PHANTOM MUSIC
I
I never thought to see Valerie St. Antoine again after we had left
Moscow; but here I was quite wrong, as you shall learn presently, and
my next encounter with her was as strange an affair as any I remember
during the war.
You will remember that we had marched out of Moscow on the 19th day of
October, in the year 1812; but it was the 29th of that month when the
snow began to fall.
Hitherto our journey had not been unpleasant and had filled us with few
apprehensions. It is true that the Russians were active, and there
were not many villages to pillage, so that some murmurings were heard
at an early date, and men complained bitterly of the lack of bread.
But we were given to understand that all this would be set straight
presently, and that we should find untouched supplies at Smolensk, the
first big town between Moscow and the frontier. Meanwhile, many
carried a little store of provisions in their knapsacks, and the
officers were generally well looked after despite the difficulties. We
found marching easy in the early days, and even when the rain fell, and
the roads became heavy, the wagons were not seriously hampered. All
went light-heartedly, thinking of our beloved France and of the triumph
we were to celebrate there.
Then came the snow. It began to fall on the evening of the 29th, as I
have said, and, save that there was cold rain during the following
week, we never saw the green ground again until we came to the valley
of the Rhine. Ah, the first of these terrible days--how well I
remember it!
Leon and I rode side by side, a great press of horsemen before us;
behind us, in a seemingly unbroken line, the carts and wagons of the
transport. Upon either side were the hussars and the lancers, the
_chasseurs a cheval_, the Guards from Portugal, the Italians, with
Prince Eugene. The Emperor himself was then half a day's march ahead
of us, but we expected to come up with him at Slawkowo, and there to
enjoy our well-earned rest. We had frost, as you shall hear, but there
is no pen that can tell you of what we suffered by the way.
There had been black clouds rolling down from the northward all day,
but the snow itself did not burst upon us until the hour of sunset. It
came heralded by a distant sound as of thunder upon a far horizon; but
this was no thunder that we heard--only a north wind roaring across
that interminable plain.
Anon it came upon us with the fury of a southern tempest. Flakes of
snow almost as big as a man's hand tumbled out of that leaden sky, were
caught by the howling wind, and scattered in a fine powder which cut
like steel. Soon everything was obliterated: the summer had finished
before our eyes. Where there had been green grass and verdant woods,
and even wild flowers by the roadside, there was now nothing but a
monstrous sea, with here and there the white woods standing up as so
many mighty ships upon a frozen ocean.
The army, marching hitherto in such good spirits, became but specks in
this white wilderness. Never had Frenchmen known such cold, and great
was the terror with which it inspired them. We saw cloaks flying and
heads bent before the blast; we heard the curses of the transport men,
the shrill complaints of cantinieres; but above all the ceaseless
howling of the blast, as though the God of Russia cried a vengeance
upon us, and this was the hour of it.
All this was bad enough, but more was to follow when the Cossacks came
like so many devils from the darkness.
They wheeled about us, piping a shrill defiance and waving their lances
ominously. In our turn we were too sore stricken to attack them, and
we rode like cravens, who submitted to fate without lifting a finger.
Not until Marshal Ney himself came up with cannon did we drive the
scarecrows off, and even then it was but a brief respite, for they were
as swift as eagles and as elusive. Many a good fellow had a Russian
lance in him that night, and the snow-field for his bed. It was a new
page in the story of a triumph we had hoped to celebrate in Paris.
For myself I felt the cold bitterly, and I do not doubt that Leon
suffered no less. We had heavy cloaks and we rode good horses; but the
frost was beyond anything I have known or could imagine, and presently
the trail of the army could be followed by the dead and dying it shed
upon the march.
Dreadful was it to see those poor fellows, and to know that we could
not help them. There they lay, some already white and still in the
death sleep; others moaning for pain of the cold; others, again,
imploring their fellows to shoot them for God's sake. All, however,
passed on without pity. The wind devoured us; the snow had become a
very avalanche.
Now this lasted for an hour, almost until the darkness had set in; but
when it ceased we perceived, to our astonishment, a considerable town
upon the horizon, and this put new life into us. Spurring our jaded
horses, Leon and I galloped on, telling each other that we should
certainly find bread and shelter in such a place, and that the rigour
of the night could safely be defied there. We had gone, I suppose,
about a third of a mile in this way when we came without warning upon a
wrecked carriage, and immediately drew rein at the unexpected discovery
we made therein.
