

Brother Gregory: Digression

The Bones of Saint Hugh

Being the Story of How the Bones of the English Saint Hugh Came to a Church in Brno

or

The Highlights of the Life of Alain Duroc, Wine Merchant.

by

John Hulme

scholar

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2014 John Hulme

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Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Maps

About the Author

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Chapter One

The Cold Ground.

Alain Duroc, soldier in the Grande Armee of Emperor Napoleon Bonepart, was dying.

At least, that is what he thought, and he had good reason for thinking it was so. Moments before he had been a fit, active, but very scared foot soldier of the 4th Brigade under the Emperor's brother Joseph advancing up a hill in the Austrian province of Moravia. Now he was lying on frozen ground with a very large lead bullet in his side and an ugly saber cut across his head.

Surprisingly he felt very little pain. Shock and the icy soil beneath his face had numbed him of any external sensation, and all he could feel was the steady oozing of blood from his head wound as it ran across his face and into his eyes. That, and the memories running through his damaged brain.

His earliest memory was of a warm day in the summer of 1788, when he had been about 6 years old. His whole family had left their house early that day, walked the half league into the village of Avallon, and found a good place from which to watch the parade. But the start of the Fair had been delayed and young Alain had quickly become bored and had fallen asleep on the warm grass at his sister's feet.

When he awoke it was to the sound of drums and the excited stirring of the villagers as they pushed their way forward to see the arriving dignitaries. Marching along the main street of Avallon were the local fife players and drummers of the military garrison, but that was not what the crowd was waiting for. Behind them, on a flatbed dray, pulled by four horses, was the Bishop of Dijon seated uncomfortably on a large chair and carrying a small be-jeweled box. This was what the crowd had come to see.

"Look, Alain," his mother said excitedly as the Bishop's carriage came near, "those are the bones of the Saint!"

All Alain saw was the red faced man, over dressed in elaborate robes who was trying to look dignified despite the warm temperatures and the cloud of flies that were swarming everywhere.

"Where, Mamma?" he remembered asking, somewhat disappointed. For weeks now his father had been telling his children the story of Saint Hugh, and how, after 550 years, his bones were finally coming back to his place of birth. In his mind Alain had been expecting a skeleton, or at least a skull, certainly not a red-faced bishop and a box.

"Saint Hugh was born here in Avallon," his father had said, "a long time ago in the 12th century. He was the son of the Lord of Avallon, and became a very holy man who was sent to England to serve an English King. There he did many great deeds, and when he died his bones performed miracles, so he was made a Saint; our Saint, and now he is coming back to us."

Alain jumped up and down trying to get a better view. Taking pity on him, his eldest brother, Simon, swept him up in his arms and placed him on his shoulders.

"There, little brother, look at the Second Estate in all its glory. Fat, drunken priests who steal from the poor to keep themselves in luxury."

"Hush," his mother said nervously looking around at her neighbors. Her eldest son was always getting into trouble for his Jacobin tendencies.

"But why is the Saint coming back to Avallon?" Alain wanted to know. He was too young to appreciate the anti-nobility and anti-clerical sentiments that had been building throughout France in the last few years.

Simon answered him, "Our great and noble Bishop recently made a deal with the English to import some of their woven cloth, and as part of the deal, the English agreed to send the bones of Saint Hugh on a tour of France."

"It is a great honor," Alain's mother said piously, crossing herself.

"Huhh!" snorted Simon, "ask the Brion family how much of an honor it is. Thanks to this fever for all things English, they have lost their lively-hood. The Brion family used to make the best cloth in Burgundy, now everyone is buying cheap British materials and the Brions are bankrupt."

In his analysis, Simon Duroc was absolutely right. During the middle of the 18th century all things English became very popular throughout France. In 1786 a treaty was signed by France and Great Britain removing trade restrictions between their two countries. This resulted in the continent being flooded with cheap industrial goods. Thousands of French laborers were thrown out of work, adding to the growing unrest.

"Saint Hugh's bones were sent by the Bishop of Lincoln in England," his father added, "They started their tour in Paris, and now they are coming here to Avallon where they will rest in the Priory of Villard-Benoit. It was here that the Saint was born. Later next year they will be moved to the Chartreuse in Grenoble for the 550th year celebrations of the Saint's birth."

"But where are the pigs?" Alain asked, becoming bored with all this talk of Saints he could not see.

His brother laughed aloud. "Good for you little Alain. At least you have your priorities right." He pointed to the stragglers following the priests and fermiers in the parade. At the end of the line were some of the local farmers each with a pig tied up with rope.

"You are not to go," his mother shouted with alarm.

"Mamma, please," Alain begged.

"NO, certainly not. You are coming to church with me. We must ask the blessing of Saint Hugh."

"But Mamma, Simon promised me we could go and see the pig squealing after the parade."

"Simon is an evil boy who will certainly be punished in hell," his mother said with venom. "His soul may burn for eternity, but yours must be saved. You are not to go to the pig squealing, you are coming with me." She lifted her youngest son from the shoulders of her eldest and held him tight.

Simon just laughed good naturedly at his mother, ducked a blow she directed at him, and skipped away through the thinning crowd in the direction of an open area behind the village square. Stopping occasionally to exchange a word or two with other young men, he made his way to the site of the annual pig killing. Purchasing a skin of wine for a few sous, he pushed his way between the gathering throng and found himself a good position. Already some of the pigs were arriving.

Paganism in rural France was flourishing. Churches were half-empty and villagers, such as Simon's neighbors in Avallon, were just as likely to participate in Satanic rituals as they were in Catholic ceremonies. Local Abbes and Cures were still respected members of their communities, but those higher church hierarchy were bitterly resented for the way in which they collected their one-tenth tithe from the peasants.

"There will be a meeting this evening," said a voice behind him, and Simon turned to see one of his friends from winery.

"Good," said Simon, "it is time to act."

His friend continued, "I have word from Auxerre that the captiation tax is to be collected early this year, and that the village leaders of Auxerre are preparing a Cahier to be sent to the King asking him to put Monsigneur Necker back into the Ministry of Finance.".

Simon nodded at the news. Far away in Paris the growing bankruptcy of the French government had been a discussion topic for over ten years, but the news was only just reaching some of the rural areas. In 1777 the King, in a brave move, had made the Swiss Protestant financier Jacques Necker the director of the Treasury. During the following four years the King had, under Necker's prompting, instituted a series of minor reforms, and denounced the corvee, a much hated labor law.

Against Necker's advice, France had become involved in financing and supporting a distant revolution in the American colonies, an involvement that had cost the almost destitute French people some $240,000,000 that they could ill afford.

"Prere Justin, at the Temple in Auxerre, told Robert yesterday that he had heard that the King was going to authorize a calling of the Estates General," Simon's friend went on. "If that is so, we here in Avallon must be ready to elect our own representatives." There had not been a call to the communities of France to elect and send an Estates-General to the King since 1614, so this event, if true, was of great significance.

A shout went up from the crowd as the first pig was dragged into the open area. A rope tied around its back legs restricted its movements while two youths took out their knives and approached cautiously. Grunting and struggling, the pig ignored them at first, until one of the youths lunged forwards and sliced the blade of his knife across the pig's rump. Squealing in pain, the pig twisted and stumbled, much to the enjoyment of the crowd.

"Carthoun is with us," said Simon's friend, "but he wants to know what your father will do before he acts."

Simon took a long drink of his wine before replying. His father was a modest Censitaires, or seigneurial farmer, in this wine growing region of Burgundy. He held from the feudal landlord certain rights and properties for which he paid a tax or cens. Around Avallon the land supported, among other things, the growing of wine grapes. Monsigneur Duroc held this land from the landlord, and in turn rented the slopes to lesser farmers and growers.

When the grapes ripened other peasants would be hired to pick them and bring them to the presses that M. Duroc controlled. Here he supervised the making of a crude red Burgundy wine that formed the staple liquid drunk at every table in the region. His power, patronage and duties made M. Duroc someone of small consequence in the village.

"If he could be persuaded to vote for Carthoun, then the election is ours," Simon's friend persisted.

"I don't know," Simon said at last, watching the pig slowly being sliced by the knives and squealing heartily as it was bled to death. "He is a staunch Royalist, and I have never heard him say a good word about Carthoun."

"We are all Royalists here," he friend said, "Everyone I know supports the King, it is his advisors we want to change, and some of the taxes. The gabelle must go."

An ancient and much hated aspect of feudal France was the salt tax or gabelle in which all French peasants were required to buy their salt at fixed prices from merchants that held the monopoly from the State.

Simon felt a sudden tugging at his leg and looked down to see his little brother Alain.

"How did you get here?" he asked with a grin, picking up the boy so he could see over the crowd.

"Mamma put me down so she could talk to Tante Adelle, and I ran away," he boy said proudly. "I saw you come here and I followed you."

"You know that you will get into trouble for this," Simon said.

"I don't care," was the reply from a boy who was clearly his mother's favorite.

A second pig was led out to join the first. Smelling blood, this animal did not go quietly, and to the delight of the mob began to attack its tormentors. A large, rather drunk farrier took up a pointed stick and began poking the pig, prompting even greater laughter as the haunches of the animal began to bleed profusely and the squealing became louder and louder.

Suddenly Simon began to feel his tiny brother begin to shake. He took the boy down from his shoulders and to his surprise saw that the child had begun to convulse uncontrollably. His eyes rolled back into his head, his jaw clamped shut and his whole body became rigid and trembling.

"Alain, Alain!", he shouted, but the tiny body trashed even more violently.

"Get him away from here," Simon's friend yelled, and the two young men picked up the agonized shape and pushed their way out of the crowd.

Beyond the open ground used for the pig killing the Place d'Armes, or Parade Square, used for everything from the local market to the current Fair, was occupied by stalls and tables; a lively business was being carried out. Among the strollers a worried Madame Duroc was looking for her youngest son, and she spotted Simon immediately. With a cry she ran towards them and fell upon the tortured body of Alain.

Advice was promptly given by a small circle of fair-goers who gathered around the epileptic boy.

"Rub Guttete Powder on his chest," was one suggestion.

"No, he must be placed under a holly bush in the graveyard," was another. But it was the local Cure, priest of the tiny village church, who had the most practical suggestion, "Bring him to the vestry," he said, helping the mother pick up her son from the dirt, "it is cool in there and in God's sight."

Hurriedly Alain was taken inside the stone church and placed on the floor where, a short while ago the Bishop from Dijon had laid the bones of a 550 year old Saint. A large number of the more penitent villagers were still in the church waiting their turn to advance to the altar and kneel before the casket from England. Seeing the disturbance, the Abbe from Auxerre, who had accompanied the Bishop on this stage of the journey, hurried to the back of the church to see what was happening.

"Bring him to the altar at once," he ordered and began pushing his way through the parishioners. Alain's tiny body was taken before the Bishop, who was completely at a loss as to what to do.

"Your excellence," the Abbe said, crossing himself and kneeling before the Bishop, "his boy is being attacked by a devil, he needs the purgative powers of the Saint." At which the puzzled look on the Bishop's face cleared. It was well known that Saints had remarkable powers to cure the sick. Saint Meen in Brittany was famous for curing leprosy, and Saint Sebastien was a certain cure for the plague.

"Here," he said in Parisian French, and reverently placed the jeweled casket containing the last known remains of Saint Hugh beside the shaking body of Alain. Madame Duroc, overawed by the company in which she now found herself, did nothing, but Simon, who had accompanied them, took his brother's hand and forced it onto the casket. Almost at once the boy's shaking and convulsing began to ease. A sigh went up from those closest to the group. His neck began to uncurl and his jaw relaxed.

Within minutes the seizure had lessened to the point that the boy could sit up and look around him.

"Praise be to God," said the Abbe from Auxerre, and kissed the cross hanging around his neck.

A chorus of praises to God and to Saint Hugh rapidly followed as the weak and frightened boy was led away from the altar and the Bishop.

Saint Hugh had returned to his hometown just in time.

