Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. VI, November 1850, Vol. I

"Where's Kilmaine?" "What of Hardy?" "Is Grouchy coming?" "Can the Brest fleet sail?" "How many line-of-battle ships have they?" "What's the artillery force?" "Have you brought any money?" This last question, the most frequent of all, was suddenly poured in upon me, and with a fortunate degree of rapidity, that I had no time for a reply, had I even the means of making one.

"Let the lad have a seat and a glass of wine before he submits to this interrogatory," said a fine, jolly-looking old chef-d'escadron at the head of the table, while he made a place for me at his side. "Now, tell us, boy, what number of the Gardes are to be of our party?"

I looked a little blank at the question, for in truth I had not heard of the corps before, nor was I aware that it was their uniform I was then wearing.

"Come, come, be frank with us, lad," said he; "we are all comrades here. Confound secrecy, say I."

"Ay, ay!" cried the whole assembly together – "confound secrecy. We are not bandits nor highwaymen; we have no need of concealment."

"I'll be as frank as you can wish, comrades," said I; "and if I lose some importance in your eyes by owning that I am not the master of a single state secret, I prefer to tell you so, to attempting any unworthy disguise. I come here, by orders from General Kilmaine, to join your expedition; and except this letter for General Humbert, I have no claim to any consideration whatever."

The old chef took the letter from my hands and examined the seal and superscription carefully, and then passed the document down the table for the satisfaction of the rest.

While I continued to watch with anxious eyes the letter on which so much of my own fate depended, a low whispering conversation went on at my side, at the end of which the chef said:

"It's more than likely, lad, that your regiment is not coming; but our general is not to be balked for that. Go he will; and let the government look to themselves if he is not supported. At all events, you had better see General Humbert at once; there's no saying what that dispatch may contain. Santerre, conduct him up stairs."

A smart young fellow arose at the bidding, and beckoned me to follow him.

It was not without difficulty that we forced our way up stairs, down which porters, and sailors, and soldiers were now carrying a number of heavy trunks and packing-cases. At last we gained an ante-room, where confusion seemed at its highest, crowded as it was by soldiers, the greater number of them intoxicated, and all in a state of riotous and insolent insubordination. Among these were a number of the townspeople, eager to prefer complaints for outrage and robbery, but whose subdued voices were drowned amid the clamor of their oppressors. Meanwhile, clerks were writing away receipts for stolen and pillaged articles, and which, signed with the name of the general, were grasped at with eager avidity. Even personal injuries were requited in the same cheap fashion, orders on the national treasury being freely issued for damaged noses and smashed heads, and gratefully received by the confiding populace.

"If the wind draws a little more to the southward before morning, we'll pay our debts with the top-sail sheet, and it will be somewhat shorter, and to the full as honest," said a man in a naval uniform.

"Where's the officer of the 'Regiment des Guides,'" cried a soldier from the door at the further end of the room; and before I had time to think over the designation of rank given me, I was hurried into the general's presence.

General Humbert, whose age might have been thirty-eight or forty, was a tall, well-built, but somewhat over-corpulent man; his features frank and manly, but with a dash of coarseness in their expression, particularly about the mouth; a sabre-cut, which had divided the upper lip, and whose cicatrix was then seen through his mustache, heightening the effect of his sinister look; his carriage was singularly erect and soldierlike, but all his gestures betrayed the habits of one who had risen from the ranks, and was not unwilling to revive the recollection.

He was parading the room from end to end when I entered, stopping occasionally to look out from an open window upon the bay, where by the clear moonlight might be seen the ships of the fleet at anchor. Two officers of his staff were writing busily at a table, whence the materials of a supper had not been removed. They did not look up as I came forward, nor did he notice me in any way for several minutes. Suddenly he turned toward me, and snatching the letter I held in my hand, proceeded to read it. A burst of coarse laughter broke from him as he perused the lines; and then throwing down the paper on the table, he cried out,

"So much for Kilmaine's contingent. I asked for a company of engineers and a battalion of 'les Gardes,' and they send me a boy from the cavalry-school of Saumur. I tell them that I want some fellows conversant with the language and the people, able to treat with the peasantry, and acquainted with their habits, and here I have got a raw youth whose highest acquirement, in all likelihood, is to daub a map with water-colors, or take fortifications with a pair of compasses! I wish I had some of these learned gentlemen in the trenches for a few hours. Parbleu! I think I could teach them something they'd not learn from Citizen Carnot. Well, sir," said he, turning abruptly toward me, "how many battalions of the 'Guides' are completed?"

"I can not tell, general," was my timid answer.

"Where are they stationed?"

"Of that also I am ignorant, sir."

"Peste!" cried he, stamping his foot passionately; then suddenly checking his anger, he asked, "How many are there coming to join this expedition? Is there a regiment, a battalion, a company? Can you tell me with certainty that a sergeant's guard is on the way hither?"

"I can not, sir; I know nothing whatever about the regiment in question."

"You have never seen it?" cried he, vehemently.

"Never, sir."

"This exceeds all belief," exclaimed he, with a crash of his closed fist upon the table. "Three weeks letter-writing! Estafettes, orderlies, and special couriers to no end! And here we have an unfledged cur from a cavalry institute, when I asked for a strong reinforcement. Then what brought you here, boy?"

"To join your expedition, general."

"Have they told you it was a holiday-party that we had planned? Did they say it was a junketing we were bent upon?"

"If they had, sir, I would not have come."

