Ange Pitou

by Alexandre Dumas

  He re-entered his own house, regaled himself with a piece of brown bread and the remains of his cheese, from the Dauphin Hotel, which he had carefully stowed away in his helmet; then he went and bought some brass wire, made some snares, and when it was dark, went to lay them in the forest.

  That same night Pitou caught a good-sized rabbit, and a young one about four months old.

  Pitou would have much wished to have set his wires for hares, but he could not discern a single run, and this proved to him the correctness of the old sporting axiom, "Dogs and cats, hares and rabbits, live not together."

  It would have been necessary to go three or four leagues before reaching a country well-stocked with hares, and Pitou was rather fatigued; his legs had done their utmost the day before, for besides the distance they had performed, they had carried for the last four or five leagues a man worn out with grief, and there is nothing so heavy as grief to long legs.

  Towards one in the morning he returned with his first harvest; he hoped to gather another after the passage in the morning.

  He went to bed, retaining within his breast remains of so bitter a nature of that grief which had so much fatigued his legs the day before that he could only sleep six hours consecutively upon the atrocious mattress, which the proprietor himself called a shingle.

  Pitou therefore slept from one o'clock to seven. The sun was therefore shining upon him through his open shutter while he was sleeping.

  Through this open shutter, thirty or forty inhabitants of Haramont were looking at him as he slept.

  He awoke as Turenne did, on his gun-carriage, smiled at his compatriots, and asked them graciously why they had come to him in such numbers and so early.

  One of them had been appointed spokesman. We shall faithfully relate this dialogue. This man was a wood-cutter, and his name Claude Tellier.

  "Ange Pitou," said he, "we have been reflecting the whole night; citizens ought, in fact, as you said yesterday, to arm themselves in the cause of liberty."

  "I said so," replied Pitou, in a firm tone, and which announced that he was ready to maintain what he had said.

  "Only in order to arm ourselves the principal thing is wanting."

  "And what is that?" asked Pitou, with much interest.

  "Arms!"

  "Ah! yes, that is true," said Pitou.

  "We have, however, reflected enough not to allow our reflections to be lost; and we will arm ourselves, cost what it may."

  "When I went away," said Pitou, "there were five guns in Haramont,—three muskets, a single-barrelled fowling-piece, and a double-barrelled one."

  "There are now only four," rejoined the orator; "one of the fowling-pieces burst from old age a month ago."

  "That must have been the fowling-piece which belonged to Désiré Maniquet," said Pitou.

  "Yes, and, by token when it burst, it carried off two of my fingers," said Désiré Maniquet, holding above his head his mutilated hand; "and as this accident happened to me in the warren of that aristocrat who is called Monsieur de Longpré, the aristocrats shall pay me for it."

  Pitou nodded his head to show that he approved this just revenge.

  "We therefore have only four guns left," rejoined Claude Tellier.

  "Well, then, with four guns you have already enough to arm five men," said Pitou.

  "How do you make that out?"

  "Oh, the fifth will carry a pike! That is the way they do at Paris; for every four men armed with guns, there is always one man armed with a pike. Those pikes are very convenient things; they serve to stick the heads upon which have been cut off."

  "Oh, oh!" cried a loud, joyous voice, "it is to be hoped that we shall not cut off heads."

  "No," gravely replied Pitou; "if we have only firmness enough to reject the gold of Messieurs Pitt, father and son. But we were talking of guns; let us not wander from the question, as Monsieur Bailly says. How many men have we in Haramont capable of bearing arms? Have you counted them?"

  "Yes."

  "And how many are you?"

  "We are thirty-two."

  "Then there are twenty-eight muskets deficient?"

  "Which we shall never get," said the stout man with the good-humored face.

  "Ah," said Pitou, "it is necessary to know that, my friend Boniface."

  "And how is it necessary to know?"

  "Yes, I say it is necessary to know, because I know."

  "What do you know?"

  "I know where they are to be procured."

  "To be procured?"

