Tom Burke Of "Ours", Volume I

by Charles James Lever

The youth pressed George's fingers to his pale lips, and with his head bent down and listless gait, moved slowly away.

As I wandered from the spot, my heart was full of all I had witnessed. The influence of their chief had surprised me on the night of the attack on the château. But how much more wonderful did it seem now when confined within the walls of a prison,—the only exit to which was the path that led to the guillotine! Yet was their reliance on all he said as great, as implicit their faith in him, as warm their affection, as though success had crowned each effort he suggested, and that fortune had been as kind as she had proved adverse to his enterprise.

Such were the Chohans in the Temple. Life had presented to their hardy natures too many vicissitudes to make them quail beneath the horrors of a prison; death they had confronted in many shapes, and they feared it not even at the hands of the executioner. Loyalty to the exiled family of France was less a political than a religious feeling,—one inculcated at the altar, and carried home to the fireside of the cottage. Devotion to their King was a part of their faith; the sovereign was but a saint the more in their calendar. The glorious triumphs of the Revolutionary armies, the great conquests of the Consulate, found no sympathy within their bosoms; they neither joined the battle nor partook of the ovation. They looked on all such as the passing pageant of the hour, and muttered to one another that the bon Dieu could not bless a nation that was false to its King.

Who could see them as they met each morning, and not feel deeply interested in these brave but simple peasants? At daybreak they knelt together in prayer, their chief officiating as priest; their deep voices joined in the hymn of their own native valleys, as with tearful eyes they sang the songs that reminded them of home. The service over, George addressed them in a short speech: some words of advice and guidance for the coming day; reminding them that ere another morning shone, many might be summoned before the tribunal to be examined, and from, thence led forth to death; exhorting them to fidelity to each other and loyalty to their glorious cause. Then came the games of their country, which they played with all the enthusiasm of liberty and happiness. These were again succeeded by hours passed in hearing and relating stories of their beloved Bretagne,—of its tried faith and its ancient bravery; while, through all, they lived a community apart from the other prisoners, who never dared to obtrude upon them: nor did the most venturesome of the police spies ever transgress a limit that might have cost him his life.

Thus did two so different currents run side by side within the walls of the Temple, and each regarding the other with distrust and dislike.

While thus I felt a growing interest for these bold but simple children of the forest, my anxiety for my own fate grew hourly greater. No answer was ever returned to my letter to the minister, nor any notice taken of it whatever; and though each day I heard of some one or other being examined before the “Tribunal Special” or the Préfet de Police, I seemed as much forgotten as though the grave enclosed me. My dread of anything like acquaintance or intimacy with the other prisoners prevented my learning much of what went forward each day, and from which, from some source or other, they seemed well informed. A chance phrase, an odd word now and then dropped, would tell me of some new discovery by the police or some recent confession by a captured conspirator; but of what the crime consisted, and who were they principally implicated, I remained totally ignorant.

It was well known that both Moreau and Pichegru were confined in a part of the tower that opened upon the terrace, but neither suffered to communicate with each other, nor even to appear at large like the other prisoners. It was rumored, too, that each day one or both were submitted to long and searching examinations, which, it was said, had hitherto elicited nothing from either save total denial of any complicity whatever, and complete ignorance of the plots and machinations of others.

So much we could learn from the “Moniteur,” which reached us each day; and while assuming a tone of open reprobation regarding the Chouans, spoke in terms the most cautious and reserved respecting the two generals, as if probing the public mind how far their implication in treason might be credited, and with what faith the proofs of their participation might be received.

At last the train seemed laid; the explosion was all prepared, and nothing wanting but the spark to ignite it. A letter from Moreau to the Consul appeared in the columns of the Government paper; in which, after recapitulating in terms most suitable the services he had rendered the Republic while in command of the army of the Rhine,—the confidence the Convention had always placed in him, the frequent occasions which had presented themselves to him of gratifying ambitious views (had he conceived such he adverted, in brief but touching terms, to his conduct on the 18th Brumaire in seconding the adventurous step taken by Bonaparte himself, and attributed the neglect his devotion had met with, rather to the interference and plotting of his enemies than to any estrangement on the part of the Consul.) Throughout the whole of the epistle there reigned a tone of reverence for the authority of Bonaparte most striking and remarkable; there was nothing like an approach to the equality which might well be supposed to subsist between two great generals,—albeit the one was at the height of power, and the other sunk in the very depth of misfortune. On the contrary, the letter was nothing more than an appeal to old souvenirs and former services to one who possessed the power, if he had the will, to save him; it breathed throughout the sentiments of one who demands a favor, and that favor his life and honor, at the hands of him who had already constituted himself the fountain of both.

While such was the position of Moreau,—a position which resulted in his downfall,—chance informed as of the different ground occupied by his companion in misfortune, the Greneral Pichegru.