Let us not waste time over definitions, madame, he said.
Do you think there is in France strength enough to drive out Bonaparte?
He is the most hated man in this country.
But that does not answer the question, persisted Hornblower.
The Vendée will fight, said the Duchess. Laroche-Jacquelin is there, and they will follow him. My husband is raising the Midi. The King and the Household are holding out in Lille. Gascony will resist the usurperremember how Bordeaux cast off allegiance to him last year.
The Vendée might rise; probably would. But Hornblower could not imagine the Duke dAngoulême rousing much spirit of devotion in the south, nor the fat and gouty old King in the north. As for Bordeaux casting off her allegiance, Hornblower remembered Rouen and Le Havre, the apathetic citizens, the refractory conscripts whose sole wish was to fight no one at all. For a year they had now enjoyed the blessings of peace and liberal government, and they might perhaps fight for them. Perhaps.
All France knows now that Bonaparte can be beaten and dethroned, said the Duchess acutely. That makes a great difference.
A powder magazine of discontent and disunion, said the Count. A spark may explode it.
Hornblower had dreamed the same dream when he had entered Le Havre, and used the same metaphor to himself, which was unfortunate.
Bonaparte has an army, he said. It takes an army to defeat an army. Where is one to be found? The old soldiers are devoted to Bonaparte. Will the civilians fight, and if so, can they be armed and trained in time?
You are in a pessimistic mood, milord, said the Duchess.
Bonaparte is the most able, the most active, the fiercest and the most cunning soldier the world has ever seen, said Hornblower. To parry his strokes I ask for a shield of steel, not a paper hoop from a circus.
Hornblower looked round at the faces; the Duchess, the Count, Marie, the silent courtier-general who had stood behind the Duchess since the debate began. They were sombre, but they showed no signs
of wavering.
So you suggest that M. le Comte here, for example, should submit tamely to the usurper and wait until the armies of Europe reconquer France? asked the Duchess with only faint irony. She could keep her temper better than most Bourbons.
M. le Comte has to fly for his life on account of his late kindness to me, said Hornblower, but that was begging the question, he knew.
Any movement against Bonaparte in the interior of France might be better than none, however easily suppressed and whatever blood it cost. It might succeed, although he had no hope of it. But at least it would embarrass Bonaparte in his claim to represent all France, at least it would hamper him in the inevitable clash on the north-eastern frontier by forcing him to keep troops here. Hornblower could not look for victory, but he supposed there was a chance, the faintest chance, of beginning a slight guerrilla war, maintained by a few partisans in forests and mountains, which might spread in the end. He was a servant of King George; if he could encompass the death of even one of Bonapartes soldiers, even at the cost of a hundred peasant lives, it was his duty to do so. A momentary doubt flashed through his mind; was it mere humanitarian motives that had been influencing him? Or were his powers of decision becoming enfeebled? He had sent men on forlorn hopes before this; he had taken part in some himself; but this was, in his opinion, an utterly hopeless ventureand the Count would be involved in it.
But still, persisted the Duchess, you recommend supine acquiescence, milord?
Hornblower felt like a man on a scaffold taking one last look at the sunlit world before being thrust off. The grim inevitabilities of war were all round him.
No, he said. I recommend resistance.
The sombre faces round him brightened, and he knew now that peace or war had lain in his choice. Had he continued to argue against rebellion, he would have persuaded them against it. The knowledge increased his unhappiness, even though he tried to assure himselfwhich was the truththat fate had put him in a position where he could argue no longer. The die was cast, and he hastened to speak again.
Your Royal Highness, he said, accused me of being pessimistic. So I am. This is a desperate adventure, but that does not mean it should not be undertaken. But we must enter upon it in no light-hearted spirit. We must look for no glorious or dramatic successes. It will be inglorious, long, and hard. It will mean shooting French soldiers from behind a tree and then running away. Crawling up in the night to knife a sentry. Burning a bridge, cutting the throats of a few draught horsesthose will be our great victories.
He wanted to say those will be our Marengos and our Jenas, but he could not mention Bonaparte victories to a Bourbon gathering. He raked back in his memory for Bourbon victories.
Those will be our Steinkerks and our Fontenoys, he went on. To describe the technique of guerrilla warfare in a few sentences to people absolutely ignorant of the subject was not easy. The Lieutenant-General for the King in the Nivernais will be a hunted fugitive. He will sleep among rocks, eat his meat raw lest a fire should betray him. Only by being reconciled to measures of this sort can success be won in the end.