As when the ice breaks up and the great cakes come crashing, grinding
down upon the bosom of the swollen stream, carrying away all before
them, so now, from every position about Sedan that had been wrested
from the French, from Floing and the plateau of Illy, from the wood of
la Garenne, the valley of la Givonne and the Bazeilles road, the
stampede commenced; a mad torrent of horses, guns, and affrighted men
came pouring toward the city. It was a most unfortunate inspiration
that brought the army under the walls of that fortified place. There
was too much in the way of temptation there; the shelter that it
afforded the skulker and the deserter, the assurance of safety that
even the bravest beheld behind its ramparts, entailed widespread panic
and demoralization. Down there behind those protecting walls, so
everyone imagined, was safety from that terrible artillery that had
been blazing without intermission for near twelve hours; duty, manhood,
reason were all lost sight of; the man disappeared and was succeeded by
the brute, and their fierce instinct sent them racing wildly for
shelter, seeking a place where they might hide their head and lie down
and sleep.
When Maurice, bathing Jean’s face with cool water behind the shelter of
their bit of wall, saw his friend open his eyes once more, he uttered
an exclamation of delight.
“Ah, poor old chap, I was beginning to fear you were done for! And
don’t think I say it to find fault, but really you are not so light as
you were when you were a boy.”
It seemed to Jean, in his still dazed condition, that he was awaking
from some unpleasant dream. Then his recollection returned to him
slowly, and two big tears rolled down his cheeks. To think that little
Maurice, so frail and slender, whom he had loved and petted like a
child, should have found strength to lug him all that distance!
“Let’s see what damage your knowledge-box has sustained.”
The wound was not serious; the bullet had plowed its way through the
scalp and considerable blood had flowed. The hair, which was now matted
with the coagulated gore, had served to stanch the current, therefore
Maurice refrained from applying water to the hurt, so as not to cause
it to bleed afresh.
“There, you look a little more like a civilized being, now that you
have a clean face on you. Let’s see if I can find something for you to
wear on your head.” And picking up the _kepi_ of a soldier who lay dead
not far away, he tenderly adjusted it on his comrade. “It fits you to a
T. Now if you can only walk everyone will say we are a very
good-looking couple.”
Jean got on his legs and gave his head a shake to assure himself it was
secure. It seemed a little heavier than usual, that was all; he thought
he should get along well enough. A great wave of tenderness swept
through his simple soul; he caught Maurice in his arms and hugged him
to his bosom, while all he could find to say was:
“Ah! dear boy, dear boy!”
But the Prussians were drawing near: it would not answer to loiter
behind the wall. Already Lieutenant Rochas, with what few men were left
him, was retreating, guarding the flag, which the sous-lieutenant still
carried under his arm, rolled around the staff. Lapoulle’s great height
enabled him to fire an occasional shot at the advancing enemy over the
coping of the wall, while Pache had slung his chassepot across his
shoulder by the strap, doubtless considering that he had done a fair
day’s work and it was time to eat and sleep. Maurice and Jean, stooping
until they were bent almost double, hastened to rejoin them. There was
no scarcity of muskets and ammunition; all they had to do was stoop and
pick them up. They equipped themselves afresh, having left everything
behind, knapsacks included, when one lugged the other out of danger on
his shoulders. The wall extended to the wood of la Garenne, and the
little band, believing that now their safety was assured, made a rush
for the protection afforded by some farm buildings, whence they readily
gained the shelter of the trees.
“Ah!” said Rochas, drawing a long breath, “we will remain here a moment
and get our wind before we resume the offensive.” No adversity could
shake his unwavering faith.
They had not advanced many steps before all felt that they were
entering the valley of death, but it was useless to think of retracing
their steps; their only line of retreat lay through the wood, and cross
it they must, at every hazard. At that time, instead of la Garenne, its
more fitting name would have been the wood of despair and death; the
Prussians, knowing that the French troops were retiring in that
direction, were riddling it with artillery and musketry. Its shattered
branches tossed and groaned as if enduring the scourging of a mighty
tempest. The shells hewed down the stalwart trees, the bullets brought
the leaves fluttering to the earth in showers; wailing voices seemed to
issue from the cleft trunks, sobs accompanied the little twigs as they
fell bleeding from the parent stem. It might have been taken for the
agony of some vast multitude, held there in chains and unable to flee
under the pelting of that pitiless iron hail; the shrieks, the terror
of thousands of creatures rooted to the ground. Never was anguish so
poignant as of that bombarded forest.
Maurice and Jean, who by this time had caught up with their companions,
were greatly alarmed. The wood where they then were was a growth of
large trees, and there was no obstacle to their running, but the
bullets came whistling about their ears from every direction, making it
impossible for them to avail themselves of the shelter of the trunks.
Two men were killed, one of them struck in the back, the other in
front. A venerable oak, directly in Maurice’s path, had its trunk
shattered by a shell, and sank, with the stately grace of a mailed
paladin, carrying down all before it, and even as the young man was
leaping back the top of a gigantic ash on his left, struck by another
shell, came crashing to the ground like some tall cathedral spire.
