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Phantom Regiment; or, Stories of "Ours"

<h3> CHAPTER XX. ST. FLORIDAN; OR, THE ADVENTURES OF A NIGHT. </h3> The night was dark, and the lamps of the Rue du Temple had nearly all been extinguished by a high wind; there was no moon visible. It was in the month after the capture of Paris, in 1815, that the adventures I am about to relate occurred. The defeat at Waterloo, the rapid advance of the British troops, the capture of Cambray by Sir Charles Colville, of Peronne, by the Brigade of Guards under Major-General Maitland, and, last of all, the seizure and military occupation of the great and glorious city of Paris—the citadel of Napoleon—the heart of France, had exasperated the French, and excited their animosity against us. Every citizen greeted us with darkened brows and lowering eyes. No officer of the allied army could pass through the streets of Paris in perfect safety without being armed, and few went abroad from their billets or cantonments after nightfall, unless in small parties of three or four, for mutual protection. On many occasions we were openly insulted and severely maltreated in the more solitary streets or meaner suburbs of the city; while in the taverns and restaurateurs our quarrels were frequent with the old men of the Revolution, who had witnessed the decapitation of Louis, and the demolition of the Bastile; but still more so with the soldiers of Buonaparte, who were swarming in every part of Paris, in plain clothes, or in the rags and remnants of their uniform. Those French officers whom we met at the promenades, on the Boulevards, in the Jardin des Plantes, at the theatres, or in the salons and billiard rooms, sought quarrels with us quite as frequently as their men; but these, of course, ended in hostile rencontres, and for the first weak or two a morning seldom passed without a French, or British, or Prussian officer being borne dead, or wounded, through a mocking crowd at the barriers, from the Bois de Boulogne. In all these wanton quarrels and street assaults the republicans eminently distinguished themselves, and often vented their pitiful spleen by spitting at us from the windows; by hissing and railing at us in language that would have disgraced the denizens of the infamous faubourg St. Antoine; but after a time, when it became generally known that their great emperor had surrendered himself to Captain Maitland, of the Bellerophon, and submitted to the clemency of Britain, their virulence abated, and their manner became somewhat changed towards us: though their hatred of the Russian troops, sharpened by the bitter memories of the retreat from Moscow, was undying and inextinguishable. It is an old story now; but Lord Wellington had taken every means to insure the tranquillity of the city, and to repress any armed outbreak, which must assuredly have ended in its utter destruction; for the Black Eagle of Hapsburg soared above Montmartre, and the Union of Britain waved over the splendid garden, the winding walks, and leafy groves of the Champs Elysées; the brass cannon of Blucher were planted at every barrier-gate, loaded with grape and canister, to rake the streets at a moment's notice; while by night and by day, his artillerists, in their blue great coats and bearskin caps, remained by their guns, with swords drawn and matches lighted. A regiment of Scottish Highlanders occupied the Tuileries; the Prussian advanced guard was in position on the road to Orleans, cutting off the remnant of the French army who had survived the 18th of June, and still obeying the baton of Davoust, were lingering on the banks of the Loire. Every approach to Paris was guarded by our infantry, and a strong division of the Allies were encamped in the Wood of Boulogne, and along the right bank of the Seine, so far as St. Ouen. Never was Paris, the glory of France, more completely humbled since Henry of England unfurled his banner on its walls! My regiment, the Fifth Hussars, were in the third, or Sir Colquhoun Grant's cavalry brigade. We were quartered at Ligny, a small town on the Marne, about fifteen miles from Paris, where we occupied the ancient Benedictine monastery, which had been founded in the eighth century by St. Fursi, a Scot, as the old curé of the place informed me; and there, with an irreverence for which the public utility, the chances of war, and the orders of the quartermaster-general must plead our excuse, we stabled our horses in the church, and stored our rations and forage in the chapel of Our Lady of Compassion. It was while matters at Paris were in the state I have described, that I obtained leave from parade one day, hooked on my pelisse and sabre, and rode from Ligny to visit the city of sunshine and gaiety, bustle and smoke, music and wine, intending to return to my