Synopsis of the Novel's Plot and Characters for Tom Burke's Adventures in France: Instalments Eleven through Seventeen (September 1843 through June 1844)

September 1843 through June 1844: Instalments Eleven through Seventeen (Chapters XLIII-LXXII)

Thus, Tom Burke of "Ours" (Major Bubbleton's term for him when he is recuperating in the Dublin barracks) in short order becomes an officer cadet in the Paris military polytechnique that had been Charles De Meudon's old school, and then an officer in the Hussars unit despatched to protect Madame Bonaparte and her entourage at the Trianon Palace in Versailles. Much of this third major movement of the novel focusses on Tom's infatuation with De Meudon's sister, dubbed "The Rose of Provence." His infatuation with her, even after she has married Tom's old mentor at the Polytechnique, General Auvergne, vies with Minette's infatuation with Tom (despite the aged Pioche's devotion to her) as the historical novel's chief romantic strain. Lever does not resolve these competing plot gambits until the final serial number.

Eleventh Instalment, December 1843: Chapters XLIII-XLIX

Next, we have passed through a momentous period in the history of France, from the year before First Consul Bonaparte becomes Napoleon, Emperor of the French, to the victory of his Grand Armee over the combined forces of Austria and Russia at the Battle of the Three Emperors (Austerlitz) in the early morning hours of 2 December 1805 (11 Frimaire An XIV FRC). After foolishly getting caught up with the Chouans or counter-revolutionaries led by the stalwart Red Beard in order to warn Henri de Beauvaise of his impending apprehension, Tom survives months as a political prisoner in The Temple. Providentially, he has been rescued by one of his old masters at the Polytechnique, General Auvergne, and returned to active service with the Hussars. He has met a delightful old soldier, the tall grenadier Big Pioche, in the gardens of the Tuileries, and become an intimate friend of Pioche's romantic interest, the vivandière of the Fourth, Mademoiselle Minette.

Somewhat recovered from the deep sword-thrust he received in a duel a month ago, Tom sets out from the mountain-top village of Elchingen, overlooking the Danube, without the kindly vivandière of the Fourth, Mademoiselle Minette, who has left hours earlier with the cuirassiers. Although, technically, Tom is still on sick-leave, as the title of the second volume's second chapter proclaims, he has just received new orders to conduct a party of forty invalides from various regiments to Lintz, following La Grande Armée into the heart of the Austrian Empire on the charger of an Austrian officer taken prisoner. Quickly and by subterfuge, the daring Murat takes the bridge across the Danube and takes control of Vienna. In the next phase of the campaign, Tom finds himself in command of intelligence communications between the front battery of artillery near the Russian lines and Napoleon's quartier général. As the dark Russian columns advance shortly after midnight, Tom is intoxicated with the prospect of battle around the frozen lakes near the village of Austerlitz.

Twelfth & Thirteenth Instalments, January/February 1844 Chapters L-LVII.

Phiz's paired illustrations of Tom's awaiting the attack and his defending himself: Left: The Locomotive Chair; centre: The Scrimmage in Chapter LI, "The Mill on the Hollitsch Road" (January 1844); and right: Mademoiselle de Lacostellerie in Chapter LV, ""The 'Hộtel de Clichy'" (February 1844).

After Napoleon's stunning victory over Russian and Austrian forces in early December, 1805, at Austerlitz, January 1844 General Auvergne posts Tom at the old, deserted mill on the Holistsch Road to await despatches between Napoleon and the Austrian Emperor, whose hunting lodge, the Château de Holitsch, is some six leagues away. Tom through strategy and force overcomes an overnight attempt on his life there, only to discover that his "Austrian" assailant is in fact Henri de Beauvaise, much in need of medical attention. The timely arrival of an Austrian messenger allows Tom to depart at dawn on his mission to the Emperor Francis. Pleased that Tom's diligence has resulted in the negotiation of an armistice, Napoleon promotes Tom to the rank of Capitaine. However, rather than take a posting with Murat's suite, Tom elects to remain with Auvergne when he returns to Paris in triumph as a member of the Compagnie d'Elite, the officers empowered to carry to the French Senate the spoils of victory, the forty-five battle standards just captured. Thus, in early 1806 Captain Burke enters the highest levels of Parisian society, attending numerous exclusive society functions such as the opera, ballet, and ministerial dinners at the Luxembourg Palace, where he and his fellow members of the d'Elite are being sumptuously housed.

