfaction, "La Vendeewas never conquered. Neither the fear of the Convention, nor the armsof the Directory, nor the strength of the Consul, nor the flattery ofthe Emperor could conquer La Vendee, or put down the passionate longingfor the return of the royal family, which has always burnt in the bosomof the people. Revolt has never been put down in La Vendee, sinceCathelineau commenced the war in St. Florent. The people would serveneither the republic nor the empire; the noblesse would not visit thecourt; their sons have refused commissions in the army, and theirdaughters have disdained to accept the hands of any, who had forgottentheir allegiance to the throne. Through more than twenty years ofsuffering and bloodshed, La Vendee has been true to its colour, and nowit will receive its reward."
Chapeau himself, however, more fortunate, though not less faithful, thanhis compatriots, had not been obliged to wait twenty years for hisreward; he owned, with something like a feeling of disgrace, that he hadbeen carrying on his business in Paris, for the last fifteen years, withconsiderable success and comfort to himself; and he frankly confessed,that he had by practice inured himself to the disagreeable task ofshaving, cutting and curling beards and heads, which were devoted to theempire; "but then, Monsieur," said he apologizing for his conduct,"there was a great difference you know between them and republicans."
Five-and-thirty years have now passed, since Chapeau was talking, andthe Vendeans triumphed in the restoration of Louis XVIII to the throneof his ancestors. That throne has been again overturned; and, anotherdynasty having intervened, France is again a Republic.
How long will it be before some second La Vendee shall successfully, butbloodlessly, struggle for another re-establishment of the monarchy?Surely before the expiration of half a century since the return ofLouis, France will congratulate herself on another restoration.
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