Strength

By Alice Jackson

An epic tale love and separation set in war.

A man and a woman happily planned their beautiful future, but something was not right..............war.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alice Jackson
• Release date: Jun 19, 2019
• ISBN: 9781393316688

Book preview

Table of Contents

Strength

By the roads, the paths, the tracks, the army of the Directory continued its march through the forest rising to the country of Baden. Sixty thousand Austrians pushed the divisions of Jourdan on the Rhine shore; a brigade of cavalry protected the retreat on the far left. With ten buzzards, the sergeant Héricourt formed the last step of the rearguard. They went out, in their turn, of a valley, climbed the ground, did not leave the crest, according to the orders.

The uniforms of the regiment finished fading behind the colonnades of fir trees. A copper of saddle, a sheath of saber, shone still, few moments. Dappled rumps of horses waddled, supporting the weary silhouettes of the amaranth soldiers. After that, only the vaporous shadow of a star immobilized at the fork of the paths remained.

The ten men having stopped at the sign, Hericourt put his bridle on the neck of the horse, which turned in a puddle, and the horsemen faced the probable arrival of the enemy. The air itself seemed dangerous. Before, the depth of the valley they had just traveled was darkened. Woods also bordered the other slope, where, near a hut, four lumberjacks stopped squaring an elm.

At first he only passed swallows flying among the gray finesse of the rain. The milky sky revealed more, far off to the left, a few red plumes on the bicorne of infantrymen: a company sown in the hops was waiting too. Bernard counted the hairy knapsacks on the backs of the soldiers squatting in the ditches. The presence of this force comforted him. With less prudence he led his beast out of the trees, straightened up on the stirrups.

He was hungry again.

Since the day before, it was the sensation mistress, a detestable taste of on the dry lip. The recollection of some heavy pie, formerly served at the wedding of his younger sister, flattered the palate with an illusory taste; and the tongue searched for the crunchy succulence of some incrusted bribe, by chance, between the teeth. He dislodged only the acidic debris from a chewed leaf. His consoling memory evoked the swallowing of the liquid poured into his throat, hot meat swallowed, spongy mussels chewed. Empty was the gourd. Canteens having followed the wide roads to the north, behind the artillery, nobody from the brigade would eat before noon the next day, when the vans would open in the shelter on the western slope of the Black Forest.

Hericourt hated his misery. Ignorably the mud covered his boots to his heart, his tight pants, the legs and belly of the horse, the copper emblems of the sabretache. Eight buttons were missing from his dolman; a piece hung down the sleeve, to the ranks of the rank, and exposed the lining. His hands blackened by the waxing of the bridles were as repugnant to him as the smell of sweat and leather. The horse was smoking on the flanks. The hair stank. Bernard envied his brothers, the sailors, who from Dunkirk led their three-masts to Barbaric coasts. On which seas of sunshine, at this hour, did they breathe the breeze swelling the sails that incline the ship against the infinite slope of the waters?

Now he saw a loaf in the hands of a woodcutter who was cutting slices for his comrades; and he shivered with lust. His mouth smelled the air as if the taste of stale bread could reach him above the valley; his hand weighed on the reins, as if the animal were going to leap, docile to the secret instinct of man, to the prey. Hussars in blue stockings, the woodcutters ate. Hericourt searched for saliva and looked at the buzzards, their noses barred with scorched mustaches or their vulture-like profiles that the braids of the cadenettes were united with the schakos. Their hairy nostrils sniffed the air too. There was Hermenthal, who ate the marauding fowls raw; Auscher, whose fist smashed a barrel; Merceur, who had the lives of fourteen opponents on the dueling grounds. skinny, muddy, they remained at the head of their horses, whose harnesses and straps had skinned the leather. Blood was sticking between the red hairs; the flies feed on the raw flesh, though the skin of the chestnut-skinned ones turns out to chase them away. Hericourt, said Mercceur, let us go to the food. Let's patrol, said Hermenthal, to these goinfres. The enemy might well pick the hazel from the other side of the valley. Must see there! They mocked; they climbed into the saddle. As usual, Hericourt gave the order they demanded of his beardless youth; but he divided the troop in two. Five had to stay at their posts. He followed the gallop of the others, with a mingled joy at the hope of requisition, and amused by the stupid attitude of the lumberjacks, who admired, motionless, the mouth full, the descent of the momentum. The Alsatian Hermenthal passed the horsemen, shouted in German that he was buying the bread held by the elder against his shirt, which he was deserting, that it was necessary to take it to the Austrians, drew out under the pretext of offering them his sword; but, abruptly, he poked the loaf with his point, and took it from the hands of the stupid woodcutter.

Laughing out loud, he trotted to his comrades, the trophy to the point, and without haste. Because he put his beast in a hurry, bit the bread, immediately the other boars rushed against him the trot of their grisons. Auscher grabbed Hermenthal by the tail of hair, twisted the collar, strangled the hoarder, who rushed his horse. Reaching the knee, Auscher would not let go. The bread fell. Hermenthal slaughtered his sword, which slashed a horse's withers. All mingled with the conflict, some by play, others by exasperated hunger. The arms grabbed. Hericourt shouted orders that the breakers would not hear; he threatened, distributed punishments. His prestige was nil, despite the anger that blushed his ears, which leapt with his cries. The bread disappeared under the hoofs of squeezed animals, piétinantes. Assaulted by all the blows, by all the insults, Hermenthal gave the sword wrongly and wrongly until it smashed Mercony's schako, knocked down by the shock on the rump of the horse whose hocks bent. Training his rider, who lost the reins, the animal galloped in the probable direction of the Austrian scouts.

Hericourt's rage exalted himself more. He feared to attract the enemy, to lose a horse. What excuse to offer? We would break him to the rank. He would know the prison. To separate the mad, he approached the fray; but sliding from the four irons, his horse fell. The NCO crawled a few yards among the wet grass to escape hoofbeats. As he stood on his knees, he felt a hard material scratch his hand. He lives there, no doubt rejected by the horse, the bread of their lusts, the bread for which men threatened their lives. His fears disappeared as he bent over them, happy to hide it from the eyes of the combatants. He buried his head in his arms crossed on the prey.

He ate.

