The Last Cavalier: Being the Adventures of Count Sainte-Hermine in the Age of Napoleon. Alexandre Dumas
the farmhouse and were pushing Jacques Doley into the kitchen. The brigands, unused to such coolness from one of their prey, were looking in astonishment at the farmer.
“Oh, gentlemen, gentlemen,” said Madame Doley, who had once again gotten up and left the bedroom, “we’ll give you everything you want, but please you won’t hurt us, will you?”
“Say,” said one of the brigands, “you’re like an Auray eel, crying before you’re skinned alive.”
“Enough words,” said the chief. “The money!”
“Woman,” said Doley, “give them the keys. These gentlemen will look themselves. That way they cannot accuse us of trying to fool them.”
The woman looked at her husband with surprise, and made no move to obey. “Give them the keys!” he said again. “When I say give them, you give them.”
Agape, the poor woman could not understand why her husband was so readily acquiescing to the brigands’ demands. But she gave the leader the keys, then watched in fear as he walked over to the huge walnut wardrobe, the kind in which farmers usually lock up their most valuable possessions, beginning with their linens.
In one drawer they found silverware. The chief grabbed it up and tossed it onto the middle of the tiled kitchen floor. To Madame Doley’s great surprise, she counted only six place settings when there should have been eight. In another drawer they’d had a sack of silver and a sack of gold, about fifteen thousand francs in all. But however much the chief dug through the drawer, to the woman’s great astonishment, all he came up with was the sack of silver.
The wife tried to exchange a look with her husband, but he did not look back. One of the brigands, however, caught the flash of her glance. “Well, now, Mother,” he said, “is your august husband trying to trick us?”
“Oh, no, gentlemen!” she cried. “I swear.”
“Perhaps you know more than he does. Very well, we’ll start with you then.”
The brigands emptied the wardrobe but found nothing else of value to them. They emptied a second wardrobe as well and found only four louis, five or six six-pound crowns, and a few coins hidden in a bowl. “I think you might be right,” said the chief to the brigand who had accused the woman of trying to trick them.
“Someone warned him we were coming,” said one of the bandits, “and he has buried his money.”
“Thunderation!” said the chief. “We have ways of getting money to come out of the ground. Come, bring me a bundle of wood and some straw.”
“Why?” cried the woman in terror.
“Have you ever seen a pig roast?” the chief asked her.
“Jacques! Jacques!” the woman cried. “Do you hear what they’re saying?”
“Of course I can hear,” said the farmer. “But what do you expect? They are the masters, and we have no choice but to let them do whatever they want.”
“Oh, Jesus!” cried the woman in desperation, as two brigands came from the bake house, one carrying a bundle of straw, the other some sticks. “How can you be so compliant?”
“I trust that God will not permit such an abominable crime as the destruction of two creatures whom I cannot call innocent of any sin, but certainly they’re innocent of any crime.”
“What do you mean?” asked the chief. “Is God going to send an angel to protect you?”
“It would not be the first time,” said Jacques, “that God would show himself through a miracle.”
“Well, we’ll see about that,” said the chief, “and to give him the opportunity to kill two birds with one stone, we’ll burn the sow along with the boar.” Shouts of laughter greeted his joke, all the more so because it was crude.
The brigands grabbed Jacques Doley, tore off his shoes, pants, and stockings. They ripped off the woman’s skirt. They tied them up separately but similarly, with their hands behind their backs and made them sit on the floor with their legs stretched out. When the fire had caught, they pushed the farmer and his wife by the shoulders until their feet were just a few inches away from the flames. Both cried in pain at the same time.
“Wait!” said one of the brigands, “I’ve just found the piglets. We need to roast them along with the father and mother.” Into the room he dragged a child in each hand; he’d found them quaking and weeping on the floor behind their mother’s bed.
Jacques Doley could stand no more. “If you are a man,” he shouted, “it is time to keep the promise you made!”
Scarcely had he pronounced those words than the milk house door was thrown open. A man came out, his arms extended, and in each hand he held a double-barrelled pistol.
“Who is the man they call George Cadoudal?” the man asked.
“I am,” said the tallest and heaviest of the masked men, getting to his feet.
“You’re lying,” said the stranger. And he shot the bandit point-blank in the chest.
“I myself am Cadoudal,” he said. The impostor fell, dead.
The bandits took a step backward. They had indeed recognized the real Cadoudal, who, they’d assumed, was still in England.
IT WAS CADOUDAL, and not a man among the band of indenciaries—or in all of the Morbihan—who would dare to raise a hand against him or hesitate to obey a single one of his orders. So the second in command, who was still holding the children, released them and walked over to Cadoudal. “General,” he said. “What are your orders?”
“First of all, untie those two poor people.”
The bandits quickly did Cadoudal’s bidding. Madame Doley collapsed in an armchair, then drew her two children into her arms and pulled them to her breast. Her husband rose to his feet, walked over to Cadoudal, and shook his hand.
“And now?” asked the second in command.
“Now,” said Cadoudal, “I’ve been told that there are three brigades like yours.”
“Yes, General.”
“Who had the audacity to gather you together to do this odious work?”
“A man came from Paris; he told us that you would be back to join us within a month; he said that we should gather in your name.”
“Fighting against the government as Chouans I could understand. But burning, never! Am I an arsonist?”
“We were even told to choose the man among us who most resembled you, so that people would believe you were already here. We called him George II. What must we do now to atone for our mistake?”
“Your mistake was to believe that I could ever become the leader of a band of brigands like you, and there is no way to atone for that. Carry my orders to the other groups: They must disband and cease their odious activities immediately. Then send word to all the former leaders, and especially to Sol de Grisolles and Guillemot, asking them to take up arms and prepare once again to embark on a campaign under my command. However, they must not make a move or raise their white flag until I say so.”
The bandits withdrew without a word.
The farmer and his wife restored order to their wardrobes. The linen once more took its place on the shelves and the silverware in the drawers. A half hour later, the room looked as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened there at all.
Madame Doley had not been mistaken. Her husband had indeed taken precautions. He had hidden some of the silverware