THE WITCH IN ERMINE
I
I have spoken little of the Emperor during these momentous days; but it
is to be remembered that I was chiefly with the rearguard, and so I
hardly saw His Majesty until we came to Slawkowo.
Often have I been asked in Paris how he carried himself during the
terrible retreat from Moscow, and how it came to be that he escaped the
fate which overtook nearly half a million of men in that fearful
flight. I have always answered that the Emperor took his fair share
both of the risks and the hardships of the journey, and that, so far
from travelling in his famous berline, he was often afoot, walking with
and encouraging the soldiers who had served him so well.
It is true that he never suffered the miseries of an open bivouac, and
that, wherever we went, some habitation was discovered at night to
shelter him and the intimate members of his staff. Food, also, he had
in abundance, and often shared it with his staff. What he could not
escape was the peril of the Cossacks, who swarmed upon our flanks like
wasps, and rarely left us an hour in which we could march with
confidence.
Some there are who say that Napoleon Bonaparte was entirely without
pity for his fellow men. I have seen it recorded that he marched over
the dying and the dead with indifference, and was even heard to say
that no man who had seen so many corpses upon a high road could ever
believe in the immortality of the soul. This must be a malicious
invention of his enemies, and it would not be accepted by any soldiers
of the Guard. The Emperor suffered as we suffered during those
unforgettable days, and more than one man could tell of the pity
bestowed upon him by the general for whom he would so willingly have
died.
II
Let me give you an instance of what befell us when we were some leagues
from Smolensk and were approaching the village of Liadoui.
The Emperor had ridden out of the town that morning escorted by the
grenadiers and the chasseurs, Prince Eugene with General Davoust and
Ney being left behind in charge of the rearguard.
I myself set out with the Velites about an hour after His Majesty had
left, upon a road whereon familiar scenes were soon to be encountered.
The army had got no food in Smolensk, and its sufferings began again
directly we reached the open country. Just as heretofore, men fell out
and perished before the eyes of their helpless comrades. Some would
stagger for a little while like drunken men, stretching out their arms
to us and craving pity; others went mad in their delirium, and I
remember well with what horror we saw a dragoon gnawing madly at the
neck of a frozen horse, while his lips were red with his own blood. To
all this we had now become inured, and, knowing the impossibility of
helping the poor wretches who succumbed, we could but shut pity from
our hearts and bend our heads to the bitter wind which swept over this
God-forsaken land.
It was during this march that I came up with the Emperor, who had been
riding with the grenadiers and was now halted in a picturesque group
near by the edge of a thicket.
Here we found a poor woman whose baby was but two days old, and who
mourned the loss of this infant--frozen stark dead--as though she had
been at her own home in Paris. She was a cantiniere of the fusiliers,
and her husband, an old soldier who had fought at Jena, did what he
could for her; but it was all of no avail, and despite His Majesty's
command that I myself should attend her and that she should be given of
the best from the Imperial supplies, she expired in the snow before our
eyes.
The Emperor was greatly affected by this distressing occurrence, and
when he saw that the poor woman was dead he commanded me to accompany
him, intimating that there was hardly a surgeon left in his entourage.
This compliment pleased me very much, remembering how we had parted,
and I rode by His Majesty's side for some leagues, telling him all that
I had seen and done since we quitted Moscow. What surprised me
particularly was that he made no mention of Mademoiselle Valerie, nor
of her visit to him at Slawkowo and of the episode which had led up to
it. It was his wont, however, thus to treat the officers he liked
best, and if I had been doubtful of his favour on that occasion, I
could take heart when he pinched my ear suddenly as we came to the
village of Liadoui and said with a smile: "You will remain with me
to-night, major; I have something very much in your line."
This was a quite unexpected compliment, and brought the blood to my
cheeks. I could not readily imagine upon what service His Majesty
would employ me, but I spent the day in anxious speculation, and when
he summoned me at about nine o'clock that night I was all agog, as you
may well imagine.
Why had I been thus chosen, and what was the employment?
You shall see now how very strange an affair it turned out to be.
