Book III Chapter 6 The Marquis of Carabas by Rafael Sabatini
BELLANGER IN COMMAND
Late that night, in the library of Coëtlegon, five men sat in council under the presidency of the Vicomte de Bellanger, upon whom the chief command had now devolved. They were, besides the Vicomte himself, La Houssaye, La Marche, Quentin and Georges Cadoudal.
From laying Tinténiac to rest in a grave beside the avenue, they had returned weary and heartsore to the château to be feverishly greeted by ladies over whom had hung the terror of falling in prey to victorious sansculottes.
In contrast with last night's delights, there was grim work now for these ladies whom Madame de Bellanger had brought to Coëtlegon so as to lend gaiety to the gathering. The wounded were being borne in by their comrades. The château was rapidly being transformed into a hospital, and the services of the ladies were being claimed to minister to these poor fellows, to wash and dress their wounds, to nourish them, to quench their fevered thirsts, to cheer their spirits and ease their sufferings. They were proving themselves competent. Under the abiding frivolity of the old regime, their natures had undergone a steadying process through the sufferings of their class in the last few years.
The lovely Vicomtesse received the returning officers with a manner that admirably blended exultation in their triumph with sorrow for the sufferings at which it had been won.
Quentin, dishevelled, begrimed and near exhaustion, met her smile with fierce, haggard eyes. "How false," he said, "are the reports that come to Coëtlegon, and what a death trap it has proved."
"How cruel to remind me of it!" she complained, in tearful desolation. "Almost you make it sound like a reproach. And I meant so well."
"I am sure of it. But for whom?"
He waited for no answer. He turned aside, and staggered off across the hall, through which the wounded were being carried or assisted in a constant stream, until he came upon Germaine. With her was a Mademoiselle de Kercadio, who had been betrothed of Boishardi, and wore mourning for him. This frail little lady, who had ridden sabre in hand into battle at her lover's side, was now in tears.
"It breaks my heart to think of Tinténiac, so brave, so gay. Boishardi loved him as a brother. How sorry he would be, especially for the treachery that doomed him. It calls for vengeance."
"Treachery!" Quentin uttered a short mirthless laugh. "Whilst a third of us are gone to rescue imaginary Vendeans from Grouchy, Grouchy falls upon the remaining two-thirds. Who brought us word of the Vendeans? Who sent word of us to Grouchy, to bring him here?"
Both women stared at him in terror. "Quentin!" cried Germaine. "What dreadful thing is in your mind?"
"Just that. Just these questions. My suspicious nature requires an answer to them."
In that fierce mood he came to the council, where he found no exultation of victory. Apart from the gloom occasioned by the loss of a commander so gallant and universally beloved as Tinténiac, there was the cost of that victory to be counted. Their casualties exceeded two thousand, a third of which was the number of the dead.
Out in the parklands, moving points of light, like will-o'-the-wisps, showed where the Chouans were at their grim work of retrieving the wounded and burying the dead.
The writing-table had been turned into a buffet by the solicitude of the Vicomtesse, and was laden with wine and meats for the refreshment of these officers whose conference brooked no delays. In the high-backed chair that had been occupied by Tinténiac a few hours ago, sat now Bellanger, morose and stern.
He bent a sullen glance upon Quentin, who was the last to arrive, and whom he would gladly have excluded had he dared, conscious as he was of his uncompromising hostility, galled as he was by the unavenged affronts which Quentin had put upon him. These, however, were matters that must wait. The command which had devolved upon him imposed duties from which no personal considerations must deflect him.
The sense of that command endowed him with more than ordinary prolixity. He was being eloquent. Even in this hour of gloom he must be finding sonorous words in which to expatiate upon what had that day been accomplished. A glorious instance, he described it, of matchless, Royalist valour. He pronounced in emotional terms a brief funeral oration over the great leader whom he deemed himself unworthy to succeed--a confession which none mistook for a conviction--and he invited these gentlemen of his staff to offer suggestions for the immediate course of action now to be adopted.
