Les Misérables, page 178
CHAPTER II--ONE OF THE RED SPECTRES OF THAT EPOCH
Any one who had chanced to pass through the little town of Vernon atthis epoch, and who had happened to walk across that fine monumentalbridge, which will soon be succeeded, let us hope, by some hideous ironcable bridge, might have observed, had he dropped his eyes over theparapet, a man about fifty years of age wearing a leather cap, andtrousers and a waistcoat of coarse gray cloth, to which something yellowwhich had been a red ribbon, was sewn, shod with wooden sabots, tannedby the sun, his face nearly black and his hair nearly white, a largescar on his forehead which ran down upon his cheek, bowed, bent,prematurely aged, who walked nearly every day, hoe and sickle in hand,in one of those compartments surrounded by walls which abut on thebridge, and border the left bank of the Seine like a chain of terraces,charming enclosures full of flowers of which one could say, were theymuch larger: "these are gardens," and were they a little smaller: "theseare bouquets." All these enclosures abut upon the river at one end, andon a house at the other. The man in the waistcoat and the wooden shoesof whom we have just spoken, inhabited the smallest of these enclosuresand the most humble of these houses about 1817. He lived there alone andsolitary, silently and poorly, with a woman who was neither young norold, neither homely nor pretty, neither a peasant nor a bourgeoise, whoserved him. The plot of earth which he called his garden was celebratedin the town for the beauty of the flowers which he cultivated there.These flowers were his occupation.
By dint of labor, of perseverance, of attention, and of buckets ofwater, he had succeeded in creating after the Creator, and he hadinvented certain tulips and certain dahlias which seemed to have beenforgotten by nature. He was ingenious; he had forestalled SoulangeBodin in the formation of little clumps of earth of heath mould, for thecultivation of rare and precious shrubs from America and China. Hewas in his alleys from the break of day, in summer, planting, cutting,hoeing, watering, walking amid his flowers with an air of kindness,sadness, and sweetness, sometimes standing motionless and thoughtfulfor hours, listening to the song of a bird in the trees, the babble of achild in a house, or with his eyes fixed on a drop of dew at the tip ofa spear of grass, of which the sun made a carbuncle. His table was veryplain, and he drank more milk than wine. A child could make him giveway, and his servant scolded him. He was so timid that he seemed shy, herarely went out, and he saw no one but the poor people who tapped at hispane and his curé, the Abbé Mabeuf, a good old man. Nevertheless, if theinhabitants of the town, or strangers, or any chance comers, curious tosee his tulips, rang at his little cottage, he opened his door with asmile. He was the "brigand of the Loire."
Any one who had, at the same time, read military memoirs, biographies,the _Moniteur_, and the bulletins of the grand army, would have beenstruck by a name which occurs there with tolerable frequency, the nameof Georges Pontmercy. When very young, this Georges Pontmercy had beena soldier in Saintonge's regiment. The revolution broke out. Saintonge'sregiment formed a part of the army of the Rhine; for the old regimentsof the monarchy preserved their names of provinces even after the fallof the monarchy, and were only divided into brigades in 1794. Pontmercyfought at Spire, at Worms, at Neustadt, at Turkheim, at Alzey, atMayence, where he was one of the two hundred who formed Houchard'srearguard. It was the twelfth to hold its ground against the corpsof the Prince of Hesse, behind the old rampart of Andernach, and onlyrejoined the main body of the army when the enemy's cannon had openeda breach from the cord of the parapet to the foot of the glacis. He wasunder Kléber at Marchiennes and at the battle of Mont-Palissel, wherea ball from a biscaïen broke his arm. Then he passed to the frontierof Italy, and was one of the thirty grenadiers who defended the Colde Tende with Joubert. Joubert was appointed its adjutant-general, andPontmercy sub-lieutenant. Pontmercy was by Berthier's side in the midstof the grape-shot of that day at Lodi which caused Bonaparte to say:"Berthier has been cannoneer, cavalier, and grenadier." He beheld hisold general, Joubert, fall at Novi, at the moment when, with upliftedsabre, he was shouting: "Forward!" Having been embarked with hiscompany in the exigencies of the campaign, on board a pinnace which wasproceeding from Genoa to some obscure port on the coast, he fell intoa wasps'-nest of seven or eight English vessels. The Genoese commanderwanted to throw his cannon into the sea, to hide the soldiers betweendecks, and to slip along in the dark as a merchant