The Bronze Eagle: A Story of the Hundred Days

III

It is late in the evening of March 20th. A thin mist is spreading from the river right over Paris, and from the Place du Carrousel the lighted windows of the Tuileries palace appear only like tiny, dimly-flickering stars.

Here an immense crowd is assembled. It has waited patiently hour after hour, ever since in the earlier part of the afternoon a courier has come over from Fontainebleau with the news that the Emperor is already there and would be in Paris this night.

It is the same crowd which twenty-four hours ago shed a tear or two in sympathy for the departing monarch: now it stands here—waiting, excited, ready to cheer the return of a popular hero—half-forgotten, wildly acclaimed, madly welcomed, to be cursed again, and again forgotten so soon. It was a heterogeneous crowd forsooth! made up in great part of the curious, the idle, the indifferent, and in great part, too, of the Bonapartist enthusiasts and malcontents who had groaned under the reactionary tyranny of the Restoration—of malcontents, too, of no enthusiasm, who were ready to welcome any change which might bring them to prominence or to fortune. With here and there a sprinkling of hot-headed revolutionaries, cursing the return of the Emperor as heartily as they had cursed that of the Bourbon king: and here and there a few heart-sick royalists, come to watch the final annihilation of their hopes.

Victor de Marmont, wrapped in a dark cloak, stood among the crowd for a while. He knew that the Emperor would probably not be in Paris before night, and he loved to be in the very midst of the wave of enthusiasm which was surging higher and ever higher in the crowd, and hear the excited whispers, and to feel all round him, wrapping him closely like a magic mantle of warmth and delight, the exaltation of this mass of men and women assembled here to acclaim the hero whom he himself adored. Closely buttoned inside his coat he had scraps of paper worth the ransom of any king.

Among the crowd, too, Bobby Clyffurde moved and stood. He was one of those who watched this enthusiasm with a heart filled with forebodings. He knew well how short this enthusiasm would be: he knew that within a few weeks—days perhaps—the bold and reckless adventurer who had so easily reconquered France would realise that the Imperial crown would never be allowed to sit firmly upon his head. None in this crowd knew better that the present pageant and glory would be short-lived, than did this tall, quiet Englishman who listened with half an ear and a smile of good-natured contempt to the loud cries of "Vive l'Empereur!" which rose spontaneously whenever the sound of horses' hoofs or rattles of wheels from the direction of Fontainebleau suggested the approach of the hero of the day. None knew better than he that already in far-off England another great hero, named Wellington, was organising the forces which presently would crush—for ever this time—the might and ambitions of the man whom England had never acknowledged as anything but a usurper and a foe.

And closely buttoned inside his coat Clyffurde had a letter which he had received at his lodgings in the Alma quarter only a few moments before he sallied forth into the streets. That letter was an answer to a confidential enquiry of his own sent to the Chief of the British Secret Intelligence Department resident in Paris, desiring to know if the Department had any knowledge of a vast sum of money having come unexpectedly into the hands of His Majesty the King of France, before his flight from the capital.

The answer was an emphatic "No!" The Intelligence Department knew of no such windfall. But its secret agents reported that Victor de Marmont, captain of the usurper's body-guard, had waylaid M. le Marquis de St. Genis on the high road not far from Lyons. The escort which had accompanied Victor de Marmont on that occasion had been dismissed by him at Villefranche, and the information which the British Secret Intelligence Department had obtained came through the indiscretion of the sergeant in charge of the escort, who had boasted in a tavern at Lyons that he had actually searched M. de St. Genis and found a large sum of money upon him, of which M. de Marmont promptly took possession.

When Bobby Clyffurde received this letter and first mastered its contents, the language which he used would have done honour to a Toulon coal-heaver. He cursed St. Genis' stupidity in allowing himself to be caught; but above all he cursed himself for his soft-heartedness which had prompted him to part with the money.

The letter which brought him the bad news seemed to scorch his hand, and brand it with the mark of folly. He had thought to serve the woman he loved, first, by taking the money from her, since he knew that Victor de Marmont with an escort of cavalry was after it, and, secondly, by allowing the man whom she loved to have the honour and glory of laying the money at his sovereign's feet. The whole had ended in a miserable fiasco, and Clyffurde felt sore and wrathful against himself.

