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Updated: May 12, 2025
He crept along the ground, carrying in his hand a long pole with a light at the end of it. He was known in the English mines as the fireman, but in the French he was called either the cannonier, the monk, or the penitent, the latter name being given him from his dress resembling that of certain so-called religious orders in the Romish Church.
Three of our ships separated from the fleet, and we imagined that they had fallen into the hands of the French, for we learned, at St. Helena, that they had been seen a few days before from that island. The name of the French ship which we had fallen in with was Le Cannonier, a sixty-four, from the Isle of France.
There was little resistance made after that, and Kaunitz only saved his artillery by leaving his rear guard to be cut to pieces." The cannonier nodded, as if in full assent, and Pièrre looked around him with the air of a man who has vindicated his claim to greatness.
And daily there was fighting without the walls, wherein now one side had the better, now the other; but food was scant in Orleans, and many were slain by cannon-shots. Yet much was spoken of a new cannonier, lately come to aid the men of Orleans, and how he and John of Lorraine slew many of the hardiest of the English with their couleuvrines.
"If nature has given thee a good head, and a quick eye, my boy, thou might even do better; and in time, perhaps, wear a coat like mine," said the cannonier. "Sacre bleu!" cried a little fellow, whose age might have been any thing from boyhood to manhood for while small of stature, he was shriveled and wrinkled like a mummy "why not be satisfied with the coat he wears?"
This short examination followed, for the court was quick with its work. "You did good service at the taking of the Bastille, citizen?" "I believe so." Here, an excited woman screeched from the crowd: "You were one of the best patriots there. Why not say so? You were a cannonier that day there, and you were among the first to enter the accursed fortress when it fell. Patriots, I speak the truth!"
No possible sophistry, to which I was equal, could prove the marriage to be against his interest; and as to trying him on the tack of delicacy "imposition on an unprotected woman, degrading dependence on her exertions," and so forth I knew the thick skin and indomitable self-conceit of the cannonier would repel such feather-shafts without feeling them, or that the utmost effect I could expect to produce would be to get myself into a quarrel with the redoubtable native of the Netherlands, a predicament in which, as a man of peace, I was by no means anxious to find myself.
Helena the following day, having seen the French fleet the night after the affair between the Tremendous and Le Cannonier, and, under cover of the night, escaped unobserved, or they must have been taken, as the French fleet consisted of five sail or more. Our reception at St. Helena, by Governor Brooke, was truly splendid and hospitable.
"Two batteries of artillery and the voltigeurs of the 4th, I know for certain are coming," said the orderly, "and they spoke of a battalion of grenadiers." "What! do these Germans need another lesson," said the cannonier, "I thought Fleurus had taught them what our troops were made of?"
The sickly cannonier, who had the constitution of a rhinoceros, and had never had a day's illness since he got over the measles at the age of four years, waited a little, and tried the second "dodge," usually resorted to in such cases. The general expressed his regret that urgent public affairs rendered it impossible for him to dispense with the valuable services of Lieutenant Van Haubitz.
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