Pichegru is destined to play so important a part in this story that we must fix the eyes of the reader upon him with more attention than we have done with the secondary characters that we have hitherto put upon the scene. Charles Pichegru was born on the 16th of February, 1761, in the village of Planches, near Arbois. His family were poor and rustic; his forefathers had been known for three or four hundred years as honest day-laborers, and they had derived their name from the character of their work. They reaped their gru or grain, with the pic or mattock; from these two words, pic and gru, the name of Pichegru had been derived.
Pichegru, who early showed traces of that precocious disposition which marks the distinguished man, began his education at the school of the Paulist Fathers at Arbois; they, seeing his rapid progress, particularly in mathematics, sent him, with Father Patrault, one of their professors, to the College of Brienne. There he made such progress that at the end of two years he was appointed assistant professor. At this period his whole ambition was to be a monk; but Father Patrault, who divined Napoleon's genius, saw,[Pg 114] with equal clearness, Pichegru's possibilities, and induced him to turn his attention to military life.
Yielding to his advice, Pichegru, in 1783, entered the first foot artillery, where, thanks to his incontestable merit, he promptly rose to the rank of adjutant, in which grade he made his first campaign in America. Upon his return to France he ardently embraced the principles of 1789, and was a leader in a popular society in Besan?on, when a regiment of the Volunteer Guards, passing through the city, chose him for their commander. Two months later Pichegru was commander-in-chief of the Army of the Rhine.
M. de Narbonne, Minister of War, having missed him, asked one day in speaking of him: "What became of that young officer to whom all the colonels were tempted to take off their hats when they spoke to him?"
This young officer had become commander-in-chief of the Army of the Rhine, a promotion that had not tended to make him any prouder than he had been before. And, indeed, Pichegru's rapid advancement, his fine education, and the exalted position he held in the army had not changed in the least the simplicity of his heart. As a sub-officer, he had had a mistress, and had always provided for her; her name was Rose, she was thirty years old, a dressmaker, lame, and not at all pretty. She lived at Besan?on. Once a week she wrote to the general, always in the most respectful manner.
These letters were always full of good counsel and tender advice; she admonished the general not to be dazzled by his good fortune, and to remain the same Charlot that he had always been at home; she urged him to economy, not for her sake, but for that of his parents. She, God be thanked, could take care of herself; she had made six dresses for the wife of a representative, and was to make six more for the wife of a general. She had in addition three pieces of gold, which represented fifteen or sixteen hundred francs in paper money.
Pichegru, whatever his occupation, always read these[Pg 115] letters as soon as he received them, and put them away in his portfolio carefully, saying: "Poor dear girl, I myself taught her how to spell."
We crave permission to enlarge upon these details. We are about to bring actively upon the stage men who, for a long time, have been more or less prominently before the eyes of Europe, who have been praised or blamed as the different parties wished to elevate or abase them. Historians themselves have judged these men more or less superficially, thanks to their habit of accepting ready-made opinions; but it is different with the novelist, constrained as he is to descend to the veriest details, since in the most insignificant he may sometimes find the thread that will guide him through the most inextricable labyrinth—that of the human heart. We therefore dare to affirm that in showing them in their private life, which historians altogether neglect to do, as well as in their public life, to which too much attention is often paid, although it is sometimes but the mask of the other, we shall bring these illustrious dead before the reader's eyes, for the first time as they really were—these dead whom political passions have cast into the hands of calumny to be buried and forgotten.
Thus history tells us that Pichegru betrayed France, for the sake of the government of Alsace, the red ribbon, the Chateau of Chambord, its park, and its dependencies, together with twelve pieces of cannon, a million, in ready money, two thousand francs of income, half of which was revertible at his death to his wife, and five thousand to each of his children; and finally the territory of Arbois, which was to bear the title of Pichegru, and was to be exempt from taxes for ten years.
The material reply to this accusation is that, as Pichegru was never married, he had neither wife nor children to provide for; the moral reply is, to show him in his private life that we may know what his needs and ambitions really were.
Rose, as we have seen, gave two pieces of advice to her lover: One was to practice economy for his parents' sake,[Pg 116] and the other was to remain the same good and simple Charlot that he had always been.
Pichegru received during the campaign a daily sum of one hundred and fifty thousand francs in paper money. The sum for the whole month arrived on the 1st in great sheets divided off. Every morning enough was cut off for the needs of the day, and the sheet was laid upon a table with a pair of scissors upon it. Any one who wished had access to it, and the result was that the sheet rarely lasted the whole month. When it was gone, on the 24th or 25th, as frequently happened, every one had to get along as best he could for the remainder of the time.
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