In fact, all the causes of the French Revolution were present among us too. Only we were not in France, and there was no revolution. We live in a country where causes are always seen but never effects.
At Ombrosa, though, we had some exciting times all the same. The Republican army warred against the Austro-Sardinians almost under our noses. Massena at Collardente, Laharpe on the Nervia, Mouret on the coast road—and Napoleon was then only a general of artillery, so that those rumbles we heard fitfully reaching Ombrosa on the breeze were made by the man himself.
In September they began preparing for the vintage again. And now they seemed to be preparing something secret and terrible. Counsels of war from door to door:
"The grapes are ripe!"
"Ripe! Yes, indeed!"
"Ripe as ripe! They need picking!"
"We'll go and get 'em!"
"We're all ready. Where will you be?"
"In the vineyard beyond the bridge. And you? And you?"
"In Count Pina's."
"I in the vineyard by the mill."
"Have you seen the number of bailiffs? They seem like blackbirds dropping to pick the grapes!"
"But they won't peck this year!"
"If there are so many blackbirds, we're just as many hunters!"
"Some of us daren't come! Some are running away."
"Why is it so many people don't like the vintage this year?"
"They wanted to put it off here. But now the grapes are ripe!"
"They're ripe!"
Next day, though, the vintage began silently. The vineyards were crowded with chains of people under the festoons, but no song went up. A call or two, a shout of "You here too? It's ripe!" a movement of groups, a touch of gloom—even in the sky, which was not entirely overcast, just rather cloudy—and if a voice struck up a song it soon faded off, not taken up by the chorus. The muleteers were taking the panniers full of grapes to the vats. In other years the dues for the nobles, the bishop and the government were set aside beforehand; this year, though, they seemed to have been forgotten.
The tax collectors, come to draw the tithes, were nervous, did not know quite what to do. The more time passed, the less happened. The more they felt something must happen, the more the bailiffs realized they had to do something but the less they understood what it was.
Cosimo was walking along the pergolas with his cat's tread. He was carrying some scissors and cutting off a bunch here and a bunch there, haphazardly, offering them to the men and women vintaging below, and saying something to each in a low voice.
The chief of the bailiffs could bear the tension no more. He said: "Eh, well, now, then, what about these tithes?" Scarcely had he said this than he had already regretted it. Through the vineyards rang a deep note, part bellow, part hiss; it was a vintager blowing on a conch shell and sounding the alarm all over the valley. From every hillock similar sounds replied. The vintagers raised up their shells like trumpets, and Cosimo, too, from the top of a pergola.
A song went along the rows of vines; first broken, discordant, so it was difficult to understand. Then the voices fused, harmonized, took up the tune and sang as if they were running, flying along, and the men and women standing stock-still half hidden among the vines and each pole's vine cluster and grape seemed to run, and the grapes to be vintaging themselves, flinging themselves into the vats and treading themselves down. And the air, the clouds, the sun, all became unfermented juice; and now the song began to be understood, first the notes and then some of the words, which went: "Ça ira! Ça ira! Ça ira!" And the young men pounded the grapes with their bare red feet—"Ça ira!"— and the girls thrust their sharp dagger-like scissors into the thick greenery, wounding the twisted stalks of the grape clusters—"Ça ira!"—and clouds of gnats flew above the heaps of fruit ready for the press—"Ça ira!" And it was then that the bailiffs lost control of themselves and called: "Stop that! Silence! Enough of this row! Whoever sings we shoot!" And they began firing rounds in the air.
In reply came a rumble of gunfire that seemed to come from regiments lined in battle order on the hills. All the muskets of Ombrosa exploded, and from the top of a high fig tree Cosimo sounded the charge on a conch shell. All over the hillsides people moved. It was impossible to distinguish now between vintage and crowd: men, grapes, women, sprigs, clippers, festoons, scarasse, muskets, baskets, horses, barbed wire, fists, mule's kicks, shins, teats—all singing "Ça ira!"
"Here are your tithes!" It ended with the bailiffs and tax collectors being thrust head over heels into the vats full of grapes, their legs sticking out kicking wildly. And they returned without having gathered a thing, smeared from head to foot with grape juice, and with pips, husks, stalks stuck all over their muskets, powder pouches and mustaches.
