The Whites and the Blues. Alexandre DumasЧитать онлайн книгу.
information about his family. The captain reappeared on the doorstep in about ten minutes.
"Are you ready, citizen?" he asked the prisoner.
"Whenever you are," replied the latter.
"Have you anything to say?"
"No; but I have a few favors to ask."
"As I told you, anything in my power I will grant."
"Thank you, captain."
The captain came closer to the count. "We may serve under different flags," said he, "but we are still Frenchmen, and brave men recognize each other at a glance. Speak then; what do you want?"
"First, I want you to take off these cords which make me look like a galley-slave."
"You are right," said the captain. "Unbind the prisoner."
Two men stepped forward; but Charles had already darted toward the count and freed his hands.
"Ah!" exclaimed the count, stretching out his arms, and shaking himself beneath his mantle, "how good it feels to be free."
"And now?" asked the captain.
"I want to give the word of command."
"You shall give it. And then?"
"I should like to send some souvenir to my family."
"You know that we are forbidden to take any letters from political prisoners who are condemned to death; but anything else, yes."
"I do not wish to give you any trouble on that score. Here is my compatriot Charles, who, as you have already promised, is to accompany me to the place of execution; he will undertake to deliver something to my family; let it be, not a letter, but an article that has belonged to me—my old foraging cap, for instance."
The count named his cap in the same careless tone he would have employed in speaking of any other article of his apparel, and the captain did not hesitate to grant his request.
"Is that all?" he asked.
"Faith, yes," answered the count, "and it is time. My feet are growing cold, and there is nothing in the world I dislike so much as cold feet. Come, captain; for you are coming with us, I presume."
"It is my duty."
The count bowed, smilingly pressed little Charles's hand, and looked inquiringly at the captain to know what direction to take.
"This way," said the captain, placing himself at the head of the squad.
They followed him, passing through a postern gate into a second court, upon the ramparts of which sentinels were pacing back and forth. At the end was a tall wall riddled with balls at about the height of a man's head.
"Ah! there it is," said the prisoner; and he went toward the wall of his own accord. Four steps from it he stopped.
"Here we are," said the captain. "Clerk, read the sentence to the condemned man."
After the reading the count bowed his head, as if to acknowledge its justice. Then he said: "I beg your pardon, captain; I have a few words to say by myself."
The captain and the soldiers drew aside. The count put the elbow of his right arm in his left hand, leaned his forehead upon his right hand, shut his eyes, and remained motionless, his lips moving silently. He was praying.
There is something holy about a man who is about to die, and who is praying, which even the most unbelieving respect. Not a word, not a smile, not a jest, disturbed the count's last communion with God. When he raised his head his face wore a smile; he embraced his young compatriot, and, like Charles I., his last injunction was: "Remember!"
Charles bowed his head, weeping.
Then the count said in a firm voice: "Attention!"
The soldiers fell into two ranks at ten paces from him, the captain and Charles placing themselves at either side. The condemned man, as if he did not wish to give the order to fire while his head was still covered, took off his foraging cap and tossed it carelessly aside. It fell at Charles's feet.
"Are you ready?" asked the count.
"Yes," replied the soldiers.
"Present arms! Ready! Fire!—Long live the k—"
He had not time to finish; a report was heard; seven bullets had pierced his breast; he fell face down upon the ground. Charles picked up the foraging cap, put it inside his vest, and buttoned the latter over it; and, as he put it in his vest, he made sure that the letter was there.
A quarter of an hour later he entered citizen-general Pichegru's cabinet.
CHAPTER XVII
PICHEGRU
Pichegru is destined to play so important a part in this story that we must fix the eyes of the reader upon him with more attention than we have done with the secondary characters that we have hitherto put upon the scene.
Charles Pichegru was born on the 16th of February, 1761, in the village of Planches, near Arbois. His family were poor and rustic; his forefathers had been known for three or four hundred years as honest day-laborers, and they had derived their name from the character of their work. They reaped their gru or grain, with the pic or mattock; from these two words, pic and gru, the name of Pichegru had been derived.
Pichegru, who early showed traces of that precocious disposition which marks the distinguished man, began his education at the school of the Paulist Fathers at Arbois; they, seeing his rapid progress, particularly in mathematics, sent him, with Father Patrault, one of their professors, to the College of Brienne. There he made such progress that at the end of two years he was appointed assistant professor. At this period his whole ambition was to be a monk; but Father Patrault, who divined Napoleon's genius, saw, with equal clearness, Pichegru's possibilities, and induced him to turn his attention to military life.
Yielding to his advice, Pichegru, in 1783, entered the first foot artillery, where, thanks to his incontestable merit, he promptly rose to the rank of adjutant, in which grade he made his first campaign in America. Upon his return to France he ardently embraced the principles of 1789, and was a leader in a popular society in Besançon, when a regiment of the Volunteer Guards, passing through the city, chose him for their commander. Two months later Pichegru was commander-in-chief of the Army of the Rhine.
M. de Narbonne, Minister of War, having missed him, asked one day in speaking of him: "What became of that young officer to whom all the colonels were tempted to take off their hats when they spoke to him?"
This young officer had become commander-in-chief of the Army of the Rhine, a promotion that had not tended to make him any prouder than he had been before. And, indeed, Pichegru's rapid advancement, his fine education, and the exalted position he held in the army had not changed in the least the simplicity of his heart. As a sub-officer, he had had a mistress, and had always provided for her; her name was Rose, she was thirty years old, a dressmaker, lame, and not at all pretty. She lived at Besançon. Once a week she wrote to the general, always in the most respectful manner.
These letters were always full of good counsel and tender advice; she admonished the general not to be dazzled by his good fortune, and to remain the same Charlot that he had always been at home; she urged him to economy, not for her sake, but for that of his parents. She, God be thanked, could take care of herself; she had made six dresses for the wife of a representative, and was to make six more for the wife of a general. She had in addition three pieces of gold,