billet, which was in the house of the curé near the bridge over the Marne. I was in time to see the Russians reviewed by the Emperor Alexander, and passed the day very agreeably, visiting the Champ de Mars, the Tuileries, where the soldiers in the garb of old Gaul were keeping guard, as in the days of the Ancient Alliance; the site of the Bastile, the Hotel des Invalides, where many an old soldier of the Empire saluted me with more of sternness than respect in their aspect: the temple where the hapless Louis had been confined, and the noble gallery of the Louvre, on the lofty walls of which were many a blank where the officers of the Allied army had torn down and conveyed away the artistic spoils of their several nations—spoils wrested from every city in Europe by the invading armies of Napoleon. I dined at a restaurateur's on a beefsteak à l'Anglais and kickshaws, a bottle of tent dashed with brandy, and walked forth to enjoy a cigar on the Boulevards, where several of our bands from the Champs Elysées, and those of the Austrians from Montmartre, were playing divinely for the amusement of the thousands crowding those magnificent promenades, which, as all the world knows, or ought to know, encircle the good city of Paris, and were shaded by many a stately plane and lime tree, that was levelled to form the barricades of the last revolution. There were the officers of the Allies in all uniforms, the scarlet of Britain, the white of Austria, the blue of Prussia, and the green of Russia, with all the varieties of their different branches of service, horse, foot, artillery, and rifles; Calmucks, Tartars, Scots, Highlanders, and English guardsmen, jostling and mingling among moustachioed students of l'Ecole de Medicine, French priests in their long plain surtouts and white collars, and Parisian dandies in their puckered trousers, short frock coats, and little hats; while the ladies, seated on camp stools, formed each the centre of a circle, in which revolved a little world of wit and chat and laughter; and the vendors of cigars, of bon-bons, hot coffee, and iced lemonade, pushed their way and a brisk trade through the crowd together. I had tired of all this, and was thinking of my fifteen miles ride back to Ligny, through a rural district to which I was a stranger, though I had my sabre and pistols, and luckily the latter had been loaded by my groom. Nine o'clock was tolling from the steeples of Paris; the crowds on the Boulevards were dispersing; the bands had all played the old Bourbon anthem, 'Vive Henri Quatre!' and with the troops had repaired to their several cantonments. The trumpets of the Austrians had pealed their last night call from Montmartre, and the English drums from the Champs Elysées, and the shrill Scottish pipes from the Tuileries had replied to them. The lighted portfires of the Prussian artillery were beginning to gleam at the barriers. The streets were becoming deserted and still. Turning down the Rue du Temple, as I have stated, from the Boulevard St. Martin, I endeavoured to make my way to the stables of the hotel where I had left my horse. The darkness had increased very much, and the oil lamps in the thoroughfares were few and far between, and creaked mournfully in concert with many a signboard as they swung to and fro to the full extent of the cords by which they were suspended in the centre of the way. Aware that the streets of Paris were then far from safe after nightfall, and that the knife of the assassin was used as adroitly within sound of the bells of Notre Dame as on the banks of the Ebro—with my furred pelisse buttoned up, and my sabre under my arm, I hurried on, anxious to avoid all rencontres with chevaliers d'industrie and other vagrants, who from time to time, by the occasional light of the swinging lanterns, I could perceive lurking in the shadows of porches and projections of the ancient street. I soon became aware that two of these personages were dogging or accompanying me, on the opposite side of the way; increasing their pace if I quickened mine, and lingering when I halted or stepped short. Anxious to avoid brawls, for on that point the orders of the Duke of Wellington were alike stringent and severe, I continued to walk briskly forward, keeping a sharp eye to my two acquaintances, whose dusky figures seemed like shadows gliding along the opposite wall, for the cold and high night-wind had extinguished so many of the oil lanterns, that some of the streets branching off from the Boulevard du Temple and the Rue St. Martin, were involved in absolute darkness and gloom. I was somewhat perplexed after wandering for a considerable distance, to find myself on the margin of the Seine, which jarred against its quays, flowing on like a dark and waveless current, in which the twinkling lights of the Quai de Bourbon, and the