THE EMPEROR EATS AND RIDES
Sézanne was a scene of the wildest confusion that night. It was
congested with troops and more and more were arriving every minute.
They entered the town in fearful condition. They had been weary and
ragged and naked before. Now they were in a state of extreme
prostration; wet, cold, covered with mud. The roads were blocked with
mired artillery, the guns were sunk into the mud to the hubs, the tired
horses could no longer move them. The woods on either side were full
of stragglers, many of whom had dropped down on the wet ground and
slept the sleep of complete exhaustion. Some, indeed, sick and
helpless, died where they lay. Everything eatable and drinkable in
Sézanne had vanished as a green field before a swarm of locusts when
Marmont's division had come through some hours before.
The town boasted a little square or open space in the midst. A huge
fire was burning in the center of this open space. A cordon of
grenadiers kept the ground about the fire clear of stragglers.
Suddenly the Emperor rode into the midst. He was followed by a wet,
cold, mud-spattered, bedraggled staff, all of them unutterably weary.
Intense resolution blazed in the Emperor's eyes. He had had nothing to
eat or drink since morning, but that ancient bodily vigor, that
wonderful power of endurance, which had stood him in such good stead in
days gone by, seemed to have come back to him now. He was all fire and
energy and determination. So soon as his presence was known, couriers
reported to him. Many of them he stopped with questions.
"The convoy of arms, provisions, powder," he snapped out to an officer
of Marmont's division approaching him, "which was to meet us here.
Have you seen it?"
"It has not appeared, Sire."
"Has anything been heard of it?"
"Nothing yet, your Majesty."
"Have you scouted for it, sent out parties to find it? Where is the
Comte de Grouchy?"
"I come from him, Sire. He is ahead of the Duke of Ragusa's corps."
"Has he come in touch with the enemy?"
"Not yet, Sire."
"The roads?"
"Worse than those we have passed over."
"Marshal Marmont?"
"I was ordered by General Grouchy to report to him and then----"
"Well, sir?"
"He sent me back here."
"For what purpose?"
"To find you, Sire, and to say to you most respectfully from the
Marshal that the roads are absolutely impassable. He has put four
teams to a gun and can scarcely move them. To advance is impossible.
He but awaits your order to retrace his steps."
"Retrace his steps!" shouted Napoleon, raising his voice. "Never! He
must go on. Our only hope, our only chance, salvation lies in an
instant advance. He knows that as well as I."
"But the guns, Sire?"
"Abandon the guns if necessary. We'll take what cannon we need from
the enemy."
And that admission evidenced the force with which the Emperor held his
convictions as to the present movement. Great, indeed, was the
necessity which would induce Napoleon to order the abandonment of a
single gun.
"But, Sire----"
"Monsieur," said Napoleon severely, "you are a young officer, although
you wear the insignia of a Colonel. Know that I am not accustomed to
have my commands questioned by anyone. You will return to Marshal
Marmont at once. Exchange your tired horse for one of my own. I still
have a fresh one, I believe. And spare him not. Tell the Duc de
Ragusa that he must advance at all hazards. Advance with the guns if
he can, if not then without them. Stay, as for the guns---- Where is
the Mayor of the town?"
"Here, Sire," answered a plain, simple man in civilian's dress standing
near.
"Are there any horses left in the countryside, monsieur?"
"Many, your Majesty, wherever the Russians have not passed."
"I thought so. Gentlemen," the Emperor turned to his staff, "ride in
every direction. Take the mounted escort. Bid them scatter. Go to
every village and farm. Ask my good French people to bring their
horses in, to lend them to the Emperor. It is for France. I strike
the last blow for them, their homes, their wives and children. Fortune
smiles upon us. The enemy is delivered into our hands. They shall be
liberally rewarded."
"The men are hungry," cried a voice from a dark group of officers in
the background.
"They are weary," exclaimed another, under cover of the darkness.
"Who spoke?" asked the Emperor, but he did not wait for an answer,
perhaps he did not care for one. "I, too, am hungry, I, your Emperor,
and I am weary. I have eaten nothing and have ridden the day long.
There is bread, there are guns in the Field-Marshal's army. We shall
take from Blücher all that we need. Then we can rest. You hear?"
"We hear, Sire."
"Good. Whose division is yonder?"
"Mine, Sire," answered Marshal Ney, riding up and saluting.
