Sir Percy Hits Back

I

On the spot where the Hôtel Moderne now rears its more ambitious head, there stood at that time a cottage with sloping red-tiled roof and whitewashed walls. It was owned by one Baptiste Portal, an old peasant of the Dauphiné, who dispensed refreshments to travellers and passersby, as his father and grandfather had done before him, in the shape of somewhat thin vin du pays and an occasional glass of eau-de-vie, while he spent his slack time chiefly in grumbling at the fact that the new posting-inn on the high road had taken all his trade away. He did not see the necessity of the posting-inn, did not old Baptiste, nor for a matter of that of the high road or the post-chaise. Before all these new notions had come into the heads of the government people up in Paris, travellers had been content to come squelching through the mud on the back of a good horse, or come ploughing through inches of dust in the old coche. So why not now? And was not the old wine of Les Amandiers as good and better than the vinegar dispensed at the more pretentious posting-inn? The place was called Les Amandiers because at the back of the house there were two anaemic almond-trees with gaunt, twisted arms which covered themselves in the spring with sickly blooms, and in the summer with dust. In front of the house, up against the whitewashed wall, there was a wooden bench on which Baptiste’s privileged customers were wont to sit on fine evenings, to drink their vin du pays and join the old man in his wholesale condemnation of the government “up in Paris” and its newfangled ways. From this vantage-point a glorious view was obtained over the valley of the Buëche, and beyond Laragne as far as the peaks of Pelvoux: whilst to the right towered in the distance the grand old citadel of Sisteron with its turrets and fortifications dating from the fourteenth century, and the stately church of Notre Dame. But views and winding rivers, snowy peaks and medieval fortresses did not interest Baptiste Portal’s customers nearly as much as the price of almonds or the alarming increase in the cost of living.

Now on this particular afternoon in May the mistral was blowing mercilessly across the valley from over the snows of Pelvoux, and the cold and the dust had driven all the good Portal’s customers indoors. The low-raftered room, decorated with strings of onions which hung from the ceiling together with a bunch or two of garlic, of basil and other potherbs, and perfumed also with the aroma of the pot-au-feu simmering in the kitchen, had acquired just that right atmosphere, cosy, warm and odorous, beloved of every true man born in Dauphiné. It was a memorable afternoon, remembered long afterwards and retold by the gossips of Sisteron and Laragne in all its dramatic details. But at this hour, nothing more dramatic had occurred than the arrival of a detachment of soldiers, under the command of an under-officer, who had come up from Orange, so they said, in order to fetch away the young men who were wanted for the army. They had demanded supper and shelter for the night.

Of course soldiers, as soldiers, were very much disapproved of by those worthies of Sisteron who frequented Les Amandiers, more especially now when what they did was to fetch away the young men for cannon-fodder, to fight the English and prolong this awful war which caused food to be so dear and hands for harvesting so scarce. But on the other hand, soldiers as company were welcome. They brought news of the outside world, most of it bad, it is true—nothing good did happen anywhere these days—but news nevertheless. And though at the recital of what went on in Paris, in Lyons or even as near as Orange, the guillotine, the tumbrils, the wholesale slaughter of tyrants and aristos, one shuddered with horror and apprehension, there were always the lively tales of barrack-life to follow, the laughter, the ribald song, and something of life seemed to filtrate into this sleepy half-dead corner of old Dauphiné.

The soldiers—there were a score of them—occupied the best place in the room, as was only fitting; they sat squeezed tightly against one another like dried figs in a box, on the two benches on either side of the centre trestle table. Old Baptiste Portal sat with them, beside the officer. Some kind of lieutenant this man appeared to be, or other subaltern; but oh dear me! these days one could hardly tell an officer from the ragtag and bobtail of the army, save for the fact that he wore epaulettes. Now this man—but there! what was the use of comparing these ruffians with the splendid officers of the King’s armies in the past?

This one certainly was not proud. He sat with his men, joked, drank with them, and presently he convened friend Portal to a glass of wine: “A la santé,” he added, “de la République, and of Citizen Robespierre, the great and incorruptible master of France!”

Baptiste, wagging his old head, had not liked to refuse, because soldiers were soldiers and these had been at great pains to explain to him that the reason why the guillotine was kept so busy was because Frenchmen had not yet learned to be good Republicans.

“We’ve cut off the head of Louis Capet and of the widow Capet too,” the officer had added with grim significance, “but there are still Frenchmen who are bad patriots and hanker after the return of the tyrants.”

Now Baptiste, like all his like in the Dauphiné, had learned in childhood to worship God and honour the King. The crime of regicide appeared to him unforgivable, like that mysterious sin against the Holy Ghost, which M. le Curé used vaguely to hint at, and which no one understood. In addition to that, Baptiste greatly resented His late Majesty King Louis XVI and his august Queen being irreverently referred to as Louis Capet and the widow Capet. But he kept his own counsel and silently drank his wine. What his thoughts were at the moment was nobody’s business.

