III.


Maurice was greatly surprised when the 106th, leaving the cars at
Rheims, received orders to go into camp there. So they were not to go
to Chalons, then, and unite with the army there? And when, two hours
later, his regiment had stacked muskets a league or so from the city
over in the direction of Courcelles, in the broad plain that lies
along the canal between the Aisne and Marne, his astonishment was
greater still to learn that the entire army of Chalons had been
falling back all that morning and was about to bivouac at that place.
From one extremity of the horizon to the other, as far as Saint
Thierry and Menvillette, even beyond the Laon road, the tents were
going up, and when it should be night the fires of four army-corps
would be blazing there. It was evident that the plan now was to go and
take a position under the walls of Paris and there await the
Prussians; and it was fortunate that that plan had received the
approbation of the government, for was it not the wisest thing they
could do?

Maurice devoted the afternoon of the 21st to strolling about the camp
in search of news. The greatest freedom prevailed; discipline appeared
to have been relaxed still further, the men went and came at their own
sweet will. He found no obstacle in the way of his return to the city,
where he desired to cash a money-order for a hundred francs that his
sister Henriette had sent him. While in a cafe he heard a sergeant
telling of the disaffection that existed in the eighteen battalions of
the garde mobile of the Seine, which had just been sent back to Paris;
the 6th battalion had been near killing their officers. Not a day
passed at the camp that the generals were not insulted, and since
Froeschwiller the soldiers had ceased to give Marshal MacMahon the
military salute. The cafe resounded with the sound of voices in
excited conversation; a violent dispute arose between two sedate
burghers in respect to the number of men that MacMahon would have at
his disposal. One of them made the wild assertion that there would be
three hundred thousand; the other, who seemed to be more at home upon
the subject, stated the strength of the four corps: the 12th, which
had just been made complete at the camp with great difficulty with the
assistance of provisional regiments and a division of infanterie de
marine; the 1st, which had been coming straggling in in fragments ever
since the 14th of the month and of which they were doing what they
could to perfect the organization; the 5th, defeated before it had
ever fought a battle, swept away and broken up in the general panic,
and finally, the 7th, then landing from the cars, demoralized like all
the rest and minus its 1st division, of which it had just recovered
the remains at Rheims; in all, one hundred and twenty thousand at the
outside, including the cavalry, Bonnemain's and Margueritte's
divisions. When the sergeant took a hand in the quarrel, however,
speaking of the army in terms of the utmost contempt, characterizing
it as a ruffianly rabble, with no _esprit de corps_, with nothing to
keep it together,--a pack of greenhorns with idiots to conduct them,
to the slaughter,--the two bourgeois began to be uneasy, and fearing
there might be trouble brewing, made themselves scarce.

When outside upon the street Maurice hailed a newsboy and purchased a
copy of every paper he could lay hands on, stuffing some in his
pockets and reading others as he walked along under the stately trees
that line the pleasant avenues of the old city. Where could the German
armies be? It seemed as if obscurity had suddenly swallowed them up.
Two were over Metz way, of course: the first, the one commanded by
General von Steinmetz, observing the place; the second, that of Prince
Frederick Charles, aiming to ascend the right bank of the Moselle in
order to cut Bazaine off from Paris. But the third army, that of the
Crown Prince of Prussia, the army that had been victorious at
Wissembourg and Froeschwiller and had driven our 1st and 5th corps,
where was it now, where was it to be located amid the tangled mess of
contradictory advices? Was it still in camp at Nancy, or was it true
that it had arrived before Chalons, and was that the reason why we had
abandoned our camp there in such hot haste, burning our stores,
clothing, forage, provisions, everything--property of which the value
to the nation was beyond compute? And when the different plans with
which our generals were credited came to be taken into consideration,
then there was more confusion, a fresh set of contradictory hypotheses
to be encountered. Maurice had until now been cut off in a measure
from the outside world, and now for the first time learned what had
been the course of events in Paris; the blasting effect of defeat upon
a populace that had been confident of victory, the terrible commotions
in the streets, the convoking of the Chambers, the fall of the liberal
ministry that had effected the plebiscite, the abrogation of the
Emperor's rank as General of the Army and the transfer of the supreme
command to Marshal Bazaine. The Emperor had been present at the camp
of Chalons since the 16th, and all the newspapers were filled with a
grand council that had been held on the 17th, at which Prince Napoleon
and some of the generals were present, but none of them were agreed
upon the decisions that had been arrived at outside of the resultant
facts, which were that General Trochu had been appointed governor of
Paris and Marshal MacMahon given the command of the army of Chalons,
and the inference from this was that the Emperor was to be shorn of
all his authority. Consternation, irresolution, conflicting plans that
were laid aside and replaced by fresh ones hour by hour; these were
the things that everybody felt were in the air. And ever and always
the question: Where were the German armies? Who were in the right,
those who asserted that Bazaine had no force worth mentioning in front
of him and was free to make his retreat through the towns of the north
whenever he chose to do so, or those who declared that he was already
besieged in Metz? There was a constantly recurring rumor of a series
of engagements that had raged during an entire week, from the 14th
until the 20th, but it failed to receive confirmation.

Maurice's legs ached with fatigue; he went and sat down upon a bench.
Around him the life of the city seemed to be going on as usual; there
were nursemaids seated in the shade of the handsome trees watching the
sports of their little charges, small property owners strolled
leisurely about the walks enjoying their daily constitutional. He had
taken up his papers again, when his eyes lighted on an article that
had escaped his notice, the "leader" in a rabid republican sheet; then
everything was made clear to him. The paper stated that at the council
of the 17th at the camp of Chalons the retreat of the army on Paris
had been fully decided on, and that General Trochu's appointment to
the command of the city had no other object than to facilitate the
Emperor's return; but those resolutions, the journal went on to say,
were rendered unavailing by the attitude of the Empress-regent and the
new ministry. It was the Empress's opinion that the Emperor's return
would certainly produce a revolution; she was reported to have said:
"He will never reach the Tuileries alive." Starting with these
premises she insisted with the utmost urgency that the army should
advance, at every risk, whatever might be the cost of human life, and
effect a junction with the army of Metz, in which course she was
supported moreover by General de Palikao, the Minister of War, who had
a plan of his own for reaching Bazaine by a rapid and victorious
march. And Maurice, letting his paper fall from his hand, his eyes
bent on space, believed that he now had the key to the entire mystery;
the two conflicting plans, MacMahon's hesitation to undertake that
dangerous flank movement with the unreliable army at his command, the
impatient orders that came to him from Paris, each more tart and
imperative than its predecessor, urging him on to that mad, desperate
enterprise. Then, as the central figure in that tragic conflict, the
vision of the Emperor suddenly rose distinctly before his inner eyes,
deprived of his imperial authority, which he had committed to the
hands of the Empress-regent, stripped of his military command, which
he had conferred on Marshal Bazaine; a nullity, the vague and
unsubstantial shadow of an emperor, a nameless, cumbersome nonentity
whom no one knew what to do with, whom Paris rejected and who had
ceased to have a position in the army, for he had pledged himself to
issue no further orders.

The next morning, however, after a rainy night through which he slept
outside his tent on the bare ground, wrapped in his rubber blanket,
Maurice was cheered by the tidings that the retreat on Paris had
finally carried the day. Another council had been held during the
night, it was said, at which M. Rouher, the former vice-Emperor, had
been present; he had been sent by the Empress to accelerate the
movement toward Verdun, and it would seem that the marshal had
succeeded in convincing him of the rashness of such an undertaking.
Were there unfavorable tidings from Bazaine? no one could say for
certain. But the absence of news was itself a circumstance of evil
omen, and all among the most influential of the generals had cast
their vote for the march on Paris, for which they would be the
relieving army. And Maurice, happy in the conviction that the
retrograde movement would commence not later than the morrow, since
the orders for it were said to be already issued, thought he would
gratify a boyish longing that had been troubling him for some time
past, to give the go-by for one day to soldier's fare, to wit and eat
his breakfast off a cloth, with the accompaniment of plate, knife and
fork, carafe, and a bottle of good wine, things of which it seemed to
him that he had been deprived for months and months. He had money in
his pocket, so off he started with quickened pulse, as if going out
for a lark, to search for a place of entertainment.

It was just at the entrance of the village of Courcelles, across the
canal, that he found the breakfast for which his mouth was watering.
He had been told the day before that the Emperor had taken up his
quarters in one of the houses of the village, and having gone to
stroll there out of curiosity, now remembered to have seen at the
junction of the two roads this little inn with its arbor, the
trellises of which were loaded with big clusters of ripe, golden,
luscious grapes. There was an array of green-painted tables set out in
the shade of the luxuriant vine, while through the open door of the
vast kitchen he had caught glimpses of the antique clock, the colored
prints pasted on the walls, and the comfortable landlady watching the
revolving spit. It was cheerful, smiling, hospitable; a regular type
of the good old-fashioned French hostelry.

A pretty, white-necked waitress came up and asked him with a great
display of flashing teeth:

"Will monsieur have breakfast?"

"Of course I will! Give me some eggs, a cutlet, and cheese. And a
bottle of white wine!"

She turned to go; he called her back. "Tell me, is it not in one of
those houses that the Emperor has his quarters?"

"There, monsieur, in that one right before you. Only you can't see it,
for it is concealed by the high wall with the overhanging trees."

He loosed his belt so as to be more at ease in his capote, and
entering the arbor, chose his table, on which the sunlight, finding
its way here and there through the green canopy above, danced in
little golden spangles. And constantly his thoughts kept returning to
that high wall behind which was the Emperor. A most mysterious house
it was, indeed, shrinking from the public gaze, even its slated roof
invisible. Its entrance was on the other side, upon the village
street, a narrow winding street between dead-walls, without a shop,
without even a window to enliven it. The small garden in the rear,
among the sparse dwellings that environed it, was like an island of
dense verdure. And across the road he noticed a spacious courtyard,
surrounded by sheds and stables, crowded with a countless train of
carriages and baggage-wagons, among which men and horses, coming and
going, kept up an unceasing bustle.

"Are those all for the service of the Emperor?" he inquired, meaning
to say something humorous to the girl, who was laying a snow-white
cloth upon the table.

"Yes, for the Emperor himself, and no one else!" she pleasantly
replied, glad of a chance to show her white teeth once more; and then
she went on to enumerate the suite from information that she had
probably received from the stablemen, who had been coming to the inn
to drink since the preceding day; there were the staff, comprising
twenty-five officers, the sixty cent-gardes and the half-troop of
guides for escort duty, the six gendarmes of the provost-guard; then
the household, seventy-three persons in all, chamberlains, attendants
for the table and the bedroom, cooks and scullions; then four
saddle-horses and two carriages for the Emperor's personal use, ten
horses for the equerries, eight for the grooms and outriders, not
mentioning forty-seven post-horses; then a _char a banc_ and twelve
baggage wagons, two of which, appropriated to the cooks, had
particularly excited her admiration by reason of the number and
variety of the utensils they contained, all in the most splendid
order.

"Oh, sir, you never saw such stew-pans! they shone like silver. And
all sorts of dishes, and jars and jugs, and lots of things of which it
would puzzle me to tell the use! And a cellar of wine, claret,
burgundy, and champagne--yes! enough to supply a wedding feast."

The unusual luxury of the snowy table-cloth and the white wine
sparkling in his glass sharpened Maurice's appetite; he devoured his
two poached eggs with a zest that made him fear he was developing
epicurean tastes. When he turned to the left and looked out through
the entrance of the leafy arbor he had before him the spacious plain,
covered with long rows of tents: a busy, populous city that had risen
like an exhalation from the stubble-fields between Rheims city and the
canal. A few clumps of stunted trees, three wind-mills lifting their
skeleton arms in the air, were all there was to relieve the monotony
of the gray waste, but above the huddled roofs of Rheims, lost in the
sea of foliage of the tall chestnut-trees, the huge bulk of the
cathedral with its slender spires was profiled against the blue sky,
looming colossal, notwithstanding the distance, beside the modest
houses. Memories of school and boyhood's days came over him, the tasks
he had learned and recited: all about the _sacre_ of our kings, the
_sainte ampoule_, Clovis, Jeanne d'Arc, all the long list of glories
of old France.

Then Maurice's thoughts reverted again to that unassuming bourgeoise
house, so mysterious in its solitude, and its imperial occupant; and
directing his eyes upon the high, yellow wall he was surprised to
read, scrawled there in great, awkward letters, the legend: _Vive
Napoleon!_ among the meaningless obscenities traced by schoolboys.
Winter's storms and summer's sun had half effaced the lettering;
evidently the inscription was very ancient. How strange, to see upon
that wall that old heroic battle-cry, which probably had been placed
there in honor of the uncle, not of the nephew! It brought all his
childhood back to him, and Maurice was again a boy, scarcely out of
his mother's arms, down there in distant Chene-Populeux, listening to
the stories of his grandfather, a veteran of the Grand Army. His
mother was dead, his father, in the inglorious days that followed the
collapse of the empire, had been compelled to accept a humble position
as collector, and there the grandfather lived, with nothing to support
him save his scanty pension, in the poor home of the small public
functionary, his sole comfort to fight his battles o'er again for the
benefit of his two little twin grandchildren, the boy and the girl, a
pair of golden-haired youngsters to whom he was in some sense a
mother. He would place Maurice on his right knee and Henriette on his
left, and then for hours on end the narrative would run on in Homeric
strain.

But small attention was paid to dates; his story was of the dire shock
of conflicting nations, and was not to be hampered by the minute
exactitude of the historian. Successively or together English,
Austrians, Prussians, Russians appeared upon the scene, according to
the then prevailing condition of the ever-changing alliances, and it
was not always an easy matter to tell why one nation received a
beating in preference to another, but beaten they all were in the end,
inevitably beaten from the very commencement, in a whirlwind of genius
and heroic daring that swept great armies like chaff from off the
earth. There was Marengo, the classic battle of the plain, with the
consummate generalship of its broad plan and the faultless retreat of
the battalions by squares, silent and impassive under the enemy's
terrible fire; the battle, famous in story, lost at three o'clock and
won at six, where the eight hundred grenadiers of the Consular Guard
withstood the onset of the entire Austrian cavalry, where Desaix
arrived to change impending defeat to glorious victory and die. There
was Austerlitz, with its sun of glory shining forth from amid the
wintry sky, Austerlitz, commencing with the capture of the plateau of
Pratzen and ending with the frightful catastrophe on the frozen lake,
where an entire Russian corps, men, guns, horses, went crashing
through the ice, while Napoleon, who in his divine omniscience had
foreseen it all, of course, directed his artillery to play upon the
struggling mass. There was Jena, where so many of Prussia's bravest
found a grave; at first the red flames of musketry flashing through
the October mists, and Ney's impatience, near spoiling all until
Augereau comes wheeling into line and saves him; the fierce charge
that tore the enemy's center in twain, and finally panic, the headlong
rout of their boasted cavalry, whom our hussars mow down like ripened
grain, strewing the romantic glen with a harvest of men and horses.
And Eylau, cruel Eylau, bloodiest battle of them all, where the maimed
corpses cumbered the earth in piles; Eylau, whose new-fallen snow was
stained with blood, the burial-place of heroes; Eylau, in whose name
reverberates still the thunder of the charge of Murat's eighty
squadrons, piercing the Russian lines in every direction, heaping the
ground so thick with dead that Napoleon himself could not refrain from
tears. Then Friedland, the trap into which the Russians again allowed
themselves to be decoyed like a flock of brainless sparrows, the
masterpiece of the Emperor's consummate strategy; our left held back
as in a leash, motionless, without a sign of life, while Ney was
carrying the city, street by street, and destroying the bridges, then
the left hurled like a thunderbolt on the enemy's right, driving it
into the river and annihilating it in that _cul-de-sac_; the slaughter
so great that at ten o'clock at night the bloody work was not
completed, most wonderful of all the successes of the great imperial
epic. And Wagram, where it was the aim of the Austrians to cut us off
from the Danube; they keep strengthening their left in order to
overwhelm Massena, who is wounded and issues his orders from an open
carriage, and Napoleon, like a malicious Titan, lets them go on
unchecked; then all at once a hundred guns vomit their terrible fire
upon their weakened center, driving it backward more than a league,
and their left, terror-stricken to find itself unsupported, gives way
before the again victorious Massena, sweeping away before it the
remainder of the army, as when a broken dike lets loose its torrents
upon the fields. And finally the Moskowa, where the bright sun of
Austerlitz shone for the last time; where the contending hosts were
mingled in confused _melee_ amid deeds of the most desperate daring:
mamelons carried under an unceasing fire of musketry, redoubts stormed
with the naked steel, every inch of ground fought over again and
again; such determined resistance on the part of the Russian Guards
that our final victory was only assured by Murat's mad charges, the
concentrated fire of our three hundred pieces of artillery, and the
valor of Ney, who was the hero of that most obstinate of conflicts.
And be the battle what it might, ever our flags floated proudly on the
evening air, and as the bivouac fires were lighted on the conquered
field out rang the old battle-cry: _Vive Napoleon!_ France, carrying
her invincible Eagles from end to end of Europe, seemed everywhere at
home, having but to raise her finger to make her will respected by the
nations, mistress of a world that in vain conspired to crush her and
upon which she set her foot.

Maurice was contentedly finishing his cutlet, cheered not so much by
the wine that sparkled in his glass as by the glorious memories that
were teeming in his brain, when his glance encountered two ragged,
dust-stained soldiers, less like soldiers than weary tramps just off
the road; they were asking the attendant for information as to the
position of the regiments that were encamped along the canal. He
hailed them.

"Hallo there, comrades, this way! You are 7th corps men, aren't you?"

"Right you are, sir; 1st division--at least I am, more by token that I
was at Froeschwiller, where it was warm enough, I can tell you. The
comrade, here, belongs in the 1st corps; he was at Wissembourg,
another beastly hole."

They told their story, how they had been swept away in the general
panic, had crawled into a ditch half-dead with fatigue and hunger,
each of them slightly wounded, and since then had been dragging
themselves along in the rear of the army, compelled to lie over in
towns when the fever-fits came on, until at last they had reached the
camp and were on the lookout to find their regiments.

Maurice, who had a piece of Gruyere before him, noticed the hungry
eyes fixed on his plate.

"Hi there, mademoiselle! bring some more cheese, will you--and bread
and wine. You will join me, won't you, comrades? It is my treat.
Here's to your good health!"

They drew their chairs up to the table, only too delighted with the
invitation. Their entertainer watched them as they attacked the food,
and a thrill of pity ran through him as he beheld their sorry plight,
dirty, ragged, arms gone, their sole attire a pair of red trousers and
the capote, kept in place by bits of twine and so patched and pieced
with shreds of vari-colored cloth that one would have taken them for
men who had been looting some battle-field and were wearing the spoil
they had gathered there.

"Ah! _foutre_, yes!" continued the taller of the two as he plied his
jaws, "it was no laughing matter there! You ought to have seen it,
--tell him how it was, Coutard."

And the little man told his story with many gestures, describing
figures on the air with his bread.

"I was washing my shirt, you see, while the rest of them were making
soup. Just try and picture to yourself a miserable hole, a regular
trap, all surrounded by dense woods that gave those Prussian pigs a
chance to crawl up to us before we ever suspected they were there. So,
then, about seven o'clock the shells begin to come tumbling about our
ears. _Nom de Dieu!_ but it was lively work! we jumped for our
shooting-irons, and up to eleven o'clock it looked as if we were going
to polish 'em off in fine style. But you must know that there were
only five thousand of us, and the beggars kept coming, coming as if
there was no end to them. I was posted on a little hill, behind a
bush, and I could see them debouching in front, to right, to left,
like rows of black ants swarming from their hill, and when you thought
there were none left there were always plenty more. There's no use
mincing matters, we all thought that our leaders must be first-class
nincompoops to thrust us into such a hornet's nest, with no support at
hand, and leave us to be crushed there without coming to our
assistance. And then our General, Douay,

poor devil! neither a fool
nor a coward, that man,--a bullet comes along and lays him on his
back. That ended it; no one left to command us! No matter, though, we
kept on fighting all the same; but they were too many for us, we had
to fall back at last. We held the railway station for a long time, and
then we fought behind a wall, and the uproar was enough to wake the
dead. And then, when the city was taken, I don't exactly remember how
it came about, but we were upon a mountain, the Geissberg, I think
they call it, and there we intrenched ourselves in a sort of castle,
and how we did give it to the pigs! they jumped about the rocks like
kids, and it was fun to pick 'em off and see 'em tumble on their nose.
But what would you have? they kept coming, coming, all the time, ten
men to our one, and all the artillery they could wish for. Courage is
a very good thing in its place, but sometimes it gets a man into
difficulties, and so, at last, when it got too hot to stand it any
longer, we cut and run. But regarded as nincompoops, our officers were
a decided success; don't you think so, Picot?"

This was Abel Douay--not to be confounded with his brother,
    Felix, who commanded the 7th corps.-TR.

There was a brief interval of silence. Picot tossed off a glass of the
white wine and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.

"Of course," said he. "It was just the same at Froeschwiller; the
general who would give battle under such circumstances is a fit
subject for a lunatic asylum. That's what my captain said, and he's a
little man who knows what he is talking about. The truth of the matter
is that no one knew anything; we were only forty thousand strong, and
we were surprised by a whole army of those pigs. And no one was
expecting to fight that day; battle was joined by degrees, one portion
after another of our troops became engaged, against the wishes of our
commanders, as it seems. Of course, I didn't see the whole of the
affair, but what I do know is that the dance lasted by fits and starts
all day long; a body would think it was ended; not a bit of it! away
would go the music more furiously than ever. The commencement was at
Woerth, a pretty little village with a funny clock-tower that looks
like a big stove, owing to the earthenware tiles they have stuck all
over it. I'll be hanged if I know why we let go our hold of it that
morning, for we broke all our teeth and nails trying to get it back
again in the afternoon, without succeeding. Oh, my children, if I were
to tell you of the slaughter there, the throats that were cut and the
brains knocked out, you would refuse to believe me! The next place
where we had trouble was around a village with the jaw-breaking name
of Elsasshausen. We got a peppering from a lot of guns that banged
away at us at their ease from the top of a blasted hill that we had
also abandoned that morning, why, no one has ever been able to tell.
And there it was that with these very eyes of mine I saw the famous
charge of the cuirassiers. Ah, how gallantly they rode to their death,
poor fellows! A shame it was, I say, to let men and horses charge over
ground like that, covered with brush and furze, cut up by ditches. And
on top of it all, _nom de Dieu!_ what good could they accomplish? But
it was very _chic_ all the same; it was a beautiful sight to see. The
next thing for us to do, shouldn't you suppose so? was to go and sit
down somewhere and try to get our wind again. They had set fire to the
village and it was burning like tinder, and the whole gang of
Bavarian, Wurtemburgian and Prussian pigs, more than a hundred and
twenty thousand of them there were, as we found out afterward, had got
around into our rear and on our flanks. But there was to be no rest
for us then, for just at that time the fiddles began to play again a
livelier tune than ever around Froeschwiller. For there's no use
talking, fellows, MacMahon may be a blockhead but he is a brave man;
you ought to have seen him on his big horse, with the shells bursting
all about him! The best thing to do would have been to give leg-bail
at the beginning, for it is no disgrace to a general to refuse to
fight an army of superior numbers, but he, once we had gone in, was
bound to see the thing through to the end. And see it through he did!
why, I tell you that the men down in Froeschwiller were no longer
human beings; they were ravening wolves devouring one another. For
near two hours the gutters ran red with blood. All the same, however,
we had to knuckle under in the end. And to think that after it was all
over they should come and tell us that we had whipped the Bavarians
over on our left! By the piper that played before Moses, if we had
only had a hundred and twenty thousand men, if _we_ had had guns, and
leaders with a little pluck!"

Loud and angry were the denunciations of Coutard and Picot in their
ragged, dusty uniforms as they cut themselves huge slices of bread and
bolted bits of cheese, evoking their bitter memories there in the
shade of the pretty trellis, where the sun played hide and seek among
the purple and gold of the clusters of ripening grapes. They had come
now to the horrible flight that succeeded the defeat; the broken,
demoralized, famishing regiments flying through the fields, the
highroads blocked with men, horses, wagons, guns, in inextricable
confusion; all the wreck and ruin of a beaten army that pressed on,
on, on, with the chill breath of panic on their backs. As they had not
had wit enough to fall back while there was time and take post among
the passes of the Vosges, where ten thousand men would have sufficed
to hold in check a hundred thousand, they should at least have blown
up the bridges and destroyed the tunnels; but the generals had lost
their heads, and both sides were so dazed, each was so ignorant of the
other's movements, that for a time each of them was feeling to
ascertain the position of its opponent, MacMahon hurrying off toward
Luneville, while the Crown Prince of Prussia was looking for him in
the direction of the Vosges. On the 7th the remnant of the 1st corps
passed through Saverne, like a swollen stream that carries away upon
its muddy bosom all with which it comes in contact. On the 8th, at
Sarrebourg, the 5th corps came tumbling in upon the 1st, like one mad
mountain torrent pouring its waters into another. The 5th was also
flying, defeated without having fought a battle, sweeping away with it
its commander, poor General de Failly, almost crazy with the thought
that to his inactivity was imputed the responsibility of the defeat,
when the fault all rested in the Marshal's having failed to send him
orders. The mad flight continued on the 9th and 10th, a stampede in
which no one turned to look behind him. On the 11th, in order to turn
Nancy, which a mistaken rumor had reported to be occupied by the
enemy, they made their way in a pouring rainstorm to Bayon; the 12th
they camped at Haroue, the 13th at Vicherey, and on the 14th were at
Neufchateau, where at last they struck the railroad, and for three
days the work went on of loading the weary men into the cars that were
to take them to Chalons. Twenty-four hours after the last train rolled
out of the station the Prussians entered the town. "Ah, the cursed
luck!" said Picot in conclusion; "how we had to ply our legs! And we
who should by rights have been in hospital!"

Coutard emptied what was left in the bottle into his own and his
comrade's glass. "Yes, we got on our pins, somehow, and are running
yet. Bah! it is the best thing for us, after all, since it gives us a
chance to drink the health of those who were not knocked over."

Maurice saw through it all. The sledge hammer blow of Froeschwiller,
following so close on the heels of the idiotic surprise at
Wissembourg, was the lightning flash whose baleful light disclosed to
him the entire naked, terrible truth. We were taken unprepared; we had
neither guns, nor men, nor generals, while our despised foe was an
innumerable host, provided with all modern appliances and faultless in
discipline and leadership. The three German armies had burst apart the
weak line of our seven corps, scattered between Metz and Strasbourg,
like three powerful wedges. We were doomed to fight our battle out
unaided; nothing could be hoped for now from Austria and Italy, for
all the Emperor's plans were disconcerted by the tardiness of our
operations and the incapacity of the commanders. Fate, even, seemed to
be working against us, heaping all sorts of obstacles and ill-timed
accidents in our path and favoring the secret plan of the Prussians,
which was to divide our armies, throwing one portion back on Metz,
where it would be cut off from France, while they, having first
destroyed the other fragment, should be marching on Paris. It was as
plain now as a problem in mathematics that our defeat would be owing
to causes that were patent to everyone; it was bravery without
intelligent guidance pitted against numbers and cold science. Men
might discuss the question as they would in after days; happen what
might, defeat was certain in spite of everything, as certain and
inexorable as the laws of nature that rule our planet.

In the midst of his uncheerful revery, Maurice's eyes suddenly lighted
on the legend scrawled on the wall before him--_Vive Napoleon!_ and a
sensation of intolerable distress seemed to pierce his heart like a
red hot iron. Could it be true, then, that France, whose victories
were the theme of song and story everywhere, the great nation whose
drums had sounded throughout the length and breadth of Europe, had
been thrown in the dust at the first onset by an insignificant race,
despised of everyone? Fifty years had sufficed to compass it; the
world had changed, and defeat most fearful had overtaken those who had
been deemed invincible. He remembered the words that had been uttered
by Weiss his brother-in-law, during that evening of anxiety when they
were at Mulhausen. Yes, he alone of them had been clear of vision, had
penetrated the hidden causes that had long been slowly sapping our
strength, had felt the freshening gale of youth and progress under the
impulse of which Germany was being wafted onward to prosperity and
power. Was not the old warlike age dying and a new one coming to the
front? Woe to that one among the nations which halted in its onward
march! the victory is to those who are with the advance-guard, to
those who are clear of head and strong of body, to the most powerful.

But just then there came from the smoke-blackened kitchen, where the
walls were bright with the colored prints of Epinal, a sound of voices
and the squalling of a girl who submits, not unwillingly, to be
tousled. It was Lieutenant Rochas, availing himself of his privilege
as a conquering hero, to catch and kiss the pretty waitress. He came
out into the arbor, where he ordered a cup of coffee to be served him,
and as he had heard the concluding words of Picot's narrative,
proceeded to take a hand in the conversation:

"Bah! my children, those things that you are speaking of don't amount
to anything. It is only the beginning of the dance; you will see the
fun commence in earnest presently. _Pardi_! up to the present time
they have been five to our one, but things are going to take a change
now; just put that in your pipe and smoke it. We are three hundred
thousand strong here, and every move we make, which nobody can see
through, is made with the intention of bringing the Prussians down on
us, while Bazaine, who has got his eye on them, will take them in
their rear. And then we'll smash 'em, _crac_! just as I smash this
fly!"

Bringing his hands together with a sounding clap he caught and crushed
a fly on the wing, and he laughed loud and cheerily, believing with
all his simple soul in the feasibility of a plan that seemed so
simple, steadfast in his faith in the invincibility of French courage.
He good-naturedly informed the two soldiers of the exact position of
their regiments, then lit a cigar and seated himself contentedly
before his _demitasse_.

"The pleasure was all mine, comrades!" Maurice replied to Coutard and
Picot, who, as they were leaving, thanked him for the cheese and wine.

He had also called for a cup of coffee and sat watching the
Lieutenant, whose hopefulness had communicated itself to him, a little
surprised, however, to hear him enumerate their strength at three
hundred thousand men, when it was not more than a hundred thousand,
and at his happy-go-lucky way of crushing the Prussians between the
two armies of Chalons and Metz. But then he, too, felt such need of
some comforting illusion! Why should he not continue to hope when all
those glorious memories of the past that he had evoked were still
ringing in his ears? The old inn was so bright and cheerful, with its
trellis hung with the purple grapes of France, ripening in the golden
sunlight! And again his confidence gained a momentary ascendancy over
the gloomy despair that the late events had engendered in him.

Maurice's eyes had rested for a moment on an officer of chasseurs
d'Afrique who, with his orderly, had disappeared at a sharp trot
around the corner of the silent house where the Emperor was quartered,
and when the orderly came back alone and stopped with his two horses
before the inn door he gave utterance to an exclamation of surprise:

"Prosper! Why, I supposed you were at Metz!"

It was a young man of Remilly, a simple farm-laborer, whom he had
known as a boy in the days when he used to go and spend his vacations
with his uncle Fouchard. He had been drawn, and when the war broke out
had been three years in Africa; he cut quite a dashing figure in his
sky-blue jacket, his wide red trousers with blue stripes and red
woolen belt, with his sun-dried face and strong, sinewy limbs that
indicated great strength and activity.

"Hallo! it's Monsieur Maurice! I'm glad to see you!"

He took things very easily, however, conducting the steaming horses to
the stable, and to his own, more particularly, giving a paternal
attention. It was no doubt his affection for the noble animal,
contracted when he was a boy and rode him to the plow, that had made
him select the cavalry arm of the service.

"We've just come in from Monthois, more than ten leagues at a
stretch," he said when he came back, "and Poulet will be wanting his
breakfast."

Poulet was the horse. He declined to eat anything himself; would only
accept a cup of coffee. He had to wait for his officer, who had to
wait for the Emperor; he might be five minutes, and then again he
might be two hours, so his officer had told him to put the horses in
the stable. And as Maurice, whose curiosity was aroused, showed some
disposition to pump him, his face became as vacant as a blank page.

"Can't say. An errand of some sort--papers to be delivered."

But Rochas looked at the chasseur with an eye of tenderness, for the
uniform awakened old memories of Africa.

"Eh! my lad, where were you stationed out there?"

"At Medeah, Lieutenant."

Ah, Medeah! And drawing their chairs closer together they started a
conversation, regardless of difference in rank. The life of the desert
had become a second nature, for Prosper, where the trumpet was
continually calling them to arms, where a large portion of their time
was spent on horseback, riding out to battle as they would to the
chase, to some grand battue of Arabs. There was just one soup-basin
for every six men, or tribe, as it was called, and each tribe was a
family by itself, one of its members attending to the cooking, another
washing their linen, the others pitching the tent, caring for the
horses, and cleaning the arms. By day they scoured the country beneath
a sun like a ball of blazing copper, loaded down with the burden of
their arms and utensils; at night they built great fires to drive away
the mosquitoes and sat around them, singing the songs of France. Often
it happened that in the luminous darkness of the night, thick set with
stars, they had to rise and restore peace among their four-footed
friends, who, in the balmy softness of the air, had set to biting and
kicking one another, uprooting their pickets and neighing and snorting
furiously. Then there was the delicious coffee, their greatest, indeed
their only, luxury, which they ground by the primitive appliances of a
carbine-butt and a porringer, and afterward strained through a red
woolen sash. But their life was not one of unalloyed enjoyment; there
were dark days, also, when they were far from the abodes of civilized
man with the enemy before them. No more fires, then; no singing, no
good times. There were times when hunger, thirst and want of sleep
caused them horrible suffering, but no matter; they loved that daring,
adventurous life, that war of skirmishes, so propitious for the
display of personal bravery and as interesting as a fairy tale,
enlivened by the _razzias_, which were only public plundering on a
larger scale, and by marauding, or the private peculations of the
chicken-thieves, which afforded many an amusing story that made even
the generals laugh.

"Ah!" said Prosper, with a more serious face, "it's different here;
the fighting is done in quite another way."

And in reply to a question asked by Maurice, he told the story of
their landing at Toulon and the long and wearisome march to Luneville.
It was there that they first received news of Wissembourg and
Froeschwiller. After that his account was less clear, for he got the
names of towns mixed, Nancy and Saint-Mihiel, Saint-Mihiel and Metz.
There must have been heavy fighting on the 14th, for the sky was all
on fire, but all he saw of it was four uhlans behind a hedge. On the
16th there was another engagement; they could hear the artillery going
as early as six o'clock in the morning, and he had been told that on
the 18th they started the dance again, more lively than ever. But the
chasseurs were not in it that time, for at Gravelotte on the 16th, as
they were standing drawn up along a road waiting to wheel into column,
the Emperor, who passed that way in a victoria, took them to act as
his escort to Verdun. And a pretty little jaunt it was, twenty-six
miles at a hard gallop, with the fear of being cut off by the
Prussians at any moment!

"And what of Bazaine?" asked Rochas.

"Bazaine? they say that he is mightily well pleased that the Emperor
lets him alone."

But the Lieutenant wanted to know if Bazaine was coming to join them,
whereon Prosper made a gesture expressive of uncertainty; what did any
one know? Ever since the 16th their time had been spent in marching
and countermarching in the rain, out on reconnoissance and grand-guard
duty, and they had not seen a sign of an enemy. Now they were part of
the army of Chalons. His regiment, together with two regiments of
chasseurs de France and one of hussars, formed one of the divisions of
the cavalry of reserve, the first division, commanded by General
Margueritte, of whom he spoke with most enthusiastic warmth.

"Ah, the _bougre_! the enemy will catch a Tartar in him! But what's
the good talking? the only use they can find for us is to send us
pottering about in the mud."

There was silence for a moment, then Maurice gave some brief news of
Remilly and uncle Fouchard, and Prosper expressed his regret that he
could not go and shake hands with Honore, the quartermaster-sergeant,
whose battery was stationed more than a league away, on the other side
of the Laon road. But the chasseur pricked up his ears at hearing the
whinnying of a horse and rose and went out to make sure that Poulet
was not in want of anything. It was the hour sacred to coffee and
_pousse-cafe_, and it was not long before the little hostelry was full
to overflowing with officers and men of every arm of the service.
There was not a vacant table, and the bright uniforms shone
resplendent against the green background of leaves checkered with
spots of sunshine. Major Bouroche had just come in and taken a seat
beside Rochas, when Jean presented himself with an order.

"Lieutenant, the captain desires me to say that he wishes to see you
at three o'clock on company business."

Rochas signified by a nod of the head that he had heard, and Jean did
not go away at once, but stood smiling at Maurice, who was lighting a
cigarette. Ever since the occurrence in the railway car there had been
a sort of tacit truce between the two men; they seemed to be
reciprocally studying each other, with an increasing interest and
attraction. But just then Prosper came back, a little out of temper.

"I mean to have something to eat unless my officer comes out of that
shanty pretty quick. The Emperor is just as likely as not to stay away
until dark, confound it all."

"Tell me," said Maurice, his curiosity again getting the better of
him, "isn't it possible that the news you are bringing may be from
Bazaine?"

"Perhaps so. There was a good deal of talk about him down there at
Monthois."

At that moment there was a stir outside in the street, and Jean, who
was standing by one of the doors of the arbor, turned and said:

"The Emperor!"

Immediately everyone was on his feet. Along the broad, white road,
with its rows of poplars on either side, came a troop of cent-gardes,
spick and span in their brilliant uniforms, their cuirasses blazing in
the sunlight, and immediately behind them rode the Emperor,
accompanied by his staff, in a wide open space, followed by a second
troop of cent-gardes.

There was a general uncovering of heads, and here and there a hurrah
was heard; and the Emperor raised his head as he passed; his face
looked drawn, the eyes were dim and watery. He had the dazed
appearance of one suddenly aroused from slumber, smiled faintly at
sight of the cheerful inn, and saluted. From behind them Maurice and
Jean distinctly heard old Bouroche growl, having first surveyed the
sovereign with his practiced eye:

"There's no mistake about it, that man is in a bad way." Then he
succinctly completed his diagnosis: "His jig is up!"

