“Then ride hard to Marshal Grouchy, whose troops you see over yonder.
Tell him that he is to fall upon the left flank and rear of the English
while I attack them in front. Together we should crush them and not a
man escape.”
I saluted and rode off without a word, my heart dancing with joy that
such a mission should be mine. I looked at that long, solid line of red
and blue looming through the smoke of the guns, and I shook my fist at
it as I went. “We shall crush them and not a man escape.”
They were the Emperor's words, and it was I, Etienne Gerard, who was to
turn them into deeds. I burned to reach the Marshal, and for an instant
I thought of riding through the English left wing, as being the shortest
cut. I have done bolder deeds and come out safely, but I reflected that
if things went badly with me and I was taken or shot the message would
be lost and the plans of the Emperor miscarry. I passed in front of the
cavalry, therefore, past the Chasseurs, the Lancers of the Guard, the
Carabineers, the Horse Grenadiers, and, lastly, my own little rascals,
who followed me wistfully with their eyes. Beyond the cavalry the Old
Guard was standing, twelve regiments of them, all veterans of many
battles, sombre and severe, in long blue overcoats and high bearskins
from which the plumes had been removed. Each bore within the goatskin
knapsack upon his back the blue and white parade uniform which they
would use for their entry into Brussels next day. As I rode past them I
reflected that these men had never been beaten, and as I looked at
their weather-beaten faces and their stern and silent bearing, I said to
myself that they never would be beaten. Great heavens, how little could
I foresee what a few more hours would bring!
On the right of the Old Guard were the Young Guard and the 6th Corps of
Lobau, and then I passed Jacquinot's Lancers and Marbot's Hussars, who
held the extreme flank of the line. All these troops knew nothing of the
corps which was coming toward them through the wood, and their attention
was taken up in watching the battle which raged upon their left. More
than a hundred guns were thundering from each side, and the din was so
great that of all the battles which I have fought I cannot recall more
than half-a-dozen which were as noisy. I looked back over my shoulder,
and there were two brigades of Cuirassiers, English and French, pouring
down the hill together, with the sword-blades playing over them like
summer lightning. How I longed to turn Violette, and to lead my Hussars
into the thick of it! What a picture! Etienne Gerard with his back to
the battle, and a fine cavalry action raging behind him.
But duty is duty, so I rode past Marbot's vedettes and on in the
direction of the wood, passing the village of Frishermont upon my left.
In front of me lay the great wood, called the Wood of Paris, consisting
mostly of oak trees, with a few narrow paths leading through it. I
halted and listened when I reached it, but out of its gloomy depths
there came no blare of trumpet, no murmur of wheels, no tramp of horses
to mark the advance of that great column which, with my own eyes, I had
seen streaming toward it. The battle roared behind me, but in front all
was as silent as that grave in which so many brave men would shortly
sleep. The sunlight was cut off by the arches of leaves above my head,
and a heavy damp smell rose from the sodden ground. For several miles I
galloped at such a pace as few riders would care to go with roots below
and branches above. Then, at last, for the first time I caught a glimpse
of Grouchy's advance guard. Scattered parties of Hussars passed me on
either side, but some distance off, among the trees. I heard the beating
of a drum far away, and the low, dull murmur which an army makes upon
the march. Any moment I might come upon the staff and deliver my message
to Grouchy in person, for I knew well that on such a march a Marshal of
France would certainly ride with the van of his army.
Suddenly the trees thinned in front of me, and I understood with delight
that I was coming to the end of the wood, whence I could see the army
and find the Marshal.
Where the track comes out from amid the trees there is a small cabaret,
where wood-cutters and waggoners drink their wine. Outside the door of
this I reined up my horse for an instant while I took in the scene which
was before me. Some few miles away I saw a second great forest, that of
St. Lambert, out of which the Emperor had seen the troops advancing. It
was easy to see, however, why there had been so long a delay in their
leaving one wood and reaching the other, because between the two ran the
deep defile of the Lasnes, which had to be crossed. Sure enough, a long
column of troops--horse, foot, and guns--was streaming down one side of
it and swarming up the other, while the advance guard was already among
the trees on either side of me. A battery of Horse Artillery was coming
along the road, and I was about to gallop up to it and ask the officer
in command if he could tell me where I should find the Marshal, when
suddenly I observed that, though the gunners were dressed in blue,
they had not the dolman trimmed with red brandenburgs as our own
horse-gunners wear it. Amazed at the sight, I was looking at these
soldiers to left and right when a hand touched my thigh, and there was
the landlord, who had rushed from his inn.
