The Downfall

Part I
Chapter VI

"Thunder!" Chouteau ejaculated the following morning when he awoke, chilled and with aching bones, under the tent, "I wouldn't mind having a bouillon with plenty of meat in it."

At Boult-aux-Bois, where they were now encamped, the only ration issued to the men the night before had been an extremely slender one of potatoes; the commissariat was daily more and more distracted and disorganized by the everlasting marches and countermarches, never reaching the designated points of rendezvous in time to meet the troops. As for the herds, no one had the faintest idea where they might be upon the crowded roads, and famine was staring the army in the face.

Loubet stretched himself and plaintively replied:

"Ah, fichtre, yes!—No more roast goose for us now."

The squad was out of sorts and sulky. Men couldn't be expected to be lively on an empty stomach. And then there was the rain that poured down incessantly, and the mud in which they had to make their beds.

Observing Pache make the sign of the cross after mumbling his morning prayer, Chouteau captiously growled:

"Ask that good God of yours, if he is good for anything, to send us down a couple of sausages and a mug of beer apiece."

"Ah, if we only had a good big loaf of bread!" sighed Lapoulle, whose ravenous appetite made hunger a more grievous affliction to him than to the others.

But Lieutenant Rochas, passing by just then, made them be silent. It was scandalous, never to think of anything but their stomachs! When he was hungry he tightened up the buckle of his trousers. Now that things were becoming decidedly squally and the popping of rifles was to be heard occasionally in the distance, he had recovered all his old serene confidence: it was all plain enough, now; the Prussians were there—well, all they had to do was, go out and lick 'em. And he gave a significant shrug of the shoulders, standing behind Captain Beaudoin, the very young man, as he called him, with his pale face and pursed up lips, whom the loss of his baggage had afflicted so grievously that he had even ceased to fume and scold. A man might get along without eating, at a pinch, but that he could not change his linen was a circumstance productive of sorrow and anger.

Maurice awoke to a sensation of despondency and physical discomfort. Thanks to his easy shoes the inflammation in his foot had gone down, but the drenching he had received the day before, from the effects of which his greatcoat seemed to weigh a ton, had left him with a distinct and separate ache in every bone of his body. When he was sent to the spring to get water for the coffee he took a survey of the plain on the edge of which Boult-aux-Bois is situated: forests rise to the west and north, and there is a hill crowned by the hamlet of Belleville, while, over to the east, Buzancy way, there is a broad, level expanse, stretching far as the eye can see, with an occasional shallow depression concealing a small cluster of cottages. Was it from that direction that they were to expect the enemy? As he was returning from the stream with his bucket filled with water, the father of a family of wretched peasants hailed him from the door of his hovel, and asked him if the soldiers were this time going to stay and defend them. In the confusion of conflicting orders the 5th corps had already traversed the region no less than three times. The sound of cannonading had reached them the day before from the direction of Bar; the Prussians could not be more than a couple of leagues away. And when Maurice made answer to the poor folks that doubtless the 7th corps would also be called away after a time, their tears flowed afresh. Then they were to be abandoned to the enemy, and the soldiers had not come there to fight, whom they saw constantly vanishing and reappearing, always on the run?

"Those who like theirs sweet," observed Loubet, as he poured the coffee, "have only to stick their thumb in it and wait for it to melt."

Not a man of them smiled. It was too bad, all the same, to have to drink their coffee without sugar; and then, too, if they only had some biscuit! Most of them had devoured what eatables they had in their knapsacks, to the very last crumb, to while away their time of waiting, the day before, on the plateau of Quatre-Champs. Among them, however, the members of the squad managed to collect a dozen potatoes, which they shared equally.

Maurice, who began to feel a twinging sensation in his stomach, uttered a regretful cry:

"If I had known of this I would have bought some bread at Chene."

Jean listened in silence. He had had a dispute with Chouteau that morning, who, on being ordered to go for firewood, had insolently refused, alleging that it was not his turn. Now that everything was so rapidly going to the dogs, insubordination among the men had increased to such a point that those in authority no longer ventured to reprimand them, and Jean, with his sober good sense and pacific disposition, saw that if he would preserve his influence with his squad he must keep the corporal in the background as far as possible. For this reason he was hail-fellow-well-met with his men, who could not fail to see what a treasure they had in a man of his experience, for if those committed to his care did not always have all they wanted to eat, they had, at all events, not suffered from hunger, as had been the case with so many others. But he was touched by the sight of Maurice's suffering. He saw that he was losing strength, and looked at him anxiously, asking himself how that delicate young man would ever manage to sustain the privations of that horrible campaign.

