The Last Cavalier: Being the Adventures of Count Sainte-Hermine in the Age of Napoleon

VII Blues and Whites

ROLAND STOOD ALONE for a moment. He was now free, but he had been disarmed literally by his fall and figuratively by his word. He contemplated the little mound where he and Cadoudal had shared a breakfast; it was still covered with the cloak that had served as a tablecloth. From there he could survey the whole battlefield, and if his eyes had not been clouded by tears of shame, he would not have missed the slightest detail.

Like the demon of war, invulnerable and relentless, Cadoudal was standing upright on his horse in the midst of the fire and smoke.

As the heat of his anger dried his tears of shame, Roland noticed more. Out in the fields where green wheat was beginning to sprout, he counted the bodies of a dozen Chouans who lay scattered here and there on the ground. But the Republicans, in their compact formation on the road, had lost more than twice that number.

The wounded on both sides dragged themselves into the open field, where, like broken serpents, they tried to rise and continue fighting, the Republicans with their bayonets, the Chouans with their knives. Or they would reload their guns, then manage to get up on one knee, and fire, and fall back again onto the ground.

On both sides the combat was relentless, unceasing, pitiless. Civil war, a merciless and unforgiving civil war, was translating its hate into blood and death across the battlefield.

Cadoudal rode back and forth through the human redoubt. From twenty paces he’d fire, sometimes with his pistols, sometimes from a double-barreled gun that he’d then toss to a Chouan for reloading. Every time he shot, a man would fall. General Harty honored Cadoudal’s maneuvers by ordering an entire platoon to fire at him.

In a wall of flame and smoke, he disappeared. They saw him fall, him and his horse, as if struck by lightning.

Ten or twelve men rushed out of the Republican ranks, but they were met by an equal number of Chouans. In the terrible hand-to-hand combat, the Chouans with their knives seemed to have the upper hand.

Then, suddenly, Cadoudal was again among them; standing in his stirrups, he wielded a pistol in each hand. Two men fell, two men died.

Thirty Chouans joined him to form a sort of wedge. Now wielding a regular-issue rifle, using it as a club, Cadoudal led his thirty men into their enemy’s ranks. With each swing the giant felled a man. He broke through the Blues’ battalion, and Roland saw him appear on the Republican side of the battle lines. Then, like a wild boar that turns back on a fallen hunter to rip out his entrails, Cadoudal reentered the fray and widened the breach.

General Harty rallied twenty men around him. Holding their bayonets in front of them, they bore down on the Chouans who had formed a circle around their general. Harty’s horse had been disemboweled, so with his clothing full of bullet holes and blood flowing from two wounds, he marched on foot with his twenty men. Ten of them fell before they could break the Chouan circle, but Harty made it through to the other side.

Ready though the Chouans were to pursue him, Cadoudal in a thunderous voice called out: “You should not have let him pass, but since he’s already through, let him withdraw freely.” The Chouans obeyed their leader as if his words were sacred.

“And now,” Cadoudal cried, “let the firing cease! No more killing! Only prisoners!”

And with that, everything was over.

In that horrible war both sides shot their prisoners: the Blues because they considered the Chouans and the Vendeans to be brigands; the Whites because they didn’t know what to do with the Republicans they captured.

The Republicans tossed aside their guns to avoid handing them over to their enemy. When the Chouans approached them, they opened their cartridge pouches to show that they had spent their last ammunition.

Cadoudal started his march over to Roland.

During the final stages of the battle, the young man had remained seated; with his eyes fixed on the struggle, his hair wet with sweat, his breathing pained and heavy, he had waited. When he saw that fortune had turned against the Republicans and him, he had put his hands to his head and dropped facedown to the ground.

Roland seemed not to hear Cadoudal’s footsteps when he walked up to him. Then slowly the young officer raised his head; tears were coursing down both cheeks.

“General,” said Roland. “Dispose of me as you will. I am your prisoner.”

“Well,” laughed Cadoudal, “we cannot make a prisoner of the First Consul’s ambassador, but we can ask him to do us a service.”

“What service? Just give the order.”

“I don’t have enough ambulances for the wounded. I don’t have enough prisons for the prisoners. Take it upon yourself to lead the Republican soldiers, both the prisoners and the wounded, back to Vannes.”

