In the crush on the Place de Torcy that ensued upon the entrance of the
troops into the city Jean became separated from Maurice, and all his
attempts to find him again among the surging crowd were fruitless. It
was a piece of extreme ill-luck, for he had accepted the young man’s
invitation to go with him to his sister’s, where there would be rest
and food for them, and even the luxury of a comfortable bed. The
confusion was so great—the regiments disintegrated, no discipline, and
no officers to enforce it—that the men were free to do pretty much as
they pleased. There was plenty of time to look about them and hunt up
their commands; they would have a few hours of sleep first.
Jean in his bewilderment found himself on the viaduct of Torcy,
overlooking the broad meadows which, by the governor’s orders, had been
flooded with water from the river. Then, passing through another
archway and crossing the Pont de Meuse, he entered the old,
rampart-girt city, where, among the tall and crowded houses and the
damp, narrow streets, it seemed to him that night was descending again,
notwithstanding the increasing daylight. He could not so much as
remember the name of Maurice’s brother-in-law; he only knew that his
sister’s name was Henriette. The outlook was not encouraging; all that
kept him awake was the automatic movement of walking; he felt that he
should drop were he to stop. The indistinct ringing in his ears was the
same that is experienced by one drowning; he was only conscious of the
ceaseless onpouring of the stream of men and animals that carried him
along with it on its current. He had partaken of food at Remilly, sleep
was now his great necessity; and the same was true of the shadowy bands
that he saw flitting past him in those strange, fantastic streets. At
every moment a man would sink upon the sidewalk or tumble into a
doorway, and there would remain, as if struck by death.
Raising his eyes, Jean read upon a signboard: Avenue de la
Sous-Prefecture. At the end of the street was a monument standing in a
public garden, and at the corner of the avenue he beheld a horseman, a
chasseur d’Afrique, whose face seemed familiar to him. Was it not
Prosper, the young man from Remilly, whom he had seen in Maurice’s
company at Vouziers? Perhaps he had been sent in with dispatches. He
had dismounted, and his skeleton of a horse, so weak that he could
scarcely stand, was trying to satisfy his hunger by gnawing at the
tail-board of an army wagon that was drawn up against the curb. There
had been no forage for the animals for the last two days, and they were
literally dying of starvation. The big strong teeth rasped pitifully on
the woodwork of the wagon, while the soldier stood by and wept as he
watched the poor brute.
Jean was moving away when it occurred to him that the trooper might be
able to give him the address of Maurice’s sister. He returned, but the
other was gone, and it would have been useless to attempt to find him
in that dense throng. He was utterly disheartened, and wandering
aimlessly from street to street at last found himself again before the
Sous-Prefecture, whence he struggled onward to the Place Turenne. Here
he was comforted for an instant by catching sight of Lieutenant Rochas,
standing in front of the Hôtel de Ville with a few men of his company,
at the foot of the statue he had seen before; if he could not find his
friend he could at all events rejoin the regiment and have a tent to
sleep under. Nothing had been seen of Captain Beaudoin; doubtless he
had been swept away in the press and landed in some place far away,
while the lieutenant was endeavoring to collect his scattered men and
fruitlessly inquiring of everyone he met where division headquarters
were. As he advanced into the city, however, his numbers, instead of
increasing, dwindled. One man, with the gestures of a lunatic, entered
an inn and was seen no more. Three others were halted in front of a
grocer’s shop by a party of zouaves who had obtained possession of a
small cask of brandy; one was already lying senseless in the gutter,
while the other two tried to get away, but were too stupid and dazed to
move. Loubet and Chouteau had nudged each other with the elbow and
disappeared down a blind alley in pursuit of a fat woman with a loaf of
bread, so that all who remained with the lieutenant were Pache and
Lapoulle, with some ten or a dozen more.
Rochas was standing by the base of the bronze statue of Turenne, making
heroic efforts to keep his eyes open. When he recognized Jean he
murmured:
“Ah, is it you, corporal? Where are your men?”
Jean, by a gesture expressive in its vagueness, intimated that he did
not know, but Pache, pointing to Lapoulle, answered with tears in his
eyes:
“Here we are; there are none left but us two. The merciful Lord have
pity on our sufferings; it is too hard!”
The other, the colossus with the colossal appetite, looked hungrily at
Jean’s hands, as if to reproach them for being always empty in those
days. Perhaps, in his half-sleeping state, he had dreamed that Jean was
away at the commissary’s for rations.
“D——n the luck!” he grumbled, “we’ll have to tighten up our belts
another hole!”
Gaude, the bugler, was leaning against the iron railing, waiting for
the lieutenant’s order to sound the assembly; sleep came to him so
suddenly that he slid from his position and within a second was lying
flat on his back, unconscious. One by one they all succumbed to the
drowsy influence and snored in concert, except Sergeant Sapin alone,
who, with his little pinched nose in his small pale face, stood staring
with distended eyes at the horizon of that strange city, as if trying
to read his destiny there.
Lieutenant Rochas meantime had yielded to an irresistible impulse and
seated himself on the ground. He attempted to give an order.
“Corporal, you will—you will—”
And that was as far as he could proceed, for fatigue sealed his lips,
and like the rest he suddenly sank down and was lost in slumber.
Jean, not caring to share his comrades’ fate and pillow his head on the
hard stones, moved away; he was bent on finding a bed in which to
sleep. At a window of the Hotel of the Golden Cross, on the opposite
side of the square, he caught a glimpse of General
Bourgain-Desfeuilles, already half-undressed and on the point of
tasting the luxury of clean white sheets. Why should he be more
self-denying than the rest of them? he asked himself; why should he
suffer longer? And just then a name came to his recollection that
caused him a thrill of delight, the name of the manufacturer in whose
employment Maurice’s brother-in-law was. M. Delaherche! yes, that was
it. He accosted an old man who happened to be passing.
“Can you tell me where M. Delaherche lives?”
“In the Rue Maqua, near the corner of the Rue au Beurre; you can’t
mistake it; it is a big house, with statues in the garden.”
The old man turned away, but presently came running back. “I see you
belong to the 106th. If it is your regiment you are looking for, it
left the city by the Château, down there. I just met the colonel,
Monsieur de Vineuil; I used to know him when he lived at Mézières.”
