La fièvre d''or. English
CHAPTER XIII.
PREPARATIONS.
The period at which our story happens was a happy time for desperateenterprises and filibustering expeditions.
In fact, the political commotions that had overthrown Europe some timepreviously had brought to the surface, and set in motion, a great numberof those unprincipled men, whose sole object is to secure from therevolutions that desolate their country very lucrative, if not veryhonourable, positions, and for whom anarchy is the sole safety valve.
But, after the first convulsions inseparable from a revolution, when thepopular effervescence began gradually to cool down, and the overflowingwaters returned to their bed--in a word, when society, wearied of paltrystruggles sustained for no avowable motives, and merely kept up tosatisfy the disgraceful ambition of a few men of no value, understoodthat the re-establishment of order was the sole path of salvation, allthose individuals who had for a season played a part more or lessimportant found themselves cast on the pavement of the towns withoutresources; for, with that improvidence inherent in their natures,squandering day by day the favours which blind fortune had lavished onthem, they had kept nothing for bad times, convinced as they were thatthe state of things they had produced would last for ever.
For a few months they struggled, not courageously, but obstinately,against adversity, seeking by every means to recapture the prey whichthey had so foolishly allowed to slip from their grasp. But they weresoon compelled to allow that times had changed, that their hour waspast, and that the ground which had hitherto maintained them was sinkinghourly beneath their feet, and threatened to swallow them up.
Their position was becoming critical. It was impossible for them toresume their humble and peaceful avocations, and return to thatnothingness from which a mad caprice of chance had drawn them. The ideadid not even occur to them. They had tasted luxury and honour; theycould not and would not work again: pride and sloth imperiously forbadeit.
Cincinnatus has never found an imitator in history, and that is thereason why his memory has been so preciously kept up by all to thepresent day. The men of whom we are speaking were far from being likeCincinnatus, though they in so far resembled the Roman Dictator thatthey claimed to govern nations.
What was to be done?
Fortunately Providence, whose ways are incomprehensible, watched overthem.
The discovery of the rich placers of California, the news of which hadbeen almost stifled under the blow of the terrible European politicalcommotions, suddenly returned to the surface, and in a short timeassumed a considerable extension. The most extravagant storiescirculated about the incalculable riches that lay almost on the groundin the soil of the new Eldorado. Then all the vagabond imaginationsbegan to ferment. All eyes were fixed on America, and the birds of preythat wanted a booty in Europe rushed with a loud cry of joy toward thatunknown land, where they fancied they should find in a few days all thejoys with which they had been gorged, and which they hoped this time tosatisfy.
Unfortunately, in California, as elsewhere, the first condition foracquiring wealth is incessant, permanent, and regular labour.
On landing in America numerous poignant deceptions awaited theadventurers. The mines, indeed, existed--they were rich; but the goldthey contained could only be extracted with great difficulty, greatfatigue, and, above all, great expense--three impossibilities which ourgold-seekers could not overcome.
Many perished either of want, or of a violent death through pot-housequarrels, or through the change of climate, to which they had not thetime to grow accustomed. Those who survived, wan and ragged, displayedtheir starving faces in all the bad places of San Francisco, ready to doanything for the smallest sum of money that would lull their wolfishappetite.
In the meanwhile the first adventurers had been succeeded by others, andstill they flocked in. The few, privileged by fortune, who returned toEurope rich in a few months, had naturally aroused the cupidity of thenumberless pariahs of civilisation; and San Francisco, that countryblessed by Heaven, whose climate is so fine and soil so fertile,threatened to become a vast and mournful cemetery.
At this time it happened that a few enterprising men, seeing theirillusions fading away, and perceiving that the gold they coveted soardently constantly fled before them while they were unable to catch it,turned their glances in another direction, and, despairing of growingrich in the mines, resolved to seize, sword and revolver in hand, thoseriches which it was impossible for them to acquire otherwise; that is tosay, they resuscitated for their own behoof the filibusteringexpeditions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Thus was a new path opened to emerge from the frightful wretchedness inwhich they languished, and the adventurers eagerly entered upon it.Filibustering enterprises sprang up on all sides with as much regularityas if they had been perfectly respectable financial operations; and theplethora of San Francisco began, to the great relief of the peacefulpopulation, to be diverted on the surrounding countries.
The count had, therefore, arrived at a propitious moment to put inexecution the plan he meditated. He belonged to one of the oldest andnoblest families in France. He enjoyed, and that justly, a spotlessreputation in California; moreover, he was very strict in the selectionof the men he enlisted; finally, he offered an honourable scope fortheir ambition, which is very flattering to men who have nothing tolose. Nothing more was needed to excite the emulation of all theragamuffins, and urge them to place themselves under his orders.
Among the adventurers were many really estimable persons, who in no waymerited the sad fate they were undergoing, and who, seduced by theunknown, had been attracted to California by the fallacious promises ofEuropean speculators, and had been the victims of the scoundrels whoinduced them to emigrate. These men endured their sufferings nobly,awaiting with the patience of well-tempered hearts the opportunity totake their revenge and regain that position which a moment of madintoxication and credulous simplicity had made them forfeit.
The Count, with that infallible glance he possessed, and the knowledgeof mankind which lengthened misfortune had enabled him to acquire, hadpicked out the best men from the crowd that daily invaded his house sosoon as his intention became known, and assured himself of theco-operation of devoted comrades of tried courage, who, regarding thecount's enterprise as the sole means of emerging from their frightfulposition, attached themselves to him with a firm resolve to do or die.