Where could they fly? whither bend their steps? Everywhere the branches
were falling; it was as one who should endeavor to fly from some vast
edifice menaced with destruction, only to find himself in each room he
enters in succession confronted with crumbling walls and ceilings. And
when, in order to escape being crushed by the big trees, they took
refuge in a thicket of bushes, Jean came near being killed by a
projectile, only it fortunately failed to explode. They could no longer
make any progress now on account of the dense growth of the shrubbery;
the supple branches caught them around the shoulders, the rank, tough
grass held them by the ankles, impenetrable walls of brambles rose
before them and blocked their way, while all the time the foliage was
fluttering down about them, clipped by the gigantic scythe that was
mowing down the wood. Another man was struck dead beside them by a
bullet in the forehead, and he retained his erect position, caught in
some vines between two small birch trees. Twenty times, while they were
prisoners in that thicket, did they feel death hovering over them.
“Holy Virgin!” said Maurice, “we shall never get out of this alive.”
His face was ashy pale, he was shivering again with terror; and Jean,
always so brave, who had cheered and comforted him that morning, he,
also, was very white and felt a strange, chill sensation creeping down
his spine. It was fear, horrible, contagious, irresistible fear. Again
they were conscious of a consuming thirst, an intolerable dryness of
the mouth, a contraction of the throat, painful as if someone were
choking them. These symptoms were accompanied by nausea and qualms at
the pit of the stomach, while maleficent goblins kept puncturing their
aguish, trembling legs with needles. Another of the physical effects of
their fear was that in the congested condition of the blood vessels of
the retina they beheld thousands upon thousands of small black specks
flitting past them, as if it had been possible to distinguish the
flying bullets.
“Confound the luck!” Jean stammered. “It is not worth speaking of, but
it’s vexatious all the same, to be here getting one’s head broken for
other folks, when those other folks are at home, smoking their pipe in
comfort.”
“Yes, that’s so,” Maurice replied, with a wild look. “Why should it be
I rather than someone else?”
It was the revolt of the individual Ego, the unaltruistic refusal of
the one to make himself a sacrifice for the benefit of the species.
“And then again,” Jean continued, “if a fellow could but know the
rights of the matter; if he could be sure that any good was to come
from it all.” Then turning his head and glancing at the western sky:
“Anyway, I wish that blamed sun would hurry up and go to roost. Perhaps
they’ll stop fighting when it’s dark.”
With no distinct idea of what o’clock it was and no means of measuring
the flight of time, he had long been watching the tardy declination of
the fiery disk, which seemed to him to have ceased to move, hanging
there in the heavens over the woods of the left bank. And this was not
owing to any lack of courage on his part; it was simply the
overmastering, ever increasing desire, amounting to an imperious
necessity, to be relieved from the screaming and whistling of those
projectiles, to run away somewhere and find a hole where he might hide
his head and lose himself in oblivion. Were it not for the feeling of
shame that is implanted in men’s breasts and keeps them from showing
the white feather before their comrades, every one of them would lose
his head and run, in spite of himself, like the veriest poltroon.
Maurice and Jean, meanwhile, were becoming somewhat more accustomed to
their surroundings, and even when their terror was at its highest there
came to them a sort of exalted self-unconsciousness that had in it
something of bravery. They finally reached a point when they did not
even hasten their steps as they made their way through the accursed
wood. The horror of the bombardment was even greater than it had been
previously among that race of sylvan denizens, killed at their post,
struck down on every hand, like gigantic, faithful sentries. In the
delicious twilight that reigned, golden-green, beneath their umbrageous
branches, among the mysterious recesses of romantic, moss-carpeted
retreats, Death showed his ill-favored, grinning face. The solitary
fountains were contaminated; men fell dead in distant nooks whose
depths had hitherto been trod by none save wandering lovers. A bullet
pierced a man’s chest; he had time to utter the one word: “hit!” and
fell forward on his face, stone dead. Upon the lips of another, who had
both legs broken by a shell, the gay laugh remained; unconscious of his
hurt, he supposed he had tripped over a root. Others, injured mortally,
would run on for some yards, jesting and conversing, until suddenly
they went down like a log in the supreme convulsion. The severest
wounds were hardly felt at the moment they were received; it was only
at a later period that the terrible suffering commenced, venting itself
in shrieks and hot tears.
Ah, that accursed wood, that wood of slaughter and despair, where, amid
the sobbing of the expiring trees, arose by degrees and swelled the
agonized clamor of wounded men. Maurice and Jean saw a zouave, nearly
disemboweled, propped against the trunk of an oak, who kept up a most
terrific howling, without a moment’s intermission. A little way beyond
another man was actually being slowly roasted; his clothing had taken
fire and the flames had run up and caught his beard, while he,
paralyzed by a shot that had broken his back, was silently weeping
scalding tears. Then there was a captain, who, one arm torn from its
socket and his flank laid open to the thigh, was writhing on the ground
in agony unspeakable, beseeching, in heartrending accents, the
by-passers to end his suffering. There were others, and others, and
others still, whose torments may not be described, strewing the
grass-grown paths in such numbers that the utmost caution was required
to avoid treading them under foot. But the dead and wounded had ceased
to count; the comrade who fell by the way was abandoned to his fate,
forgotten as if he had never been. No one turned to look behind. It was
his destiny, poor devil! Next it would be someone else, themselves,
perhaps.
