I WAS still plunged in these thoughts when the bell was rung that discharged our visitors into the street.Our little market was no sooner closed than we were summoned to the distribution, and received our rations, which we were then allowed to eat according to fancy in any part of our quarters.
I have said the conduct of some of our visitors was unbearably offensive; it was possibly more so than they dreamed - as the sight-seers at a menagerie may offend in a thousand ways, and quite without meaning it, the noble and unfortunate animals behind the bars; and there is no doubt but some of my compatriots were susceptible beyond reason.Some of these old whiskerandos, originally peasants, trained since boyhood in victorious armies, and accustomed to move among subject and trembling populations, could ill brook their change of circumstance.There was one man of the name of Goguelat, a brute of the first water, who had enjoyed no touch of civilisation beyond the military discipline, and had risen by an extreme heroism of bravery to a grade for which he was otherwise unfitted - that of MARECHAL DES LOGIS in the 22nd of the line.In so far as a brute can be a good soldier, he was a good soldier; the Cross was on his breast, and gallantly earned; but in all things outside his line of duty the man was no other than a brawling, bruising ignorant pillar of low pothouses.As a gentleman by birth, and a scholar by taste and education, I was the type of all that he least understood and most detested; and the mere view of our visitors would leave him daily in a transport of annoyance, which he would make haste to wreak on the nearest victim, and too often on myself.
It was so now.Our rations were scarce served out, and I had just withdrawn into a corner of the yard, when I perceived him drawing near.He wore an air of hateful mirth; a set of young fools, among whom he passed for a wit, followed him with looks of expectation;
and I saw I was about to be the object of some of his insufferable pleasantries.He took a place beside me, spread out his rations, drank to me derisively from his measure of prison beer, and began.
What he said it would be impossible to print; but his admirers, who believed their wit to have surpassed himself, actually rolled among the gravel.For my part, I thought at first I should have died.I had not dreamed the wretch was so observant; but hate sharpens the ears, and he had counted our interviews and actually knew Flora by her name.Gradually my coolness returned to me, accompanied by a volume of living anger that surprised myself.
'Are you nearly done?' I asked.'Because if you are, I am about to say a word or two myself.'
'Oh, fair play!' said he.'Turn about! The Marquis of Carabas to the tribune.'
'Very well,' said I.'I have to inform you that I am a gentleman.
You do not know what that means, hey? Well, I will tell you.It is a comical sort of animal; springs from another strange set of creatures they call ancestors; and, in common with toads and other vermin, has a thing that he calls feelings.The lion is a gentleman; he will not touch carrion.I am a gentleman, and I cannot bear to soil my fingers with such a lump of dirt.Sit still, Philippe Goguelat! sit still and do not say a word, or I shall know you are a coward; the eyes of our guards are upon us.
Here is your health!' said I, and pledged him in the prison beer.
'You have chosen to speak in a certain way of a young child,' I continued, 'who might be your daughter, and who was giving alms to me and some others of us mendicants.If the Emperor' - saluting -
'if my Emperor could hear you, he would pluck off the Cross from your gross body.I cannot do that; I cannot take away what His Majesty has given; but one thing I promise you - I promise you, Goguelat, you shall be dead to-night.'
I had borne so much from him in the past, I believe he thought there was no end to my forbearance, and he was at first amazed.
But I have the pleasure to think that some of my expressions had pierced through his thick hide; and besides, the brute was truly a hero of valour, and loved fighting for itself.Whatever the cause, at least, he had soon pulled himself together, and took the thing (to do him justice) handsomely.
'And I promise you, by the devil's horns, that you shall have the chance!' said he, and pledged me again; and again I did him scrupulous honour.
The news of this defiance spread from prisoner to prisoner with the speed of wings; every face was seen to be illuminated like those of the spectators at a horse-race; and indeed you must first have tasted the active life of a soldier, and then mouldered for a while in the tedium of a jail, in order to understand, perhaps even to excuse, the delight of our companions.Goguelat and I slept in the same squad, which greatly simplified the business; and a committee of honour was accordingly formed of our shed-mates.They chose for president a sergeant-major in the 4th Dragoons, a greybeard of the army, an excellent military subject, and a good man.He took the most serious view of his functions, visited us both, and reported our replies to the committee.Mine was of a decent firmness.I told him the young lady of whom Goguelat had spoken had on several occasions given me alms.I reminded him that, if we were now reduced to hold out our hands and sell pill-boxes for charity, it was something very new for soldiers of the Empire.We had all seen bandits standing at a corner of a wood truckling for copper halfpence, and after their benefactors were gone spitting out injuries and curses.'But,' said I, 'I trust that none of us will fall so low.As a Frenchman and a soldier, I owe that young child gratitude, and am bound to protect her character, and to support that of the army.You are my elder and my superior: tell me if I am not right.'
He was a quiet-mannered old fellow, and patted me with three fingers on the back.'C'EST BIEN, MON ENFANT,' says he, and returned to his committee.