(return to Table of Contents)

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Chapter Two

Arrival

"They come, they come," shouted Pierre, rushing into the Place d'Armes waving his hands. He pointed excitedly back across the Parade Square in the direction of the road that led from Auxerre to Avallon. In the distance the sound of marching feet, the ringing of iron horseshoes on the gravel road and the grinding of cart wheels could be faintly heard.

"Attention, attention," said Mayor Jean-Gillaume Carthoun quietly. He did not have to raise his voice; his audience had said little since the news arrived. Standing round the Mayor in the Place d'Armes were the more important citizens of Avallon, at least those that were left. It had only been five years since the Bishop of Dijon had paraded the bones of Saint Hugh into the local Avallon church, but during that time there had been many, almost unbelievable, changes in the lives of the villagers and their village.

Amazingly the King was dead and France was now a republic. At the beginning of the year, on January 21, 1793, King Louis XVI and been taken to the Place de la Revolution, in Paris where his head had been chopped off by that engine of the revolution still called the "Louison" in Avallon after the name of its inventor. However, most people in Paris now called it a "Guillotine", after the successful campaign by Dr. Joseph Ignace Guillotin to have it adopted as a humanitarian way of executing criminals. He had his wish on March 25, 1792, when the National Assembly voted to make the "Louison" the state means of execution.

Following a cry of "Tambours!" by Santerre, to drown out the Kings last words, the heavy blade had fallen on the Royal neck and ended the Monarchy in France. The Mayor of Avallon shuddered as he thought about it. At the time he had been an elected representative to the Convention and a member of the Girondin fraction, the more moderate members of that body. When the question "What sentence has Louis, King of the French, incurred?" had been put to them on January 16th his vote had been one of the 334 cast against execution, but 361 had been cast for the death penalty.

Violence had broken out on the streets and in the Convention chamber. Seeing what was going to happen Carthoun had hurriedly left Paris and fled back to his village, where, no one else wanting the job, he had become Mayor. Back in Paris, the death of the King had been a substantial victory for the "Mountain", the more extreme fraction of the Convention. It had also begun a series of disasters not only for the Convention itself, but for all France.

Armies of the Revolution who were guarding France against invasion suddenly lost thousands of their volunteers and 200,000 troops melted away and returned to their homes. Conscription was introduced and revolts against its enforcement broke out across the countryside. A Revolutionary Tribunal was set up on March 10 to try all suspects who might be plotting against the revolution and the new Republic, and after a perfunctory examination, forwarded its victims to the dreaded Committee of Public Safety. The "Louison", now the guillotine, suddenly became very busy.

Safely back in Avallon, Mayor Carthoun watched as Marat, dominating the Convention, had called out the names of the remaining Girondins; those whom he wanted executed. Carthoun's neck, many miles from Paris, had tingled when he read his own name in the broadsheet. From July of that year essentially all power became concentrated in the hands of the Committee of Public Safety, and its members set about systematically to remove all opposition.

What was later called "The Terror" began on September 17, 1793, when the Law of Suspects finally removed any restraint and the twelve members of the Committee became more and more extreme. South of Avallon, in the city of Lyons the Griondins who still had heads on their shoulders, finally gained control of the town and began to impose a degree of regional autonomy that the Jacobins felt would break the country apart. They had to be stopped.

Acting swiftly, the Committee of Public Safety appointed a number of "Representatives on Mission", gave them absolute power to depose elected officials, arrest suspects, draft men into the Army and set up local committees of public safety. They also gave these "Representatives on Mission" a company of well armed National Guards and their own guillotine. Then they sent them out into the countryside to restore order.

It was one of these traveling Representatives who was now approaching the Place d'Armes in Avallon, and no one was looking forward to the visit. Behind the Mayor, Simon Duroc stretched his neck and peered over the shoulders of his fellow villagers. He wanted to see what was happening.

"Keep your head down, Simon," said Collot, his friend and fellow Jacobin, "From what I have heard from Auxerre, our guests are no friends of landowners. I would not make myself too obvious if I was you."

"But why!" protested Simon, "I have been a Jacobin all my life, and good friend to the revolution and the Republic. What have I to fear?"

"They may not like the fact that your father left his village to fight for the 'whites', and never came back," said Collot, dryly. "It may go hard on you that your father fought with the nobility against the patriotic National Guard."

Simon shrugged, he could hardly deny that, at the beginning of the revolution, which had started with the declaration of a Republic in 1791, his father had been attacked as a 'landowner' (which he was not) and a parasite (which he was not) and a royalist lackey (which he was). When a region in the south had declared itself loyal to the king, he had packed his bags, said goodbye to his family and gone to join them. Simon, the eldest son, had been left in charge of the winery, his mother, brother, sister and the vines.

"I have nothing to do with monarchists or counter revolutionaries," said Simon, half to himself, "They will see that."

"Let's hope so, here they come."

First to arrive on the open ground beside the Place d'Armes were a troop of National Guard soldiers. Each wore the required red Phrygian cap, or bonnet rouge, the symbol of their revolution. They also wore pantelons, which had replaced the middle class breeches, or culottes. It was by this name, sans-coulottes, that they were known. A short jacket, or carmagnole and a pike completed their outfit, but most of them also carried a long musket slung across their shoulders. They were all city folk, mostly from the slums of Paris and their faces were almost as scary to the villagers of Avallon as their weapons.

Behind the sans-coulottes of the National Guard rode a half troop of horsemen. To call them cavalry would have been over generous. Republican armies were notoriously short of trained riders, horsemanship being a skill of the nobility. At the head of these horsemen rode a lean, angular tight-lipped man of about 34 years. He rode uncomfortably with small bobbing motions that shook his loose large black hat decorated with a huge tricolor ribbon. Around his chest and over one shoulder was an even larger version of the tricolor ribbon whose broad red, white and blue stripes were now the required colors of the revolution. Even without these symbols of office, however, it was clear that this thin, spare man was the leader of the group.

Without speaking, or acknowledging their presence, the leader of the horsemen pulled his large roan mare to a stop in the middle of the open ground, and looked over his shoulder. The last part of his entourage was just arriving. A shudder went through Mayor Carthoun's party. Bringing up the rear were three carts. On the first of these sat a man whose face was permanently twisted into a demonic grin and from whose mouth ran a perpetual trickle of saliva. He handled the reigns of the carthorse with careless ease and jerked his head in all directions, but apparently without seeing anything. Behind him, on the cart was a sight more terrifying than the driver. It was instantly recognizable as a portable guillotine that rattled and shook its heavy blade as the cart crossed the cobbles.

Still jerking his head, the driver of this death cart pulled to a halt behind the troop of horsemen and facing the Avallon villagers. With the arrival of the carts, the leader spoke for the first time.

"Citizens," he said in a thin, surprisingly reedy voice. "Citizens of Avallon, my name is Joseph Fouche and I have been sent as Representative on Mission to your village. I am here to root out any corruption, any Royalists and any clergy who may still be holding to false notions of loyalty to the Capets. Make no mistake, we are at war citizens. We are at war with the enemies of France and we are at war with the enemies of the Revolution. We must be harsh with these enemies." He paused, his nose dripping, then continued, "I intend to use the fullness of the authority delegated to me for this task. The time for half-measures is over. I warn you, I will strike hard against any who defy me."

He looked around to gauge the effect of his words, but only saw scared faces. This pleased him. Joseph Fouche, a former Latin and physics professor, was one of the most interesting and unusual personalities that the Revolution produced. At the time of his visit to Avallon he was in his second transformation, this time from Girondist to a member of the Mountain. To prove himself to his new masters, he was on his way to Lyons, where, later that year, he would participate in one of the bloodiest atrocities of the Terror.

Prisoners, who had done nothing but be denounced by a neighbor, would be take from jail and shot in batches of sixty at a time. The total killed by Fouche in this way exceeded 1,667. In all, 18,000 to 40,000 people would be executed during the brief period of the Terror, and Joseph Fouche would be among its ablest and productive executioners.

"Who speaks for the citizens of Avallon?"

"I, Citizen," answered Carthoun, nervously, "I have the honor of being the Mayor of Avallon."

Fouche regarded him. It was growing cold and a small drip was forming at the end of his long thin nose. His sharp eyes locked onto the speaker.

"I require that these good citizen soldiers of the revolution be housed and fed. See to it."

"Yes Citizen, at once."

Ignoring the answer, Fouche turned and rapped out a string of orders to the National Guard soldiers standing behind him. At once a small detachment moved off in the direction of the church, and a second detachment began to unload the second cart, lifting down a heavy desk and a set of chairs which they carried to one side of the square.

"Tomorrow," Fouche continued, turning back to Mayor Carthoun and his fellow citizens, "I will hold a tribunal to assess how well the citizens of Avallon are contributing to the Revolution. All personal property will be evaluated and if any citizen has not given his fair share, it will be taken from him. All complaints by true and loyal citizens will be heard, and justice provided against any of the pettibougousie or nobility who are still continuing their oppression of these good citizens. All church property is here by confiscated by the Sate and will be turned over to me at once."

At this the small group of villagers could not help glancing in the direction of the church where soldiers were taking up positions by the main door. It was clear that they intended to prevent anyone from entering the church and to stop them from removing any of its contents.

"Of course, Citizen," stuttered Carthoun, "but you will find that we are all good revolutionaries here in Avallon." At which Fouche snorted.

"I have heard similar claims in all the villages between here and Paris, and in each village I have found those who selfishly hold back property that rightly belongs to the Sate." He paused and leaned forward on his horse, bringing his cold, hard face closer to that of the Mayor.

"And in each village," he went on softly, "Madame Guillotine has rewarded those who thought they could deceive me."

"Not here, Citizen, not here," Carthoun shook out the words. This companions stepped back involuntary.

"We'll see," murmured Fouche, "but the hour grows late and my fellow citizens and I have been on the road from Auxerre since the morning. Citizen Mayor, see to their needs. Tomorrow we will test the purity of your republican sentiments. In the meantime, no one is to go near the church, see that all the citizens of Avallon understand that."

"Of course, Citizen, but we have no priest or Cure here, and the church is empty."

"That is interesting," said Fouche in his softest voice, "because I was told in Auxerre that the church in Avallon holds a reliquary of some value. Is that not so?"

Carthoun shook with fear. Fouche was well informed. When the Bishop of Dijon had left the village five years ago, he had left the bones of Saint Hugh in their jeweled reliquary on the altar. The intention had been for the Saint to spend a few months in his home village before continuing his journey to the Chartreuse in Grenoble where he was supposed to have celebrated the 550th year of his birth. But in between, there had been a revolution.

The winter of 1788 had been one of the worst on record. Thousands had starved and hundreds had died. Riots broke out in almost all the large towns, and the authorities had enough problems quelling and feeding their populace to worry about the bones of an English Saint. So they had remained in a small church in Avallon, slowly to have been forgotten. Except, it appeared, by Joseph Fouche.

Mayor Carthoun's red face told Fouche all he needed to know, and he gave a thin, tight-lipped smile that sent shivers down the spine of the unfortunate villager.

"Citizen Sergeant," he called out, "double your usual vigilance tonight. Tomorrow I inspect the church, and if I find anything of value, Madame Guillotine will have her say."

A wicked grin spread across the face of the sans-culotte who appeared to be in charge of the soldiers. "Yes Citizen," he laughed, "all will be safe."

"Sleep well, Citizen Mayor," said Fouche, "we start early in the morning." With that he pulled heavily and clumsily on the reigns of his horse and the villagers had to jump out of the way as the large mare turned and took its rider across the square. Almost at once the Sergeant approached the dispirited group.

"You," he said pointing at Carthoun, "come with me and see to the billeting of my men." There was no refusing, and the villagers watched helplessly as two or three of the sans-culotte National Guards were apportioned to each house and home in the village.

Two men, both originally thieves from the Paris slums but now honored guards in the service of the Citizen Representative, were billeted in the Duroc household, where the only person to greet them enthusiastically was Simon. His Jacobin sympathies and his revolutionary ardor were still unabated, despite the loss of his father and the loss of most of his family's position in the village. Although, he had been allowed to continue running the winery; most citizens still needed their wine. His mother and sister were considerably less enthusiastic as the two Parisians, with true patriotic sentiment, broke open several bottles of their best vintage and demanded food.