They were approaching the edge of the wood when a cry of distress was
heard behind them.
“Help! help!”
It was the subaltern standard-bearer, who had been shot through the
left lung. He had fallen, the blood pouring in a stream from his mouth,
and as no one heeded his appeal he collected his fast ebbing strength
for another effort:
“To the colors!”
Rochas turned and in a single bound was at his side. He took the flag,
the staff of which had been broken in the fall, while the young officer
murmured in words that were choked by the bubbling tide of blood and
froth:
“Never mind me; I am a goner. Save the flag!”
And they left him to himself in that charming woodland glade to writhe
in protracted agony upon the ground, tearing up the grass with his
stiffening fingers and praying for death, which would be hours yet ere
it came to end his misery.
At last they had left the wood and its horrors behind them. Beside
Maurice and Jean all that were left of the little band were Lieutenant
Rochas, Lapoulle and Pache. Gaude, who had strayed away from his
companions, presently came running from a thicket to rejoin them, his
bugle hanging from his neck and thumping against his back with every
step he took. It was a great comfort to them all to find themselves
once again in the open country, where they could draw their breath; and
then, too, there were no longer any whistling bullets and crashing
shells to harass them; the firing had ceased on this side of the
valley.
The first object they set eyes on was an officer who had reined in his
smoking, steaming charger before a farm-yard gate and was venting his
towering rage in a volley of Billingsgate. It was General
Bourgain-Desfeuilles, the commander of their brigade, covered with dust
and looking as if he was about to tumble from his horse with fatigue.
The chagrin on his gross, high-colored, animal face told how deeply he
took to heart the disaster that he regarded in the light of a personal
misfortune. His command had seen nothing of him since morning.
Doubtless he was somewhere on the battlefield, striving to rally the
remnants of his brigade, for he was not the man to look closely to his
own safety in his rage against those Prussian batteries that had at the
same time destroyed the empire and the fortunes of a rising officer,
the favorite of the Tuileries.
“_Tonnerre de Dieu!_” he shouted, “is there no one of whom one can ask
a question in this d——-d country?”
The farmer’s people had apparently taken to the woods. At last a very
old woman appeared at the door, some servant who had been forgotten, or
whose feeble legs had compelled her to remain behind.
“Hallo, old lady, come here! Which way from here is Belgium?”
She looked at him stupidly, as one who failed to catch his meaning.
Then he lost all control of himself and effervesced, forgetful that the
woman was only a poor peasant, bellowing that he had no idea of going
back to Sedan to be caught like a rat in a trap; not he! he was going
to make tracks for foreign parts, he was, and d——-d quick, too! Some
soldiers had come up and stood listening.
“But you won’t get through, General,” spoke up a sergeant; “the
Prussians are everywhere. This morning was the time for you to cut
stick.”
There were stories even then in circulation of companies that had
become separated from their regiments and crossed the frontier without
any intention of doing so, and of others that, later in the day, had
succeeded in breaking through the enemy’s lines before the armies had
effected their final junction.
The general shrugged his shoulders impatiently. “What, with a few
daring fellows of your stripe, do you mean to say we couldn’t go where
we please? I think I can find fifty daredevils to risk their skin in
the attempt.” Then, turning again to the old peasant: “_Eh!_ you old
mummy, answer, will you, in the devil’s name! where is the frontier?”
She understood him this time. She extended her skinny arm in the
direction of the forest.
“That way, that way!”
“Eh? What’s that you say? Those houses that we see down there, at the
end of the field?”
“Oh! farther, much farther. Down yonder, away down yonder!”
The general seemed as if his anger must suffocate him. “It is too
disgusting, an infernal country like this! one can make neither top nor
tail of it. There was Belgium, right under our nose; we were all afraid
we should put our foot in it without knowing it; and now that one wants
to go there it is somewhere else. No, no! it is too much; I’ve had
enough of it; let them take me prisoner if they will, let them do what
they choose with me; I am going to bed!” And clapping spurs to his
horse, bobbing up and down on his saddle like an inflated wine skin, he
galloped off toward Sedan.
A winding path conducted the party down into the Fond de Givonne, an
outskirt of the city lying between two hills, where the single village
street, running north and south and sloping gently upward toward the
forest, was lined with gardens and modest houses. This street was just
then so obstructed by flying soldiers that Lieutenant Rochas, with
Pache, Lapoulle, and Gaude, found himself caught in the throng and
unable for the moment to move in either direction. Maurice and Jean had
some difficulty in rejoining them; and all were surprised to hear
themselves hailed by a husky, drunken voice, proceeding from the tavern
on the corner, near which they were blockaded.
“My stars, if here ain’t the gang! Hallo, boys, how are you? My stars,
I’m glad to see you!”
They turned, and recognized Chouteau, leaning from a window of the
ground floor of the inn. He seemed to be very drunk, and went on,
interspersing his speech with hiccoughs:
“Say, fellows, don’t stand on ceremony if you’re thirsty. There’s
enough left for the comrades.” He turned unsteadily and called to
someone who was invisible within the room: “Come here, you lazybones.
Give these gentlemen something to drink—”
Loubet appeared in turn, advancing with a flourish and holding aloft in
either hand a full bottle, which he waved above his head triumphantly.
