With fumbling fingers Maurice sought Jean's hand and clasped it. Then only did he feel reassured and fall asleep. Nothing now remained awake, save a steeple of Sedan, whose clock struck, one by one, the fateful hours.
Weiss was fast asleep in his little room at Bazeilles, where all was dark, when a sudden disturbance made him spring out of bed. He listened, and heard the roar of cannon. Groping for the candle, he lighted it, and on looking at his watch found it was four o'clock; the dawn was scarcely breaking. He hastily put on his eye-glasses and scanned the high street—the Douzy road, which runs through the village—but the atmosphere there seemed full of thick dust, and nothing could be distinguished. He thereupon entered the adjoining room, the window of which overlooked the meadows on the side of the Meuse, and realised that the morning mist was rising from the river, obscuring the horizon. The guns were thundering more and more loudly from over yonder, across the water, but were hidden from view by the foggy veil. All at once a French battery replied with such a crash, and at so short a distance away, that the walls of the little house fairly shook.
Weiss's abode was nearly in the centre of Bazeilles, on the right-hand side, near the Place de l'Eglise. It stood back a little from the highway which it faced, and comprised a ground floor and upper floor, the latter being lighted by three windows and surmounted by a garret. In the rear there was a rather large garden, which sloped down towards the meadows, and whence the view extended over the immense panorama of hills from Remilly to Frénois. With the fervour of one who has but recently become a householder, Weiss had remained on his legs till nearly two o'clock in the morning, burying all his provisions in the cellar, and placing mattresses before all the windows, with the view of shielding his furniture as much as possible from the enemy's fire. He felt enraged at the idea that the Prussians might come and pillage this house, which he had so long coveted, which he had acquired with so much difficulty, and which he had had the enjoyment of during, as yet, so brief a space of time.
All at once he heard some one calling to him from the road: 'I say, Weiss, do you hear?'
He went down, and on opening the door found Delaherche, who had spent the night at his dyeworks, a large brick building, separated from the house merely by a party wall. All the workmen had already fled through the woods into Belgium, and the only person who remained to protect the place was the door-portress, a mason's widow, named Françoise Quitard. She, poor, trembling, scared creature, would have fled with the others had it not been for her boy, little Auguste, a lad some ten years of age, who was so ill with typhoid fever that he could not be removed.
'I say,' resumed Delaherche, 'do you hear? It's beginning nicely—it would be prudent for us to get back to Sedan at once.'
Weiss had formally promised his wife that he would leave Bazeilles as soon as there was any serious danger, and he was quite resolved to keep his promise. So far, however, merely a long-range artillery engagement was being fought, in a more or less random fashion, through the morning mist.
'Wait a bit,' the book-keeper replied, 'there's no hurry.'
Delaherche's curiosity was so acute and restless that it had almost lent him some courage. He had not closed his eyes during the night, being greatly interested in the defensive preparations that were being made by the French troops. Foreseeing that he would be attacked at daybreak, General Lebrun, who commanded the Twelfth Army Corps, had employed the night in entrenching himself in Bazeilles. Orders had been given him that he must at any cost prevent the enemy from occupying the village, and accordingly barricades had been thrown up across the high road and the side streets, each house had been garrisoned, and each lane and garden transformed into a fortress. And the men, quietly roused in the inky darkness, were already at their posts at three in the morning, each with ninety cartridges in his pouch and with his chassepot freshly lubricated. Thus it happened that the enemy's first cannon shot surprised nobody; and the French batteries, posted in the rear between Balan and Bazeilles, immediately answered it, more by way of announcing their presence, however, than for any serious purpose, for the firing was mere guess work and could hardly prove effective in such a fog.
'The dyeworks will be vigorously defended,' resumed Delaherche. 'I've got an entire section there. Come and see.'
Forty and odd men of the Marine Infantry had indeed been posted there, under the command of a lieutenant, a tall, fair fellow, very young, but with an energetic, stubborn expression of countenance. His men had already taken possession of the building, and whilst some of them loopholed the shutters on the first floor, others embattled the low wall of the courtyard overlooking the meadows in the rear. It was in the courtyard that Delaherche and Weiss found the lieutenant, who was vainly trying to distinguish the enemy's positions through the morning mist.
'What a horrid fog!' he muttered. 'We can't fight groping.' And immediately afterwards, without the slightest transition, he inquired: 'What day is it?'
'Thursday,' replied Weiss.
'Thursday—oh, yes! The devil take me, but we live as though the world no longer existed.'
At that moment, amid the thundering of the guns, which did not for a moment cease, a lively fusillade burst forth on the outskirts of the meadows, some two or three hundred yards away. And just then there was a sudden change in the surroundings, similar to a transformation scene at a theatre—the sun arose, the vapour from the Meuse flew away in fragments like shreds of delicate muslin, and a blue sky of spotless limpidity appeared to view. A delightful morning was heralding in a glorious summer day.
'Ah!' exclaimed Delaherche, 'they are crossing the railway bridge—do you see them trying to gain ground along the line? What crass stupidity on our part—the bridge ought to have been blown up!'
The lieutenant made a gesture of anger. The mine was laid, he related, but, on the previous day, the commanders had forgotten to fire it, after the men had fought during four long hours to recapture this very bridge. 'It's our cursed luck,' he added curtly.
Weiss remained silent, gazing at the scene and trying to understand it. The French occupied a very strong position in Bazeilles. Built on either side of the road from Sedan to Douzy, the village overlooked the plain; and apart from this road, turning to the left and passing in front of the Château, there was only one other, branching out to the right, and leading to the railway bridge. It was, therefore, necessary for the Germans who were now advancing to cross the meadows and cultivated fields, all the vast open expanse edging the Meuse and the railway line. The enemy's prudence being well known, it seemed unlikely that the real attack would take place on this side, and yet dense masses of men were still coming up by way of the bridge, and this, despite all the havoc wrought in their ranks by the French mitrailleuses posted on the outskirts of the village. Those who succeeded in crossing the bridge immediately threw themselves in skirmishing order among the few pollard willows rising here and there, until the columns managed to reform, and again press forward. It was from this direction that came the fusillade of increasing intensity that had begun to crackle just as the mist rose.
'Hallo!' remarked Weiss, 'those fellows are Bavarians—I can tell it by their helmets.'
At the same time it seemed to him that some other columns, half hidden by the railway line, were pressing onward, on the right, and endeavouring to reach some distant trees, whence, by an oblique movement, they might again descend upon Bazeilles. Should they succeed in thus sheltering themselves in the park of Montivilliers, the village might be captured. This was vaguely but promptly realised by Weiss. However, as the front attack was becoming more determined, he ceased thinking of it. He had abruptly turned towards the heights of Floing, which rose up on the north, above the town of Sedan. A battery installed there had just opened fire, puffs of smoke could be seen ascending in the bright sunlight, and the detonations could be distinctly heard.
'Hum,' said Weiss, 'the dance will be a general one.'
The lieutenant, who was looking in the same direction, made a vigorous gesture of assent, and added: 'But Bazeilles is the important point. The issue of the battle will be decided here.'
'Do you really think so?' Weiss asked.
'There's no doubt about it. The marshal himself must certainly have that opinion, for he came here last night to tell us that we must fight to the last man rather than let the enemy take the village.'