But Jean went his way, with an angry gesture of impatience. No, no! no
sleeping on the hard ground for him, now that he was certain of finding
Maurice. And yet he could not help feeling a twinge of remorse as he
thought of the dignified old colonel, who stood fatigue so manfully in
spite of his years, sharing the sufferings of his men, with no more
luxurious shelter than his tent. He strode across the Grande Rue with
rapid steps and soon was in the midst of the tumult and uproar of the
city; there he hailed a small boy, who conducted him to the Rue Maqua.
There it was that in the last century a grand-uncle of the present
Delaherche had built the monumental structure that had remained in the
family a hundred and sixty years. There is more than one cloth factory
in Sedan that dates back to the early years of Louis XV.; enormous
piles, they are, covering as much ground as the Louvre, and with
stately facades of royal magnificence. The one in the Rue Maqua was
three stories high, and its tall windows were adorned with carvings of
severe simplicity, while the palatial courtyard in the center was
filled with grand old trees, gigantic elms that were coeval with the
building itself. In it three generations of Delaherches had amassed
comfortable fortunes for themselves. The father of Charles, the
proprietor in our time, had inherited the property from a cousin who
had died without being blessed with children, so that it was now a
younger branch that was in possession. The affairs of the house had
prospered under the father’s control, but he was something of a blade
and a roisterer, and his wife’s existence with him was not one of
unmixed happiness; the consequence of which was that the lady, when she
became a widow, not caring to see a repetition by the son of the
performances of the father, made haste to find a wife for him in the
person of a simple-minded and exceedingly devout young woman, and
subsequently kept him tied to her apron string until he had attained
the mature age of fifty and over. But no one in this transitory world
can tell what time has in store for him; when the devout young person’s
time came to leave this life Delaherche, who had known none of the joys
of youth, fell head over ears in love with a young widow of
Charleville, pretty Madame Maginot, who had been the subject of some
gossip in her day, and in the autumn preceding the events recorded in
this history had married her, in spite of all his mother’s prayers and
tears. It is proper to add that Sedan, which is very straitlaced in its
notions of propriety, has always been inclined to frown on Charleville,
the city of laughter and levity. And then again the marriage would
never have been effected but for the fact that Gilberte’s uncle was
Colonel de Vineuil, who it was supposed would soon be made a general.
This relationship and the idea that he had married into army circles
was to the cloth manufacturer a source of great delight.
That morning Delaherche, when he learned that the army was to pass
through Mouzon, had invited Weiss, his accountant, to accompany him on
that carriage ride of which we have heard Father Fouchard speak to
Maurice. Tall and stout, with a florid complexion, prominent nose and
thick lips, he was of a cheerful, sanguine temperament and had all the
French bourgeois’ boyish love for a handsome display of troops. Having
ascertained from the apothecary at Mouzon that the Emperor was at
Baybel, a farm in the vicinity, he had driven up there; had seen the
monarch, and even had been near speaking to him, an adventure of such
thrilling interest that he had talked of it incessantly ever since his
return. But what a terrible return that had been, over roads choked
with the panic-stricken fugitives from Beaumont! twenty times their
cabriolet was near being overturned into the ditch. Obstacle after
obstacle they had encountered, and it was night before the two men
reached home. The element of the tragic and unforeseen there was in the
whole business, that army that Delaherche had driven out to pass in
review and which had brought him home with it, whether he would or no,
in the mad gallop of its retreat, made him repeat again and again
during their long drive:
“I supposed it was moving on Verdun and would have given anything
rather than miss seeing it. Ah well! I have seen it now, and I am
afraid we shall see more of it in Sedan than we desire.”
The following morning he was awakened at five o’clock by the hubbub,
like the roar of water escaping from a broken dam, made by the 7th
corps as it streamed through the city; he dressed in haste and went
out, and almost the first person he set eyes on in the Place Turenne
was Captain Beaudoin. When pretty Madame Maginot was living at
Charleville the year before the captain had been one of her best
friends, and Gilberte had introduced him to her husband before they
were married. Rumor had it that the captain had abdicated his position
as first favorite and made way for the cloth merchant from motives of
delicacy, not caring to stand in the way of the great good fortune that
seemed coming to his fair friend.
“Hallo, is that you?” exclaimed Delaherche. “Good Heavens, what a state
you’re in!”
It was but too true; the dandified Beaudoin, usually so trim and
spruce, presented a sorry spectacle that morning in his soiled uniform
and with his grimy face and hands. Greatly to his disgust he had had a
party of Turcos for traveling companions, and could not explain how he
had become separated from his company. Like all the others he was ready
to drop with fatigue and hunger, but that was not what most afflicted
him; he had not been able to change his linen since leaving Rheims, and
was inconsolable.
“Just think of it!” he wailed, “those idiots, those scoundrels, lost my
baggage at Vouziers. If I ever catch them I will break every bone in
their body! And now I haven’t a thing, not a handkerchief, not a pair
of socks! Upon my word, it is enough to make one mad!”
Delaherche was for taking him home to his house forthwith, but he
resisted. No, no; he was no longer a human being, he would not frighten
people out of their wits. The manufacturer had to make solemn oath that
neither his wife nor his mother had risen yet; and besides he should
have soap, water, linen, everything he needed.
It was seven o’clock when Captain Beaudoin, having done what he could
with the means at his disposal to improve his appearance, and comforted
by the sensation of wearing under his uniform a clean shirt of his
host’s, made his appearance in the spacious, high-ceiled dining room
with its somber wainscoting. The elder Madame Delaherche was already
there, for she was always on foot at daybreak, notwithstanding she was
seventy-eight years old. Her hair was snowy white; in her long, lean
face was a nose almost preternaturally thin and sharp and a mouth that
had long since forgotten how to laugh. She rose, and with stately
politeness invited the captain to be seated before one of the cups of
_café au lait_ that stood on the table.
“But, perhaps, sir, you would prefer meat and wine after the fatigue to
which you have been subjected?”
He declined the offer, however. “A thousand thanks, madame; a little
milk, with bread and butter, will be best for me.”
