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IMMEDIATELY after parade
next day, Ronald departed from Clichy on a visit to Paris, 'the city of
delights,' as an enthusiastic French author has termed it—the famous
Paris, of which so much has been said, sung, and written. But Ronald was,
to a certain degree, disappointed. The look of every man was sad and
louring. The armed sentinels of the allies were in every street, their
guards on every barrier ; cannon were planted to rake every thoroughfare
and avenue, and the artillery-men were around them, match in hand, by day
and night. The soldier slept with his accoutrements on, and the horse in
his harness; and to ensure the peace of the capital, the whole of the
troops were ready to act on a moment's notice. The banner of Blucher waved
over Paris, and his advance was in front of it, in position on the Orleans
road; a brigade of British occupied the Champs Elysées, and the union-jack
and the white standard of Austria waved over the summit of Montmartre.
Proud Gaul was completely humbled, and the Parisian had lost all his
swagger, his laughter, and lightness of head and heart. Many of the
British officers were insulted, abused—I believe were spit upon by the
lower classes, when the allies first entered the French metropolis. The
people had no other means of giving loose to the sentiments of rage,
hatred, and hostility which boiled within them. A resort to open violence
in arms would only have ended in the destruction of Paris, and the
annihilation of its inhabitants. The defeat on the plains of Waterloo will
not be soon forgotten in France. Like the murder of Joan of Arc, it will
be handed down from parent to child ; and thus, from one generation to
another, the hereditary hatred to 'perfidious Albion' will increase rather
than diminish.
In Paris, and in France
generally, the Highland garb attracted more attention, and perhaps
respect, than that of any other nation. Notwithstanding the bitter hatred
which the French avowedly bear to the whole isle of Britain, they
sometimes make a distinction between the Scot and his southern neighbour,
as if they were now, as of old, politically aliens to each other. At the
cafés, the restaurants, the concerts, theatres, promenades, the
boulevards, the Jardin des Tuileries, the Champ de Mars, the Bois de
Boulogne, and public places of every kind, the officers who wore the
Celtic garb found themselves treated with the utmost respect, attention,
and even kindness, when their countrymen belonging to regiments 'in breeks'
experienced marked coldness and aversion. The figure of a Highland officer
passing a milliner's shop invariably brought all the girls in it rushing
to the door. ' An officer of the Scots!' was the cry, and all the pretty
grisettes were in the street in a moment, to stare at and talk of the
stranger until he was out of sight.
Although Ronald had no
acquaintances in Paris, excepting those made by frequenting public places,
yet he was well pleased with the Parisians, and as long as he had money to
spare and to spend, he enjoyed himself in a manner that he had never done
before. Through his banker in London he drew many a cool hundred on his
Scots agents, Messrs. Diddle and Fleece ; and, for a time, he wasted among
grisettes, Frenchmen, and fools rather more than was quite prudent. Being
junior major, he had of course nothing to do but to amuse himself, appear
on parade once a day, and ride round the guards and posts when on duty ;
he spent the whole day in Paris, and generally returned to camp when the
reveille was beating, so that his hours were rather early than late.
One evening, when making up a party for the
next day, the hard visage of Sergeant Macrone appeared at the door of the
tent, announcing that his round of pleasure was closed. The
orderly-book—that tome of ill-omen, with its brass clasps and parchment
boards, was handed in, while the non-commissioned officer, raising his
hand to his sunburnt and wrinkled forehead, conveyed the unpleasant
intelligence ' that her honour was for tuty—no the tay pefore the morn,
put the fera neist.'
'To-morrow? The devil, Macrone! do you say so?' cried the impatient major,
snatching the book from the hand of the Celt, and scanning over the
brigade orders. '"Major Ronald Stuart, of the Gordon Highlanders, will
take command of the detachment ordered to proceed to—" to where? A cursed
cramped hand this. Who wrote these orders, Macrone?—'The orderly sergeant,
sir.' 'Who is
orderly?—'Just my ainsel, sir. Hoomh!' 'Stupid ! Could you not have said
so at once? "—Command of the detachment proceeding to the Chateau de
Marielle, to relieve the Hanoverian regiment of Kloster Zeven." Does
anybody know where the Chateau de Marielle is?'—'Two days' march from
this,' said Macildhui; ' near Melun. I know the place. Archy Douglas and I
have shot and coursed over it for a whole week without leave or license. 'Tis
the property of the Marquis of Laurieston.'
'What!' exclaimed one, 'old Clappourknuis's
brother?'—'The same. You remember him at Merida.'
'And what do the wiseacres at headquarters
mean in sending a detachment there?—' I suppose they scarcely know
themselves. But obedience—we all know the adage.'
'Wellington is the man to keep us in mind of
that; and old Pack too, with his drills for five hours every Sunday after
divine service.' 'And
so,' said Stuart, 'we must forego all the gay scenes of Paris to live in
an old chateau among rooks and ancient elms. Country quarters spoil many a
gay fellow : we had better leave our razors at Clichy.'
'Wellington has ordered you on this service as
a change, and to cure you of dangling after actresses and grisettes; for
in Paris they quite spoil decent Highlandmen like ourselves.'