Weiss shook his head, however, scanned the horizon around him, and then, in a hesitating way, as though he were talking to himself, remarked: 'Well, no—no—I hardly fancy that—I'm afraid of something else—something I hardly dare say——' He spoke no further, but held out his arms as though they were the branches of a vice; and then turning towards the north, he brought his hands together as if the vice-chops had suddenly met. In this fashion he expressed the fears that had been troubling him since the previous day, fears based on his knowledge of the country, and on everything that he had observed of the march of the hostile armies. And even now, when the broad plain expanded in the radiant sunshine, his eyes returned once more to the hills on the left bank of the river, over which, throughout an entire day and an entire night, there had marched such an interminable, black swarm of German troops. A battery was firing from the left of Remilly, but the one whose shells were beginning to fall at Bazeilles was installed at Pont-Maugis on the bank of the river. Weiss folded his eye-glasses one over the other, and held them to one eye that he might the more effectually explore the wooded slopes. However, he could only see the white puffs of smoke with which the guns were, each minute, capping the heights. What had become, then, of the human torrent which had streamed along those hills? All that he could distinguish, after prolonged scrutiny, was a cluster of horses and uniforms—some general and his staff, no doubt—perched at the corner of a pine wood on the Marfée hill, above Noyers and Frénois. Farther on was the loop of the Meuse, barring the west; and on this side the only possible line of retreat on Mézières lay along the narrow road passing through the defile of St. Albert, between the river and the forest of the Ardennes. On the previous day, chancing to meet a general in a hollow road of the valley of Givonne—a general who he afterwards learnt was Ducrot, the commander of the First Corps—Weiss had ventured to speak to him of this one possible line of retreat. Unless the troops immediately retired by the road in question, if they waited until the Prussians had crossed the Meuse at Donchery and intercepted the passage of the river, they would certainly find themselves immobilised, brought to a stand at the Belgian frontier. That same evening, moreover, it had already seemed too late to effect the movement, for the Uhlans were reported to be in possession of the Donchery bridge—another bridge which had not been blown up, in this case through forgetfulness to bring the powder required for the purpose. And now, thought Weiss despairingly, the whole stream of men, the great black swarm, must be crossing the plain of Donchery on its way towards the defile of St. Albert, with its advance guard already threatening St. Menges and Floing, whither he had conducted Jean and Maurice the previous night. He could espy the distant steeple of Floing looking like a fine white needle in the brilliant sunlight.
On the east was the other branch of the vice. Although Weiss could descry the line of battle of the Seventh Corps, stretching on the northern side from the plateau of Illy to that of Floing, and ineffectually supported by the Fifth Corps, posted as a reserve force under the ramparts, it was impossible for him to tell what was taking place on the east, where the First Corps was drawn up in the valley of Givonne from the wood of La Garenne to the village of Daigny. However, the guns were already thundering in that direction, and it seemed as if an engagement were being fought in the Chevalier Wood in front of the village. And Weiss was the more disquieted as some peasants had already, on the previous day, reported the arrival of the Prussians at Francheval, so that the movement which was being effected on the west by way of Donchery was also being effected on the east by way of Francheval; and it seemed certain that the vice-chops would eventually meet at the Calvary of Illy, on the northern side, should the all-enveloping march on either hand not be promptly stayed. He knew nothing of military science; he had simply his common sense to guide him, but he trembled at sight of that huge triangle, one side of which was formed by the Meuse, whilst the other two were represented by the Seventh Corps on the north, and the First on the east; the Twelfth posted at Bazeilles on the south, occupying the extreme angle, and all three turning the back to one another and awaiting, nobody knew how or why, the foe who was now coming up on every side. And in the centre, in the depths of a pit as it were, was the town of Sedan, armed with guns that were past service, and having neither a supply of ammunition nor a supply of food.
'Don't you see,' said Weiss, repeating the gesture he had previously made—his arms stretched out and his finger-tips meeting—'that's how it will be if your generals don't take care—the enemy are playing with you at Bazeilles.'
He explained himself, however, in a confused, unsatisfactory manner, and the lieutenant, not being acquainted with the district, failed to understand him, and impatiently shrugged his shoulders, full of disdain for this spectacled civilian, who claimed to know better than Marshal MacMahon. On Weiss repeating that the attack upon Bazeilles was probably only a feint, intended to conceal the enemy's real design, the young officer became quite irritated, and exclaimed: 'Pray mind your own business. We are going to drive your Bavarians into the Meuse, and they'll learn what it is to play with us.'
The enemy's skirmishers seemed to have drawn somewhat nearer during the last minute or two, and several bullets having struck the brick wall of the dyeworks with a dull thud, the French soldiers began to return the fire, sheltered by the low wall of the courtyard. The clear, sharp report of a chassepot resounded every second.
'Drive them into the Meuse—yes, no doubt,' muttered Weiss, 'and pass over them and march back on Carignan—that would be a good idea.' Then addressing Delaherche, who in his fear of the bullets had hidden himself behind the pump, he added: 'All the same, the proper plan was to have hurried off to Mézières yesterday evening. I should have preferred that if I'd been in the place of the generals. However, one must fight now, for retreat is not longer possible.'
'Are you coming?' asked Delaherche, who, despite his ardent curiosity, was beginning to blanch. 'If we stay here much longer we sha'n't be able to get back to Sedan.'
'Yes, wait a minute. I'll go with you.'
Then, in spite of the danger to which he exposed himself, Weiss rose on tip-toe, obstinately bent on finding out how matters were progressing. On the right were the meadows flooded by order of the Governor of Sedan, quite a large lake protecting the town from Torcy to Balan. A delicate azure tint suffused the broad sheet of unruffled water in the early sunlight. But the lake did not stretch far enough to cover the outskirts of Bazeilles, and the Bavarians, advancing through the grass, had indeed drawn nearer, taking advantage of every ditch and every tree they came upon. They were now, perhaps, five hundred yards away, and Weiss was struck with the slowness of their movements, the patient manner in which they gradually gained ground, exposing themselves as little as possible. Moreover, a powerful artillery was supporting them, and at each moment shells came hissing through the fresh, pure atmosphere. Weiss raised his eyes and saw that the battery of Pont-Maugis was not the only one that was firing on Bazeilles; two others, planted midway up the Liry hill, had also opened fire, not merely cannonading the village, but sweeping the bare ground of La Moncelle farther on, where the reserves of the Twelfth Corps were posted, and even the wooded slopes of Daigny, occupied by a division of the First Corps. And, indeed, flames were now flashing from all the hill-crests on the left bank of the river. The guns seemed to spring out of the soil. At each moment the circle of fire extended—at Noyers a battery was firing on Balan, at Wadelincourt a battery was firing on Sedan itself, and at Frénois, just below the Marfée hill, a formidable battery was hurling shells right over the town, shells which went plunging and bursting among the troops of the Seventh Corps on the plateau of Floing. And it was with terrified anguish that Weiss now gazed on those slopes that he loved so well, those rounded hills which fringed the valley afar off with so gay a greenery, and which he had never imagined could serve any other purpose than that of delighting the eyesight; but now, all at once, they had become, as it were, a fearful, gigantic fortress, ready to pulverise the futile fortifications of Sedan.
He suddenly raised his head on seeing a little plaster fall to the ground. A bullet had chipped it off the front of his house, which he could perceive above the party-wall. 'Are those brigands going to demolish my house?' he growled, feeling greatly annoyed.
