FONTENOY
THE dull boom of a gun away on the right greeted André as he flung
himself into the saddle, and the trumpets were echoing all along the
line from the citadel of Anthoin over the slopes on which the brigaded
army lay right up to the forest of Barry which covered the French left.
A plumed officer galloped up to him. It was the Chevalier de St. Amant.
“The Dutch and the Austrians,” he cried, “are concentrating opposite us
on our right, but the centre of the attack will be”--he waved his sword
northwards of Fontenoy--“the English form the enemy’s right flank.”
“And the Maison du Roi?”
“Will make the third line of the cavalry behind the carbineers and the
foot guards yonder. But you are wounded, Vicomte?”
“A scratch--nothing at all,” André replied brusquely.
The Chevalier looked at him, smiled, and galloped away.
It was past seven o’clock. André paused to cast a hasty eye out towards
Maubray and Veyon, whence the foe must come. Around him staff officers
cantered this way and that; hoarse orders were being shouted, regiments
were falling in, deploying, lining the entrenchments, one, two,
three deep. Everywhere the strenuous confusion and fierce excitement
of an army hurriedly preparing for battle. Over the plain hung a
soft grey mist gently rolling up as the day grew, but dimly in the
distance, past the enclosures and the coppices in the midst of which
the wrecked hamlet of Bourgeon still smoked sullenly in the raw air,
troops--cavalry mainly--were collecting. Yes, the enemy really meant
business. It was to be an assault along the whole front and there was
no time to waste.
With the Chevau-légers de la Garde André found St. Benôit.
“Where the devil have you been?” his friend demanded. “We looked for
you everywhere last night. Jeannette and Gabrielle supped in my coach.”
“Two assignations,” André laughed. “Such fun, I can tell you.”
“And you got that slit between the two, I suppose?”
“Yes, and a good deal more. Hullo! What’s that?”
The guns from the citadel and the redoubts on the slopes had begun in
real earnest, answered as yet feebly from the enemy’s left. St. Benôit
and André trotted forward to make the position out.
“Mark you there!” cried St. Benôit. “Those are English cavalry forming
up and see--see! There come the red-coated blackguards behind ’em. By
God! they’re going to let us give ’em a taste of our quality.”
“Do you imagine they will dare to march across the plain in the teeth
of our artillery?” André asked.
“It looks like it,” St. Benôit replied smiling. “And so much the
better.”
The pair watched eagerly. The rattle of muskets crackled up from the
left--the skirmishers, the Pandours and Grassins are out, and every
minute it is hotter and hotter work; the smoke drifts up, and through
it they can catch glimpses of red-coated infantry falling in, company
on company, battalion upon battalion, in the rear of the covering
squadrons of horse. Ha! our guns up here have chimed in now, and
already there are empty saddles in the dragoons so placidly arrayed
amongst the lanes and enclosures, but those stolid islanders mind it
as little as a fisher does flies on a July day. Down rolls the smoke,
wafting in sullen clouds, shrouding the slope and the enclosures, only
broken by fitful puffs of air or torn by red flashes and the dull
plunge of the round shot. Yet this is a mere prelude up here, though on
our right the engagement has really begun.
“Monseigneur, poor devil!” whispered St. Benôit, “but what a spirit.”
Yes, that is Monseigneur le Maréchal de Saxe, carried in a wicker
litter, for he cannot sit his horse. He is dying of dropsy is
Monseigneur, but he will see for himself, and as he is carried along
he sucks a leaden bullet to assuage his raging thirst. The fire of
battle glows in those eyes which Adrienne Lecouvreur and so many women
have adored, and it inspires every man on whom his glance falls, so
full of confidence and calm is he as he issues his orders, serene,
majestic, and watchful. No troops in the world can ever force this
entrenched camp he is thinking, and before death takes him he will
win another great victory for his master, King Louis. Northwards of
Fontenoy is where he mostly prefers to stay, for this is the critical
place where by a miracle the French position may be turned, and here he
holds the Maison du Roi and his reserves in leash. Those English are
such stubborn devils when they are in the stomach for a tussle at hand
grips. We must be ready even for miracles.
An hour--another passed. The Chevalier emerges from the drifting smoke
with welcome news.
“The Austrians and Dutch are retiring,” he says. “Can you not hear
their drums beating to re-form? Down there we have handled them so
roughly that they have sought cover, huddled behind Bourgeon. Their
horse is broken and tumbled up, and the plain is littered with their
dead. They won’t trouble us much more.”
[Illustration: Yes, that is Monseigneur le Maréchal de Saxe, carried in
a wicker litter, for he cannot sit his horse.]
“It will be the same here, worse luck,” St. Benôit grumbled. “Those
cursed artillerymen are to have all the honours to-day. We shall not
be wanted at all.”