When Jean heard Maurice bewail the lack of bread he arose quietly, went to his knapsack, and, returning, slipped a biscuit into the other's hand.

"Here! don't let the others see it; I have not enough to go round."

"But what will you do?" asked the young man, deeply affected.

"Oh, don't be alarmed about me—I have two left."

It was true; he had carefully put aside three biscuits, in case there should be a fight, knowing that men are often hungry on the battlefield. And then, besides, he had just eaten a potato; that would be sufficient for him. Perhaps something would turn up later on.

About ten o'clock the 7th corps made a fresh start. The marshal's first intention had been to direct it by way of Buzancy upon Stenay, where it would have passed the Meuse, but the Prussians, outmarching the army of Chalons, were already in Stenay, and were even reported to be at Buzancy. Crowded back in this manner to the northward, the 7th corps had received orders to move to la Besace, some twelve or fifteen miles from Boult-aux-Bois, whence, on the next day, they would proceed to pass the Meuse at Mouzon. The start was made in a very sulky humor; the men, with empty stomachs and bodies unrefreshed by repose, unnerved, mentally and physically, by the experience of the past few days, vented their dissatisfaction by growling and grumbling, while the officers, without a spark of their usual cheerful gayety, with a vague sense of impending disaster awaiting them at the end of their march, taxed the dilatoriness of their chiefs, and reproached them for not going to the assistance of the 5th corps at Buzancy, where the sound of artillery-firing had been heard. That corps, too, was on the retreat, making its way toward Nonart, while the 12th was even then leaving la Besace for Mouzon and the 1st was directing its course toward Raucourt. It was like nothing so much as the passage of a drove of panic-stricken cattle, with the dogs worrying them and snapping at their heels—a wild stampede toward the Meuse.

When, in the outstreaming torrent of the three divisions that striped the plain with columns of marching men, the 106th left Boult-aux-Bois in the rear of the cavalry and artillery, the sky was again overspread with a pall of dull leaden clouds that further lowered the spirits of the soldiers. Its route was along the Buzancy highway, planted on either side with rows of magnificent poplars. When they reached Germond, a village where there was a steaming manure-heap before every one of the doors that lined the two sides of the straggling street, the sobbing women came to their thresholds with their little children in their arms, and held them out to the passing troops, as if begging the men to take them with them. There was not a mouthful of bread to be had in all the hamlet, nor even a potato, After that, the regiment, instead of keeping straight on toward Buzancy, turned to the left and made for Authe, and when the men turned their eyes across the plain and beheld upon the hilltop Belleville, through which they had passed the day before, the fact that they were retracing their steps was impressed more vividly on their consciousness.

"Heavens and earth!" growled Chouteau, "do they take us for tops?"

And Loubet chimed in:

"Those cheap-John generals of ours are all at sea again! They must think that men's legs are cheap."

The anger and disgust were general. It was not right to make men suffer like that, just for the fun of walking them up and down the country. They were advancing in column across the naked plain in two files occupying the sides of the road, leaving a free central space in which the officers could move to and fro and keep an eye on their men, but it was not the same now as it had been in Champagne after they left Rheims, a march of song and jollity, when they tramped along gayly and the knapsack was like a feather to their shoulders, in the belief that soon they would come up with the Prussians and give them a sound drubbing; now they were dragging themselves wearily forward in angry silence, cursing the musket that galled their shoulder and the equipments that seemed to weigh them to the ground, their faith in their leaders gone, and possessed by such bitterness of despair that they only went forward as does a file of manacled galley-slaves, in terror of the lash. The wretched army had begun to ascend its Calvary.

Maurice, however, within the last few minutes had made a discovery that interested him greatly. To their left was a range of hills that rose one above another as they receded from the road, and from the skirt of a little wood, far up on the mountain-side, he had seen a horseman emerge. Then another appeared, and then still another. There they stood, all three of them, without sign of life, apparently no larger than a man's hand and looking like delicately fashioned toys. He thought they were probably part of a detachment of our hussars out on a reconnoissance, when all at once he was surprised to behold little points of light flashing from their shoulders, doubtless the reflection of the sunlight from epaulets of brass.

