Chapter XI: Book II: The Three Children (2)

One morning she was able to walk out of the _carnichot_, leaning on Tellmarch; she seated herself under the trees, in the sun. Tellmarch knew very little about her; for a wound in the breast necessitates silence, and during the death-like agony which preceded her recovery she had hardly spoken a word. Whenever she seemed about to open her lips, Tellmarch would prevent her; but he could not control her thoughts, and he observed by the expression in her eyes the heart-rending nature of her ever-recurring fancies. This morning she felt strong, and could almost walk alone. The doctor who has cured his patient enjoys a sense of fatherhood; and as he watched her, Tellmarch felt happy. The good old man began to smile as he addressed her.

"Well, it seems we are up; our wounds are healed."

"All but those of the heart."

And presently she added,--

"Then you don't know where they are?"

"Whom do you mean?" asked Tellmarch.

"My children."

The word "then" revealed a whole world of meaning; it seemed to say: "Since you do not speak of them to me, since you have been with me for so many days without opening your lips to me on the subject, since you silence me every time I try to speak, since you seem to fear that I am going to talk about them,--it must mean that you have nothing to tell me." During the course of her fever she had often noticed that whenever, in her delirious ramblings, she had called for her children (the perceptions of delirium are sometimes acute), the old man would make no reply.

The truth was that Tellmarch did not know what to tell her. It is not easy to speak to a mother of her lost children; and besides, what did he know? Nothing at all, in fact,--that a mother had been shot, that he had found this mother on the ground, that when he had lifted her up she was nearly dead, that this dying woman had three children, and lastly, that the Marquis de Lantenac, after ordering the mother to be shot, had carried away the children; and here his information ceased. What had become of the children? Were they still living? Having made inquiries, he had learned that there were two boys, and a little girl barely weaned; and this was the extent of his knowledge. He asked himself more questions than he could answer in regard to this unhappy family; but the neighbors whom he had asked only shook their heads. M. de Lantenac was a man of whom no one cared to talk.

They were equally reluctant either to speak about Lantenac or to talk to Tellmarch. Peasants have their own peculiar superstitions. They disliked Tellmarch. Tellmarch le Caimand was a perplexing man. Why was he always looking up at the sky? What was he doing, what could he be thinking about, when he stood motionless for hours at a time? Surely he must be a very odd sort of man. While the district was in a state of combustion and conflagration, when warfare, devastation, and carnage were the sole occupations of life, when every man was doing his best to burn houses, murder families, massacre outposts, and plunder villages, thinking of nothing but setting ambushes and traps and killing one another, here was this hermit absorbed in nature, enjoying absolute peace of mind, gathering plants and herbs, interested only in flowers, birds, and stars,--of course he was a dangerous character! He must be insane. He never hid behind a bush to fire at his fellow-men. "The man is mad!" said the passers-by. Hence he inspired a certain awe, and men avoided him, thus increasing the isolation of his life.

They asked him no questions, and seldom vouchsafed replies; therefore he had been unable to get the information he wanted. The conflict had been transferred to other districts, and the fighting was more remote. The Marquis de Lantenac had vanished from the horizon; and war must set its foot on a man of Tellmarch's character before he becomes aware of its existence.

After hearing these words, "My children!" Tellmarch ceased to smile, and the mother sank into deep thought. What was passing in her soul? She seemed to have plunged into the depths. Suddenly she looked up at Tellmarch, and repeated her demand almost angrily,--

"My children!"

Tellmarch bent his head like a culprit.

He was thinking of the Marquis de Lantenac, who, so far from returning his thought, had probably forgotten his very existence. He realized the fact as he said to himself, "When a nobleman is in danger he reckons you among his acquaintance; but let the danger pass, and he forgets that he ever saw you."

And he asked himself, "Why, then, did I save him?" To which question he made reply, "Because he was a man."

For some moments he dwelt upon this thought; then he resumed the thread of his meditations,--

"Am I sure of this?"

And presently he repeated those bitter words: "Had I but known!"

This whole experience gave him a sense of oppression, for his own action in the affair was enigmatical to him. His thoughts were sad, since a sense of guilt had crept into them. A kindly act may prove in the end to have been an evil one. He who saves the wolf kills the sheep; he who sets the vulture's wing is responsible for his talons. The unreasoning anger of this mother was therefore justified.

Still he felt a certain consolation in the knowledge that he had saved the mother, which partly balanced his regret for having saved the Marquis.

"But the children?"

The mother was also thinking; and these two currents of thoughts moved side by side, perhaps to mingle unawares in the shadowy land of reverie.

Meanwhile her eyes, gloomy as the night, rested again on Tellmarch.

"We cannot go on like this," she said.

"Hush!" rejoined Tellmarch, putting his finger on his lips.

She continued,--

"I am angry with you for saving me; you did wrong. I would rather have died, for then I should surely see them and know where they are. They would not see me, but I should be near them. The dead must have power to protect."

He took her by the arm, and felt her pulse.

"You must calm yourself, or you will have a relapse."

She asked him almost harshly,--

"When can I go away?"

"Go away?"

"Yes. When shall I be fit for tramping?"

"Never, if you are unreasonable; to-morrow, if you are good."

"What do you call being good?"

"Trusting in God."

