V. IN BATTLE ARRAY--THE NIGHT OF THE CRIME…

V. IN BATTLE ARRAY--THE NIGHT OF THE CRIME

When Maurice rose on the morrow, August 26, he was aching all over, and his shoulders were quite sore after that night spent in the tent. He was not yet accustomed to sleeping on the hard ground, and as orders had been issued the previous evening forbidding the men to take off their shoes, and the sergeants had gone round feeling in the darkness to make sure that everyone was properly shod and gaitered, his foot was scarcely any better, being still painful and feverishly hot. Besides, he must have caught cold in his legs when he had allowed them to project beyond the canvas in view of stretching himself. Jean immediately said to him: 'If we are marching to-day you would do well to see the major,[22] and get him to put you into one of the vans.'

Nothing certain was known, however; the most contradictory rumours were current. At one moment it was thought they were about to resume their march, for the camp was raised and the army corps passed through Vouziers, leaving only a brigade of the Second Division on the left bank of the Aisne, to continue watching the road from Monthois. Then, on reaching the right bank, on the other side of the town, the men were suddenly halted, and arms were piled in the fields and meadows extending right and left of the road to Grand-Pré. At this moment the departure of the 4th Hussars, who set out along this Grand-Pré road at a fast trot, gave rise to all sorts of conjectures.

'If the regiment remains here, I shall stay with you,' declared Maurice, who did not at all care for that idea of the major and the ambulance van.

They soon learned, indeed, that they were to encamp there until General Douay had obtained precise information respecting the enemy's march. Since the day before--since he had seen Margueritte's division proceed up-country towards Le Chêne Populeux--the general's anxiety had been increasing, for he knew that he was no longer covered, that there was no longer a single man guarding the defiles of the Argonne, and that consequently he might be attacked at any moment. On this account he had just despatched the 4th Hussars to reconnoitre the country as far as the defiles of Grand-Pré and La Croix-aux-Bois, with orders to procure him some information at any cost.

Bread, meat and forage had been given out the day before, thanks to the energy of the Mayor of Vouziers; and that morning, at about ten o'clock, orders had just been issued that the men might cook their soupe--since they might not be able to do so later on--when a general flutter was occasioned by the departure of some more troops, General Bordas's brigade, which took the same road as the Hussars. What was up? Were they all going to start? Wouldn't they be allowed to have a quiet meal now that the pots were on the fires? Some of the officers thereupon explained that Bordas's brigade had simply received orders to occupy Buzancy, a few miles away, whilst others, it must be admitted, asserted that the Hussars had come in contact with a large force of the enemy's cavalry, and that the brigade had been sent to the front to extricate them.

Maurice now enjoyed a few delightful hours of repose. He had stretched himself out in a field, where the regiment was encamped halfway up the height, and, numbed as it were with fatigue, he lay there gazing over the verdant valley of the Aisne, with its meadows dotted with tufts of trees through which the river slowly coursed. In front of him Vouziers was reared, built in amphitheatral fashion, and closing the valley, its roofs rising one above the other, crowned by the dome-covered tower and the tapering steeple of the church. Down below, near the bridge, the tannery chimneys were smoking, whilst at the other end of the town the buildings of a large mill, white with flour, were to be seen among the foliage on the river bank. And this view of the little town, rising above the tall rushes, was in Maurice's eyes invested with a tender charm as though he had again become a sensitive being, a dreamer. His youth seemed to be coming back to him, the days long past which he had spent at Vouziers at the time when his home was at Le Chêne, his native place. For an hour or so he forgot everything else.

The soupe had long since been eaten, and the men were still waiting, when at about half-past two o'clock an increasing agitation spread through the camp. Orders sped right and left, the meadows were evacuated, and all the troops climbed and ranged themselves on the hills between a couple of villages, Chestres and Falaise, lying some two or three miles apart. The Engineers at once began digging trenches and raising breast-works, whilst the reserve artillery placed itself on the left, crowning a hillock there. A rumour spread that General Bordas had just sent an estafette to say that having encountered superior forces at Grand-Pré he was forced to fall back on Buzancy, which made one fear that his line of retreat on Vouziers might soon be intercepted. The commander of the Seventh Corps, believing an attack imminent, had therefore decided to place his men in position so that he might withstand the onslaught until the remainder of the army came up to support him; and one of his aides-de-camp had already started off with a letter, informing Marshal MacMahon of the situation, and asking him for help. Then, fearing the embarrassment which might be occasioned by that interminable convoy of supplies, which had again joined the corps during the night, the general set it in motion at once, ordering it, in haphazard fashion, to proceed in the direction of Chagny. All this meant fighting.

'So it's serious, sir, this time?' Maurice ventured to ask Lieutenant Rochas.

'Oh, yes, ---- it!' replied the lieutenant waving his long arm; 'you'll see how hot it will be by-and-by.'

All the men were delighted. Since the line of battle had been formed from Chestres to Falaise the animation of the camp had become still greater, and feverish impatience was seizing hold of the men. At last, then, they were about to see those Prussians, whom the newspapers described as being worn out with marching and exhausted by disease, who were said to be famished and clad in rags; and the hope of overthrowing them at the first brush raised everybody's courage.

'So we've found one another at last, and a good job too,' said Jean. 'We've been playing at hide and seek quite long enough; ever since we lost each other near the frontier, after that battle. But are these the ones who beat MacMahon?'

Maurice hesitated, and was unable to answer. According to what he had read at Rheims, it seemed to him difficult that the third German army, commanded by the Crown Prince of Prussia, could be at Vouziers when a couple of days previously it appeared to have encamped in the vicinity of Vitry-le-François. There had certainly been some mention of a fourth army, under the orders of the Crown Prince of Saxony, which was to operate on the Meuse; and probably it was this one that they were about to encounter, though the rapidity of the occupation of Grand-Pré astonished him, as the Meuse was so far away. Maurice's ideas became altogether confused, however, when, to his stupefaction, he heard General Bourgain-Desfeuilles asking a peasant of Falaise whether the Meuse did not pass by Buzancy, and whether there were not some strong bridges there. Moreover, in his serene ignorance, the general asserted that they were about to be attacked by a column of one hundred thousand men coming from Grand-Pré, whilst another of sixty thousand was advancing by way of Ste. Menehould.

'And your foot?' asked Jean, addressing Maurice.

'I no longer feel it,' the latter replied, with a laugh. 'If we fight, I shall be all right.'

This was true; such intense nervous excitement buoyed him up that he no longer seemed to tread the ground. To think that he had not burnt a cartridge since the campaign began! He had marched to the frontier, he had spent that terrible night of anguish before Mulhausen, without seeing a Prussian, without firing a shot; and then he had been obliged to retreat, first to Belfort, and then to Rheims; and now for five days past he had again been marching to meet the enemy, and his chassepot was still immaculate, unused. He experienced an increasing need, a slowly gathering longing to level his gun and fire at anyone or anything, in order to ease his nerves. During the six weeks or so that had elapsed since he had enlisted in a spasm of enthusiasm, imagining that he would fight the very next day, he had only employed his poor delicate feet in running away and tramping along, afar from any field of battle. Thus it happened that amid the feverish expectancy of the entire corps, he was one of those who consulted with the most impatience that Grand-Pré road, which stretched far away into the distance in a straight line between two rows of lovely trees. The valley where the Aisne coursed like a silver ribbon among the poplars and the willows, was spread out below him; but his eyes returned perforce to the road lying yonder.

There was an alert at about four o'clock. The 4th Hussars came back after a long round, and stories of some encounters they had had with Uhlans, repeated with increasing exaggeration by all who heard them, began to circulate; confirming everyone in the impression that an attack was imminent. A couple of hours later a fresh estafette arrived with a scared look, and explained that General Bordas no longer dared to leave Grand-Pré, as he was convinced that the road to Vouziers was cut. This was not yet the case, since the estafette had been able to pass without hindrance; still it might occur at any moment, and accordingly General Dumont, the commander of the division, set out with his remaining brigade to extricate the other. The sun was now setting behind Vouziers, whose roofs stood out blackly against a large red cloud. For a long time the men in camp were able to see the brigade as it marched along between the rows of trees, but at last it faded from sight in the growing darkness.

When Colonel de Vineuil came to make sure that his men were in good positions for the night, he was astonished not to find Captain Beaudoin at his post. The captain arrived, however, from Vouziers at that very moment, and when by way of excusing himself he explained that he had been lunching at Baroness de Ladicourt's, in the town, he received a severe reprimand, which, it must be admitted, he listened to in silence, in the irreproachable attitude of a smart officer.

'My lads,' the colonel repeated, as he passed among his men, 'we shall no doubt be attacked to-night or certainly to-morrow morning at daybreak. Mind you are ready, and remember that the 106th has never retreated.'

They all acclaimed him; and indeed, in the weariness and discouragement that had been growing upon them since their departure from Rheims they all longed to finish matters with a tussle. The chassepots were examined and the needles changed; and then, as they had eaten their soupe in the morning, the men contented themselves, that night, with some coffee and biscuit. They received orders not to turn in; and picket guards were stationed at some sixteen hundred yards from the camp, whilst sentinels were placed as far away as the banks of the Aisne. The officers sat up watching around the camp fires; by the leaping glow of one of which, near a low wall, it was possible to distinguish every now and then the embroidery on the garish uniforms worn by the commander-in-chief and his staff, together with shadows that moved rapidly and anxiously, hastening at times towards the road to listen there for the sound of horses' hoofs--so intense was the disquietude concerning the fate of the Third Division.

At about one in the morning Maurice was stationed as sentry at the edge of a field of plum trees, between the road and the river. The night was as black as ink, and as soon as he found himself alone in the overwhelming silence of the sleeping country he felt a sensation of fear take possession of him, a terrible fear which he had never before experienced, and which he was unable to conquer, despite a tremor of anger and shame. He turned round in the hope that the sight of the camp fires would tranquillise him, but they were hidden by a little wood, and only a sea of darkness stretched behind him, save that at a great distance away a few solitary lights shone out from the houses of Vouziers, whose inhabitants, warned, no doubt, of the state of affairs, and shuddering at the idea of the approaching battle, had not retired to rest. What completed Maurice's fright was that on levelling his chassepot he found that he could not even distinguish its sight. Then began a cruel spell of waiting, with all the faculties of his being centred in the sense of hearing--his ears open to almost imperceptible sounds, and filling at last with a thunderous uproar. The trickling of some distant water, the light stir of some leaves, the spring of an insect--all acquired a deafening sonority. Was not that the gallop of horses, the continuous rumble of artillery coming straight towards him from over yonder? What was that sound he heard on the left--was it not a cautious whisper, the stifled voices of some advanced guard creeping forward in the darkness and preparing a surprise? On three occasions he was on the point of firing to give the alarm. The fear of being mistaken, of appearing ridiculous, increased his discomfort. He had knelt down, resting his left shoulder against a tree, and it seemed as if he had been there for hours, as if he had been forgotten and the army had gone away without him. Then suddenly he no longer felt frightened, but clearly distinguished the rhythmical tread of infantry marching along the road, which he knew to be some two hundred yards away. He immediately felt convinced that this was General Dumont, bringing back Bordas's brigade, the troops who had remained in distress at Grand-Pré, and whose return was so anxiously awaited. Just then he was relieved, his sentry duty having barely lasted the regulation hour.

It was, indeed, the Third Division returning to the camp, and the relief was immense. But at the same time more minute precautions were taken, for the information brought back by the returning generals confirmed all that the commander thought he knew respecting the enemy's approach. A few prisoners had been brought in, some dark Uhlans, draped in large cloaks, but these refused to answer the questions put to them. The morning twilight, the lurid dawn of a rainy day was now rising amid the unremitting expectancy, fraught with enervating impatience, that filled every breast. For nearly fourteen hours the men had not dared to close their eyes. At about seven o'clock Lieutenant Rochas related that MacMahon was approaching with the entire army. The truth, however, was that General Douay, in reply to his despatch of the previous day, announcing that a battle near Vouziers was inevitable, had received a letter from the marshal telling him to hold out until it was possible to support him. The army's forward movement was now arrested, the First Corps advanced upon Terron, and the Fifth on Buzancy, whilst the Twelfth remained at Le Chêne, to form a second line there; and now the general expectancy increased, no mere engagement was to be fought, but a great battle, in which the entire army would participate, for which purpose it was turning aside from the Meuse to march southwards through the valley of the Aisne. The men again had to content themselves with coffee and biscuit, their commanders not daring to let them cook their soupe since the tussle was for noon at the latest--at least so everybody repeated, without knowing why. An aide-de-camp had just been despatched to the marshal with the view of hastening the arrival of the expected succour, since the approach of the two hostile armies was becoming more and more certain; and three hours later another officer galloped off to Le Chêne, where head quarters were established, to ask for orders, so greatly had General Douay's disquietude increased in consequence of the information brought him by a village mayor, who declared he had seen a hundred thousand men at Grand-Pré, whilst another hundred thousand were coming up by way of Buzancy.

Noon came, but there was still not a Prussian to be seen. One o'clock, two o'clock passed, still nothing. Then lassitude came, and with it doubt. In bantering voices the men began to jeer at their generals, who had taken fright, perhaps, at sight of their own shadows on some wall. It would be a charity to provide them with spectacles. Nice humbugs they were to have set everybody agog for nothing! And a wag called out: 'Is it the same as it was at Mulhausen, then?'

On hearing this, Maurice, in the anguish of his recollections, felt a pang at his heart. He remembered that foolish flight, that panic which had carried the Seventh Corps ten leagues away, although not a single German had shown himself! And the same affair was beginning again; he was fully convinced of it. If the enemy had not attacked them, now that four-and-twenty hours had elapsed since the skirmish of Grand-Pré, it could only be that the 4th Hussars had simply come into collision with some reconnoitring party of the enemy's cavalry. The hostile columns must still be far off, perhaps a couple of days' march away. This idea suddenly terrified Maurice, for he thought of all the time that the French had lost. In three days they had barely covered a distance of two leagues from Contreuve to Vouziers. On the 25th the other army corps had marched northward, under pretence of obtaining supplies, whilst now, on the 27th, they were descending southwards to accept a battle that no one offered them. Following the 4th Hussars towards the abandoned defiles of the Argonne, Bordas's brigade had fancied itself lost; and this had entailed the immediate advance of the remainder of the division that it belonged to, the immobilisation of the entire Seventh Corps, and finally the southward march of the rest of the army--all to no purpose! And Maurice reflected that each hour was of incalculable value, given that mad plan of joining Bazaine, a plan which only a general of genius could have executed with the help of veterans, and provided that he rushed straight before him and through every obstacle, like a blizzard.

'We are done for!' Maurice exclaimed, seized with despair in a sudden brief flash of lucidity.

Then, as Jean, to whom he addressed himself, opened his eyes wide, failing to understand him, he continued in an undertone, so that his words might only reach the corporal's ear: 'The commanders are stupid rather than malicious, that's certain, and they have no luck! They know nothing, they foresee nothing, they have no plan, no ideas, no lucky chances--Ah! everything's against us!'

The discouragement which possessed Maurice, and which he analysed like an intelligent, well-educated man, was increasing and weighing more and more heavily upon all the troops who were immobilised there, consumed with waiting and expectation. Doubt and a presentiment of the truth were dimly penetrating their sluggish brains; and there was not a man among them, however limited his mental powers, who did not experience an uneasy consciousness that he was badly commanded, and ought not to have been where he was; though on the other hand he could not exactly tell why it was that he felt so exasperated. What were they doing there, good heavens! since the Prussians did not appear? Let them either fight at once or go off somewhere where they could sleep in peace. They had had quite enough of it. The anxiety went on increasing every minute after the departure of the last aide-de-camp despatched to Le Chêne for orders, and the men gathered together in groups and discussed matters openly. Their agitation even gained the officers, who did not know what to reply to those who were bold enough to question them. And thus it came to pass that every breast was lightened as of a grievous burden, and gave vent to a sigh of profound delight when, at five o'clock, a report spread that the aide-de-camp had returned, and that they were now about to fall back!

So prudence had at last gained the upper hand! The Emperor and MacMahon, who had never been in favour of that advance on Montmédy, and who felt uneasy at the news that they had again been outmarched by the foe, and were about to find both the army of the Crown Prince of Prussia and that of the Crown Prince of Saxony confronting them, renounced all idea of that improbable junction with Bazaine, and decided upon retreating by way of the northern strongholds, in such a manner as to fall back eventually upon Paris. The Seventh Corps received orders to proceed to Chagny by way of Le Chêne Populeux, whilst the Fifth was to march on Poix, and the Fifth and Twelfth on Vendresse. But if they were to fall back, why had they thus advanced to the Aisne--why had so many days been lost--why had they been subjected to so much fatigue, when it would have been so easy and so logical for them, at the time they were at Rheims, to have taken up strong positions forthwith in the valley of the Marne? Had their commanders no managing capacity, no military talent, no common-sense even? However, the men no longer took the trouble to question one another; they forgave the past in their delight at the sensible decision which had at last been arrived at--the only method by which they might extricate themselves from the wasp's nest into which they had ventured. From the generals down to the rank and file, one and all felt that they could again recover strength--nay, prove invincible--under Paris, and that it was there that they would beat the Prussians. But it was necessary to evacuate Vouziers at daybreak, so that they might be on their march to Le Chêne before being attacked, and the camp at once became the scene of extraordinary animation, the bugles sounded and orders crossed, whilst the baggage train and army-service convoy started in advance so as to lighten the rear-guard.

Maurice was delighted, but while he was endeavouring to explain to Jean the movement of the retreat which they were about to execute, he suddenly gave vent to a cry of pain. His excitement had fallen, and he again felt his foot weighing his leg down like lead. 'What's up? Has it begun again?' asked the corporal, really grieved. Then, as an idea came into that practical head of his, he added: 'Listen, youngster; you told me yesterday that you had some friends at Le Chêne, the town where we are going. Well, you ought to get the major's permission to drive there. You would have a good night's rest in a comfortable bed, and to-morrow, should you be able to walk better, we could take you up on our way. Eh? Does that suit you?'

It so happened that Maurice had found an old friend of his father's at Falaise, the village near which they were encamped; and this man, a petty farmer, was about to take his daughter to Le Chêne, to confide her to the care of an aunt there, and had a horse, harnessed to a light cart, already waiting to start.

Matters nearly turned out badly, however, at the very first words that Maurice addressed to Major Bouroche: 'I have injured my foot, Monsieur le docteur,' he began.

On hearing this, Bouroche, shaking his large lion-like head, roared out: 'I'm not Monsieur le docteur! Who on earth has sent me such a soldier as you?' And as Maurice, quite scared, began to stammer an apology, he resumed: 'I'm the major; do you hear me, you idiot?' Then realising the kind of man he had to deal with, he, doubtless, felt somewhat ashamed of himself, for he flew into a yet more violent tantrum: 'Your foot! a fine affair! Yes, yes, I allow you. Get into a cart, get into a balloon if you like. We've got quite enough dawdlers and pillagers already!'

When Jean helped Maurice to hoist himself into the cart, the latter turned round to thank him; and the two men fell into each other's arms as if they were not likely ever to see one another again. Indeed, who could tell--what with the commotion of the retreat and those Prussians who were near by? Maurice was surprised to feel how great was the affection that already attached him to Jean. He turned round twice to wave his hand to him; and then he set out from the camp, where preparations were now being made to light some large fires, for the purpose of deceiving the enemy as to the army's presence, whilst in reality the troops marched off, in the strictest silence, before the dawn of day.

Once on the road, the petty farmer who was driving Maurice did not cease to bewail the evil times. He had lacked the necessary courage to remain at Falaise, and yet he already regretted having left it, repeating that he would be utterly ruined if the enemy should burn his house. His daughter--a tall, pale creature--was crying. Maurice, however--drunk, as it were, with weariness--did not hear either of them, but slept on in a sitting posture, rocked by the rapid trot of the little horse, which in less than an hour and a half covered the four leagues lying between Vouziers and Le Chêne. It was not yet seven o'clock, and the twilight had scarcely fallen, when the young fellow, shivering and perplexed, alighted on the Place, near the bridge spanning the canal, and in front of the narrow yellow house where he had been born and had spent the first twenty years of his life. He was going there in a mechanical sort of way, oblivious of the fact that the house had been sold to a veterinary surgeon some eighteen months previously. When the farmer questioned him on the subject, he answered that he knew very well whither he was bound; and then thanked him repeatedly for his kindness in giving him a lift.

