"monsieur," said pichegru, using the old form of address, which had been abolished in france for a year, "if you were a spy i would have you shot; if you were an ordinary recruiting officer who staked his life for gain, i would send you to the revolutionary tribunal, and you would be guillotined. you are a man in whom confidence has been reposed, and i believe that you have acted more from sympathy than principle. i will reply to you seriously, and i will send you back to the prince with my answer.
"i belong to the people, but my birth in no wise influences my political opinions, they are due entirely to my historical studies.
"nations are great organized bodies, subject to human disease. sometimes it is emaciation, and then tonics are necessary; sometimes it is plethora, and then bleeding is prescribed. you tell me that the republic is a chimera. i agree with you that it is now. and that is where your error comes in. we are not yet a republic; we are in the midst of a revolution. for a hundred and fifty years kings have ruined us; for three hundred years nobles have oppressed us; for nine centuries priests have held us in slavery. the time has come when the burden has grown too heavy for the backs which bear it, and '89 has proclaimed the rights of man, reduced the clergy to the rank of other subjects of the kingdom, and abolished every kind of privilege.
"there remained the king, whose rights had not been touched. he was asked: 'will you accept france as we shall[pg 174] remodel it, with its three orders—the people, clergy, and nobility—each depending on the other; will you accept the constitution with the privileges which it accords you, the revenues it grants you, the duties it imposes on you? reflect carefully. if you refuse, say no, and abdicate; if you accept, say yes, and take the oath.'
"the king said yes, and took the oath.
"the next day he left paris; and so confident was he that all due precautions had been taken and that he could reach the frontier in safety, that he sent this message to the representatives of the nation, who had received his oath on the previous evening:
"'i have been compelled to take the oath; it was made with the lips and not the heart; i hold my duties in abeyance, and resume my rights and privileges; and i will return with the enemy to punish you for your revolt.'"
"you forget, general," said fauche-borel, "that those whom you call the enemy were his own family."
"well," said pichegru, "that is just the trouble. the king's family were the enemies of france. but how could it be otherwise? half of the blood that flowed in the veins of louis xvi., son of louis xv. and a princess of saxony, was not even french blood; he married an archduchess, and we have for the royal armorial bearings, the first and third quarters of lorraine, the second of austria, and the fourth only of france. the result is as you have said. when louis xvi. quarrels with his people he appeals to his family; but as the family is the enemy of france, he appeals to the enemy, and as the enemy enters france at the summons of the king, he commits the crime of high treason against the nation—a crime as great as high treason against the king, if, indeed, it is not greater.
"then a terrible state of affairs results. while the king prays for the success of the arms of his family—which means the disgrace of france—and while the queen, seeing the prussians at verdun, counts the days that it will take them to reach paris, france, beside herself with hate and[pg 175] patriotism, rises as one man and recognizes that she has enemies on the frontier—austrians and prussians; enemies in her very capital—the king and the queen; secret enemies—nobles and aristocrats. she defeats the prussians at valmy, the austrians at jemmapes; she stabs her aristocrats in paris, and beheads both king and queen on the place de la révolution. by means of this terrible convulsion she believes that she is saved, and breathes freely.
"but she is mistaken; for the family that made war under the pretext of replacing louis xvi. on the throne, continues to make war under pretext of crowning louis xvii., but in reality that france may be invaded and dismembered. spain wishes to regain roussillon; austria wants alsace and the franche-comté; prussia the margraviates of anspach and beyreuth. the nobles form three divisions; one attacks us on the rhine, another on the loire, and a third conspires. war within, war without! foreign war and civil war! on the frontier thousands of men lying on the battlefields; in france itself thousands of men massacred in prison, thousands of men dragged to the guillotine. why? because the king, after taking the oath, did not keep it, and instead of trusting to his people, to france, threw himself into the arms of his family, the enemy."
"but then you approve of the massacres of september?"
"i deplore them. but what can you do against a people?"
"you approve of the king's death?"
"i regard it as a terrible thing; but the king should have kept his oath."
"do you approve of political executions?"
"i think them abominable; but the king should not have called in the enemy."
"oh! you may say what you like, general; the year '93 is a fatal one."