Just then, however, he was astonished to hear a slight noise behind him, and on turning round he saw a soldier falling on his back with a bullet in the heart. For a moment the poor fellow's legs were stirred by a supreme convulsion, but death came so swiftly that his face retained its peaceful, youthful expression. This was the first man killed; Weiss, however, was most disturbed by the clatter of the soldier's chassepot, which as it escaped from his hands rebounded on the paving-stones of the yard.
'Oh! I'm off,' stammered Delaherche. 'If you won't come I shall go alone.'
The lieutenant, whom the presence of these civilians disturbed, intervened approvingly: 'Yes, gentlemen, you had better go away. We may now be attacked at any moment.'
Thereupon, after glancing once more at the meadows, where the Bavarians were still gaining ground, Weiss made up his mind to follow Delaherche. But, on reaching the street, he paused to double-lock the door of his house, and when he again rejoined his companion an unforeseen spectacle once more stayed their flight. The Place de l'Eglise, some three hundred yards away, at the end of the road, was at that moment being attacked by a strong column of Bavarians debouching from the Douzy highway. After a time the regiment of Marine Infantry, entrusted with the defence of the Place, appeared to slacken fire as though to let the foe advance, but, all at once, when the German column was massed in front of the French, the latter resorted to a strange and, on the enemy's part, evidently unexpected manœuvre. The Marines sprang on one or the other side of the way, a large number of them flinging themselves upon the ground; and then, through the space thus suddenly opened, the French mitrailleuses, in position at the other end of the road, rained a perfect storm of bullets upon the foe. The hostile column was virtually swept away, and the Marines thereupon bounded to their feet and charged the scattered survivors of the Bavarian force at the bayonet's point, bringing many of them to the ground and throwing the others far back. And twice again was this same manœuvre repeated, and with the same success. Three women, who had remained in a little house at the corner of a lane, could be seen tranquilly installed at one of the windows there, laughing and clapping their hands at the sight, and looking indeed as much amused as though they were at a theatre.
'Ah! dash it!' suddenly said Weiss; 'I forgot to lock up my cellar and take the key. Wait a bit. I sha'n't be a second.'
As this first attack seemed to have been repulsed, Delaherche, whose curiosity once more began to gain the upper hand, was in less haste to get away. Standing outside the dyeworks, he began talking to the portress, who had stepped to the threshold of the room she occupied, on the ground floor.
'You ought to come away with us, Françoise,' he said. 'It's not right for a woman to remain here all alone in the midst of such horrible things.'
She raised her trembling arms and answered: 'Ah, sir, I should certainly have gone away if it hadn't been for my little Auguste, who's so ill. Will you come in and look at him, sir?'
He did not go in, but craned his neck forward and shook his head ominously as he espied the lad lying in a clean white bed, with the purple flush of fever suffusing his face, whilst with flaming eyes he looked fixedly at his mother.
'But now I think of it,' said the manufacturer, 'why don't you take him away? I'll fix you up at Sedan. Wrap him in a warm blanket, and come with us.'
'Oh! it can't be done, sir. The doctor told me it would kill the boy to move him. If only his poor father were still alive. But there are only we two left, and, needing one another as we do, we must be very careful. And, after all, perhaps those Prussians won't do any harm to a lone woman and a sick child.'
At this moment Weiss returned, delighted at having made every door in his house secure. 'They'll have to smash everything if they want to get in,' said he. 'And now let's get off. It won't be an easy job—we had better keep close to the houses or we may be hit by a bullet.'
The enemy was, indeed, evidently preparing a fresh attack, for the fusillade was increasing in violence, and there was no pause now in the hissing of the shells. A couple of the latter had already fallen in the road about a hundred yards away, whilst a third had plunged into the soft soil of a neighbouring garden without bursting.
'I must say good-bye to your little Auguste, Françoise,' resumed Weiss. 'Oh! he doesn't look so bad now; in a couple of days he'll be out of danger. Well, keep your spirits up. Mind you go indoors at once. Don't venture out here.'
At last the two men turned to go off.
'Good-bye, Françoise.'
'Good-bye, gentlemen.'
But at that very moment there was a terrible crash. After overthrowing one of the chimneys of Weiss's house, a shell had fallen on the footway, where it burst with so fearful an explosion that every window-pane near by was shivered to pieces. For a moment a mass of thick dust, a cloud of heavy smoke obscured everything. Then the front of the dyeworks reappeared, displaying a gaping aperture, and across the threshold of her room lay Françoise, dead, her backbone broken, and her head crushed—now merely a bundle of human rags, covered with blood, and hideous to behold.
Weiss rushed up furiously. He was stammering, and oaths alone could give expression to his feelings: 'Curse them! Curse them!' he shouted. Yes, she was indeed dead. He had stooped down and felt her hands. As he was rising again his eyes encountered the blotched face of little Auguste, who had raised his head to look at his mother. The lad said nothing, he did not shriek or cry, but his large eyes, full of fever, were quite dilated as they gazed upon that frightfully mangled body, which he could no longer recognise. 'Curse them!' shouted Weiss at last, 'so now they are killing women!'
He had again drawn himself erect, and he shook his fist at the Bavarians, whose helmets were once more appearing to view in the direction of the church. Then the sight of the roof of his house, half broken in by the fallen chimney, put the finishing touch to his mad exasperation. 'You dirty blackguards!' he shouted, 'you kill women and you knock my house to pieces! No, no, it is impossible, I can't go off like that; I shall stay!'
He darted into the courtyard of the dyeworks, and bounded back again, carrying the chassepot and cartridge pouch of the dead soldier. For use on important occasions, when he was desirous of seeing anything very distinctly, he always carried a pair of spectacles in his pocket, though he seldom wore them through a coquettish regard for the feelings of his young wife. Now, however, he promptly took off his folding glasses and put on his spectacles; and then this stout civilian, whose good-natured, full face was quite transfigured by anger, who looked almost comical yet superb in his heroism, began to fire, aiming at the detachment of Bavarians massed at the end of the street. It was in his blood, as he was wont to say; he had longed to stretch some of them on the ground ever since hearing the stories of 1814, related to him in his childish days, in his Alsatian home.
'Ah! the dirty blackguards, the dirty blackguards!'
And still he kept on firing—so rapidly in fact that the barrel of his chassepot began to burn his fingers.
Everything now betokened a terrible attack. The fusillade had ceased on the side of the meadows. The Bavarians had become masters of a narrow stream fringed with poplars and pollard willows, and were preparing to assault the houses defending the Place de l'Eglise. Their skirmishers had prudently fallen back, and now the sunshine alone was drowsily streaming in a golden sheet over the immense grassy expanse, flecked here and there with black patches—the corpses of the soldiers who had been killed. And accordingly, the Lieutenant of Marine Infantry, realising that danger would henceforth come from the side of the street, evacuated the courtyard of the dyeworks, leaving merely a sentry there; and speedily ranged his men along the side-walk, informing them that should the enemy obtain possession of the Place de l'Eglise they were to barricade themselves inside the building, on the first floor, and defend it as long as they had a cartridge left them. The men fired as they pleased, lying on the ground, screened by border stones and profiting by the slightest projections of the buildings; and along the broad, deserted highway, bright with sunshine, there now sped a perfect hurricane of lead, with streaks of smoke—a hailstorm, as it were, driven along by a violent wind. A girl was seen to dart madly across the road without receiving any injury; then an old peasant in a blouse, stubbornly bent upon taking his horse into the stable, was struck by a bullet in the forehead, the force of the shock throwing him into the middle of the road. Moreover, the roof of the church had just been broken in by a shell, and two other projectiles had set fire to some houses, whose timbers crackled and blazed in the broad sunlight. And the sight of that poor creature, Françoise, pounded to pieces near her ailing child, of the peasant lying in the road with the bullet in his skull, of the damaged church and the flaming houses, put the finishing touch to the wrath of the inhabitants, who, rather than fly to Belgium, had preferred to stay and meet death in their modest homes. And men of the middle classes and sons of toil, men in coats and men in blouses, fired on the enemy from their windows with a fury akin to madness.