Jean shook his head and thought in his limited, common sense way: "It
is a confounded shame to let a man like that have command of the army!"
And ten minutes later, when Maurice, comforted by his good breakfast,
shook hands with Prosper and strolled away to smoke more cigarettes,
he carried with him the picture of the Emperor, seated on his
easy-gaited horse, so pale, so gentle, the man of thought, the
dreamer, wanting in energy when the moment for action came. He was
reputed to be good-hearted, capable, swayed by generous and noble
thoughts, a silent man of strong and tenacious will; he was very
brave, too, scorning danger with the scorn of the fatalist for whom
destiny has no fears; but in critical moments a fatal lethargy seemed
to overcome him; he appeared to become paralyzed in presence of
results, and powerless thereafter to struggle against Fortune should
she prove adverse. And Maurice asked himself if his were not a special
physiological condition, aggravated by suffering; if the indecision
and increasing incapacity that the Emperor had displayed ever since
the opening of the campaign were not to be attributed to his manifest
illness. That would explain everything: a minute bit of foreign
substance in a man's system, and empires totter.

The camp that evening was all astir with activity; officers were
bustling about with orders and arranging for the start the following
morning at five o'clock. Maurice experienced a shock of surprise and
alarm to learn that once again all their plans were changed, that they
were not to fall back on Paris, but proceed to Verdun and effect a
junction with Bazaine. There was a report that dispatches had come in
during the day from the marshal announcing that he was retreating, and
the young man's thoughts reverted to the officer of chasseurs and his
rapid ride from Monthois; perhaps he had been the bearer of a copy of
the dispatch. So, then, the opinions of the Empress-regent and the
Council of Ministers had prevailed with the vacillating MacMahon, in
their dread to see the Emperor return to Paris and their inflexible
determination to push the army forward in one supreme attempt to save
the dynasty; and the poor Emperor, that wretched man for whom there
was no place in all his vast empire, was to be bundled to and fro
among the baggage of his army like some worthless, worn-out piece of
furniture, condemned to the irony of dragging behind him in his suite
his imperial household, cent-gardes, horses, carriages, cooks, silver
stew-pans and cases of champagne, trailing his flaunting mantle,
embroidered with the Napoleonic bees, through the blood and mire of
the highways of his retreat.

At midnight Maurice was not asleep; he was feverishly wakeful, and his
gloomy reflections kept him tossing and tumbling on his pallet. He
finally arose and went outside, where he found comfort and refreshment
in the cool night air. The sky was overspread with clouds, the
darkness was intense; along the front of the line the expiring
watch-fires gleamed with a red and sullen light at distant intervals,
and in the deathlike, boding silence could be heard the long-drawn
breathing of the hundred thousand men who slumbered there. Then
Maurice became more tranquil, and there descended on him a sentiment
of brotherhood, full of compassionate kindness for all those
slumbering fellow-creatures, of whom thousands would soon be sleeping
the sleep of death. Brave fellows! True, many of them were thieves and
drunkards, but think of what they had suffered and the excuse there
was for them in the universal demoralization! The glorious veterans of
Solferino and Sebastopol were but a handful, incorporated in the ranks
of the newly raised troops, too few in number to make their example
felt. The four corps that had been got together and equipped so
hurriedly, devoid of every element of cohesion, were the forlorn hope,
the expiatory band that their rulers were sending to the sacrifice in
the endeavor to avert the wrath of destiny. They would bear their
cross to the bitter end, atoning with their life's blood for the
faults of others, glorious amid disaster and defeat.

And then it was that Maurice, there in the darkness that was instinct
with life, became conscious that a great duty lay before him. He
ceased to beguile himself with the illusive prospect of great
victories to be gained; the march to Verdun was a march to death, and
he so accepted it, since it was their lot to die, with brave and
cheerful resignation.

IV.


On Tuesday, the 23d of August, at six o'clock in the morning, camp was
broken, and as a stream that has momentarily expanded into a lake
resumes its course again, the hundred and odd thousand men of the army
of Chalons put themselves in motion and soon were pouring onward in a
resistless torrent; and notwithstanding the rumors that had been
current since the preceding day, it was a great surprise to most to
see that instead of continuing their retrograde movement they were
leaving Paris behind them and turning their faces toward the unknown
regions of the East.

At five o'clock in the morning the 7th corps was still unsupplied with
cartridges. For two days the artillerymen had been working like
beavers to unload the _materiel_, horses, and stores that had been
streaming from Metz into the overcrowded station, and it was only at
the very last moment that some cars of cartridges were discovered
among the tangled trains, and that a detail which included Jean among
its numbers was enabled to bring back two hundred and forty thousand
on carts that they had hurriedly requisitioned. Jean distributed the
regulation number, one hundred cartridges to a man, among his squad,
just as Gaude, the company bugler, sounded the order to march.

The 106th was not to pass through Rheims, their orders being to turn
the city and debouch into the Chalons road farther on, but on this
occasion there was the usual failure to regulate the order and time of
marching, so that, the four corps having commenced to move at the same
moment, they collided when they came out upon the roads that they were
to traverse in common and the result was inextricable confusion.
Cavalry and artillery were constantly cutting in among the infantry
and bringing them to a halt; whole brigades were compelled to leave
the road and stand at ordered arms in the plowed fields for more than
an hour, waiting until the way should be cleared. And to make matters
worse, they had hardly left the camp when a terrible storm broke over
them, the rain pelting down in torrents, drenching the men completely
and adding intolerably to the weight of knapsacks and great-coats.
Just as the rain began to hold up, however, the 106th saw a chance to
go forward, while some zouaves in an adjoining field, who were forced
to wait yet for a while, amused themselves by pelting one another with
balls of moist earth, and the consequent condition of their uniforms
afforded them much merriment.

The sun suddenly came shining out again in the clear sky, the warm,
bright sun of an August morning, and with it came returning gayety;
the men were steaming like a wash of linen hung out to dry in the open
air: the moisture evaporated from their clothing in little more time
than it takes to tell it, and when they were warm and dry again, like
dogs who shake the water from them when they emerge from a pond, they
chaffed one another good-naturedly on their bedraggled appearance and
the splashes of mud on their red trousers. Wherever two roads
intersected another halt was necessitated; the last one was in a
little village just beyond the walls of the city, in front of a small
saloon that seemed to be doing a thriving business. Thereon it
occurred to Maurice to treat the squad to a drink, by way of wishing
them all good luck.

"Corporal, will you allow me--"

Jean, after hesitating a moment, accepted a "pony" of brandy for
himself. Loubet and Chouteau were of the party (the latter had been
watchful and submissive since that day when the corporal had evinced a
disposition to use his heavy fists), and also Pache and Lapoulle, a
couple of very decent fellows when there was no one to set them a bad
example.

"Your good health, corporal!" said Chouteau in a respectful, whining
tone.

"Thank you; here's hoping that you may bring back your head and all
your legs and arms!" Jean politely replied, while the others laughed
approvingly.

But the column was about to move; Captain Beaudoin came up with a
scandalized look on his face and a reproof at the tip of his tongue,
while Lieutenant Rochas, more indulgent to the small weaknesses of his
men, turned his head so as not to see what was going on. And now they
were stepping out at a good round pace along the Chalons road, which
stretched before them for many a long league, bordered with trees on
either side, undeviatingly straight, like a never-ending ribbon
unrolled between the fields of yellow stubble that were dotted here
and there with tall stacks and wooden windmills brandishing their lean
arms. More to the north were rows of telegraph poles, indicating the
position of other roads, on which they could distinguish the black,
crawling lines of other marching regiments. In many places the troops
had left the highway and were moving in deep columns across the open
plain. To the left and front a cavalry brigade was seen, jogging along
at an easy trot in a blaze of sunshine. The entire wide horizon,
usually so silent and deserted, was alive and populous with those
streams of men, pressing onward, onward, in long drawn, black array,
like the innumerable throng of insects from some gigantic ant-hill.

About nine o'clock the regiment left the Chalons road and wheeled to
the left into another that led to Suippe, which, like the first,
extended, straight as an arrow's flight, far as the eye could see. The
men marched at the route-step in two straggling files along either
side of the road, thus leaving the central space free for the
officers, and Maurice could not help noticing their anxious, care-worn
air, in striking contrast with the jollity and good-humor of the
soldiers, who were happy as children to be on the move once more. As
the squad was near the head of the column he could even distinguish
the Colonel, M. de Vineuil, in the distance, and was impressed by the
grave earnestness of his manner, and his tall, rigid form, swaying in
cadence to the motion of his charger. The band had been sent back to
the rear, to keep company with the regimental wagons; it played but
once during that entire campaign. Then came the ambulances and
engineer's train attached to the division, and succeeding that the
corps train, an interminable procession of forage wagons, closed vans
for stores, carts for baggage, and vehicles of every known
description, occupying a space of road nearly four miles in length,
and which, at the infrequent curves in the highway, they could see
winding behind them like the tail of some great serpent. And last of
all, at the extreme rear of the column, came the herds, "rations on
the hoof," a surging, bleating, bellowing mass of sheep and oxen,
urged on by blows and raising clouds of dust, reminding one of the old
warlike peoples of the East and their migrations.

Lapoulle meantime would every now and then give a hitch of his
shoulders in an attempt to shift the weight of his knapsack when it
began to be too heavy. The others, alleging that he was the strongest,
were accustomed to make him carry the various utensils that were
common to the squad, including the big kettle and the water-pail; on
this occasion they had even saddled him with the company shovel,
assuring him that it was a badge of honor. So far was he from
complaining that he was now laughing at a song with which Loubet, the
tenor of the squad, was trying to beguile the tedium of the way.
Loubet had made himself quite famous by reason of his knapsack, in
which was to be found a little of everything: linen, an extra pair of
shoes, haberdashery, chocolate, brushes, a plate and cup, to say
nothing of his regular rations of biscuit and coffee, and although the
all-devouring receptacle also contained his cartridges, and his
blankets were rolled on top of it, together with the shelter-tent and
stakes, the load nevertheless appeared light, such an excellent system
he had of packing his trunk, as he himself expressed it.

"It's a beastly country, all the same!" Chouteau kept repeating from
time to time, casting a look of intense disgust over the dreary plains
of "lousy Champagne."

Broad expanses of chalky ground of a dirty white lay before and around
them, and seemed to have no end. Not a farmhouse to be seen anywhere,
not a living being; nothing but flocks of crows, forming small spots
of blackness on the immensity of the gray waste. On the left, far away
in the distance, the low hills that bounded the horizon in that
direction were crowned by woods of somber pines, while on the right an
unbroken wall of trees indicated the course of the river Vesle. But
over there behind the hills they had seen for the last hour a dense
smoke was rising, the heavy clouds of which obscured the sky and told
of a dreadful conflagration raging at no great distance.

"What is burning over there?" was the question that was on the lips of
everyone.

The answer was quickly given and ran through the column from front to
rear. The camp of Chalons had been fired, it was said, by order of the
Emperor, to keep the immense collection of stores there from falling
into the hands of the Prussians, and for the last two days it had been
going up in flame and smoke. The cavalry of the rear-guard had been
instructed to apply the torch to two immense warehouses, filled with
tents, tent-poles, mattresses, clothing, shoes, blankets, mess
utensils, supplies of every kind sufficient for the equipment of a
hundred thousand men. Stacks of forage also had been lighted, and were
blazing like huge beacon-fires, and an oppressive silence settled down
upon the army as it pursued its march across the wide, solitary plain
at sight of that dusky, eddying column that rose from behind the
distant hills, filling the heavens with desolation. All that was to be
heard in the bright sunlight was the measured tramp of many feet upon
the hollow ground, while involuntarily the eyes of all were turned on
that livid cloud whose baleful shadows rested on their march for many
a league.

Their spirits rose again when they made their midday halt in a field
of stubble, where the men could seat themselves on their unslung
knapsacks and refresh themselves with a bite. The large square
biscuits could only be eaten by crumbling them in the soup, but the
little round ones were quite a delicacy, light and appetizing; the
only trouble was that they left an intolerable thirst behind them.
Pache sang a hymn, being invited thereto, the squad joining in the
chorus. Jean smiled good-naturedly without attempting to check them in
their amusement, while Maurice, at sight of the universal cheerfulness
and the good order with which their first day's march was conducted,
felt a revival of confidence. The remainder of the allotted task of
the day was performed with the same light-hearted alacrity, although
the last five miles tried their endurance. They had abandoned the high
road, leaving the village of Prosnes to their right, in order to avail
themselves of a short cut across a sandy heath diversified by an
occasional thin pine wood, and the entire division, with its
interminable train at its heels, turned and twisted in and out among
the trees, sinking ankle deep in the yielding sand at every step. It
seemed as if the cheerless waste would never end; all that they met
was a flock of very lean sheep, guarded by a big black dog.

It was about four o'clock when at last the 106th halted for the night
at Dontrien, a small village on the banks of the Suippe. The little
stream winds among some pretty groves of trees; the old church stands
in the middle of the graveyard, which is shaded in its entire extent
by a magnificent chestnut. The regiment pitched its tents on the left
bank, in a meadow that sloped gently down to the margin of the river.
The officers said that all the four corps would bivouac that evening
on the line of the Suippe between Auberive and Hentregiville,
occupying the intervening villages of Dontrien, Betheniville and
Pont-Faverger, making a line of battle nearly five leagues long.

Gaude immediately gave the call for "distribution," and Jean had to
run for it, for the corporal was steward-in-chief, and it behooved him
to be on the lookout to protect his men's interests. He had taken
Lapoulle with him, and in a quarter of an hour they returned with some
ribs of beef and a bundle of firewood. In the short space of time
succeeding their arrival three steers of the herd that followed the
column had been knocked in the head under a great oak-tree, skinned,
and cut up. Lapoulle had to return for bread, which the villagers of
Dontrien had been baking all that afternoon in their ovens. There was
really no lack of anything on that first day, setting aside wine and
tobacco, with which the troops were to be obliged to dispense during
the remainder of the campaign.

Upon Jean's return he found Chouteau engaged in raising the tent,
assisted by Pache; he looked at them for a moment with the critical
eye of an old soldier who had no great opinion of their abilities.

"It will do very well if the weather is fine to-night," he said at
last, "but if it should come on to blow we would like enough wake up
and find ourselves in the river. Let me show you."

And he was about to send Maurice with the large pail for water, but
the young man had sat down on the ground, taken off his shoe, and was
examining his right foot.

"Hallo, there! what's the matter with you?"

"My shoe has chafed my foot and raised a blister. My other shoes were
worn out, and when we were at Rheims I bought these, like a big fool,
because they were a good fit. I should have selected gunboats."

Jean kneeled and took the foot in his hand, turning it over as
carefully as if it had been a little child's, with a disapproving
shake of his head.

"You must be careful; it is no laughing matter, a thing like that. A
soldier without the use of his feet is of no good to himself or anyone
else. When we were in Italy my captain used always to say that it is
the men's legs that win battles."

He bade Pache go for the water, no very hard task, as the river was
but a few yards away, and Loubet, having in the meantime dug a shallow
trench and lit his fire, was enabled to commence operations on his
_pot-au-feu_, which he did by putting on the big kettle full of water
and plunging into it the meat that he had previously corded together
with a bit of twine, _secundum artem_. Then it was solid comfort for
them to watch the boiling of the soup; the whole squad, their chores
done up and their day's labor ended, stretched themselves on the grass
around the fire in a family group, full of tender anxiety for the
simmering meat, while Loubet occasionally stirred the pot with a
gravity fitted to the importance of his position. Like children and
savages, their sole instinct was to eat and sleep, careless of the
morrow, while advancing to face unknown risks and dangers.

But Maurice had unpacked his knapsack and come across a newspaper that
he had bought at Rheims, and Chouteau asked:

"Is there anything about the Prussians in it? Read us the news!"

They were a happy family under Jean's mild despotism. Maurice
good-naturedly read such news as he thought might interest them, while
Pache, the seamstress of the company, mended his greatcoat for him and
Lapoulle cleaned his musket. The first item was a splendid victory won
by Bazaine, who had driven an entire Prussian corps into the quarries
of Jaumont, and the trumped-up tale was told with an abundance of
dramatic detail, how men and horses went over the precipice and were
crushed on the rocks beneath out of all semblance of humanity, so that
there was not one whole corpse found for burial. Then there were
minute details of the pitiable condition of the German armies ever
since they had invaded France: the ill-fed, poorly equipped soldiers
were actually falling from inanition and dying by the roadside of
horrible diseases. Another article told how the king of Prussia had
the diarrhea, and how Bismarck had broken his leg in jumping from the
window of an inn where a party of zouaves had just missed capturing
him. Capital news! Lapoulle laughed over it as if he would split his
sides, while Chouteau and the others, without expressing the faintest
doubt, chuckled at the idea that soon they would be picking up
Prussians as boys pick up sparrows in a field after a hail-storm. But
they laughed loudest at old Bismarck's accident; oh! the zouaves and
the turcos, they were the boys for one's money! It was said that the
Germans were in an ecstasy of fear and rage, declaring that it was
unworthy of a nation that claimed to be civilized to employ such
heathen savages in its armies. Although they had been decimated at
Froeschwiller, the foreign troops seemed to have a good deal of life
left in them.

It was just striking six from the steeple of the little church of
Dontrien when Loubet shouted:

"Come to supper!"

The squad lost no time in seating themselves in a circle. At the very
last moment Loubet had succeeded in getting some vegetables from a
peasant who lived hard by. That made the crowning glory of the feast:
a soup perfumed with carrots and onions, that went down the throat
soft as velvet--what could they have desired more? The spoons rattled
merrily in the little wooden bowls. Then it devolved on Jean, who
always served the portions, to distribute the beef, and it behooved
him that day to do it with the strictest impartiality, for hungry eyes
were watching him and there would have been a growl had anyone
received a larger piece than his neighbors. They concluded by licking
the porringers, and were smeared with soup up to their eyes.

"Ah, _nom de Dieu!_" Chouteau declared when he had finished, throwing
himself flat on his back; "I would rather take that than a beating,
any day!"

Maurice, too, whose foot pained him less now that he could give it a
little rest, was conscious of that sensation of well-being that is the
result of a full stomach. He was beginning to take more kindly to his
rough companions, and to bring himself down nearer to their level
under the pressure of the physical necessities of their life in
common. That night he slept the same deep sleep as did his five
tent-mates; they all huddled close together, finding the sensation of
animal warmth not disagreeable in the heavy dew that fell. It is
necessary to state that Lapoulle, at the instigation of Loubet, had
gone to a stack not far away and feloniously appropriated a quantity
of straw, in which our six gentlemen snored as if it had been a bed of
down. And from Auberive to Hentregiville, along the pleasant banks of
the Suippe as it meandered sluggishly between its willows, the fires
of those hundred thousand sleeping men illuminated the starlit night
for fifteen miles, like a long array of twinkling stars.

At sunrise they made coffee, pulverizing the berries in a wooden bowl
with a musket-butt, throwing the powder into boiling water, and
settling it with a drop of cold water. The luminary rose that morning
in a bank of purple and gold, affording a spectacle of royal
magnificence, but Maurice had no eye for such displays, and Jean, with
the weather-wisdom of a peasant, cast an anxious glance at the red
disk, which presaged rain; and it was for that reason that, the
surplus of bread baked the day before having been distributed and the
squad having received three loaves, he reproved severely Loubet and
Pache for making them fast on the outside of their knapsacks; but the
tents were folded and the knapsacks packed, and so no one paid any
attention to him. Six o'clock was sounding from all the bells of the
village when the army put itself in motion and stoutly resumed its
advance in the bright hopefulness of the dawn of the new day.

The 106th, in order to reach the road that leads from Rheims to
Vouziers, struck into a cross-road, and for more than an hour their
way was an ascending one. Below them, toward the north, Betheniville
was visible among the trees, where the Emperor was reported to have
slept, and when they reached the Vouziers road the level country of
the preceding day again presented itself to their gaze and the lean
fields of "lousy Champagne" stretched before them in wearisome
monotony. They now had the Arne, an insignificant stream, flowing on
their left, while to the right the treeless, naked country stretched
far as the eye could see in an apparently interminable horizon. They
passed through a village or two: Saint-Clement, with its single
winding street bordered by a double row of houses, Saint-Pierre, a
little town of miserly rich men who had barricaded their doors and
windows. The long halt occurred about ten o'clock, near another
village, Saint-Etienne, where the men were highly delighted to find
tobacco once more. The 7th corps had been cut up into several columns,
and the 106th headed one of these columns, having behind it only a
battalion of chasseurs and the reserve artillery. Maurice turned his
head at every bend in the road to catch a glimpse of the long train
that had so excited his interest the day before, but in vain; the
herds had gone off in some other direction, and all he could see was
the guns, looming inordinately large upon those level plains, like
monster insects of somber mien.

After leaving Saint-Etienne, however, there was a change for the
worse, and the road from bad became abominable, rising by an easy
ascent between great sterile fields in which the only signs of
vegetation were the everlasting pine woods with their dark verdure,
forming a dismal contrast with the gray-white soil. It was the most
forlorn spot they had seen yet. The ill-paved road, washed by the
recent rains, was a lake of mud, of tenacious, slippery gray clay,
which held the men's feet like so much pitch. It was wearisome work;
the troops were exhausted and could not get forward, and as if things
were not bad enough already, the rain suddenly began to come down most
violently. The guns were mired and had to be left in the road.

Chouteau, who had been given the squad's rice to carry, fatigued and
exasperated with his heavy load, watched for an opportunity when no
one was looking and dropped the package. But Loubet had seen him.

"See here, that's no way! you ought not to do that. The comrades will
be hungry by and by."

"Let be!" replied Chouteau. "There is plenty of rice; they will give
us more at the end of the march."

And Loubet, who had the bacon, convinced by such cogent reasoning,
dropped his load in turn.

Maurice was suffering more and more with his foot, of which the heel
was badly inflamed. He limped along in such a pitiable state that
Jean's sympathy was aroused.

"Does it hurt? is it no better, eh?" And as the men were halted just
then for a breathing spell, he gave him a bit of good advice. "Take
off your shoe and go barefoot; the cool earth will ease the pain."

And in that way Maurice found that he could keep up with his comrades
with some degree of comfort; he experienced a sentiment of deep
gratitude. It was a piece of great good luck that their squad had a
corporal like him, a man who had seen service and knew all the tricks
of the trade: he was an uncultivated peasant, of course, but a good
fellow all the same.

It was late when they reached their place of bivouac at Contreuve,
after marching a long time on the Chalons and Vouziers road and
descending by a steep path into the valley of the Semide, up which
they came through a stretch of narrow meadows. The landscape had
undergone a change; they were now in the Ardennes, and from the lofty
hills above the village where the engineers had staked off the ground
for the 7th corps' camp, the valley of the Aisne was dimly visible in
the distance, veiled in the pale mists of the passing shower.

Six o'clock came and there had been no distribution of rations,
whereon Jean, in order to keep occupied, apprehensive also of the
consequences that might result from the high wind that was springing
up, determined to attend in person to the setting up of the tent. He
showed his men how it should be done, selecting a bit of ground that
sloped away a little to one side, setting the pegs at the proper
angle, and digging a little trench around the whole to carry off the
water. Maurice was excused from the usual nightly drudgery on account
of his sore foot, and was an interested witness of the intelligence
and handiness of the big young fellow whose general appearance was so
stolid and ungainly. He was completely knocked up with fatigue, but
the confidence that they were now advancing with a definite end in
view served to sustain him. They had had a hard time of it since they
left Rheims, making nearly forty miles in two days' marching; if they
could maintain the pace and if they kept straight on in the direction
they were pursuing, there could be no doubt that they would destroy
the second German army and effect a junction with Bazaine before the
third, the Crown Prince of Prussia's, which was said to be at
Vitry-le Francois, could get up to Verdun.

"Oh, come now! I wonder if they are going to let us starve!" was
Chouteau's remark when, at seven o'clock, there was still no sign of
rations.

By way of taking time by the forelock, Jean had instructed Loubet to
light the fire and put on the pot, and, as there was no issue of
firewood, he had been compelled to be blind to the slight irregularity
of the proceeding when that individual remedied the omission by
tearing the palings from an adjacent fence. When he suggested knocking
up a dish of bacon and rice, however, the truth had to come out, and
he was informed that the rice and bacon were lying in the mud of the
Saint-Etienne road. Chouteau lied with the greatest effrontery
declaring that the package must have slipped from his shoulders
without his noticing it.

"You are a couple of pigs!" Jean shouted angrily, "to throw away good
victuals, when there are so many poor devils going with an empty
stomach!"

It was the same with the three loaves that had been fastened outside
the knapsacks; they had not listened to his warning, and the
consequence was that the rain had soaked the bread and reduced it to
paste.

"A pretty pickle we are in!" he continued. "We had food in plenty, and
now here we are, without a crumb! Ah! you are a pair of dirty pigs!"

At that moment the first sergeant's call was heard, and Sergeant
Sapin, returning presently with his usual doleful air, informed the
men that it would be impossible to distribute rations that evening,
and that they would have to content themselves with what eatables they
had on their persons. It was reported that the trains had been delayed
by the bad weather, and as to the herds, they must have straggled off
as a result of conflicting orders. Subsequently it became known that
on that day the 5th and 12th corps had got up to Rethel, where the
headquarters of the army were established, and the inhabitants of the
neighboring villages, possessed with a mad desire to see the Emperor,
had inaugurated a hegira toward that town, taking with them everything
in the way of provisions; so that when the 7th corps came up they
found themselves in a land of nakedness: no bread, no meat, no people,
even. To add to their distress a misconception of orders had caused
the supplies of the commissary department to be directed on
Chene-Populeux. This was a state of affairs that during the entire
campaign formed the despair of the wretched commissaries, who had to
endure the abuse and execrations of the whole army, while their sole
fault lay in being punctual at rendezvous at which the troops failed
to appear.

"It serves you right, you dirty pigs!" continued Jean in his wrath,
"and you don't deserve the trouble that I am going to have in finding
you something to eat, for I suppose it is my duty not to let you
starve, all the same." And he started off to see what he could find,
as every good corporal does under such circumstances, taking with him
Pache, who was a favorite on account of his quiet manner, although he
considered him rather too priest-ridden.

But Loubet's attention had just been attracted to a little farmhouse,
one of the last dwellings in Contreuve, some two or three hundred
yards away, where there seemed to him to be promise of good results.
He called Chouteau and Lapoulle to him and said:

"Come along, and let's see what we can do. I've a notion there's grub
to be had over that way."

So Maurice was left to keep up the fire and watch the kettle, in which
the water was beginning to boil. He had seated himself on his blanket
and taken off his shoe in order to give his blister a chance to heal.
It amused him to look about the camp and watch the behavior of the
different squads now that there was to be no issue of rations; the
deduction that he arrived at was that some of them were in a chronic
state of destitution, while others reveled in continual abundance, and
that these conditions were ascribable to the greater or less degree of
tact and foresight of the corporal and his men. Amid the confusion
that reigned about the stacks and tents he remarked some squads who
had not been able even to start a fire, others of which the men had
abandoned hope and lain themselves resignedly down for the night,
while others again were ravenously devouring, no one knew what,
something good, no doubt. Another thing that impressed him was the
good order that prevailed in the artillery, which had its camp above
him, on the hillside. The setting sun peeped out from a rift in the
clouds and his rays were reflected from the burnished guns, from which
the men had cleansed the coat of mud that they had picked up along the
road.

In the meantime General Bourgain-Desfeuilles, commanding the brigade,
had found quarters suited to his taste in the little farmhouse toward
which the designs of Loubet and his companions were directed. He had
discovered something that had the semblance of a bed and was seated at
table with a roasted chicken and an omelette before him; consequently
he was in the best of humors, and as Colonel de Vineuil happened in
just then on regimental business, had invited him to dine. They were
enjoying their repast, therefore, waited on by a tall, light-haired
individual who had been in the farmer's service only three days and
claimed to be an Alsatian, one of those who had been forced to leave
their country after the disaster of Froeschwiller. The general did not
seem to think it necessary to use any restraint in presence of the
man, commenting freely on the movements of the army, and finally,
forgetful of the fact that he was not an inhabitant of the
country, began to question him about localities and distances. His
questions displayed such utter ignorance of the country that the
colonel, who had once lived at Mezieres, was astounded; he gave such
information as he had at command, which elicited from the chief the
exclamation:

"It is just like our idiotic government! How can they expect us to
fight in a country of which we know nothing?"

The colonel's face assumed a look of vague consternation. He knew that
immediately upon the declaration of war maps of Germany had been
distributed among the officers, while it was quite certain that not
one of them had a map of France. He was amazed and confounded by what
he had seen and heard since the opening of the campaign. His
unquestioned bravery was his distinctive trait; he was a somewhat weak
and not very brilliant commander, which caused him to be more loved
than respected in his regiment.

"It's too bad that a man can't eat his dinner in peace!" the general
suddenly blurted out. "What does all that uproar mean? Go and see what
the matter is, you Alsatian fellow!"

But the farmer anticipated him by appearing at the door, sobbing and
gesticulating like a crazy man. They were robbing him, the zouaves and
chasseurs were plundering his house. As he was the only one in the
village who had anything to sell he had foolishly allowed himself to
be persuaded to open shop. At first he had sold his eggs and chickens,
his rabbits, and potatoes, without exacting an extortionate profit,
pocketing his money and delivering the merchandise; then the customers
had streamed in in a constantly increasing throng, jostling and
worrying the old man, finally crowding him aside and taking all he had
without pretense of payment. And thus it was throughout the war; if
many peasants concealed their property and even denied a drink of
water to the thirsty soldier, it was because of their fear of the
irresistible inroads of that ocean of men, who swept everything clean
before them, thrusting the wretched owners from their houses and
beggaring them.

"Eh! will you hold your tongue, old man!" shouted the general in
disgust. "Those rascals ought to be shot at the rate of a dozen a day.
What is one to do?" And to avoid taking the measures that the case
demanded he gave orders to close the door, while the colonel explained
to him that there had been no issue of rations and the men were
hungry.

While these things were going on within the house Loubet outside had
discovered a field of potatoes; he and Lapoulle scaled the fence and
were digging the precious tubers with their hands and stuffing their
pockets with them when Chouteau, who in the pursuit of knowledge was
looking over a low wall, gave a shrill whistle that called them
hurriedly to his side. They uttered an exclamation of wonder and
delight; there was a flock of geese, ten fat, splendid geese,
pompously waddling about a small yard. A council of war was held
forthwith, and it was decided that Lapoulle should storm the place and
make prisoners of the garrison. The conflict was a bloody one; the
venerable gander on which the soldier laid his predaceous hands had
nearly deprived him of his nose with its bill, hard and sharp as a
tailor's shears. Then he caught it by the neck and tried to choke it,
but the bird tore his trousers with its strong claws and pummeled him
about the body with its great wings. He finally ended the battle by
braining it with his fist, and it had not ceased to struggle when he
leaped the wall, hotly pursued by the remainder of the flock, pecking
viciously at his legs.

When they got back to camp, with the unfortunate gander and the
potatoes hidden in a bag, they found that Jean and Pache had also been
successful in their expedition, and had enriched the common larder
with four loaves of fresh bread and a cheese that they had purchased
from a worthy old woman.

"The water is boiling and we will make some coffee," said the
corporal. "Here are bread and cheese; it will be a regular feast!"

He could not help laughing, however, when he looked down and saw the
goose lying at his feet. He raised it, examining and hefting it with
the judgment of an expert.

"Ah! upon my word, a fine bird! it must weigh twenty pounds."

"We were out walking and met the bird," Loubet explained in an
unctuously sanctimonious voice, "and it insisted on making our
acquaintance."

Jean made no reply, but his manner showed that he wished to hear
nothing more of the matter. Men must live, and then why in the name of
common sense should not those poor fellows, who had almost forgotten
how poultry tasted, have a treat once in a way!

Loubet had already kindled the fire into a roaring blaze; Pache and
Lapoulle set to work to pluck the goose; Chouteau, who had run off to
the artillerymen and begged a bit of twine, came back and stretched it
between two bayonets; the bird was suspended in front of the hot fire
and Maurice was given a cleaning rod and enjoined to keep it turning.
The big tin basin was set beneath to catch the gravy. It was a triumph
of culinary art; the whole regiment, attracted by the savory odor,
came and formed a circle about the fire and licked their chops. And
what a feast it was! roast goose, boiled potatoes, bread, cheese, and
coffee! When Jean had dissected the bird the squad applied itself
vigorously to the task before it; there was no talk of portions, every
man ate as much as he was capable of holding. They even sent a plate
full over to the artillerymen who had furnished the cord.

The officers of the regiment that evening were a very hungry set of
men, for owing to some mistake the canteen wagon was among the
missing, gone off to look after the corps train, maybe. If the men
were inconvenienced when there was no issue of ration they scarcely
ever failed to find something to eat in the end; they helped one
another out; the men of the different squads "chipped in" their
resources, each contributing his mite, while the officer, with no one
to look to save himself, was in a fair way of starving as soon as he
had not the canteen to fall back on. So there was a sneer on
Chouteau's face, buried in the carcass of the goose, as he saw Captain
Beaudoin go by with his prim, supercilious air, for he had heard that
officer summoning down imprecations on the driver of the missing
wagon; and he gave him an evil look out of the corner of his eye.

"Just look at him! See, his nose twitches like a rabbit's. He would
give a dollar for the pope's nose."

They all made merry at the expense of the captain, who was too callow
and too harsh to be a favorite with his men; they called him a
_pete-sec_. He seemed on the point of taking the squad in hand for the
scandal they were creating with their goose dinner, but thought better
of the matter, ashamed, probably, to show his hunger, and walked off,
holding his head very erect, as if he had seen nothing.

As for Lieutenant Rochas, who was also conscious of a terribly empty
sensation in his epigastric region, he put on a brave face and laughed
good-naturedly as he passed the thrice-lucky squad. His men adored
him, in the first place because he was at sword's points with the
captain, that little whipper-snapper from Saint-Cyr, and also because
he had once carried a musket like themselves. He was not always easy
to get along with, however, and there were times when they would have
given a good deal could they have cuffed him for his brutality.

Jean glanced inquiringly at his comrades, and their mute reply being
propitious, arose and beckoned to Rochas to follow him behind the
tent.

"See here, Lieutenant, I hope you won't be offended, but if it is
agreeable to you--"

And he handed him half a loaf of bread and a wooden bowl in which
there were a second joint of the bird and six big mealy potatoes.

That night again the six men required no rocking; they digested their
dinner while sleeping the sleep of the just. They had reason to thank
the corporal for the scientific way in which he had set up their tent,
for they were not even conscious of a small hurricane that blew up
about two o'clock, accompanied by a sharp down-pour of rain; some of
the tents were blown down, and the men, wakened out of their sound
slumber, were drenched and had to scamper in the pitchy darkness,
while theirs stood firm and they were warm and dry, thanks to the
ingenious device of the trench.

Maurice awoke at daylight, and as they were not to march until eight
o'clock it occurred to him to walk out to the artillery camp on the
hill and say how do you do to his cousin Honore. His foot was less
painful after his good night's rest. His wonder and admiration were
again excited by the neatness and perfect order that prevailed
throughout the encampment, the six guns of a battery aligned with
mathematical precision and accompanied by their caissons, prolonges,
forage-wagons, and forges. A short way off, lined up to their rope,
stood the horses, whinnying impatiently and turning their muzzles to
the rising sun. He had no difficulty in finding Honore's tent, thanks
to the regulation which assigns to the men of each piece a separate
street, so that a single glance at a camp suffices to show the number
of guns.

When Maurice reached his destination the artillerymen were already
stirring and about to drink their coffee, and a quarrel had arisen
between Adolphe, the forward driver, and Louis, the gunner, his mate.
For the entire three years that they had been "married," in accordance
with the custom which couples a driver with a gunner, they had lived
happily together, with the one exception of meal-times. Louis, an
intelligent man and the better informed of the two, did not grumble at
the airs of superiority that are affected by every mounted over every
unmounted man: he pitched the tent, made the soup, and did the chores,
while Adolphe groomed his horses with the pride of a reigning
potentate. When the former, a little black, lean man, afflicted with
an enormous appetite, rose in arms against the exactions of the
latter, a big, burly fellow with huge blonde mustaches, who insisted
on being waited on like a lord, then the fun began. The subject matter
of the dispute on the present morning was that Louis, who had made the
coffee, accused Adolphe of having drunk it all. It required some
diplomacy to reconcile them.

Not a morning passed that Honore failed to go and look after his
piece, seeing to it that it was carefully dried and cleansed from the
night dew, as if it had been a favorite animal that he was fearful
might take cold, and there it was that Maurice found him, exercising
his paternal supervision in the crisp morning air.

"Ah, it's you! I knew that the 106th was somewhere in the vicinity; I
got a letter from Remilly yesterday and was intending to start out and
hunt you up. Let's go and have a glass of white wine."

For the sake of privacy he conducted his cousin to the little
farmhouse that the soldiers had looted the day before, where the old
peasant, undeterred by his losses and allured by the prospect of
turning an honest penny, had tapped a cask of wine and set up a kind
of public bar. He had extemporized a counter from a board rested on
two empty barrels before the door of his house, and over it he dealt
out his stock in trade at four sous a glass, assisted by the strapping
young Alsatian whom he had taken into his service three days before.

As Honore was touching glasses with Maurice his eyes lighted on this
man. He gazed at him a moment as if stupefied, then let slip a
terrible oath.

"_Tonnerre de Dieu!_ Goliah!"

And he darted forward and would have caught him by the throat, but the
peasant, foreseeing in his action a repetition of his yesterday's
experience, jumped quickly within the house and locked the door behind
him. For a moment confusion reigned about the premises; soldiers came
rushing up to see what was going on, while the quartermaster-sergeant
shouted at the top of his voice:

"Open the door, open the door, you confounded idiot! It is a spy, I
tell you, a Prussian spy!"

