Ninety-Three. Victor Hugo
do not be frightened. You ought to join the battalion. You should do as I do. My name is Housarde. It's a nickname, but I had rather be called Housarde than Mamzelle Bicorneau, like my mother. I am the canteen woman, which is the same as saying, she who gives the men to drink when they are firing grape-shot and killing each other. The devil and all his train. Our feet are about the same size. I will give you a pair of my shoes. I was in Paris on the 10th of August. I gave Westerman a drink. Everything went with a rush in those days! I saw Louis XVI. guillotined, – Louis Capet, as they call him. I tell you he didn't like it. You just listen now. To think that on the 13th of January he was roasting chestnuts and enjoying himself with his family! When he was made to lie down on what is called the see-saw, he wore neither coat nor shoes; only a shirt, a quilted waistcoat, gray cloth breeches, and gray silk stockings. I saw all that with my own eyes. The fiacre which he rode in was painted green. Now then, you come with us; they are kind lads in the battalion; you will be canteen number two; I will teach you the trade. Oh, it's very simple! You will have a can and a bell; you are right in the racket, amid the firing of the platoons and the cannons, in all that hubbub, calling out, 'Who wants a drink, my children?' It is no harder task than that. I offer a drink to all, you may take my word for it, – to the Whites as well as to the Blues, although I am a Blue, and a true Blue at that. But I serve them all alike. Wounded men are thirsty. People die without difference of opinions. Dying men ought to shake hands. How foolish to fight! Come with us. If I am killed you will fill my place. You see I am not much to look at, but I am a kind woman, and a good fellow. Don't be afraid."
When the vivandière ceased speaking, the woman muttered to herself, —
"Our neighbor's name was Marie-Jeanne, and it was our servant who was Marie-Claude."
Meanwhile Sergeant Radoub was reprimanding the grenadier.
"Silence! You frighten madam. A man should not swear before ladies."
"I say this is a downright butchery for an honest man to hear about," replied the grenadier; "and to see Chinese Iroquois, whose father-in-law was crippled by the lord, whose grandfather was sent to the galleys by the curé, and whose father was hung by the king, and who fight, – zounds! – and who get entangled in revolts, and are crushed for the sake of the lord, the curé, and the king!"
"Silence in the ranks!" exclaimed the sergeant.
"One may be silent, sergeant," continued the grenadier; "but it is all the same provoking to see a pretty woman like that running the risk of getting her neck broken for the sake of a calotin."2
"Grenadier," said the sergeant, "we are not in the Pike Club. Save your eloquence!" And turning to the woman, "And your husband, madam? What does he do? What has become of him?"
"Nothing; since he was killed."
"Where was that?"
"In the hedge."
"When?"
"Three days ago."
"Who killed him?"
"I do not know."
"How is that? You don't know who killed your husband?"
"No."
"Was it a Blue, or a White?"
"It was a bullet."
"Was that three days ago?"
"Yes."
"In what direction?"
"Towards Ernée. My husband fell. That was all."
"And since your husband died, what have you been doing?"
"I have been taking my little ones along."
"Where are you taking them?"
"Straight along."
"Where do you sleep?"
"On the ground."
"What do you eat?"
"Nothing."
The sergeant made that military grimace which elevates the moustache to the nose. "Nothing?"
"Well, nothing but sloes, blackberries when I found any left over from last year, whortle-berries, and fern-shoots."
"Yes, you may well call it nothing."
The oldest child, who seemed to understand, said:
"I am hungry."
The sergeant pulled from his pocket a piece of ration bread, and handed it to the mother.
Taking the bread, she broke, it in two and gave it to the children, who bit into it greedily.
"She has not saved any for herself," growled the sergeant.
"Because she is not hungry," remarked a soldier.
"Because she is a mother," said the sergeant.
The children broke in.
"Give me something to drink," said one.
"To drink," repeated the other.
"Is there no brook in this cursed wood?" said the sergeant.
The vivandière took the copper goblet suspended at her belt together with a bell, turned the cock of the can that was strapped across her shoulder, and pouring several drops into the goblet, held it to the children's lips.
The first drank and made a grimace.
The second drank and spit it out
"It is good, all the same," said the vivandière.
"Is that some of the old cut-throat?" asked the sergeant.
"Yes, some of the best. But they are peasants."
She wiped the goblet.
"And so, madam, you are running away?" resumed the sergeant.
"I couldn't help it."
"Across the fields? With no particular object?"
"Sometimes I run with all my might, and then I walk, and once in a while I fall."
"Poor countrywoman!" said the vivandière.
"They were fighting," stammered the woman. "I was in the middle of the firing. I don't know what they want. They killed my husband, – that was all I know about it."
The sergeant banged the butt of his musket on the ground, exclaiming, —
"What a beast of a war! In the name of all that is idiotic!"
The woman continued, —
"Last night we went to bed in an émousse."
"All four of you?"
"All four."
"Went to bed?"
"Went to bed."
"Then you must have gone to bed standing." And he turned to the soldiers.
"Comrades, a dead tree, old and hollow, wherein a man can sheathe himself like a sword in a scabbard, is what these savages call an émousse. But what would you have? All are not obliged to be Parisians."
"The idea of sleeping in the hollow of a tree, – and with three children!" exclaimed the vivandière.
"And when the little one bawled, it must have seemed queer to the passers-by, who could see nothing, to hear the tree calling out, 'Papa! mamma!'"
"Fortunately, it is summer-time," said the woman, with a sigh.
She looked down resigned, with an expression in her eyes of one who had known surprising calamities.
The silent soldiers surrounded this wretched group. A widow, three orphans, flight, desolation, solitude, the rumblings of war on the horizon, hunger, thirst, no food but herbs, no roof but the sky.
The sergeant drew near the woman and gazed upon the nursing infant. The baby left the breast, turned her head, and looked with her lovely blue eyes on the dreadful hairy face, bristling and fierce, that was bending over her, and began to smile.
The sergeant drew back, and a large tear was seen to roll down his cheek, clinging to the
An opprobrious epithet for an ecclesiastic. – TR.