Gustave Aimard - The Insurgent Chief

Although the town of San Miguel de Tucuman is not very ancient, and its construction dates scarcely two centuries back, nevertheless – thanks, perhaps, to the calm and studious population which inhabit it – it has a certain middle age odour which is profusely exhaled from the old cloisters of its convents, and from the thick and gloomy walls of its churches. The grass in the low quarters of the town freely grows in the nearly always deserted streets; and here and there some wretched old house crumbling with age, leaning over the river which washes its foundations, incomprehensible miracle of equilibrium – presents to the curious look of the artistic traveller the most picturesque effects.

The Callejón de las Cruces, especially – a narrow and tortuous street, lined with low and sombre houses – which at one end abuts on the river, and at the other on the street de las Mercaderes, is, without doubt, one of the most singularly picturesque in the town.

At the period of our history, and perhaps at the present time, the greater part of the right side of the Callejón de las Cruces was occupied by a high and large house, of a cold and sombre aspect, whose thick walls, and the iron bars with which its windows wore furnished, made it resemble a prison.

However, it was nothing of the sort. This house was a kind of nunnery, such as are often met with even, now in Belgian and Dutch Flanders, so long possessed by the Spaniards, and which served for a retreat for women of all classes of society, who, without having positively taken vows, wished to live sheltered from the storms of the world, and to devote the remainder of their lives to exercises of piety, and works of benevolence.

As the reader has seen, by the description which we gave of the place when it came under notice, this house was thoroughly appropriated to its uses, and there continually reigned around it a peacefulness and a calm which made it rather resemble a vast necropolis than a partially religious community of women.

Every sound died without an echo on the threshold of the door of this gloomy house; sounds of joy, as well as cries of anger – the uproars of fêtes , as well as the rumblings on insurrection – nothing could galvanise it, or rouse it from its majestic and sombre indifference.

However, one evening – the very night when the governor of San Miguel had given, at the Cabildo, a ball to celebrate the victory gained by Zeno Cabral over the Spaniards 1 1 See "The Guide of the Desert." – towards midnight, a troop of armed men, whose measured tread sounded heavily in the darkness, had left the street de las Mercaderes, turned into the Callejón de las Cruces, and, having reached the massive and solidly bolted door of the house of which we have spoken, they stopped.

He who appeared to be the chief of these men had knocked three times with the pommel of his sword on the door, which was immediately opened.

This man had, in a low voice, exchanged a few words with an invisible person; then, on a sign from himself, the ranks of his troop opened, and four women – four spectres, perhaps – draped in long veils, which did not allow any part of their person to be perceived, entered the house silently, and in a line. Some few words further had been exchanged between the chief of the troop and the invisible doorkeeper of this mysterious house; then the door had been again noiselessly closed, as it had been opened; the soldiers returned by the way they had come, and all was over.

This singular circumstance had transpired without awakening in any way the attention of the poor people who lived in the vicinity. The greater part were assisting at the fête in the streets or in the squares of the high quarters of the town; the remainder were sleeping, or Were too indifferent to trouble themselves about any noise whatever at so advanced an hour of the night.

So that, on the morrow, the inhabitants of the Callejón de las Cruces would have been quite unable to give the slightest account of what had passed at midnight in their street, at the gate of the Black House as among themselves they called this gloomy habitation, for which they had a strong dislike, and which was far from enjoying a good reputation among them.

Several days had passed since the fête , the town had resumed its calm and peaceful appearance, only the troops had not raised their camp – on the contrary, the Montonera of Don Zeno Cabral had installed itself at a short distance from them.

Vague rumours, which circulated in the town, gave rise to the belief that the revolutionists were preparing a great expedition against the Spaniards.

Emile Gagnepain – much annoyed at first at being continually the sport of events, and at seeing his free will completely annihilated for the benefit of others, and especially at being obliged, in spite of himself, to be mixed up with politics, when he would have been so happy to pass his days in wandering about the country, and particularly in dreamily stretching himself on the grass – had finished by making up his mind to these continual quarrels in which he could do nothing. He had, till better times arrived, resigned himself to his fate with that philosophic carelessness which formed the foundation of his character; and this the more readily, as he was not long in perceiving that his position as secretary to the Duc de Mantone was rather nominal than actual, and that, in fact, it was a magnificent sinecure, inasmuch as during the fortnight he had been supposed to fulfil its duties, the diplomatist had not given him a syllable to write.

Although both lived in the same house, the patron and the nominal secretary only saw one another rarely, and, ordinarily, did not meet but at meals, when the same table served them. Two or three days sometimes passed without their seeing each other.

M. Dubois, completely absorbed in the intricate combinations of politics, often passed the day in long and serious conferences with the chiefs of the executive power. He had been charged with a very difficult work on the election of the deputies to the general congress, which was about to be held at San Miguel de Tucuman, and in which the independence of the provinces of the ancient vice-royalty of Buenos Aires was about to be proclaimed.

So that, spite of the lively interest which he had in his young countryman, the diplomatist was obliged to neglect him – of which the latter by no means complained; on the contrary, profiting conscientiously by the agreeable leisure which politics gave to him, he gave himself up with delight to the contemplative life so dear to artists, and lounged whole days about the town and country, in quest of picturesque points of view, and of fine landscapes.

This search was by no means unprofitable in a country such as that in which he was accidently living, where nature, yet but little spoiled or marred by the unintelligent hand of man, possessed that seal of majesty and of grandeur which God alone knows how to impress so royally alike upon the most vast and the meanest works which spring from His all-powerful hands.

The inhabitants, accustomed to see the young man among them, attracted by his handsome and frank countenance, by his gentle manners and his careless air, were, by degrees, familiarised with him; and, notwithstanding that he was a European, and especially a Frenchman – that is to say, a gringo or heretic – had at last come to be very friendly to him, and allowed him to go wherever fancy led him, without following him with an uneasy curiosity, or worrying him with indiscreet questions.

Moreover, in the state of political excitement in which the country was at this time, when every passion was in ebullition, and revolutionary ideas turned every head, it appeared so strange to see a man walking about continually with an unconcerned air, carelessly looking about him with a smile on his lips, and his hands in his pockets, without regret for yesterday or care for tomorrow, that this man justly passed for a kind of phenomenon. Everyone envied him, and felt constrained to love him, by reason even of his placid indifference. He alone, perhaps, did not perceive the effect produced by his presence, when he rambled about the square or the most populous streets of the town; and he continued his promenade without even considering that he was for those whose path he crossed a walking enigma, of which they vainly sought the key. Some even, quite astounded by this magnificent indifference, which they could not comprehend, went so far as to believe that if he were not completely mad, at least he had some tendencies that way.