Maurice doubted no longer; there was no room for mistake now; the
Alsatian was certainly the man whom he had seen arrested at the camp
of Mulhausen and released because there was not evidence enough to
hold him, and that man was Goliah, old Fouchard's quondam assistant on
his farm at Remilly. When finally the peasant opened his door the
house was searched from top to bottom, but to no purpose; the bird had
flown, the gawky Alsatian, the tow-headed, simple-faced lout whom
General Bourgain-Desfeuilles had questioned the day before at dinner
without learning anything and before whom, in the innocence of his
heart, he had disclosed things that would have better been kept
secret. It was evident enough that the scamp had made his escape by a
back window which was found open, but the hunt that was immediately
started throughout the village and its environs had no results; the
fellow, big as he was, had vanished as utterly as a smoke-wreath
dissolves upon the air.

Maurice thought it best to take Honore away, lest in his distracted
state he might reveal to the spectators unpleasant family secrets
which they had no concern to know.

"_Tonnerre de Dieu!_" he cried again, "it would have done me such good
to strangle him!--The letter that I was speaking of revived all my old
hatred for him."

And the two of them sat down upon the ground against a stack of rye a
little way from the house, and he handed the letter to his cousin.

It was the old story: the course of Honore Fouchard's and Silvine
Morange's love had not run smooth. She, a pretty, meek-eyed,
brown-haired girl, had in early childhood lost her mother, an
operative in one of the factories of Raucourt, and Doctor Dalichamp,
her godfather, a worthy man who was greatly addicted to adopting the
wretched little beings whom he ushered into the world, had conceived
the idea of placing her in Father Fouchard's family as small maid of
all work. True it was that the old boor was a terrible skinflint and a
harsh, stern taskmaster; he had gone into the butchering business from
sordid love of lucre, and his cart was to be seen daily, rain or
shine, on the roads of twenty communes; but if the child was willing
to work she would have a home and a protector, perhaps some small
prospect in the future. At all events she would be spared the
contamination of the factory. And naturally enough it came to pass
that in old Fouchard's household the son and heir and the little maid
of all work fell in love with each other. Honore was then just turned
sixteen and she was twelve, and when she was sixteen and he twenty
there was a drawing for the army; Honore, to his great delight,
secured a lucky number and determined to marry. Nothing had ever
passed between them, thanks to the unusual delicacy that was inherent
in the lad's tranquil, thoughtful nature, more than an occasional hug
and a furtive kiss in the barn. But when he spoke of the marriage to
his father, the old man, who had the stubbornness of the mule, angrily
told him that his son might kill him, but never, never would he
consent, and continued to keep the girl about the house, not worrying
about the matter, expecting it would soon blow over. For two years
longer the young folks kept on adoring and desiring each other, and
never the least breath of scandal sullied their names. Then one day
there was a frightful quarrel between the two men, after which the
young man, feeling he could no longer endure his father's tyranny,
enlisted and was packed off to Africa, while the butcher still
retained the servant-maid, because she was useful to him. Soon after
that a terrible thing happened: Silvine, who had sworn that she would
be true to her lover and await his return, was detected one day, two
short weeks after his departure, in the company of a laborer who had
been working on the farm for some months past, that Goliah Steinberg,
the Prussian, as he was called; a tall, simple young fellow with
short, light hair, wearing a perpetual smile on his broad, pink face,
who had made himself Honore's chum. Had Father Fouchard traitorously
incited the man to take advantage of the girl? or had Silvine, sick at
heart and prostrated by the sorrow of parting with her lover, yielded
in a moment of unconsciousness? She could not tell herself; was dazed,
and saw herself driven by the necessity of her situation to a marriage
with Goliah. He, for his part, always with the everlasting smile on
his face, made no objection, only insisted on deferring the ceremony
until the child should be born. When that event occurred he suddenly
disappeared; it was rumored, subsequently that he had found work on
another farm, over Beaumont way. These things had happened three years
before the breaking out of the war, and now everyone was convinced
that that artless, simple Goliah, who had such a way of ingratiating
himself with the girls, was none else than one of those Prussian spies
who filled our eastern provinces. When Honore learned the tidings over
in Africa he was three months in hospital, as if the fierce sun of
that country had smitten him on the neck with one of his fiery
javelins, and never thereafter did he apply for leave of absence to
return to his country for fear lest he might again set eyes on Silvine
and her child.

The artilleryman's hands shook with agitation as Maurice perused the
letter. It was from Silvine, the first, the only one that she had ever
written him. What had been her guiding impulse, that silent,
submissive woman, whose handsome black eyes at times manifested a
startling fixedness of purpose in the midst of her never-ending
slavery? She simply said that she knew he was with the army, and
though she might never see him again, she could not endure the thought
that he might die and believe that she had ceased to love him. She
loved him still, had never loved another; and this she repeated again
and again through four closely written pages, in words of unvarying
import, without the slightest word of excuse for herself, without even
attempting to explain what had happened. There was no mention of the
child, nothing but an infinitely mournful and tender farewell.

The letter produced a profound impression upon Maurice, to whom his
cousin had once imparted the whole story. He raised his eyes and saw
that Honore was weeping; he embraced him like a brother.

"My poor Honore."

But the sergeant quickly got the better of his emotion. He carefully
restored the letter to its place over his heart and rebuttoned his
jacket.

"Yes, those are things that a man does not forget. Ah! the scoundrel,
if I could but have laid hands on him! But we shall see."

The bugles were sounding the signal to prepare for breaking camp, and
each had to hurry away to rejoin his command. The preparations for
departure dragged, however, and the troops had to stand waiting in
heavy marching order until nearly nine o'clock. A feeling of hesitancy
seemed to have taken possession of their leaders; there was not the
resolute alacrity of the first two days, when the 7th corps had
accomplished forty miles in two marches. Strange and alarming news,
moreover, had been circulating through the camp since morning, that
the three other corps were marching northward, the 1st at Juniville,
the 5th and 12th at Rethel, and this deviation from their route was
accounted for on the ground of the necessities of the commissariat.
Montmedy had ceased to be their objective, then? why were they thus
idling away their time again? What was most alarming of all was that
the Prussians could not now be far away, for the officers had
cautioned their men not to fall behind the column, as all stragglers
were liable to be picked up by the enemy's light cavalry.
It was the 25th of August, and Maurice, when he subsequently recalled
to mind Goliah's disappearance, was certain that the man had been
instrumental in affording the German staff exact information as to the
movements of the army of Chalons, and thus producing the change of
front of their third army. The succeeding morning the Crown Prince of
Prussia left Revigny and the great maneuver was initiated, that
gigantic movement by the flank, surrounding and enmeshing us by a
series of forced marches conducted in the most admirable order through
Champagne and the Ardennes. While the French were stumbling aimlessly
about the country, oscillating uncertainly between one place and
another, the Prussians were making their twenty miles a day and more,
gradually contracting their immense circle of beaters upon the band of
men whom they held within their toils, and driving their prey onward
toward the forests of the frontier.

A start was finally made, and the result of the day's movement showed
that the army was pivoting on its left; the 7th corps only traversed
the two short leagues between Contreuve and Vouziers, while the 5th
and 12th corps did not stir from Rethel, and the 1st went no farther
than Attigny. Between Contreuve and the valley of the Aisne the
country became level again and was more bare than ever; as they drew
near to Vouziers the road wound among desolate hills and naked gray
fields, without a tree, without a house, as gloomy and forbidding as a
desert, and the day's march, short as it was, was accomplished with
such fatigue and distress that it seemed interminably long. Soon after
midday, however, the 1st and 3d divisions had passed through the city
and encamped in the meadows on the farther bank of the Aisne, while a
brigade of the second, which included the 106th, had remained upon the
left bank, bivouacking among the waste lands of which the low
foot-hills overlooked the valley, observing from their position the
Monthois road, which skirts the stream and by which the enemy was
expected to make his appearance.

And Maurice was dumfoundered to behold advancing along that Monthois
road Margueritte's entire division, the body of cavalry to which had
been assigned the duty of supporting the 7th corps and watching the
left flank of the army. The report was that it was on its way to
Chene-Populeux. Why was the left wing, where alone they were
threatened by the enemy, stripped in that manner? What sense was there
in summoning in upon the center, where they could be of no earthly
use, those two thousand horsemen, who should have been dispersed upon
our flank, leagues away, as videttes to observe the enemy? And what
made matters worse was that they caused the greatest confusion among
the columns of the 7th corps, cutting in upon their line of march and
producing an inextricable jam of horses, guns, and men. A squadron of
chasseurs d'Afrique were halted for near two hours at the gate of
Vouziers, and by the merest chance Maurice stumbled on Prosper, who
had ridden his horse down to the bank of a neighboring pond to let him
drink, and the two men were enabled to exchange a few words. The
chasseur appeared stunned, dazed, knew nothing and had seen nothing
since they left Rheims; yes, though, he had: he had seen two uhlans
more; oh! but they were will o' the wisps, phantoms, they were, that
appeared and vanished, and no one could tell whence they came nor
whither they went. Their fame had spread, and stories of them were
already rife throughout the country, such, for instance, as that of
four uhlans galloping into a town with drawn revolvers and taking
possession of it, when the corps to which they belonged was a dozen
miles away. They were everywhere, preceding the columns like a
buzzing, stinging swarm of bees, a living curtain, behind which the
infantry could mask their movements and march and countermarch as
securely as if they were at home upon parade. And Maurice's heart sank
in his bosom as he looked at the road, crowded with chasseurs and
hussars which our leaders put to such poor use.

"Well, then, _au revoir_," said he, shaking Prosper by the hand;
"perhaps they will find something for you to do down yonder, after
all."

But the chasseur appeared disgusted with the task assigned him. He
sadly stroked Poulet's neck and answered:

"Ah, what's the use talking! they kill our horses and let us rot in
idleness. It is sickening."

When Maurice took off his shoe that evening to have a look at his
foot, which was aching and throbbing feverishly, the skin came with
it; the blood spurted forth and he uttered a cry of pain. Jean was
standing by, and exhibited much pity and concern.

"Look here, that is becoming serious; you are going to lie right down
and not attempt to move. That foot of yours must be attended to. Let
me see it."

He knelt down, washed the sore with his own hands and bound it up with
some clean linen that he took from his knapsack. He displayed the
gentleness of a woman and the deftness of a surgeon, whose big fingers
can be so pliant when necessity requires it.

A great wave of tenderness swept over Maurice, his eyes were dimmed
with tears, the familiar _thou_ rose from his heart to his lips with
an irresistible impulse of affection, as if in that peasant whom he
once had hated and abhorred, whom only yesterday he had despised, he
had discovered a long lost brother.

"Thou art a good fellow, thou! Thanks, good friend."

And Jean, too, looking very happy, dropped into the second person
singular, with his tranquil smile.

"Now, my little one, wilt thou have a cigarette? I have some tobacco
left."

V.


On the morning of the following day, the 26th, Maurice arose with
stiffened limbs and an aching back, the result of his night under the
tent. He was not accustomed yet to sleeping on the bare ground; orders
had been given before the men turned in that they were not to remove
their shoes, and during the night the sergeants had gone the rounds,
feeling in the darkness to see if all were properly shod and gaitered,
so that his foot was much inflamed and very painful. In addition to
his other troubles he had imprudently stretched his legs outside the
canvas to relieve their cramped feeling and taken cold in them.

Jean said as soon as he set eyes on him:

"If we are to do any marching to-day, my lad, you had better see the
surgeon and get him to give you a place in one of the wagons."

But no one seemed to know what were the plans for the day, and the
most conflicting reports prevailed. It appeared for a moment as if
they were about to resume their march; the tents were struck and the
entire corps took the road and passed through Vouziers, leaving on the
right bank of the Aisne only one brigade of the second division,
apparently to continue the observation of the Monthois road; but all
at once, as soon as they had put the town behind them and were on the
left bank of the stream, they halted and stacked muskets in the fields
and meadows that skirt the Grand-Pre road on either hand, and the
departure of the 4th hussars, who just then moved off on that road at
a sharp trot, afforded fresh food for conjecture.

"If we are to remain here I shall stay with you," declared Maurice,
who was not attracted by the prospect of riding in an ambulance.

It soon became known that they were to occupy their present camp until
General Douay could obtain definite information as to the movements of
the enemy. The general had been harassed by an intense and constantly
increasing anxiety since the day before, when he had seen
Margueritte's division moving toward Chene, for he knew that his flank
was uncovered, that there was not a man to watch the passes of the
Argonne, and that he was liable to be attacked at any moment.
Therefore he had sent out the 4th hussars to reconnoiter the country
as far as the defiles of Grand-Pre and Croix-aux-Bois, with strict
orders not to return without intelligence.

There had been an issue of bread, meat, and forage the day before,
thanks to the efficient mayor of Vouziers, and about ten o'clock that
morning permission had been granted the men to make soup, in the fear
that they might not soon again have so good an opportunity, when
another movement of troops, the departure of Bordas' brigade over the
road taken by the hussars, set all tongues wagging afresh. What! were
they going to march again? were they not to be given a chance to eat
their breakfast in peace, now that the kettle was on the fire? But the
officers explained that Bordas' brigade had only been sent to occupy
Buzancy, a few kilometers from there. There were others, indeed, who
asserted that the hussars had encountered a strong force of the
enemy's cavalry and that the brigade had been dispatched to help them
out of their difficulty.

Maurice enjoyed a few hours of delicious repose. He had thrown himself
on the ground in a field half way up the hill where the regiment had
halted, and in a drowsy state between sleeping and waking was
contemplating the verdant valley of the Aisne, the smiling meadows
dotted with clumps of trees, among which the little stream wound
lazily. Before him and closing the valley in that direction lay
Vouziers, an amphitheater of roofs rising one above another and
overtopped by the church with its slender spire and dome-crowned
tower. Below him, near the bridge, smoke was curling upward from the
tall chimneys of the tanneries, while farther away a great mill
displayed its flour-whitened buildings among the fresh verdure of the
growths that lined the waterside. The little town that lay there,
bounding his horizon, hidden among the stately trees, appeared to him
to possess a gentle charm; it brought him memories of boyhood, of the
journeys that he had made to Vouziers in other days, when he had lived
at Chene, the village where he was born. For an hour he was oblivious
of the outer world.

The soup had long since been made and eaten and everyone was waiting
to see what would happen next, when, about half-past two o'clock, the
smoldering excitement began to gain strength, and soon pervaded the
entire camp. Hurried orders came to abandon the meadows, and the
troops ascended a line of hills between two villages, Chestres and
Falaise, some two or three miles apart, and took position there.
Already the engineers were at work digging rifle-pits and throwing up
epaulments; while over to the left the artillery had occupied the
summit of a rounded eminence. The rumor spread that General Bordas had
sent in a courier to announce that he had encountered the enemy in
force at Grand-Pre and had been compelled to fall back on Buzancy,
which gave cause to apprehend that he might soon be cut off from
retreat on Vouziers. For these reasons, the commander of the 7th
corps, believing an attack to be imminent, had placed his men in
position to sustain the first onset until the remainder of the army
should have time to come to his assistance, and had started off one of
his aides-de-camp with a letter to the marshal, apprising him of the
danger, and asking him for re-enforcements. Fearing for the safety of
the subsistence train, which had come up with the corps during the
night and was again dragging its interminable length in the rear, he
summarily sent it to the right about and directed it to make the best
of its way to Chagny. Things were beginning to look like fight.

"So, it looks like business this time--eh, Lieutenant?" Maurice
ventured to ask Rochas.

"Yes, thank goodness," replied the Lieutenant, his long arms going
like windmills. "Wait a little; you'll find it warm enough!"

The soldiers were all delighted; the animation in the camp was still
more pronounced. A feverish impatience had taken possession of the
men, now that they were actually in line of battle between Chestres
and Falaise. At last they were to have a sight of those Prussians who,
if the newspapers were to be believed, were knocked up by their long
marches, decimated by sickness, starving, and in rags, and every man's
heart beat high with the prospect of annihilating them at a single
blow.

"We are lucky to come across them again," said Jean. "They've been
playing hide-and-seek about long enough since they slipped through our
fingers after their battle down yonder on the frontier. But are these
the same troops that whipped MacMahon, I wonder?"

Maurice could not answer his question with any degree of certainty. It
seemed to him hardly probable, in view of what he had read in the
newspapers at Rheims, that the third army, commanded by the Crown
Prince of Prussia, could be at Vouziers, when, only two days before,
it was just on the point of going into camp at Vitry-le-Francois.
There had been some talk of a fourth army, under the Prince of Saxony,
which was to operate on the line of the Meuse; this was doubtless the
one that was now before them, although their promptitude in occupying
Grand-Pre was a matter of surprise, considering the distances. But
what put the finishing touch to the confusion of his ideas was his
stupefaction to hear General Bourgain-Desfeuilles ask a countryman if
the Meuse did not flow past Buzancy, and if the bridges there were
strong. The general announced, moreover, in the confidence of his
sublime ignorance, that a column of one hundred thousand men was on
the way from Grand-Pre to attack them, while another, of sixty
thousand, was coming up by the way of Sainte-Menehould.

"How's your foot, Maurice?" asked Jean.

"It don't hurt now," the other laughingly replied. "If there is to be
a fight, I think it will be quite well."

It was true; his nervous excitement was so great that he was hardly
conscious of the ground on which he trod. To think that in the whole
campaign he had not yet burned powder! He had gone forth to the
frontier, he had endured the agony of that terrible night of
expectation before Mulhausen, and had not seen a Prussian, had not
fired a shot; then he had retreated with the rest to Belfort, to
Rheims, had now been marching five days trying to find the enemy, and
his useless _chassepot_ was as clean as the day it left the shop,
without the least smell of smoke on it. He felt an aching desire to
discharge his piece once, if no more, to relieve the tension of his
nerves. Since the day, near six weeks ago, when he had enlisted in a
fit of enthusiasm, supposing that he would surely have to face the foe
in a day or two, all that he had done had been to tramp up and down
the country on his poor, sore feet--the feet of a man who had lived in
luxury, far from the battle-field; and so, among all those impatient
watchers, there was none who watched more impatiently than he the
Grand-Pre road, extending straight away to a seemingly infinite
distance between two rows of handsome trees. Beneath him was unrolled
the panorama of the valley; the Aisne was, like a silver ribbon,
flowing between its willows and poplars, and ever his gaze returned,
solicited by an irresistible attraction, to that road down yonder that
stretched away, far as the eye could see, to the horizon.

About four o'clock the 4th hussars returned, having made a wide
circuit in the country round about, and stories, which grew as they
were repeated, began to circulate of conflicts with uhlans, tending to
confirm the confident belief which everyone had that an attack was
imminent. Two hours later a courier came galloping in, breathless with
terror, to announce that General Bordas had positive information that
the enemy were on the Vouziers road, and dared not leave Grand-Pre. It
was evident that that could not be true, since the courier had just
passed over the road unharmed, but no one could tell at what moment it
might be the case, and General Dumont, commanding the division, set
out at once with his remaining brigade to bring off his other brigade
that was in difficulty. The sun went down behind Vouziers and the
roofs of the town were sharply profiled in black against a great red
cloud. For a long time the brigade was visible as it receded between
the double row of trees, until finally it was swallowed up in the
gathering darkness.

Colonel de Vineuil came to look after his regiment's position for the
night. He was surprised not to find Captain Beaudoin at his post, and
as that officer just then chanced to come in from Vouziers, where he
alleged in excuse for his absence that he had been breakfasting with
the Baronne de Ladicourt, he received a sharp reprimand, which he
digested in silence, with the rigid manner of a martinet conscious of
being in the wrong.

"My children," said the Colonel, as he passed along the line of men,
"we shall probably be attacked to-night, or if not, then by day-break
to-morrow morning at the latest. Be prepared, and remember that the
106th has never retreated before the enemy."

The little speech was received with loud hurrahs; everyone, in the
prevailing suspense and discouragement, preferred to "take the wipe of
the dish-clout" and have done with it. Rifles were examined to see
that they were in good order, belts were refilled with cartridges. As
they had eaten their soup that morning, the men were obliged to
content themselves with biscuits and coffee. An order was promulgated
that there was to be no sleeping. The grand-guards were out nearly a
mile to the front, and a chain of sentinels at frequent intervals
extended down to the Aisne. The officers were seated in little groups
about the camp-fires, and beside a low wall at the left of the road
the fitful blaze occasionally flared up and rescued from the darkness
the gold embroideries and bedizened uniforms of the Commander-in-Chief
and his staff, flitting to and fro like phantoms, watching the road
and listening for the tramp of horses in the mortal anxiety they were
in as to the fate of the third division.

It was about one o'clock in the morning when it came Maurice's turn to
take his post as sentry at the edge of an orchard of plum-trees,
between the road and the river. The night was black as ink, and as
soon as his comrades left him and he found himself alone in the deep
silence of the sleeping fields he was conscious of a sensation of fear
creeping over him, a feeling of abject terror such as he had never
known before and which he trembled with rage and shame at his
inability to conquer. He turned his head to cheer himself by a sight
of the camp-fires, but they were hidden from him by a wood; there was
naught behind him but an unfathomable sea of blackness; all that he
could discern was a few distant lights still dimly burning in
Vouziers, where the inhabitants, doubtless forewarned and trembling at
the thought of the impending combat, were keeping anxious vigil. His
terror was increased, if that were possible, on bringing his piece to
his shoulder to find that he could not even distinguish the sights on
it. Then commenced a period of suspense that tried his nerves most
cruelly; every faculty of his being was strained and concentrated in
the one sense of hearing; sounds so faint as to be imperceptible
reverberated in his ears like the crash of thunder; the plash of a
distant waterfall, the rustling of a leaf, the movement of an insect
in the grass, were like the booming of artillery. Was that the tramp
of cavalry, the deep rumbling of gun-carriages driven at speed, that
he heard down there to the right? And there on his left, what was
that? was it not the sound of stealthy whispers, stifled voices, a
party creeping up to surprise him under cover of the darkness? Three
times he was on the point of giving the alarm by firing his piece. The
fear that he might be mistaken and incur the ridicule of his comrades
served to intensify his distress. He had kneeled upon the ground,
supporting his left shoulder against a tree; it seemed to him that he
had been occupying that position for hours, that they had forgotten
him there, that the army had moved away without him. Then suddenly, at
once, his fear left him; upon the road, that he knew was not two
hundred yards away, he distinctly heard the cadenced tramp of marching
men. Immediately it flashed across his mind as a certainty that they
were the troops from Grand-Pre, whose coming had been awaited with
such anxiety--General Dumont bringing in Bordas' brigade. At that same
moment the corporal of the guard came along with the relief; he had
been on post a little less than the customary hour.

He had been right; it was the 3d division returning to camp. Everyone
felt a sensation of deep relief. Increased precautions were taken,
nevertheless, for what fresh intelligence they received tended to
confirm what they supposed they already knew of the enemy's approach.
A few uhlans, forbidding looking fellows in their long black cloaks,
were brought in as prisoners, but they were uncommunicative, and so
daylight came at last, the pale, ghastly light of a rainy morning,
bringing with it no alleviation of their terrible suspense. No one had
dared to close an eye during that long night. About seven o'clock
Lieutenant Rochas affirmed that MacMahon was coming up with the whole
army. The truth of the matter was that General Douay, in reply to his
dispatch of the preceding day announcing that a battle at Vouziers was
inevitable, had received a letter from the marshal enjoining him to
hold the position until re-enforcements could reach him; the forward
movement had been arrested; the 1st corps was being directed on
Terron, the 5th on Buzancy, while the 12th was to remain at Chene and
constitute our second line. Then the suspense became more breathless
still; it was to be no mere skirmish that the peaceful valley of the
Aisne was to witness that day, but a great battle, in which would
participate the entire army, that was even now turning its back upon
the Meuse and marching southward; and there was no making of soup, the
men had to content themselves with coffee and hard-tack, for everyone
was saying, without troubling himself to ask why, that the "wipe of
the dish-clout" was set down for midday. An aide-de-camp had been
dispatched to the marshal to urge him to hurry forward their supports,
as intelligence received from every quarter made it more and more
certain that the two Prussian armies were close at hand, and three
hours later still another officer galloped off like mad toward Chene,
where general headquarters were located, with a request for
instructions, for consternation had risen to a higher pitch then ever
with the receipt of fresh tidings from the _maire_ of a country
commune, who told of having seen a hundred thousand men at Grand-Pre,
while another hundred thousand were advancing by way of Buzancy.

Midday came, and not a sign of the Prussians. At one o'clock, at two,
it was the same, and a reaction of lassitude and doubt began to
prevail among the troops. Derisive jeers were heard at the expense of
the generals: perhaps they had seen their shadow on the wall; they
should be presented with a pair of spectacles. A pretty set of humbugs
they were, to have caused all that trouble for nothing! A fellow who
passed for a wit among his comrades shouted:

"It is like it was down there at Mulhausen, eh?"

The words recalled to Maurice's mind a flood of bitter memories. He
thought of that idiotic flight, that panic that had swept away the 7th
corps when there was not a German visible, nor within ten leagues of
where they were, and now he had a distinct certainty that they were to
have a renewal of that experience. It was plain that if twenty-four
hours had elapsed since the skirmish at Grand-Pre and they had not
been attacked, the reason was that the 4th hussars had merely struck
up against a reconnoitering body of cavalry; the main body of the
Prussians must be far away, probably a day's march or two. Then the
thought suddenly struck him of the time they had wasted, and it
terrified him; in three days they had only accomplished the distance
from Contreuve to Vouziers, a scant two leagues. On the 25th the other
corps, alleging scarcity of supplies, had diverted their course to the
north, while now, on the 27th, here they were coming southward again
to fight a battle with an invisible enemy. Bordas' brigade had
followed the 4th hussars into the abandoned passes of the Argonne, and
was supposed to have got itself into trouble; the division had gone to
its assistance, and that had been succeeded by the corps, and that by
the entire army, and all those movements had amounted to nothing.
Maurice trembled as he reflected how pricelessly valuable was every
hour, every minute, in that mad project of joining forces with
Bazaine, a project that could be carried to a successful issue only by
an officer of genius, with seasoned troops under him, who should press
forward to his end with the resistless energy of a whirlwind, crushing
every obstacle that lay in his path.

"It is all up with us!" said he, as the whole truth flashed through
his mind, to Jean, who had given way to despair. Then as the corporal,
failing to catch his meaning, looked at him wonderingly, he went on in
an undertone, for his friend's ear alone, to speak of their
commanders:

"They mean well, but they have no sense, that's certain--and no luck!
They know nothing; they foresee nothing; they have neither plans nor
ideas, nor happy intuitions. _Allons_! everything is against us; it is
all up!"

And by slow degrees that same feeling of discouragement that Maurice
had arrived at by a process of reasoning settled down upon the denser
intellects of the troops who lay there inactive, anxiously awaiting to
see what the end would be. Distrust, as a result of their truer
perception of the position they were in, was obscurely burrowing in
those darkened minds, and there was no man so ignorant as not to feel
a sense of injury at the ignorance and irresolution of their leaders,
although he might not have been able to express in distinct terms the
causes of his exasperation. In the name of Heaven, what were they
doing there, since the Prussians had not shown themselves? either let
them fight and have it over with, or else go off to some place where
they could get some sleep; they had had enough of that kind of work.
Since the departure of the second aide-de-camp, who had been
dispatched in quest of orders, this feeling of unrest had been
increasing momentarily; men collected in groups, talking loudly and
discussing the situation pro and con, and the general inquietude
communicating itself to the officers, they knew not what answer to
make to those of their men who ventured to question them. They ought
to be marching, it would not answer to dawdle thus; and so, when it
became known about five o'clock that the aide-de-camp had returned and
that they were to retreat, there was a sigh of relief throughout the
camp and every heart was lighter.

It seemed that the wiser counsel was to prevail, then, after all! The
Emperor and MacMahon had never looked with favor on the movement
toward Montmedy, and now, alarmed to learn that they were again
out-marched and out-maneuvered, and that they were to have the army of
the Prince of Saxony as well as that of the Crown Prince to contend
with, they had renounced the hazardous scheme of uniting their forces
with Bazaine, and would retreat through the northern strongholds with
a view to falling back ultimately on Paris. The 7th corps' destination
would be Chagny, by way of Chene, while the 5th corps would be
directed on Poix, and the 1st and 12th on Vendresse. But why, since
they were about to fall back, had they advanced to the line of the
Aisne? Why all that waste of time and labor, when it would have been
so easy and so rational to move straight from Rheims and occupy the
strong positions in the valley of the Marne? Was there no guiding
mind, no military talent, no common sense? But there should be no more
questioning; all should be forgiven, in the universal joy at the
adoption of that eminently wise counsel, which was the only means at
their command of extricating themselves from the hornets' nest into
which they had rushed so imprudently. All, officers and men, felt that
they would be the stronger for the retrograde movement, that under the
walls of Paris they would be invincible, and that there it was that
the Prussians would sustain their inevitable defeat. But Vouziers must
be evacuated before daybreak, and they must be well on the road to
Chene before the enemy should learn of the movement, and forthwith the
camp presented a scene of the greatest animation: trumpets sounding,
officers hastening to and fro with orders, while the baggage and
quartermaster's trains, in order not to encumber the rear-guard, were
sent forward in advance.

Maurice was delighted. As he was endeavoring to explain to Jean the
rationale of the impending movement, however, a cry of pain escaped
him; his excitement had subsided, and he was again conscious of his
foot, aching and burning as if it had been a ball of red-hot metal.

"What's the matter? is it hurting you again?" the corporal asked
sympathizingly. And with his calm and sensible resourcefulness he
said: "See here, little one, you told me yesterday that you have
acquaintances in the town, yonder. You ought to get permission from
the major and find some one to drive you over to Chene, where you
could have a good night's rest in a comfortable bed. We can pick you
up as we go by to-morrow if you are fit to march. What do you say to
that, _hein_?"

In Falaise, the village near which the camp was pitched, Maurice had
come across a small farmer, an old friend of his father's, who was
about to drive his daughter over to Chene to visit an aunt in that
town, and the horse was even then standing waiting, hitched to a light
carriole. The prospect was far from encouraging, however, when he
broached the subject to Major Bouroche.

"I have a sore foot, monsieur the doctor--"

Bouroche, with a savage shake of his big head with its leonine mane,
turned on him with a roar:

"I am not monsieur the doctor; who taught you manners?"

And when Maurice, taken all aback, made a stammering attempt to excuse
himself, he continued:

"Address me as major, do you hear, you great oaf!"

He must have seen that he had not one of the common herd to deal with
and felt a little ashamed of himself; he carried it off with a display
of more roughness.

"All a cock-and-bull story, that sore foot of yours!--Yes, yes; you
may go. Go in a carriage, go in a balloon, if you choose. We have too
many of you malingerers in the army!"

When Jean assisted Maurice into the carriole the latter turned to
thank him, whereon the two men fell into each other's arms and
embraced as if they were never to meet again. Who could tell, amid the
confusion and disorder of the retreat, with those bloody Prussians on
their track? Maurice could not tell how it was that there was already
such a tender affection between him and the young man, and twice he
turned to wave him a farewell. As he left the camp they were preparing
to light great fires in order to mislead the enemy when they should
steal away, in deepest silence, before the dawn of day.

As they jogged along the farmer bewailed the terrible times through
which they were passing. He had lacked the courage to remain at
Falaise, and already was regretting that he had left it, declaring
that if the Prussians burned his house it would ruin him. His
daughter, a tall, pale young woman, wept copiously. But Maurice was
like a dead man for want of sleep, and had no ears for the farmer's
lamentations; he slumbered peacefully, soothed by the easy motion of
the vehicle, which the little horse trundled over the ground at such a
good round pace that it took them less than an hour and a half to
accomplish the four leagues between Vouziers and Chene. It was not
quite seven o'clock and scarcely beginning to be dark when the young
man rubbed his eyes and alighted in a rather dazed condition on the
public square, near the bridge over the canal, in front of the modest
house where he was born and had passed twenty years of his life. He
got down there in obedience to an involuntary impulse, although the
house had been sold eighteen months before to a veterinary surgeon,
and in reply to the farmer's questions said that he knew quite well
where he was going, adding that he was a thousand times obliged to him
for his kindness.

He continued to stand stock-still, however, beside the well in the
middle of the little triangular _place_; he was as if stunned; his
memory was a blank. Where had he intended to go? and suddenly his wits
returned to him and he remembered that it was to the notary's, whose
house was next door to his father's, and whose mother, Madame
Desvallieres, an aged and most excellent lady, had petted him when he
was an urchin on account of their being neighbors. But he hardly
recognized Chene in the midst of the hurly-burly and confusion into
which the little town, ordinarily so dead, was thrown by the presence
of an army corps encamped at its gates and filling its quiet streets
with officers, couriers, soldiers, and camp-followers and stragglers
of every description. The canal was there as of old, passing through
the town from end to end and bisecting the market-place in the center
into two equal-sized triangles connected by a narrow stone bridge; and
there, on the other bank, was the old market with its moss-grown
roofs, and the Rue Berond leading away to the left and the Sedan road
to the right, but filling the Rue de Vouziers in front of him and
extending as far as the Hotel de Ville was such a compact, swarming,
buzzing crowd that he was obliged to raise his eyes and take a look
over the roof of the notary's house at the slate-covered bell tower in
order to assure himself that that was the quiet spot where he had
played hop-scotch when he was a youngster. There seemed to be an
effort making to clear the square; some men were roughly crowding back
the throng of idlers and gazers, and looking more closely he was
surprised to see, parked like the guns of a battery, a collection of
vans, baggage-wagons, and carriages open and closed; a miscellaneous
assortment of traps that he had certainly set eyes on before.

It was daylight still; the sun had just sunk in the canal at the point
where it vanished in the horizon and the long, straight stretch of
water was like a sea of blood, and Maurice was trying to make up his
mind what to do when a woman who stood near stared at him a moment and
then exclaimed:

"Why goodness gracious, is it possible! Are you the Levasseur boy?"

And thereon he recognized Madame Combette, the wife of the druggist,
whose shop was on the market-place. As he was trying to explain to her
that he was going to ask good Madame Desvallieres to give him a bed
for the night she excitedly hurried him away.

"No, no; come to our house. I will tell you why--" When they were in
the shop and she had cautiously closed the door she continued: "You
could not know, my dear boy, that the Emperor is at the Desvallieres.
His officers took possession of the house in his name and the family
are not any too well pleased with the great honor done them, I can
tell you. To think that the poor old mother, a woman more than
seventy, was compelled to give up her room and go up and occupy a
servant's bed in the garret! Look, there, on the place. All that you
see there is the Emperor's; those are his trunks, don't you see!"

And then Maurice remembered; they were the imperial carriages and
baggage-wagons, the entire magnificent train that he had seen at
Rheims.

"Ah! my dear boy, if you could but have seen the stuff they took from
them, the silver plate, and the bottles of wine, and the baskets of
good things, and the beautiful linen, and everything! I can't help
wondering where they find room for such heaps of things, for the house
is not a large one. Look, look! see what a fire they have lighted in
the kitchen!"

He looked over at the small white, two-storied house that stood at the
corner of the market-place and the Rue de Vouziers, a comfortable,
unassuming house of bourgeois aspect; how well he remembered it,
inside and out, with its central hall and four rooms on each floor;
why, it was as if he had just left it! There were lights in the corner
room on the first floor overlooking the square; the apothecary's wife
informed him that it was the bedroom of the Emperor. But the chief
center of activity seemed, as she had said, to be the kitchen, the
window of which opened on the Rue de Vouziers. In all their lives the
good people of Chene had witnessed no such spectacle, and the street
before the house was filled with a gaping crowd, constantly coming and
going, who stared with all their eyes at the range on which was
cooking the dinner of an Emperor. To obtain a breath of air the cooks
had thrown open the window to its full extent. They were three in
number, in jackets of resplendent whiteness, superintending the
roasting of chickens impaled on a huge spit, stirring the gravies and
sauces in copper vessels that shone like gold. And the oldest
inhabitant, evoking in memory all the civic banquets that he had
beheld at the Silver Lion, could truthfully declare that never at any
one time had he seen so much wood burning and so much food cooking.

Combette, a bustling, wizened little man, came in from the street in a
great state of excitement from all that he had seen and heard. His
position as deputy-mayor gave him facilities for knowing what was
going on. It was about half-past three o'clock when MacMahon had
telegraphed Bazaine that the Crown Prince of Prussia was approaching
Chalons, thus necessitating the withdrawal of the army to the places
along the Belgian frontier, and further dispatches were also in
preparation for the Minister of War, advising him of the projected
movement and explaining the terrible dangers of their position. It was
uncertain whether or not the dispatch for Bazaine would get through,
for communication with Metz had seemed to be interrupted for the past
few days, but the second dispatch was another and more serious matter;
and lowering his voice almost to a whisper the apothecary repeated the
words that he had heard uttered by an officer of rank: "If they get
wind of this in Paris, our goose is cooked!" Everyone was aware of the
unrelenting persistency with which the Empress and the Council of
Ministers urged the advance of the army. Moreover, the confusion went
on increasing from hour to hour, the most conflicting advices were
continually coming in as to the whereabouts of the German forces.
Could it be possible that the Crown Prince was at Chalons? What, then,
were the troops that the 7th corps had encountered among the passes of
the Argonne?

"They have no information at staff headquarters," continued the little
druggist, raising his arms above his head with a despairing gesture.
"Ah, what a mess we are in! But all will be well if the army
retreats to-morrow." Then, dropping public for private matters, the
kind-hearted man said: "Look here, my young friend, I am going to see
what I can do for that foot of yours; then we'll give you some dinner
and put you to bed in my apprentice's little room, who has cleared
out."