However, whilst approaching the well in the centre of the little triangular Place, he stopped short, dazed, and with his head quite empty. Where did he really intend to go? Suddenly he remembered that he had previously decided to call at the notary's house, which adjoined his former home, to ask hospitality of the notary's mother, that venerable, good-hearted old lady, Madame Desroches, who in a neighbourly way had spoilt him when he was a child. But he could scarcely recognise Le Chêne, usually such a dead-alive little place, amid the extraordinary agitation that now prevailed in it, owing to the presence of the army corps which was camping in its outskirts and filling its streets with officers, army followers, prowlers, and laggards of all descriptions. He certainly recognised the canal, crossing the town from end to end and cutting athwart the central Place, the two triangular sections of which were united by a narrow stone bridge. Over there, too, on the other bank, the mossy-roofed market could readily be identified, together with the Rue Berond plunging down on the left, and the road to Sedan stretching away on the right. Only, from the spot where he stood, it was necessary that he should raise his eyes and search for the slated belfry crowning the notary's house, to make sure that this was the once deserted corner where he had played at hopscotch; to such a degree, indeed, did the Rue de Vouziers in front of him now swarm with people, flowing along in a compact crowd as far as the town-hall. It seemed to him that an open space was being kept on the Place, and that some men were making the inquisitive townsfolk retire; and, in fact, behind the well he beheld to his astonishment quite an assemblage of vehicles, vans and waggons, a perfect baggage camp, which he had certainly seen somewhere before.

It was still light, the sun had scarcely sunk in the unrippled water of the canal, tinging it as with blood, and Maurice had just decided what course he would adopt, when a woman, standing near by, who had been looking at him for a few moments, exclaimed: 'Good heavens! but I'm surely not mistaken; you are young Levasseur?'

In his turn, he then recognised Madame Combette, wife of a chemist whose shop was on the Place, and he began to explain to her that he was going to ask worthy Madame Desroches for a bed; but at this she became strangely agitated and dragged him away, saying: 'No, no, just come indoors with me. I will explain matters to you.' Then, when they were in the shop and she had carefully closed the door, she added: 'What, don't you know, my dear boy, that the Emperor is stopping at the Desroches' house? It was requisitioned for him, and the Desroches are by no means pleased with the honour, I can tell you! To think that the poor old lady, a woman of over seventy, has been obliged to give up her room to go and sleep under the eaves in a servant's bed! Everything you see on the Place there belongs to the Emperor; it's his luggage, you understand.'

Yes, indeed, Maurice now well remembered that he had seen those vans and carts--all the superb train, in fact, of the imperial household--while he was at Rheims.

'Ah! my dear boy, if you only knew what a number of things have been taken out of those vans--silver plate, and bottles of wine, and baskets of provisions, and beautiful linen, and all manner of other things besides! It went on without stopping for a couple of hours. I wonder where they can have put so many things, for the house isn't a large one. Just look! See what a fire they've lighted in the kitchen!'

Maurice then turned to glance at the little two-storeyed white house, which stood at the corner of the Place and the Rue de Vouziers, a house of quiet bourgeoise aspect, the disposition of which he pictured to himself as readily as though he had been inside it only the day before. Downstairs there was the central passage running right through the house, and then on each floor there were four rooms. The corner first-floor window, overlooking the Place, was already lighted up, and the chemist's wife explained that this was the window of the Emperor's room. However, as she had already indicated, by far the greater blaze was in the kitchen, which was on the ground floor, with a window facing the Rue de Vouziers. The inhabitants of Le Chêne had never previously seen such a sight as this kitchen now presented, and the street was blocked with an incessantly renewed stream of inquisitive people all agape in front of that fiery furnace, where an emperor's dinner was roasting and boiling. So that they might have a little fresh air the cooks had set the window wide open. There were three of them, attired in dazzling white jackets, now fluttering about in front of the fowls impaled on a tremendously long spit, and now stirring the sauces which were simmering in huge copper pans that shone like gold. And the oldest inhabitants could not remember having ever seen so much fire burning, and so much food cooking at the same time, even on the occasion of the grandest wedding feasts given at the White Lion Inn.

Combette, the chemist, a restless, weazen, little man, returned home greatly excited by all he had seen and heard. He appeared to be in the secret of what was passing, owing to his position as assessor to the mayor. It was at about half-past three that MacMahon had telegraphed to Bazaine that the arrival of the Crown Prince of Prussia at Châlons compelled him to fall back upon the northern fortresses; and another despatch was about to be sent to the Minister of War, warning him of the retreat, and explaining to him that the army was in imminent peril of being cut in twain and annihilated. As for the despatch addressed to Bazaine, that might go and welcome, but it was doubtful whether it would ever get to him, for all communications with Metz appeared to have been intercepted for some days past. The other telegram, however, was a much more serious affair; and the chemist, lowering his voice, related that he had heard an officer of high rank remark: 'If they should be warned in Paris we are dished!' This was easily understood, for everyone was aware of the bitter fierceness with which the Empress-Regent and the Ministerial Council incited the army to a forward march. However, the confusion was increasing every hour, and the most extraordinary intelligence was arriving respecting the approach of the German armies. Was it possible that the Crown Prince of Prussia could be at Châlons? In that case, to what army belonged the Uhlans with whom the Hussars of the Seventh Corps had come in conflict in the defiles of the Argonne?[23]

'They know nothing at head quarters,' continued the chemist, waving his arms in a despairing way. 'Ah! what a fearful muddle! Still, everything will be all right if the army retreats to-morrow.' Then, kind-hearted man that he was at bottom, he resumed: 'Listen to me, my young friend. I will dress your foot: you shall dine with us and sleep upstairs in my assistant's little room, since he's bolted.'

Tormented, however, by a desire to see and learn, Maurice determined that first of all he would follow out his original idea by paying old Madame Desroches a visit. He was surprised that he was not stopped at the door of the house, which, amid all the tumult on the Place, remained wide open without even a sentry to guard it. Various people, officers and servants, were continually going in and coming out, and it seemed as though the commotion prevailing in the kitchen had extended to the entire premises. However, there was no light on the stairs up which Maurice had to grope his way. With beating heart, he paused for a few seconds on the first landing, in front of the door of the room which he knew to be occupied by the Emperor, but not a sound came from this room, a death-like silence prevailed there. And up above, when he reached the threshold of the servant's chamber where Madame Desroches had been compelled to take refuge, the poor old lady was at first quite frightened at sight of him. Having recognised him, however, she exclaimed: 'Ah! my child, in what a dreadful moment do we meet! I would willingly have given the Emperor my house, but he has such frightfully ill-bred people with him! If you only knew how they have laid hands on everything, and they certainly must mean to burn all the fuel, for they are keeping up such monstrous fires! The poor man is as pale as though he had just stepped out of the grave, and he looks so sad.' Then, as the young fellow went off, after trying to tranquillise her, she crossed the landing and leant over the banisters. 'There!' she muttered, 'you can see him from here--Ah! we are certainly all lost! Farewell, my child!'

Maurice had remained standing on the stairs in the darkness. On craning his neck forward he beheld, through a fan-light, so remarkable a scene that it dwelt for ever afterwards in his memory. At one end of the cold, plainly furnished room, the Emperor sat at a small table, laid for dinner and lighted on either side by a candle. In the background were two silent aides-de-camp, whilst a maître d'hôtel stood beside the table, waiting. The glass had not been used, the bread had not been touched, some fowl's breast lying on the plate was getting cold. The Emperor sat there stock-still, looking at the table-cloth with those dim, wavering, watery eyes that Maurice had already noticed at Rheims. But he seemed to be even more weary now, and when, apparently with a great effort, he had made up his mind and had carried a couple of mouthfuls to his lips, he pushed all the rest aside. He had dined. An expression of intense suffering, endured in secret, made his pale face look even whiter than before.

Downstairs, the door of the dining-room was opened just as Maurice passed out, and, amid the flare of the candles and the smoke of the dishes, he perceived a tableful of equerries, aides-de-camp, and chamberlains, who were emptying the bottles from the vans, devouring the fowls, and polishing off the sauces between loud bursts of conversation. Since the marshal's despatch had gone off, the conviction that they were about to retreat had been filling all these folks with delight. In another week or so they would be in Paris, and have clean beds again.

Then Maurice suddenly realised how terribly he was overcome with fatigue. It was, indeed, certain--the whole army was about to retreat, and that being so, there was nothing for him to do but to sleep pending the arrival of the Seventh Corps. He crossed the Place again, and once more found himself at the chemist's, where he dined as though in a dream. Then it certainly seemed to him that his foot was dressed and that he was carried into a room upstairs. Black night, annihilation followed. He slept on, overwhelmed, and scarcely breathing. After an uncertain lapse of time, however--hours or centuries, he could not tell--a shudder disturbed his slumbers, and he sat up in bed in the profound darkness. Where was he? What was that continuous roar of thunder that had awakened him? All at once his memory returned, and he hastened to the window to look out. In the obscurity down below a regiment of artillery was crossing the Place, usually so quiet at night time; the men, horses, and guns following each other in endless succession, at a trot which made the little lifeless houses fairly shake. Unreasoning disquietude took possession of Maurice as he beheld this sudden departure. What time could it be? The town-hall clock struck four. He was endeavouring to tranquillise himself, reflecting that the scene he witnessed must simply be the outcome of the orders issued the previous afternoon, when on turning his head he perceived something which gave the finishing stroke to his anguish. The corner first-floor window at the notary's house was still lighted up, and at regular intervals the dark shadow of the Emperor was profiled upon the curtains.

Maurice quickly slipped on his trousers, intending to go downstairs, but at this moment Combette appeared on the threshold carrying a candlestick and gesticulating. 'I saw you from below just as I came back from the town-hall,' he said, 'and I came up to tell you the news. Just fancy! they haven't let me go to bed! For two hours past the mayor and I have had to attend to fresh requisitions. Yes, once again everything is altered. Ah! that officer who didn't want any telegram to be sent to Paris was in the right!'

He continued talking for a long time in imperfect, disjointed phrases; and Maurice, who remained silent, with anguish in his heart, ended by understanding him. At about midnight a telegram for the Emperor had arrived from the Minister of War, in reply to that sent to Paris by the marshal. The exact wording of the despatch was not known; but an aide-de-camp had openly declared at the town-hall that the Empress and the Ministerial Council feared there would be a revolution in Paris if the Emperor abandoned Bazaine and returned there. Those who had drawn up the despatch, inaccurately informed as to the true positions of the German forces, seemed to believe that the army of Châlons had an advance upon the enemy which it no longer possessed, and with an extraordinary burst of passion insisted, despite everything, on a forward march.

'The Emperor sent for the marshal,' added the chemist, 'and they remained shut up together during nearly an hour. Of course, I don't know what they said to each other, but all the officers have repeated to me that we are no longer retreating, and that the march on the Meuse is resumed. We have just requisitioned all the ovens in the town for the First Corps, which to-morrow morning will arrive here in place of the Twelfth, whose artillery, as you can see for yourself, is at this moment starting for La Besace. This time it's settled; you are marching to battle.' He paused. He also was looking at the lighted window at the notary's. Then, with a thoughtful, inquisitive air, he resumed in an undertone: 'Yes; what can they have said to one another? It's comical all the same. A man's threatened with danger, and, in order to avoid it, he decides at six o'clock that he will retreat; then, at midnight, he rushes head first into that very danger, although the situation remains identical.'

Maurice was still listening to the guns as they rolled along through the little black town down below, to the horses trotting past without cessation, to the men flowing away towards the Meuse, towards the terrible Unknown of the morrow. And, meantime, on the little window curtains he still saw the Emperor's shadow pass by at regular intervals; the shadow of that invalid, kept on his legs by insomnia, pacing to and fro, feeling that he must needs continue on the move despite all his sufferings, and with his ears full of the noise made by all those horses and soldiers whom he was sending to death. So a few hours had sufficed, and now the disaster was decided upon, accepted! What, indeed, could they have said to each other, that Emperor and that marshal, both of whom were aware of the calamity to which they were marching, who in the evening had been convinced of defeat--given the frightful situation in which the army would henceforth find itself--and who could not have changed their opinion in the morning since the peril was increasing hour by hour? General de Palikao's plan, the lightning march on Montmédy, already a hazardous venture on August 22, still susceptible, possibly, of accomplishment on the 25th, with veterans and a captain of genius, became on the 27th an act of sheer madness in presence of the continual hesitation of the commanders and the increasing demoralisation of the troops. If both Emperor and marshal knew this, why did they yield to the pitiless voices that goaded them on in their indecision? The marshal, perhaps, had but the limited, obedient mind of the soldier, great in its abnegation. And the Emperor, who no longer commanded, was awaiting destiny. They were asked to give their lives and the lives of the army, and they consented to give them. That was the Night of the Crime--the abominable night when a nation was murdered, for thenceforward the army was in distress, one hundred thousand men were sent to the slaughter!

Despairing and shuddering, Maurice thought of all these things as he watched that shadow on Madame Desroches' dainty muslin curtains, that feverish shadow ever on the tramp, and which the pitiless voice coming from Paris seemed to be urging on. Had not the Empress wished that night for the father's death so that the son might reign? March! march! without a glance behind, under the rain and through the mud, march to extermination, so that this supreme final game for possession of an agonising empire may be played out to the last card! March! march! die like a hero on the piled-up corpses of your people; strike the whole world with compassionate admiration so that it may forgive your posterity! And doubtless the Emperor was marching to death. The kitchen was no longer blazing down below; the equerries, the aides-de-camp, the chamberlains were all asleep; the whole house was black, save for that lighted window, on the curtains of which the shadow was incessantly passing to and fro, the shadow of one who had quietly resigned himself to the fatal sacrifice amid all the deafening uproar occasioned by the Twelfth Army Corps, which was still marching along in the darkness.

It suddenly occurred to Maurice that if the forward march were resumed the Seventh Corps would not pass through Le Chêne, and he pictured himself left behind, separated from his regiment as though he had deserted. His foot no longer smarted, a skilful dressing, and a few hours of complete rest had calmed its feverishness. When Combette had given him a pair of shoes, broad shoes in which he was quite at his ease, he became desirous of starting at once, hoping that he might still meet the 106th on the Vouziers road. After vainly endeavouring to detain him, the chemist had half made up his mind to drive off with him in his gig, and scour the roads in the chance hope of finding the army corps, when Fernand, Combette's assistant, turned up and explained that he had only absented himself to go and see after a cousin whom he was in love with. It was this tall, pale fellow, with the look of a poltroon, who then put the horse to the trap and drove off with Maurice. It was not yet five o'clock; the rain was streaming like a deluge from the inky sky, and the lamps of the vehicle were dimmed and barely lighted the road, which ran through a vast drenched stretch of country full of tumultuous sounds that caused them to pull up at each half-mile, in the belief that an army was near at hand.

Meantime Jean, in the camp before Vouziers, had not had a moment's sleep. Since Maurice had explained to him that the retreat would save everything he had been on the look-out, preventing his men from leaving their quarters, and awaiting the orders for raising the camp which the officers might give at any moment. At about two o'clock a great clatter of horses' hoofs resounded amid the dense obscurity, which the camp fires dotted as with ruddy stars. This was an advance guard of cavalry setting out towards Ballay and Quatre-Champs, for the purpose of watching the Boult-aux-Bois and Croix-aux-Bois roads. An hour later the infantry and the artillery set themselves in motion, abandoning those positions of Falaise and Chestres, which during two long days they had seemed so obstinately bent on defending against an enemy who never came. The sky was overcast, and the night still deep, as each regiment retired in profound silence, like a procession of shadows flitting away into the darkness. Each heart, however, was beating joyously as though they had, one and all, escaped some threatening ambush. They already pictured themselves drawn up under the walls of Paris on the eve of the revanche.

Jean looked around him through the dense night. The road was edged with trees, and it seemed to him that it lay between large meadows. Then came rising ground and then declivities, and they were reaching a village--no doubt Ballay--when a heavy cloud, darkening the sky, suddenly burst, and the rain came down with violence. So much had already fallen on the men, however, that they no longer complained, but simply distended their shoulders. Ballay was speedily left behind; and, as they drew nearer to Quatre-Champs, furious squalls of wind swept through the widening valley. When they had passed Quatre-Champs, and had reached the vast plateau whose barren lands stretch as far as Noirval, the hurricane put forth all its strength, and they were lashed by a frightful deluge. And it was here that orders to halt stopped in turn every regiment.

The entire Seventh Corps, thirty and odd thousand men, had been gathered together here by the time the dawn arose, a dawn of a muddy hue seen through streaming grey water. What was up? Why were they halting? Disquietude was already spreading through the ranks, and some asserted that the marching orders had just been changed. The men had received instructions to ground their arms, and were forbidden to break the ranks and sit down. At certain moments the wind swept across the high table-land with such violence that they had to stand shoulder to shoulder to avoid being carried away. The icy rain was blinding them, pelting their faces and streaming through their clothes. And two hours went by, an interminable spell of waiting, the reason of which no one knew, though anguish was again oppressing every heart.

As the daylight gradually increased, Jean endeavoured to ascertain where they were. Some one had pointed out to him the road leading to Le Chêne which climbed a hill to the north-west, on the other side of Quatre-Champs. Why had they not taken it? Why had they wheeled to the right instead of to the left? Then he became interested in the doings of the staff, which was installed at the farm of La Converserie at the edge of the plateau. They all seemed very much upset there; the officers were running about gesticulating and discussing together; and nothing came--what could they be waiting for? The plateau was a kind of arena covered with stubble, overlooked on the north and the east by wooded heights; with dense woods extending on the south, whilst through an opening on the west the valley of the Aisne could be perceived, together with the little white houses of Vouziers. Below La Converserie rose the slated steeple of Quatre-Champs, drenched by the raging downpour, beneath which the few poor mossy roofs of the village seemed to be melting away. And as Jean's glance enfiladed the steep street he clearly distinguished a gig arriving at a fast trot, along the pebbly roadway now transformed into a torrent.

It was Maurice who, at a bend of the road, on the hill over yonder, had at last caught sight of the Seventh Corps. For a couple of hours he had been scouring the country, deceived by what a peasant had told him, and taken out of his way by the covert ill-will of the young fellow driving him, who was in quite a fever of fear lest they should meet the Prussians. As soon as Maurice reached the farm he sprang out of the vehicle and immediately joined his regiment.

'What! you here!' exclaimed Jean, quite stupefied. 'Why's that? We were going to call for you on the road.'

With a gesture Maurice expressed all his anger and his grief. 'Ah, yes! But the march is no longer that way; we are going over there to find our graves.'

'All right,' the corporal, turning quite pale, replied after an interval of silence. 'At least we shall get our heads cracked together.'

And, as they had parted, so did they meet again with an embrace. Under the beating downpour the private sought his place in the ranks, whilst the corporal, streaming with rain-water, set an example of stoicism by abstaining from all complaint.

The news, however, was now spreading. The rumour had become a certainty. They were no longer retreating upon Paris, but again marching upon the Meuse. One of the marshal's aides-de-camp had just brought the Seventh Corps orders to proceed to Nouart and encamp there, whilst the Fifth, advancing on Beauclair, was to form the right wing of the army, and the First was to make for Le Chêne, there to replace the Twelfth, now marching on La Besace, on the left. And if thirty and odd thousand men had been waiting on that plateau with arms grounded for nearly three hours and exposed to that furious hurricane, it was because General Douay, amid the lamentable confusion occasioned by this change of front, experienced intense disquietude as to the fate of the convoy which on the previous day he had sent forward to Chagny. It was necessary to wait until it joined the corps, and it was reported that it had been cut in two at Le Chêne by the Twelfth Corps' convoy. On the other hand, a portion of the matériel--including all the field smithies--having taken the wrong direction, was now returning from Terron by the road to Vouziers, where it would certainly fall into the hands of the Germans. Never was there greater disorder, never was anxiety more keen.

Perfect despair now displayed itself among the soldiers. Many of them wished to sit down on their knapsacks in the mud of that soaked plateau, there to await death amid the rain. They jeered, and insulted their commanders: Fine commanders they were, with no brains, who undid in the evening what they had done in the morning, who dawdled when the enemy was nowhere near, and skedaddled as soon as he appeared! A final attack of demoralisation was turning this army into a mere flock, without either faith, confidence, or discipline--a flock to be led to the slaughter according to the chances of the road. Over yonder, towards Vouziers, a fusillade had just broken out--the rear-guard of the Seventh Corps and the advance guard of the German troops were exchanging shots; and for a minute or two, moreover, all eyes had been turned towards the valley of the Aisne, where a mass of dense, black, whirling smoke was rising against a clear patch of sky: the village of Falaise, fired by the Uhlans, was burning. Maurice and his comrades were enraged. So the Prussians were there now. For two whole days had the Seventh Corps waited to give them time to arrive, and now it was taking to its heels. Bitter anger mounted to the brains even of those whose capacity was most limited at the thought of the irreparable blunder that had been perpetrated, the idiotic delay at Vouziers, the trap into which they had fallen; the reconnoitring parties of the fourth German army amusing Bordas's brigade, and immobilising in turn every corps of the army of Châlons so as to allow the Crown Prince of Prussia time to hasten to the spot with the Third Army. And at this moment the enemy's forces were joining hands, thanks to the ignorance of the marshal, who as yet did not know what troops he had before him; and the Seventh and Fifth Corps were about to be harassed without respite, threatened incessantly with a crowning disaster.