“Madman!” he cried, “why are you here? What are you doing?”
“I am seeking Marshal Grouchy.”
“You are in the heart of the Prussian army. Turn and fly!”
“Impossible; this is Grouchy's corps.”
“How do you know?”
“Because the Emperor has said it.”
“Then the Emperor has made a terrible mistake! I tell you that a patrol
of Silesian Hussars has this instant left me. Did you not see them in
the wood?”
“I saw Hussars.”
“They are the enemy.”
“Where is Grouchy?”
“He is behind. They have passed him.”
“Then how can I go back? If I go forward I may see him yet. I must obey
my orders and find him whereever he is.”
The man reflected for an instant.
“Quick! quick!” he cried, seizing my bridle. “Do what I say and you may
yet escape. They have not observed you yet. Come with me and I will hide
you until they pass.”
Behind his house there was a low stable, and into this he thrust
Violette. Then he half led and half dragged me into the kitchen of the
inn. It was a bare, brick-floored room. A stout, red-faced woman was
cooking cutlets at the fire.
“What's the matter now?” she asked, looking with a frown from me to the
innkeeper. “Who is this you have brought in?”
“It is a French officer, Marie. We cannot let the Prussians take him.”
“Why not?”
“Why not? Sacred name of a dog, was I not myself a soldier of Napoleon?
Did I not win a musket of honour among the Velites of the Guard? Shall
I see a comrade taken before my eyes? Marie, we must save him.” But the
lady looked at me with most unfriendly eyes.
“Pierre Charras,” she said, “you will not rest until you have your house
burned over your head. Do you not understand, you blockhead, that if you
fought for Napoleon it was because Napoleon ruled Belgium? He does so no
longer. The Prussians are our allies and this is our enemy. I will have
no Frenchman in this house. Give him up!”
The innkeeper scratched his head and looked at me in despair, but it was
very evident to me that it was neither for France nor for Belgium that
this woman cared, but that it was the safety of her own house that was
nearest her heart.
“Madame,” said I, with all the dignity and assurance I could command,
“the Emperor is defeating the English, and the French army will be here
before evening. If you have used me well you will be rewarded, and if
you have denounced me you will be punished and your house will certainly
be burned by the provost-martial.”
She was shaken by this, and I hastened to complete my victory by other
methods.
“Surely,” said I, “it is impossible that anyone so beautiful can also be
hard-hearted? You will not refuse me the refuge which I need.”
She looked at my whiskers and I saw that she was softened. I took her
hand, and in two minutes we were on such terms that her husband swore
roundly that he would give me up himself if I pressed the matter
farther.
“Besides, the road is full of Prussians,” he cried.
“Quick! quick! into the loft!”
“Quick! quick! into the loft!” echoed his wife, and together they
hurried me toward a ladder which led to a trap-door in the ceiling.
There was loud knocking at the door, so you can think that it was not
long before my spurs went twinkling through the hole and the board was
dropped behind me. An instant later I heard the voices of the Germans in
the rooms below me.
The place in which I found myself was a single long attic, the ceiling
of which was formed by the roof of the house. It ran over the whole of
one side of the inn, and through the cracks in the flooring I could
look down either upon the kitchen, the sitting-room, or the bar at my
pleasure. There were no windows, but the place was in the last stage of
disrepair, and several missing slates upon the roof gave me light and
the means of observation.
The place was heaped with lumber-fodder at one end and a huge pile of
empty bottles at the other. There was no door or window save the hole
through which I had come up.