III
The village of Liadoui is built of wood upon an open situation not many
leagues from Krasnoe. The Emperor slept at the post-house, a modest
edifice which two companies of the fusiliers were to guard. I myself
got a bivouac with the priest, who needed more than one blow from the
butt end of a musket before he was glad to see me. The whole situation
of the little force in Liadoui would have been considered dangerous at
any other time, but we had to take the best we could, and the fact that
there were Russians on both flanks had ceased to trouble us while we
could get food and shelter.
For the first time now for many a day I got a dish of beef and rice
that night, and a bottle of wine to wash it down. This His Majesty
sent me from his own table, and be sure I shared it with my comrades.
We were in consequence quite a happy company, and we sang "Veillons au
salut de l'Empire" as merrily as we might have done in the barracks at
Paris. Then came His Majesty's summons for Major Constant to attend
him at once; and quitting my comrades with reluctance, I put on the
great fur coat which I had carried from Moscow, and went across to the
post-house.
Much to my surprise I found the Emperor alone. He sat in a spacious
room overlooking the street, and the remains of his dinner were still
upon the table. Clad in the well-known grey overcoat and the little
cocked hat, without which none of us would have recognised him, I
perceived also that he had a heavy cape of fur about his shoulders and
wore fur-topped boots almost to his hips. He seemed mightily pleased
to see me, and, pouring out a glass of wine, he bade me drink it.
"Do you remember this place?" he asked me as the first question.
I told him that the Velites had not passed that way before, having
taken the northern road to Moscow. He, however, hardly waited for my
answer, but, watching me drink the wine, he said:
"I see that you do not know it. That is to the good; you will not ask
me unnecessary questions. Now drink your wine and come and see your
patient. She is young--you will not object to that. The Velites, I
understand, are critical; it is for that reason I chose a surgeon from
your ranks."
He laughed as though pleased at the jest. Buttoning the fur cape
closely about him, he left the room immediately, and I followed him,
the wine freezing upon my moustache as soon as we were out in the
bitter night.
Never have I known a cold so intense nor a wind that shrivelled the
flesh so quickly. Yet the scene itself was picturesque enough, and
under any other circumstances a man might have stopped to marvel at it.
The moon now shone full and clear from a cloudless sky; the trees about
Liadoui glistened with a thousand diamonds of the frost; the snow
beneath our feet was as hard as iron and burnished with a sheen of
silver light. Imagine upon this wooden houses with all their windows
aglow, dark forms moving here and there, the distant rumble of cannon
upon the road, and even the echo of musket shots, and you will see the
picture as I saw and remember it.
Whither was the Emperor going, and upon what errand? I could not so
much as imagine his purpose when we quitted the post-house and,
crossing the street, entered upon a narrow footpath which seemed about
to lead to the neighbouring forest. The peril of such a journey, with
the Cossacks all about us and the night hawks everywhere, would have
been patent to a child, and it even amazed an old soldier like myself,
who could but marvel at such imprudence.
Was it possible that His Majesty could be about to visit the Russian
camp secretly, as so many of our brave fellows had done?
I dared for the moment to believe it, until the shape of a house
emerged suddenly from the shadows and I saw that we had come to a
considerable habitation upon the very brink of the woods. To my
astonishment this was guarded by sentinels, and no sooner were we out
of the shadows than one of them challenged us angrily.
"Salut de l'Empire," said His Majesty, advancing with a smile, and, the
man having brought his musket to the salute, we passed the gate and
entered the house.
IV
Naturally we were expected. It was evident that His Majesty would
never have gone upon such a journey if he had not known very well that
he would find a welcome at the end of it. The army hears many stories
and must listen at all times with prudent ears. We had mentioned the
name of more than one _belle fille_ since we had left Paris, and we
knew that we should mention many another before we returned there. So
you will imagine my surprise when it was not a young woman but a very
old one who greeted us upon the threshold of this remote house.
I saw she was old, but it would have puzzled a man to have guessed her
age. Shrivelled and wan, with a skin of parchment and hair of flax,
her eyes nevertheless glittered like those of a hawk, and her hands
were ablaze with diamonds of wonderful lustre. Her dress was rich, and
such as usually worn by noblewomen in Russia. She wore a silk robe
trimmed with ermine, and the most wonderful cape of the same costly fur
about her hunched shoulders. To His Majesty she was deferential beyond
compare. She welcomed him with a curtsey full of the old-time
stateliness, and to me she extended her hand to be kissed. Then she
bade us enter the salle a manger of the house, and I perceived at once
that supper was prepared there.