"Ah, Prince," said Napoleon, riding over toward him. "Michael," he
added familiarly as he drew nearer, "I am confident that the Prussians
have no idea that we are nearer than Troyes to them. We must get
forward with what we can at once and fall on them before they learn of
our arrival and concentrate. We must move swiftly."
"To-morrow," suggested Ney.
"To-night."
"The conscripts of my young guard are in a state of great exhaustion
and depression. If they could have the night to rest in----"
Napoleon shook his head.
"Advance with those who can march," he said decisively. "We must fall
on Blücher in the morning or we are lost."
"Impossible!" ejaculated Ney.
"I banished that word from my vocabulary when I first went into Italy,"
said Napoleon. "Where are your troops?"
"Here, your Majesty," answered Ney, turning, pointing back to dark
huddled ranks drooping over their muskets at parade rest.
Napoleon wheeled his horse and trotted over to them. The iron hand of
Ney had kept some sort of discipline and some sort of organization, but
the distress and dismay of the conscripts was but too plainly evident.
"My friends," said the Emperor, raising his voice, "you are hungry----"
a dull murmur of acquiescence came from the battalion--"you are weary
and cold----" a louder murmur--"you are discouraged----" silence.
"Some of you have no arms. You would fain rest. Well I, your Emperor,
am weary, I am hungry, I am old enough to be the father of most of you
and I am wet and cold. But we must forget those things. You wonder
why I have marched you all the day and most of the night through the
cold and the wet and the mud. The Prussians are in front of us. They
are drawn out in long widely separated columns. They have no idea that
we are near them. One more effort, one more march, and we shall fall
upon them. We shall pierce their lines, cut them to pieces, beat them
in detail; we shall seize their camps, their guns, their clothes, their
food. We shall take back the plunder they have gathered as they have
ravaged France. They have stolen and destroyed and murdered--you have
seen it. One more march, one more battle for----" he hesitated a
moment--"for me," he said with magnificent egotism and audacity. "I
have not forgotten how to lead, nor you to follow. We will show them
that at the great game of war we are still master players. Come, if
there be one too weary to walk, he shall have his Emperor's horse and I
will march afoot as I have often done for France."
He spoke with all his old force and power. The tremendous personal
magnetism of the man was never more apparent. The young men of Ney's
corps thrilled to the splendid appeal. There was something
fascinating, alluring in the picture. They hated the Prussians. They
had seen the devastated fields, the dead men and women, the ruined
farms. The light from the fire played mystically about the great
Emperor on his white horse. He seemed to them like a demi-god. There
were a few old soldiers in the battalion. The habit of years was upon
them.
"_Vive l'Empereur_," one veteran shouted.
Another caught it up and finally the whole division roared out that
frightful and thrilling battle cry in unison.
"That's well," said the Emperor, a little color coming into his face.
"If the lads are of this mettle, what may I expect of the old soldiers
of the guard?"
"Forward! Forward!" shouted a beardless boy in one of the front ranks.
"You hear, Marshal Ney?" said Napoleon, turning to his fighting
Captain. "With such soldiers as these I can go anywhere and do
anything."
"Your Majesty," cried a staff officer, riding up at a gallop, "the
peasants are bringing their horses in. There is a section of country
to the eastward which has not yet been ridden over by the enemy."
"Good," said the Emperor. "As fast as they come up dispatch them to
Marmont. You will find me there by the fire in the square for the next
hour. Meanwhile I want the next brigade of horse that reaches Sézanne
to be directed to scout in the direction of Aumenier for that missing
wagon-train for which we----"
There was a sudden confusion on the edge of the line. The grenadiers
forming a circle around the fire had caught a man wearing a Russian
greatcoat and were dragging him into the light.
"What's this? _Mon Dieu_!" exclaimed Napoleon, recognizing the green
uniform which he had seen on many a battlefield. "A Russian! Here!"
"A soldier of France, Sire," came the astonishing answer in excellent
French from the supposed prisoner.
At this amazing remark in their own tongue the bewildered grenadiers on
guard released him. He tore off the green cap and dashed it to the
ground.
"Give me a shako. Let me feel the bearskin of the guard again," he
cried impetuously, as his hands ripped open his overcoat, disclosing
his uniform. "I am a grenadier of the line, Sire."
Napoleon peered down at him.
"Ah," he said, "I know you. You are called----"
"Bal-Arrêt, your Majesty."
"Exactly. Have you stopped any more this time?"
"There is one in my left arm. Your guards hurt when they grasped it.