At that moment a door was smartly opened and Gilberte entered the room
with outstretched hand. Delaherche must have told her who was there,
for her ordinary hour of rising was ten o’clock. She was tall, lithe of
form and well-proportioned, with an abundance of handsome black hair, a
pair of handsome black eyes, and a very rosy, wholesome complexion
withal; she had a laughing, rather free and easy way with her, and it
did not seem possible she could ever look angry. Her peignoir of beige,
embroidered with red silk, was evidently of Parisian manufacture.
“Ah, Captain,” she rapidly said, shaking hands with the young man, “how
nice of you to stop and see us, away up in this out-of-the-world
place!” But she was the first to see that she had “put her foot in it”
and laugh at her own blunder. “Oh, what a stupid thing I am! I might
know you would rather be somewhere else than at Sedan, under the
circumstances. But I am very glad to see you once more.”
She showed it; her face was bright and animated, while Madame
Delaherche, who could not have failed to hear something of the gossip
that had been current among the scandalmongers of Charleville, watched
the pair closely with her puritanical air. The captain was very
reserved in his behavior, however, manifesting nothing more than a
pleasant recollection of hospitalities previously received in the house
where he was visiting.
They had no more than sat down at table than Delaherche, burning to
relieve himself of the subject that filled his mind, commenced to
relate his experiences of the day before.
“You know I saw the Emperor at Baybel.”
He was fairly started and nothing could stop him. He began by
describing the farmhouse, a large structure with an interior court,
surrounded by an iron railing, and situated on a gentle eminence
overlooking Mouzon, to the left of the Carignan road. Then he came back
to the 12th corps, whom he had visited in their camp among the vines on
the hillsides; splendid troops they were, with their equipments
brightly shining in the sunlight, and the sight of them had caused his
heart to beat with patriotic ardor.
“And there I was, sir, when the Emperor, who had alighted to breakfast
and rest himself a bit, came out of the farmhouse. He wore a general’s
uniform and carried an overcoat across his arm, although the sun was
very hot. He was followed by a servant bearing a camp stool. He did not
look to me like a well man; ah no, far from it; his stooping form, the
sallowness of his complexion, the feebleness of his movements, all
indicated him to be in a very bad way. I was not surprised, for the
druggist at Mouzon, when he recommended me to drive on to Baybel, told
me that an aide-de-camp had just been in his shop to get some
medicine—you understand what I mean, medicine for—” The presence of his
wife and mother prevented him from alluding more explicitly to the
nature of the Emperor’s complaint, which was an obstinate diarrhea that
he had contracted at Chêne and which compelled him to make those
frequent halts at houses along the road. “Well, then, the attendant
opened the camp stool and placed it in the shade of a clump of trees at
the edge of a field of wheat, and the Emperor sat down on it. Sitting
there in a limp, dejected attitude, perfectly still, he looked for all
the world like a small shopkeeper taking a sun bath for his rheumatism.
His dull eyes wandered over the wide horizon, the Meuse coursing
through the valley at his feet, before him the range of wooded heights
whose summits recede and are lost in the distance, on the left the
waving tree-tops of Dieulet forest, on the right the verdure-clad
eminence of Sommanthe. He was surrounded by his military family, aides
and officers of rank, and a colonel of dragoons, who had already
applied to me for information about the country, had just motioned me
not to go away, when all at once—” Delaherche rose from his chair, for
he had reached the point where the dramatic interest of his story
culminated and it became necessary to re-enforce words by gestures.
“All at once there is a succession of sharp reports and right in front
of us, over the wood of Dieulet, shells are seen circling through the
air. It produced on me no more effect than a display of fireworks in
broad daylight, sir, upon my word it didn’t! The people about the
Emperor, of course, showed a good deal of agitation and uneasiness. The
colonel of dragoons comes running up again to ask if I can give them an
idea whence the firing proceeds. I answer him off-hand: ‘It is at
Beaumont; there is not the slightest doubt about it.’ He returns to the
Emperor, on whose knees an aide-de-camp was unfolding a map. The
Emperor was evidently of opinion that the fighting was not at Beaumont,
for he sent the colonel back to me a third time. But I couldn’t well do
otherwise than stick to what I had said before, could I, now? the more
that the shells kept flying through the air, nearer and nearer,
following the line of the Mouzon road. And then, sir, as sure as I see
you standing there, I saw the Emperor turn his pale face toward me. Yes
sir, he looked at me a moment with those dim eyes of his, that were
filled with an expression of melancholy and distrust. And then his face
declined upon his map again and he made no further movement.”
Delaherche, although he was an ardent Bonapartist at the time of the
plebiscite, had admitted after our early defeats that the government
was responsible for some mistakes, but he stood up for the dynasty,
compassionating and excusing Napoleon III., deceived and betrayed as he
was by everyone. It was his firm opinion that the men at whose door
should be laid the responsibility for all our disasters were none other
than those Republican deputies of the opposition who had stood in the
way of voting the necessary men and money.
“And did the Emperor return to the farmhouse?” asked Captain Beaudoin.
“That’s more than I can say, my dear sir; I left him sitting on his
stool. It was midday, the battle was drawing nearer, and it occurred to
me that it was time to be thinking of my own return. All that I can
tell you besides is that a general to whom I pointed out the position
of Carignan in the distance, in the plain to our rear, appeared greatly
surprised to learn that the Belgian frontier lay in that direction and
was only a few miles away. Ah, that the poor Emperor should have to
rely on such servants!”
Gilberte, all smiles, was giving her attention to the captain and
keeping him supplied with buttered toast, as much at ease as she had
ever been in bygone days when she received him in her salon during her
widowhood. She insisted that he should accept a bed with them, but he
declined, and it was agreed that he should rest for an hour or two on a
sofa in Delaherche’s study before going out to find his regiment. As he
was taking the sugar bowl from the young woman’s hands old Madame
Delaherche, who had kept her eye on them, distinctly saw him squeeze
her fingers, and the old lady’s suspicions were confirmed. At that
moment a servant came to the door.
“Monsieur, there is a soldier outside who wants to know the address of
Monsieur Weiss.”
There was nothing “stuck-up” about Delaherche, people said; he was fond
of popularity and was always delighted to have a chat with those of an
inferior station.
“He wants Weiss’s address! that’s odd. Bring the soldier in here.”