The teeth sank, dipped, cut, and crushed. His mouth fills with a flavor where the taste disappeared. His nostrils sucked the crumb. Warmth softens his organs until this time dry. The inner life, sore, resumed ease. Attracted, seized, loaded, kneaded, absorbed by the appetite of his muscles, the food transformed Bernard.

His resuscitated imagination crossed the distances, delighted to see the white house of his family in Artois, on the edge of the pond beaten by the wheel of the mill. Smell of wheat crushed by tall stone wheels, the sound of the waterfall moving machines, figure of the very old blind father, who is delighted to weigh the gold with the trebuchet, romance of Caroline, the wise elder, who knit in the middle of the sacks; it was recounted as the young man appeased the envy of this rare bread for which the brothers and seamen were striving along the way by the waters to acquire many foreign crops. He did not let go of the bridle of the horse which remained on the flank, and who drew it by raising his head. Hericourt suspected that no one was coming for help. Voracious, he engulfs more. Then he was ashamed, because he was sated. The soldiers were starving. The captain, perhaps, inspected the postal league. Where was Mercore running then? The cries of the boars stopped, like the trampling of the horses. Worried by this sudden appeasement, the sergeant raised his face.

Silent group, the men were examining the wood. Obviously; they saw forces.

Hericourt got back on his legs. With his hand, Auscher pointed to the forest. The trees successively split up. Beside each one stands a soldier. It was necessary to recognize the copper plates marking the Austrian hats, their unpowdered hair, the white leotards. Hermenthal unhooked his carabiner and checked the primer.

Without end swallowing, Bernard straightened the horse with boots; he stepped over the saddle. Furious at the indocility of men, he no longer restrained his rage and rose on the stirrups, eager to assail the danger. The imminence of the glory still excited him ... He murmured: Scipio, Cincinnatus, Caesar. He foresaw the weight of the green laurel on his forehead, and congratulated himself on the skirmish that would justify the abandonment of the leaders. of the post, the disappearance of Mercore, the injury of the grison. The sword in the air, he called the five remaining on the height. They ran up. The others showed the big loaves clasped in the belts of the knapsacks, on the backs of the Austrians. Each one, guided his horse away from the trees, and tried to support the carabiner by pressing it against the bark.

Bernard counted the enemies. Should he fight back? But the boars wanted the bread of the grenadiers; and they mocked, declaring that they would devour him rather between the shoulders of the fugitives. For having satiated himself clandestinely, Hericourt gave himself less the right to retain them. One minute went on, one minute of anguish and hunger. Blood was boiling in the arteries. The entrails groaned. Wait, little one, patience, patience, we'll have them in our hands ... Auscher repeated, blinking at the blond lashes. Slowly the Austrians approached. They had to know each other far from their battalion; perhaps they also dreaded the French infantry of the hops. They halted; their officer passed out of the line and posted himself with the cane in his hand. Under Hermenthal,

The conscience of Hericourt enjoined him not to risk ten existences against the forces which could arise; but the fight around the bread, how to explain it?

He thought feverishly. Motives struggled, disappeared, reborn in tumult. He clasped his hands on the handle of the sword and on the bridle. What would Marius decide? The solution did not appear; he feared to appear cowardly to his men. Better the shock. Besides, the Austrians were at stake, The soul of Hericourt was muddled ... Ten dogs fell down, one blow detonated; the other weapons spit out ... Because of the persistent rain since the morning, the wet bandoliers had spoiled the powder. The joy of certain triumph carried Bernard's courage; he pointed to the semicircle formed by the infantrymen; he shouted: Forward! The swords leaped at the end of their arms; the horses tried to gallop; but the ground was slipping, the momentum did not last. It was also necessary to round bushes;

He found himself short of breath, sweat, and throbbing soul. The horse refused any pace other than the pace on the muddy ground. The men also stopped in front of the stationary grenadiers, against a broad bramble. The buzzards went, returned, trotting along the Austrians, and striking the bayonets quickly with their swords, because the length of the rifles did not allow to reach the well-shaven faces of the enemy, nor their white breasts, nor even their hats. , each furnished with a high copper plate. Stupid big boys, they looked at the buzzards, and their eyes grew animated. Hermenthal, the Alsatian, spoke German to them. Give me your bread, said he, and I spare you. He then stretched out his big arm and his sword as if to sting: Immobile! The officer with the beautiful cane shouted to the infantryman. The saber of Hermenthal scarcely barked the barrel of the rifle, which hardly bent. You want bread, my boy, said the officer, a pretty pink-faced junker; here is always a beautiful curry, and your courier needs it. The riflemen laughed then, with a good big Germanic laugh, discovering their teeth damaged by the abuse of the pipe.

Bernard admired this jovial spirit. As in the two previous encounters with the enemy, he still had to stiffen. Marius ... Caesar ... Cincinnatus! He murmured. The syllables of these names encouraged him to the necessary attitudes. In order not to be afraid, it was important that he mentally split himself, that he perceived himself as a victorious ideal under the eye of history. Then everything grew in him, his chest widened to the breath of these magnificent ambitions; he stood up drunk on the stirrups, screaming among the others, waving his sword, his eyes closed, stifling his horse with his knees tense in the shackle. But this time, no impetus, no ardor, no gallop did not lead him. The thing continued in a ridiculous interview of guts assembled for a fight in the street.

Auscher, however, seizes his rifle with his gun. With the butt, he struck the harrow with bayonets. Two others imitated him. Hericourt saw the shaken infantry support each other's shoulders. Their big fists clenched around the weapons became bloodless. At the shock, the guns dropped, then rose. At last a bayonet touched the ground, and the quickly launched Hermenthal's sword cut the chinstrap of the furred cap. The infantry blight. Their eyes grew bigger under the eyebrows. The nostrils became pinched. They gritted their teeth. The maxillaries hunched the cheeks. Behind them, the junker leaned on the rifle butts.