But Maurice was tormented by such an itching desire for further
intelligence that he could neither eat nor sleep until he had carried
into execution his original design of paying a visit to his old
friend, Madame Desvallieres, over the way. He was surprised that he
was not halted at the door, which, in the universal confusion, had
been left wide open, without so much as a sentry to guard it. People
were going out and coming in incessantly, military men and officers of
the household, and the roar from the blazing kitchen seemed to rise
and pervade the whole house. There was no light in the passage and on
the staircase, however, and he had to grope his way up as best he
might. On reaching the first floor he paused for a few seconds, his
heart beating violently, before the door of the apartment that he knew
contained the Emperor, but not a sound was to be heard in the room;
the stillness that reigned there was as of death. Mounting the last
flight he presented himself at the door of the servant's room to which
Madame Desvallieres had been consigned; the old lady was at first
terrified at sight of him. When she recognized him presently she said:

"Ah, my poor child, what a sad meeting is this! I would cheerfully
have surrendered my house to the Emperor, but the people he has about
him have no sense of decency. They lay hands on everything, without so
much as saying, 'By your leave,' and I am afraid they will burn the
house down with their great fires! He, poor man, looks like a corpse,
and such sadness in his face--"

And when the young man took leave of her with a few murmured words of
comfort she went with him to the door, and leaning over the banister:
"Look!" she softly said, "you can see him from where you are. Ah! we
are all undone. Adieu, my child!"

Maurice remained planted like a statue on one of the steps of the dark
staircase. Craning his neck and directing his glance through the
glazed fanlight over the door of the apartment, he beheld a sight that
was never to fade from his memory.

In the bare and cheerless room, the conventional bourgeois "parlor,"
was the Emperor, seated at a table on which his plate was laid,
lighted at either end by wax candles in great silver candelabra.
Silent in the background stood two aides-de-camp with folded arms. The
wine in the glass was untasted, the bread untouched, a breast of
chicken was cooling on the plate. The Emperor did not stir; he sat
staring down at the cloth with those dim, lusterless, watery eyes that
the young man remembered to have seen before at Rheims; but he
appeared more weary than then, and when, evidently at the cost of a
great effort, he had raised a couple of mouthfuls to his lips, he
impatiently pushed the remainder of the food from him with his hand.
That was his dinner. His pale face was blanched with an expression of
suffering endured in silence.

As Maurice was passing the dining room on the floor beneath, the door
was suddenly thrown open, and through the glow of candles and the
steam of smoking joints he caught a glimpse of a table of equerries,
chamberlains, and aides-de-camp, engaged in devouring the Emperor's
game and poultry and drinking his champagne, amid a great hubbub of
conversation. Now that the marshal's dispatch had been sent off, all
these people were delighted to know that the retreat was assured. In a
week they would be at Paris and could sleep between clean sheets.

Then, for the first time, Maurice suddenly became conscious of the
terrible fatigue that was oppressing him like a physical burden; there
was no longer room for doubt, the whole army was about to fall back,
and the best thing for him to do was to get some sleep while waiting
for the 7th corps to pass. He made his way back across the square to
the house of his friend Combette, where, like one in a dream, he ate
some dinner, after which he was mistily conscious of someone dressing
his foot and then conducting him upstairs to a bedroom. And then all
was blackness and utter annihilation; he slept a dreamless, unstirring
sleep. But after an uncertain length of time--hours, days, centuries,
he knew not--he gave a start and sat bolt upright in bed in the
surrounding darkness. Where was he? What was that continuous rolling
sound, like the rattling of thunder, that had aroused him from his
slumber? His recollection suddenly returned to him; he ran to the
window to see what was going on. In the obscurity of the street
beneath, where the night was usually so peaceful, the artillery was
passing, horses, men, and guns, in interminable array, with a roar and
clatter that made the lifeless houses quake and tremble. The abrupt
vision filled him with unreasoning alarm. What time might it be? The
great bell in the Hotel de Ville struck four. He was endeavoring to
allay his uneasiness by assuring himself that it was simply the
initial movement in the retreat that had been ordered the day
previous, when, raising his eyes, he beheld a sight that gave him
fresh cause for inquietude: there was a light still in the corner
window of the notary's house opposite, and the shadow of the Emperor,
drawn in dark profile on the curtain, appeared and disappeared at
regularly spaced intervals.

Maurice hastily slipped on his trousers preparatory to going down to
the street, but just then Combette appeared at the door with a
bed-candle in his hand, gesticulating wildly.

"I saw you from the square as I was coming home from the _Mairie_, and
I came up to tell you the news. They have been keeping me out of my
bed all this time; would you believe it, for more than two hours the
mayor and I have been busy attending to fresh requisitions. Yes,
everything is upset again; there has been another change of plans. Ah!
he knew what he was about, that officer did, who wanted to keep the
folks in Paris from getting wind of matters!"

He went on for a long time in broken, disjointed phrases, and when he
had finished the young man, speechless, brokenhearted, saw it all.
About midnight the Emperor had received a dispatch from the Minister
of War in reply to the one that had been sent by the marshal. Its
exact terms were not known, but an aide-de-camp at the Hotel de Ville
had stated openly that the Empress and the Council declared there
would be a revolution in Paris should the Emperor retrace his steps
and abandon Bazaine. The dispatch, which evinced the utmost ignorance
as to the position of the German armies and the resources of the army
of Chalons, advised, or rather ordered, an immediate forward movement,
regardless of all considerations, in spite of everything, with a heat
and fury that seemed incredible.

"The Emperor sent for the marshal," added the apothecary, "and they
were closeted together for near an hour; of course I am not in
position to say what passed between them, but I am told by all the
officers that there is to be no more retreating, and the advance to
the Meuse is to be resumed at once. We have been requisitioning all
the ovens in the city for the 1st corps, which will come up to-morrow
morning and take the place of the 12th, whose artillery you see at
this moment starting for la Besace. The matter is decided for good
this time; you will smell powder before you are much older."

He ceased. He also was gazing at the lighted window over in the
notary's house. Then he went on in a low voice, as if talking to
himself, with an expression on his face of reflective curiosity:

"I wonder what they had to say to each other? It strikes one as a
rather peculiar proceeding, all the same, to run away from a
threatened danger at six in the evening, and at midnight, when nothing
has occurred to alter the situation, to rush headlong into the very
self-same danger."

Below them in the street Maurice still heard the gun-carriages
rumbling and rattling over the stones of the little sleeping city,
that ceaseless tramp of horse and man, that uninterrupted tide of
humanity, pouring onward toward the Meuse, toward the unknown,
terrible fate that the morrow had in store for them. And still upon
the mean, cheap curtains of that bourgeois dwelling he beheld the
shadow of the Emperor passing and repassing at regular intervals, the
restless activity of the sick man, to whom his cares made sleep
impossible, whose sole repose was motion, in whose ears was ever
ringing that tramp of horses and men whom he was suffering to be sent
forward to their death. A few brief hours, then, had sufficed; the
slaughter was decided on; it was to be. What, indeed, could they have
found to say to each other, that Emperor and that marshal, conscious,
both of them, of the inevitable disaster that lay before them? Assured
as they were at night of defeat, from their knowledge of the wretched
condition the army would be in when the time should come for it to
meet the enemy, how, knowing as they did that the peril was hourly
becoming greater, could they have changed their mind in the morning?
Certain it was that General de Palikao's plan of a swift, bold dash on
Montmedy, which seemed hazardous on the 23d and was, perhaps, still
not impracticable on the 25th, if conducted with veteran troops and a
leader of ability, would on the 27th be an act of sheer madness amid
the divided counsels of the chiefs and the increasing demoralization
of the troops. This they both well knew; why, then, did they obey
those merciless drivers who were flogging them onward in their
irresolution? why did they hearken to those furious passions that were
spurring them forward? The marshal's, it might be said, was the
temperament of the soldier, whose duty is limited to obedience to his
instructions, great in its abnegation; while the Emperor, who had
ceased entirely to issue orders, was waiting on destiny. They were
called on to surrender their lives and the life of the army; they
surrendered them. It was the accomplishment of a crime, the black,
abominable night that witnessed the murder of a nation, for
thenceforth the army rested in the shadow of death; a hundred thousand
men and more were sent forward to inevitable destruction.

While pursuing this train of thought Maurice was watching the shadow
that still kept appearing and vanishing on the muslin of good Madame
Desvallieres' curtain, as if it felt the lash of the pitiless voice
that came to it from Paris. Had the Empress that night desired the
death of the father in order that the son might reign? March! forward
ever! with no look backward, through mud, through rain, to bitter
death, that the final game of the agonizing empire may be played out,
even to the last card. March! march! die a hero's death on the piled
corpses of your people, let the whole world gaze in awe-struck
admiration, for the honor and glory of your name! And doubtless the
Emperor was marching to his death. Below, the fires in the kitchen
flamed and flashed no longer; equerries, aides-de-camp and
chamberlains were slumbering, the whole house was wrapped in darkness,
while ever the lone shade went and came unceasingly, accepting with
resignation the sacrifice that was to be, amid the deafening uproar of
the 12th corps, that was defiling still through the black night.

Maurice suddenly reflected that, if the advance was to be resumed, the
7th corps would not pass through Chene, and he beheld himself left
behind, separated from his regiment, a deserter from his post. His
foot no longer pained him; his friend's dressing and a few hours of
complete rest had allayed the inflammation. Combette gave him a pair
of easy shoes of his own that were comfortable to his feet, and as
soon as he had them on he wanted to be off, hoping that he might yet
be able to overtake the 106th somewhere on the road between Chene and
Vouziers. The apothecary labored vainly to dissuade him, and had
almost made up his mind to put his horse in the gig and drive him over
in person, trusting to fortune to befriend him in finding the
regiment, when Fernand, the apprentice, appeared, alleging as an
excuse for his absence that he had been to see his sister. The youth
was a tall, tallow-faced individual, who looked as if he had not the
spirit of a mouse; the horse was quickly hitched to the carriage and
he drove off with Maurice. It was not yet five o'clock; the rain was
pouring in torrents from a sky of inky blackness, and the dim
carriage-lamps faintly illuminated the road and cast little fitful
gleams of light across the streaming fields on either side, over which
came mysterious sounds that made them pull up from time to time in the
belief that the army was at hand.

Jean, meantime, down there before Vouziers, had not been slumbering.
Maurice had explained to him how the retreat was to be salvation to
them all, and he was keeping watch, holding his men together and
waiting for the order to move, which might come at any minute. About
two o'clock, in the intense darkness that was dotted here and there by
the red glow of the watch-fires, a great trampling of horses resounded
through the camp; it was the advance-guard of cavalry moving
off toward Balay and Quatre-Champs so as to observe the roads from
Boult-aux-Bois and Croix-aux-Bois; then an hour later the infantry and
artillery also put themselves in motion, abandoning at last the
positions of Chestre and Falaise that they had defended so
persistently for two long days against an enemy who never showed
himself. The sky had become overcast, the darkness was profound, and
one by one the regiments marched out in deepest silence, an array of
phantoms stealing away into the bosom of the night. Every heart beat
joyfully, however, as if they were escaping from some treacherous
pitfall; already in imagination the troops beheld themselves under the
walls of Paris, where their revenge was awaiting them.

Jean looked out into the thick blackness. The road was bordered with
trees on either hand and, as far as he could see, appeared to lie
between wide meadows. Presently the country became rougher; there was
a succession of sharp rises and descents, and just as they were
entering a village which he supposed to be Balay, two straggling rows
of houses bordering the road, the dense cloud that had obscured the
heavens burst in a deluge of rain. The men had received so many
duckings within the past few days that they took this one without a
murmur, bowing their heads and plodding patiently onward; but when
they had left Balay behind them and were crossing a wide extent of
level ground near Quatre-Champs a violent wind began to rise. Beyond
Quatre-Champs, when they had fought their way upward to the wide
plateau that extends in a dreary stretch of waste land as far as
Noirval, the wind increased to a hurricane and the driving rain stung
their faces. There it was that the order, proceeding from the head of
the column and re-echoed down the line, brought the regiments one
after another to a halt, and the entire 7th corps, thirty-odd thousand
men, found itself once more reunited in the mud and rain of the gray
dawn. What was the matter? Why were they halted there? An uneasy
feeling was already beginning to pervade the ranks; it was asserted in
some quarters that there had been a change of orders. The men had been
brought to ordered arms and forbidden to leave the ranks or sit down.
At times the wind swept over the elevated plateau with such violence
that they had to press closely to one another to keep from being
carried off their feet. The rain blinded them and trickled in ice-cold
streams beneath their collars down their backs. And two hours passed,
a period of waiting that seemed as if it would never end, for what
purpose no one could say, in an agony of expectancy that chilled the
hearts of all.

As the daylight increased Jean made an attempt to discern where they
were. Someone had shown him where the Chene road lay off to the
northwest, passing over a hill beyond Quatre-Champs. Why had they
turned to the right instead of to the left? Another object of interest
to him was the general and his staff, who had established themselves
at the Converserie, a farm on the edge of the plateau. There seemed to
be a heated discussion going on; officers were going and coming and
the conversation was carried on with much gesticulation. What could
they be waiting for? nothing was coming that way. The plateau formed a
sort of amphitheater, broad expanses of stubble that were commanded to
the north and east by wooded heights; to the south were thick woods,
while to the west an opening afforded a glimpse of the valley of the
Aisne with the little white houses of Vouziers. Below the Converserie
rose the slated steeple of Quatre-Champs church, looming dimly through
the furious storm, which seemed as if it would sweep away bodily the
few poor moss-grown cottages of the village. As Jean's glance wandered
down the ascending road he became conscious of a doctor's gig coming
up at a sharp trot along the stony road, that was now the bed of a
rapid torrent.

It was Maurice, who, at a turn in the road, from the hill that lay
beyond the valley, had finally discerned the 7th corps. For two hours
he had been wandering about the country, thanks to the stupidity of a
peasant who had misdirected him and the sullen ill-will of his driver,
whom fear of the Prussians had almost deprived of his wits. As soon as
he reached the farmhouse he leaped from the gig and had no further
trouble in finding the regiment.

Jean addressed him in amazement:

"What, is it you? What is the meaning of this? I thought you were to
wait until we came along."

Maurice's tone and manner told of his rage and sorrow.

"Ah, yes! we are no longer going in that direction; it is down yonder
we are to go, to get ourselves knocked in the head, all of us!"

"Very well," said the other presently, with a very white face. "We
will die together, at all events."

The two men met, as they had parted, with an embrace. In the drenching
rain that still beat down as pitilessly as ever, the humble private
resumed his place in the ranks, while the corporal, in his streaming
garments, never murmured as he gave him the example of what a soldier
should be.

And now the tidings became more definite and spread among the men;
they were no longer retreating on Paris; the advance to the Meuse was
again the order of the day. An aide-de-camp had brought to the 7th
corps instructions from the marshal to go and encamp at Nonart; the
5th was to take the direction of Beauclair, where it would be the
right wing of the army, while the 1st was to move up to Chene and
relieve the 12th, then on the march to la Besace on the extreme left.
And the reason why more than thirty thousand men had been kept waiting
there at ordered arms, for nearly three hours in the midst of a
blinding storm, was that General Douay, in the deplorable confusion
incident on this new change of front, was alarmed for the safety of
the train that had been sent forward the day before toward Chagny; the
delay was necessary to give the several divisions time to close up. In
the confusion of all these conflicting movements it was said that the
12th corps train had blocked the road at Chene, thus cutting off that
of the 7th. On the other hand, an important part of the _materiel_,
all the forges of the artillery, had mistaken their road and strayed
off in the direction of Terron; they were now trying to find their way
back by the Vouziers road, where they were certain to fall into the
hands of the Germans. Never was there such utter confusion, never was
anxiety so intense.

A feeling of bitterest discouragement took possession of the troops.
Many of them in their despair would have preferred to seat themselves
on their knapsacks, in the midst of that sodden, wind-swept plain, and
wait for death to come to them. They reviled their leaders and loaded
them with insult: ah! famous leaders, they; brainless boobies, undoing
at night what they had done in the morning, idling and loafing when
there was no enemy in sight, and taking to their heels as soon as he
showed his face! Each minute added to the demoralization that was
already rife, making of that army a rabble, without faith or hope,
without discipline, a herd that their chiefs were conducting to the
shambles by ways of which they themselves were ignorant. Down in the
direction of Vouziers the sound of musketry was heard; shots were
being exchanged between the rear-guard of the 7th corps and the German
skirmishers; and now every eye was turned upon the valley of the
Aisne, where volumes of dense black smoke were whirling upward toward
the sky from which the clouds had suddenly been swept away; they all
knew it was the village of Falaise burning, fired by the uhlans. Every
man felt his blood boil in his veins; so the Prussians were there at
last; they had sat and waited two days for them to come up, and then
had turned and fled. The most ignorant among the men had felt their
cheeks tingle for very shame as, in their dull way, they recognized
the idiocy that had prompted that enormous blunder, that imbecile
delay, that trap into which they had walked blindfolded; the light
cavalry of the IVth army feinting in front of Bordas' brigade and
halting and neutralizing, one by one, the several corps of the army of
Chalons, solely to give the Crown Prince time to hasten up with the
IIId army. And now, thanks to the marshal's complete and astounding
ignorance as to the identity of the troops he had before him, the
junction was accomplished, and the 5th and 7th corps were to be
roughly handled, with the constant menace of disaster overshadowing
them.

Maurice's eyes were bent on the horizon, where it was reddened with
the flames of burning Falaise. They had one consolation, however: the
train that had been believed to be lost came crawling along out of the
Chene road. Without delay the 2d division put itself in motion and
struck out across the forest for Boult-aux-Bois; the 3d took post on
the heights of Belleville to the left in order to keep an eye to the
communications, while the 1st remained at Quatre-Champs to wait for
the coming up of the train and guard its countless wagons. Just then
the rain began to come down again with increased violence, and as the
106th moved off the plateau, resuming the march that should have never
been, toward the Meuse, toward the unknown, Maurice thought he beheld
again his vision of the night: the shadow of the Emperor, incessantly
appearing and vanishing, so sad, so pitiful a sight, on the white
curtain of good old Madame Desvallieres. Ah! that doomed army, that
army of despair, that was being driven forward to inevitable
destruction for the salvation of a dynasty! March, march, onward ever,
with no look behind, through mud, through rain, to the bitter end!

VI.


"Thunder!" Chouteau ejaculated the following morning when he awoke,
chilled and with aching bones, under the tent, "I wouldn't mind having
a bouillon with plenty of meat in it."

At Boult-aux-Bois, where they were now encamped, the only ration
issued to the men the night before had been an extremely slender one
of potatoes; the commissariat was daily more and more distracted and
disorganized by the everlasting marches and countermarches, never
reaching the designated points of rendezvous in time to meet the
troops. As for the herds, no one had the faintest idea where they
might be upon the crowded roads, and famine was staring the army in
the face.

Loubet stretched himself and plaintively replied:

"Ah, _fichtre_, yes!--No more roast goose for us now."

The squad was out of sorts and sulky. Men couldn't be expected to be
lively on an empty stomach. And then there was the rain that poured
down incessantly, and the mud in which they had to make their beds.

Observing Pache make the sign of the cross after mumbling his morning
prayer, Chouteau captiously growled:

"Ask that good God of yours, if he is good for anything, to send us
down a couple of sausages and a mug of beer apiece."

"Ah, if we only had a good big loaf of bread!" sighed Lapoulle, whose
ravenous appetite made hunger a more grievous affliction to him than
to the others.

But Lieutenant Rochas, passing by just then, made them be silent. It
was scandalous, never to think of anything but their stomachs! When
_he_ was hungry he tightened up the buckle of his trousers. Now that
things were becoming decidedly squally and the popping of rifles was
to be heard occasionally in the distance, he had recovered all his old
serene confidence: it was all plain enough, now; the Prussians were
there--well, all they had to do was, go out and lick 'em. And he gave
a significant shrug of the shoulders, standing behind Captain
Beaudoin, the _very_ young man, as he called him, with his pale face
and pursed up lips, whom the loss of his baggage had afflicted so
grievously that he had even ceased to fume and scold. A man might get
along without eating, at a pinch, but that he could not change his
linen was a circumstance productive of sorrow and anger.

Maurice awoke to a sensation of despondency and physical discomfort.
Thanks to his easy shoes the inflammation in his foot had gone down,
but the drenching he had received the day before, from the effects of
which his greatcoat seemed to weigh a ton, had left him with a
distinct and separate ache in every bone of his body. When he was sent
to the spring to get water for the coffee he took a survey of the
plain on the edge of which Boult-aux-Bois is situated: forests rise to
the west and north, and there is a hill crowned by the hamlet of
Belleville, while, over to the east, Buzancy way, there is a broad,
level expanse, stretching far as the eye can see, with an occasional
shallow depression concealing a small cluster of cottages. Was it from
that direction that they were to expect the enemy? As he was returning
from the stream with his bucket filled with water, the father of a
family of wretched peasants hailed him from the door of his hovel, and
asked him if the soldiers were this time going to stay and defend
them. In the confusion of conflicting orders the 5th corps had already
traversed the region no less than three times. The sound of
cannonading had reached them the day before from the direction of Bar;
the Prussians could not be more than a couple of leagues away. And
when Maurice made answer to the poor folks that doubtless the 7th
corps would also be called away after a time, their tears flowed
afresh. Then they were to be abandoned to the enemy, and the soldiers
had not come there to fight, whom they saw constantly vanishing and
reappearing, always on the run?

"Those who like theirs sweet," observed Loubet, as he poured the
coffee, "have only to stick their thumb in it and wait for it to
melt."

Not a man of them smiled. It was too bad, all the same, to have to
drink their coffee without sugar; and then, too, if they only had some
biscuit! Most of them had devoured what eatables they had in their
knapsacks, to the very last crumb, to while away their time of
waiting, the day before, on the plateau of Quatre-Champs. Among them,
however, the members of the squad managed to collect a dozen potatoes,
which they shared equally.

Maurice, who began to feel a twinging sensation in his stomach,
uttered a regretful cry:

"If I had known of this I would have bought some bread at Chene."

Jean listened in silence. He had had a dispute with Chouteau that
morning, who, on being ordered to go for firewood, had insolently
refused, alleging that it was not his turn. Now that everything was so
rapidly going to the dogs, insubordination among the men had increased
to such a point that those in authority no longer ventured to
reprimand them, and Jean, with his sober good sense and pacific
disposition, saw that if he would preserve his influence with his
squad he must keep the corporal in the background as far as possible.
For this reason he was hail-fellow-well-met with his men, who could
not fail to see what a treasure they had in a man of his experience,
for if those committed to his care did not always have all they wanted
to eat, they had, at all events, not suffered from hunger, as had been
the case with so many others. But he was touched by the sight of
Maurice's suffering. He saw that he was losing strength, and looked at
him anxiously, asking himself how that delicate young man would ever
manage to sustain the privations of that horrible campaign.

When Jean heard Maurice bewail the lack of bread he arose quietly,
went to his knapsack, and, returning, slipped a biscuit into the
other's hand.

"Here! don't let the others see it; I have not enough to go round."

"But what will you do?" asked the young man, deeply affected.

"Oh, don't be alarmed about me--I have two left."

It was true; he had carefully put aside three biscuits, in case there
should be a fight, knowing that men are often hungry on the
battlefield. And then, besides, he had just eaten a potato; that would
be sufficient for him. Perhaps something would turn up later on.

About ten o'clock the 7th corps made a fresh start. The marshal's
first intention had been to direct it by way of Buzancy upon Stenay,
where it would have passed the Meuse, but the Prussians, outmarching
the army of Chalons, were already in Stenay, and were even reported to
be at Buzancy. Crowded back in this manner to the northward, the 7th
corps had received orders to move to la Besace, some twelve or fifteen
miles from Boult-aux-Bois, whence, on the next day, they would proceed
to pass the Meuse at Mouzon. The start was made in a very sulky humor;
the men, with empty stomachs and bodies unrefreshed by repose,
unnerved, mentally and physically, by the experience of the past few
days, vented their dissatisfaction by growling and grumbling, while
the officers, without a spark of their usual cheerful gayety, with a
vague sense of impending disaster awaiting them at the end of their
march, taxed the dilatoriness of their chiefs, and reproached them for
not going to the assistance of the 5th corps at Buzancy, where the
sound of artillery-firing had been heard. That corps, too, was on the
retreat, making its way toward Nonart, while the 12th was even then
leaving la Besace for Mouzon and the 1st was directing its course
toward Raucourt. It was like nothing so much as the passage of a drove
of panic-stricken cattle, with the dogs worrying them and snapping at
their heels--a wild stampede toward the Meuse.

When, in the outstreaming torrent of the three divisions that striped
the plain with columns of marching men, the 106th left Boult-aux-Bois
in the rear of the cavalry and artillery, the sky was again overspread
with a pall of dull leaden clouds that further lowered the spirits of
the soldiers. Its route was along the Buzancy highway, planted on
either side with rows of magnificent poplars. When they reached
Germond, a village where there was a steaming manure-heap before every
one of the doors that lined the two sides of the straggling street,
the sobbing women came to their thresholds with their little children
in their arms, and held them out to the passing troops, as if begging
the men to take them with them. There was not a mouthful of bread to
be had in all the hamlet, nor even a potato, After that, the regiment,
instead of keeping straight on toward Buzancy, turned to the left and
made for Authe, and when the men turned their eyes across the plain
and beheld upon the hilltop Belleville, through which they had passed
the day before, the fact that they were retracing their steps was
impressed more vividly on their consciousness.

"Heavens and earth!" growled Chouteau, "do they take us for tops?"

And Loubet chimed in:

"Those cheap-John generals of ours are all at sea again! They must
think that men's legs are cheap."

The anger and disgust were general. It was not right to make men
suffer like that, just for the fun of walking them up and down the
country. They were advancing in column across the naked plain in two
files occupying the sides of the road, leaving a free central space in
which the officers could move to and fro and keep an eye on their men,
but it was not the same now as it had been in Champagne after they
left Rheims, a march of song and jollity, when they tramped along
gayly and the knapsack was like a feather to their shoulders, in the
belief that soon they would come up with the Prussians and give them a
sound drubbing; now they were dragging themselves wearily forward in
angry silence, cursing the musket that galled their shoulder and the
equipments that seemed to weigh them to the ground, their faith in
their leaders gone, and possessed by such bitterness of despair that
they only went forward as does a file of manacled galley-slaves, in
terror of the lash. The wretched army had begun to ascend its Calvary.

Maurice, however, within the last few minutes had made a discovery
that interested him greatly. To their left was a range of hills that
rose one above another as they receded from the road, and from the
skirt of a little wood, far up on the mountain-side, he had seen a
horseman emerge. Then another appeared, and then still another. There
they stood, all three of them, without sign of life, apparently no
larger than a man's hand and looking like delicately fashioned toys.
He thought they were probably part of a detachment of our hussars out
on a reconnoissance, when all at once he was surprised to behold
little points of light flashing from their shoulders, doubtless the
reflection of the sunlight from epaulets of brass.

"Look there!" he said, nudging Jean, who was marching at his side.
"Uhlans!"

The corporal stared with all his eyes. "They, uhlans!"

They were indeed uhlans, the first Prussians that the 106th had set
eyes on. They had been in the field nearly six weeks now, and in all
that time not only had they never smelt powder, but had never even
seen an enemy. The news spread through the ranks, and every head was
turned to look at them. Not such bad-looking fellows, those uhlans,
after all.

"One of them looks like a jolly little fat fellow," Loubet remarked.

But presently an entire squadron came out and showed itself on a
plateau to the left of the little wood, and at sight of the
threatening demonstration the column halted. An officer came riding up
with orders, and the 106th moved off a little and took position on the
bank of a small stream behind a clump of trees. The artillery had come
hurrying back from the front on a gallop and taken possession of a
low, rounded hill. For near two hours they remained there thus in line
of battle without the occurrence of anything further; the body of
hostile cavalry remained motionless in the distance, and finally,
concluding that they were only wasting time that was valuable, the
officers set the column moving again.

"Ah well," Jean murmured regretfully, "we are not booked for it this
time."

Maurice, too, had felt his finger-tips tingling with the desire to
have just one shot. He kept harping on the theme of the mistake they
had made the day before in not going to the support of the 5th corps.
If the Prussians had not made their attack yet, it must be because
their infantry had not got up in sufficient strength, whence it was
evident that their display of cavalry in the distance was made with no
other end than to harass us and check the advance of our corps. We had
again fallen into the trap set for us, and thenceforth the regiment
was constantly greeted with the sight of uhlans popping up on its left
flank wherever the ground was favorable for them, tracking it like
sleuthhounds, disappearing behind a farmhouse only to reappear at the
corner of a wood.

It eventually produced a disheartening effect on the troops to see
that cordon closing in on them in the distance and enveloping them as
in the meshes of some gigantic, invisible net. Even Pache and Lapoulle
had an opinion on the subject.

"It is beginning to be tiresome!" they said. "It would be a comfort to
send them our compliments in the shape of a musket-ball!"

But they kept toiling wearily onward on their tired feet, that seemed
to them as if they were of lead. In the distress and suffering of that
day's march there was ever present to all the undefined sensation of
the proximity of the enemy, drawing in on them from every quarter,
just as we are conscious of the coming storm before we have seen a
cloud on the horizon. Instructions were given the rear-guard to use
severe measures, if necessary, to keep the column well closed up; but
there was not much straggling, aware as everyone was that the
Prussians were close in our rear, and ready to snap up every
unfortunate that they could lay hands on. Their infantry was coming up
with the rapidity of the whirlwind, making its twenty-five miles a
day, while the French regiments, in their demoralized condition,
seemed in comparison to be marking time.

At Authe the weather cleared, and Maurice, taking his bearings by the
position of the sun, noticed that instead of bearing off toward Chene,
which lay three good leagues from where they were, they had turned and
were moving directly eastward. It was two o'clock; the men, after
shivering in the rain for two days, were now suffering from the
intense heat. The road ascended, with long sweeping curves, through a
region of utter desolation: not a house, not a living being, the only
relief to the dreariness of the waste lands an occasional little
somber wood; and the oppressive silence communicated itself to the
men, who toiled onward with drooping heads, bathed in perspiration. At
last Saint-Pierremont appeared before them, a few empty houses on a
small elevation. They did not pass through the village. Maurice
observed that here they made a sudden wheel to the left, resuming
their northern course, toward la Besace. He now understood the route
that had been adopted in their attempt to reach Mouzon ahead of the
Prussians; but would they succeed, with such weary, demoralized
troops? At Saint-Pierremont the three uhlans had shown themselves
again, at a turn in the road leading to Buzancy, and just as the
rear-guard was leaving the village a battery was unmasked and a few
shells came tumbling among them, without doing any injury, however. No
response was attempted, and the march was continued with constantly
increasing effort.

From Saint-Pierremont to la Besace the distance is three good leagues,
and when Maurice imparted that information to Jean the latter made a
gesture of discouragement: the men would never be able to accomplish
it; they showed it by their shortness of breath, by their haggard
faces. The road continued to ascend, between gently sloping hills on
either side that were gradually drawing closer together. The condition
of the men necessitated a halt, but the only effect of their brief
repose was to increase the stiffness of their benumbed limbs, and when
the order was given to march the state of affairs was worse than it
had been before; the regiments made no progress, men were everywhere
falling in the ranks. Jean, noticing Maurice's pallid face and glassy
eyes, infringed on what was his usual custom and conversed,
endeavoring by his volubility to divert the other's attention and keep
him awake as he moved automatically forward, unconscious of his
actions.

"Your sister lives in Sedan, you say; perhaps we shall be there before
long."

"What, at Sedan? Never! You must be crazy; it don't lie in our way."

"Is your sister young?"

"Just my age; you know I told you we are twins."

"Is she like you?"

"Yes, she is fair-haired, too; and oh! such pretty curling hair! She
is a mite of a woman, with a little thin face, not one of your noisy,
flashy hoydens, ah, no!--Dear Henriette!"

"You love her very dearly!"

"Yes, yes--"

There was silence between them after that, and Jean, glancing at
Maurice, saw that his eyes were closing and he was about to fall.

"Hallo there, old fellow! Come, confound it all, brace up! Let me take
your gun a moment; that will give you a chance to rest. They can't
have the cruelty to make us march any further to-day! we shall leave
half our men by the roadside."

At that moment he caught sight of Osches lying straight ahead of them,
its few poor hovels climbing in straggling fashion up the hillside,
and the yellow church, embowered in trees, looking down on them from
its perch upon the summit.

"There's where we shall rest, for certain."

He had guessed aright; General Douay saw the exhausted condition of
the troops, and was convinced that it would be useless to attempt to
reach la Besace that day. What particularly influenced his
determination, however, was the arrival of the train, that ill-starred
train that had been trailing in his rear since they left Rheims, and
of which the nine long miles of vehicles and animals had so terribly
impeded his movements. He had given instructions from Quatre-Champs to
direct it straight on Saint-Pierremont, and it was not until Osches
that the teams came up with the corps, in such a state of exhaustion
that the horses refused to stir. It was now five o'clock; the general,
not liking the prospect of attempting the pass of Stonne at that late
hour, determined to take the responsibility of abridging the task
assigned them by the marshal. The corps was halted and proceeded to
encamp; the train below in the meadows, guarded by a division, while
the artillery took position on the hills to the rear, and the brigade
detailed to act as rear-guard on the morrow rested on a height
facing Saint-Pierremont. The other division, which included
Bourgain-Desfeuilles' brigade, bivouacked on a wide plateau, bordered
by an oak wood, behind the church. There was such confusion in
locating the bodies of troops that it was dark before the 106th could
move into its position at the edge of the wood.

"_Zut_!" said Chouteau in a furious rage, "no eating for me; I want to
sleep!"

And that was the cry of all; they were overcome with fatigue. Many of
them lacked strength and courage to erect their tents, but dropping
where they stood, at once fell fast asleep on the bare ground. In
order to eat, moreover, rations would have been necessary, and the
commissary wagons, which were waiting for the 7th corps to come to
them at la Besace, could not well be at Osches at the same time. In
the universal relaxation of order and system even the customary
corporal's call was omitted: it was everyone for himself. There were
to be no more issues of rations from that time forth; the soldiers
were to subsist on the provisions they were supposed to carry in their
knapsacks, and that evening the sacks were empty; few indeed were
those who could muster a crust of bread or some crumbs of the
abundance in which they had been living at Vouziers of late. There was
coffee, and those who were not too tired made and drank it without
sugar.

When Jean thought to make a division of his wealth by eating one of
his biscuits himself and giving the other to Maurice, he discovered
that the latter was sound asleep. He thought at first he would awake
him, but changed his mind and stoically replaced the biscuits in his
sack, concealing them with as much caution as if they had been bags of
gold; he could get along with coffee, like the rest of the boys. He
had insisted on having the tent put up, and they were all stretched on
the ground beneath its shelter when Loubet returned from a foraging
expedition, bringing in some carrots that he had found in a
neighboring field. As there was no fire to cook them by they munched
them raw, but the vegetables only served to aggravate their hunger,
and they made Pache ill.

"No, no; let him sleep," said Jean to Chouteau, who was shaking
Maurice to wake him and give him his share.

"Ah," Lapoulle broke in, "we shall be at Angouleme to-morrow, and then
we'll have some bread. I had a cousin in the army once, who was
stationed at Angouleme. Nice garrison, that."

They all looked surprised, and Chouteau exclaimed:

"Angouleme--what are you talking about! Just listen to the bloody
fool, saying he is at Angouleme!"

It was impossible to extract any explanation from Lapoulle. He had
insisted that morning that the uhlans that they sighted were some of
Bazaine's troops.

Then darkness descended on the camp, black as ink, silent as death.
Notwithstanding the coolness of the night air the men had not been
permitted to make fires; the Prussians were known to be only a few
miles away, and it would not do to put them on the alert; orders even
were transmitted in a hushed voice. The officers had notified their
men before retiring that the start would be made at about four in the
morning, in order that they might have all the rest possible, and all
had hastened to turn in and were sleeping greedily, forgetful of their
troubles. Above the scattered camps the deep respiration of all those
slumbering crowds, rising upon the stillness of the night, was like
the long-drawn breathing of old Mother Earth.

Suddenly a shot rang out in the darkness and aroused the sleepers. It
was about three o'clock, and the obscurity was profound. Immediately
everyone was on foot, the alarm spread through the camp; it was
supposed the Prussians were attacking. It was only Loubet who, unable
to sleep longer, had taken it in his head to make a foray into the
oak-wood, which he thought gave promise of rabbits: what a jolly good
lark it would be if he could bring in a pair of nice rabbits for the
comrades' breakfast! But as he was looking about for a favorable place
in which to conceal himself, he heard the sound of voices and the
snapping of dry branches under heavy footsteps; men were coming toward
him; he took alarm and discharged his piece, believing the Prussians
were at hand. Maurice, Jean, and others came running up in haste, when
a hoarse voice made itself heard:

"For God's sake, don't shoot!"

And there at the edge of the wood stood a tall, lanky man, whose
thick, bristling beard they could just distinguish in the darkness. He
wore a gray blouse, confined at the waist by a red belt, and carried a
musket slung by a strap over his shoulder. He hurriedly explained that
he was French, a sergeant of francs-tireurs, and had come with two of
his men from the wood of Dieulet, bringing important information for
the general.

"Hallo there, Cabasse! Ducat!" he shouted, turning his head, "hallo!
you infernal poltroons, come here!"

The men were evidently badly scared, but they came forward. Ducat,
short and fat, with a pale face and scanty hair; Cabasse short and
lean, with a black face and a long nose not much thicker than a
knife-blade.

Meantime Maurice had stepped up and taken a closer look at the
sergeant; he finally asked him:

"Tell me, are you not Guillaume Sambuc, of Remilly?"