"God? What has He done with my children?"

She seemed to be wandering. Her voice had grown very gentle.

"You must see," she went on to say, "that I cannot stay like this. You never had any children; but I am a mother: that makes a difference. One cannot judge of a thing unless he knows what it is like. Did you ever have any children?"

"No," replied Tellmarch.

"But I have. Can I live without my children? I should like to be told why my children are not here. Something is happening, but what it is I cannot understand."

"Come," said Tellmarch, "you are feverish again. You mustn't talk any more."

She looked at him and was silent.

And from that day she kept silence again.

This implicit obedience was more than Tellmarch desired. She spent hour after hour crouching at the foot of the old tree, like one stupefied. She pondered in silence,--that refuge of simple souls who have sounded the gloomy depths of woe. She seemed to give up trying to understand. After a certain point despair becomes unintelligible to the despairing.

As Tellmarch watched her, his sympathy increased. The sight of her suffering excited in this old man thoughts such as a woman might have known. "She may close her lips," he said to himself, "but her eyes will speak, and I see what ails her. She has but one idea; she cannot be resigned to the thought that she is no longer a mother. Her mind dwells constantly on the image of her youngest, whom she was nursing not long ago. How charming it must be to feel a tiny rosy mouth drawing ones soul from out one's body, feeding its own little life on the life of its mother!"

He too was silent, realizing the impotence of speech in the presence of such sorrow.

There is something really terrible in the silence of an unchanging thought, and how can one expect that a mother will listen to reason? Maternity sees but one side. It is useless to argue with it. One sublime characteristic of a mother is her resemblance to a wild animal. The maternal instinct is divine animalism. The mother ceases to be a woman; she becomes a female, and her children are her cubs.

Hence we find in the mother something above reason and at the same time below it,--a something which we call instinct. Guided as she is by the infinite and mysterious will of the universe, her very blindness is charged with penetration.

However anxious to make this unfortunate woman speak, Tellmarch could not succeed. One day he said to her:--

"Unfortunately I am old, and can no longer walk. My strength is exhausted before I reach my journey's end. I would go with you, only that my legs give out in about fifteen minutes and I have to stop and rest. However, it may be just as well for you that I cannot walk far, as my company might be more dangerous than useful. Here, I am tolerated; but the Blues suspect me because I am a peasant, and the peasants because they believe me to be a wizard."

He waited for an answer, but she did not even raise her eyes.

A fixed idea ends either in madness or heroism. But what heroism can be expected from a poor peasant woman? None whatever. She can be a mother, and that is all. Each day she grew more and more absorbed in her reverie. Tellmarch was watching her.

He tried to keep her busy. He bought her needles, thread, and a thimble, and to the delight of the poor Caimand, she really began to busy herself with sewing; she still dreamed, it is true, but she worked also,--a sure sign of health,--and by degrees her strength returned. She mended her underwear, her dress, and her shoes, her eyes all the while preserving a strange, far-away look. As she sewed she hummed to herself unintelligible songs. She would mutter names, probably children's names, but not distinctly enough for Tellmarch to understand. Sometimes she paused and listened to the birds, as though she expected a message from them. She watched the weather, and he could see her lips move as she talked to herself in a low voice. She had made a bag and filled it with chestnuts, and one morning Tellmarch found her gazing vaguely into the depths of the forest, and he saw that she was all ready to start.

"Where are you going?" he asked.

And she replied,--

"I am going to look for them."

He made no effort to detain her.

VII.

THE TWO POLES OF TRUTH.

After a few weeks, crowded with the vicissitudes of civil war throughout the district of Fougères, the talk ran for the most part upon two men, wholly unlike in character, who were nevertheless engaged in the same work, fighting side by side in the great revolutionary struggle. The savage duel still continued, but the Vendée was losing ground,--especially in Ille-et-Vilaine, where, thanks to the young commander who at Dol had so opportunely confronted the audacity of six thousand Royalists with that of fifteen hundred patriots, the insurrection, if not suppressed, was at least far less active, and restricted to certain limits. Several successful attacks had followed that exploit, and from these repeated victories a new state of affairs had sprung into existence. Matters had assumed a different aspect, but a singular complication had arisen.

That the Republic was in the ascendant throughout this region of the Vendée was beyond a doubt; but which Republic? Amidst the dawning of triumph, two republics confronted each other,--that of terror, determined to conquer by severity, and that of mercy, striving to win the victory by mildness. Which was to prevail? The visible representatives of these two forms, one of which was conciliatory and the other implacable, were two men, each possessing influence and authority,--one a military commander, the other a civil delegate. Which of the two would win the day? The delegate was supported by a tremendous influence; he came bringing with him the threatening watchword from the Paris Commune to the battalion of Santerre: "No mercy, no quarter!" As a means of compelling implicit obedience to his authority, he had the decree of the Convention reading as follows: "Penalty of death to whomsoever shall set at liberty or connive at the escape of a rebel chief," and also full powers from the Committee of Public Safety, with an injunction commanding obedience to him as a delegate, signed by Robespierre, Danton, and Marat. The soldier, for his part, had but the power that is born of pity.

His weapons of defence were his right arm to chastise the enemy, and his heart to pardon them. As a conqueror, he felt that he had a right to spare the conquered.