Bernard was surprised to take the side of the Austrians. He feared for them. Their fists were going to faint, the rifles escaping. Then the buzzards, scattering the broken half-circle, would pierce the bellies, cut off the figures, split their heads. In advance, he was terrified of the first blood that would blush a white breast; the vision of death was already aging the kisses of the infantrymen. They did not dare to move, lest the open harrow let a sword pass; and besides, the houzards, who were very masters of their horses, avoided the rare blows of an impatient man. The sergeant-general was looking at the scene with a foreign soul. He did not recognize his courage anymore. The task of slaughtering a man with a butt and then bleeding him to conquer the bread did not give him the

But, like a happy mason demolishing, Auscher, with the butt of his carbine, drew the wall of bayonets. Red, excited, joker, he uttered han followed by laughing when the gun flexed. In the mocking attitude of one who is about to tickle the maid unexpectedly, Hermenthal was watching, ready for the moment, when his blade could reach a heart. And they were formidable people, both of them, the solid Alsatians, under the embrace of which the blowing horses quivered. Hericourt did not know what to do. He considered himself inferior, small.

He led his beast, waved his saber, chipped bayonets, and confessed himself ridiculous for the intimate fear that shook his intestines. What would Caesar have done in my place? He was sorry not to understand him. None of the Austrian figures huddled in the row, the glassy eyes, seemed to him terrible. The buzzards trotted, beating, in vain. Hericourt wondered why the junker did not take them in flank. At certain glances of the infantrymen, who were quickly sunk away, and then returned to the fear of the horsemen, he thought that reinforcements might be coming to him. Returned to the saddle, he perceived the schakos of his squadron, the trognes adorned with cadenettes, the front of the gray horses, the lights of the right swords. In the labyrinth of trees, skilfully, the buzzards crept in, silent and quick.

Hericourt rallied his platoon against the infantry already burdened by Auscher and his butts. He pretended to lay down his arms before his captain had approached them. He would have the honor of capture, a rank. His fear disappeared. He hastened the work of his horsemen; he slashed the four bayonets of the most solid grenadiers.

See you, Monsieur! He shouted to the junker, a delightful boy wearing a catogan and powdered to the epaulettes. He struggled with tears in his eyes. He begged his soldiers in German. He harangued. He was screaming. He was angry. From her porcelain-apple cane, where the miniature of a lady was lurking, he struck the hairy knapsacks, which receded to him; for, breaking their human wall, one of his soldiers, his throat opened by the saber of Hermenthal, collapsed after having seized Auscher's horse on his chest. The bayonet harrow split up.

Crazy, the junker stammered the furry hats of his infantry pushed by the horses and to whom also plunged the swords. Schweine! ... Schweine! ... Füchse! He screamed, pale and green, stamping. See you, Monsieur, Bernard Hericourt ordered, pushing his horse to him, and throwing his sword at the horse-tie. At the same time, he felt cold his thigh burst ... A haggard grenadier withdrew his bayonet whose grooves contained a sort of red oil ...: My blood ... thought the young man. Little trouble afflicted him. He suffered more at the arm of the blow struck against his sword by the cane of the delirious junker who was spinning without even extracting his thin sword from the scabbard. But surrender yourself, idiot ... Furious, Hericourt raised the sword. An Austrian again fell between them. The disemboweled corpse dragged the cane of the Viennese muscadin; Auscher's butt crushed the large hat where the pretty face disappeared, the pink lips and the powdered catogan ... Blind, shouting under the felt, the junker was taken ... Then the grenadiers threw the rifles and raised their empty hands to mark their desire for peace.

Brod! ... Brod! ... asked the boars.

They each grabbed their Austrian by the shoulder and, leaving the sword hanging on the wrist strap, pulled the loaves of bread under the strap of the knapsacks.

Without descending from the horse, which was pouring a big red jet through the hole in the chest, Auscher bit the loaf very hard; and, all having acted in the same way, the buzzards ate, in front of the astonished mines of the Austrians who sat down, exhausted, in the mud, where a French corpse was yawning.

It was raining dru. The images crowded together in the spirit of Hericourt, who had seen them pass too quickly in the course of the action. He gently rubbed his bleeding thigh. An atrocious stiffness continued to sore his kidneys, his shoulder blades, his neck ...

The whole squadron lined up in the little clearing to receive the rations of bread which several prisoners distributed under the command of the French adjutant. The buzzards devoured in silence.

Humpbacked, and the red cadenettes hanging beside his jowls blued by the razor, the captain was declaiming, his mouth filled, with phrases imitating those of ancient heroism, like gazettes. He congratulated Bernard Hericourt and thanked aloud the fate of him to have committed the destinies of a young warrior who covered the regiment with the rays of his glory.

The non-commissioned officer hoped for the lieutenant. His heart was still beating and his intestines were still grumbling. He saw himself hero battled with mud, stinking of leather and damp hair. With the debris of the jabot, the junker was mopping the bumps of his forehead, his face dripping with childish tears. Between the pink heathers and the stricken ferns, the Austrian sergeant was dying, writhing, moaning, vomiting red, while, near there, Auscher unbuckled the strap of his horse which had just fallen, punctured, bare teeth .

Gradually the column was formed, and the first platoon passed between the firs, towards the lumberjacks' hut. The horses made the puddle mud splash. Pendent on the pommels, the arms of the vanquished tinkled. The prisoners walked.

Without asking permission, the Viennese muscadin grabbed Bernard's left stirrup, because he was limping; then he set his difficult strides on those of the beast ...

Egad! Hericourt promised himself, I am on my way to the laurels, and I will have the Victory for my mistress. How easy it was! Why my fear? ... I feel strong, master ... This young man is very ridiculous limping on foot in the mud, with his hair stripped, his catogan scattered, and her widow widow scabbard ... As he looks at the end of the wood, sniffing ... ah! ah! ... He held back his laugh:

"You have lost your beautiful cane, sir!

-It is gassed, yes ... yes ... gassed, sir ... a ganne to suffer ... Mad oak she my hand on the rim? ...

-No, no ... always go ...

-We are my garish reed ... I will rekindle my obligeess ... I support the son of the paron Hand.

-You are a brave soldier ... first ...

Ah! no ... no ... since I let twenty-seven grenadiers take by tix houzards ... No, no, I do not support a soldier prafe ...

And he sobbed again without consolations becoming effective.

When the squadron reached the edge of the woods and the French infantry stations, sown among the hops, a heavy detonation rolled into the cloud. The Austrian gun was blowing the rearguard of Jourdan.