vessel. Pontmercy hadthe colors hoisted to the peak, and sailed proudly past under the gunsof the British frigates. Twenty leagues further on, his audacity havingincreased, he attacked with his pinnace, and captured a large Englishtransport which was carrying troops to Sicily, and which was so loadeddown with men and horses that the vessel was sunk to the level of thesea. In 1805 he was in that Malher division which took Günzberg from theArchduke Ferdinand. At Weltingen he received into his arms, beneath astorm of bullets, Colonel Maupetit, mortally wounded at the head of the9th Dragoons. He distinguished himself at Austerlitz in that admirablemarch in echelons effected under the enemy's fire. When the cavalry ofthe Imperial Russian Guard crushed a battalion of the 4th of the line,Pontmercy was one of those who took their revenge and overthrew theGuard. The Emperor gave him the cross. Pontmercy saw Wurmser at Mantua,Mélas, and Alexandria, Mack at Ulm, made prisoners in succession.He formed a part of the eighth corps of the grand army which Mortiercommanded, and which captured Hamburg. Then he was transferred to the55th of the line, which was the old regiment of Flanders. At Eylauhe was in the cemetery where, for the space of two hours, the heroicCaptain Louis Hugo, the uncle of the author of this book, sustainedalone with his company of eighty-three men every effort of the hostilearmy. Pontmercy was one of the three who emerged alive from thatcemetery. He was at Friedland. Then he saw Moscow. Then La Bérésina,then Lutzen, Bautzen, Dresden, Wachau, Leipzig, and the defiles ofGelenhausen; then Montmirail, Château-Thierry, Craon, the banks of theMarne, the banks of the Aisne, and the redoubtable position of Laon. AtArnay-Le-Duc, being then a captain, he put ten Cossacks to the sword,and saved, not his general, but his corporal. He was well slashed up onthis occasion, and twenty-seven splinters were extracted from his leftarm alone. Eight days before the capitulation of Paris he had justexchanged with a comrade and entered the cavalry. He had what wascalled under the old regime, _the double hand_, that is to say, anequal aptitude for handling the sabre or the musket as a soldier, ora squadron or a battalion as an officer. It is from this aptitude,perfected by a military education, which certain special branches of theservice arise, the dragoons, for example, who are both cavalry-men andinfantry at one and the same time. He accompanied Napoleon to the Islandof Elba. At Waterloo, he was chief of a squadron of cuirassiers, inDubois' brigade. It was he who captured the standard of the Lunenburgbattalion. He came and cast the flag at the Emperor's feet. He wascovered with blood. While tearing down the banner he had received asword-cut across his face. The Emperor, greatly pleased, shouted to him:"You are a colonel, you are a baron, you are an officer of the Legionof Honor!" Pontmercy replied: "Sire, I thank you for my widow." Anhour later, he fell in the ravine of Ohain. Now, who was this GeorgesPontmercy? He was this same "brigand of the Loire."
We have already seen something of his history. After Waterloo,Pontmercy, who had been pulled out of the hollow road of Ohain, as itwill be remembered, had succeeded in joining the army, and had draggedhimself from ambulance to ambulance as far as the cantonments of theLoire.
The Restoration had placed him on half-pay, then had sent him intoresidence, that is to say, under surveillance, at Vernon. King LouisXVIII., regarding all that which had taken place during the HundredDays as not having occurred at all, did not recognize his quality as anofficer of the Legion of Honor, nor his grade of colonel, nor his titleof baron. He, on his side, neglected no occasion of signing himself"Colonel Baron Pontmercy." He had only an old blue coat, and he neverwent out without fastening to it his rosette as an officer of the Legionof Honor. The Attorney for the Crown had him warned that the authoritieswould prosecute him for "illegal" wearing of this decoration. When thisnotice was conveyed to him through an officious intermediary, Pontmercyretorted with a bitter smile: "I do not know whether I no longerunderstand French, or whether you no longer speak it; but the fact isthat I do not understand." Then he went out for eight successive dayswith his rosette. They dared not interfere with him. Two or three timesthe Minister of War and the general in command of the departmentwrote to him with the following address: _"A Monsieur le CommandantPontmercy." _ He sent back the letters with the seals unbroken. At thesame moment, Napoleon at Saint Helena was treating in the same fashionthe missives of Sir Hudson Lowe addressed to _General Bonaparte_.Pontmercy had ended, may we be pardoned the expression, by having in hismouth the same saliva as his Emperor.