Alain Duroc, now a sturdy, wide eyed boy of 11 years, came and stood beside his brother's chair as the men talked.

"Your Mayor will certainly kiss Madame Guillotine tomorrow," said Herbois, the older of the two men as they sat around the table eating Madame Duroc's food and partaking liberally of Simon's wine. "Citizen Fouche has a nose for these things, and Citizen Carthoun would be well advised to spend this night saying goodbye to his family."

"But Jean is a true republican and was a member of the Convention," protested Simon, "I myself was an elector for this district and helped choose him to go to the third Assembly."

"Huh!", grunted Herbois, "Gironde or Mountain?"

"Well, er, Gironde," Simon said reluctantly.

"Then he is certainly a dead man," laughed Gaudet, the other sans-culotte, stuffing more bread in his mouth, "Citizen Fouche has recently seen the light and abandoned his Girondist sympathies. He is now a supporter of Robespierre and was appointed as a Representative on Mission to Lyons where he will help Citizen Collot d'Herbois clean out the last of the Girondists from that city."

"But from what Jean has told me, it was men like him, the 180 Girondin lawyers, who took the lead in proposing legislation in the Assembly," Simon said, pushing another bottle at his guests.

"I would know nothing about that," grunted Herbois helping himself, "I stay out of politics. But it has been my experience that it is always the liberals that begin the trouble making, and then wail and beat their chests when others take over from them and put their ideas into practice. I stay a long way away from liberals. "

"We were on the streets fighting the revolution with our bodies and our pikes," said Gaudet, "while the soft liberals like your Mayor were inside the Convention spouting words and making fine sounds."

"Give me an upright Citizen of the likes of Fouche every time," went on Herbois. "At least you know where you stand with him. No fine sentiments, all hard reality."

"Will he really take the church tomorrow?" asked Alain, speaking for the first time.

The two sans-culottes laughed. "He'll leave the stones, but not much else. We have sacked every church from here to Paris, and always found something of interest. Most of the priests have fled, but we always manage to catch one or two and after a few prods with a pike they usually remember where they hid the crosses and the plate."

Alain looked at his mother, and she silently motioned him to be quiet.

"The Cure of Avallon was driven out years ago," she told the two soldiers, slamming a plate of ham down in front of them to hide the gasp coming from her youngest son. It had only been last week that she had taken him to see the Cure and have him once more put his hands on the bones of the Saint, which were still on the altar. His fits of shaking and rigor still attacked him at regular intervals, and it was only a contact with the English Saint that saved him. What was his mother saying?

"We have nothing here, it was all stolen years ago," his mother went on.

"I doubt that, Citizeness," grinned Herbois, "but we'll see tomorrow. Back in Auxerre an Abbe was 'questioned' by Citizen Fouche. After the right amount of persuasion he told us not only where his own cross was hidden, but also told us some interesting facts about Avallon and the jewels that could be found protecting the bones of a Saint. But then, you wouldn't know anything about that, would you?"

"Here, Citizen, some more wine," said Simon hurriedly before his mother could answer. "We are all loyal to the Republic here in Avallon. Anything left in the church is, of course, the property of the State and Citizen Fouche is welcome to take it. In this family we have no interest in these matters."

"Which is as it should be," replied Herbois, still keeping his eyes on Madame Duroc. "This ham is excellent Citizeness, you are lucky to have so much fine food. In most of the places we have stayed, the people were not so generous to their guests, a few even tried to hide their wine or their cheese. But not here. You know how to treat someone who is defending your liberties."

"Of course," said Simon, "but you must be tired after your journey. You must take my bed tonight, I'll sleep here."

"Perhaps one more bottle," said Gaudet, "we don't often drink such fine wine. Where do you get it?"

"It is ours," said Alain, proudly.

"He means, we own it," said his brother hurriedly. He had remembered the words of warning given to him by his friend Collot earlier.

"Ahh yes," said Herbois, "once again I must congratulate you. For a good republican citizen, you live well. I must tell Citizen Fouche about your generosity and your good fortune at the tribunal tomorrow."

The implication in his words were not lost on Simon, or his mother, who put yet two more bottles on the table and gathered up her youngest son.

"Goodnight to you Citizens," she said and hustled Alain out of the room and into the kitchen. Behind her the drinking went on for another hour before the two sans-culottes finally fell asleep over the table. They never made it to Simon's bed.