That's right, Bernard said, we are the vanquished!

II

After weeks, the driver's trunk woke at dawn Hericourt asleep on the imperial coach. His eye received the white image of thickened vapors at the banks of the Moselle, in the hollow of the Lorraine slopes. Hoping for the return of sleep, the traveler dropped the weight of his eyelid. He thrust his hands better into the vast sleeves of the cavalry coat, and kept himself from moving.

The warmth of the collar, against his ears, cuddled him, and that of the sheepskin covering his boots. In his drowsiness, he thought he was on an artillery caisson that roamed the battlefields; but he could not distinguish the sound of the wheels or the distant clamor of a cannonade. Was he still fleeing the Austrian grenadiers through the Schwartzwald massifs? He got rid of the dream. The hatching sun dyed the veil of her eyelids and warmed her eyes. He opened them.

At the trot of six strong animals, the coach crushed the stony road from the heather and fir trees. We were going on a bridge. Hericourt lazily admired the address of the postilion in the saddle, a handsome fellow dressed in a conical hat with a silver braid, who led the two leading horses. Less skillfully, the coachman handled the eight reins of his quadriga. Despite the help of the whip and the offensive voice, the huge wheel scratched the bollard. All the scrap of the car groaned. Then Bernard Hericourt finished waking up.

Through the gloomy verdure of its hillsides, the country was encircling the milky and slow course of the river, which was already flapping with the beating of the washing-maids kneeling beneath the last arch of the bridge. A boat slipped by pole along the beacons. We passed a cabriolet, where, under fox caps, laughed at the ruby ​​faces of middle-class men, clinging to the quadruple pilgrims in their green frock coats. We had to stay put. At the top of vegetable carts blooming the dampness of the gardens, boors slept stretched out in breeches of furs and crawling with blue cloth. From the top of their donkeys, sitting on the baskets of the pack, old black-haired men mumbled, in front of a crowd of dusty sheep choking, wool in wool. Companions on foot leaned against the guardrail and unbuckled their heavy knapsacks of tools from the belts. Tanks, beasts and people were piling up towards the city to wait for the doors to open.

One could see the old walls and the yellow banks of the ramparts beyond the suburb still illuminated by the vast lanterns hanging from gallows.

Stretching out on the bench sheltered by the leather of the hood, Hericourt answered the greeting of the two men seated by his side. For a few hours he had known these brothers. The younger, solemn, powdered like a ci-devant, strapped in his blue coat, brought back to the bosom of a troubled family an incorrigible elder. "Hard man! cried this one in the ear of the mentor, you call love feverish, and for me this first ray of light presents to me my dear Heloise in morning dress. I see her thinking of me, smiling at me. Yesterday evening, she put my hand on her heart ... See, my eyes, ignite; my breast is swelling. What, then, are unfortunate human beings, the depraving drink, which thus alters the inclinations written in your blood, on your nerves, in your eyes, so that you refuse to soften yourself!

The defender of love wore hair in curls around the chubby-faced, chubby-faced face, which a large muslin tie clung to the chin. His theater gestures pushed the brown velvet away from a worn out coat; and the clasp of his humble copper hat probably replaced another more valuable one left as a pledge to wear. Already, by his care, no one in the car was no longer unaware that the Lyons Academy would soon crown its essay on sentiment .

His gesture bore witness to the sky, the flock of sheep, and the sullen coachman in his scarlet lapel jacket. To be admired by all, he continued to declaim his sentence.

At each relay, he had pretended to go back to join Heloise. Twice he had, against his curls, pointed the barrel of a tiny pistol that the brother was tearing at once in order to satisfy the obvious desire of the desperate.

Patient and devious, this solemn brother, from time to time, emitted an aphorism:

Passion is like the Danube. Near his source, a child can divert him for his games. A few leagues below, it floods the provinces, overthrows the cities.

-What's next tomorrow! replied the other. In the hut, as in the palace, covered with hides and skins of Lyons, at the frugal table of Cincinnatus, like that of Vitellius, each one, by feeling, becomes happy. Cold man, your heart never palpitate ... I pity you and I abhor you.

This proclaimed, there were a few moments of silence, then the academic laureate intoned the eulogy of virtue, quoted the Sensitive Man of Mackenzie, passages of Jean-Jacques, the Werther of Goethe, masterpieces vaunted of literatures.

Melancholy! Melancholy! Charming melancholy, you are now my only recourse. Ah! young warrior, learn to cherish melancholy ... It is the consolation of the evils that strike a sensitive heart.

Timidly Hericourt thanked. With such eloquence he would have also wanted to translate his soul. In the cafes, the inns, the post offices, even in the camps, he had heard the young men praise, by this rhetoric, Jean-Jacques, Mackenzie, Goethe; when they did not deplore the defeats of the armies in Germany and Italy, the imminence of a humiliating peace, and the bankruptcy which was called the consolidated third. To conceal the public peril, the gazettes used heroism of the same Greco-Roman style. With such phrases, the Commissary of the Armed had sent home, on semiannual leave, Hericourt and some soldiers of his body, son of families at ease.

The nation was going bankrupt.

Dominating these groups of people and the vegetables of the carts, at the end of the bridge, the tree of Liberty seemed as shabby as its garlands of faded foliage. The two velvet swords crossed over the bucolic symbol of a plow formed a panoply of rust. In the same way, the red wooden cap bowed, rubbed off and pitiful, at the point of the perch planted before the hangar of a farrier, Jacobin.

Admittedly, these little emblems were scarcely cared for in the little light houses of the suburbs, in the faded cafes, in the cabins of straight planks among the vegetable gardens laundered with morning dew.

The peasants no longer tutaded each other by affecting the brutal words of the sans-culottes. The journeymen workers no longer threw these jokes, echoes of the Parisian clubs, who dedicated to the guillotine the ridiculous passer-by. These terrorist paces taken by the people outraged against the Thermidorian reaction had ended seducing people since the coup d'etat of 18 Fructidor, year V.

Hericourt saw it. He had left a tumultuous country, a people inclined to resume the tradition of the Septembriseurs. He found, eighteen months later, indifferent men. The cries were extinguished with indignation, by dint of use, no doubt.

