The Erckmann-Chatrian Megapack: 20 Classic Novels and Short Stories (78 page)

But in spite of that, often when he came in at ten o’clock, after we had gone to bed, we heard him cough; he had dampened his feet. Then Catherine would say, “He is coughing again, he thinks he is as young as he was at twenty,” and in the morning she did not hesitate to reproach him.

“Monsieur Goulden,” she would say, “you are not reasonable; you have an ugly cold, and yet you go out every evening.”

“Ah! my child, what would you have? I have got the habit of reading the gazette, and it is stronger than I. I want to know what Benjamin Constant and the rest of them say, it is like a second life to me and I often think ‘they ought to have spoken further of such or such a thing. If Melchior Goulden had been there he would have opposed this or that, and it would not have failed to produce a great effect.’”

Then he would laugh and shake his head and say:

“Every one thinks he has more wit and good sense than the others, but Benjamin Constant always pleases me.”

We could say nothing more, his desire to read the gazette was so great. One day Catherine said to him:

“If you wish to hear the news, that is no reason why you should make yourself sick, you have only to do as the old carpenter Carabin does, he arranged last week with Father Hoffman, and he sends him the journal every night at seven o’clock, after the others have read it, for which he pays him three francs a month. In this way, without any trouble to himself, Carabin knows everything that goes on, and his wife, old Bevel, also; they sit by the fire and talk about all these things and discuss them together, and that is what you should do.”

“Ah! Catherine, that is an excellent idea, but—the three francs?”

“The three francs are nothing,” said I, “the principal thing is not to be sick, you cough very badly and that cannot go on.”

These words, far from offending, pleased him, as they proved our affection for him and that he ought to listen to us.

“Very well! we will try to arrange it as you wish, and the rather as the café is filled with half-pay officers from morning till night, and they pass the journals from one to the other so that sometimes we must wait two hours before we can catch one. Yes, Catherine is right.”

He went that very day to see Father Hoffman, so that after that, Michel, one of the waiters at the café brought us the gazette every night at seven o’clock, just as we rose from the table. We were happy always when we heard him coming up the stairs, and we would say, “There comes the gazette.”

Catherine would hurry off the cloth and I would put a big bullet of wood in the stove, and Mr. Goulden would draw his spectacles from their case, and while Catherine spun and I smoked my pipe like an old soldier, and watched the blaze as it danced in the stove, he would read us the news from Paris.

You cannot imagine the happiness and satisfaction we had in hearing Benjamin Constant and two or three others maintain the same opinions which we held ourselves. Sometimes Mr. Goulden was forced to stop to wipe his spectacles, and then Catherine would exclaim:

“How well these people talk. They are men of good sense. Yes, what they say is right—it is the simple truth.”

And we all approved it. Sometimes Father Goulden thought that they ought to have spoken of this or that a little more, but that the rest was all very well. Then he would go on with his reading, which lasted till ten o’clock, and then we all went to bed, reflecting on what we had just heard. Outside the wind blew, as it only can blow at Pfalzbourg, and vanes creaked as they turned, and the rain beat against the walls, while we enjoyed the warmth and comfort, and thanked God till sleep came, and we forgot everything. Ah! how happily we sleep with peace in our souls, and when we have strength and health, and the love and respect of those whom we love.

Days, weeks, and months went by, and we became, after a manner, politicians, and when the ministers were going to speak, we thought:

“Now the beggars want to deceive us! the miserable race! they ought to be driven out, every one of them!”

Catherine above all could not endure them, and when Mother Grédel came and talked as before about our good King, Louis XVIII., we allowed her to talk out of respect, but we pitied her for being so blind to the real interests of the country.

It must be remembered, too, that these émigrés, ministers, and princes, conducted themselves in the most insolent manner possible toward us. If the Count d’Artois and his sons had put themselves at the head of the Vendéeans and Bretons, and marched on Paris and had been victorious, they would have had reason to say, “We are masters, and will make laws for you.” But to be driven out at first, and to be brought back by the Prussians and the Russians, and then to come and humiliate us, that was contemptible, and the older I grow the more I am confirmed in that idea—it was shameful!

Zébédé came to see us from time to time, and he knew all that was in the gazette. It was from us that he first learned that the young émigrés had driven General Vandamme from the presence of the King. This old soldier, who had just returned from a Russian prison, and whom all the army respected in spite of his misfortune at Kulm, they conducted from the royal presence, and told him that was not his place. Vandamme had been colonel of a regiment at Pfalzbourg, and you cannot imagine the indignation of the people at this news.

And it was Zébédé who told us, that processes had been made out against the generals on half-pay, and that their letters were opened at the post, that they might appear like traitors. He told us a little afterward that they were going to send away the daughters of the old officers who were at the school of St. Denis and give them a pension of two hundred francs; and later still, that the émigrés alone would have the right to put their sons in the schools at “St. Cyr” and “la Flèche” to be educated as officers, while the people’s sons would remain soldiers at five centimes (one cent) a day for centuries to come.

The gazettes told the same stories, but Zébédé knew a great many other details—the soldiers knew everything.

I could not describe Zébédé’s face to you as he sat behind the stove, with the end of his black pipe between his teeth, recounting all these misfortunes. His great nose would turn pale, and the muscles would twitch around the corners of his light gray eyes, and he would pretend to laugh from time to time, and murmur, “It moves, it moves.”

“And what do the other soldiers think of all this?” said Father Goulden.

“Ha! they think it is pretty well when they have given their blood to France for twenty years, when they have made ten, fifteen, and twenty campaigns, and wear three chevrons, and are riddled with wounds, to hear that their old chiefs are driven from their posts, their daughters turned out of the schools, and that the sons of those people are to be their officers forever—that delights them, Father Goulden!” and his face quivered even to his ears as he said this.

