Guy on fire, p.26
Delphi Complete Works of Alphonse Daudet (Illustrated), page 26
The Tarasconese were very fond of them, their White-Fathers, gentle, kind, inoffensive beings, who knew how to turn the fragrant herbs of their mountainette into an excellent elixir; they also loved them for their nice swallow-pies, and their delicious pains-poires, which are quinces enveloped in a fine golden crust; hence the name of Pampérigouste bestowed upon the abbey.
Therefore, when the official order to leave their convent reached the Fathers, and the latter refused to obey it, fifteen hundred to two thousand Tarasconese, porters, shoe-blacks, stevedores for the Rhone vessels, — all, in short, that we call riff-raff, — marched to Pampérigouste and shut themselves up there with the worthy monks.
The Tarasconese bourgeoisie, the club gentlemen, Tartarin at their head, were also prepared to support so holy a cause. There was not a moment’s hesitation. But no sensible person flings himself into such an enterprise without preparation of some kind, — good as it may be for the riff-raff to behave so heedlessly.
First and foremost, costumes were necessary. These were ordered; superb costumes, reminiscent of the crusades, with a large white cross on the breast; and all about, before and behind, crossed-bones, braided. This braiding took a long time to do.
By the time all were ready, the monastery was already invested. Troops surrounded it in a triple circle, encamped in the fields and on the stony slopes of the little hill. Their red trousers, seen from afar amid the thyme and the lavender, had quite the effect of an outbloom of poppies.
Patrols of cavalry were continually met in the roads, their long carbines on their hips, the scabbards of their sabres striking the flanks of their horses, the cases of their revolvers at their belts.
But this display of force was not likely to stop the intrepid Tartarin, resolved to pass to the monastery, together with a large body of club gentlemen.
Indian file, creeping on their hands and knees with all the precautions, all the classic wiles of Fenimore savages, they succeeded in slipping past the lines of investment, skirting the rows of sleeping tents, cautiously avoiding sentries and patrols, and warning one another of dangerous spots by imperfect imitations of the cries of birds.
It needed courage to attempt this enterprise on nights as clear as the open day. It is true, however, that the interest of the besiegers was to let as many get into the place as possible.
What they wanted was to starve the abbey out, rather than carry it by force. Therefore, the soldiers always turned away their heads when they saw the roving shadows in the moonlight or the starlight. More than one officer who had taken his absinthe at the club with the lion-slayer, recognized him from afar, in spite of his disguise, and hailed him familiarly: “Good-night, Monsieur Tartarin.”
Once inside the abbey, Tartarin organized the defence.
That devil of a man had read every known book on sieges and blockades. He brigaded the Tarasconese as a militia under the orders of the brave Commander Bravida, and, filled with recollections of Sevastopol and Plevna, he made them dig up earth, a great deal of earth, and surround the abbey with taluses, moats, fortifications of all kinds, in which the club, little by little, became so cramped as scarcely to be able to breathe; consequently the besieged were, as one might say, immured behind their defences; which was very satisfactory to the besiegers.
The convent metamorphosed into a fortress was subjected to military discipline; this was as it should be, a state of siege being declared. All was done to beat of drum, the bugles sounding. In the early morning, at reveillee, the drums growled through the courtyards, corridors, and beneath the arcades of the cloister. From morning till night they sounded the bugles; for prayers, tara-ta; for the treasurer, tara-ta-ta; for the Père hotelier, tara-ta-ta-ta; they bugled for the Angel us, for Matins, and for Complines. They put to shame the besieging army, who carried on their share of the business in the open fields with much less noise; whereas above, up there, on the summit of the little hill, behind the slender battlements of the abbey-fortress, buglings and drummings, mingling with the tintinnabulations of the bells, made a glorious racket, and cast to the four winds of heaven, in pledge of victory, a joyful chant, half warlike, half sacerdotal.
The deuce of it was that the besiegers, tranquil behind their lines, could revictual when they pleased, and feasted daily. Provence is a land of delight, producing all sorts of good things: clear golden wines, saveloys and Arlesian sausages, delicious melons, more delicious water-melons, nougats of Montélimar; but all these toothsome things went to the government troops; not a drop, not a crumb could enter the blockaded abbey.
