Baron Hulot

“ Hulot d'Ervy became ordonnance commissary during the Republic. The Empire made him a baron. During one of these periods he married Adeline Fischer, by whom he had two children. The succeeding governments, at least that of July, also favored Hector Hulot, and he became in turn, intendant- general, director of the War Department, councillor of state, and grand officer of the Legion of Honor. His private misbehavior dated from these periods and gathered force while he lived in Paris. ”

“ She hopes to see you after dinner.”
At daybreak next morning Victorin Hulot was informed by the porter’s wife that soldiers of the municipal guard were posted all round the premises; the police demanded Baron Hulot. The bailiff, who had followed the woman, laid a summons in due form before the lawyer, and asked him whether he meant to pay his father’s debts. The claim was for ten thousand francs at the suit of an usurer named Samanon, who had probably lent the Baron two or three thousand at most. Victorin desired the bailiff to dismiss his men, and paid. ”

“ At the peace Hulot had secured for them the contract for forage from Alsace, not knowing that he would presently be sent to Strasbourg to prepare for the campaign of 1806.
This marriage was like an Assumption to the young peasant girl. The beautiful Adeline was translated at once from the mire of her village to the paradise of the Imperial Court; for the contractor, one of the most conscientious and hard-working of the Commissariat staff, was made a Baron, obtained a place near the Emperor, and was attached to the Imperial Guard. ”

“ He showed Hulot the note that Reine had delivered to him in his private room at the office.
"It is one of the documents in the case," said the police-agent; "return it to me, monsieur."
"Well, monsieur," replied Hulot with bitter expression, "that woman is profligacy itself in fixed ratios. I am certain at this moment that she has three lovers."
"That is perfectly evident," said the officer. "Oh, they are not all on the streets! When a woman follows that trade in a carriage and a drawing-room, and her own house, it is not a case for francs and centimes, Monsieur le Baron. ”

“ So when the Baron came home, he found his family all present; for the Baroness had formally accepted Wenceslas by the title of Son, and the wedding was fixed, if her husband should approve, for a day a fortnight hence. The moment he came into the drawing-room, Hulot was rushed at by his wife and daughter, who ran to meet him, Adeline to speak to him privately, and Hortense to kiss him.
"You have gone too far in pledging me to this, madame," said the Baron sternly. "You are not married yet," he added with a look at Steinbock, who turned pale. ”

“ He is winding up his concerns, and that again is the Baron's fault; his rake is dragged over every till within his reach."
"Comte Hulot——"
"Oh, madame, your husband has already made thin air of the old General's savings. He spent them in furnishing his singer's rooms.—Now, come; am I to go without a hope?"
"Good-bye, monsieur. A man easily gets over a passion for a woman of my age, and you will fall back on Christian principles. God takes care of the wretched——"
The Baroness rose to oblige the captain to retreat, and drove him back into the drawing-room. ”

“ Hulot laughed to scorn the Public Prosecutor in Algiers, where the War Office is supreme. Man is always what he has once been. How can the officers of the Imperial Guard forget that time was when the mayors of the largest towns in the Empire and the Emperor's prefects, Emperors themselves on a minute scale, would come out to meet the Imperial Guard, to pay their respects on the borders of the Departments through which it passed, and to do it, in short, the homage due to sovereigns?
At half-past four the baron went straight to Madame Marneffe's ”

“ You shall have the nomination this morning, and your man shall get his promotion in the Legion of Honor.—How old are you now?"
"Within three months of seventy."
"What a scapegrace!" said the Prince, laughing. "It is you who deserve a promotion, but, by thunder! we are not under Louis XV.!"
Such is the sense of comradeship that binds the glorious survivors of the Napoleonic phalanx, that they always feel as if they were in camp together, and bound to stand together through thick and thin.
"One more favor such as this," Hulot reflected as he crossed the courtyard, "and I am done for!" ”