gigantic shadows of the double towers of the church of Notre Dame were reflected. My followers had disappeared; but my uneasiness was no way diminished, being well aware that the clank of my spurs might mark my whereabouts; and I was conscious that the gorgeously-laced hussar pelisse and jacket of the Fifth were more than enough to excite cupidity. I shrunk back from the Seine, on thinking of the ghastly Morgue (with its rows of naked corpses spread like fish on leaden trays), and the five francs given by the police of Paris for every body found in the river at daybreak. A low whistle made me start. I turned round, and at that moment received a blow from a bludgeon, which would infallibly have fractured my left temple, had not my thick fur cap, with its long scarlet kalpeck, saved me. I reeled, and immediately found myself seized by four ruffians, who flung themselves upon me, and endeavoured to pinion my arms, and wrench from me my sabre, while they dragged me towards the edge of the Quai de la Grève. Strong, young, active, and exasperated, I struggled with them desperately, and succeeded in obtaining the hilt of my sabre, which I immediately unsheathed, for the fellow who had been endeavouring to drag it from my belt, grasped it by the sheath only; and an instant sufficed to level him on the pavement, with his jaw cloven through, and there he lay, yelling with rage and pain, and blaspheming in the style of the Faubourg St. Antoine. Upon this his companions fled. Solitary as the quay had appeared, the cries of the wounded bravo brought around me a swarm of vagrants from house stairs, from nooks in the parapets of the Pont Notre Dame, and from all the various holes and corners, where they had been nestling for the night, or hiding from the patrols of the gensd'armes; and recognising me at once as an officer of that detested Allied army, which had swept their vast host from the plains of Waterloo, and prostrated the eagle and tricolour, they assailed me with every epithet of opprobrium that hatred and malice could suggest; and there was an almost universal shout of "A la lanterne! à la lanterne!" in which, no doubt, my first assailants joined; and immediately I saw a lamp descend, as the cord was unfastened from the wall of the street, and lowered for my especial behoof. Alarmed and exasperated by the danger and insult with which I was menaced, I endeavoured to break through the press, by threateningly brandishing my sabre, but though the circle around me widened, still I was encompassed at every step, and made the mark at which a pitiless shower of mud, stones, and abuse poured without a moment's cessation. While some cried "à la lanterne!" others shouted for the gensd'armes and accused me of murder. I could perceive, to my no small concern, that the knave I had cut down lay motionless upon the pavement; and most unpleasant ideas floated before me, that even if I escaped immolation at the hands of these enraged Parisians, I might have to encounter the greater humiliation and graver terrors of Monsieur le Duc de Quiche—the Cour Royale de Paris—the Chamber of Appeals—the Correctional Police, and heaven only knew what more. At this perplexing crisis, a young French officer, in the scarlet uniform of the Garde du Corps of Louis XVIII., broke through the crowd, exclaiming.— "Halt! hold—in the name of the king—down with you, insolent citizens! Is it thus you treat our allies? Nom d'un Pape! but I will sabre the first that lays a finger upon him. Permit me—this way, Monsieur Officier;" and he put his arm through mine. We were now in a low quarter of the city; the crowd of squalid wretches was increasing around us every moment; lights flashed at the opened windows of the neighbouring houses, and I could perceive the glittering bayonets, and the great cocked hats of a sergeant and six gensd'armes hurrying along the lighted quay, either to my rescue or capture, but which was dubious, for the vagabond women and rag-pickers continued to yell incessantly,— "Arrest! arrest!—seize the English murderer! away with him to the concierge!" My heart beat quick; but my new friend of the Garde du Corps seemed to be quite 'au fait' in the management of such affairs, by the admirable tact and decision he displayed. Calling lustily for the gensd'armes, he suddenly grasped half-a-dozen of the foremost men in succession, and rapidly—for he was a powerful fellow, threw them in a heap over the wounded man, thus increasing the tumult, the rage, and the confusion. Then seizing me by the hand, he said hurriedly, "Monsieur will pardon me—but come this way, or you will be torn to pieces!" and half leading, half dragging me, he conveyed me down a dark and narrow street. "Nom d'un Pape! I could not see a brother of the epaulette maltreated by these rascally citizens," he continued, laughing