And also among the crowd—among those who came, heartsick, hopeless, forlorn, to watch the triumph of the enemy as they had watched the humiliation of their feeble King—was M. le Comte de Cambray with his daughter Crystal on his arm.

They had come, as so many royalists had done, with a vague hope that in the attitude of the crowd they would discern indifference rather than exultation, and that the active agents of their party, as well as those of England and of Prussia, would succeed presently in stirring up a counter demonstration, that a few cries of "Vive le roi!" would prove to the army at least and to the people of Paris that acclamations for the usurper were at any rate not unanimous.

But the crowd was not indifferent—it was excited: when first the Comte de Cambray and Crystal arrived on the Place du Carrousel, a number of white cockades could be picked out in the throng, either worn on a hat or fixed to a buttonhole, but as the afternoon wore on there were fewer and fewer of these small white stars to be seen: the temper of the crowd did not brook this mute reproach upon its enthusiasm. One or two cockades had been roughly torn and thrown into the mud, and the wearer unpleasantly ill-used if he persisted in any royalistic demonstration. Crystal, when she saw these incidents, was not the least frightened. She wore her white cockade openly pinned to her cloak; she was far too loyal, far too enthusiastic and fearless, far too much a woman to yield her convictions to the popular feeling of the moment; and she looked so young and so pretty, clinging to the arm of her father, who looked a picturesque and harmless representative of the fallen regime, that with the exception of a few rough words, a threat here and there, they had so far escaped active molestation.

And the crowd presently had so much to see that it ceased to look out for white cockades, or to bait the sad-eyed royalists. A procession of carriages, sparse at first and simple in appearance, had begun to make its way from different parts of the town across the Place du Carrousel toward the Tuileries. They arrived very quietly at first, with as little clatter as possible, and drew up before the gates of the Pavillon de Flore with as little show as may be: the carriage doors were opened unostentatiously, and dark, furtive figures stepped out from them and almost ran to the door of the palace, so eager were they to escape observation, their big cloaks wrapped closely round them to hide the court dress or uniform below.

Ministers, dignitaries of the Court, Councillors of State; majordomos, stewards, butlers, body-servants; they all came one by one or in groups of twos or threes. As the afternoon wore on these arrivals grew less and less furtive; the carriages arrived with greater clatter and to-do, with finer liveries and more gorgeous harness. Those who stepped out of the carriage doors were no longer quick and stealthy in their movements: they lingered near the step to give an order or to chat to a friend; the big cloak no longer concealed the gorgeous uniform below, it was allowed to fall away from the shoulder, so as to display the row of medals and stars, the gold embroidery, the magnificence of the Court attire.

The Emperor had left Fontainebleau! Within an hour he would be in Paris! Everyone knew it, and the excitement in the crowd that watched grew more and more intense. Last night these same men and women had looked with mute if superficial sympathy on the departure of Louis XVIII. through these same palace gates: many eyes then became moist at the sight, as memory flew back twenty years to the murdered king—his flight to Varennes, his ignominious return, his weary Calvary from prison to court house and thence to the scaffold. And here was his brother—come back after twenty-three years of exile, acclaimed by the populace, cheered by foreign soldiers—Russians, Austrians, English—anything but French—and driven forth once more to exile after the brief glory that lasted not quite a year.

But this the crowd of to-day has already forgotten with the completeness peculiar to crowds: men, women, and children too, they are no longer mute, they talk and they chatter; they scream with astonishment and delight whenever now from more and more carriages, more and more gorgeously dressed folk descend. The ladies are beginning to arrive: the wives of the great Court dignitaries, the ladies of the Court and household of the still-absent Empress: they do not attempt to hide their brilliant toilettes, their bare shoulders and arms gleam through the fastenings of their cloaks, and diamonds sparkle in their hair.

The crowd has recognised some of the great marshals, the men who in the Emperor's wake led the French troops to victory in Italy, in Prussia, in Austria: Maret Duc de Bassano is there and the crowd cheers him, the Duc de Rovigo, Marshal Davout, Prince d'Eckmühl, General Excelmans, one of Napoleon's oldest companions at arms, the Duke of Gaeta, the Duke of Padua, a crowd of generals and superior officers. It seems like the world of the Sleeping Beauty and of the Enchanted Castle—which a kiss has awakened from its eleven months' sleep. The Empire had only been asleep, it had dreamed a bad dream, wherein its hero was a prisoner and an exile: now it is slowly wakening back to life and to reality.