Jean entered the room in such an exhausted state that he reeled as if
he had been drunk. He started at seeing his captain seated at the table
with two ladies, and involuntarily withdrew the hand that he had
extended toward a chair in order to steady himself; he replied briefly
to the questions of the manufacturer, who played his part of the
soldier’s friend with great cordiality. In a few words he explained his
relation toward Maurice and the reason why he was looking for him.
“He is a corporal in my company,” the captain finally said by way of
cutting short the conversation, and inaugurated a series of questions
on his own account to learn what had become of the regiment. As Jean
went on to tell that the colonel had been seen crossing the city to
reach his camp at the head of what few men were left him, Gilberte
again thoughtlessly spoke up, with the vivacity of a woman whose beauty
is supposed to atone for her indiscretion:
“Oh! he is my uncle; why does he not come and breakfast with us? We
could fix up a room for him here. Can’t we send someone for him?”
But the old lady discouraged the project with an authority there was no
disputing. The good old bourgeois blood of the frontier towns flowed in
her veins; her austerely patriotic sentiments were almost those of a
man. She broke the stern silence that she had preserved during the meal
by saying:
“Never mind Monsieur de Vineuil; he is doing his duty.”
Her short speech was productive of embarrassment among the party.
Delaherche conducted the captain to his study, where he saw him safely
bestowed upon the sofa; Gilberte moved lightly off about her business,
no more disconcerted by her rebuff than is the bird that shakes its
wings in gay defiance of the shower; while the handmaid to whom Jean
had been intrusted led him by a very labyrinth of passages and
staircases through the various departments of the factory.
The Weiss family lived in the Rue des Voyards, but their house, which
was Delaherche’s property, communicated with the great structure in the
Rue Maqua. The Rue des Voyards was at that time one of the most squalid
streets in Sedan, being nothing more than a damp, narrow lane, its
normal darkness intensified by the proximity of the ramparts, which ran
parallel to it. The roofs of the tall houses almost met, the dark
passages were like the mouths of caverns, and more particularly so at
that end where rose the high college walls. Weiss, however, with free
quarters and free fuel on his third floor, found the location a
convenient one on account of its nearness to his office, to which he
could descend in slippers without having to go around by the street.
His life had been a happy one since his marriage with Henriette, so
long the object of his hopes and wishes since first he came to know her
at Chêne, filling her dead mother’s place when only six years old and
keeping the house for her father, the tax-collector; while he, entering
the big refinery almost on the footing of a laborer, was picking up an
education as best he could, and fitting himself for the accountant’s
position which was the reward of his unremitting toil. And even when he
had attained to that measure of success his dream was not to be
realized; not until the father had been removed by death, not until the
brother at Paris had been guilty of those excesses: that brother
Maurice to whom his twin sister had in some sort made herself a
servant, to whom she had sacrificed her little all to make him a
gentleman—not until then was Henriette to be his wife. She had never
been aught more than a little drudge at home; she could barely read and
write; she had sold house, furniture, all she had, to pay the young
man’s debts, when good, kind Weiss came to her with the offer of his
savings, together with his heart and his two strong arms; and she had
accepted him with grateful tears, bringing him in return for his
devotion a steadfast, virtuous affection, replete with tender esteem,
if not the stormier ardors of a passionate love. Fortune had smiled on
them; Delaherche had spoken of giving Weiss an interest in the
business, and when children should come to bless their union their
felicity would be complete.
“Look out!” the servant said to Jean; “the stairs are steep.”
He was stumbling upward as well as the intense darkness of the place
would let him, when suddenly a door above was thrown open, a broad belt
of light streamed out across the landing, and he heard a soft voice
saying:
“It is he.”
“Madame Weiss,” cried the servant, “here is a soldier who has been
inquiring for you.”
There came the sound of a low, pleased laugh, and the same soft voice
replied:
“Good! good! I know who it is.” Then to the corporal, who was
hesitating, rather diffidently, on the landing: “Come in, Monsieur
Jean. Maurice has been here nearly two hours, and we have been
wondering what detained you.”
Then, in the pale sunlight that filled the room, he saw how like she
was to Maurice, with that wonderful resemblance that often makes twins
so like each other as to be indistinguishable. She was smaller and
slighter than he, however; more fragile in appearance, with a rather
large mouth and delicately molded features, surmounted by an opulence
of the most beautiful hair imaginable, of the golden yellow of ripened
grain. The feature where she least resembled him was her gray eyes,
great calm, brave orbs, instinct with the spirit of the grandfather,
the hero of the Grand Army. She used few words, was noiseless in her
movements, and was so gentle, so cheerful, so helpfully active that
where she passed her presence seemed to linger in the air, like a
fragrant caress.
“Come this way, Monsieur Jean,” she said. “Everything will soon be
ready for you.”
He stammered something inarticulately, for his emotion was such that he
could find no word of thanks. In addition to that his eyes were closing
he beheld her through the irresistible drowsiness that was settling on
him as a sea-fog drifts in and settles on the land, in which she seemed
floating in a vague, unreal way, as if her feet no longer touched the
earth. Could it be that it was all a delightful apparition, that
friendly young woman who smiled on him with such sweet simplicity? He
fancied for a moment that she had touched his hand and that he had felt
the pressure of hers, cool and firm, loyal as the clasp of an old tried
friend.
That was the last moment in which Jean was distinctly conscious of what
was going on about him. They were in the dining room; bread and meat
were set out on the table, but for the life of him he could not have
raised a morsel to his lips. A man was there, seated on a chair.
Presently he knew it was Weiss, whom he had seen at Mülhausen, but he
had no idea what the man was saying with such a sober, sorrowful air,
with slow and emphatic gestures. Maurice was already sound asleep, with
the tranquillity of death resting on his face, on a bed that had been
improvised for him beside the stove, and Henriette was busying herself
about a sofa on which a mattress had been thrown; she brought in a
bolster, pillow and coverings; with nimble, dexterous hands she spread
the white sheets, snowy white, dazzling in their whiteness.
