The Hero of the People: A Historical Romance of Love, Liberty and Loyalty
“I will never suffer anybody to utter such rank blasphemy before me,”
cried the irritated schoolmaster. “You the equal of one whom nature and
heaven have taken sixty years to form? never!”
“Ask General Lafayette, who has proclaimed the Rights of Man.”
“What, do you quote as an authority that traitor, that firebrand of all
discord, that bad subject of the King?”
“It is you who blaspheme,” retaliated the peasant: “you must have been
buried for the last three months. This bad subject is the very one who
most serves the King. This torch of discord is the pledge of public
peace. This traitor is the best of Frenchmen.”
“Oh,” thundered the priest, “that ever I should believe that the royal
authority should sink so low that a goodfornothing of this sort invokes
Lafayette as once they called on Aristides.”
“Lucky for you the people do not hear you,” said Pitou.
“Oho, you reveal yourself now in your true colors,” said the priest
triumphantly: “you bully me. The people, those who cut the throats of
the royal bodyguard; who trample on the fallen, the people of your
Baillys, Lafayettes and Pitous. Why do you not denounce me to the people
of Villers Cotterets? Why do you not tuck up your sleeves to drag me out
to hang me up to the lamppost? where is your rope--you can be the
hangman.”
“You are saying odious things--you insult me,” said Pitou. “Have a care
that I do not show you up to the National Assembly!”
“Show me up? I will show you up, sirrah! as a failure as a scholar, as a
Latinist full of barbarisms, and as a beggar who comes preaching
subversive doctrines in order to prey upon your clients.”
“I do not prey upon anybody--it is not by _preying_ I live but by work:
and as for lowering me in the eyes of my fellow-citizens, know that I
have been elected by them commander of the National Guards of Haramont.”
“National Guards at Haramont? and you, Pitou, the captain? Abomination
of desolation! Such gangs as you would be chief of must be robbers,
footpads, bandits, and highwaymen.”
“On the contrary, they are organized to defend the home and the fields
as well as the life and liberties of all good citizens. That is why we
have [illegible]oc me to--for the arms.”
“Arms? oh, my museum?” shrieked the schoolmaster. “You come to pillage
my arsenal. The armor of the paladins on your ignoble backs. You are mad
to want to arm the ragamuffins of Pitou with the swords of the Spaniards
and the pikes of the Swiss.”
The priest laughed with such disdainful menace that Pitou shuddered in
every vein.
“No, father, we do not want the old curiosities, but the thirty marines’
guns which you have.”
“Avaunt!” said the abbe, taking a step towards the envoy.
“And you shall have the glory of contributing to deliver the country of
the oppressors,” said Pitou, who took a backward step.
“Furnish weapons against myself and friends,” said the other, “give you
guns to be fired against myself?” He plucked his scourge from his belt.
“Never, never!”
He waved the whip over his head.
“But your refusal will have a bad effect,” pleaded Pitou, retreating,
“you will be accused of national treason, and of being no citizen. Do
not expose yourself to this, good Father Fortier!”
“Mark me a martyr, eh, Nero? is that what you intend?” roared the
priest, with flaring eye and much more resembling the executioner than
the victim.
“No, father, I come as a peaceful envoy to----“
“Pillage my house for arms as your friends gutted the Soldiers’ Home at
Paris.”
“We received plenty of praise for that up there,” said Ange.
“And you would get plenty of strokes of the whip down here.”
“Look out,” said Pitou, who had backed to the door, and who recognized
the scourge as an old acquaintance, “you must not violate the rights of
man!”
“You shall see about that, rascal.”
“I am protected by my sacred character as an ambassador----“
“Are you?”
And just as Pitou had to turn after getting the street door open, for he
had backed through the hall, the infuriated schoolmaster let him have a
terrible lash where his backplate would have to be unusually long to
defend him. Whatever the courage of the conqueror of the Bastile, he
could not help emitting a shriek of pain as he bounded out among the
crowd expecting him.
At the yell, neighbors ran forth from their dwellings and to the
profound general astonishment all beheld the young man flying with all
swiftness under his helmet and with his sabre, while Father Fortier
stood on the doorstep, brandishing his whip like the Exterminating Angel
waves his sword.
CHAPTER IX.
PITOU BECOMES A TACTICIAN.
Our hero’s fall was deep. How could he go back to his friends without
the arms? How, after having had so much confidence shown in him, tell
them that their leader was a braggart who, in spite of his sword and
helmet, had let a priest whack him in the rear?
To vaunt of carrying all before him with Father Fortier and fail so
shamefully--what a fault!
To obtain the muskets, force or cunning was the means. He might steal
into the school and steal out the arms. But the word “steal,” sounded
badly in the rustic’s ears. There were still left some people in France
who would call this the high-handed outrage of brigands.
So he recoiled before force and treachery.
His vanity was committed to the task, and prompted a fresh direction for
his searches.
General Lafayette was Commander-in-chief of the National Guards of
France; Haramont was in France and had a National Guards company.
Consequently, General Lafayette commanded the latter force. He could not
tolerate that his soldiers at Haramont should go unarmed when all his
others were armed. To appeal to Lafayette, he could apply to Billet who
would address Gilbert, and he the general.