The night wears on: darkness and fog envelop Paris more and more. Excitement becomes akin to anxiety. If the Emperor did leave Fontainebleau when the last courier said that he did, he should certainly be here by now. There are strange whispers, strange waves of evil reports that spread through the waiting crowd: "A royalist fanatic had shot at the Emperor! the Emperor was wounded! he was dead!"

Oh! the excitement of that interminable wait!

At last, just as from every church tower the bells strike the hour of nine, there comes the muffled sound of a distant cavalcade: the sound of horses galloping and only half drowning that of the rumbling of coach wheels.

It comes from the direction of the embankment, and from far away now is heard the first cry of "Vive l'Empereur!" The noise gets louder and more clear, the cries are repeated again and again till they merge into one great, uproarious clamour. Like the ocean when lashed by the wind, the crowd surges, moves, rises on tiptoe, subsides, falls back to crush forward again and once more to retreat as a heavy coach, surrounded by a thousand or so of mounted men, dashes over the cobbles of the Place du Carrousel, whilst the clamour of the crowd becomes positively deafening.

"Vive l'Empereur!"

The officers in the courtyard of the palace rush to the coach as it draws up at the Pavillon de Flore: one of them succeeds in opening the carriage door. The Emperor is literally torn out of the carriage, carried to the vestibule, where more officers seize him, raise him from the crowd, bear him along, hoisted upon their shoulders, up the monumental staircase.

Their enthusiasm is akin to delirium: they nearly tear their hero to pieces in their wild, mad, frantic welcome.

"In Heaven's name, protect his person," exclaims the Duc de Vicence anxiously; and he and Lavalette manage to get hold of the banisters and by dint of fighting and pushing succeed in walking backwards step by step in front of the Emperor, thus making a way for him.

Lavalette can hardly believe his eyes, and the Duc de Vicence keeps murmuring: "It is the Emperor! It is the Emperor!"

And he—the little stout man in green cloth coat and white breeches—walks up the steps of his reconquered palace like a man in a dream: his eyes are fixed apparently on nothing, he makes no movement to keep his too enthusiastic friends away: the smile upon his lips is meaningless and fixed.

"Vive l'Empereur!" vociferates the crowd.

Vive l'Empereur for one hundred days: a few weeks of joy, a few weeks of anxiety, a few weeks of indecision, of wavering and of doubt. Then defeat more irrevocable than before! exile more distant! despair more complete.

Vive l'Empereur while we shout with excitement, while we remember the disappointments of the past year, while we hope for better things from a hand that has lost its cunning, a mind that has lost its power.

Vive l'Empereur! Let him live for an hundred days, while we forget our enthusiasm and Europe prepares its final crushing blow. Let him live until we remember once again the horrors of war, the misery, the famine, the devastated homes! until once more we see the maimed and crippled crawling back wearily from the fields of glory, until our ears ring with the wails of widows and the cries of the fatherless.

Then let him no longer live, for he it is who has brought this misery on us through his will and through his ambition, and France has suffered so much from the aftermath of glory, that all she wants now is rest.

IV

Gradually—but it took some hours—the tumult and excitement in and round the Tuileries subsided. The Emperor managed to shut himself up in his study and to eat some supper in peace, while gradually outside his windows the crowd—who had nothing more to see and was getting tired of staring up at glittering panes of glass—went back more or less quietly to their homes.

Only in the courtyard of the Tuileries, the troopers of the cavalry which had formed the Emperor's escort from Fontainebleau tethered their horses to the railings, rolled themselves in their mantles and slept on the pavements, giving to this portion of the palace the appearance of a bivouac in a place which has been taken by storm.

One of the last to leave the Place du Carrousel was Bobby Clyffurde. The crowd was thin by this time, but it was the tired and the indifferent—the merely curious—who had been the first to go. Those who remained to the last were either the very enthusiastic who wanted to set up a final shout of "Vive l'Empereur!" after their idol had entirely disappeared from their view, or the malcontents who would not lose a moment to discuss their grievances, to murmur covert threats, or suggest revolt in some shape or form or kind.