II
I have told you that Leon will rarely pass a pretty woman, whatever be
her nationality, and when he drew rein at the sight of the wrecked
carriage it was a woman's face which arrested him.
"One moment, my uncle," says he; "you really are in a devil of a hurry."
I drew rein with him and walked my horse up to the carriage. It was
plainly the equipage of a person of rank--a spacious berline, drawn by
four horses, and a brilliant yellow in colour. Of more import was the
fact that the coachman sat dead and frozen upon the box, and that the
horses had drawn the vehicle over the bank of the road, and there left
it poised as a stick upon a conjurer's finger. A minute later and it
turned over gently in the snow, and the horses, maddened by the mishap,
plunged frantically and went galloping across the plain. At the same
moment we heard cries from within the berline, and, dismounting and
leaping upon it, we took three women from the coach, of whom but one
was alive. She was Valerie St. Antoine, and she recognised us
immediately.
"Help, sir, for God's sake!" says she, as Leon caught her in his arms
and instantly wrapped his own cloak about her. We did not tell her
that the others were beyond help, yet such was the case.
Of the two, one was an elderly and distinguished-looking woman with
white hair, and the second as pretty a child of fifteen years of age as
I had seen since I left Prussia. Both had perished of want and cold.
They were locked in each other's arms, and quite dead when we took them
from the carriage.
"Who are these poor people?" I asked Valerie.
She buried her face in her hands.
"The Baroness de Nivois and her granddaughter. They have been five
years in Moscow. They were my friends--God help me!"
"But, mademoiselle," said I, "what sent you upon such an errand as
this?"
She looked at me, I think, with some amazement at my want of
understanding.
"What Frenchwoman remains in Moscow now?" she asked coldly. And then
as quickly she turned to Leon and inquired of him where the Emperor
would be.
"I must see him immediately," says she; "it was for that I followed the
army. Captain Courcelles, will you not help me?"
He replied that nothing would give him greater pleasure.
"You are returning to Paris, mademoiselle?" he asked her.
She said that it was possible.
"But," cried I, "I thought you would never leave Moscow. You told me
so yourself."
"Major," she rejoined, "I did not then know that my father was alive,
nor that he served the Emperor."
I thought upon it a minute, and then a sudden memory coming to me, I
said:
"There is a Colonel St. Antoine with the Second Battalion of the
Chasseurs of the Line. Is it possible, mademoiselle, that he is a
relative of yours?"
"He is my father," she said, with admirable dignity; and, turning, she
hid her face in her hands again, as though the dreadful scene about us
could no longer be suffered. Leon waited for no more, but, lifting her
upon his horse, he rode straightway from the place.
"Do what you can for these poor women," said he to me. "We will wait
for you in the town." And with that he pressed forward and was quickly
lost to my view.
I had given him my word, and yet it was worth little. The poor women
were beyond all hope, and it remained but to inter them decently.
This, with the aid of some sappers, I did anon, and having seen to it
that we should know the place again if occasion arose, I also pressed
on towards the town.
It was quite dark by this time, and the snow had begun to fall again.
I thought myself lucky to overtake my nephew, which I did some third of
a mile from the gates of the town. But whether his welcome were as
warm as my pleasure I have my doubts. Let me say in all honesty that I
believe that Leon was in love with this woman, and would have gone
through fire and water for her.
III
There were many terrible nights to be suffered before the remnant of
the Grand Army might see Paris again; but none of them to surpass that
night when we first made acquaintance with the north wind as Russia
knows it.
What the cold was I cannot tell you, but such a rigour I had never
known before, nor had any who marched with that stricken company.
Already we perceived that if we did not reach the shelter of the town
we should never see the day; and the fury of the wind driving us and
the snow blinding our eyes, we pressed on headlong.
Had a man doubted the road, the dead, as I have said, would have
pointed it out to him. There was not a furlong free from the corpses
of those who had been our comrades. Every bush sheltered poor wretches
deploring their misery and appealing to God. We saw men staggering as
though drunk with wine; others hysterical as women and gone stark mad
in their suffering. And all the time the lights of the distant town
would appear and disappear, as though mocking our hope and defying us
of their promise.