I sat upon the heap of hay for a few minutes to steady myself and to
think out my plans. It was very serious that the Prussians should arrive
upon the field of battle earlier than our reserves, but there appeared
to be only one corps of them, and a corps more or less makes little
difference to such a man as the Emperor. He could afford to give the
English all this and beat them still.
The best way in which I could serve him, since Grouchy was behind, was
to wait here until they were past, and then to resume my journey, to see
the Marshal, and to give him his orders. If he advanced upon the rear
of the English instead of following the Prussians all would be well. The
fate of France depended upon my judgment and my nerve. It was not the
first time, my friends, as you are well aware, and you know the reasons
that I had to trust that neither nerve nor judgment would ever fail me.
Certainly, the Emperor had chosen the right man for his mission. “The
prince of messengers” he had called me. I would earn my title.
It was clear that I could do nothing until the Prussians had passed, so
I spent my time in observing them. I have no love for these people, but
I am compelled to say that they kept excellent discipline, for not a man
of them entered the inn, though their lips were caked with dust and they
were ready to drop with fatigue. Those who had knocked at the door were
bearing an insensible comrade, and having left him they returned at once
to the ranks. Several others were carried in in the same fashion and
laid in the kitchen, while a young surgeon, little more than a boy,
remained behind in charge of them.
Having observed them through the cracks in the floor, I next turned my
attention to the holes in the roof, from which I had an excellent view
of all that was passing outside. The Prussian corps was still streaming
past. It was easy to see that they had made a terrible march and had
little food, for the faces of the men were ghastly, and they were
plastered from head to foot with mud from their falls upon the foul and
slippery roads. Yet, spent as they were, their spirit was excellent, and
they pushed and hauled at the gun-carriages when the wheels sank up to
the axles in the mire, and the weary horses were floundering knee-deep
unable to draw them through.
The officers rode up and down the column encouraging the more active
with words of praise, and the laggards with blows from the flat of their
swords. All the time from over the wood in front of them there came the
tremendous roar of the battle, as if all the rivers on earth had united
in one gigantic cataract, booming and crashing in a mighty fall. Like
the spray of the cataract was the long veil of smoke which rose high
over the trees.
The officers pointed to it with their swords, and with hoarse cries from
their parched lips the mud-stained men pushed onward to the battle. For
an hour I watched them pass, and I reflected that their vanguard must
have come into touch with Marbot's vedettes and that the Emperor knew
already of their coming. “You are going very fast up the road, my
friends, but you will come down it a great deal faster,” said I to
myself, and I consoled myself with the thought.
But an adventure came to break the monotony of this long wait. I was
seated beside my loophole and congratulating myself that the corps was
nearly past, and that the road would soon be clear for my journey, when
suddenly I heard a loud altercation break out in French in the kitchen.
“You shall not go!” cried a woman's voice.
“I tell you that I will!” said a man's, and there was a sound of
scuffling.
In an instant I had my eye to the crack in the floor.
There was my stout lady, like a faithful watch-dog, at the bottom of
the ladder, while the young German surgeon, white with anger, was
endeavouring to come up it.
Several of the German soldiers who had recovered from their prostration
were sitting about on the kitchen floor and watching the quarrel with
stolid, but attentive, faces.
The landlord was nowhere to be seen.
“There is no liquor there,” said the woman.
“I do not want liquor; I want hay or straw for these men to lie upon.
Why should they lie on the bricks when there is straw overhead?”
“There is no straw.”
“What is up there?”
“Empty bottles.”
“Nothing else?”
“No.”
For a moment it looked as if the surgeon would abandon his intention,
but one of the soldiers pointed up to the ceiling. I gathered from what
I could understand of his words that he could see the straw sticking
out between the planks. In vain the woman protested. Two of the soldiers
were able to get upon their feet and to drag her aside, while the young
surgeon ran up the ladder, pushed open the trap-door, and climbed into
the loft.
As he swung the door back I slipped behind it, but as luck would have
it he shut it again behind him, and there we were left standing face to
face.
Never have I seen a more astonished young man.
“A French officer!” he gasped.
“Hush!” said I, “hush! Not a word above a whisper.”