Bobby slipped quickly past several of these isolated groups, indifferent to the dark and glowering looks of suspicion that were cast at his tall, muscular figure with the firm step and the defiant walk that was vaguely reminiscent of the British troops that had been in Paris last year at the time of the foreign occupation. He had skirted the Tuileries gardens and was walking along the embankment which now was dark and solitary save for some rowdy enthusiasts on ahead who, arm in arm in two long rows that reached from the garden railings to the parapet, were obstructing the roadway and shouting themselves hoarse with "Vive l'Empereur!"

Clyffurde, who was walking faster than they did, was just deliberating in his mind whether he would turn back and go home some other way or charge this unpleasant obstruction from the rear and risk the consequences, when he noticed two figures still further on ahead walking in the same direction as he himself and the rowdy crowd.

One of these two figures—thus viewed in the distance, through the mist and from the back—looked nevertheless like that of a woman, which fact at once decided Bobby as to what he would do next. He sprinted toward the crowd as fast as he could, but unfortunately he did not come up with them in time to prevent the two unfortunate pedestrians being surrounded by the turbulent throng which, still arm in arm and to the accompaniment of wild shouts, had formed a ring around them and were now vociferating at the top of raucous voices:

"À bas la cocarde blanche! À bas! Vive l'Empereur!"

A flickering street lamp feebly lit up this unpleasant scene. Bobby saw the vague outline of a man and of a woman, standing boldly in the midst of the hostile crowd while two white cockades gleamed defiantly against the dark background of their cloaks. To an Englishman, who was a pastmaster in the noble art of using fists and knees to advantage, the situation was neither uncommon nor very perilous. The crowd was noisy it is true, and was no doubt ready enough for mischief, but Clyffurde's swift and scientific onslaught from the rear staggered and disconcerted the most bold. There was a good deal more shouting, plenty of cursing; the Englishman's arms and legs seemed to be flying in every direction like the arms of a windmill; a good many thuds and bumps, a few groans, a renewal of the attack, more thuds and groans, and the discomfited group of roisterers fled in every direction.

Bobby with a smile turned to the two motionless figures whom he had so opportunely rescued from an unpleasant plight.

"Just a few turbulent blackguards," he said lightly, as he made a quick attempt at readjusting the set of his coat and the position of his satin stock. "There was not much fight in them really, and . . ."

He had, of course, lost his hat in the brief if somewhat stormy encounter and now—as he turned—the thin streak of light from the street-lamp fell full upon his face with its twinkling, deep-set eyes, and the half-humorous, self-deprecatory curl of the firm mouth.

A simultaneous exclamation came from his two protégés and stopped the easy flow of his light-hearted words. He peered closely into the gloom and it was his turn now to exclaim, half doubting, wholly astonished:

"Mademoiselle Crystal . . . M. le Comte. . . ."

"Indeed, Sir," broke in the Comte slowly, and with a voice that seemed to be trembling with emotion, "it is to my daughter and to myself that you have just rendered a signal and generous service. For this I tender you my thanks, yet believe me, I pray you when I say that both she and I would rather have suffered any humiliation or ill-usage from that rough crowd than owe our safety and comfort to you."

There was so much contempt, hatred even, in the tone of voice of this old man whose manner habitually was a pattern of moderation and of dignity that for the moment Clyffurde was completely taken aback. Puzzlement fought with resentment and with the maddening sense that he was anyhow impotent to avenge even so bitter an insult as had just been hurled upon him—against a man of the Comte's years and status.

"M. le Comte," he said at last, "will you let me remind you that the other day when you turned me out of your house like a dishonest servant, you would not allow me to say a single word in my own justification? The man on whose word you condemned me then without a hearing, is a scatter-brained braggart who you yourself must know is not a man to be trusted and . . ."

"Pardon me, Monsieur," broke in the Comte with perfect sangfroid, "even if I acted on that evening with undue haste and ill-considered judgment, many things have happened since which you yourself surely would not wish to discuss with me, just when you have rendered me a signal service."

"Your pardon, M. le Comte," retorted Clyffurde with equal coolness, "I know of nothing which could possibly justify the charges which, not later than last Sunday, you laid at my door."

