Book I Chapter 11 The Marquis of Carabas by Rafael Sabatini
LAZARE HOCHE
This Lazare Hoche, but for his untimely death, might well have played in France the rôle that was to be filled by Bonaparte. Already the fear that he might play it had all but brought him to the guillotine. His swift rise from the ranks to generalship, such as only the revolutionary conditions could make possible, and the victorious campaign of the Vosges, so brilliantly conducted by this General in the middle twenties, with the power accruing to him from his consequent popularity, had alarmed the jealous masters of the Revolution. Robespierre and his fierce acolyte, St. Just, perceived what opportunities were offered to a resolute soldier who had won the affection of his troops and the esteem of the people. They may even have felt that the increasing anarchy could ultimately be resolved--as, indeed, ultimately it came to be--by a military dictatorship, and in Hoche, with his high courage, his talents, his engaging personality and his popularity, they may have suspected a potential dictator. So they trumped up an impeachment of treason, and cast him into gaol. Fortunately for him, whilst he awaited the trial that would undoubtedly have furnished him with a passport to the scaffold, the events of Thermidor supervened, and the prison-doors that opened to receive St. Just and the half-dead Robespierre, opened at the same time to deliver the young general.
Not only released, but restored to the confidence of the present masters of the State, Hoche was presently given command of the Army of Cherbourg, and dispatched into the west with the mission of stamping out the smouldering insurrection.
It was on his way now to take over that command, and accompanied by a half-dozen members of his staff and a little troop of fifty horse as escort, that General Hoche came to solicit for the night the hospitality of Coëtlegon.
A man of the people--in his early youth he had been a groom in the stables of Versailles--Lazare Hoche in his twenty-seventh year presented every mark and attribute of nobility. Commandingly tall and admirably proportioned, elegant in his appointments, graceful in his movements, he was of a grave, lofty beauty of countenance, with calm intelligent eyes and a generous, mobile mouth. His gentle voice and his speech singularly cultured--for, of studious habits, he had been at pains to repair the omissions in the education with which he had started life--went to complete the mirror of courtliness presented by this child of the gutter.
Even the old Marquise's fierce pride of birth succumbed in graciousness before his natural nobility, whilst her daughter received him as if he had been royal.
His brigadier, Humbert, who accompanied him, a man of his own age, and like himself a son of the soil, was also of an exterior to take the eye. Shorter and more lightly built, he was quick and graceful and of a lively countenance. If Hoche wore the airs of a prince, Humbert presented the appearance of a typical soldier of fortune, gaily bold and swaggeringly gallant. Whilst his military talents were considerable, he had remained illiterate, and whilst Hoche in his present surroundings, disdained the terminology of the Republic, and gave the ladies of Coëtlegon their proper titles, Humbert advertised his republicanism by scrupulously respecting the revolutionary dictionary. He rendered it evident, too, that he was of a greater enterprise in gallantry, and his bold and open wooing of the lovely Vicomtesse, next to whom he was seated at supper, was not confined to an ardour of glances.
The Vicomtesse, however, as blind to the fire in Humbert's eyes as she was deaf to the inner meaning of his phrases, had attentions only for the handsome Hoche, seated opposite to her, beside her mother.
Martin, the old maître d'hôtel, with a lad in plain livery to assist him, waited upon them at a table that was reasonably well supplied. Wine was abundant and good, and liberal indulgence in it did not improve the manners of the half-dozen officers at the table's lower end. Towards the end of the meal they grew boisterous, shatteringly loud in their laughter and of rather too coarse a jocularity. Two of them brought forth their pipes and lighted them at the candles, and calling for more wine were disposing themselves for a carousal. But observing the Marquise's sudden trouble, the General was prompt to make an end.
He raised his gentle voice. "Citizen-officers, Madame du Grégo gives you leave to withdraw to the quarters she has assigned to you, where you may take your ease. You will, of course, practise that circumspection becoming Republican officers who are guests in a lady's house."