“Do not be too sure,” André said quietly. And the Chevalier nodded in
agreement before he spurred off to carry a message to the King, who
with Monsieur le Dauphin is watching the fight near the Hermitage of
Notre Dame des Bois.
Boom! boom! on our front at last. Those are the English field-pieces
beginning to reply to the salute we have been lavishly doling out. They
fire well, those English artillerymen, and their shots come plumping
into the entrenchments and crashing into the forest. The men begin to
drop in the first line.
“Look at that fool De Grammont,” André muttered, pointing with his
sword.
An officer on a white charger was galloping to and fro in front of his
regiment of guards, encouraging them in this gallant madcap fashion to
keep steady under the ever-increasing fire.
“By God! he’s down,” he exclaimed as he saw the white horse stumble
and fall, struck by a six-pounder; and friendly arms are carrying his
shattered rider dying to the rear.
“Poor De Grammont!” said St. Benôit, wiping away a tear, “never
again will his hot-headed chivalry lead us into a devil’s trap as at
Dettingen.”
And he was right. De Grammont, who had ruined a French army on the
Maine, had fought his last fight that morning, for a cannon-ball had
smashed his thigh.
“Drums! English drums!” André cried excitedly. “They are
advancing--can’t you hear ’em? We may be needed--thank God! we may be
needed now.”
Below and across the roar of the guns, through the dirty smoke blended
with the last wisps of the pearly mist, throbs in a glorious challenge
the solemn tuck of English drums and the marching call of English
trumpets. They are coming on now. Can we not see the flutter of English
colours and the flash of light on epaulet and sword?
“A noble sight that!” muttered St. Benôit with a catch in his throat.
“They are fit for gentlemen to cross swords with,” said the generous
André. “I hope they’ll last till we can meet them as they deserve.”
Through the smoke they could both make out how the cavalry had fallen
to the rear and the infantry was calmly advancing across the plain in
two long lines with the Hanoverians stepping out on their left. Aligned
as on the parade ground, never halting, never hurrying, shoulder to
shoulder, not a falter, not a wrinkle, the great red column in two long
lines comes on to the music of its drums; to-day these English dogs
will achieve the impossible if they can. But can they? Surely not. From
Fontenoy shriek the cannons, from Eu roar our guns, taking them in
flank and in front; there are gaps in the files--they close; a hideous
rent--it is sealed up; like a great scarlet wave they roll on majestic
in irresistible silence. Nothing can stop them, not all the guns in
Europe--marching on, marching on, marching on unreasoning, dogged,
straight into the throats of our artillery and the muzzles of our
muskets, mad--mad--mad, but the madness that intoxicates the heart and
ennobles the soul. Dutch and Austrians have twice faced this hellish
fire and twice recoiled, but these English will come on; they said they
would storm the entrenchments on the left, and get to them they will,
for a promise is a promise, and they have English gentlemen to lead
them.
For a time they are lost in the smoke and the roar and the gentle folds
of the slope.
“They are broken,” cried St. Benôit. “Well, they did their best, but
it’s a pity----”
“Broken! by God!” burst out André, “look there--they’ve done it--done
it--and----”
A cry has risen from the French ranks, a cry of rage and dismay and
surprise.
The smoke had suddenly lifted, cut asunder by the flashes of the
guns, and it revealed a superb spectacle. Not a hundred yards from
the entrenchments, right across our left front almost on the top of
the slope, have suddenly emerged into sight the grim faces of those
serried red lines. The English infantry are on us--actually on us!
Hoarse commands, repeated, a quiver, they have halted, the drums still
placidly beating, colours gently flapping, while the officers calmly
re-dress their battalions.
A frenzied moment, for behind on the slope here it is our footmen’s
first real sight of them, and Swiss Guards, Gardes Françaises, the
regiments of Courtin, Aubeterre, and of the King are hurried, dashed,
into order. What are we waiting for? Keep cool for God’s sake! We have
got to fight for it now. This is going to be a serious affair.
And then a touch to stir the blood. An English officer has quietly
stepped forward--it is my Lord Charles Hay. Politely he doffs his hat
to the French lines and raises his flask as a man drinks a health at
a banquet. “Gentlemen,” he cries in French, “I hope you will wait
for us to-day and will not swim the Scheldt as you swam the Maine at
Dettingen.” A dozen angry voices go up in bitter protest at the taunt,
and here, in the third line, we Chevau-légers de la Garde grip our
swords in ferocious wrath. My lord turns round. “Men of the King’s
Company,” his voice rings out, “here,” he points with his cane, and
waves his hat, “here are the French Guards. You are going to beat them
to-day,” and at once rolls up in a tumultuous cresendo the thunder of
an English cheer, drowning the orders of the French officers, quelling
the tornado of the guns. Again and again it surges through the columns,
that challenge as of blooded hounds on the quarry at bay.