Then the vintage turned into a fête, with all convinced of their having abolished feudal privileges once and for all. Meanwhile we nobles and petty squires had barricaded ourselves in our houses, armed to the teeth and ready to sell our skins dear. (I, in truth, did no more than keep my nose inside our gates, above all to avoid giving the other nobles a chance to say I was in agreement with that Antichrist of a brother of mine, reputed the worst agitator and Jacobin in the whole area.) But that day, once the troops and tax collectors had been flung out, no one else was hurt.
Everyone was deep in preparing celebrations. They even put up a Tree of Liberty, just to follow the mode from France; only they weren't quite sure what it was like, and then there were so many trees in our parts that it was scarcely worth while putting up a false one. So they dressed up a real tree, an elm, with flowers, clusters of grapes, festoons and placards: "Vive la Grande Nation!" From the very tip my brother, in a tricolor cockade on his cat's-fur cap, delivered a lecture on Rousseau and Voltaire, of which not a single word could be heard, as the whole population was twirling round beneath singing "Ça ira!"
The gaiety was short-lived. Troops came in great strength. Genoese, to exact dues and guarantee territorial neutrality, and Austro-Sardinians too, as the rumor had got around that the Jacobins of Ombrosa intended to proclaim the place annexed to the "Great Universal Nation," that is, to the Republic of France. The rebels tried to resist, built a barricade or two, shut the town gates. . . But no, more than that was needed! The troops passed into the place on every side, set up block-posts on every country lane, and those with the reputation of agitators were imprisoned, except for Cosimo, who would have needed a devil to catch him, and a few others with him.
The trial of the revolutionaries was hastily set up, but the accused succeeded in showing that they had nothing whatsoever to do with it and that the real leaders were the very ones who had decamped. So everyone was freed, particularly as with all those troops stationed at Ombrosa no more unrest was to be feared. A garrison of Austro-Sardinians stayed too, as a guarantee against any possible enemy infiltration, and in command of these was our brother-in-law, D'Estomac, the husband of Battista, emigrated from France in the suite of the Comte de Provence.
So I found my sister Battista underfoot again, with what reaction I leave you to imagine. She installed herself in the house, with husband, horses, orderlies. And every evening she would spend describing the last executions in Paris; she even had a model of a guillotine, with a real blade, and to explain the end of all her friends and relations-in-law she would decapitate lizards, centipedes, worms and even mice. So we would spend our evenings. I envied Cosimo living his days and nights out in the open, hidden in some wood.
} 27 {
SO MANY and so incredible were the tales Cosimo told about his activities in the woods during the war that I cannot really accept outright any one version. So I leave the word to him, and just faithfully report some of his stories.
"In the woods there used to patrol scouting parties from both the opposing armies. From up on the branches, at every step I heard crashing through the undergrowth, I would strain my ears to guess if they were Austro-Sardinians or French.
"A little Austrian lieutenant with
very fair hair, was in command of a patrol of soldiers in perfect uniforms—queues and tassels, tricorns and gaiters, crossed white bands, muskets and bayonets—and making them march along in double file, trying to keep them in step on the rough paths. Ignorant of what the woods were like, but certain of carrying out his orders punctiliously, the little officer was proceeding according to the lines traced on the map, banging his nose continually against tree trunks, the troops slipping with their hobnailed boots on the smooth stones or gouging their eyes out with brambles, but conscious always of the supremacy of the imperial arms.
"Magnificent soldiers they were. I waited for them at a clearing, hidden on a pine. In my hand I had a heavy pine cone which I dropped on the head of the last man in the file. The soldier threw up his arms, his knees buckled and down he fell among the ferns of the undergrowth. No one noticed and the platoon continued its march.
"I caught up with them again. This time I threw down a rolled-up porcupine on the head of a corporal. The corporal's head sagged and he fainted. This time the lieutenant saw what happened, sent two men to fetch a stretcher, and pressed on.
