Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon Volume I Part 64

"I was, two days ago, _cha.s.seur a cheval_, a sous-lieutenant, in the regiment of my father, the General St. Croix."

"The name is familiar to me," I replied, "and I am sincerely happy to be in a position to serve the son of so distinguished an officer."

"The son of so distinguished an officer is most deeply obliged, but wishes with all his heart and soul he had never sought glory under such very excellent auspices. You look surprised, _mon cher_; but let me tell you, my military ardor is considerably abated in the last three days. Hunger, thirst, imprisonment, and this"--lifting his wounded limb as he spoke--"are sharp lessons in so short a campaign, and for one too, whose life hitherto had much more of ease than adventure to boast of. Shall I tell you how I became a soldier?"

"By all means; give me your gla.s.s first; and now, with a fresh log to the fire, I'm your man."

"But stay; before I begin, look to this."

The blood was flowing rapidly from his wound, which with some difficulty I succeeded in stanching. He drank off his wine hastily, held out his gla.s.s to be refilled, and then began his story.

"You have never seen the Emperor?"

"Never."

"_Sacrebleu!_ What a man he is! I'd rather stand under the fire of your grenadiers, than meet his eye. When in a pa.s.sion, he does not say much, it is true; but what he does, comes with a kind of hissing, rus.h.i.+ng sound, while the very fire seems to kindle in his look. I have him before me this instant, and though you will confess that my present condition has nothing very pleasing in it, I should be sorry indeed to change it for the last time I stood in his presence.

"Two months ago I sported the gay light-blue and silver of a page to the Emperor, and certainly, what with b.a.l.l.s, _bonbons_, flirtation, gossip, and champagne suppers, led a very gay, reckless, and indolent life of it.

Somehow,--I may tell you more accurately at another period, if we ever meet,--I got myself into disgrace, and as a punishment, was ordered to absent myself from the Tuileries, and retire for some weeks to Fontainebleau. Siberia to a Russian would scarcely be a heavier infliction than was this banishment to me. There was no court, no levee, no military parade, no ball, no opera. A small household of the Emperor's chosen servants quietly kept house there. The gloomy walls re-echoed to no music; the dark alleys of the dreary garden seemed the very impersonation of solitude and decay. Nothing broke the dull monotony of the tiresome day, except when occasionally, near sunset, the clash of the guard would be heard turning out, and the clank of presenting arms, followed by the roll of a heavy carriage into the gloomy courtyard. One lamp, s.h.i.+ning like a star, in a small chamber on the second floor, would remain till near four, sometimes five o'clock in the morning. The same sounds of the guard and the same dull roll of the carriage would break the stillness of the early morning; and the Emperor--for it was he--would be on his road back to Paris.

"We never saw him,--I say we, for like myself some half-dozen others were also there, expiating their follies by a life of cheerless _ennui_.

"It was upon a calm evening in April, we sat together chatting over the various misdeeds which had consigned us to exile, when some one proposed, by way of pa.s.sing the time, that we should visit the small flower-garden that was parted off from the rest, and reserved for the Emperor alone. It was already beyond the hour he usually came; besides that, even should he arrive, there was abundant time to get back before he could possibly reach it. The garden we had often seen, but there was something in the fact that our going there was a transgression that so pleased us all that we agreed at once and set forth. For above an hour we loitered about the lonely and deserted walks, where already the Emperor's foot-tracks had worn a marked pathway, when we grew weary and were about to return, just as one of the party suggested, half in ridicule of the sanct.i.ty of the spot, that we should have a game of leap-frog ere we left it. The idea pleased us and was at once adopted. Our plan was this,--each person stationed himself in some by-walk or alley, and waited till the other, whose turn it was, came and leaped over him; so that, besides the activity displayed, there was a knowledge of the _locale_ necessary; for to any one pa.s.sed over a forfeit was to be paid. Our game began at once, and certainly I doubt if ever those green alleys and shady groves rang to such hearty laughter. Here would be seen a couple rolling over together on the gra.s.s; there some luckless wight counting out his pocket-money to pay his penalty. The hours pa.s.sed quietly over, and the moon rose, and at last it came to my turn to make the tour of the garden. As I was supposed to know all its intricacies better than the rest, a longer time was given for them to conceal themselves; at length the word was given, and I started.