'Ah! the bandits!' suddenly exclaimed Weiss. 'They have got round. I saw them running along the railway line. There! can't you hear them over yonder on the left?'
A fusillade had indeed just broken out in the rear of the park of Montivilliers which skirted the road. If the foe should secure possession of that park Bazeilles would be captured. The violence of the firing proved, however, that the Commander of the Twelfth Corps had foreseen this movement on the enemy's part, and that the park was being defended.
'Take care, you clumsy chap!' suddenly exclaimed the lieutenant, forcing Weiss to draw back close to the wall; 'you'll be cut in half!'
Though he could not help smiling at this big spectacled fellow, he had begun to feel interested in him, doubtless on account of the bravery he displayed; and, hearing a shell coming, he had in a fraternal way pushed him on one side. The projectile fell a dozen paces off, and, in bursting, covered them both with splinters. The civilian, however, remained erect without a scratch, whereas the unfortunate lieutenant had both legs broken. 'Ah! curse it!' he muttered. 'I'm done for.'
He had been thrown down on the side-walk, and he instructed his men to place him in a sitting posture with his back against a door, near the spot where the corpse of that unfortunate woman Françoise was stretched across the threshold of her room. And the lieutenant's young face still retained its stubborn, energetic expression. 'It's of no consequence, my lads,' said he. 'Listen to me. Fire at your ease, don't hurry—I'll tell you when the time comes to charge them.'
And thus, with his head erect, watching the distant movements of the foe, he continued commanding his men. Another house across the road caught fire. The crackling of the fusillade and the loud explosions of the shells rent the dust-and-smoke-pervaded atmosphere. Men were toppling over at each street corner, and wherever the dead had fallen—now singly, now in clusters—there were dark spots splashed with blood; whilst over and above the village arose a frightful, growing clamour, the threatening uproar of thousands of men rushing on a few hundred brave fellows who were resolved to die.
And now Delaherche, who had repeatedly called to Weiss, asked him for the last time: 'Are you coming? No? So much the worse, but I'm off—good-bye!'
It was about seven o'clock, and he had already delayed his departure longer than was prudent. So far as there were houses skirting the road, he took advantage of their projections and recesses, bolting into a doorway or behind a wall each time there was a volley. And so rapidly did he glide along, with all the suppleness of a snake, that he was surprised to find himself still so young and nimble. But on reaching the limits of Bazeilles, when it became necessary that he should follow the bare, deserted road, swept by the Liry batteries for a distance of three hundred yards, he fairly shivered, albeit he was perspiring from every pore. For a moment or two, bending low, he continued advancing along a ditch, then all at once he broke into a mad gallop and rushed straight before him along the road, with detonation after detonation resounding like thunderclaps in his ears. His eyes were burning, and he fancied he was running through flames. It seemed to last an eternity; but all at once he espied a small house on his left, and promptly darted towards it. Once sheltered by its walls he felt a tremendous weight uplifted from his chest. There were several people near him, men on foot and men on horseback. At first he failed to distinguish any of them, but as he recovered his self-possession the sight he beheld filled him with astonishment.
Was not that the Emperor and his staff? He hesitated to answer the query affirmatively, although, since he had almost spoken to Napoleon at Baybel, he had flattered himself he should at once recognise him anywhere. Then he suddenly opened his mouth and looked on gaping. Yes, it was indeed Napoleon III., to all appearance taller now that he was on horseback,[26] and with his moustaches so carefully waxed, and his cheeks so highly coloured that Delaherche immediately came to the conclusion that he had sought to make himself look young again—in a word, that he had made himself up for the occasion like an actor. Ay, without doubt he had caused his valet to paint his face so that he might not appear among his troops spreading discouragement and fright around him with his pale, haggard countenance distorted by suffering, his contracted nose, and dim, bleared eyes. And warned, at five o'clock, that there was fighting going on at Bazeilles, he had set out thither, silent and mournful like a phantom, but with his cheeks all aglow with rouge.
On the way some brickworks afforded a shelter. The walls on one side were being riddled by the bullets raining upon them; and shells were at every moment falling on the road. The entire escort halted.
'It is really dangerous, sire,' said some one; but the Emperor turned round, and with a wave of the hand simply ordered his staff to draw up in a narrow lane skirting the works, where both men and horses would be completely hidden. 'It's really madness, sire—we beg you, sire——'
However, he simply repeated his gesture, as though to say that the appearance of a number of uniforms on that bare road would certainly attract the attention of the hostile batteries on the left bank of the Meuse. And then, all alone, he rode forward amid the bullets and the shells, without evincing any haste, but still and ever in the same mournful, indifferent manner, as though he were going in search of Destiny. And doubtless, he could hear behind him that implacable voice that had ever urged him forward, the voice that rang out from Paris, calling: 'March, march, die like a hero on the corpses of your people, strike the whole universe with compassionate admiration, so that your son may reign!' And forward he went, slowly walking his horse. For nearly a hundred yards he thus continued advancing; and then he halted to await the fate that he had come in search of. The bullets whistled by like an equinoctial gale, and a shell burst near him covering him with earth. Yet still he remained there waiting. His charger's mane stood up, the animal was quivering all over, instinctively recoiling at thus finding itself in the presence of death which passed by every moment, unwilling, however, to touch either man or beast. And then, after that infinite period of waiting, the Emperor, realising like the resigned fatalist he was, that it was not there he should find his destiny, quietly rode back again, as though he had merely gone forward to reconnoitre the exact positions of the German batteries.
'What courage you have shown, sire! But we beg of you not to expose yourself again!'
However, with another wave of the hand he summoned the members of his staff to follow him, now sparing them no more than he had spared himself; and off he rode across the fields, over the bare ground of La Rapaille towards the position of La Moncelle. On the way a captain of the escort fell dead, and two horses were killed under their riders. The regiments of the Twelfth Corps, before which Napoleon passed, saw him appear and vanish like a spectre; not once was he saluted nor once acclaimed.
Delaherche witnessed all this, and it made him shudder, especially when he reflected that on leaving the brickworks he should again find himself in the open, exposed to all the projectiles. So he lingered there, listening to some officers who had remained behind, their horses having been previously shot under them.
'I tell you he was killed on the spot,' said one; 'a shell cut him in half.'
'No, no. I myself saw him carried off. He was merely wounded—a splinter of a shell in the hip——'
'At what time did it occur?'
'At about half-past six, an hour ago. It was in a hollow road over yonder, near La Moncelle.'
'And was he taken back to Sedan?'
'Certainly, he's there now.'