"The patrol, as if on purpose, went and got entangled in the thickest juniper bushes in the whole wood. And a new ambush was ready there too. I had collected some caterpillars in a piece of paper, the hairy, blue sort, whose touch makes the skin swell worse than a nettle, and poured a hundred or so down on them. The platoon passed, vanished in thick bushes, re-emerged scratching themselves, with hands and knees covered with little red bubbles, and marched on.
"Splendid troops, a splendid officer! The whole wood was so strange to him that he could not distinguish what was unusual about it, and proceeded with his decimated cadres, but proud and indomitable as ever. Then I had recourse to a family of wild cats; I launched them by their tails, after swinging them in the air a bit, which goaded them to a frenzy. There was a lot of noise, especially feline, then silence and truce. The Austrians were tending their wounded. Then the patrol, white with bandages, started off on the march again.
"'The only thing is to try and take them prisoners!' said I to myself, hurrying to get ahead of them, and hoping to find a French patrol to warn of the enemy approach. But the French had not been giving any sign of life on that front for some time.
"While I was getting over a slippery place, I saw something move. I stopped, and pricked up my ears. I heard a kind of bubbling stream which then ran on into a continual gurgle and I began distinguishing the words: 'Mais alors . . . 'cré-nom-de . . . foutez-moi-donc . . . tu m'emmer . . . quoi. . ..' Squinting into the half-darkness, I saw that the soft vegetation below was composed chiefly of hairy busbies and flowing mustaches and beards. It was a squadron of French hussars. Having been soaked with damp during the winter campaign, toward spring all their hats were sprouting with mildew and moss.
"In command of this outpost was Lieutenant Agrippa Papillon, of Rouen, poet, and volunteer in the Republican Army. Convinced of the general goodness of nature, Lieutenant Papillon told his soldiers not to crunch the pine needles, the chestnut cones, the twigs, the leaves, the snails which stuck on to his men as they crossed the wood. And the patrol was already so fused with surrounding nature that it needed my well-trained eye to spot them at all.
"Amid his bivouacking soldiers, the officer-poet, with long hair in ringlets framing his gaunt face under the cocked hat, was declaiming to the woods: 'O Forest! O Night! Here I am in your power! Could a tender tendril of your maidenhair fern, clasped to the ankles of these doughty soldiers, not hold the destiny of France? O, Valmy! How far away you are!'
"I came forward. 'Pardon, citoyen.'
"'Who is it? Who's there?'
"A patriot of these woods, citizen officer.'
"'Ah! Here? Where?'
"'Right over your nose, citizen officer.'
"'So I see! Who is it? A bird-man, progeny of the Harpies! Are you a creature of mythology?'
"'I am Citizen Rondò, progeny of humans, I assure you, on father's and mother's side, citizen officer. In fact my mother was a brave soldier in the Wars of Succession.'
"'I understand. O Times, O Glory! I believe you, citizen, and I am anxious to hear the news which you appear to have come to announce.'
"'An Austrian patrol is penetrating your lines!'
"'What d'you say? To battle then! 'Tis the hour! O Stream, gentle stream, ah, soon you will be stained with blood! On, On! To arms!'
"At the lieutenant-poet's command the hussars began gathering up arms and equipment, but they moved in such a scatterbrained and sluggish way, stretching, spitting, swearing, that I began to have doubts of their military efficiency.
"'Citizen officer, have you a plan?'
"'A plan? To march on the enemy!'
"'Yes, but how?'
"'How? In closed ranks!'
"'Well, if you will allow me to give advice, I would keep the soldiers halted, in open order, and let the enemy patrol entrap itself!'
"Lieutenant Papillon was an accommodating fellow and made no objections to my plan. The hussars, scattered about the wood, could be scarcely distinguished from clumps of verdure, and the Austrian lieutenant was certainly the man least adapted to see the difference. The imperialist patrol was marching along according to the itinerary traced out on the map, with every now and again a brusque 'To the right!' or To the left!' So they passed under the noses of the French hussars without noticing them. Silently the hussars, producing only natural sounds such as the rustles of leaves and the flutter of wings, arranged themselves for an encircling maneuver. I kept sentry for them from above and made whistles and stoats' cries to signal the enemy troop movements, and the short cuts ours had to take. The Austrians, all unawares, were caught in a trap.