I was sorry for my nephew, who had given his cloak to Valerie; and
although she made a pretence of sheltering them both, it was precious
little good he got by it. Perhaps, had she not been with him in the
saddle, he would never have come to Slawkowo at all. As it was, he
bore up bravely and did not cease to encourage her in every way that he
could. "But a kilometre more, and we are there," he would say. Or
again: "We shall find the Emperor in the city, and there will be food
and shelter there." Sometimes he would ask her if she suffered much,
and invariably she answered with a woman's courage.
"Don't think of me, captain," she would say; "I am used to the cold.
Have I not lived many years in Russia? All this is nothing to me."
Such courage was infectious, and we were both the better for it. It
seemed possible now that we should reach the town after all, though
there were many bitter interludes before we did so. Sometimes the
lights would disappear altogether, and we would believe that we had
lost our road. Then again they would appear as mysteriously, and we
would think the city but a stone's throw from us. In the end, I
remember, we came to a frozen river, and putting our horses across it,
we found ourselves beneath high and forbidding walls, which told us
that we had lost our way, and that the night might still have the
better of us.
This was a terrible hour, and we rode vainly to and fro as children who
are lost in an unknown country. Everywhere black walls denied us
shelter, and so at last we recrossed the river and went southward a
full half-hour before we discovered the gate of Slawkowo and cried to
one another that all was well.
We thought it must be so.
Here was a considerable town with the houses of the merchants who had
sheltered us when we rode to Moscow. We had known some pleasant days
in Slawkowo on our outward journey, and I do not think it dawned upon
any man that our reception would be different upon our return. Hardly
had we entered the gate when we discovered our mistake. Of the once
fine houses but the shell now remained. The main street was impassable
by reason of guns and wagons gathered there. We turned aside to the
suburb on the south, and found such houses as remained alive with our
comrades, who filled them from garret to cellar, and swore that no
new-comer should enter.
By here and there whole companies of infantry were bivouacked in the
open for lack of shelter, and the high wall of church or garden alone
protected them from the terrible night. Of food there seemed no
prospect whatever. We beat upon the doors of many houses, and although
we gave those within to understand that we were officers of the Guard,
they answered that men or devils should not come in that night. At
last we found ourselves at the very ramparts again with never a house
in view and nothing but those monstrous walls before us.
"Good God!" says Leon, drawing rein at last and turning to me wearily,
"is there no house in all this cursed city which will take us in?"
I could but answer him that we must wheel about and try again, and
although my horse staggered at every step, and ultimately fell dead as
we went, I could but repeat the admonition. We must get into a house
of some sort, or we should never see the dawn. So much would have been
evident to a child.
Behold us, then, staggering on, the snow beating upon us pitilessly;
the wind howling amid the shells of the ruined houses; the city itself
but a mob of maddened troopers fighting for their very lives on every
threshold. So evident was it that we should get no shelter anywhere in
the vicinity of the gates that we pushed on ultimately as though we
would leave Slawkowo by the western road, and then for the first time
we were able to breathe freely and to reckon with the situation.
There were no houses at all here--merely the blackened ruins of once
fine streets. Often we rode over heaps of rubbish with the sure
knowledge that a mishap might send us headlong into some vault or
cellar, already, it may be, full of dead. This, however, did not deter
us; we had Valerie to save, and the same thought inspired us both.
There could be no rest for either until Valerie St. Antoine had found a
refuge. How shall I tell you what we ourselves suffered, buffeted this
way and that; drawn now to some phantom house; anon to the borders of
the frozen river, and from that back again to the wilderness?
Certainly I thought that all was ended, and the deadly spell of the
cold seizing upon me, I began to have that desire of sleep from which
there can be no awakening.
"Nephew," said I, "do you go on and leave me here."
It was then that my horse fell, and rolling heavily in the snow I
thought that my end had come. Leon, however, had a flask of brandy in
his haversack, and presently I was conscious of a burning sensation in
my throat and of a sudden realisation of the truth that I must wake or
die. Making a mighty effort of the will, I got upon my feet and
struggled on, hardly knowing that Valerie St. Antoine had one of my
arms and Leon the other. The words they spoke to me were as sounds
from afar; I did not rightly understand them, and made no reply. But
presently, a little strength coming back to me, I heard a note of
distant music, and asked them what it was.
"Listen to that," said I. "Someone is playing the organ."
They laughed at me, Leon saying, "Come, come, uncle, your ears are
playing tricks with you; there is no organ here."
