To give any kind of description of the horrors of the retreat of the
Grande Armée is very far from the intention of the writer of this
history; the theme is both unpleasant and threadbare. An incident or two
will suffice.
Louise, marching with her regiment, which formed a portion of Marshal
Ney's command, walked with her companions into an ambush of desperate
Cossacks, who rode tumultuously into the midst of the French ranks from
the shelter of a belt of pine forest, freely dealing death and wounds
before they were driven back by their spirited opponents. Louise was
knocked down by a small Cossack pony and trodden upon by more than
one of its companions, the great majority of which, however, adroitly
avoided stepping upon her; for the little Cossack horse hates to plant
his foot upon a recumbent human form and displays marvellous ingenuity
in avoiding so sacrilegious an act.
Louise lay a while unconscious. When she recovered her senses and sat up
her companions had already moved forward and were out of sight, all but
the grim lines of dead men and a few wounded fellows who sat or lay and
conversed.
"_Sapristi!_" said Louise, "I don't think I am very badly hurt. Can you
stand and walk, any of you? I have a mind to move on."
Most of those about her replied that they preferred to remain and
chance being picked up by the ambulances. "The Marshal himself is still
behind," one said; "he will make dispositions for us."
One or two attempted to stand and move forward with Louise, but soon
found that the exertion was too much for them. Louise hastened forward
alone. Her head ached terribly and she felt pain in her breast,
doubtless the result of being trodden upon or kicked by a passing horse.
For the rest she was unwounded.
For a mile she trudged forward, hoping to catch sight of the regiment.
This she presently did, but hurrying onward, in order to gain ground
upon them, she suddenly became aware that her head swam; she reeled,
went on a few paces and sat down.
"I cannot," she muttered; "I am fainting."
There was a deserted village close at hand, and Louise presently
contrived to struggle onward as far as the nearest hut, which she
entered. The single room was dirty and smoky, the air foetid and
horrible, but Louise felt that she had reached paradise; she was cold
and ill and miserable; she sank upon the floor with her back to the
stove, which was still warm, and prepared to sleep.
"It is a risk, I know," she told herself, "for the peasants may return
at any moment, but I must sleep or die. Mercy of Heaven, what a pain is
in my breast!" She tore open her military tunic and bared her bosom; it
was badly bruised but not actually wounded. "It is nothing. _Mon Dieu_,
I must sleep this moment," Louise murmured.
Automatically pulling together the clothes which she had torn apart the
weary girl fell fast asleep with the task half accomplished.
Half an hour later a dozen peasants and some women crept back to the
village, having hidden themselves at the approach of the French soldiers
in the early afternoon. It was now dusk. A man and a woman entered the
hut in which Louise lay, the man entering first.
He started back upon seeing the French soldier asleep, turning towards
his wife with finger to lip.
"See," he whispered, "what lies at the stove! God is good to us--here is
an accursed Frenchman delivered into our hands! He has a rifle, a sword,
a uniform and possibly money in his pocket!" The fellow fumbled with the
axe which hung at his girdle.
"He has touched none of our things--the village has not been destroyed
or pillaged; spare the poor wretch, God will requite us," said the
woman, who gazed not without admiration at the handsome sleeping face.
"_Vzdor!_ nonsense! God will, on the contrary, punish us if we allow to
escape one of the invaders of Holy Russia. How do we know this fellow
has not helped to rob a church or to assault a woman, or to desecrate
the Holy Place in one of God's own houses? He comes from Moscow, where,
it is said, many such detestable acts were done!"
"Well, have your will, but let me first go out of sight," said the
woman, "for I am afraid of bloodshed."
A moment later the moujik rushed out of the hut to his wife, who stood
and shivered without in the cold rain which was half snow.
"Masha!" he cried, "come and see; it is a woman!"
"_Vzdor_--it cannot be; it is a soldier; you have not struck?"
"Not yet--I was startled and held my hand; there is some mystery here,
it is certainly a woman."
Masha entered the hut and stole softly towards the stove. Louise lay
breathing peacefully, her bosom, half bared, rising and falling in the
measured cadence of quiet slumber.
"Yes, it is a woman. You shall not strike, Mishka; there is certainly
mystery here; probably it is some poor soul who strives to escape more
safely by donning the uniform of a French soldier of which she has
robbed a dead man by the way. She may be a Russian maiden who has sought
her wounded lover upon the battlefield."
"My God, it may be as you say. We will let her lie. Who knows she may be
rich and will reward us. Here is her wallet, I will see if it contains
money."
The wallet contained a few silver pieces, which Mishka quickly
transferred to his own pocket. Then he added wood to the stove and the
pair ate their supper. Louise slept peacefully through it. Presently
both man and woman lay down to sleep.
"The warning bell will soon wake us if we must clear out again," Mishka
had said; "or shall one of us watch a while and afterwards the other?"
"God forbid!" exclaimed Masha, yawning; "last night there was no sleep
and the night before but an hour or two; I am tired to death."