Whom could they be speaking of? All at once Delaherche realised that they must be referring to Marshal MacMahon, wounded whilst on his way to the outposts. The marshal wounded! Such was our cursed luck, as the lieutenant of Marine Infantry had said. And the manufacturer was reflecting on the consequences of this unfortunate casualty when an estafette galloped by with reins down, and shouted to a comrade whom he recognised: 'General Ducrot is commander-in-chief. The entire army is to concentrate at Illy, to retreat on Mézières!'
The next moment the estafette was already far away, entering Bazeilles under a fire of increasing intensity, and Delaherche, scared by the extraordinary tidings that had reached him in such rapid succession, and liable to find himself caught in the midst of the retreating troops, at last made up his mind to start off again, and ran all the way to Balan, whence he managed to reach Sedan without any very great difficulty. And, meantime, the estafette was still galloping through Bazeilles, seeking the commanders that he might give them their orders. And the tidings were also galloping along—Marshal MacMahon wounded, General Ducrot appointed commander-in-chief, the whole army to fall back on Illy!
'What! what are they saying?' exclaimed Weiss, already black with powder. 'Retreat on Mézières at this time of day? Why, it's madness; the army could not possibly get through!'
He was in despair, full of remorse that he himself had advised that very course the day before, and had advised it precisely to General Ducrot, who was now invested with the supreme command. Certainly, on the previous day there was no other reasonable plan to follow. The army ought to have retreated, retreated immediately by the defile of St. Albert. But at the present time the road must be intercepted by all that black swarm of Prussians that had streamed along, over yonder, towards the plain of Donchery. And, madness for madness, the only truly valiant, desperate course was to hurl the Bavarians into the Meuse, pass over them, and march once more on Carignan.
Hitching up his falling spectacles every minute with a touch of his finger-tips, Weiss explained the position of affairs to the lieutenant, who was still seated there with his limbs shattered and his back against the door. He was now looking extremely pale, however—indeed he was dying from loss of blood. 'I assure you that I'm right, lieutenant,' said Weiss. 'Tell your men to keep firm. You can see that we are victorious. Another effort and we shall fling them into the Meuse.'
The second attack of the Bavarians had, in fact, just been repulsed. The mitrailleuses had again swept the Place de l'Eglise, with such effect that the enemy's dead now lay there in heaps, which rose up here and there like barricades; and the disbanded foe, charged at the bayonet's point, was now being driven from all the lanes into the meadows, where there began a flight towards the river, that would assuredly have become a rout if the Marines, already extenuated and decimated, had been supported by fresh troops. On the other hand, the fusillade in the park of Montivilliers was coming no nearer, making it evident that the wood might be cleared of the enemy if reinforcements only came up.
'Tell your men to charge them, lieutenant!' suddenly shouted Weiss; 'at the bayonet's point!'
The lieutenant, now of a waxy whiteness, still had sufficient strength left him to murmur in a dying voice: 'You hear, my lads; at them with the bayonet!'
And those were his last words. He expired with his stubborn head still erect and his eyes open, gazing on the battle. Flies were already buzzing around and settling on Françoise's shapeless head, whilst little Auguste, lying in bed, a prey to feverish delirium, was calling and asking for something to drink in a low, supplicating voice: 'Wake up, get up, mother—I'm thirsty, I'm so thirsty.'
However, General Ducrot's orders were peremptory, and the officers had to command a retreat, lamenting that they were prevented from profiting by the advantage they had just gained. Plainly enough, the new commander, full of fears with regard to the enemy's turning movement, was disposed to sacrifice everything to a mad attempt to escape his clutches. So the Place de l'Eglise was evacuated, the troops fell back from lane to lane, and the road was soon empty. Women could be heard wailing and sobbing, and men swore and shook their fists in their anger at being thus abandoned. Many of them shut themselves in their houses, determined to defend them and die.
'Oh! I'm not going off like that!' exclaimed Weiss, quite beside himself. 'I prefer to leave my carcase here. We'll see if they'll come to smash my furniture and drink my wine.'
He had completely given himself up to his rage, to the unquenchable fury of battle. The thought of the foreigner entering his house, sitting in his chair, and drinking out of his glass made his whole body revolt, and drove away all thoughts of his accustomed life, his wife, and his business affairs, all the prudence that he usually displayed like a sensible petty bourgeois. And now he shut himself, barricaded himself, inside his house, walking up and down like a caged animal, proceeding from room to room, and making sure that every aperture was properly closed. He counted his cartridges, and found he had about forty left. Then, as he was giving a last glance over towards the Meuse to make certain that no attack was to be feared by way of the meadows, the spectacle furnished by the hills on the left bank once more arrested his attention. The position of the German batteries was clearly indicated by the puffs of smoke ascending from them; and above the formidable battery of Frénois, on the verge of a little wood on the Marfée hill, he again espied that same cluster of uniforms which he had already seen, but now looking larger than on the previous occasion, and so brilliant in the broad sunlight that, on placing his folders in front of his spectacles, he could distinguish the gold or brass of epaulettes and helmets.
'The dirty blackguards! The dirty blackguards!' he repeated, shaking his fist at the group.
It was King William of Prussia who was perched up there, on the Marfée hill, with his staff. He had already, at seven o'clock, arrived there from Vendresse, where he had slept, and there he was, well out of harm's way, with the valley of the Meuse, the whole unbounded battlefield spread out below him. The vast panorama extended from one horizon to another, and he looked down upon it from the hill as upon a gala performance from a throne reared in some gigantic court-box.
Sedan, with the geometrical lines of its fortifications bathed on the south and the west by the flooded meadows and the river, stood out in the centre against the dark background of the Ardennes Forest, which draped the horizon as with a curtain of antique greenery. Houses were already blazing at Bazeilles, where all was misty with the dust of battle. Then, on the east, from La Moncelle to Givonne, only a few regiments of the Twelfth and First French Corps could be seen, looking like lines of insects as they crossed the stubble, and now and again disappearing in a narrow valley where some hamlets were also hidden; and, farther on, the ground rose again, and pale-tinted fields could be perceived, blotched with the green mass of the Chevalier Wood. The Seventh French Corps was especially well in view on the north, with its regiments represented by numerous black specks moving hither and thither over the plateau of Floing, a broad band of dark grey soil, which descended from the little wood of La Garenne to the herbage on the river bank. Beyond were Floing, St. Menges, Fleigneux, and Illy, all the villages scattered across the surging expanse, quite a rugged region, intersected by steep escarpments. And on the left, also, was the loop of the Meuse, with its slow waters glittering like new silver in the clear sunlight, and its long languid bend forming the peninsula of Iges, and intercepting all communication with Mézières save on one point, where, between the farther bank and the impassable forest, there opened the only entrance to the defile of St. Albert.
