“We are not strangers; we are brothers in misfortune,” Denham answered, with the smile which always drew people to him. “Call it a loan, if you like. For your wife's sake”—softly—“do not refuse.”
Roy did not hear all this, but he heard more than he was intended to hear. A move then was made, and Curtis replied huskily to some careless remark as the callers took leave.
“Den, I say, I didn't mean to listen, but I couldn't quite help,” came outside as a confession.
“Then your next duty is to forget. Now for the ramparts,” Ivor said, dropping the subject. Roy knew him better than to put questions.
On this first arrival of the large body of English détenus in Verdun, they found a quiet town, with little going on in it, with few shops, and those second-rate in style. There were some small manufactories, as of coarse felt hats and sweetmeats, and also some tanneries. A limited number of “hôtels”[2] belonged to members of the old “noblesse,” who had been allowed since Revolution days to return to France, though in few cases had their confiscated property been restored to them. Those who were in Verdun lived in a very retired style. The bourgeoisie too were rural and unsophisticated. But this condition of things, unfortunately, was soon to be changed, and by no means for the better.
A sudden rush into the place of hundreds of strangers, many of them used to a luxurious style of living, many of them lavishly free with their money, could not but have a marked effect upon the inhabitants.
Among the détenus, it is true, a goodly number lived with close economy, refusing to keep horse or carriage or one single servant more than they counted strictly necessary. They only broke through this self-imposed rule on behalf of their poorer countrymen, dozens of whom were condemned to live, or rather to half starve, upon the wretched pittance, allowed by the French Government to those who had no other means of support, of three sous and half-a-pound of bread each day.
But the détenus, as a body, included men of various descriptions, not only those of high principle and loyal feeling. There were rich men, rendered reckless by their captivity; and there were others, not rich, yet equally reckless and extravagant, who rushed into debt with complete indifference as to consequences. As may easily be supposed, they did much harm by their example and influence, more especially among young naval officers, who as time passed by were taken prisoners in the course of the war, and were sent to Verdun. When first Verdun was appointed to be a dépôt for prisoners, the commandant was a General Roussel, of whom no English prisoner had any complaint to make. He treated them well and justly, and such hardships as they had to endure were for the most part not his fault but the fault of the French Government.
Unhappily, before many months were past, General Roussel was sent elsewhere; and his successor, General Wirion, soon showed himself to be a man of a totally different stamp.
Wirion was a product of the Revolution; originally the son of a pork-dealer in Picardy; later an attorney's clerk, with a shady reputation; then an active terrorist, approved of by the villain Robespierre. He was, in fact, a low-born and ill-bred scoundrel, avaricious and grasping, who, under Napoleon, had risen to be a general of gendarmerie.