"The charge which I laid at your door then, Mr. Clyffurde, has not been lifted from its threshold yet. I charged you with deliberately conspiring against my King and my country all the while that you were eating bread and salt at my table. I charged you with striving to render assistance to that Corsican usurper whom may the great God punish, and you yourself practically owned to this before you left my house."

"This I did not, M. le Comte," broke in Clyffurde hotly. "As a man of honour I give you my word, that except for my being in de Marmont's company on the day that he posted up the Emperor's proclamation in Grenoble, I had no hand in any political scheme."

"And you would have me believe you," exclaimed the Comte, with ever-growing vehemence, "when you talk of that Corsican brigand as 'the Emperor.' Those words, Sir, are an insult, and had you not saved my daughter and me just now from violence I would—old as I am—strike you in the face for them."

With an impatient sigh at the old man's hot-headed obstinacy, Clyffurde turned with a look of appeal to Crystal, who up to now had taken no part in the discussion: "Mademoiselle," he said gently, "will you not at least do me justice? Cannot you see that I am clumsy at defending mine own honour, seeing that I have never had to do it before?"

"I only see, Monsieur," she retorted coldly, "that you are making vain and pitiable efforts to regain my father's regard—no doubt for purposes of your own. But why should you trouble? You have nothing more to gain from us. Your clever comedy of a highwayman on the road has succeeded beyond your expectations. The Corsican who now sits in the armchair lately vacated by an infirm monarch whom you and yours helped to dethrone, will no doubt reward you for your pains. As for me I can only echo my father's feelings: I would ten thousand times sooner have been torn to pieces by a rough crowd of ignorant folk than owe my safety to your interference."

She took her father's arm and made a movement to go: instinctively Clyffurde tried to stop her: at her words he had flushed with anger to the very roots of his hair. The injustice of her accusation maddened him, but the bitter resentment in the tone of her voice, the look of passionate hatred with which she regarded him as she spoke, positively appalled him.

"M. le Comte," he said firmly, "I cannot let you go like this, whilst such horrible thoughts of me exist in your mind. England gave you shelter for three and twenty years; in the name of my country's kindness and hospitality toward you, I—as one of her sons—demand that you tell me frankly and clearly exactly what I am supposed to have done to justify this extraordinary hatred and contempt which you and Mademoiselle Crystal seem now to have for me."

"One of England's sons, Monsieur!" retorted the Comte equally firmly. "Nay! you are not even that. England stands for right and for justice, for our legitimate King and the punishment of the usurper."

"Great God!" he exclaimed, more and more bewildered now, "are you accusing me of treachery against mine own country? This will I allow no man to do, not even . . ."

"Then, Sir, I pray you," rejoined Crystal proudly, "go and seek a quarrel with the man who has unmasked you; who caught you red-handed with the money in your possession which you had stolen from us, who forced you to give up what you had stolen, and whom then you and your friend Victor de Marmont waylaid and robbed once more. Go then, Mr. Clyffurde, and seek a quarrel with the Marquis de St. Genis, who has already struck you in the face once and no doubt will be ready to do so again."

And what of Clyffurde's thoughts while the woman whom he loved with all the strength of his lonely heart poured forth these hideous insults upon him? Amazement, then wrath, bewilderment, then final hopelessness, all these sensations ran riot through his brain.

St. Genis had behaved like an abominable blackguard! this he gathered from what she said: he had lied like a mean skunk and betrayed the man who had rendered him an infinitely great service. Of him Clyffurde wouldn't even think! Such despicable, crawling worms did exist on God's earth: he knew that! but he possessed the happy faculty, the sunny disposition that is able to pass a worm by and ignore its existence while keeping his eyes fixed upon all that is beautiful in earth and in the sky. Of St. Genis, therefore, he would not think; some day, perhaps, he might be able to punish him—but not now—not while this poor, forlorn, heartsick girl pinned her implicit faith upon that wretched worm and bestowed on him the priceless guerdon of her love. An infinity of pity rose in his kindly heart for her and obscured every other emotion. That same pity he had felt for her before, a sweet, protecting pity—gentle sister to fiercer, madder love which had perhaps never been so strong as it was at this hour when, for the second time, he was about to make a supreme sacrifice for her.