  "Yes; the people of Paris had no arms either. Well, Monsieur Marat, a very learned doctor, but very ugly, told the people of Paris where arms were to be found; the people of Paris went where Monsieur Marat told them, and there they found them."

  "And where did Marat tell them to go?" inquired Désiré Maniquet.

  "He told them to go to the Invalides."

  "Yes; but we have no Invalides at Haramont."

  "But I know a place in which there are more than a hundred guns," said Pitou.

  "And where is that?"

  "In one of the rooms of the Abbé Fortier's college."

  "The Abbé Fortier has a hundred guns He wishes, then, to arm his singing boys, the beggarly black cap!" cried Claude Tellier.

  Pitou had not a deep-seated affection for the Abbé Fortier; however, this violent outburst against his former professor profoundly wounded him.

  "Claude!" cried he, "Claude!"

  "Well, what now?"

  "I did not say that the guns belong to the Abbé Fortier."

  "If they are in his house, they belong to him."

  "That position is a false one. I am in the house of Bastien Godinet, and yet the house of Bastien Godinet does not belong to me."

  "That is true," said Bastien, replying without giving Pitou occasion to appeal to him directly.

  "The guns, therefore, do not belong to the Abbé Fortier," continued Pitou.

  "Whose are they, then?"

  "They belong to the township."

  "If they belong to the township, how does it happen that they are in the Abbé Fortier's house?"

  "They are in the Abbé Fortier's house, because the house in which the Abbé Fortier lives belongs to the township, which gives it to him rent free because he says Mass and teaches the children of poor citizens gratis. Now, since the Abbé Fortier's house belongs to the township, the township has a right to reserve a room in the house that belongs to it, in which to put its muskets,—ah!"

  "That is true," said the auditors; "the township has the right."

  "Well, then, let us see; how are we to get hold of these guns,—tell us that?"

  The question somewhat embarrassed Pitou, who scratched his ear.

  "Yes, tell us quickly," cried another voice, "for we must go to our work."

  Pitou breathed again; the last speaker had opened to him a door for escape.

  "Work!" exclaimed Pitou. "You speak of arming yourselves for the defence of the country, and you think of work!"

  And Pitou accompanied his words with a laugh, so ironical and so contemptuous that the Haramontese looked at one another, and felt humiliated.

  "We would not mind sacrificing a few days more, should it be absolutely necessary," said the other, "to gain our liberty."

  "To gain our liberty," cried Pitou, "it will be necessary to sacrifice more than a day; we must sacrifice all our days."

  "Then," said Boniface, "when people are working for liberty they are resting."

  "Boniface," replied Pitou, with the air of Lafayette when irritated, "those will never know how to be free who do not know how to trample their prejudices under foot."

  "As to myself," said Boniface, "I ask nothing better than not to work; but what is to be done, then, with regard to eating?"

  "Do people eat?" cried Pitou, disdainfully.

  "At Haramont they do so yet. Do they no longer eat at Paris?"

  "They eat when they have vanquished the tyrants," replied Pitou. "Did any one eat on t
he 14th of July? Did they even think of eating on that day? No; they had not time even to think of it."

  "Ah! ah!" cried some of the most zealous, "the takng of the Bastille must have been a fine sight."

  "But," continued Pitou, disdainfully, "as to drinking, I will not say no; it was so hot, and gunpowder has so acrid a taste."

  "But what had they to drink?"

  "What had the people to drink? Why, water, wine, and brandy. It was the women who had taken this in charge."

  "The women?"

  "Yes, and handsome women, too, who had made flags of the front part of their dresses."

  "Can it be possible?" cried the auditors, with much astonishment.

  "But at all events," observed the sceptic, "they must have eaten the next day."

  "I do not say that they did not," replied Pitou.

  "Then," rejoined Boniface, triumphantly, "if they ate, they must have worked."