I have told you that it was an extensive dwelling, though built of
wood, and certainly this apartment was fine enough for anything. The
walls were everywhere hung with old French tapestry; the furniture must
have come from our own Paris. There was china of Sevres upon the
table, and that extravagant porcelain in which the East and the West
commingle and delight. Two liveried servants stood at the table's head
and bowed low as the Emperor entered. He, however, appeared but ill at
ease, and I plainly perceived that he was seeking someone whose
presence he had expected.
This whetted my curiosity. The old lady herself, setting His Majesty
at the head of her table, now sat down upon his right hand, and
motioned me to a seat beside her. Then she made a signal to the
lackeys, and instantly they began to serve us with all manner of
luxuries unlooked for in such a place, and certainly not discovered
since we had left Moscow.
The man who has lived upon horseflesh for many days is a good judge of
any kind of cooking, and I could not but think, as I sat at the table,
of that unhappy mendicant who had said to Louis XV., "Sire, how hungry
I am!" and had been answered with the quip, "Lucky devil."
To me this Was a Gargantuan feast such as had never been surpassed in
all my years.
We had the fine sturgeon in which the Russians delight, their own
caviare, excellent mutton, and chickens which were matchless, and all
washed down with the wines of Burgundy, and upon that with draughts of
our own magnificent brandy. When we had finished we were even offered
a little preserved fruit and some of the tobacco which the Russians
smoke rolled in slips of paper. His Majesty condescended to try one of
these, but made little of it, and presently it became apparent to me
that he was anxious, and that his anxiety no longer brooked the control
of silence.
"Madame," he asked without warning, "where is your daughter Kyra?"
The question had been expected, and madame lifted her wise eyes when
she heard it.
"Ah!" she exclaimed in French, "so you are anxious to speak to Kyra
again."
"Why not?" says His Majesty. "She told me many things I wished to
hear; is that not a reason?"
"And your Majesty found them true?"
For an instant the Emperor seemed to be dreaming. Then, tapping the
table lightly with his fingers, he said:
"In the main they were true. She told me that Moscow would be burned."
Madame Zchekofsky--for such I discovered the lady's name to be--feigned
great pity.
"Ah, what a dreadful thing--and so many of your poor soldiers who
suffered! Little did I think when I heard the child speak that such
wisdom was in her keeping, but so it is, as your Majesty admits."
"Most willingly. I expected to hear more of it to-night. Is your
daughter ill, or is she merely absent?"
Madame Zchekofsky shook her head.
"She is ill, sire; it is the bitter cold of this terrible winter.
Otherwise she would have been by your Majesty's side to-night."
"Ah!" cried the Emperor, with a gesture Of disappointment; "then I must
not see her?"
"I fear not. These visions are not to be encouraged, as I am sure Dr.
Constant will tell you. Those who command them suffer much afterwards.
Is it not so, doctor?"
I hardly knew how to answer her. It had come to me suddenly that this
old woman was playing with both of us, and there flashed upon me the
disquieting thought that His Majesty's life might even be in danger.
Could the Russians have laid hands upon him at such a moment and
carried him a prisoner to Petersburg, then indeed were the fortunes of
my country imperilled, and a blow struck at the Empire from which it
might never recover. Yet what was I to do? The Emperor was as good a
judge as I of the situation, and it would have been the mere effrontery
of a subordinate which would have reminded him of its dangers.
"Madame," said I, "these things do not concern men of common sense.
When I go to bed at night the only vision that I look for is that of
the morning sun. If your daughter be a prophetess, I am sorry for you
both, for it has never seemed to me a profitable occupation.
Discourage her if you can--that is my advice."
She shook her head.
"And yet you heard His Majesty say that she foretold the burning of
Moscow?"
"A guess at hazard," said I. "What is more, madame, she may have known
that your Emperor was about to burn it. These things are not done by
one or two people, but by many thousands. It is quite probable that
she should have heard of the intentions."
His Majesty smiled at this, yet the old hawk regarded me with some
malice. What her object was--whether to push the fortunes of her house
with the Emperor, or merely to advance his interest in her daughter--I
could not then imagine; but I know now that she had intended to follow
us to Paris and there to establish herself if she could.
