"That's good," said he, "we shall have the best soup in the battalion."
I wanted Buche to eat with us too, and the six men belonging to our
mess, who had all escaped with only bruises and scratches, consented.
Padoue, the drum-major, said, laughing, "Veterans are always veterans,
they never come empty-handed."
We looked into the kettles of the five conscripts, and winked, for they
had nothing but rice and water in them, while we had a good rich soup,
the odor of which filled the air around us.
At eight we took our breakfast with an appetite, as you can imagine.
Not even on my wedding-day did I eat a better meal, and it is a
pleasure even now to think of it. When we are old we are not so
enthusiastic about such things as when we are young, but still we
always recall them with satisfaction.
This breakfast sustained us a long time, but the poor conscripts with
only a few crumbs as it were soaked in rain water, had a hard time next
day--the 18th. We were to have a short but terrible campaign.
Though all is over now, yet I cannot think of those terrible sufferings
without emotion, or without thanking God that we escaped them. The sun
shone again and the weather was fine,--we had hardly finished our
breakfast when the drums began to beat the assembly along the whole
line.
The Prussian rear-guard had just left Sombref, and it was a question
whether we should pursue them. Some said we ought to send out the
light-horse, to pick up the prisoners. But no one paid any attention
to them,--the Emperor knew what he was doing.
But I remember that everybody was astonished notwithstanding, because
it is the custom to profit by victories. The veterans had never seen
anything like it. They thought that the Emperor was preparing some
grand stroke; that Ney had turned the enemy's line, and so forth.
Meanwhile the roll commenced and General Gerard reviewed the Fourth
corps. Our battalion had suffered most, because in the three attacks
we had always been in the front.
The Commandant Gemeau and Captain Vidal were wounded, and Captains
Gregoire and Vignot killed, seven lieutenants and second lieutenants,
and three hundred and sixty men _hors de combat_.
Zebede said that it was worse than at Montmirail, and that they would
finish us up completely before we got through.
Fortunately the fourth battalion arrived from Metz under Commandant
Delong and took our place in the line.
Captain Florentin ordered us to file off to the left, and we went back
to the village near the church, where a quantity of carts were
stationed.
We were then distributed in squads to superintend the removal of the
wounded. Several detachments of chasseurs were ordered to escort the
convoys to Fleurus as there was no room for them at Ligny; the church
was already filled with the poor fellows. We did not select those to
be removed, the surgeons did that, as we could hardly distinguish in
numbers of cases, between the living and the dead. We only laid them
on the straw in the carts.
I knew how all this was, for I was at Lutzen, and I understand what a
man suffers in recovering from a ball, or a musket-shot, or such a cut
as our cuirassiers made.
Every time I saw one of these men taken up, I thanked God that I was
not reduced to that condition, and, thinking that the same thing might
befall me, I said to myself: "You do not know how many balls and slugs
have been near you, or you would be horrified." I was astonished that
so many of us had escaped in the carnage, which had been far greater
than at Lutzen or even at Leipzig. The battle had only lasted five
hours, and the dead in many places were piled two or three feet deep.
The blood flowed from under them in streams. Through the principal
street where the artillery went, the mud was red with blood, and the
mud itself was crushed flesh and bones.
It is necessary to tell you this, in order that the young men may
understand. I shall fight no more, thank God, I am too old, but all
these young men who think of nothing but war, instead of being
industrious and helping their aged parents, should know how the
soldiers are treated. Let them imagine what the poor fellows who have
done their duty think, as they lie in the street, wanting an arm or a
leg, and hear the cannon, weighing twelve or fifteen thousand pounds,
coming with their big well-shod horses, plunging and neighing.
Then it is that they will recall their old parents who embraced them in
their own village, while they went off saying:
"I am going, but I shall return with the cross of honor, and with my
epaulettes."
Yes, indeed! if they could weep and ask God's pardon, we should hear
their cries and complaints, but there is no time for that; the cannon
and the caissons with their freight of bombs and bullets arrive--and
they can hear their own bones crack beforehand--and all pass right over
their bodies, just as they do through the mud.
When we are old, and think that such horrible things may happen to the
children we love, we feel as if we would part with the last sou before
we would allow them to go.
But all this does no good, bad men cannot be changed, while good ones
must do their duty, and if misfortune comes, their confidence in the
justice of God remains. Such men do not destroy their fellows from the
love of glory, they are forced to do so, they have nothing with which
to reproach themselves, they defend their own lives and the blood which
is shed is not on their hands.
But I must finish my story of the battle and the removal of the wounded.
I saw sights there which are incredible; men killed in a moment of
fury, whose faces had not lost their horrible expression, still held
their muskets in their hands and stood upright against the walls, and
you could almost hear them cry, as they stared with glazed eyes, "To
the bayonet! No quarter!"
It was with this thought and this cry that they appeared before God.
He was awaiting them, and He may have said to them, "Here am I. Thou
killest thy brethren--thou givest no quarter? None shall be given
thee!"
I have seen others mortally wounded strangling each other. At Fleurus
we were obliged to separate the French and the Prussians, because they
would rise from their beds, or their bundles of straw, to tear each
other to pieces. Ah! war! those who wish for it, and those who make
men like ferocious beasts, will have a terrible account to settle above.