In the midst of such thoughts, day broke. Nothing was stirring yet,
and Zebede said:
"What a chance for us, if the enemy should fear to attack us!"
The officers spoke of an armistice; but suddenly about nine o'clock,
our couriers came galloping in, crying that the enemy was moving his
whole line down upon us, and directly after we heard cannon on our
right, along the Elster. We were already under arms, and set out
across the fields toward the Partha to return to Schoenfeld. The
battle had begun.
On the hills overlooking the river, two or three divisions, with
batteries in the intervals, and cannon at the flanks, awaited the
enemy's approach; beyond, over the points of their bayonets, we could
see the Prussians, the Swedes, and the Russians, advancing on all sides
in deep, never-ending masses. Shortly after, we took our place in
line, between two hills, and then we saw five or six thousand Prussians
crossing the river, and all together shouting, "_Vaterland!
Vaterland!_" This caused a tremendous tumult, like that of clouds of
rooks flying north.
At the same instant the musketry opened from both sides of the river.
The valley through which the Partha flows was filled with smoke; the
Prussians were already upon us--we could see their furious eyes and
wild looks; they seemed like savage beasts rushing down on us. Then
but one shout of "_Vive l'Empereur!_" smote the sky and we dashed
forward. The shock was terrible; thousands of bayonets crossed; we
drove them back, were ourselves driven back; muskets were clubbed; the
opposing ranks were confounded and mingled in one mass; the fallen were
trampled upon, while the thunder of artillery, the whistling of
bullets, and the thick white smoke enclosing all, made the valley seem
the pit of hell, peopled by contending demons. Despair urged us, and
the wish to revenge our deaths before yielding up our lives. The pride
of boasting that they once defeated Napoleon incited the Prussians; for
they are the proudest of men, and their victories at Gross-Beeren and
Katzbach had made them fools. But the river swept away them and their
pride! Three times they crossed and rushed at us. We were indeed
forced back by the shock of their numbers, and how they shouted then!
They seemed to wish to devour us. Their officers, waving their swords
in the air, cried, "_Vorwaertz! Vorwaertz!_" and all advanced like a
wall, with the greatest courage--that we cannot deny. Our cannon
opened huge gaps in their lines; still they pressed on; but at the top
of the hill we charged again, and drove them to the river. We would
have massacred them to a man, were it not for one of their batteries
before Mockern, which enfiladed us and forced us to give up the pursuit.
This lasted until two o'clock; half our officers were killed or
wounded; the colonel, Lorain, was among the first, and the commandant,
Gemeau, the latter; all along the river side were heaps of dead, or
wounded men crawling away from the struggle. Some, furious, would rise
to their knees to fire a last shot or deliver a final bayonet-thrust.
Never was anything seen like it. In the river floated long lines of
corpses, some showing their faces, others their backs, others their
feet. They followed each other like rafts of wood, and no one paid the
least attention to the sight--no one of us knew that the same might not
be his condition at any minute.
[Illustration: In the river the dead were floating by in files.]
The carnage reached from Schoenfeld to Grossdorf, along the Partha.
At length the Swedes and Prussians ceased their attacks, and started
farther up the river to turn our position, and masses of Russians came
to occupy the places they had left.
The Russians formed in two columns, and descended to the valley, with
shouldered arms, in admirable order. Twice they assailed us with the
greatest bravery, but without uttering wild beasts' cries, like the
Prussians. Their cavalry attempted to carry the old bridge above
Schoenfeld, and the cannonade increased. On all sides, as far as eye
could reach, we saw only the enemy massing their forces, and when we
had repulsed one of their columns, another of fresh men took its place.
The fight had ever to be fought over again.
Between two and three o'clock, we learned that the Swedes and the
Prussian cavalry had crossed the river above Grossdorf, and were about
to take us in the rear, a mode which pleased them much better than
fighting face to face. Marshal Ney immediately changed front, throwing
his right wing to the rear. Our division still remained supported on
Schoenfeld, but all the others retired from the Partha, to stretch
along the plain, and the entire army formed but one line around Leipzig.
The Russians, behind the road to Mockern, prepared for a third attack
toward three o'clock; our officers were making new dispositions to
receive them; when a sort of shudder ran from one end of our lines to
the other, and in a few moments all knew that the sixteen thousand
Saxons and the Wurtemberg cavalry, in our very centre, had passed over
to the enemy, and that on their way they had the infamy to turn the
forty guns they carried with them, on their old brothers-in-arms of
Durutte's division.
This treason, instead of discouraging us, so added to our fury, that if
we had been allowed, we would have crossed the river to massacre them.
They say that they were defending their country. It is false! They
had only to have left us on the Duben road; why did they not go then?
They might have done like the Bavarians and quitted us before the
battle; they might have remained neutral--might have refused to serve;
but they deserted us only because fortune was against us. If they knew
we were going to win, they would have continued our very good friends,
so that they might have their share of the spoil or glory--as after
Jena and Friedland. This is what every one thought, and it is why
those Saxons are, and will ever remain, traitors: not only did they
abandon their friends in distress, but they murdered them, to make a
welcome with the enemy. God is just. And so great was their new
allies' scorn of them, that they divided half Saxony between themselves
after the battle. The French might well laugh at Prussian, Austrian,
and Russian gratitude.
From the time of this desertion until evening, it was a war of
vengeance that we carried on; the allies might crush us by numbers, but
they should pay dearly for their victory!
At nightfall, while two thousand pieces of artillery were thundering
together, we were attacked for the seventh time in Schoenfeld. The
Russians on one side and the Prussians on the other poured in upon us.
We defended every house. In every lane the walls crumbled beneath the
bullets, and roofs fell in on every side. There were now no shouts as
at the beginning of the battle; all were cool and pale with rage. The
officers had collected scattered muskets and cartridge-boxes, and now
loaded and fired like the men. We defended the gardens, too, and the
cemetery, where we had bivouacked, until there were more dead above
than beneath the soil. Every inch of earth cost a life.
It was night when Marshal Ney brought up a reinforcement--whence I knew
not. It was what remained of Ricard's division and Souham's Second.
The _debris_ of our regiments united, and hurled the Russians to the
other side of the old bridge, which no longer had a rail, that having
been swept away by the shot. Six twelve-pounders were posted on the
bridge and maintained a fire for one hour longer. The remainder of the
battalion, and of some others in our rear, supported the guns; and I
remember how their flashes lit up the forms of men and horses, heaped
beneath the dark arches. The sight lasted only a moment, but it was a
horrible moment indeed!
At half-past seven, masses of cavalry advanced on our left, and we saw
them whirling about two large squares, which slowly retired. Then we
received orders to retreat. Not more than two or three thousand men
remained at Schoenfeld with the six pieces of artillery. We reached
Kohlgarten without being pursued, and were to bivouac around Rendnitz.
Zebede was yet living, and, as we marched on, listening to the
cannonade, which continued, despite the darkness, along the Elster, he
said, suddenly:
"How is it that we are here, Joseph, when so many thousand others that
stood by our side are dead? It seems as if we bore charmed lives, and
could not die."