There were no murmurs, and if in their rising the members of his staff were still noisy, nevertheless they were promptly obedient, and allowed themselves to be led forth by Martin to the quarters Hoche had suggested.
Louise du Grégo leaned forward to thank him. "So much considerateness does you honour, General. My mother and I are deeply grateful."
That was all that she said in words. But a deal was added to them by the ardour of her magnificent eyes, and the warm smile on her red lips.
Humbert at her side made bold to set a hand upon her arm. "Eh, but we are not boors, Citoyenne, we soldiers of the Republic. In our duty to the ladies we are nothing behind the men of the old regime."
"I do not doubt it, my General," she answered him, but her eyes were ever upon Hoche.
They moved to the salon, and almost at once the Marquise bade them good night, with plaintive, formally expressed hopes that they would find the quarters assigned to them all that they could desire. Hoche returned gravely courteous assurances of his confidence in this; Humbert laughingly protested that he possessed the soldier's faculty for bivouacking anywhere.
"So that I may dig a hole for my hip-bone I can sleep comfortably on the bosom of mother earth, which is not to say," he added with a grin for the Vicomtesse, "that there are not other bosoms I should prefer."
Quentin wondered would she have frowned with the same displeasure at a similar brutality from Hoche.
"My friend," his General told him, "I am sure that Madame will excuse you if you wish to join the others."
But Humbert ignored the hint. "Madame might excuse me. But I could never excuse myself," he answered, and flung himself into a chair.
Madame du Grégo was moving towards the door. Hoche went to open for her. As he returned Humbert was saying: "The Citoyenne promised that she would sing for us."
"I promised," she corrected him, with an arch look at his superior, "that I would sing for General Hoche."
She moved to meet him, and halting very close to him, looked up into his face. "What shall I sing for you, my General?"
Hoche, tall and dominant in his close-fitting blue coat with red facings, the tricolour sash to his waist, and a high, black military stock sharpening the line of his strong jaw, looked down into the siren's eyes with a glance in which the disdainfully watchful Quentin perceived a kindly responsive warmth. Humbert from his chair grunted a laugh that went unheeded.
"So that you sing, Madame," said Hoche, "it will matter little what you sing."
They moved together to the clavichord. She sighed aloud. "It shall be something to express myself, my loneliness and my repining."
"You were not made for loneliness, Madame."
"I have, none the less, been doomed to it. Thus fate abuses me."
"Fate is to be constrained."
She sighed. "Alas! I have never learnt the art of it."
"For one so endowed there is nothing to be learnt. To desire is to possess."
She flashed him an upward timid glance from under fluttering eyelids. "For such as you, my General, I can well believe it."
She sank to the seat at the instrument, and her fingers trembled for a moment over the keys. Then she began to sing, a heart-broken little song that was all tears and thwarted passion, and ever and anon as she sang her eyes would be raised to the commanding figure standing over her as if she addressed to him the song-maker's palpitating words.
Humbert, huddled in his chair, looked on and scowled. Quentin, observing all with secret amusement, regretted only that the man who so completely engrossed the lady's attention should be departing again in the morning.
Very soon, however, he thought that he perceived evidence that the lady, sharing his regret, did not mean to leave the course of things unchanged. When, the song being ended, she broke the spell of silence that marked its close, it was to comment upon the General's going.
"Is it inevitable that you continue your journey to-morrow, sir?"
So much had she gone to his head already that he answered gallantly: "Be sure, Madame, that I should not continue it otherwise."
She was still seated at the clavichord, he standing beside her. She frowned thoughtfully awhile, with bowed head; then suddenly looked up and swung to face him. "I conceive you, of course, a man indifferent to danger. Yet I ask myself are you really aware of how much danger threatens you between here and Cherbourg."
He raised his shoulders. "Naturally, I am not unaware of the unrest, since I am sent into the West to quell it. But it's in my trade to face whatever dangers may present themselves."