“For what we are about to receive,” André heard an English officer call
out, waving towards the French muskets, “may the Lord make us truly
thankful,” and the cheer melts into a gay, grim laugh, cut short by
a hideous volley, for the Swiss Guards have fired straight into the
column at thirty paces distance. Down go red-coats by the dozen, but
they remain unshaken. A minute to draw breath, and the turn of the
English dogs is come at last. No more marching now; it will be bullet
for bullet--and then the bayonet.
Fire! The command runs along from battalion to battalion. Fire!
André and St. Benôit in the third line wept with wrath and despair.
The English volleys are devilish, murderous, horrible, and delivered
as calmly, silently, majestically, as they had marched. The red lines
are girt about with a halo of impenetrable flame, pitiless, ceaseless,
triumphant. The Swiss Guards are decimated, the Courtinois are piled in
dying heaps, the French Guards shattered. Hotter and hotter it grows as
the smoke becomes thicker. Step by step the red lines advance.
André straining forward can see the stony faces, the loading and
reloading as at a battue, the officers walking serenely up and down,
marking each volley, now jesting, now reprimanding, now encouraging,
now smartly tapping the muskets with their canes to force them down
and make the men fire low, and fire low they do. Can nothing be done?
The Royal Brigade, the Soissonois are brought up. Forward now in God’s
name and for the honour of France! Useless, utterly useless. Volley
upon volley shivers the advancing files; they tumble in bloody swathes;
they stop, recoil, reel. Disorder is spreading, shouts and cries and
the pile of dead grow bigger, and yard by yard to those infernal drums
roll on the red lines. They are past the earthworks. On they come--a
volley--on--on--steady, slow, irresistible. Ten minutes more and we are
lost!
Fierce trumpets through the smoke, the thunder of cavalry charging.
The Maréchal has launched them, and not a moment too soon. The English
halt--wait--fire. Horses and men crumble up--dissolve. No matter. Bring
up the second line and now ride home, ride home. Shame on you that
twelve battalions of infantry backed by artillery can defy the flower
of our French army. The English line shivers into a bristling wall.
Keep quiet there and reserve your fire--muttered whispers and curses,
and then the flame leaps out. That is the way, sirs; stand up to them
and for heaven’s name let the drums keep beating, the drums that beat
at Dettingen and are beating now at Fontenoy. Rank after rank totters,
breaks, parts, scatters. A cheer rolls up, the cheers of the victors,
for dying men and riderless horses are all that remain of our second
line of cavalry.
The English have won! No, by God and the Virgin, the patron of France,
not yet! We still remain, we the Maison du Roi and we the Chevau-légers
de la Garde. The silver trumpets blare out their warning challenge. One
solemn minute--clear your sword arms and charge! Charge!
Boot to boot, saddle to saddle, through the smoke we cut our way
with set teeth and sobbing breath. We are no _bourgeoisie_, we; no
_canaille_ or _roturiers_ drawn from the plough; we are nobles all, and
this will be the cold steel of the white arm at close grips. The ground
is thick with dead--our horses nostrils gleam red--God! we are on them
and the blast of the tornado smites us and we--we reel! As hail from a
north-easter smites a standing crop so do their bullets smite us and we
stagger like drunken men, stagger and blench and fail. Red are their
coats, but red and hot as the flames of hell is their fire, and in five
awful minutes we too are left sobbing in the saddle, beaten--beaten!
The chivalry of France has gone down before that pitiless furnace.
André found himself swept to the rear in the hideous backwash of that
miserable recoil, spattered with blood, choked with smoke. Gasping he
galloped to the Maréchal.
“The day is lost,” he shouted, “lost!”
The Maréchal nodded as he calmly sucked his leaden bullet.
“Go,” he replied, “do you go and warn the King to retire. At least save
His Majesty.”
And then he turned to summon his last reserves for one final effort to
retrieve the day while André delivered his message. But Louis would not
retire. Impenetrable as ever, inspired by a gleam of kingly pride, he
doggedly refused to obey, and André in despair left him to rally and
lead the infantry and horse that still remained. Better now death than
dishonour, for a prisoner he would not be a second time. Back to the
fray and fall before defeat comes!
The Chevalier met him as he plunged once more into the smoke, the
thunder of the captains and the shouting. “The tide has turned!” the
young man cried, “the Austrians and the Dutch have retired. It is only
the English now. This way, Vicomte, this way!”
The Maréchal had grasped the fact. Dutch and Austrians had made a
second effort on their right and centre and it had failed. The English
were alone, and with consummate coolness he played his last card.
