The Absolute at Large/Chapter 24
Chapter XXIV
The Napoleon of the Mountain Brigade
Bobinet, if you please, Toni Bobinet, the twenty-two-year-old lieutenant of mountain artillery, attached to the garrison of Annecy (Haute Savoie), but at present on six weeks' manœuvres on the Needles (Les Aiguilles), from which on a clear day one can see in the west the lakes of Annecy and Geneva, and in the east the blunted ridge of the Bonne Montagne and the peaks of Mont Blanc—do you know your way about now? Well, then, Lieutenant Toni Bobinet sat on a boulder and tugged at his tiny moustache, first because he was bored, and secondly because he had read a newspaper two weeks old right through for the fifth time, and was now thinking things over.
At this point the chronicler ought to follow the meditations of the prospective Napoleon, but in the meantime his glance (the chronicler's, that is) had slid along the snow-covered slopes to the gorge of the Arly, where the thaw had already set in, and where his eye is caught and held by the tiny little towns of Mégève, Flumet, and Ugines, with their pointed churches looking like toys. Ah, the memories of long-vanished childhood! The castles in the air one reared with one's box of bricks!
Meanwhile Lieutenant Bobinet . . . but no. Let us abandon any attempt to psychologize great men, to express the titanic idea in the germ from which it sprang. We are not equal to the task, and if we were, we should perhaps be disappointed. Just picture to yourself this little Lieutenant Bobinet sitting on Les Aiguilles with Europe falling into ruin all about him—a battery of mountain guns in front of him, and below him a miniature world which could easily be shot to pieces from where he sat. Imagine that he has just read in an old copy of the Annecy Moniteur the leading article in which some M. Babillard calls for the strong hand of a helmsman who will steer the good ship France out of the raging storm toward new power and glory; and that up there, at a height of over two thousand metres, the air is pure and free from the Absolute, so that one can think clearly and freely. Picture all this, and you will understand how it was that Lieutenant Bobinet, sitting there on his rock, first grew very thoughtful and then wrote his venerable, wrinkled, white-haired mother a somewhat confused letter, assuring her that "she would soon be hearing of her Toni," and that Toni had "a magnificent idea." After that he saw to one thing and another, had a good night's sleep, and in the morning assembled all the soldiers of his battery, deposed the incompetent old captain, took possession of the military post at Sallanches, declared war on the Absolute with Napoleonic brevity, and went to sleep again. The following day he shot to pieces the Karburator in the bakery at Thônes, occupied the railway station of Bonneville, and seized the command at Annecy, having by this time three thousand men under him. Within a week he had destroyed over two hundred Karburators and was leading fifteen thousand bayonets and sabres against Grenoble. He was proclaimed commandant of Grenoble, and now had a small army of forty thousand men at his back, with which he descended into the valley of the Rhone and busied himself in painstakingly clearing the surrounding territory of all atomic motors by means of his long-range guns. On the road to Chambery he captured the Minister for War, who was hurrying in his motor-car to put Bobinet back in his place. The Minister for War was so captivated and convinced by Bobinet's plans that he made him a General on the following day. On April 1st the city of Lyons was completely cleansed of every trace of the Absolute.
Up to this point Bobinet's triumphant progress had not been attended by bloodshed. He met with his first opposition from ardent Catholics beyond the Loire, and sanguinary engagements took place. Fortunately for Bobinet, many Frenchmen had remained sceptics, even in communities completely saturated with the Absolute, and indeed showed themselves wildly fanatical in their unbelief and rationalism. After cruel massacres and new St. Bartholomew's Eves "les Bobinets" were welcomed everywhere as liberators, and everywhere they went they succeeded in pacifying the populace after destroying all the Karburators.
And so it befell that as early as July, Parliament proclaimed that Toni Bobinet had deserved well of his country and raised him to the dignity of First Consul with the title of Marshal. France was consolidated. Bobinet introduced State atheism; any sort of religious demonstration was punishable by court-martial with death.
We cannot refrain from mentioning a few episodes in the great man's career.
Bobinet and his Mother.—One day Bobinet was holding council at Versailles with his General Staff. As the day was hot, he had taken his place by an open window. Suddenly he noticed an aged woman in the park, warming herself in the sun. Bobinet at once interrupted Marshal Jollivet with a cry of "Look, gentlemen . . . my mother!" All present, even the most hardened generals, were moved to tears by this demonstration of filial affection.
Bobinet and Love of Country.—On one occasion Bobinet was holding a military review on the Champ de Mars in a downpour of rain. While the heavy howitzers were passing before him, an army motor ran into a large puddle of water which spurted up and bespattered Bobinet's cloak. Marshal Jollivet wished to punish the commander of the unfortunate battery by reducing him in rank on the spot. But Bobinet restrained him, saying, "Let him alone, Marshal. After all, this is the mud of France!"
Bobinet and the Old Pensioner.—Bobinet was once driving out incognito to Chartres. On the way a tyre burst, and while the chauffeur was putting on a new one, a one-legged pensioner came up and asked for alms.
"Where did this man lose his leg?" asked Bobinet.
The old pensioner related that he had lost it while serving in Indo-China. He had a poor old mother, and there were often days when neither of them had a bite to eat.
"Marshal, take this man's name," said Bobinet, deeply affected. And sure enough a week later there came a knock at the door of the old pensioner's hut; it was Bobinet's personal courier, who handed the hapless cripple a packet "from the First Consul." Who can describe the surprise and delight of the old soldier when upon opening the packet he found inside it the Bronze Medal!
Thanks to a character of such striking qualities, it is not surprising that Bobinet finally consented to gratify the fervent desire of the whole nation, and on the 14th of August proclaimed himself, amid universal enthusiasm, Emperor of the French.
The whole world thus entered upon a period which, though anything but peaceful, was to be glorious in history. Every quarter of the globe literally blazed with heroic feats of arms. Seen from Mars, our earth must certainly have shone like a star of the first magnitude, from which the Martian astronomers doubtless concluded that we were still in a condition of glowing heat. You can well believe that chivalrous France and her representative, the Emperor Toni Bobinet, did not play a minor rôle. Perhaps, too, such remnants of the Absolute as had not yet escaped into space were at work here, awakening a spirit of exaltation and fervour. At any rate, when the great Emperor proclaimed, two days after his coronation, that the hour had come for France to cover the whole earth with her banner, a unanimous roar of enthusiasm gave him his answer.
Bobinet's plan was the following:—
1. To occupy Spain, and by taking Gibraltar secure the key to the Mediterranean Sea.
2. To occupy the Danube valley as far as Budapest as the key to the interior of Europe.
3. To occupy Denmark as the key to the North Sea area.
And since territorial keys have usually to be smeared with blood, France fitted out three armies which won for her tremendous glory.
The fourth army occupied Asia Minor as the key to the East.
The fifth army made itself master of the mouth of the St. Lawrence as the key to America.
The sixth army went down in the naval battle off the English coast.
The seventh army laid seige to Sebastopol.
By New Year's Eve, 1944, the Emperor Bobinet had all his keys in the pocket of his artillery breeches.