And when the man hesitatingly answered in the affirmative Maurice
recoiled a step or two, for this Sambuc had the reputation of being a
particularly hard case, the worthy son of a family of woodcutters who
had all gone to the bad, the drunken father being found one night
lying by the roadside with his throat cut, the mother and daughter,
who lived by begging and stealing, having disappeared, most likely, in
the seclusion of some penitentiary. He, Guillaume, did a little in the
poaching and smuggling lines, and only one of that litter of wolves'
whelps had grown up to be an honest man, and that was Prosper, the
hussar, who had gone to work on a farm before he was conscripted,
because he hated the life of the forest.

"I saw your brother at Vouziers," Maurice continued; "he is well."

Sambuc made no reply. To end the situation he said:

"Take me to the general. Tell him that the francs-tireurs of the wood
of Dieulet have something important to say to him."

On the way back to the camp Maurice reflected on those free companies
that had excited such great expectations at the time of their
formation, and had since been the object of such bitter denunciation
throughout the country. Their professed purpose was to wage a sort of
guerilla warfare, lying in ambush behind hedges, harassing the enemy,
picking off his sentinels, holding the woods, from which not a
Prussian was to emerge alive; while the truth of the matter was that
they had made themselves the terror of the peasantry, whom they
failed utterly to protect and whose fields they devastated. Every
ne'er-do-well who hated the restraints of the regular service made
haste to join their ranks, well pleased with the chance that exempted
him from discipline and enabled him to lead the life of a tramp,
tippling in pothouses and sleeping by the roadside at his own sweet
will. Some of the companies were recruited from the very worst
material imaginable.

"Hallo there, Cabasse! Ducat!" Sambuc was constantly repeating,
turning to his henchmen at every step he took, "Come along, will you,
you snails!"

Maurice was as little charmed with the two men as with their leader.
Cabasse, the little lean fellow, was a native of Toulon, had served as
waiter in a cafe at Marseilles, had failed at Sedan as a broker in
southern produce, and finally had brought up in a police-court, where
it came near going hard with him, in connection with a robbery of
which the details were suppressed. Ducat, the little fat man, quondam
_huissier_ at Blainville, where he had been forced to sell out his
business on account of a malodorous woman scrape, had recently been
brought face to face with the court of assizes for an indiscretion of
a similar nature at Raucourt, where he was accountant in a factory.
The latter quoted Latin in his conversation, while the other could
scarcely read, but the two were well mated, as unprepossessing a pair
as one could expect to meet in a summer's day.

The camp was already astir; Jean and Maurice took the francs-tireurs
to Captain Beaudoin, who conducted them to the quarters of Colonel
Vineuil. The colonel attempted to question them, but Sambuc,
intrenching himself in his dignity, refused to speak to anyone except
the general. Now Bourgain-Desfeuilles had taken up his quarters that
night with the cure of Osches, and just then appeared, rubbing his
eyes, in the doorway of the parsonage; he was in a horribly bad humor
at his slumbers having been thus prematurely cut short, and the
prospect that he saw before him of another day of famine and fatigue;
hence his reception of the men who were brought before him was not
exactly lamblike. Who were they? Whence did they come? What did they
want? Ah, some of those francs-tireurs gentlemen--eh! Same thing as
skulkers and riff-raff!

"General," Sambuc replied, without allowing himself to be
disconcerted, "we and our comrades are stationed in the woods of
Dieulet--"

"The woods of Dieulet--where's that?"

"Between Stenay and Mouzon, General."

"What do I know of your Stenay and Mouzon? Do you expect me to be
familiar with all these strange names?"

The colonel was distressed by his chief's display of ignorance; he
hastily interfered to remind him that Stenay and Mouzon were on the
Meuse, and that, as the Germans had occupied the former of those
towns, the army was about to attempt the passage of the river at the
other, which was situated more to the northward.

"So you see, General," Sambuc continued, "we've come to tell you that
the woods of Dieulet are alive with Prussians. There was an engagement
yesterday as the 5th corps was leaving Bois-les-Dames, somewhere about
Nonart--"

"What, yesterday? There was fighting yesterday?"

"Yes, General, the 5th corps was engaged as it was falling back; it
must have been at Beaumont last night. So, while some of us hurried
off to report to it the movements of the enemy, we thought it best to
come and let you know how matters stood, so that you might go to its
assistance, for it will certainly have sixty thousand men to deal with
in the morning."

General Bourgain-Desfeuilles gave a contemptuous shrug of his
shoulders.

"Sixty thousand men! Why the devil don't you call it a hundred
thousand at once? You were dreaming, young man; your fright has made
you see double. It is impossible there should be sixty thousand
Germans so near us without our knowing it."

And so he went on. It was to no purpose that Sambuc appealed to Ducat
and Cabasse to confirm his statement.

"We saw the guns," the Provencal declared; "and those chaps must be
crazy to take them through the forest, where the rains of the past few
days have left the roads in such a state that they sink in the mud up
to the hubs."

"They have someone to guide them, for certain," said the ex-bailiff.

Since leaving Vouziers the general had stoutly refused to attach any
further credit to reports of the junction of the two German armies
which, as he said, they had been trying to stuff down his throat. He
did not even consider it worth his while to send the francs-tireurs
before his corps commander, to whom the partisans supposed, all along,
that they were talking; if they should attempt to listen to all the
yarns that were brought them by tramps and peasants, they would have
their hands full and be driven from pillar to post without ever
advancing a step. He directed the three men to remain with the column,
however, since they were acquainted with the country.

"They are good fellows, all the same," Jean said to Maurice, as they
were returning to fold the tent, "to have tramped three leagues across
lots to let us know."

The young man agreed with him and commended their action, knowing as
he did the country, and deeply alarmed to hear that the Prussians were
in Dieulet forest and moving on Sommanthe and Beaumont. He had flung
himself down by the roadside, exhausted before the march had
commenced, with a sorrowing heart and an empty stomach, at the dawning
of that day which he felt was to be so disastrous for them all.
Distressed to see him looking so pale, the corporal affectionately
asked him:

"Are you feeling so badly still? What is it? Does your foot pain you?"

Maurice shook his head. His foot had ceased to trouble him, thanks to
the big shoes.

"Then you are hungry." And Jean, seeing that he did not answer, took
from his knapsack one of the two remaining biscuits, and with a
falsehood for which he may be forgiven: "Here, take it; I kept your
share for you. I ate mine a while ago."

Day was breaking when the 7th corps marched out of Osches en route for
Mouzon by way of la Besace, where they should have bivouacked. The
train, cause of so many woes, had been sent on ahead, guarded by the
first division, and if its own wagons, well horsed as for the most
part they were, got over the ground at a satisfactory pace, the
requisitioned vehicles, most of them empty, delayed the troops and
produced sad confusion among the hills of the defile of Stonne. After
leaving the hamlet of la Berliere the road rises more sharply between
wooded hills on either side. Finally, about eight o'clock, the two
remaining divisions got under way, when Marshal MacMahon came
galloping up, vexed to find there those troops that he supposed had
left la Besace that morning, with only a short march between them and
Mouzon; his comment to General Douay on the subject was expressed in
warm language. It was determined that the first division and the train
should be allowed to proceed on their way to Mouzon, but that the two
other divisions, that they might not be further retarded by this
cumbrous advance-guard, should move by the way of Raucourt and
Autrecourt so as to pass the Meuse at Villers. The movement to the
north was dictated by the marshal's intense anxiety to place the river
between his army and the enemy; cost what it might, they must be on
the right bank that night. The rear-guard had not yet left Osches when
a Prussian battery, recommencing the performance of the previous day,
began to play on them from a distant eminence, over in the direction
of Saint-Pierremont. They made the mistake of firing a few shots in
reply; then the last of the troops filed out of the town.

Until nearly eleven o'clock the 106th slowly pursued its way along the
road which zigzags through the pass of Stonne between high hills. On
the left hand the precipitous summits rear their heads, devoid of
vegetation, while to the right the gentler slopes are clad with woods
down to the roadside. The sun had come out again, and the heat was
intense down in the inclosed valley, where an oppressive solitude
prevailed. After leaving la Berliere, which lies at the foot of a
lofty and desolate mountain surmounted by a Calvary, there is not a
house to be seen, not a human being, not an animal grazing in the
meadows. And the men, the day before so faint with hunger, so spent
with fatigue, who since that time had had no food to restore, no
slumber, to speak of, to refresh them, were now dragging themselves
listlessly along, disheartened, filled with sullen anger.

Soon after that, just as the men had been halted for a short rest
along the roadside, the roar of artillery was heard away at their
right; judging from the distinctness of the detonations the firing
could not be more than two leagues distant. Upon the troops, weary
with waiting, tired of retreating, the effect was magical; in the
twinkling of an eye everyone was on his feet, eager, in a quiver of
excitement, no longer mindful of his hunger and fatigue: why did they
not advance? They preferred to fight, to die, rather than keep on
flying thus, no one knew why or whither.

General Bourgain-Desfeuilles, accompanied by Colonel de Vineuil, had
climbed a hill on the right to reconnoiter the country. They were
visible up there in a little clearing between two belts of wood,
scanning the surrounding hills with their field-glasses, when all at
once they dispatched an aide-de-camp to the column, with instructions
to send up to them the francs-tireurs if they were still there. A few
men, Jean and Maurice among them, accompanied the latter, in case
there should be need of messengers.

"A beastly country this, with its everlasting hills and woods!" the
general shouted, as soon as he caught sight of Sambuc. "You hear the
music--where is it? where is the fighting going on?"

Sambuc, with Ducat and Cabasse close at his heels, listened a moment
before he answered, casting his eye over the wide horizon, and
Maurice, standing beside him and gazing out over the panorama of
valley and forest that lay beneath him, was struck with admiration. It
was like a boundless sea, whose gigantic waves had been arrested by
some mighty force. In the foreground the somber verdure of the woods
made splashes of sober color on the yellow of the fields, while in the
brilliant sunlight the distant hills were bathed in purplish vapors.
And while nothing was to be seen, not even the tiniest smoke-wreath
floating on the cloudless sky, the cannon were thundering away in the
distance, like the muttering of a rising storm.

"Here is Sommanthe, to the right," Sambuc said at last, pointing to a
high hill crowned by a wood. "Yoncq lies off yonder to the left. The
fighting is at Beaumont, General."

"Either at Varniforet or Beaumont," Ducat observed.

The general muttered below his breath: "Beaumont, Beaumont--a man can
never tell where he is in this d----d country." Then raising his
voice: "And how far may this Beaumont be from here?"

"A little more than six miles, if you take the road from Chene to
Stenay, which runs up the valley yonder."

There was no cessation of the firing, which seemed to be advancing
from west to east with a continuous succession of reports like peals
of thunder. Sambuc added:

"_Bigre_! it's getting warm. It is just what I expected; you know what
I told you this morning, General; it is certainly the batteries that
we saw in the wood of Dieulet. By this time the whole army that came
up through Buzancy and Beauclair is at work mauling the 5th corps."

There was silence among them, while the battle raging in the distance
growled more furiously than ever, and Maurice had to set tight his
teeth to keep himself from speaking his mind aloud. Why did they not
hasten whither the guns were calling them, without such waste of
words? He had never known what it was to be excited thus; every
discharge found an echo in his bosom and inspired him with a fierce
longing to be present at the conflict, to put an end to it. Were they
to pass by that battle, so near almost that they could stretch forth
their arm and touch it with their hand, and never expend a cartridge?
It must be to decide a wager that some one had made, that since the
beginning of the campaign they were dragged about the country thus,
always flying before the enemy! At Vouziers they had heard the
musketry of the rear-guard, at Osches the German guns had played a
moment on their retreating backs; and now they were to run for it
again, they were not to be allowed to advance at double-quick to the
succor of comrades in distress! Maurice looked at Jean, who was also
very pale, his eyes shining with a bright, feverish light. Every heart
leaped in every bosom at the loud summons of the artillery.

While they were waiting a general, attended by his staff, was seen
ascending the narrow path that wound up the hill. It was Douay, their
corps-commander, who came hastening up, with anxiety depicted on his
countenance, and when he had questioned the francs-tireurs he gave
utterance to an exclamation of despair. But what could he have done,
even had he learned their tidings that morning? The marshal's orders
were explicit: they must be across the Meuse that night, cost what it
might. And then again, how was he to collect his scattered troops,
strung out along the road to Raucourt, and direct then on Beaumont?
Could they arrive in time to be of use? The 5th corps must be in full
retreat on Mouzon by that time, as was indicated by the sound of the
firing, which was receding more and more to the eastward, as a deadly
hurricane moves off after having accomplished its disastrous work.
With a fierce gesture, expressive of his sense of impotency, General
Douay outstretched his arms toward the wide horizon of hill and dale,
of woods and fields, and the order went forth to proceed with the
march to Raucourt.

Ah, what a march was that through that dismal pass of Stonne, with the
lofty summits o'erhanging them on either side, while through the woods
on their right came the incessant volleying of the artillery. Colonel
de Vineuil rode at the head of his regiment, bracing himself firmly in
his saddle, his face set and very pale, his eyes winking like those of
one trying not to weep. Captain Beaudoin strode along in silence,
gnawing his mustache, while Lieutenant Rochas let slip an occasional
imprecation, invoking ruin and destruction on himself and everyone
besides. Even the most cowardly among the men, those who had the least
stomach for fighting, were shamed and angered by their continuous
retreat; they felt the bitter humiliation of turning their backs while
those beasts of Prussians were murdering their comrades over yonder.

After emerging from the pass the road, from a tortuous path among the
hills, increased in width and led through a broad stretch of level
country, dotted here and there with small woods. The 106th was now a
portion of the rear-guard, and at every moment since leaving Osches
had been expecting to feel the enemy's attack, for the Prussians were
following the column step by step, never letting it escape their
vigilant eyes, waiting, doubtless, for a favorable opportunity to fall
on its rear. Their cavalry were on the alert to take advantage of any
bit of ground that promised them an opportunity of getting in on our
flank; several squadrons of Prussian Guards were seen advancing from
behind a wood, but they gave up their purpose upon a demonstration
made by a regiment of our hussars, who came up at a gallop, sweeping
the road. Thanks to the breathing-spell afforded them by this
circumstance the retreat went on in sufficiently good order, and
Raucourt was not far away, when a spectacle greeted their eyes that
filled them with consternation and completely demoralized the troops.
Upon coming to a cross-road they suddenly caught sight of a hurrying,
straggling, flying throng, wounded officers, soldiers without arms and
without organization, runaway teams from the train, all--men and
animals--mingled in wildest confusion, wild with panic. It was the
wreck of one of the brigades of the 1st division, which had been sent
that morning to escort the train to Mouzon; there had been an
unfortunate misconception of orders, and this brigade and a portion of
the wagons had taken a wrong road and reached Varniforet, near
Beaumont, at the very time when the 5th corps was being driven back in
disorder. Taken unawares, overborne by the flank attack of an enemy
superior in numbers, they had fled; and bleeding, with haggard faces,
crazed with fear, were now returning to spread consternation among
their comrades; it was as if they had been wafted thither on the
breath of the battle that had been raging incessantly since noon.

Alarm and anxiety possessed everyone, from highest to lowest, as the
column poured through Raucourt in wild stampede. Should they turn to
the left, toward Autrecourt, and attempt to pass the Meuse at Villers,
as had been previously decided? The general hesitated, fearing to
encounter difficulties in crossing there, even if the bridge were not
already in possession of the Prussians; he finally decided to keep
straight on through the defile of Harancourt and thus reach Remilly
before nightfall. First Mouzon, then Villers, and last Remilly; they
were still pressing on northward, with the tramp of the uhlans on the
road behind them. There remained scant four miles for them to
accomplish, but it was five o'clock, and the men were sinking with
fatigue. They had been under arms since daybreak, twelve hours had
been consumed in advancing three short leagues; they were harassed and
fatigued as much by their constant halts and the stress of their
emotions as by the actual toil of the march. For the last two nights
they had had scarce any sleep; their hunger had been unappeased since
they left Vouziers. In Raucourt the distress was terrible; men fell in
the ranks from sheer inanition.

The little town is rich, with its numerous factories, its handsome
thoroughfare lined with two rows of well-built houses, and its pretty
church and _mairie_; but the night before Marshal MacMahon and the
Emperor had passed that way with their respective staffs and all the
imperial household, and during the whole of the present morning the
entire 1st corps had been streaming like a torrent through the main
street. The resources of the place had not been adequate to meet the
requirements of these hosts; the shelves of the bakers and grocers
were empty, and even the houses of the bourgeois had been swept clean
of provisions; there was no bread, no wine, no sugar, nothing capable
of allaying hunger or thirst. Ladies had been seen to station
themselves before their doors and deal out glasses of wine and cups of
bouillon until cask and kettle alike were drained of their last drop.
And so there was an end, and when, about three o'clock, the first
regiments of the 7th corps began to appear the scene was a pitiful
one; the broad street was filled from curb to curb with weary,
dust-stained men, dying with hunger, and there was not a mouthful of
food to give them. Many of them stopped, knocking at doors and
extending their hands beseechingly toward windows, begging for a
morsel of bread, and women were seen to cry and sob as they motioned
that they could not help them, that they had nothing left.

At the corner of the Rue Dix-Potiers Maurice had an attack of
dizziness and reeled as if about to fall. To Jean, who came hastening
up, he said:

"No, leave me; it is all up with me. I may as well die here!"

He had sunk down upon a door-step. The corporal spoke in a rough tone
of displeasure assumed for the occasion:

"_Nom de Dieu!_ why don't you try to behave like a soldier! Do you
want the Prussians to catch you? Come, get up!"

Then, as the young man, lividly pale, his eyes tight-closed, almost
unconscious, made no reply, he let slip another oath, but in another
key this time, in a tone of infinite gentleness and pity:

"_Nom de Dieu!_ _Nom de Dieu!_"

And running to a drinking-fountain near by, he filled his basin with
water and hurried back to bathe his friend's face. Then, without
further attempt at concealment, he took from his sack the last
remaining biscuit that he had guarded with such jealous caution, and
commenced crumbling it into small bits that he introduced between the
other's teeth. The famishing man opened his eyes and ate greedily.

"But you," he asked, suddenly recollecting himself, "how comes it that
you did not eat it?"

"Oh, I!" said Jean. "I'm tough, I can wait. A good drink of Adam's
ale, and I shall be all right."

He went and filled his basin again at the fountain, emptied it at a
single draught, and came back smacking his lips in token of
satisfaction with his feast. He, too, was cadaverously pale, and so
faint with hunger that his hands were trembling like a leaf.

"Come, get up, and let's be going. We must be getting back to the
comrades, little one."

Maurice leaned on his arm and suffered himself to be helped along as
if he had been a child; never had woman's arm about him so warmed his
heart. In that extremity of distress, with death staring him in the
face, it afforded him a deliciously cheering sense of comfort to know
that someone loved and cared for him, and the reflection that that
heart, which was so entirely his, was the heart of a simple-minded
peasant, whose aspirations scarcely rose above the satisfaction of his
daily wants, for whom he had recently experienced a feeling of
repugnance, served to add to his gratitude a sensation of ineffable
joy. Was it not the brotherhood that had prevailed in the world in its
earlier days, the friendship that had existed before caste and culture
were; that friendship which unites two men and makes them one in their
common need of assistance, in the presence of Nature, the common
enemy? He felt the tie of humanity uniting him and Jean, and was proud
to know that the latter, his comforter and savior, was stronger than
he; while to Jean, who did not analyze his sensations, it afforded
unalloyed pleasure to be the instrument of protecting, in his friend,
that cultivation and intelligence which, in himself, were only
rudimentary. Since the death of his wife, who had been snatched away
from him by a frightful catastrophe, he had believed that his heart
was dead, he had sworn to have nothing more to do with those
creatures, who, even when they are not wicked and depraved, are cause
of so much suffering to man. And thus, to both of them their
friendship was a comfort and relief. There was no need of any
demonstrative display of affection; they understood each other; there
was close community of sympathy between them, and, notwithstanding
their apparent external dissimilarity, the bond of pity and common
suffering made them as one during their terrible march that day to
Remilly.

As the French rear-guard left Raucourt by one end of the town the
Germans came in at the other, and forthwith two of their batteries
commenced firing from the position they had taken on the heights to
the left; the 106th, retreating along the road that follows the course
of the Emmane, was directly in the line of fire. A shell cut down a
poplar on the bank of the stream; another came and buried itself in
the soft ground close to Captain Beaudoin, but did not burst. From
there on to Harancourt, however, the walls of the pass kept
approaching nearer and nearer, and the troops were crowded together in
a narrow gorge commanded on either side by hills covered with trees. A
handful of Prussians in ambush on those heights might have caused
incalculable disaster. With the cannon thundering in their rear and
the menace of a possible attack on either flank, the men's uneasiness
increased with every step they took, and they were in haste to get out
of such a dangerous neighborhood; hence they summoned up their
reserved strength, and those soldiers who, but now in Raucourt, had
scarce been able to drag themselves along, now, with the peril that
lay behind them as an incentive, struck out at a good round pace. The
very horses seemed to be conscious that the loss of a minute might
cost them dear. And the impetus thus given continued; all was going
well, the head of the column must have reached Remilly, when, all at
once, their progress was arrested.

"Heavens and earth!" said Chouteau, "are they going to leave us here
in the road?"

The regiment had not yet reached Harancourt, and the shells were still
tumbling about them; while the men were marking time, awaiting the
word to go ahead again, one burst, on the right of the column, without
injuring anyone, fortunately. Five minutes passed, that seemed to them
long as an eternity, and still they did not move; there was some
obstacle on ahead that barred their way as effectually as if a strong
wall had been built across the road. The colonel, standing up in his
stirrups, peered nervously to the front, for he saw that it would
require but little to create a panic among his men.

"We are betrayed; everybody can see it," shouted Chouteau.

Murmurs of reproach arose on every side, the sullen muttering of their
discontent exasperated by their fears. Yes, yes! they had been brought
there to be sold, to be delivered over to the Prussians. In the
baleful fatality that pursued them, and among all the blunders of
their leaders, those dense intelligences were unable to account for
such an uninterrupted succession of disasters on any other ground than
that of treachery.

"We are betrayed! we are betrayed!" the men wildly repeated.

Then Loubet's fertile intellect evolved an idea: "It is like enough
that that pig of an Emperor has sat himself down in the road, with his
baggage, on purpose to keep us here."

The idle fancy was received as true, and immediately spread up and
down the line; everyone declared that the imperial household had
blocked the road and was responsible for the stoppage. There was a
universal chorus of execration, of opprobrious epithets, an unchaining
of the hatred and hostility that were inspired by the insolence of the
Emperor's attendants, who took possession of the towns where they
stopped at night as if they owned them, unpacking their luxuries,
their costly wines and plate of gold and silver, before the eyes of
the poor soldiers who were destitute of everything, filling the
kitchens with the steam of savory viands while they, poor devils, had
nothing for it but to tighten the belt of their trousers. Ah! that
wretched Emperor, that miserable man, deposed from his throne and
stripped of his command, a stranger in his own empire; whom they were
conveying up and down the country along with the other baggage, like
some piece of useless furniture, whose doom it was ever to drag behind
him the irony of his imperial state: cent-gardes, horses, carriages,
cooks, and vans, sweeping, as it were, the blood and mire from the
roads of his defeat with the magnificence of his court mantle,
embroidered with the heraldic bees!

In rapid succession, one after the other, two more shells fell;
Lieutenant Rochas had his _kepi_ carried away by a fragment. The men
huddled closer together and began to crowd forward, the movement
gathering strength as it ran from rear to front. Inarticulate cries
were heard, Lapoulle shouted furiously to go ahead. A minute longer
and there would have been a horrible catastrophe, and many men must
have been crushed to death in the mad struggle to escape from the
funnel-like gorge.

The colonel--he was very pale--turned and spoke to the soldiers:

"My children, my children, be a little patient. I have sent to see
what is the matter--it will only be a moment--"

But they did not advance, and the seconds seemed like centuries. Jean,
quite cool and collected, resumed his hold of Maurice's hand, and
whispered to him that, in case their comrades began to shove, they two
could leave the road, climb the hill on the left, and make their way
to the stream. He looked about to see where the francs-tireurs were,
thinking he might gain some information from them regarding the roads,
but was told they had vanished while the column was passing through
Raucourt. Just then the march was resumed, and almost immediately a
bend in the road took them out of range of the German batteries. Later
in the day it was ascertained that it was four cuirassier regiments of
Bonnemain's division who, in the disorder of that ill-starred retreat,
had thus blocked the road of the 7th corps and delayed the march.

It was nearly dark when the 106th passed through Angecourt. The wooded
hills continued on the right, but to the left the country was more
level, and a valley was visible in the distance, veiled in bluish
mists. At last, just as the shades of night were descending, they
stood on the heights of Remilly and beheld a ribbon of pale silver
unrolling its length upon a broad expanse of verdant plain. It was the
Meuse, that Meuse they had so longed to see, and where it seemed as if
victory awaited them.

Pointing to some lights in the distance that were beginning to twinkle
cheerily among the trees, down in that fertile valley that lay there
so peaceful in the mellow twilight, Maurice said to Jean, with the
glad content of a man revisiting a country that he knows and loves:

"Look! over that way--that is Sedan!"

VII.


Remilly is built on a hill that rises from the left bank of the Meuse,
presenting the appearance of an amphitheater; the one village street
that meanders circuitously down the sharp descent was thronged with
men, horses, and vehicles in dire confusion. Half-way up the hill, in
front of the church, some drivers had managed to interlock the wheels
of their guns, and all the oaths and blows of the artillerymen were
unavailing to get them forward. Further down, near the woolen mill,
where the Emmane tumbles noisily over the dam, the road was choked
with a long line of stranded baggage wagons, while close at hand, at
the inn of the Maltese Cross, a constantly increasing crowd of angry
soldiers pushed and struggled, and could not obtain so much as a glass
of wine.

All this mad hurly-burly was going on at the southern end of the
village, which is here separated from the Meuse by a little grove of
trees, and where the engineers had that morning stretched a bridge of
boats across the river. There was a ferry to the right; the ferryman's
house stood by itself, white and staring, amid a rank growth of weeds.
Great fires had been built on either bank, which, being replenished
from time to time, glared ruddily in the darkness and made the stream
and both its shores as light as day. They served to show the immense
multitude of men massed there, awaiting a chance to cross, while the
footway only permitted the passage of two men abreast, and over the
bridge proper the cavalry and artillery were obliged to proceed at a
walk, so that the crossing promised to be a protracted operation. It
was said that the troops still on the left bank comprised a brigade of
the 1st corps, an ammunition train, and the four regiments of
cuirassiers belonging to Bonnemain's division, while coming up in hot
haste behind them was the 7th corps, over thirty thousand strong,
possessed with the belief that the enemy was at their heels and
pushing on with feverish eagerness to gain the security of the other
shore.

For a while despair reigned. What! they had been marching since
morning with nothing to eat, they had summoned up all their energies
to escape that deadly trap at Harancourt pass, only in the end to be
landed in that slough of despond, with an insurmountable wall staring
them in the face! It would be hours, perhaps, before it became the
last comer's turn to cross, and everyone knew that even if the
Prussians should not be enterprising enough to continue their pursuit
in the darkness they would be there with the first glimpse of
daylight. Orders came for them to stack muskets, however, and they
made their camp on the great range of bare hills which slope downward
to the meadows of the Meuse, with the Mouzon road running at their
base. To their rear and occupying the level plateau on top of the
range the guns of the reserve artillery were arranged in battery,
pointed so as to sweep the entrance of the pass should there be
necessity for it. And thus commenced another period of agonized,
grumbling suspense.

When finally the preparations were all completed the 106th found
themselves posted in a field of stubble above the road, in a position
that commanded a view of the broad plain. The men had parted
regretfully with their arms, casting timorous looks behind them that
showed they were apprehensive of a night attack. Their faces were
stern and set, and silence reigned, only broken from time to time by
some sullen murmur of angry complaint. It was nearly nine o'clock,
they had been there two hours, and yet many of them, notwithstanding
their terrible fatigue, could not sleep; stretched on the bare ground,
they would start and bend their ears to catch the faintest sound that
rose in the distance. They had ceased to fight their torturing hunger;
they would eat over yonder, on the other bank, when they had passed
the river; they would eat grass if nothing else was to be found. The
crowd at the bridge, however, seemed to increase rather than diminish;
the officers that General Douay had stationed there came back to him
every few minutes, always bringing the same unwelcome report, that it
would be hours and hours before any relief could be expected. Finally
the general determined to go down to the bridge in person, and the men
saw him on the bank, bestirring himself and others and hurrying the
passage of the troops.

Maurice, seated with Jean against a wall, pointed to the north, as he
had done before. "There is Sedan in the distance. And look! Bazeilles
is over yonder--and then comes Douzy, and then Carignan, more to the
right. We shall concentrate at Carignan, I feel sure we shall. Ah!
there is plenty of room, as you would see if it were daylight!"

And his sweeping gesture embraced the entire valley that lay beneath
them, enfolded in shadow. There was sufficient light remaining in the
sky that they could distinguish the pale gleam of the river where it
ran its course among the dusky meadows. The scattered trees made
clumps of denser shade, especially a row of poplars to the left, whose
tops were profiled on the horizon like the fantastic ornaments on some
old castle gateway. And in the background, behind Sedan, dotted with
countless little points of brilliant light, the shadows had mustered,
denser and darker, as if all the forests of the Ardennes had collected
the inky blackness of their secular oaks and cast it there.

Jean's gaze came back to the bridge of boats beneath them.

"Look there! everything is against us. We shall never get across."

The fires upon both banks blazed up more brightly just then, and their
light was so intense that the whole fearful scene was pictured on the
darkness with vivid distinctness. The boats on which the longitudinal
girders rested, owing to the weight of the cavalry and artillery that
had been crossing uninterruptedly since morning, had settled to such
an extent that the floor of the bridge was covered with water. The
cuirassiers were passing at the time, two abreast, in a long unbroken
file, emerging from the obscurity of the hither shore to be swallowed
up in the shadows of the other, and nothing was to be seen of the
bridge; they appeared to be marching on the bosom of the ruddy stream,
that flashed and danced in the flickering firelight. The horses
snorted and hung back, manifesting every indication of terror as they
felt the unstable pathway yielding beneath their feet, and the
cuirassiers, standing erect in their stirrups and clutching at the
reins, poured onward in a steady, unceasing stream, wrapped in their
great white mantles, their helmets flashing in the red light of the
flames. One might have taken them for some spectral band of knights,
with locks of fire, going forth to do battle with the powers of
darkness.

Jean's suffering wrested from him a deep-toned exclamation:

"Oh! I am hungry!"

On every side, meantime, the men, notwithstanding the complainings of
their empty stomachs, had thrown themselves down to sleep. Their
fatigue was so great that it finally got the better of their fears and
struck them down upon the bare earth, where they lay on their back,
with open mouth and arms outstretched, like logs beneath the moonless
sky. The bustle of the camp was stilled, and all along the naked
range, from end to end, there reigned a silence as of death.

"Oh! I am hungry; I am so hungry that I could eat dirt!"

Jean, patient as he was and inured to hardship, could not restrain the
cry; he had eaten nothing in thirty-six hours, and it was torn from
him by sheer stress of physical suffering. Then Maurice, knowing that
two or three hours at all events must elapse before their regiment
could move to pass the stream, said:

"See here, I have an uncle not far from here--you know, Uncle
Fouchard, of whom you have heard me speak. His house is five or six
hundred yards from here; I didn't like the idea, but as you are so
hungry-- The deuce! the old man can't refuse us bread!"

His comrade made no objection and they went off together. Father
Fouchard's little farm was situated just at the mouth of Harancourt
pass, near the plateau where the artillery was posted. The house was a
low structure, surrounded by quite an imposing cluster of
dependencies; a barn, a stable, and cow-sheds, while across the road
was a disused carriage-house which the old peasant had converted into
an abattoir, where he slaughtered with his own hands the cattle which
he afterward carried about the country in his wagon to his customers.

Maurice was surprised as he approached the house to see no light.

"Ah, the old miser! he has locked and barred everything tight and
fast. Like as not he won't let us in."

But something that he saw brought him to a standstill. Before the
house a dozen soldiers were moving to and fro, hungry plunderers,
doubtless, on the prowl in quest of something to eat. First they had
called, then had knocked, and now, seeing that the place was dark and
deserted, they were hammering at the door with the butts of their
muskets in an attempt to force it open. A growling chorus of
encouragement greeted them from the outsiders of the circle.

"_Nom de Dieu!_ go ahead! smash it in, since there is no one at home!"

All at once the shutter of a window in the garret was thrown back and
a tall old man presented himself, bare-headed, wearing the peasant's
blouse, with a candle in one hand and a gun in the other. Beneath the
thick shock of bristling white hair was a square face, deeply seamed
and wrinkled, with a strong nose, large, pale eyes, and stubborn chin.

"You must be robbers, to smash things as you are doing!" he shouted in
an angry tone. "What do you want?"

The soldiers, taken by surprise, drew back a little way.

"We are perishing with hunger; we want something to eat."

"I have nothing, not a crust. Do you suppose that I keep victuals in
my house to fill a hundred thousand mouths? Others were here before
you; yes, General Ducrot's men were here this morning, I tell you, and
they cleaned me out of everything."

The soldiers came forward again, one by one.

"Let us in, all the same; we can rest ourselves, and you can hunt up
something--"

And they were commencing to hammer at the door again, when the old
fellow, placing his candle on the window-sill, raised his gun to his
shoulder.

"As true as that candle stands there, I'll put a hole in the first man
that touches that door!"

The prospect looked favorable for a row. Oaths and imprecations
resounded, and one of the men was heard to shout that they would
settle matters with the pig of a peasant, who was like all the rest of
them and would throw his bread in the river rather than give a
mouthful to a starving soldier. The light of the candle glinted on the
barrels of the chassepots as they were brought to an aim; the angry
men were about to shoot him where he stood, while he, headstrong and
violent, would not yield an inch.

"Nothing, nothing! Not a crust! I tell you they cleaned me out!"

Maurice rushed in in affright, followed by Jean.

"Comrades, comrades--"

He knocked up the soldiers' guns, and raising his eyes, said
entreatingly:

"Come, be reasonable. Don't you know me? It is I."

"Who, I?"

"Maurice Levasseur, your nephew."

Father Fouchard took up his candle. He recognized his nephew, beyond a
doubt, but was firm in his resolve not to give so much as a glass of
water.

"How can I tell whether you are my nephew or not in this infernal
darkness? Clear out, everyone of you, or I will fire!"

And amid an uproar of execration, and threats to bring him down and
burn the shanty, he still had nothing to say but: "Clear out, or I'll
fire!" which he repeated more than twenty times.

Suddenly a loud clear voice was heard rising above the din:

"But not on me, father?"

The others stood aside, and in the flickering light of the candle a
man appeared, wearing the chevrons of a quartermaster-sergeant. It was
Honore, whose battery was a short two hundred yards from there and who
had been struggling for the last two hours against an irresistible
longing to come and knock at that door. He had sworn never to set foot
in that house again, and in all his four years of army life had not
exchanged a single letter with that father whom he now addressed so
curtly. The marauders had drawn apart and were conversing excitedly
among themselves; what, the old man's son, and a "non-com."! it
wouldn't answer; better go and try their luck elsewhere! So they slunk
away and vanished in the darkness.

When Fouchard saw that he had nothing more to fear he said in a
matter-of-course way, as if he had seen his son only the day before:

"It's you-- All right, I'll come down."

His descent was a matter of time. He could be heard inside the house
opening locked doors and carefully fastening them again, the maneuvers
of a man determined to leave nothing at loose ends. At last the door
was opened, but only for a few inches, and the strong grasp that held
it would let it go no further.

"Come in, _thou_! and no one besides!"

He could not turn away his nephew, however, notwithstanding his
manifest repugnance.

"Well, thou too!"

He shut the door flat in Jean's face, in spite of Maurice's
entreaties. But he was obdurate. No, no! he wouldn't have it; he had
no use for strangers and robbers in his house, to smash and destroy
his furniture! Finally Honore shoved their comrade inside the door by
main strength and the old man had to make the best of it, grumbling
and growling vindictively. He had carried his gun with him all this
time. When at last he had ushered the three men into the common
sitting-room and had stood his gun in a corner and placed the candle
on the table, he sank into a mulish silence.

"Say, father, we are perishing with hunger. You will let us have a
little bread and cheese, won't you?"

He made a pretense of not hearing and did not answer, turning his head
at every instant toward the window as if listening for some other band
that might be coming to lay siege to his house.

"Uncle, Jean has been a brother to me; he deprived himself of food to
give it to me. And we have seen such suffering together!"

He turned and looked about the room to assure himself that nothing was
missing, not giving the three soldiers so much as a glance, and at
last, still without a word spoken, appeared to come to a decision. He
suddenly arose, took the candle and went out, leaving them in darkness
and carefully closing and locking the door behind him in order that no
one might follow him. They could hear his footsteps on the stairs that
led to the cellar. There was another long period of waiting, and when
he returned, again locking and bolting everything after him, he placed
upon the table a big loaf of bread and a cheese, amid a silence which,
once his anger had blown over, was merely the result of cautious
cunning, for no one can ever tell what may come of too much talking.
The three men threw themselves ravenously upon the food, and the only
sound to be heard in the room was the fierce grinding of their jaws.

Honore rose, and going to the sideboard brought back a pitcher of
water.

"I think you might have given us some wine, father."

Whereupon Fouchard, now master of himself and no longer fearing that
this anger might lead him into unguarded speech, once more found his
tongue.

"Wine! I haven't any, not a drop! The others, those fellows of
Ducrot's, ate and drank all I had, robbed me of everything!"

He was lying, and try to conceal it as he might the shifty expression
in his great light eyes showed it. For the past two days he had been
driving away his cattle, as well those reserved for work on the farm
as those he had purchased to slaughter, and hiding them, no one knew
where, in the depths of some wood or in some abandoned quarry, and he
had devoted hours to burying all his household stores, wine, bread,
and things of the least value, even to the flour and salt, so that
anyone might have ransacked his cupboards and been none the richer for
it. He had refused to sell anything to the first soldiers who came
along; no one knew, he might be able to do better later on; and the
patient, sly old curmudgeon indulged himself with vague dreams of
wealth.