One of the companions, thin under the knapsack, looked like a patriot of Arras who had bewildered Bernard's fourteen years. This bearded muzzle, his gray hair cut into dog's ears, he had seen in the old days under the fork leading the old riots and which bore handwritten signs at the ends. They acclaimed the conventional Joseph Lebon, before Thermidor, insulted after that date, praised mid-Vendemiaire the massacre of the royalists on the steps of Saint-Roch, and, in prairial, the scramble of the Convention by the people taken from hunger. Always this mufle of patriot had appeared between the dirty figures of the Flemish populace packed on the small square, at the foot of the belfry which carillonnaient destiny hours in its rigid stone lace.

As a teenager, Bernard had envied this master of the crowd; he himself had followed the processions, shouting the Carmagnole :

Antoinette had resolved to make us fall on the cu. But her shot failed, she has a broken nose.

Let's dance in the Carmagnole, Long live the sound of cannon!

Enthusiastic about the tragedy of death, he had flirted with the pride of wanting to win. To be a part of the element that thunders, that charges and saber, stunned by the white smoke, the screaming of the leaders! He had glimpsed the glory that a hundred gazettes and many proclamations preached, the brews of flags seized, the return amidst the delirious crowds, and the embrace of the citizen director evoking Decius, Scipio, the Roman grandeur. Really he had known the opportunities of heroism desired by his ardor to also subject the crowds to his prestige. He had galloped, his eyes closed, into the mad herd of the charge, then, a non-commissioned officer, obeyed the old soldiers he commanded.

He had read, under the tent, Caesar, Montluc, the treaties of artillery and fortification. He envied the luck of General Bonaparte, the fame of Moreau, the prudence of Massena, the death of Joubert in the fields of Novi.

To become heroic like Leonidas at Thermopylae, as virtuous as a Cincinnatus with a plow, to judge himself noble without restriction of his solid conscience, he desired it. Besides, he would have liked to speak poetically, like the melancholy man who dreamed in the shadow of his curls, his hand clenched at the edge of the mantle.

A rumor and a movement of the countrymen turned his thoughts away. Slowly at the end of the unrolled chains the drawbridge lowered. Then the driver of the coach blew the fanfare in his trunk; the carts lined the sides of the road, the pedestrians descended into the ditch, and then the huge car rolled behind the six dappled horses waving the whining of their bells. The postilion led his beasts by the obscure detours of the arches that sounded ... At the end, in the doorway of the door, the street squatting on its still closed shops shredded the band of the sky with its sharp gables and the ends of the chimneys. We passed in front of the guardhouse. Fitted with high black gaiters buttoned up to mid-thighs against cotton panties, the blue calf coat, the soldiers were shaking their yellow-tasselled police hats, playing hopscotch. The sentinel presented the arms for the adjutant recognized at the top of the carriage: Hericourt bowed, jostled by the jolts; the loulous barked. In caps of linen, in green scarves, the women, at the thresholds, leaned on their birch brooms. A big scarlet boot, the cobbler's sign encumbered the tortuous perspective of the street. On the windows, faces appeared to be adorned with short blond curls. The cotton hats of the grocers assembled under the painted tin-plate of sugar which hung at the end of a rod announcing their commerce. Adorned with vast bicorns, dressed in pilgrim carricks, youths, at the door of the gambling-house, at last left, exaggerated their reverences and brandished monstrous canes. Farther on we met hunters in heavy velvet clothes; they wore on the shoulder powder pears and plumb bags. Pretty braque dogs waded through the stream. Curled up under the hood, a fish seller shouted: Good fresh herring! Dressed in short serge skirts and draped with scarves on their shoulders, the workers entered the factory. Their blue stockings kept traces of dry mud, but they smiled, graceful, as part of their fonns knotted around the hair. the workers entered the factory. Their blue stockings kept traces of dry mud, but they smiled, graceful, as part of their fonns knotted around the hair. the workers entered the factory. Their blue stockings kept traces of dry mud, but they smiled, graceful, as part of their fonns knotted around the hair.

To return to peaceful life, Héricourt thanked the sun for lighting the smoke from the kitchens with the smell of scorched milk. The sight of a starling in a cage against the small greenish windows of the window made him tender. His active memory recognized the turret of the house, where since the time of yesteryear remains embedded the cannon that launched the canons of the Elector.

After this was the square with a triumphal arch of pink marble, and the jet of water spewed by a bronze dolphin in the center of the basin. The kids at the bottom rolled out by the sides of their carmagnoles. To overtake the postilion, several rushed between the wheels and shops at the risk of overturning the barrels of the water carrier. The hens fled distractedly towards the courtyard of the inn where the team entered.