(return to Table of Contents)

~~~000~~~

Chapter Three

Adventure

Keeping close to the wall, Alain paused for a moment in the deepest shadow and listened. Out in the woods, beyond the village, a wolf howled and was answered by the rest of it's pack some leagues off. He had no idea what time it was, but the National Guards in his house had been asleep at the table for many hours, and the moon was full and high in the night sky. It was a cold October evening and even the local dogs were staying indoors. He shivered and pulled his coarse woolen jacket around him.

"Rest, my little one," his mother had said as she put him in her own bed that night.

"But Mother," he had protested, "they are going to take the Saint. What can we do?"

"Nothing, little one. Nothing," she had told him vehemently, shaking him by the shoulders, "we must do nothing. These men are animals; scum from the pits of hell, where they will surely return when God is ready. But while they are here they have the guns and the will to use them. We must do nothing to annoy them or cause them to become angry with us."

"But, Mother," Alain protested, "if they take the Saint tomorrow, what am I going to do? I'll die the next time the devil sends the shakes to attack me."

His mother hugged him hard to her bony body and the pair rocked back and forth on the bed. This woman had survived much recently; childbirth, starvation, loss of property and the recent loss of her husband. But she never lost her spirit.

"You will survive, my son, God will be merciful and send you help, even if these thieves take the Saint."

They had hugged more and then Alain's mother had laid him on the bed and commanded him to sleep. Later she had returned and crawled into the other side of the bed, and together they had waited in uncomfortable silence. Crowding into Alain's brain as he lay there, were a thousand thoughts, but time and again his imagination brought him to his next attack of the shakes. Each time when he went for help from the Saint, all he found in the church was a filthy sans-culotte. Instead of the bones of Saint Hugh, the twisted face of the man on the cart greeted him by throwing chicken bones from his meal on the floor of the church and telling him to fine a cure among them. He awoke sweating. He must do something.

It had not been hard to slip out of bed, find his jacket and wooden clogs and climb out of the window at the back of the house. Now he was approaching the center of the village and keeping in the shadows as he got nearer and nearer to the church. He had no plan and he had no idea what or if he could do anything to rescue the Saint, all he knew was that he had to try.

Across the square of open ground he could see the church door and the detachment of National Guards sitting and standing on the steps. Unlike the ones in his house, Alain could see that all these men were awake and sober; at least as sober as they could be after drinking a large jug of Rouge between them. From the puffs of steam around their unshaven faces, he could see that they were cold, and one of them had found some wood to make a small fire. But such was their fear of the dreaded Citizen Representative, that only half of them sat near the fire at any one time, while the rest moved around, and checked the door and windows of the church at regular intervals.

It was clear the Saint was well guarded. Stepping back into the shadows, Alain cautiously moved around the side of the square where once he had watched the pig squealing and where now the portable guillotine was ready for its morning's work. Even more cautiously he felt his way past the few remaining occupied houses at the far end of the square and down to the tiny stream that trickled along behind the church. Perhaps this way was less guarded.

Trying not to make a sound on the hard ground with his wooden shoes he crawled the last few yards from the stream to the graveyard and peered over the low, crumbling wall. To his left the stone crosses and grave markers lay in the deep shadow cast by the moon over the church. At the front of the church the soldiers still sat around their fire and walked up and down the square, but they rarely came around the corner and into the graveyard. Only the sergeant occasionally came this way, and even he spent as little time as possible among the dead. Although these men were all supposed to be atheists, their fear of the spirits was real enough.

As he lay there, a tiny trickle of an idea came to him. Deep in the dark side of the small village church was a large oak tree whose branches spread almost to the wall and towered high above the roof. Some villagers claimed that the tree was older than the church and had been worshiped in the village for far longer. But, for Alain, it also suggested a way inside.

Since the start of the revolution, the clergy and the churches in France had been steadily persecuted and driven to desperation. Here in Avallon, as elsewhere, at first the priests had been made servants of the new Republic, and, for a time, had been paid for their work. But as the extremists of the Mountain in the Convention had increased in power, so had the anti-clerical sentiments. Attacks on the church had grown stronger and more open. By the time that Joseph Fouche arrived in Avallon, the village Cure, or priest, was a wanted man. It had only been the loyal protection of people like Alain's mother that had kept him safe and his church, and its meager store of treasures unlooted. Until now.

For years the priest had quietly held secret services for those in his flock that dare attend them. He had blessed, baptized, married and buried all those who still needed his ministrations, but the church had not been maintained. Much needed repairs went undone; there was no money and no one willing to volunteer to be seen re-building a church when the local Jacobin council was, at least in public, anti-Catholic. As a result the church roof was in a bad state of disrepair and in places the slate tiles had become loose and had fallen into the graveyard. Alain knew of one spot where at least five of the large roof tiles were either loose or missing, making an easy entrance for a small boy.

Slowly, and now without his wooden sabots, he pulled himself up into the lowest branches of the oak tree. Whenever he could escape his mother, which wasn't often these days, he had climbed with his friends in this tree and dropped acorns on the heads of unsuspecting villages who had come to visit the graves of their relatives. He had been caught once and soundly beaten by his brother, who was the one who had taught him this trick originally.

Curling his toes around the wrinkled bark of the tree branches, even in the darkness he had no great problem moving through the tree like a squirrel. Pausing only once, when the sergeant came to check and saw nothing, Alain reached the church roof and looked for a branch that would take him close to the opening. It was surprisingly hard to find. There was no moonlight on this side of the church and he did not want to make a noise by disturbing the heavy slate tiles.

Eventually his toes found the opening for him and he felt along the edges of the huge wooden beams that had originally supported the missing tiles. Carefully, so carefully, he eased his thin body between the two nearest beams, and wriggled his feet until he found the cross purlin that held the trusses in place. Then he was inside. He rested on the truss while his eyes adjusted to the almost total darkness. Small French village churches had no large stained glass windows, like their English counterparts. This church was illuminated during services by a crude iron candelabra standing on the floor and by rush lights suspended in brackets from the stone walls. During the day, the only light that reached inside came from tiny slit windows high up on the sides of the church.

But there were enough holes in the roof on the moonlit side, that, after a few minutes, he could see to reach down, grasp one of the iron brackets that were cemented into the wall, and swing himself onto stone floor. His bare feet crackled among the dead leaves that had blown inside and never been swept out. There were no benches or pews, all the congregation stood throughout the services.

He listen for a while, but no soldier opened the church door and demanded to know what was going on and why was his heart beating so loud. Gathering his failing courage, and hoping his heartbeat would not give him away, he crept to the altar. It was bare!

For a moment Alain panicked; he was too late. Then he remembered what the priest did with the church valuables between services, and he ran his hands along the thin cracks that separated the irregularly shaped stones on the floor by the altar. Between two of them he found a place where the crack widened into a handhold, and, grasping with both hands, he pulled the stone upwards. It came easily and without a sound.

Inside the opening, Alain felt the shape of the cross and the outline of the monstrance, but he left these alone and felt deeper until his fingers brushed across the top of the reliquary. When the Bishop of Dijon had left the bones of Saint Hugh, he had also left a small ebony and cedar box braced with silver chasing and topped with semi-precious jewels in which to house them. Reverently, Alain removed the box from its hiding place and put it on the stones beside him. Even now, just touching the box made him feel better, and his dwindling courage started to return.

After replacing the covering stone and hiding the rest of the church property, he wrapped the box in his jacket and started to think of a way out. A quick test showed that it would not be possible for him climb back out the way he came in. The iron bracket was too high on the wall and there was nothing on which he could stand to reach it. Another way would have to be found, but what?

There was only one possibility, and that was not a good one; the main door. He moved across the dried leaves as silently as possible and put his ear to the double oak door that separated him from the soldiers outside. To his surprise, the doors moved, and if hadn't quickly taken his ear from the oak panel, the door would have swung open and his adventure would have been disastrously over. Clearly the doors were not secured, the iron and brass lock having been stolen several years ago.

Lowering himself to the slab of granite that acted as a doorstep, he peered through a small, mouse sized hole that had worn in the place where the bottoms of both doors met. Outside he saw the fire and the shadows of the soldiers. Many more were now seated around the flames, drawing as much warmth as they could, the night being cold and getting colder. A pair of large feet in ragged sabots stood close to the doorway, however, showing that there were still people awake and on guard outside. Now what?

For an half of an hour Alain lay on the granite slab getting very cold himself. During that time he wracked his brains without any good ideas coming to him. How was he going to get himself out of this predicament? Although the soldiers became more lax as the night progressed, there was never a moment when one of them, armed with a musket was not awake and alert. There was no way Alain could open the door and slip past them without being seen. Unless ...

Across the square, at a point where two unoccupied houses met the small stream, he suddenly noticed a glow, which, as he watched, became stronger and stronger. One of the houses was on fire! At the moment he reached this conclusion, one of the soldiers also noticed the flames and brought them to the attention of the sergeant. Animated discussion followed, but in such atrocious Parisian slum argot that Alain could not understand what was being said.

Then came something that none of the soldiers could ignore. A large sack flew out of the house next to the flames and landed with a 'thud' on the dirt of the square. Quickly the men scrambled to their feet and began to run across the square in the direction of the flames and the sack, which lay near the pool of light cast by the burning straw. Alain saw his opportunity at once, pushed open the church, gathered up his jacket with its valuable cargo, and slipped outside. To his relief, no one was watching, so he slid along the wall of the church away from the square and away from the soldiers who were now all standing round the sack. One of them had begun to tear it open.

Keeping his back to the wall, he rounded the corner and was just about to run, when a large pair of hands clamped down on his shoulder.

"Now, my lad, where do you think you are going?" It was the voice of the sergeant, and he was chuckling. "Ah, a little rat has escaped from the church, has he, and what, may I ask, was this little rat doing in Citizen Fouche's church?"

The sans-culotte swung Alain around roughly and shook him. His jacket and its box fell to the ground, and the sergeant grunted with pleasure. "And what have we here, theft of the Sate's property. Let me see."

He bent over and was about to pick up the reliquary and the bones of the Saint, when, from deep in the shadows a large cudgel swung with some force and landed directly on the red bonnet the sergeant was wearing. The sound of contact was muffled by the thick cloth, but the effect was dramatic; the sans-culotte was driven down to his knees and fell forward onto his face.

"Quick," hissed the cudgel owner stepping out of the shadow, picking up the reliquary and grabbing an astonished Alain by his sleeve. "Come, hurry now."

Gasping at the sudden turn of events, all Alain could do was stumble along beside his rescuer into the darkness and safety of the houses along the Place d'Armes. Behind them he could hear the sounds of the soldiers as they realized they had been tricked and that the sack was full of straw and stones. They would find the sergeant soon.

It was not until the pair of them were safely away from the church and hidden behind a tree on the West road out of the village, towards Vezely, that they stopped running and took stock of their situation.

"Who are you?" asked Alain between gasps.

"You don't recognize me?" asked the priest.

"Father d'Seze!" said Alain, even more astonished. It was the village priest.

"Yes," the Cure replied, "and what, might I ask, were you doing in my church this night?"

"I was saving the Saint, Father," Alain replied, pointing at the box the priest was still holding.

"So I see," said Father d'Seze, turning the reliquary over in his hands and checking to see if it had been damaged. "Why, boy? Why risk your life in this way? Don't you know what those Paris scum would have done to you if you had been caught?"

"Yes Father, there are two of them in our house right now." Alain was recovering his breath. "But what were you doing Father?"

The priest chuckled, "Like you, I wanted to rescue the cross before these spawn of the devil had a chance to desecrate it, but unlike you, I couldn't climb in through the roof."

Alain gasped, "You saw me!"

"I have been watching the church all night," said the Father, "and I saw you climb into the tree. I didn't see how you got inside, but it wasn't hard to figure out what you were going to do. I waited to see if you came out the same way, but, when you didn't, I realized that you could be trapped inside the church, and needed help."

"You are right Father," Alain said, "there was no way I could get back up to the roof from the inside, so I was stuck, until the fire started."

At this the priest allowed himself another grin. "Yes, poor Madame Louis-George. It was her thatch I used, but she will not mind. She has been dead these two years. Anyway, I didn't set fire to the whole house, I just started a small fire to distract the soldiers."

"So I could escape!"

"Exactly. I was hoping you would be clever enough to take advantage of the distraction, but I came to the dark side of the church, just in case."

"It was lucky you did. That man almost caught me."

"Yes, he was smarter than I thought. But we are away now and must make sure of two things."

"What?" asked Alain.

"We must make sure that the bones of the Saint do not fall into the hands of those fornicators of the Devil, and we must try and make sure than no one in the village suffers because of our little adventure."

"How are we going to do that?" Alain asked.

"First, you and I are going into the woods where I have a small shelter and where I have been living these last few days. Fortunately word came to our village from Auxerre several days ago that the Citizen Representative was on his way, so I was able to hide." He looked at Alain. "I'm going to trust you because I think that any boy brave enough to rescue the Saint also has enough courage to entrust with a secret."

Alain nodded his thanks at the compliment.

"Then," continued the Priest, "we will remove the bones of the Saint from the box, and hide them in the woods with the document signed by the Bishops of Dijon, Paris and Lincoln."

Seeing the puzzled look on Alain's face, the priest explained. "When the bones of Saint Hugh left England the Bishop of Lincoln cathedral, were they were housed, sent a parchment along with them in which he certified that they were the real and actual bones of the true Saint. In France the Bishops of Paris and Dijon also signed this parchment stating that they had received these bones in good order and sworn to their origin. This parchment accompanied the Saint on his journey around France and has been countersigned by the Abbes and Cures in every parish they rested."

"But why is that important now?" Alain wanted to know.

"Because without it, how will anyone know that the few bones in this box are the real bones of the Saint," the priest told him. "This parchment proves what the bones are, even after we take them out of the box."

"But won't everyone know the moment they touch them?" Alain said, shaking his head. To him this was a needless complication, you only had to be in the presence of Saint Hugh's bones to feel their holiness.

"Alas, not all are as favored as you," said Father d'Seze, "there are many who would doubt and many who would question the authenticity of a few bones if it were not for the parchment. So we must hide both."

"But why take them out of the box in the first place. We could hide the box and the bones and then everyone would know what they are," Alain said.

"But we cannot keep the reliquary," said the priest. "Although it has some value to us, the real value lies in its contents. The box, its woods, silver and jewels are nothing compared to the value of what it holds. However, to Satanists like Fouche, the bones are nothing and the jewels everything. This box is worth its value in silver and precious stones to him, and nothing more. If we return the box, even if it is empty, the Devil's spawn will gloat and carry it off not worrying about Saint Hugh, who will remain with us here."

"Where will we lay the Saint. He cannot go back to the church?" Alain wanted to know.

"Come, I will show you," said Father d'Seze, and led the boy deeper into the woods. Far away the wolf was still howling, but by holding onto the priest and the Saint, Alain did not worry.

He was led to a small clearing not far from the woodcutters track he had sometimes used with his father and brothers. At one side of the clearing was an exposed rock ledge and under the ledge a scree of loose stones that the priest began to clear. Alain helped him and in short order exposed a dry hiding place where the priest had stored some food and a sharp knife.

"Here," said Father d'Seze, and he sat on one of the larger stones, "Let's get the reliquary open."

This turned out to be more difficult than it looked, but eventually the rusted hinges creaked and the lid squealed open to reveal the last mortal remains of a 550 year old Saint.

Tenderly the priest reached into the box and drew out part of a skull and two small pieces of what could once had been a thighbone. A strong smell of oil and incense accompanied the bones and their surface was shiny and brown as if covered in varnish. Alain held a soft white cloth, that had at one time been part of a nobleman's shirt, and the priest reverently placed the pieces of bone in his hands. When the transfer was complete the cloth was folded many times with the bones in their center, and then the package and the parchment were put inside a leather satchel and wrapped in straw. They were then placed inside the opening and covered once again with rocks and stones.

"Now," said the priest, "we must get the box and its jewels back to the village before Fouche knows it has gone."

"But won't those soldiers have told him?" Alain asked.

"Possibly, but if we bury the box in the graveyard and then let him find it, the Citizen will think he has beaten us. He will crow that he has once again discovered the treasures of the church and confiscated them. He'll be so pleased at his own cleverness that he will go on his way leaving the most valuable treasure behind."

"But what if he starts killing people.? The soldiers in our house said he was going to cut off the head of Mayor Carthoun tomorrow."

"We must be brave and trust in God. He will protect us and his Saint," said the priest, crossing himself. "Only you and I will know where the Saint is hidden. If I am killed, then only you will know, and it is on you that the Saint will depend."

"Will Saint Hugh continue to cure me of the shakes, even if he is buried in the ground and not in a church?" Alain wanted to know.

"Of course, he will," said Father d'Seze earnestly. "The Saint does care where he lies so long as he has his own followers to look after him." But then the priest paused, and a thoughtful look came over his face.

"But, little Alain, there is something we must do if we live."

"What is that Father?"

"We must both promise that, if we live and the Saint stays here in Avallon, when this curse of the revolution has passed from our land - as it must if there is a true God in heaven - one of us must return the Saint to his homeland."

"England, Father, why?"

"He is an English Saint and it was among the English that he carried out all of his ministry. After his death it was in England that all the miracle cures were performed that made him into a Saint. His bones must eventually rest in his chosen land and the place chosen for him by God. It would be wrong if it were to be any other way."

"But, the Saint is now back where he was born, what can be wrong with that?"

"Nothing," he was told, "the Saint was visiting the country of his birth, which is only right, but one day he must return to where God sent him. We cannot defy God and his judgement. Evil is triumphant in poor France at the moment, but there will come a day when justice strikes down these Godless creatures and sanity will return. At that time we must be ready to do justice to Saint Hugh and get him back to England."

He looked hard into the boy's face. "And you must promise me, here on the bones of the Saint, that one day, if you are the only one left, that you will return Saint Hugh to Lincoln cathedral in England. Will you do that?"

Staring into the face of the priest, Alain Duroc could not do less, and so he swore an oath to God and the Saint that, in the future, he would do all in his power to get the Saint home. Such was the intensity of the oath, that he shook as he said it.

"No matter what the cost," the priest insisted.

"Yes Father."

"Good, now let us return the box to the village, it is already getting light."

So it was that Saint Hugh rested in the woods of Avallon where he had played as a boy five and half a centuries before, while Alain and the priest returned to their fate in the hands of Joseph Fouche.

(return to Table of Contents)

~~~000~~~

Chapter Four

A Way Home

"Brothers, France needs you; your Emperor needs you. Come take up the cause, fight for your hard won freedoms against the forces of counter-revolution and repression."

From a secluded corner overlooking the village parade square or Place d'Armes, Alain Duroc watched and listened as the recruiting sergeant shouted out his string of tired cliches. Few people stopped to listen and they were mostly women. It had been twelve years since the 'Great Terror' of 1793 and Fouche was long gone, but not the memory his last visit. Few people gathered willingly in the Square during 'official' visits anymore, and today the small group of soldiers and their sergeant were having a hard time collecting an audience.

Far away in Paris, Robspiere, Danton and Murat, the architects of the terror were all dead. The infamous 'Convention' had consumed itself in an orgy of bloodletting, and the revolution had spun out of control. Finally on the 9th of Thermidor (July 27th) the enemies of the Convention struck. Abandoned by the sans-culottes, Robespierre tried suicide and failed, Lebas blew his brains out and Couthon was thrown down stairs by Barras when he came to arrest the fallen leaders.

