The Chouans [121]
came quickly up to her, took her hand, and kissed it with a sort of enthusiasm. Then he looked at her fixedly and said in a gloomy tone: "You forget my two friends and my sixty-three men."
"Ah, commandant," she cried, with all the naivete of passion, "he was not accountable for that; he was deceived by a bad woman, Charette's mistress, who would, I do believe, drink the blood of the Blues."
"Come, Marie," said Corentin, "don't tease the commandant; he does not understand such jokes."
"Hold your tongue," she answered, "and remember that the day when you displease me too much will have no morrow for you."
"I see, mademoiselle," said Hulot, without bitterness, "that I must prepare for a fight."
"You are not strong enough, my dear colonel. I saw more than six thousand men at Saint-James,--regular troops, artillery, and English officers. But they cannot do much unless /he/ leads them? I agree with Fouche, his presence is the head and front of everything."
"Are we to get his head?--that's the point," said Corentin, impatiently.
"I don't know," she answered, carelessly.
"English officers!" cried Hulot, angrily, "that's all that was wanting to make a regular brigand of him. Ha! ha! I'll give him English, I will!"
"It seems to me, citizen-diplomat," said Hulot to Corentin, after the two had taken leave and were at some distance from the house, "that you allow that girl to send you to the right-about when she pleases."
"It is quite natural for you, commandant," replied Corentin, with a thoughtful air, "to see nothing but fighting in what she said to us. You soldiers never seem to know there are various ways of making war. To use the passions of men and women like wires to be pulled for the benefit of the State; to keep the running-gear of the great machine we call government in good order, and fasten to it the desires of human nature, like baited traps which it is fun to watch,--I call /that/ creating a world, like God, and putting ourselves at the centre of it!"
"You will please allow me to prefer my calling to yours," said the soldier, curtly. "You can do as you like with your running-gear; I recognize no authority but that of the minister of war. I have my orders; I shall take the field with veterans who don't skulk, and face an enemy you want to catch behind."
"Oh, you can fight if you want to," replied Corentin. "From what that girl has dropped, close-mouthed as you think she is, I can tell you that you'll have to skirmish about, and I myself will give you the pleasure of an interview with the Gars before long."
"How so?" asked Hulot, moving back a step to get a better view of this strange individual.
"Mademoiselle de Verneuil is in love with him," replied Corentin, in a thick voice, "and perhaps he loves her. A marquis, a knight of Saint- Louis, young, brilliant, perhaps rich,--what a list of temptations! She would be foolish indeed not to look after her own interests and try to marry him rather than betray him. The girl is attempting to fool us. But I saw hesitation in her eyes. They probably have a rendezvous; perhaps they've met already. Well, to-morrow I shall have him by the forelock. Yesterday he was nothing more than the enemy of the Republic, to-day he is mine; and I tell you this, every man who has been so rash as to come between that girl and me has died upon the scaffold."
So saying, Corentin dropped into a reverie which hindered him from observing the disgust on the face of the honest soldier as he discovered the depths of this intrigue, and the mechanism of the means employed by Fouche. Hulot resolved on the spot to thwart Corentin in every way that did not conflict essentially with the success of the government, and to give the Gars a fair chance of dying honorably, sword in hand, before he could fall a prey to the executioner, for whom this agent of the detective police acknowledged himself the purveyor.
"If the First Consul would listen to me," thought Hulot, as he turned his back on Corentin, "he would leave those foxes to fight aristocrats, and send his solders
"Ah, commandant," she cried, with all the naivete of passion, "he was not accountable for that; he was deceived by a bad woman, Charette's mistress, who would, I do believe, drink the blood of the Blues."
"Come, Marie," said Corentin, "don't tease the commandant; he does not understand such jokes."
"Hold your tongue," she answered, "and remember that the day when you displease me too much will have no morrow for you."
"I see, mademoiselle," said Hulot, without bitterness, "that I must prepare for a fight."
"You are not strong enough, my dear colonel. I saw more than six thousand men at Saint-James,--regular troops, artillery, and English officers. But they cannot do much unless /he/ leads them? I agree with Fouche, his presence is the head and front of everything."
"Are we to get his head?--that's the point," said Corentin, impatiently.
"I don't know," she answered, carelessly.
"English officers!" cried Hulot, angrily, "that's all that was wanting to make a regular brigand of him. Ha! ha! I'll give him English, I will!"
"It seems to me, citizen-diplomat," said Hulot to Corentin, after the two had taken leave and were at some distance from the house, "that you allow that girl to send you to the right-about when she pleases."
"It is quite natural for you, commandant," replied Corentin, with a thoughtful air, "to see nothing but fighting in what she said to us. You soldiers never seem to know there are various ways of making war. To use the passions of men and women like wires to be pulled for the benefit of the State; to keep the running-gear of the great machine we call government in good order, and fasten to it the desires of human nature, like baited traps which it is fun to watch,--I call /that/ creating a world, like God, and putting ourselves at the centre of it!"
"You will please allow me to prefer my calling to yours," said the soldier, curtly. "You can do as you like with your running-gear; I recognize no authority but that of the minister of war. I have my orders; I shall take the field with veterans who don't skulk, and face an enemy you want to catch behind."
"Oh, you can fight if you want to," replied Corentin. "From what that girl has dropped, close-mouthed as you think she is, I can tell you that you'll have to skirmish about, and I myself will give you the pleasure of an interview with the Gars before long."
"How so?" asked Hulot, moving back a step to get a better view of this strange individual.
"Mademoiselle de Verneuil is in love with him," replied Corentin, in a thick voice, "and perhaps he loves her. A marquis, a knight of Saint- Louis, young, brilliant, perhaps rich,--what a list of temptations! She would be foolish indeed not to look after her own interests and try to marry him rather than betray him. The girl is attempting to fool us. But I saw hesitation in her eyes. They probably have a rendezvous; perhaps they've met already. Well, to-morrow I shall have him by the forelock. Yesterday he was nothing more than the enemy of the Republic, to-day he is mine; and I tell you this, every man who has been so rash as to come between that girl and me has died upon the scaffold."
So saying, Corentin dropped into a reverie which hindered him from observing the disgust on the face of the honest soldier as he discovered the depths of this intrigue, and the mechanism of the means employed by Fouche. Hulot resolved on the spot to thwart Corentin in every way that did not conflict essentially with the success of the government, and to give the Gars a fair chance of dying honorably, sword in hand, before he could fall a prey to the executioner, for whom this agent of the detective police acknowledged himself the purveyor.
"If the First Consul would listen to me," thought Hulot, as he turned his back on Corentin, "he would leave those foxes to fight aristocrats, and send his solders