He was not so far gone as his companion; with his Parisian _blague_,
imitating the nasal drawl of the coco-venders of the boulevards on a
public holiday, he cried:
“Here you are, nice and cool, nice and cool! Who’ll have a drink?”
Nothing had been seen of the precious pair since they had vanished
under pretense of taking Sergeant Sapin into the ambulance. It was
sufficiently evident that since then they had been strolling and seeing
the sights, taking care to keep out of the way of the shells, until
finally they had brought up at this inn that was given over to pillage.
Lieutenant Rochas was very angry. “Wait a bit, you scoundrels, just
wait, and I’ll attend to your case! deserting and getting drunk while
the rest of your company were under fire!”
But Chouteau would have none of his reprimand. “See here, you old
lunatic, I want you to understand that the grade of lieutenant is
abolished; we are all free and equal now. Aren’t you satisfied with the
basting the Prussians gave you to-day, or do you want some more?”
The others had to restrain the lieutenant to keep him from assaulting
the socialist. Loubet himself, dandling his bottles affectionately in
his arms, did what he could to pour oil upon the troubled waters.
“Quit that, now! what’s the use quarreling, when all men are brothers!”
And catching sight of Lapoulle and Pache, his companions in the squad:
“Don’t stand there like great gawks, you fellows! Come in here and take
something to wash the dust out of your throats.”
Lapoulle hesitated a moment, dimly conscious of the impropriety there
was in the indulgence when so many poor devils were in such sore
distress, but he was so knocked up with fatigue, so terribly hungry and
thirsty! He said not a word, but suddenly making up his mind, gave one
bound and landed in the room, pushing before him Pache, who, equally
silent, yielded to the temptation he had not strength to resist. And
they were seen no more.
“The infernal scoundrels!” muttered Rochas. “They deserve to be shot,
every mother’s son of them!”
He had now remaining with him of his party only Jean, Maurice, and
Gaude, and all four of them, notwithstanding their resistance, were
gradually involved and swallowed up in the torrent of stragglers and
fugitives that streamed along the road, filling its whole width from
ditch to ditch. Soon they were at a distance from the inn. It was the
routed army rolling down upon the ramparts of Sedan, a roily, roaring
flood, such as the disintegrated mass of earth and boulders that the
storm, scouring the mountainside, sweeps down into the valley. From all
the surrounding plateaus, down every slope, up every narrow gorge, by
the Floing road, by Pierremont, by the cemetery, by the Champ de Mars,
as well as through the Fond de Givonne, the same sorry rabble was
streaming cityward in panic haste, and every instant brought fresh
accessions to its numbers. And who could reproach those wretched men,
who, for twelve long, mortal hours, had stood in motionless array under
the murderous artillery of an invisible enemy, against whom they could
do nothing? The batteries now were playing on them from front, flank,
and rear; as they drew nearer the city they presented a fairer mark for
the convergent fire; the guns dealt death and destruction out by
wholesale on that dense, struggling mass of men in that accursed hole,
where there was no escape from the bursting shells. Some regiments of
the 7th corps, more particularly those that had been stationed about
Floing, had left the field in tolerably good order, but in the Fond de
Givonne there was no longer either organization or command; the troops
were a pushing, struggling mob, composed of debris from regiments of
every description, zouaves, turcos, chasseurs, infantry of the line,
most of them without arms, their uniforms soiled and torn, with grimy
hands, blackened faces, bloodshot eyes starting from their sockets and
lips swollen and distorted from their yells of fear or rage. At times a
riderless horse would dash through the throng, overturning those who
were in his path and leaving behind him a long wake of consternation.
Then some guns went thundering by at breakneck speed, a retreating
battery abandoned by its officers, and the drivers, as if drunk, rode
down everything and everyone, giving no word of warning. And still the
shuffling tramp of many feet along the dusty road went on and ceased
not, the close-compacted column pressed on, breast to back, side to
side; a retreat _en masse_, where vacancies in the ranks were filled as
soon as made, all moved by one common impulse, to reach the shelter
that lay before them and be behind a wall.
Again Jean raised his head and gave an anxious glance toward the west;
through the dense clouds of dust raised by the tramp of that great
multitude the luminary still poured his scorching rays down upon the
exhausted men. The sunset was magnificent, the heavens transparently,
beautifully blue.
“It’s a nuisance, all the same,” he muttered, “that plaguey sun that
stays up there and won’t go to roost!”
Suddenly Maurice became aware of the presence of a young woman whom the
movement of the resistless throng had jammed against a wall and who was
in danger of being injured, and on looking more attentively was
astounded to recognize in her his sister Henriette. For near a minute
he stood gazing at her in open-mouthed amazement, and finally it was
she who spoke, without any appearance of surprise, as if she found the
meeting entirely natural.
“They shot him at Bazeilles—and I was there. Then, in the hope that
they might at least let me have his body, I had an idea—”
She did not mention either Weiss or the Prussians by name; it seemed to
her that everyone must understand. Maurice did understand. It made his
heart bleed; he gave a great sob.
“My poor darling!”