  "Monsieur Boniface," replied Pitou, "you are speaking of things without understanding them. Paris is not a hamlet. It is not composed of a heap of villagers accustomed to think only of their bellies,—obedientia ventri, as we say in Latin, we who are learned. No; Paris, as Monsieur de Mirabeau says, is the head of all nations; it is a brain which thinks for the whole world. The brain, sir, never eats."

  "That is true," thought the auditors.

  "And yet," said Pitou, "the brain, though it does not eat, still feeds itself."

  "But then how does it feed itself?" answered Boniface.

  "Invisibly, with the nutriment of the body."

  Here the Haramontese were quite at a loss; the question was too profound for them to understand.

  "Explain this to us, Pitou," said Boniface.

  "That is easily done," replied Pitou: "Paris is the brain, as I have said; the provinces are the members. The provinces will work, drink, eat; and Paris will think."

  "Then I will leave the provinces and go to Paris," rejoined the sceptical Boniface. "Will you come to Paris with me, my friends?"

  A portion of the audience burst into a loud laugh, and appeared to side with Boniface.

  Pitou perceived that he would be discredited by this sarcastic railer.

  "Go, then, to Paris," cried he in his turn; "and if you find there a single face as ridiculous as yours, I will buy of you such young rabbits as this at a louis apiece."

  And with one hand Pitou held up the young rabbit he had caught, and with the other made the louis, which remained of Doctor Gilbert's munificence jingle, in his pocket.

  Pitou this time had the laugh in his favor.

  Upon this, Boniface became positively purple with rage.

  "Why, Master Pitou, you are playing the insolent to call us ridiculous."

  "Ridiculus tu es," majestically replied Pitou.

  "But look at yourself," retorted Boniface.

  "It would be but to little purpose," replied Pitou. "I might see something as ugly as yourself, but never anything half so stupid."

  Pitou had scarcely said these words, when Boniface—at Haramont they are almost as passionate as in Picardy—struck at him with his fist, which Pitou adroitly parried, but to which he replied by a kick in the true Parisian fashion.

  This kick was followed by a second, which sent the sceptic flying some few feet, when he fell heavily to the ground.

  Pitou bent down over his adversary so as to give the victory the most fatal consequences, and all were already rushing to save poor Boniface, when, raising himself up,—

  "Learn," said Pitou, "that the conquerors of the Bastille do not fight with fists. I have a sabre; take another sabre, and let us end the matter at once."

  Upon this, Pitou drew his sword, forgetting, or perhaps not forgetting, that the only sabre in all Haramont was his own, with the exception of that of the rural guard, at least two feet shorter than his own.

  It is true that to establish a more perfect equilibrium he put on his helmet.

  This greatness of soul electrified the assembly. It was agreed by all that Boniface was a rascallion, a vile fellow, an ass unworthy of being admitted to share in any discussion on public affairs.

  And consequently he was expelled.

  "You see, then," said Pitou, "the image of the Revolution of Paris; as Monsieur Prudhomme or Loustalot has said—I think it was the virtuous Loustalot who said it—yes, 'twas he, I am now certain of it:—

  "'The great appear to us to be great, solely because we are upon our knees; let us stand up.'"

  This epigram had not the slightest bearing on the question in dispute, but perhaps for that very reason it produced a prodigious effect.

  The sceptic Boniface, who was standing at a distance of twenty paces, was struck by it, and he returned to Pitou, humbly saying to him:—

  "You must not be angry with us, Pitou, if we do not understand liberty as well as you do."

  "It is not liberty," said Pitou, "but the rights of man."

  This was another blow with the sledge-hammer, with which Pitou a second time felled the whole auditory.

  "Decidedly," said Boniface, "you are a learned man, and we pay homage to you."

  Pitou bowed.

  "Yes," said he," education and experience have placed me above you; and if just now I spoke to you rather harshly, it was from my friendship for you."

  Loud applause followed this; Pitou saw that he could now give vent to his eloquence.

