A fine future was therefore before him,and he did not care to risk it for the paltry distinction of a bit of red ribbon.He was not a brave man,but he was certainly a philosopher;and he had precedents,if we may use so parliamentary an expression.Did not Philip the Second register a vow after the battle of Saint Quentin that never again would he put himself under fire?And did not the Duke of Alba encourage him in thinking that the worst trade in the world was the involuntary exchange of a crown for a bullet?Hence,Montefiore was Philippiste in his capacity of rich marquis and handsome man;and in other respects also he was quite as profound a politician as Philip the Second himself.He consoled himself for his nickname,and for the disesteem of the regiment by thinking that his comrades were blackguards,whose opinion would never be of any consequence to him if by chance they survived the present war,which seemed to be one of extermination.He relied on his face to win him promotion;he saw himself made colonel by feminine influence and a carefully managed transition from captain of equipment to orderly officer,and from orderly officer to aide-de-camp on the staff of some easy-going marshal.By that time,he reflected,he should come into his property of a hundred thousand scudi a year,some journal would speak of him as "the brave Montefiore,"he would marry a girl of rank,and no one would dare to dispute his courage or verify his wounds.
Captain Montefiore had one friend in the person of the quartermaster,--a Provencal,born in the neighborhood of Nice,whose name was Diard.
A friend,whether at the galleys or in the garret of an artist,consoles for many troubles.Now Montefiore and Diard were two philosophers,who consoled each other for their present lives by the study of vice,as artists soothe the immediate disappointment of their hopes by the expectation of future fame.Both regarded the war in its results,not its action;they simply considered those who died for glory fools.Chance had made soldiers of them;whereas their natural proclivities would have seated them at the green table of a congress.
Nature had poured Montefiore into the mould of a Rizzio,and Diard into that of a diplomatist.Both were endowed with that nervous,feverish,half-feminine organization,which is equally strong for good or evil,and from which may emanate,according to the impulse of these singular temperaments,a crime or a generous action,a noble deed or a base one.The fate of such natures depends at any moment on the pressure,more or less powerful,produced on their nervous systems by violent and transitory passions.
Diard was considered a good accountant,but no soldier would have trusted him with his purse or his will,possibly because of the antipathy felt by all real soldiers against the bureaucrats.The quartermaster was not without courage and a certain juvenile generosity,sentiments which many men give up as they grow older,by dint of reasoning or calculating.Variable as the beauty of a fair woman,Diard was a great boaster and a great talker,talking of everything.He said he was artistic,and he made prizes (like two celebrated generals)of works of art,solely,he declared,to preserve them for posterity.His military comrades would have been puzzled indeed to form a correct judgment of him.Many of them,accustomed to draw upon his funds when occasion obliged them,thought him rich;but in truth,he was a gambler,and gamblers may be said to have nothing of their own.Montefiore was also a gambler,and all the officers of the regiment played with the pair;for,to the shame of men be it said,it is not a rare thing to see persons gambling together around a green table who,when the game is finished,will not bow to their companions,feeling no respect for them.Montefiore was the man with whom Bianchi made his bet about the heart of the Spanish sentinel.
Montefiore and Diard were among the last to mount the breach at Tarragona,but the first in the heart of the town as soon as it was taken.Accidents of this sort happen in all attacks,but with this pair of friends they were customary.Supporting each other,they made their way bravely through a labyrinth of narrow and gloomy little streets in quest of their personal objects;one seeking for painted madonn as,the other for madonn as of flesh and blood.
In what part of Tarragona it happened I cannot say,but Diard presently recognized by its architecture the portal of a convent,the gate of which was already battered in.Springing into the cloister to put a stop to the fury of the soldiers,he arrived just in time to prevent two Parisians from shooting a Virgin by Albano.In spite of the moustache with which in their military fanaticism they had decorated her face,he bought the picture.Montefiore,left alone during this episode,noticed,nearly opposite the convent,the house and shop of a draper,from which a shot was fired at him at the moment when his eyes caught a flaming glance from those of an inquisitive young girl,whose head was advanced under the shelter of a blind.
Tarragona taken by assault,Tarragona furious,firing from every window,Tarragona violated,with dishevelled hair,and half-naked,was indeed an object of curiosity,--the curiosity of a daring Spanish woman.It was a magnified bull-fight.