When, about two o’clock, Henriette recovered consciousness, she found
herself at Balan, in the kitchen of some people who were strangers to
her, her head resting on a table, weeping. Almost immediately, however,
she dried her tears; already the heroic element was reasserting itself
in that silent woman, so frail, so gentle, yet of a spirit so
indomitable that she could suffer martyrdom for the faith, or the love,
that was in her. She knew not fear; her quiet, undemonstrative courage
was lofty and invincible. When her distress was deepest she had
summoned up her resolution, devoting her reflections to how she might
recover her husband’s body, so as to give it decent burial. Her first
project was neither more nor less than to make her way back to
Bazeilles, but everyone advised her against this course, assuring her
that it would be absolutely impossible to get through the German lines.
She therefore abandoned the idea, and tried to think of someone among
her acquaintance who would afford her the protection of his company, or
at least assist her in the necessary preliminaries. The person to whom
she determined she would apply was a M. Dubreuil, a cousin of hers, who
had been assistant superintendent of the refinery at Chêne at the time
her husband was employed there; Weiss had been a favorite of his; he
would not refuse her his assistance. Since the time, now two years ago,
when his wife had inherited a handsome fortune, he had been occupying a
pretty villa, called the Hermitage, the terraces of which could be seen
skirting the hillside of a suburb of Sedan, on the further side of the
Fond de Givonne. And thus it was toward the Hermitage that she was now
bending her steps, compelled at every moment to pause before some fresh
obstacle, continually menaced with being knocked down and trampled to
death.
Maurice, to whom she briefly explained her project, gave it his
approval.
“Cousin Dubreuil has always been a good friend to us. He will be of
service to you.”
Then an idea of another nature occurred to him. Lieutenant Rochas was
greatly embarrassed as to what disposition he should make of the flag.
They all were firmly resolved to save it—to do anything rather than
allow it to fall into the hands of the Prussians. It had been suggested
to cut it into pieces, of which each should carry one off under his
shirt, or else to bury it at the foot of a tree, so noting the locality
in memory that they might be able to come and disinter it at some
future day; but the idea of mutilating the flag, or burying it like a
corpse, affected them too painfully, and they were considering if they
might not preserve it in some other manner. When Maurice, therefore,
proposed to entrust the standard to a reliable person who would conceal
it and, in case of necessity, defend it, until such day as he should
restore it to them intact, they all gave their assent.
“Come,” said the young man, addressing his sister, “we will go with you
to the Hermitage and see if Dubreuil is there. Besides, I do not wish
to leave you without protection.”
It was no easy matter to extricate themselves from the press, but they
succeeded finally and entered a path that led upward on their left.
They soon found themselves in a region intersected by a perfect
labyrinth of lanes and narrow passages, a district where truck farms
and gardens predominated, interspersed with an occasional villa and
small holdings of extremely irregular outline, and these lanes and
passages wound circuitously between blank walls, turning sharp corners
at every few steps and bringing up abruptly in the cul-de-sac of some
courtyard, affording admirable facilities for carrying on a guerilla
warfare; there were spots where ten men might defend themselves for
hours against a regiment. Desultory firing was already beginning to be
heard, for the suburb commanded Balan, and the Bavarians were already
coming up on the other side of the valley.
When Maurice and Henriette, who were in the rear of the others, had
turned once to the left, then to the right and then to the left again,
following the course of two interminable walls, they suddenly came out
before the Hermitage, the door of which stood wide open. The grounds,
at the top of which was a small park, were terraced off in three broad
terraces, on one of which stood the residence, a roomy, rectangular
structure, approached by an avenue of venerable elms. Facing it, and
separated from it by the deep, narrow valley, with its steeply sloping
banks, were other similar country seats, backed by a wood.
Henriette’s anxiety was aroused at sight of the open door, “They are
not at home,” she said; “they must have gone away.”
The truth was that Dubreuil had decided the day before to take his wife
and children to Bouillon, where they would be in safety from the
disaster he felt was impending. And yet the house was not unoccupied;
even at a distance and through the intervening trees the approaching
party were conscious of movements going on within its walls. As the
young woman advanced into the avenue she recoiled before the dead body
of a Prussian soldier.
“The devil!” exclaimed Rochas; “so they have already been exchanging
civilities in this quarter!”
Then all hands, desiring to ascertain what was going on, hurried
forward to the house, and there their curiosity was quickly gratified;
the doors and windows of the _rez-de-chaussée_ had been smashed in with
musket-butts and the yawning apertures disclosed the destruction that
the marauders had wrought in the rooms within, while on the graveled
terrace lay various articles of furniture that had been hurled from the
stoop. Particularly noticeable was a drawing-room suite in sky-blue
satin, its sofa and twelve fauteuils piled in dire confusion,
helter-skelter, on and around a great center table, the marble top of
which was broken in twain. And there were zouaves, chasseurs, liners,
and men of the infanterie de marine running to and fro excitedly behind
the buildings and in the alleys, discharging their pieces into the
little wood that faced them across the valley.
“Lieutenant,” a zouave said to Rochas, by way of explanation, “we found
a pack of those dirty Prussian hounds here, smashing things and raising
Cain generally. We settled their hash for them, as you can see for
yourself; only they will be coming back here presently, ten to our one,
and that won’t be so pleasant.”
Three other corpses of Prussian soldiers were stretched upon the
terrace. As Henriette was looking at them absently, her thoughts
doubtless far away with her husband, who, amid the blood and ashes of
Bazeilles, was also sleeping his last sleep, a bullet whistled close to
her head and struck a tree that stood behind her. Jean sprang forward.