'There will be neither the first nor the last
at Melun,—nothing but brown-visaged and red-haired dairymaids. I hope the
chateau contains Laurieston's family—some agreeable young ladies
especially, to make us amends for the loss we sustain in being ordered so
far from Paris and this agreeable camp of Clichy, where we have always dry
canvas, soft grass, and plenty of sunshine and vin ordinaire.'
'Ladies! I hope so,' added Macildhui. 'Pretty
faces, guitars, and pianos enliven country quarters amazingly.'
Ronald and the four officers who accompanied
him were doomed to be disappointed, for the chateau was occupied only by
the regiment of Kloster Zeven, and a few aged servants. The old
marchioness and her daughters had retreated to Paris on the first arrival
of the lads in scarlet and buff. The Hanoverians inarched out of the court
of the chateau, with their bugles playing one of those splendid marches
for the production of which Germany is so famous; the Highlanders marched
in at the same moment, with carried arms, and their pipes playing ' The
wee German Lairdie,' a tune which Macvurich, the playing piper, adopted
for the occasion. The
chateau stood close to the margin of the Seine, not far from the quiet and
pretty little town of Melun, embowered among aged chestnuts, and
surrounded by orchards and groves. It was a large irregular building of
the days of Louis XII., and was said to have once been honoured as the
residence of the celebrated Lady de Beaujeu. It was covered with carved
work in wood and stone, and was surmounted by numerous turrets, vanes, and
high roofs, covered with singular round slates, jointed over each other
like the scales of a serpent. It was in every respect a mansion of the old
school, and would have been the permanent residence of some respectable
ghost of the olden time, had it stood in England, or more especially in
Scotland. The
soldiers were billeted at free quarters on the tenants, while the officers
took up their residence in the chateau, to the servants of which orders
had been given by the proprietor to provide them with everything they
required. Here they enjoyed themselves much more than at Clichy, and the
rickety old house was kept in an uproar the whole day, and sometimes the
whole night too, by their merriment, pranks, and folly. Its splendid
chambers, saloons, and galleries were a good exchange for a turf floor and
canvas tent, which, in rainy weather, was never watertight till it was
thoroughly soaked through. The beds, with hangings of silk, ostrich
plumes, and silver fringes, for camp shake-downs, and the white satin
chairs, stuffed with down, were also a good exchange for stone seats,
trunks, cap-cases, knapsacks, ammunition-barrels, or whatever else could
be had in the encampment. The mornings were spent in riding, the days in
shooting, till the preserves were ruined and the game exterminated; and
the evenings were devoted to chess and cigars, moistened with a few
bottles of Volnay, Pomard, Lafitte, champagne, port, or sherry, for all
the cellars were at their absolute command. A bull-reel generally
concluded their orgies, or the sword-dance, performed on the
dining-tables; after which they were all carried off to bed by their
servants, who, on one occasion, required the aid of a fatigue party.
France is a glorious country in which to live
at free quarters, and the Highlanders remained till the end of October
completely their own masters, away from old Sir Dennis, from Wellington,
and staff-office surveillance, amid merriment and jollity, spending their
days and nights as they had never spent them before in country quarters,
which are generally so dull and lifeless. In the frolic and festivity of
their superiors the privates fully participated, and many a merry though
rather confused dance did they enjoy with the cottagers by moonlight on
the grassy lawn, where the slender peasant-girl, the agile husbandman, and
the strong thick-set clansman mingled together, leaping and skipping, with
better will than grace, to the stirring sounds of the warlike bagpipes.
There was one subject alone which kept Ronald
in a certain state of uneasiness,—the non-arrival of letters from his
father, although he had regular despatches from Alice and her brother,
which were brought him every fortnight from the Hotel des Postes at Melun,
by Macvurich, who acted as postman for the chateau. He concluded that all
were well at the old tower, but that by some strange fatality his father's
letters were always destined to miscarry. On the 26th of October they took
a sad adieu of the venerable Chateau de Marielle, of its saloons, its
parks, its emptied cellars and rifled preserves. Right glad was old
Chambertin, the butler, to behold them depart; and I dare say he thanked
Providence devoutly when the last gleam of their bayonets flashed down the
old gloomy chestnut avenue.
Late on the night of the 25th, an aide-de-camp
(Lieutenant D------, of the 22nd Dragoons) brought Stuart an order,
directing him to remove his detachment to Clichy, from which the regiment
was about to march en route for Calais. It was eleven at night when the
order arrived ; and by daybreak next morning they were all on the road,
with bag and baggage, and had left Melun far behind them. The soldiers
were overjoyed at the prospect of returning home, and they cheered and
huzzaed lustily as they marched along, and displayed their handkerchiefs
on ramrods, and their bonnets on their bayonets, in the extravagance of
their delight. So eager were they to rejoin, that they marched back the
twenty-eight miles in one day, and arrived in the camp at Clichy just as
the bugles were proclaiming sunset.
On the tented ground all were in a state of
commotion and preparation. Many regiments were under orders for England;
the brigades were broken up, and many alterations were made regarding
those troops that were to remain in France, to form the 'Army of
Occupation,' for three years. Next day Ronald mounted and set off for
Paris, to pay some of his old haunts a last visit, and to avoid the bustle
of the camp, where he left entirely to the care of Warristoun, his
servant, the task of packing and arranging his baggage for the cars. |