Guns, horses, men, are feverishly brought up from Fontenoy, and while
the Irish brigade, six battalions strong, men once British subjects
but now fighting for France, Jacobites, Papists, loyal and disloyal
alike, fugitives, and renegades, gentlemen, thieves, adventurers,
and footpads--men fighting not for honour or victory but for their
necks--are hurled at the red lines, the broken infantry are rallied,
the cavalry re-formed. The gayest libertine in France, the Duc de
Richelieu, gathers the scattered companies. The King and the Dauphin
are rallying the Maison du Roi.
See! the English are falling back. With sullen reluctance the order has
been given--with sullen reluctance it is obeyed. Retire they must or
die here to the last man. Step by step, yard by yard, reduced to half
its numbers, the red column with drums still beating just when victory
was in its grasp slowly halts--fires--retires. As they had advanced,
so do they retreat, those English dogs, shoulder to shoulder, files
beautifully dressed, in all the cool majesty of the parade ground,
firing those terrible volleys to the end.
Led by the King to the charge once again does the Maison du Roi spur
furiously to break them; once again as the island rocks hurl back the
invading waves do the English columns rend them asunder. Not all the
cavalry and infantry of France can mar or shake that glorious red
line. And we can do no more. Let them go. Into the smoke and down the
blood-stained slopes they glide and vanish. It is enough--enough!
The battle is over. We have won--yes, we have won, for the camp and the
entrenchments are once more ours and Tournay will fall. Fontenoy is and
will remain a victory for France, but 6000 English dead and wounded and
10,000 French piled on the crest and on these awful ridges bear witness
to what a victory it has been. And we French noblemen who have lived
through the morning hours of May 11th may well take off our hats to the
English and Hanoverian infantry who unsupported--nay, deserted by their
allies--marched into a French camp across an open plain and all but
wrested victory from twice their numbers. To-morrow the bells of Notre
Dame and a hundred churches will ring for the success of Fontenoy, but
to-night the British drums that beat on these slopes will beat in
our ears and for ever through the centuries their deathless challenge
to the homage of chivalry in the hearts of all who call themselves
soldiers. No; we do not grudge them their triumph, for there are things
finer than victory, and that honour is theirs.
* * * * *
André, marvellously untouched, found St. Benôit lying by his dead horse
half under the wheel of a dismounted gun on the top of the slope. This
was where the English Guards had turned to bay for the last time, when
the final furious charge that had failed had been made by the Maison du
Roi. St. Benôit had a bullet through one arm and a bayonet thrust in
his thigh, but thank God he still lived, and André carried him to his
coach with the help of the Chevalier, who with a tender care strange to
his pert _insouciance_ was doing what he could for the fallen.
“He will live!” said the Chevalier as they returned to the spot to seek
for others, and plenty there were heaped amongst the Swiss Guards and
the Gardes Françaises, nobles, his friends and comrades, in all the gay
bravery of their blood-stained ruffles and haughty uniforms, and mostly
dead. The strippers of the camp were already at work on their ghastly
trade.
“What is it?” asked the Chevalier suddenly, for André had uttered
a cry of pain. Only an English officer of the 1st Foot Guards,
fresh-coloured, smiling, handsome, lying at his feet amidst a score of
common English rank and file. His sword was not drawn, but in his hand
was a small cane. He had been re-dressing the line of his company as
they had halted to receive and repulse that last charge.
“It is Captain Statham,” André explained. “I knew him in England,
and--” he checked himself to stoop. “Yes, he is dead. It is strange.”
“Strange?” questioned the Chevalier.
But André had nothing more to say. The Chevalier looked very seriously
at him and then at the dead man. A shiver went through him. “Shall we
say a prayer for his soul?” he asked in a hurried, low voice.
André assented in no little surprise, and together they repeated a
hasty prayer, and then André carried him away. He could not leave
him--this English officer--to the awful mercies of the harpies who
preyed on the gallant dead.
“I have had enough of this,” were the Chevalier’s words as they parted,
and his gay face was sick. And André had had enough too.
And that night as he munched his supper there was but one thought in
his mind. Perhaps an English Denise and an English mother were now
on their knees awaiting the news from Fontenoy; but they would never
know that last night the son and lover had gone to the cabin of the
charcoal-burner and had by an accident seen the face of the masked
woman who had striven to betray the French army. To-day Captain
Statham, as so many others, had fallen in the performance of his duty.
Was that fate or the chance of war? Who could say? With a shudder he
recalled the grim words of the little _vivandière_ who had disappeared.
But one thing was certain. Whatever secret Captain Statham had
learned--if it was a secret--his lips would never reveal it now. And
had he, André de Nérac, seen that woman’s face he, too, perhaps, had
been found lying where the dead were thickest. “No. 101!” And had he
done with “No. 101”? Assuredly not, assuredly not.