Barlasch of the Guard

Barlasch of the Guard by Henry Seton Merriman

Barlasch of the Guard opens in Danzig in 1812 on the wedding day of Désirée Sebastian, younger daughter of the proud, secretive dancing-master Antoine Sebastian, to Charles Darragon, a cheerful young French lieutenant. As the wedding party leaves the Marienkirche, Napoleon's travelling carriage passes through the city on its way toward the Russian frontier, casting a shadow over the celebration; Sebastian reacts with unexplained dread, and Charles is almost immediately summoned away on an urgent mission, leaving the marriage unconsummated by any honeymoon. A veteran soldier of the Old Guard, Papa Barlasch, arrives to be billeted in the Sebastian household and quickly becomes a gruff, loyal fixture there. At the wedding Charles's English cousin, Louis d'Arragon, an English sailor secretly running communications between England and Russia, is introduced to the family and is clearly uneasy about the marriage, though he says little. Charles proves to be a popular, open-hearted but shallow officer who had courted both Sebastian daughters before settling on Désirée. He is dispatched to Königsberg, and it emerges that he has been secretly acting as one of Napoleon's intelligence agents, reporting on suspected conspirators — chiefly identifying Antoine Sebastian himself as the dangerous center of patriotic resistance in Danzig, through unsigned letters to a contact "C." (revealed later as Colonel de Casimir). Meanwhile de Casimir, an ambitious, calculating Polish officer, courts Mathilde Sebastian, offering her a share in his hoped-for rise to wealth and power while using her, knowingly or not, as a source of information about her father's activities; she ultimately gives herself to him, won over partly by evidence of his standing with Napoleon and by diamonds he gives her. When Sebastian is targeted for arrest, Désirée turns to Barlasch and then to Louis d'Arragon, who smuggles her father out of Danzig by ship to Sweden. The secret police search the house but are thwarted by Barlasch's ruse. Napoleon's army marches on into Russia; Barlasch departs for the front, and the narrative follows Charles into the campaign — the advance to Moscow, the eerie abandonment and burning of the city, an incident in which Barlasch, looting with Charles and de Casimir, witnesses de Casimir shoot a Russian looter. Charles writes passionate but increasingly compromising letters to Désirée, and after Borodino a packet of his papers — including the incriminating unsigned espionage letters identifying Sebastian — is mistakenly forwarded to Désirée herself, revealing her husband's betrayal of her father. Louis d'Arragon, arriving with news of the battle, learns the truth with her, and the two agree to conceal it from Mathilde and Sebastian, who has since returned to Danzig believing himself safe once Napoleon's attention moved on. The catastrophic French retreat from Moscow follows, rendered through the starvation, burning hospital, abandoned guns, and collapse of discipline, with Barlasch making his own harrowing six-week escape on foot back to Danzig, arriving starving but bringing Désirée a looted icon and news that Charles was last seen alive and unhurt on the staff. As Napoleon abandons his ruined army to race back to Paris, Barlasch urges action, and Désirée sends him to arrange a secret meeting with Louis d'Arragon, who has three months' leave and agrees to go find Charles himself, with Barlasch accompanying him for pay. Désirée commits herself to waiting in Danzig while they search, torn by her growing awareness that she is drawn more deeply to Louis than she admits. As the narrative continues, Danzig prepares for a siege as General Rapp returns to hold the city against the advancing Russians and Prussians, with Désirée and Mathilde anxiously awaiting word of Charles and de Casimir amid the city's uneasy celebration of the garrison's return.

By Henry Seton Merriman · First published 1904 · Genre: Historical Fiction, Political Thriller, Romance · 30 chapters · 89,522 words

First lines

And they that have not heard shall understand

Il faut devoir lever les yeux pour regarder ce qu'on aime.

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Danzig · Russia · 1812 · Napoleonic Wars · Napoleon · French military · war · historical fiction · romance · wedding · marriage · espionage

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