heartily at the rage and confusion of the bourgeois. "Ha! ha! follow me! I know how to escape. There are deuced few outlets, holes or corners, byeways or sallyports in Paris, that I don't know. Ah corboeuf! didn't they all tumble delightfully over like so many ninepins? Ha! ha! but hark! they follow us. Hasten with me, Monsieur Officier, and remember that a brawl in this neighbourhood may prove infinitely more dangerous to you than to me." I was too well aware of that to resist his guidance and advice; and having no ambition to suffer, like St. Stephen, at the hands of a mob, or (escaping that) to figure next morning before the correctional police, and in the evening endure a reprimand from Wellington, I fairly turned, and, accompanying my guide, ran at full speed along the dark alley, laughing heartily at the affair. Gathering like a snowball, as it rolled along, the multitude came on, puffing and shouting, and swearing and yelling behind us. "This way," cried my guide, who laughed uproariously, and seemed one of the merriest fellows imaginable; "this way—Vive la joie! we are all right now!" "Where are you leading me, in the name of all that is miraculous?" I exclaimed, as my companion, laying violent hands upon my sash, almost dragged me down a flight of steps, which apparently led into the bowels of the earth. The appearance of the vast depth to which they descended being increased by a few hazy oil lamps that twinkled at the bottom. "Excuse me, Monsieur," said I; "what the mischief—'t is a strange den this! I will go no further!" "Courage, mon brave! courage! why we have only descended about a hundred steps or so;" replied the Frenchman, still continuing to descend. "You will find this an old and odd place too; but if you would escape an enraged rabble, the claws of the police, the maison de force, the prison, and the devil, follow me, and trust to my honour. I am Antoine St. Florian, Captain of the Garde du Corps, and late of the 23rd Grenadiers under the Emperor. You are safe—I know every nook in this subterranean world, for I have found a shelter in its ample womb many a time before to-night." He still continued to speak as he descended, but the sound of his voice became lost in the vast space of the hollow vaults; my curiosity was excited: I still kept my sabre drawn, prepared for any sudden surprise or act of treachery, and continued to descend some hundred steps, to a depth which I afterwards ascertained to be 860 feet. "This way, Monsieur; on—on yet!" exclaimed my conductor, hurrying me forward through a gloomy vault, and at that moment I heard the uproar of the multitude, and the buzz of their mingled voices resounding afar off, and high above us at the mouth of the lofty staircase. The aspect of the place in which I so suddenly found myself was so strange, so novel, so grotesquely horrible, that for some moments I was unable to speak, and gazed about me in astonishment. The whole place seemed hewn out of the solid rock, and the height of its roof was about twelve feet from the floor, which was uniformly paved. In every direction caverns were seen branching off lighted by lamps which vanished away in long lines of perspective till they seemed to twinkle and expire amid the noxious and foggy vapours of this wonderful place, which appeared like a vast subterranean city, or the work of enchantment. The atmosphere was cold as that of a winter day, and I was sensible of the utmost difficulty of respiration. Myriads of human skulls, grim, bare, and fleshless, with grinning jaws and eyeless sockets, piles of human bones, gaunt arms and jointed thighs, basket-like ribs and ridgy vertebræ, were ranged in frightful mockery along the sides of the vaulted alleys or avenues of this subterranean city of Death. The ghastly taste of some grim artist had arrayed all these poor emblems of mortality in the form of columns with capitals and arcades of intertwisted arches, but from every angle of which the bare jaws grinned, and the empty sockets looked drearily down upon us, producing an effect that, when viewed by the dim and uncertain light of the oil lamps, was alike wondrous and terrible. I was now in the Catacombs of Paris, that place of which I had heard so much. To me, who had but recently left the Peninsula, the appearance of these remnants of the men of other years was less striking than it would prove to visitors generally; for many a time and oft, I had bivouacked where the dead of France and Britain lay unburied; and I thought of Albuera and the plains of Salamanca, where we had encamped within twelve months after battles had been fought there—and pitched our tents and lighted our camp fires on ground strewn, for miles and miles, with the half-buried skeletons of the brave who had fallen there, producing an effect that was never to be effaced