La Vendée

by Anthony Trollope

The old motto, attributing disrespect to every prophet in his own country, had not been proved true with reference to Cathelineau in St. Florent. His deeds, during the short period of his triumph, had been celebrated there with general admiration, and since his death, his memory had been almost adored. The people of the town had had no public means of showing their appreciation of his valour; they had not as yet had time to erect monuments to his honour, or to establish other chronicles of his virtues, than those which were written in the hearts of his townsmen. He had left an aged mother behind him, who had long been dependent on his exertions for support, and they had endeavoured to express their feeling of his services, by offering to place her beyond the reach of poverty; but, unaccountably enough, she was the only person in St. Florent, who was dissatisfied with her son’s career, and angry with the town which had induced him to adopt it.

She still lived in a small cottage near the extremity of St. Florent, which had been the residence of Cathelineau as long as he supported himself by his humble calling. It was now wrecked and shattered, and showed those certain signs of ruin which quickly fall on the dwellings of the aged poor, who have no young relatives round them. Here she would sit and spin, seldom now interrupted by any; though at first her neighbours used to flock thither to celebrate the praises of her son. She had loved her son, as warmly as other mothers love their children; but she had loved him as a hard-working labourer, earning for herself and for him their daily pittance; not as a mighty General, courted and complimented by the rich and great of the land. She had begged him not to go out into the town on the morning when he had been so instrumental in saving his townsmen from the ignominy of being pressed into the service of the Republic; and when he returned in the evening, crowned with laurels, she had not congratulated him. She had uttered nothing but evil bodings to him on the day when he first went to Durbellière; and when he returned from Saumur, chief General of all the forces of then victorious La Vendée, she had refused to participate in the glories which awaited him in his native town. On his departure to Nantes she had prophesied to him his death, and when the tidings of his fall were first brought to her, she merely said that she had expected it. The whole town mourned openly for Cathelineau, except his mother. She wept for him in silence and alone; but she wept for the honest, sturdy, hard-working labourer whom she had reared beneath her roof, and who had been beguiled away by vain people, to vain pursuits, which had ended in his death; while others bewailed the fall of a great captain, who had conferred honour on their town, and who, had he been spared, might have heaped glory on his country. Since that time, she had not ceased to rail on those who had seduced her son into celebrity and danger; and, after a while, had been left to rail alone.

When nearly all the inhabitants of the town flocked down to the river-side, anxious to escape from the wrath of the republicans, she resolutely refused to move, declaring that if it were God’s will that she should perish under the ashes of her little cottage, she would do so, and that nothing should induce her, in her extreme old age, to leave the spot on which she had been born, and had always lived. During the whole confusion, attending the passage of the river, she sat there undisturbed; and though she saw all her poor neighbours leave their humble dwellings, and all their little property, to look for safety in Brittany, she did not move.

On the day after that on which de Lescure had passed over, she was sitting alone in her cabin, and the unceasing whirl of her spinning-wheel proved that the distractions of the time had not made her idle. By this time all those who had lived immediately near her, were gone. It is not to be supposed that absolutely every inhabitant of the town left his home; there were some who had taken no prominent part in the war, and who could not believe that the republicans would destroy those whom they found quietly living in their own houses; but all the poorer part of the population were gone, and not a living soul but herself remained in the row of cabins, of which Cathelineau’s mother occupied one.

Her wheel was turning fast round, obedient to the quick motion of her foot, and her two hands were employed in preparing the flax before it was caught by the wheel; but her mind was far away from her ordinary pursuit. She had been thinking how true were the prophetic warnings with which she had implored her son to submit to the republicans, and how surely she had foreseen the desolation which his resistance had brought on all around her. And yet there was more of affection than bitterness in her thoughts of her son. She acknowledged to herself his high qualities; she knew well how good, how noble, how generous, had been his disposition. She was, even in her own way, proud of his fame; but she hated, with an unmixed hatred, those whom she thought had urged him on to his ruin—those friends of noble blood, who would have spurned the postillion from their doors had he presumed to enter them in former days; but who had thrust him into the van of danger in the hour of need, and had persuaded him, fond and foolish as he had been, to use his courage, his energy, and his genius, in fighting for them a battle, in which he should have had no personal interest.

As she sat there spinning, and thinking thus bitterly of the causes of all her woe, a figure darkened the door of her cottage, and looking up she saw a young lady dressed in black. She was tall, and of a noble mien; her face was very beautiful, but pale and sad, as were the faces of most in these sad times. Her dress was simple, and she was unattended; but yet there was that about her, which assured the old woman that she was not of simple blood, and which prepared her to look upon her as an enemy.

It was Agatha Larochejaquelin. She and her father had, by slow stages, reached St. Florent in safety; and, after having seen him at rest, and spoken a word to her brother, her first care had been to inquire after the mother of Cathelineau. She had been told of her solitary state, and of her stubborn resolution to remain at St. Florent, and she determined to offer her any aid in her power, as a duty due to the memory of him, with whom she had been, for a short time, so strangely connected.

The old woman rose mechanically, and made a slight obeisance as she saw Agatha’s commanding figure, and then reseating herself, hastily recommenced her work, as though she had forgotten herself, in having been thus far courteous to her guest.

“I have come to express my esteem and respect to the mother of Cathelineau,” said Agatha, as soon as she found herself inside the cottage. “I knew and valued your son, and I shall be glad to know his mother. Was not the brave Cathelineau your son, my friend?” she added, seeing that the old woman stared at her, as though she did not as yet comprehend the object of her visit.

“My name is Françoise Cathelineau,” said the sybil, “and Jacques Cathelineau was my son.”