Two old men in tricorns and coats waited with a girl hooded with a fluffy silk comforter. They welcomed the infantry captain who was also returning from the Rhine. Hi, unhappy hero! They said; come and sit at the hearth where Virtue still sits. From the yellow box came down a long woman in a Greek dress, whose folds fell stiffly towards their fringes of acorns. She put on her mittens as far as the shoulder, and stuffed her chin with a fox boa; against his head was a green silk hat with a gold braid. Hericourt felt like her, who, unfortunately, disappeared after a servant. The adjutant obtained his leather coat-rack, and followed the groom to the room, which he reduced to 2 livres 6 under a one-day rent. The glass of the trumeau showed him what dust stained his face. The iron andirons represented the baskets of Pomona, and the back of the chairs the lyre of Polymnie. A perfume of thyme filtered through the folds of the wide daffodil curtains enveloping the bed. Quickly undressed, Hericourt stretched out; and the hay cracked in the mattress. For a few minutes the traveler mechanically counted the red tiles of the floor. He enumerated his qualities. He palliated his faults. His reason drove away fears, doubts. Like Augereau, like Buonaparté, why should not he have his victories one day? He regretted that no thought had been given to restoring the triumph of Rome for the victorious general. He noticed with the laurel around the temples, and the stick of The iron andirons represented the baskets of Pomona, and the back of the chairs the lyre of Polymnie. A perfume of thyme filtered through the folds of the wide daffodil curtains enveloping the bed. Quickly undressed, Hericourt stretched out; and the hay cracked in the mattress. For a few minutes the traveler mechanically counted the red tiles of the floor. He enumerated his qualities. He palliated his faults. His reason drove away fears, doubts. Like Augereau, like Buonaparté, why should not he have his victories one day? He regretted that no thought had been given to restoring the triumph of Rome for the victorious general. He noticed with the laurel around the temples, and the stick of The iron andirons represented the baskets of Pomona, and the back of the chairs the lyre of Polymnie. A perfume of thyme filtered through the folds of the wide daffodil curtains enveloping the bed. Quickly undressed, Hericourt stretched out; and the hay cracked in the mattress. For a few minutes the traveler mechanically counted the red tiles of the floor. He enumerated his qualities. He palliated his faults. His reason drove away fears, doubts. Like Augereau, like Buonaparté, why should not he have his victories one day? He regretted that no thought had been given to restoring the triumph of Rome for the victorious general. He noticed with the laurel around the temples, and the stick of Quickly undressed, Hericourt stretched out; and the hay cracked in the mattress. For a few minutes the traveler mechanically counted the red tiles of the floor. He enumerated his qualities. He palliated his faults. His reason drove away fears, doubts. Like Augereau, like Buonaparté, why should not he have his victories one day? He regretted that no thought had been given to restoring the triumph of Rome for the victorious general. He noticed with the laurel around the temples, and the stick of Quickly undressed, Hericourt stretched out; and the hay cracked in the mattress. For a few minutes the traveler mechanically counted the red tiles of the floor. He enumerated his qualities. He palliated his faults. His reason drove away fears, doubts. Like Augereau, like Buonaparté, why should not he have his victories one day? He regretted that no thought had been given to restoring the triumph of Rome for the victorious general. He noticed with the laurel around the temples, and the stick of One day? He regretted that no thought had been given to restoring the triumph of Rome for the victorious general. He noticed with the laurel around the temples, and the stick of One day? He regretted that no thought had been given to restoring the triumph of Rome for the victorious general. He noticed with the laurel around the temples, and the stick ofImperator on the fingers, in front of the trained eagles of the legionaries ... and then they became confused in the crowd that darkened itself. Hericourt heard himself snoring.

Later, waking up to the beautiful mid-autumn sun, he immediately thought of his family's house, which, for lack of money, he was going to join. His brother-in-law, Praxi-Blassans, would he congratulate him for having so quickly deserved the ranks of adjutant? Once again his memory came back to the hard day in Germany where he had earned his rank. As, since the day before, he had eaten nothing, the taste on hunger then endured by the mucous membranes of his shriveled palate came back to his lips.

He imagined the smell of soft bread smoking under the knife, and that his late mother, the Austrian, once shared among the beggars at the door of Moulins-Hericourt. Now Caroline, the eldest in the second bed, cut off the portion of the poor, in a jaconas gown with an orange scarf, since the grace and dowry of Aurelie, her younger sister, satisfied a husband, M. de Praxis. Blassans. This diplomat of the old regime wished, like M. de Talleyrand, to serve the new. Already his influence had won the award of military flour to the blind father, weighing from morning till night, by mere distraction, the hundreds of gold coins on the trebuchet.

Bernard loved their faces in his closed eyes, and those of his older brothers, the sailors who, weary of having conquered far less expensive wheat, annoyed with their lazy gestures the parrot of the islands to laugh in the bright living room at the edge of the sea. orchard. Between the flowerbeds of cabbages and nasturtiums came the image of the late mother-in-law, Constance Gresloup, counting through her spectacles the plum-trees' wealth, while at the bottom of an arbor the little Augustin, engulfed in his collar and the seams of his green coat, he studied the textbooks that teach the art of the engineer. Did all these people think that Bernard Hericourt, on his stomach in the midst of the mire, had eaten bread like the beasts, that bread which the whole family strove to produce on the fat land of Flanders?

He got up, dined, went out.

Under the Brandenburgs, and the sword pounding the pavement, Hericourt regained, proud, the admiration of laundry attendants along the shops. At the Cafe de la Comedie , whose gold sign on a field of azure pleased him, he settled down.

Grown up by their silken sleeves, the elegant ladies of the city paraded naked; and it was a charming game for the eye to perceive, through the gauze, the mauve, or pink, or brown points, breasts resting on the belt that passed under the armpits. Bichons followed the train, yapping.

The young man smiles of his chastity, made obligatory, in the camps, by the exhausting fatigues of the campaign, the economy of his nest egg, the disgust of the maritornes in stall in the cars of shady canteens which followed the brigades, at the pace of haridelles skinned.

The Rose des Sultanes, the perfume of her sister Aurélie, suddenly flattered her nostrils. At the same time, the tawny glance of a woman caressed the vanity of the stroller. Blood assaulted his heart; the delicious impatience of desire exasperated his nerves. Having paid, he emptied his glass of brandy to undertake the gallant obsession.

In the right folds of the hazel-colored dress, the gaillarde was molded, callipyge and plump. A friend accompanied him. They laughed, turning their heads towards the buzzard. The eyes of the brunette appeared as butterflies flying under the curls of a hundred loops circled by strips amaranth Greek. The complexion of the arm was lively between the epaulette of the bodice and the embroidery of the long glove.

Bernard sounded the sword in the stream; he held it in his hand; he rocked the shocks, also proud of his arched leg up to the low boot, his back he knew hollow among the soutaches. The hanging cadenets brushed her cheeks.

The women led him to walk along the canal. He amused himself with the pink silk reticles that they held at the end of black, green, and yellow ribbons.

Sheltered by tents and taverns, under the trees that the wind stripped, many bourgeois in blue stockings were finishing off their mugs with their pipes in their hands. Coconut crushers and waffle makers were calling customers. To sit down, the women chose straw chairs in an alley where the elms joined their branches as a dome. Hericourt took his place not far from them. Only then he considered the black toilet of the second, his heavy breasts, which weighed in the ribs of the satin on the gold cord; he preferred it.

He really thought he was happy. The bottle-saddle would not ring. The old boars were not busy with any foolishness that he would suffer in front of his laughing superiors. A languid sun warms the limbs in the rich park of its burned rednesses. The smell of dead leaves made the air clean, and the two courtesans eyed and mimed the joy with their painted lips.