The victors of 9th Thermidor sent seventy members of the Paris Commune to the guillotine, many of the most egregious laws were repealed and the Jacobin clubs were closed throughout France. The wily Fouche moved to the right, abandoning his place on the 'Mountain' of the Convention and by December 8th, the middle class had once again recaptured the Revolution.

The executive part of the new Government was called the Directory, and five men were chosen as its Directors; all regicides, four Jacobins and one ex-nobleman. They had their problems. Virtually all the European monarchies were waiting to attack France, and in the post-terror confusion they did - with some success. Unfortunately the Directory was unprepared, and previous French victories quickly turned into embarrassing losses.

Bread became a scarce commodity. Towns and ports on the coast were ruined by the British blockade, and in the countryside tax collectors were murdered, conscription officials were beaten up and mobs released prisoners from jails. It was beginning to look as if the 'Great Terror' was returning.

During this time, Alain's eldest brother Simon had fallen to conscription and been marched away to fight in the army. During the war against the Russians he had died near Zurich when General Massena had destroyed a Slavic army and driven the Tzar out of the coalition of the allies. In Avallon the news brought sadness and bitter murmurings. In the one remaining cafe, Alain heard a growing sentiment for a General, any General, to march on Paris, remove the corrupt politicians, and return France to stability and its former glory.

One General in particular heard and moved. He abandoned his army, trapped by the British in Egypt, and hurried home to the shores of France. Once back in Paris his arrival hastened the collapse of the old Directory, and a new power structure formed.

Since November of 1799 France had been nominally ruled by a Consulate of three men. First among equals, a thirty year old Corsican General, Napoleon Bonaparte had quickly established his primacy over his complaisant co-Consuls, and within five years, in 1804, he had taken the final step and declared himself Emperor. Signatures on degrees now all carried but one name \- Napoleon - and even that royal prerogative was soon reduced to a simple "N". Frenchmen were no longer "citizens", but "his subjects", and anyone who objected soon came under the scrutiny of Minister of Police, Joseph Fouche.

"Stay well away from that one," said the widow Dupeche, spitting on the ground. She had approached Alain from one side after noticing what and who he was watching.

"Good advice, Madame," replied Duroc.

"I lost both husbands that way," she said, "Henri to the Revolution in '90, and Paul to the levy en masse in '93, or was it '94?" To which Alain could only mutter his sympathies. Everyone in Avallon had similar stories. There was hardly an able bodied man left in the village.

"Would you have a spare bottle or two of wine?" the widow asked, coming to the point of her conversation. The Duroc family had been in the winemaking business since before the Revolution, but the great upheavals of the past decade had seriously diminished their output. Alain was now the sole owner and operator of what was left of the family business, his father having vanished to the Royal cause early in the pre-Revolutionary period and his two brothers having been taken into the army at different times since.

"I'll see what I can do, Madame," he said, "there may be a bottle ...," he looked around, "... in the woods." To which Madame Dupeche smiled, winked and chuckled in her asthmatic throat.

"You're a good boy," she coughed, "not like your brother Simon." Memories of his older brother and his role as one of the leading village Jacobins during the hotter parts of the revolution, still rankled among the more conservative citizens. "Give my blessings to your mother," she finished, "and keep away from those soldiers. That woman has lost enough of her men."

In the woods, thought Alain, still watching the soldiers. That's where Saint Hugh keeps his rest. I wonder how he sleeps?

Since his narrow escape from the Revolutionary Guard and the clutches of Joseph Fouche during the height of the Terror, Alain had kept the bones of Saint Hugh, and the large sheepskin that gave them provenance, well hidden in the woods that surrounded the western edge of the village out towards Vezely. Every time he took a case or two of his wines 'into the woods' for safe keeping, he would visit the spot where he had buried the sacred relics and ask for the blessings of the Saint.

Since that first attack of the falling sickness during the arrival of the bones in Avallon, the curse had sometimes revisited him, but on each occasion the Saint had worked his miracle and lifted him back to health. Alain had noticed in recent years that the frequency of attacks had diminished, a fact he attributed to his regular attendance on the Saint 'in the woods'. But with each visit his uneasiness and guilt had grown stronger and stronger, and with each visit the voice of the Saint had grown weaker and weaker. Alain had the distinct impression that the Saint was leaving him and that his 'cure' might not work for much longer.

When the village priest had saved his life, and placed the bones of Saint Hugh into his keeping, Alain had been told that he held these sacred relics in trust, and that one day he would have to return them to their rightful owners. At first he had felt no guilt at keeping his charge hidden in the woods, but after all these years his conscience was beginning to bother him and the voice of the village priest was sounding louder and louder in his heart. Saint Hugh wanted to go home.

This English Saint, hidden in the woods on French soil, was far from his Cathedral and far from the people he loved. While Alain was sure that Saint Hugh appreciated being saved from the clutches of Fouche and Robespierre, perhaps now he was getting homesick. But what to do? There was no way that the French authorities were going to allow Alain Duroc of Avallon, a nobody with no influence, to travel with the bones of a Saint to the land of their enemies. In fact they would probably regard it as treason to try and return a valued Saint to a country with whom they were in constant conflict. So he waited, and the Saint's voice grew quieter and quieter.

"Brothers," yelled out the sergeant, "once again France is in danger. The evil English King George and his lackey Pitt plot once more with the Tzar and the Austrian Francis to destroy the Revolution and bring France to its knees. Our great Emperor Napoleon is all that stands between us and certain death and destruction. Join him and us in the fight to end this aggression. Even now, as I speak to you, the little Corsican," here the sergeant permitted himself to use the soldiers term of endearment when addressing their leader, "is gathering together a Grande Armee, poised on the shores of France and ready to leap across the 'Canale'. Once in England he will destroy the perfidious 'roast beefs' in their tiny island. Join us in this adventure. Share in the spoils as the Emperor crushes his enemies."

By now most of his audience were thoroughly bored and drifting away, so the recruiting sergeant ended his peroration with a lackluster "Vive la France!" and rinsed out his mouth with a swig of coarse red wine from Anjou. This was the last village on his current drive and he only had a few more names to add to his quota. When it came to giving up their sons to the army, universal conscription, applied with varying degrees of harshness over the past ten years, had reduced most villages to hostile apathy, but it was still possible to find one or two likely lads in every village such as this one. In fact, the sergeant noticed with interest, a somewhat weedy youth was approaching them from across the square.

"Is it correct," the youth asked after getting the sergeant's attention, "that the Emperor intends to attack England?"

"Very true, my son," answered the sergeant, looking at this prospect more closely, "our great and glorious leader is at this moment gathering around him a Grande Armee at Boulogne. When he has enough true Frenchmen by his side he will launch himself across the 'Canale' and crush the English King in his castle."

"And will he conquer the whole of the island, even Lincoln?"

"But of course!" shouted the sergeant, who had never heard of Lincoln, "Napoleon will be crowned King of the English and every soldier who walks with him on the streets of London will have his share of the Spanish gold."

In October of the previous year, British ships had seized heavily laden Spanish galleons that were bringing silver from the new world to the old world. This silver had been intended, by the Spanish, to be part of their debt repayment to the French. Loss of this money had resulted in war being declared between Spain and England, the Spanish fleet of ships being placed at French disposal, and the British being able to finance the third Coalition of enemies that were now gathering around France. Everyone in France now believed that the streets of London were now paved in Spanish gold.

"When will the invasion take place?" the youth wanted to know.

"As soon as the French Navy achieves its glorious defeat of the British Navy," he was told. "Night and day, at Toulon and Brest, some of our finest craftsmen are building an unstoppable fleet of war ships. When they are ready, the great Admiral Louis de La Touche-Treville will bring them out to battle the British, and after he has defeated them his ships will carry the Grande Armee to the shores of England and certain victory."

There was only one problem with this plan, as the sergeant and his Emperor were soon to discover. Before he could take command of his fleet, the very competent Louis de La Touche-Treville died and, in a rare moment of bad judgment, Napoleon appointed the inferior Pierre de Villeneuve to replace him. It was a decision that haunted him all the way to Waterloo.

"But, how soon does the Emperor sail?"

"He does not take me into his confidence, little one," laughed the sergeant, pleased to find a prospect among the remains of this village, "but the last time we spoke", more laughter, "he told me that it was to be at the end of the summer, in a few weeks from now".

"If I were to join the army right now, would I be able to fight in England?"

"But of course, mon brave, all the recruits from this area are being sent to the Depot at Troyes for equipment and training, and then it is onto Bologne, the Grande Armee, invasion and gory."

For a few moments there was silence, and then, "How do I join?"

Alain Duroc had found a way of returning the bones of Saint Hugh to their natural home.

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Chapter Five

A Change of Plan

At Troyes, Alain's adventure with Napoleon and his journey with the bones of Saint Hugh began in earnest. It had been a tearful farewell from his mother and sisters; they had not understood his reasons for joining the army at this time and in this way. Although he was old enough to be in the army and fighting for France, he could have claimed an exemption from conscription on several grounds, including being the head of a household. But he had chosen to go, and few in the village of Avallon could understand why.

By the time he had spent a week in the training Depot in Troyes, Alain was beginning to question his judgement himself. The Revolutionary army of 1805 was not the same organization that had kept its enemies at bay for a decade. True, a few patriots still held onto their revolutionary beliefs and fought with vigor to defend the new social structure, but the Great Terror and the corruption and incompetence of the Directory had disillusioned so many that the latest batch of conscripts arriving for training worn more sullen expressions than fervent ones.

Food was scarce and the equipment they were issued was minimal. Boots were worn and repaired several times, the stitching holding their knapsacks together was broken and frayed and their blue coats, symbol of the soldiers of France, were threadbare and torn. But discipline was strict and harsh, and there was plenty of it.

Daily the new recruits were awakened before dawn, marched out onto the parade ground and made to walk several leagues with their knapsacks full of stones before they were allowed to eat their breakfasts of moldy bread and watered wine. From then on their day got worse. A shortage of muskets prevented all recruits from practicing loading and firing at the same time, so most were given sharpened stakes and driven to attack sabots of straw as if they were the enemy. French generals believed in principle that a musket was only an expensive way of holding a bayonet.

After two weeks of such practice, word arrived that the Grande Armee was about to move and that all new recruits were needed at once. Alain was formed up with a company destined eventually to join the brigade of Napoleon's brother Joseph in the infantry division commanded by Vandamme, and in the IV Corps of Marshal Soult. So began the longest walk of his life.

"Come, mes braves," yelled out sergeant LaGrosse, "we march to join our Emperor and the invasion of England." So they marched.

"Where are we going?" asked Poulec, a fellow recruit and an ex-shoemaker from Montagris.

"Look at the sun," Alain told him, "we march west towards Paris and beyond to Boulogne."

"Hurry," admonished the sergeant, "or there will be no English left for us to fight." More by accident than design Duroc had ended up in the same company as the recruiting sergeant who had come to Avallon. At first he had been afraid of the large Norman, but as their training had continued, he and his fellow recruits had discovered that Sergeant LaGrosse wanted nothing more than a comfortable existence with the minimum of effort. Keep out of his way, obey his orders and his sadism was minimal. This was not the case in many of the other companies, so Alain and his new friends felt luckier than most.

Near Provins, however, everything changed. A flurry of horsemen in fine uniforms suddenly appeared at the tent of the commanding Captain and less than an hour later loud voices were heard as officers and sergeants hurried among their charges issuing new orders.

"What is it?" demanded Poulec, trying to tie string around the top of his only good boot. Although it was getting towards the middle of August, and the ground was still hard and dry, watertight boots would be a necessity in England, where it always rained.

"A change of plans," the sergeant told them all, "Soult, our Marshal, has been ordered to take his Corps to Metz, so we march to Nancy where we will join him."

"Where's Metz?" Poulec asked, but the sergeant had already moved onto the next tent.

"Metz?" said Alain in a doubtful voice, "Metz is east of here, close to Luxemburg, nowhere near the coast of France."