"The greater fool you, then! that's all," cried he, laughing; "when I was your age, I'd not have hesitated twice between a merry-making and a bayonet-charge."

While he was thus speaking, he never ceased to sign his name to every paper placed before him by one or other of the secretaries.

"No, parbleu!" he went on, "La maitresse before the mitraille any day for me. But what's all this, Girard. Here I'm issuing orders upon the national treasury for hundreds of thousands without let or compunction."

The aid-de-camp whispered a word or two in a low tone.

"I know it, lad; I know it well," said the general, laughing heartily; "I only pray that all our requisitions may be as easily obtained in future. Well, Monsieur le Garde, what are we to do with you."

"Not refuse me, I hope, general," said I, diffidently.

"Not refuse you, certainly; but in what capacity to take you, lad, that's the question. If you had served – if you had even walked a campaign – "

"So I have, general – this will show you where I have been;" and I handed him the "livret" which every soldier carries of his conduct and career.

He took the book, and casting his eyes hastily over it, exclaimed,

"Why, what's this lad? You've been at Kehl, at Emenendingen, at Rorshach, at Huyningen, through all that Black Forest affair with Moreau! You have seen smoke, then. Ay! I see honorable mention of you besides, for readiness in the field and zeal during action. What! more brandy! Girard. Why, our Irish friends must have been exceedingly thirsty. I've given them credit for something like ten thousand 'velts' already! No matter, the poor fellows may have to put up with short rations for all this yet – and there goes my signature once more. What does that blue light mean, Girard?" said he, pointing to a bright blue star that shone from a mast of one of the ships of war.

"That is the signal, general, that the embarkation of the artillery is complete."

"Parbleu!" said he, with a laugh, "it need not have taken long; they've given in two batteries of eights, and one of them has not a gun fit for service. There goes a rocket, now. Isn't that the signal to heave short on the anchors? Yes, to be sure. And now it is answered by the other! Ha! lads, this does look like business at last!"

The door opened as he spoke, and a naval officer entered.

"The wind is drawing round to the south, general; we can weigh with the ebb if you wish it."

"Wish it! – if I wish it! Yes, with my whole heart and soul I do! I am just as sick of La Rochelle as is La Rochelle of me. The salute that announces our departure will be a 'feu-de-joie' to both of us. Ay, sir, tell your captain that I need no further notice than that he is ready. Girard, see to it that the marauders are sent on board in irons. The fellows must learn at once that discipline begins when we trip our anchors. As for you," said he, turning to me, "you shall act upon my staff with provisional rank as sous-lieutenant: time will show if the grade should be confirmed. And now hasten down to the quay, and put yourself under Colonel Lerrasin's orders."

Colonel Lerrasin, the second in command, was, in many respects, the very opposite of Humbert. Sharp, petulant, and irascible, he seemed quite to overlook the fact, that, in an expedition which was little better than a foray, there must necessarily be a great relaxation of the rules of discipline, and many irregularities at least winked at, which, in stricter seasons, would call for punishment. The consequence was, that a large proportion of our force went on board under arrest, and many actually in irons. The Irish were, without a single exception, all drunk; and the English soldiers, who had procured their liberation from imprisonment on condition of joining the expedition, had made sufficiently free with the brandy-bottle to forget their new alliance, and vent their hatred of France and Frenchmen in expressions whose only alleviation was, that they were nearly unintelligible.

Such a scene of uproar, discord, and insubordination never was seen. The relative conditions of guard and prisoner elicited national animosities that were scarcely even dormant, and many a bloody encounter took place between those whose instinct was too powerful to feel themselves any thing but enemies. A cry, too, was raised, that it was meant to betray the whole expedition to the English, whose fleet, it was asserted, had been seen off Oleron, that morning; and although there was not even the shadow of a foundation for the belief, it served to increase the alarm and confusion. Whether originating or not with the Irish, I can not say, but certainly they took advantage of it to avoid embarking; and now began a schism which threatened to wreck the whole expedition, even in the harbor.

The Irish, as indifferent to the call of discipline as they were ignorant of French, refused to obey orders save from officers of their own country; and, although Lerrasin ordered two companies to "load with ball and fire low," the similar note for preparation from the insurgents, induced him to rescind the command and try a compromise. In this crisis I was sent by Lerrasin to fetch what was called the "Committee," the three Irish deputies who accompanied the force. They had already gone aboard of the Dedalus, little foreseeing the difficulties that were to arise on shore.

Seated in a small cabin next the wardroom, I found these three gentlemen, whose names were Tone, Teeling, and Sullivan. Their attitudes were gloomy and despondent, and their looks anything but encouraging, as I entered. A paper on which a few words had been scrawled, and signed with their three names underneath, lay before them, and on this their eyes were bent with a sad and deep meaning. I knew not then what it meant, but I afterward learned that it was a compact formally entered into and drawn up, that if, by the chance of war, they should fall into the enemy's hands, they would anticipate their fate by suicide, but leave to the English government all the ignominy and disgrace of their death.

They seemed scarcely to notice me as I came forward, and even when I delivered my message they heard it with a half indifference.

"What do you want us to do, sir?" said Teeling, the eldest of the party. "We hold no command in the service. It was against our advice and counsel that you accepted these volunteers at all. We have no influence over them."

"Not the slightest," broke in Tone. "These fellows are bad soldiers and worse Irishmen. The expedition will do better without them."

"And they better without the expedition," muttered Sullivan, drily.