Maurice gazed at Falaise whilst it continued burning on the horizon. Just then, however, some solace was afforded by the arrival of the convoy, thought to be lost, but which was seen debouching from the road to Le Chêne. Thereupon, whilst the First Division remained at Quatre-Champs to escort and protect the interminable baggage-train, the Second at once set out for Boult-aux-Bois through the forest, whilst the Third took up position on the heights of Belleville on the left, with the view of insuring communications. Just as the rain was increasing in violence, the 106th at last quitted the plateau, resuming once more that criminal march towards the Meuse--towards the Unknown; and at that same moment Maurice, in his mind's eye, again saw the Emperor's shadow flitting mournfully to and fro on old Madame Desroches' little curtains. Ah! the army of the forlorn hope, the army sent to perdition, despatched to certain annihilation for the purpose of saving a dynasty. March, march, without glancing behind, under the rain and through the mud--march to extermination!

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VI. AN ARMY'S CALVARY--CHASED BY THE FOE

'Thunder!' exclaimed Chouteau, when he awoke on the following morning in the tent, feeling weary and icy cold; 'I'd willingly accept some hot broth with plenty of meat round it.'

When they had encamped on the previous evening at Boult-aux-Bois, only some scanty rations of potatoes had been distributed, the commissariat becoming more and more bewildered and disorganised by the incessant marching and counter-marching, and failing to meet the troops at any of the appointed places. In the confusion prevailing on the roads, no one knew where to find those migratory droves of cattle intended for the army, and famine seemed near at hand.

'Yes, dash it all!' rejoined Loubet, with a sneer of desperation, as he stretched himself. 'But it's all over now. No more roast goose!'

The squad was in a bad humour. Things were not lively when there was nothing to eat; and besides there was that incessant rain, and that mud in which they had been sleeping.

Seeing that Pache was crossing himself, after saying his morning prayer with closed lips, that infidel Chouteau furiously resumed: 'Why don't you pray for a couple of sausages and a pint of wine for each of us?'

'Ah! if we only had some bread even,' sighed Lapoulle, who, with his excessive appetite, suffered more hunger than the others.

However, Lieutenant Rochas silenced them. They ought to be ashamed of themselves, always thinking of their stomachs! For his part, when he felt hungry he simply tightened his belt. Since affairs had been going from bad to worse, and a fusillade could occasionally be heard, the lieutenant had recovered all his stubborn confidence in victory. It was so simple now that the Prussians were there: the French would just give them a licking. And he shrugged his shoulders behind Captain Beaudoin, that whipper-snapper, as he called him, who, quite distracted by the loss of his baggage, was now always in a furious passion, with his lips set and his face extremely pale. Nothing to eat? A man could put up with that! What made the Captain so indignant was that he could not change his shirt.

Maurice awoke, depressed and shivering. Thanks to his broad shoes, his foot had not again become inflamed; but the deluge of the previous day, which still made his great-coat very heavy, had again left him aching in every limb. When he was sent to fetch the water for the coffee he gazed for a moment over the plain at the edge of which Boult-aux-Bois is situated. Forests climb the hills on the west and the north, where a ridge extends as far as Belleville; whilst a vast open expanse, amid the gentle undulations of which various hamlets are hidden, stretches towards Buzancy on the east. Was it from that side that the enemy was expected? As he came back from the stream with his can full of water, a family of weeping peasants, clustering on the threshold of a little farmhouse, called him and asked him if the soldiers would stay there to defend them. Three times already, owing to contrary orders, had the Fifth Army Corps crossed this part of the country. A cannonade in the direction of Bar had been heard during the previous day, so that the Prussians could not now be more than a couple of leagues distant. When Maurice told these poor people that the Seventh Corps would in all probability soon set out again, they began to bewail their lot. So they were to be abandoned; so the soldiers did not come to fight, since they simply saw them appear and disappear, invariably fleeing from the foe.

'Those who want any sugar,' said Loubet, when he served the coffee, 'must suck their thumbs.'

Nobody laughed, however. It was, indeed, vexatious, not even to have any sugar for their coffee. And if they had only had a scrap of biscuit to eat! However, during that long halt on the plateau of Quatre-Champs the day before, almost all of them, by way of passing the time, had nibbled the fragments, devoured even the crumbs remaining in their knapsacks. Fortunately, Jean's squad discovered that they possessed a dozen potatoes, and these were divided among the men.

'Ah! if I had only known, I would have bought some bread at Le Chêne,' regretfully said Maurice, whose stomach craved for food.

Jean sat there listening in silence. He had had a quarrel that morning with Chouteau, who when ordered to fetch the firewood had insolently refused to do so, saying that it was not his turn. Since affairs had been going from bad to worse, the indiscipline was increasing, until at last the officers dared not even reprimand their men. Jean, with his admirable calmness, realised that he must sink his authority as corporal, if he did not wish to provoke open mutiny. So he played the part of a good-natured fellow, appearing to be simply the comrade of his men, to whom, thanks to his experience, he was able to render important services. If his squad was no longer so well fed as formerly, at all events it did not perish of hunger like others did. It was especially Maurice's sufferings that touched Jean. He realised that this delicate little fellow was getting very weak, and he watched him with an uneasy eye, wondering how he would manage to keep up to the end.

When he heard him complaining that he had no bread, he rose to his feet, went off for a moment to rummage in his knapsack, and then, on returning, slipped a biscuit into Maurice's hand.

'Take that and hide it,' he whispered to him, 'I haven't enough for everyone.'

'But how about yourself?' asked the young fellow, deeply touched.

'Oh! never mind me. Besides, I still have a couple left.'

This was a fact. Jean had been carefully preserving three biscuits in case there should be any fighting, for he knew by experience that a man feels frightfully hungry on the battlefield. For the moment he had eaten a potato, and that sufficed him. Later on, something else might turn up.

The Seventh Corps was again set in motion at about ten o'clock. The marshal's original intention, no doubt, was to despatch it by way of Buzancy to Stenay, where it would have crossed the Meuse. But the Prussians, who were marching faster than the army of Châlons, must by this time already be at Stenay; indeed, it was said, they were even at Buzancy. Driven in this way towards the north, the Seventh Corps had consequently received orders to proceed to La Besace, some fourteen or fifteen miles from Boult-aux-Bois, with the view of reaching and crossing the Meuse at Mouzon on the morrow. The start was a dreary one; the men, with their stomachs almost empty and their limbs unrested, exhausted by the fatigue and waiting of the previous days, were audibly growling; and the gloomy officers, giving way to uneasiness at thought of the catastrophe to which they were marching, talked complainingly of their inaction, and were indignant that they had not been sent to Buzancy to support the Fifth Corps, whose guns had been heard there. This corps must also be retreating--no doubt towards Nouart, whilst the Twelfth, bound for Mouzon, was setting out from La Besace, and the First was taking the road to Raucourt.

All these masses of men now tramped along like so many flocks, urged on and worried by dogs, and hustling one another, as they at last advanced towards the longed-for Meuse, after endless dawdling and delay.

When the 106th started from Boult-aux-Bois, following the cavalry and artillery--the three divisions streaking the plain with a long stream of marching men--the sky again became covered with large, livid clouds, the gloom of which put the finishing stroke to the men's sadness. For a time the regiment followed the high road to Buzancy, which was edged with superb poplars. At Germond, a village where heaps of manure were smoking before the doors on either side of the road, the women sobbed, and taking their children in their arms, held them out to the passing troops as though begging the latter to carry them away. Not a morsel of bread or a potato remained in the place. And now, instead of proceeding any farther in the direction of Buzancy, the 106th wheeled to the left towards Authe; and when on a hill across the plain, the men again saw Belleville, through which they had marched the day before, they at once became conscious that they were retracing their steps.

'Thunder!' growled Chouteau; 'do they take us for spinning tops?'

And Loubet added, 'There are generals for you! Pulling first one way, then another! One can easily see that they don't care a fig for our legs.'

They all became angry. It was too bad to weary men out in this fashion simply for the purpose of promenading them up and down. They were now marching across the barren plain in a column of two files, one on either side of the road, the centre of which was reserved to the officers; but no jokes were cracked, no songs were sung to enliven the march as on the day when they had left Rheims--the day when they carried their knapsacks so jauntily, their shoulders lightened by the hope of outstripping the Prussians and beating them. Now they were silent and irritated, and crawled along wearily, hating their guns, which made their shoulders sore, and their knapsacks, which weighed them down; no longer, moreover, having any confidence in their commanders, but giving way to such despair that they were like cattle, which only fear of the goad can impel onward. The wretched army was now beginning to ascend its Calvary.

For a few minutes, however, something had greatly interested Maurice. He had seen a horseman ride out of a little wood, far away on the left, where the ground rose in a succession of ridges of increasing height, parted by narrow valleys. Almost immediately afterwards a second horseman appeared and then another. They all three remained there motionless, looking no larger than the fist, like toys, sharply and precisely outlined. Maurice thought they must belong to some outpost of Hussars, or to some returning reconnoitring-party, but he was suddenly astonished to see some brilliant specks on their shoulders--the glitter, no doubt, of brass epaulettes.

'Look over there!' he said, nudging Jean, who marched beside him; 'some Uhlans!'

The corporal opened his eyes wide: 'Uhlans? Those?'

Indeed they were Uhlans, the first Prussians that the 106th had seen. During the six weeks or so that the regiment had been campaigning, not only had it not fired a shot, but it had not even obtained a glimpse of the enemy. Maurice's remark sped along the file, and every head was turned with growing curiosity. Those Uhlans looked fine fellows.

'One of them is precious fat,' observed Loubet.

However, an entire squadron suddenly showed itself on a plateau to the left of the little wood; and at this threatening apparition the column was halted. Orders arrived, and the 106th took up position behind some trees, on the margin of a stream. The artillery was already galloping back and placing itself on a knoll. And then, for a couple of hours, they lingered there in battle array without anything further occurring. The party of hostile cavalry remained at the same spot on the horizon; and at last, realising that precious time was being lost, the French resumed their march.

'Ah! well,' muttered Jean, regretfully; 'the fight won't be for to-day.'

Maurice also felt his hands burning with the desire to fire at least a shot. And he reflected on the blunder that had been made the previous day in not hurrying to the support of the Fifth Corps. If the Prussians did not attack them it could only be because they had not as yet sufficient infantry at their disposal. Their cavalry demonstrations could therefore have no other object than to delay the columns on the march. Once again, then, the French had fallen into the trap set for them. And, indeed, from that time forward, the 106th incessantly beheld the Uhlans at each rise of the ground on their left flank. The enemy's scouts followed the regiment and watched it, vanishing every now and again behind some farm, and reappearing at the corner of a wood.

By degrees it harassed the troops to see themselves being thus enveloped from afar, as if in some invisible net. 'Those fellows are becoming a confounded nuisance,' repeated Pache, and even Lapoulle said the same. 'It would ease one, dash it, to send them a few slugs.'

But, with a heavy step that soon wearied them, the men continued painfully marching on. Just as one feels a storm brewing before it has even shown itself on the horizon, so, in the general uneasiness, one could feel the enemy approaching. Severe orders were given with reference to the rear-guard, and there were no more laggards, everyone now being aware that the Prussians were following the corps, and would pounce upon all stragglers. The German infantry was in fact arriving at a lightning pace, marching its five-and-twenty miles a day, whilst the French regiments, harassed and paralysed, tramped and tramped over the same ground.

When they reached Authe the sky cleared, and Maurice, to whom the sun served as a guide, observed that instead of proceeding any farther in the direction of Le Chêne--three long leagues away--they now went straight towards the east. It was two in the afternoon, and after shivering for a couple of days under the rain the men now began to suffer from the oppressive heat. The road wound with long bends across some deserted plains. Not a house, not a living being was to be seen; only a few little woods relieved the monotony of the barren expanse; and the mournful silence prevailing in this solitude infected the sweating soldiers, as with their heads drooping they wearily dragged themselves along. At last they caught sight of St. Pierremont, a cluster of deserted houses on a monticle. They did not pass the village, however; indeed Maurice noticed that they wheeled at once to the left, taking a northerly direction towards La Besace. He now realised what route had been selected for this attempt to reach Mouzon before the Prussians arrived there. But could they succeed in the effort, with troops so weary and so demoralised? This seemed the more doubtful, as at St. Pierremont the three Uhlans again appeared in the distance at the bend of a road coming from Buzancy; and, moreover, just as the French rear-guard was leaving the village a hostile battery was unmasked, and a few shells fell, without, however, doing any harm. The French did not answer the fire, but continued their march with increasing difficulty.

There are three long leagues from St. Pierremont to La Besace, and Jean, on learning this from Maurice, made a gesture of despair. The men could never go that distance; he could tell that by sure and certain signs--their hard breathing, and the wild look on their faces. The road moreover was a steep one, running between two ridges, which gradually drew nearer to one another. At last a halt became necessary; but, unfortunately, this rest increased the stiffness of the men's limbs, and when orders were given to start again matters became even worse than before. The regiments no longer made way, and many men fell to the ground. Jean, who noticed that Maurice was growing pale, with his eyes dimmed by weariness, began talking, contrary to his wont, hoping that by a flow of words he would manage to divert the young fellow, and keep him awake amid the mechanical tramp, tramp of the march, of which the men had now ceased to have any mental perception.

'So your sister lives at Sedan,' said Jean; 'perhaps we shall pass that way.'

'Through Sedan? Never, that's not our road; they would be madmen to take us there.'

'Is your sister young?'

'She's as old as I am. I told you we were twins.'

'And is she like you?'

'Yes, she's fair like me, but with such soft, curly hair. She's very slight, with a thin face, and so quiet. Ah! my poor Henriette.'

'You are very fond of one another?'

'Yes--yes.'

There was a pause, and Jean, on looking at Maurice, saw that his eyes were closing and that he was about to fall. 'Hullo, my poor youngster--hold yourself up. Good heavens! Give me your popgun a moment; that will ease you. It certainly isn't possible to go any farther to-day; if we do, we shall leave half the men on the road.' He had just caught sight of Oches, with its few houses climbing a hill ahead of them. The yellow church, perched aloft, overlooks the other buildings from amidst the trees.

'Sure enough we shall have to sleep here,' added Jean.

He had guessed correctly. Noticing the extreme weariness of his men, General Douay despaired of reaching La Besace that day. He was, however, more particularly induced to halt by the arrival of the convoy--that worrying convoy which he had been dragging about with him since leaving Rheims and whose three leagues of vehicles and horses had so repeatedly delayed his march. Whilst at Quatre-Champs, he had despatched this interminable train direct to St. Pierremont, but it was only at Oches that it again joined the corps, and with the horses so exhausted that they could no longer be prevailed upon to move. It was now already five o'clock, and the general, fearing to enter the defile of Stonne at that hour, decided that he must renounce accomplishing the distance prescribed by the marshal. The men halted and began to encamp, the convoy being drawn up in the meadows below, where it was protected by one of the divisions; whilst the artillery established itself on the slopes behind, and the brigade which was to serve as the rear-guard on the morrow remained upon a height facing St. Pierremont. Another division, of which General Bourgain-Desfeuilles' brigade formed part, bivouacked behind the church on a broad plateau, edged by a wood of oak trees.

When the 106th was at last able to encamp on the outskirts of this wood, night was already coming on, so much confusion had there been in selecting and apportioning the various sites.

'Curse it!' said Chouteau, furiously; 'I sha'n't eat. I shall sleep!'

Indeed, this was the general cry. Many of the men had not enough strength left them to pitch their tents, but went to sleep wherever they fell. Besides, in order to sup, they needed the presence of the commissariat; and the commissariat, which was expecting the Seventh Corps at La Besace, was not at Oches. Such, too, were the disorder and laxity that there were no longer any bugle calls to rations, nor from this time forward, indeed, were any rations distributed. It was a case of everyone for himself; the soldiers having to subsist on the supplies which they were supposed to have in their knapsacks. But the latter were empty; few indeed were the men who found a crust in them, some chance crumbs of the plenty in which they had momentarily lived at Vouziers. There was, however, some coffee, and the less weary of the troops again drank coffee without sugar.

When Jean, desirous of sharing his two remaining biscuits with Maurice, came up to the young fellow, he found him sound asleep. For a moment he thought of rousing him, but decided not to do so; and then, like the stoic he was, he again hid both biscuits in his knapsack, as carefully as though he were concealing gold, and contented himself with some coffee like his comrades. He had insisted upon having the tent pitched, and they were already lying down inside it when Loubet, who had been on the prowl, came back with some carrots which he had pulled up in a neighbouring field. It was impossible to cook them, so they were eaten raw; but they only irritated the men's hunger, and made Pache quite ill.

'No, no, let him sleep,' said Jean to Chouteau, when the latter began shaking Maurice to give him his share.

'Ah!' remarked Lapoulle, 'we shall have some bread to-morrow when we get to Angoulême--I've a cousin who's in garrison at Angoulême--a capital place!'

The others were amazed (as well they might be, for it was as if an English soldier marching through the Highlands had expressed the belief that they would reach Bristol on the morrow), and Chouteau exclaimed: 'Angoulême! what do you mean? What a fool you must be to think you're going to Angoulême!'

It was impossible, however, to extract any explanation from Lapoulle, though he adhered to his opinion that they were marching to Angoulême. That same morning, by the way, on seeing the Uhlans, he had maintained that they were some of Bazaine's soldiers.

Then the camp fell into a death-like silence in the inky night. Chilly though it was, no fires were allowed to be lighted. It was known that the Prussians were only a few miles away, and as little noise as possible was made for fear of attracting their attention. The officers had already warned their men that the march would be resumed at four o'clock, with the view of making up for lost time, and weary as they were they all hastily and gluttonously gave themselves up to sleep. The loud breathing of those masses of men ascended into the darkness above the dispersed encampments, as though it were the breathing of the very earth.

All at once the squad was awakened by the report of a firearm. The night was still dense, it could scarcely be three o'clock. In a moment they were all on foot, and the alert passed through the camp, everyone believing that the enemy was attacking them. But it was only that hungry fellow Loubet, who, having woke up, had plunged into the neighbouring wood in the idea that there must be some rabbits there. What a feast they would have if, at the first gleam of light, he could bring a couple of rabbits back to his comrades! But whilst he was seeking a good spot to post himself, he heard some men coming towards him, talking together and breaking the branches, and thereupon he had fired in dismay, thinking that he had to deal with some Prussians. Maurice, Jean, and others were already reaching the spot, when a gruff voice shouted, 'In God's name don't shoot!'

At the edge of the wood they then perceived a tall, thin man, whose thick bushy beard could be but imperfectly distinguished. He wore a grey blouse, tightened at the waist by a red sash; and carried a gun slung over his shoulder. He at once explained that he was a Frenchman, a sergeant of Francs-tireurs, and that he had come from the woods of Dieulet with a couple of his men to give the general some information. 'Here, Cabasse! Ducat!' he shouted, turning round, 'here, you drones, make haste!'

The two men had doubtless felt frightened. However, they now approached. Ducat was short, pale, and fat, with scanty hair; and Cabasse, tall and bony, with a dark face and a long nose like a knife-blade. Meantime Maurice, who had been scrutinising the sergeant with surprise, ended by asking him, 'Aren't you Guillaume Sambuc, of Remilly?'

And when the sergeant, looking rather alarmed, had with some hesitation answered affirmatively, the young fellow instinctively fell back, for this man, Sambuc, had the reputation of being a terrible rogue, the true scion of a family of woodcutters, who had turned out very badly. The father, a drunkard, had been found one evening on the verge of a wood, with his throat cut; the mother and daughter, both thieves and beggars, had disappeared, but were doubtless leading a shameful life. Guillaume, the Franc-tireur, had been a smuggler and poacher in time of peace; and only one of this family of wolves had grown into an honest man--Prosper, the Chasseur d'Afrique, who, before becoming a soldier, had hired himself out as a farm hand in his hatred of forest life.

'I saw your brother at Rheims and Vouziers,' resumed Maurice. 'He was all right.'

Sambuc made no answer to this, but to hasten matters exclaimed: 'Take me to the general. Tell him that some Francs-tireurs of the Dieulet woods have something important to communicate to him.'

While they were returning to the camp Maurice began thinking of these Francs-tireurs, these free companies on whom so many hopes had been founded, but who were already, on all sides, giving so much cause for complaint. It had been expected that they would carry on a war of ambushes, await the enemy behind the hedges, harass him, shoot down his sentries, and hold the woods so that, not a Prussian would ever leave them alive. But, to tell the truth, they were becoming the terror of the peasants, whom they defended inefficiently, and whose fields they laid waste. In their hatred of the regular military service, all the waifs and strays of society hastened to join these corps, delighted to escape discipline and to roam the country like merry bandits, sleeping and tippling wheresoever chance led them. Some of these companies were indeed composed of really execrable elements.

'Here, Cabasse! Here, Ducat!' repeated Sambuc, turning round at each step he took; 'make haste, you laggards!'

Maurice instinctively divined that both these men must be terrible rascals. Cabasse, the tall, bony fellow, had been born at Toulon, and after serving as a waiter in a café at Marseilles, had turned up at Sedan as commission agent for a firm of the South of France. He had narrowly escaped the clutches of the law in connection with some story of theft, the real facts of which were not known. Ducat, his short, fat comrade, had been a process-server at Blainville, but had been compelled to sell his office owing to his scandalous immorality, which, since he had been book-keeper at a factory at Raucourt, had again almost brought him into the dock at the assize court. Ducat indulged in Latin quotations, whereas Cabasse was scarcely able to read; but the one completed the other, and they formed together a pair of equivocal scoundrels, well calculated to inspire alarm.