The sun, he said to them, saluting, "rests on the fatigues that Bellone imposes upon us, ladies, and I ask the freedom to apologize to you if I stretch myself incongruously, but I hardly go out of my way. sludge from Germany.

They looked at each other jubilantly.

"You were at war picking laurels, no doubt?

-Not the laurels of victory ... in any case. Our armies retreat below the Rhine ...

-Honor to unhappy courage, sneered the lady in the black satin dress, caressing her considerable breasts with an indefinite complacency.

-I return to Artois in my family; long days of road remain to be done, and I have less courage to get back on the road since your eyes, beauties, adroitly launched their darts of fire to my heart ...

-Do you burn for us? ...

-The passion devours me, beautiful!

- Boiling heart!

-Beared love!

They fell back on the back of the chairs. The eyes fluttered in butterfly wings; the curls danced; the breasts twitched with purple spikes, with brown spikes ... The reticula lay on the ground at the end of the arms without strength.

-What of us?

-One and the other.

-Fi, the insolent boasts, Adelaide.

-If we took it at the word ...

"How many times do you play fife, then?

- Four times an hour!

-Pest, Margot! ...

"Yes, beautiful, to the houzarde; you know!...

He drew his sword halfway and sent it back sharply to the end of the scabbard.

-I am dead! Sky!...

-It pierces me ...

Bernard lifted them, executed the U-turn.

-It has what it takes ...

-Here and there...

-My arm?...

-If done...

Where does he lead us, the robber?

-At your house...

-The fat!

-Polisson ... I pinch you !!! I am thirsty...

Refreshments? A finger of maraschino? A tear of vespetro ...

-Cydalise sells pies with angelica, and at her place one has peace.

-Who, then, Cydalise?

-My aunt ...

-My grandmother...

-My godmother...

-The sofa is there soft?

-He already believes it ...

-This way?

-A left hand ..., the second alley, where between the city.

A woman of the people in bavolet spat on the ground by indignation of virtue, and she dragged her little boy still wearing the Phrygian cap. Through the square of the eyeglass, the muscadins stared at them from their chairs, without removing the left hand of the bridge from their tight breeches at the ankle.

Cheeks warm, Hericourt thought himself gray; the companions spoke low, sneering; and the smell of their naked throats scented the air. Bernard showed louis to protect them against any apprehension.

They approached a tiny square, lined with hotels. The iron-clad windows flanked porches surmounted by crestons with destroyed arms. The bronze child hugged a fish that was spitting water down to the basin in the center of the square bower. Then it was a narrow lane whose median brook occupied almost the whole width; the walls of parks bounded it to the right and to the left; Against a low door, Adelaide and Margot stopped. In turn they hit the knocker.

Behind the girl who came to open, they went through a damp garden; and the dead leaves creaked under their feet until they reached the three steps of the stoop where they received a lady full of short banquets, plucking a pigeon. The shaving plates did not revive the dead complexion of Cydalise. She ran inside calling her maid.

Loves were found in the engravings suspended against the gray woodwork of the walls.

"Sir, will I have the honor of seeing you in Paris, before joining?

"Sir, it will be a pleasure for Caroline and me. I would have to tell you about my home.

In front of the ceremonial attitude guarded by Cavrois, husband of his sister Caroline since the day's mass, Bernard remained without verve. In spite of the satin breeches, the white stockings, the orange petals in the buttonhole of the blue coat, the new brother-in-law did not depart from a diplomatic reserve which affected much less Praxi-Blassans, the another brother-in-law, whose tobacco coat was spinning between the naked shoulders of the affable women for his imperious and loud voice. Among the fragrant suavities of the flowers everywhere erected in clumps of roses, in sheaves of lilies, in bunches of daisies, in baskets of buttercups and violets, the wise Caroline, pale in her wedding tunic, smiled her tears at the lashes, for the The horses of the carriage pawed at the foot of the steps.

All the earth, the cleared sky, the wheel of Moulins-Hericourt tumultuously submerged the waterfall, solicited the sadness of Caroline, attentive to the supreme impression left in her by the field occupying very far, in the open windows, the the Artois countryside, where he was going to enclose the meadows lying in the shade of poplars and willows.

Happy sister, consoled Bernard; you will live in Paris. Aurelie's car will often take you to the theater ... right?

The rustle of silk and the voice of Aurelie did not differ from each other. Preste, laughing in bow, in the narrow oval of the face, the young woman, whose curls caressed her cheeks, slid in front of her train to the hoarse.

-Pole of honesty .; we, my dear, to the theater and to the beds, provided that you do not bother me Latin ...

It still affected the language of the unbelievers; suppressed the Rs, relied on the Os, on the A.

Dulcissima linquimus arva ... said Caroline to tease her sister, hostile to Roman quotations learned from the hidden priests who had virilely raised their adolescence in the time of the Terror.

-Messidor does not want to die, Messidor warms Vendémiaire, this year, for your wedding, my sister ... See how the leaves are slow to fall.

"The melancholy melancholy of nature suits your anzelic face, Caroline. panassée! I'm glad to go up to the balls of the victims ...

With her gloved arms, she surrounded Caroline's waist ... then, without making a fuss of this mode of language, she overwhelmed him with tender promises.

Bernard inhaled the scent of roses to the Sultana, whom he had savored on other shoulders.

-Aurelie, Aurelie, called Father Hericourt, whose stature appeared between the false Doric columns flanking the white door.

Blind, he walked as unharmed from a similar infirmity. The hands barely rowed in front of the damask jacket, to ward off the troop of girls with light tunics, quickly arranged against lilies and roses.

-The harp, Aurélie, the harp ... You promised me ...

Quickly the young woman jumped on the instrument; she sat down on an X, disengaged only her hands and grazed the high ropes, while her shoe was bending the pedal.

-How, hush, Aurélie will sing, murmured the young ladies.

It rains, it rains, shepherdess ...

Tighten your white sheep!

began the musician.