Therefore, on one side, the soldiers, who had never known feasts like these, fattened till they burst their tunics; and their horses’ haunches grew round and sleek: while on the other side, Pécaïre! those poor Tarasconese, the riff-raff especially, early to rise and late to bed, jaded, incessantly on the qui-vive, digging and wheeling earth by day and by night under the scorching of sun and torches, were getting so thin and so shrivelled ‘t was pitiful to see.
Moreover, the provisions of the good Fathers were getting low; swallow-pies and even pains-poires were coming to an end.
Could they hold out much longer?
That question was discussed daily on the ramparts and behind the earthworks, now fissured by the drought.
“Those cowards, who don’t attack us!” said the men of Tarascon, shaking their fists at the red trousers sprawling on the grass in the shade of the pines. The idea of attacking themselves never entered their heads, so strong in that fine little people is the sentiment of self-preservation.
Once only did Excourbaniès, a violent fellow, speak of trying a sortie en masse, the monks in front, in order to “knock over those mercenaries.” Tartarin shrugged his broad shoulders and merely said: “Child!”
Then, taking the arm of that fiery “child,” he drew him to the top of the counterscarp, and showing him, with a lofty gesture, the cordon of troops ranged upon the hillside, and the sentries posted at every path, he said: —
“Yes or no, are we the besieged? If we are, is it we who should assault?”
A murmur of approbation rose around him.
“Evidently... He is right... It is for them to begin, inasmuch as they besiege...”
And once more it was seen that no one knew the laws of war like Tartarin.
Nevertheless, something had to be done.
One day, the Council being assembled in the great hall of the Chapter, lighted by tall windows encased in sculptured woodwork, the Pire hotelier (commissary) read his report on the resources of the place. The White-Fathers listened, silent, sitting bolt upright on their miséricordes (half-seats hypocritically shaped, which allowed of being seated while appearing to stand).
It was lamentable, that report of the Pere hotelier! What they had devoured, those Tarasconese, since the beginning of the siege! Swallow-pies, so many hundred; pains-poires, so many thousand; and so much of this, and so much of that! Of all the things enumerated, with which in the beginning the monastery had been well provided, there remained so little, so very little, that one might as well say there was nothing.
The Reverends looked at one another with long faces, and agreed that with such a larder, given an enemy that didn’t desire to push them to extremes, they might have held out for years without lacking anything, if no one had come to their support. The Pere hotelier was continuing to read in a monotonously heart-broken voice, when a clamour interrupted him.
The door of the hall flew open with a noise, and Tartarin appeared, an agitated Tartarin, tragic, his cheeks scarlet, his beard bristling above the white cross upon his breast. With his sword he saluted the Prior erect on his misericoreie, then each Father, one after the other, and said solemnly: —
“Monsieur le Prieur, I can no longer restrain my men... They are dying of hunger... All the cisterns are empty. The moment has come to surrender the fortress, or to bury ourselves beneath its ruins.”
What he did not say, although it had its importance, was that for two weeks he had been deprived of his matutinal chocolate, which he saw in his dreams, rich, smoking, oily, accompanied by a glass of cool spring water clear as crystal, instead of the brackish water of the cisterns to which he was now reduced.
Instantly the Council was afoot, and the roar of voices all talking together expressed but one thought, one unanimous opinion: “Surrender... The place must be surrendered...” Père Bataillet alone, an extreme sort of man, proposed to blow up the monastery with what powder they had, and to fire it himself.
But the others refused to listen to him, and night having come, monks and militia (leaving the keys in the doors), followed by Excourbaniès, Bravida, and Tartarin with his body of club gentlemen, in short, all the defenders of Pampérigouste, issued forth, no drums or bugles this time, and silently descended the hill, a phantomatic procession, beneath the light of the moon and the benevolent gaze of the enemy’s sentinels.