"You are wrong," said I; "there is an organ, and someone is playing 'On
va leur percer les flancs.' Listen and you will heal it."
Well, they both stood and listened, and after a few moments they
admitted I was right.
"There is someone playing," said Leon, while Valerie uttered a little
cry of pleasure, and running forward with her hands clasped, she
returned to tell us that it must be the organ of a church and that we
should never hear it on such a night if it were not very near to us.
On this we all agreed, and a new hope animating us, we led Leon's horse
and pressed on towards the music.
Ah, what a quest that was! How those phantom chords deceived us!
Sometimes we would think the organ was so near us that nothing but a
miracle could hide the scene. Then again we would lose the sounds
altogether, and try to comfort each other with the assurance that the
wind alone muffled them. This went on for a full half-hour, until as
though a miracle had happened, we found ourselves in the very porch of
a considerable church, and understood in a moment that our own fellows
were within, and that one of them was playing upon the organ.
"Open to the Guard!" cried Leon, beating heavily upon the door with the
hilt of his sword.
The answer from within was the one we had heard so often that night:
"Let the Guard go elsewhere, there is no room for anybody here."
"Oh," says Leon, "is that not Sergeant Bourgogne who is speaking?"
It was a lucky shot, for the door was opened instantly, and there stood
our old sergeant before us.
"Why, captain," cried he, "we have reported you for dead!" And then
espying me, he added, "The very man we are looking for, major. There
is plenty of work for a surgeon to do in this place. Come in,
messieurs, and let me bolt the door after you."
Needless to say, we did not ask for a second invitation, but passing at
once into the church, we heard the sergeant bolting and locking the
heavy door. There the light almost blinded us, and we sank exhausted
upon the stone pavement and lay motionless for many minutes.
IV
When we had recovered ourselves a little we were able to get some idea
of the strange happenings within the church.
To begin with, I would tell you that it was a building in the Russian
fashion, with two domes above its naves and a similar one above the
chancel. About the wall there were the icons which the Russians
worship, and the organ which we had heard played stood in the western
gallery just above the main doors. The building was large, and would
have accommodated a thousand people perhaps. There must have been five
hundred of our own fellows within when we entered, and they lay about
the marble pavement in every conceivable attitude.
Some, I perceived, were already drunk with brandy, of which there was a
considerable supply in the church. I learned from Sergeant Bourgogne
that the cellars of a neighbouring wine shop had been ransacked before
dark fell and many bottles of wine and brandy carried into the church
against the bitter night; of food there was none but horseflesh, and
despite my nephew's protests, the troopers killed and cut up his own
charger directly we entered the building. Soon the whole place was
redolent with the smell of roasted flesh, and what with the pungent
odour of that and of the burning wood and brandy the atmosphere became
almost insupportable.
I should tell you that two great fires had been lighted in the
building: one upon the pavement of the chancel, the other below the
choir screen, which is a great thing in all their churches.
Unhappily the fire before the altar had been fed chiefly by the
beautiful painted panels of this screen, while that in the nave owed
its glowing heat to the multitude of chairs which had been broken up
and burned upon it. Here all the cooking was done, and it was an odd
thing to see men toasting great lumps of horseflesh upon the points of
their bayonets and swords, and eating them while they were still hot
and dripping from the fire. Such practices, however, went on
uninterruptedly; and if anything be said against them, I would remind
you of the intolerable night outside and of what these poor fellows had
suffered during their march to Slawkowo. For that matter we ourselves
were not above sharing in this barbarous hospitality, and even Valerie
St. Antoine ate a piece of roasted horseflesh and drank a draught of
wine from the flask which Sergeant Bourgogne proffered her.
Be it said that the men were very merry and that a spirit of drunken
hilarity prevailed in the place. None seemed to remember that it was a
holy building, nor would it have been worth while to remonstrate with
poor devils who had suffered so much. I saw usually sober officers
dancing in the vestments of the priests and preaching mock sermons from
a splendid pulpit. The organist was an accomplished fellow, and played
the wildest dance with precision. Even the wounded cheered up at his
music and tried to join in the songs which the army knew so well. It
was pitiful to hear them moaning:
"Ram, ram, ram, tam,
Plan, tire-lire ram plan":
those who would never see France again and might never quit that
building.
