Gabriel Chevallier: The general’s fatal domestic campaign

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Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts

French writers on war and peace

Gabriel Chevallier: Selections on war

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Gabriel Chevallier
The Euffe Inheritance
Translated by Jocelyn Godefroi

The general’s widow was reputed to be an unusually capable woman with an exceptionally good head on her shoulders, though it was not with her head only that she had fought the battle of life, in which by means of four consecutive husbands she has achieved no little success: there were the late M. Prunavent, chemist; the late M. Mathias, barrister; the late M. Larbois, manufacturer; and lastly, the general himself.

Forty years earlier the intrepid Natalie had plunged into marriage in the spirit of a suffragette; and her numerous unions had left her with such a terrible hatred of men that it seemed that the only object of her multiplicity of marriages could have been to take reprisals. It was at the age of forty-seven, when she was already well provided for, that she marked down the general, a feeble man outside his military duties and a perfect coward in face of love. It was, however, regarded as a rash undertaking on the part of this slayer of husbands, for it is well known that generals, hardened by healthy open-air life, live to a great age, aside from accidents, which are rare and unlikely to occur….After continually storming at him as though he were a second lieutenant, to such an extent that the wretched man had often hoped for a European conflagration in order to get a little enjoyment and peace, she killed off her general as she had the others.

On the death of her soldier, Natalie, who was then fifty-seven, remained the “general’s wife,” an entirely suitable designation, and strongly upheld her position.

“…Now when the general was alive…oh, the poor man didn’t know much outside his reviews and parade grounds….but he was interested in military painting on account of the uniforms. In my drawing room we had two Detailles, battle-scenes or something like that: you knew what it was meant to be….”

“…As the general used to say…oh, he didn’t do much thinking, poor man, but he reduced everything to a simple system. ‘I start by telling ’em to go to blazes. Then one can think it over afterwards,” he used to say. And afterwards the thing was settled. My word! – if I’d listened to the reasons of my four rascals….”

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“Oh,” said the general’s wife “…In four marriages I’ve had nothing but softies hanging round me!”

“What!” Edmond said. “There was the general.”

“Oh, my poor friend. That thunderbolt of war was a man who at home loved his fireside and slippers and couldn’t say boo to a goose. He was afraid of another general who had a tiny bit more on his sleeve. Oh, I’ve had more than enough of the Army! I am very sorry indeed that the flying man arrived too late for women of my generation. I should have liked to sample…”

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…the widow of the General de Saint-Foy, a sort of cuirassier in corsets, as formidably corpulent as ever, as fully prepared to lead troops of maidens to assaults on the god of love, and whose activities were resembling those cavalry charges at the period of our fourteenth of July, when a military display is at the height of its glory….

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“I have seen generals at close quarters – having married one. If they are all of the same stamp as my old man, I can tell you straightway that it’s all up with us….”