Hence a conflict, deep but as yet unacknowledged, between these two men. They lived in different atmospheres, both wrestling with rebellion,--the one armed with the thunderbolts of victory, the other with those of terror.

Throughout the Bocage, men talked of nothing else; and the extreme intimacy of two men of such utterly opposite natures contributed to increase the anxiety of those who were watching them on every side. These two antagonists were friends. Never were two hearts drawn together by a deeper or a nobler sympathy. The man of ungentle nature had saved the life of him who was merciful; the scar on his face bore witness to the fact. These men represented in their own persons the images of death and of life, embodying the principle of destruction and that of peace, and they loved each other. Conceive, if you can, Orestes merciful and Pylades pitiless. Try to imagine Arimanes the brother of Ormus!

Let us also add that of these two men, the one who was called ferocious showed himself at the same time the most brotherly of men. He dressed wounds, nursed the sick, spent his days and nights in the ambulances and hospitals, took pity on the barefooted children, kept nothing for himself, but gave all he had to the poor. He never missed a battle,--always marching at the head of the columns; was ever in the thickest of the fight,--armed, it is true, for he always wore in his belt a sabre and two pistols, yet practically unarmed, for no one had ever seen him draw his sword or raise his pistols. He faced blows, but never returned them. It was said that he had been a priest.

These two men were Gauvain and Cimourdain,--at variance in principles, though united in friendship: it was like a soul cleft in twain; and Gauvain had in truth received the gentler half of Cimourdain's nature. One might say that the latter has bestowed the white ray upon Gauvain, and kept the black one for himself. Hence a secret discord. Sooner or later this suppressed disagreement could hardly fail to explode; and one morning the contest began as follows.

Cimourdain said to Gauvain,--

"What have we accomplished?"

To which the latter replied,--

"You know as well as I. I have dispersed Lantenac's bands. He has but a few men left, and has been driven to the forest of Fougères. In eight days he will be surrounded."

"And in fifteen?"

"He will be captured."

"And then?"

"You have seen my notice?"

"Yes; and what then?"

"He is to be shot."

"A truce to clemency. He must be guillotined."

"I approve of a military death."

"And I of a revolutionary one."

Looking Gauvain full in the face, Cimourdain said,--

"Why did you order those nuns of the convent of Saint-Marc-le-Blanc to be set at liberty?"

"I do not wage war against women," replied Gauvain.

"Those women hate the people; and when there is a question of hatred, one woman is equal to ten men. Why did you refuse to send that band of fanatical old priests, whom you took at Louvigné, before the revolutionary tribunal?"

"Neither do I wage war against old men."

"An old priest is worse than a young one. The rebellion that is advocated by white hair is so much the more dangerous. People have faith in wrinkles. Do not indulge in false pity, Gauvain. The regicide is the true liberator. Keep your eye on the tower of the Temple."

"The Temple Tower! I would have the Dauphin out of it. I am not making war against children."

Cimourdain's eye grew stern.

"Learn then, Gauvain, that one must make war on a woman when her name is Marie-Antoinette, on an old man if he happens to be Pope Pius VI., and upon a child who goes by the name of Louis Capet."

"I am no politician, master."

"Try, then, not to be a dangerous man. Why was it that during the attack of the post of Cossé, when the rebel Jean Treton, repulsed and defeated, rushed alone, sabre in hand, against your entire division, you cried, 'Open the ranks! Let him pass through!'"

"Because it is not fit that fifteen hundred men should be allowed to kill one man."

"And why at Cailleterie d'Astillé, when you saw that your soldiers were about to kill the Vendean Joseph Bézier, who was wounded and just able to drag himself along, did you cry, 'Forward! leave this man to me!' and directly afterwards fire your pistol in the air?"

"Because one shrinks from killing a fallen enemy."

"There you were wrong. Both of these men are leaders at this present moment. Joseph Bézier is known as Moustache, and Jean Treton as Jambe-d'Argent. By saving their lives you presented the Republic with two enemies."

"I should prefer to make friends for her rather than enemies."

"After the victory of Landéan, why did you not shoot the three hundred peasant prisoners?"

"Because Bonchamp pardoned the Republican prisoners, and I wished it to be known that the Republic pardons the Royalist prisoners."

"Then I suppose you will pardon Lantenac if you take him?"

"No."

"Why not,--since you pardoned three hundred peasants?"

"The peasants are only ignorant men. Lantenac knows what he is about."

"But Lantenac is your kinsman."

"And France nearer than he."

"Lantenac is an old man."

"To me Lantenac is a stranger; he has no age. He is ready to summon the English, he represents invasion, he is the country's enemy, and the duel between us can only be ended by his death or mine."

"Remember these words, Gauvain."

"I have said them."

For a while both men remained silent, gazing at each other; then Gauvain continued,--

"This will be a bloody year,--this '93."

