Pierre Cadoudal

“ Cadoudal called his four lieutenants, Chante-en-hiver, Monte-à-l’assaut, Fend-l’air, and La Giberne, to him, gave each of them fifty men, and each with his men disappeared like shadows in the heavy mist, giving the well-known hoot, as they vanished. Cadoudal was left with a hundred men, Branche-d’Or and Fleur-d’épine. He returned to Roland.
“Well, general,” said the latter, “is everything satisfactory?” ”

“ The howling of a dog came from within three feet of Roland, but so perfectly imitated that the young man, although aware of what it was, looked about him for the animal that was uttering such lugubrious plaints. Almost at the same moment he saw a man coming rapidly through the mist, his form growing more and more distinct as he approached. The new-comer saw the two horsemen, and went toward them.
Cadoudal rode forward a few paces, putting his finger to his lips, as if to request the man to speak low. The latter, therefore, did not pause until he was close beside his general. ”

“ Cadoudal, as we have said, had signified that he wished to speak.
"Citizens," said he, addressing the Republicans, "as you see, I give you the title which you give yourselves—my brothers," he continued, addressing the Chouans—"and I give you the name with which God receives you in his bosom—your meeting here at Moutiers to-day, and its object, prove that each of you is convinced of the guilt of this man, who is deserving of the death which he is about [Pg 521] to suffer. And yet, Republicans, whom I hope some day to call brothers, you do not know this man as we do. ”

“ Thus men and horses were caught as in a huge arena, and each Chouan could choose his man, aim at discretion, and bring him down without fail.
Cadoudal and his forty horsemen discarded their horses, which were now useless, and, rifle in hand, were about to join in the struggle, when Mademoiselle de Fargas, who was watching the sanguinary drama with all the ardor of her lion-like nature, suddenly heard the gallop of a horse coming along the road from Vitré, and, turning, she recognized the man with whom she had travelled. ”

“ Of myself I will not even speak, and will leave you to imagine the fate which will await M. de Puisaye on his march hither, once de Maurel's five thousand works men are prepared against his coming. The catastrophe of 1800, when Cadoudal and all his followers perished for our cause, will be repeated once again; and this time the fate of your kindred, of your lover and of your father, will be laid at your door, their blood will sully your hands. ”

“ Coincident with that order came another message from the First Consul to Cadoudal. It was a safeguard for the Vendéan general, and an invitation to come to Paris; an overture from one power to another power. Cadoudal accepted, and is now on his way to Paris. If it is not peace, it is at least a truce. ”

“ Then, turning to the man who seemed to be in charge of the provisions, Cadoudal added, “Brise-Bleu, is there anything for breakfast?”
Brise-Bleu nodded affirmatively, went into the wood, and came out dragging after him a donkey loaded with two baskets. He spread a cloak on a rise of the ground, and placed on it a roast chicken, a bit of cold salt pork, some bread and buckwheat cakes. This time Brise-Bleu had provided luxury in the shape of a bottle of wine and a glass.
Cadoudal motioned Roland to the table and the improvised repast. ”

“ As he spoke, the words I had heard in the Temple crossed my mind, and I remembered that such was the anticipation of the prisoners, as they said among themselves, “When the guillotine has done its work, they 'll patch up the timbers into a throne.”
“And George Cadoudal, and the others?” said I.
“They are no more. Betrayed by their own party, they met death like brave men, and as worthy of a better cause. But let us not turn to so sad a theme. The order for your liberation will be here to-morrow ”

“ Then noiselessly and on foot, as if he were the least of the royalist officers, he gained the Barrière d'Orléans, while Danican, Lemaistre, and the young president of the Section Le Peletier laid their plans for the following day. As he departed, they all remarked: "He is a formidable fellow, that Cadoudal!" ”

