The fencing master, p.1
THE FENCING MASTER, page 1
THE FENCING MASTER
A translation of LE MAITRE D’ARMES
Translated by Alfred Allinson
This novel was first published in 1840 in the Revue de Paris. In the introduction, Dumas reveals that he drew heavily from the collection of the notes he made during his stay in Russia from 1824 to 1826. Interestingly, the novel received harsh criticism from the Russian Imperial Court and so was banned on publication, which was not lifted in Russia until the 20th century.
The story is set in 1824 and concerns Grisier, a young French weapons master, who leaves for St. Petersburg to seek glory and fortune. After an exhausting trip, he forms a friendship with Louise Dupuis, a French Milliner expatriate, and her lover Count Alexis Vaninkoff, the young lieutenant in the Knights guards of the Emperor.
An illustration from the first English edition
An illustration from the same edition
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER XVI
CHAPTER XVII
CHAPTER XVIII
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
CHAPTER XXII
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
CHAPTER XXV
The titlepage of the first edition
THE FENCING MASTER
LIFE IN RUSSIA
INTRODUCTION
IN one of the volumes devoted to his travels in Russia, Dumas relates that the Czarina, wife of the Czar Nicholas, having procured a copy of The Fencing Master, asked her friend the Princess Trubetzki to read it to her. While thus engaged the door opened and the Czar appeared. The princess, who held the book, hastily hid it under the sofa cushions. The Czar approached, and standing before his confused consort, “You were reading, Madame?” he said.
“Yes, Sire.”
“Do you wish me to tell you what you were reading?”
The Czarina was silent.
“You were reading the romance of M. Dumas, The Fencing Mastery “How do you know that, Sire?”
“It is not difficult to guess, since it is the last book I have prohibited.”
In spite of, or rather by reason of this prohibition, The Fencing Master became very popular in Russia, so popular indeed that when in 1858, some eighteen years after its publication, Dumas visited the famous fair at Nijni Novgorod, handkerchiefs printed in colours with scenes from the book were offered for sale to its surprised author. But what pleased Dumas still more at Nijni was his meeting Alexis and Pauline, his hero and heroine. How this came about we have related in our introduction to The Snowball and Sultanetta, two tales of the Caucasus.
Grisier, to whom Dumas introduces us in his naïve and amusing preface, was a well-known figure in Paris, where for many years his fencing-saloon was the rendezvous of young men of fashion. In Dumas’ younger days the use of sword and pistol was as necessary to a dramatist or novelist as the typewriter is to-day. Alexandre seems to have been one of Grisier’s favourite pupils, and as in 1840 he was already a celebrated author, it was naturally to him that the Professor entrusted the “Notes “of his life in Russia. It has been observed of Dumas that he could sometimes drudge, and has been caught at work with a pencil between his teeth and twenty open volumes scattered around him. As may be supposed, in his expert hands the “Notes “of the worthy Professor were considerably expanded. Dumas took occasion to “do a little history,” as he would put it; and he sometimes gets rather far from the adventures of Grisier, and of Alexis and Pauline. But our author possesses the secret of vivifying everything he touches. With him history reads like romance, and romance like history. The reader, without meaning in the least to do so, and while intent on the story of the conspiracy and the loves of Alexis and Pauline, which form the main theme, finds himself getting a good deal of insight, not only into the history of Russia, but into the manners and customs of its people. Probably if the “truth were known, many who are more or less deeply versed in Russian history and Russian literature could trace their first interest in them to The Fencing Master. And yet when Dumas occupied himself with Grisier’s “Notes” he had never visited Russia! Later he was to do so, and to send to Paris some exceedingly acute observations concerning that country. He wrote: —
“Russia is a grand façade; what lies behind no one cares. The person who should trouble to look behind would resemble a cat, which, seeing itself for the first time in a looking-glass, walks behind it expecting to find another cat on the other side. Russia is the country of abuses; though everybody, from Czar to peasant, desires the cessation of abuses. Everybody speaks of these abuses; everybody knows them, analyzes them, deplores them; and on him who lifts his eyes above to say, “Our Father, which art in Heaven, deliver us from abuses,” the abuses only fall the thicker. Hopes are reposed upon the Czar Alexander for the putting down of abuses, and with reason; he wishes sincerely and with a whole heart for universal reform. But as soon as you touch an abuse in Russia, can you guess who it is who cries out in remonstrance? The abuse that you touch? No; that would be too clumsy. Those who cry the loudest are the abuses which are not yet being dealt with, but which fear the coming of their turn. In the artichoke the most difficult leaves to pick are the first that one eats. The abuses are an immense artichoke, all bristling with prickles. One does not arrive at the heart of it without wounding the fingers.”
The Fencing Master (Le Maître d’Armes) was published in 1840, in three volumes, by Dumont (Paris).
R. S. G.
THE FENCING MASTER
“WHY! wonders will never cease!”cried Grisier, as he saw me step over the threshold of his fencing saloon, which was deserted for the moment save for himself.