Like a silk touched by bird's wings, the voice was developing, airy and disembodied. The blind man stood listening, his hands buried in the pockets of his black velvet coat, whitened by the powder of the wig, loading the purplish rosacea of ​​his face. The silent respect of the people became like a sovereign. They dared not look at him, though he could not see if his bold eyes were examining his wrinkles and the disdain of his fat lips. Bernard, in full dress, held his sword for fear of a clatter, and he admired his sister with a desire for flesh.

He liked the flexibility of the throat divided into the diaphanous muslin.

He thought of her in the conjugal hands of Praxi-Blassans, who continued, through the garden, to talk about the tricks of Tallien, who had gone to Egypt in the wake of that Buonaparte, sicaire of Barras, whom Talleyrand obliged him to support. , Praxi-Blassans. He did it reluctantly, so as not to betray the politics of the constitutional circle ...

"But, Monsieur, the Baroness de Stael shares my feeling. She would give it all, Sir, if I do not know what Swiss fanfaron, a Constant de Rebecque, did not turn her away from the good, in favor of this little Corsican scoundrel ... They will see, they will see all, Monsieur, where will lead this runner maquis ... That's his brother Lucien at Cinq-Cents. There family box. It pays him to have married the Beauharnais, which had been a joy for the Barras, the Talliens and their aftermath. Ah! Sir, how long do we live! ... Take this. He is from Spain, and is specially grated for me, at Zermine's, at the Palais-Royal, under the sign of the Sons of Brutus .

The gilt snuffbox was offered to the older brother-in-law, sailor Joseph, cautious under his square coat, nine, in his breeches, in his lapels. The big hands blackened by the tan played with the huge charms hanging on the watch band. Bernard timidly joined them; the diplomat was still talking.

"Traveling, sir, were you in England? I arrive, me, sir; if you knew how to judge us ... We are armed on all sides. We are driven back to the Rhine, defeated in Italy. Your general Massena has just defeated at Zurich; but he must retreat to Genoa if he wishes to delay the march of Melas. The consolidated third ruin our credit, sir, you can believe me. France will have peace only the day the Count de Lille disintegrates in a room in the Tuileries. And he'll come back, sir! do you know how? ... Brought back by the Stranger, yes, sir. All crowns are committed to this; and, even if it were ten years, fifteen years, twenty years, the royal Europe will conquer Jacobinism ... That's where we are, sir. M. de Talleyrand reminded me. Baroness de Stael advised me to return. It is assured that the emigrants who return will not be disturbed; and in fact I have not been disturbed since the two years that I am going to France, although I have served in the regiments of M. de Conde. My chair moves from inn to inn without attracting the policeman. One feels little by little his head to stick on the shoulders, either ..., I want well. Jacobinism disarms. Be sure crowns do not disarm ... Do you want some? He's from Spain ... And this hussy will still make war, I give you my word ... Well! Mr. soldier, when do you get married? They write to me about you, they send me your notes. You lack energy with your men ... It's a whit that, sir! NOT' Do not you feel like you're worth it? I hear you're receiving your appointment as an officer at the beginning of the next campaign, what's that ... eh?

Pirouette in the old fashion on the heels, and rubbing his cheeks against the collar of his tobacco coat, Praxi-Blassans intimidated by the certainty of his claims. Why does Aurelie love her, thought Bernard, who examined the man a little fat, withered face, whose nostrils sniffed the air, without noise ...

She is too ambitious ... This embittered, authoritarian man, at thirty, could no longer love. He is proud of our money and has taken it further to direct the finances of the family according to his needs. However, he seems to know everything, and to judge clearly. No doubt, this seduces my sister. My dad also listens. Here, everywhere, in the field, rise the red roofs of the new tanneries, which will supply the armies with equipment leather. And if the war does not last, what shall we do with this mass of skins, brought by the carts of the north, by those of the south and the east! Of these wheats and these flours piled up in all the barns.

Praxi-Blassans dragged him by the clos. On many doors of the village, a tar-painted H indicated the stores chosen for temporary hiring and that filled with active longshoremen running from the boats stopped along the Scarpe in the yellow reeds.

The peasants admired this wealth which would soon burst the walls. Serious, they looked at each other, spitting the juice of their pipes; then they went back to the show, arms crossed over their jackets, and mentally counted the bags. Bernard thought he read disapprobation on their shaven faces. He told him to his brother-in-law, who let out a hail and screaming laugh from his teeth.

Believe me, sir, order your boobs, break me the girls, and do not interfere with the rest. I imprison Ceres in our granaries because I hear the cries of Bellone! Oh! I have a fine hearing, sir! My word! It has been four years since I began the post on the roads of Europe, it was not a vain walk. My ears hear and my eyes see, sir ..., at least, I hope so.

Praxi-Blassans took off his hat, which he took by the two horns to fanning himself, as if the emotion of being ignored made him hot. Bernard Hericourt relieved impertinence.

A breath passed in his trembling mouth, instinctively his neck extended his irritated head towards the nobleman who was contemplating the sky with irony.

Monsieur!

"Monsieur ... you are a brave young man whom I want to inform about the things of the world; you can not imagine how wise a statement made before the chiefs will favor your future, more than these exploits of war, the last of which, taken by the requisition, will be praised justly. Do you think that Bonaparte placed his brother at the Five Hundred because he appropriately pointed his artillery against Toulon? Not, but he knew how to show Barras a certain understanding of things, to make him feel the help he would give in Vendémiaire on the steps of Saint-Roch, and how he would rid the citizen Director of a mistress as troublesome as the Beauharnais, by marrying him, on the promise of commanding the army of Italy in chief, that is what served his fortune more than Toulon and Arcole.

-Suffer that I tell you, sir, here are singular opinions.

"I do not advise the misdeeds of little Corsica, but to follow this example, by applying to an honest design his method.

They came back along the hedges, near the wheel of the mill flooded by the noisy waters of the little tributary.

Praxi-Blassans became more friendly. He exhibited hopes. Soon they would settle in Paris, in his hotel on the rue Saint-Honoré, a reasonable offer would resume to the purchaser of national property. He would reopen the house. Aurelie, whom he sincerely boasted, would be exquisite among a court of friends.

He did not doubt a return of opinion. Assuming that Barras, Sieyes, or their condottiere, take power momentarily, their only policy would be to restore the legitimate monarch some day; otherwise they would soon have against them the