The Companions of Jehu by Alexandre Dumas (great novels of all time .TXT) 📖

it rebounded and rolled beyond the circle of the scaffolding, and they will still tell you at Bourg, that Hyvert’s head spoke.

 

Before I had finished reading I had decided to abandon René d’Argonne for the Companions of Jehu. On the morrow I came down with my travelling bag under my arm.

“You are leaving?” said Alexandre to me.

“Yes.”

“Where are you going?”

“To Bourg, in Bresse.”

“What are you going to do there?”

“Study the neighborhood and consult with the inhabitants who saw Leprêtre, Amiet, Guyon and Hyvert executed.”

 

*

 

There are two roads to Bourg—from Paris, of course; one may leave the train at Mâcon, and take stage from Mâcon to Bourg, or, continuing as far as Lyons, take train again from Lyons to Bourg.

I was hesitating between these two roads when one of the travellers who was temporarily occupying my compartment decided me. He was going to Bourg, where he frequently had business. He was going by way of Lyons; therefore, Lyons was the better way.

I resolved to travel by the same route. I slept at Lyons, and on the morrow by ten in the morning I was at Bourg.

A paper published in the second capital of the kingdom met my eye. It contained a spiteful article about me. Lyons has never forgiven me since 1833, I believe, some twenty-four years ago, for asserting that it was not a literary city. Alas! I have in 1857 the same opinion of Lyons as I had in 1833. I do not easily change my opinion. There is another city in France that is almost as bitter against me as Lyons, that is Rouen. Rouen has hissed all my plays, including Count Hermann.

One day a Neapolitan boasted to me that he had hissed Rossini and Malibran, “The Barbiere” and “Desdemona.”

“That must be true,” I answered him, “for Rossini and Malibran on their side boast of having been hissed by Neapolitans.”

So I boast that the Rouenese have hissed me. Nevertheless, meeting a full-blooded Rouenese one day I resolved to discover why I had been hissed at Rouen. I like to understand these little things.

My Rouenese informed me: “We hiss you because we are down on you.”

Why not? Rouen was down on Joan of Arc. Nevertheless it could not be for the same reason. I asked my Rouenese why he and his compatriots were ill-disposed to me; I had never said anything evil of apple sugar, I had treated M. Barbet with respect during his entire term as mayor, and, when a delegate from the Society of Letters at the unveiling of the statue of the great Corneille, I was the only one who thought to bow to him before beginning my speech. There was nothing in that which could have reasonably incurred the hatred of the Rouenese.

Therefore to this haughty reply, “We hiss you because we have a grudge against you,” I asked humbly:

“But, great Heavens! why are you down on me?”

“Oh, you know very well,” replied my Rouenese.

“I?” I exclaimed.

“Yes, you.”

“Well, never mind; pretend I do not know.”

“You remember the dinner the city gave you, in connection with that statue of Corneille?”

“Perfectly. Were they annoyed because I did not return it?”

“No, it is not that.”

“What is it then?”

“Well, at that dinner they said to you: ‘M. Dumas, you ought to write a play for Rouen based upon some subject taken from its own history.’”

“To which I replied: ‘Nothing easier; I will come at your first summons and spend a fortnight in Rouen. You can suggest the subject, and during that fortnight I will write the play, the royalties of which I shall devote to the poor.’”

“That is true, you said that.”

“I see nothing sufficiently insulting in that to incur the hatred of the Rouenese.”

“Yes, but they added: ‘Will you write it in prose?’ To which you replied—Do you remember what you answered?”

“My faith! no.”

“You replied: ‘I will write it in verse; it is soonest done.’”

“That sounds like me. Well, what then?”

“Then! That was an insult to Corneille, M. Dumas; that is why the Rouenese are down on you, and will be for a long time.”

Verbatim!

Oh, worthy Rouenese! I trust that you will never serve me so ill as to forgive and applaud me.

The aforesaid paper observed that M. Dumas had doubtless spent but one night in Lyons because a city of such slight literary standing was not worthy of his longer sojourn. M. Dumas had not thought about this at all. He had spent but one night at Lyons because he was in a hurry to reach Bourg. And no sooner had M. Dumas arrived at Bourg than he asked to be directed to the office of its leading newspaper.

I knew that it was under the management of a distinguished archeologist, who was also the editor of my friend Baux’s work on the church of Brou.

I asked for M. Milliet. M. Milliet appeared. We shook hands and I explained the object of my visit.

“I can fix you perfectly,” said he to me. “I will take you to one of our magistrates, who is at present engaged upon a history of the department.”

“How far has he got in this history?”

 

“1822.”

 

“Then that’s all right. As the events I want to relate occurred in 1799, and my heroes were executed in 1800, he will have covered that epoch, and can furnish me with the desired information. Let us go to your magistrate.”

On the road, M. Milliet told me that this same magisterial historian was also a noted gourmet. Since Brillat-Savarin it has been the fashion for magistrates to be epicures. Unfortunately, many are content to be gourmands, which is not at all the same thing.