"Look there!" he said, nudging Jean, who was marching at his side. "Uhlans!"

The corporal stared with all his eyes. "They, uhlans!"

They were indeed uhlans, the first Prussians that the 106th had set eyes on. They had been in the field nearly six weeks now, and in all that time not only had they never smelt powder, but had never even seen an enemy. The news spread through the ranks, and every head was turned to look at them. Not such bad-looking fellows, those uhlans, after all.

"One of them looks like a jolly little fat fellow," Loubet remarked.

But presently an entire squadron came out and showed itself on a plateau to the left of the little wood, and at sight of the threatening demonstration the column halted. An officer came riding up with orders, and the 106th moved off a little and took position on the bank of a small stream behind a clump of trees. The artillery had come hurrying back from the front on a gallop and taken possession of a low, rounded hill. For near two hours they remained there thus in line of battle without the occurrence of anything further; the body of hostile cavalry remained motionless in the distance, and finally, concluding that they were only wasting time that was valuable, the officers set the column moving again.

"Ah well," Jean murmured regretfully, "we are not booked for it this time."

Maurice, too, had felt his finger-tips tingling with the desire to have just one shot. He kept harping on the theme of the mistake they had made the day before in not going to the support of the 5th corps. If the Prussians had not made their attack yet, it must be because their infantry had not got up in sufficient strength, whence it was evident that their display of cavalry in the distance was made with no other end than to harass us and check the advance of our corps. We had again fallen into the trap set for us, and thenceforth the regiment was constantly greeted with the sight of uhlans popping up on its left flank wherever the ground was favorable for them, tracking it like sleuthhounds, disappearing behind a farmhouse only to reappear at the corner of a wood.

It eventually produced a disheartening effect on the troops to see that cordon closing in on them in the distance and enveloping them as in the meshes of some gigantic, invisible net. Even Pache and Lapoulle had an opinion on the subject.

"It is beginning to be tiresome!" they said. "It would be a comfort to send them our compliments in the shape of a musket-ball!"

But they kept toiling wearily onward on their tired feet, that seemed to them as if they were of lead. In the distress and suffering of that day's march there was ever present to all the undefined sensation of the proximity of the enemy, drawing in on them from every quarter, just as we are conscious of the coming storm before we have seen a cloud on the horizon. Instructions were given the rear-guard to use severe measures, if necessary, to keep the column well closed up; but there was not much straggling, aware as everyone was that the Prussians were close in our rear, and ready to snap up every unfortunate that they could lay hands on. Their infantry was coming up with the rapidity of the whirlwind, making its twenty-five miles a day, while the French regiments, in their demoralized condition, seemed in comparison to be marking time.

At Authe the weather cleared, and Maurice, taking his bearings by the position of the sun, noticed that instead of bearing off toward Chene, which lay three good leagues from where they were, they had turned and were moving directly eastward. It was two o'clock; the men, after shivering in the rain for two days, were now suffering from the intense heat. The road ascended, with long sweeping curves, through a region of utter desolation: not a house, not a living being, the only relief to the dreariness of the waste lands an occasional little somber wood; and the oppressive silence communicated itself to the men, who toiled onward with drooping heads, bathed in perspiration. At last Saint-Pierremont appeared before them, a few empty houses on a small elevation. They did not pass through the village. Maurice observed that here they made a sudden wheel to the left, resuming their northern course, toward la Besace. He now understood the route that had been adopted in their attempt to reach Mouzon ahead of the Prussians; but would they succeed, with such weary, demoralized troops? At Saint-Pierremont the three uhlans had shown themselves again, at a turn in the road leading to Buzancy, and just as the rear-guard was leaving the village a battery was unmasked and a few shells came tumbling among them, without doing any injury, however. No response was attempted, and the march was continued with constantly increasing effort.

From Saint-Pierremont to la Besace the distance is three good leagues, and when Maurice imparted that information to Jean the latter made a gesture of discouragement: the men would never be able to accomplish it; they showed it by their shortness of breath, by their haggard faces. The road continued to ascend, between gently sloping hills on either side that were gradually drawing closer together. The condition of the men necessitated a halt, but the only effect of their brief repose was to increase the stiffness of their benumbed limbs, and when the order was given to march the state of affairs was worse than it had been before; the regiments made no progress, men were everywhere falling in the ranks. Jean, noticing Maurice's pallid face and glassy eyes, infringed on what was his usual custom and conversed, endeavoring by his volubility to divert the other's attention and keep him awake as he moved automatically forward, unconscious of his actions.