After that, talk drifted to the neighbourhood: the aristos who still clung to the land which by right belonged to the people. Neither Baptiste nor his customers—old peasants from the district—were a match for the lieutenant and his corporals in such discussions. They did not dare argue, only shook their heads and sighed at the coarse jests which the soldiers uttered against people and families whom everyone in the Dauphiné knew and esteemed.

The Frontenacs for instance.

The talk and the jests had turned on the Frontenacs: people who had owned the land for as long as the oldest inhabitant could remember and God only knows how long before that. Well! it appeared that in the eyes of these soldiers of the Republic the Frontenacs were bad patriots, tyrants and traitors. Didn’t Citizen Portal know that?

No! Portal did not—he had never been called “citizen” before, and didn’t like it: he was just Baptiste to those who knew him, quoi?—Nor would he admit that the Frontenacs were traitors. There was Monsieur, who knew more about cattle and almonds than any man for leagues around. How could he be a bad patriot? And Madame, who was very good and pious, and Mademoiselle who was so ill and delicate. But on this there followed an altercation—stern rebuke of Baptiste from the officer for talking of “Monsieur,” of “Madame” and “Mademoiselle.” Bah! there were no aristos left these days. “Aren’t we all citizens of France?” the lieutenant concluded grandiloquently.

Silence and submission on the part of all the groundlings which followed on the lieutenant’s rebuke, somewhat mollified the latter’s aggressive patriotism. He condescended to relate how he had been deputed to make a perquisition in the house of the Frontenacs, and if anything was found the least compromising, then the devil help the whole brood: their lives would not be worth an hour’s purchase. In fact, in the lieutenant’s opinion—and who better qualified to hold one?—the Frontenacs were already judged, condemned, and as good as guillotined. He held with the “law of the suspect,” lately enacted by the National Assembly, did Lieutenant Godet.

Again much wagging of heads! “The Committees in all Sections,” Godet now goes on airily, and proceeds to pick his teeth after that excellently stewed scrag-end of mutton, “the Committees in all Sections are ordered in future to arrest all persons who are suspect.”

No one knows what is a Committee, nor yet a Section: but they are evidently fearsome things. But no matter about them: the thing is who are the “suspect” who are thus arrestable?

“The Frontenacs are suspect,” the lieutenant explains whilst sucking his toothpick, “and so are all persons who by their actions—or—their writings have become—er—suspect.”

Not very illuminating perhaps, but distinctly productive of awe. The worthies of Sisteron, those who are privileged to sit close to the centre table and actually to put in a word with the soldiers, sip their wine in silence. Just below the tiny window at the end of the room two charcoal-burners, or woodcutters—I know not what they are—are lending an attentive ear. They dare not join in the conversation because they are comparative strangers, vagabonds really, come to pick up a few sous by doing menial work too lowering for a local peasant to do. One of them is small and slender, but looks vigorous; the other, much older, with stooping shoulders, and grey, lank hair that falls over a wrinkled forehead. He is harassed by a constant, tearing cough which he strives in vain to suppress out of respect for the company.

“But,” the worthy Portal puts in tentatively, “how does one know Monsieur le—I mean citizen officer, that a person is in verity suspect?”

The lieutenant explains with a sweeping gesture of the toothpick: “If you are a good patriot, Citizen Portal, you are able to recognize a Suspect in the street, you can seize him by the collar then and there, and you may drag him off before the Committee, who will promptly clap him in prison. And remember,” he added significantly, “that there are forty-four thousand Committees in France today.”

“Forty-four thousand?” somebody exclaims.

“And twenty-three,” Godet replies, gloating over his knowledge of this trifling detail.

“Forty-four thousand and twenty-three,” he reiterates and claps the table with the palm of his hand.

“One in Sisteron?” someone murmurs.

“Three!” the lieutenant replies.

“And the Frontenacs are suspect, you say?”

“I shall know that tomorrow,” rejoins the other, “and so will you.”

The way he said those three last words caused everyone to shudder. Over at the far end of the room, the charcoal burner, or whatever he was, had a tearing fit of coughing.

“ ’Tis little Fleurette who will weep her eyes out,” good old Baptiste said with a doleful shake of the head, “if anything happens to Mad—to the citizens up at the château.”

“Fleurette?” the lieutenant asked.

“She is Armand’s daughter—Citizen Armand you know—why—?”

He might well stare, for the officer, for some unaccountable reason, had burst into a loud guffaw.

“Citizen Armand’s daughter did you say?” he queried at last, his eyes still streaming with the effort of laughing.