The hundred thousand men and the five hundred guns of the French army were heaped together, brought to bay within the triangle; and when the King of Prussia turned his eyes westward he perceived another plain, that of Donchery, with bare fields spreading out towards Briancourt, Marancourt, and Vrignes-aux-Bois, an infinite expanse of grey soil dusty under the blue sky; and when he turned to the east he also beheld, confronting the confined French lines, another immense open expanse, with an abundance of villages, first Douzy and Carignan, and then, ascending northwards, Rubécourt, Pourru-aux-Bois, Francheval, and Villers-Cernay, till at last there came La Chapelle, near the Belgian frontier. And all this surrounding ground belonged to him, and as he pushed forward at his pleasure the two hundred and fifty thousand men and the eight hundred guns of his armies, he could, at one glance, survey their invading march. The Eleventh German Army Corps was, on the one hand, already advancing on St. Menges, whilst the Fifth Corps was at Vrignes-aux-Bois, and the division of Wurtembergers was waiting near Donchery; and although, on the other side, the King's view was somewhat obstructed by the trees and hills, it was yet easy for him to realise the movements that were being accomplished. He had just seen the Twelfth German Corps enter the Chevalier Wood, and he knew that the Guard must by this time have reached Villers-Cernay. And the army of the Crown Prince of Prussia on the left, and the army of the Crown Prince of Saxony on the right, formed, as it were, the two branches of the vice which were opening and ascending with irresistible force to meet over yonder; whilst on their side the two Bavarian Army Corps were rushing upon Bazeilles.
And, at King William's feet, the German batteries, disposed in an almost uninterrupted line from Remilly to Frénois, were now thundering without cessation, covering La Moncelle and Daigny with shells, and sweeping the plateaux on the north with other projectiles which passed right over the town of Sedan. As yet it was hardly more than eight in the morning, and the King was already waiting for the inevitable result of the battle, his eyes fixed on the gigantic chessboard before him, his mind busy with the movements of that human dust, the bellicose madness of those few black specks which here and there dotted the surface of smiling and eternal nature.
At daybreak, in the thick fog enveloping the plateau of Floing, Bugler Gaude sounded the reveille with all the strength of his lungs. But the moisture with which the atmosphere was densely impregnated, so deadened the joyous call that it failed to awaken the men of the company, most of whom, lacking even the energy to pitch their tents, had rolled themselves in the canvas or stretched themselves in the mud. They were lying there, already looking like corpses with their pallid faces hardened by weariness and sleep, and to rouse them it became necessary to shake them one by one, when they sat up with the air of men just resuscitated from the grave, quite livid, and with their eyes full of terror at the thought of life.
Maurice was awakened by Jean. 'What's up? Where are we?' he stammered as he glanced in a scared way on either side, perceiving nothing but the grey sea in the depths of which he was apparently plunged, with the shadowy forms of his comrades floating around him. It was impossible to see twenty yards ahead, so that he could not take his bearings. He had not the faintest notion as to the whereabouts of Sedan. At that moment, however, the sound of a cannonade, somewhere far away, fell on his ears: 'Ah! it's for to-day—so we are going to fight. So much the better, we must make an end of it all.'
The men around him said the same: on all sides there was a gloomy satisfaction, a longing to escape from that interminable nightmare, and to come face to face with those Prussians, whom, at the outset, they had gone in search of, and then had fled from during so many weary hours. At last they would be able to fire on the foe and disburden themselves of those cartridges which they had brought from such a distance without an opportunity of burning even one of them. This time everybody realised that battle was inevitable.
However, the guns of Bazeilles were thundering more and more loudly, and Jean, who stood there listening, inquired: 'Where are they firing?'
'I fancy it's near the Meuse,' replied Maurice; 'but the deuce take me if I know where I am.'
'Listen, youngster,' now said the corporal, 'you must keep beside me to-day, for a fellow needs to know something about these affairs if he doesn't want to get injured. I've been through the mill before, and I'll keep my eyes open for both of us.'
In the meantime the squad was beginning to growl, furious at the thought that they had nothing warm to comfort their stomachs with. It was impossible to light any fires without any dry wood, and in such filthy weather too. Thus, at the very moment when the battle was about to commence, the great, imperious, paramount belly-question came to the fore once more. Perhaps they were heroes—some of them at any rate—but before and above everything else they were maws. Eating was indeed the one all-important question, and how lovingly they skimmed the pot on the days when there was some good soupe, and how angry they waxed, like children and savages, when there was a scarcity of rations!
'No grub, no fighting,' declared Chouteau; 'I'll be blowed if I risk my skin to-day!'
This big, lanky house-painter, this fine speechifier from Montmartre, this public-house theorist who marred the few reasonable ideas that he had picked up here and there, by blending them with a frightful mixture of trash and lies, was again showing himself in the colours of a revolutionist. 'Besides,' continued he, 'haven't they played the fool with us, telling us that the Prussians were dying of hunger and illness, that they hadn't even got any shirts left, and were to be met on the roads grimed with dirt and as tattered as paupers?'
This made Loubet laugh, like the gamin he was whose life had been spent amid all the hole-and-corner avocations of the Paris markets.
'But it's all rot,' continued Chouteau, 'it's we who are kicking the bucket, dying of misery, with our shoes full of holes and our clothes so ragged that anyone might be tempted to give us a copper out of charity. And then too those big victories! Ah! the humbugs, to tell us that they had taken Bismarck prisoner and knocked a whole army head over heels into a stone quarry. Ah! they have played the fool with us and no mistake.'
Pache and Lapoulle listened, clenching their fists and nodding their heads with an air of fury. Others also were enraged, for the everlasting lies of the Paris newspapers had ended by having a disastrous effect. Confidence was dead; no belief remained in anything. The minds of these big children, at the outset so fertile in extraordinary hopes, were now filled with maddening nightmares.
'Of course, and it's simple enough,' resumed Chouteau. 'It's easily understood since we've been sold—you fellows know it as well as I do.'
Every time that he heard this, Lapoulle in his childish simplicity felt quite exasperated. 'Sold, eh?' said he. 'Ah! what rogues some people are.'
'Yes, sold like Judas sold his Master,' muttered Pache, his mind always full of biblical reminiscences.
Chouteau was triumphing: 'It's simple enough,' said he, 'everyone knows the figures. MacMahon was paid three millions of francs, and the generals had a million apiece to bring us here. It was all settled in Paris last spring; and a rocket was sent up last night as a signal that all was ready, and that the others could come and take us.'
The arrant stupidity of this invention revolted Maurice. Chouteau had formerly amused him, almost won him over by his Parisian 'go;' but for some time past he had been unable to stomach this perverter, this ne'er-do-well, who railed at everything so as to disgust the others. 'Why do you tell such absurd stories?' he exclaimed; 'you know very well there's no truth in it at all.'
'No truth in it? What! it isn't true that we have been sold? It wouldn't be surprising if a toff like you happened to belong to that band of swinish traitors. If that's the case,' continued Chouteau, stepping forward in a threatening way, 'you had better say so, Mr. Gentleman, because we can settle your hash at once, without waiting for your friend Bismarck.'
The others also were beginning to growl, and Jean thought it his duty to intervene: 'Keep quiet, all of you: I'll report the first one who stirs.'
But Chouteau, with a sneer, began to hoot him. He didn't care a rap for his report. He'd fight or not, just as he pleased, and they'd better not bother him, for his cartridges would do just as well for others as for the Prussians. Now that the battle was beginning, the little discipline that fear had still maintained would be swept away. What could they do to him? He meant to skedaddle as soon as he had had enough of it. And he went on talking in an insulting fashion, exciting the others against the corporal, who suffered them to die of hunger. Yes, it was Jean's fault if the squad had had nothing to eat for three days past, whereas the comrades had soupe and meat. Mr. Jean and the toff, however, had gone to feast with some wenches. Yes, indeed, others had seen their goings-on at Sedan.
'You've spent the squad's money,' shouted Chouteau at last; 'you daren't deny it, you cursed jobber!'
