The army corps consisted of 4000 men; each soldier could have at least a sheep to himself, and each began considering what kind of sauce he would serve to his own dish.
At the announcement of this strange news, M. Hugo advanced to the front. And there he saw through the dust first a dozen men on horseback, armed with long sticks studded with nails, like lances; behind these came the impenetrable front of 300,000 sheep; and upon the heels of these 300,000 sheep two hundred barking, biting dogs darting hither and thither. It looked like the migration of a great Arab tribe, in the time of Abraham. The story was quite correct, except the name of the owner, which the officer had taken the liberty of mispronouncing slightly to suit the occasion. The proprietor's name was not Quatrecentberger (four hundred shepherds), but Katzenberger. It will be seen that the difference in pronunciation was so slight that the officer may be forgiven his appropriate pun. M. Katzenberger was a wealthy Alsatian speculator who had risked almost the whole of his fortune in a speculation in merino sheep. A great melancholy spread throughout the troops when it became known that the flock belonged to a compatriot. It was utterly unlikely that M. Hugo would allow M. Katzenberger's flock to be impounded, whether of 300,000 or even of 400,000 beasts. And, as a matter of fact, the chief shepherd, who had trembled for a moment at the prospective ruin of his master, received from General Hugo a promise that not only should every single hair of his merinoes go scot free, but that he should have a passport requesting all the French army corps to treat M. Katzenberger's shepherds, dogs and sheep with the utmost respect.
It was an odd incident! The flock reached France without any serious accident, and by this almost unexpected good fortune M. Katzenberger doubled, trebled and quadrupled his fortune. His first action was to offer General Hugo a sum of money proportionate to the service he had rendered him. General Hugo's first and final decision was to decline the offered sum. I believe it was 300,000 francs—a franc per sheep.
And here let us state that General Hugo, who held a high position for four years during the wars in Spain, who was given the charge of conducting the retreat from Madrid to Bayonne, a position which always allowed a general great facilities for enriching himself, died without any picture gallery, or a single Murillo or Velasquez or Zurbaran, possessing no other fortune but his retiring pension. It seems incredible, does it not? And yet so it was. But, the directors of the Musée will ask me, or those millionaire collectors who bought pictures for 600,000, 200,000, 50,000 and even 25,000 francs, at the sale after the decease of the late Marshal Soult, what benefit did he derive from his disinterested conduct towards M. Katzenberger? He was the gainer by an annual dinner which M. Katzenberger came from Strasbourg on purpose to give him and all the members of his family in Paris, on the anniversary of the great event that made his fortune. And this dinner was on a splendid scale: it must have cost the grateful Strasbourgian at least fifty louis.
During the winter of 1812 and the early months of 1813, in consequence of our misfortunes in Russia, matters began to assume such a threatening aspect in Spain that General Hugo felt it was dangerous to keep his wife and children at Madrid. Therefore Madame Hugo and her two youngest sons were put under the protection of quite as strong an escort as the one we have described, and they made the return journey from Madrid to Bayonne on their way to Paris, as successfully as they had travelled between Bayonne and Madrid. Madame Hugo had thought it best to keep the convent of the Feuillantines, so the two children returned to their old nest with its light and shade, its recollections of work and of play, and, furthermore, the abbé Larivière and his Tacitus. Abel Hugo, a soldier boy of thirteen, remained with his father.
[CHAPTER IX]
The college and the garden of the Feuillantines—Grenadier or general—Victor Hugo's first appearance in public—He obtains honourable mention at the Academy examination—He carries off three prizes in the Jeux Floraux—Han d'Islande—The poet and the bodyguard—Hugo's marriage—The Odes et Ballades—Proposition made by cousin Cornet