“ And I will persevere till I have attained my end, unless you should become extremely ugly.—I shall succeed; and I will tell you why," he went on, resuming his attitude, and looking at Madame Hulot. "You will not meet with such an old man, or such a young lover," he said after a pause, "because you love your daughter too well to hand her over to the manoeuvres of an old libertine, and because you—the Baronne Hulot, sister of the old Lieutenant-General who commanded the veteran Grenadiers of the Old Guard—will not condescend to take a man of spirit wherever you may find him ”

“ Marche-a-Terre gave no sign of disturbance at being watched. The curiosity of the two officers, who were new to this species of warfare, was greatly excited by this beginning of an affair which seemed to have an almost romantic interest, and they began to joke about it. But Hulot stopped them at once.
“God’s thunder!” he cried. “Don’t smoke upon the powder-cask; wasting courage for nothing is like carrying water in a basket. Gerard,” he added, in the ear of his adjutant, “get nearer, by degrees, to that fellow, and watch him; at the first suspicious action put your sword through him. ”

“ Ha! we soldiers have a double mission,—not merely to defend French territory, but to preserve the national soul, the generous principles of liberty, independence, and rights of human reason awakened by our Assemblies and gaining strength, as I believe, from day to day. France is like a traveller bearing a light: he protects it with one hand, and defends himself with the other. If your news is true, we have never the last ten years been so surrounded with people trying to blow it out. Principles and nation are in danger of perishing together.”
“Alas, yes,” said Hulot, sighing. ”

“ The commandant was right. The proclamation merely served to strengthen each side in their own convictions. A few days later Hulot and his colleagues received reinforcements. The new minister of war notified them that General Brune was appointed to command the troops in the west of France. Hulot, whose experience was known to the government, had provisional control in the departments of the Orne and Mayenne. ”

“ With old Karl for helper and adviser, Wulf, all doubt and mystery cleared, ruled his great domain. Later he brought home his fair bride from St. Ursula, given into his keeping by the emperor himself, and thereafter, the story tells, Baron Wulf and his lady lived long a life of usefulness and good deeds; whereby those hard times were made easier for many, and the sunshine, gathered through the years, made warmth and light for others, as must always be in this world, when any life is lived for the sake of usefulness and helpfulness. ”

“ There’s not a single good patriot left, except friend Fouche, who holds ‘em through the police. There’s a man for you! It was he who warned me of a coming insurrection; and here we are, sure enough, caught in a trap.”
“If the army doesn’t take things in hand and manage the government,” said Gerard, “those lawyers in Paris will put us back just where we were before the Revolution. A parcel of ninnies! what do they know about governing?”
“I’m always afraid they’ll treat with the Bourbons,” said Hulot. “Thunder! if they did that a pretty pass we should be in, we soldiers!” ”

“ Emigration, Brittany, the Republic, and the Chouans were far indeed from his thoughts. Hulot sat erect and silent as the god Thermes. His want of education made him quite incapable of taking part in a conversation of this kind; he supposed that the talking pair were very witty, but his efforts at comprehension were limited to discovering whether they were plotting against the Republic in covert language.
“Montauran,” the count was saying, “has birth and breeding, he is a charming fellow, but he doesn’t understand gallantry. He is too young to have seen Versailles. His education is deficient. ”

“ The very moment that Commandant Hulot became aware of the secret treachery betrayed by the hairy skins of Marche-a-Terre, he was convinced that this peace, due to the genius of Hoche, the stability of which he had always doubted, was at an end. The civil war, he felt, was about to be renewed,—doubtless more terrible than ever after a cessation of three years. The Revolution, mitigated by the events of the 9th Thermidor, would doubtless return to the old terrors which had made it odious to sound minds. English gold would, as formerly, assist in the national discords. ”

“ The Baroness had an ardent admirer in her brother-in-law, Lieutenant-General Hulot, the venerable Colonel of the Grenadiers of the Imperial Infantry Guard, who was to have a Marshal's baton in his old age. This veteran, after having served from 1830 to 1834 as Commandant of the military division, including the departments of Brittany, the scene of his exploits in 1799 and 1800, had come to settle in Paris near his brother, for whom he had a fatherly affection. ”