We were ushered into the magistrate’s study. I found a man with a shiny face and a sneering smile. He greeted me with that protecting air which historians deign to assume toward poets.

“Well, sir,” he said to me, “so you have come to our poor country in search of material for your novel?”

“No, sir; I have my material already. I have come simply to consult your historical documents.”

“Good! I did not know that it was necessary to give one’s self so much trouble in order to write novels.”

“There you are in error, sir; at least in my instance. I am in the habit of making exhaustive researches upon all the historical events of which I treat.”

“You might at least have sent some one else.”

“Any person whom I might send, sir, not being so completely absorbed in my subject, might have overlooked many important facts. Then, too, I make use of many localities which I cannot describe unless I see them.”

“Oh, then this is a novel which you intend writing yourself?”

“Yes, certainly, sir. I allowed my valet to write my last; but he had such immense success that the rogue asked so exorbitant an increase of wages that, to my great regret, I was unable to keep him.”

The magistrate bit his lips. Then, after a moment’s silence, he said:

“Will you kindly tell me, sir, how I can assist you in this important work?”

“You can direct my researches, sir. As you have compiled the history of the department, none of the important event which have occurred in its capital can be unknown to you.”

“Truly, sir, I believe that in this respect I am tolerably well informed.”

“Then, sir, in the first place, your department was the centre of the operations of the Company of Jehu.”

“Sir, I have heard speak of the Companions of Jesus,” replied the magistrate with his jeering smile.

“The Jesuits, you mean? That is not what I am seeking, sir.”

“Nor is it of them that I am speaking. I refer to the stage robbers who infested the highroads from 1797 to 1800.”

“Then, sir, permit me to tell you they are precisely the ones I have come to Bourg about, and that they were called the Companions of Jehu, and not the Companions of Jesus.”

“What is the meaning of this title ‘Companions of Jehu’? I like to get at the bottom of everything.”

“So do I, sir; that is why I did not wish to confound these highwaymen with the Apostles.”

“Truly, that would not have been very orthodox.”

“But it is what you would have done, nevertheless, sir, if I, a poet, had not come here expressly to correct the mistake you, as historian, have made.”

“I await your explanation, sir,” resumed the magistrate, pursing his lips.

“It is short and simple. Elisha consecrated Jehu, King of Israel, on condition that he exterminate the house of Ahab; Elisha was Louis XVIII.; Jehu was Cadoudal; the house of Ahab, the Revolution. That is why these pillagers of diligences, who filched the government money to support the war in the Vendée, were called the Companions of Jehu.”

“Sir, I am happy to learn something at my age.”

“Oh, sir! One can always learn, at all times and at all ages; during life one learns man; in death one learns God.”

“But, after all,” my interlocutor said to me with a gesture of impatience, “may I know in what I can assist you?”

“Thus, sir. Four of these young men, leaders of the Companions of Jehu, were executed at Bourg, on the Place du Bastion.”

“In the first place, sir, in Bourg executions do not take place at the Bastion; they execute on the Fair grounds.”

“Now, sir—these last fifteen or twenty years, it is true—since Peytel. But before, especially during the Revolution, they executed on the Place du Bastion.”

“That is possible.”

“It is so. These four young men were called Guyon, Leprêtre, Amiet, and Hyvert.”

“This is the first time I have heard those names.”

“Yet their names made a certain noise at Bourg.”

“Are you sure, sir, that these men were executed here?”

“I am positive.”

“From whom have you derived your information?”

“From a man whose uncle, then in command of the gendarmerie, was present at the execution.”

“Will you tell me this man’s name?”

“Charles Nodier.”

“Charles Nodier, the novelist, the poet?”

“If he were a historian I would not be so insistent, sir. Recently, during a trip to Varennes, I learned what dependence to place upon historians. But precisely because he is a poet, a novelist, I do insist.”

“You are at liberty to do so; but I know nothing of what you desire to learn, and I dare even assert that, if you have come to Bourg solely to obtain information concerning the execution of—what did you call them?”

“Guyon, Leprêtre, Amiet, and Hyvert.”

“You have undertaken a futile voyage. For these last twenty years, sir, I have been searching the town archives, and I have never seen anything relating to what you have just told me.”

“The town archives are not those of the registrar, sir; perhaps at the record office I may be able to find what I am seeking.”

“Ah! sir, if you can find anything among those archives you will be a very clever man! The record office is a chaos, a veritable chaos. You would have to spend a month here, and then—then—”

“I do not expect to stay here more than a day, sir; but if in that day I should find what I am seeking will you permit me to impart it to you?”

“Yes, sir; yes, sir; and you will render me a great service by doing so.”

“No greater than the one I asked of you. I shall merely give you some information about a matter of which you were ignorant, that is all.”

You can well understand that on leaving my magistrate, my honor was piqued. I determined,