Ah! those clean, white sheets, so long coveted, so ardently desired;
Jean had eyes for naught save them. For six weeks he had not had his
clothes off, had not slept in a bed. He was as impatient as a child
waiting for some promised treat, or a lover expectant of his mistress’s
coming; the time seemed long, terribly long to him, until he could
plunge into those cool, white depths and lose himself there. Quickly,
as soon as he was alone, he removed his shoes and tossed his uniform
across a chair, then, with a deep sigh of satisfaction, threw himself
on the bed. He opened his eyes a little way for a last look about him
before his final plunge into unconsciousness, and in the pale morning
light that streamed in through the lofty window beheld a repetition of
his former pleasant vision, only fainter, more aerial; a vision of
Henriette entering the room on tiptoe, and placing on the table at his
side a water-jug and glass that had been forgotten before. She seemed
to linger there a moment, looking at the sleeping pair, him and her
brother, with her tranquil, ineffably tender smile upon her lips, then
faded into air, and he, between his white sheets, was as if he were
not.
Hours—or was it years? slipped by; Jean and Maurice were like dead men,
without a dream, without consciousness of the life that was within
them. Whether it was ten years or ten minutes, time had stood still for
them; the overtaxed body had risen against its oppressor and
annihilated their every faculty. They awoke simultaneously with a great
start and looked at each other inquiringly; where were they? what had
happened? how long had they slept? The same pale light was entering
through the tall window. They felt as if they had been racked; joints
stiffer, limbs wearier, mouth more hot and dry than when they had lain
down; they could not have slept more than an hour, fortunately. It did
not surprise them to see Weiss sitting where they had seen him before,
in the same dejected attitude, apparently waiting for them to awake.
“_Fichtre_!” exclaimed Jean, “we must get up and report ourselves to
the first sergeant before noon.”
He uttered a smothered cry of pain as he jumped to the floor and began
to dress.
“Before noon!” said Weiss. “Are you aware that it is seven o’clock in
the evening? You have slept about twelve hours.”
Great heavens, seven o’clock! They were thunderstruck. Jean, who by
that time was completely dressed, would have run for it, but Maurice,
still in bed, found he no longer had control of his legs; how were they
ever to find their comrades? would not the army have marched away? They
took Weiss to task for having let them sleep so long. But the
accountant shook his head sorrowfully and said:
“You have done just as well to remain in bed, for all that has been
accomplished.”
All that day, from early morning, he had been scouring Sedan and its
environs in quest of news, and was just come in, discouraged with the
inactivity of the troops and the inexplicable delay that had lost them
the whole of that precious day, the 31st. The sole excuse was that the
men were worn out and rest was an absolute necessity for them, but
granting that, he could not see why the retreat should not have been
continued after giving them a few hours of repose.
“I do not pretend to be a judge of such matters,” he continued, “but I
have a feeling, so strong as to be almost a conviction, that the army
is very badly situated at Sedan. The 12th corps is at Bazeilles, where
there was a little fighting this morning; the 1st is strung out along
the Givonne between la Moncelle and Holly, while the 7th is encamped on
the plateau of Floing, and the 5th, what is left of it, is crowded
together under the ramparts of the city, on the side of the Château.
And that is what alarms me, to see them all concentrated thus about the
city, waiting for the coming of the Prussians. If I were in command I
would retreat on Mézières, and lose no time about it, either. I know
the country; it is the only line of retreat that is open to us, and if
we take any other course we shall be driven into Belgium. Come here!
let me show you something.”
He took Jean by the hand and led him to the window.
“Tell me what you see over yonder on the crest of the hills.”
Looking from the window over the ramparts, over the adjacent buildings,
their view embraced the valley of the Meuse to the southward of Sedan.
There was the river, winding through broad meadows; there, to the left,
was Remilly in the background, Pont Maugis and Wadelincourt before them
and Frenois to the right; and shutting in the landscape the ranges of
verdant hills, Liry first, then la Marfée and la Croix Piau, with their
dense forests. A deep tranquillity, a crystalline clearness reigned
over the wide prospect that lay there in the mellow light of the
declining day.
“Do you see that moving line of black upon the hilltops, that
procession of small black ants?”
Jean stared in amazement, while Maurice, kneeling on his bed, craned
his neck to see.
“Yes, yes!” they cried. “There is a line, there is another, and
another, and another! They are everywhere.”
“Well,” continued Weiss, “those are Prussians. I have been watching
them since morning, and they have been coming, coming, as if there were
no end to them! You may be sure of one thing: if our troops are waiting
for them, they have no intention of disappointing us. And not I alone,
but every soul in the city saw them; it is only the generals who
persist in being blind. I was talking with a general officer a little
while ago; he shrugged his shoulders and told me that Marshal MacMahon
was absolutely certain that he had not over seventy thousand men in his
front. God grant he may be right! But look and see for yourselves; the
ground is hid by them! they keep coming, ever coming, the black swarm!”
At this juncture Maurice threw himself back in his bed and gave way to
a violent fit of sobbing. Henriette came in, a smile on her face. She
hastened to him in alarm.
“What is it?”
But he pushed her away. “No, no! leave me, have nothing more to do with
me; I have never been anything but a burden to you. When I think that
you were making yourself a drudge, a slave, while I was attending
college—oh! to what miserable use have I turned that education! And I
was near bringing dishonor on our name; I shudder to think where I
might be now, had you not beggared yourself to pay for my extravagance
and folly.”
Her smile came back to her face, together with her serenity.
“Is that all? Your sleep don’t seem to have done you good, my poor
friend. But since that is all gone and past, forget it! Are you not
doing your duty now, like a good Frenchman? I am very proud of you, I
assure you, now that you are a soldier.”
She had turned toward Jean, as if to ask him to come to her assistance,
and he looked at her with some surprise that she appeared to him less
beautiful than yesterday; she was paler, thinner, now that the glamour
was no longer in his drowsy eyes. The one striking point that remained
unchanged was her resemblance to her brother, and yet the difference in
their two natures was never more strongly marked than at that moment;
he, weak and nervous as a woman, swayed by the impulse of the hour,
displaying in his person all the fitful and emotional temperament of
his nation, vibrating from one moment to another between the loftiest
enthusiasm and the most abject despair; she, the patient, indomitable
housewife, such an inconsiderable little creature in her resignation
and self-effacement, meeting adversity with a brave face and eyes full
of inexpugnable courage and resolution, fashioned from the stuff of
which heroes are made.
“Proud of me!” cried Maurice. “Ah! truly, you have great reason to be.
For a month and more now we have been flying, like the cowards that we
are!”