Quentin, whose impatience had been growing under that flood of words, which offended his sense of fitness and intensified the ache of his lacerated nerves, was prompt to answer.
"What is to consider? Our course of action was laid down in Tinténiac's last words. He commanded us to be punctual at Plouharnel. It remains but to obey him."
Bellanger afforded him a gloomy attention; then he looked at Cadoudal, as if to invite his comment.
The Chouan, still in ragged shirt and breeches, as he had fought, still in the grime of battle, sat apart, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands, his fingers thrust through his tousled fair hair, his spirit mourning the bright leader he had followed with the unquestioning fidelity of a hound.
Seeing him thus, Bellanger's heavy glance passed on. "Monsieur de La Marche."
La Marche, who sat glowering into a glass of wine he held, looked up uneasily. "As you've heard, we have our orders." He spoke without conviction, and having spoken, drained his glass.
"And you, La Houssaye?"
"I agree that since we know Tinténiac's intentions, it is incumbent upon us to fulfil them as far as possible."
"As far as possible. Exactly. But how far is it now possible?" He cleared his throat for the address that was to follow this exordium. But Quentin gave him no time to come to it.
"Tinténiac's orders apart, there is the purpose for which we left Quiberon. In spite of all that has happened, reduced as we are, that purpose must still be ours. Your clear duty, sir, is to give the order to march at dawn."
"I am not asking to be told my duty." The tone was acid. "But I'll let that pass with the rest." He waved it away with one of his long, graceful hands. "Nothing remains but to march at dawn, says Monsieur de Morlaix. But with what, pray, are we to march? With half the force considered necessary for this enterprise? For that is all that now remains of the ten thousand that left Quiberon. Am I to march men who are wearied by a day of battle and a night of burying the dead? Can I march these men at dawn? Is that reasonable advice?"
"March them at noon, then. But march them to-morrow, so that we may still come to Plouharnel in time."
"That is to answer only the half of my objections. There remains the question of our present numbers."
"We must make them suffice. We have to remember that our function is to create a diversion by falling upon Hoche's rear. We are still strong enough for that: to create confusion, compel that division of his forces, which should enable the army of Monsieur de Puisaye to annihilate him."
"At the price, no doubt, of our own annihilation," said La Houssaye, faintly sarcastic.
"What then, so that the object is accomplished? It remains the only amend we can now make for all the blunders and worse that have brought us to this pass. And make it we must."
That set them all against him; all save Cadoudal, who continued huddled in a seeming insensibility. In the scowling faces of the others, Quentin read his condemnation.
La Marche expressed it. "By God, sir! Do you malign the dead? Do you dare to cast your foul censure on the generalship of Tinténiac?"
"I do not. And you know that I do not. My censure is for those who over-persuaded Tinténiac to come to this . . . to come to Coëtlegon; for those who resisted his will when, sensing danger, he was eager to depart; for Constant de Chesnières, who mutinously marched off a third of our men on a fool's errand, leaving us in diminished strength to bear to-day's attack. These are the errors, the wicked errors, for which we must accept the blame, and for which at need we must immolate ourselves, so that Monsieur de Puisaye may not be cheated of his victory."
Bellanger sneered openly. "I am not concerned to immolate what is left of this company for the sake of Monsieur de Puisaye."
"Nor I," said La Marche.
"My faith, nor I," said Houssaye.
Cadoudal seemed to awaken at last. He reared his great head, and glared at them from blood-injected eyes.
"Name of God! You sneer at the Comte Joseph, do you? Well, sneer your ignoble fill. But who the devil asks you to die for his sake? Are you all addle-headed?" His voice soared. "It is for the sake of the King; for the sake of a cause in which a better man than any of us has given his precious life to-day. If you are not prepared to die for that, then, damn your souls, why did you not remain in England, or Holland, or Germany, or wherever else you've been idling, whilst we Bretons, who believed in God and the King's Majesty, have been bleeding freely these two years?"
Cowed and even shamed by that vehement outburst, they sat for a long moment in sullen silence, whilst Cadoudal sank back into his huddled attitude of dejection.
