But when Juanito saw his mother approach supported by the confessor, he exclaimed: “She nursed me!”
His voice drew a cry of horror from the assemblage. The din of the feast and the merry laughter of the officers were hushed at the terrible clamour. The Marchioness understood that Juanito’s courage was exhausted, with one bound, she leaped over the balustrade, to dash her brains out on the rocks below. A cry of admiration arose. Juanito had fallen unconscious.
“General,” said a half-drunken officer, “Marchand has just been telling me something of this execution. I bet you did not order it....”
“Do you forget, gentlemen,” exclaimed General G..t..r, “that, in a month, five hundred French families will be in tears, and that we are in Spain? Do you wish us to leave our bones here?”
After that address there was no one, not even a sub-lieutenant, who dared to empty his glass.
In spite of the respect with which he is everywhere regarded, in spite of the title of El Verdugo (The Executioner) which the King of Spain has granted as a title of honour to the Marquis of Leganés, he is consumed by regrets, he lives in retirement and shows himself rarely. Bowed down by the burden of his splendid crime, he seems to be waiting impatiently until the birth of a second son gives him the right to rejoin the shades who accompany him incessantly.
LAURETTE, OR, THE RED SEAL
COUNT ALFRED DE VIGNY
I
OF THE MEETING WHICH BEFELL ME ONE DAY
ON THE HIGH ROAD
The high road through Artois and Flanders is long and dreary. It stretches in a straight line, without trees, without ditches, through flat fields that are always full of yellow mud. In the month of March, 1815, I travelled along this road, and a meeting befell me which I have never forgotten since.
I was alone, on horseback, I was wearing a handsome white cloak, a red uniform, a black helmet, pistols and a big sabre; it had been raining in torrents for the last four days and nights of my journey, and I remember that I was singing “Joconde” at the top of my voice. I was so young!—The King’s household, in 1814, had been filled up with children and grandsires; the Emperor seemed to have taken all the men and killed them.