“Madame, don’t stay there. Go inside the house, quick, quick!”
His heart overflowed with pity as he beheld the change her terrible
affliction had wrought in her, and he recalled her image as she had
appeared to him only the day before, her face bright with the kindly
smile of the happy, loving wife. At first he had found no word to say
to her, hardly knowing even if she would recognize him. He felt that he
could gladly give his life, if that would serve to restore her peace of
mind.
“Go inside, and don’t come out. At the first sign of danger we will
come for you, and we will all escape together by way of the wood up
yonder.”
But she apathetically replied:
“Ah, M. Jean, what is the use?”
Her brother, however, was also urging her, and finally she ascended the
stoop and took her position within the vestibule, whence her vision
commanded a view of the avenue in its entire length. She was a
spectator of the ensuing combat.
Maurice and Jean had posted themselves behind one of the elms near the
house. The gigantic trunks of the centenarian monarchs were amply
sufficient to afford shelter to two men. A little way from them Gaude,
the bugler, had joined forces with Lieutenant Rochas, who, unwilling to
confide the flag to other hands, had rested it against the tree at his
side while he handled his musket. And every trunk had its defenders;
from end to end the avenue was lined with men covered, Indian fashion,
by the trees, who only exposed their head when ready to fire.
In the wood across the valley the Prussians appeared to be receiving
re-enforcements, for their fire gradually grew warmer. There was no one
to be seen; at most, the swiftly vanishing form now and then of a man
changing his position. A villa, with green shutters, was occupied by
their sharpshooters, who fired from the half-open windows of the
_rez-de-chaussée_. It was about four o’clock, and the noise of the
cannonade in the distance was diminishing, the guns were being silenced
one by one; and there they were, French and Prussians, in that
out-of-the-way-corner whence they could not see the white flag floating
over the citadel, still engaged in the work of mutual slaughter, as if
their quarrel had been a personal one. Notwithstanding the armistice
there were many such points where the battle continued to rage until it
was too dark to see; the rattle of musketry was heard in the faubourg
of the Fond de Givonne and in the gardens of Petit-Pont long after it
had ceased elsewhere.
For a quarter of an hour the bullets flew thick and fast from one side
of the valley to the other. Now and again someone who was so incautious
as to expose himself went down with a ball in his head or chest. There
were three men lying dead in the avenue. The rattling in the throat of
another man who had fallen prone upon his face was something horrible
to listen to, and no one thought to go and turn him on his back to ease
his dying agony. Jean, who happened to look around just at that moment,
beheld Henriette glide tranquilly down the steps, approach the wounded
man and turn him over, then slip a knapsack beneath his head by way of
pillow. He ran and seized her and forcibly brought her back behind the
tree where he and Maurice were posted.
“Do you wish to be killed?”
She appeared to be entirely unconscious of the danger to which she had
exposed herself.
“Why, no—but I am afraid to remain in that house, all alone. I would
rather be outside.”
And so she stayed with them. They seated her on the ground at their
feet, against the trunk of the tree, and went on expending the few
cartridges that were left them, blazing away to right and left, with
such fury that they quite forgot their sensations of fear and fatigue.
They were utterly unconscious of what was going on around them, acting
mechanically, with but one end in view; even the instinct of
self-preservation had deserted them.
“Look, Maurice,” suddenly said Henriette; “that dead soldier there
before us, does he not belong to the Prussian Guard?”
She had been eying attentively for the past minute or two one of the
dead bodies that the enemy had left behind them when they retreated, a
short, thick-set young man, with big mustaches, lying upon his side on
the gravel of the terrace.
The chin-strap had broken, releasing the spiked helmet, which had
rolled away a few steps. And it was indisputable that the body was
attired in the uniform of the Guard; the dark gray trousers, the blue
tunic with white facings, the greatcoat rolled and worn, belt-wise,
across the shoulder.
“It is the Guard uniform,” she said; “I am quite certain of it. It is
exactly like the colored plate I have at home, and then the photograph
that Cousin Gunther sent us—” She stopped suddenly, and with her
unconcerned, fearless air, before anyone could make a motion to detain
her, walked up to the corpse, bent down and read the number of the
regiment. “Ah, the Forty-third!” she exclaimed. “I knew it.”
And she returned to her position, while a storm of bullets whistled
around her ears. “Yes, the Forty-third; Cousin Gunther’s
regiment—something told me it must be so. Ah! if my poor husband were
only here!”
After that all Jean’s and Maurice’s entreaties were ineffectual to make
her keep quiet. She was feverishly restless, constantly protruding her
head to peer into the opposite wood, evidently harassed by some anxiety
that preyed upon her mind. Her companions continued to load and fire
with the same blind fury, pushing her back with their knee whenever she
exposed herself too rashly. It looked as if the Prussians were
beginning to consider that their numbers would warrant them in
attacking, for they showed themselves more frequently and there were
evidences of preparations going on behind the trees. They were
suffering severely, however, from the fire of the French, whose bullets
at that short range rarely failed to bring down their man.
“That may be your cousin,” said Jean. “Look, that officer over there,
who has just come out of the house with the green shutters.”