Pitou wrote to Billet but as he could not read, it must be Gilbert who
would have the letter placed before him.
This settled, he waited for nightfall, returned to his lodgings
mysteriously and let his friends there see that he was writing at night.
This was the large square note which they also saw him post next day:
“DEAR AND HONORED FRIEND BILLET:
“The Revolutionary cause gains daily hereabouts and while the
aristocrats lose, the patriots advance. The Village of Haramont
enrolls itself in the active service of the National Guard; but it
has no arms. The means to procure them lies in those who harbor
arms in quantity should be made to surrender the overplus, so that
the country would be saved expense. If it pleases General Lafayette
to authorize that such illegal magazines of arms should be placed
at the call of the townships, proportionately to the number of men
to be armed, I undertake for my part to supply the Haramont Arsenal
with at least thirty guns. This is the only means to oppose a dam
to the contra-Revolutionary movements of the aristocrats and
enemies of the Nation.
“Your fellow-Citizen and most humble Servant,
“ANGE PITOU.”
When this was written the author perceived that he had omitted to speak
to his correspondent of his wife and daughter. He treated him too much
in the Brutus style; on the other hand, to give Billet particulars
about Catherine’s love affair was to rend the father’s heart; it was
also to re-open Pitou’s bleeding wounds. He stifled a sigh and appended
this P. S.
“Mistress Billet and Miss Catherine and all the household are well, and
beg to be remembered to Master Billet.”
Thus he entangled neither himself nor others.
The reply to this was not slow in coming. Two days subsequently, a
mounted express messenger dashed into Haramont and asked for Captain
Ange Pitou. His horse was white with foam. He wore the uniform of a
staff-officer of the Parisian National Guards.
Judge of the effect he produced and the trouble and throbs of Pitou! He
went up to the officer who smiled, and pale and trembling he took the
paper he bore for him. It was a response from Billet, by the hand of
Gilbert.
Billet advised Pitou to move moderately in his patriotism.
He enclosed General Lafayette’s order, countersigned by the War
Minister, to arm the Haramont National Guards.
The bearer was an officer charged to see to the arming of cities on the
road.
Thus ran the Order:
“All who possess more than one gun or sword are hereby bound to place
the excess at the disposal of the chief officials in their cantons. The
Present Measure is to be executed throughout the entire country.”
Red with joy, Pitou thanked the officer, who smiled again, and started
off for the next post for changing horses.
Thus was our friend at the high tide of honor: he had received a
communication from General Lafayette, and the War Minister.
This message served his schemes and plans most timely.
To see the animated faces of his fellows, their brightened eyes and
eager manner; the profound respect all at once entertained for Ange
Pitou, the most credulous observer must have owned that he had become an
important character.
One after another the electors begged to touch the seal of the War
Department.
When the crowd had tapered down to the chosen friends, Pitou said:
“Citizens, my plans have succeeded as I anticipated. I wrote to the
Commander-in-chief your desire to be constituted National Guards, and
your choice of me as leader. Read the address on the order brought me.”
The envelope was superscribed: “CAPTAIN ANGE PITOU, Commander of the
National Guards. Haramont.”
“Therefore,” continued the martial peasant, “I am known and accepted as
commander by the Chief of the Army. You are recognized and approved as
Soldiers of the Nation by General Lafayette and the Minister of War.”
A long cheer shook the walls of the little house which sheltered Pitou.
“I know where to get the arms,” he went on. “Select two of your number
to accompany me. Let them be lusty lads, for we may have a difficulty.”
The embryo regiment chose one Claude Tellier sergeant and one Desire
Maniquet lieutenant. Pitou approved.
Accompanied by the two, Captain Pitou proceeded once more to Villers
Cotterets where he went straight to the mayor to be still farther
supported in his demand.
On the way he was puzzled why the letter from Billet, written by
Gilbert, asked no news of Sebastian.
On the way he fretted over a paragraph in the letter from Billet,
written as it was by Dr. Gilbert, which read:
“Why has Pitou forgot to send news about Sebastian and why does not the
boy himself write news?”
Meanwhile, Father Fortier was little aware of the storm he had aroused;
and nobody was more astounded when a thunderclap came to his door. When
it was opened he saw on the sill the mayor, his vice, and his secretary.
Behind them appeared the cocked hats of two gendarmes, and half-a-dozen
curious people behind them.
“Father Fortier,” said the mayor, “are you aware of the new decree of
the Minister of War?”
“No, mayor,” said he.
“Read it, then.”
The secretary read the warrant to take extra arms from the domiciles.
The schoolmaster turned pale.
“The Haramont National Guard have come for the guns.”
Fortier jumped as if he meant to fly at the guardsmen.
Judging that this was the nick for his appearance, Pitou approached,
backed by his lieutenant and sergeant.
“These rogues,” cried the abbe, passing from white to red, “these
scums!”
The mayor was a neutral who wanted things to go on quietly; he had no
wish to quarrel with the altar or the guard-house; the invectives only
called forth his hearty laugh.
“You hear how the reverend gentleman treats the Haramont National
Guards,” he said to Pitou and his officers.
“Because he knew us when boys and does not think we have grown up,” said
Ange, with melancholy mildness.