"Your sister lives in Sedan, you say; perhaps we shall be there before long."

"What, at Sedan? Never! You must be crazy; it don't lie in our way."

"Is your sister young?"

"Just my age; you know I told you we are twins."

"Is she like you?"

"Yes, she is fair-haired, too; and oh! such pretty curling hair! She is a mite of a woman, with a little thin face, not one of your noisy, flashy hoydens, ah, no!—Dear Henriette!"

"You love her very dearly!"

"Yes, yes—"

There was silence between them after that, and Jean, glancing at Maurice, saw that his eyes were closing and he was about to fall.

"Hallo there, old fellow! Come, confound it all, brace up! Let me take your gun a moment; that will give you a chance to rest. They can't have the cruelty to make us march any further to-day! we shall leave half our men by the roadside."

At that moment he caught sight of Osches lying straight ahead of them, its few poor hovels climbing in straggling fashion up the hillside, and the yellow church, embowered in trees, looking down on them from its perch upon the summit.

"There's where we shall rest, for certain."

He had guessed aright; General Douay saw the exhausted condition of the troops, and was convinced that it would be useless to attempt to reach la Besace that day. What particularly influenced his determination, however, was the arrival of the train, that ill-starred train that had been trailing in his rear since they left Rheims, and of which the nine long miles of vehicles and animals had so terribly impeded his movements. He had given instructions from Quatre-Champs to direct it straight on Saint-Pierremont, and it was not until Osches that the teams came up with the corps, in such a state of exhaustion that the horses refused to stir. It was now five o'clock; the general, not liking the prospect of attempting the pass of Stonne at that late hour, determined to take the responsibility of abridging the task assigned them by the marshal. The corps was halted and proceeded to encamp; the train below in the meadows, guarded by a division, while the artillery took position on the hills to the rear, and the brigade detailed to act as rear-guard on the morrow rested on a height facing Saint-Pierremont. The other division, which included Bourgain-Desfeuilles' brigade, bivouacked on a wide plateau, bordered by an oak wood, behind the church. There was such confusion in locating the bodies of troops that it was dark before the 106th could move into its position at the edge of the wood.

"Zut!" said Chouteau in a furious rage, "no eating for me; I want to sleep!"

And that was the cry of all; they were overcome with fatigue. Many of them lacked strength and courage to erect their tents, but dropping where they stood, at once fell fast asleep on the bare ground. In order to eat, moreover, rations would have been necessary, and the commissary wagons, which were waiting for the 7th corps to come to them at la Besace, could not well be at Osches at the same time. In the universal relaxation of order and system even the customary corporal's call was omitted: it was everyone for himself. There were to be no more issues of rations from that time forth; the soldiers were to subsist on the provisions they were supposed to carry in their knapsacks, and that evening the sacks were empty; few indeed were those who could muster a crust of bread or some crumbs of the abundance in which they had been living at Vouziers of late. There was coffee, and those who were not too tired made and drank it without sugar.

When Jean thought to make a division of his wealth by eating one of his biscuits himself and giving the other to Maurice, he discovered that the latter was sound asleep. He thought at first he would awake him, but changed his mind and stoically replaced the biscuits in his sack, concealing them with as much caution as if they had been bags of gold; he could get along with coffee, like the rest of the boys. He had insisted on having the tent put up, and they were all stretched on the ground beneath its shelter when Loubet returned from a foraging expedition, bringing in some carrots that he had found in a neighboring field. As there was no fire to cook them by they munched them raw, but the vegetables only served to aggravate their hunger, and they made Pache ill.

"No, no; let him sleep," said Jean to Chouteau, who was shaking Maurice to wake him and give him his share.

"Ah," Lapoulle broke in, "we shall be at Angouleme to-morrow, and then we'll have some bread. I had a cousin in the army once, who was stationed at Angouleme. Nice garrison, that."

They all looked surprised, and Chouteau exclaimed:

"Angouleme—what are you talking about! Just listen to the bloody fool, saying he is at Angouleme!"

It was impossible to extract any explanation from Lapoulle. He had insisted that morning that the uhlans that they sighted were some of Bazaine's troops.