from the memory. There the triumphs of death were calculated to impress the mind with melancholy; but here it was too grotesquely grim and horrible. Scraps of verses from Ovid, Virgil, and Anacreon, appeared over the entrances of these caverns or crypts, in gilt letters that glimmered through the gloom; while, with a strange incongruity, but in true keeping with the morbid taste of the French, large red and yellow bills, the advertisements of the theatres, the fashionable hotels, concerts, and tailors, &c., appeared on different parts of the walls. At a little distance there bubbled up a sparkling fountain, the plash of which rang hollowly in the vast vaults, as it fell into a large basin, where a number of gold fish were swimming. Over it shone the legend, in gilded letters— "THIS IS THE WATER OF OBLIVION." "They are strange and frightful places, these Catacombs, Monsieur St. Florian," said I. "True, mon ami," he replied, pausing to take breath; "but famous for the growth of asthmatic coughs, and all diseases of the lungs. Peste! What an uproar these bourgeois make. The affair has quite sobered me, for I was somewhat unsteady before. My face is scratched, I think. Does it seem so?" "Rather." "Mille baionettes! do you say so? and I shall be for guard to-morrow at the chateau—and with this swollen face. Morbleu! what will the ladies think?" "I regret very much, Monsieur le Capitaine, that for me——" "Pho! my dear fellow, no apologies; I care not a sous about it," said my new friend, whom I could now see to be a tall and handsome fellow, whose scarlet uniform, faced and lapelled with blue, fitted him to admiration. His face was prepossessing in its contour, and was very much "set off," or enhanced, by his sparkling dark eyes, his jet moustache, and smart red forage-cap; but he had quite the air of a 'roué,' and the unmistakable bearing of a man about town. "Ha! ha!" he continued, "how messieurs the bourgeois were rolled over each other; that was indeed a coup de grace—the trick of an old routier! Ah! 't was poor Jacques Chataigneur taught me that." "How hollow our voices sound in these vaults," said I, after a pause; for the Frenchman's merry tones and light remarks seemed strange to me amid the deathlike stillness of a place so sad, so gloomy. "The echoes seem to come from an amazing distance." "Oui: I will vouch for it, Monsieur never saw a place like this before. The Parisian dead of a dozen centuries are piled about us, and afford fine scope for philosophy and moralising. Diable! what an uproar there will be among all these separated heads, legs, and arms, when the last trumpet sounds; and many a hearty malediction will be bestowed on Monsieur Lenoir, of the Correctional Police, who, to please the morbid taste of the good bourgeoisie of Paris, made all this ghastly display. Corboeuff! the skulls are all piled up like cannon balls in the arsenal—there were more than two millions of them at the last muster. But, hark!" At that moment we heard a distant cry of "A la lanterne! Death to the Englishman!" and a rush of footsteps down the long staircase followed. "We had better secure our retreat," said the French captain; "all the avenues are closed, save that at the Val de Grace; and if messieurs the gensd'armes possess themselves of it, we shall be captured like mice in a trap. The lieutenant-general ordered all the other outlets to be closed, because they afforded safe and sudden retreats for chevaliers d'industrie, and other worthies, who, after nightfall, become thick as locusts in the streets of this pious and good city of Paris. Nombril de Belzebub! behold! our friends have been reinforced." I looked back, and could see a party of about twenty gensd'armes advancing, but at a great distance, and their fixed bayonets flashed like stars in these misty caverns. The mob were in hundreds behind them, and the clatter of their feet and their cries rang with a thousand reverberations through the vast vacuity of these echoing catacombs. We could see them all distinctly; for though a quarter of a mile distant, the lamps burned brightly where they were passing. "I have my sabre, and will confront these rascals," I exclaimed, becoming inflamed with sudden passion; "they dare not lay hands on me, as a British officer." "Peste!" he replied, laughing; "I think you have seen whether they will or not. 'T is better not to trust them; a bayonet stab I do not mind, but think how unpleasant for a gentleman to be captured at the instance of a few rascally citizens. 