Part 12

The army is composed of more than fifty thousand brave men. Let me speedily hear from them that the rebel chiefs have ceased to live. Glory is won by toil alone; if it could be had by living in barracks in a town, all would have it.

Soldiers, whatever be the rank you hold in the army, the gratitude of the nation awaits you. To be worthy of it, you must brave the inclemencies of weather, ice, snow, and the excessive coldness of the nights; you must surprise your enemies at daybreak, and exterminate those wretches, the disgrace of France.

Make a short and sure campaign; be inexorable to those brigands, and maintain strict discipline.

National Guards, join the strength of your arms to that of the line.

If you know among you any men who fraternize with the brigands, arrest them. Let them find no refuge; pursue them; if traitors dare to harbor and defend them, let them perish together.

“What a man!” cried Hulot. “It is just as it was in the army of Italy--he rings in the mass, and he says it himself. Don’t you call that talking, hey?”

“Yes, but he speaks by himself and in his own name,” said Gerard, who began to feel alarmed at the possible results of the 18th Brumaire.

“And where’s the harm, since he’s a soldier?” said Merle.

A group of soldiers were clustered at a little distance before the same proclamation posted on a wall. As none of them could read, they gazed at it, some with a careless eye, others with curiosity, while two or three hunted about for a citizen who looked learned enough to read it to them.

“Now you tell us, Clef-des-Coeurs, what that rag of a paper says,” cried Beau-Pied, in a saucy tone to his comrade.

“Easy to guess,” replied Clef-des-Coeurs.

At these words the other men clustered round the pair, who were always ready to play their parts.

“Look there,” continued Clef-des-Coeurs, pointing to a coarse woodcut which headed the proclamation and represented a pair of compasses,--which had lately superseded the level of 1793. “It means that the troops--that’s us--are to march firm; don’t you see the compasses are open, both legs apart?--that’s an emblem.”

“Such much for your learning, my lad; it isn’t an emblem--it’s called a problem. I’ve served in the artillery,” continued Beau-Pied, “and problems were meat and drink to my officers.”

“I say it’s an emblem.”

“It’s a problem.”

“What will you bet?”

“Anything.”

“Your German pipe?”

“Done!”

“By your leave, adjutant, isn’t that thing an emblem, and not a problem?” said Clef-des-Coeurs, following Gerard, who was thoughtfully walking away.

“It is both,” he replied, gravely.

“The adjutant was making fun of you,” said Beau-Pied. “That paper means that our general in Italy is promoted Consul, which is a fine grade, and we are to get shoes and overcoats.”

II. ONE OF FOUCHE’S IDEAS

One morning towards the end of Brumaire just as Hulot was exercising his brigade, now by order of his superiors wholly concentrated at Mayenne, a courier arrived from Alencon with despatches, at the reading of which his face betrayed extreme annoyance.

“Forward, then!” he cried in an angry tone, sticking the papers into the crown of his hat. “Two companies will march with me towards Mortagne. The Chouans are there. You will accompany me,” he said to Merle and Gerard. “May be I created a nobleman if I can understand one word of that despatch. Perhaps I’m a fool! well, anyhow, forward, march! there’s no time to lose.”

“Commandant, by your leave,” said Merle, kicking the cover of the ministerial despatch with the toe of his boot, “what is there so exasperating in that?”

“God’s thunder! nothing at all--except that we are fooled.”