One such I shall never forget. His leg had been amputated that very
day, and yet in his drunken frenzy he reared himself up from the rude
bed they had made him and rolled over and over until he was dead, like
a mad dervish from the Indies. Scenes like this were repeated during
that long and wonderful night, until, indeed, the organist, coming down
the stairs for brandy, stumbled by the way and pitched headlong into
the nave. Both his legs were broken, and although I did what I could
for him, I knew that he, too, would never leave Slawkowo.
Valerie St. Antoine supported all this with wonderful fortitude. We
had had little converse with her hitherto, but now she began to talk to
us very rationally, and we had some insight into that dual personality
which many men have found so interesting.
Very frankly she told us that she had had no thought of returning to
France until she had heard that her father was with the army. This was
the more surprising since it would appear that she had not seen him
since she was quite a child.
"He left Nice in the days of the Terror," she said. "We went--my
brother and I--with my mother to Leipsic, and then to one of her
kinsmen, who was a Pole. She died in Poland five years ago, and my
brother had to enter Prince Nicholas's household and to take me to
Moscow with him. You will imagine what happened to a child among a
strange people and with none but an absent brother to protect her.
Rene was sent to St. Petersburg, and I was left alone with the Prince.
Sometimes I forgot altogether that I had been born in France. They
surrounded me with riches, and anything for which I chose to ask was at
my hand. Then came the story of General Bonaparte and of his
victories. That did not interest me; I was still a Russian at heart,
and remained so until your army entered Moscow and all was remembered.
It was the Emperor who set me dreaming again and made me remember my
home by the Mediterranean Sea: I recalled my father in his uniform of
green and gold; I recollected how we were taught as children to cry,
'_Vive la Republique!_' but never '_Vive le Roi!_' Oh, yes, my heart
went back to France and I became a Frenchwoman again. Now I shall go
to Paris and try to earn my living there. It will be difficult, but I
am not afraid; the world has taught me too many things that I should
fear my own independence."
Leon told her gallantly enough that she had no need to fear any such
thing. He, I made sure, was ready enough to set her upon the road of
his choice; and yet there was something about the girl which forbade
love-making as soldiers know it, and set her upon a pinnacle of which
even my nephew was a little shy.
"Come to Paris," said he, "and you shall be as famous as any woman in
the city. There is always a career for beauty there, and you, Valerie,
have other gifts. I promise you that you will not be disappointed. I
will make it my business to see that you are not."
She looked at him with curiosity. Perhaps there was a measure of pity
in her tone when she said, "Ah, Captain Leon, if we ever see Paris
again how lucky we shall be!"
This she said from her heart, and it saddened us all not a little when
we perceived how true it was. None the less, Leon tried to laugh at it.
"There will be supplies at Smolensk," said he, "and after that the way
will be easy. We shall be hungry for a day or two and perhaps eat some
of your old friends the Cossacks--but the Grand Army has a good
appetite. The Emperor will not have been unprepared for such weather
as this, and you will see how he will deal with it. Really,
Mademoiselle Valerie, you were never born to be a pessimist."
She shook her head, but her interest was evidently roused when he
mentioned the Emperor.
"Where is His Majesty now?" she asked. "Do you not remember that I
must see him at once? It is for that that I left Moscow with the
Baroness Nivois. The safety of the army may depend upon what I have to
tell him. I appeal to you all to help me."
"We shall do that readily enough," said I, chiming in for the first
time. "Nothing could be easier. His Majesty is at Slawkowo this very
night. You can see him in the morning before the march begins--that
is, if you have anything to say to him to which he will listen."
She smiled as though with some contempt at the doubt.
"I have that," said she, "which will save his army. If he does not see
me, he is not the person I believe him to be."
And then to us all she said:
"Messieurs, I have the plans of General Kutusoff, as I read them in
Prince Nicholas's house. Do you not think your Emperor will wish to
see those?"
We were all greatly interested, and begged her to show us the
documents. Here, however, she was adamantine, and her native secrecy
prevailed. To our questions she answered that she would tell the
Emperor alone, and soon we perceived that it was futile to press her.
Indeed, had we the mind, that was not the opportunity, for just as we
were at the height of the argument a loud knocking was heard upon the
doors of the church, and someone cried out that the Cossacks were
without.