“What of it? we are not the only ones,” said Jean with his practical
common sense; “we do what we are told to do.”
But the young man broke out more furiously than ever: “I have had
enough of it, I tell you! Our imbecile leaders, our continual defeats,
our brave soldiers led like sheep to the slaughter—is it not enough,
seeing all these things, to make one weep tears of blood? We are here
now in Sedan, caught in a trap from which there is no escape; you can
see the Prussians closing in on us from every quarter, and certain
destruction is staring us in the face; there is no hope, the end is
come. No! I shall remain where I am; I may as well be shot as a
deserter. Jean, do you go, and leave me here. No! I won’t go back
there; I will stay here.”
He sank upon the pillow in a renewed outpour of tears. It was an utter
breakdown of the nervous system, sweeping everything before it, one of
those sudden lapses into hopelessness to which he was so subject, in
which he despised himself and all the world. His sister, knowing as she
did the best way of treating such crises, kept an unruffled face.
“That would not be a nice thing to do, dear Maurice—desert your post in
the hour of danger.”
He rose impetuously to a sitting posture: “Then give me my musket! I
will go and blow my brains out; that will be the shortest way of ending
it.” Then, pointing with outstretched arm to Weiss, where he sat silent
and motionless, he said: “There! that is the only sensible man I have
seen; yes, he is the only one who saw things as they were. You remember
what he said to me, Jean, at Mülhausen, a month ago?”
“It is true,” the corporal assented; “the gentleman said we should be
beaten.”
And the scene rose again before their mind’s eye, that night of anxious
vigil, the agonized suspense, the prescience of the disaster at
Froeschwiller hanging in the sultry heavy air, while the Alsatian told
his prophetic fears; Germany in readiness, with the best of arms and
the best of leaders, rising to a man in a grand outburst of patriotism;
France dazed, a century behind the age, debauched, and a prey to
intestine disorder, having neither commanders, men, nor arms to enable
her to cope with her powerful adversary. How quickly the horrible
prediction had proved itself true!
Weiss raised his trembling hands. Profound sorrow was depicted on his
kind, honest face, with its red hair and beard and its great prominent
blue eyes.
“Ah!” he murmured, “I take no credit to myself for being right. I don’t
claim to be wiser than others, but it was all so clear, when one only
knew the true condition of affairs! But if we are to be beaten we shall
first have the pleasure of killing some of those Prussians of
perdition. There is that comfort for us; I believe that many of us are
to leave their bones there, and I hope there will be plenty of
Prussians to keep them company; I would like to see the ground down
there in the valley heaped with dead Prussians!” He arose and pointed
down the valley of the Meuse. Fire flashed from his myopic eyes, which
had exempted him from service with the army. “A thousand thunders! I
would fight, yes, I would, if they would have me. I don’t know whether
it is seeing them assume the airs of masters in my country—in this
country where once the Cossacks did such mischief; but whenever I think
of their being here, of their entering our houses, I am seized with an
uncontrollable desire to cut a dozen of their throats. Ah! if it were
not for my eyes, if they would take me, I would go!” Then, after a
moment’s silence: “And besides; who can tell?”
It was the hope that sprang eternal, even in the breast of the least
confident, of the possibility of victory, and Maurice, ashamed by this
time of his tears, listened and caught at the pleasing speculation. Was
it not true that only the day before there had been a rumor that
Bazaine was at Verdun? Truly, it was time that Fortune should work a
miracle for that France whose glories she had so long protected.
Henriette, with an imperceptible smile on her lips, silently left the
room, and was not the least bit surprised when she returned to find her
brother up and dressed, and ready to go back to his duty. She insisted,
however, that he and Jean should take some nourishment first. They
seated themselves at the table, but the morsels choked them; their
stomachs, weakened by their heavy slumber, revolted at the food. Like a
prudent old campaigner Jean cut a loaf in two halves and placed one in
Maurice’s sack, the other in his own. It was growing dark, it behooved
them to be going. Henriette, who was standing at the window watching
the Prussian troops incessantly defiling on distant la Marfée, the
swarming legions of black ants that were gradually being swallowed up
in the gathering shadows, involuntarily murmured:
“Oh, war! what a dreadful thing it is!”
Maurice, seeing an opportunity to retort her sermon to him, immediately
took her up:
“How is this, little sister? you are anxious to have people fight, and
you speak disrespectfully of war!”
She turned and faced him, valiantly as ever: “It is true; I abhor it,
because it is an abomination and an injustice. It may be simply because
I am a woman, but the thought of such butchery sickens me. Why cannot
nations adjust their differences without shedding blood?”
Jean, the good fellow, seconded her with a nod of the head, and nothing
to him, too, seemed easier—to him, the unlettered man—than to come
together and settle matters after a fair, honest talk; but Maurice,
mindful of his scientific theories, reflected on the necessity of
war—war, which is itself existence, the universal law. Was it not poor,
pitiful man who conceived the idea of justice and peace, while
impassive nature revels in continual slaughter?
“That is all very fine!” he cried. “Yes, centuries hence, if it shall
come to pass that then all the nations shall be merged in one;
centuries hence man may look forward to the coming of that golden age;
and even in that case would not the end of war be the end of humanity?
I was a fool but now; we must go and fight, since it is nature’s law.”
He smiled and repeated his brother-in-law’s expression: “And besides,
who can tell?”
He saw things now through the mirage of his vivid self-delusion, they
came to his vision distorted through the lens of his diseased nervous
sensibility.
“By the way,” he continued cheerfully, “what do you hear of our cousin
Gunther? You know we have not seen a German yet, so you can’t look to
me to give you any foreign news.”
The question was addressed to his brother-in-law, who had relapsed into
a thoughtful silence and answered by a motion of his hand, expressive
of his ignorance.
“Cousin Gunther?” said Henriette, “Why, he belongs to the Vth corps and
is with the Crown Prince’s army; I read it in one of the newspapers, I
don’t remember which. Is that army in this neighborhood?”
Weiss repeated his gesture, which was imitated by the two soldiers, who
could not be supposed to know what enemies were in front of them when
their generals did not know. Rising to his feet, the master of the
house at last made use of articulate speech.