Maurice, who was first to satisfy his appetite, commenced to talk.

"Have you seen my sister Henriette lately?"

The old man was pacing up and down the room, casting an occasional
glance at Jean, who was bolting huge mouthfuls of bread; after
apparently giving the subject long consideration he deliberately
answered:

"Henriette, yes, I saw her last month when I was in Sedan. But I saw
Weiss, her husband, this morning. He was with Monsieur Delaherche, his
boss, who had come over in his carriage to see the soldiers at
Mouzon--which is the same as saying that they were out for a good
time."

An expression of intense scorn flitted over the old peasant's
impenetrable face.

"Perhaps they saw more of the army than they wanted to, and didn't
have such a very good time after all, for ever since three o'clock the
roads have been impassable on account of the crowds of flying
soldiers."

In the same unmoved voice, as if the matter were one of perfect
indifference to him, he gave them some tidings of the defeat of the
5th corps, that had been surprised at Beaumont while the men were
making their soup and chased by the Bavarians all the way to Mouzon.
Some fugitives who had passed through Remilly, mad with terror, had
told him that they had been betrayed once more and that de Failly had
sold them to Bismarck. Maurice's thoughts reverted to the aimless,
blundering movements of the last two days, to Marshal MacMahon
hurrying on their retreat and insisting on getting them across the
Meuse at every cost, after wasting so many precious hours in
incomprehensible delays. It was too late. Doubtless the marshal, who
had stormed so on finding the 7th corps still at Osches when he
supposed it to be at la Besace, had felt assured that the 5th corps
was safe in camp at Mouzon when, lingering in Beaumont, it had come to
grief there. But what could they expect from troops so poorly
officered, demoralized by suspense and incessant retreat, dying with
hunger and fatigue?

Fouchard had finally come and planted himself behind Jean's chair,
watching with astonishment the inroads he was making on the bread and
cheese. In a coldly sarcastic tone he asked:

"Are you beginning to feel better, _hein_?"

The corporal raised his head and replied with the same peasant-like
directness:

"Just beginning, thank you!"

Honore, notwithstanding his hunger, had ceased from eating whenever it
seemed to him that he heard a noise about the house. If he had
struggled long, and finally been false to his oath never to set foot
in that house again, the reason was that he could no longer withstand
his craving desire to see Silvine. The letter that he had received
from her at Rheims lay on his bosom, next his skin, that letter, so
tenderly passionate, in which she told him that she loved him still,
that she should never love anyone save him, despite the cruel past,
despite Goliah and little Charlot, that man's child. He was thinking
of naught save her, was wondering why he had not seen her yet, all the
time watching himself that he might not let his father see his
anxiety. At last his passion became too strong for him, however, and
he asked in a tone as natural as he could command:

"Is not Silvine with you any longer?"

Fouchard gave his son a glance out of the corner of his eye, chuckling
internally.

"Yes, yes."

Then he expectorated and was silent, so that the artillery man had
presently to broach the subject again.

"She has gone to bed, then?"

"No, no."

Finally the old fellow condescended to explain that he, too, had been
taking an outing that morning, had driven over to Raucourt market in
his wagon and taken his little servant with him. He saw no reason,
because a lot of soldiers happened to pass that way, why folks should
cease to eat meat or why a man should not attend to his business, so
he had taken a sheep and a quarter of beef over there, as it was his
custom to do every Tuesday, and had just disposed of the last of his
stock-in-trade when up came the 7th corps and he found himself in the
middle of a terrible hubbub. Everyone was running, pushing, and
crowding. Then he became alarmed lest they should take his horse and
wagon from him, and drove off, leaving his servant, who was just then
making some purchases in the town.

"Oh, Silvine will come back all right," he concluded in his tranquil
voice. "She must have taken shelter with Doctor Dalichamp, her
godfather. You would think to look at her that she wouldn't dare to
say boo to a goose, but she is a girl of courage, all the same. Yes,
yes; she has lots of good qualities, Silvine has."

Was it an attempt on his part to be jocose? or did he wish to explain
why it was he kept her in his service, that girl who had caused
dissension between father and son, whose child by the Prussian was in
the house? He again gave his boy that sidelong look and laughed his
voiceless laugh.

"Little Charlot is asleep there in his room; she surely won't be long
away, now."

Honore, with quivering lips, looked so intently at his father that the
old man began to pace the floor again. _Mon Dieu!_ yes, the child was
there; doubtless he would have to look on him. A painful silence
filled the room, while he mechanically cut himself more bread and
began to eat again. Jean also continued his operations in that line,
without finding it necessary to say a word. Maurice contemplated the
furniture, the old sideboard, the antique clock, and reflected on the
long summer days that he had spent at Remilly in bygone times with his
sister Henriette. The minutes slipped away, the clock struck eleven.

"The devil!" he murmured, "it will never do to let the regiment go off
without us!"

He stepped to the window and opened it, Fouchard making no objection.
Beneath lay the valley, a great bowl filled to the brim with
blackness; presently, however, when his eyes became more accustomed to
the obscurity, he had no difficulty in distinguishing the bridge,
illuminated by the fires on the two banks. The cuirassiers were
passing still, like phantoms in their long white cloaks, while their
steeds trod upon the bosom of the stream and a chill wind of terror
breathed on them from behind; and so the spectral train moved on,
apparently interminable, in an endless, slow-moving vision of
unsubstantial forms. Toward the right, over the bare hills where the
slumbering army lay, there brooded a stillness and repose like death.

"Ah well!" said Maurice with a gesture of disappointment, "'twill be
to-morrow morning."

He had left the window open, and Father Fouchard, seizing his gun,
straddled the sill and stepped outside, as lightly as a young man. For
a time they could hear his tramp upon the road, as regular as that of
a sentry pacing his beat, but presently it ceased and the only sound
that reached their ears was the distant clamor on the crowded bridge;
it must be that he had seated himself by the wayside, where he could
watch for approaching danger and at slightest sign leap to defend his
property.

Honore's anxiety meantime was momentarily increasing; his eyes were
fixed constantly on the clock. It was less than four miles from
Raucourt to Remilly, an easy hour's walk for a woman as young and
strong as Silvine. Why had she not returned in all that time since the
old man lost sight of her in the confusion? He thought of the disorder
of a retreating army corps, spreading over the country and blocking
the roads; some accident must certainly have happened, and he pictured
her in distress, wandering among the lonely fields, trampled under
foot by the horsemen.

But suddenly the three men rose to their feet, moved by a common
impulse. There was a sound of rapid steps coming up the road and the
old man was heard to cock his weapon.

"Who goes there?" he shouted. "Is it you, Silvine?"

There was no reply. He repeated his question, threatening to fire.
Then a laboring, breathless voice managed to articulate:

"Yes, yes, Father Fouchard; it is I." And she quickly asked: "And
Charlot?"

"He is abed and asleep."

"That is well! Thanks."

There was no longer cause for her to hasten; she gave utterance to a
deep-drawn sigh, as if to rid herself of her burden of fatigue and
distress.

"Go in by the window," said Fouchard. "There is company in there."

She was greatly agitated when, leaping lightly into the room, she
beheld the three men. In the uncertain candle-light she gave the
impression of being very dark, with thick black hair and a pair of
large, fine, lustrous eyes, the chief adornment of a small oval face,
strong by reason of its tranquil resignation. The sudden meeting with
Honore had sent all the blood rushing from her heart to her cheeks;
and yet she was hardly surprised to find him there; he had been in her
thoughts all the way home from Raucourt.

He, trembling with agitation, his heart in his throat, spoke with
affected calmness:

"Good-evening, Silvine."

"Good-evening, Honore."

Then, to keep from breaking down and bursting into tears, she turned
away, and recognizing Maurice, gave him a smile. Jean's presence was
embarrassing to her. She felt as if she were choking somehow, and
removed the _foulard_ that she wore about her neck.

Honore continued, dropping the friendly _thou_ of other days:

"We were anxious about you, Silvine, on account of the Prussians being
so near at hand."

All at once her face became very pale and showed great distress;
raising her hand to her eyes as if to shut out some atrocious vision,
and directing an involuntary glance toward the room where Charlot was
slumbering, she murmured:

"The Prussians-- Oh! yes, yes, I saw them."

Sinking wearily upon a chair she told how, when the 7th corps came
into Raucourt, she had fled for shelter to the house of her godfather,
Doctor Dalichamp, hoping that Father Fouchard would think to come and
take her up before he left the town. The main street was filled with a
surging throng, so dense that not even a dog could have squeezed his
way through it, and up to four o'clock she had felt no particular
alarm, tranquilly employed in scraping lint in company with some of
the ladies of the place; for the doctor, with the thought that they
might be called on to care for some of the wounded, should there be a
battle over in the direction of Metz and Verdun, had been busying
himself for the last two weeks with improvising a hospital in the
great hall of the _mairie_. Some people who dropped in remarked that
they might find use for their hospital sooner than they expected, and
sure enough, a little after midday, the roar of artillery had reached
their ears from over Beaumont way. But that was not near enough to
cause anxiety and no one was alarmed, when, all at once, just as the
last of the French troops were filing out of Raucourt, a shell, with a
frightful crash, came tearing through the roof of a neighboring house.
Two others followed in quick succession; it was a German battery
shelling the rear-guard of the 7th corps. Some of the wounded from
Beaumont had already been brought in to the _mairie_, where it was
feared that the enemy's projectiles would finish them as they lay on
their mattresses waiting for the doctor to come and operate on them.
The men were crazed with fear, and would have risen and gone down
into the cellars, notwithstanding their mangled limbs, which extorted
from them shrieks of agony.

"And then," continued Silvine, "I don't know how it happened, but all
at once the uproar was succeeded by a deathlike stillness. I had gone
upstairs and was looking from a window that commanded a view of the
street and fields. There was not a soul in sight, not a 'red-leg' to
be seen anywhere, when I heard the tramp, tramp of heavy footsteps,
and then a voice shouted something that I could not understand and all
the muskets came to the ground together with a great crash. And I
looked down into the street below, and there was a crowd of small,
dirty-looking men in black, with ugly, big faces and wearing helmets
like those our firemen wear. Someone told me they were Bavarians. Then
I raised my eyes again and saw, oh! thousands and thousands of them,
streaming in by the roads, across the fields, through the woods, in
serried, never-ending columns. In the twinkling of an eye the ground
was black with them, a black swarm, a swarm of black locusts, coming
thicker and thicker, so that, in no time at all, the earth was hid
from sight."

She shivered and repeated her former gesture, veiling her vision from
some atrocious spectacle.

"And the things that occurred afterward would exceed belief. It seems
those men had been marching three days, and on top of that had fought
at Beaumont like tigers; hence they were perishing with hunger, their
eyes were starting from their sockets, they were beside themselves.
The officers made no effort to restrain them; they broke into shops
and private houses, smashing doors and windows, demolishing furniture,
searching for something to eat and drink, no matter what, bolting
whatever they could lay their hands on. I saw one in the shop of
Monsieur Simonin, the grocer, ladling molasses from a cask with his
helmet. Others were chewing strips of raw bacon, others again had
filled their mouths with flour. They were told that our troops had
been passing through the town for the last two days and there was
nothing left, but here and there they found some trifling store that
had been hid away, not sufficient to feed so many hungry mouths, and
that made them think the folks were lying to them, and they went on to
smash things more furiously than ever. In less than an hour, there was
not a butcher's, grocer's, or baker's shop in the city left ungutted;
even the private houses were entered, their cellars emptied, and their
closets pillaged. At the doctor's--did you ever hear of such a thing?
I caught one big fellow devouring the soap. But the cellar was the
place where they did most mischief; we could hear them from upstairs
smashing the bottles and yelling like demons, and they drew the
spigots of the casks, so that the place was flooded with wine; when
they came out their hands were red with the good wine they had
spilled. And to show what happens, men when they make such brutes of
themselves: a soldier found a large bottle of laudanum and drank it
all down, in spite of Monsieur Dalichamp's efforts to prevent him. The
poor wretch was in horrible agony when I came away; he must be dead by
this time."

A great shudder ran through her, and she put her hand to her eyes to
shut out the horrid sight.

"No, no! I cannot bear it; I saw too much!"

Father Fouchard had crossed the road and stationed himself at the open
window where he could hear, and the tale of pillage made him uneasy;
he had been told that the Prussians paid for all they took; were they
going to start out as robbers at that late day? Maurice and Jean, too,
were deeply interested in those details about an enemy whom the girl
had seen, and whom they had not succeeded in setting eyes on in their
whole month's campaigning, while Honore, pensive and with dry, parched
lips, was conscious only of the sound of _her_ voice; he could think
of nothing save her and the misfortune that had parted them.

Just then the door of the adjoining room was opened, and little
Charlot appeared. He had heard his mother's voice, and came trotting
into the apartment in his nightgown to give her a kiss. He was a
chubby, pink little urchin, large and strong for his age, with a
thatch of curling, straw-colored hair and big blue eyes. Silvine
shivered at his sudden appearance, as if the sight of him had recalled
to her mind the image of someone else that affected her disagreeably.
Did she no longer recognize him, then, her darling child, that she
looked at him thus, as if he were some evocation of that horrid
nightmare! She burst into tears.

"My poor, poor child!" she exclaimed, and clasped him wildly to her
breast, while Honore, ghastly pale, noted how strikingly like the
little one was to Goliah; the same broad, pink face, the true Teutonic
type, in all the health and strength of rosy, smiling childhood. The
son of the Prussian, _the Prussian_, as the pothouse wits of Remilly
had styled him! And the French mother, who sat there, pressing him to
her bosom, her heart still bleeding with the recollection of the cruel
sights she had witnessed that day!

"My poor child, be good; come with me back to bed. Say good-night, my
poor child."

She vanished, bearing him away. When she returned from the adjoining
room she was no longer weeping; her face wore its customary expression
of calm and courageous resignation.

It was Honore who, with a trembling voice, started the conversation
again.

"And what did the Prussians do then?"

"Ah, yes; the Prussians. Well, they plundered right and left,
destroying everything, eating and drinking all they could lay hands
on. They stole linen as well, napkins and sheets, and even curtains,
tearing them in strips to make bandages for their feet. I saw some
whose feet were one raw lump of flesh, so long and hard had been their
march. One little group I saw, seated at the edge of the gutter before
the doctor's house, who had taken off their shoes and were bandaging
themselves with handsome chemises, trimmed with lace, stolen,
doubtless, from pretty Madame Lefevre, the manufacturer's wife. The
pillage went on until night. The houses had no doors or windows left,
and one passing in the street could look within and see the wrecked
furniture, a scene of destruction that would have aroused the anger of
a saint. For my part, I was almost wild, and could remain there no
longer. They tried in vain to keep me, telling me that the roads were
blocked, that I would certainly be killed; I started, and as soon as I
was out of Raucourt, struck off to the right and took to the fields.
Carts, loaded with wounded French and Prussians, were coming in from
Beaumont. Two passed quite close to me in the darkness; I could hear
the shrieks and groans, and I ran, oh! how I ran, across fields,
through woods, I could not begin to tell you where, except that I made
a wide circuit over toward Villers.

"Twice I thought I heard soldiers coming and hid, but the only person
I met was another woman, a fugitive like myself. She was from
Beaumont, she said, and she told me things too horrible to repeat.
After that we ran harder than ever. And at last I am here, so
wretched, oh! so wretched with what I have seen!"

Her tears flowed again in such abundance as to choke her utterance.
The horrors of the day kept rising to her memory and would not down;
she related the story that the woman of Beaumont had told her. That
person lived in the main street of the village, where she had
witnessed the passage of all the German artillery after nightfall. The
column was accompanied on either side of the road by a file of
soldiers bearing torches of pitch-pine, which illuminated the scene
with the red glare of a great conflagration, and between the flaring,
smoking lights the impetuous torrent of horses, guns, and men tore
onward at a mad gallop. Their feet were winged with the tireless speed
of victory as they rushed on in devilish pursuit of the French, to
overtake them in some last ditch and crush them, annihilate them
there. They stopped for nothing; on, on they went, heedless of what
lay in their way. Horses fell; their traces were immediately cut, and
they were left to be ground and torn by the pitiless wheels until they
were a shapeless, bleeding mass. Human beings, prisoners and wounded
men, who attempted to cross the road, were ruthlessly borne down and
shared their fate. Although the men were dying with hunger the fierce
hurricane poured on unchecked; was a loaf thrown to the drivers, they
caught it flying; the torch-bearers passed slices of meat to them on
the end of their bayonets, and then, with the same steel that had
served that purpose, goaded their maddened horses on to further
effort. And the night grew old, and still the artillery was passing,
with the mad roar of a tempest let loose upon the land, amid the
frantic cheering of the men.

Maurice's fatigue was too much for him, and notwithstanding the
interest with which he listened to Silvine's narrative, after the
substantial meal he had eaten he let his head decline upon the table
on his crossed arms. Jean's resistance lasted a little longer, but
presently he too was overcome and fell dead asleep at the other end of
the table. Father Fouchard had gone and taken his position in the road
again; Honore was alone with Silvine, who was seated, motionless,
before the still open window.

The artilleryman rose, and drawing his chair to the window, stationed
himself there beside her. The deep peacefulness of the night was
instinct with the breathing of the multitude that lay lost in slumber
there, but on it now rose other and louder sounds; the straining and
creaking of the bridge, the hollow rumble of wheels; the artillery was
crossing on the half-submerged structure. Horses reared and plunged in
terror at sight of the swift-running stream, the wheel of a caisson
ran over the guard-rail; immediately a hundred strong arms seized the
encumbrance and hurled the heavy vehicle to the bottom of the river
that it might not obstruct the passage. And as the young man watched
the slow, toilsome retreat along the opposite bank, a movement that
had commenced the day before and certainly would not be ended by the
coming dawn, he could not help thinking of that other artillery that
had gone storming through Beaumont, bearing down all before it,
crushing men and horses in its path that it might not be delayed the
fraction of a second.

Honore drew his chair nearer to Silvine, and in the shuddering
darkness, alive with all those sounds of menace, gently whispered:

"You are unhappy?"

"Oh! yes; so unhappy!"

She was conscious of the subject on which he was about to speak, and
her head sank sorrowfully on her bosom.

"Tell me, how did it happen? I wish to know."

But she could not find words to answer him.

"Did he take advantage of you, or was it with your consent?"

Then she stammered, in a voice that was barely audible:

"_Mon Dieu!_ I do not know; I swear to you, I do not know, more than a
babe unborn. I will not lie to you--I cannot! No, I have no excuse to
offer; I cannot say he beat me. You had left me, I was beside myself,
and it happened, how, I cannot, no, I cannot tell!"

Sobs choked her utterance, and he, ashy pale and with a great lump
rising in his throat, waited silently for a moment. The thought that
she was unwilling to tell him a lie, however, was an assuagement to
his rage and grief; he went on to question her further, anxious to
know the many things, that as yet he had been unable to understand.

"My father has kept you here, it seems?"

She replied with her resigned, courageous air, without raising her
eyes:

"I work hard for him, it does not cost much to keep me, and as there
is now another mouth to feed he has taken advantage of it to reduce my
wages. He knows well enough that now, when he orders, there is nothing
left for me but to obey."

"But why do you stay with him?"

The question surprised her so that she looked him in the face.

"Where would you have me go? Here my little one and I have at least a
home and enough to keep us from starving."

They were silent again, both intently reading in the other's eyes,
while up the shadowy valley the sounds of the sleeping camp came
faintly to their ears, and the dull rumble of wheels upon the bridge
of boats went on unceasingly. There was a shriek, the loud, despairing
cry of man or beast in mortal peril, that passed, unspeakably
mournful, through the dark night.

"Listen, Silvine," Honore slowly and feelingly went on; "you sent
me a letter that afforded me great pleasure. I should have never
come back here, but that letter--I have been reading it again this
evening--speaks of things that could not have been expressed more
delicately--"

She had turned pale when first she heard the subject mentioned.
Perhaps he was angry that she had dared to write to him, like one
devoid of shame; then, as his meaning became more clear, her face
reddened with delight.

"I know you to be truthful, and knowing it, I believe what you wrote
in that letter--yes, I believe it now implicitly. You were right in
supposing that, if I were to die in battle without seeing you again,
it would be a great sorrow to me to leave this world with the thought
that you no longer loved me. And therefore, since you love me still,
since I am your first and only love--" His tongue became thick, his
emotion was so deep that expression failed him. "Listen, Silvine; if
those beasts of Prussians let me live, you shall yet be mine, yes, as
soon as I have served my time out we will be married."

She rose and stood erect upon her feet, gave a cry of joy, and threw
herself upon the young man's bosom. She could not speak a word; every
drop of blood in her veins was in her cheeks. He seated himself upon
the chair and drew her down upon his lap.

"I have thought the matter over carefully; it was to say what I have
said that I came here this evening. Should my father refuse us his
consent, the earth is large; we will go away. And your little one, no
one shall harm him, _mon Dieu!_ More will come along, and among them
all I shall not know him from the others."

She was forgiven, fully and entirely. Such happiness seemed too great
to be true; she resisted, murmuring:

"No, it cannot be; it is too much; perhaps you might repent your
generosity some day. But how good it is of you, Honore, and how I love
you!"

He silenced her with a kiss upon the lips, and strength was wanting
her longer to put aside the great, the unhoped-for good fortune that
had come to her; a life of happiness where she had looked forward to
one of loneliness and sorrow! With an involuntary, irresistible
impulse she threw her arms about him, kissing him again and again,
straining him to her bosom with all her woman's strength, as a
treasure that was lost and found again, that was hers, hers alone,
that thenceforth no one was ever to take from her. He was hers once
more, he whom she had lost, and she would die rather than let anyone
deprive her of him.

At that moment confused sounds reached their ears; the sleeping camp
was awaking amid a tumult that rose and filled the dark vault of
heaven. Hoarse voices were shouting orders, bugles were sounding,
drums beating, and from the naked fields shadowy forms were seen
emerging in indistinguishable masses, a surging, billowing sea whose
waves were already streaming downward to the road beneath. The fires
on the banks of the stream were dying down; all that could be seen
there was masses of men moving confusedly to and fro; it was not even
possible to tell if the movement across the river was still in
progress. Never had the shades of night veiled such depths of
distress, such abject misery of terror.

Father Fouchard came to the window and shouted that the troops were
moving. Jean and Maurice awoke, stiff and shivering, and got on their
feet. Honore took Silvine's hands in his and gave them a swift parting
clasp.

"It is a promise. Wait for me."

She could find no word to say in answer, but all her soul went out to
him in one long, last look, as he leaped from the window and hurried
away to find his battery.

"Good-by, father!"

"Good-by, my boy!"

And that was all; peasant and soldier parted as they had met, without
embracing, like a father and son whose existence was of little import
to each other.

Maurice and Jean also left the farmhouse, and descended the steep hill
on a run. When they reached the bottom the 106th was nowhere to be
found; the regiments had all moved off. They made inquiries, running
this way and that, and were directed first one way and then another.
At last, when they had near lost their wits in the fearful confusion,
they stumbled on their company, under the command of Lieutenant
Rochas; as for the regiment and Captain Beaudoin, no one could say
where they were. And Maurice was astounded when he noticed for the
first time that that mob of men, guns, and horses was leaving Remilly
and taking the Sedan road that lay on the left bank. Something was
wrong again; the passage of the Meuse was abandoned, they were in full
retreat to the north!

An officer of chasseurs, who was standing near, spoke up in a loud
voice:

"_Nom de Dieu!_ the time for us to make the movement was the 28th,
when we were at Chene!"

Others were more explicit in their information; fresh news had been
received. About two o'clock in the morning one of Marshal MacMahon's
aides had come riding up to say to General Douay that the whole army
was ordered to retreat immediately on Sedan, without loss of a
minute's time. The disaster of the 5th corps at Beaumont had involved
the three other corps. The general, who was at that time down at the
bridge of boats superintending operations, was in despair that only a
portion of his 3d division had so far crossed the stream; it would
soon be day, and they were liable to be attacked at any moment. He
therefore sent instructions to the several organizations of his
command to make at once for Sedan, each independently of the others,
by the most direct roads, while he himself, leaving orders to burn the
bridge of boats, took the road on the left bank with his 2d division
and the artillery, and the 3d division pursued that on the right bank;
the 1st, that had felt the enemy's claws at Beaumont, was flying in
disorder across the country, no one knew where. Of the 7th corps, that
had not seen a battle, all that remained were those scattered,
incoherent fragments, lost among lanes and by-roads, running away in
the darkness.

It was not yet three o'clock, and the night was as black as ever.
Maurice, although he knew the country, could not make out where they
were in the noisy, surging throng that filled the road from ditch to
ditch, pouring onward like a brawling mountain stream. Interspersed
among the regiments were many fugitives from the rout at Beaumont, in
ragged uniforms, begrimed with blood and dirt, who inoculated the
others with their own terror. Down the wide valley, from the wooded
hills across the stream, came one universal, all-pervading uproar, the
scurrying tramp of other hosts in swift retreat; the 1st corps, coming
from Carignan and Douzy, the 12th flying from Mouzon with the
shattered remnants of the 5th, moved like puppets and driven onward,
all of them, by that one same, inexorable, irresistible pressure that
since the 28th had been urging the army northward and driving it into
the trap where it was to meet its doom.

Day broke as Maurice's company was passing through Pont Maugis, and
then he recognized their locality, the hills of Liry to the left, the
Meuse running beside the road on the right. Bazeilles and Balan
presented an inexpressibly funereal aspect, looming among the
exhalations of the meadows in the chill, wan light of dawn, while
against the somber background of her great forests Sedan was profiled
in livid outlines, indistinct as the creation of some hideous
nightmare. When they had left Wadelincourt behind them and were come
at last to the Torcy gate, the governor long refused them admission;
he only yielded, after a protracted conference, upon their threat to
storm the place. It was five o'clock when at last the 7th corps,
weary, cold, and hungry, entered Sedan.

VIII.


In the crush on the Place de Torcy that ensued upon the entrance of
the troops into the city Jean became separated from Maurice, and all
his attempts to find him again among the surging crowd were fruitless.
It was a piece of extreme ill-luck, for he had accepted the young
man's invitation to go with him to his sister's, where there would be
rest and food for them, and even the luxury of a comfortable bed. The
confusion was so great--the regiments disintegrated, no discipline,
and no officers to enforce it--that the men were free to do pretty
much as they pleased. There was plenty of time to look about them and
hunt up their commands; they would have a few hours of sleep first.

Jean in his bewilderment found himself on the viaduct of Torcy,
overlooking the broad meadows which, by the governor's orders, had
been flooded with water from the river. Then, passing through
another archway and crossing the Pont de Meuse, he entered the old,
rampart-girt city, where, among the tall and crowded houses and the
damp, narrow streets, it seemed to him that night was descending
again, notwithstanding the increasing daylight. He could not so much
as remember the name of Maurice's brother-in-law; he only knew that
his sister's name was Henriette. The outlook was not encouraging; all
that kept him awake was the automatic movement of walking; he felt
that he should drop were he to stop. The indistinct ringing in his
ears was the same that is experienced by one drowning; he was only
conscious of the ceaseless onpouring of the stream of men and animals
that carried him along with it on its current. He had partaken of food
at Remilly, sleep was now his great necessity; and the same was true
of the shadowy bands that he saw flitting past him in those strange,
fantastic streets. At every moment a man would sink upon the sidewalk
or tumble into a doorway, and there would remain, as if struck by
death.

Raising his eyes, Jean read upon a signboard: Avenue de la
Sous-Prefecture. At the end of the street was a monument standing in a
public garden, and at the corner of the avenue he beheld a horseman, a
chasseur d'Afrique, whose face seemed familiar to him. Was it not
Prosper, the young man from Remilly, whom he had seen in Maurice's
company at Vouziers? Perhaps he had been sent in with dispatches. He
had dismounted, and his skeleton of a horse, so weak that he could
scarcely stand, was trying to satisfy his hunger by gnawing at the
tail-board of an army wagon that was drawn up against the curb. There
had been no forage for the animals for the last two days, and they
were literally dying of starvation. The big strong teeth rasped
pitifully on the woodwork of the wagon, while the soldier stood by and
wept as he watched the poor brute.

Jean was moving away when it occurred to him that the trooper might be
able to give him the address of Maurice's sister. He returned, but the
other was gone, and it would have been useless to attempt to find him
in that dense throng. He was utterly disheartened, and wandering
aimlessly from street to street at last found himself again before the
Sous-Prefecture, whence he struggled onward to the Place Turenne. Here
he was comforted for an instant by catching sight of Lieutenant
Rochas, standing in front of the Hotel de Ville with a few men of his
company, at the foot of the statue he had seen before; if he could not
find his friend he could at all events rejoin the regiment and have a
tent to sleep under. Nothing had been seen of Captain Beaudoin;
doubtless he had been swept away in the press and landed in some place
far away, while the lieutenant was endeavoring to collect his
scattered men and fruitlessly inquiring of everyone he met where
division headquarters were. As he advanced into the city, however, his
numbers, instead of increasing, dwindled. One man, with the gestures
of a lunatic, entered an inn and was seen no more. Three others were
halted in front of a grocer's shop by a party of zouaves who had
obtained possession of a small cask of brandy; one was already lying
senseless in the gutter, while the other two tried to get away, but
were too stupid and dazed to move. Loubet and Chouteau had nudged each
other with the elbow and disappeared down a blind alley in pursuit of
a fat woman with a loaf of bread, so that all who remained with the
lieutenant were Pache and Lapoulle, with some ten or a dozen more.

Rochas was standing by the base of the bronze statue of Turenne,
making heroic efforts to keep his eyes open. When he recognized Jean
he murmured:

"Ah, is it you, corporal? Where are your men?"

Jean, by a gesture expressive in its vagueness, intimated that he did
not know, but Pache, pointing to Lapoulle, answered with tears in his
eyes:

"Here we are; there are none left but us two. The merciful Lord have
pity on our sufferings; it is too hard!"

The other, the colossus with the colossal appetite, looked hungrily at
Jean's hands, as if to reproach them for being always empty in those
days. Perhaps, in his half-sleeping state, he had dreamed that Jean
was away at the commissary's for rations.

"D----n the luck!" he grumbled, "we'll have to tighten up our belts
another hole!"

Gaude, the bugler, was leaning against the iron railing, waiting for
the lieutenant's order to sound the assembly; sleep came to him so
suddenly that he slid from his position and within a second was lying
flat on his back, unconscious. One by one they all succumbed to the
drowsy influence and snored in concert, except Sergeant Sapin alone,
who, with his little pinched nose in his small pale face, stood
staring with distended eyes at the horizon of that strange city, as if
trying to read his destiny there.

Lieutenant Rochas meantime had yielded to an irresistible impulse and
seated himself on the ground. He attempted to give an order.

"Corporal, you will--you will--"

And that was as far as he could proceed, for fatigue sealed his lips,
and like the rest he suddenly sank down and was lost in slumber.

Jean, not caring to share his comrades' fate and pillow his head
on the hard stones, moved away; he was bent on finding a bed in
which to sleep. At a window of the Hotel of the Golden Cross, on
the opposite side of the square, he caught a glimpse of General
Bourgain-Desfeuilles, already half-undressed and on the point of
tasting the luxury of clean white sheets. Why should he be more
self-denying than the rest of them? he asked himself; why should he
suffer longer? And just then a name came to his recollection that
caused him a thrill of delight, the name of the manufacturer in whose
employment Maurice's brother-in-law was. M. Delaherche! yes, that was
it. He accosted an old man who happened to be passing.

"Can you tell me where M. Delaherche lives?"

"In the Rue Maqua, near the corner of the Rue au Beurre; you can't
mistake it; it is a big house, with statues in the garden."

The old man turned away, but presently came running back. "I see you
belong to the 106th. If it is your regiment you are looking for, it
left the city by the Chateau, down there. I just met the colonel,
Monsieur de Vineuil; I used to know him when he lived at Mezieres."

But Jean went his way, with an angry gesture of impatience. No, no! no
sleeping on the hard ground for him, now that he was certain of
finding Maurice. And yet he could not help feeling a twinge of remorse
as he thought of the dignified old colonel, who stood fatigue so
manfully in spite of his years, sharing the sufferings of his men,
with no more luxurious shelter than his tent. He strode across the
Grande Rue with rapid steps and soon was in the midst of the tumult
and uproar of the city; there he hailed a small boy, who conducted him
to the Rue Maqua.

There it was that in the last century a grand-uncle of the present
Delaherche had built the monumental structure that had remained in the
family a hundred and sixty years. There is more than one cloth factory
in Sedan that dates back to the early years of Louis XV.; enormous
piles, they are, covering as much ground as the Louvre, and with
stately facades of royal magnificence. The one in the Rue Maqua was
three stories high, and its tall windows were adorned with carvings of
severe simplicity, while the palatial courtyard in the center was
filled with grand old trees, gigantic elms that were coeval with the
building itself. In it three generations of Delaherches had amassed
comfortable fortunes for themselves. The father of Charles, the
proprietor in our time, had inherited the property from a cousin who
had died without being blessed with children, so that it was now a
younger branch that was in possession. The affairs of the house had
prospered under the father's control, but he was something of a blade
and a roisterer, and his wife's existence with him was not one of
unmixed happiness; the consequence of which was that the lady, when
she became a widow, not caring to see a repetition by the son of the
performances of the father, made haste to find a wife for him in the
person of a simple-minded and exceedingly devout young woman, and
subsequently kept him tied to her apron string until he had attained
the mature age of fifty and over. But no one in this transitory world
can tell what time has in store for him; when the devout young
person's time came to leave this life Delaherche, who had known none
of the joys of youth, fell head over ears in love with a young widow
of Charleville, pretty Madame Maginot, who had been the subject of
some gossip in her day, and in the autumn preceding the events
recorded in this history had married her, in spite of all his mother's
prayers and tears. It is proper to add that Sedan, which is very
straitlaced in its notions of propriety, has always been inclined to
frown on Charleville, the city of laughter and levity. And then again
the marriage would never have been effected but for the fact that
Gilberte's uncle was Colonel de Vineuil, who it was supposed would
soon be made a general. This relationship and the idea that he had
married into army circles was to the cloth manufacturer a source of
great delight.

That morning Delaherche, when he learned that the army was to pass
through Mouzon, had invited Weiss, his accountant, to accompany him on
that carriage ride of which we have heard Father Fouchard speak to
Maurice. Tall and stout, with a florid complexion, prominent nose and
thick lips, he was of a cheerful, sanguine temperament and had all the
French bourgeois' boyish love for a handsome display of troops. Having
ascertained from the apothecary at Mouzon that the Emperor was at
Baybel, a farm in the vicinity, he had driven up there; had seen the
monarch, and even had been near speaking to him, an adventure of such
thrilling interest that he had talked of it incessantly ever since his
return. But what a terrible return that had been, over roads choked
with the panic-stricken fugitives from Beaumont! twenty times their
cabriolet was near being overturned into the ditch. Obstacle after
obstacle they had encountered, and it was night before the two men
reached home. The element of the tragic and unforeseen there was in
the whole business, that army that Delaherche had driven out to pass
in review and which had brought him home with it, whether he would or
no, in the mad gallop of its retreat, made him repeat again and again
during their long drive:

"I supposed it was moving on Verdun and would have given anything
rather than miss seeing it. Ah well! I have seen it now, and I am
afraid we shall see more of it in Sedan than we desire."

The following morning he was awakened at five o'clock by the hubbub,
like the roar of water escaping from a broken dam, made by the 7th
corps as it streamed through the city; he dressed in haste and went
out, and almost the first person he set eyes on in the Place Turenne
was Captain Beaudoin. When pretty Madame Maginot was living at
Charleville the year before the captain had been one of her best
friends, and Gilberte had introduced him to her husband before they
were married. Rumor had it that the captain had abdicated his position
as first favorite and made way for the cloth merchant from motives of
delicacy, not caring to stand in the way of the great good fortune
that seemed coming to his fair friend.

"Hallo, is that you?" exclaimed Delaherche. "Good Heavens, what a
state you're in!"

It was but too true; the dandified Beaudoin, usually so trim and
spruce, presented a sorry spectacle that morning in his soiled uniform
and with his grimy face and hands. Greatly to his disgust he had had a
party of Turcos for traveling companions, and could not explain how he
had become separated from his company. Like all the others he was
ready to drop with fatigue and hunger, but that was not what most
afflicted him; he had not been able to change his linen since leaving
Rheims, and was inconsolable.

"Just think of it!" he wailed, "those idiots, those scoundrels, lost
my baggage at Vouziers. If I ever catch them I will break every bone
in their body! And now I haven't a thing, not a handkerchief, not a
pair of socks! Upon my word, it is enough to make one mad!"

Delaherche was for taking him home to his house forthwith, but he
resisted. No, no; he was no longer a human being, he would not
frighten people out of their wits. The manufacturer had to make solemn
oath that neither his wife nor his mother had risen yet; and besides
he should have soap, water, linen, everything he needed.

It was seven o'clock when Captain Beaudoin, having done what he could
with the means at his disposal to improve his appearance, and
comforted by the sensation of wearing under his uniform a clean shirt
of his host's, made his appearance in the spacious, high-ceiled dining
room with its somber wainscoting. The elder Madame Delaherche was
already there, for she was always on foot at daybreak, notwithstanding
she was seventy-eight years old. Her hair was snowy white; in her
long, lean face was a nose almost preternaturally thin and sharp and a
mouth that had long since forgotten how to laugh. She rose, and with
stately politeness invited the captain to be seated before one of the
cups of _cafe au lait_ that stood on the table.

"But, perhaps, sir, you would prefer meat and wine after the fatigue
to which you have been subjected?"