“What are you saying, General?” Roland exclaimed.

“I put them in your care. I regret that your horse is dead. I am sorry too that my own horse was killed, but Branche-d’Or’s horse is still available. Please accept it.”

Cadoudal saw that the young man was reluctant. “In exchange, do I not still have the horse you left in Muzillac?” George said.

Roland understood that he had no choice but to match the noble character of the person he was dealing with.

“Will I see you again, General?” he asked, getting to his feet.

“I doubt it, monsieur. My operations call me to the Port-Louis coast, and your duty calls you back to the Luxemburg Palace.” (At that time, Bonaparte was still living there.)

“What shall I tell the First Consul, General?”

“Tell him what you saw, and tell him especially that I consider myself greatly honored that he has promised to see me.”

“And given what I have seen, monsieur, I doubt that you will ever need me,” said Roland. “But in any case, remember that you have a friend close to General Bonaparte.” He extended his hand to Cadoudal.

The Royalist leader took his hand with the same candor and confidence he had shown before the battle. “Good-bye, Monsieur de Montrevel,” he said. “I’m sure there’s no need for me to remind you to do justice to General Harty? A defeat of that kind is as glorious as a victory.”

Branche-d’Or’s horse had meanwhile been brought to the colonel. He leaped into the saddle. Taking one last look around the battlefield, Roland heaved a great sigh. With a final good-bye to Cadoudal he then started off at a gallop across the fields toward the Vannes highway, where he would await the cart with the prisoners and the wounded that he had been charged with taking back to General Harty.

Each man had received ten pounds on Cadoudal’s orders. Roland could not help but think that Cadoudal was being generous with the Directory’s money, sent to the West by Morgan and his unfortunate companions. And Morgan’s companions had paid for that money with their heads.

The next day, Roland was in Vannes. In Nantes, he took the stagecoach to Paris and arrived two days later.

As soon as Bonaparte learned that he was back, he summoned Roland to his study.

“Well, then,” Bonaparte asked when he appeared, “what about this Cadoudal? Was he worth the trouble you put yourself through?”

“General,” Roland answered, “if Cadoudal is willing to come over to our side for one million, give him two, and don’t sell him to anyone else even for four.”

Colorful as the answer was, it was not sufficient for Bonaparte. So Roland had to recount in detail his meeting with Cadoudal in Muzillac, their night march under the singular protection of the Chouans, and finally the combat, in which, after prodigious feats of courage, General Harty had yielded to the Royalists.

Bonaparte was jealous of such men. Often he had spoken with Roland about Cadoudal, in the hope that some defeat would encourage the Breton leader to abandon the Royalist party. But soon Bonaparte was crossing the Alps and concentrating not on civil war but on foreign wars. He had crossed the Saint-Bernard pass on the 20th and 21st of May and the Tessino River at Turbigo on the 31st. On June 2nd he entered Milan. After conferring with General Desaix, who was just back from Egypt, he spent the night of the 11th in Montebello. On the 12th, Bonaparte had set his army in position on the Scrivia and finally, on June 14, 1800, he had waged the Battle of Marengo. There, tired of life, Bonaparte’s aide-de-camp Roland had been killed in the explosion he himself had ignited when he set fire to a munitions wagon.

Bonaparte no longer had anyone to talk to about Cadoudal. Still, he thought often about the Breton brigand. Then, early in February 1801, the First Consul received a letter from Brune containing this letter from Cadoudal:

General,

If I had to fight only the 35,000 men you currently have in the Morbihan, I would not hesitate to continue the campaign as I have done for more than a year, and by a series of lightning-quick movements, I would destroy them to the last man. But others would immediately replace them, and prolonging the war would only result in the greatest of disasters.

Please set the date for a meeting, giving your word of honor. I shall come to see you without fear, alone or with others. I shall negotiate for me and for my men, and I shall be tough for them alone.

George Cadoudal

Beneath Cadoudal’s signature, Bonaparte wrote: “Set a meeting promptly. Agree to all his conditions, provided that George and his men lay down their arms. Insist that he come see me in Paris, and give him a safe-conduct. I want to see this man close-up and form my own judgment of him.” And in his own hand he addressed the letter “To General Brune, Commander-in-Chief of the Western Army.”

