France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799 -- Fiction; Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, 1769-1821 -- Fiction
To protect themselves from rain and cold they wore goatskin garments,
made with the long hair turned outside; on the breasts of which, as
countersign, some wore a scapulary and chaplet, others a heart, the
heart of Jesus; this latter was the distinctive sign of a fraternity
which withdrew apart each day for common prayer.
Such were the men, who, at the time we are crossing the borderland
between the Loire-Inférieure and Morbihan, were scattered from La
Roche-Bernard to Vannes, and from Quertemberg to Billiers, surrounding
consequently the village of Muzillac.
But it needed the eye of the eagle soaring in the clouds, or that of the
screech-owl piercing the darkness, to distinguish these men among the
gorse and heather and underbrush where they were crouching.
Let us pass through this network of invisible sentinels, and after
fording two streams, the affluents of a nameless river which flows into
the sea near Billiers, between Arzal and Dangau, let us boldly enter the
village of Muzillac.
All is still and sombre; a single light shines through the blinds of
a house, or rather a cottage, which nothing distinguishes from its
fellows. It is the fourth to the right on entering the village.
Let us put our eye to one of these chinks and look in.
We see a man dressed like the rich peasants of Morbihan, except that
gold lace about a finger wide stripes the collar and buttonholes of his
coat and also the edges of his hat. The rest of his dress consists of
leathern trousers and high-topped boots. His sword is thrown upon a
chair. A brace of pistols lies within reach of his hand. Within the
fireplace the barrels of two or three muskets reflect the light of a
blazing fire.
The man is seated before a table; a lamp lights some papers which he is
reading with great attention, and illuminates his face at the same time.
The face is that of a man of thirty. When the cares of a partisan
warfare do not darken it, its expression must surely be frank and
joyous. Beautiful blond hair frames it; great blue eyes enliven it;
the head, of a shape peculiarly Breton, seems to show, if we believe in
Gall’s system, an exaggerated development of the organs of self-will.
And the man has two names. That by which he is known to his soldiers,
his familiar name, is Round-head; and his real name, received from
brave and worthy parents, Georges Cadudal, or rather Cadoudal, tradition
having changed the orthography of a name that is now historic.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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