He declined the offer, however. "A thousand thanks, madame; a little
milk, with bread and butter, will be best for me."

At that moment a door was smartly opened and Gilberte entered the room
with outstretched hand. Delaherche must have told her who was there,
for her ordinary hour of rising was ten o'clock. She was tall, lithe
of form and well-proportioned, with an abundance of handsome black
hair, a pair of handsome black eyes, and a very rosy, wholesome
complexion withal; she had a laughing, rather free and easy way with
her, and it did not seem possible she could ever look angry. Her
peignoir of beige, embroidered with red silk, was evidently of
Parisian manufacture.

"Ah, Captain," she rapidly said, shaking hands with the young man,
"how nice of you to stop and see us, away up in this out-of-the-world
place!" But she was the first to see that she had "put her foot in it"
and laugh at her own blunder. "Oh, what a stupid thing I am! I might
know you would rather be somewhere else than at Sedan, under the
circumstances. But I am very glad to see you once more."

She showed it; her face was bright and animated, while Madame
Delaherche, who could not have failed to hear something of the gossip
that had been current among the scandalmongers of Charleville, watched
the pair closely with her puritanical air. The captain was very
reserved in his behavior, however, manifesting nothing more than a
pleasant recollection of hospitalities previously received in the
house where he was visiting.

They had no more than sat down at table than Delaherche, burning to
relieve himself of the subject that filled his mind, commenced to
relate his experiences of the day before.

"You know I saw the Emperor at Baybel."

He was fairly started and nothing could stop him. He began by
describing the farmhouse, a large structure with an interior court,
surrounded by an iron railing, and situated on a gentle eminence
overlooking Mouzon, to the left of the Carignan road. Then he came
back to the 12th corps, whom he had visited in their camp among the
vines on the hillsides; splendid troops they were, with their
equipments brightly shining in the sunlight, and the sight of them had
caused his heart to beat with patriotic ardor.

"And there I was, sir, when the Emperor, who had alighted to breakfast
and rest himself a bit, came out of the farmhouse. He wore a general's
uniform and carried an overcoat across his arm, although the sun was
very hot. He was followed by a servant bearing a camp stool. He did
not look to me like a well man; ah no, far from it; his stooping form,
the sallowness of his complexion, the feebleness of his movements, all
indicated him to be in a very bad way. I was not surprised, for the
druggist at Mouzon, when he recommended me to drive on to Baybel, told
me that an aide-de-camp had just been in his shop to get some
medicine--you understand what I mean, medicine for--" The presence of
his wife and mother prevented him from alluding more explicitly to the
nature of the Emperor's complaint, which was an obstinate diarrhea
that he had contracted at Chene and which compelled him to make those
frequent halts at houses along the road. "Well, then, the attendant
opened the camp stool and placed it in the shade of a clump of trees
at the edge of a field of wheat, and the Emperor sat down on it.
Sitting there in a limp, dejected attitude, perfectly still, he looked
for all the world like a small shopkeeper taking a sun bath for his
rheumatism. His dull eyes wandered over the wide horizon, the Meuse
coursing through the valley at his feet, before him the range of
wooded heights whose summits recede and are lost in the distance, on
the left the waving tree-tops of Dieulet forest, on the right the
verdure-clad eminence of Sommanthe. He was surrounded by his military
family, aides and officers of rank, and a colonel of dragoons, who had
already applied to me for information about the country, had just
motioned me not to go away, when all at once--" Delaherche rose from
his chair, for he had reached the point where the dramatic interest of
his story culminated and it became necessary to re-enforce words by
gestures. "All at once there is a succession of sharp reports and
right in front of us, over the wood of Dieulet, shells are seen
circling through the air. It produced on me no more effect than a
display of fireworks in broad daylight, sir, upon my word it didn't!
The people about the Emperor, of course, showed a good deal of
agitation and uneasiness. The colonel of dragoons comes running up
again to ask if I can give them an idea whence the firing proceeds. I
answer him off-hand: 'It is at Beaumont; there is not the slightest
doubt about it.' He returns to the Emperor, on whose knees an
aide-de-camp was unfolding a map. The Emperor was evidently of opinion
that the fighting was not at Beaumont, for he sent the colonel back to
me a third time. But I couldn't well do otherwise than stick to what I
had said before, could I, now? the more that the shells kept flying
through the air, nearer and nearer, following the line of the Mouzon
road. And then, sir, as sure as I see you standing there, I saw the
Emperor turn his pale face toward me. Yes sir, he looked at me a
moment with those dim eyes of his, that were filled with an expression
of melancholy and distrust. And then his face declined upon his map
again and he made no further movement."

Delaherche, although he was an ardent Bonapartist at the time of the
plebiscite, had admitted after our early defeats that the government
was responsible for some mistakes, but he stood up for the dynasty,
compassionating and excusing Napoleon III., deceived and betrayed as
he was by everyone. It was his firm opinion that the men at whose door
should be laid the responsibility for all our disasters were none
other than those Republican deputies of the opposition who had stood
in the way of voting the necessary men and money.

"And did the Emperor return to the farmhouse?" asked Captain Beaudoin.

"That's more than I can say, my dear sir; I left him sitting on his
stool. It was midday, the battle was drawing nearer, and it occurred
to me that it was time to be thinking of my own return. All that I can
tell you besides is that a general to whom I pointed out the position
of Carignan in the distance, in the plain to our rear, appeared
greatly surprised to learn that the Belgian frontier lay in that
direction and was only a few miles away. Ah, that the poor Emperor
should have to rely on such servants!"

Gilberte, all smiles, was giving her attention to the captain and
keeping him supplied with buttered toast, as much at ease as she had
ever been in bygone days when she received him in her salon during her
widowhood. She insisted that he should accept a bed with them, but he
declined, and it was agreed that he should rest for an hour or two on
a sofa in Delaherche's study before going out to find his regiment. As
he was taking the sugar bowl from the young woman's hands old Madame
Delaherche, who had kept her eye on them, distinctly saw him squeeze
her fingers, and the old lady's suspicions were confirmed. At that
moment a servant came to the door.

"Monsieur, there is a soldier outside who wants to know the address of
Monsieur Weiss."

There was nothing "stuck-up" about Delaherche, people said; he was
fond of popularity and was always delighted to have a chat with those
of an inferior station.

"He wants Weiss's address! that's odd. Bring the soldier in here."

Jean entered the room in such an exhausted state that he reeled as if
he had been drunk. He started at seeing his captain seated at the
table with two ladies, and involuntarily withdrew the hand that he had
extended toward a chair in order to steady himself; he replied briefly
to the questions of the manufacturer, who played his part of the
soldier's friend with great cordiality. In a few words he explained
his relation toward Maurice and the reason why he was looking for him.

"He is a corporal in my company," the captain finally said by way of
cutting short the conversation, and inaugurated a series of questions
on his own account to learn what had become of the regiment. As Jean
went on to tell that the colonel had been seen crossing the city to
reach his camp at the head of what few men were left him, Gilberte
again thoughtlessly spoke up, with the vivacity of a woman whose
beauty is supposed to atone for her indiscretion:

"Oh! he is my uncle; why does he not come and breakfast with us? We
could fix up a room for him here. Can't we send someone for him?"

But the old lady discouraged the project with an authority there was
no disputing. The good old bourgeois blood of the frontier towns
flowed in her veins; her austerely patriotic sentiments were almost
those of a man. She broke the stern silence that she had preserved
during the meal by saying:

"Never mind Monsieur de Vineuil; he is doing his duty."

Her short speech was productive of embarrassment among the party.
Delaherche conducted the captain to his study, where he saw him safely
bestowed upon the sofa; Gilberte moved lightly off about her business,
no more disconcerted by her rebuff than is the bird that shakes its
wings in gay defiance of the shower; while the handmaid to whom Jean
had been intrusted led him by a very labyrinth of passages and
staircases through the various departments of the factory.

The Weiss family lived in the Rue des Voyards, but their house, which
was Delaherche's property, communicated with the great structure in
the Rue Maqua. The Rue des Voyards was at that time one of the most
squalid streets in Sedan, being nothing more than a damp, narrow lane,
its normal darkness intensified by the proximity of the ramparts,
which ran parallel to it. The roofs of the tall houses almost met, the
dark passages were like the mouths of caverns, and more particularly
so at that end where rose the high college walls. Weiss, however, with
free quarters and free fuel on his third floor, found the location a
convenient one on account of its nearness to his office, to which he
could descend in slippers without having to go around by the street.
His life had been a happy one since his marriage with Henriette, so
long the object of his hopes and wishes since first he came to know
her at Chene, filling her dead mother's place when only six years old
and keeping the house for her father, the tax-collector; while he,
entering the big refinery almost on the footing of a laborer, was
picking up an education as best he could, and fitting himself for the
accountant's position which was the reward of his unremitting toil.
And even when he had attained to that measure of success his dream was
not to be realized; not until the father had been removed by death,
not until the brother at Paris had been guilty of those excesses: that
brother Maurice to whom his twin sister had in some sort made herself
a servant, to whom she had sacrificed her little all to make him a
gentleman--not until then was Henriette to be his wife. She had never
been aught more than a little drudge at home; she could barely read
and write; she had sold house, furniture, all she had, to pay the
young man's debts, when good, kind Weiss came to her with the offer of
his savings, together with his heart and his two strong arms; and she
had accepted him with grateful tears, bringing him in return for his
devotion a steadfast, virtuous affection, replete with tender esteem,
if not the stormier ardors of a passionate love. Fortune had smiled on
them; Delaherche had spoken of giving Weiss an interest in the
business, and when children should come to bless their union their
felicity would be complete.

"Look out!" the servant said to Jean; "the stairs are steep."

He was stumbling upward as well as the intense darkness of the place
would let him, when suddenly a door above was thrown open, a broad
belt of light streamed out across the landing, and he heard a soft
voice saying:

"It is he."

"Madame Weiss," cried the servant, "here is a soldier who has been
inquiring for you."

There came the sound of a low, pleased laugh, and the same soft voice
replied:

"Good! good! I know who it is." Then to the corporal, who was
hesitating, rather diffidently, on the landing: "Come in, Monsieur
Jean. Maurice has been here nearly two hours, and we have been
wondering what detained you."

Then, in the pale sunlight that filled the room, he saw how like she
was to Maurice, with that wonderful resemblance that often makes twins
so like each other as to be indistinguishable. She was smaller and
slighter than he, however; more fragile in appearance, with a rather
large mouth and delicately molded features, surmounted by an opulence
of the most beautiful hair imaginable, of the golden yellow of ripened
grain. The feature where she least resembled him was her gray eyes,
great calm, brave orbs, instinct with the spirit of the grandfather,
the hero of the Grand Army. She used few words, was noiseless in her
movements, and was so gentle, so cheerful, so helpfully active that
where she passed her presence seemed to linger in the air, like a
fragrant caress.

"Come this way, Monsieur Jean," she said. "Everything will soon be
ready for you."

He stammered something inarticulately, for his emotion was such that
he could find no word of thanks. In addition to that his eyes were
closing he beheld her through the irresistible drowsiness that was
settling on him as a sea-fog drifts in and settles on the land, in
which she seemed floating in a vague, unreal way, as if her feet no
longer touched the earth. Could it be that it was all a delightful
apparition, that friendly young woman who smiled on him with such
sweet simplicity? He fancied for a moment that she had touched his
hand and that he had felt the pressure of hers, cool and firm, loyal
as the clasp of an old tried friend.

That was the last moment in which Jean was distinctly conscious of
what was going on about him. They were in the dining room; bread and
meat were set out on the table, but for the life of him he could not
have raised a morsel to his lips. A man was there, seated on a chair.
Presently he knew it was Weiss, whom he had seen at Mulhausen, but he
had no idea what the man was saying with such a sober, sorrowful air,
with slow and emphatic gestures. Maurice was already sound asleep,
with the tranquillity of death resting on his face, on a bed that had
been improvised for him beside the stove, and Henriette was busying
herself about a sofa on which a mattress had been thrown; she brought
in a bolster, pillow and coverings; with nimble, dexterous hands she
spread the white sheets, snowy white, dazzling in their whiteness.

Ah! those clean, white sheets, so long coveted, so ardently desired;
Jean had eyes for naught save them. For six weeks he had not had his
clothes off, had not slept in a bed. He was as impatient as a child
waiting for some promised treat, or a lover expectant of his
mistress's coming; the time seemed long, terribly long to him, until
he could plunge into those cool, white depths and lose himself there.
Quickly, as soon as he was alone, he removed his shoes and tossed his
uniform across a chair, then, with a deep sigh of satisfaction, threw
himself on the bed. He opened his eyes a little way for a last look
about him before his final plunge into unconsciousness, and in the
pale morning light that streamed in through the lofty window beheld a
repetition of his former pleasant vision, only fainter, more aerial; a
vision of Henriette entering the room on tiptoe, and placing on the
table at his side a water-jug and glass that had been forgotten
before. She seemed to linger there a moment, looking at the sleeping
pair, him and her brother, with her tranquil, ineffably tender smile
upon her lips, then faded into air, and he, between his white sheets,
was as if he were not.

Hours--or was it years? slipped by; Jean and Maurice were like dead
men, without a dream, without consciousness of the life that was
within them. Whether it was ten years or ten minutes, time had stood
still for them; the overtaxed body had risen against its oppressor and
annihilated their every faculty. They awoke simultaneously with a
great start and looked at each other inquiringly; where were they?
what had happened? how long had they slept? The same pale light was
entering through the tall window. They felt as if they had been
racked; joints stiffer, limbs wearier, mouth more hot and dry than
when they had lain down; they could not have slept more than an hour,
fortunately. It did not surprise them to see Weiss sitting where they
had seen him before, in the same dejected attitude, apparently waiting
for them to awake.

"_Fichtre_!" exclaimed Jean, "we must get up and report ourselves to
the first sergeant before noon."

He uttered a smothered cry of pain as he jumped to the floor and began
to dress.

"Before noon!" said Weiss. "Are you aware that it is seven o'clock in
the evening? You have slept about twelve hours."

Great heavens, seven o'clock! They were thunderstruck. Jean, who by
that time was completely dressed, would have run for it, but Maurice,
still in bed, found he no longer had control of his legs; how were
they ever to find their comrades? would not the army have marched
away? They took Weiss to task for having let them sleep so long. But
the accountant shook his head sorrowfully and said:

"You have done just as well to remain in bed, for all that has been
accomplished."

All that day, from early morning, he had been scouring Sedan and its
environs in quest of news, and was just come in, discouraged with the
inactivity of the troops and the inexplicable delay that had lost them
the whole of that precious day, the 31st. The sole excuse was that the
men were worn out and rest was an absolute necessity for them, but
granting that, he could not see why the retreat should not have been
continued after giving them a few hours of repose.

"I do not pretend to be a judge of such matters," he continued, "but I
have a feeling, so strong as to be almost a conviction, that the army
is very badly situated at Sedan. The 12th corps is at Bazeilles, where
there was a little fighting this morning; the 1st is strung out along
the Givonne between la Moncelle and Holly, while the 7th is encamped
on the plateau of Floing, and the 5th, what is left of it, is crowded
together under the ramparts of the city, on the side of the Chateau.
And that is what alarms me, to see them all concentrated thus about
the city, waiting for the coming of the Prussians. If I were in
command I would retreat on Mezieres, and lose no time about it,
either. I know the country; it is the only line of retreat that is
open to us, and if we take any other course we shall be driven into
Belgium. Come here! let me show you something."

He took Jean by the hand and led him to the window.

"Tell me what you see over yonder on the crest of the hills."

Looking from the window over the ramparts, over the adjacent
buildings, their view embraced the valley of the Meuse to the
southward of Sedan. There was the river, winding through broad
meadows; there, to the left, was Remilly in the background, Pont
Maugis and Wadelincourt before them and Frenois to the right; and
shutting in the landscape the ranges of verdant hills, Liry first,
then la Marfee and la Croix Piau, with their dense forests. A deep
tranquillity, a crystalline clearness reigned over the wide prospect
that lay there in the mellow light of the declining day.

"Do you see that moving line of black upon the hilltops, that
procession of small black ants?"

Jean stared in amazement, while Maurice, kneeling on his bed, craned
his neck to see.

"Yes, yes!" they cried. "There is a line, there is another, and
another, and another! They are everywhere."

"Well," continued Weiss, "those are Prussians. I have been watching
them since morning, and they have been coming, coming, as if there
were no end to them! You may be sure of one thing: if our troops are
waiting for them, they have no intention of disappointing us. And not
I alone, but every soul in the city saw them; it is only the generals
who persist in being blind. I was talking with a general officer a
little while ago; he shrugged his shoulders and told me that Marshal
MacMahon was absolutely certain that he had not over seventy thousand
men in his front. God grant he may be right! But look and see for
yourselves; the ground is hid by them! they keep coming, ever coming,
the black swarm!"

At this juncture Maurice threw himself back in his bed and gave way to
a violent fit of sobbing. Henriette came in, a smile on her face. She
hastened to him in alarm.

"What is it?"

But he pushed her away. "No, no! leave me, have nothing more to do
with me; I have never been anything but a burden to you. When I think
that you were making yourself a drudge, a slave, while I was attending
college--oh! to what miserable use have I turned that education! And I
was near bringing dishonor on our name; I shudder to think where I
might be now, had you not beggared yourself to pay for my extravagance
and folly."

Her smile came back to her face, together with her serenity.

"Is that all? Your sleep don't seem to have done you good, my poor
friend. But since that is all gone and past, forget it! Are you not
doing your duty now, like a good Frenchman? I am very proud of you, I
assure you, now that you are a soldier."

She had turned toward Jean, as if to ask him to come to her
assistance, and he looked at her with some surprise that she appeared
to him less beautiful than yesterday; she was paler, thinner, now that
the glamour was no longer in his drowsy eyes. The one striking point
that remained unchanged was her resemblance to her brother, and yet
the difference in their two natures was never more strongly marked
than at that moment; he, weak and nervous as a woman, swayed by the
impulse of the hour, displaying in his person all the fitful and
emotional temperament of his nation, vibrating from one moment to
another between the loftiest enthusiasm and the most abject despair;
she, the patient, indomitable housewife, such an inconsiderable little
creature in her resignation and self-effacement, meeting adversity
with a brave face and eyes full of inexpugnable courage and
resolution, fashioned from the stuff of which heroes are made.

"Proud of me!" cried Maurice. "Ah! truly, you have great reason to be.
For a month and more now we have been flying, like the cowards that we
are!"

"What of it? we are not the only ones," said Jean with his practical
common sense; "we do what we are told to do."

But the young man broke out more furiously than ever: "I have had
enough of it, I tell you! Our imbecile leaders, our continual defeats,
our brave soldiers led like sheep to the slaughter--is it not enough,
seeing all these things, to make one weep tears of blood? We are here
now in Sedan, caught in a trap from which there is no escape; you can
see the Prussians closing in on us from every quarter, and certain
destruction is staring us in the face; there is no hope, the end is
come. No! I shall remain where I am; I may as well be shot as a
deserter. Jean, do you go, and leave me here. No! I won't go back
there; I will stay here."

He sank upon the pillow in a renewed outpour of tears. It was an utter
breakdown of the nervous system, sweeping everything before it, one of
those sudden lapses into hopelessness to which he was so subject, in
which he despised himself and all the world. His sister, knowing as
she did the best way of treating such crises, kept an unruffled face.

"That would not be a nice thing to do, dear Maurice--desert your post
in the hour of danger."

He rose impetuously to a sitting posture: "Then give me my musket! I
will go and blow my brains out; that will be the shortest way of
ending it." Then, pointing with outstretched arm to Weiss, where he
sat silent and motionless, he said: "There! that is the only sensible
man I have seen; yes, he is the only one who saw things as they were.
You remember what he said to me, Jean, at Mulhausen, a month ago?"

"It is true," the corporal assented; "the gentleman said we should be
beaten."

And the scene rose again before their mind's eye, that night of
anxious vigil, the agonized suspense, the prescience of the disaster
at Froeschwiller hanging in the sultry heavy air, while the Alsatian
told his prophetic fears; Germany in readiness, with the best of arms
and the best of leaders, rising to a man in a grand outburst of
patriotism; France dazed, a century behind the age, debauched, and a
prey to intestine disorder, having neither commanders, men, nor arms
to enable her to cope with her powerful adversary. How quickly the
horrible prediction had proved itself true!

Weiss raised his trembling hands. Profound sorrow was depicted on his
kind, honest face, with its red hair and beard and its great prominent
blue eyes.

"Ah!" he murmured, "I take no credit to myself for being right. I
don't claim to be wiser than others, but it was all so clear, when one
only knew the true condition of affairs! But if we are to be beaten we
shall first have the pleasure of killing some of those Prussians of
perdition. There is that comfort for us; I believe that many of us are
to leave their bones there, and I hope there will be plenty of
Prussians to keep them company; I would like to see the ground down
there in the valley heaped with dead Prussians!" He arose and pointed
down the valley of the Meuse. Fire flashed from his myopic eyes, which
had exempted him from service with the army. "A thousand thunders! I
would fight, yes, I would, if they would have me. I don't know whether
it is seeing them assume the airs of masters in my country--in this
country where once the Cossacks did such mischief; but whenever I
think of their being here, of their entering our houses, I am seized
with an uncontrollable desire to cut a dozen of their throats. Ah! if
it were not for my eyes, if they would take me, I would go!" Then,
after a moment's silence: "And besides; who can tell?"

It was the hope that sprang eternal, even in the breast of the least
confident, of the possibility of victory, and Maurice, ashamed by this
time of his tears, listened and caught at the pleasing speculation.
Was it not true that only the day before there had been a rumor that
Bazaine was at Verdun? Truly, it was time that Fortune should work a
miracle for that France whose glories she had so long protected.
Henriette, with an imperceptible smile on her lips, silently left the
room, and was not the least bit surprised when she returned to find
her brother up and dressed, and ready to go back to his duty. She
insisted, however, that he and Jean should take some nourishment
first. They seated themselves at the table, but the morsels choked
them; their stomachs, weakened by their heavy slumber, revolted at the
food. Like a prudent old campaigner Jean cut a loaf in two halves and
placed one in Maurice's sack, the other in his own. It was growing
dark, it behooved them to be going. Henriette, who was standing at the
window watching the Prussian troops incessantly defiling on distant la
Marfee, the swarming legions of black ants that were gradually being
swallowed up in the gathering shadows, involuntarily murmured:

"Oh, war! what a dreadful thing it is!"

Maurice, seeing an opportunity to retort her sermon to him,
immediately took her up:

"How is this, little sister? you are anxious to have people fight, and
you speak disrespectfully of war!"

She turned and faced him, valiantly as ever: "It is true; I abhor it,
because it is an abomination and an injustice. It may be simply
because I am a woman, but the thought of such butchery sickens me. Why
cannot nations adjust their differences without shedding blood?"

Jean, the good fellow, seconded her with a nod of the head, and
nothing to him, too, seemed easier--to him, the unlettered man--than
to come together and settle matters after a fair, honest talk; but
Maurice, mindful of his scientific theories, reflected on the
necessity of war--war, which is itself existence, the universal law.
Was it not poor, pitiful man who conceived the idea of justice and
peace, while impassive nature revels in continual slaughter?

"That is all very fine!" he cried. "Yes, centuries hence, if it shall
come to pass that then all the nations shall be merged in one;
centuries hence man may look forward to the coming of that golden age;
and even in that case would not the end of war be the end of humanity?
I was a fool but now; we must go and fight, since it is nature's law."
He smiled and repeated his brother-in-law's expression: "And besides,
who can tell?"

He saw things now through the mirage of his vivid self-delusion, they
came to his vision distorted through the lens of his diseased nervous
sensibility.

"By the way," he continued cheerfully, "what do you hear of our cousin
Gunther? You know we have not seen a German yet, so you can't look to
me to give you any foreign news."

The question was addressed to his brother-in-law, who had relapsed
into a thoughtful silence and answered by a motion of his hand,
expressive of his ignorance.

"Cousin Gunther?" said Henriette, "Why, he belongs to the Vth corps
and is with the Crown Prince's army; I read it in one of the
newspapers, I don't remember which. Is that army in this
neighborhood?"

Weiss repeated his gesture, which was imitated by the two soldiers,
who could not be supposed to know what enemies were in front of them
when their generals did not know. Rising to his feet, the master of
the house at last made use of articulate speech.

"Come along; I will go with you. I learned this afternoon where the
106th's camp is situated." He told his wife that she need not expect
to see him again that night, as he would sleep at Bazeilles, where
they had recently bought and furnished a little place to serve them as
a residence during the hot months. It was near a dyehouse that
belonged to M. Delaherche. The accountant's mind was ill at ease in
relation to certain stores that he had placed in the cellar--a cask of
wine and a couple of sacks of potatoes; the house would certainly be
visited by marauders if it was left unprotected, he said, while by
occupying it that night he would doubtless save it from pillage. His
wife watched him closely while he was speaking.

"You need not be alarmed," he added, with a smile; "I harbor no darker
design than the protection of our property, and I pledge my word that
if the village is attacked, or if there is any appearance of danger, I
will come home at once."

"Well, then, go," she said. "But remember, if you are not back in good
season you will see me out there looking for you."

Henriette went with them to the door, where she embraced Maurice
tenderly and gave Jean a warm clasp of the hand.

"I intrust my brother to your care once more. He has told me of your
kindness to him, and I love you for it."

He was too flustered to do more than return the pressure of the small,
firm hand. His first impression returned to him again, and he beheld
Henriette in the light in which she had first appeared to him, with
her bright hair of the hue of ripe golden grain, so alert, so sunny,
so unselfish, that her presence seemed to pervade the air like a
caress.

Once they were outside they found the same gloomy and forbidding Sedan
that had greeted their eyes that morning. Twilight with its shadows
had invaded the narrow streets, sidewalk and carriage-way alike were
filled with a confused, surging throng. Most of the shops were closed,
the houses seemed to be dead or sleeping, while out of doors the crowd
was so dense that men trod on one another. With some little
difficulty, however, they succeeded in reaching the Place de l'Hotel
de Ville, where they encountered M. Delaherche, intent on picking up
the latest news and seeing what was to be seen. He at once came up and
greeted them, apparently delighted to meet Maurice, to whom he said
that he had just returned from accompanying Captain Beaudoin over to
Floing, where the regiment was posted, and he became, if that were
possible, even more gracious than ever upon learning that Weiss
proposed to pass the night at Bazeilles, where he himself, he
declared, had just been telling the captain that he intended to take a
bed, in order to see how things were looking at the dyehouse.

"We'll go together and be company for each other, Weiss. But first
let's go as far as the Sous-Prefecture; we may be able to catch a
glimpse of the Emperor."

Ever since he had been so near having the famous conversation with him
at Baybel his mind had been full of Napoleon III.; he was not
satisfied until he had induced the two soldiers to accompany him. The
Place de la Sous-Prefecture was comparatively empty; a few men were
standing about in groups, engaged in whispered conversation, while
occasionally an officer hurried by, haggard and careworn. The bright
hues of the foliage were beginning to fade and grow dim in the
melancholy, thick-gathering shades of night; the hoarse murmur of the
Meuse was heard as its current poured onward beneath the houses to the
right. Among the whisperers it was related how the Emperor--who with
the greatest difficulty had been prevailed on to leave Carignan the
night before about eleven o'clock--when entreated to push on to
Mezieres had refused point-blank to abandon the post of danger and
take a step that would prove so demoralizing to the troops. Others
asserted that he was no longer in the city, that he had fled, leaving
behind him a dummy emperor, one of his officers dressed in his
uniform, a man whose startling resemblance to his imperial master had
often puzzled the army. Others again declared, and called upon their
honor to substantiate their story, that they had seen the army wagons
containing the imperial treasure, one hundred millions, all in
brand-new twenty-franc pieces, drive into the courtyard of the
Prefecture. This convoy was, in fact, neither more nor less than the
vehicles for the personal use of the Emperor and his suite, the _char
a banc_, the two _caleches_, the twelve baggage and supply wagons,
which had almost excited a riot in the villages through which they had
passed--Courcelles, le Chene, Raucourt; assuming in men's imagination
the dimensions of a huge train that had blocked the road and arrested
the march of armies, and which now, shorn of their glory, execrated by
all, had come in shame and disgrace to hide themselves among the
sous-prefect's lilac bushes.

While Delaherche was raising himself on tiptoe and trying to peer
through the windows of the _rez-de-chaussee_, an old woman at his
side, some poor day-worker of the neighborhood, with shapeless form
and hands calloused and distorted by many years of toil, was mumbling
between her teeth:

"An emperor--I should like to see one once--just once--so I could say
I had seen him."

Suddenly Delaherche exclaimed, seizing Maurice by the arm:

"See, there he is! at the window, to the left. I had a good view of
him yesterday; I can't be mistaken. There, he has just raised the
curtain; see, that pale face, close to the glass."

The old woman had overheard him and stood staring with wide-open mouth
and eyes, for there, full in the window, was an apparition that
resembled a corpse more than a living being; its eyes were lifeless,
its features distorted; even the mustache had assumed a ghastly
whiteness in that final agony. The old woman was dumfounded; forthwith
she turned her back and marched off with a look of supreme contempt.

"That thing an emperor! a likely story."

A zouave was standing near, one of those fugitive soldiers who were in
no haste to rejoin their commands. Brandishing his chassepot and
expectorating threats and maledictions, he said to his companion:

"Wait! see me put a bullet in his head!"

Delaherche remonstrated angrily, but by that time the Emperor had
disappeared. The hoarse murmur of the Meuse continued uninterruptedly;
a wailing lament, inexpressibly mournful, seemed to pass above them
through the air, where the darkness was gathering intensity. Other
sounds rose in the distance, like the hollow muttering of the rising
storm; were they the "March! march!" that terrible order from Paris
that had driven that ill-starred man onward day by day, dragging
behind him along the roads of his defeat the irony of his imperial
escort, until now he was brought face to face with the ruin he had
foreseen and come forth to meet? What multitudes of brave men were to
lay down their lives for his mistakes, and how complete the wreck, in
all his being, of that sick man, that sentimental dreamer, awaiting in
gloomy silence the fulfillment of his destiny!

Weiss and Delaherche accompanied the two soldiers to the plateau of
Floing, where the 7th corps camps were.

"Adieu!" said Maurice as he embraced his brother-in-law.

"No, no; not adieu, the deuce! Au _revoir_!" the manufacturer gayly
cried.

Jean's instinct led him at once to their regiment, the tents of which
were pitched behind the cemetery, where the ground of the plateau
begins to fall away. It was nearly dark, but there was sufficient
light yet remaining in the sky to enable them to distinguish the black
huddle of roofs above the city, and further in the distance Balan and
Bazeilles, lying in the broad meadows that stretch away to the range
of hills between Remilly and Frenois, while to the right was the dusky
wood of la Garenne, and to the left the broad bosom of the Meuse had
the dull gleam of frosted silver in the dying daylight. Maurice
surveyed the broad landscape that was momentarily fading in the
descending shadows.

"Ah, here is the corporal!" said Chouteau. "I wonder if he has been
looking after our rations!"

The camp was astir with life and bustle. All day the men had been
coming in, singly and in little groups, and the crowd and confusion
were such that the officers made no pretense of punishing or even
reprimanding them; they accepted thankfully those who were so kind as
to return and asked no questions. Captain Beaudoin had made his
appearance only a short time before, and it was about two o'clock when
Lieutenant Rochas had brought in his collection of stragglers, about
one-third of the company strength. Now the ranks were nearly full once
more. Some of the men were drunk, others had not been able to secure
even a morsel of bread and were sinking from inanition; again there
had been no distribution of rations. Loubet, however, had discovered
some cabbages in a neighboring garden, and cooked them after a
fashion, but there was no salt or lard; the empty stomachs continued
to assert their claims.

"Come, now, corporal, you are a knowing old file," Chouteau tauntingly
continued, "what have you got for us? Oh, it's not for myself I care;
Loubet and I had a good breakfast; a lady gave it us. You were not at
distribution, then?"

Jean beheld a circle of expectant eyes bent on him; the squad had been
waiting for him with anxiety, Pache and Lapoulle in particular,
luckless dogs, who had found nothing they could appropriate; they all
relied on him, who, as they expressed it, could get bread out of a
stone. And the corporal's conscience smote him for having abandoned
his men; he took pity on them and divided among them half the bread
that he had in his sack.

"Name o' God! Name o' God!" grunted Lapoulle as he contentedly munched
the dry bread; it was all he could find to say; while Pache repeated a
_Pater_ and an _Ave_ under his breath to make sure that Heaven should
not forget to send him his breakfast in the morning.

Gaude, the bugler, with his darkly mysterious air, as of a man who has
had troubles of which he does not care to speak, sounded the call for
evening muster with a glorious fanfare; but there was no necessity for
sounding taps that night, the camp was immediately enveloped in
profound silence. And when he had verified the names and seen that
none of his half-section were missing, Sergeant Sapin, with his thin,
sickly face and his pinched nose, softly said:

"There will be one less to-morrow night."

Then, as he saw Jean looking at him inquiringly, he added with calm
conviction, his eyes bent upon the blackness of the night, as if
reading there the destiny that he predicted:

"It will be mine; I shall be killed to-morrow."

It was nine o'clock, with promise of a chilly, uncomfortable night,
for a dense mist had risen from the surface of the river, so that the
stars were no longer visible. Maurice shivered, where he lay with Jean
beneath a hedge, and said they would do better to go and seek the
shelter of the tent; the rest they had taken that day had left them
wakeful, their joints seemed stiffer and their bones sorer than
before; neither could sleep. They envied Lieutenant Rochas, who,
stretched on the damp ground and wrapped in his blanket, was snoring
like a trooper, not far away. For a long time after that they watched
with interest the feeble light of a candle that was burning in a large
tent where the colonel and some officers were in consultation. All
that evening M. de Vineuil had manifested great uneasiness that he had
received no instructions to guide him in the morning. He felt that his
regiment was too much "in the air," too much advanced, although it
had already fallen back from the exposed position that it had
occupied earlier in the day. Nothing had been seen of General
Bourgain-Desfeuilles, who was said to be ill in bed at the Hotel of
the Golden Cross, and the colonel decided to send one of his officers
to advise him of the danger of their new position in the too extended
line of the 7th corps, which had to cover the long stretch from the
bend in the Meuse to the wood of la Garenne. There could be no doubt
that the enemy would attack with the first glimpse of daylight; only
for seven or eight hours now would that deep tranquillity remain
unbroken. And shortly after the dim light in the colonel's tent was
extinguished Maurice was amazed to see Captain Beaudoin glide by,
keeping close to the hedge, with furtive steps, and vanish in the
direction of Sedan.

The darkness settled down on them, denser and denser; the chill mists
rose from the stream and enshrouded everything in a dank, noisome fog.

"Are you asleep, Jean?"

Jean was asleep, and Maurice was alone. He could not endure the
thought of going to the tent where Lapoulle and the rest of them were
slumbering; he heard their snoring, responsive to Rochas' strains, and
envied them. If our great captains sleep soundly the night before a
battle, it is like enough for the reason that their fatigue will not
let them do otherwise. He was conscious of no sound save the equal,
deep-drawn breathing of that slumbering multitude, rising from the
darkening camp like the gentle respiration of some huge monster;
beyond that all was void. He only knew that the 5th corps was close at
hand, encamped beneath the rampart, that the 1st's line extended from
the wood of la Garenne to la Moncelle, while the 12th was posted on
the other side of the city, at Bazeilles; and all were sleeping; the
whole length of that long line, from the nearest tent to the most
remote, for miles and miles, that low, faint murmur ascended in
rhythmic unison from the dark, mysterious bosom of the night. Then
outside this circle lay another region, the realm of the unknown,
whence also sounds came intermittently to his ears, so vague, so
distant, that he scarcely knew whether they were not the throbbings of
his own excited pulses; the indistinct trot of cavalry plashing over
the low ground, the dull rumble of gun and caisson along the roads,
and, still more marked, the heavy tramp of marching men; the gathering
on the heights above of that black swarm, engaged in strengthening the
meshes of their net, from which night itself had not served to divert
them. And below, there by the river's side, was there not the flash of
lights suddenly extinguished, was not that the sound of hoarse voices
shouting orders, adding to the dread suspense of that long night of
terror while waiting for the coming of the dawn?

Maurice put forth his hand and felt for Jean's; at last he slumbered,
comforted by the sense of human companionship. From a steeple in Sedan
came the deep tones of a bell, slowly, mournfully, tolling the hour;
then all was

Part Second



                                 I.

Weiss, in the obscurity of his little room at Bazeilles, was aroused
by a commotion that caused him to leap from his bed. It was the roar
of artillery. Groping about in the darkness he found and lit a candle
to enable him to consult his watch: it was four o'clock, just
beginning to be light. He adjusted his double eyeglass upon his nose
and looked out into the main street of the village, the road that
leads to Douzy, but it was filled with a thick cloud of something that
resembled dust, which made it impossible to distinguish anything. He
passed into the other room, the windows of which commanded a view of
the Meuse and the intervening meadows, and saw that the cause of his
obstructed vision was the morning mist arising from the river. In the
distance, behind the veil of fog, the guns were barking more fiercely
across the stream. All at once a French battery, close at hand, opened
in reply, with such a tremendous crash that the walls of the little
house were shaken.

Weiss's house was situated near the middle of the village, on the
right of the road and not far from the Place de l'Eglise. Its front,
standing back a little from the street, displayed a single story with
three windows, surmounted by an attic; in the rear was a garden of
some extent that sloped gently downward toward the meadows and
commanded a wide panoramic view of the encircling hills, from Remilly
to Frenois. Weiss, with the sense of responsibility of his new
proprietorship strong upon him, had spent the night in burying his
provisions in the cellar and protecting his furniture, as far as
possible, against shot and shell by applying mattresses to the
windows, so that it was nearly two o'clock before he got to bed. His
blood boiled at the idea that the Prussians might come and plunder the
house, for which he had toiled so long and which had as yet afforded
him so little enjoyment.