As it happened, General Brune was camped on the same road between Muzillac and Vannes where the Battle of the One Hundred had taken place two years before. There General Harty had been defeated, and there Cadoudal now appeared before General Brune. Brune extended his hand and led Cadoudal, along with his aides-de-camp Sol de Grisolles and Pierre Guillemot, across a trench where all four sat down.

Their discussion was just about to begin when Branche-d’Or arrived with a letter so important (so he’d been told) that he thought he should deliver it immediately to the general, wherever he happened to be. The Blues had allowed him passage to his leader, who, with Brune’s permission, took the letter and quickly perused it.

His face betraying no emotion, Cadoudal finished the letter, folded it back up, and tossed it into his hat. Then he turned toward Brune. “I’m all ears, General,” he said.

Ten minutes later, everything was decided. The Chouans, officers and soldiers alike, would all return freely to their homes without harassment, not then or in the future, and they would not take up arms again except by direct orders from Cadoudal himself.

As for Cadoudal himself, he asked that he be granted the right to sell the few parcels of land, the mill, and the house that belonged to him and with the money from the sale be allowed to settle in England. He asked for no indemnity whatever.

As for a meeting with the First Consul, Cadoudal declared that he would consider it a great honor. He said he’d be ready to go to Paris as soon as he had arranged with a notary in Vannes for the sale of his property and with Brune for a safe-conduct.

As for his two aides-de-camp, other than permission for them to accompany him to Paris so they could witness his meeting with Bonaparte, he asked only for the same conditions he had obtained for his men—pardon for the past, safety for the future.

Brune asked for pen and ink.

The treaty was written on a drum. It was shown to George, who then signed it, as did his aides-de-camp. Brune signed last and gave his personal guarantee that the document would be faithfully executed.

While a copy was being made, Cadoudal pulled the letter he had received out of his hat. Handing it to Brune, he said, “Read this, General. You will see that I did not sign the treaty because I needed money.” For indeed, the letter from England announced that the sum of three hundred thousand francs had been deposited with a banker in Nantes, with the order that the funds be made available to George Cadoudal.

Taking the pen, Cadoudal wrote on the second page of the letter: “Sir, Send the money back to London. I have just signed a peace treaty with General Brune, and consequently I am unable to receive money destined for making war.”

Three days after the treaty had been signed, Bonaparte had a copy in hand, along with Brune’s notes detailing the meeting.

Two weeks later, George had sold his property for a total of sixty thousand francs. On February 13, he alerted Brune that he would be leaving for Paris, and on the 18th Le Moniteur, the official record, published this announcement:

George will be going to Paris to meet with the government. He is a man thirty years of age. The son of a miller, fond of battle, having a good education, he told General Brune that his whole family had been guillotined but that he wished to be associated with the government. He said that he wanted his links with England to be forgotten, and that he had only sought out England in order to oppose the regime of 1793 and the anarchy that seemed then about to devour France.

Bonaparte was right to say, when Bourrienne offered to read him the French newspapers, “That’s enough, Bourrienne. They say only what I let them say.”

The newspaper report of course had come directly from Bonaparte’s office, and with customary skill it combined both foresight and hate. In his foresight, the First Consul was improvising Cadoudal’s rehabilitation by attributing to him the desire to serve the government. And in his hate, he was charging him with crimes against the regime of 1793.

On February 16, Cadoudal arrived in Paris. On the 18th, he read the brief piece about him in Le Moniteur. For a moment he was tempted to leave without seeing Bonaparte, hurt as he was by the newspaper’s tone. But he decided it was better to accept the proposed audience and make his profession of faith to the First Consul. Accompanied by two witnesses, his officers Sol de Grisolles and Pierre Guillemot, he would go to the Tuileries as if he were going to a duel. Through the War Ministry, he sent word to the Tuileries that he had arrived in Paris. He received back a letter setting the audience for the next day, on February 19, at nine in the morning.

And that was the meeting to which the First Consul Bonaparte was hurrying so eagerly, once he had sorted out Josephine’s debts.

VIII The Meeting

THE THREE ROYALIST LEADERS were waiting in the large room that people continued to officially call the Louis Quatorze Room; unofficially, they called it the Cockade Room.