But that was where they marched. By the time they reached Nancy the news was raging throughout the camp; Napoleon had changed his mind, he was not going to attack England across the 'Canale', he was going to fight the Coalition of England, Austria and Russia by striking across the Rhine river into the heart of Wurttemberg.

"A giant Russian army, under the command of Kutusov, is in Galicia and moving to attack us," the sergeant eventually told them, "and in Bavaria Archduke Ferdinand has 70,000 Austrians all armed to the teeth and fed by the Spanish gold given to them by the English. We must strike down this threat before we can turn our attention to the 'roast beefs' on their island."

During the heat of the summer, Duroc marched back the way he had come, and by the end of August, he and his fellow recruits had finally joined their new regiment, which was camped east of the town of Metz. For several days towards the end of their march, they had passed among and through large numbers of soldiers from other companies and regiments. Each encounter had brought a different story.

"We invade Russia in September," was the opinion of a Sub-Lieutenant from a battalion under the command of Marshall Ney.

"Archduke Charles of Austria has invaded the Kingdom of Italy and driven Marshall Massena into retreat. We will be going to help him." was yet another version.

At Metz, however, there was very little in the way of hard news, only two things were known for certain; Napoleon had left Paris and was coming to join them, and that the French cavalry was already spreading out along the Rhine river, but as all newspapers were forbidden to publish anything concerning troop movements, other news was scarce.

"Come with me," Sergeant LaGrosse ordered tersely one morning. He took his company about a mile to the outskirts of a village called Faulquemont and made them lay down in the dry grass beside the road. Within an hour they heard the sound of approaching carts along the rutted road.

"Silence," he ordered, and everyone froze, gripping their muskets tightly. As they came into view, Alain could see a line of ox drawn carts and a thin screen of blue coated soldiers; they were French, what was going on?

He found out soon enough when Sergeant LaGrosse suddenly ordered his men to rise up out of the grass and block the passage of the carts. Looking as threatening as he could, Alain obeyed and watched the sergeant negotiate with the frightened group of soldiers guarding the cargoes.

"We will only take two," he said, reasonably enough.

"That is not possible," argued his opposite number, recovering from the shock of seeing such a naked display of force by his fellow Frenchmen.

"We could take them all," Sergeant LaGrosse said reasonably, pulling himself up to his full height and fingering his mustaches, which were equally impressive.

With a gesture he ordered his seasoned troops to approach the first two carts, knock the current drivers off their seats, and begin pulling the chosen carts to the side of the road, where the oxen contentedly began to eat the dry grass. To the irritation and annoyance of the original owners, who were seriously outnumbered, the sergeant carefully backed away from the confrontation and waved the remaining carts to continue their journey. Spluttering, all they could do was to proceed and wave their fists helplessly.

Laughing heartily the veterans under Sergeant LaGrosse's command began pulling the covers off the carts they had just high-jacked.

"Look at this, Sergeant," one shouted and showed the company barrels piled high with apples and other fruits. "Quite a harvest."

"Quickly now," said the Sergeant with a broad grin, "let's get this food back to camp right away. We don't want anyone to steal it from us." The laughter was universal. Acting on a tip, Sergeant LaGrosse had taken his men to intercept a part of the food supplies being brought to the camp of the II Corps under Marshall Davout. Of all the Marshals in France only Davout and Soult made any serious effort to feed their troops; the rest relied on the ability of the average French soldier to find his own food where ever he could.

It was one of the last good meals Alain Duroc was to have in some time. On September 25th Napoleon ordered his Marshall Lannes to cross the Rhine and the invasion of Germany began.

Alain Duroc and the other members of his regiment began to walk, and walk and walk. At Speyer they crossed the Rhine and marched to Heilbronn on the Neckar River, where lines of communication for the whole army were established. This brought the first hunger of the campaign, as the French army took everything they could carry from the countryside and left little for anyone else. Behind them and to the south Marshall Murat and Lannes were having trouble making contact with the enemy, while to their north it was only by a demonstration of overwhelming force that Marshall Bernadotte frightened the Prussian governor of Ansbach to allow him passage.

Confusion was everywhere.

"Where is Archduke Ferdinand?" asked Poulec, as usual he was the most curious and the least informed. But no one, not even the Emperor, could have helped him with an answer. The Austrians, having failed to find Murat and Lannes for themselves, and realizing that a serious force of French troops were now to their north, had begun to draw together behind the Danube River and concentrate their forces around a town called Ulm.

Napoleon decided to take his army across the Danube at a place called Donauworth. This was a gamble as the Austrians, under the nominal command of Archduke Ferdinand but actually controlled by General Mack, were prepared to strike on his flank and cut him off from France. Such a tactic could well have succeeded if it had been carried out with vigor and at once. But the Austrians were divided, and later in history no one would accept responsibility for what happened next.

On the night of October 7th Alain Duroc and the rest of the brigade commanded by Vandamme crossed the Danube. For Duroc's company it was not just another walk in the dark, they were moving into unknown territory where Austrian soldiers could be waiting with fully loaded cannon and sharp bayonets. To make matters worse, the weather, which had been reasonable up to that point, broke and icy rain began to fall, washing out the roads and turning the fields into swamps.

"What happens if the Austrian's attack?" Poulec wanted to know. His boots had just fallen apart and the rain was soaking through his coat.

"You stick them with your bayonet," growled Herbette, one of the veteran soldiers in the company and one of the men who had been on a recent food forage, without success. "Watch out!"

The sudden cry was not to warn of any approaching enemy, but to direct attention to a messenger on a large horse.

"Captain Grandvillers, where is the Captain?" shouted the horseman.

"Over there," Herbette indicated, "what goes?"

"South," shouted the horseman, "you have been directed south along the Lech to Augsburg."

Before he could ask, Poulec was informed that the Lech was a nearby river and that Augsburg was a critical town about 10 miles from their current position. Without sleep, and for most of the next two days, October 8th and 9th, Marshall Soult took most of his men south in a series of forced marches. Archduke Ferdinand, to the despair of General Mack, had decided not to attack but to regroup his forces around Ulm, off to the right of Soult's march. Ulm, as Napoleon well knew, was a strong, well-fortified position on the bank of the Danube. After a chance to reorganize, the Austrian Archduke would be in a viable condition to advance across the Danube and cut most of Napoleon's army off from France and a possible route of retreat.

Leaving his generals to surround Ferdinand and Mack in Ulm, Napoleon rode to Munich. Soult and his men continued their southern march first to Landsberg and then west to Mindelheim. If the IV Corps moved fast enough they would be able to catch up with Marshals Ney and Lannes, now rapidly closing in on the trapped Austrians, and cut off their southern escape route.

In Ulm General Mack, recognizing his increasingly precarious position, tried to persuade his vacillating Archduke to break out across the river to the north where Marshall Ney had left a gap. Mack himself led some of his troops against the unfortunate French left to defend Albeck and would have broken through, but he was both wounded and let down by other Austrian forces commanded by Schwarzenberg and Ferdinand. Far to the south, Duroc and his friends had no understanding of the situation and continued to walk and walk.

March followed march as the weather closed down and the rain fell continuously. By the 13th October, Soult was closing in on Ulm from the south and the Austrian army was surrounded. Fearing capture, Archduke Ferdinand fled, leaving his army and his loyal General Mack to face the consequences. Despite this, Mack refused to give up until his fellow Generals mutinied and opened negotiations for favorable terms of surrender. After a few days of protracted quibbling, Mack surrendered on 20th October and 50,000 Austrian soldiers went into captivity, most without firing a single shot.

"What did I tell you," shouted a jubilant Sergeant LaGrosse when the news arrived at the IV Corps. "Our little Corsican has done it again. A total victory, a swift campaign, no losses - that man is a genius!"

LaGrosse was not alone in his praise, although a less biased voice might have given more credit to the average French soldier who had moved with amazing speed over ruined roads through atrocious weather sustained with little food with not many desertions.

"Now for the Russians," said Duroc after the excitement had died down. Ominous reports had been arriving for days that the Russian armies to the east were being driven by Kutusov towards Vienna. To the south Archduke Charles had an intact army shadowed by Marshal Massena, and to the north the cowardly Ferdinand was forming a second Austrian army near Prague. In Salzburg, Archduke John had about 40,000 veteran soldiers and more were spread out through the Tyrol.

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Chapter Six

Into Moravia

"Rest here," advised Herbette, and needing no other encouragement the remnants of Duroc's company fell off the road and crawled under a hedge.

"Where are we Sergeant?" asked Millefranc, a veteran of several campaigns, who was the only one who had eaten in three days. He was already looking over the Moravian countryside with a practiced eye looking for his next meal, but even hardened foragers such as Citizen Millefranc were finding it almost impossible to find food.

All he got for a reply was a shrug. Sergeant LaGrosse was, for once, as ignorant as any of them. For the last month, since the victory at Ulm, Napoleon had been moving his armies east. Duroc and his company, being a small part of Soult's IV Corps, stayed south of the Danube (which ran west to east at this point) and moved steadily towards Kutusov and his Russians who were reported to be west of Vienna and directly in their path.

But the expected battle never came. Kutusov avoided definitive contact between the two armies and confined his tactics to burning bridges and stripping the countryside of all food. Winter joined forces with the Russians and harsh winds, driven snow, rapidly vanishing roads and biting cold killed and disabled more French soldiers that any Russian bullets. In Duroc's company alone over a third of the officers and men dropped out, became disabled or deserted in the march from Ulm to Krems, just west of Vienna.

Francis II, last of the Holy Roman Emperors, and the fourth of the Habsurg-Lorraine Emperors of Austria bombarded Napoleon not with cannon but with requests for negotiations while bombarding Kutusov with orders to hold his ground at Enns. Ducking and weaving, Kutusov refused such a suggestion and retreated closer to Vienna, crossed the Danube at Krems and gradually moved back and north into the that part of Austria known as Moravia.

"We were lucky to be in Vandamme's Division," remarked Poulec to no one in particular. After Kutusov and the Russians had moved north of the Danube, the St. Hilaire Division of Soult's IV Corps was ordered to cross the Danube at Krems and help another French division that was in serious trouble. Duroc and his friends, in Vandamme's Division, had been ordered to cross the river at Vienna and support Murat's Corps as it chased Kutusov.

By a trick, Murat and Lannes had bluffed their way across one of the major Danube bridges in Vienna, saving valuable time, but Kutusov returned the trick when he pretended to capitulate and offered to remove his army back into Poland. Murat, Lannes and Soult halted their pursuit while they waited for orders from their Emperor, and Kutusov escaped.

But now the climax was approaching. Napoleon, violently angry with his Marshals, ordered them to attack at once, and hurried north to join the coming battle. He was too late, Kutusov had gone. When Napoleon joined his advanced guard at Znaym on November 17th the Russians were safe at Olmutz and he had a Grande Armee that was starved, exhausted, lacked clothing, was missing a third of its numbers, disoriented and had been marching since August. It was time for a rest and regrouping. That was when Herbette suggested they lie under the hedge.

During the next week their position clarified somewhat. Sergeant LaGrosse learned that they were resting near a Moravian town the locals called Brno and that three Emperors were negotiating. On the French side, Napoleon was receiving Austrian representatives and on the other side Tzar Alexander and Emperor Francis of Austria were with their armies at Olmutz deciding what to do next. Of course, no one considered it necessary to tell Captain Grandvillers company of the Joseph Bonepart Brigade of the Vandamme Division of the Soult IV Corps what was being decided.

While the Emperors talked, the men slowly recovered. Stragglers who had been left behind during the long march from Ulm finally caught up with their comrades. Food came out on carts from Brno, but the surrounding villages and farms suffered badly from the needs of three armies. Guns were cleaned, equipment repaired and the bitter cold prevented the dead from being buried. On the other side, their enemies also had problems. Kutusov did not allow any but the general staff to be billeted in the town of Olmutz so disease spread rapidly among the Russian soldiers. Austrians were incensed by their Russian "allies" who treated them with disrespect, sneered at their losses and looted their country. A decisive battle was needed, and quickly.