“ As for Louis XVI., I will let him pass, but for Pichegru, Moreau, and Cadoudal,—that is altogether another thing. Pichegru surrendered his troops to the enemy, Moreau fought against France, and George Cadoudal was an assassin,—three kinds of ambitious men, who asked for nothing but to oppress us, and all three deserved their fate. That is what I think."
"But what has all that to do with us, pray?" exclaimed Aunt Grédel. "We will not go for them, we will go to get our permit. I despise all the rest, and so does Joseph, do you not?" ”

“ The Procureur-Général bowed and took his seat, while the President, turning towards George, said:—
“George Cadoudal, you have hitherto persisted in a course of blank denial regarding every circumstance of the conspiracy with which you are charged. You have asserted your ignorance of persons and places with which we are provided with proof to show you are well acquainted. You have neither accounted for your presence in suspected situations, nor satisfactorily shown what were the objects of your intimacy with suspected individuals. ”

“ The north-west, and indeed parts of the south of France, were still simmering with rebellions and brigandage. In Normandy a daring and able leader named Frotté headed a considerable band of malcontents, and still more formidable were the [pg.236] Breton "Chouans" that followed the peasant leader Georges Cadoudal. This man was a born leader. Though but thirty years of age, his fierce courage had long marked him out as the first fighter of his race and creed. ”

“ General Cadoudal, by whose order this execution takes place, offers the truce of God to all who shall be present at this act of justice.
Georges Cadoudal.
From his camp at La Guerche.
In passing through Etrelles, Saint-Germain du Pinel and Moutiers, Coster had left copies with the inhabitants, whom he had awakened for the purpose, and whom he charged to inform their neighbors of the good fortune that was in store for them on the following day. Nor had any of these people complained of being awakened. A commissioner of the Republic is not executed every day. ”

“ For three years, Georges had performed prodigies of valor, strength and dexterity; he now crossed the Loire and re-entered Morbihan with only one man left of all who had followed him.
That man became his aide-de-camp, or rather his brother-in-arms. He never left him, and in memory of the hard campaign they had made together he changed his name from Lemercier to Tiffauges. We have seen him at the ball of the Victims charged with a message to Morgan.
As soon as Cadoudal returned to his own part of the country, he fomented insurrection on his own responsibility. ”

“ The police had therefore, as Malin told Grevin, left the conspirators at liberty, though all the while watching them, hoping to discover the ramifications of the plot. Nevertheless, the government found its hand to a certain extent forced by Georges Cadoudal, a man of action who took counsel of himself only, and who was hiding in Paris with twenty-five chouans for the purpose of attacking the First Consul.
Laurence combined both hatred and love within her breast. To destroy Bonaparte and bring back the Bourbons was to recover Gondreville and make the fortune of her cousins. ”

“ It was Chante-en-Hiver, who had returned, as he had promised. He had gathered all the necessary information, and he told Cadoudal all that we already know. Goulin occupied the last house in the town of La Guerche. Twelve men, who slept in a room on the ground-floor, constituted his private guard. Four men took turns in acting as sentinels at the foot of the guillotine, relieving each other every two hours; the three off guard slept in the anteroom on the ground-floor of François Goulin's house. The horses which were used to pull the machine were stabled behind the same house. ”

“ He disappeared in the flame and smoke, and Roland saw him go down, he and his horse, as if annihilated. Ten or a dozen Republicans sprang from the ranks and met as many Chouans; the struggle was terrible, hand to hand, body to body, but the Chouans, with their knives, were sure of the advantage.
Suddenly Cadoudal appeared, erect, a pistol in each hand; it was the death of two men; two men fell. Then through the gap left by these ten or twelve he flung himself forward with thirty men. He had picked up an army musket, and, using it like a club, he brought down a man with each blow. ”

“ Cathmael is commonly identified with Cadoc or Docus, one of the most celebrated fathers of the Welsh Church. It is said there were two saints who bore that name; if so, Finnian’s tutor must have been Cadoc the Elder. His mother was Gladys, the daughter or grand-daughter of the Irish chieftain, Brychan, who gave his name to Brecknock—so Cadoc “who has made a deep impression on the Celtic race,” was not only of Irish blood, but was baptized, and trained up from his youth for many years, by an Irish anchorite named Meuthi, whose cell was in the neighbourhood of his father’s castle. ”

