Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. The Companions of Jehu by Alexandre Dumas (best ereader for comics TXT) 📖
- Author: Alexandre Dumas
Book online «The Companions of Jehu by Alexandre Dumas (best ereader for comics TXT) 📖». Author Alexandre Dumas
“Citizen president,” replied the young man, “we are prisoners in the palace.”
“Prisoners? What do you mean?”
“The guard has been changed, and General Jubé is no longer in command.”
“Who has replaced him?”
“I think some one said General Moreau.”
“Moreau? Impossible! And that coward, Barras, where is he?”
“He has started for his country-place at Grosbois.”
“Ah! I must see Moulins!” cried Gohier, rushing to the door. But at the entrance he found a sentry who barred the door. Gohier insisted.
“No one can pass,” said the sentry.
“What! not pass?”
“No.”
“But I am President Gohier!”
“No one can pass,” said the sentry; “that is the order.”
Gohier saw it would be useless to say more; force would be impossible. He returned to his own rooms.
In the meantime, General Moreau had gone to see Moulins; he wished to justify himself. Without listening to a word the ex-Director turned his back on him, and, as Moreau insisted, he said: “General, go into the ante-chamber. That is the place for jailers.”
Moreau bowed his head, and understood for the first time into what a fatal trap his honor had fallen.
At five o’clock, Bonaparte started to return to the Rue de la Victoire; all the generals and superior officers in Paris accompanied him. The blindest, those who had not understood the 13th Vendemiaire, those who had not yet understood the return from Egypt, now saw, blazing over the Tuileries, the star of his future, and as everybody could not be a planet, each sought to become a satellite.
The shouts of “Vive Bonaparte!” which came from the lower part of the Rue du Mont Blanc, and swept like a sonorous wave toward the Rue de la Victoire, told Josephine of her husband’s return. The impressionable Creole had awaited him anxiously. She sprang to meet him in such agitation that she was unable to utter a single word.
“Come, come!” said Bonaparte, becoming the kindly man he was in his own home, “calm yourself. We have done to-day all that could be done.”
“Is it all over?”
“Oh, no!” replied Bonaparte.
“Must it be done all over again to-morrow?”
“Yes, but to-morrow it will be merely a formality.”
That formality was rather rough; but every one knows of the events at Saint-Cloud. We will, therefore, dispense with relating them, and turn at once to the result, impatient as we are to get back to the real subject of our drama, from which the grand historical figure we have introduced diverted us for an instant.
One word more. The 20th Brumaire, at one o’clock in the morning, Bonaparte was appointed First Consul for ten years. He himself selected Cambacérès and Lebrun as his associates under the title of Second Consuls, being firmly resolved this time to concentrate in his own person, not only all the functions of the two consuls, but those of the ministers.
The 20th Brumaire he slept at the Luxembourg in president Gohier’s bed, the latter having been liberated with his colleague Moulins.
Roland was made governor of the Luxembourg.
CHAPTER XXV. AN IMPORTANT COMMUNICATION
Some time after this military revolution, which created a great stir in Europe, convulsing the Continent for a time, as a tempest convulses the ocean—some time after, we say, on the morning of the 30th Nivoise, better and more clearly known to our readers as the 20th of January, 1800, Roland, in looking over the voluminous correspondence which his new office entailed upon him, found, among fifty other letters asking for an audience, the following:
MONSIEUR THE GOVERNOR-I know your loyalty to your word, and you will see that I rely on it. I wish to speak to you for five minutes, during which I must remain masked. I have a request to make to you. This request you will grant or deny. In either case, as I shall have entered the Palace of the Luxembourg in the interest o£ the First Consul, Bonaparte, and the royalist party to which I belong, I shall ask for your word of honor that I be allowed to leave it as freely as you allow me to enter. If to-morrow, at seven in the evening, I see a solitary light in the window over the clock, I shall know that Colonel Roland de Montrevel has pledged me his word of honor, and I shall boldly present myself at the little door of the left wing of the palace, opening on the garden. I shall strike three blows at intervals, after the manner of the free-masons. In order that you may know to whom you engage or refuse your word, I sign a name which is known to you, that name having been, under circumstances you have probably not forgotten, pronounced before you. MORGAN, Chief of the Companions of Jehu.Roland read the letter twice, thought it over for a few moments, then rose suddenly, and, entering the First Consul’s study, handed it to him silently. The latter read it without betraying the slightest emotion, or even surprise; then, with a laconism that was wholly Lacedæmonian, he said: “Place the light.”
Then he gave the letter back to Roland.
The next evening, at seven o’clock, the light shone in the window, and at five minutes past the hour, Roland in person was waiting at the little door of the garden. He had scarcely been there a moment when three blows were struck on the door after the manner of the free-masons; first two strokes and then one.
The door was opened immediately. A man wrapped in a cloak was sharply defined against the grayish atmosphere of the wintry night. As for Roland, he was completely hidden in shadow. Seeing no one, the man in the cloak remained motionless for a second.
“Come in,” said Roland.
“Ah! it is you, colonel!”
“How do you know it is I?” asked Roland.
“I recognize your voice.”
“My voice! But during those few moments we were together in the dining-room at Avignon I did not say a word.”
“Then I must have heard it elsewhere.”
Roland wondered where the Chief of the Companions of Jehu could have heard his voice, but the other said gayly: “Is the fact that I know your voice any reason why we should stand at the door?”
“No, indeed,” replied Roland; “take the lapel of my coat and follow me. I purposely forbade any lights being placed in the stairs and hall which lead to my room.”
“I am much obliged for the intention. But on your word I would cross the palace from one end to the other, though it were
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