"Tate care," cried Cimourdain. "There are terrible duties to be performed, and we must beware of accusing the innocent instrument. How long since we have blamed the doctor for his patient's illness? Yes, the chief characteristic of this stupendous year is its pitiless severity. And why is this? Because it is the great revolutionary year,--the year which is the very incarnation of revolution. Revolution feels no more pity for its enemy, the old world, than the surgeon feels for the gangrene against which he is fighting. The business of revolution is to extirpate royalty in the person of the king, aristocracy in that of the nobleman, despotism in that of the soldier, and superstition and barbarism in the persons of the priest and the judge,--in one word, of every form of tyranny in the image of the tyrant. The operation is a fearful one, but revolution performs it with a steady hand. As to the amount of sound flesh that must be sacrificed, ask a Boerhave what he thinks of it. Do you suppose it possible to remove a tumor without loss of blood? Can a conflagration be extinguished without violent efforts? These terrible necessities are the very condition of success. A surgeon may be compared to a butcher, or a healer may seem like an executioner. Revolution is devoted to its fatal work. It mutilates that it may save. What! can you expect it to take pity on the virus? Would you have it merciful to poison? It will not listen. It holds the past within its grasp, and it means to make an end of it. It cuts deeply into civilization, that it may promote the health of mankind. You suffer, no doubt; but consider for how short a time it will endure,--only so long as the operation requires; and after that is over you will live. Revolution is amputating the world; hence this hemorrhage,--'93."

"A surgeon is calm," said Gauvain, "and the men I see are violent."

"Revolution requires the aid of savage workmen," replied Cimourdain; "it repulses all trembling hands; it trusts only such as are inexorable. Danton is the impersonation of the terrible, Robespierre of the inflexible, Saint-Just of the immovable, and Marat of the implacable. Take note of it, Gauvain. We need these names. They are worth as much as armies to us. They will terrify Europe."

"And possibly the future also," replied Gauvain. He paused, and then continued,--

"But really, master, you are mistaken. I accuse no one. My idea of revolution is that it shall be irresponsible. We ought not to say this man is innocent, or that one is guilty. Louis XVI. is like a sheep cast among lions. He wishes to escape, and in trying to defend himself he would bite if he could; but one cannot turn into a lion at will. His weakness is regarded as a crime; and when the angry sheep shows his teeth, 'Ah, the traitor!' cry the lions, and they proceed straightway to devour him, and afterwards fall to fighting among themselves."

"The sheep is a brute."

"And what are the lions?"

This answer set Cimourdain thinking.

"The lions," he replied, "represent the human conscience, principles, ideas."

"It is they who have caused the Reign of Terror."

"Some day the Revolution will justify all that."

"Take care lest Terror should prove the calumny of the Revolution."

Gauvain continued,--

"Liberty, equality, fraternity,--these are the dogmas of peace and harmony. Why give them so terrible an aspect? What are we striving to accomplish? To bring all nations under one universal republic. Well, then, let us not terrify them. Of what use is intimidation? Neither nations nor birds can be attracted by fear. We must not do evil that good may come. We have not overturned the throne to leave the scaffold standing. Death to the king, and life to the nations. Let us strike off the crowns, but spare the heads. Revolution means concord, and not terror. Schemes of benevolence are but poorly served by merciless men. Amnesty is to me the grandest word in human language. I am opposed to the shedding of blood, save as I risk my own. Still, I am but a soldier; I can do no more than fight. Yet if we are to lose the privilege of pardoning, of what use is it to conquer? Let us be enemies, if you will, in battle; but when victory is ours, then is the time to be brothers."

"Take care!" repeated Cimourdain for the third time; "take care, Gauvain! You are dearer to me than a son."

And he added, thoughtfully,--

"In times like these pity may be nothing less than treason in another form."

Listening to these two men, one might have fancied himself hearing a dialogue between a sword and all axe.

VIII.

DOLOROSA.

Meanwhile the mother was searching for her little ones, walking straight onward; and how she subsisted we cannot tell, since she did not know herself. She walked day and night, begging as she went, often living on herbs and sleeping upon the ground in the open air, among the bushes, under the stars, and sometimes mid the rain and the wind. Thus she wandered from village to village and from farm to farm, making inquiries as she went along, but, tattered and torn as she was, never venturing beyond the threshold. Sometimes she found a welcome, sometimes she was turned away; and when they refused to let her come in, she would go into the woods.

Unfamiliar as she was with the country beyond Siscoignard and the parish of Azé, and having nothing to serve as guide, she would retrace her steps, going over and over the same ground, thus wasting both time and strength. Sometimes she followed the highway, sometimes the cart-ruts, and then again she would turn into the paths in the woods. In this wandering life she had worn out her wretched garments. At first she had her shoes, then she went barefoot, and it was not long before her feet were bleeding.

Unconsciously she travelled on, mid bloodshed and warfare, neither hearing, seeing, nor trying to shield herself, simply looking for her children. As the entire country was in rebellion, there were no longer any gendarmes, or mayors, or authorities of any kind. Only such persons as she encountered on the way would she stop to ask.

"Have you seen three little children anywhere?"

And when the passers-by lifted their heads she would say,--

"Two boys and a girl," and go on to name them:

"René-Jean, Gros-Alain, Georgette. Have you not seen them?"

And again,--

"The oldest one was four and a half and the youngest twenty months."

Presently she would add,--

"Do you know where they are? They have been taken from me."

People gazed at her, and that was all.

Perceiving that she was not understood, she would explain,--

"It is because they are mine. That is the reason."

And then seeing the passers-by continue their way, she would stand speechless, tearing her breast with her nails. One day, however, a peasant stopped to listen to her. The worthy man set his wits at work.