The camp was already awakening, and Jean and Maurice conducted the Francs-tireurs to Captain Beaudoin, who took them to Colonel de Vineuil. The latter began to question them, but Sambuc, conscious of his importance, was absolutely bent on speaking to the general. In a bad humour at having to rise in the middle of the night, with another day of famine and fatigue before him, General Bourgain-Desfeuilles--who, having slept at the priest's, had just appeared on the parsonage threshold--received the three men in a furious fashion.

'Where have they come from? What do they want? Ah! so it's you, Francs-tireurs? Some more laggards, eh?'

'We are holding the woods of Dieulet with our comrades, general,' replied Sambuc, in no wise disconcerted.

'The woods of Dieulet! where are they?'

'Between Stenay and Mouzon, general.'

'Stenay, Mouzon. I don't know them. How can I understand anything with all these new names?'

Colonel de Vineuil felt uncomfortable on hearing this, and discreetly intervened to remind the general that Stenay and Mouzon were on the Meuse, and that the Germans, having occupied the former locality, were about to attempt the passage of the river by the bridge at the latter town, which lay more to the north.

'Well, general,' resumed Sambuc, 'we came to warn you that the Dieulet woods are now full of Prussians. When the Fifth Corps was leaving Bois-les-Dames yesterday there was an engagement near Nouart.'

'What! was there fighting yesterday?'

'Yes, general; the Fifth Corps fought while it was falling back, and to-night it must be at Beaumont. So while some of our comrades went to inform it of the enemy's movements, it occurred to us to come and tell you of the situation, so that you may support the Fifth Corps, for it will have quite sixty thousand men to deal with in the morning.'

On hearing this, General Bourgain-Desfeuilles shrugged his shoulders. 'Sixty thousand men! How you talk! Why not a hundred thousand? You must be dreaming, my fine fellow. Fear makes you see double. There can't be sixty thousand men near us--we should know it.'

To this opinion he obstinately clung, and it was in vain that Sambuc appealed to the testimony of Ducat and Cabasse.

'We saw the guns,' so the Provençal asserted, 'and those devils must be madmen to risk sending them along the forest roads, in which one sinks to the shins on account of the late rain.'

'Somebody is guiding them, that's certain,' declared the ex-process-server, in his turn.

Since their experiences at Vouziers, however, the general no longer believed in the reported concentration of the two German armies, which had been dinned into his ears, he said, till he was sick and tired of it. And he did not even consider it worth his while to send the Francs-tireurs to the commander of the Seventh Corps, to whom, by the way, the men thought they were speaking. If one had listened to all the peasants and prowlers who came with so-called information, the army would no longer have taken a step without being turned to right or left, and launched into unheard-of adventures. However, as the three Francs-tireurs knew the country, the general ordered them to remain and accompany the column.

'All the same,' said Jean to Maurice as they were returning to the camp to fold up their tent; 'all the same, those are good fellows to have come four leagues across country to warn us.'

The young man assented; he considered that the Francs-tireurs were in the right. He also knew the country, and felt extremely uneasy at the thought that the Prussians were in the Dieulet woods advancing upon Sommauthe and Beaumont. In the dawn of what he instinctively felt would be a terrible day, he had seated himself on the ground, weary already, although they had not yet started on the march; but his stomach was empty, and his heart oppressed with anguish.

Worried to see him look so pale, the corporal, in a fatherly way, inquired: 'Still queer, eh? Is it your foot again?'

Maurice shook his head. Thanks to the broad shoes he was now wearing, his foot was very much better.

'You are hungry, then?' And, as he did not reply, Jean, without being observed, took one of the two remaining biscuits out of his knapsack, and then, frankly lying, said, 'There, I kept your share for you. I ate the other one just now.'

The dawn was breaking when the Seventh Corps left Oches, on the way to Mouzon, through La Besace, where it ought to have slept. First of all, the terrible convoy had gone off escorted by the First Division, and whilst the train waggons, drawn by capital horses, set out at a good pace, the vehicles that had been requisitioned, empty for the most part and useless, dawdled in the strangest way between the ridges of the defile of Stonne. The road rises--more particularly after passing the hamlet of La Berlière--between wooded hills which overlook it. At about eight o'clock, just as the two other divisions were at last setting out, Marshal MacMahon made his appearance, and was exasperated at still finding there the troops, whom he fancied would have left La Besace at dawn with only a few miles to cover in order to reach Mouzon. And, not unnaturally, he had a lively altercation with General Douay. It was decided that the First Division and the convoy should be allowed to continue their march on Mouzon, but that the other division should take the road to Raucourt and Autrecourt, so as to pass the Meuse at Villers, by which plan they would no longer be retarded by that heavy, slow-travelling advance-guard. Once more, then, they had to take a northerly direction, so eager was the marshal in his desire to place the Meuse between his army and the enemy. They must, at any cost, be on the right bank of the river that evening. Yet the rear-guard was still at Oches, when a Prussian battery on a distant summit, in the direction of St. Pierremont, again began the game of the day before, and fired. At first the French unwisely returned the fire, but eventually the last troops fell back.

Until eleven o'clock or so the 106th continued slowly following the road which winds, between lofty rounded hills, through the depths of the defile of Stonne. Precipitous bare crests rise up on the left, but the slopes descending from the woods on the right are less abrupt. The sun was now shining again, and it was very hot in that narrow valley, the solitude of which was quite oppressive. After passing La Berlière, which is overlooked by a lofty, dreary calvary, there was not a farm, not a human being, not even a cow grazing in the meadows. And the men, so weary and so hungry already the previous day, who had scarcely slept and had eaten nothing, were even at this stage lapsing into a crawl, dispirited and full of covert rage.

Then, all at once, as they were halted at the edge of the road, the cannon thundered out on the right. The reports were so precise and so loud that the fighting could not be more than a couple of leagues away. The effect which the sound had upon these men, so wearied by retreating, so enervated by waiting, was extraordinary. They all stood there erect and quivering, forgetting their fatigue. Why did they not march? They wished to fight, to get their skulls cracked, anything rather than to continue fleeing as they were doing, without knowing whither or why.

Taking Colonel de Vineuil with him, General Bourgain-Desfeuilles had just ascended one of the hills on the right, with a view of reconnoitring the country. They could both be seen levelling their field-glasses up there, between two little woods; and they at once despatched an aide-de-camp, who accompanied them, with orders to send them the Francs-tireurs, if the latter were still with the troops. A few of the men, Jean, Maurice, and others, accompanied Sambuc and his comrades, to be in attendance in case of need.

'What a cursed country this is, with these everlasting hills and woods!' exclaimed the general, as soon as he perceived Sambuc. 'You hear that? Where is it? Where are they fighting?'

For a moment, Sambuc, to whom Ducat and Cabasse stuck like leeches, listened and scanned the wide-spread horizon, without replying. Near him was Maurice, gazing at the same scene, wonderstruck at sight of the immense rolling expanse of vales and woods. It was like an endless sea of huge, slowly rising waves. The forests blotched the yellow soil with dark green, and under the fierce sun the distant hills were bathed in a ruddy vapour. Although one could see nothing, not even a little smoke against the background of clear sky, the cannon continued thundering, with the din of a distant storm increasing in violence.

'There's Sommauthe on the right,' said Sambuc, at last, pointing to a high summit crowned with foliage. 'Yoncq is there on the left--the fighting is at Beaumont, general.'

'Yes, at Varniforêt or at Beaumont,' corroborated Ducat.

'Beaumont, Beaumont,' muttered the general; 'one never knows in this cursed country----' Then he added aloud, 'And how far away is this place, Beaumont?'

'About six miles, by taking the road from Le Chêne to Stenay, which runs past over yonder.'

The cannonade did not cease, but seemed to be advancing from west to east like a continuous roll of thunder. 'The devil! it's getting hotter,' added Sambuc. 'I expected it. I warned you this morning, general. Those are certainly the batteries we saw in the Dieulet woods. At the present time the Fifth Corps must have to contend against all that army which was coming up by Buzancy and Beauclair.'

There was a pause, whilst the battle roared louder and louder afar off. Maurice had to set his teeth to restrain his furious desire to cry out. Why did they lose time in talk, why did they not at once march towards those guns? Never before had he experienced such excitement. Each report re-echoed in his breast, raised him from the ground, inspired him with a longing to rush to the battlefield, join in the fray, and at once bring matters to an issue. Were they going to skirt that battle like the others; elbow it, as it were, without firing even a shot? Was there a wager on, that ever since the declaration of war they had been dragged about like this, invariably fleeing from the foe? At Vouziers they had only heard the shots fired by the rear-guard. At Oches the enemy had merely cannonaded them in the rear for a few minutes. And now were they going to scamper away, instead of hurrying to support their comrades at the double quick? Maurice looked at Jean, who, like himself, was very pale, with his eyes glittering feverishly. Every heart bounded in response to the vehement call of the cannon.

However, there was another spell of waiting. A number of staff officers were climbing the narrow pathway up the hill. It was General Douay hastening to the spot with an anxious face, and when he, himself, had questioned the Francs-tireurs, a cry of despair escaped him. But even if he had been warned in the morning, what could he have done? The marshal's orders were peremptory; they were to cross the Meuse before evening, no matter at what cost. And now, how could he collect together his columns écheloned along the road to Raucourt so as to throw them rapidly upon Beaumont? Would they not certainly arrive too late? The Fifth Corps must already be retreating in the direction of Mouzon; as, indeed the cannonade clearly indicated, for it was travelling farther and farther towards the east, like a hurricane of hail and disaster passing along into the distance. With a gesture of fury at the thought that he was so powerless, General Douay raised both his arms above the vast horizon of hills and vales, fields and forests; and then angrily gave orders to continue marching upon Raucourt.

Oh! that march in the depths of the defile of Stonne, between the high crests, whilst the guns continued thundering behind the woods on the right! At the head of the 106th rode Colonel de Vineuil, stiffly bestriding his horse, with his pale head erect and his eyelids beating as if to restrain his tears. Captain Beaudoin was biting his moustache in silence, whilst Lieutenant Rochas could not refrain from muttering blasphemous words, insulting everybody, himself included. And even among the soldiers who were not desirous of fighting, among those who were the least brave, there ascended a desire to shout and strike, the anger born of the perpetual defeat, the rage they felt that they should still have to fall back with heavy uncertain steps, whilst those accursed Prussians were slaughtering their comrades yonder!

Below Stonne, whence a narrow road winds down through the hills, the highway became broader, and the troops passed beside large fields, intersected by little woods. Since leaving Oches the 106th, which now found itself in the rear-guard, had, at every moment, been in expectation of an attack; for the enemy was now following the column step by step, observing its movements, and doubtless watching for a favourable moment to fall upon its rear. Hostile cavalry, profiting by the undulatory character of the country, was already trying to gain upon the army's flanks. Several squadrons of the Prussian Guard were at last seen debouching from behind a wood, but halted at sight of a regiment of Hussars, which advanced, sweeping the road. And, thanks to this respite, the retreat continued in fairly good order, and the men were approaching Raucourt, when they beheld a sight which increased their anguish and completed their demoralisation. All at once, by a cross road, they caught sight of a precipitate rout coming towards them--wounded officers, disbanded and unarmed soldiers, galloping train-waggons, men and horses all fleeing, distracted, beneath a hurricane of disaster! These were the remnants of a brigade of the First Division which had escorted the convoy sent off in the morning to Mouzon by way of La Besace. A mistake in the road, a frightful mischance, had brought this brigade and a part of the convoy to Varniforêt, near Beaumont, at the moment of the complete rout of the Fifth Corps. Surprised, suddenly subjected to a flank attack, succumbing beneath superior numbers, the men had fled, and panic was bringing them back, bleeding, haggard, and half mad, distracting their comrades with their terror. The stories they told spread fear around them; they seemed to have come on the wings of that thunderous cannonade which since noon had been heard without cessation.

Then, in passing through Raucourt there was desperate hustling and anxiety. Ought they to turn to the right, towards Autrecourt, in view of crossing the Meuse at Villers, as had been decided? Perplexed and hesitating, General Douay feared that he might find the bridge there blocked with retreating troops, perhaps even already in the power of the Prussians. He preferred, therefore, to continue straight on through the defile of Haraucourt, so as to reach Remilly before night. Again had their destination been changed; after Mouzon, Villers, and after Villers, Remilly. They were still marching due north, with the Uhlans galloping behind them. They had now less than four miles to go, but it was already five o'clock, and they were overwhelmingly fatigued. They had been on foot since daybreak, and had taken twelve hours to cover scarcely three leagues, tramping along, wearing themselves out with endless halts, amid the liveliest emotions and fears. Moreover, during the last two nights they had barely slept, and since leaving Vouziers they had not been able to satisfy their hunger. They were sinking with inanition. At Raucourt the scene was pitiable.

Raucourt is a well-to-do little town, with its numerous factories, its well-built high street which the road follows, its coquettish-looking church and town-hall. Only, all its resources had been exhausted; the bakers' and grocers' shops had been emptied, even the crumbs in the private houses had been swept away--first during the night that the Emperor and Marshal MacMahon had spent there, when the town was burdened with the staff and the imperial household, and then when the whole of the First Corps passed through it on the following morning, streaming along the highway like a river. Now there was no bread left there, no more wine, no more sugar, nothing that can be eaten, nothing that can be drunk--excepting water. Ladies had been seen standing at their doors, distributing glasses of wine and cups of broth, draining alike their casks and their saucepans to the dregs. And thus everything had gone, and great was the despair when, at about three o'clock, the first regiments of the Seventh Corps began defiling along the high street. What! So it was beginning again! There were still more soldiers! Once more, indeed, the high street became a river of exhausted men--men covered with dust and dying of hunger, without anybody having a morsel of anything to give to them. Many of the soldiers halted, knocked at the doors, held out their hands towards the windows, begging that a crust of bread might be thrown to them. And there were women who sobbed, and who signed to the soldiers that they could give them nothing, since they had nothing whatever left.

At the corner of a street called the Rue des Dix-Potiers Maurice's eyes began to swim, and he staggered. Jean hastened to assist him, but, sinking on a corner-stone, he murmured: 'No, leave me; this is the end--I prefer to die here!'

'Thunder!' exclaimed the corporal, affecting the stern mien of a discontented superior, 'who's given me such a soldier as you? Do you want to be picked up by the Prussians? Make haste--up, and march!'

The young fellow did not reply; his face was livid, his eyes were closed, and he had half fainted away. On seeing this, Jean swore again, but in a tone of infinite pity: 'My God! My God!' And hastening to a fountain near by, he filled his tin bowl with water, with which he began to bathe his comrade's face. Then, this time without any concealment, he drew from his knapsack that last biscuit which he had so carefully preserved, and broke it into little morsels which he placed between Maurice's teeth. The famished man opened his eyes and began to devour.

'But you?' he suddenly asked, his memory returning to him. 'Didn't you eat then?'

'I?' said Jean. 'Oh, I'm tougher than you. I can wait. A drop of Adam's ale, and I'm on my legs again.'

He again went to the fountain to fill his bowl, which he emptied at a draught, clacking his tongue. His face, however, was also ashy pale, and he felt so famished that his hands trembled.

'Make haste and let's get off,' he said to Maurice. 'We must join the comrades, youngster.'

Leaning heavily on Jean's arm, Maurice then allowed himself to be led away. Never had woman's arm brought such warmth as this to his heart. Now that everything was crumbling to the ground, amid this extreme misery, with death threatening him, he experienced a delicious sensation of comfort, on realising that there was yet one who loved him and succoured him; and perhaps also the idea that this heart which was wholly his was the heart of a man of simple mind, of a peasant but slightly removed from the soil, and who had once been so repugnant to him, now added an infinite sweetness to his feelings of gratitude. Was not this the fraternity of the earliest days of the world, the friendship that existed long before there was any culture, before there were any classes; the friendship of two men, linked together, bound up in one another in their mutual need of assistance, threatened as they were by inimical nature? He could hear his humanity beating in Jean's breast, and he even felt proud that his comrade was stronger than himself, that he succoured him and devoted himself to him; whilst Jean, on the other hand, without analysing his sensations, experienced a feeling of delight in shielding his young friend's refinement and intelligence--qualities that in himself had remained in a rudimentary state. Since the violent death of his wife, carried off in a fearful tragedy, he had thought himself without a heart, and he had sworn that he would have nothing more to do with those creatures who bring man so much suffering, even when their natures are not evil. And the mutual friendship of Jean and Maurice became to both of them, as it were, an expansion of their beings; they did not embrace, and yet, however dissimilar their natures, they were none the less closely united, so bound up in one another, as they tramped along that terrible road to Remilly, the one supporting the other, that they seemed to form but one being compounded of pity and suffering.

Whilst the rear-guard was leaving Raucourt, the Germans entered the town at the other end; and two of their batteries which were immediately planted on the heights, upon the left, commenced firing. At this moment, as the 106th was moving off by the downhill-road, skirting the Emmane, it found itself in the line of fire. One shell cut down a poplar on the river bank, and another buried itself in a meadow near Captain Beaudoin. Until reaching Haraucourt the defile gradually contracts, and one there plunges into a narrow passage, overlooked on either hand by crested hills covered with trees. If a handful of Prussians were in ambuscade there, a disaster was certain. Cannonaded in the rear, with an attack possible both on right and left, the troops now advanced in increasing anxiety, eager to get out of this dangerous pass. And thus a last flash of energy came to even the weariest among them. The men, who a little while ago had been crawling from door to door through Raucourt, now stepped out jauntily, revived by the spur of peril. Even the horses seemed to realise that a terrible price might have to be paid for a moment lost; and the head of the column must have already been at Remilly, and the impetus given to the retreat was continuing, when all at once the men again ceased to advance.

'Dash it!' said Chouteau, 'are they going to leave us here?'

The 106th had not yet reached Haraucourt and the shells were still falling. Whilst the regiment was marking time pending the resumption of the march, a shell burst on the right, fortunately without wounding anyone. Five minutes elapsed, seeming frightfully long, an eternity. But the men could not move; there was some obstacle over yonder, barring the road like a wall suddenly thrown up. The colonel, rising in his stirrups, looked ahead, quivering, and feeling that panic was spreading among his men behind him.

'Everyone knows that we've been sold!' resumed Chouteau, vehemently.

Then, under the lash of fear, loud murmurs arose, a swelling growl of exasperation. Yes, yes; they had been brought there to be sold, to be handed over to the Prussians!

Evil fortune had proved so implacable, the blunders committed had been so excessive, that to these men of narrow minds such a series of disasters could only be explained by treachery.

'We are betrayed! We are betrayed!' they shouted, in maddened voices.

Then, an idea occurring to Loubet he exclaimed: 'It's perhaps that beast of an Emperor who's blocking the road with all his luggage.'

The surmise circulated, till it was positively affirmed that the block was occasioned by the imperial household having intercepted the column. Then the men swore abominable oaths, venting all the hatred that had been roused in their breasts by the insolence of the Emperor's attendants, who took possession of the towns where they slept, unpacking their provisions, their baskets of wine, and their silver plate in the presence of soldiers who were destitute of everything, and setting the kitchens ablaze when the poor devils had to go without a particle of food.

Ah! that wretched Emperor--now without a throne or a command, like a lost child in the midst of his empire, carried off as if he were some useless parcel among the baggage of his troops, condemned to drag about with him the irony of his gala household, his Cent-Gardes, his carriages, his horses, his cooks, his vans, all the pomp of his bee-spangled state robes, sweeping up the blood and the mire of the highways of defeat!

Two more shells now fell in quick succession, and a splinter carried off Lieutenant Rochas's cap. The ranks closed up amid violent pushing--a kind of wave, the ebbing of which spread afar off. Men were calling out in choking voices, and Lapoulle shouted to those in front of him to advance. Another minute, perhaps, and a frightful catastrophe would take place, a sauve-qui-peut which would result in the men engaging in a furious mêlée together, and being crushed to death in the depths of that narrow pass.

The colonel turned round, looking very pale: 'My lads, my lads,' he said, 'a little patience. I have sent some one to see--we are off.'

But the march was not resumed, and the seconds seemed like centuries. Jean had already taken Maurice by the hand, and with admirable calmness was explaining to him in a whisper that if their comrades should again begin pushing, they had better jump aside on the left, and climb through the woods on the other side of the little river. He looked round for the Francs-tireurs, in the idea that they must know the roads, but he was told that they had disappeared while the regiment was passing through Raucourt. And then, all at once, the march was resumed; they turned round a bend of the road, and were thenceforth screened from the German batteries. Later on, some of them learned that it was General de Bonnemain's division of cavalry--four regiments of Cuirassiers--that had thus intercepted and stopped the Seventh Corps in the confusion of that disastrous day.

The night was falling when the 106th passed through Augecourt. The wooded crests still rose upon the right, but on the left the defile grew broader, and a bluish valley could be seen in the distance. At last from the heights of Remilly they perceived, in the evening mist, a pale silvery ribbon winding through the immense rolling expanse of meadow and cultivated land. It was the Meuse--the Meuse they had so longed to reach and where it seemed the victory was to be.

