La Vallée-aux-Loups, January 1814
AFTER Julie’s wedding, I set off for Brest. On leaving the large Collège de Rennes, I did not feel anything like the regret I experienced on leaving the small Collège de Dol. Perhaps I no longer had that innocence which casts a spell over everything; my youth was no longer enveloped in its flower: time was beginning to disclose it. My mentor in my new position was one of my maternal uncles, the Comte Ravenel de Boisteilleul, who was commander of a squadron: one of his sons, a highly distinguished artillery officer in Bonaparte’s army, would later marry the only daughter of my sister the Comtesse de Farcy.
On arriving in Brest, I did not find my cadet’s commission waiting; I know not what accident had delayed it. I thus remained what was called an “aspirant,” and as such I was exempted from the usual course of studies. My uncle found me a room on the rue de Siam, in a cadets’ boarding house, and introduced me to the naval commander, the Comte Hector.
Abandoned to myself for the first time in my life, instead of fraternizing with my future comrades, I withdrew into my instinctual solitude. Other than my teachers in fencing, drawing, and mathematics, I spoke to no one.
That same sea, which I was to encounter again on so many shores, washed the tip of the Armorican peninsula at Brest. Beyond this protuberant cape, there was nothing but boundless ocean and unknown worlds. My imagination went wild in those spaces. Often, sitting on some topmast that lay along the Quai de Recouvrance, I observed the ruck and moil of the crowd. Shipbuilders, sailors, soldiers, customs workers, and convicts passed and repassed before me. Travelers embarked and disembarked, captains conned their crafts, carpenters planed blocks of wood, ropemakers spun their cables, and cabin boys lit fires under huge coppers, which gave off thick plumes of smoke and a healthy stink of tar. Loads were being carried, recarried, and rolled from the ships to the warehouses and back from the warehouses to the ships: there were bales of merchandise, sacks of victuals, and artillery trains. Over here, they were pushing carts into the water; over there, they were hoisting tackle while cranes lowered stones and dredging machines dug silt from the harbor. The forts repeated signals, and sloops came and went, even as other vessels were fitted out or tied up at the docks.
My mind seethed with vague ideas about society, its blessings and its faults. I cannot say what sadness seized me, but I would leave the mast on which I’d been sitting and start up the bank of the Penfeld River, which flows there into the harbor, until I reached the bend where the harbor disappears from sight. Here, seeing nothing before me but a peaty dale, but still hearing the confused murmur of the sea and the voices of men, I would lie down on the bank of the narrow river. Sometimes watching the surface of the water, sometimes following the flight of a jackdaw with my eyes, basking in the silence around me, or listening to the pounding of the caulker’s hammer, I would fall into the profoundest reveries. In the midst of these reveries, if the wind brought me the sound of a cannon from a ship setting sail in the harbor, I would tremble and feel tears welling up in my eyes.
One day, I had directed my wanderings toward the far end of the port, beside the open sea. It was a hot day, and I had stretched out on the beach and fallen asleep, when, all of a sudden, I was woken by a tremendous noise. I opened my eyes, like Augustus waking to see the triremes in the anchorage of Sicily after the victory over Sextus Pompey.[17] The reports of the guns followed one after another, and the roadstead was strewn with ships: the great French squadron was returning after the signing of a peace treaty. The ships maneuvered under sail, swathed themselves in smoke, hoisted their colors, presented their sterns, bows, and broadsides, stopped short by dropping anchor in mid course, or scudded onward over the waves. Nothing has ever given me a loftier idea of the human spirit. At that moment, mankind seemed to borrow something from He who said to the sea, “You shall go no further.” Non procedes amplius.[18]
All Brest rushed down to the harbor. Sloops broke off from the fleet and sailed alongside the breakwater. The officers who crowded on deck, their faces bronzed by the sun, had that foreign look that one brings back from another hemisphere and an indescribable air of gaiety, pride, and audacity, as befitted men who had just restored the honor of the national flag. This naval corps, so worthy and so illustrious, these companions of Suffern, La Motte-Picquet, Couëdic, and D’Estaing, had escaped the enemy’s fire; but they were soon to fall beneath the fire of Frenchmen.
I was down at the harbor watching the brave troops march past when one of the officers broke off from his comrades and jumped up around my shoulders. It was Gesril. He seemed taller, but weak and weary from a sword wound that he had taken in the chest. He would leave Brest that same evening to go visit his family, and I would see him only once more, not long before his heroic death. I will soon relate the particulars. For now, let me say only that Gesril’s appearance and sudden departure led me to make a resolution that changed the course of my life. It was written that this young man should have absolute power over my destiny.
One can see how my character was taking shape, the turn of my ideas, and the earliest symptoms of my genius, for I can speak of it as an illness, whatever this genius of mine may be, rare or common, worthy or unworthy of the name I give it for lack of a better word to express what I mean. If I had been more like other men, I would have been happier. He who could have killed my so-called talent, without robbing me of my mind, would have been my truest friend.
When the Comte de Boisteilleul took me to meet M. Hector, I listened as the sailors, young and old, told stories about their campaigns and the countries they had visited. One had recently come back from India, another from North America. This one had set sail on a voyage around the world, and that one was soon to return to the Mediterranean, where he would visit the shores of Greece. In the crowd, my uncle pointed out La Pérouse, a second Captain Cook, whose death is a secret kept by the tempests. I heard it all and saw it all without saying a word, but I could not sleep that night. I stayed up indulging myself in imaginary sea battles and explorations of uncharted lands.
Be this as it may, having seen Gesril about to return to his parents, I decided that nothing should prevent me from going home to mine. No doubt I would have enjoyed naval service if my independent spirit had not rendered me unfit for service of any kind. I have in me a deep inability to obey. Voyages tempted me, but I felt I would enjoy them better alone, following my own whims. Finally, showing the first sign of my inconstancy, without having informed my uncle Ravenel, without writing to my parents, without asking permission of anyone, and without waiting for my cadet’s commission, I set off one morning for Combourg, where I dropped in as though from the sky.
I am still astonished today, given the terror my father inspired in me, that I would have dared take such a step. But what is equally astonishing is the manner in which he received me. I had expected transports of violent rage, but instead I was made gently welcome. My father was content to shake his head at me, as if to say, “Here’s a fine caper!” My mother, grumbling, embraced me with all her heart, and my Lucile, with a ravishment of joy.