"for royalty, yes; for france, no."
"but aside from civil and foreign wars, aside from all these massacres and executions, it is nothing short of bank[pg 176]ruptcy to issue all those thousands of francs in paper money."
"i should be glad to see the country bankrupt."
"so should i, if royalty could have the credit of restoring her credit."
"credit will be re-established by the division of property."
"how so?"
"have you not seen that all the lands belonging to the emigrated nobles, and to the church, have been confiscated by the convention; and that it has been decreed that they shall belong to the nation?"
"yes; but what of that?"
"have you not perceived that they have issued another decree to the effect that these lands can be bought with paper money at par value?"
"yes."
"well, my dear sir, there you have it! with a thousand francs in paper money—which is not enough to buy ten pounds of bread from the baker—the poor man can purchase an acre of land, which he can cultivate himself, and with which he can furnish bread for himself and his family."
"who will dare to buy stolen property?"
"confiscated; which is by no means the same thing."
"what difference? no one would take upon himself to become the accomplice of the revolution."
"do you know how much has been sold this year?"
"no."
"more than a thousand million francs' worth. next year double that amount will be sold."
"next year! but do you think that the republic will last till next year?"
"the revolution—"
"well, the revolution—why, vergniaud says that the revolution is like saturn, and that it eats all its children."
"it has a great many children, and some of them are hard to digest."
[pg 177]
"but you see that the girondins are already devoured."
"the cordeliers are left."
"some day the jacobins will devour them at a gulp."
"then the jacobins will be left."
"good! but they have no men like danton, and camille desmoulins, to make a formidable party."
"they have men like robespierre and saint-just, and they are the only party that are in the right."
"and after them?"
"after them i see no one else, and i fear much that with them the revolution must end."
"and in the meantime, think of the rivers of blood that will flow."
"revolutions are ever thirsty."
"but these men are tigers."
"in a revolution i do not fear tigers as much as i do foxes."
"and you will consent to serve them?"
"yes, because they will still be the ruling power of france. a sylla or a marius does not exhaust a nation; a caligula or a nero enervates it."
"then in your opinion each of the parties that you have named will rise and fall in turn."
"if the genius of france is logical, it will be so."
"explain yourself."
"every party that comes into power will accomplish great things, for which it will be rewarded by the gratitude of our children; it will also commit great crimes, for which its contemporaries will punish its members; and that which has happened to the girondins will happen to all the others. the girondins brought about the death of the king—mind i do not say royalty—and they were in turn destroyed by the cordeliers; the cordeliers destroyed the girondins, and they will in all probability be destroyed in turn by the jacobins; and the jacobins, the last outgrowth of the revolution, will in turn be destroyed. by whom? i have already told you that i do not know. when they have disappeared, come[pg 178] and see me, m. fauche-borel, for then bloodshed will have ceased."
"and then, where shall we be?"
"we will probably be ashamed of ourselves! now, i can serve a government that i hate, but i never could serve one that i despised; my motto is that of thraseas: non sibi deesse (never be wanting to one's self)."
"and your reply?"
"it is this: the present moment would be ill-chosen to attempt to stay the revolution. just now it is proving its strength by beheading five hundred persons a day at nantes, toulon, lyons and paris. we must wait until lassitude ensues."
"and then?"
"and then," continued pichegru, gravely, "as it would be deplorable if france wearied of action, should be exhausted by reaction, and as i have no more confidence in the tolerance of the bourbons than in that of the people, on the day when i take the first step toward bringing back one or the other member of that family, i shall have in my pocket a charter like that of england, or a constitution like that of america, which shall guarantee the rights of the people, and define the duties of the sovereign; this will be an essential condition. i should like to be a monk, but a monk of the eighteenth century, a monk of '93, preparing for the presidency of a washington, and not for the royalty of charles ii."
"monk made his own conditions, general," said fauche-borel.
"i should be content to make conditions for france."
"well, general, his highness has forestalled you, and here is a paper which will, i am sure, far exceed anything that you could impose for the welfare of france."
pichegru, who, like most francs-comtois, was a smoker, had filled his pipe toward the close of these remarks, and this important operation was just concluded when fauche-borel handed him the prince's paper.
