The Hurlyburly's Husband by Jean Teulé Page B

She was here, supple and refreshing; the dreams she offered him were boundless. He became a saint, it seemed. A prayer was chanted in a voice so hushed it could have been mistaken for a flight of angels. Then … Hush your murmuring, Morality, you could not control their intimate bond.

14.
    ‘In my father’s garden the lilacs are in bloom
    In my father’s garden the lilacs are in bloom
    And all the birds in all the world come here to make their nest

    My little blonde lassie
    Let me sleep beside you now
    My little blonde lassie
    Sleep beside me now

    All the birds in all the world come here to make their nest
    All the birds in all the world come here to make their nest
    Quails and turtledoves and pretty partridges too’

    On the great royal highway leading to Bordeaux, a uniformed miquelet, on foot at the head of the column, was singing at the top of his lungs, bellowing the couplets of a song that the other soldiers would soon drum out with their heels behind him, as they picked up the refrain:

    ‘My little blonde lassie
    Let me sleep beside you now
    My little blonde lassie
    Sleep beside me now’

    This miquelet, a Sergeant Cartet by name, was a thick brutish fellow, fond of his blade. He wore his moustache as if it were the hilt of a dagger, curled back with a curling iron, and he sang, his mouth open wide on his black, crumbling teeth;

    ‘Quails and turtledoves and pretty partridges too
    Quails and turtledoves and pretty partridges too
    And my lovely dove who sings both day and night
    My little blonde lassie
    Let me sleep beside you now
    My little blonde lassie
    Sleep beside me now’

    They sang the refrain in a chorus, and all the accents of France were to be heard, for the enlisted men came from many parts of the realm. They followed Cartet, who was marching them to Catalonia, and they listened as he belted out:

    ‘And my pretty dove who sings both day and night
    And my pretty dove who sings both day and night
    Who sings for all the girls who have not found a mate
    My little blonde lassie
    Let me sleep beside beside you now
    My little blonde lassie
    Sleep beside me now
    Who sings for all the girls who have not found a mate
    Who sings for all the girls who have not found a mate
    She does not sing for me, for I’ve a lovely one’

    Montespan, on horseback, smiled when he came upon the sergeant with the fearsome moustache singing of a lovely mate.

    ‘My little blonde lassie
    Let me sleep beside you now
    My little blonde lassie
    Sleep beside me now
    She does not sing for me, for I’ve a lovely one
    She does not sing for me, for I’ve a lovely one
    Tell us then, my lovely, where’s your husband dear?’

    Louis-Henri looked away and thought of Athénaïs: before he had left Paris, he had signed a ‘general power of attorney granting the right to govern all their common property during his absence’, for he trusted her wholly and entirely.

    ‘My little blonde lassie
    Let me sleep beside you now
    My little blonde lassie
    Sleep beside me now
    Tell us then, my lovely, where’s your husband dear?
    Tell us then, my lovely, where’s your husband dear?
    He’s gone off to Holland, the Dutch have kept him there’

    The marquis found himself humming along.

    ‘My little blonde lassie
    Let me sleep beside you now
    My little blonde lassie
    Sleep beside me now’

    The loving husband rode alongside the convoy, a pale, handsome cavalryman beneath the banner of the Duc de Noailles. In his saddle holsters he had slipped his fair lady’s stockings. Sometimes he lifted them out to sniff them.
    The road climbed up the first hills. They went past meadows into a silent village, where not a cockerel or an anvil was to be heard; the inhabitants had bolted themselves indoors. Not a cloud, not a breath of air, nothing was stirring. Wasps flew here and there, black and yellow.
    The journey was long and so was their marching song – fortunately, for it passed the time. They had left at the end of January and would not reach