As a matter of fact I had not put foot in No. 4 Faubourg Montmartre since the evening when Alfred de Nerval told us the story of Pauline.
“I hope,” continued the professor with the almost paternal solicitude he was wont to display to his former pupils, “I hope no unlucky affair has brought you here?”
“No, dear master,” I replied, “for though I have come to ask a favour of you, it is unlike the many others you have rendered me.”
“You are well aware that whatever it is, I am at your service. Now what is it?”
“Well, my good sir, I want you to help me out of a difficulty.”
“If the thing is possible, consider it done.”
“My confidence in you is not misplaced.”
“I am all attention.”
“Well, I have just signed a contract with my publisher and I have nothing ready for him.”
“The deuce you haven’t!”
“So I have come to borrow something from you.”
“From me!”
“Yes, haven’t you told me fifty times over about your travels in Russia.”
“Well, that’s a fact.”
“When were you there?”
“In 1824, 1825 and 1826.”
“Just the most interesting years; the close of Alexander’s reign and the accession of Nicholas.”
“I was present at the funeral of the one and the coronation of the other. But, but! wait a moment...!”
“I was sure you had something for me.”
“‘Tis an extraordinary story.”
“Exactly what I want.”
“Well! just fancy... But better still, have you patience to wait?”
“Have I patience, — a man who spends half his life at rehearsals!”
“Well then, wait a moment.” He went to a cupboard and got out an enormous bundle of papers. “There, that’s what you want.”
“Manuscript, by all that’s holy!”
“Notes taken by one of my colleagues who was at St. Petersburg at the same time as myself and saw ail I did; you can absolutely rely upon him.”
“And you will give them to me?”
“Yes, copyright and all.”
“Why, ‘tis a perfect treasure.”
“One that has more copper in it than silver and more silver than gold. But you must make the most of it, such as it is.”
“My good sir, I will set about my task this very evening and in two months time...”
“Well, in two months?”
“Your friend will wake up one fine morning and find himself in print.”
“Really?”
“Yes, you may count on that.”
“Well, upon my word, be will be delighted.”
“By the way, there’s one thing your manuscript lacks.”
“What’s that?”
“A title.”
“Do you expect me to give you a title into the bargain?”
“Well, while you are about it, my good fellow, don’t do things by halves.”
“You have not examined it; there is one.”
“Where?”
“Here, look; ‘The Fencing Master,’ or ‘Eighteen Months in St. Petersburg.’”
“Very well then, since it is there, let’s leave it.”
“Just as it is?”
“Right you are.”
After this preamble the reader will understand that I claim no originality either of contents or t itle, but that the sole responsibility rests with Grisier’s friend who tells the story.
CHAPTER I
I HAD not yet lost the buoyancy of youth; I was in possession of a sum 4,000 francs, an inexhaustible treasure so it seemed to me, and I had heard Russia described as a veritable Eldorado for any artist of more than average ability, and as I was not lacking in self-confidence I decided to set out for St. Petersburg.
This resolution once taken was soon put into execution; I was a bachelor, I left nothing behind, not even debts; I had merely to get a few letters of introduction and a passport, a simple business, and a week after deciding to go, I was on the Brussels road.
I preferred to travel by land, in the first place because I intended to give some assaults at arms in the towns I should pass through, thus defraying the expenses of the journey as I went along, and secondly because, like a patriotic Frenchman, I wanted to see those famous battlefields, where I thought that nothing but laurels should grow, as on Virgil’s tomb.
I stopped two days in the capital of Belgium; on the first, giving an assault at arms and on the second, fighting a duel. As I came off as well in the one as the other, some very tempting proposals were made to me to settle in the town. However I declined them all; an uncontrollable impulse urged me forward in spite of myself.
Nevertheless I stopped a day at Liège, as a former pupil, now employed in the record office of that town, was living there, and I did not like to pass through without paying him a visit. He had a house in the Rue Pierreuse, and from the garden terrace I made the acquaintance both of the famous Rhine wine and of the town spread out beneath my feet, from the village of Herstall, the birthplace of Pepin, to the Château de Ranioule whence Godfrey set out for the Holy Land. My pupil’s account of the old buildings was diversified with five or six legends each more curious than the last. One of the most tragic, was undoubtedly the “Banquet of Varfusée,” which detailed the murder of the Burgomaster Sébastien Laruelle whose name is still borne by one of the streets.
I spoke to my pupil, when getting into the diligence for Aix-la-Chapelle, of my idea of inspecting the chief towns and visiting the famous battlefields, but he laughed at my suggestion and told me that in Prussia travellers do not stop where they like, but where the conductor chooses, and that once seated in his vehicle they are absolutely in his hands. Truly enough from Cologne to Dresden, where I had resolved to stay three days, we were not allowed out of our cage, except for meals, and then only just long enough to absorb the nourishment necessary to keep life in us. At length we reached Dresden after three days of this imprisonment, against which no one but myself raised any protests, so reasonable does it appear to the subjects of his Majesty Frederick William of Prussia.
