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

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СКАЧАТЬ the Thirty, Bretons have had the custom of fighting face to face, chest to chest, man to man, and we prefer to battle one against one rather than three. If General Harty is the victor, he can walk over our bodies and return to Vannes without danger from the two hundred men who will not participate in the combat. If he is vanquished, he will not be able to say that he failed because he was greatly outnumbered. Go on, Monsieur de Montrevel, go back to your friends. I give them now the advantage of numbers, since you alone are worth ten men.”

      Roland raised his hat.

      “What do you say, monsieur?” asked Cadoudal.

      “It is my custom to salute those I see as great, and I salute you.”

      “Colonel,” said Cadoudal, “one last glass of wine. Let each of us drink to what he loves most, to what he is most sorry to leave behind, to what he hopes to see again in heaven.”

      He took the only glass, filled it halfway, and handed it to Roland. “We have only one glass, Monsieur de Montrevel. You drink first.”

      “Why first?”

      “Because you are my guest, and also because there’s a proverb that says he who drinks after another shall know what the other person is thinking. I want to know what you are thinking, Monsieur de Montrevel.”

      Roland drained the glass and handed it back to Cadoudal. As he had done for Roland, he filled the glass halfway, and then emptied it in turn.

      “So, do you know now what I was thinking?” asked Roland.

      “Help me,” laughed Cadoudal.

      “Well, here are my thoughts,” replied Roland without guile. “I’m thinking that you are a good man, General, and I would be honored if now that we are about to fight each other, you would agree to shake my hand.”

      More like two friends parting than like two enemies preparing to fight, the two young men shook hands. With simple grandeur, they each then executed a military salute.

      “Good luck!” said Roland to Cadoudal. “But permit me to doubt that my wish will come true—though I say this from my lips, not my heart.”

      “May God protect you, Monsieur de Montrevel,” said Cadoudal, “and may He grant that my own wish come true, for it expresses the sum of my best thoughts.”

      “By what signal will we know you are ready?” asked Roland.

      “We shall shoot into the air.”

      “Very well, General.”

      Putting his horse to a gallop, for the third time Roland crossed the space between the Royalist and the Republican generals. Cadoudal pointed toward him. “Do you see that young man?” he asked his Chouans.

      Everyone looked at Roland. “Yes, General,” the Chouans answered.

      “By the souls of your fathers, consider his life sacred! You may capture him, but take him alive and with no harm to a hair on his head.”

      “Very well, General,” the Bretons replied.

      “And now, my friends,” he continued in a louder voice. “Remember that you are the sons of those thirty heroes who once fought thirty Englishmen, ten leagues from here, between Ploërmel and Josselin: the sons of victors! Our ancestors were made immortal by that combat of the Thirty. Now prove yourselves as illustrious in this combat of the One Hundred.”

      “Unfortunately,” he added quietly, “this time we are fighting not the English, but our own brothers.”

      The fog had disappeared; with a golden tint the first rays of the springtime sun mottled the Plescop plain. It would be easy to see whatever maneuvers the two armies made.

      As Roland returned to the Republican side, Branche-d’Or’s men began to withdraw so that only Cadoudal and his force of one hundred men would be left to face General Harty and his Blues.

      The men who had been dismissed from the combat separated into two groups: one marched toward Plumergat, the other toward Saint-Avé. The road was soon clear.

      Branche-d’Or came back to Cadoudal. “Your orders, General,” he said.

      “One only,” the general answered. “Pick eight men and follow me. When you see the young Republican I had breakfast with fall from his horse, you and your men shall throw yourselves upon him and take him prisoner before he can get away.”

      “Yes, General.”

      “You know I want to see him again safe and sound.”

      “I understand, General.”

      “Choose your men; and if he gives his word, you may act as you will.”

      “And if he won’t give his word?”

      “You will bind him so that he is unable to flee, and you will hold him until the battle is over.”

      Branche-d’Or sighed.

      “It will be unhappy for us,” he said, “to stand there twiddling our thumbs while our compatriots are spreading out to fight.”

      “God is good,” said Cadoudal. “Go on, there will be enough for everyone to do.”

      Then, seeing the Republicans amassed for battle, Cadoudal called for a gun. He shot once into the air. At the same moment, within the Republican ranks two drummers began to beat out the charge.

      Cadoudal stood up in his stirrups. “My sons,” he said, his voice sonorous, “has everyone offered up his morning prayer?”

      In unison they answered: “Yes, yes!”

      “If anyone has forgotten to pray or has not found the opportunity to,” Cadoudal pronounced, “now is the time!” Five or six peasants dropped to their knees.

      The drums were moving rapidly closer. “General! General!” several voices called out impatiently, but the general pointed to the kneeling Chouans. And the impatient men waited while their fellows, each in his own time, finished their prayers.

      When the last of them had risen to his feet, the Republicans had already covered about a third of the distance between the two camps. Their bayonets fixed, they were marching in three rows, thirty to a row. Behind them marched the officers in serried ranks, with Roland riding ahead of one row and General Harty between the other two. No one else rode on horseback. Among the Chouans, there was only one horseman: Cadoudal. Branche-d’Or had tied his mount to a tree so that he could fight on foot with the eight men charged with taking Roland prisoner.

      “General,” said Branche-d’Or, “the prayers are over, and everyone is ready.”

      Cadoudal assured himself that was so, and then with command in his voice he shouted: “All right, my men, everybody scatter!”

      Scarcely had he given the order than the Chouans, waving their hats in one hand and brandishing their guns with the other, spread out over the plain to cries of “Long live the king!” Fanning farther outward, they took the shape of an immense crescent, with George and his horse at the center.

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