“Come along; I will go with you. I learned this afternoon where the
106th’s camp is situated.” He told his wife that she need not expect to
see him again that night, as he would sleep at Bazeilles, where they
had recently bought and furnished a little place to serve them as a
residence during the hot months. It was near a dyehouse that belonged
to M. Delaherche. The accountant’s mind was ill at ease in relation to
certain stores that he had placed in the cellar—a cask of wine and a
couple of sacks of potatoes; the house would certainly be visited by
marauders if it was left unprotected, he said, while by occupying it
that night he would doubtless save it from pillage. His wife watched
him closely while he was speaking.
“You need not be alarmed,” he added, with a smile; “I harbor no darker
design than the protection of our property, and I pledge my word that
if the village is attacked, or if there is any appearance of danger, I
will come home at once.”
“Well, then, go,” she said. “But remember, if you are not back in good
season you will see me out there looking for you.”
Henriette went with them to the door, where she embraced Maurice
tenderly and gave Jean a warm clasp of the hand.
“I intrust my brother to your care once more. He has told me of your
kindness to him, and I love you for it.”
He was too flustered to do more than return the pressure of the small,
firm hand. His first impression returned to him again, and he beheld
Henriette in the light in which she had first appeared to him, with her
bright hair of the hue of ripe golden grain, so alert, so sunny, so
unselfish, that her presence seemed to pervade the air like a caress.
Once they were outside they found the same gloomy and forbidding Sedan
that had greeted their eyes that morning. Twilight with its shadows had
invaded the narrow streets, sidewalk and carriage-way alike were filled
with a confused, surging throng. Most of the shops were closed, the
houses seemed to be dead or sleeping, while out of doors the crowd was
so dense that men trod on one another. With some little difficulty,
however, they succeeded in reaching the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville,
where they encountered M. Delaherche, intent on picking up the latest
news and seeing what was to be seen. He at once came up and greeted
them, apparently delighted to meet Maurice, to whom he said that he had
just returned from accompanying Captain Beaudoin over to Floing, where
the regiment was posted, and he became, if that were possible, even
more gracious than ever upon learning that Weiss proposed to pass the
night at Bazeilles, where he himself, he declared, had just been
telling the captain that he intended to take a bed, in order to see how
things were looking at the dyehouse.
“We’ll go together and be company for each other, Weiss. But first
let’s go as far as the Sous-Prefecture; we may be able to catch a
glimpse of the Emperor.”
Ever since he had been so near having the famous conversation with him
at Baybel his mind had been full of Napoleon III.; he was not satisfied
until he had induced the two soldiers to accompany him. The Place de la
Sous-Prefecture was comparatively empty; a few men were standing about
in groups, engaged in whispered conversation, while occasionally an
officer hurried by, haggard and careworn. The bright hues of the
foliage were beginning to fade and grow dim in the melancholy,
thick-gathering shades of night; the hoarse murmur of the Meuse was
heard as its current poured onward beneath the houses to the right.
Among the whisperers it was related how the Emperor—who with the
greatest difficulty had been prevailed on to leave Carignan the night
before about eleven o’clock—when entreated to push on to Mézières had
refused point-blank to abandon the post of danger and take a step that
would prove so demoralizing to the troops. Others asserted that he was
no longer in the city, that he had fled, leaving behind him a dummy
emperor, one of his officers dressed in his uniform, a man whose
startling resemblance to his imperial master had often puzzled the
army. Others again declared, and called upon their honor to
substantiate their story, that they had seen the army wagons containing
the imperial treasure, one hundred millions, all in brand-new
twenty-franc pieces, drive into the courtyard of the Prefecture. This
convoy was, in fact, neither more nor less than the vehicles for the
personal use of the Emperor and his suite, the _char à banc_, the two
_caleches_, the twelve baggage and supply wagons, which had almost
excited a riot in the villages through which they had
passed—Courcelles, le Chêne, Raucourt; assuming in men’s imagination
the dimensions of a huge train that had blocked the road and arrested
the march of armies, and which now, shorn of their glory, execrated by
all, had come in shame and disgrace to hide themselves among the
sous-prefect’s lilac bushes.
While Delaherche was raising himself on tiptoe and trying to peer
through the windows of the _rez-de-chaussée_, an old woman at his side,
some poor day-worker of the neighborhood, with shapeless form and hands
calloused and distorted by many years of toil, was mumbling between her
teeth:
“An emperor—I should like to see one once—just once—so I could say I
had seen him.”
Suddenly Delaherche exclaimed, seizing Maurice by the arm:
“See, there he is! at the window, to the left. I had a good view of him
yesterday; I can’t be mistaken. There, he has just raised the curtain;
see, that pale face, close to the glass.”
The old woman had overheard him and stood staring with wide-open mouth
and eyes, for there, full in the window, was an apparition that
resembled a corpse more than a living being; its eyes were lifeless,
its features distorted; even the mustache had assumed a ghastly
whiteness in that final agony. The old woman was dumfounded; forthwith
she turned her back and marched off with a look of supreme contempt.
“That thing an emperor! a likely story.”
A zouave was standing near, one of those fugitive soldiers who were in
no haste to rejoin their commands. Brandishing his chassepot and
expectorating threats and maledictions, he said to his companion:
“Wait! see me put a bullet in his head!”
Delaherche remonstrated angrily, but by that time the Emperor had
disappeared. The hoarse murmur of the Meuse continued uninterruptedly;
a wailing lament, inexpressibly mournful, seemed to pass above them
through the air, where the darkness was gathering intensity. Other
sounds rose in the distance, like the hollow muttering of the rising
storm; were they the “March! march!” that terrible order from Paris
that had driven that ill-starred man onward day by day, dragging behind
him along the roads of his defeat the irony of his imperial escort,
until now he was brought face to face with the ruin he had foreseen and
come forth to meet? What multitudes of brave men were to lay down their
lives for his mistakes, and how complete the wreck, in all his being,
of that sick man, that sentimental dreamer, awaiting in gloomy silence
the fulfillment of his destiny!
Weiss and Delaherche accompanied the two soldiers to the plateau of
Floing, where the 7th corps camps were.
“Adieu!” said Maurice as he embraced his brother-in-law.
“No, no; not adieu, the deuce! _Au revoir_!” the manufacturer gayly
cried.