"Let us see. Did you say three children?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Two boys?"

"And a girl."

"And you are looking for them?"

"Yes."

"I was told that a nobleman had carried off three little children and keeps them with him."

"Where is that man? Where are they?" she cried.

"Yon must go to the Tourgue," answered the peasant.

"And shall I find my children there?"

"Very likely you will."

"What did you say the name was?"

"The Tourgue."

"What is the Tourgue?"

"It is a place."

"Is it a village, a castle, or a farm?"

"I never was there."

"Is it far?"

"I should say so."

"In what direction?"

"In the direction of Fougères."

"Which way shall I go?"

"You are now at Ventortes," replied the peasant. "You will leave Ernée on your left and Coxelles on your right; you must pass through Longchamps, and cross the Leroux."

The peasant raised his hand and pointed westward.

"Keep straight ahead, facing the sunset."

She had already started before he had time to lower his arm.

He called out to her.

"You must be careful; they are fighting over there."

She never turned to reply, but walked straight ahead without pausing.

IX.

A PROVINCIAL BASTILE.

I.

LA TOURGUE.

The traveller who forty years ago entered the forest of Fougères from the direction of Laignelet and came out towards Parigné, might have beheld on the edge of this dense forest a sinister sight, for emerging from the thicket he would come directly upon the Tourgue, and not the living Tourgue, but the dead one.

The Tourgue cracked, battered, scarred, dismantled. A ruin may be called the ghost of an edifice. Nothing could be more lugubrious than the aspect of the Tourgue. A high circular tower stood alone like a malefactor on the edge of the wood, and rising as it did from a precipitous rock, its severe and solid architecture gave it the appearance of a Roman structure, combining within itself the elements of power and of decay. In fact, it might in one sense be called Roman, since it was Romance. It was begun in the ninth century and finished in the twelfth, after the time of the third crusade. The style of the imposts of its embrasures indicated its period. If one approached it and cared to climb the slope, he might perceive a breach in the wall; and if he ventured to enter in, he would find a vacant space and nothing more. It was not unlike the inside of a stone trumpet set upright on the ground. From top to bottom there were no partitions, and neither ceilings nor floors; here and there arches and chimneys had evidently been torn away, and falconet embrasures were still seen; at different heights, rows of granite corbels and a few cross-beams covered with the ordure of the night birds marked the separate stories; a colossal wall, fifteen feet thick at its base and twelve at its summit; cracks here and there, and holes which once were doors, and through which one caught glimpses of staircases within the gloomy walls. One who passing by at evening might venture in, would hear the cry of the wood-owl, the goat-suckers, and the night-herons; would find brambles, stones, and reptiles beneath his feet; and overhead, through a dark circular opening at the top of the tower which looked like the mouth of an enormous well, he might see the stars.

Local tradition relates that there were secret doors in the upper stories of this tower, like those in the tombs of the kings of Judah, composed of one large stone turning on a pivot, which when closed could not be distinguished from the wall itself,--a fashion in architecture brought home by the crusaders, together with the pointed arch. When these doors were closed, it was impossible to discover them, so skilfully were they fitted into the rest of the stones. Such doors can be found to-day in those mysterious Libyan cities which escaped the earthquakes that buried the twelve cities in the time of Tiberius.

II.

THE BREACH.

The breach by which one gained access to the ruin was the opening of a mine. A connoisseur familiar with Errard, Sardi, and Pagan would have appreciated the skill with which this mine was planned. The fire-chamber, in the shape of a biretta, was of a size accurately proportioned to the strength of the keep which it was intended to destroy. It was capable of containing at least two hundred-weight of powder. The winding passage which led to it was more effective than a straight one. The saucisse, laid bare among the broken stones as the result of the crumbling caused by the mine, was seen to have the requisite diameter of a hen's-egg. The explosion had made a deep rent in the wall, by which the assailants were enabled to enter. It was evident that this tower must have sustained formal sieges from time to time. It was riddled with balls, and these were not all of the same epoch; every missile has its own special way of marking a rampart, and each one, from the stone bullets of the fourteenth century to the iron ones of the eighteenth, had left a scar upon this donjon-keep.

The breach opened into what must have been the ground-floor; and directly opposite, in the wall of the tower, was the gateway of a crypt, cut in the rock and extending under the hall of the lower floor throughout the foundation of the tower.

This crypt, three-fourths filled up, was cleared out in 1835, under the direction of Auguste Le Provost, the antiquary of Bernay.

III.

THE OUBLIETTE.

This crypt was the oubliette. Every keep possessed one, and this, like many other penal dungeons of the same period, had two stories. The first story, accessible through the gate, consisted of a good-sized vaulted chamber, on a level with the hall of the ground-floor. On the walls of this room might be seen two vertical furrows, parallel with each other, reaching from wall to wall and passing along the vault, where they had left a deep rut, reminding one of wheel-tracks,--and such in fact they were; for these two furrows were hollowed out by two wheels. In old feudal times men had been torn limb from limb here in this very room, by a process less noisy than that of being drawn and quartered. They had a pair of wheels so large and powerful that they filled the entire room, touching both walls and ceiling, and to each wheel was attached an arm and a leg of the victim; and when these wheels were turned in opposite directions, the man was torn asunder. It required great power; hence the ruts worn in the stone by the grazing of the wheels. A room of this kind may be seen at Vianden.