Of special concern, however, is the personal mission with which General Auverge entrusts Tom: delivering a personal letter to his young wife, with whom Tom remains infatuated, “À Madame la Comtesse d'Auvergne, née Comtesse de Meudon, dame d'honneur de S. M. l'Impératrice” ("The Compagnie D'Elite'," 70). His fellow officers, particularly those in the infantry, are jealous of Tom's distinction, but, aware of his having "pinked" the Master of Arms, are disinclined to pursue the point. When he arrives in Paris in early 1806 with his fellow members of the Compagnie d'Elite, Tom finds that the government has accommodated him in the Luxembourg Palace, with entertainment "on the most liberal scale" (73), including gourmet meals to which ministers are invited, grand equipages, and gorgeous saddle horses. Meantime, Napoleon has dispatched sixteen thousand Russian prisoners-of-war to France, accompanied by two thousand appropriated Austrian cannon. Such a social event to which Captain Burke is regularly invited is Madame Lascotellerie's soirée at the Hộtel de Clichy. Stuck in Paris, Tom cannot venture out of the city for Versailles, and so must merely forward the General's letter to the "Comtesse de Meudon" in the Empress's suite.

In the final part of the instalment for August 1843, Lever reveals Tom's shifting attitudes towards Napoleon. The Emperor, flushed from his victory at Austerlitz, has arranged the gorgeous military review to coincide with the return of the maimed and wounded from the field of Austerlitz, so that the adoring crowds at the ordre du jour from the Tuileries to the Barrière de l'Etoile along the Champs Elysées will cry Vive l'Empereur! as they enjoy the military spectacle and thundering cannon of the Invalides, and fail to consider the human costs of such a victory.

Tom's new best friend, the aristocratic Chevalier Duchesne, has gradually stripped Tom of his illusions about Napoleon, as he gazes at the crowd that fill the courtyard of the Tuileries Palace. All ten thousand spectators adoringly cheer the martial figure on the white horse, the Emperor inspects the cavalry formed into squadrons while the waggon-loads of wounded appear to the jubilant shouting of their active-duty comrades and the old Republican generals. The sad train move off as the cuirassiers of the Guard enter, with Pioche on the driving-seat of a great gun. As a favour to the old corporal, Napoleon, laughing in the text but serious in the illustration, now promotes the regimental vivandière with the cross of the legion for her valiant service on three battlefields.

Fourteenth & Fifteenth Instalments, March/April 1844: Chapters LVIII-LXVII.

With overtures for peace between the new Whig administration under Charles James Foxe, Paris becomes almost seized by an enthusiasm for all things English. Consequently, although Tom's friend Duchesne has departed in disgrace to see relatives in the south of France, Tom is not alone for long. Who should arrive at a soiree given by the Countess Lacostellerie at the Hộtel Clichy than his old friend Captain Bubbleton, still technically a prisoner of war, but as a self-styled "Lieutenant-General" a welcome guest in the best houses of the Faubourg, although resident with his sister in a meanly furnished fourth-floor walkup at Rue Neuve des Capucines, No. 46. Although Bubbleton complains of being the object of police surveillance, his real concern is not receiving royalties from his British investments, such as the tin mine in Cornwall and the West Indian plantation. Anna Maria, his curmudgeon sister, explains that her brother has had to sell off his commission in the Forty-fifth and flee abroad as a result of financial insolvency occasioned by intemperate gambling. As it turns out, he and Maria have just be consigned to Paris on suspicion they are English spies. And, after just two days, the neighbours mistake them for police spies.