Jean’s instinct led him at once to their regiment, the tents of which
were pitched behind the cemetery, where the ground of the plateau
begins to fall away. It was nearly dark, but there was sufficient light
yet remaining in the sky to enable them to distinguish the black huddle
of roofs above the city, and further in the distance Balan and
Bazeilles, lying in the broad meadows that stretch away to the range of
hills between Remilly and Frenois, while to the right was the dusky
wood of la Garenne, and to the left the broad bosom of the Meuse had
the dull gleam of frosted silver in the dying daylight. Maurice
surveyed the broad landscape that was momentarily fading in the
descending shadows.
“Ah, here is the corporal!” said Chouteau. “I wonder if he has been
looking after our rations!”
The camp was astir with life and bustle. All day the men had been
coming in, singly and in little groups, and the crowd and confusion
were such that the officers made no pretense of punishing or even
reprimanding them; they accepted thankfully those who were so kind as
to return and asked no questions. Captain Beaudoin had made his
appearance only a short time before, and it was about two o’clock when
Lieutenant Rochas had brought in his collection of stragglers, about
one-third of the company strength. Now the ranks were nearly full once
more. Some of the men were drunk, others had not been able to secure
even a morsel of bread and were sinking from inanition; again there had
been no distribution of rations. Loubet, however, had discovered some
cabbages in a neighboring garden, and cooked them after a fashion, but
there was no salt or lard; the empty stomachs continued to assert their
claims.
“Come, now, corporal, you are a knowing old file,” Chouteau tauntingly
continued, “what have you got for us? Oh, it’s not for myself I care;
Loubet and I had a good breakfast; a lady gave it us. You were not at
distribution, then?”
Jean beheld a circle of expectant eyes bent on him; the squad had been
waiting for him with anxiety, Pache and Lapoulle in particular,
luckless dogs, who had found nothing they could appropriate; they all
relied on him, who, as they expressed it, could get bread out of a
stone. And the corporal’s conscience smote him for having abandoned his
men; he took pity on them and divided among them half the bread that he
had in his sack.
“Name o’ God! Name o’ God!” grunted Lapoulle as he contentedly munched
the dry bread; it was all he could find to say; while Pache repeated a
_Pater_ and an _Ave_ under his breath to make sure that Heaven should
not forget to send him his breakfast in the morning.
Gaude, the bugler, with his darkly mysterious air, as of a man who has
had troubles of which he does not care to speak, sounded the call for
evening muster with a glorious fanfare; but there was no necessity for
sounding taps that night, the camp was immediately enveloped in
profound silence. And when he had verified the names and seen that none
of his half-section were missing, Sergeant Sapin, with his thin, sickly
face and his pinched nose, softly said:
“There will be one less to-morrow night.”
Then, as he saw Jean looking at him inquiringly, he added with calm
conviction, his eyes bent upon the blackness of the night, as if
reading there the destiny that he predicted:
“It will be mine; I shall be killed to-morrow.”
It was nine o’clock, with promise of a chilly, uncomfortable night, for
a dense mist had risen from the surface of the river, so that the stars
were no longer visible. Maurice shivered, where he lay with Jean
beneath a hedge, and said they would do better to go and seek the
shelter of the tent; the rest they had taken that day had left them
wakeful, their joints seemed stiffer and their bones sorer than before;
neither could sleep. They envied Lieutenant Rochas, who, stretched on
the damp ground and wrapped in his blanket, was snoring like a trooper,
not far away. For a long time after that they watched with interest the
feeble light of a candle that was burning in a large tent where the
colonel and some officers were in consultation. All that evening M. de
Vineuil had manifested great uneasiness that he had received no
instructions to guide him in the morning. He felt that his regiment was
too much “in the air,” too much advanced, although it had already
fallen back from the exposed position that it had occupied earlier in
the day. Nothing had been seen of General Bourgain-Desfeuilles, who was
said to be ill in bed at the Hotel of the Golden Cross, and the colonel
decided to send one of his officers to advise him of the danger of
their new position in the too extended line of the 7th corps, which had
to cover the long stretch from the bend in the Meuse to the wood of la
Garenne. There could be no doubt that the enemy would attack with the
first glimpse of daylight; only for seven or eight hours now would that
deep tranquillity remain unbroken. And shortly after the dim light in
the colonel’s tent was extinguished Maurice was amazed to see Captain
Beaudoin glide by, keeping close to the hedge, with furtive steps, and
vanish in the direction of Sedan.
The darkness settled down on them, denser and denser; the chill mists
rose from the stream and enshrouded everything in a dank, noisome fog.
“Are you asleep, Jean?”
Jean was asleep, and Maurice was alone. He could not endure the thought
of going to the tent where Lapoulle and the rest of them were
slumbering; he heard their snoring, responsive to Rochas’ strains, and
envied them. If our great captains sleep soundly the night before a
battle, it is like enough for the reason that their fatigue will not
let them do otherwise. He was conscious of no sound save the equal,
deep-drawn breathing of that slumbering multitude, rising from the
darkening camp like the gentle respiration of some huge monster; beyond
that all was void. He only knew that the 5th corps was close at hand,
encamped beneath the rampart, that the 1st’s line extended from the
wood of la Garenne to la Moncelle, while the 12th was posted on the
other side of the city, at Bazeilles; and all were sleeping; the whole
length of that long line, from the nearest tent to the most remote, for
miles and miles, that low, faint murmur ascended in rhythmic unison
from the dark, mysterious bosom of the night. Then outside this circle
lay another region, the realm of the unknown, whence also sounds came
intermittently to his ears, so vague, so distant, that he scarcely knew
whether they were not the throbbings of his own excited pulses; the
indistinct trot of cavalry plashing over the low ground, the dull
rumble of gun and caisson along the roads, and, still more marked, the
heavy tramp of marching men; the gathering on the heights above of that
black swarm, engaged in strengthening the meshes of their net, from
which night itself had not served to divert them. And below, there by
the river’s side, was there not the flash of lights suddenly
extinguished, was not that the sound of hoarse voices shouting orders,
adding to the dread suspense of that long night of terror while waiting
for the coming of the dawn?
Maurice put forth his hand and felt for Jean’s; at last he slumbered,
comforted by the sense of human companionship. From a steeple in Sedan
came the deep tones of a bell, slowly, mournfully, tolling the hour;
then all was blank and void.