“I wonder how long any of us will stay here,” observed Lucien thoughtfully. “And as to being buried—we may not have much choice in the matter of locality.”
The other two looked at him with equal thoughtfulness, for in this ebb of fortune the idea was not by now a new one.
“I make only one stipulation about my death,” announced the Chevalier de la Vergne with composure, “and that is, to fall at the same moment as M. le Duc. And you, Roland, have you chosen yours? You look as if you were selecting it.”
“No, I was thinking about Mme la Duchesse,” answered the young man rather unexpectedly.
(2)
It is a terrible hour when a man of superlative pride and self-will learns that Destiny—or another man—has a stronger will than he.
And this hour struck for Gaston de Trélan the very day after his arrival at La Vergne, when he received an ultimatum from General Brune giving him twenty-four hours in which to consent to an unconditional surrender, involving disarmament as well as disbandment. Otherwise the army of Holland, already on the march, would enter Finistère at several points—Finistère laid open to them not only by the capitulation of her more formidable neighbours, the Morbihan and the Côtes-du-Nord, but also by the dispersal of her own defenders. Never very numerous, they had quite forsaken the standard now, returning to their farms or going into hiding, and during the last few days it had become abundantly clear that all “M. de Kersaint’s” careful organisation was in ruins; despairing reports from subordinates, gentlemen or Chouans, in the outlying districts, each said that their little bands had melted away like snow. His own personal followers were, indeed, more than ever devoted, but the flame he had lit through Finistère was out, and he stood, a beaten man, among its ashes.
Yet though he might be overwhelmed by numbers and his men scattered, so long as the arms he had been at such pains to procure for them were not given up to the enemy but hidden (as was the case) he had not utterly failed, since Finistère would not be defenceless for the future. And to disarmament he had said that he would never consent—he would rather die. Now it was required of him to give the order for it immediately. More, within less than ten days he was to surrender his own sword in person to the Republican commander-in-chief.
On this culminating humiliation Brune—or rather, that intense and vehement personality in Paris of whom Brune was but the mouthpiece—insisted absolutely. The Marquis de Kersaint, he wrote (following his instructions) must not only submit at once, and effectually disarm his men, but he must also be at Vannes on February 24 to give up his sword and ratify the whole transaction. If not, the preceding evidences of submission would go for nothing, and Finistère would be laid waste without the loss of a day: every man known to have fought under him would be shot, every fifth house burnt in the insurgent villages. Nothing would avail him unless he regularised the situation by giving up his own sword; and to that end Brune sent him, with the ultimatum, safe-conducts for himself and an escort of three or four persons.
There was no choice, no shadow of a possible alternative. It was not merely that Gaston de Trélan’s military situation was hopeless—almost ludicrously so—alone with a few score men not merely against Brune, but, since the submission of the other leaders, against La Barolière and Chabot as well; it was that if he refused the terms he was condemning Finistère to the fate that had been Vendée’s years ago under Turreau’s colonnes infernales. If he had any heart in him, any humanity, he must drink this bitter cup. The chance of dying had not been granted him; to kill himself was tantamount to refusing. No help, no word of help, had come from England; he did not even know whether the Abbé had reached his destination. Besides, no help could possibly come in time now.