Above this room there was another, the actual oubliette, whose only entrance was a hole which served the purpose of a door; the victim, stripped of his clothes, was let down, by means of a rope tied under his armpits, into the room below, through an opening made in the middle of the flagging of the upper room. If he persisted in living, food was thrown to him through this aperture. A similar hole may still be seen at Bouillon.

This chamber below, excavated under the hall of the ground-floor to such a depth that it reached water, and constantly swept by an icy wind, was more like a well than a room. But the wind so fatal to the prisoner in the depths was, on the other hand, favorable to the one overhead, groping about beneath the vault, who could breathe the easier on account of it; indeed, all the air he had, came up through this hole. But then any man who entered, or rather fell, into this tomb, never came out again. It behooved the prisoner to look out for himself in the darkness, for it needed but one false step to change the scene of his sufferings. That, however, was his own affair. If he were tenacious of life, this hole was his danger; but if he were weary of it, it was his resource. The upper story was the dungeon, the lower one the tomb,--a superposition not unlike that of the society of the period.

This is what our ancestors called a moat-dungeon; but since the thing itself has disappeared, the name has no longer any meaning for us. Thanks to the Revolution, we can listen with indifference to the sound of these words. On the outside of the tower, and above the breach, which forty years ago was its only entrance, might be seen an embrasure somewhat wider than the other loopholes, from which hung an iron grating, loosened and broken.

IV.

THE BRIDGE-CASTLE.

A stone bridge whose three arches were but slightly damaged, was connected with this tower on the side opposite to the breach. This bridge had once supported a building whose few remaining fragments bore the traces of a conflagration; it was only the framework that was left standing, and as the light shone through its interstices as it rose side by side with the tower, it had the effect of a skeleton beside a phantom.

To-day this ruin is utterly demolished, leaving no trace whatever behind. A single peasant can destroy in one day structures that kings have labored for centuries to erect. La Tourgue, a peasant abbreviation, signifies La Tour-Gauvain, just as La Jupelle stands for La Jupellière, and Pinson le Tort, the name of a hunchback leader, for Pinson le Tortu.

La Tourgue, which even forty years ago was a ruin, and which to-day is but a shadow, was a fortress in 1793. It was the old Bastile of the Gauvains, and served to guard, towards the west, the entrance of the forest of Fougères, which is now little more than a grove.

This fortress was built on one of those great blocks of slate which are found in abundance between Mayence and Dinan, scattered in all directions among the copses and along the heath like the missiles of some Titanic combat. The tower composed the entire fortress; and below the tower stood the rock at whose base flowed one of those water-courses which swells into a torrent in January and dries up in June.

Simple as were its means of defence, this tower was almost impregnable in the Middle Ages, but the bridge had proved a source of weakness. The Gauvains of Gothic times had built it without a bridge. It was formerly accessible by means of one of those swinging bridges that could be instantly severed by the stroke of an axe. So long as the Gauvains remained Viscounts it pleased them just as it was, and they were satisfied with it. But when they became Marquises and exchanged the keep for the Court, they spanned the stream with three arches and thus offered access in the direction of the plain very much as they had yielded to the advances of the king. The marquises of the seventeenth century and the marchionesses of the seventeenth no longer prided themselves on their impregnability. They abandoned the traditions of their ancestors to follow the fashions of Versailles.

Facing the tower towards the west was a somewhat elevated plateau adjoining two plains; this plateau was very near the tower, only separated from it by a deep ravine through which flowed a stream tributary to the Couesnon. The bridge that connected the fortress with the plateau stood on lofty piles, and on these piles was constructed as at Chenonceaux a building in the Mansard style of architecture, but more comfortable than the tower. Customs were still very rude, and the lords continued to occupy chambers in the keep that were more like dungeons than bedrooms. As to the building on the bridge, which was a diminutive kind of castle, a long corridor had been added to it, by way of entrance, which was called the hall of the guards. Over this hall, which was like an entresol, was the library, and above that a granary. Separated by pillars stood the long windows with their small panes of Bohemian glass; medallions were sculptured on the walls. The fortress was three stories high; halberds and muskets were to be found below, books in the middle, and over all the bags of oats,--a somewhat barbarous arrangement, but princely to the last degree.

The tower loomed above this coquettish building presenting a stern and gloomy contrast.

The platform offered a point of attack from which the bridge could be destroyed.

Between these two buildings there was no harmony whatsoever; the roughness of the one jarred against the elegance of the other. It would seem as if two semicircles ought to be identical; yet no two styles have less in common than that of a Roman semicircle and a classic archivolt. That tower, a worthy companion for the forest, was a strange neighbor for the bridge, which might have come from Versailles. Fancy Louis XIV. leaning on the arm of Alain Barbe-Torte. There was something appalling in this juxtaposition. An inexpressible spirit of terror pervaded the combined majesty of these structures.