My pessimism evidently angered her; she had looked for me to support
His Majesty in this amiable humour.
"Well," said she, rising abruptly, "it is easy to put the matter to the
proof. Kyra should not leave her room, but His Majesty may go there if
he will. He shall then tell me if it were a guess or no. Do you
desire that, sire?"
I could see that the Emperor was greatly pleased; he rose at once and
waited for her to show him the way. In that brief interval I stepped
to his side and begged to be permitted to follow him.
"A whim, if you like, sire. Perhaps I am also a prophet," said I, and
we exchanged a glance I shall never forget.
The Emperor knew that he was in peril, then. Did he also know the
nature of it? If so, he were wiser than I, who followed him merely
upon an impulse for which I could not account.
V
We mounted a wide flight of stairs and stood for an instant before a
great carved door at the head of them. The house was very silent, and
the lackeys had disappeared. I could hear the distant sounds in the
village and from the high road the rumble of cannon and the blare of
bugles. But these were fitful and easily to be explained. What I did
not like was the uncanny silence in the dwelling itself. We entered a
great ante-room on the first floor, and from that passed to a little
bedroom such as a young girl might have occupied. It was empty, but
madame knocked at the door which led from it, and, receiving no
immediate answer, we all sat down and waited in the darkness.
"The child sleeps," said the Emperor.
The old woman muttered something I could not distinguish.
"Of what nature is her illness?" His Majesty asked next.
"It has been a fever," says madame; "but she is better of that, and now
suffers only from weakness."
"In which case we must wait until she awakes. Do you not suggest a
better place than this, madame?"
Madame rose at this rebuke.
"I will go in myself," she said; but before she could take a step the
door of the adjoining room was opened and Mademoiselle Kyra herself
appeared.
Her dress was a long white robe tied with a girdle. Her hair was like
her mother's, but more silken in texture, and fell, as the hair of many
Russian women does, almost to her feet. I thought her amazingly
beautiful--by far the prettiest woman I had yet seen in this damnable
country, and, in truth, I envied His Majesty such good fortune. He,
however, seemed in no way impressed by the child's looks, but only by
her attitude, which was that of one who walked in her sleep and might
not be awakened without danger. Stepping back, with his finger on his
lips, the Emperor let the girl go slowly from the room to the great
antechamber beyond, we following upon tiptoe, as though we spied upon
this unlooked-for apparition.
For a moment I thought that Mademoiselle Kyra was about to descend the
stairs to the dining room we had left, but she crossed the landing at
the stairs head, and, opening a door upon the far side, entered another
bedroom, and from that a spacious apartment furnished like a chapel.
Here the Emperor followed her, but madame forbade me to go. I had an
instantaneous vision of a picture of the Madonna and a lamp burning
before it. Then I saw the girl stumble and appear about to fall, but
His Majesty caught her in his arms, and madame immediately closed the
door upon them.
"You can wait," she said, and, closing the door of the bedroom and
drawing a heavy curtain over it, she left me standing sentinel in that
black, dark room.
VI
It was an odd situation, I must confess.
The army is well acquainted with more than one such expedition in which
His Majesty has figured, and I was not the first officer, by many, who
had watched a house wherein he pursued an adventure of this kind.
But here the circumstances were very different.
The girl was not as other women of whom we spoke in merriment. She had
come from her apartment in sleep, and was sleeping, I believe, when she
entered the chapel. The impulse which drove His Majesty appeared to me
to be curiosity rather than love. I have heard that he was somewhat
given to omens and the occult sciences, and while pretending to be an
absolute disbeliever in them, would nevertheless lend a willing ear to
any charlatan who had a tale to tell. Mademoiselle Kyra had forewarned
him of certain happenings upon his march to Moscow, so what could be
more natural than that he should desire to hear what she had to say of
his retreat?
These thoughts were uppermost in my mind when I found myself alone in
the room. I could hear no sound whatever from the chapel, not even
that of a woman whispering. The house itself had fallen again to a
silence quite remarkable. I tried to look from the window of the
bedroom, but found it so frosted that not a thing could be seen beyond.
The old lady herself had disappeared and gone I knew not whither.