He heard a voice summoning him from the street.

"I say, Weiss, are you awake?"

He descended and found it was Delaherche, who had passed the night at
his dyehouse, a large brick structure, next door to the accountant's
abode. The operatives had all fled, taking to the woods and making for
the Belgian frontier, and there was no one left to guard the property
but the woman concierge, Francoise Quittard by name, the widow of a
mason; and she also, beside herself with terror, would have gone with
the others had it not been for her ten-year-old boy Charles, who was
so ill with typhoid fever that he could not be moved.

"I say," Delaherche continued, "do you hear that? It is a promising
beginning. Our best course is to get back to Sedan as soon as
possible."

Weiss's promise to his wife, that he would leave Bazeilles at the
first sign of danger, had been given in perfect good faith, and he had
fully intended to keep it; but as yet there was only an artillery duel
at long range, and the aim could not be accurate enough to do much
damage in the uncertain, misty light of early morning.

"Wait a bit, confound it!" he replied. "There is no hurry."

Delaherche, too, was curious to see what would happen; his curiosity
made him valiant. He had been so interested in the preparations for
defending the place that he had not slept a wink. General Lebrun,
commanding the 12th corps, had received notice that he would be
attacked at daybreak, and had kept his men occupied during the night
in strengthening the defenses of Bazeilles, which he had instructions
to hold in spite of everything. Barricades had been thrown up across
the Douzy road, and all the smaller streets; small parties of soldiers
had been thrown into the houses by way of garrison; every narrow lane,
every garden had become a fortress, and since three o'clock the
troops, awakened from their slumbers without beat of drum or call of
bugle in the inky blackness, had been at their posts, their chassepots
freshly greased and cartridge boxes filled with the obligatory ninety
rounds of ammunition. It followed that when the enemy opened their
fire no one was taken unprepared, and the French batteries, posted to
the rear between Balan and Bazeilles, immediately commenced to answer,
rather with the idea of showing they were awake than for any other
purpose, for in the dense fog that enveloped everything the practice
was of the wildest.

"The dyehouse will be well defended," said Delaherche. "I have a whole
section in it. Come and see."

It was true; forty and odd men of the infanterie de marine had been
posted there under the command of a lieutenant, a tall, light-haired
young fellow, scarcely more than a boy, but with an expression of
energy and determination on his face. His men had already taken full
possession of the building, some of them being engaged in loopholing
the shutters of the ground-floor windows that commanded the street,
while others, in the courtyard that overlooked the meadows in the
rear, were breaching the wall for musketry. It was in this courtyard
that Delaherche and Weiss found the young officer, straining his eyes
to discover what was hidden behind the impenetrable mist.

"Confound this fog!" he murmured. "We can't fight when we don't know
where the enemy is." Presently he asked, with no apparent change of
voice or manner: "What day of the week is this?"

"Thursday," Weiss replied.

"Thursday, that's so. Hanged if I don't think the world might come to
an end and we not know it!"

But just at that moment the uninterrupted roar of the artillery was
diversified by a brisk rattle of musketry proceeding from the edge of
the meadows, at a distance of two or three hundred yards. And at the
same time there was a transformation, as rapid and startling, almost,
as the stage effect in a fairy spectacle: the sun rose, the
exhalations of the Meuse were whirled away like bits of finest,
filmiest gauze, and the blue sky was revealed, in serene limpidity,
undimmed by a single cloud. It was the exquisite morning of a
faultless summer day.

"Ah!" exclaimed Delaherche, "they are crossing the railway bridge.
See, they are making their way along the track. How stupid of us not
to have blown up the bridge!"

The officer's face bore an expression of dumb rage. The mines had been
prepared and charged, he averred, but they had fought four hours the
day before to regain possession of the bridge and then had forgot to
touch them off.

"It is just our luck," he curtly said.

Weiss was silent, watching the course of events and endeavoring to
form some idea of the true state of affairs. The position of the
French in Bazeilles was a very strong one. The village commanded the
meadows, and was bisected by the Douzy road, which, turning sharp to
the left, passed under the walls of the Chateau, while another road,
the one that led to the railway bridge, bent around to the right and
forked at the Place de l'Eglise. There was no cover for any force
advancing by these two approaches; the Germans would be obliged to
traverse the meadows and the wide, bare level that lay between the
outskirts of the village and the Meuse and the railway. Their prudence
in avoiding unnecessary risks was notorious, hence it seemed
improbable that the real attack would come from that quarter. They
kept coming across the bridge, however, in deep masses, and that
notwithstanding the slaughter that a battery of mitrailleuses, posted
at the edge of the village, effected in their ranks, and all at once
those who had crossed rushed forward in open order, under cover of the
straggling willows, the columns were re-formed and began to advance.
It was from there that the musketry fire, which was growing hotter,
had proceeded.

"Oh, those are Bavarians," Weiss remarked. "I recognize them by the
braid on their helmets."

But there were other columns, moving to the right and partially
concealed by the railway embankment, whose object, it seemed to him,
was to gain the cover of some trees in the distance, whence they might
descend and take Bazeilles in flank and rear. Should they succeed in
effecting a lodgment in the park of Montivilliers, the village might
become untenable. This was no more than a vague, half-formed idea,
that flitted through his mind for a moment and faded as rapidly as it
had come; the attack in front was becoming more determined, and his
every faculty was concentrated on the struggle that was assuming, with
every moment, larger dimensions.

Suddenly he turned his head and looked away to the north, over the
city of Sedan, where the heights of Floing were visible in the
distance. A battery had just commenced firing from that quarter; the
smoke rose in the bright sunshine in little curls and wreaths, and the
reports came to his ears very distinctly. It was in the neighborhood
of five o'clock.

"Well, well," he murmured, "they are all going to have a hand in the
business, it seems."

The lieutenant of marines, who had turned his eyes in the same
direction, spoke up confidently:

"Oh! Bazeilles is the key of the position. This is the spot where the
battle will be won or lost."

"Do you think so?" Weiss exclaimed.

"There is not the slightest doubt of it. It is certainly the marshal's
opinion, for he was here last night and told us that we must hold the
village if it cost the life of every man of us."

Weiss slowly shook his head, and swept the horizon with a glance; then
in a low, faltering voice, as if speaking to himself, he said:

"No--no! I am sure that is a mistake. I fear the danger lies in
another quarter--where, or what it is, I dare not say--"

He said no more. He simply opened wide his arms, like the jaws of a
vise, then, turning to the north, brought his hands together, as if
the vise had closed suddenly upon some object there.

This was the fear that had filled his mind for the last twenty-four
hours, for he was thoroughly acquainted with the country and had
watched narrowly every movement of the troops during the previous day,
and now, again, while the broad valley before him lay basking in the
radiant sunlight, his gaze reverted to the hills of the left bank,
where, for the space of all one day and all one night, his eyes had
beheld the black swarm of the Prussian hosts moving steadily onward to
some appointed end. A battery had opened fire from Remilly, over to
the left, but the one from which the shells were now beginning to
reach the French position was posted at Pont-Maugis, on the river
bank. He adjusted his binocle by folding the glasses over, the one
upon the other, to lengthen its range and enable him to discern what
was hidden among the recesses of the wooded slopes, but could
distinguish nothing save the white smoke-wreaths that rose momentarily
on the tranquil air and floated lazily away over the crests. That
human torrent that he had seen so lately streaming over those hills,
where was it now--where were massed those innumerable hosts? At last,
at the corner of a pine wood, above Noyers and Frenois, he succeeded
in making out a little cluster of mounted men in uniform--some general,
doubtless, and his staff. And off there to the west the Meuse curved
in a great loop, and in that direction lay their sole line of retreat
on Mezieres, a narrow road that traversed the pass of Saint-Albert,
between that loop and the dark forest of Ardennes. While
reconnoitering the day before he had met a general officer who, he
afterward learned, was Ducrot, commanding the 1st corps, on a by-road
in the valley of Givonne, and had made bold to call his attention to
the importance of that, their only line of retreat. If the army did
not retire at once by that road while it was still open to them, if it
waited until the Prussians should have crossed the Meuse at Donchery
and come up in force to occupy the pass, it would be hemmed in and
driven back on the Belgian frontier. As early even as the evening of
that day the movement would have been too late. It was asserted that
the uhlans had possession of the bridge, another bridge that had not
been destroyed, for the reason, this time, that some one had neglected
to provide the necessary powder. And Weiss sorrowfully acknowledged to
himself that the human torrent, the invading horde, could now be
nowhere else than on the plain of Donchery, invisible to him, pressing
onward to occupy Saint-Albert pass, pushing forward its advanced
guards to Saint-Menges and Floing, whither, the day previous, he had
conducted Jean and Maurice. In the brilliant sunshine the steeple of
Floing church appeared like a slender needle of dazzling whiteness.

And off to the eastward the other arm of the powerful vise was slowly
closing in on them. Casting his eyes to the north, where there was a
stretch of level ground between the plateaus of Illy and of Floing, he
could make out the line of battle of the 7th corps, feebly supported
by the 5th, which was posted in reserve under the ramparts of the
city; but he could not discern what was occurring to the east, along
the valley of the Givonne, where the 1st corps was stationed, its line
stretching from the wood of la Garenne to Daigny village. Now,
however, the guns were beginning to thunder in that direction also;
the conflict seemed to be raging in Chevalier's wood, in front of
Daigny. His uneasiness was owing to reports that had been brought in
by peasants the day previous, that the Prussian advance had reached
Francheval, so that the movement which was being conducted at the
west, by way of Donchery, was also in process of execution at the
east, by way of Francheval, and the two jaws of the vise would come
together up there at the north, near the Calvary of Illy, unless the
two-fold flanking movement could be promptly checked. He knew nothing
of tactics or strategy, had nothing but his common sense to guide him;
but he looked with fear and trembling on that great triangle that had
the Meuse for one of its sides, and for the other two the 7th and 1st
corps on the north and east respectively, while the extreme angle at
the south was occupied by the 12th at Bazeilles--all the three corps
facing outward on the periphery of a semicircle, awaiting the
appearance of an enemy who was to deliver his attack at some one
point, where or when no one could say, but who, instead, fell on them
from every direction at once. And at the very center of all, as at the
bottom of a pit, lay the city of Sedan, her ramparts furnished with
antiquated guns, destitute of ammunition and provisions.

"Understand," said Weiss, with a repetition of his previous gesture,
extending his arms and bringing his hands slowly together, "that is
how it will be unless your generals keep their eyes open. The movement
at Bazeilles is only a feint--"

But his explanation was confused and unintelligible to the lieutenant,
who knew nothing of the country, and the young man shrugged his
shoulders with an expression of impatience and disdain for the
bourgeois in spectacles and frock coat who presumed to set his opinion
against the marshal's. Irritated to hear Weiss reiterate his view that
the attack on Bazeilles was intended only to mask other and more
important movements, he finally shouted:

"Hold your tongue, will you! We shall drive them all into the Meuse,
those Bavarian friends of yours, and that is all they will get by
their precious feint."

While they were talking the enemy's skirmishers seemed to have come up
closer; every now and then their bullets were heard thudding against
the dyehouse wall, and our men, kneeling behind the low parapet of the
courtyard, were beginning to reply. Every second the report of a
chassepot rang out, sharp and clear, upon the air.

"Oh, of course! drive them into the Meuse, by all means," muttered
Weiss, "and while we are about it we might as well ride them down and
regain possession of the Carignan road." Then addressing himself to
Delaherche, who had stationed himself behind the pump where he might
be out of the way of the bullets: "All the same, it would have been
their wisest course to make tracks last night for Mezieres, and if I
were in their place I would much rather be there than here. As it is,
however, they have got to show fight, since retreat is out of the
question now."

"Are you coming?" asked Delaherche, who, notwithstanding his eager
curiosity, was beginning to look pale in the face. "We shall be unable
to get into the city if we remain here longer."

"Yes, in one minute I will be with you."

In spite of the danger that attended the movement he raised himself on
tiptoe, possessed by an irresistible desire to see how things were
shaping. On the right lay the meadows that had been flooded by order
of the governor for the protection of the city, now a broad lake
stretching from Torcy to Balan, its unruffled bosom glimmering in the
morning sunlight with a delicate azure luster. The water did not
extend as far as Bazeilles, however, and the Prussians had worked
their way forward across the fields, availing themselves of the
shelter of every ditch, of every little shrub and tree. They were now
distant some five hundred yards, and Weiss was impressed by the
caution with which they moved, the dogged resolution and patience with
which they advanced, gaining ground inch by inch and exposing
themselves as little as possible. They had a powerful artillery fire,
moreover, to sustain them; the pure, cool air was vocal with the
shrieking of shells. Raising his eyes he saw that the Pont-Maugis
battery was not the only one that was playing on Bazeilles; two
others, posted half way up the hill of Liry, had opened fire, and
their projectiles not only reached the village, but swept the naked
plain of la Moncelle beyond, where the reserves of the 12th corps
were, and even the wooded slopes of Daigny, held by a division of the
1st corps, were not beyond their range. There was not a summit,
moreover, on the left bank of the stream that was not tipped with
flame. The guns seemed to spring spontaneously from the soil, like
some noxious growth; it was a zone of fire that grew hotter and
fiercer every moment; there were batteries at Noyers shelling Balan,
batteries at Wadelincourt shelling Sedan, and at Frenois, down under
la Marfee, there was a battery whose guns, heavier than the rest, sent
their missiles hurtling over the city to burst among the troops of the
7th corps on the plateau of Floing. Those hills that he had always
loved so well, that he had supposed were planted there solely to
delight the eye, encircling with their verdurous slopes the pretty,
peaceful valley that lay beneath, were now become a gigantic, frowning
fortress, vomiting ruin and destruction on the feeble defenses of
Sedan, and Weiss looked on them with terror and detestation. Why had
steps not been taken to defend them the day before, if their leaders
had suspected this, or why, rather, had they insisted on holding the
position?

A sound of falling plaster caused him to raise his head; a shot had
grazed his house, the front of which was visible to him above the
party wall. It angered him excessively, and he growled:

"Are they going to knock it about my ears, the brigands!"

Then close behind him there was a little dull, strange sound that he
had never heard before, and turning quickly he saw a soldier, shot
through the heart, in the act of falling backward. There was a brief
convulsive movement of the legs; the youthful, tranquil expression of
the face remained, stamped there unalterably by the hand of death. It
was the first casualty, and the accountant was startled by the crash
of the musket falling and rebounding from the stone pavement of the
courtyard.

"Ah, I have seen enough, I am going," stammered Delaherche. "Come, if
you are coming; if not, I shall go without you."

The lieutenant, whom their presence made uneasy, spoke up:

"It will certainly be best for you to go, gentlemen. The enemy may
attempt to carry the place at any moment."

Then at last, casting a parting glance at the meadows, where the
Bavarians were still gaining ground, Weiss gave in and followed
Delaherche, but when they had gained the street he insisted upon going
to see if the fastening of his door was secure, and when he came back
to his companion there was a fresh spectacle, which brought them both
to a halt.

At the end of the street, some three hundred yards from where they
stood, a strong Bavarian column had debouched from the Douzy road and
was charging up the Place de l'Eglise. The square was held by a
regiment of sailor-boys, who appeared to slacken their fire for a
moment as if with the intention of drawing their assailants on; then,
when the close-massed column was directly opposite their front, a most
surprising maneuver was swiftly executed: the men abandoned their
formation, some of them stepping from the ranks and flattening
themselves against the house fronts, others casting themselves prone
upon the ground, and down the vacant space thus suddenly formed the
mitrailleuses that had been placed in battery at the farther end
poured a perfect hailstorm of bullets. The column disappeared as if it
had been swept bodily from off the face of the earth. The recumbent
men sprang to their feet with a bound and charged the scattered
Bavarians with the bayonet, driving them and making the rout complete.
Twice the maneuver was repeated, each time with the same success. Two
women, unwilling to abandon their home, a small house at the corner of
an intersecting lane, were sitting at their window; they laughed
approvingly and clapped their hands, apparently glad to have an
opportunity to behold such a spectacle.

"There, confound it!" Weiss suddenly said, "I forgot to lock the
cellar door! I must go back. Wait for me; I won't be a minute."

There was no indication that the enemy contemplated a renewal of
their attack, and Delaherche, whose curiosity was reviving after
the shock it had sustained, was less eager to get away. He had halted
in front of his dyehouse and was conversing with the concierge, who
had come for a moment to the door of the room she occupied in the
_rez-de-chaussee_.

"My poor Francoise, you had better come along with us. A lone woman
among such dreadful sights--I can't bear to think of it!"

She raised her trembling hands. "Ah, sir, I would have gone when the
others went, indeed I would, if it had not been for my poor sick boy.
Come in, sir, and look at him."

He did not enter, but glanced into the apartment from the threshold,
and shook his head sorrowfully at sight of the little fellow in his
clean, white bed, his face exhibiting the scarlet hue of the disease,
and his glassy, burning eyes bent wistfully on his mother.

"But why can't you take him with you?" he urged. "I will find quarters
for you in Sedan. Wrap him up warmly in a blanket, and come along with
us."

"Oh, no, sir, I cannot. The doctor told me it would kill him. If only
his poor father were alive! but we two are all that are left, and we
must live for each other. And then, perhaps the Prussians will be
merciful; perhaps they won't harm a lone woman and a sick boy."

Just then Weiss reappeared, having secured his premises to his
satisfaction. "There, I think it will trouble them some to get in now.
Come on! And it is not going to be a very pleasant journey, either;
keep close to the houses, unless you want to come to grief."

There were indications, indeed, that the enemy were making ready for
another assault. The infantry fire was spluttering away more furiously
than ever, and the screaming of the shells was incessant. Two had
already fallen in the street a hundred yards away, and a third had
imbedded itself, without bursting, in the soft ground of the adjacent
garden.

"Ah, here is Francoise," continued the accountant. "I must have a look
at your little Charles. Come, come, you have no cause for alarm; he
will be all right in a couple of days. Keep your courage up, and the
first thing you do go inside, and don't put your nose outside the
door." And the two men at last started to go.

"_Au revoir_, Francoise."

"_Au revoir_, sirs."

And as they spoke, there came an appalling crash. It was a shell,
which, having first wrecked the chimney of Weiss's house, fell upon
the sidewalk, where it exploded with such terrific force as to break
every window in the vicinity. At first it was impossible to
distinguish anything in the dense cloud of dust and smoke that rose in
the air, but presently this drifted away, disclosing the ruined facade
of the dyehouse, and there, stretched across the threshold, Francoise,
a corpse, horribly torn and mangled, her skull crushed in, a fearful
spectacle.

Weiss sprang to her side. Language failed him; he could only express
his feelings by oaths and imprecations.

"_Nom de Dieu!_ _Nom de Dieu!_"

Yes, she was dead. He had stooped to feel her pulse, and as he arose
he saw before him the scarlet face of little Charles, who had raised
himself in bed to look at his mother. He spoke no word, he uttered no
cry; he gazed with blazing, tearless eyes, distended as if they would
start from their sockets, upon the shapeless mass that was strange,
unknown to him; and nothing more.

Weiss found words at last: "_Nom de Dieu!_ they have taken to killing
women!"

He had risen to his feet; he shook his fist at the Bavarians, whose
braid-trimmed helmets were commencing to appear again in the direction
of the church. The chimney, in falling, had crushed a great hole in
the roof of his house, and the sight of the havoc made him furious.

"Dirty loafers! You murder women, you have destroyed my house. No, no!
I will not go now, I cannot; I shall stay here."

He darted away and came running back with the dead soldier's rifle and
ammunition. He was accustomed to carry a pair of spectacles on his
person for use on occasions of emergency, when he wished to see with
great distinctness, but did not wear them habitually out of respect
for the wishes of his young wife. He now impatiently tore off his
double eyeglass and substituted the spectacles, and the big, burly
bourgeois, his overcoat flapping about his legs, his honest, kindly,
round face ablaze with wrath, who would have been ridiculous had he
not been so superbly heroic, proceeded to open fire, peppering away at
the Bavarians at the bottom of the street. It was in his blood, he
said; he had been hankering for something of the kind ever since the
days of his boyhood, down there in Alsace, when he had been told all
those tales of 1814. "Ah! you dirty loafers! you dirty loafers!" And
he kept firing away with such eagerness that, finally, the barrel of
his musket became so hot it burned his fingers.

The assault was made with great vigor and determination. There was no
longer any sound of musketry in the direction of the meadows. The
Bavarians had gained possession of a narrow stream, fringed with
willows and poplars, and were making preparations for storming the
houses, or rather fortresses, in the Place de l'Eglise. Their
skirmishers had fallen back with the same caution that characterized
their advance, and the wide grassy plain, dotted here and there with a
black form where some poor fellow had laid down his life, lay spread
in the mellow, slumbrous sunshine like a great cloth of gold. The
lieutenant, knowing that the street was now to be the scene of action,
had evacuated the courtyard of the dyehouse, leaving there only one
man as guard. He rapidly posted his men along the sidewalk with
instructions, should the enemy carry the position, to withdraw into
the building, barricade the first floor, and defend themselves there
as long as they had a cartridge left. The men fired at will, lying
prone upon the ground, and sheltering themselves as best they might
behind posts and every little projection of the walls, and the storm
of lead, interspersed with tongues of flame and puffs of smoke, that
tore through that broad, deserted, sunny avenue was like a downpour of
hail beaten level by the fierce blast of winter. A woman was seen to
cross the roadway, running with wild, uncertain steps, and she escaped
uninjured. Next, an old man, a peasant, in his blouse, who would not
be satisfied until he saw his worthless nag stabled, received a bullet
square in his forehead, and the violence of the impact was such that
it hurled him into the middle of the street. A shell had gone crashing
through the roof of the church; two others fell and set fire to
houses, which burned with a pale flame in the intense daylight, with a
loud snapping and crackling of their timbers. And that poor woman, who
lay crushed and bleeding in the doorway of the house where her sick
boy was, that old man with a bullet in his brain, all that work of
ruin and devastation, maddened the few inhabitants who had chosen to
end their days in their native village rather than seek safety in
Belgium. Other bourgeois, and workingmen as well, the neatly attired
citizen alongside the man in overalls, had possessed themselves of the
weapons of dead soldiers, and were in the street defending their
firesides or firing vengefully from the windows.

"Ah!" suddenly said Weiss, "the scoundrels have got around to our
rear. I saw them sneaking along the railroad track. Hark! don't you
hear them off there to the left?"

The heavy fire of musketry that was now audible behind the park of
Montivilliers, the trees of which overhung the road, made it evident
that something of importance was occurring in that direction. Should
the enemy gain possession of the park Bazeilles would be at their
mercy, but the briskness of the firing was in itself proof that the
general commanding the 12th corps had anticipated the movement and
that the position was adequately defended.

"Look out, there, you blockhead!" exclaimed the lieutenant, violently
forcing Weiss up against the wall; "do you want to get yourself blown
to pieces?"

He could not help laughing a little at the queer figure of the big
gentleman in spectacles, but his bravery had inspired him with a very
genuine feeling of respect, so, when his practiced ear detected a
shell coming their way, he had acted the part of a friend and placed
the civilian in a safer position. The missile landed some ten paces
from where they were and exploded, covering them both with earth and
debris. The citizen kept his feet and received not so much as a
scratch, while the officer had both legs broken.

"It is well!" was all he said; "they have sent me my reckoning!"

He caused his men to take him across the sidewalk and place him with
his back to the wall, near where the dead woman lay, stretched across
her doorstep. His boyish face had lost nothing of its energy and
determination.

"It don't matter, my children; listen to what I say. Don't fire too
hurriedly; take your time. When the time comes for you to charge, I
will tell you."

And he continued to command them still, with head erect, watchful of
the movements of the distant enemy. Another house was burning,
directly across the street. The crash and rattle of musketry, the roar
of bursting shells, rent the air, thick with dust and sulphurous
smoke. Men dropped at the corner of every lane and alley; corpses
scattered here and there upon the pavement, singly or in little
groups, made splotches of dark color, hideously splashed with red. And
over the doomed village a frightful uproar rose and swelled, the
vindictive shouts of thousands, devoting to destruction a few hundred
brave men, resolute to die.

Then Delaherche, who all this time had been frantically shouting to
Weiss without intermission, addressed him one last appeal:

"You won't come? Very well! then I shall leave you to your fate.
Adieu!"

It was seven o'clock, and he had delayed his departure too long. So
long as the houses were there to afford him shelter he took advantage
of every doorway, of every bit of projecting wall, shrinking at every
volley into cavities that were ridiculously small in comparison with
his bulk. He turned and twisted in and out with the sinuous dexterity
of the serpent; he would never have supposed that there was so much of
his youthful agility left in him. When he reached the end of the
village, however, and had to make his way for a space of some three
hundred yards along the deserted, empty road, swept by the batteries
on Liry hill, although the perspiration was streaming from his face
and body, he shivered and his teeth chattered. For a minute or so he
advanced cautiously along the bed of a dry ditch, bent almost double,
then, suddenly forsaking the protecting shelter, burst into the open
and ran for it with might and main, wildly, aimlessly, his ears
ringing with detonations that sounded to him like thunder-claps. His
eyes burned like coals of fire; it seemed to him that he was wrapt in
flame. It was an eternity of torture. Then he suddenly caught sight of
a little house to his left, and he rushed for the friendly refuge,
gained it, with a sensation as if an immense load had been lifted from
his breast. The place was tenanted, there were men and horses there.
At first he could distinguish nothing. What he beheld subsequently
filled him with amazement.

Was not that the Emperor, attended by his brilliant staff? He
hesitated, although for the last two days he had been boasting of his
acquaintance with him, then stood staring, open-mouthed. It was indeed
Napoleon III.; he appeared larger, somehow, and more imposing on
horseback, and his mustache was so stiffly waxed, there was such a
brilliant color on his cheeks, that Delaherche saw at once he had been
"made up" and painted like an actor. He had had recourse to cosmetics
to conceal from his army the ravages that anxiety and illness had
wrought in his countenance, the ghastly pallor of his face, his
pinched nose, his dull, sunken eyes, and having been notified at five
o'clock that there was fighting at Bazeilles, had come forth to see,
sadly and silently, like a phantom with rouged cheeks.

There was a brick-kiln near by, behind which there was safety from the
rain of bullets that kept pattering incessantly on its other front and
the shells that burst at every second on the road. The mounted group
had halted.

"Sire," someone murmured, "you are in danger--"

But the Emperor turned and motioned to his staff to take refuge in the
narrow road that skirted the kiln, where men and horses would be
sheltered from the fire.

"Really, Sire, this is madness. Sire, we entreat you--"

His only answer was to repeat his gesture; probably he thought that
the appearance of a group of brilliant uniforms on that deserted road
would draw the fire of the batteries on the left bank. Entirely
unattended he rode forward into the midst of the storm of shot and
shell, calmly, unhurriedly, with his unvarying air of resigned
indifference, the air of one who goes to meet his appointed fate.
Could it be that he heard behind him the implacable voice that was
urging him onward, that voice from Paris: "March! march! die the
hero's death on the piled corpses of thy countrymen, let the whole
world look on in awe-struck admiration, so that thy son may reign!"
--could that be what he heard? He rode forward, controlling his
charger to a slow walk. For the space of a hundred yards he thus rode
forward, then halted, awaiting the death he had come there to seek.
The bullets sang in concert with a music like the fierce autumnal
blast; a shell burst in front of him and covered him with earth. He
maintained his attitude of patient waiting. His steed, with distended
eyes and quivering frame, instinctively recoiled before the grim
presence who was so close at hand and yet refused to smite horse or
rider. At last the trying experience came to an end, and the Emperor,
with his stoic fatalism, understanding that his time was not yet come,
tranquilly retraced his steps, as if his only object had been to
reconnoiter the position of the German batteries.

"What courage, Sire! We beseech you, do not expose yourself further--"

But, unmindful of their solicitations, he beckoned to his staff to
follow him, not offering at present to consult their safety more than
he did his own, and turned his horse's head toward la Moncelle,
quitting the road and taking the abandoned fields of la Ripaille. A
captain was mortally wounded, two horses were killed. As he passed
along the line of the 12th corps, appearing and vanishing like a
specter, the men eyed him with curiosity, but did not cheer.

To all these events had Delaherche been witness, and now he trembled
at the thought that he, too, as soon as he should have left the brick
works, would have to run the gauntlet of those terrible projectiles.
He lingered, listening to the conversation of some dismounted officers
who had remained there.

"I tell you he was killed on the spot; cut in two by a shell."

"You are wrong, I saw him carried off the field. His wound was not
severe; a splinter struck him on the hip."

"What time was it?"

"Why, about an hour ago--say half-past six. It was up there around la
Moncelle, in a sunken road."

"I know he is dead."

"But I tell you he is not! He even sat his horse for a moment after he
was hit, then he fainted and they carried him into a cottage to attend
to his wound."

"And then returned to Sedan?"

"Certainly; he is in Sedan now."

Of whom could they be speaking? Delaherche quickly learned that it was
of Marshal MacMahon, who had been wounded while paying a visit of
inspection to his advanced posts. The marshal wounded! it was "just
our luck," as the lieutenant of marines had put it. He was reflecting
on what the consequences of the mishap were likely to be when an
_estafette_ dashed by at top speed, shouting to a comrade, whom he
recognized:

"General Ducrot is made commander-in-chief! The army is ordered to
concentrate at Illy in order to retreat on Mezieres!"

The courier was already far away, galloping into Bazeilles under the
constantly increasing fire, when Delaherche, startled by the strange
tidings that came to him in such quick succession and not relishing
the prospect of being involved in the confusion of the retreating
troops, plucked up courage and started on a run for Balan, whence he
regained Sedan without much difficulty.

The _estafette_ tore through Bazeilles on a gallop, disseminating the
news, hunting up the commanders to give them their instructions, and
as he sped swiftly on the intelligence spread among the troops:
Marshal MacMahon wounded, General Ducrot in command, the army falling
back on Illy!

"What is that they are saying?" cried Weiss, whose face by this time
was grimy with powder. "Retreat on Mezieres at this late hour! but it
is absurd, they will never get through!"

And his conscience pricked him, he repented bitterly having given that
counsel the day before to that very general who was now invested with
the supreme command. Yes, certainly, that was yesterday the best,
the only plan, to retreat, without loss of a minute's time, by the
Saint-Albert pass, but now the way could be no longer open to them,
the black swarms of Prussians had certainly anticipated them and were
on the plain of Donchery. There were two courses left for them to
pursue, both desperate; and the most promising, as well as the
bravest, of them was to drive the Bavarians into the Meuse, and cut
their way through and regain possession of the Carignan road.

Weiss, whose spectacles were constantly slipping down upon his nose,
adjusted them nervously and proceeded to explain matters to the
lieutenant, who was still seated against the wall with his two stumps
of legs, very pale and slowly bleeding to death.

"Lieutenant, I assure you I am right. Tell your men to stand their
ground. You can see for yourself that we are doing well. One more
effort like the last, and we shall drive them into the river."

It was true that the Bavarians' second attack had been repulsed. The
mitrailleuses had again swept the Place de l'Eglise, the heaps of
corpses in the square resembled barricades, and our troops, emerging
from every cross street, had driven the enemy at the point of the
bayonet through the meadows toward the river in headlong flight, which
might easily have been converted into a general rout had there been
fresh troops to support the sailor-boys, who had suffered severely and
were by this time much distressed. And in Montivilliers Park, again,
the firing did not seem to advance, which was a sign that in that
quarter, also, reinforcements, could they have been had, would have
cleared the wood.

"Order your men to charge them with the bayonet, lieutenant."

The waxen pallor of death was on the poor boy-officer's face; yet he
had strength to murmur in feeble accents:

"You hear, my children; give them the bayonet!"

It was his last utterance; his spirit passed, his ingenuous, resolute
face and his wide open eyes still turned on the battle. The flies
already were beginning to buzz about Francoise's head and settle
there, while lying on his bed little Charles, in an access of
delirium, was calling on his mother in pitiful, beseeching tones to
give him something to quench his thirst.

"Mother, mother, awake; get up--I am thirsty, I am so thirsty."

But the instructions of the new chief were imperative, and the
officers, vexed and grieved to see the successes they had achieved
thus rendered nugatory, had nothing for it but to give orders for the
retreat. It was plain that the commander-in-chief, possessed by a
haunting dread of the enemy's turning movement, was determined to
sacrifice everything in order to escape from the toils. The Place de
l'Eglise was evacuated, the troops fell back from street to street;
soon the broad avenue was emptied of its defenders. Women shrieked and
sobbed, men swore and shook their fists at the retiring troops,
furious to see themselves abandoned thus. Many shut themselves in
their houses, resolved to die in their defense.

"Well, _I_ am not going to give up the ship!" shouted Weiss, beside
himself with rage. "No! I will leave my skin here first. Let them come
on! let them come and smash my furniture and drink my wine!"

Wrath filled his mind to the exclusion of all else, a wild, fierce
desire to fight, to kill, at the thought that the hated foreigner
should enter his house, sit in his chair, drink from his glass. It
wrought a change in all his nature; everything that went to make up
his daily life--wife, business, the methodical prudence of the small
bourgeois--seemed suddenly to become unstable and drift away from him.
And he shut himself up in his house and barricaded it, he paced the
empty apartments with the restless impatience of a caged wild beast,
going from room to room to make sure that all the doors and windows
were securely fastened. He counted his cartridges and found he had
forty left, then, as he was about to give a final look to the meadows
to see whether any attack was to be apprehended from that quarter, the
sight of the hills on the left bank arrested his attention for a
moment. The smoke-wreaths indicated distinctly the position of the
Prussian batteries, and at the corner of a little wood on la Marfee,
over the powerful battery at Frenois, he again beheld the group of
uniforms, more numerous than before, and so distinct in the bright
sunlight that by supplementing his spectacles with his binocle he
could make out the gold of their epaulettes and helmets.

"You dirty scoundrels, you dirty scoundrels!" he twice repeated,
extending his clenched fist in impotent menace.

Those who were up there on la Marfee were King William and his staff.
As early as seven o'clock he had ridden up from Vendresse, where he
had had quarters for the night, and now was up there on the heights,
out of reach of danger, while at his feet lay the valley of the Meuse
and the vast panorama of the field of battle. Far as the eye could
reach, from north to south, the bird's-eye view extended, and standing
on the summit of the hill, as from his throne in some colossal opera
box, the monarch surveyed the scene.

In the central foreground of the picture, and standing out in bold
relief against the venerable forests of the Ardennes, that stretched
away on either hand from right to left, filling the northern horizon
like a curtain of dark verdure, was the city of Sedan, with the
geometrical lines and angles of its fortifications, protected on the
south and west by the flooded meadows and the river. In Bazeilles
houses were already burning, and the dark cloud of war hung heavy over
the pretty village. Turning his eyes eastward he might discover,
holding the line between la Moncelle and Givonne, some regiments of
the 12th and 1st corps, looking like diminutive insects at that
distance and lost to sight at intervals in the dip of the narrow
valley in which the hamlets lay concealed; and beyond that valley rose
the further slope, an uninhabited, uncultivated heath, of which the
pale tints made the dark green of Chevalier's Wood look black by
contrast. To the north the 7th corps was more distinctly visible in
its position on the plateau of Floing, a broad belt of sere, dun
fields, that sloped downward from the little wood of la Garenne to the
verdant border of the stream. Further still were Floing, Saint-Menges,
Fleigneux, Illy, small villages that lay nestled in the hollows of
that billowing region where the landscape was a succession of hill and
dale. And there, too, to the left was the great bend of the Meuse,
where the sluggish stream, shimmering like molten silver in the bright
sunlight, swept lazily in a great horseshoe around the peninsula of
Iges and barred the road to Mezieres, leaving between its further
bank and the impassable forest but one single gateway, the defile of
Saint-Albert.

It was in that triangular space that the hundred thousand men and five
hundred guns of the French army had now been crowded and brought to
bay, and when His Prussian Majesty condescended to turn his gaze still
further to the westward he might perceive another plain, the plain of
Donchery, a succession of bare fields stretching away toward
Briancourt, Marancourt, and Vrigne-aux-Bois, a desolate expanse of
gray waste beneath the clear blue sky; and did he turn him to the
east, he again had before his eyes, facing the lines in which the
French were so closely hemmed, a vast level stretch of country in
which were numerous villages, first Douzy and Carignan, then more to
the north Rubecourt, Pourru-aux-Bois, Francheval, Villers-Cernay, and
last of all, near the frontier, Chapelle. All about him, far as he
could see, the land was his; he could direct the movements of the
quarter of a million of men and the eight hundred guns that
constituted his army, could master at a glance every detail of the
operations of his invading host. Even then the XIth corps was pressing
forward toward Saint-Menges, while the Vth was at Vrigne-aux-Bois, and
the Wurtemburg division was near Donchery, awaiting orders. This was
what he beheld to the west, and if, turning to the east, he found his
view obstructed in that quarter by tree-clad hills, he could picture
to himself what was passing, for he had seen the XIIth corps entering
the wood of Chevalier, he knew that by that time the Guards were at
Villers-Cernay. There were the two arms of the gigantic vise, the army
of the Crown Prince of Prussia on the left, the Saxon Prince's army on
the right, slowly, irresistibly closing on each other, while the two
Bavarian corps were hammering away at Bazeilles.

Underneath the King's position the long line of batteries, stretching
with hardly an interval from Remilly to Frenois, kept up an
unintermittent fire, pouring their shells into Daigny and la Moncelle,
sending them hurtling over Sedan city to sweep the northern plateaus.
It was barely eight o'clock, and with eyes fixed on the gigantic board
he directed the movements of the game, awaiting the inevitable end,
calmly controlling the black cloud of men that beneath him swept, an
array of pigmies, athwart the smiling landscape.