Let us repeat, that from a military point of view the bridge went far towards betraying the tower; for while it added to its beauty it diminished its strength, ornamenting it on the one hand and weakening it on the other; by placing it on a level with the plateau, it had exposed it to attacks from that direction, although it still remained impregnable in the direction of the forest. Formerly it had commanded the plateau, but matters were now reversed. An enemy installed on the plain would speedily become master of the bridge. The library and the granary were advantageous to the besiegers rather than to the besieged, since the contents of both are of a combustible nature. For an assailant who knows how to avail himself of fire as a means of assault, it matters but little whether it be a Homer or a bundle of hay, provided it burns. The French offered a proof of this fact to the Germans when they burned the library at Heidelberg, as did the Germans in burning that of Strasbourg. In short, this bridge built on to the Tourgue was a strategic mistake; but in the seventeenth century, under Colbert and Louvois, the Princes Gauvain, like the Princes de Rohan or La Tremoille, believed themselves henceforth safe from assault. Still, the builders of the bridge had taken certain precautions. In the first place, anticipating the chances of fire, they had fastened crosswise below the three windows looking towards the stream, by iron clamps which no longer than fifty years ago were still to be seen, a strong ladder, equal in length to the height of the first two stories of the bridge,--a height surpassing that of three ordinary stories; secondly, foreseeing the possibility of a siege, they had isolated the bridge from the tower by means of a low and heavy iron door, arched at the top and locked with a large key, whose hiding-place was known to the master alone; once closed, it could defy the battering-ram and almost brave the cannon-ball.

One must cross the bridge to reach this door, which was the only means of access to the tower.

V.

THE IRON DOOR.

As a result of the elevation of this castle on the bridge by means of piles, its second story was on a level with the corresponding story of the tower; and here, for greater safety, the iron door had been placed.

This iron door led from the bridge into the library, and from the tower into a large vaulted hall with a pillar in the centre. As already stated, this hall was in the second story of the keep. Like the tower itself, it was circular in its form, and was lighted by deep embrasures overlooking the fields. The stones of its rough and naked walls, unhidden from the view, were, however, symmetrically adjusted. This hall was reached by a spiral staircase built in the wall,--quite a simple matter when walls are fifteen feet thick. In the Middle Ages they used to capture a city by streets, a street by houses, and a house by rooms; and thus a fortress was besieged story by story. In this respect La Tourgue was very skilfully arranged, and very difficult to cope with. An uncomfortable staircase connected one story with another; the doors were sloping, and not high enough to admit a man unless he bent his head; and where at every door the besieged stood in waiting for their assailants, a bowed head was certain death.

Below the circular hall with the pillar were two similar rooms, composing the first story and the ground-floor, and above these three more. The tower was closed, so to speak, by a platform which rested on these six rooms like a stone cover, and a narrow watch-tower led up to the platform.

As they were obliged to pierce this wall in which the iron door was sealed to a depth of fifteen feet, it was thereby framed in a deep archway, which when the door was closed formed a porch six or seven feet deep, towards the bridge as well as towards the tower, and when it was open these two porches united to form the entrance arch. Set in the wall under the porch, towards the bridge, was a low gate with a Saint-Gilles bolt, leading into the corridor of the first story under the library. This was another difficulty for the besiegers. That side of the castle on the bridge looking towards the plateau ended in a perpendicular wall, and there the bridge was severed. The drawbridge set up against a low gate to connect it with the plateau, and which on account of the height of the latter could only be lowered like an inclined plane, led into the long corridor called the guard-room. The besiegers who found themselves in possession of this corridor would have been obliged to carry by main force the Saint-Gilles winding stairway that led to the second story, in order to reach the iron gate.

VI.

THE LIBRARY.

As to the library, it was an oblong room of the same length and width as the bridge, with a single door, and that the iron one. A false folding-door covered with green cloth, which only needed to be pushed, concealed within the entrance arch of the tower. The walls of the library were lined from floor to ceiling with glass bookcases in the fine taste of the seventeenth century cabinet-work, and lighted by six large windows, three on a side,--that is, one over each arch. Through these windows the interior of the room was visible from the height of the platform. Between the windows stood six marble busts on pedestals of carved oak,--Hermolaüs of Byzantium, the grammarian Athenæus of Naucratis, Suidas, Casaubon, Clovis, King of France, and his chancellor, Anachalus,--who for that matter was no more a chancellor than Clovis was a king.

There were various books in the library. One has remained famous. It was an ancient quarto, enriched with prints, with the title "Saint Bartholomew" in large letters, together with the sub-title, "Gospel according to Saint Bartholomew, preceded by a dissertation by Pantoenus, Christian philosopher, on the question as to whether this Gospel should be considered apocryphal, and whether Saint Bartholomew is identical with Nathanal." This book, supposed to be a unique copy, was placed on a reading-desk in the middle of the library. In the last century people came to see it as a curiosity.

VII.

THE GRANARY.

As for the granary, which, like the library, followed the oblong form of the bridge, it was merely the space under the woodwork of the roof. It consisted of a large room filled with hay and straw, and lighted by six Mansard windows, with no other ornament than the statue of Saint Barnabas sculptured on the door, and below it the following verse:--

"Barnabus sanctus falcem jubet ire per herbam."

A lofty and massive tower, six stories in height, pierced here and there by a few embrasures, its sole means of entrance and egress an iron door opening into a bridge-castle closed by a drawbridge; behind the tower a forest, before it a heath-covered plateau, higher than the bridge, lower than the tower; below the bridge, between the tower and the plateau, a deep narrow ravine filled with underbrush, a torrent in winter, a stream in the springtime, and a rocky bed in summer,--such was the Tour-Gauvain, called La Tourgue.