'T will never do! We are not far now from the Val de Grace. This way, up the steps, and I will lead you to a secret doorway, near a nice little house that I know of, and where a pretty face will welcome us with smiles." By the hand he conducted me up several flights of steps, along an excavated corridor, where the cold wind blew freely in my face, and from thence by a doorway, the exact locality of which seemed well known to him, ushered me into a dark and quiet street, in a part of Paris quite unknown to me. "My friend, we are safe; that is the Val de Grace," said my frank captain, pointing to a large mass of building; "there is the Rue Marionette, and that large street still full of open shops, light, and people, is the Rue du Faubourg St. Jacques, which leads straight across the river. We can mingle with the crowd, and there all traces of us will be lost." "Any way you please," I replied; "never having been in this part of Paris before, I am quite bewildered. Lead on, if you please; it is a dark place, this." "The Russians have probably been passing this way. It is well known in Paris that these piggish Muscovites never return to their camp from a ball or café without drinking up the contents of every lamp within their reach; nor can all the alertness of the gend'armerie prevent them." On gaining the main street of the faubourg, the blaze of the lighted shops, the long lines of lamps, the gaiety and bustle which were seen on every side, together with the free healthy breath of the upper air, were a pleasant exchange for the dark and silent caverns we had quitted, where breathing was almost impossible, and the mind was oppressed by the gloom of surrounding objects. "Vive la joie!" exclaimed Captain St. Florian, almost dancing as he took my arm; "how delightful is the free air of the streets after leaving that pestilent pit. Ouf! I shall never trust myself down there again. But now we must sup together at a restaurateur's. Come to the Oriflamme; 'tis down the Rue de Bondy; Merci! there is a pretty waiteress there—a perfect Hebe. Her smart lace cap and braided apron—her red cheeks and roguish eyes will quite vanquish you." "Well then, the Oriflamme be it." "You will behold teeth and eyes that some of our dames in the great world of fashion would give fifty thousand francs to possess." Turning down the street, we entered a restaurateur's, on whose sign the Eagle of Napoleon had lately given place to the ancient ensign of the Bourbons. A very pretty girl who sat within the bar with a handkerchief over her head, tied en marmotte, arose and welcomed us with a smile. "Ah, entrez Antoine St. Florian," said she, raising her arched eyebrows with a true Parisian expression of pleasure and familiarity; "entrez, Monsieur." St. Florian called her his 'belle Janette,' and saluted her cheek with all the freedom of an old friend, as she ushered us along a corridor, on each side of which were neat little chambers, or cabinets, each having a single table and two chairs. That appropriated for us, had a lustre with two lights, and the walls were decorated with coloured prints of Jena, Marengo, Leipsic, and other hard-fought battles, on which St. Florian soon began to comment with all the ardour and enthusiasm of a French soldier; and by his sentiments soon revealed, that though poverty or policy had compelled him to assume the scarlet trappings of King Louis' guards, his heart was still with the fallen Emperor—the idol of a hundred thousand soldiers. "And so your old regiment was the 23rd?" said I. "Ah, the 23rd of the Emperor," he replied with a sigh, while his eyes lighted up at the name. "I remember that we charged your regiment at the passage of the Nive, where I was on the very point of sabreing a young officer, before I fortunately perceived that the poor fellow's sword arm was tied up in a sling, and that he was quite defenceless." "Indeed, how singular! and you saved him from your troopers, and conducted him out of the press——" "For which he gave me a draught of country wine from his canteen." "The same. Ah, monsieur, my friend, I am that officer, and I owe you eternal thanks." We shook hands with ardour. "I had been severely wounded by the poniard of a villanous Spanish peasant, and was still suffering from its effects. Ah, it was quite a story, that affair; my evil eye brought it all about." "Your evil eye?" "Ah," he replied, laughing; "you would not think I had one, to look at me—I seem so innocent; but so I have, or, at least, had when I was in Spain; ha! ha! You have often heard the Spaniards speak of the Evil Eye—the Malocchio of the Italians? and how the women will veil themselves, cover up their children, and mutter a prayer if a stranger but glances at them." "I have heard of that superstition, when on the borders of Estremadura; but your affair—" "Listen, and fill your glass with the champagne—I call it 'The Evil Eye.'—'T is a perfect romance, and was well known to many a brave fellow of the 23rd, who has found his grave at the foot of Mont St. Jean." <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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