"Is it not also in your trade to see that you are in case to overcome them? Is not that a soldier's elementary duty?"
"I think I am in such case."
"Oh, no. That is your error. Strong bands of Chouans are operating between here and Rennes. It is only two days since one of them attacked and seized a strongly escorted convoy."
"What's that?" rasped Humbert, coming to his feet. She stared at him, and then at Hoche. "But is it possible that you have not heard of it?"
Both denied all knowledge of it, whilst Quentin wondered how it came that she had made no earlier allusion to so startling a fact. Humbert pressed her with questions as to the exact whereabouts of the attack, the substance of the convoy, and the strength of the escort. She was vague in her replies. She had the information from one of the peasants of Coëtlegon, who had not been precise in details. All that she knew for certain was that the Chouans were in strength and that their eyes were everywhere. She dwelt upon their methods, moving unseen through the woods, assembling in force to strike terribly from their ambushes, and dispersing again as soon as the blow was struck, ever an elusive, impalpable menace. She stressed the triumph it would be for them to seize the General sent to suppress them. If they had not yet fallen upon his flimsy escort, it could only be because he had not yet reached the particular ambush they were sure to have laid for him. It was impossible that they did not know of his presence now at Coëtlegon. He could be sure that his every movement would be known to them and watched.
"You mean," cried Humbert, "that they may descend upon us here?"
She shook her head so vigorously that momentarily she displaced a heavy black ringlet that fell across her white bosom. "Oh, no. They will not attack you here lest that should bring reprisals upon us. At Coëtlegon you are safe. I will answer for it. And you would do well, my General, to take advantage of it."
"What advantage does it afford?"
"Shelter, until you can reinforce your inadequate escort. I will send one of my own men to Rennes or Saint Brieuc or Saint Malo, or wherever there is a garrison to supply your need."
Seeing Hoche grow thoughtful, Humbert protested inevitably: "But the delay!"
"It is better," said Madame, "to arrive late than not to arrive at all. And that, be sure, is what will happen if you go on. Indeed, General, knowing the unrest of the country, I don't know whether to marvel more at your temerity in venturing into it so indifferently guarded, or at your good fortune in being still alive." She stood up. "Write two lines to the commander of the nearest garrison, and one of my men shall set out with it at once."
"But the monstrous encroachment upon you," Hoche protested.
She smiled alluringly into his eyes. "The burden, my General, will be heavier for you than for us."
"Never say that. For I know of no burden I would carry with greater delight."
"It is settled then." She laughed like a pleased child.
He looked at Humbert. He spoke slowly. "I think that we should add Madame's generosity to the heavy debt in which her timely warning leaves us."
Humbert, who had watched her with suspicious eyes, took a turn before answering. "I should like to know more of this attacked convoy," he grumbled. "I find it odd that there should have been no word of it at Vannes this morning."
"The Chouans may have seen to that," Madame informed him. "They are ever vigilant to intercept couriers."
He shrugged, and spread his hands. "Very well. But if we are to send for a further escort, I should prefer that one of my own men carry the message."
She raised her brows. "By all means, if you think that one of your dragoons could ride a dozen miles unmolested through this country."
"He need not ride as a Blue. We can dress him as a peasant."
"As you please. My own man would travel more quickly and be more certain to arrive. But as you please."
"He would also," said Humbert, with a crooked smile, "be more likely to have friends among the brigands."
"Name of Heaven, Humbert! What do you imply?" Hoche disapproved him.
Madame, however, remained serene. "He is right to take no risks."
Humbert looked at his chief. "You have decided, then, my General?"
"I think so. Yes. Don't you agree it would be prudent in view of what we have learnt?"
Humbert's glance, growing humorously insolent, moved from Hoche to the Vicomtesse. A smile of understanding flickered on his firm lips.
"We make holiday, then. Very well." He shrugged, and turned on his heel. "I go to give the order," he said, and marched out.