This memorable defence of the Abbey of Pampérigouste did great honour to Tartarin; but the occupation of the convent of their White-Fathers by the government troops rankled in the breasts of the Tarasconese with a gloomy rancour.
II.
The pharmacy on the little square. Apparition of a man of the North. “God wills it, M. le duc!” A paradise beyond the seas.
SOME TIME AFTER the closure of the convent, the apothecary Bézuquet was enjoying the cool of the evening before his door in company with his pupil Pascalon and the Reverend Father Bataillet.
I ought to say that the dispersed monks had been taken by the various Tarasconese householders into their homes. Each had wanted his White-Father; well-to-do people, shopkeepers, the bourgeoisie, took each of them one; the families of the artisans clubbed together and shared the entertainment of a single holy man.
In every shop could be seen a white cowl, — in that of the gunsmith Costecalde, amid rifles and carbines and hunting-knives; at the counter of mercer Beaumevieille, behind spools of silk; everywhere, in short, rose the same apparition of a big white bird, the familiar pelican. And this presence of the Fathers in every domestic dwelling was a real benediction. Well-mannered, gentle, jovial, and discreet, they were never in the way, took but little space round the family hearth, while at the same time they brought with them a spirit of kindness, and also an unusual reserve.
It was as if the good God himself were in the home; the men ceased to swear and to use coarse language; the women lied no longer, or, at any rate, seldom; the children were good, and sat still in their chairs. Morning and evening, at the hour for prayer, and at meals, when they said the Bénédicité and Grace, those big white sleeves spread themselves out like protecting wings above the assembled family. With such a benediction perpetually over them, how could the Tarasconese do otherwise than live in sanctity and virtue?
Every one was proud of his own Reverend, boasted of him, proclaimed his merits, — more especially the apothecary Bézuquet, to whom the good luck had fallen of receiving into his home Père Bataillet.
All fire, all nerves, was this R. P. Bataillet, possessing the gift of true popular eloquence, and renowned for his fashion of relating miracles and legendary tales. He was really a superb-looking fellow, well-formed, swarthy skin, fiery eyes, and the head of a stag. Under the long folds of his thick serge he had a noble presence, though one shoulder was higher than the other, and he walked sideways.
But these slight defects were not observed when he came down from the pulpit after preaching, and made his way through the crowd, his big nose snuffing the wind, hurrying to reach the sacristy, and quivering still with the force of his own eloquence. The women, always enthusiastic, snipped scraps from his cape with their scissors as he passed along; on account of which he was called the “scalloped Father;” indeed his surplice was always nicked and ragged, and so soon beyond wearing that the convent had much ado in keeping him supplied.
Bézuquet was, as I have said, before the door of the pharmacy with Pascalon, and in front of them was Père Bataillet, sitting astride of his chair. They were breathing the air with delight, beatifically secure of repose, for at that hour of the day clients no longer came after Bézuquet, and it was as it is at night, when patients may toss and turn, but the worthy apothecary will not disturb himself for anything in the world; the hour is past to be ill.
He was listening, and so was Pascalon, to one of those fine legends the Reverend knew so well how to tell, while, afar in the town, taps were sounding amid the murmuring hum of a beautiful summer’s evening. Suddenly the pupil jumped up, red, excited, and stuttering, with his finger pointing to the other side of the square.
“Here comes Monsieur Tar... tar... tarin!”
We know what personal and particular admiration Pascalon professed for that great man, whose gesticulating silhouette now revealed itself in the luminous shadow, accompanied by another personage, gloved in gray, carefully attired, who seemed to be listening, stiff and silent, to his companion.
Some one from the North; that was visible at once.
In the South, the man of the North is recognized by his tranquil attitude, by the brevity of his slow speech, quite as surely as the Southerner betrays himself at the North by the exuberance of his pantomime and his chatter.
The Tarasconese were accustomed to see Tartarin in company with strangers, for no one ever passed through their town without visiting as an attraction the famous lion-slayer, the illustrious Alpinist, the modern Vauban, to whom the late siege of Pampérigouste gave an added renown. From this affluence of visitors an era of prosperity hitherto unknown in Tarascon had resulted. The hotelkeepers were making their fortune; publishers were selling the biography of the great man; his portraits, as a Teur, as an ascensionist, in the costume of the Crusades, under all the forms and in all the attitudes of his heroic existence, were exposed for sale in the shop windows.