And Maurice, stretching out his arm towards some distant, tiny lights, that were gaily shining out amid the verdure in the depths of that fruitful valley, so delightfully charming in the gentle twilight, said to Jean, with the joyous relief of a man who again finds a spot he loves: 'There--look over yonder--that is SEDAN!'

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VII. IN VIEW OF SEDAN--SILVINE'S STORY

A frightful medley of men, horses, and vehicles encumbered the sloping street of Remilly, descending in zigzags to the Meuse. Halfway down the hill, in front of the church, were some guns, the wheels of which were locked together, and the men seemed unable to get them any farther, however much they might swear and push. Near the spinning-mill below, where a fall of the Emmane roars, a train of baggage waggons was stranded, completely blocking the road; whilst an ever-swelling mob of exasperated soldiers was fighting at the Cross of Malta inn, without any of the men being able to obtain even a glass of wine.

The furious rush came to an end on the southern side of the village, which a copse here separates from the Meuse. The Engineers had thrown a pontoon bridge across the river during the morning. On the right there was a ferry with the waterman's solitary house standing out whitely among the tall rushes. Large fires had been lighted on both banks, and every now and then the flames, deftly encouraged, set the night all aglow, lighting up both the water and the shore, as though it had been midday. One could then perceive the enormous accumulation of troops waiting here; for only two men could cross the foot-bridge at a time, whilst the pontoon bridge, which was certainly not more than ten feet wide, was encumbered with artillery, cavalry and baggage waggons, defiling over it at a distressingly slow pace. It was reported that a brigade of the First Corps and an ammunition convoy were still on the spot, besides four regiments of Cuirassiers belonging to Bonnemain's division; and now, in the rear, came the entire Seventh Army Corps, thirty and odd thousand men, who believing that they had the enemy at their heels were feverishly eager to reach a place of safety by getting across the stream.

For a moment perfect despair prevailed when the men of the Seventh Corps arrived on the scene. What! they had been marching ever since morning without anything to eat, and had managed, by dint of superhuman exertion, to escape out of that terrible defile of Haraucourt, simply to plunge into all this confusion and bewilderment, to run their heads, as it were, against an impassable wall! Many hours would probably elapse before the last arrivals were able to cross; and, even supposing the Prussians should not dare to continue the pursuit during the night, it was certain they would be on the spot at daybreak. Nevertheless, orders were given to pile arms, and the men encamped on some extensive bare hills, whose slopes, skirted by the road to Mouzon, descend to the meadows of the Meuse. On a plateau, in the rear, the reserve artillery took up position, with the guns pointed towards the defile so that, if necessary, they might shell its outlet.

Meantime, the 106th was installed, above the road, in some stubble overlooking the far-spreading plain. The men parted with their chassepots regretfully, glancing behind them with disquietude, haunted as they were with the apprehension of an attack. With their teeth set and a harsh expression on their faces, they abstained from chatting together, merely growling angry words, every now and then. Nine o'clock was on the point of striking; they had been there for a couple of hours; and many of them, though atrociously weary, were unable to sleep, and lay upon the ground listening and starting at the faintest sounds that were wafted from afar off. They no longer struggled against the hunger that consumed them. They would eat when they got across the river, and then, if there were nothing else, they would eat the grass. Down below, however, the obstruction was increasing, and the officers, whom General Douay had posted near the bridge, came every twenty minutes or so with the same irritating tidings that many hours must elapse before all the troops could be got across. At last the general decided to make his way to the bridge in person, and he could be seen struggling in the midst of this human sea and urging on the march.

Seated against a bank by the side of Jean, Maurice pointed to the north as he had done before. 'Sedan lies there below,' said he. 'And, look, Bazeilles is yonder! And then there's Douzy and Carignan on the right--it's at Carignan, no doubt, that we shall be concentrated. Ah! there's plenty of room there, as you would soon see, if it were only daylight!'

His gesture embraced the whole of the immense shadowy valley. The sky was not so dark as to prevent one from discerning the pale river, coursing through the expanse of black, rolling meadows. Here and there the tufts of trees formed denser patches and a row of poplars barred the horizon on the left, as with a fantastic-looking dyke. Then, in the depths far away, behind Sedan, dotted with bright little lights, there was an accumulation of darkness, as though all the forests of the Ardennes had there stretched a curtain of their centenarian oaks.

Jean was again gazing at the pontoon bridge below them. 'Look!' said he, 'it will all give way. We shall never get across.'

The fires were now burning higher on both banks, and their glow had become so bright that the frightful scene was clearly visible. The pontoons, supporting the timbers, had ended by sinking beneath the weight of all the artillery and cavalry that had passed over them since the morning, and the brow or platform of the bridge was a few inches under water. Two by two, in endless files went the Cuirassiers, who were now crossing the stream, slowly emerging from the darkness on one bank, and passing at last into that on the other. As the bridge could no longer be seen, it seemed as though they were marching on the water, on the brightly illumined river, in which a lurid conflagration was dancing. The neighing horses, with their manes raised and their legs stiffened by fright, advanced but slowly over the swaying bridge, which seemed to be gliding away beneath them. Erect in their stirrups, and with tightened reins, still did the Cuirassiers pass and pass, all uniformly draped in long white cloaks, and their helmets blazing with fiery reflections. They looked like phantom horsemen, with flaming hair, marching away to some tenebrous warfare.

A deep plaint escaped from Jean's contracted throat: 'Oh! how hungry I am!'

The men around him, despite the complaining groans of their empty stomachs, had now fallen asleep. Their weariness was so intense that it had finally mastered their fears, and had stretched them on their backs with open mouths, overwhelmed beneath the dark sky which no moon illumined. From one to the other end of those bare hills, waiting and expectancy had now given place to a death-like silence.

'Oh! how hungry I am, so hungry I could eat the very earth.' Such was the cry which Jean, so inured to hardship and usually so silent, was no longer able to restrain; a cry which he raised despite himself, in the delirium caused by privation; for six-and-thirty hours had now elapsed since he had partaken of any food. Then Maurice, who realised that their regiment would not cross the Meuse at least for another two or three hours, made up his mind to speak: 'Listen,' said he, 'I have an uncle living near here; uncle Fouchard, whom I told you about. His place is over there, some five or six hundred yards away. I hesitated about going, but since you are so hungry we had better try him. He will give us some bread at all events.' Thereupon he led his unresisting comrade away.

Old Fouchard's little farm was situated on the outskirts of the defile of Haraucourt, near the plateau where the reserve artillery was encamped. There was a low house, with outbuildings of considerable extent, a barn, a cowshed, and a stable: and, in a kind of coach-house on the other side of the road, the old peasant had installed his butcher's business. It was there that he slaughtered the animals which he subsequently hawked through the surrounding villages in his cart. As the two men drew near to the place Maurice was surprised not to see any light in the house. 'The old miser!' he muttered; 'he must have barricaded himself indoors--he won't open.'

On reaching the road, the young fellow stopped short at sight of a dozen marauding soldiers--hungry rascals, no doubt, on the prowl for something to fill their maws with--who were moving hither and thither in front of the farmhouse. They had begun by calling; then they had knocked; and now, as the house remained quite black and silent, they were battering the door with the butt-ends of their guns with the object of breaking the lock open. Gruff voices could be heard roaring: 'Thunder! Hit harder! Break the cursed door down, since there's no one inside.'

Suddenly, however, the shutter of a garret window was flung back, and a tall old man, wearing a blouse and with his head bare, appeared carrying a tallow candle in one hand and a gun in the other. He had coarse white hair and a square, broadly wrinkled face, with a prominent nose, large light-coloured eyes and a chin expressive of obstinate self-will.

'Are you fellows thieves, that you are smashing everything like that?' he shouted in a harsh voice. 'What on earth do you want?'

The soldiers drew back, somewhat abashed: 'We are dying of hunger. We want something to eat,' they answered.

'I've got nothing, not even a crust! Do you fellows think we can feed hundreds of thousands of men? Other troops passed by here this morning--General Ducrot's men--and they took everything I had.'

One by one the soldiers were again drawing nearer: 'All the same, just open your door. We'll have a rest. You'll be able to find us a morsel, sure enough.'

They were again hammering on the door, when the old man, after placing the candle on the window-sill, raised his gun to his shoulder: 'As true as that's a candle,' he shouted, 'I'll send a bullet into the head of the first man who touches my door!'

A combat appeared imminent. Curses resounded, and some one shouted that they ought to settle the hash of that swinish peasant, who, like the rest of the litter, would have flung his bread into the water rather than give a bite to a soldier. The chassepots were already levelled, and it seemed certain that he would be shot down, for, in his obstinate rage, he remained standing there, clearly visible in the flaring candle-light.

'Nothing at all,' he resumed, 'not a crust! Everything has been taken from me.'

At this moment Maurice, in dire alarm, sprang forward followed by Jean.

'Comrades, comrades!' he shouted as with a blow of his arm he lowered the guns of the marauders; and then, raising his head, he called to Fouchard in a supplicating tone: 'Come, be reasonable. Don't you know me?'

'Who are you?'

'Your nephew, Maurice Levasseur.'

Fouchard had taken up the candle again, and, doubtless, he recognised Maurice; but he remained obstinate, determined not to give the men even so much as a glass of water. 'Nephew, indeed!' he growled; 'who can tell in that cursed darkness? Begone all of you, or I'll fire!' And amid the shouts that were then raised, the threats that they would pick him off and fire his shanty, he continued bawling the same phrase, repeating it a score of times: 'Begone all of you, or I'll fire!'

'Even on me, father?' suddenly called a loud voice which resounded above all the tumult.

The other men had drawn on one side, and now, in the flickering candle-light, a quartermaster suddenly appeared. It was Honoré, whose battery was stationed less than two hundred yards away, and who, for a couple of hours, had been struggling with a desire he felt to go and knock at his father's door. Yet he had sworn that he would never again cross the threshold, and, during the four years that he had been in the army, he had not once written to the old man whom he now addressed so curtly. The marauders were already talking together with animation, and concerting other measures. So that was the old fellow's son--a quartermaster, eh! Such being the case there was evidently nothing to be done; matters might turn out badly, and they had far better try their luck elsewhere. Thereupon they slunk away, speedily vanishing amid the pitchy darkness.

When Fouchard realised that he was saved from being pillaged, he exclaimed, without evincing the slightest emotion, and, in fact, as though he had seen his son only the day before: 'It's you--all right, I'm coming down.'

It was a long business. He could be heard unlocking and re-locking doors which, like a careful man, he kept secured. Then, at last, the front door was just set ajar and held vigorously to prevent it from being flung wide open. 'You can come in--but no one else, mind,' said Fouchard to his son. Evident as was his repugnance, however, he could not refuse shelter to his nephew: 'Well, you too,' he added.

Then he pitilessly pushed the door back on Jean, and Maurice again had to supplicate. But the old man was obstinate; no, no, he didn't want any strangers, any thieves to smash the furniture. Honoré, however, at last forced the door open with his shoulder and made the corporal enter; the old fellow being compelled to yield, though he continued muttering covert threats. He had not parted with his gun, but when he had led them into the living-room he rested it against the sideboard, and placing the candle on the table, sank into stubborn silence.

'I say, father, we are dying of hunger. You'll surely give us some bread and cheese?'

Fouchard made no answer; he did not seem to hear his son, but repeatedly stepped up to the window to listen whether some fresh band were not on the point of besieging his house. 'Come, uncle,' said Maurice, 'Jean's a brother. He went without food to save me. We have suffered so dreadfully together.'

The old man, however, continued his perambulations, satisfying himself that everything was in its place, and without even casting a glance at his son and nephew. Still without saying a word, he at last made up his mind to grant their request, and then, taking the candle, he went off, leaving them in the darkness and carefully locking the door behind him so that he might not be followed. He could be heard going down the cellar stairs, and then another long interval ensued. When he came back he again made the door fast and placed a large loaf and a cheese upon the table, still maintaining his obstinate silence, not, however, that he was sullen, for his anger had passed away, but from motives of policy, since one can never tell how far talking may lead one. Moreover, the three men were in no mood to waste words, but fell on the food and began to devour it. No sound could now be heard save the savage crunching of their jaws.

Honoré at last rose to fetch a pitcher of water standing near the sideboard. 'You might have given us some wine, father,' said he.

Fouchard, who was recovering his calmness and self-control, at the same time found his tongue again: 'Wine? Why, I haven't a drop left. Ducrot's men ate and drank and pillaged everything I had.'

He was lying, and all his efforts to conceal it were unavailing; it could be clearly detected by the blinking of his big pale eyes. A couple of days previously he had concealed his cattle, the few cows he kept and the oxen and sheep reserved for his business, driving them away in the night and hiding them no one knew where, but possibly in the depths of some wood or some abandoned quarry. And since then he had spent long hours at home in burying his wine, his bread, in fact all his provisions, even to the flour and salt, so that one would have ransacked every cupboard in vain. The house was cleared. He had even refused to sell anything to the first soldiers who had presented themselves. There was no telling, perhaps he might have better opportunities, and vague ideas of making a pile of money germinated in this shrewd, patient miser's brain.

Maurice, promptly satisfying his hunger, was the first to speak. 'And is it long since you saw my sister, Henriette?' he asked.

The old fellow was still walking about, glancing every now and then at Jean, who was precipitately swallowing huge mouthfuls of bread; and slowly, as though weighing every word he answered: 'Henriette? Yes, I saw her last month at Sedan. But I caught sight of her husband, Weiss, this morning. He was in a trap with his employer, Monsieur Delaherche--they were going to Mouzon to see the army pass, just by way of amusing themselves.' An expression of profound irony passed over the old peasant's stolid face. 'Perhaps,' added he, 'they may have seen too much of the army, and not have had much amusement--for after three o'clock, it was impossible to pass along the roads. They were crowded with runaways.'

Then, in the same quiet voice and with an air of seeming indifference, he gave some particulars respecting the defeat of the Fifth Corps, which, whilst the men were preparing their soupe, had been surprised at Beaumont by the Bavarians, and thrown back as far as Mouzon.[24] Some panic-stricken, disbanded soldiers, on their way through Remilly, had shouted to him that De Failly had once more sold them to Bismarck. On hearing all this Maurice could not help thinking of the precipitate marching of the last two days, of the orders to hasten the retreat given by MacMahon, now all eagerness to cross the Meuse at any cost after so many precious days had been lost in incomprehensible hesitation. But the decision had come too late. Doubtless the marshal, so angered on finding the Seventh Corps still at Oches when it ought to have reached La Besace, had imagined that the Fifth Corps was already encamped at Mouzon, when, in reality, it was being crushed at Beaumont, through its folly in tarrying there. What, however, could be required, expected of troops who were so badly commanded, so demoralised by waiting and persistent retreating, exhausted alike by hunger and weariness?

Fouchard had ended by stationing himself behind Jean, astonished to see what a prodigious quantity of bread and cheese the corporal managed to put away. 'You feel better now, eh?' he remarked, in a bantering fashion.

Jean raised his head, and with the same peasant-like air replied: 'A little, thanks.'

Meanwhile, despite his intense hunger, Honoré every now and then ceased eating, and turned his head to listen as if he fancied he could hear some sound or other. If, after a fight with himself, he had broken his oath that he would never again set foot in that house, it was solely on account of the irresistible desire he experienced to see Silvine once more. Under his shirt, against his very skin, he preserved the letter he had received from her at Rheims, that tender letter in which she told him that she still loved him, and that she would never love anyone else, despite all the cruel past, despite Goliath, despite even little Charlot,[25] the Prussian's son and her own. And now Honoré had thoughts only for her, and felt anxious at not having yet seen her, though he strove to hide his anxiety from his father. Passion, however, won the day, and at last, endeavouring to speak in a natural voice, he inquired: 'And Silvine--is she still with you?'

Fouchard glanced askance at his son, his eyes glittering with inward merriment: 'Yes, yes,' he answered.

Then he relapsed into silence and began spitting; and the artilleryman, after a pause, was forced to resume: 'She's in bed, then?'

'No, no.'

At last, however, the old man condescended to explain that, in spite of what was happening, he had driven to Raucourt market that morning in his cart, taking the girl with him. Soldiers might be passing along the roads, but surely that was no reason why people should cease eating meat, or why he should neglect his business. So, as was his habit every Tuesday, he had driven to Raucourt with a sheep and some beef, and was just finishing his sales when the Seventh Corps made its appearance, and he speedily found himself in the midst of a frightful hubbub. Soldiers were running about hustling everybody, and fearing that some of them might steal his horse and cart, he had taken himself off, leaving Silvine behind; she, it appeared, was away at the time, carrying meat to some customers in the town. 'Oh! she'll find her way back sure enough,' he added: 'she must have taken refuge at Dr. Dalichamp, her godfather's--she's a brave girl, although she only seems to know how to obey--she has her qualities, certainly she has.'

Was he jeering? Was he desirous of explaining why he still retained the services of that girl, the cause of his quarrel with his son, and this, despite the child, from whom she refused to be parted? Again did Fouchard give Honoré a sidelong glance, and laugh inwardly as he added, 'Charlot's in there, asleep in her room; so it's certain she won't be very long coming.'

Honoré, whose lips were quivering, gazed so fixedly at his father that the latter again began walking up and down. Then the silence fell once more, whilst the artilleryman, in a mechanical way, cut himself another piece of bread, and went on eating. Jean also continued devouring the bread and cheese without feeling the slightest desire to talk. Maurice, whose hunger was appeased, sat there with his elbows on the table, examining the furniture of the room, the old sideboard and the old clock, and dreaming of the holidays that he and his sister had spent at Remilly in times long past. Thus the minutes went by, and at last the clock struck eleven.

'The devil!' muttered Maurice. 'We mustn't let the others go off.'

Without any opposition on Fouchard's part, he then opened the window. The whole black valley was hollowed out there below, looking, at the first glance, like a sombre rolling sea; but when the eyes had become accustomed to the scene, one could clearly distinguish the bridge, illumined by the fires on both banks. The Cuirassiers were still crossing the river, draped in their long white cloaks, and looking like phantoms whose horses, lashed onward by a blast of terror, seemed to be walking on the water. And the endless, interminable procession continued crawling along, like some vision passing slowly before the eyes. Meantime, on the bare hills on the right, where the troops were slumbering, all was as still and silent as death itself.

'Ah, well!' said Maurice, with a gesture of despair, 'it will be for to-morrow morning.'

He had left the window wide open, and old Fouchard, catching up his gun, sprang over the sill and jumped out with the nimbleness of a young man. For a moment he could be heard marching along with the regular step of a sentinel, and then the only audible sound was that of the commotion on the encumbered bridge far away; doubtless the old peasant had seated himself by the roadside, where he felt more at his ease, since he could there watch for any threatening danger, prepared, if need were, to jump indoors again and defend his house.

And now not a minute elapsed but Honoré glanced at the clock. His disquietude was increasing. Less than four miles separate Raucourt from Remilly, a matter of an hour's walk for a sturdy young girl like Silvine. Why had she not arrived, for many and many hours had now elapsed since the old man had left her amid the confusion created by the army corps flooding the district and blocking up the roads? Some catastrophe must certainly have befallen her; and he pictured her in dire distress--wandering distracted through the fields, or knocked down and trampled upon by the horses on the high road.

Suddenly, however, he, Maurice and Jean, rose to their feet. Some one was running down the road, and they had distinctly heard the old man cock his gun. 'Who goes there?' called Fouchard, in a harsh voice. 'Is it you, Silvine?'

There was no answer, and he repeated his question, threatening to fire. Then an oppressed, panting voice managed to articulate: 'Yes, yes, it's I, father Fouchard.' And immediately afterwards the girl inquired: 'And Charlot?'

'He's in bed and asleep.'

'Oh! all right then--thanks!' Thereupon she no longer hastened, but heaved a deep sigh, in which she exhaled all her weariness and anguish.

'Get in by the window,' resumed Fouchard. 'There's some one inside.'

Springing into the room, she stopped short in surprise at sight of the three men. In the flickering candle-light she appeared before them, very dark-complexioned, with thick black hair, and with large, lovely eyes, that sufficed to render her beautiful, lighting up her oval face, which usually wore an expression of submissive tranquillity. But the sudden sight of Honoré had now brought all the blood in her heart to her cheeks, albeit she was not astonished to find him there, for she had been thinking of him whilst running back from Raucourt.

He was choking, and felt extremely faint, but he affected great calmness.

'Good evening, Silvine.'

'Good evening, Honoré.'

Then, that she might not burst into sobs, she averted her head and smiled at Maurice, whom she had just recognised. Jean's presence inconvenienced her. She felt as though she were stifling, and took off the kerchief she wore about her neck.

'We were anxious about you, Silvine,' resumed Honoré, 'on account of all those Prussians who are coming up.'

She suddenly became very pale again, and an expression of agitation swept over her face. Glancing involuntarily in the direction of the room where Charlot was asleep, and waving her hand as if to drive away some frightful vision, she muttered: 'The Prussians, yes--yes, I have seen them.'