"Anxious to acquit myself well, I hurried along at top speed, but guess my surprise to discover that nowhere could I find one of my companions. Down one walk I scampered, up another, across a third, but all was still and silent; not a sound, not a breath, could I detect. There was still one part of the garden unexplored; it was a small open s.p.a.ce before a little pond which usually contained the gold fish the Emperor was so fond of. Thither I bent my steps, and had not gone far when in the pale moonlight I saw, at length, one of my companions waiting patiently for my coming, his head bent forward and his shoulders rounded. Anxious to repay him for my own disappointment, I crept silently forward on tiptoe till quite near him, when, rus.h.i.+ng madly on, I sprang upon his back; just, however, as I rose to leap over, he raised his head, and, staggered by the impulse of my spring, he was thrown forward, and after an ineffectual effort to keep his legs fell flat upon his face in the gra.s.s. Bursting with laughter, I fell over him on the ground, and was turning to a.s.sist him, when suddenly he sprang upon his feet, and--horror of horrors!--it was Napoleon himself; his usually pale features were purple with rage, but not a word, not a syllable escaped him.

"'_Qui etes vous_?' said he, at length.

"'St. Croix, Sire,' said I, still kneeling before him, while my very heart leaped into my mouth.

"'St. Croix! _toujours_ St. Croix! Come here; approach me,' cried he, in a voice of stifled pa.s.sion.

"I rose; but before I could take a step forward he sprang at me, and tearing off my epaulettes trampled them beneath his feet, and then he shouted out, rather than spoke, the word '_Allez!_'

"I did not wait for a second intimation, but clearing the paling at a spring, was many a mile from Fontainebleau before daybreak."

CHAPTER LI.

THE MARCH.

Twice the _reveil_ sounded; the horses champed impatiently their heavy bits; my men stood waiting for the order to mount, ere I could arouse myself from the deep sleep I had fallen into. The young Frenchman and his story were in my dreams, and when I awoke, his figure, as he lay sleeping beside the wood embers, was the first object I perceived. There he lay, to all seeming as forgetful of his fate as though he still inhabited the gorgeous halls and gilded saloons of the Tuileries; his pale and handsome features wore even a placid smile as, doubtless, some dream of other days flitted across him; his long hair waved in luxurious curls upon his neck, and his light-brown mustache, slightly curled at the top, gave to his mild and youthful features an air of saucy _fierte_ that heightened their effect. A narrow blue ribbon which he wore round his throat gently peeped from his open bosom. I could not resist the curiosity I felt to see what it meant, and drawing it softly forth, I perceived that a small miniature was attached to it. It was beautifully painted, and surrounded with brilliants of some value. One glance showed me,--for I had seen more than one engraving before of her,--that it was the portrait of the Empress Josephine. Poor boy! he doubtless was a favorite at court; indeed, everything in his air and manner bespoke him such. I gently replaced the precious locket and turned from the spot to think over what was best to be done for him. Knowing the vindictive feeling of the Portuguese towards their invaders, I feared to take Pietro, our guide, into my confidence. I accordingly summoned my man Mike to my aid, who, with all his country's readiness, soon found out an expedient. It was to pretend to Pietro that the prisoner was merely an English officer who had made his escape from the French army, in which, against his will, he had been serving for some time.

This plan succeeded perfectly; and when St. Croix, mounted upon one of my led horses, set out upon his march beside me, none was more profuse of his attentions than the dark-brown guide whose hatred of a Frenchman was beyond belief.

By thus giving him safe conduct through Portugal, I knew that when we reached the frontier he could easily manage to come up with some part of Marshal Victor's force, the advanced guard of which lay on the left bank of the Tagus.

To me the companions.h.i.+p was the greatest boon; the gay and buoyant spirit that no reverse of fortune, no untoward event, could subdue, lightened many an hour of the journey; and though at times the gasconading tone of the Frenchman would peep through, there was still such a fund of good-tempered raillery in all he said that it was impossible to feel angry with him.

His implicit faith in the Emperor's invincibility also amused me. Of the unbounded confidence of the nation in general, and the army particularly, in Napoleon, I had till then no conception. It was not that in the profound skill and immense resources of the general they trusted, but they actually regarded him as one placed above all the common accidents of fortune, and revered him as something more than human.

"_Il viendra et puis_--" was the continued exclamation of the young Frenchman. Any notion of our successfully resisting the overwhelming might of the Emperor, he would have laughed to scorn, and so I let him go on prophesying our future misfortunes till the time when, driven back upon Lisbon, we should be compelled to evacuate the Peninsula, and under favor of a convention be permitted to return to England. All this was sufficiently ridiculous, coming from a youth of nineteen, wounded, in misery, a prisoner; but further experience of his nation has shown me that St. Croix was not the exception, but the rule. The conviction in the ultimate success of their army, whatever be the merely momentary mishap, is the one present thought of a Frenchman; a victory with them is a conquest; a defeat,--if they are by any chance driven to acknowledge one,--a _fatalite_.