Matters were getting serious. Lapoulle clenched his fist, and even Pache, usually so gentle but now maddened by hunger, demanded an explanation of Jean. The only sensible one was Loubet, who began to laugh, saying that it was idiotic for Frenchmen to fall out when the Prussians were there close by. He wasn't a partisan of quarrelling either with fists or with guns, and, alluding to the few hundred francs he had received as a substitute, he added: 'Well, if they fancy my skin's worth no more than that I'll undeceive them. I'm not going to give them more than their money's worth.'
Maurice and Jean, however, exasperated by Chouteau's idiotic onslaught, replied in violent terms, and were spurning the charges levelled at them, when all at once a loud voice rang out through the fog: 'What's the row there? Who are the stupid clowns disputing like that?'
Then Lieutenant Rochas appeared to view, with his cap discoloured by the rain, his overcoat merely retaining a button here and there, and the whole of his lank, awkward person in a pitiable condition of neglect and wretchedness. And yet he had none the less assumed a victorious swagger, his moustaches bristling and his eyes flaring.
'Please, sir,' replied Jean, quite beside himself, 'it's these men who are shouting that we are sold. Yes, they say our generals have sold us.'
To the narrow mind of Rochas this idea of treachery did not appear altogether unreasonable, for it explained defeats which he did not consider admissible. 'Well, what the deuce is it to them if they have been sold?' he answered. 'What business is it of theirs? At any rate, it doesn't alter the fact that the Prussians are here now, and that we are going to give them one of those lickings that are remembered.'
Afar off, behind the dense curtain of mist, the guns of Bazeilles did not cease thundering. And impulsively thrusting out his arms, the lieutenant added, 'Ah! this time there's no mistake. We are going to drive them home again with the butt-ends of our rifles.'
To his mind the thunder of the cannonade effaced all the past: the delays and uncertainties of the march, the demoralisation of the troops, the disaster of Beaumont, and even the last agony of the forced retreat upon Sedan. Since they were about to fight, was not victory a certainty? He had learnt nothing and forgotten nothing, he retained all his braggart contempt for the enemy, his absolute ignorance of the new methods of warfare, his unswerving conviction that an old soldier of the Crimea, Italy, and Algeria could not be beaten. It would be really too droll if he were to undergo that experience at his age.
A laugh suddenly parted his jaws from ear to ear. And, like the worthy fellow he was, he now did his men one of those good turns which made them like him so much despite the manner in which he occasionally rated them. 'Listen, my lads,' said he, 'instead of disputing, it's much better to drink a drop together. Yes, I'm going to stand treat, and you can drink my health.'
Thereupon, from a deep pocket of his overcoat, he produced a bottle of brandy, adding, with that triumphant air of his, that it was a present from a lady. This was not so surprising, as during the previous day he had been seen in a tavern at Floing making himself quite at home there with the servant girl on his knees. And now the soldiers laughed heartily, and held out their tin bowls, into which he gaily poured the liquor.
'You must drink to your sweethearts, my lads, if you have any, and you must drink to the glory of France. That's all I care about. Here's to jollity!'
'You're right, sir; here's to your health and everybody's!'
They all drank together, reconciled and warmed by the liquor. It was really very kind of the lieutenant to have treated them to that drop of 'short' in the early cold before they advanced on the enemy. And Maurice felt the alcohol descending into his veins, again bringing warmth and the semi-intoxication of illusion. Why should they not defeat the Prussians after all? Had not battles their surprises in reserve, sudden, unexpected transitions at which History remained astonished? Besides, that devil of a fellow, Rochas, declared that Bazaine was on his way to join them, and was expected to come up before nightfall. And he intimated that the information could be positively relied upon, for he had it from a general's aide-de-camp; and although he stretched his arm towards Belgium, to point out by what direction Bazaine was approaching, Maurice surrendered himself to one of those crises of hope without which he was unable to live. After all, perhaps the revanche was really at hand.
'Pray, sir, what are we waiting for?' he ventured to ask; 'aren't we going to march?'
Rochas made a gesture as if to say that he was without orders. Then, after a pause, he added: 'Has anyone seen the captain?'
Nobody replied. Jean remembered that during the night he had espied him slinking away in the direction of Sedan; however, a prudent soldier should never let it appear that he has seen a superior apart from the service. So he had decided to hold his tongue, when, on turning round, he perceived a shadowy form approaching beside a hedge. And, thereupon, he exclaimed: 'Here he comes!'
It was indeed Captain Beaudoin, who astonished everybody with his irreproachable get-up, contrasting in such a marked degree with the deplorable condition of the lieutenant. His uniform was nicely brushed, his boots were beautifully polished, and there was something quite coquettish, something suggestive of galanterie about his white hands, his curled moustaches, and the vague perfume of Persian lilac that he diffused around him, reminding one of a pretty woman's well-appointed dressing-room.
'Hallo!' sneered Loubet; 'so the captain has found his baggage again.'
Nobody smiled, however, for the captain was known not to be an easy customer. He was execrated by his men, whom he kept at a distance. A regular vinegar-bottle, as Rochas put it. Since the earlier defeats he had seemed quite offended, and the disaster, which everybody foresaw, appeared to him above all things improper. A Bonapartist by conviction, having had a prospect of rapid and high advancement before him, backed up as he was by several influential Parisian salons, he felt that his fortune was sinking in the mud and mire of this disastrous war. It was said that he possessed a very pretty tenor voice, to which he was already deeply indebted. Moreover, he was not without intelligence, though he knew nothing of his profession, being simply desirous of pleasing, and when necessary proving very brave, without, however, displaying any excessive zeal.
'What a fog!' he quietly remarked, feeling more at his ease now that he had found his company, which he had been looking for during the last half-hour, almost fearing that he had lost himself.
However, orders had at length arrived, and the battalion immediately advanced. Fresh clouds of mist must have been ascending from the Meuse, for the men almost had to grope their way through a kind of whitish dew, falling upon them in fine drops. And Maurice was struck by the sudden apparition of Colonel de Vineuil, who, erect on his horse, rose up before him at the corner of a road; the old officer looking very tall and very pale, motionless like a marble statue of despair, and the animal shivering in the early cold with dilated nostrils which were turned towards the cannon over yonder. And Maurice was yet more struck when, at ten paces in the rear, he espied the regimental colours carried by the sub-lieutenant on duty, and looking, amid the soft, shifting white vapour, like a trembling apparition of glory, already fading away in the atmosphere of dreamland. The gilded eagle was drenched with water, and the tricoloured silk, embroidered with the names of victories, soiled by smoke, and perforated with ancient wounds, seemed to be paling in the mist; well-nigh the only brilliant touches, amid all this obliteration, being supplied by the enamel points of the Cross of Honour, which was hanging from the tassel of the flag.
The colonel and the colours disappeared, hidden by a fresh wave of mist, and the battalion still continued advancing, as though through a mass of damp cotton-wool, and without the men having the faintest notion whither they were going. They had descended a narrow slope, and were now climbing a hollow road. Then all at once resounded the command, 'Halt!' And there they remained, their arms grounded, their knapsacks weighing down their shoulders, and with strict orders not to stir. They were probably on a plateau, but it was still quite impossible to distinguish anything twenty paces away. It was now seven o'clock; the cannonade seemed to have drawn nearer; fresh batteries, installed closer and closer to one another, were now firing from the other side of Sedan.