From Bubbleton Tom receives the news from Ireland. Although several rebels have been hanged on the false presumption that they were the nationalist piper, so far Darby the Blast has escaped the noose. Barton had obtained a warrant for Tom’s arrest on the morning he left Ireland, with a reward of five hundred pounds offered for Tom’s apprehension. Barton now avoids going out at night for fear that Darby will settle the score. Tom still speaks in nationalist cant: “Is the Saxon the hereditary lord, and the Celt the slave, still?” (134). Bubbleton enables Tom to adjust his thinking, and realize, too, that the French have become addicted to imperial victories over their hapless neighbours. “Glory alone could satisfy a nation drunk with victory” (133) in September, 1806.

And now Duchesne returns from this south of France with his aristocratic aunt, the Duchesse de Montserrat, in tow to assist him in winning the hand of the millionairess Mademoiselle Lacostellerie. The young heiress's reservations about Duchesne prompt her to seek a private interview at the Hộtel Clichy with Tom to discover something of her suitor's true character and political connections. The suitor in question interrupts their private conversation, leading Tom to expect that Duchesne will shortly challenge him to a duel. Instead, however, an officer of the General Staff delivers marching orders to Captain Burke, who is to inspect various detachments along the way, and take command of a regiment at Mayence by Wednesday. Peace negotiations with Great Britain have fallen through, and the elite forces of Prussia, now France's chief enemy, are on the move in the autumn of 1806. Tom is relieved that he will no longer be falling prey to apprehensions about the intrigues of the capital and the machinations of his quondam friend Duchesne as he travels rapidly in an officer's calèche to his command under General Auvergne in what is now the German state of Saxony at the beginning of September.

After chapters of interpolated tales and social maneuverings readers welcome Tom's return to scenes of combat. In this latest campaign, Tom risks his life to preserve that of the Emperor, and the French decisively defeat the Prussians at Jena and Auerstadt. Tom encounters artillery bogged down upon a side-road in the darkness, and is startled to discover Napoleon himself: "the short, square figure of a man in a great-coat, holding a heavy whip in his hand" ("The Summit of the Landgrafenberg," 165). This, then, is the nocturnal scene at the end of the instalment where Tom intervenes to save the Emperor from his own sentries. In the process, Tom's horse is suddenly shot out from under him, and Tom himself takes a bullet in the shoulder as he cries, “The Emperor — the Emperor!” An old veteran congratulates Tom on his providential intervention, assuring the young Captain, "you'll be a colonel for that scratch on your epaulette, if we only beat the Prussians to-morrow" (168).

Sixteenth through Eighteenth Instalments, May/July 1844: Chapters LXX-LXXVII

In Chapter LXX, "Berlin after Jena," Tom is nominated by the Emperor to the Legion of Honour for his courage on 13th October 1806, the night before Jena. And then the bottom drops out of his career as an intercepted letter from Duchesne seems to implicate him at the very least in disrespecting the Emperor, if not being a member of the counter-revolutionaries who regularly meet at the Moisson d'Or restaurant (where Tom dined once with Duchesne) and the soirées of a known Bourbonist, the Duchess of Montserrat, Duchesne's aunt. When his interrogator, Marshal Berthier, of the bureau of the adjutant-general, impunes his loyalty and withdraws his nomination for the cross of the Legion, Tom defends himself as best he can, asserting that he has parted with Duchesne and has not maintained a correspondence with him. Furious that the Marshal has reprimanded him for associating with "the dupes and double-dealers of the Faubourg St. Germain" (202), Tom rashly resigns his commission in the Eighth Hussars, and hands the Marshall his sabre. Accordingly, Tom is ordered to leave Berlin, the headquarters of the army of Prussian occupation, within twenty-four hours, and return to Paris. He has no notion whatsoever as to what he will do when he arrives there.