[pg 179]
"but," said pichegru, laughing, "i thought that i had made you understand that, if i accepted at all, it would not be for two or three years."
"very well; but that does not prevent you from considering the contents of this paper," replied fauche-borel.
"very well," replied pichegru, "when that time comes we will consider it." and without seeking to know what was in the paper, without even unfolding it, he put it in the stove, and lighted his pipe with it, letting it burn until it was entirely consumed.
fauche-borel, thinking at first that the act resulted from absent-mindedness, made a movement to catch his arm, then, seeing that it was intentional, he drew back and let the paper burn.
just then the gallop of a horse entering the courtyard made both men turn their heads. it was macdonald who had returned, and his reeking horse showed that he had an important communication to make.
pichegru, who had bolted the door, hastened to unfasten it; for he did not wish to be found closeted with the supposed clerk, whose real name and mission might be discovered later. the door opened almost immediately, and macdonald appeared upon the threshold. his cheeks, which were naturally ruddy, had taken a deeper hue, for they had been exposed to the north wind and a fine rain.
"general," said he, "the advance guard of the army of the moselle is at pfaffenheim; the entire army is following, and i have preceded general hoche and his staff by a few minutes only."
"ah!" said pichegru, with an expression of frank satisfaction. "you have given me good news, macdonald. i predicted that we should capture the lines of weissembourg in eight days, but i was mistaken. with a general like hoche, and men like those who compose the army of the moselle, we shall take them in four."
he had scarcely finished when hoche and his staff rode rapidly into the courtyard, which was at once filled by[pg 180] horses, men, plumes, and floating scarfs. the old building shook to its foundations; it was as if a wave of life, youth, courage, patriotism, and honor had suddenly surged around its walls. in an instant all the riders had dismounted and thrown back their cloaks.
"general," said fauche-borel, "perhaps it would be well for me to retire."
"no, on the contrary, you had better remain," said pichegru; "then you will be able to tell the prince de condé that the motto of the republican generals is really fraternity."
pichegru placed himself opposite the door to receive the man whom the government had sent as his superior officer; macdonald and fauche-borel stood a little behind him to his right and left.
the young officers mounted the stairs with careless good-humored laughter; but when hoche, who preceded the others, opened the door and they saw pichegru, they were silent. hoche removed his hat, and the others followed his example; they entered the room with uncovered heads, and formed a circle around it.
then, approaching pichegru with a low bow, hoche said: "general, the convention has erred; it has named me, a soldier of twenty-five, as general-in-chief of the armies of the rhine and the moselle, forgetting that one of the greatest soldiers of the age commands the army of the rhine. i have come to rectify this mistake, general, by putting myself under your orders and begging you to teach me the rude and difficult art of war. i have instinct, but you have science; i am only twenty-five years old, you are thirty-three; you are miltiades, i am scarcely themistocles; the laurels upon which you repose would disturb my rest: i therefore ask only to share your bed." then, turning to his officers, who stood with bent heads, hat in hand, he said: "citizens, here is your general-in-chief; in the name of the safety of the republic and the glory of france, i ask you, and, if necessary, i command you, to obey him as i myself shall obey him."
[pg 181]
pichegru listened with a smile, while hoche continued: "i have not come to take from you the glory of reconquering the lines of weissembourg—a work which you began so well yesterday; your plan is probably already made, and i shall adopt it, being only too happy to serve under you in this glorious work as your aide-de-camp." then, holding out his hands toward pichegru, he added: "in all things relating to war i swear obedience to my senior, my superior, my model, the illustrious general pichegru. it is your turn, citizens!"
with one accord hoche's entire staff raised their hands and took the oath.
"your hand, general," said hoche.
"come to my arms," said pichegru.
hoche threw himself into pichegru's arms, who pressed him to his heart. then turning to fauche-borel, while his arm still rested around his young colleague's neck, pichegru said: "tell the prince what you have seen, citizen, and inform him that we shall attack him to-morrow morning at seven o'clock. these little civilities are not amiss between compatriots."
fauche-borel saluted.
"the last of your compatriots, citizen," he said, "died with that thrascas whose motto you quoted just now. you are the true romans of old rome."
and he went out.