“ Just as the bayonets of the four men were finally lost to sight, Captain Merle returned, having executed the commandant’s orders with rapidity. Hulot, with two or three sharp commands, put his troop in line of battle and ordered it to return to the summit of La Pelerine where his little advanced-guard were stationed; walking last himself and looking backward to note any changes that might occur in a scene which Nature had made so lovely, and man so terrible. ”

“ While Monsieur Hulot thus devoted himself to the lady he was "protecting," he did not forget the young artist. Comte Popinot, Minister of Commerce, was a patron of Art; he paid two thousand francs for a copy of the Samson on condition that the mould should be broken, and that there should be no Samson but his and Mademoiselle Hulot's. The group was admired by a Prince, to whom the model sketch for the clock was also shown, and who ordered it; but that again was to be unique, and he offered thirty thousand francs for it. ”

“ Then it was that young Wulf felt his heart glow within him, and he longed for the time when he too might fare out to fight for the good, and to free the land from the evil that wasted field and meadow and ground down the people until no man dared hold up his head or meet, level-eyed, the gaze of his fellow.
It happened, at last, on a day when Karl was making ready to go to the castle with a corselet which he had mended for the baron himself, that the armorer met with an accident that changed Wulf’s whole life. ”

“ The coach toward which the officer was pivoting did, in fact, contain two women, one of whom seemed to be the servant of the other.
“Such women always run in couples,” said Hulot.
A lean and sharp-looking little man ambled his horse sometimes before, sometimes behind the carriage; but, though he was evidently accompanying these privileged women, no one had yet seen him speak to them. This silence, a proof either of respect or contempt, as the case might be; the quantity of baggage belonging to the lady, whom the commandant sneeringly called “the princess” ”

“ Well, I trust thy studies will not again be broken up by warlike clamour; and yet if it should so betide, I would that I might find myself surrounded by such trusty followers as thou hast proved thyself to be."
"My liege lord," said Hugh, slightly bending the knee, for he desired to show even more reverence to a captive Prince than he might have done to one having his liberty, "I trust that if such a day should ever come again, thou wilt find my poor sword again beneath thy banner. The Prince has but to command, and the soldier must obey." ”

“ That man, one of those honest souls that are above proof, a soldier respected by the bullets in spite of his valor, received his death-blow—there, in that armchair—and dealt by my hand, in a letter!—Ring and order my carriage. I must go to Neuilly," said he, putting the two hundred thousand francs into his official portfolio.
Notwithstanding Lisbeth's nursing, Marshal Hulot three days later was a dead man. Such men are the glory of the party they support. To Republicans, the Marshal was the ideal of patriotism; and they all attended his funeral, which was followed by an immense crowd. ”

“ Events which no loyal-hearted man or true patriot, whatever his line of politics might be, could witness unmoved, determined the Baron von Hügel to abandon the studious pursuits and pleasant leisure of his beloved villa, and to throw himself again into the business and turmoil of the world. He accordingly took up his residence at Vienna, and entered with energy and zeal into all the agitating political affairs of that eventful period. ”

“ Jack and Leofric made Hugh tell them everything he could remember of the De Montfort family at Kenilworth, when he had been there as page.
They wanted to know, too, the names of the other Barons who would support the Earl of Leicester; and although parties changed with somewhat confusing rapidity, as private jealousies or conflicting interests made the friend of to-day the enemy of to-morrow, yet Hugh knew pretty well who were likely to range themselves upon the side of the liberties of the nation, and could give bits of information to his companions about the great nobles of the day. ”

“ What was’t thou didst, by the way, to the little crooked cock at the castle?”
“Him they call Conradt, Herr Knight? I did naught.”
64“Well, he means to fight thee for it.”
“Nay,” replied Wulf, “that he’ll not.”
“How is that?”
“It would not be becoming for me to fight him.”
“So,” Herr Banf said grimly. “Thou’st a good idea of what is due thy betters.”
“It is not that,” explained Wulf, simply. “I am the better of us two; a whole man goes not against a weakling.” ”