He was a captain, as could be seen by the gold braid on the collar of
his tunic and the golden eagle on his helmet that flashed back the
level ray of the setting sun. He had discarded his epaulettes, and
carrying his saber in his right hand, was shouting an order in a sharp,
imperative voice; and the distance between them was so small, a scant
two hundred yards, that every detail of his trim, slender figure was
plainly discernible, as well as the pinkish, stern face and slight
blond mustache.
Henriette scrutinized him with attentive eyes. “It is he,” she replied,
apparently unsurprised. “I recognize him perfectly.”
With a look of concentrated rage Maurice drew his piece to his shoulder
and covered him. “The cousin—Ah! sure as there is a God in heaven he
shall pay for Weiss.”
But, quivering with excitement, she jumped to her feet and knocked up
the weapon, whose charge was wasted on the air.
“Stop, stop! we must not kill acquaintances, relatives! It is too
barbarous.”
And, all her womanly instincts coming back to her, she sank down behind
the tree and gave way to a fit of violent weeping. The horror of it all
was too much for her; in her great dread and sorrow she was forgetful
of all beside.
Rochas, meantime, was in his element. He had excited the few zouaves
and other troops around him to such a pitch of frenzy, their fire had
become so murderously effective at sight of the Prussians, that the
latter first wavered and then retreated to the shelter of their wood.
“Stand your ground, my boys! don’t give way an inch! Aha, see ’em run,
the cowards! we’ll fix their flint for ’em!”
He was in high spirits and seemed to have recovered all his unbounded
confidence, certain that victory was yet to crown their efforts. There
had been no defeat. The handful of men before him stood in his eyes for
the united armies of Germany, and he was going to destroy them at his
leisure. All his long, lean form, all his thin, bony face, where the
huge nose curved down upon the self-willed, sensual mouth, exhaled a
laughing, vain-glorious satisfaction, the joy of the conquering trooper
who goes through the world with his sweetheart on his arm and a bottle
of good wine in his hand.
“_Parbleu_, my children, what are we here for, I’d like to know, if not
to lick ’em out of their boots? and that’s the way this affair is going
to end, just mark my words. We shouldn’t know ourselves any longer if
we should let ourselves be beaten. Beaten! come, come, that is too
good! When the neighbors tread on our toes, or when we feel we are
beginning to grow rusty for want of something to do, we just turn to
and give ’em a thrashing; that’s all there is to it. Come, boys, let
’em have it once more, and you’ll see ’em run like so many
jackrabbits!”
He bellowed and gesticulated like a lunatic, and was such a good fellow
withal in the comforting illusion of his ignorance that the men were
inoculated with his confidence. He suddenly broke out again:
“And we’ll kick ’em, we’ll kick ’em, we’ll kick ’em to the frontier!
Victory, victory!”
But at that juncture, just as the enemy across the valley seemed really
to be falling back, a hot fire of musketry came pouring in on them from
the left. It was a repetition of the everlasting flanking movement that
had done the Prussians such good service; a strong detachment of the
Guards had crept around toward the French rear through the Fond de
Givonne. It was useless to think of holding the position longer; the
little band of men who were defending the terraces were caught between
two fires and menaced with being cut off from Sedan. Men fell on every
side, and for a moment the confusion was extreme; the Prussians were
already scaling the wall of the park, and advancing along the pathways.
Some zouaves rushed forward to repel them, and there was a fierce
hand-to-hand struggle with the bayonet. There was one zouave, a big,
handsome, brown-bearded man, bare-headed and with his jacket hanging in
tatters from his shoulders, who did his work with appalling
thoroughness, driving his reeking bayonet home through splintering
bones and yielding tissues, cleansing it of the gore that it had
contracted from one man by plunging it into the flesh of another; and
when it broke he laid about him, smashing many a skull, with the butt
of his musket; and when finally he made a misstep and lost his weapon
he sprung, bare-handed, for the throat of a burly Prussian, with such
tigerish fierceness that both men rolled over and over on the gravel to
the shattered kitchen door, clasped in a mortal embrace. The trees of
the park looked down on many such scenes of slaughter, and the green
lawn was piled with corpses. But it was before the stoop, around the
sky-blue sofa and fauteuils, that the conflict raged with greatest
fury; a maddened mob of savages, firing at one another at point-blank
range, so that hair and beards were set on fire, tearing one another
with teeth and nails when a knife was wanting to slash the adversary’s
throat.
Then Gaude, with his sorrowful face, the face of a man who has had his
troubles of which he does not care to speak, was seized with a sort of
sudden heroic madness. At that moment of irretrievable defeat, when he
must have known that the company was annihilated and that there was not
a man left to answer his summons, he grasped his bugle, carried it to
his lips and sounded the general, in so tempestuous, ear-splitting
strains that one would have said he wished to wake the dead. Nearer and
nearer came the Prussians, but he never stirred, only sounding the call
the louder, with all the strength of his lungs. He fell, pierced with
many bullets, and his spirit passed in one long-drawn, parting wail
that died away and was lost upon the shuddering air.
Rochas made no attempt to fly; he seemed unable to comprehend. Even
more erect than usual, he waited the end, stammering:
“Well, what’s the matter? what’s the matter?”
