“Till August!” repeated Placide. “Nearly six months! I scarcely think the French could hold their footing so long, if—but that—”
“If what? Except for what?”
“If it were not for the tremendous reinforcements which I fear will be sent.”
“I thought so,” said his father.
“All France is eager to come,” continued Placide. “The thousands who are here (about twelve thousand, I fancy; but they did what they could to prevent our knowing the numbers exactly)—the thousands who are here are looked upon with envy by those who are left behind. The jealousy was incredible—the clamour to gain appointments to the Saint Domingo expedition.”
“To be appointed to pestilence in the hospitals, and a grave in the sands!” exclaimed Toussaint. “It is strange! Frenchmen enough have died here, in seasons of trouble, to convince all France that only in times of peace, leisure, stillness, and choice of residence, have Europeans a fair chance of life here, for a single year. It is strange that they do not foresee their own death-angels clustering on our shores.”
“The delusion is so strong,” said Placide, “that I verily believe that if these twelve thousand were all dead to-day, twenty thousand more would be ready to come to-morrow. If every officer was buried here, the choicest commanders there would press forward over their graves. If even the Leclercs should perish, I believe that other relatives of the First Consul, and perhaps some other of his sisters, would kneel to him, as these have done, to implore him to appoint them to the new expedition to Saint Domingo.”
“The madness of numbers is never without an open cause,” said Toussaint. “What is the cause here?”
“Clear and plain enough. The representations of the emigrants coming in aid of the secret wishes of Bonaparte, have, under his encouragement, turned the heads of his family, his court, and after them, of his people.”
“The emigrants sigh for their country (and it is a country to sigh after), and they look back on their estates and their power, I suppose; while the interval of ten years dims in their memories all inconveniences from the climate, and from the degradation of their order.”