Now this was a dreadful thing to hear, and one which sent every man in
the church leaping to his feet--those of them who could stand, for
there were many who could not. We did not stop to ask ourselves by
what means the Russians had entered Slawkowo. Well we knew that they
had been upon our flanks all day, and it did not seem impossible that
they had made a sudden descent upon the church, and were already in the
suburbs of the city. If that were so, our case was parlous. We knew
that they would burn us out like rats, and would sabre every man who
crossed the threshold. Can you wonder, then, that a great silence fell
for an instant, and was succeeded by a wild shout of "Aux armes!"
I have lived through many a dangerous hour for the Emperor's sake, but
never one, I think, so full of the sublime and the grotesque as that
instant of alarm in the church at Slawkowo.
To see men, who had been brawling and singing but a moment before,
spring to their feet and stagger towards the door, bayonets fixed or
swords flourished; to hear the oaths and curses of drunken brutes, who
believed that death had them by the shoulders; to be carried everywhere
in a mob which slashed and hewed at an imaginary enemy, and even cut
down its comrades in a mad debauch of fear and frenzy--all this, I say,
surpassed experience.
Yet such was the result of that wild alarm.
The Cossacks were at the gates; the church was fired. From without and
within the roar and the brawl waxed deafening. Those in the snow beat
fiercely upon the doors, and splintered them with axe and musket; those
within fired their pistols from every window, and called on God and the
devil to help them. When it was apparent that the doors were giving
way, a panic ensued such as the meanest mercenary might have been
ashamed of. Men howled in fear or supplicated an enemy still
invisible; others flew to the bottle, and drank prodigious draughts;
some capered like women round and round the fires in a drunken paean of
death. But all surely believed that the Cossacks were there; and we of
the Guard, determining at length that assault was better than defence,
threw the doors wide open and charged headlong through the blinding
storm.
Ah! what a night that was--what a mockery! Perceived but not seeing,
for the aureole of light must have shown our figures clearly to the
enemy, we slashed and hewed at hazard--here in snow to our knees, there
falling upon the slippery ground, now locked arm in arm with the
aggressors, or again standing alone seeking vainly for an enemy.
Whence the assault had come or by whom we knew no more than the dead.
Either the light blinded us or we stood in such black darkness that a
man might have slain his own brother unawares.
In truth, we had been doing this all along, and we must have fought a
full ten minutes before someone cried out that we were killing
Frenchmen, and instantly there arose a terrible uproar and the ghastly
truth was discovered.
It had not been the Cossacks at all who had come to the place, but a
regiment of chasseurs of the line, of whom no fewer than forty now lay
dead before the porch of the church. Who can describe our chagrin and
dismay when this was made known? Our own comrades! Many a man there
would as soon have slain his own children.
V
Well, we dragged brands from the fire and began to do what we could.
Many of the poor fellows were dead, and the snow fell so heavily that
their bodies were already but whitened mounds. Others crawled here and
there in their pain, fearing the vengeance of the Russians whom they
believed to be in the church. When we cried out to them that we were
Frenchmen, they could hardly believe their ears. How they reproached
us then, and how difficult we found it to answer them! Few words,
indeed, were spoken; but, dragging the wounded and even the dead into
the building, we began our pitiful task.
Naturally, my own services were much in request. There was another
surgeon from the Velites of the company, but he was a very young man,
and the situation had unnerved him. The mischief of it was that so
many had been attacked with sword and bayonet that the wounds we had to
deal with were very terrible. One poor fellow I remember
particularly--a fine man of more than middle age in a cloak and
colonel's uniform, an officer of the _chasseurs a pied_, who tried to
make light of his wounds, but evidently was dying. Someone told me
presently that his name was St. Antoine, and it came to me in a flash
that he might be Valerie's father.
Now, it became very difficult to know what to do. The girl herself was
then helping the wounded upon the far side of the church, but she came
over to me presently, and I had no alternative but to tell her what had
been said. The man was dying, and, if he were her father, then she
must know it.
I shall not attempt to recite the moving scene I was now to witness--a
scene between a child who had become the woman of the world and a man
who had lost his daughter to find her at the hour of his death! Be
sure we did what we could for him, giving him the best place by the
fire, and cloaks from willing shoulders, and brandy from the flask
which was left to us. It was all of no avail, and he died just as the
dawn broke and the distant bugles were sounding the reveille.
Valerie's grief was not such as I had expected to see.
