The Battle Of The Strong: Chapter 41

Chapter 41

Detricand, Prince of Vaufontaine, was no longer in the Vendee. The whole
of Brittany was in the hands of the victorious Hoche, the peasants were
disbanded, and his work for a time at least was done.

On the same day of that momentous scene in the Cohue Royale when Guida
was vindicated, Detricand had carried to Granville the Comtesse
Chantavoine, who presently was passed over to the loving care of her
kinsman General Grandjon-Larisse. This done, he proceeded to England.

From London he communicated with Grandjon-Larisse, who applied himself to
secure from the Directory leave for the Chouan chieftain to return to
France, with amnesty for his past "rebellion." This was got at last
through the influence of young Bonaparte himself. Detricand was free now
to proceed against Philip.

He straightway devoted himself to a thing conceived on the day that Guida
was restored to her rightful status as a wife. His purpose now was to
wrest from Philip the duchy of Bercy. Philip was heir by adoption only,
and the inheritance had been secured at the last by help of a lie--surely
his was a righteous cause!

His motives had not their origin in hatred of Philip alone, nor in desire
for honours and estates for himself, nor in racial antagonism, for had he
not been allied with England in this war against the Government? He hated
Philip the man, but he hated still more Philip the usurper who had
brought shame to the escutcheon of Bercy. There was also at work another
and deeper design to be shown in good time. Philip had retired from the
English navy, and gone back to his duchy of Bercy. Here he threw himself
into the struggle with the Austrians against the French. Received with
enthusiasm by the people, who as yet knew little or nothing of the doings
in the Cohue Royale, he now took over command of the army and proved
himself almost as able in the field as he had been at sea. Of these
things Detricand knew, and knew also that the lines were closing in round
the duchy; that one day soon Bonaparte would send a force which should
strangle the little army and its Austrian allies. The game then would be
another step nearer the end. Free to move at will, he visited the Courts
of Prussia, Russia, Spain, Italy, and Austria, and laid before them his
claims to the duchy, urging an insistence on its neutrality, and a trial
of his cause against Philip. Ceaselessly, adroitly, with persistence and
power, he toiled towards his end, the way made easier by tales told of
his prowess in the Vendee. He had offers without number to take service
in foreign armies, but he was not to be tempted. Gossip of the Courts
said that there was some strange romance behind this tireless pursuit of
an inheritance, but he paid no heed. If at last there crept over Europe
wonderful tales of Detricand's past life in Jersey, of the real Duchesse
de Bercy, and of the new Prince of Vaufontaine, Detricand did not, or
feigned not to, hear them; and the Comtesse Chantavoine had disappeared
from public knowledge. The few who guessed his romance were puzzled to
understand his cause: for if he dispossessed Philip, Guida must also be
dispossessed. This, certainly, was not lover-like or friendly.

But Detricand was not at all puzzled; his mind and purpose were clear.
Guida should come to no injury through him--Guida who, as they left the
Cohue Royale that day of days, had turned on him a look of heavenly trust
and gratitude; who, in the midst of her own great happenings, found time
to tell him by a word how well she knew he had kept his promise to her,
even beyond belief. Justice for her was now the supreme and immediate
object of his life. There were others ready also to care for France, to
fight for her, to die for her, to struggle towards the hour when the King
should come to his own; but there was only one man in the world who could
achieve Guida's full justification, and that was himself, Detricand of
Vaufontaine.

He was glad to turn to the Chevalier's letters from Jersey. It was from
the Chevalier's lips he had learned the whole course of Guida's life
during the four years of his absence from the island. It was the
Chevalier who drew for him pictures of Guida in her new home, none other
than the house of Elie Mattingley, which the Royal Court having
confiscated now handed over to her as an act of homage. The little world
of Jersey no longer pointed the finger of scorn at Guida Landresse de
Landresse, but bent the knee to Princess Guida d'Avranche.

Detricand wrote many letters to the Chevalier, and they with their
cheerful and humorous allusions were read aloud to Guida--all save one
concerning Philip. Writing of himself to the Chevalier on one occasion,
he laid bare with a merciless honesty his nature and his career.
Concerning neither had he any illusions.

I do not mistake myself, Chevalier [he wrote], nor these late doings
of mine. What credit shall I take to myself for coming to place and
some little fame? Everything has been with me: the chance of
inheritance, the glory of a cause as hopeless as splendid, and more
splendid because hopeless; and the luck of him who loads the dice--
for all my old comrades, the better men, are dead, and I, the least
of them all, remain, having even outlived the cause. What praise
shall I take for this? None--from all decent fellows of the earth,
none at all. It is merely laughable that I should be left, the
monument of a sacred loyalty greater than the world has ever known.

I have no claims--But let me draw the picture, dear Chevalier. Here
was a discredited, dissolute fellow whose life was worth a pin to
nobody. Tired of the husks and the swine, and all his follies grown
stale by over-use, he takes the advice of a good gentleman, and
joins the standard of work and sacrifice. What greater luxury shall
man ask? If this be not running the full scale of life's enjoyment,
pray you what is? The world loves contrasts. The deep-dyed sinner
raising the standard of piety is picturesque. If, charmed by his
own new virtues, he is constant in his enthusiasm, behold a St.
Augustine! Everything is with the returned prodigal--the more so if
he be of the notorious Vaufontaines, who were ever saints turned
sinners, or sinners turned saints.

Tell me, my good friend, where is room for pride in me? I am
getting far more out of life than I deserve; it is not well that you
and others should think better of me than I do of myself. I do not
pretend that I dislike it, it is as balm to me. But it would seem
that the world is monstrously unjust. One day when I'm grown old--I
cannot imagine what else Fate has spared me for--I shall write the
Diary of a Sinner, the whole truth. I shall tell how when my
peasant fighters were kneeling round me praying for success, even
thanking God for me, I was smiling in my glove--in scorn of myself,
not of them, Chevalier, no,--no, not of them! The peasant's is the
true greatness. Everything is with the aristocrat; he has to kick
the great chances from his path; but the peasant must go hunting
them in peril. Hardly snatching sustenance from Fate, the peasant
fights into greatness; the aristocrat may only win to it by
rejecting Fate's luxuries. The peasant never escapes the austere
teaching of hard experience, the aristocrat the languor of good
fortune. There is the peasant and there am I. Voila! enough of
Detricand of Vaufontaine. . . . The Princess Guida and the
child, are they--

So the letter ran, and the Chevalier read it aloud to Guida up to the
point where her name was writ. Afterwards Guida would sit and think of
what Detricand had said, and of the honesty of nature that never allowed
him to deceive himself. It pleased her also to think she had in some
small way helped a man to the rehabilitation of his life. He had said
that she had helped him, and she believed him; he had proved the
soundness of his aims and ambitions; his career was in the world's mouth.

The one letter the Chevalier did not read to Guida referred to Philip. In
it Detricand begged the Chevalier to hold himself in readiness to proceed
at a day's notice to Paris.

So it was that when, after months of waiting, the Chevalier suddenly left
St. Heliers to join Detricand, Guida did not know the object of his
journey. All she knew was that he had leave from the Directory to visit
Paris. Imagining this to mean some good fortune for him, with a light
heart she sent him off in charge of Jean Touzel, who took him to St. Malo
in the Hardi Biaou, and saw him safely into the hands of an escort from
Detricand.

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