Then darkness descended on the camp, black as ink, silent as death. Notwithstanding the coolness of the night air the men had not been permitted to make fires; the Prussians were known to be only a few miles away, and it would not do to put them on the alert; orders even were transmitted in a hushed voice. The officers had notified their men before retiring that the start would be made at about four in the morning, in order that they might have all the rest possible, and all had hastened to turn in and were sleeping greedily, forgetful of their troubles. Above the scattered camps the deep respiration of all those slumbering crowds, rising upon the stillness of the night, was like the long-drawn breathing of old Mother Earth.

Suddenly a shot rang out in the darkness and aroused the sleepers. It was about three o'clock, and the obscurity was profound. Immediately everyone was on foot, the alarm spread through the camp; it was supposed the Prussians were attacking. It was only Loubet who, unable to sleep longer, had taken it in his head to make a foray into the oak-wood, which he thought gave promise of rabbits: what a jolly good lark it would be if he could bring in a pair of nice rabbits for the comrades' breakfast! But as he was looking about for a favorable place in which to conceal himself, he heard the sound of voices and the snapping of dry branches under heavy footsteps; men were coming toward him; he took alarm and discharged his piece, believing the Prussians were at hand. Maurice, Jean, and others came running up in haste, when a hoarse voice made itself heard:

"For God's sake, don't shoot!"

And there at the edge of the wood stood a tall, lanky man, whose thick, bristling beard they could just distinguish in the darkness. He wore a gray blouse, confined at the waist by a red belt, and carried a musket slung by a strap over his shoulder. He hurriedly explained that he was French, a sergeant of francs-tireurs, and had come with two of his men from the wood of Dieulet, bringing important information for the general.

"Hallo there, Cabasse! Ducat!" he shouted, turning his head, "hallo! you infernal poltroons, come here!"

The men were evidently badly scared, but they came forward. Ducat, short and fat, with a pale face and scanty hair; Cabasse short and lean, with a black face and a long nose not much thicker than a knife-blade.

Meantime Maurice had stepped up and taken a closer look at the sergeant; he finally asked him:

"Tell me, are you not Guillaume Sambuc, of Remilly?"

And when the man hesitatingly answered in the affirmative Maurice recoiled a step or two, for this Sambuc had the reputation of being a particularly hard case, the worthy son of a family of woodcutters who had all gone to the bad, the drunken father being found one night lying by the roadside with his throat cut, the mother and daughter, who lived by begging and stealing, having disappeared, most likely, in the seclusion of some penitentiary. He, Guillaume, did a little in the poaching and smuggling lines, and only one of that litter of wolves' whelps had grown up to be an honest man, and that was Prosper, the hussar, who had gone to work on a farm before he was conscripted, because he hated the life of the forest.

"I saw your brother at Vouziers," Maurice continued; "he is well."

Sambuc made no reply. To end the situation he said:

"Take me to the general. Tell him that the francs-tireurs of the wood of Dieulet have something important to say to him."

On the way back to the camp Maurice reflected on those free companies that had excited such great expectations at the time of their formation, and had since been the object of such bitter denunciation throughout the country. Their professed purpose was to wage a sort of guerilla warfare, lying in ambush behind hedges, harassing the enemy, picking off his sentinels, holding the woods, from which not a Prussian was to emerge alive; while the truth of the matter was that they had made themselves the terror of the peasantry, whom they failed utterly to protect and whose fields they devastated. Every ne'er-do-well who hated the restraints of the regular service made haste to join their ranks, well pleased with the chance that exempted him from discipline and enabled him to lead the life of a tramp, tippling in pothouses and sleeping by the roadside at his own sweet will. Some of the companies were recruited from the very worst material imaginable.

"Hallo there, Cabasse! Ducat!" Sambuc was constantly repeating, turning to his henchmen at every step he took, "Come along, will you, you snails!"

Maurice was as little charmed with the two men as with their leader. Cabasse, the little lean fellow, was a native of Toulon, had served as waiter in a cafe at Marseilles, had failed at Sedan as a broker in southern produce, and finally had brought up in a police-court, where it came near going hard with him, in connection with a robbery of which the details were suppressed. Ducat, the little fat man, quondam huissier at Blainville, where he had been forced to sell out his business on account of a malodorous woman scrape, had recently been brought face to face with the court of assizes for an indiscretion of a similar nature at Raucourt, where he was accountant in a factory. The latter quoted Latin in his conversation, while the other could scarcely read, but the two were well mated, as unprepossessing a pair as one could expect to meet in a summer's day.