All three wore the typical Royalist uniform, for that was one of the conditions Cadoudal had set. The gray jacket with a green collar was simply adorned with a gold stripe for Cadoudal and a silver one for each of his officers. They also wore Breton suspenders, large gray gaiters, and white quilted vests. Sabers hung at their sides. And their soft felt hats sported a white cockade.

Duroc, when he saw them, placed his hand on Bonaparte’s arm, and the First Consul stopped to look at his aide-de-camp. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

“They have their sabers,” said Duroc.

“So?” Bonaparte replied. “They aren’t prisoners.”

“No matter,” said Duroc. “I’ll leave the door open.”

“Indeed, it’s not necessary. They are enemies, but loyal enemies. Do you not recall what our poor comrade Roland said about them?”

Briskly Bonaparte walked into the room where the three Chouans were waiting. He signaled to Rapp and the two other officers who were present that they should station themselves outside.

“Here you are at last!” said Bonaparte, recognizing Cadoudal from the description his former aide-de-camp had given him. “A friend we have in common, whom we had the misfortune to lose at the Battle of Marengo, Colonel Roland de Montrevel, told me very good things about you.”

“I am not surprised,” Cadoudal answered. “During the short time I had the honor of knowing Monsieur Roland de Montrevel, I was able to recognize in him the most gentlemanly feelings. But, although you may know who I am, General, I must introduce to you the two men accompanying me, as they have also been admitted into the honor of your presence.”

Bonaparte bowed slightly, as if to indicate that he was listening.

Cadoudal placed his hand on the older of the two officers. “Taken to the colonies as a young man, Monsieur Sol de Grisolles crossed the sea to return to France. During the crossing, he was shipwrecked and found floating alone on a plank in the middle of the ocean, barely conscious and about to be swallowed up by the waves. Later, a prisoner of the Revolution, he cut through his dungeon walls, escaped, and the next day he was fighting in our ranks. Your soldiers had sworn to take him at all costs, and during discussions about peace, they invaded the house where he had taken refuge. Alone, he defended himself against fifty soldiers. When he’d spent all his cartridges, he could only surrender or else throw himself out a window twenty feet from the ground. Without hesitation, he leaped and, landing among the Republicans, rolled over, got back to his feet, killed two of his enemy, wounded three others, took off running and escaped in spite of the bullets whistling uselessly around him.

“As for this man,” Cadoudal said, pointing to Pierre Guillemot, “he too was surprised in a farmhouse where he was enjoying a few hours of rest. Your men entered his bedroom before he could grab his saber or rifle, so he picked up an axe and split open the head of the first soldier who approached him. The Republicans backed off. Guillemot, still brandishing his axe, reached the door, parried the thrust of a bayonet that barely touched his skin, and escaped across the fields. When he came to a barrier where a soldier stood guard, he killed the guard and leaped over the barrier. And when a Blue in pursuit of him was at his heels, Guillemot turned around and split open the man’s chest with one swing of his axe. Finally he was free to come join my Chouans and me.

“As for me.…” Cadoudal added, bowing modestly.

“As for you,” Bonaparte interrupted, “I know more about you than you yourself would tell me. You picked up where your fathers left off. Instead of the Combat of the Thirty, you were the victor at the Combat of the One Hundred, and some day people will call the war you have been waging the war of the giants.” Then, stepping forward, he said, “Come, George. I’d like to speak to you alone.”

George hesitated a moment, but followed him all the same. He would have preferred that his two officers also hear any words he and the head of the French republic would exchange.

Bonaparte, however, said nothing until they were out of earshot. Then he spoke: “Listen, George,” he said, “I need energetic men to help me to finish the task I’ve undertaken. I used to have near me a heart of bronze on which I could depend as if he were me myself. You met him: Roland de Montrevel. A despondency I could never fully understand led him to suicide, for his death truly was a suicide. Are you willing to join me? I have proposed the rank of colonel for you, but you are worth more than that, I know, and I can offer you the rank of major general.”

“I thank you from the depths of my heart, General,” George responded, “but you would think less of me if I accepted.”

“Why do you say that?” Bonaparte asked quickly.

“Because I swore allegiance to the Bourbons, and to the Bourbons I’d remain faithful even if I’d accept.”

“Come now,” said the First Consul, “is there no way I can get you to join me?”

Cadoudal shook his head.

“You have heard people slandering me,” said Bonaparte.