"Suddenly they heard a shout from a tree. 'Halt there! In the name of liberty, equality and fraternity. I declare you all prisoners!' And between the branches appeared a human ghost brandishing a long-barreled hunting gun.
"'Urrah! Vive la Nation!' And all the bushes around sprouted French hussars, with Lieutenant Papillon at their head.
"Deep oaths resounded from the Austro-Sardinians, but before they had a chance to react they were disarmed. The Austrian lieutenant, pale but head high surrendered his sword to his enemy colleague."
"I became quite a useful auxiliary to the Republican Army, but preferred to go about things alone, with the help of the animals of the forest, like the time when I put an Austrian column to flight by tipping a nest of wasps on their heads.
"My reputation spread to the Austro-Sardinian camp, exaggerated to such a point that the woods were said to be packed with armed Jacobins, hidden on top of every tree. Wherever they went, the royal and imperial troops were on the qui-vive; at the slightest plop of chestnuts dropping from their husks and the faintest squirrel's squeak, they already felt themselves surrounded by Jacobins, and changed their route. In this way, just by provoking almost imperceptible rustles and sounds, I caused the Piedmontese and Austrians' columns to deviate and succeeded in leading them by the nose wherever I wanted.
"One day I got a column of them to a thick prickly copse and made them all lose their way. In the copse lived a family of wild boar. Driven from the mountains by the boom of cannon, the boars were descending in droves to take refuge in the woods lower down. The lost Austrians were marching along without being able to see a hand's-breadth in front of their noses, and suddenly hairy boars sprung up everywhere under their feet, emitting piercing cries. Snouts thrust out, they flung themselves between the knees of every soldier, pushing them all head over heels and stamping on the fallen in an avalanche of pointed hoofs, and piercing their stomachs with tusks. The entire battalion was routed. I, and my comrades, from our perch on the trees, followed them with musket fire. Those who managed to get back to camp said either an earthquake had suddenly opened the thorny ground under their feet, or that they'd been attacked by a band of Jacobins sprung from the bowels of the earth, as these Jacobins were nothing but devils, half man and half beast, who liv
ed on the trees or in the midst of bushes.
"As I said, I preferred to carry out my coups alone, or with a few comrades from Ombrosa who had taken refuge with me in the woods after that vintage. With the French army I tried to have as little to do as possible, as we know what armies are, every time they move there's some disaster. But I had taken rather a liking to that outpost of Lieutenant Papillon and was rather worried about what might happen to them. For the immobility of the front threatened to be fatal to the squadron under the poet's command. Moss and lichen were growing on the troopers' uniforms, and sometimes even heather and fern; the tops of the busbies were nested in by screech owls, or sprouted and flowered with lilies of the valley; their thigh boots clotted with soil into compact clogs. The whole platoon was about to take root. Lieutenant Agrippa Papillon's yielding attitude toward nature was sinking that squad of brave men into a fusion of animal and vegetable.
"They had to be awakened. How, though? I had an idea and went to Lieutenant Papillon to propose it. The poet was declaiming to the moon:
"'O Moon! round as a muzzle, like a cannon ball whose thrust from gunpowder is exhausted and continues to rotate slowly and silently through the sky! When will you burst on us, O Moon, raising a high cloud of dust and sparks, submerging enemy armies and thrones, and opening a breach of glory for me in the compact wall of my fellow citizens' distrust of me! O Rouen! O moon! O fate! O convention! O frogs! O girls! O life!'
"And I: 'Citoyen. . .'
"Papillon, annoyed at my constant interruptions, said sharply: 'Well?'
"'I only wanted to suggest, citizen officer, a way of rousing your men from a lethargy which is getting dangerous.'
"'I wish to heaven there were, citizen. Action is what I yearn for, as you see. And what might this way of yours be?'
"'Fleas, citizen officer.'
"'I'm sorry to disillusion you, citizen. There are no fleas in the Republican Army. They've all died of famine as a result of the blockade and high cost of living.'