The camp was already astir; Jean and Maurice took the francs-tireurs to Captain Beaudoin, who conducted them to the quarters of Colonel Vineuil. The colonel attempted to question them, but Sambuc, intrenching himself in his dignity, refused to speak to anyone except the general. Now Bourgain-Desfeuilles had taken up his quarters that night with the cure of Osches, and just then appeared, rubbing his eyes, in the doorway of the parsonage; he was in a horribly bad humor at his slumbers having been thus prematurely cut short, and the prospect that he saw before him of another day of famine and fatigue; hence his reception of the men who were brought before him was not exactly lamblike. Who were they? Whence did they come? What did they want? Ah, some of those francs-tireurs gentlemen—eh! Same thing as skulkers and riff-raff!

"General," Sambuc replied, without allowing himself to be disconcerted, "we and our comrades are stationed in the woods of Dieulet—"

"The woods of Dieulet—where's that?"

"Between Stenay and Mouzon, General."

"What do I know of your Stenay and Mouzon? Do you expect me to be familiar with all these strange names?"

The colonel was distressed by his chief's display of ignorance; he hastily interfered to remind him that Stenay and Mouzon were on the Meuse, and that, as the Germans had occupied the former of those towns, the army was about to attempt the passage of the river at the other, which was situated more to the northward.

"So you see, General," Sambuc continued, "we've come to tell you that the woods of Dieulet are alive with Prussians. There was an engagement yesterday as the 5th corps was leaving Bois-les-Dames, somewhere about Nonart—"

"What, yesterday? There was fighting yesterday?"

"Yes, General, the 5th corps was engaged as it was falling back; it must have been at Beaumont last night. So, while some of us hurried off to report to it the movements of the enemy, we thought it best to come and let you know how matters stood, so that you might go to its assistance, for it will certainly have sixty thousand men to deal with in the morning."

General Bourgain-Desfeuilles gave a contemptuous shrug of his shoulders.

"Sixty thousand men! Why the devil don't you call it a hundred thousand at once? You were dreaming, young man; your fright has made you see double. It is impossible there should be sixty thousand Germans so near us without our knowing it."

And so he went on. It was to no purpose that Sambuc appealed to Ducat and Cabasse to confirm his statement.

"We saw the guns," the Provencal declared; "and those chaps must be crazy to take them through the forest, where the rains of the past few days have left the roads in such a state that they sink in the mud up to the hubs."

"They have someone to guide them, for certain," said the ex-bailiff.

Since leaving Vouziers the general had stoutly refused to attach any further credit to reports of the junction of the two German armies which, as he said, they had been trying to stuff down his throat. He did not even consider it worth his while to send the francs-tireurs before his corps commander, to whom the partisans supposed, all along, that they were talking; if they should attempt to listen to all the yarns that were brought them by tramps and peasants, they would have their hands full and be driven from pillar to post without ever advancing a step. He directed the three men to remain with the column, however, since they were acquainted with the country.

"They are good fellows, all the same," Jean said to Maurice, as they were returning to fold the tent, "to have tramped three leagues across lots to let us know."

The young man agreed with him and commended their action, knowing as he did the country, and deeply alarmed to hear that the Prussians were in Dieulet forest and moving on Sommanthe and Beaumont. He had flung himself down by the roadside, exhausted before the march had commenced, with a sorrowing heart and an empty stomach, at the dawning of that day which he felt was to be so disastrous for them all. Distressed to see him looking so pale, the corporal affectionately asked him:

"Are you feeling so badly still? What is it? Does your foot pain you?"

Maurice shook his head. His foot had ceased to trouble him, thanks to the big shoes.

"Then you are hungry." And Jean, seeing that he did not answer, took from his knapsack one of the two remaining biscuits, and with a falsehood for which he may be forgiven: "Here, take it; I kept your share for you. I ate mine a while ago."