Soon after midnight Louise awoke at the sound of running feet without.
She started up and looked about, but could see nothing in the darkness.
Some one came to the door and called out "Dmitry Vannkof--Mishka--awake
and come to the door, I have news for you".
"_Mon Dieu!_" thought Louise. "Perhaps I had better be substitute
for Dmitry Vannkof, whoever he may be, and attend to this visitor;
it is dark and I should not be seen." She was about to rise and go
to the door, when the unseen visitor continued to shout and to knock
impatiently with some hard object, probably an axe; Louise remembered
that though she had picked up much Russian during the campaign, she
was not a sufficiently good scholar to carry on a conversation without
suspicion and discovery. She therefore lay still.
"Mishka, curse you, are you drunk or dead?" roared the unseen one.
To the horror and surprise of Louise some one shuffled close beside
her on the floor, and a woman's voice said aloud: "Mishka, we are
called--awake--_séchasse idyóm, soodar_! (we're just coming, sir!)".
Mishka grunted and awoke with imprecations. "What is it?" he shouted;
"are we never to be allowed to sleep again? Who's there?"
"It is I, the Starost; the Hetman of the Mojaisk Cossacks is in the
village; we are to assemble at four in Toozof's field, bringing
pitchforks and pickaxes. There is to be an _oblava_ (battue). It is said
that the best general of all these accursed cut-throats is to pass at
daybreak; he is sleeping at Biéloy; he is to be ambushed with all his
guard; we shall not have lived in vain if we succeed in this; we shall
be three thousand Cossacks and the moujiks of twelve villages; be ready
at four and thank God meanwhile for all His mercies."
The man departed.
"By the Saints!" exclaimed Mishka, yawning; "if one were not so deadly
sleepy that would be good news. See, Masha, what we will do. I will
sleep until four, while you wake; when I have departed you shall sleep,
if you will, for a score of hours!" Masha agreed to this arrangement,
and within a minute his snoring was sonorous proof that her goodman had
wasted none of his time.
Louise lay and listened to Masha's yawning and half-uttered exclamations
of weariness. Why had these people not despatched her at sight? Had
they entered in the dark and failed to detect her? The thing was a
mystery. She felt refreshed and her head scarcely ached; Biéloy was,
she remembered, but a league away, towards Moscow. So far as she had
understood the Starost's words, it was Marshal Ney and his guards who
were to be ambushed. "I shall warn them, of course," she reflected; "but
there is no need to disturb them too soon, for Heaven knows every man of
us requires all the sleep he can get."
Poor Masha gaped and muttered for an hour; then she snored at intervals
in concert with her husband; then she fell asleep in earnest and this
time very soundly.
"Poor soul!" thought Louise; "let her sleep! We shall have one pitchfork
the less to contend with!"
Long before four o'clock she was afoot and on the way to Biéloy, having
left the worthy moujik and his wife snoring in peaceful harmony.
She reached Biéloy, a large village or _selo_, which means the principal
of a group of villages, containing the church and perhaps a shop or two.
The place was occupied by French soldiers. A picket was placed upon the
road half a mile from Biéloy and the soldiers sat and talked and laughed
over their fire. They challenged Louise, who showed herself in the
firelight and explained her errand.
"That is well," laughed a man. "I thought you must have fallen in love
with some Russian wench in Moscow and were returning to her embraces.
This we should have been obliged to prevent. Love is good when time and
opportunity serve. Think of the women of Paris, _mon brave_, they wait
for you and for me!" Louise laughed also.
"You will allow me to carry my news to the Marshal?" she said.
"_Sapristi!_ While the Marshal sleeps? My friend, cannot this danger
wait until we are all refreshed and fit to contend with it?"
"It will wait until marching time," said Louise; "especially if you will
give me food meanwhile."
"There is food to-day, and you shall share it; also there is a drink
called _kvass_, which I think the devil invented for the confusion of
human stomachs; you shall taste it and suffer pain, as I have done; what
matter! we are brought into the world to suffer and to enjoy. To-morrow
we may starve; but one day we shall reach Paris!"
At daybreak the village was astir. Marshal Ney himself rode out in the
midst of his guards and Louise was brought before him, for she had
refused to tell her tale except to his ears.
"I may as well have the advantage of my luck, if any advantage there
be!" she had told herself.
Ney listened, frowning.
"You are in luck, _mon brave_," he said. "What is your name?"
"Michel Prevost, Excellence."
"Good; you are a sergeant, I see; call yourself a lieutenant; do you
know this place the fellow referred to--the place of ambush?"
"I was myself ambushed there yesterday with my regiment, Excellence; it
is well adapted for a surprise."
"Good; you shall be guide; the surprise this time shall be to the
Cossacks and your friends with the pitchforks. If you guide us cleverly
you shall call yourself captain, though, _entre nous_, I think most of
us are more likely to need our titles for paradise than for Paris!"
On this occasion the Cossacks were caught napping and Louise came out of
her adventure with the epaulettes of a captain, which Ney bestowed upon
her with his own hands.