It was at Dresden that Napoleon, on the eve of invading Russia, called for the great halt of 1812, where he summoned to meet him an Emperor, three Kings and a Viceroy; as for Sovereign Princes, they pressed in such crowds round the door of the Imperial tent that they were undistinguishable from mere aides-de-camp and orderlies; the King of Prussia was kept three days dancing attendance.
Vengeance is being prepared against Asia for the incursions of the Huns and the Tartars. From the banks of the Guadalquivir and from the Calabrian Sea, six hundred and seventeen thousand men, shouting — ’’ Vive Napoleon “in eight different languages, have been pushed forward by the hand of the giant to the banks of the Vistula; they drag with them thirteen hundred and seventy-two field pieces, six sets of pontoons and a siege train; and in the van toil four thousand commissariat carts, three thousand artillery waggons, fifteen hundred ambulances and twelve hundred herds of cattle, and as they pass along, the plaudits of Europe accompany them.
On the 29th May Napoleon leaves Dresden, halting at Posen only long enough to speak a few friendly words to the Poles, passes Warsaw scornfully on one side, leaves on his right Friedland of glorious memory, halts at Thorn only for the time absolutely necessary for inspecting the fortifications and the stores accumulated there, and at length reaches Kônigsberg, where moving down the river towards Gumbinnen, he reviews four or five of his army corps. The order to advance is given; the whole country extending from the Vistula to the Niemen is one mass of men, carts and baggage wagons; the Pregel which flows from one river to the other, like a vein connecting two large arteries, is crowded with heavily laden barges. At length on the 23rd of June Napoleon arrives at the edge of the Prussian forest of Pilviski; a chain of hills stretches in front of him, and on the other side of the hills flows the Russian river. The Emperor, who had been driving up till then, mounts a horse at two o’clock in the morning, and coming up to the outposts near Kovno, seizes the cap and cloak of a Polish light cavalryman and departs at a gallop with General Haxo and a few men, to reconnoitre the river in person. On reaching the bank, the horse stumbles and flings its rider on to the sand.
“That is an unlucky omen,” says Napoleon, picking himself up, “a Roman would have beaten a retreat.”
The reconnaissance is accomplished, the army will maintain its position in concealment from the enemy during the day, and at night cross the river on three bridges.
Evening is at hand, Napoleon approaches the Niemen; a few sappers pass across the stream in a skiff; the Emperor follows them with his eyes until they are lost in the darkness; they reach the Russian bank and land.
The enemy who were there on the previous evening seem to have vanished. After a moment’s absolute silence, a Cossack officer appears on the scene: he is alone and seems astonished that strangers should be on the river bank at such an hour.
“Who are you?” says he.
“Frenchmen,” answer the sappers.
“What do you want?”
“To cross the Niemen.”
“What is your business in Russia?”
“To make war, pardieu!”
Without replying to the subaltern’s words, the Cossack gallops off in the direction of Vilna and disappears like a spectre of the night.
Three musket shots are fired at him without result. Napoleon starts at the noise; the campaign has opened.
The Emperor at once orders three hundred light infantry to cross the river to cover the building of the bridges; and despatches orderlies to every position. Then the massed troops get under way in the darkness and advance, hidden by the woods, and crouching in the growing rye; so dark is it that the van-guard approaches within two hundred paces of the river before being sighted by Napoleon; he hears nothing but a dull noise like an impending storm; he dashes forward; the order to halt, repeated in a low tone, passes down the whole line; no fires are lighted, strict silence is enjoined, ranks are not to be broken, but every man must sleep with his arms ready. By two o’clock in the morning the three bridges are completed.
Daylight appears and the left bank of the Niemen swarms with men, horses and wagons; the right bank is deserted and dismal; the ground itself, on becoming Russian, seems to have changed its aspect. When it is not gloomy forest, it is barren sand.
The Emperor hastens from his tent, pitched on the summit of the highest hill and in the centre of the camp; his orders are immediately given and the aides-decamp dart forth with their various despatches, diverging like the rays of a star.
At the same time the confused masses are set in motion, they blend into army corps and deploy in column, winding over the undulating ground like streams flowing down to a river.
At the very moment that the vanguard was setting foot on Russian territory, the Emperor Alexander who happened to be patronizing a ball given in his honour at Vilna, was dancing with Madame Barclay de Tolly, the wife of the Commander-in-chief. At midnight he heard from the Cossack officer who encountered our sappers of the approach of the French army to the Niemen, but he did not wish to interrupt the festivities.
The vanguard has scarcely reached the right bank of the Niemen by the triple passage now prepared for it, before I Napoleon dashes up to the middle bridge and crosses it, followed by his staff. Arrived on the opposite bank he feels troubled, then dismayed; the absence of an enemy which is for ever escaping him, seems more formidable than its presence. For a moment he pauses, thinking he hears cannon shots; he is mistaken, it is only thunder; a storm is gathering over the army, the sky becomes overcast and gloomy as if night were approaching. Napoleon surrounded by a handful of men only, cannot restrain his impatience, and putting spurs to his horse is soon lost to sight in the grey tones of the dense forest. The weather continues threatening.
__english_preview.jpg)