Day was breaking when the 7th corps marched out of Osches en route for Mouzon by way of la Besace, where they should have bivouacked. The train, cause of so many woes, had been sent on ahead, guarded by the first division, and if its own wagons, well horsed as for the most part they were, got over the ground at a satisfactory pace, the requisitioned vehicles, most of them empty, delayed the troops and produced sad confusion among the hills of the defile of Stonne. After leaving the hamlet of la Berliere the road rises more sharply between wooded hills on either side. Finally, about eight o'clock, the two remaining divisions got under way, when Marshal MacMahon came galloping up, vexed to find there those troops that he supposed had left la Besace that morning, with only a short march between them and Mouzon; his comment to General Douay on the subject was expressed in warm language. It was determined that the first division and the train should be allowed to proceed on their way to Mouzon, but that the two other divisions, that they might not be further retarded by this cumbrous advance-guard, should move by the way of Raucourt and Autrecourt so as to pass the Meuse at Villers. The movement to the north was dictated by the marshal's intense anxiety to place the river between his army and the enemy; cost what it might, they must be on the right bank that night. The rear-guard had not yet left Osches when a Prussian battery, recommencing the performance of the previous day, began to play on them from a distant eminence, over in the direction of Saint-Pierremont. They made the mistake of firing a few shots in reply; then the last of the troops filed out of the town.

Until nearly eleven o'clock the 106th slowly pursued its way along the road which zigzags through the pass of Stonne between high hills. On the left hand the precipitous summits rear their heads, devoid of vegetation, while to the right the gentler slopes are clad with woods down to the roadside. The sun had come out again, and the heat was intense down in the inclosed valley, where an oppressive solitude prevailed. After leaving la Berliere, which lies at the foot of a lofty and desolate mountain surmounted by a Calvary, there is not a house to be seen, not a human being, not an animal grazing in the meadows. And the men, the day before so faint with hunger, so spent with fatigue, who since that time had had no food to restore, no slumber, to speak of, to refresh them, were now dragging themselves listlessly along, disheartened, filled with sullen anger.

Soon after that, just as the men had been halted for a short rest along the roadside, the roar of artillery was heard away at their right; judging from the distinctness of the detonations the firing could not be more than two leagues distant. Upon the troops, weary with waiting, tired of retreating, the effect was magical; in the twinkling of an eye everyone was on his feet, eager, in a quiver of excitement, no longer mindful of his hunger and fatigue: why did they not advance? They preferred to fight, to die, rather than keep on flying thus, no one knew why or whither.

General Bourgain-Desfeuilles, accompanied by Colonel de Vineuil, had climbed a hill on the right to reconnoiter the country. They were visible up there in a little clearing between two belts of wood, scanning the surrounding hills with their field-glasses, when all at once they dispatched an aide-de-camp to the column, with instructions to send up to them the francs-tireurs if they were still there. A few men, Jean and Maurice among them, accompanied the latter, in case there should be need of messengers.

"A beastly country this, with its everlasting hills and woods!" the general shouted, as soon as he caught sight of Sambuc. "You hear the music—where is it? where is the fighting going on?"

Sambuc, with Ducat and Cabasse close at his heels, listened a moment before he answered, casting his eye over the wide horizon, and Maurice, standing beside him and gazing out over the panorama of valley and forest that lay beneath him, was struck with admiration. It was like a boundless sea, whose gigantic waves had been arrested by some mighty force. In the foreground the somber verdure of the woods made splashes of sober color on the yellow of the fields, while in the brilliant sunlight the distant hills were bathed in purplish vapors. And while nothing was to be seen, not even the tiniest smoke-wreath floating on the cloudless sky, the cannon were thundering away in the distance, like the muttering of a rising storm.

"Here is Sommanthe, to the right," Sambuc said at last, pointing to a high hill crowned by a wood. "Yoncq lies off yonder to the left. The fighting is at Beaumont, General."

"Either at Varniforet or Beaumont," Ducat observed.

The general muttered below his breath: "Beaumont, Beaumont—a man can never tell where he is in this d——d country." Then raising his voice: "And how far may this Beaumont be from here?"

"A little more than six miles, if you take the road from Chene to Stenay, which runs up the valley yonder."

There was no cessation of the firing, which seemed to be advancing from west to east with a continuous succession of reports like peals of thunder. Sambuc added:

"Bigre! it's getting warm. It is just what I expected; you know what I told you this morning, General; it is certainly the batteries that we saw in the wood of Dieulet. By this time the whole army that came up through Buzancy and Beauclair is at work mauling the 5th corps."