But it is nothing. I didn't come here to speak of bullets, but of----"
"What?"
"The Russians, the Prussians."
"Where did you get that coat and cap?"
"I rode with Jean Marteau," answered the grenadier, greatly excited.
"What of him? Is he alive?"
"I think so."
"Did you leave him?"
"I did, Sire."
"And why?"
"To bring you news."
"Of Marshal Blücher's armies?"
The grenadier nodded his head.
"What of them? Quick man, your tidings? Have you been among them?"
"All day long."
"Where are they?"
"General Yorck with his men is at Étampes."
"And Macdonald?"
"Fighting a rearguard action beyond Château-Thierry."
"On what side of the Marne?"
"The north side, Sire. Right at La Ferte-sous-Jouarre."
"What else?"
"Sacken's Russians are advancing along the main road through Montmirail
toward Paris. Olusuvieff's Russian division is at Champaubert."
"And where are Blücher and Wittgenstein and Wrede?"
"Major Marteau will have to tell you that, Sire. He went that way."
"You separated?"
"Yes, Sire."
"You were to meet somewhere?"
"At the Château d'Aumenier."
"Did you go there?"
"I did, Sire."
"And you found?"
"The ground around the château filled with wagons."
"A train?"
"Of arms, clothing, ammunition, everything the army lacks."
"What was it doing there?"
"There had been a battle. Horses and men were slain; Frenchmen,
Cossacks, Russians. I pillaged one wagon," continued the grenadier.
He drew forth from the pocket of the coat a bottle and a handful of
hard bread, together with what remained of the roast pig.
"Will you share your meal with a brother soldier?" asked the Emperor,
who was ordinarily the most fastidious of mortals, but who could on
occasion assume the manner of the rudest private soldier.
"Gladly," said the proud and delighted grenadier, handing the bottle,
the bread and the meat to Napoleon, who took them and drank and ate
rapidly as he continued to question amid the approving murmurs of the
soldiers, who were so delighted to see their Emperor eat like a common
man that they quite forgot their own hunger.
"What were the wagons doing there unguarded?"
"I think the men who captured the train were pursuing its guard. Just
as I approached the chateau they came riding back. I remained quiet,
watching them ride up to the door of the house, which they found barred
apparently, for I could hear them beat on it with the butts of their
sabers and pistols. They built a fire and suddenly I heard shots. By
the light I could see Russians falling. It came into my mind that
Major Marteau had seized the castle and was holding it."
"Alone?"
"One soldier of yours, Sire, ought to be able to hold his own against a
thousand Russians, especially inside a castle wall."
"And what did you then?"
"I made ready my pistol, Sire, and when I saw a man climbing the wall
to get in an open window I shot him."
"And then?"
"They ran after me, fired at me but I escaped in the darkness."
"You ran?"
"Because I knew that you must have the news and as Marteau was there it
was necessary for me to bring it."
"You have done well," said the Emperor in great satisfaction. "I thank
you for your tidings and your meal. I have never tasted a better. Do
you wish to go to the rear?"
"For a scratch in the arm?" asked old Bullet-Stopper scornfully. "I,
who have carried balls in my breast and have some there now?"
"I like your spirit," said the Emperor, "and I will----"
At this instant a staff officer rode up.
"General Maurice's cavalry is just arriving, Sire," he said.
"Good," said the Emperor. "The brave light-horseman! My sword hand!
I will ride with him myself. Tell the Comte de Vivonne to lead his
division toward Aumenier, I will join him at once." He turned to those
of his staff who remained in the square. "Remain here, gentlemen.
Tell the arriving troops that at daybreak we shall beat the Russians at
Champaubert. Bid them hasten if they would take part in the victory
and the plunder. The rest will be easy."
"And you, Sire?"
"I ride with the cavalry brigade to Aumenier. Tell the men that the
wagon-train has arrived. We shall seize it. Food, arms, will be
distributed in the morning. Is that you, Maurice?" he continued, as a
gallant young general officer attended by a few aides rode up.
"At your service, Sire," answered a gay voice.
"Your cavalry?"
"Weary but ready to follow the Emperor anywhere."
"Forward, then. There is food and drink at the end of our ride. It is
but a few miles to Aumenier."
"May I have a horse and go with you, Sire?" asked the old grenadier.
"Assuredly. See that he gets one and a Cross of the Legion of Honor,
too. Come, gentlemen," continued the Emperor, putting spurs to his
tired horse.