In the same way, there were at Rome Carthaginian prisoners who refusedto salute Flaminius, and who had a little of Hannibal's spirit.
One day he encountered the district-attorney in one of the streets ofVernon, stepped up to him, and said: "Mr. Crown Attorney, am I permittedto wear my scar?"
He had nothing save his meagre half-pay as chief of squadron. He hadhired the smallest house which he could find at Vernon. He lived therealone, we have just seen how. Under the Empire, between two wars, hehad found time to marry Mademoiselle Gillenormand. The old bourgeois,thoroughly indignant at bottom, had given his consent with a sigh,saying: "The greatest families are forced into it." In 1815, MadamePontmercy, an admirable woman in every sense, by the way, lofty insentiment and rare, and worthy of her husband, died, leaving achild. This child had been the colonel's joy in his solitude; but thegrandfather had imperatively claimed his grandson, declaring that ifthe child were not given to him he would disinherit him. The father hadyielded in the little one's interest, and had transferred his love toflowers.
Moreover, he had renounced everything, and neither stirred up mischiefnor conspired. He shared his thoughts between the innocent things whichhe was then doing and the great things which he had done. He passed histime in expecting a pink or in recalling Austerlitz.
M. Gillenormand kept up no relations with his son-in-law. The colonelwas "a bandit" to him. M. Gillenormand never mentioned the colonel,except when he occasionally made mocking allusions to "his Baronship."It had been expressly agreed that Pontmercy should never attempt to seehis son nor to speak to him, under penalty of having the latter handedover to him disowned and disinherited. For the Gillenormands, Pontmercywas a man afflicted with the plague. They intended to bring up thechild in their own way. Perhaps the colonel was wrong to accept theseconditions, but he submitted to them, thinking that he was doing rightand sacrificing no one but himself.
The inheritance of Father Gillenormand did not amount to much; but theinheritance of Mademoiselle Gillenormand the elder was considerable.This aunt, who had remained unmarried, was very rich on the maternalside, and her sister's son was her natural heir. The boy, whose name wasMarius, knew that he had a father, but nothing more. No one openedhis mouth to him about it. Nevertheless, in the society into which hisgrandfather took him, whispers, innuendoes, and winks, had eventuallyenlightened the little boy's mind; he had finally understood somethingof the case, and as he naturally took in the ideas and opinions whichwere, so to speak, the air he breathed, by a sort of infiltration andslow penetration, he gradually came to think of his father only withshame and with a pain at his heart.
While he was growing up in this fashion, the colonel slipped away everytwo or three months, came to Paris on the sly, like a criminal breakinghis ban, and went and posted himself at Saint-Sulpice, at the hour whenAunt Gillenormand led Marius to the mass. There, trembling lest the auntshould turn round, concealed behind a pillar, motionless, not daring tobreathe, he gazed at his child. The scarred veteran was afraid of thatold spinster.
From this had arisen his connection with the curé of Vernon, M. l'AbbéMabeuf.
That worthy priest was the brother of a warden of Saint-Sulpice, who hadoften observed this man gazing at his child, and the scar on his cheek,and the large tears in his eyes. That man, who had so manly an air, yetwho was weeping like a woman, had struck the warden. That face had clungto his mind. One day, having gone to Vernon to see his brother, he hadencountered Colonel Pontmercy on the bridge, and had recognized the manof Saint-Sulpice. The warden had mentioned the circumstance to the curé,and both had paid the colonel a visit, on some pretext or other. Thisvisit led to others. The colonel, who had been extremely reserved atfirst, ended by opening his heart, and the curé and the warden finallycame to know the whole history, and how Pontmercy was sacrificing hishappiness to his child's future. This caused the curé to regard him withveneration and tenderness, and the colonel, on his side, became fondof the curé. And moreover, when both are sincere and good, no men sopenetrate each other, and so amalgamate with each other, as an oldpriest and an old soldier. At bottom, the man is the same. The one hasdevoted his life to his country here below, the other to his country onhigh; that is the only difference.
Twice a year, on the first of January and on St. George's day, Mariuswrote duty letters to his father, which were dictated by his aunt, andwhich one would have pronounced to be copied from some formula; this wasall that M. Gillenormand tolerated; and the father answered them withvery tender letters which the grandfather thrust into his pocket unread.