That the sacrifice must be made, he already knew: knew it even when first St. Genis' name escaped her lips. She loved St. Genis and she believed in him, and he, Clyffurde, who loved her with every fibre of his being, with all the passionate ardour of his lonely heart, could serve her no better than by accepting this awful humiliation which she put upon him. If he could have justified himself now, he would not have done it, not while she loved St. Genis, and he—Clyffurde—was less than nothing to her.

What did it matter after all what she thought of him? He would have given his life for her love, but short of that everything else was anyhow intolerable—her contempt, her hatred? what mattered? since to-night anyhow he would pass out of her life for ever.

He was ready for the sacrifice—sacrifice of pride, of honour, of peace of mind—but he did want to know that that sacrifice would be really needed and that when made it would not be in vain: and in order to gain this end he put a final question to her:

"One moment, Mademoiselle," he said, "before you go will you tell me one thing at least; was it M. de St. Genis himself who accused me of treachery?"

"There is no reason why I should deny it, Sir," she replied coldly. "It was M. de St. Genis himself who gave to my father and to me a full account of the interview which he had with you at a lonely inn, some few kilomètres from Lyons, and less than two hours after we had been shamefully robbed on the highroad of money that belonged to the King."

"And did M. de St. Genis tell you, Mademoiselle, that I purposed to use that money for mine own ends?"

"Or for those of the Corsican," she retorted impatiently. "I care not which. Yes! Sir, M. de St. Genis told me that with his own lips and when I had heard the whole miserable story of your duplicity and your treachery, I—a helpless, deceived and feeble woman—did then and there register a vow that I too would do you some grievous wrong one day—a wrong as great as you had done not only to the King of France but to me and to my father who trusted you as we would a friend. What you did to-night has of course altered the irrevocableness of my vow. I owe, perhaps, my father's life to your timely intervention and for this I must be grateful, but . . ."

Her voice broke in a kind of passionate sob, and it took her a moment or two to recover herself, even while Clyffurde stood by, mute and with well-nigh broken heart, his very soul so filled with sorrow for her that there was no room in it even for resentment.

"Father let us go now," Crystal said after a while with brusque transition and in a steady voice; "no purpose can be served by further recriminations."

"None, my dear," said the Comte in his usual polished manner. "Personally I have felt all along that explanations could but aggravate the unpleasantness of the present position. Mr. Clyffurde understands perfectly, I am sure. He had his axe to grind—whether personal or political we really do not care to know—we are not likely ever to meet again. All we can do now is to thank him for his timely intervention on our behalf and . . ."

"And brand him a liar," broke in Clyffurde almost involuntarily and with bitter vehemence.

"Your pardon, Monsieur," retorted the Comte coldly, "neither my daughter nor I have done that. It is your deeds that condemn you, your own admissions and the word of M. de St. Genis. Would you perchance suggest that he lied?"

"Oh, no," rejoined Clyffurde with perfect calm, "it is I who lied, of course."

He had said this very slowly and as if speaking with mature deliberation: not raising his voice, nor yet allowing it to quiver from any stress of latent emotion. And yet there was something in the tone of it, something in the man's attitude, that suggested such a depth of passion that, quite instinctively, the Comte remained silent and awed. For the moment, however, Clyffurde seemed to have forgotten the older man's presence; wounded in every fibre of his being by the woman whom he loved so tenderly and so devotedly, he had spoken only to her, compelling her attention and stirring—even by this simple admission of a despicable crime—an emotion in her which she could not—would not define.

She turned large inquiring eyes on him, into which she tried to throw all that she felt of hatred and contempt for him. She had meant to wound him and it seemed indeed as if she had succeeded beyond her dearest wish. By the dim, flickering light of the street-lamp his face looked haggard and old. The traitor was suffering almost as much as he deserved, almost as much—Crystal said obstinately to herself—as she had wished him to do. And yet, at sight of him now, Crystal felt a strong, unconquerable pity for him: the womanly instinct no doubt to heal rather than to hurt.

But this pity she was not prepared to show him: she wanted to pass right out of his life, to forget once and for all that sense of warmth of the soul, of comfort and of peace which she had felt in his presence on that memorable evening at Brestalou. Above all, she never wanted to touch his hand again, the hand which seemed to have such power to protect and to shield her, when on that same evening she had placed her own in it.