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Chapter Seven

A Visitor and a Flame

"Get ready, we are retreating," shouted Sergeant LaGrosse. At once the troops under his command began packing their kit and personal belongings. Duroc did what he always did at the start of every day, or every time they were ordered to move; he checked the package stored at the bottom of his knapsack. Tightly bound inside a canvas cloth and protected by oilskin against the water and weather they had been encountering, were the last remaining bones of Saint Hugh and the now somewhat ragged sheepskin parchment that proved what they were. He touched the package reverently, although for many weeks now, he had not felt the need for their healing powers.

With practiced ease the Grandvillers II Company gathered together their equipment and supplies. It only took moments to check their muskets, which for days now had not left their sides, run a thumb over the flint in the firing mechanism (flints had a nasty habit of being lost or stolen, and punishment for a non-working weapon was severe). Personal belongings often contained loot picked up along their march, but these soldiers had not yet encountered rich pickings. Never the less, more than one member of the II Company could be seen placing a few coins inside their shirts and down by their belts.

But even after a week of re-supply there was not much to pack away. Food was still short and boots nonexistent. The only item not in short supply was gunpowder; few muskets had been fired since they left France, and Duroc had never yet fired his gun in anger.

"This way, line up, march," came the orders and the II Company fell into position mechanically and without thought. For the last two days they had been occupying a high ridge of land that the Austrians called the Pratzen Plateau. From here it had been possible to look down on the village called Austerlitz and watch the Austrians moving troops along the road that came from Olmutz.

"Why are we moving, do you think?" Poulec asked Duroc as they marched down the steep sides of the Pratzen Plateau, "this high ground seems the best place for a battle."

Duroc thought for a moment, "Perhaps the Russians are to the north of us and we are getting to a place of safety." But he was only partially right. The Allies under the nominal command of the Russian Tzar Alexander were indeed closing in, but confusion in their command structure and the willingness of the Tzar to listen to bad advice was slowing down their progress. Also, the French Emperor wanted his enemies where he could see them, and few places near Austerliz were more visible than the Pratzen Plateau.

"Is this as far as we are going?"

Herbette grunted a reply, "Ask the Generals," and began looking for a way of drying his feet. The company and the rest of Soult's Corps had just crossed a stream that the Austrians called the Goldbach Brook. After marching down from the Plateau, they had crossed the stream and then been ordered to stop and take up positions. Sergeant LaGrosse was as mystified as anyone and went to see if he could find out why.

"Look there," a Sub-Lieutenant had told him, and LaGrosse had looked north along the side of the brook where Marshall Lannes was directing his III Division to take up similar positions, and then south where the St. Hilaire Division of their own IV Corps stretched out along the side of the brook and preparing to fight.

"This is it lads," the sergeant said gleefully as he rejoined his company, "the little Corsican is going to fight at last."

"Who?" asked Herbette with a sniff.

"Wait and see," grinned LaGrosse, "but mark my words, this is it. The whole army is getting into position along this river and the enemy will not be far behind."

They did not have to wait long. North of the Pratzen Plateau, on the west-east road to Olmutz, the first of the Allied soldiers began to appear, crawling with some difficulty as one group of soldiers would get in the way of the next group. They could not believe their luck. It appeared that the French Emperor had finally lost his nerve and had abandoned the high ground of the Plateau and was making a retreat. Anxiously, perhaps over anxiously, they paused in their advance and began a sideways occupation of the Pratzen, watched all the time by Napoleon and his troops beyond the Goldbach Brook.

That night Duroc and his friends were resting in a thatched cottage close to the brook when a cry rang out from the pickets.

"He comes, he comes!"

Staggering up from the fire, Duroc saw a shadowy band of horsemen approaching out of the darkness. "Long live the Emperor, Long live the Emperor," were the shouts that accompanied the group and the volume of cheers quickly rose as more and more of the soldiers recognized the small rider in the middle of the press. It was indeed the Emperor Napoleon.

Trees and the cloud covered darkness made it impossible to see the faces of the Emperor and his aides, so Duroc, without thinking, reached up and pulled a large handful of thatch from the cottage roof. This he thrust into the fire and pulled out a burning brand that gave off much more light. The horsemen came slowly along the lines and paused when the Emperor wished to address one of the officers or a group of the men.

"Tomorrow you will have been our Emperor for exactly one year," one yelled out, "we are you going to give you a big victory!" At which the Emperor smiled, slapped his thigh and reached for his snuff box.

"My friends, this would be the greatest gift you could give me. Together we will teach the Tzar a lesson!"

As he came to the IInd Company, Duroc held up his burning brand of thatch and joined in the cheering. Others copied the gesture, and they also grabbed straw and thatch to make torches. Soon the Emperor was surrounded by light and waved towards the men, who promptly redoubled the volume of their cheers. As he moved along and among the troops camping near the Goldbach Brook more of them took up Duroc's idea and began to light torches. Soon the whole valley was ablaze with light and high above them on the Pratzen Plateau, puzzled Austrian and Russian Generals tried to gauge its meaning. The consensus was that the French troops were packing up and retreating back to Brno.

It was cold the following morning, but not as cold as it had been during the previous week. Mud left the ground underfoot slippery and treacherous as the IInd Company prepared to fight. Nothing was visible as a thick fog filled the valley and rolled along the Goldbach Brook south to the Staschan and Menltz Ponds. Daybreak on December 2nd, 1805, was not auspicious. By 6:30 am all the IInd Company were awake and had eaten their small allotment of supplies. This had to be done without the benefit of fire or any other source of heat and the word came down the lines that they were to remain hidden in the trees by the brook and concealed by the fog.

"Powder and flints, men," said the Sub-Lieutenant stamping his feet in the cold mud and trying to find things for his men to do. "Check that man's harnessing," he brusquely ordered the Sergeant, who saluted slowly and turned to Herbette.

"Tighten that strap," he shouted, making the Sub-Lieutenant jump.

"Quietly, there Sergeant. We don't want the Russkies to know where we are."

"Yes Lieutenant," LaGrosse shouted, almost as loud as before. The officer got the hint and moved off to harass a different group.

By now there were sounds of fighting. South of their position, down the brook and in the direction of the two frozen ponds, a major engagement had begun. Unknown to Duroc or his friends, Allied troops commanded by Buxhowden had descended from the Prazten Plateau and were attacking Marshall Davout's regiments defending the village of Tellnitz. It was a battle that would last most of the day, swinging back and forth as one side and then the next gained some advantage and then lost it. Eventually it was victory by the French troops fighting around Tellnitz that would decide the battle. But at 7:00 am that morning such a victory had yet to be won.

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Chapter Eight

The Arrival of Saint Hugh

Across the Goldbach Brook Duroc and his friends watched the ghostly shapes of horsemen riding south.

"What is going on?" Poulec wanted to know.

Herbette answered, "That's us, those are our cavalry, I've seem 'em before when we were moving along the Danube. They are part of our Corps."

"How can you tell?" Millefranc asked, peering into the heavy fog which was still hung heavily in the valley between the Pratzen Plateau and the brook.

"The sabertasch," sniffed Herbette, pointing at the distinctive clothing worn by all cavalrymen.

The waiting continued.

For an hour they listened to the sound of fighting. South, towards the Menitz and Satschan Ponds, into which the Goldbach Brook finally emptied, Sokolnitz castle was under heavy attack from Austrian commanded by Prschibitschewki, and the village of Tellnitz was coming under heavy pressure from Russian troops descending from the Pratzen Plateau. At 8:30 Docturov brought a Russian brigade to help the struggling Austrian commander Kienmaier, and Allied artillery slowly began to have its effect.

"Look, they are coming back," yelled Millefranc, pointing across the brook from their position. Tension among the IInd Company was high, so the shout made them jump and pull their weapons into firing position. But it was only the retreat of Soult's cavalry. Badly mauled during their attack on the Allies around Sokolnitz, the wounded horsemen were removing themselves to a place of safety. Unknown to anyone at that time was the ride of one of these horsemen in search of Marshall Davout, whose troops were moving up the Schwarzawa river from Raigern Abbey in the direction of Brno.

When he found them he told them of the major action developing around Tellnitz, and requested immediate help. Friant's leading brigade promptly changed direction, marched due east and arrived just in time to throw its weight into the changing fortunes of the battle around and for the village. They were rewarded by mistaken fire from their own comrades, the tired troops of Legrand, who thought they were Russians coming out of the fog.

Now it was the turn of the IV Corps.

"We advance, make sure you are ready," shouted out Sargent LaGrosse.

At Napoleon's headquarters, Marshals Soult, Lannes, Murat and Bernadotte watched the sunrise which clearly illuminated the movement of Allied columns of men along the Pratzen Plateau in the direction of Tellnitz. Half an hour later, when he was sure that the Austrians and the Russians had fallen into his trap, the French Emperor gave the order to release Soult's Corps from it hiding place in the fog. They were to advance across the Goldbach Brook, climb the plateau and carry out a surprise attack on the Allied right flank.

Each member of the IInd Company loaded his musket. For the experienced troops this came automatically. The left had recovered a paper cartridge form a pouch at their side, holding their musket in the crook of their right arm, they bit off the end of the cartridge and poured a tiny amount of gunpowder onto the flash pan, which was promptly trapped by closing the pan cover and steel. The rest of the powder was poured down the muzzle of the weapon followed by the lead ball and the paper of the cartridge. The ram rod then was used three times to pack the powder, ball and paper into a compact package next to the tiny hole next to the lock, flashpan and flint.

The flintlock musket had not changed much since its invention in 1610 by Marin le Bourgeoys, who combined the best features of the Dutch snaphaunces and the Mediterranean miquelets. When the trigger of one of these weapons was pulled, a piece of flint (ironically the best flint came from a mine in England) held in a screw grip was pulled violently downwards by an internal mainspring. Striking against a serrated steel the flint did two things; it flung open the pan cover, revealing the trace of gunpowder and made a shower of sparks that, hopefully, ignited the powder and sent the flame through the tiny hole and into the larger amount of powder inside the barrel.

As he marched across the Goldbach Brook, Alain Duroc, recently of the village of Avallon and sole owner of the bones of Saint Hugh, knew the theory. He only had one problem. He had never fired his weapon in anger before, and now he was moving through the fog, up an hill and was expected to fight huge Russian troops without knowing a thing about what he was supposed to do, or how to do it.

"Stay with me," suggested Herbette, "make sure your bayonet is firmly attached, and don't even point your gun until your enemy is within spiting distance."

All Duroc could do was nod, his mouth was so dry he felt his tongue sticking to his teeth. Along the whole front the IV Corps began to move out of the brook and up the gentle slope on the west side of Pratzen Plateau. To their right the St. Hillaire division made easy and rapid progress along a thin stream and its 8,600 men aimed themselves at the front of parallel columns of Austrian and Russian troops under the command of Kollowrat and Miloadovich. Until now, Kollowrat had been following his ally Prschibitschewski, and bringing his men towards the action around Tellnitz.

They were first to see action. Seeing their danger, the allied troops swung to their right, formed up and stiffened. Austrians charged the St. Hillaire's first brigade and checked their advance. They might even have succeeded in pushing them back, but 12-pound artillery, sent on the orders of Napoleon, reversed their fortunes and a second brigade of French began to arrive. For a while the result was in doubt; 8,000 Austrian and Russian troops held 5,000 French in a virtual stalemate.

To the left of the St. Hillaire division, the Vandamme division was making slower progress. The slope was steeper and the main ridge of the Platzen Plateau blocked the progress of the far left flank. On the extreme left, Duroc in the IInd Company was part of the 4th battalion commanded by Prince Joseph, Napoleon's brother. Lead by Captain Grandvillers, they marched as quickly as they could sideways around the obstructing ridge, but in doing so, they lost contact with the rest of their comrades in the division. Momentarily they were cut off. That's when disaster struck.

The sun broke through the fog and bright light shone down on the attacking troops. Napoleon would later use the appearance of the sun, right before one of his major victories, as a propaganda issue, and constantly recalled the "sun of Austerlitz" when talking of his battles and triumphs. But for the men of the 4th battalion, it could not have come at a worse time.

