A Sheaf of Bluebells

by Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy

"What was this military commission?" queried de Puisaye after a while.

"Ah, my good de Puisaye," exclaimed M. de Courson with a sigh, "you have lived so completely out of the world these past six or seven years, that I suppose you have no notion how absolutely this unfortunate country has come under the sway of military dictatorship. Everything, my good friend, is under military control—the police, of course; the municipality, the hospitals, the schools, the Church—let alone factories and munition foundries. Every man who owns and controls any kind of armament works and who finds it difficult to cope with his men has, it seems, the right to apply to the War Office to send him as many representatives as he may deem expedient to help him keep his workers in order. These representatives are really overseers with military rank and military authority; very convenient for the masters, but none too pleasant for the men!"

"Military tyranny invariably treads on the heels of democratic revolt," said Prigent sententiously. "The English have had their Cromwell, the unfortunate French nation is groaning under its Bonaparte."

"It does very little groaning just now," quoth M. de Courson dryly. "Bonaparte is amazingly popular. The army worships him—cela va sans dire—but so does the populace. We have had great difficulty in rallying the proletariat round here to their allegiance."

"Well," interjected d'Aché somewhat impatiently, "what did this military commission do enfin? What did it consist of?"

"It consisted of four or five exceedingly vulgar men in uniform, who ruled the Maurel foundries with a rod of iron. Punishments for slackness and disobedience were doled out with a free hand, and the slightest attempt at concerted grumbling was instantly met with handcuffs, arrest, bread and water and other unpleasant manifestations of military discipline. The men openly sighed for the return of 'the General,' as they call Ronnay de Maurel, though he was none too pleasant a taskmaster either, so I've been told."

"And I suppose that while that military commission sat at La Frontenay, you were able to do very little in the way of recruiting for the King?"

"Very little indeed. You see, most of the able-bodied men in the neighbourhood are employed in the foundries, and it is only here and there that we have found a malcontent who was willing to come over to us. But we have got the two hundred men from the powder factory; they are ready to join us the moment your men march on La Frontenay."

"Ah!" exclaimed de Puisaye, as he once more rubbed his wrinkled hands together with an excited gesture which seemed habitual to him. "Ah! there you have it at last, my good d'Aché. Our friend de Courson has explained the situation to you as it has been this past year; now let me tell you how we stand at this present, and what causes me to be so certain for the future. The two hundred men of whom de Courson speaks are convicts employed solely in the more dangerous processes of the manufacture of gunpowder. They are a rough, surly, discontented lot, who live segregated from their fellow-workmen in compounds, which are under special supervision, and they are subject to special discipline. Personally, I should say that even so with these restrictions it was pleasanter to manufacture gunpowder in the factories of La Frontenay than in the jails of Caen or the galleys of Brest. But apparently Paul Leroux, who is in some sort of way the acknowledged leader of the gang, and his mates do not think so. They hate old Gaston de Maurel, they hate Ronnay, they execrated the military commission. They only work under strict compulsion—some say under the lash; in any case, they only work under the terror of punishment, and they are ready at any moment to rebel, to murder, to blow up the factory or to come in on our side—to do anything, in fact, for a change from their present condition, and, above all, for a bribe in the form of a promise of liberty and of money."

While de Puisaye spoke all the men had sat down and drawn their chairs together round a table which stood by the window in a corner of the room. Madame la Marquise, too, had joined the conclave, her enthusiasm and her energy were at least equal to that of any man. Only Fernande sat a little outside the circle, at the end of a sofa, near her father and close beside the window, from whence she could see right over the park to the distant wooded hills, thick and heavy with foliage now, and with the brilliant June sun picking out the clumps of wild roses round the edge of the wood, and the little stream in the valley which wound its turbulent course to the silent pool far away.