“ But Cadmus' spirit was fired with his high desire to build a city which would be a place of peace and industry, and he knew that civil strife was the destruction of such a city. So he entered the battle, single handed, and smote one of these, his [Pg 118] fighting brothers, with a sword, but fell, pierced in his side by an arrow. He was up and advancing again as soon as he staunched the flow of blood, killing four of the warriors. In the meantime the warriors seemed to become mad with the spirit of warfare and killed each other until the whole crowd was pitted against one another. ”

“ The number of warriors of the ancient Caddo is reduced to about one hundred, who are viewed as a distinguished military order of men; they have many old men and strangers, who live amongst them, amounting to nearly an equal number with the Caddos. This nation has great influence over the Yattassees, Nandakoes, Nabadaches, Inies, Nagogdoches, Keychies, Adaize, and Natchitoches, who all speak the Caddo language, look up to them as their fathers, intermarry among them, and join them in all their wars. They cultivate corn, beans, pumpkins, melons, and tobacco. ”

“ So he departed and came in princely arms to the city of Harran, and there offered his service to the King against all his enemies. Now, no sooner had the King looked upon the youth than his heart was drawn toward him because of his beauty and the secret ties of blood, but when he asked from what country he came, Codadad answered, "I am the son of an emir of Cairo, and wherever there is war I go to win fame, nor do I care in what cause I fight so long as I be proved worthy." ”

“ This he said [Pg 180] to himself so often that by the time they had found an old woman who could mend the coat, Kaddel had made up his mind to be king. "To be king," said he, "one must needs wear the Old Brown Coat; to be sure one may die; but the chance is even; and at any rate I am determined to kill Shahtah for making my grandmother die. The coat would just fit me."
The first night after the coat was finished and safely locked up in the cedar chest in the palace of the King of Percan, it was Kaddel's turn to sit upon the chest to guard it. ”

“ The earth resounds with his scraping scales, and such rank breath as exhales from the Stygian cave befouls the tainted air. Now he coils in huge spiral folds; now shoots up, straight and tall as a tree; now hie moves on with huge rush, like a stream in flood, sweeping down with his breast the trees in his path. Cadmus gives way a little, re ceiving his foe's rushes on the lion's skin, and holds in check the ravening jaws with his spear-point thrust well forward. The serpent is furious, bites vainly at the hard iron and catches the sharp spear-head be- tween his teeth. ”

“ A man named Ivor ap Cadogan had come back who had been away in Arabia, Cathay, and India, in Ophir and all the East, since he was a boy. No man knew his family. He was a tall man with yellow hair and a long beard of gold, and he was always singing to himself, and he was like a king who has thrown away his crown, nor had he soldiers with him, but only the dark foreign men who followed him from the ships. All day long, day after day, they were unlading and carrying up beautiful white stone from the ship to build a great shining castle above the sea. ”

“ Mr. Cadman is a member of the Church of England, and a Freemason. He has never taken any part in politics in England or Canada, not even to vote. In his early manhood, he was for three years a member of the South Staffordshire Rifle Volunteers. In 1860, he married Margaret Doughty, a niece of the celebrated mining engineer, John Yardley, of East Worcestershire, by whom he has had a family of five children, three of whom are still living.
Kelly, Francis, J.P., Joliette, Quebec province, is a native of Ireland, having been born in Carlow, Leinster, on the 17th of March, 1819. ”

“ The Caddoes uttered a loud scream of fear and agony; their hearts were melted. We said nothing, for we were Comanches and warriors; and yet I felt strange, and was fixed to where I stood. A man is but a man, and even a Red-skin cannot struggle with a spirit. The scream of the Caddoes, however, frightened the monster; its flanks opened and discharged some tremendous Anim Tekis (thunders) on the village. I heard the crashing of the logs, the splitting of the hides covering the lodges, and when the smoke was all gone, it left a smell of powder ”