“General,” answered the Royalist officer, “might I be permitted to repeat the things people have told me?”

“Why not? Do you think I’m not strong enough to hear the bad as well as the good that people speak of me?”

“Please note that I affirm nothing. All I shall do is repeat what people say,” said Cadoudal.

“Go ahead,” said the First Consul, a slightly worried smile on his face.

“They say that you were able to come back to France so successfully, without hindrance by the English fleet, because you had made a treaty with Commodore Sidney Smith. They say the terms of the treaty allowed you to return without threat on the agreed-to condition that you would restore our former kings to the throne.”

“George,” said Bonaparte, “you are one of those men whose esteem I value and whom, consequently, I’d not want to give any cause for slander. Since returning from Egypt I have received two letters from the Comte de Provence. If such a treaty with Sir Sidney Smith had existed, do you think the count would have failed to make reference to it in one of the letters he did me the honor of sending? I shall show you these letters, and you can judge for yourself if the accusation brought against me has any basis.”

In the course of their walking, they’d come to the Louis Quatorze Room’s door. Bonaparte opened it. “Duroc,” he said, “go ask Bourrienne to send me the two letters from the Comte de Provence as well as my response. They are in the middle drawer of my desk, in a leather portfolio.”

While Duroc carried out the assigned task, Bonaparte continued: “How astonished I am to see how much your former kings constitute virtually a religion to you plebeians! Suppose I did restore the throne—something I’m not at all inclined to do, I tell you—what would be in it for you people who have shed your blood to see the throne restored? Not even the confirmation of the rank you have fought to obtain. A miller’s son a colonel? Come now. In the royal armies, was there ever a colonel who was not a nobleman born? Among the ungrateful nobility has ever a man risen so high because of his own worth or even for services rendered? Whereas with me, George, you can rise to any rank or level. For the higher I rise, the higher shall I raise those surrounding me.… Ah, here are the letters. Give them to me, Duroc.”

Duroc handed him three documents. The first one Bonaparte opened bore the date of February 20, 1800, and we have copied the Comte de Provence’s letter from the archives without changing a single word.

Whatever their apparent conduct may be, men such as you, monsieur, never cause concern. You have accepted a high position, and I am grateful to you for that. Better than anyone else, you know what strength and power are necessary for a great country’s happiness. Save France from its own fury, and you will have fulfilled my heart’s deepest wish; give it back its king, and future generations will bless your memory. Your importance to the country will always be too great for me to pay the debt my ancestor and I owe you by some high appointment.

Louis

“Do you see any allusion to a treaty in that letter?” asked Bonaparte.

“General, I admit that I do not,” George answered. “And you didn’t answer the letter?”

“I must say that I thought there was no hurry, and I expected I would receive a second letter before deciding. It was not long in coming. A few months later, this undated letter arrived.” He passed it to Cadoudal.

You have surely known for a long time, General, that my esteem for you is assured. If you were to doubt that I am capable of gratitude, propose your own position and set the destiny of your friends. As for my principles, I am French. Lenient by nature, reason makes me even more so.

No, the victor at Lodi, Castiglione, and Arcole, the conqueror of Italy and Egypt, cannot prefer vain celebrity to true glory. However, you are wasting precious time. We can guarantee France’s glory. I say “we” because to accomplish that, I need Bonaparte, and because Bonaparte cannot do it without me.

General, Europe has its eyes on you, glory awaits you, and I am impatient to bring peace back to my people.

Louis

“As you see, monsieur,” Bonaparte said, “there’s no more reference to a treaty in the second letter than there was in the first.”

“Dare I ask, General, if you answered this one?”

“I was about to have Bourrienne answer the letter and sign it when he pointed out to me that since the letters were penned by the Comte de Provence himself, it would be more appropriate for me to respond in my own handwriting, however bad it may be. Since it was an important matter, I did the best I could, and the letter I wrote was at least readable. Here’s a copy,” said Bonaparte, handing George a copy Bourrienne had made of the letter he himself had written to the Comte de Provence. It contained this refusal:

I received your letter, monsieur; I thank you for your kind words.

You ought not wish to return to France; you would need to tread over one hundred thousand cadavers.

Sacrifice your interests to France’s peace and happiness. History will be grateful.