X.

THE HOSTAGES.

July passed away, and August came. A blast, fierce and heroic, had swept over France; two spectres had but just crossed the horizon,--Marat with a dagger in his side, and Charlotte Corday headless: events looked threatening. As to the Vendée, defeated in her grand strategic schemes, she turned her attention to others on a smaller scale, which, as we have already said, were likely to prove more dangerous. This war had now become one monstrous battle scattered about in the woods: the disasters of the grand army, Royal and Catholic, so called, had begun. A decree had been passed to send the army of Mayence into the Vendée; eight thousand Vendeans were killed at Ancenis; they were repulsed from Nantes, dislodged from Montaigu, expelled from Thouars, driven out of Noirmoutier, pitched headlong out of Cholet, Mortagne, and Saumur; they had evacuated Parthenay, abandoned Clisson, and lost ground at Châtillon; at Saint-Hilaire their flag was captured; they were defeated at Pornic, Sables, Fontenay, Doui, Château-d'Eau, and Ponts-de-Cé; they were checkmated at Luçon, retreated from Châtaigneraye, and were routed at the Roche-sur-Yon; at present, while they threatened La Rochelle on the one hand, on the other an English fleet riding in the waters of Guernsey, commanded by General Craig, and carrying several regiments of the English army, together with some of the best officers of the French navy, was only waiting for the signal of the Marquis de Lantenac to disembark,--a descent which might once more turn the tide of victory in favor of the Royalists. Pitt was but a political malefactor. As the dagger to an armament, even so is treason to political warfare. Pitt stabbed our country, and betrayed his own, since to dishonor is to betray. Through his influence and under his administration England waged Punic warfare. She spied, cheated, and deceived. Poacher and forger, she stopped at nothing, stooping to the petty details of hatred. She established a monopoly of tallow that cost five francs a pound. A letter from Prigent, Pitt's agent in the Vendée, which was seized on the person of an Englishman at Lille, contained the following lines: "I beg you to spare no money. In regard to the assassinations, we hope that prudence will be exercised; disguised priests and women are the most suitable for this work. Send sixty thousand livres to Rouen, and fifty thousand to Caen." This letter was read by Barère at the Convention on the first day of August. As a retaliation for these acts of treachery witness the cruelties of Parrein, and still later the atrocities of Carrier. The Republicans of Metz and those of the South were eager to march against the rebels. A decree was passed ordering the formation of twenty-four companies of sappers, who were to burn the fences and enclosures of the Bocage. Here was a crisis without parallel. War was suspended in one direction only to break out in another. "No mercy! No prisoners!" was the war-cry of both parties. Dark and terrible shadows fall across the pages of history in these times.

In this very month of August the Tourgue was besieged.

One evening, just as the stars were rising in the calm twilight peculiar to dog-day weather, when not a leaf stirred in the woods, nor a blade of grass quivered on the plain, the sound of a horn was heard through the silence of the approaching night. It came from the summit of the tower.

This peal was answered by the ring of a clarion from below. On the top of the tower stood an armed man, and in the shadow below lay a camp.

In the obscurity around the Tour-Gauvain one could dimly distinguish the moving to and fro of dark figures. This was the bivouac. A few fires had been kindled beneath the forest-trees and among the heather of the plateau, their shining points of light pricking through the darkness here and there, as if earth as well as sky would deck itself out with stars, though it were but with the lurid stars of war. Towards the plateau the bivouac stretched as far as the plain, and in the direction of the forest it extended into the thicket. The Tourgue was invested.

The extent of the besiegers' bivouac indicated a numerous force.

The camp pressed hard upon the fortress, reaching to the rock in the direction of the tower, and as far as the ravine on the side of the bridge.

Another peal from the horn was heard, followed by a second blast from the clarion.

The horn asked the question, and the clarion made reply.

The horn was the voice of the tower asking the camp, "May we speak with you?" To which the clarion, speaking for the camp, answered, "Yes."

At that time the Convention did not regard the Vendeans in the light of belligerents, and it being forbidden by a decree to exchange flags of truce with "the brigands," they supplemented as best they could the usual means of communication which international law authorizes in ordinary warfare, but interdicts in civil conflicts. Consequently in time of need a certain understanding existed between the peasant horn and the military clarion. The first call simply broached the subject; the second asked the question, "Will you listen?" If the clarion made no reply to the second question, it meant refusal. If, on the other hand, the clarion replied, it was consent, and signified a truce for a few minutes.

When the clarion answered this second call, the man who stood on the top of the tower spoke, and these were his words:--

"Be it known to all ye who hear me, I am Gouge-le-Bruant, surnamed Brise-Bleu because I have killed many of your people, and also surnamed the Imânus because I mean to kill many more; in the attack at Granville, while my finger rested on the barrel of my gun, it was chopped off by a sabre-stroke; at Laval you guillotined my father, my mother, and my eighteen-year-old sister Jacqueline. And now you know me.

"I speak to you in the name of my master, Monseigneur le Marquis Gauvain de Lantenac, Vicomte de Fontenay, Breton Prince, and owner of the Seven Forests.