Another, perhaps, would have spied upon the Emperor, and even found a
pretext for following him into the chapel. This kind of curiosity has
never afflicted me, and all that I remembered was the continued peril
of our situation.
How if the Cossacks made a sudden dash upon Liadoui and overpowered the
sentinels at the gate!
Nothing could be easier than such an assault. We had but two regiments
of the grenadiers in the village, and they were worn to death with
marching. Indeed, I believed they were already sleeping in any bivouac
they could find. The guns were mostly a day's march ahead of us, and
we had little artillery in our train. Nothing, I said, could be looked
for as surely as a sudden descent of the Cossacks upon any house in
which they might imagine the Emperor to be sleeping. So you will
understand my sense of responsibility and the keen ear I leant to any
sounds from without.
The silence of the night seemed, indeed, almost unnatural. I began to
be affrighted by it. What was odd was the length of time His Majesty
was closeted in the dark chapel. It is true that I heard the sound of
voices when a little while had passed, and that a busy murmur of talk
went on at intervals for a full hour. Then for a spell again there was
silence, and it was during that interval that I first heard the alarm
from without.
There were horsemen approaching the village. My trained ear told me
the truth in an instant, and bending it to the glass, I made sure that
I was not mistaken. Horsemen, I said, were riding across the frozen
snow, either towards Liadoui or to Madame Zchekofsky's dwelling. No
sooner was the opinion formed than the cry of a dying man confirmed it.
Someone had sabred or bayoneted the sentry at the gate. There is no
mistaking that awful cry which a man utters when he realises that he
has lived his life and that the steel within him has reached his heart.
I knew it too well, and, springing back at the sound, I ran to the
chapel doors and beat heavily upon them.
"Your Majesty," I cried, "for God's sake!"
The door was locked, but someone opened it instantly, and there stood
Mademoiselle Kyra and the Emperor by her side. She was wide awake now
and a look of terror had come upon her pretty face.
"I beg you to go," she said to him.
For answer he stepped out into the bedroom and asked me what was the
matter.
"The Cossacks are here," I cried; "they have killed the sentinel. Your
Majesty must not delay."
Napoleon Bonaparte was no coward, as all the world knows, and he heard
me almost with nonchalance.
"Are you quite sure?" he asked.
I told him that there was no doubt of it.
"Listen for yourself, sire," said I; "they are entering the house."
He shrugged his shoulders and turned to Mademoiselle Kyra.
"Is there a way out by the chapel?" he asked her.
Her affrighted eyes answered him.
"You will have to return by the great staircase," said she; and at that
he smiled, for we could hear already the tramp of many feet upon it.
"That is a pity," says he now. "Major Constant must see what they
want."
Then, speaking very earnestly to me, he exclaimed: "I count upon your
devotion, major; do what you can." And instantly he re-entered the
chapel, and I drew the curtain across its doors.
There was now, I suppose, an interval of ten good seconds in which I
had an opportunity to think. Two alternatives faced me--I might either
draw my sword and meet the men as they entered, or feign fraternity and
so try to disarm their suspicions. The latter course occurred to me as
the wiser, and without a moment's hesitation I sprang upon the bed and
drew the heavy counterpane over my shoulders. The thing was hardly
done when the door burst open and some ten men entered the room. They
were Cossacks of the Guard, and every man had his sword drawn.
VII
I know little of the Russian tongue, but the few words that I have were
sufficient to tell me that the first cry uttered by the leader of the
men was for light. This was echoed down the stairs, and presently
there came a sergeant with a lantern and another behind him with a wax
candle in his hand.
I had not moved during the interval, and I lay still yet a little
while. The fellows began to peer about immediately, and of course they
soon discovered me upon the bed. Then, truly, I thought that I had not
a minute to live. There were the barbarians, savage as it seemed in
the lust of blood. There was I as helpless as a bullock at the
slaughter. They had but to cut and thrust, and the story of
Surgeon-Major Constant would have been written for all time. You may
imagine how my heart beat while I waited to feel the prick of the steel
and wondered how death in such a shape would come.
To a man so placed delay is but an agony anew. I could have prayed
that they would strike swiftly, and when they did not strike I laughed
aloud like a woman grown hysterical.