There are some women, however, whose souls no man can read, and hers
was such a one. What she suffered in that hour I make no pretence to
say, but her anger against those who had killed their fellow-countrymen
was typical of a passionate nature. This Grand Army now stood to her
for a thing of contempt. She railed upon us piteously--applauding our
skill in killing Frenchmen and running away from Russians. When, to
turn her thoughts, Leon told her that she would now find the Emperor in
Slawkowo, she derided the idea that she wished to see him, and taking
some papers from her breast she burned them before we could raise a
finger to stop her.
"Your army shall perish!" she cried almost triumphantly; and then she
asked, "Well, what does it deserve? To kill your comrades! My God--to
kill my own father!"
Her courage was no longer capable of supporting this thought, and she
sank down upon the pavement and was overtaken by passionate weeping,
which endured for many minutes.
The destruction of the documents had been so swift that its moment
hitherto had not occurred to us, but now I took Leon aside and began to
question him.
"The papers came from Kutusoff," said I. "They are of the greatest
importance, and possibly the Russian plan of campaign is among them.
Certainly the Emperor should know of this; we must make it our business
to go to him immediately. If the woman has burned the documents, at
least she will have read them. We must make her speak at
head-quarters."
He agreed with me, but declared that she was in no fit state to tell a
story.
"I know the kind," he said. "Her anger is like a tempest, and will
pass as quickly. Then she will regret what she has done. Let us go to
head-quarters and report. It will be for them to act in the matter."
I thought this wise at the time, and did not hesitate to set off with
him. It was evident that the Russians had prepared some great plan of
campaign the moment our retreat was known, and the importance of this
to the general staff could not be exaggerated. It was amazing to think
that a mere child amidst us had knowledge which might save the lives of
thousands of men, and that the papers which contained it were but so
many ashes upon the pavement before us. None the less, we might yet
compel her to speak, and with this in our minds we quitted the building
and made our way as best we could to the guest house at which the
Emperor was staying.
This was no light task, for the snow was often up to our knees, and the
dead were everywhere.
It had been a terrible night, and the army had paid a bitter price for
the ruin it had inflicted upon Slawkowo on the outward journey. We
could not help but reflect how many thousands might have been saved in
those houses we had burned, how many might have been fed by that food
we had so wantonly destroyed in the days of our abundance. This day
there was not a loaf of bread in all that perished town; men were
eating horse at every bivouac. The night, for those who lived, had
been an orgy amid the cellars, when men raved and died in their
drunkenness, and those who perished from starvation had nothing but
brandy for their lips.
All this was reflected in that scene at dawn.
Day broke with a wan, grey light and a powder of snow which burned the
skin like hot needles. We found the great street of the town still
blocked by the wagons of the transport and the guns of the Emperor's
Guard. The bravest men moved like phantoms in the mist, their spirits
sunk, their flesh shrunken by the cold. None of the eclat of departure
was to be observed in all that throng. The road had carried us to a
house of death, and no hope lay beyond it. Who shall wonder at the
dejection which fell upon the once proud Grand Army?
We came up to the Emperor's tent at nine o'clock, and heard that His
Majesty was just about to march. Murat and Dumesnil were with him, and
I was lucky enough to catch the latter when he came out of the
Emperor's room some ten minutes later. My story interested him
profoundly, and we were soon ushered into His Majesty's presence. I
thought he looked a little careworn, but there was no betrayal of his
secret thoughts, nor did he speak a word in reference to the thousands
of dead who lay buried beneath the snow in that wretched town. Indeed,
his manner became almost a little aggressive when he spoke and asked me
somewhat surlily what I wanted.
"Your Majesty," said I, "there is a woman in the city who has news from
the Russian head-quarters. I thought you would wish to hear of her."
"Is she with you?" he asked quickly, the wonderful eyes searching me
from head to foot.
I had to say that she was not, and at that his choler mounted.
"Then why do you come here? Why do you waste my time? Go and fetch
her immediately. You must be a fool to come upon such an errand."
I had been an old favourite of his, and it came to me that he would not
have spoken in this way had the situation been less terrible. His
anger reflected his disappointment and would not suffer argument. I
did not attempt to tell him the true story of Valerie St. Antoine, for
to that he would never have listened in such a temper; but, promising
to fetch her immediately, I was about to leave the room, when he said:
"Let there be no mistake. If you do not find her I will have you shot."
