第59章 The Last Adventure of the Brigadier(1)

I will tell you no more stories, my dear friends.It is said that man is like the hare, which runs in a circle and comes back to die at the point from which it started.

Gascony has been calling to me of late.I see the blue Garonne winding among the vineyards and the bluer ocean toward which its waters sweep.I see the old town also, and the bristle of masts from the side of the long stone quay.My heart hungers for the breath of my native air and the warm glow of my native sun.

Here in Paris are my friends, my occupations, my pleasures.There all who have known me are in their grave.And yet the southwest wind as it rattles on my windows seems always to be the strong voice of the motherland calling her child back to that bosom into which I am ready to sink.I have played my part in my time.The time has passed.I must pass also.

Nay, dear friends, do not look sad, for what can be happier than a life completed in honour and made beautiful with friendship and love? And yet it is solemn also when a man approaches the end of the long road and sees the turning which leads him into the unknown.But the Emperor and all his Marshals have ridden round that dark turning and passed into the beyond.My Hussars, too--there are not fifty men who are not waiting yonder.I must go.But on this the last night I will tell you that which is more than a tale--it is a great historical secret.My lips have been sealed, but I see no reason why I should not leave behind me some account of this remarkable adventure, which must otherwise be entirely lost, since I and only I, of all living men, have a knowledge of the facts.

I will ask you to go back with me to the year 1821.

In that year our great Emperor had been absent from us for six years, and only now and then from over the seas we heard some whisper which showed that he was still alive.You cannot think what a weight it wasupon our hearts for us who loved him to think of him in captivity eating his giant soul out upon that lonely island.From the moment we rose until we closed our eyes in sleep the thought was always with us, and we felt dishonoured that he, our chief and master, should be so humiliated without our being able to move a hand to help him.There were many who would most willingly have laid down the remainder of their lives to bring him a little ease, and yet all that we could do was to sit and grumble in our cafes and stare at the map, counting up the leagues of water which lay between us.

It seemed that he might have been in the moon for all that we could do to help him.But that was only because we were all soldiers and knew nothing of the sea.

Of course, we had our own little troubles to make us bitter, as well as the wrongs of our Emperor.There were many of us who had held high rank and would hold it again if he came back to his own.We had not found it possible to take service under the white flag of the Bourbons, or to take an oath which might turn our sabres against the man whom we loved.So we found ourselves with neither work nor money.What could we do save gather together and gossip and grumble, while those who had a little paid the score and those who had nothing shared the bottle? Now and then, if we were lucky, we managed to pick a quarrel with one of the Garde du Corps, and if we left him on his hack in the Bois we felt that we had struck a blow for Napoleon once again.They came to know our haunts in time, and they avoided them as if they had been hornets' nests.

There was one of these--the Sign of the Great Man --in the Rue Varennes, which was frequented by several of the more distinguished and younger Napoleonic officers.Nearly all of us had been colonels or aides- de-camp, and when any man of less distinction came among us we generally made him feel that he had taken a liberty.There were Captain Lepine, who had won the medal of honour at Leipzig; Colonel Bonnet, aide-de-camp to Macdonald; Colonel Jourdan, whose fame in the army was hardly second to my own; Sabbatier of my own Hussars, Meunier of the Red Lancers, Le Breton of the Guards, and a dozen others.

Every night we met and talked, played dominoes, drank a glass or two,and wondered how long it would be before the Emperor would be back and we at the head of our regiments once more.The Bourbons had already lost any hold they ever had upon the country, as was shown a few years afterward, when Paris rose against them and they were hunted for the third time out of France.Napoleon had but to show himself on the coast, and he would have marched without firing a musket to the capital, exactly as he had done when he came back from Elba.

Well, when affairs were in this state there arrived one night in February, in our cafe, a most singular little man.He was short but exceedingly broad, with huge shoulders, and a head which was a deformity, so large was it.His heavy brown face was scarred with white streaks in a most extraordinary manner, and he had grizzled whiskers such as seamen wear.Two gold earrings in his ears, and plentiful tattooing upon his hands and arms, told us also that he was of the sea before he introduced himself to us as Captain Fourneau, of the Emperor's navy.He had letters of introduction to two of our number, and there could be no doubt that he was devoted to the cause.He won our respect, too, for he had seen as much fighting as any of us, and the burns upon his face were caused by his standing to his post upon the Orient, at the Battle of the Nile, until the vessel blew up underneath him.Yet he would say little about himself, but he sat in the corner of the cafe watching us all with a wonderfully sharp pair of eyes and listening intently to our talk.