I am not unfeeling about your family’s misfortunes, and I shall be pleased to learn that you have everything you need for a peaceful retirement.

Bonaparte

“So,” asked George, “was that indeed your final word?”

“My final word.”

“And yet history provided a precedent.…”

“The history of England, not our own history, monsieur,” Bonaparte interrupted. “Me playing the role of Monck? Oh no! If I had to choose and if I wanted to imitate an Englishman, I would prefer Washington. Monck lived in a century when the prejudices that we fought against and overturned in 1789 were still strong. Even if Monck had tried to become king, he would not have been able to. A dictator perhaps, but nothing more. To do more, he would have needed Cromwell’s genius. A quality lacking in Richard, Cromwell’s son, who was not able to retain power—of course he was an idiot, the typical son of a great man. And then, some fine result, the restoration of Charles II! Replacing a puritan court with a libertine court! Following his father’s example, he dissolved three or four parliaments and tried to govern alone, then set up a cabinet of lackeys that attended more to matters of royal debauchery than to the business of the court. He was greedy for pleasure and stopped at nothing when money was at stake. He sold Dunkirk to Louis XIV—Dunkirk, which was England’s key possession in France. And he had Algernon Sidney executed, on the pretext that he was party to some nonexistent conspiracy, when, in fact, Sidney had refused not only to attend the commission that sentenced Charles I to death but also, adamantly, to sign the act ordering the royal execution.

“Cromwell died in 1658, when he was fifty-nine years old. During the ten years he was in power, he had the time to undertake many changes but to complete only a few. In fact, he was trying to accomplish complete reform: political reform by replacing a monarchy with a republican government, and religious reform by abolishing Catholicism in favor of Protestantism. Well, if you assume I shall live as long as Cromwell, to the age of fifty-nine—it’s not very long, is it?—I have about thirty more years: three times as many as Cromwell had. And you see that I’m not trying to change things. I’m content to continue things the way they are. I’m not overthrowing things, but rather raising them back up.”

Cadoudal laughed. “What about the Directory?”

“The Directory was not a government,” replied Bonaparte. “Is it possible to establish power on a rotten foundation like the Directory’s? If I had not returned from Egypt, the Directory would have collapsed under its own corrupt weight. All I had to do was nudge it a little. France wanted nothing to do with the Directory. And for proof of that, look at how France welcomed me back. What had the Directory done with the country in my absence? When I returned I found poor France threatened on every side by an enemy that already had a foothold inside three of its borders. I had left the country in peace; I found it now at war. I had left with victories behind me; I returned to defeats. I had left the country’s coffers with millions from Italy; on my return I found misery and spoliatory laws everywhere. What has become of those one hundred thousand soldiers, my companions in glory, men whom I knew by name? They are dead. While I was taking Malta, Alexandria, Cairo; while I was engraving with the point of our bayonets the name of France on pylons in Thebes and on obelisks in Karnak; while I was avenging the defeat of the last king of Jerusalem at the base of Mount Thabor—what was the Directory doing with my best generals? They allowed Humbert to be taken in Ireland; they arrested and tried to dishonor Championnet in Naples. Schérer retreated, thus obliterating the victorious path I had laid out in Italy. They let the English invade the coast of Holland; they got Raimbault killed in Turin, David at Alkmaar, and Joubert at Novi. And when I asked for reinforcements to keep Egypt, munitions to defend it, wheat to plant for its future, they sent me congratulatory letters and decrees stating that the Army of the Orient was meritorious and the pride of France.”

“They thought you could find all you needed in Acre, General.”

“That is my only failure, George,” said Bonaparte, “and if I had succeeded, I swear, I would have surprised all of Europe! If I had succeeded! I’ll tell you what I would have done then. I would have found the pasha’s treasures in Acre and enough weapons to arm three hundred thousand men. I would have roused and armed all of Syria, where everyone decried Djazzar’s cruelty; I would have marched on Damascus and Aleppo. My army would have grown larger and larger as I advanced, and I would have announced to the people the abolition of all servitude and of the pasha’s tyrannical government. I would have marched to Constantinople and overthrown the Turkish Empire. I would have founded a great new empire in the Orient that would have guaranteed my place in history. And then I would have come back to Paris through Adrianople or Vienna—after wiping out the house of Austria!”