Then, worn out with fatigue, she sank upon a chair, and related that on the invasion of Raucourt by the Seventh Corps she had sought refuge at the house of Dr. Dalichamp, her godfather, hoping that Fouchard would think of fetching her before he started home. Such was the hustling and confusion in the high street that a dog would not have ventured there. She had waited patiently, and without feeling much uneasiness, till four o'clock, employing her time meanwhile in helping several ladies to prepare some lint; for, in the idea that some of the wounded from Metz and Verdun, supposing there were any fighting over there, would be sent on to Raucourt, the doctor had been busily engaged for a fortnight past in installing an ambulance at the town-hall. Some people came who asserted that this ambulance might be required at once; and in point of fact a cannonade had been heard since noon in the direction of Beaumont. Still, that was some distance away, and nobody felt alarmed. Suddenly, however, just as the last French soldiers were on the point of leaving Raucourt a shell plunged, with a fearful crash, through the roof of a neighbouring house. Two others followed--a German battery was cannonading the rear guard of the Seventh Army Corps. Some wounded men from Beaumont having already been brought to the town-hall, it was feared that a shell might fall upon them, and finish them off on the straw mattresses on which they were lying waiting for the doctor to attend to them. Maddened by terror these unfortunate men rose up, and despite their broken limbs, which drew from them loud cries of agony, insisted on crawling into the cellar, which they considered to be the only safe place.

'And then,' continued Silvine. 'I don't know how it happened, but all at once everything became silent--I had gone upstairs to a window overlooking the street and the country, and I could no longer see anyone, not a single French soldier. But suddenly I heard a heavy tramp. Somebody called out something I did not understand, and then the butt-ends of a number of muskets fell with a thud on the ground. In the street down below there were a lot of dark-looking men, short and grimed with dirt, with huge, hideous heads and wearing helmets like those that our firemen wear. I was told they were Bavarians. Then, as I raised my eyes, I saw--oh! I saw thousands and thousands of them, coming along by the roads and the fields and the woods, in close columns which never seemed to end. The whole country-side at once became quite black with them. It was like a swarm of black locusts coming and coming in such numbers that in less than no time I could no longer see the ground.'

She shuddered, and again made that gesture with her hand to drive away a frightful remembrance.

'And then--ah! you can't imagine what happened. It seems that these men had been three days on the march and had just been fighting like furies at Beaumont. And they were dying of hunger, half out of their senses, with their eyes starting from their heads. Their officers made no attempt to restrain them, and they all rushed into the houses and the shops, bursting open the doors, breaking the windows, smashing the furniture, searching everywhere for something to eat and drink, and swallowing no matter what came into their hands. I saw one at Monsieur Simonnet's--the grocer's--who was scooping molasses out of a tub with his helmet. Others were munching pieces of raw bacon. Others, too, were swallowing flour. It had already been said that there was nothing left, as our soldiers had been passing through the town for forty-eight hours or more, but these men managed to find something--provisions that had been hidden, no doubt, and this made them think that people purposely refused them food, and they set to work like madmen, smashing everything. In less than an hour the grocers' shops, and the bakers' and the butchers' and even the private houses had all their windows broken, their cupboards ransacked, and their cellars invaded and emptied. At the doctor's, you may believe me or not, but I actually caught sight of one fat fellow, who was eating the soap! It was, however, especially the cellar which they ravaged. We could hear them from upstairs, roaring down there like wild beasts, smashing the bottles and turning on the taps of all the casks, so that the wine rushed out with the noise of a waterfall. When they came up again their hands had been quite reddened by all the wine they had been messing with. And--see how it is when men become savages--Monsieur Dalichamp vainly did his utmost to prevent one soldier from drinking some syrup of opium which he had found in a wine bottle. The wretched fellow must certainly be dead by now; he was suffering dreadfully when I came away.'

Seized with a great shudder she covered her eyes with her hands as though to shut out the sight of all she had seen. 'No, no,' she gasped, 'it was too frightful; it stifles me.'

Old Fouchard, still outside, had drawn near and stood by the window, listening. This story of pillage had made him thoughtful. He had been told that the Prussians paid for everything; were they now turning thieves, then? Maurice and Jean also evinced the keenest interest in these particulars concerning the enemy, whom this girl had just seen, but whom they themselves had not yet met, though the fighting had been going on for a month past. Honoré, however, with a pensive air and twitching mouth, took interest in her alone, being absorbed in thoughts of the calamity that had long since parted them.

Just then the door of the next room opened, and little Charlot ran in. He must have heard his mother's voice; and now, simply clad in his shirt, he was coming to kiss her. Pink and fair, and very big for his age, he had a light curly crop of hair and large blue eyes. Silvine shuddered on seeing him appear so suddenly, as though startled by his resemblance to his father. Did she no longer know her own fondly loved child, that she thus gazed at him with an air of fright, as if face to face with some horrible vision? At last she burst into sobs. 'My poor little one!' she murmured.

And then, like one distracted, she caught him in her arms and pressed him to her neck, whilst Honoré, turning livid, noted Charlot's remarkable likeness to Goliath. The child had the same fair, square-shaped head as his father; his healthy, infantile form, fresh cheeks, and smiling lips seemed typical of the German race. So this was the Prussian's son, 'the little Prussian,' as the jokers of Remilly called him! And there was his mother, pressing him to her bosom--his mother, this Frenchwoman, still overwhelmed, and with her heart lacerated by all that she had seen of the invasion!

'My poor little one, be good: go to bed again; go to by-by, my poor little fellow.''

Then she carried him away, and when she again returned she was no longer crying; she had once more recovered her calm, docile, courageous expression of countenance. It was Honoré who, in a trembling voice, resumed the conversation: 'And the Prussians?'

'Ah! yes, the Prussians,' said Silvine. 'Well, they had broken everything, pillaged everything, eaten everything, drunk everything. They also stole the house linen, the napkins, the towels, the sheets, even the muslin curtains, which they tore into long strips to dress their feet with. I saw some of them whose feet were so many big sores, so fearfully had they been punished by their terrible march. In the road, in front of the doctor's, a number of them took off their boots and bound strips of lace-edged chemises round their heels--chemises which they had stolen, no doubt, from pretty Madame Lefèvre, the manufacturer's wife. The pillage lasted till nightfall. The houses had no doors and scarcely a pane of glass left, but were quite open to the street, and you could see the remnants of furniture inside--everything smashed--a sight to make the calmest people furious. I was almost out of my senses, and I could not stay there any longer. At the doctor's they tried to detain me, telling me that the roads were blocked, that they were not safe, that I should certainly be killed; but, all the same, I went off, and took to the fields on the right hand as soon as I got out of Raucourt. Carts full of French and Prussian wounded, all heaped up together, were arriving from Beaumont. Two passed quite close to me in the darkness, and I heard such groans, such shrieks of pain that I ran--oh! I ran right across the fields and through the woods without knowing where I was--going a long distance out of my way over towards Villers. I hid myself three times, fancying I could hear some soldiers, but the only person I met was another woman, who was running, like myself--running away from Beaumont--and who told me things that made my hair stand on end. Well, at last I got here, and I feel so wretched--oh, so wretched!'

Her sobs were again suffocating her, but the haunting memory of her adventure soon brought her back to her narrative, and she related what the woman of Beaumont had told her. This woman, who lived in the main street of the village, had seen the German artillery pass after nightfall. On either side of the way stood a line of soldiers carrying torches of resin, which illumined the road with the ruddy glare of a conflagration. And in the middle a stream of horses, guns, and caissons swept past, urged on at a furious, hellish gallop. Frenzied and diabolical were the haste and eagerness to achieve victory, to pursue, overtake, finish off, and crush the French troops in the depths of some pit near by. Nothing was spared, every obstacle was annihilated, and still and ever the artillery swept past. If horses fell, their traces were immediately cut, and they were crushed, rolled on, thrust aside like bloody wreckage. The men who tried to cross were in their turn knocked down and hashed to mincemeat by the cannon wheels. And, as the hurricane swept along, the famished drivers did not for a moment think of halting, but deftly caught the loaves of bread that were flung to them, and seized hold of the hunks of meat which some of the torchbearers had stuck upon the tips of their bayonets. And then with these same bayonets the torchbearers prodded the horses, which reared and plunged, and, maddened by pain, galloped faster and faster away. And thus, as the night went by, still and ever the artillery rushed along with tempestuous violence, in the midst of frantic hurrahs.

Despite the attention he had been giving to Silvine's narrative, Maurice, overcome with fatigue after his gluttonous repast, had just let his head fall upon the table, on which he was resting both arms. For another minute Jean continued struggling, then he, in his turn, was vanquished and fell asleep at the other end of the table. Meantime, old Fouchard had gone down the road again, and thus Honoré found himself alone with Silvine, who was now sitting, quite still, in front of the open window.

The quartermaster rose up and approached the window in his turn. The night was still dense and black, laden with the hard breathing of thousands of troops. Louder, more sonorous sounds, were now rising, however--now a cracking noise, then the thud of a collision. At present some artillery was crossing the half-submerged bridge down below. Horses reared, frightened by the dancing, flowing water. Caissons slipped, and as they could not be righted, had to be thrown into the stream. And at sight of the retreat which was being so painfully, so slowly effected across the river--this retreat, which had begun the previous day, and would certainly not be accomplished by dawn--the young man instinctively thought of that other artillery--the artillery of the foe--rushing like a wild torrent through Beaumont, overthrowing all before it, and crushing both man and beast so that it might travel the faster.

At last, Honoré drew near to Silvine, and in full view of all that darkness through which fierce quiverings sped, he gently said to her, 'So you are unhappy?'

'Yes, very unhappy.' She divined that he was going to speak of the abomination, and she lowered her head.

'Tell me,' he resumed; 'how did it happen?'

At first she could not answer him, but he plied her with questions, and at last, in a choking voice, she stammered: 'My God! I do not know; I swear to you I do not even know. But it would be wrong to tell a lie, and I cannot excuse myself. I cannot say that he struck me--but you were gone, and I was mad, and it came to pass I know not, I know not how.'

Her sobs were stifling her, and for a moment Honoré paused. His face was ashy pale, and his throat contracted. However, the idea that she refused to tell a lie rendered him somewhat calmer. At last he began questioning her afresh, his mind still busy with all that he did not as yet understand.

'All the same, my father kept you here?' said he.

Growing calmer once more, again recovering her expression of courageous resignation, she answered, without raising her eyes: 'I do his work; I don't cost much to keep; and now, as there is another mouth besides my own to feed, he has lowered my wages. He knows well enough that, whatever he may order me to do, I am now obliged to do it.'

'But you, why did you stay?'

At this she was so surprised that she raised her eyes and looked at him: 'I? Where would you have me go? Here, at least my little one and I have something to eat, and live in peace.'

The silence fell once more. They were now looking into one another's eyes. The panting of the throng was ascending in increased volume from the dark valley below, and the rumbling of the guns as they rolled over the pontoon bridge seemed interminable. Suddenly a loud cry, the forlorn cry of some man or beast, infinitely piteous, sped through the dark expanse.

'Listen to me, Silvine,' slowly resumed Honoré; 'you sent me a letter which gave me great joy. But for that I should never have come back here. I read it again this evening, and in it you say things that could not be better said.'

She had at first turned pale on hearing him mention her letter. Perhaps he was angry with her for having dared to write to him like some bold, vulgar wench. But as he proceeded, she became quite red.

'I know you don't like lying,' continued Honoré, 'and for that reason I believe what you wrote to me. Yes, I now thoroughly believe it. You were right in thinking that if I had been killed during the war, without seeing you again, I should have been very unhappy at the thought that you did not love me. But since you still love me, since you have never loved anybody else----'

Then his speech faltered; he could no longer find words to express himself; he was shaking with intense emotion. 'Listen, Silvine,' he said at last, 'if those swinish Prussians don't kill me I'll take you all the same; yes, we'll be married as soon as I get my discharge.'

She sprang to her feet, gave a loud cry and fell in the young man's arms. She was quite unable to speak; all the blood in her veins had rushed to her face. Honoré seated himself on the chair and took her on his knees.

'I have thought it over,' said he, 'and in coming here to-night that was what I wanted to say to you. If my father refuses his consent, well, we'll go away together. The world is wide. And as for your little one, well, we can't strangle him. There'll be others coming by-and-by; among the brood I sha'n't be able to distinguish him.'

So she was forgiven. Yet she struggled against this immense happiness, and at last she murmured, 'No, it isn't possible, it is too much. Some day, perhaps, you will regret it. But how good you are, Honoré; and how I love you!'

He silenced her with a kiss on the lips. And she no longer had the strength to refuse the promised felicity, the happy life which she had thought for ever dead. With an involuntary irresistible impulse, she caught him in her arms, and in her turn kissed him, pressing him to her bosom with all her woman's strength, like a treasure regained that belonged to her alone, and which none should ever take from her. He was hers once more, he whom she had lost, and she would die rather than lose him again.

At that moment a sound of commotion arose; the dense night was filled with the loud tumult of the reveille. Orders were being shouted, bugles rang out, and from the bare hills rose up a mass of shadowy forms that moved hither and thither, an indistinct, rolling sea flowing already towards the road. The fires on both banks were now going out, and one could merely discern confused, tramping masses of men, it being impossible to tell whether they were still crossing the river or not. Never, however, had the darkness been fraught with such anguish, such desperate fear.

Old Fouchard now drew near to the window and called that the others were starting. His voice roused Jean and Maurice, who rose to their feet numbed and shivering. Honoré, meantime, had quickly pressed Silvine's hand in his own. 'It is sworn,' said he; 'wait for me.'

She could not think of a word to answer, but she gave him a look into which she cast her whole soul, a last, long look as he sprang out of the window to join his battery at the double-quick.

'Good-bye, father.'

'Good-bye, my lad.'

And that was all; the peasant and the soldier parted as they had met, without an embrace--like a father and son who do not need to see one another in order to live.

When in their turn Maurice and Jean had left the farm, they descended the steep slope at a gallop. But they no longer found the 106th down below; all the regiments were already on the march, and they had to run on, now directed to the right and now to the left, until at last, when they had quite lost their heads amid the fearful confusion, they fell in with their company, which Lieutenant Rochas was commanding. As for Captain Beaudoin and the rest of the regiment, they were doubtless elsewhere. And now Maurice was stupefied on realising that this mob of men, horses, and guns was quitting Remilly in the direction of Sedan, proceeding along the left bank of the Meuse. What had happened, then? Why did they not cross the river? Why did they retreat towards the north?

An officer of Chasseurs who happened to be there, no one knew how, exclaimed aloud: 'Thunder! We ought to have taken to our heels on the 28th, when we were at Le Chêne!'

Meanwhile, others explained the movements that were being accomplished, and scraps of intelligence circulated. It appeared that at about two o'clock in the morning one of Marshal MacMahon's aides-de-camp had come to inform General Douay that the entire army was to fall back on Sedan without loss of time. The Fifth Corps crushed at Beaumont was overwhelming the other corps in its own disaster. When the aide-de-camp arrived, General Douay was still watching near the pontoon-bridge, in despair that only his Third Division had as yet managed to cross the stream. Dawn was now at hand, and they might be attacked at any moment. Accordingly he instructed the general officers, placed under his orders, to gain Sedan by the most direct routes, each acting for himself. For his own part, quitting the bridge, which he ordered to be destroyed, he went off along the left bank with his First Division and the reserve artillery, whilst the Third Division proceeded along the right bank, and the first, which had suffered at Beaumont and was disbanded, fled no one knew whither. Of the Seventh Army Corps, which had not yet fought a battle, there were now only so many scattered fragments, straying along the roads and rushing onward in the darkness.

It was not yet three o'clock, and the night was still black. Maurice, though he was acquainted with the district, no longer knew where he was roaming, unable to take his bearings amid the overflowing torrent, the maddened mob that was streaming tempestuously along the road. Many men who had escaped from the crushing blow of Beaumont, soldiers of all arms, in tatters, and grimed with blood and dust, had become mingled with the regiments and spread terror through the ranks. From all the broad valley across the stream ascended a sound of commotion, the tramping of other flocks, of other flights, for the First Corps had left Carignan and Douzy, and the Twelfth Corps had started from Mouzon with the remnants of the Fifth, all being set in motion, carried along by the same logical, irresistible force, which since the 28th had been impelling the army northwards, driving it into the depths whence no egress was possible, and where it was fated to perish.

However, whilst Captain Beaudoin's company was passing through Pont-Maugis the morning twilight appeared, and Maurice was then able to identify his surroundings. On the left were the slopes of the Liry hill, on the right the road was skirted by the Meuse. Infinitely sad in the grey dawn, Bazeilles and Balan loomed indistinctly beyond the meadows; whilst on the horizon Sedan, livid and woeful, with the aspect of some vision seen in a nightmare, stood out against the vast dark curtain of forest trees. When, after passing through Wadelincourt, the men at last reached the Torcy gate, it became necessary to parley, to supplicate, threaten, and, in fact, almost besiege the fortress before the governor would lower the drawbridge. It was now five o'clock. Intoxicated with weariness, hunger and cold, the Seventh Army Corps entered Sedan.

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VIII. SEDAN AT LAST! THE EVE OF BATTLE

Jean became separated from Maurice in the scramble which took place on the Place de Torcy at the end of the Wadelincourt highway, and as he ran on he lost himself among the tramping crowd, and was unable to find his friend. This was really unlucky, for he had accepted Maurice's offer to take him to his sister's house, where they had arranged to have a rest, a refreshing nap in a comfortable bed. There was so much confusion, all the regiments being intermingled, without marching orders or even commanders, that the men were almost at liberty to do as they pleased. Thus Maurice and Jean had come to the conclusion that after enjoying a few hours' sleep they would still have ample time to take their bearings and rejoin their comrades.

Quite scared, Jean found himself on the Torcy viaduct, overlooking extensive meadows which the governor had flooded with the waters of the river. Then, after passing through another gateway, he crossed the bridge over the Meuse, and, although the dawn was rising, it seemed to him as if night were coming back again, so darkly did the lofty houses overshadow the damp streets of this little town, cramped up within its ramparts. Jean did not even remember the name of Maurice's brother-in-law; he only knew that the young fellow's sister was named Henriette. Where should he go? Whom should he ask for? It was only the mechanical motion of the march that still kept him upright; he felt that he should fall if he ventured to stop. Like a drowning man, he could hear nothing save a confused buzzing, distinguish nothing save the continuous streaming of the flood of men and horses in the midst of which he was being carried along. Having partaken of some food at Remilly, it was now the need of sleep that caused him the most suffering; and, indeed, all around him weariness was conquering hunger. The shadowy flock of soldiers went stumbling hither and thither along the strange streets, and at every step some man or other sank down on the footway or on a doorstep, and remained there fast asleep.

Suddenly, however, on raising his eyes, Jean noticed an inscription: 'Avenue de la Sous-Préfecture.' At the farther end of this avenue there was a monument in a garden, and at a corner near him he perceived a cavalry soldier, a Chasseur d'Afrique, whom he fancied he recognised. Was it not that fellow Prosper, belonging to Remilly, whom he had seen with Maurice at Vouziers? The Chasseur had alighted from his horse, and the wretched, haggard animal was trembling in every limb, so famished that it had stretched out its neck to munch the woodwork of a van, standing beside the footway. The horses had received no rations for two days past, and were dying of exhaustion. Jean noticed that tears were falling from the eyes of the Chasseur d'Afrique, as he stood there beside his steed, whose big teeth were gnawing the wood with a rasping sound.

Jean passed on, and when, a few moments afterwards, he retraced his steps, in the idea that this Chasseur must know the address of Maurice's relatives, he found him gone. Despair then took possession of the corporal, who wandered on from street to street till he again found himself at the Sub-Prefecture, whence he proceeded as far as the Place Turenne. Then, for a moment, he fancied himself saved, for in front of the town-hall, at the foot of the statue of Turenne, he espied Lieutenant Rochas with a few men of his company. Since he could not find his friend he would join the regiment again and have a nap under canvas. That, at all events, would be better than nothing. Captain Beaudoin not having turned up again--he had doubtless been carried away in some other direction--the lieutenant had endeavoured to get his men together, besides trying to ascertain on what spot the division was to encamp. On its way through the town, however, the company gradually diminished instead of increasing. One man, after making a furious gesture, strode into a tavern and was not seen again. Three others halted in front of a grocer's shop, in compliance with the suggestion of some Zouaves, who had just tapped a little barrel of brandy there. Others, too, quite overcome, had fallen to the ground, and were lying prostrate in the gutters; whilst some, anxious to start off again, tried to pick themselves up, but fell back once more, utterly worn out and dazed. Chouteau and Loubet, after nudging one another, bolted up a dark passage, behind a fat woman who was carrying a loaf; and finally only Pache and Lapoulle, and some ten of their comrades, remained with the lieutenant.

When Jean came up, Rochas was standing beside the bronze statue of Turenne, making a great effort to remain erect and keep his eyes open. 'Ah! so it's you, corporal. Where are your men?' he muttered, on recognising Jean.

Jean waved his hand as if to say that he did not know; but Pache, from whose eyes tears were starting, pointed to Lapoulle, and answered: 'We are here; there are only we two left--may God take pity on us, it's getting too dreadful.'