  "You have just talked of work," said he, "but do you know what work is? To you labor consists in splitting wood, in reaping the harvest, in picking up beech-mast, in tying up wheat-sheaves, in placing stones one above another, and consolidating them with cement. That is what you consider work. In your opinion I do not work at all. Well, then, you are mistaken, for I alone labor much more than you do all together,—for I am meditating your emancipation; for I am dreaming of your liberty, of your equality. A moment of my time is therefore of more value than a hundred of your days. The oxen who plough the ground do but one and the same thing; but the man who thinks surpasses all the strength of matter. I, by myself, am worth the whole of you. Look at Monsieur de Lafayette; he is a thin, fair man, not much taller than Claude Tellier. He has a pointed nose, thin legs, and arms as small as the back joints of this chair. As to his hands and feet, it is not worth while to mention them; a man might as well be without. Well! this man has carried two worlds on his shoulders, which is one more than Atlas did, and his little hands have broken the chains of America and France.

  "Now, as his arms have done all this, arms not thicker than the back railing of a chair, only imagine to yourselves what arms like mine can do."

  And Pitou bared his arms, which were as knotty as the trunk of a holly-tree.

  And having drawn this parallel, he paused, well assured that he had produced, without coming to a regular conclusion, an immense effect.

  And he had produced it.

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  Chapter XXXIII

  Pitou a Conspirator

  THE greater portion of events which happen to man, and which confer on him great happiness or great honors, are almost always brought about from his having fervently desired or much disdained them.

  If this maxim were duly applied to events and to men cited in history, it would be found that it possesses not only profundity, but also truth.

  We shall, however, content ourselves, without having recourse to proofs, with applying it to Ange Pitou, our man and our history.

  In fact, Pitou, if we are allowed to retrograde a few steps, and to return to the wound which he had received straight to the heart,—Pitou had, in fact, after the discovery he had made on the borders of the forest, been seized with a withering disdain for the things of this nether world.

  He who had hoped to find blossom within his heart that rare and precious plant which mortals denominate Love; he who had returned to his own province with a helmet and a sabre, proud of thus associating Mars and Venus, as was said by his illustrious compatriot, Demonstier, in his "Letters to Emilie on Mytho
logy,"—found himself completely taken aback and very unhappy on perceiving that there existed at Villers-Cotterets and its neighborhood more lovers than were necessary.

  He who had taken so active a part in the crusade of the Parisians against the nobility, found himself but very insignificant in opposition to the country nobility represented by Monsieur Isidore de Charny.

  Alas! so handsome a youth, a man likely to please even at first sight, a cavalier who wore buckskin breeches and a velvet riding-coat.

  How would it be possible to contend against such a man?

  With a man who had long riding-boots, and spurs on the heels of those boots,—with a man whose brother many people still called Monseigneur.

  How was it possible to contend against such a rival How could he avoid at once feeling shame and admiration?—two feelings which, to the heart of a lover, inflict a double torture,—a torture so frightful that it has never yet been decided whether a jealous man prefers a rival of higher or lower condition than himself.

  Pitou, therefore, but too well knew the pangs of jealousy, the wounds of which are incurable and fertile in agony, and of which up to this time the ingenuous heart of our hero had remained ignorant,—jealousy, a plant of marvellous and venomous growth, which sprang up without seed being sown, from a soil that had never seen germinate any noxious passion, not even self-love, that evil root which chokes up even the most sterile lands.

  A heart thus tortured stands in need of much philosophy in order to regain its habitual calmness.

  Was Pitou a philosopher,—he who the day following that on which he had experienced this sensation could think of waging war against the hares and rabbits of his Highness the Duke of Orléans, and the day after that, of making the long harangues we have reported?

  Was his heart, then, as hard as flint, from which every fresh blow draws a spark? Or did it possess only the soft resistance of a sponge, which has the quality of absorbing tears, and of mollifying, without receiving a wound, the shock of every misfortune?

  This the future will indubitably testify; therefore let us not prejudge, but go on with our story.

  After having received the visit we have related, and his harangues being terminated, Pitou, compelled by his appetite to attend to minor matters, set to work and cooked his young rabbit, regretting that it was not a hare.