In Chapter LXXIV, "My Namesake," Tom has arrived in Paris, and is living at a comfortable pension in a run-down neighbourhood of Paris. He had failed to obtain official permission to stay with the ailing Père Arsènee in the Westphalian village of Heimbach. Here, in Chapter LXXII, "A Chance Meeting" in the June 1844 instalment, Tom had unexpectedly encountered Minette, who fled when she recognized him as the priest's companion at the summerhouse of the inn. Quite by chance at the office of the Minister of Police, where he presented his passport, the proprietor of the Pension Bourgeoise, Rue de Mi-Carême, Boulevard Mont Parnasse, No. 46, had invited Tom to become one of his guests, despite the fact that Tom alone among them is neither a royalist nor "somewhat advanced in life" (231).

The namesake of the chapter title is apparently a distant relative of Tom’s, Le Général Count Burke, a devout royalist, and a thorough Frenchman, despite the Irish surname. When he mentions that he is attempting to smuggle a Catholic priest into Ireland, Tom leaps at the opportunity to return, albeit disguised as the priest’s servant. Général Burke assures Tom of a suitable passport that will enable him to travel to the Channel coast, where he will rendezvous with the AbbGé Gernon and travel with him in his assumed character to Falaise in Normandy. The journey begins on the morrow, which will take us into the July 1844 instalment, Chapter LXXV, “An Old Sailor of ‘The Empire’.” In the transitional chapter, LXXVI, "The 'Falaise de Biville'," the Abbé finds the prospect of the Norman cliffs too daunting, and Tom is surprised to discover that it is his old friend De Beauvaise who is arranging his being smuggled out of France by a cutter. The perilous escape involves the impossible descent to the shore down on three-hundred-foot cliff via a smuggler's rope:

I stood upon a broad fiat rock, over which white sheets of foam were dashing. Oh, how I loved to see them curling on my feet! I could have kissed the bright water on which the moonbeams sported, for the moment of danger was passed; the shadow of a dreadful death had moved from my soul. What cared I now for the boiling surf that toiled and fretted about me? The dangers of the deep were as nothing to that I escaped from; and when the cutter's boat came bounding towards me, I minded not the oft-repeated warnings of the sailors, but plunging in, I dashed towards her on a retreating wave, and was dragged on board almost lifeless from my struggles.

The red glare of the signal-fire was blazing from the old tower as we got under weigh. I felt my eyes riveted on it as I lay on the deck of the little vessel, which now stood out to sea in gallant style. It was my last look of France, and so I felt it. [Chapter LXXVII, "The 'Falaise de Beville'," pp. 261-262; originally in the July 1844 or eighteenth instalment]

Further Information

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Bibliography

Lever, Charles. Tom Burke of "Ours." Dublin: William Curry, Jun., 1844. Illustrated by H. K. Browne. Rpt. London: Chapman and Hall, 1865. Serialised February 1843 through September 1844 in twenty parts. 2 vols.

Lever, Charles. Tom Burke of "Ours." Illustrated by Phiz [Hablột Knight Browne]. Novels and Romances of Charles Lever. Vols. I and II. In two volumes. Dublin: William Curry, 1844, and London: Chapman and Hall, 1865, Rpt. Boston: Little, Brown, 1907. Project Gutenberg. Last Updated: 27 February 2018.

Stevenson, Lionel. Dr. Quicksilver: The Life of Charles Lever. London: Chapman and Hall, 1939.

Sutherland, John. "Tom Burke of "Ours"." The Stanford Companion to Victorian Fiction. Stanford, Cal.: Stanford U. P., 1989. P. 632.

Created 1 November 2023

Last updated 6 December 2023

Synopsis of the Novel's Plot and Characters for Tom Burke's Adventures in France in Lever's Tom Burke of "Ours" (September 1843 through June 1844)