'Oh! as for me,' suddenly said Sergeant Sapin to Jean and Maurice, 'I shall be killed to-day.' He had not opened his mouth since the reveille. Judging by the expression of his thin face, with its large, handsome eyes, and small, contracted nose, he had been absorbed in a painful reverie.
'What an idea!' protested Jean. 'Can any of us say what will happen to us? It's all chance.'
The sergeant, however, shook his head as though absolutely convinced of what he had said. 'For my part,' he added, 'it's as good as done. Yes, I shall be killed to-day.'
Some of the men now turned round and asked him if he had dreamt it. No, he hadn't dreamt anything; only he felt it there. 'And all the same, it worries me,' said he, 'for I was going to be married as soon as I got my discharge.'
Again his eyes wavered; all his past life rose up before him. The son of a Lyons grocer in a small way of business, spoilt by his mother, who was dead, and unable to get on with his father, he had remained in the regiment disgusted with everything, but unwilling to be bought out. Then, on one occasion, whilst away on leave, he had come to an understanding with one of his cousins and had arranged to marry her. And then he had again begun to take an interest in life, and the pair of them had laid many happy plans for going into business together with the help of the small sum that the girl was to bring as a dowry. He, on his side, had received some education, and was fairly proficient in the three R's. For a year past his only thoughts had been for the future felicity he had planned.
All at once he shuddered, shook himself as though to get rid of his fixed idea, and then calmly repeated: 'Yes, it's a beastly worry; but I shall be killed to-day.'
None of the others spoke; the spell of waiting continued. They were not aware whether they were facing or turning their backs on the enemy. Vague sounds occasionally emerged from the depths of the fog—the rumbling of wheels, the tramp of a mass of men, the distant trot of horses; sounds produced by the movements of the troops which the fog was hiding, all the evolutions of the Seventh Army Corps, now taking up its line of battle. During the last minute or so, however, it had seemed as if the vapour were becoming less dense. Fragments of it arose, looking like pieces of muslin, and patches of the horizon were disclosed, still dim, however, of a gloomy blue, like that of deep water. And it was at one of these moments when the atmosphere was clearing that they saw the regiments of Chasseurs d'Afrique, belonging to Margueritte's division, pass by like phantom horsemen. Erect in their saddles, with their short, light-blue jackets and their broad red sashes, the Chasseurs urged on their mounts, animals of slender build, who were half hidden beneath the cumbersome kits they carried. Behind one squadron came another, and after emerging for a moment from the haze where all was vague, they passed into it again as though melting away under the fine rain. Doubtless they had been in the way, and were being sent farther off, those in command not knowing what to do with them, as had been the case ever since the outset of the campaign. They had scarcely been employed on reconnoitring duties at all, and as soon as an engagement began they were promenaded from valley to valley, valuable, yet useless.
As Maurice looked at them he thought of Prosper. 'Hallo!' he muttered, 'perhaps he's over there.'
'Who?' asked Jean.
'That fellow from Remilly, whose brother, the Franc-tireur, we met at Oches.'
The Chasseurs had passed on, however, and then came another gallop, that of a general's staff descending the sloping road. Jean recognised Bourgain-Desfeuilles, the commander of their brigade, who was waving his arm in a furious manner. So he had at last deigned to quit the Golden Cross Hotel, and his bad humour plainly indicated how annoyed he was at having had to rise so early, after being so badly lodged and wretchedly fed. His voice could be distinctly heard, thundering out: 'Well, d—— it, the Moselle or the Meuse, at any rate the water that's there!'
However, the mist was at length rising. As at Bazeilles, there was a sudden transformation scene, a radiant spectacle gradually disclosed to view, as when the drop-curtain slowly ascends towards the flies. The sunrays were brightly streaming from the blue vault, and Maurice immediately recognised the spot where they were waiting. 'Ah!' said he to Jean, 'this is what they call the plateau of Algeria. You see that village in front of us, on the other side of the valley, that's Floing. That one, farther off, is St. Menges; and there, farther still, is Fleigneux. Then, right away, in the forest of the Ardennes—those trees on the horizon—comes the frontier.'
With his hand outstretched he continued giving his explanations. The plateau of Algeria, a strip of muddy soil, rather less than two and a half miles in length, sloped gently from the wood of La Garenne towards the Meuse, from which some meadows parted it. It was here that General Douay had disposed the Seventh Corps, in despair that he had not sufficient men to defend so long a line as that allotted to him, or to establish a solid connection with the First Corps, whose positions, perpendicular to his own, extended along the valley of the Givonne from the wood of La Garenne to Daigny.
'Ah! you see how vast it is, eh?' said Maurice, turning round, and with a wave of the hand embracing the entire horizon. From the plateau of Algeria the whole immense field of battle stretched out towards the south and the west. First there was Sedan, whose citadel could be seen rising above the housetops; then came Balan and Bazeilles, hazy with smoke; and, in the rear, the heights on the left bank of the Meuse, the Liry, Marfée and Croix-Piau hills. But the view was more particularly extensive on the west, in the direction of Donchery. The loop of the Meuse bounded the peninsula of Iges as with a light ribbon, and over there one could plainly detect the narrow Route de St. Albert, running between the bank and a steep height, which, somewhat farther on, was crowned by the little wood of Le Seugnon, a spur of the woods of La Falizette. The road to Vrignes-aux-Bois and Donchery passed over the summit of the height at a spot known as the Crossway of the Red House.
'And in that direction, you know, we could fall back on Mézières,' said Maurice. But at that very moment a first cannon shot was fired from St. Menges. Shreds of fog were still trailing in the depths, and a vague mass of men could just be espied marching along the defile of St. Albert. 'Ah! there they are!' resumed Maurice, instinctively lowering his voice, and without naming the Prussians. 'Our line of retreat is cut off!'
It was not yet eight o'clock. The cannonade, which was increasing in violence in the direction of Bazeilles, could now also be heard on the east, in the valley of the Givonne, which they were unable to see. At this moment, indeed, the army of the Crown Prince of Saxony was emerging from the Chevalier Wood and advancing upon the First Corps in front of Daigny. And now that the Eleventh Prussian Corps, marching upon Floing, was opening fire on General Douay's troops, the battle had begun on all sides, from north to south, over an expanse of several leagues.
Maurice had just realised what a deplorable blunder had been made in not withdrawing upon Mézières during the night. And although he had only a dim notion as to what might be the exact consequences of the blunder, he was instinctively apprehensive of danger, and gazed with disquietude at the neighbouring heights overlooking the plateau of Algeria. Allowing that they might not have had sufficient time to retreat on Mézières, why, at all events, had they not occupied those heights, with their backs to the frontier, so that they might, at all risks, have made their way into Belgium in the event of a defeat? Two points appeared particularly threatening, the round Hattoy hill, above Floing on the left, and the so-called Calvary of Illy, crowned by a stone cross rising between two lime trees. On the previous day General Douay had sent a regiment to occupy the Hattoy hill, but this isolated position being considered dangerous the men had fallen back at dawn. As for the Calvary of Illy, its defence had been entrusted to the left wing of the First Army Corps. All the vast bare expanse, dented with deep valleys from Sedan to the Ardennes, was there; and evidently the key of the position was at the foot of that cross and those two lime trees, whence one could sweep all the surrounding country.