Truth to tell, I needed no urging. I tried to stammer something of the pleasure the invitation gave me, but he stopped me with a kind little wave of the hand.
“For the past month I have been in the Bocage,” he went on, when that was settled. “Ah, if you would see true heroism, my friend, you must go there. A devoted people, fighting for their homes and for their faith, under leaders the most heroic that army ever had. It is against those peasants of La Vendée that this cursed carnival of slaughter will wreck itself.”
His face was alight with enthusiasm, his eyes shining with deep emotion.
“They are carrying all before them,” he went on, more calmly. “To-day, they are mere scattered peasants, working in their fields. To-morrow, they are an army of fifty thousand, springing from the very ground to smite the enemy. They shoot him down from behind their hedges, they put him to the sword, they send him staggering back to his barracks, all but annihilated. Then the next day, if there is no more fighting, they are back again with their flocks and herds. It recalls that golden age of Greece when every man was eager to give his life for his country.”
“But surely,” I objected, “trained troops should be able easily to stand against them.”
“They have not yet done so,” he retorted. “We have taken Les Herbiers, Montaigu, Chantonnay, Cholet and Vihiers, one after the other, like shaking ripe plums from a tree. After all, victory depends not so much upon organization or generalship, or even numbers, as upon the spirit of the men themselves. The army which goes into a battle with each individual unit of it bent on victory wins the victory. The army which fights half-heartedly loses. That is the history of every battle. The people of the Bocage are fighting for their homes and their religion—their souls are in the conflict, and they will never admit themselves defeated until the last man has been slain. Within a month the Blues will have been driven completely from Vendée, and the King will reign there;” and at the words he crossed himself. “‘God and the King’ is our watchword.”
He saw the question in the glance I turned upon him.
“You are wondering,” he said, “why at such a time I should have left the army. Two nights since I received a message that my wife was dangerously ill—dying even. The army will be victorious without me—but my wife——”
He stopped. I understood and nodded gently.
“Only that could have brought me away,” he added—“the certainty that she needed me. I started at once but found the Blues in force at Coulonges. I attempted to turn aside and at once lost my way amid the innumerable and abominable roads with which that country is cursed. I was forced finally to ride on to Chinon and then along the Loire, for it seemed as though every road was blocked by the enemy. I should have reached the château last night, and behold me only this far;” and he pricked his horse savagely and galloped forward.