God in heaven, how I laughed! Sitting up in the bed and watching that
ring of steel, no hyena in the wilderness uttered such sounds as I.
The best joke that was ever told could never have moved me as that
perilous situation. Not for my life, not even for the life of His
Majesty, was I acting thus; nay, if a man had offered me ten thousand
golden pieces to have recovered my serenity, the money would have been
lost for ever.
Well, the effect upon the Cossacks was amazing. I have never had a
doubt that the first of the band had already raised his sabre to thrust
me through when this weird fit overtook me. The wonder of it held his
hand and left him powerless. He stood there looking at me as though he
had come suddenly upon a madman. Possibly I laughed, as men will at
times, with an air which is infectious, compelling others to take up
the catch, and certainly depriving them of their anger. Be that as it
may, there were fellows laughing in that bedroom before I had done, and
anon the whole company roared aloud with me. Such a thing was like a
sudden vision of life to a man whom death had held by both hands. In a
twinkling I had got my courage back, and what was but an ailment had
become a stratagem. If laughter could save the Emperor, then was I the
man. Soon I began to sing the "Ram, ram, ram, ram, plan, tire-lire ram
plan," and shouted it with all my lungs and danced a step before them.
They in their turn clapped me on the back with their sabres and cried
for drink.
"You will find it in the salle a manger," said I, speaking to one of
them in French, and then, opening my mouth and making the sign of a man
drinking, I caught the fellow by the arm and dragged him down the
stairs. The others followed like sheep that would go into a fold. We
were all drinking about the table in less than no time, and an hour had
not run before the whole troop of them were as drunk as sailors at
Toulon.
I say they were drunk, but a man must have been in Russia to know how
very drunk they were.
This was no mere rollicking, no shouting of songs or bawling of
catches, but right-down deep drinking, and upon that a stupor which
bore a very good likeness to death. I watched them tumbling to the
floor one by one, and, spurning their bodies aside with my foot, I
remembered His Majesty and went back to him. He was still standing at
the stairs head where I had left him, and Mademoiselle Kyra was still
by his side.
"Well," says he; and I told him at a breath.
"There's an end of this until daybreak," said I. "Your Majesty can go
now."
He did not speak, leaving it to the girl, who went slowly to the window
and, opening it a little way, looked out across the field of snow.
Then she shut the casement quickly and came back to us.
"They are watching the house," she said quietly. "It is as I thought.
They know your Majesty is here, and are waiting for you."
"Then let them find me instead," said I immediately, and, stepping up
to the Emperor, I begged the loan of his cloak and cocked hat. "You
will find mine a little large, but they will serve, sire," said I. "If
I draw off the troop, well and good. If not, your Majesty may yet find
a way."
He looked at me in his own way, as one whom danger amused rather than
dismayed.
"I will send a regiment of hussars to bring you back," he exclaimed,
pinching my ear as he was wont to do when pleased. Then he handed me
his cloak and cocked hat and I donned them as though the joke were
entirely to my liking. For all that, I knew very well what I was
doing, and I would not have valued my life at a lira's purchase when I
left him at the stairs head and went down.
Mademoiselle stood by his side then, and they were deep in talk. I
might have said that I was forgotten already, and that may have been
true enough. Men have died for Napoleon Bonaparte, knowing well that
their very names would be unremembered when the sun rose again. Others
will imitate them, for such is the spirit his gifts of kingship have
inspired.
* * * * *
It was the dead of night when I went out, and not a sign of the old
hag. I believed then that she had betrayed us, and had I met her that
would have been the last hour she had lived. But, as I say, she had
clean vanished, and the only lackey visible was dead asleep by the
stove in the hall. Very softly now I pushed open the outer doors and
looked about me. The spectacle was wonderfully beautiful, but as
menacing as it was glorious. A great full moon shone down upon a scene
that should have stood in a magic land. Earth and sky alike were aglow
with the entrancing lights of winter made magnificent. The cold was
intense beyond belief: the frost made a diamond of every pebble the
foot crushed. And upon it all was the stillness of God's death.... the
silence of a land which an Eastern winter had shrouded.
Thus for the beauty of the scene. The menace was no less remarkable.