Lapoulle, the man with the terrible appetite, looked at Jean's hands with a voracious expression. For some days past he had been disgusted to find them always empty. Possibly, in his sleepy state, he imagined that the corporal had been to fetch the rations. 'Curse it!' he growled, 'so we've again got to tighten our belts.'

Whilst leaning against the railing which inclosed the statue, awaiting orders to sound the assembly, Gaude, the bugler, had gone to sleep, and slid to the ground, where he was now lying spread out on his back. One by one they all succumbed, and with their fists clenched, began to snore. Sergeant Sapin, his nose contracted and his thin little face extremely pale, was the only one whose eyes remained wide open, scanning the horizon of this strange town as though he could there read his impending fate. On his side, Lieutenant Rochas had given way to an irresistible desire to sit down, and, crouching on the pavement, he endeavoured to give an order: 'Corporal,' he said, 'you must, you must----' But his tongue, clogged by fatigue, refused its service, and all at once he also fell back, overwhelmed with weariness.

Thereupon Jean, afraid lest he should fall on the pavement like the others, went off, still obstinately bent on finding a bed. At one of the windows of the Golden Cross Hotel, on the other side of the Place, he had just espied General Bourgain-Desfeuilles, already in his shirt sleeves, and about to slip between a pair of clean white sheets. As that was the course which the generals adopted, what use was there in being zealous, in suffering any longer? And suddenly Jean felt overjoyed, for a name had come to him from the depths of his memory, the name of the cloth manufacturer who employed Maurice's brother-in-law: Monsieur Delaherche!--yes, that was it. An old gentleman was passing at that moment: 'Can you tell me where Monsieur Delaherche lives?' Jean asked him.

'In the Rue Maqua, almost at the corner of the Rue au Beurre. It's a big, handsome house, with a carved front.' The old man then passed on, but all at once he hastened back after Jean, exclaiming: 'I say, you belong to the 106th. If you are looking for your regiment, it has left the town by way of the Château over there. I just met your colonel, Monsieur de Vineuil, whom I knew very well when he was in garrison at Mézières.'

Jean, however, set off again, making a furious gesture of annoyance. No, no, he wasn't going to lie on the hard ground now that he was certain of finding Maurice. And yet, in the depths of his conscience, he was worried by a feeling of remorse, for in his mind's eye he could see the colonel, tall and rigid, indefatigable despite his age, and always sleeping under canvas like his men. Busy with such thoughts as these, Jean began threading the High Street, and, having lost himself amid the increasing tumult that pervaded the town, he ended by applying to a little boy, who conducted him to the Rue Maqua.

It was here that one of Delaherche's grand-uncles had, in the last century, built a monumental factory, which had now been the property of the family for a hundred and sixty years. Sedan counts several cloth manufactories, dating from the earlier years of Louis XV., as large as Louvres, and with regally majestic façades. That in the Rue Maqua had three storeys of lofty windows framed round with carving of a severe style; and, in the rear of the front building, there was a palatial courtyard shaded with old trees, gigantic elms dating from the foundation of the establishment. Three generations of Delaherches had amassed considerable fortunes there, and now it was the younger branch of the family that reigned, the father of Jules Delaherche, the present owner, having inherited the property from a cousin who had died childless. Jules' father had increased the prosperity of the firm, but he was a man of easy morals, and had rendered his wife extremely unhappy. She, on becoming a widow, had feared lest her son should take to the same courses as his father, and after marrying him to a woman who was very devout and of very simple tastes, she had sought to maintain him in a dependent state as though he were a mere youth, and this till he was over fifty years of age. Life, however, sometimes has terrible revenges, and his wife having died, Delaherche, like a mere stripling, fell in love with a young widow of Charleville, pretty Madame Maginot, concerning whom there had been no little gossip, but whom he had ended by marrying during the previous autumn, despite all his mother's remonstrances. Sedan, a very puritanical town, has always looked down severely on Charleville, the abode of gaiety and festivity. It should be said, however, that the marriage would never have taken place had Gilberte not been the niece of Colonel de Vineuil, who, so it seemed, was on the point of becoming a general. This relationship, the idea of allying himself to a military family, had greatly flattered the manufacturer's feelings.

On the morning of August 30, having learnt that the army was near Mouzon, Delaherche, in company with Weiss, his book-keeper, had started on that excursion which old Fouchard had referred to in conversation with Maurice. Tall and stoutly built, with a ruddy complexion, a large nose and thick lips, the manufacturer was of an expansive nature, endowed with all the inquisitiveness of the French bourgeois, who likes nothing better than a brilliant military display. On learning from the chemist at Mouzon that the Emperor was at Baybel farm, he had climbed thither and had seen Napoleon, had almost spoken to him, had met, in fact, with quite an adventure, which he had not ceased talking about since his return to Sedan. But the homeward journey in the midst of the Beaumont panic, along the roads crowded with runaways, had been truly terrible. A score of times had the gig narrowly missed being upset in the wayside ditches; and delayed over and over again by constantly recurring obstacles, Delaherche and Weiss had only got back to Sedan at nightfall. The pleasure trip ended, indeed, in a most unpleasant fashion; the army, which the manufacturer had gone to see, marching along a couple of leagues away, drove him home again with the gallop of its retreat, and this unforeseen, tragical adventure so exercised his mind that on the road back he kept on repeating to his companion: 'And to think that I fancied the army was marching on Verdun--that was why I didn't want to miss the opportunity of seeing it. Well, I have seen it, and no mistake; and I fancy we shall see rather more of it at Sedan than will be altogether pleasant.'

Awakened at five o'clock the next morning by the loud commotion of the Seventh Corps streaming torrent-like through the town, he hastily dressed himself and went out; and the first person whom he met on the Place Turenne was none other than Captain Beaudoin. During the previous year, the captain had been one of the intimates of pretty Madame Maginot at Charleville; and she had introduced him to Delaherche prior to their marriage. According to the scandal-mongers, the captain, who was considered to be the lady's favoured admirer, had retired through a feeling of delicacy, not wishing to stand between his inamorata and the manufacturer's large fortune.

'What! is it you?' exclaimed Delaherche, as he encountered him on the Place. 'Good heavens! What a state you are in!'

The captain, usually so correct and spruce in his get-up, was now indeed in a pitiable condition. Not only was his uniform sadly soiled, but his face and hands were black. He had arrived from Remilly in the company of some Turcos, and was exasperated at having lost his company, how he could not tell. Like all the others, he was dying of hunger and fatigue, but this caused him far less distress than the circumstance that he had been unable to change his linen since leaving Rheims.

'Just fancy!' he immediately whimpered, 'my baggage got lost at Vouziers--lost by some idiots or other; some rascals whose heads I'd break if I could only get hold of them. And I've nothing left; not a handkerchief, not a pair of socks even. 'Pon my honour, it's enough to drive a man mad!'

Delaherche at once insisted on taking him home. But Beaudoin resisted. No, no, he no longer looked like a human being, and he did not wish to frighten people. The manufacturer then had to give him his word of honour that neither his mother nor his wife was up. Besides, he would supply him with water, soap and linen, in fact, everything he might require.

Seven o'clock was striking when Captain Beaudoin, after a wash and a brush, made his entry into the lofty, grey-panelled dining room, wearing one of Delaherche's shirts under his uniform. Madame Delaherche senior was already there, for she invariably rose at dawn, despite her eight-and-seventy years. Her hair was quite white, and she had a long, thin face, with a slender, pointed nose, and a mouth that no longer smiled. She rose from her chair and showed herself extremely polite, inviting the captain to seat himself in front of one of the cups of café-au-lait that were already placed on the table. 'But perhaps, monsieur,' said she, 'you would prefer some meat and wine after so much fatigue?'

He protested the contrary: 'Many thanks, madame, but a little milk and some bread and butter will suit me best.'

At this moment a door was gaily opened, and Gilberte came in with her hand outstretched. Delaherche must have informed her that the captain was there, for as a rule she was never out of bed before ten o'clock. She was tall and seemingly strong and supple, with beautiful black hair, beautiful black eyes, a rosy complexion, and smiling mien; hers was a somewhat giddy nature no doubt, but evidently there was not a grain of malice in her composition. She wore a beige morning wrapper embroidered with purple silk, which had undoubtedly come from Paris. 'Ah! captain,' she said eagerly, as she shook hands with the young man, 'how kind of you to have paid a visit to our poor little nook in the provinces.' Then, the first to laugh at her own thoughtlessness, she added: 'Ah! what a stupid I am! Of course you would rather not be at Sedan under such sad circumstances. But I am so pleased to see you again.'

Her eyes, indeed, were sparkling with pleasure, and Madame Delaherche, senior, who was doubtless acquainted with the Charleville tittle-tattle, gazed fixedly at both of them with a rigid air. The captain behaved very discreetly, however, as though simply retaining a pleasant recollection of an hospitable house where in past times he had been cordially welcomed.

They sat down to breakfast, and Delaherche immediately reverted to his excursion of the previous day, unable to resist the desire that possessed him to relate his adventures once more. 'I saw the Emperor at Baybel,' he began, and, thus started, nothing could stop him. First came a description of the farm, a large square building, with an inner court inclosed by iron railings, and perched on a hillock overlooking Mouzon, on the left of the road leading to Carignan. Then he reverted to the Twelfth Army Corps, through which he had passed whilst it was camping among the vines on the slopes. Superb troops were these, looking quite brilliant in the sunshine, and the sight of them had filled his heart with patriotic delight.

'Well,' he continued, 'I was standing there, when all at once the Emperor came out of the farm--he had halted there to rest and breakfast. Although the sun was very hot, he wore an overcoat over his general's uniform. There was a servant walking behind him with a camp stool. Ah! he didn't look at all well, no, that he didn't; he was quite bent, and walked as if in pain; his face was yellow, too--altogether he seemed very ill. But I wasn't surprised at it, for when the chemist at Mouzon suggested to me that I ought go on to Baybel, he told me that one of the imperial aides-de-camp had just been to him for some medicine for----you understand what I mean----' The presence of his mother and his wife prevented him from referring more explicitly to the dysentery from which the Emperor had been suffering since his departure from Le Chêne, and which had constantly compelled him to halt at the farms scattered along his route. 'Well,' continued Delaherche, 'the servant opened the camp-stool at the end of a cornfield, near a plantation, and then the Emperor sat down. He sat there stock still, half crouching, like some petty cit warming his rheumatics in the sunshine. And those mournful eyes of his wandered all over the horizon--there was the Meuse flowing through the valley down below; wooded hills stretched far away in front of him; there were the crests of the woods of Dieulet on the left, and the green hills of Sommauthe rising up on the right. Several aides-de-camp and officers of high rank gathered round him, and a colonel of Dragoons--who, a little while before, had asked me for some information about the district--had just made me a sign not to go away, when, all at once----'

At this point Delaherche rose up, for he was coming to the dramatic part of his narrative, and wished to enforce his words with pantomime. 'All at once,' he continued, 'I heard several loud reports, and, right in front of me, just in advance of the woods of Dieulet, I saw some shells describing curves in the air. 'Pon my word it was just like fireworks let off in broad daylight. I heard a lot of exclamations among the Emperor's party. Naturally they all seemed very anxious. The colonel of Dragoons whom I mentioned just now came running up to me again, and asked me if I could tell where the fighting was going on. I answered at once: "It's at Beaumont; there's not the least doubt about it." Then he went back to the Emperor, on whose knees an aide-de-camp was unfolding a map. The Emperor, however, wouldn't believe that the fighting was at Beaumont. But, of course, I could only repeat what I had said, especially as one could see the shells careering through the air, coming nearer and nearer, right along the road to Mouzon. Then, just as I see you, captain, I saw the Emperor turn his pale face towards me. Yes, he looked at me for a moment with those dim eyes of his, full of distrust and sadness. And then he let his head drop over his map once more, and didn't move again.'

Delaherche, an ardent Bonapartist at the time of the Plebiscitum, had been willing to admit since the earlier reverses that the Empire had erred in various ways. But he still defended the dynasty and pitied Napoleon III., whom everybody deceived. According to him the people, who were really responsible for the disasters of France, were the deputies of the Republican Opposition, who had prevented the Legislature from voting the necessary men and credits.

'And the Emperor went back to the farm?' asked Captain Beaudoin.

'Well, I really don't know; I left him sitting on the camp-stool. It was midday, and the battle was coming nearer and nearer, and I had begun to feel anxious about getting home again. The only thing I can add is that a general to whom I pointed out Carignan some way off in the plain behind us, appeared thunderstruck when I told him that the Belgian frontier was only a few miles away. Ah! that poor Emperor, he has some nice generals, and no mistake.'

Whilst her husband was discoursing in this fashion, Gilberte, smiling, and as much at her ease as though she were still a widow in her drawing-room at Charleville, was busy attending to the captain's requirements, passing him the toast, the butter, and whatever else he needed. She pressed him to accept a room and go to bed, but he declined this, and it was arranged that he should merely take a couple of hours' rest on a sofa, in Delaherche's study, before rejoining his regiment. Just as he was taking the sugar basin from Gilberte's hands, old Madame Delaherche, who kept her eyes fixed on the young couple, distinctly saw them press each other's finger-tips; and after that she no longer had any doubts.

Just then, however, a servant entered the room: 'There's a soldier downstairs, sir, who is asking for Monsieur Weiss's address.'

Delaherche was not at all stuck-up; with a garrulous taste for popularity he was fond of chatting with the poor and the humble. 'Weiss's address?' said he. 'That's funny--send the soldier here!'

Jean entered, so worn-out that he was fairly staggering. He started with surprise on perceiving his captain seated at table between two ladies, and drew back his hand, which he had already thrust forward in a mechanical way so that he might support himself by grasping a chair. Then he briefly answered the questions put to him by the manufacturer, who began playing the good-natured fellow, the soldier's friend. In a few words Jean explained his intimacy with Maurice, and the reason why he wished to find him.

'This is a corporal of my company,' at last said the captain by way of curtailing the explanations, and in his turn he began to question Jean, wishing to ascertain what had become of the regiment. And when Jean related that the colonel, and such men as remained with him, had just been seen crossing the town for the purpose of camping on the northern side, Gilberte again spoke over hastily, with the vivacity of a pretty woman who seldom takes the trouble to reflect: 'My uncle? Oh! why didn't he come to breakfast here? We would have had a room got ready for him. Suppose we send for him?'

But Madame Delaherche, senior, waved her hand with a gesture of sovereign authority. The blood of the old burgesses of the frontier cities coursed in her veins; she was endowed with all the masculine virtues of rigid patriotism; and she only broke her uncompromising silence to exclaim: 'Let Monsieur de Vineuil remain where he is; he is doing his duty.'

This made the others feel uncomfortable, and Delaherche carried the captain away into his study that he might rest, as arranged, upon the sofa there; whilst Gilberte, on her side, without heeding her mother-in-law's lesson, went off like a bird shaking its wings, as blithe and as gay as ever, despite the storm. Meanwhile, the servant to whose care Jean had been committed conducted him across the yard of the factory, and through a maze of passages and staircases.

Weiss lived in the Rue des Voyards, but the house, which belonged to Delaherche, communicated in the rear with the monumental edifice in the Rue Maqua. The Rue des Voyards was then one of the most confined streets in Sedan, being, in fact, simply a narrow, damp lane, darkened by the high rampart which it skirted. The eaves of the lofty frontages almost touched one another, and the passages were as black as vaults, especially at the end where rose the high college wall. Weiss, however, occupying a third floor, rent and firing free, found himself quite comfortable there, especially as he was so near his office, whither he could betake himself in his slippers without having to appear in the streets. He was a happy man since he had married Henriette, whom he had long desired to make his wife at the time when he had known her at Le Chêne, at the house of her father, the tax collector, whose housewife she had been since she was six years old, having had to take the place of the mother who had died in giving her birth. Weiss, meantime, had obtained a situation at the local refinery, almost in a menial capacity, but he had gradually educated himself, and raised himself, by dint of hard work, to the position of accountant. Yet he only succeeded in realising his dream through the death of Henriette's father and the folly of her brother Maurice, whose servant she had in some measure become, sacrificing herself in the hope of making a gentleman of him. Brought up like a little Cinderella, knowing how to read and write, but nothing more, she had just sold the old house and the furniture, without, however, realising sufficient to defray the cost of Maurice's folly, when Weiss, the worthy fellow, came forward and offered her all he possessed, including his strong arms and his heart, and she had consented to marry him, touched to tears by his affection and--calm, virtuous, reasoning little woman that she was--penetrated with tender esteem for him, in default of passionate love. And now fortune was smiling on them, for Delaherche had talked of giving Weiss an interest in the business, and their happiness would be complete as soon as children were born to them.

'Take care,' said the servant to Jean; 'the stairs are very steep.'

The corporal, indeed, was stumbling up the flights in profound darkness, but all at once a door was hastily flung open, and a ray of light streamed over the steps. Then he heard a gentle voice exclaiming, 'It is he.'

'Madame Weiss,' called the servant, 'here's a soldier asking for you.'

A gay little laugh resounded, the laugh of one who is well pleased, and the gentle voice replied: 'All right, I know who it is.'

Then as the corporal, stifling and ill at ease, stopped short on the landing, the voice continued: 'Come in, Monsieur Jean. Maurice has been here a couple of hours, and we have been waiting for you so impatiently!'

Then, in the pale light of the room he entered, Jean saw Henriette, and at once noticed her striking likeness to Maurice, that extraordinary resemblance common between twins that seems to make each of them the other's double. Her beautiful fair hair was of the light tint of ripe oats, and excepting that her mouth appeared somewhat large her features were small and delicate. She was, however, shorter than her brother, and still more slight and frail of build. But it was especially her grey eyes that distinguished her from Maurice--her calm, brave, grey eyes from which shone forth such another heroic soul as that of her grandfather, the hero of the Grand Army. She spoke but little, moved about noiselessly, and displayed such skilful, activity, such smiling gentleness, that she imparted a caress as it were to the atmosphere in which she lived.

'Here, come in here, Monsieur Jean,' she repeated. 'Everything will be ready directly.'

He stammered a reply, unable to express his thanks in the emotion he felt at being welcomed in such a brotherly manner. Moreover, his eyelids were closing, and in the irresistible drowsiness that had seized hold of him, he saw her through a kind of film, a mist in which she appeared to be vaguely floating without touching the ground. Was this kindly young woman, who smiled at him with so much simplicity, merely a charming apparition then? For a moment he had his doubts on the subject. However, it certainly seemed to him that she took hold of his hand, and that he could feel hers, small and firm, loyal, like the hand of an old friend.

From that moment Jean lost all precise consciousness of what took place. They were in the dining-room, it seemed, there was meat and bread on the table, but he lacked the strength to carry the morsels to his mouth. A man was seated on a chair there, and at last he recognised Weiss, whom he had previously seen at Mulhausen. He failed to understand, however, what Weiss was saying with a sorrowful air and slow despondent gestures. As for Maurice, he was already asleep, lying motionless, like one dead, on a trestle-bedstead in front of the stove. And Henriette was busy with a divan, on which a mattress had already been thrown. She brought a bolster, a pillow, and blankets, and with ready skilful hands she spread out a pair of white sheets, beautiful sheets, white like snow.

Oh! those white sheets, those white sheets so ardently coveted! Jean had eyes for nothing else. He had not undressed and slept in a bed for six weeks, and he experienced a gluttonous craving, a childish impatience, an irresistible longing to slip in between all that whiteness and freshness, and lose himself in the midst of it. And, as soon as he had been left alone, a few seconds sufficed him to undress; in a trice he was in his shirt, barefooted, and popped into bed and satisfied his desire, grunting the while like a contented animal. The pale morning light was streaming into the room through the lofty window, and as, already half asleep, he partially reopened his eyes, there came to him another apparition of Henriette, less distinct, more immaterial than the first. It seemed to him that she glided into the room on tip-toe, and placed a water decanter and a glass, which she had forgotten, on the table near him, and he fancied that she remained there for a few seconds looking at both of them, her brother and himself, with that quiet smile of hers, full of infinite kindness. Then she vanished, and Jean, overwhelmed, fell fast asleep between the white sheets.

Hours, years flowed past. Jean and Maurice no longer existed, not a dream broke upon their slumbers. They were unconscious of everything, even of the slight beating of their pulses. Ten years or ten minutes, whatever the lapse of time they could not count it; this was the revenge, as it were, of their jaded bodies, reaping satisfaction in the annihilation of their entire beings. Then, all at once, starting at the same moment, both of them awoke. Hallo! what was the matter, how long had they been asleep? The same pale light was streaming through the lofty window. They still felt extenuated, their joints had become stiffened, their limbs seemed more wearied, the bitter taste in their mouths was more pronounced than when they had gone to bed. Fortunately, they could only have slept an hour or so, and they were in no wise surprised to see Weiss seated in the same chair as before, and in the same despondent attitude, as though he had been waiting for them to awaken.

'Dash it!' stammered Jean. 'All the same, we must get up, for we must join the regiment before noon.' Then, with a slight cry of pain, he sprang on to the tiled floor, and began to dress.

'Before noon?' answered Weiss; 'why, it's seven o'clock; you've been sleeping for twelve hours or so.'