La Houssaye was the first to recover; but no longer to hector. "You mistake us, Cadoudal. We are all prepared to die for the cause, else, as you say, we should not have come to France. What we are not prepared to do is to throw away our lives in vain undertakings."
"To do our part at Ste. Barbe is no vain undertaking," said Quentin.
"Can you be sure of that?" Bellanger asked him.
"What does my conviction matter, or your conviction? For soldiers there is obedience, not conviction. And our obedience is due to the orders under which we left Quiberon, the orders confirmed to-day by Tinténiac."
Bellanger sighed in controlled exasperation. "It is not quite so simple. Things have changed since we left Quiberon. Give me leave, Monsieur de Morlaix! Arguments as to what may have changed them are beside the point. Things are not even as Tinténiac supposed them when he issued his last orders. For when he spoke he did not know the extent of our losses."
"We still have men enough for what's to do," Quentin insisted.
"That is merely your opinion."
"It is also mine," flashed Cadoudal.
Bellanger strove with his temper. "What is yours, La Houssaye?"
"Definitely that we are too weak."
"And yours, La Marche?"
"The same. Our only prudent course is to rejoin the force that followed Chesnières. Time enough then to consider our next step."
"Time enough," cried Quentin. "That is what it may not be."
Still with his long-suffering air, Bellanger expounded. "We have heard two soldiers of great experience, and their view accords fully with mine. You, Monsieur de Morlaix, are becoming the victim of a fixed idea. You persist in overlooking that Puisaye is actually in greater strength than Hoche."
"Without reckoning," added La Houssaye, "that by now he must have been reinforced by Sombreuil's division and the regulars from England. He will face the sansculottes in overwhelming strength."
"You leave out of account the advantages of Hoche's fortified position," cried Quentin, in despair. "And, again, what if Sombreuil has not arrived?"
"You forget," retorted Bellanger, "that when Puisaye comes to attack, and finds that we are not in Hoche's rear, it will be for him to suspend the engagement."
"What anxiety, Monsieur, to discover reasons for neglecting duty!"
La Marche and Houssaye turned indignantly upon Quentin. But Bellanger waved a hand to pacify them. He smiled acidly.
"We must continue," he drawled, "to bear with Monsieur de Morlaix's impetuosity and wild assumptions, however offensive, remembering that they are dictated by unreasoning zeal. Our aim must be to do the best for all concerned, and the immediate best is, clearly, to follow Monsieur de Chesnières to Rédon, so as to incorporate with ours not only his division, but also that of the Vendeans."
"My God! Is it possible that you still believe in their existence?"
Bellanger was lofty. "Whether they exist or not can wait. We do know that three thousand Chouans exist between here and Rédon, and our first step must be to reincorporate them in our ranks. When that is done we can consider what is to follow. So as soon as the men are fit to march, we set out for Rédon by way of Josselin and Malestroit."
One last despairing attempt Quentin made to shape the course of things. "But it may be too late by then to do anything. In God's name, sir, summon at least a full council of all the émigré officers and Chouan leaders, before you take so grave a decision."
But Bellanger would not be moved. It is not impossible that the bitter resentment aroused by Quentin may have stiffened his obstinacy. "The decision is taken. I am in command, sir, and that responsibility lies with me."
"The burden may prove heavy. Tinténiac promised Chesnières a court martial for his insubordination. Beware lest you incur the same."
The Vicomte rose, a tall figure of great dignity. "You presume, I think, upon our patience." He addressed the gathering. "You have my orders. You will be good enough to communicate them to the quarters concerned."
Cadoudal began to move towards the door. "At least there's an end to all this fish-market chatter." He overtook Quentin, and gripped his arm. "These gentlemen from England seem all to be the good friends of General Hoche; Monsieur d'Hervilly in Quiberon and Monsieur de Bellanger here."
"Monsieur Cadoudal!" Bellanger's voice was sharp and minatory. "You are not respectful."
Cadoudal turned upon him a face of sneering astonishment. "By God! You've some discernment, after all."
He rolled out, heavy-footed, and Quentin went after him.