Such a possibility had never entered his head as that they could be
defeated. They were changing everything in these degenerate days, even
to the manner of fighting; had not those fellows a right to remain on
their own side of the valley and wait for the French to go and attack
them? There was no use killing them; as fast as they were killed more
kept popping up. What kind of a d——-d war was it, anyway, where they
were able to collect ten men against their opponent’s one, where they
never showed their face until evening, after blazing away at you all
day with their artillery until you didn’t know on which end you were
standing? Aghast and confounded, having failed so far to acquire the
first idea of the rationale of the campaign, he was dimly conscious of
the existence of some mysterious, superior method which he could not
comprehend, against which he ceased to struggle, although in his dogged
stubbornness he kept repeating mechanically:
“Courage, my children! victory is before us!”
Meanwhile he had stooped and clutched the flag. That was his last, his
only thought, to save the flag, retreating again, if necessary, so that
it might not be defiled by contact with Prussian hands. But the staff,
although it was broken, became entangled in his legs; he narrowly
escaped falling. The bullets whistled past him, he felt that death was
near; he stripped the silk from the staff and tore it into shreds,
striving to destroy it utterly. And then it was that, stricken at once
in the neck, chest, and legs, he sank to earth amid the bright
tri-colored rags, as if they had been his pall. He survived a moment
yet, gazing before him with fixed, dilated eyes, reading, perhaps, in
the vision he beheld on the horizon the stern lesson that War conveys,
the cruel, vital struggle that is to be accepted not otherwise than
gravely, reverently, as immutable law. Then a slight tremor ran through
his frame, and darkness succeeded to his infantine bewilderment; he
passed away, like some poor dumb, lowly creature of a day, a joyous
insect that mighty, impassive Nature, in her relentless fatality, has
caught and crushed. In him died all a legend.
When the Prussians began to draw near Jean and Maurice had retreated,
retiring from tree to tree, face to the enemy, and always, as far as
possible, keeping Henriette behind them. They did not give over firing,
discharging their pieces and then falling back to seek a fresh cover.
Maurice knew where there was a little wicket in the wall at the upper
part of the park, and they were so fortunate as to find it unfastened.
With lighter hearts when they had left it behind them, they found
themselves in a narrow by-road that wound between two high walls, but
after following it for some distance the sound of firing in front
caused them to turn into a path on their left. As luck would have it,
it ended in an _impasse_; they had to retrace their steps, running the
gauntlet of the bullets, and take the turning to the right. When they
came to exchange reminiscences in later days they could never agree on
which road they had taken. In that tangled network of suburban lanes
and passages there was firing still going on from every corner that
afforded a shelter, protracted battles raged at the gates of farmyards,
everything that could be converted into a barricade had its defenders,
from whom the assailants tried to wrest it; all with the utmost fury
and vindictiveness. And all at once they came out upon the Fond de
Givonne road, not far from Sedan.
For the third time Jean raised his eyes toward the western sky, that
was all aflame with a bright, rosy light; and he heaved a sigh of
unspeakable relief.
“Ah, that pig of a sun! at last he is going to bed!”
And they ran with might and main, all three of them, never once
stopping to draw breath. About them, filling the road in all its
breadth, was the rear-guard of fugitives from the battlefield, still
flowing onward with the irresistible momentum of an unchained mountain
torrent. When they came to the Balan gate they had a long period of
waiting in the midst of the impatient, ungovernable throng. The chains
of the drawbridge had given way, and the only path across the fosse was
by the foot-bridge, so that the guns and horses had to turn back and
seek admission by the bridge of the château, where the jam was said to
be even still more fearful. At the gate of la Cassine, too, people were
trampled to death in their eagerness to gain admittance. From all the
adjacent heights the terror-stricken fragments of the army came
tumbling into the city, as into a cesspool, with the hollow roar of
pent-up water that has burst its dam. The fatal attraction of those
walls had ended by making cowards of the bravest; men trod one another
down in their blind haste to be under cover.
Maurice had caught Henriette in his arms, and in a voice that trembled
with suspense:
“It cannot be,” he said, “that they will have the cruelty to close the
gate and shut us out.”
That was what the crowd feared would be done. To right and left,
however, upon the glacis soldiers were already arranging their
bivouacs, while entire batteries, guns, caissons, and horses, in
confusion worse confounded, had thrown themselves pell-mell into the
fosse for safety.
But now shrill, impatient bugle calls rose on the evening air, followed
soon by the long-drawn strains of retreat. They were summoning the
belated soldiers back to their comrades, who came running in, singly
and in groups. A dropping fire of musketry still continued in the
faubourgs, but it was gradually dying out. Heavy guards were stationed
on the banquette behind the parapet to protect the approaches, and at
last the gate was closed. The Prussians were within a hundred yards of
the sally-port; they could be seen moving on the Balan road, tranquilly
establishing themselves in the houses and gardens.
Maurice and Jean, pushing Henriette before them to protect her from the
jostling of the throng, were among the last to enter Sedan. Six o’clock
was striking. The artillery fire had ceased nearly an hour ago. Soon
the distant musketry fire, too, was silenced. Then, to the deafening
uproar, to the vengeful thunder that had been roaring since morning,
there succeeded a stillness as of death. Night came, and with it came a
boding silence, fraught with terror.