There, frosted already, were the corpses of the sentinels the Russians
had murdered. To reach the open I must step over the prone figures of
brother Frenchmen and look into their staring eyes. The shudder was
still upon me when I heard a cry of savage triumph, and knew that the
Cossacks were upon me. The troop which Mademoiselle Kyra had seen from
the window rode out of the shadows even as I crossed the threshold.
They fell upon me as wolves upon a carcass, and no fowl was trussed as
surely while a man could have counted twenty.
VIII
Imagine the exultation of these men, who believed that they had
captured the greatest of Frenchmen, living or dead, and were carrying
him to their general.
The first transports passed, their sense of prudence returned to them,
and with it a deference which should have won laughter from a log! The
Emperor of the French a prisoner in their hands! Heaven above me, how
they bowed and capered! What antics they cut! Never had a man such
slaves at his feet. I was set upon a horse immediately, and had a
guard at the head and tail of him. The officer saluted until his arm
must have been weary. He had caught the Emperor--what a night!
Our way lay over the snows to the Cossack camp upon the far side.
Behind me there shone the lights of the house I had quitted, bright
stars beyond a frozen sea. I knew that the next hour would find me in
the Russian general's tent, and that my shrift must be short. What
mattered the regiment of hussars the Emperor was to send? My body
would be frozen on the snows before they could ride out.
Upon this there fell an apathy difficult to understand.
We had suffered so much during those terrible days--hunger and thirst,
and blood and wounds--that any man might have opened his arms to death
as to a friend. And here was the end of it for me. What mattered it?
In a vision, I beheld the lights of my own France, the home which
sheltered all dear to me, the land towards which my eyes had been
lifted these many weeks. Never again might I look upon that smiling
country. Night and the unknown were my portion. There would be few to
remember my name to-morrow.
From such thoughts a reality most absurd awoke me.
I have set down this narrative of events as I lived and knew them, and
have kept nothing from you, that you may judge of things, not as we
look for them, but as an unromantic destiny determines that they shall
be.
I say that I awoke with a start, believing myself to be upon a horse
and at the very threshold of the Russian camp. Depict my astonishment
when, opening my eyes, I beheld again madame's salle a manger, the
tables spread with meat and drink, the forms of the intoxicated
Russians on the floor all about me, and above them the red coats of our
own Hussars of the Guard! For an instant I believed that the witch in
ermine had cast a spell upon me, and that this was but a vision of her
enchantment. Then the merry laughter of my own comrades disillusioned
me and I staggered, dizzy and dumbfounded, to my feet.
"Name of a dog," I cried to them, "and what does this mean?"
They answered me with a merriment which became a shout.
"It means that the liquor was very good and that you got very drunk,"
says their captain, clapping me on the shoulder ... and at him I stared
all bewildered.
"Drunk!" I cried. "You say that I was drunk!"
"Undoubtedly.... His Majesty told us to take care of you...."
"Then he is not here?" I exclaimed in wonder.
"He is already six leagues on the road to Wilna," was the answer. A
child might have put me over at that. I clapped my hands to my fevered
brow and began to believe them. Drunk I had been ... but by drink had
I saved the Emperor's life.
And I had done him an injustice in my dream. He has not forgotten, as
I knew full well.
IX
You will see how it all happened, and will need no further words from
me.
Taking the Cossacks down to madame's salle a manger to keep them from
the Emperor, I also had been overpowered by their cursed liquor, and
had fallen under the table with the rest of them. There I dreamed of
Russian camps, and France, and death, and all the nonsense of it, and
there I awoke to find our own Red Hussars in possession of the
dwelling. How they laughed at me! Yet what music their laughter
proved to be!
As to old Madame Zchekofsky, I veritably believe that she played a
double part that night with all a woman's cunning. Desiring the
Emperor's friendship, she encouraged his belief in her daughter's power
of prophecy, at the same time trying to keep in with the Russians by
informing them of our presence in the house at a moment when she
believed we would already have left it. Thus her anxiety and that
disquiet I had observed with such misgiving.
I saw her in Paris in the memorable year 1815, and her daughter was
with her. Naturally my nephew Leon desired to know so mysterious a
personage, and I fancy she found his gifts of prophecy not less
considerable than her own. This, however, was long after the terrible
weeks when so many thousands of brave Frenchmen left their bones upon
the snows of Russia because the Emperor had willed it.