“That is terrible, certainly,” said Father Goulden, “but discipline is always discipline there. The marshals obey the ministers, and the officers the marshals, and the soldiers the officers.”

“You are right,” said Zébédé, “but there, they are beating the assembly.”

And he shook hands and hurried off to the barracks.

The winter passed in this way, while the indignation increased every day. The city was full of officers on half-pay, who dared not remain in Paris,—lieutenants, captains, commandants, and colonels of infantry and cavalry,—men who lived on a crust of bread and a glass of wine a day, and who were the more miserable because they were forced to keep up an appearance—think of such men with their hollow cheeks and their hair closely cropped, with sparkling eyes and their big mustaches and their old uniform cloaks, of which they had been forced to change the buttons, see them promenading by threes and sixes and tens on the square, with their sword-canes at their button-holes, and their three-cornered hats so old and worn, though still well brushed; you could not help thinking that they had not one quarter enough to eat.

And yet we were compelled to say to ourselves, these are the victors of Jemmapes, of Fleurus, of Zurich, of Hohenlinden, of Marengo, of Austerlitz, and of Friedland and Wagram. If we are proud of being Frenchmen, neither the Comte d’Artois nor the Duke de Berry can boast of being the cause; on the contrary, it is these men, and now they leave them to perish, they even refuse them bread and put the émigrés in their place. It does not need any extraordinary amount of common-sense, or heart, or of justice to discover that this is contrary to nature.

I never could look at these unhappy men; it made me miserable. If you have been a soldier for only six months, your respect for your old chiefs, for those whom you have seen in the very front under fire, always remains. I was ashamed of my country for permitting such indignities.

One circumstance I shall never forget: it was the last of January, 1815, when two of these half-pay officers—one was a large, austere, gray-haired man, known as Colonel Falconette, who appeared to have served in the infantry, the other was short and thick and they called him Commandant Margarot, and he still wore his hussar whiskers—came to us and proposed to sell a splendid watch. It might have been ten o’clock in the morning. I can see them now as they came gravely in, the colonel with his high collar, and the other one with his head down between his shoulders.

The watch was a gold one, with double case; a repeater which marked the seconds, and was wound up only once in eight days. I had never seen such a fine one.

While Mr. Goulden examined it I turned round on my chair and looked at the men, who seemed to be in great need of money, especially the hussar. His brown, bony face, his big red mustaches, and his little brown eyes, his broad shoulders and long arms, which hung down to his knees, inspired me with great respect. I thought that when he took his sabre his long arm would reach a good way, that his eyes would burn under his heavy brows, and that the parry and thrust would come like lightning. I imagined him in a charge, half hidden behind his horse’s head, with the point advanced, and my admiration was greater still. I suddenly remembered that Colonel Falconette and Commandant Margarot had killed some Russian and Austrian officers in a duel in the rear of the “Green Tree,” when the allies were passing through the town six months ago.

The large man too, without any shirt-collar, although he was thin, wrinkled, and pale, and his temples were gray and his manner cold, seemed respectable too.

I waited to hear what Father Goulden would say about the watch. He did not raise his eyes, but looked at it with profound admiration, while the men waited quietly like those who suffer from not being able to conceal their pain. At last he said:

“This, gentlemen, is a beautiful watch, fit for a prince?”

“Indeed it is,” said the hussar, “and it was from a prince I received it after the battle of Rabbe,” and he glanced at his companion, who said nothing.

Mr. Goulden saw that they were in great need. He took off his black silk bonnet, and said, as he rose slowly from his seat:

“Gentlemen, do not take offence at what I am going to say. I am like you an old soldier, I served France under the Republic, and I am sure it must be heart-breaking to be forced to sell such a thing as that, an object which recalls some noble action, the souvenir of a chief whom we revere.”

I had never heard Father Goulden speak with such emotion, his bald head was bowed sadly, and his eyes were on the ground, so that he might not see the pain of those to whom he was speaking.

The commandant grew quite red, his eyes were dim, his great fingers worked, and the colonel was pale as death. I wished myself away.

Mr. Goulden went on, “This watch is worth more than a thousand francs, I have not so much money in hand, and besides you would doubtless regret to part with such a souvenir. I will make you this offer, leave the watch with me, I will hang it in my window—it shall always be yours—and I will advance you two hundred francs, which you shall repay me when you take it away.”

On hearing this, the hussar extended his two great hairy hands, as if to embrace Father Goulden.

“You are a good patriot,” he exclaimed, “Colin told us so. Ah! sir, I shall never forget the service you have rendered me. This watch I received from Prince Eugène for bravery in action, it is dear to me as my own blood, but poverty—”

“Commandant!” exclaimed the other, turning pale.

“Colonel, permit me! we are old comrades together. They are starving us, they treat us like Cossacks. They are too cowardly to shoot us outright.”

He could be heard all over the house. Catherine and I ran into the kitchen in order not to see the sad spectacle. Mr. Goulden soothed him, and we heard him say:

“Yes, yes, gentlemen, I know all that, and I put myself in your place.”

“Come! Margarot, be quiet,” said the colonel. And this went on for a quarter of an hour.

At last we heard Mr. Goulden count out the money, and the hussar said:

“Thank you, sir, thank you! If ever you have occasion, remember the Commandant Margarot.”

We were glad to hear the door open, and to hear them go downstairs, for Catherine and I were much pained by what we had heard and seen. We went back to the room, and Mr. Goulden, who had been to show the officers out, came back with his head bare. He was very much disturbed.

“These unhappy men are right,” said he, “the conduct of the government toward them is horrible, but it will have to pay for it sooner or later.”