"There, there!" screamed Sargent LaGrosse pointing to his left. Coming towards them were their worst nightmare. "Form up, form up, front line prepare," yelled LaGrosse, pushing and pulling his men into some semblance of order. Several of them were out of breath from their rapid march up the slope. Across the broken ground to the north came the cream of the Russian army; the Imperial Guard. Under the direct command of Tzar's brother, the Grand Duke Constantine Pavlovich, the elite unit of 10,000 men, were coming to save the honor of their leader and that of the entire Russian army.

Despite their distance, to Duroc the Russians looked huge. Each man was over six foot high, armed with the best weapons in Russia and advancing at an alarming rate. He pulled his gun up to his shoulder, but Herbette next to him hissed "Not yet, they are still too far away." They could not have looked closer.

Like a madman, Sargent LaGrosse ran up and down the lines of the IInd Company. There was considerable confusion, but he roughly thrust each of his newer recruits in between men with combat experience, gave them a few words of encouragement, and checked their guns and bayonets. Poulec, who was whimpering and shaking, as given a hard slap that almost knocked him to the ground.

"Take hold of yourself before you get two feet of Russian steel in your belly," the sergeant shouted at him, and moved on.

The Russians were coming closer and closer.

"Wait," said Herbette, for the second time, "not yet," stopping Duroc from discharging his weapon. Almost shoulder to shoulder the line of Russian infantry was executing an almost perfect Prussian mode of attack. This military tactic had been perfected by the Prussian armies in the 18th century and adopted by all the continental armies right up to the French Revolution. Troops were drilled and drilled to behave on the battlefield like automatons and march in straight lines towards their enemy, whom they engaged at close quarters. Duroc, who had never seen a battle formation, thought that it looked very effective, but by 1805 it was already out of date.

At a hundred yards, the lines of Russians halted, raised their muskets and fired in synchrony into the 4th battalion. Even the better Russian weapons, however, were less than accurate at 100 yards and most of the lead balls crashed harmlessly into the ground or went overhead. Still in total synchrony the Imperial Guard reloaded their guns, brought them to half firing position and began to advance once more. Duroc was suddenly aware that his mouth was open, totally dry and that he was moaning softly. He was a wine maker, not a soldier. He had only joined the army to get himself to England. What was he doing on a frozen hillside in Austria facing certain death at the sharp end of an anonymous Russian?

Captain Grandvillers was suddenly behind them, "Raise your weapons," he shouted and the whole company obeyed, "Fire!"

Duroc pulled the trigger and was simultaneously kicked in the shoulder, blinded by the flash, deafened by the discharge and then wreathed in the smoke from the exploding gunpowder. His musket had fired properly, but he had no idea where the lead ball had traveled.

"Reload," screamed the sergeant, but it was too late for the recruits such as Duroc. Seasoned veterans could, under ideal circumstances, fire at a rate of five rounds a minute, but Duroc was totally disoriented by the noise, smoke, and confusion. Before he had time to find another cartridge in his pouch the Russians were upon them and the hand to hand fighting began.

Only one impression stayed with Alain Duroc, later Anton Druer, of the next few minutes of his life. A very large Russian with huge mustaches was pointing an enormous bayonet directly at his face, when, out of shear survival instinct, he lashed out with his foot and kicked the man in the groin. As he did so he lost his balance, fell over backwards, knocked his head and became even more disoriented. What happened to the Russian he never found out.

Struggling to his feet he was knocked and pressed on all sides by the bodies of men fighting for their lives, hand to hand. Some were yelling either in fear or as a release; others were grasping at their wounds which ranged from slashes across the face to ripped open bellies; others were standing side by side thrusting their own bayonets at the bodies of their enemies, jabbing and twisting the blade if it made contact with anything. For no reason he could determine, Duroc saw the three Russians closest to him take a few steps back. He took hold of his gun, swung it out away from his body and crashed the butt into the side of the Russian nearest to him. The blow was hardly felt, but it spoilt the Russian's own defensive move, and Herbette was able to slip his bayonet under the Russian's arm and stab it up and into the exposed neck. Blood spurted everywhere.

A strong blow to the back of his legs toppled him over, and he found himself half beneath a fellow member of the IInd who had just been shot by a Russian officer. Pushing hard, Duroc freed himself and for the second time struggled to his feet, only to be stabbed in the shoulder by a Guardsman fighting his way out of a knot of Frenchmen. The pain was sudden, sharp but almost instantly forgotten as a rush of French soldiers hammered the Russians in front of him and the enemy began to step back.

As quickly as it had started, Alain Duroc's first engagement with people who were trying to kill him, ended. At first he thought that his side were winning, but almost at once these hopes were dashed and a tremendous thundering sound was heard coming from their left flank, wherever that was. Before he could recover his musket, which had fallen from his hands when he had been stabbed, a cuirassier of the Russian Imperial Guard, mounted on a giant black horse, crashed through the thin line of Frenchmen and a saber flashed towards his head. The blow was slightly deflected by the helmet he was wearing, but in that instant Alain Duroc sustained what should have been a fatal head wound.

Spinning from the first saber cut, he was struck again, this time across his face as a second member of the Russian cavalry crashed into the rapidly collapsing French position. Within moments the IInd Company of the 4th battalion of the Vandamme division of the IV Corps of the Napoleonic army in Austrian, ceased to have any existence. Of the 2,000 French losses that day and of the 7,000 wounded, Alain Duroc's regiment suffered the worst.

For the French wine maker the battle and the war was over. Unconscious, he lay face down on the cold ground of the Pratzen Plateau while the Russian cavalry cut apart the battalion around him. His Emperor, seeing the troubles his brother was having, sent in his own Imperial Guard and also the Mamelukes, mounted Arabian horsemen. When they failed to drive off the Russian Guard, he then sent in the mounted chasseurs, and the mounted grenadiers of his own guard, under Marshal Bessieres and General Rapp, his aide-de-camp. The combined weight of these attacks eventually drove off the Russians from their one moment of victory that day, and the bodies of the French soldiers they had killed were left where they had fallen.

Left with the dead, Alain Duroc knew nothing of the rest of the battle. His body cooled and the blood from the wound on his head ran down his face and congealed. Under him, his musket, only fired once that day, would eventually be found by scavengers from the village of Puntowitz, who had themselves lost everything that morning. On his back, his knapsack would, by a miracle, survive. Which is how the bones of the English Saint Hugh of Lincoln arrived near a small town in Moravia called Brno.

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Chapter Nine

Wine merchant

Alain Duroc stayed in Austria and the rest of his story is as told by Monsignor Schrattenbach. Wounded badly at Austerlitz, he should have died, but was rescued by corpsmen of Bernadotte's divisions when they retook the position later in the day. All the wounded were eventually evacuated to Brno, where those that could walk were taken with the army into Germany, and those that could not walk, were left behind. Duroc was left behind.

Wounded French soldiers were nursed by local Austrians if they could pay, or in charity wards if they could not. Alain Duroc was lucky, his head wound had bled enough to clear it of infection, and he found himself recovering that winter in a ward and then the home of a respectable Brno family. In the household was a recently widowed daughter who had moved back with her father and mother to help look after them. It was not long before the romantically wounded French soldier and the widow who was nursing him found themselves making longer term commitments.

Austria at that time was a multi-cultural society, dominated by German speakers, but also containing Czechs, Hungarians and French. Once he had recovered from his wounds, Alain Duroc found that Brno society was not totally hostile to the idea of him marrying the widow and setting himself up in the wine business. He did, however, take the precaution of changing his name to Anton Druer.

Among the few possessions he had when he began his convalescence and his new life, were the bones of Saint Hugh. It always bothered him that he could not return them to England, where they belonged, but, as his business began to grow, a son arrived, and the need to expand became necessary, he found it expeditious to lend the Saint to the church of St. Thomas. The donation brought him a certain notoriety in the upper levels of Brno society, and his circle of clients enlarged. The Druers, father and son, became respected citizens, and when his son eventually married a member of the Brno "Altgesellschaft", they had arrived.

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Chapter Ten

Afterwards

The battle of Austerlitz ended where it had begun; in a small triangle of land around Sokolnitz Castle, the village of Sokolnitz, the Chapel of St. Anthony and the village of Tellnitz.

Badly mauled by Napoleon's cavalry charges, the Russian Imperial Guard retreated back to Austerlitz, while in the killing area around Tellnitz the main assault continued. Vandamme and St. Hillaire attacked south at about 1 o'clock in the afternoon after beating Kollowrat, Constantine, Miloradovish and Prschibitschewski on the Pratzen Plateau. After a rest, during which Napoleon halted all attacks until the situation on his left flank across the Olmutz Road cleared, Soult's forces joined those of Davout, and, in a horseshoe enveloping movement, slowly crushed the remaining Austrians and Russians trapped with their backs to the frozen ponds of Menitz and Satschen.

During an incident that has gone down in history, these escaping remnants of Buxhowden's command attempted to escape by crossing the frozen ponds while Napoleon's artillery fired cannon balls to break up the ice and drown them in their thousands. Like a lot of Napoleonic propaganda this incident has become enshrined in history books by the simple process of retelling the tale often enough. However, contemporary records written just after the battle, when the ponds were dredged for valuable cannon, reported finding less that half a dozen bodies. But that has not stopped the story from becoming folklore.

Snow, extreme cold, exhausted French soldiers who were in poor condition after their long march from France, and the arrival of darkness ended the battle just as effectively. Napoleon stayed at Posoritz that night, while the other two Emperors, Francis and Alexander fled towards Hungary. By the 4th of December Napoleon and his army were in pursuit and it didn't take long for negotiations to lead to an armistice, the conditions for which included an immediate return of Russian soldiers to Russia.

As peace negotiations with all the allies, including England, Prussia and Sweden continued, Napoleon re-equipped and re-supplied his army, largely at the expense of his reluctant Austrian hosts. With lots of complaining, the Austrians finally accepted Napoleon's terms at the Treaty of Pressburg, paid a huge indemnity, ceded the Tyrol to Bavaria, and lost minor enclaves to, among others, the Kingdom of Italy.

Napoleon left most of the Grande Armee in Germany, where it was meant to intimidate the Prussians, who, even more reluctantly than the Austrians, accepted Napoleon's terms in February 1806.

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Maps

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About the Author

John Hulme is a retired Professor, now living and writing in Florida. He was educated in England - a long time ago - and arrived on the shores of New York carrying a single suitcase and lots of ideas. He has written several hardcover science books and was an early user of the fledgling internet as a teaching tool. Before retirement he wrote a set of fictional science stories about Gregor Mendel - the person who discovered genetics, which he has now converted into ebooks. Since retirement he has started on a long-cherished writing project of historical fiction - which you can now read for yourself.

In the "Shaftsman" Series -

The letters of a Roman Soldier written about the time of Julius Caesar.

Iron Shaft: Primus \- the first letter and introduction

Iron Shaft: Secundus \- how he joined the Tenth Legion, and got his nickname

Iron Shaft: Tertius \- how he helped the Druids, and saved Caesar

Iron Shaft: Quaternus \- poison, pearls, Druids and skulls

Iron Shaft: Quintus \- how Caesar got his ships

Other works by John Hulme are:

In the "Mendel" Series -

A fictionalized account of the life and times of Gregor Mendel - the discoverer of genetics.

Brother Gregory: Gene One \- a famous lecture, birth of genetics, a failure

Brother Gregory: Gene Two \- visitors to the Monastery, Brother Timothy plots

Brother Gregory: Gene Three \- Mendel's Sparrows

Brother Gregory: Gene Four \- the Saint, the Sinner and the Scientist

Brother Gregory: Gene Five \- and the bending of light

Brother Gregory: Gene Seven \- and the circles of carbon

The Bones of Saint Hugh \- how the bones of an English Saint arrive in Brno

Short Stories -

The Night After Christmas \- which was inspired by a real incident

As It Was Told \- A short story collection

These are all available from Smashwords.com.

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