Hence we will assert here that of all the expeditions formed at thatperiod in California, the only really honourable one which contained theelements of success was that led by Count Louis de Prebois Crance.
We do not go beyond the mark when we say that the count was adored byhis comrades. These rude adventurers, so harshly tried by destiny, hadguessed, with the ineffable perspicacity of men who have sufferedgreatly, the inexhaustible kindness, perfect loyalty, and vastintelligence locked up in the heart of their chief, and how much tendersolicitude and friendship for them were concealed beneath his mournfulcountenance and the imposing severity of his liquid blue eye. Thus itwas not merely respect he inspired them with, but veneration anddevotion, extending almost to fanaticism.
An expedition like that the count was preparing was no easy thing toorganise, especially with the scanty resources he had at his disposal;for he only obtained vague promises from his partners, and was forced toseek in himself the means for satisfying all.
The rich placer which Belhumeur and Eagle-head pointed out to him hadbeen worked in the time of the Spanish monarchy; but since thedeclaration of independence, carelessness and disorder having taken theplace of the energy displayed by the Castilians, the Indians soonexpelled the miners: the placer had, therefore, been temporarilyabandoned. Then gradually the Apaches and Comanches, growing bolder asthey perceived the weakness of the white men, advanced and recapturedvast territories, on which they established themselves permanently,knowing that the Mexicans would never attempt to drive them out. In thisway the placer to which we allude, formerly situated in the possess
ionsof New Spain, was now surrounded by Indian territory, and to reach it itwas necessary to wage a mortal contest with the two most dangerousnations of the desert, the Apaches and Comanches, who would under nopretext suffer the invasion of their frontiers by the whites, but woulddefend their ground inch by inch against them.
The Mexican government had only authorised the formation of the miningcompany founded by the count on the express condition that the miners,organised as a military force, should pursue the Indians, attack themwhenever they came up with them, and definitively expel them from theterritory they had usurped since the proclamation of independence. Thecount had accepted a rough and almost impossible mission: any other inhis place would have backed out and refused to accept such terms. ButCount Louis was a man in a thousand, gifted with a rare energy, whichobstacles only rendered greater. And then, personally, what did he carefor the issue of the affair? It was not wealth, but death, he sought;still he did not wish to fall till he had given his comrades that wealthhe had promised them, and rescued them from the stings of adversefortune.
He accepted the conditions, then, but not blindly, ambitiously, oregotistically. He accepted them as a man of heart, who sacrificeshimself for an idea, and for the general happiness; and who, whilerecognising the almost insurmountable difficulties that oppose thesuccess of his noble projects, hopes to succeed in overcoming them byhis courage, perseverance, and abnegation.
The energy, patience, and intelligence which the count had displayedduring the two months since his parting with Valentine, no one buthimself could have told. One of the clauses in his contract with thesuspicious and shifting Mexican government obliged him not to take morethan three hundred men with him. The President of the Republic, GeneralArista, doubtlessly feared the invasion and conquest of Mexico by theFrench, had they been four hundred in number.
These wretched conditions are so ridiculous, that they would beincredible were they not rigorously true. We could, if we pleased, writedown here the words uttered in the Senate of Mexico, in which this fearof invasion is distinctly expressed.
The count, in order to dissipate all doubts on this head, and, aboveall, not to arouse suspicions, decided on only taking two hundred andsixty men instead of three hundred.
But this company, destined to traverse a country swarming with obstinateenemies, compelled during the journey to fight perhaps several times aday, constrained in this desolate country to supply its own wants (forit had no help to expect anywhere), must receive a powerfulorganisation.
This was what the count thought of first.
Those persons who have never worn that heavy harness called a militarytunic cannot form even a distant idea of the thousand difficulties ofdetail which arise at every step in the complete organisation of acompany, so that the service may be done properly, and the soldier notsuffer needlessly.
The count was obliged to improvise. He had never served, and was not atall aware of the nature of such a task as his; but he was a gentlemanand a Frenchman, two reasons for inventing what a man is ignorant ofwhen war is the subject. The military genius is so innate in the Frenchnation, that we may say every man is a soldier. At any rate, Louisproved it in an undeniable manner.
Obliged to foresee everything, and provide for all eventualities, heundertook everything; and, on seeing the nature of his arrangements, hismen, all old soldiers and connoisseurs in such matters, were convincedthat their chief had been long engaged in military affairs.
He made a regular army of his company; that is to say, he had infantry,cavalry, and artillery. In order that the discipline might be strictlymaintained the infantry were divided into sections, commanded by triedmen selected by himself. A few sailors, accustomed to handle guns, wereappointed to serve a small mountain howitzer, which the count carriedwith him, more for the purpose of terrifying the Indians than in thehope that it would ever prove of use to him.
Lastly, some forty picked men, most of them old Chasseurs d'Afrique,formed the cavalry, and were placed under the orders of an officer forwhom the count felt a peculiar esteem, whom he had known a long time,and in whose ability he placed entire confidence.
But what we have described was nothing when compared with what stillremained to be done--purchasing arms, provisions, the necessary toolsfor working the mine, ammunition, and, above all, means of transport.
The count was not discouraged. He improvised a commissariat, andalone--alone we repeat; for he had refused the offer of large Americanbankers, who at length, recognising his value, had proposed to take aninterest in his enterprise--with his scanty resources, he had doneeverything, organised everything, and now only awaited his fosterbrother's arrival, in order to pay the balance of his accounts, ship hiscompany, and set sail.
Now that we have fully explained these matters to our reader, which areso important to a proper understanding of what follows, we will resumeour narrative at the point where we were compelled to break it off.