I heard him with amazement, for never had such words been spoken to me
before. Yet I knew the Little Corporal well enough not to doubt his
meaning. He had realised the importance of the tidings I carried, and
his anger at our supposed neglect prompted the threat. If this did not
alarm me it was because I trusted Valerie, and so well did my
confidence seem to be justified that Leon laughed when he heard the
story.
"I know women," said he. "She would do anything for me. We will just
tell her all the circumstances, and she will come immediately. Cheer
up, mon oncle; I shall not have to dig a bullet out of you at dawn
to-morrow."
Truthfully, I did not believe that he would, but I was a little anxious
none the less, and we returned to the church at our best speed. When
we got there we found the building empty of all save its wounded and
its dead. Of Valerie there was not a trace, nor of the colonel, her
father. For a little while I could not realise the importance of this
nor understand wholly what it meant to me. When the truth came it was
as though a man had clapped a pistol to my head and cried that I must
die. Good God, what would my case be if we could not find her? Even
Leon was moved; I could see that he had begun to tremble.
VI
"Mon oncle," said he, "she cannot be gone far; let us get some of our
men and search for her. Valerie will never leave the army at such a
time. We must find her without delay."
I perceived that it was the only thing to be done, and, going out of
the church with him, we began our search, which was to end so
disastrously.
There was no street, house, nor cellar within a quarter of a mile of
the place that we did not ransack to its depths. I have always been
liked by the Guard, and many a good fellow proffered his help in such
an emergency. Soon, I think, there must have been fifty of us crying
the tidings far and wide and asking, "Have you seen the Frenchwoman
named St. Antoine?" The astonishing thing was that we did not meet a
human being who could help us by a word. None had seen Valerie; few
thought that they would recognise her if they did see her.
"Possibly," said one, "she has gone to the guest house in the main
street of the town." Another suggested that she might have set out
with the advance guard which left just after dawn. But all agreed that
she was not to be found, and when noon came and there were still no
tidings of her, then I began to believe that she would never be found
at all. This was a disaster so unlooked for, so terrible, that it
paralysed every faculty I possessed. To die for a woman's temper, I
said, while even my friends began to admit that I was in grave danger.
When I met an aide-de-camp to General Dumesnil a little later in the
afternoon, he told me that His Majesty was still waiting, but that his
anger had not modified.
"By heaven," said he, "he will have you shot, major, if you do not find
her."
I could only answer that I had done my best and was still doing it. It
occurred to me that, after all, Valerie might return to the church
eventually, and, telling every man I knew that I was going there, I
sought out that now deserted building, and made myself its prisoner.
What hours they were--what hours of waiting, of hope, and of fear!
From the distance I could hear the rumble of the guns and the murmur of
a great army moving, but the church itself was as silent as the dead
and filled with the ghosts of yesterday. In the end the night came and
found me still watching. I did not dare to return to head-quarters.
Even Leon did not come back to me.
Well, a man dies but once, they say, and yet I died many deaths that
night.
Often I rebuked myself that Leon was one of the few to whom I had not
committed my intention of returning to the church, and a little after
ten o'clock I set out to seek for him. This walk took me back to the
main street of the town, and eventually to the very building wherein I
had seen His Majesty that morning. Such a fact, if it is to be
explained at all, must be set down to the magnetism of fate, which
destroys men as well as animals. The rabbit, they say, is fascinated
by the snake, and so was I by that intolerable uncertainty which I
could not support in the stillness of the church. I must know the
truth, I thought: I must see the Emperor again, if I were ordered out
for execution there and then--well, a more terrible death might await
me on the frozen plain beyond the town. "Have done with it," was my
idea, as I pushed my way up the steps and asked if His Majesty was
still there.
Well, it was a fearful ordeal. A young officer carried in my message
and bade me wait at the door until he returned. It mattered not where
it was. I do not think I was conscious of the time, the place, or of
anything but the issue. Should I be summoned to that magic presence or
should I not? Would the penalty be death? Few know what a man suffers
who lives through such moments as these; few can understand the sudden
reaction which attends the truth, whatever it be.
"His Majesty left at one o'clock," said the orderly when he returned.
The truth staggered me, and I reeled as at a blow.
"Did His Majesty leave alone?" I asked.
"No," said the fellow, and here he smiled; "there was a woman with him."
Pah, my friends, what a coward I had been, and how I cursed the weary
hours I had spent alone in that hole of a church!