Seven o'clock: good heavens! They were thunderstruck. Jean, hastily dressing, wished to rush off at once, whilst Maurice, who was still in bed, complained dolefully that he could not move his legs. How should they find their comrades? The army must have gone off long ago, and they both became quite angry, complaining that they ought not to have been allowed to sleep so long.

'Oh! you did just as well to stay in bed, for nothing has been done,' replied Weiss, with a despondent gesture.

He had been scouring Sedan and the environs since the morning, and had returned home only a short time previously in despair at the inaction of the troops during this precious 31st of August, which had been entirely lost--consumed in inexplicable waiting. There was only one possible excuse for it all--the extreme weariness of the men, their absolute need of rest--but, granting that, it was difficult to understand why the retreat had not been resumed as soon as the troops had secured the necessary modicum of sleep.

'For my part,' resumed Weiss, 'I don't pretend to be an authority on these matters, but I instinctively feel, yes, I feel that the army is very badly situated here at Sedan. The Twelfth Corps is posted at Bazeilles, where there was a little fighting this morning, the First is ranged along the Givonne from La Moncelle to the wood of La Garenne, whilst the Seventh is camping on the plateau of Floing, and the Fifth, half destroyed, is heaped up under the very ramparts, on the side of the Château--and it frightens me to know that they are all ranged like that round the town, waiting for the Prussians. For my part I should have been off, and at once, in the direction of Mézières. I know the country; there's no other possible line of retreat; you can't go farther north or you'll be thrown into Belgium--besides, come here--I want to show you something.' Taking Jean by the hand he led him to the window. 'Look over there, on the hill-tops,' he added.

Dominating the ramparts and the neighbouring buildings, the window overlooked the valley of the Meuse on the southern side of Sedan. There was the river winding through the expanse of meadow land; Remilly rose up on the left, Pont-Maugis and Wadelincourt were just in front, and Frénois was on the right. There, too, were the hills, displaying their green slopes, first the Liry hill, then the Marfée, the Croix-Piau, all crowned with large woods. In the declining daylight the vast horizon was invested with infinite softness, a crystalline limpidity.

'Can't you see those black lines on the march along the hill-tops, over there, those black ants swarming past?'

Jean opened his eyes wide, whilst Maurice, kneeling on his bed, craned his neck forward. 'Ah! yes,' they both exclaimed, at the same moment, 'There's one line, there's another, another--they are everywhere!'

'Well,' resumed Weiss, 'those are the Prussians--I've been looking at them ever since the morning, and they pass and pass without cessation. If our soldiers are waiting for them you may be pretty sure that they are making all haste to arrive, and all the townsfolk have seen them the same as I have. It's only our generals who seem to have become blind. A little while ago I was talking to a general who shrugged his shoulders and told me that Marshal MacMahon was positive that he only had some seventy thousand men to deal with. God grant that his information be correct!--But just look at them; look at them, the ground is covered with them and still and ever they swarm and swarm!'

At this moment Maurice threw himself back on his bed and burst into loud sobs. Henriette had just entered the room with the same smiling air that she had worn during the morning. But at sight of Maurice she felt alarmed, and hastily approached him. 'What is the matter?'

He waved her back, however. 'No, no, leave me, I have never brought you anything but sorrow. When I think that you used to deprive yourself of dresses, and that I was sent to college! Ah! a precious lot of good my education has done me! And then I almost dishonoured our name, and Heaven alone knows where I should be at the present time if you hadn't bled yourself in every vein to repair my folly!'

She was again smiling in her peaceful way: 'You certainly haven't woke up in a good humour, my dear fellow,' she replied. 'You know very well that all that is blotted out, forgotten. Aren't you now doing your duty as a Frenchman? I'm quite proud of you since you've enlisted; I assure you I am.'

She had turned towards Jean as though to summon him to her assistance. He was gazing at her, somewhat surprised to find that she did not look so pretty as he had thought her in the morning. She seemed slighter and paler now that he no longer saw her with the hallucinatory vision of his weariness. Her likeness to her brother remained very striking, however, although, at this moment, the difference in their natures was made plainly manifest; he, nervous like a woman, stricken with the disease of the period, a prey to the historical, social crisis of the race, capable of rising at one moment to the noblest enthusiasm, and of falling, the next, to the most abject despair; she, so small and slight, as unobtrusive as a Cinderella, with the air of a resigned little housewife, but albeit displaying an undaunted brow and brave eyes--in a word, the stuff that martyrs are made of.

'Proud of me!' Maurice exclaimed. 'Well, there's no reason why you should be proud of me. For a month past we have been flying the enemy like the cowards we are.'

'Well,' said Jean, in his sensible way; 'we are not the only ones--we simply do as we are bidden.'

But now the crisis to which the young fellow was a prey burst forth with more violence than ever. 'That's just it, and I've had my fill of it. Isn't it enough to make one shed tears of blood--these continual defeats, these idiotic generals, these soldiers who are stupidly led to the slaughter-house like flocks of animals? And now, here we are in a blind alley whence there's no escape! You can see that the Prussians are coming up on all sides, and that we are about to be crushed--the army is lost! No, no; I shall stay here; I would rather be shot as a deserter. You can go away without me, Jean. No! I won't go back to the regiment; I shall stay here!'

A fresh flood of tears stretched him on his pillow. This was one of those irresistible slackenings of the nerves sweeping everything away, one of those sudden collapses into despair bringing with it contempt for everybody, himself included, to which he was so subject. His sister, who knew him well, remained undisturbed. 'It would be very wrong, my dear Maurice,' said she, 'to desert your post at the moment of danger.'

With a sudden start he sat up in bed: 'Well, give me my gun, then. I'll blow my brains out. Like that it will be sooner over.' Then, stretching out his arm and pointing to Weiss, who sat there motionless and silent, he added: 'There, he's the only sensible one; yes, he alone saw clearly into all this--don't you remember, Jean, what he said to me a month ago at Mulhausen?'

'That's true,' the corporal replied; 'this gentleman said we should be beaten.'

A vision of the scene rose up before him; that anxious night, the long waiting fraught with so much anguish, the mournful sky already pregnant with the disaster of Frœschweiler, whilst Weiss so quietly expressed his fears: Germany ready, better commanded, better armed, sustained by a great outburst of patriotism, and France scared, a prey to disorder, behind the times, perverted, having neither the commanders, nor the men, nor the arms she needed. And now the fearful prophecy was being fulfilled.

Weiss raised his trembling hands. An expression of intense grief had come over his good-natured face. 'Ah! I assure you,' he muttered, 'it gives me no pleasure at all to find that I was in the right. I am a mere stupid; but all this was so clear and patent to those who knew anything at all. At the same time, however, even if we are beaten, we can still kill some of those baleful Prussians. That's our consolation. I still think our men will leave their lives here, and I should like to see the Prussians leave theirs too; yes, I should like to see them lying in heaps, covering all the ground yonder!'

He had risen to his feet, and he pointed to the valley of the Meuse. Those large, short-sighted eyes of his which had prevented him from serving in the army were now illumined by a vivid flame. 'Thunder!' he exclaimed, 'yes, I'd fight readily enough if I were my own master. I don't know whether it's because they are now in possession of my native province, the province where the Cossacks already did such frightful things years ago, but I can't think of them or picture them in our country and our houses without feeling a furious longing to go and bleed a dozen of them! Ah! if I hadn't been invalided, if I were only a soldier!' Then after a short pause he added: 'But, after all, who can tell what will happen?'

Hope inspired those last words, the need which even the least deceived experienced of believing that victory was still possible. And Maurice, already ashamed of his tears, listened to Weiss, clinging for comfort to this dream. After all, had it not been reported the previous day that Bazaine had reached Verdun? Fortune owed a miracle to that land of France which she had so long endowed with glory.

Henriette, who had long since relapsed into silence, left the room. When she returned she was in no wise surprised to find her brother dressed and ready to start. However, she insisted that he and Jean should eat something before they went, and they had to take their places at table. But the food seemed to choke them: they were still heavy after their long slumber, and were troubled with nausea. Jean, however, like a prudent man, divided a loaf and placed one half of it in Maurice's knapsack and the other in his own. The daylight was now fast waning, and it was necessary they should start. Henriette, who had paused beside the window, was gazing at the Prussian troops as they crossed the Marfée hill--marching on and on without cessation, but growing more and more indistinct in the depths of the gathering darkness. All at once an involuntary plaint escaped her: 'Oh! war, war, what a horrible thing it is!'

Thereupon Maurice, promptly taking his revenge, began to twit her. 'What! my dear girl,' said he, 'it's you who want us to fight, and yet you rail at war?'

She turned round, and, looking him in the face, replied, with that brave air of hers: 'Yes, I execrate war. I consider it unjust and abominable. Perhaps it's simply because I'm a woman. But all this killing horrifies me. Why can't nations discuss matters quietly, and come to an understanding?'

Jean, the good fellow, nodded his head approvingly. To his illiterate mind nothing seemed easier than for everyone to agree after discussing things in a proper spirit. But Maurice, swayed by his scientific theories, reflected that war was necessary, that it was life itself, the law of the universe. Were not peace and justice the inventions of compassionate mankind, whereas impassive nature had from all time been the scene of perpetual strife? 'Come to an understanding!' he exclaimed. 'Yes, some centuries hence. If all the nations no longer formed but one, it might be possible to conceive such a golden age, but, then, would not the end of war mean the end of humanity? I was idiotic, just now. One must fight, since such is the law of nature.' At present he was smiling, and he repeated Weiss's words: 'After all, who can tell what will happen?' Once more he was swayed by illusions; his nervous sensibility, so exaggerated that it was almost a disease, required that he should try to deceive himself. 'By the bye,' he remarked, gaily, 'what about Cousin Gunther?'

'Cousin Gunther,' replied Henriette, 'he belongs to the Prussian Guard. Is the Guard near here?'

Weiss made a gesture, implying that he could not tell, and the two soldiers imitated his example. They were unable to answer the question. Their generals even did not know what foes they had to contend against.

'Well, let's get off. I'll show you the way,' said Weiss, 'I learned just now where the 106th is encamped.' And then he informed his wife that he should not return that night, as he proposed sleeping at Bazeilles, where he had lately purchased a small house, adjoining some dyeworks belonging to M. Delaherche. He had just finished furnishing the place, with the intention of spending the remainder of the summer there, and had already stored various provisions in the cellar, a cask of wine, a couple of sacks of potatoes and other things, concerning which he now expressed anxiety. It was, indeed, certain that the house would be pillaged by marauders if it remained unoccupied, but this he would probably be able to avert by staying there that night. His wife looked at him fixedly whilst he was thus speaking. 'Oh! don't be alarmed,' he added, with a smile, 'I merely want to mount guard over our few sticks, and if the village should be attacked, if there should be the slightest danger, I'll come back at once, I promise you.'

'Go then,' she said; 'but mind you come back, or I shall certainly fetch you.'

On reaching the door she kissed Maurice tenderly, and holding out her hand to Jean pressed his for a few seconds in a friendly way. 'I'm confiding my brother to you again,' she said. 'Yes, he has told me how kind you have been to him, and I like you very much.'

Jean felt so disturbed that he could find no words to answer her, but contented himself with returning the pressure of her small firm hand. And again did he experience the same impression as on his arrival--this fair-haired Henriette, so lightsome, smiling, and unobtrusive, seemed as it were to impart a caress to the atmosphere around her.

Down below they found themselves once more in Sedan, as dank and dark as in the morning. The twilight was already obscuring the narrow streets, where all was bustle and confusion. Most of the shops were closed, and the houses seemed bereft of life, but out of doors there was a perfect crush. They reached the Place de l'Hôtel de Ville, however, without any very great difficulty, and there they encountered M. Delaherche, strolling about like the sightseer he was. He appeared delighted on recognising Maurice, and at once related that he had just been conducting Captain Beaudoin towards Floing, where the regiment was encamped. And his accustomed satisfaction increased when he learnt that Weiss intended to sleep at Bazeilles, for he himself had resolved to spend the night at his dyeworks there, as, indeed, he had just been telling the captain. 'We'll go together, Weiss,' said he. 'But meantime let's stroll just as far as the Sub-Prefecture; perhaps we shall get a glimpse of the Emperor.'

Napoleon III. was his one preoccupation since he had so narrowly missed speaking to him at Baybel, and he talked in such a strain that he ended by rousing the curiosity of the two soldiers, who decided to follow him. Only a few whispering groups were assembled on the Place de la Sous-Préfecture, but from time to time some scared officers dashed by. The mournful dimness was already darkening the trees, and one could hear the loud noise made by the Meuse as it flowed along at the foot of the houses on the right hand. Some of the assembled people were relating that the Emperor--who had only been induced with difficulty to leave Carignan at eleven o'clock the previous night--had positively refused to push on to Mézières, as he wished to remain on the scene of danger, so as not to demoralise the troops. Others asserted, however, that he was no longer at Sedan, that he had fled, leaving one of his lieutenants behind to personate him--an officer who had donned his uniform, and who was so remarkably like him that the entire army was deceived. Others, again, gave their word of honour that they had seen several vehicles, containing the imperial treasure (a hundred millions of francs in brand-new gold napoleons), drive into the grounds of the Sub-Prefecture. But the vehicles in question were simply those of the Emperor's household, the char-à-bancs, the two calashes, and the twelve vans, the sight of which had so revolutionised the villages, Courcelles, Le Chêne and Raucourt, and the number of which rumour had so exaggerated that in the popular imagination they had become an immense train, obstructing the roads to such a degree that they arrested the progress of the entire army. And now, accursed and shameful, they, had at last stranded at Sedan, hidden from all eyes by the Sub-Prefect's lilac bushes.

Whilst Delaherche, rising on tip-toe, was examining the ground-floor windows of the Sub-Prefect's abode, an old woman--who stood near him--some poor journey-woman of the neighbourhood, with a bent frame and distorted hands consumed by toil, mumbled between her teeth: 'An Emperor, well, I should like to get a squint at one, just to see what he's like.'

At that very moment Delaherche, catching hold of Maurice's arm, exclaimed: 'There--that's him--there, look, at the window on the left. Oh! there's no mistake about it. I recognise him perfectly; I was so near him yesterday, you know. He has pulled back the curtain--yes--there--that pale face against the window-pane.'

The old woman heard these words, and stood there gazing. Close to the window-pane, as Delaherche had said, she could see a cadaverous-looking face with dim eyes, distorted features, and moustaches which seemed to have blanched in the throes of this last, long agony. Quite stupefied, the old woman immediately turned round and went off, making a gesture of superlative contempt: 'That an Emperor? Ugh, the ugly beast!'

A Zouave stood near by, one of those disbanded soldiers who evinced no haste to join their regiments. He was brandishing his chassepot, swearing and expectorating threats, and all at once he exclaimed to a comrade: 'Wait a second, I'll put a bullet into his head.'

This made Delaherche quite indignant, and he intervened; but Napoleon had already disappeared. The loud rush of the Meuse was still resounding; a plaint of infinite sadness seemed to have sped by in the growing dimness. From afar off came the muttering of other scattered noises. Was it the echo of the terrible order, 'March! march!' shouted from Paris, the order that had impelled this man on and on, from halting-place to halting-place, dragging with him along the highways of defeat all the irony of his imperial escort, and now brought to a stand, confronted by the frightful disaster that he had foreseen and had come to meet. Ah! how many brave fellows were about to die through his fault, and how profoundly must he have been stirred in every corner of his being--he, the sick man, the sentimental dreamer, so silently and mournfully waiting for destiny!

Weiss and Delaherche accompanied the two soldiers as far as the plateau of Floing. 'Farewell!' said Maurice, as he embraced his brother-in-law.

'No, no, till we meet again!' gaily exclaimed the manufacturer.

Jean, with his keen scent, at once found the 106th, whose tents were pitched on the slope of the plateau, behind the cemetery. Night had now almost completely fallen, but one could still distinguish the dark, massy roofs of the town, beyond which were Balan and Bazeilles in the meadows that stretched as far as the range of hills from Remilly to Frénois; whilst on the left extended a black patch, the wood of La Garenne, and on the right, down below, glittered the Meuse, like a broad, pale ribbon. For a moment Maurice scanned the vast horizon as it faded away in the darkness.

'Ah! here's the corporal!' exclaimed Chouteau; 'has he come back from rations?'

There was some little commotion. All day long the men had been rejoining their regiments, some of them quite alone, others in little parties, and amid such a scramble that the officers had even renounced asking for explanations. Indeed, they closed their eyes, only too glad to welcome those who chose to come back. Moreover, Captain Beaudoin had arrived but a short time previously, and it was only at two o'clock that Lieutenant Rochas had reached the camp, having with him merely a third of the men of his disbanded company. The latter, however, was now almost complete again. Some of the men were drunk, whilst others were still famished, not having managed to obtain even a scrap of bread; for there had again been no distribution of rations. Loubet had certainly endeavoured to cook some cabbages, pulled up out of a neighbouring garden, but he had neither salt nor lard to make the vegetables palatable, and the men's stomachs were still groaning with hunger.

'Come, corporal, what have you brought, you who are so artful?' resumed Chouteau, in a bantering way; 'oh! I don't need anything myself; Loubet and I lunched in capital style at a lady's.'

Anxious faces were turned towards Jean, the squad had been waiting for him--especially those unlucky fellows, Lapoulle and Pache--for they had not managed to get a bite, and they had relied on him, in the belief that if need were he could actually extract flour from mill stones. And Jean, moved to pity, filled with remorse at the thought that he had abandoned his men, divided between them the half-loaf which he had placed in his knapsack before leaving Weiss's house. 'Curse it! curse it!' repeated Lapoulle, finding no other words to express the satisfaction with which he devoured the bread; whilst Pache mumbled a Pater and an Ave, so as to make sure that Heaven would send him his daily food again on the morrow.

Bugler Gaude had just blown a sonorous blast, the summons to the roll-call. There was no tattoo however; the camp at once sank into deep silence. And when Sergeant Sapin, with the thin, sickly face and the contracted nose, had found that his half-section was complete, he gently remarked: 'Some of them will be missing to-morrow night.' Then, noticing that Jean was looking at him, he added with an air of tranquil certainty, gazing the while into the darkness with dreamy eyes: 'Oh! for my part I shall be killed to-morrow.'

It was nine o'clock. The night threatened to be very cold, for a great deal of mist had risen from the Meuse, hiding the stars from view. Maurice shivered as he lay beside Jean under a hedge, and suggested that it would perhaps be better for them to turn into the tent. Worn out, however, aching in every limb since their rest at Weiss's, neither of them was able to get to sleep. They envied Lieutenant Rochas, who, disdaining any shelter and simply wrapped in a blanket, was snoring like a hero on the damp ground near them. Then, for a long time they fixed their attention on the little, flickering flame of a candle, burning in a large tent where the colonel and a few officers were sitting up. M. de Vineuil had seemed very anxious all the evening at not receiving any orders for the following day. He felt that his regiment was quite adrift, still far too much to the front, though he had already fallen back some distance, relinquishing the advanced position that he had taken up in the morning. General Bourgain-Desfeuilles had not shown himself; he was said to be ill in bed at the Golden Cross Hotel, and the colonel had at last decided to send an officer to warn him that the new position appeared a dangerous one; the Seventh Corps being so scattered, having far too long a line to defend, from the bend of the Meuse to the wood of La Garenne. The battle would certainly begin at dawn. They now had only seven or eight hours of that deep, black peacefulness before them. At last the candle in the colonel's tent was extinguished, and at that moment Maurice was greatly surprised to see Captain Beaudoin pass by, furtively skirting the hedge, and vanishing in the direction of Sedan.

The night was becoming more and more dense, the mass of vapour that had ascended from the river obscured it with a gloomy fog. 'Are you awake, Jean?' asked Maurice.

Jean was sleeping, and Maurice was now quite alone. The idea of joining Lapoulle and the others in the tent was somehow repugnant to him, yet he envied them as he heard them snoring, in response, as it were, to Rochas. Then he reflected that if great captains sometimes sleep so soundly on the eve of battle it is simply because they are very tired. He could now only hear the breath of slumber, a widespread, gentle breathing, rising from all the vast camp plunged in darkness. Everything was obliterated from view; he was simply aware that the Fifth Corps must be encamped somewhere near them, under the ramparts, that the First was stretched from the wood of La Garenne to the village of La Moncelle, whilst the Twelfth occupied Bazeilles, on the other side of Sedan; and all were sleeping--from the depths of the darkness, more than a league away, from the first to the last tent passed the slow palpitation of slumber. Then, too, sounds were wafted to him at intervals from afar off, where all was so mysterious--sounds so light and distant that they seemed like a simple buzzing in the ears--the faint gallop of cavalry, the low, dull rumbling of guns, and especially the heavy tramping of men, the march along the hill-tops of the great, black, human swarm, the invasion and envelopment which even night itself had not been able to stay. And, over yonder, were there not flashes suddenly bursting on the darkness and then expiring, voices which shrieked forth here and there, increasing all the anguish that prevailed during that last night, in the fear-fraught waiting for the dawn?

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.

END OF PART I.

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Part II

THE BATTLE OF SEDAN

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