Jules Janin was born at Saint-Étienne in 1804, and died in Paris in 1874. In 1836 he entered on that famous career of forty years as dramatic critic of the “Journal des Débats.” These contributions were afterward collected under the title “History of Dramatic Literature.”
THE VENDEAN MARRIAGE
BY JULES JANIN
Translated by Jane G. Cooke.
Copyright, 1899, by The Current Literature Publishing Company.
So you have never heard the circumstances of Monsieur Baudelot de Dairval’s marriage, the man who died four years ago, and was so mourned by his wife that she died a week later herself, good lady? Yet it is a story worth telling.
It happened in the Vendée, and the hero, a Vendean, brave, young, daring, and of fine family, died tranquilly in his bed without ever suspecting that there would be a second Vendée.
Baudelot de Dairval was the grandson of that César Baudelot who is mentioned in the Memoirs of the Duchess of Orleans, own mother of the regent Louis Philippe. This woman, who has thrown such contempt on the greatest names of France, could not help praising César de Baudelot. Saint-Simon, skeptic and mocker, but good fellow withal, also spoke highly of him. So you’ll understand that bearing such a name young Henri was not lost to report in the first Vendée, to protest arms in hand against the excesses of the Revolution. Baudelot was a Vendean simply because a man of his name and nature could be nothing else. He fought like his associates, neither more nor less. He was the friend of Cathelmeau and of all the others. He took part in those battles of giants; he took part fighting stoutly, and then laughing and singing as soon as he no longer heard the cries of the wounded. What wars, what livid tempests were ever like those? But it is not my business to tell again the story so often told.
But I want to tell you that one day, surprised at a farm by a detachment of Blues, Baudelot unexpectedly called together his troop. “My friends,” said he, “this farm is surrounded. You must all escape! Take with you the women and children. Rejoin our chief, Cathelmeau. As for me, I’ll stay and defend the gate. I certainly can hold it alone for ten minutes. Those three thousand out there would massacre us all. Good-by, good-by, my brave fellows! Don’t forget me! It’s my turn to-day. You’ll get yourselves killed to-morrow!”
In those exceptional times and in that exceptional war, nothing seemed astonishing. Men did not even think of those rivalries in heroism so frequent in elegant warfare. In such a struggle of extermination there was no time to pose for sublimity of soul. Heroism was quite unaffected. So Baudelot’s soldiers judged for themselves that their chief spoke sensibly, and obeyed as simply as he had commanded. They withdrew by the roof, taking away the women and children. Baudelot remained at the door making noise enough for forty, haranguing, disputing and discharging his gun. One would have thought a whole regiment ready to fire was stationed there, and the Blues held themselves on the alert. Baudelot remained on the defensive as long as he had any voice. But when that failed and he thought his troop must have reached a place of safety, he tired of the warlike feint. He felt ill at ease at thus commanding the absent; and keeping quiet, he merely propped up the door as it was shaken from outside. This lasted several minutes, then the door cracked, and the Blues began to fire through the fissures. Baudelot was not wounded, and as his meal had been interrupted, he returned to the table and tranquilly ate some bread and cheese, and emptied a pitcher of country wine, thinking meanwhile that this was his last repast!