But this time it was no ordinary visitor, no chance bird of passage, who accompanied Tartarin.
The square crossed, our hero, with an emphatic gesture, made known his companion: —
“My dear Bézuquet, my Reverend Father, I present to you M. le Duc de Mons...”
A duke!.. Outre!
Never before had Tarascon seen one. It had seen a camel, a baobab, a lion’s skin, a bundle of poisoned arrows, and alpenstocks of honour... but a duke, oh never!..
Bézuquet having risen, bowed, rather intimidated at finding himself unawares, without warning, in presence of so great a personage. “Monsieur le Duc...” he stammered, “Monsieur le Duc...” But Tartarin interrupted him.
“Let us go in, gentlemen; we have grave matters to discuss.”
He entered first, back well-rounded, air mysterious, into the little salon of the pharmacy, the window of which, looking on the square, served as a show-case for bottles of alcohol containing foetuses and tapeworms in a tangle, interspersed with cigarettes of camphor.
The door closed behind them as though upon conspirators. Pascalon remained alone in the shop, with orders from Bézuquet to attend to the clients and not allow any one, on any pretext, to enter the salon.
The pupil, much puzzled, began to set in order on the shelves the boxes of cough lozenges, the flasks of sirupus gum mi, and the other officinal products. But from time to time the sound of voices reached his ears, and especially could he distinguish the deep bass of Tartarin uttering singular words: “Polynesia... terrestrial paradise... sugar-cane... distilleries... free colony...” Then a burst from Père Bataillet: “Bravo! I’m of it.” As for the man of the North, he spoke so low that Pascalon could hear nothing. In vain did he wedge his ear into the keyhole... All of a sudden the door flew open violently, impelled manu militari by the energetic fist of the Father. The pupil rolled to the other end of the pharmacy. But, in the general agitation, no one paid attention to him.
Tartarin, standing in the doorway, his finger raised toward the bunches of poppyheads that were hanging to dry from the ceiling of the shop, cried aloud, with the action of an archangel brandishing his sword: —
“God wills it, Monsieur le Duc! Our work will be a grand one!”
Then followed a confusion of outstretched hands, seeking one another, clasping, pressing; energetic grasps as if to seal forever and ever irrevocable pledges. Hot from this last effusion, Tartarin, lofty, magnified, left the pharmacy with the Duc de Mons to continue their tour of exhortation through the town.
Two days later, the “Forum” and the “Galoubet,” the two organs of Tarascon, were filled with articles and authorized information about a colossal affair. The head-lines bore in heavy type the words: FREE COLONY OF PORT-TARASCON. The advertisements were stupefying: “For sale; lands at five francs the acre, giving a return of several thousand francs a year... Fortune rapid and assured... Colonists desired.”
Then followed the history and description of an island where the protected colony would settle; an island bought from King Negonko by the Duc de Mons in the course of his travels; surrounded, moreover, by other territories, which could, later, be acquired to enlarge the colony.
Climate paradisaical, temperature oceanic, but very equable in spite of its proximity to the equator, never varying more than two or three degrees; country very fertile, wonderfully wooded, miraculously watered, rising rapidly from the seashore; which enabled every one to choose the precise temperature suited to his constitution. Provisions were abundant, fruits delicious, hanging to all the trees, game of every kind in the woods and plains, fish innumerable in the waters. From the point of view of commerce and navigation, a splendid roadstead able to contain a fleet, a port of great safety inclosed by headlands, also an inner port with docks, quays, wharves, light-house, semaphore, derricks; nothing would be lacking.
These works were already begun by Chinese and Kanaka labourers, under the direction and after the plans of the ablest engineers and the most distinguished architects. The colonists would find on arrival most comfortable accommodations, and even, by ingenious combinations and the payment of fifty francs extra, houses could be remodelled to suit the needs of every one.
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