On landing in America numerous poignant deceptions awaited the adventurers. The mines, indeed, existed—they were rich; but the gold they contained could only be extracted with great difficulty, great fatigue, and, above all, great expense—three impossibilities which our gold-seekers could not overcome.
Many perished either of want, or of a violent death through pot-house quarrels, or through the change of climate, to which they had not the time to grow accustomed. Those who survived, wan and ragged, displayed their starving faces in all the bad places of San Francisco, ready to do anything for the smallest sum of money that would lull their wolfish appetite.
In the meanwhile the first adventurers had been succeeded by others, and still they flocked in. The few, privileged by fortune, who returned to Europe rich in a few months, had naturally aroused the cupidity of the numberless pariahs of civilisation; and San Francisco, that country blessed by Heaven, whose climate is so fine and soil so fertile, threatened to become a vast and mournful cemetery.
At this time it happened that a few enterprising men, seeing their illusions fading away, and perceiving that the gold they coveted so ardently constantly fled before them while they were unable to catch it, turned their glances in another direction, and, despairing of growing rich in the mines, resolved to seize, sword and revolver in hand, those riches which it was impossible for them to acquire otherwise; that is to say, they resuscitated for their own behoof the filibustering expeditions of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.
Thus was a new path opened to emerge from the frightful wretchedness in which they languished, and the adventurers eagerly entered upon it. Filibustering enterprises sprang up on all sides with as much regularity as if they had been perfectly respectable financial operations; and the plethora of San Francisco began, to the great relief of the peaceful population, to be diverted on the surrounding countries.
The count had, therefore, arrived at a propitious moment to put in execution the plan he meditated. He belonged to one of the oldest and noblest families in France. He enjoyed, and that justly, a spotless reputation in California; moreover, he was very strict in the selection of the men he enlisted; finally, he offered an honourable scope for their ambition, which is very flattering to men who have nothing to lose. Nothing more was needed to excite the emulation of all the ragamuffins, and urge them to place themselves under his orders.
Among the adventurers were many really estimable persons, who in no way merited the sad fate they were undergoing, and who, seduced by the unknown, had been attracted to California by the fallacious promises of European speculators, and had been the victims of the scoundrels who induced them to emigrate. These men endured their sufferings nobly, awaiting with the patience of well-tempered hearts the opportunity to take their revenge and regain that position which a moment of mad intoxication and credulous simplicity had made them forfeit.
The Count, with that infallible glance he possessed, and the knowledge of mankind which lengthened misfortune had enabled him to acquire, had picked out the best men from the crowd that daily invaded his house so soon as his intention became known, and assured himself of the co-operation of devoted comrades of tried courage, who, regarding the count's enterprise as the sole means of emerging from their frightful position, attached themselves to him with a firm resolve to do or die.
Hence we will assert here that of all the expeditions formed at that period in California, the only really honourable one which contained the elements of success was that led by Count Louis de Prébois Crancé.
We do not go beyond the mark when we say that the count was adored by his comrades. These rude adventurers, so harshly tried by destiny, had guessed, with the ineffable perspicacity of men who have suffered greatly, the inexhaustible kindness, perfect loyalty, and vast intelligence locked up in the heart of their chief, and how much tender solicitude and friendship for them were concealed beneath his mournful countenance and the imposing severity of his liquid blue eye. Thus it was not merely respect he inspired them with, but veneration and devotion, extending almost to fanaticism.