I was too young a man, and still more, too young a soldier, to bear with this absurd affectation of superiority as I ought, and consequently was glad to wander, whenever I could, from the contested point of our national superiority to other topics. St. Croix, although young, had seen much of the world as a page in the splendid court of the Tuileries; the scenes pa.s.sing before his eyes were calculated to make a strong impression; and by many an anecdote of his former life, he lightened the road as we pa.s.sed along.

[Ill.u.s.tration: A TOUCH AT LEAP-FROG WITH NAPOLEON.]

"You promised, by-the-bye, to tell me of your banishment. How did that occur, St. Croix?"

"_Ah, par Dieu!_ that was an unfortunate affair for me; then began all my mishaps. But for that, I should never have been sent to Fontainebleau; never have played leap-frog with the Emperor; never have been sent a soldier into Spain. True," said he, laughing, "I should never have had the happiness of your acquaintance. But still, I'd much rather have met you first in the Place des Victoires than in the Estrella Mountains."

"Who knows?" said I; "perhaps your good genius prevailed in all this."

"Perhaps," said he, interrupting me; "that's exactly what the Empress said,--she was my G.o.dmother,--'Jules will be a _Marechal de France yet_.'

But certainly, it must be confessed, I have made a bad beginning. However, you wish to hear of my disgrace at court. _Allans donc_. But had we not better wait for a halt?"

"Agreed," said I; "and so let us now press forward."

CHAPTER LII.

THE PAGE.

Under the deep shade of some tall trees, sheltered from the noonday sun, we lay down to rest ourselves and enjoy a most patriarchal dinner,--some dry biscuits, a few bunches of grapes, and a little weak wine, savoring more of the borachio-skin than the vine-juice, were all we boasted; yet they were not ungrateful at such a time and place.

"Whose health did you pledge then?" inquired St. Croix, with a half-malicious smile, as I raised the gla.s.s silently to my lips.

I blushed deeply, and looked confused.

"_A ses beux yeux!_ whoever she be," said he, gayly tossing off his wine; "and now, if you feel disposed, I'll tell you my story. In good truth, it is not worth relating, but it may serve to set you asleep, at all events.

"I have already told you I was a page. Alas, the impressions you may feel of that functionary, from having seen Cherubino, give but a faint notion of him when pertaining to the household of the Emperor Napoleon.

"The _farfallone amoroso_ basked in the soft smiles and sunny looks of the Countess Almaviva; we met but the cold, impa.s.sive look of Talleyrand, the piercing and penetrating stare of Savary, or the ambiguous smile, half menace, half mockery, of Monsieur Fouche. While on service, our days were pa.s.sed in the antechamber, beside the _salle d'audience_ of the Emperor, reclining against the closed door, watching attentively for the gentle tinkle of the little bell which summoned us to open for the exit of some haughty diplomate, or the _entree_ of some redoubted general. Thus pa.s.sed we the weary hours; the ill.u.s.trious visitors by whom we were surrounded had no novelty, consequently no attraction for us, and the names already historical were but household words with us.

"We often remarked, too, the proud and distant bearing the Emperor a.s.sumed towards those of his generals who had been his former companions-in-arms.

Whatever familiarity or freedom may have existed in the campaign or in the battle-field, the air of the Tuileries certainly chilled it. I have often heard that the ceremonious observances and rigid etiquette of the old Bourbon court were far preferable to the stern reserve and unbending stiffness of the imperial one.

"The antechamber is but the reflection of the reception-room; and whatever be the whims, the caprices, the littleness of the Great Man, they are speedily a.s.sumed by his inferiors, and the dark temper of one casts a lowering shadow on every menial by whom he is surrounded.

"As for us, we were certainly not long in catching somewhat of the spirit of the Emperor; and I doubt much if the impertinence of the waiting-room was not more dreaded and detested than the abrupt speech and searching look of Napoleon himself.

"What a malicious pleasure have I not felt in arresting the step of M. de Talleyrand, as he approached the Emperor's closet! With what easy insolence have I lisped out, 'Pardon, Monsieur, but his Majesty cannot receive you,'

or 'Monsieur le Due, his Majesty has given no orders for your admission.'