There was silence among them, while the battle raging in the distance growled more furiously than ever, and Maurice had to set tight his teeth to keep himself from speaking his mind aloud. Why did they not hasten whither the guns were calling them, without such waste of words? He had never known what it was to be excited thus; every discharge found an echo in his bosom and inspired him with a fierce longing to be present at the conflict, to put an end to it. Were they to pass by that battle, so near almost that they could stretch forth their arm and touch it with their hand, and never expend a cartridge? It must be to decide a wager that some one had made, that since the beginning of the campaign they were dragged about the country thus, always flying before the enemy! At Vouziers they had heard the musketry of the rear-guard, at Osches the German guns had played a moment on their retreating backs; and now they were to run for it again, they were not to be allowed to advance at double-quick to the succor of comrades in distress! Maurice looked at Jean, who was also very pale, his eyes shining with a bright, feverish light. Every heart leaped in every bosom at the loud summons of the artillery.

While they were waiting a general, attended by his staff, was seen ascending the narrow path that wound up the hill. It was Douay, their corps-commander, who came hastening up, with anxiety depicted on his countenance, and when he had questioned the francs-tireurs he gave utterance to an exclamation of despair. But what could he have done, even had he learned their tidings that morning? The marshal's orders were explicit: they must be across the Meuse that night, cost what it might. And then again, how was he to collect his scattered troops, strung out along the road to Raucourt, and direct then on Beaumont? Could they arrive in time to be of use? The 5th corps must be in full retreat on Mouzon by that time, as was indicated by the sound of the firing, which was receding more and more to the eastward, as a deadly hurricane moves off after having accomplished its disastrous work. With a fierce gesture, expressive of his sense of impotency, General Douay outstretched his arms toward the wide horizon of hill and dale, of woods and fields, and the order went forth to proceed with the march to Raucourt.

Ah, what a march was that through that dismal pass of Stonne, with the lofty summits o'erhanging them on either side, while through the woods on their right came the incessant volleying of the artillery. Colonel de Vineuil rode at the head of his regiment, bracing himself firmly in his saddle, his face set and very pale, his eyes winking like those of one trying not to weep. Captain Beaudoin strode along in silence, gnawing his mustache, while Lieutenant Rochas let slip an occasional imprecation, invoking ruin and destruction on himself and everyone besides. Even the most cowardly among the men, those who had the least stomach for fighting, were shamed and angered by their continuous retreat; they felt the bitter humiliation of turning their backs while those beasts of Prussians were murdering their comrades over yonder.

After emerging from the pass the road, from a tortuous path among the hills, increased in width and led through a broad stretch of level country, dotted here and there with small woods. The 106th was now a portion of the rear-guard, and at every moment since leaving Osches had been expecting to feel the enemy's attack, for the Prussians were following the column step by step, never letting it escape their vigilant eyes, waiting, doubtless, for a favorable opportunity to fall on its rear. Their cavalry were on the alert to take advantage of any bit of ground that promised them an opportunity of getting in on our flank; several squadrons of Prussian Guards were seen advancing from behind a wood, but they gave up their purpose upon a demonstration made by a regiment of our hussars, who came up at a gallop, sweeping the road. Thanks to the breathing-spell afforded them by this circumstance the retreat went on in sufficiently good order, and Raucourt was not far away, when a spectacle greeted their eyes that filled them with consternation and completely demoralized the troops. Upon coming to a cross-road they suddenly caught sight of a hurrying, straggling, flying throng, wounded officers, soldiers without arms and without organization, runaway teams from the train, all—men and animals—mingled in wildest confusion, wild with panic. It was the wreck of one of the brigades of the 1st division, which had been sent that morning to escort the train to Mouzon; there had been an unfortunate misconception of orders, and this brigade and a portion of the wagons had taken a wrong road and reached Varniforet, near Beaumont, at the very time when the 5th corps was being driven back in disorder. Taken unawares, overborne by the flank attack of an enemy superior in numbers, they had fled; and bleeding, with haggard faces, crazed with fear, were now returning to spread consternation among their comrades; it was as if they had been wafted thither on the breath of the battle that had been raging incessantly since noon.

Alarm and anxiety possessed everyone, from highest to lowest, as the column poured through Raucourt in wild stampede. Should they turn to the left, toward Autrecourt, and attempt to pass the Meuse at Villers, as had been previously decided? The general hesitated, fearing to encounter difficulties in crossing there, even if the bridge were not already in possession of the Prussians; he finally decided to keep straight on through the defile of Harancourt and thus reach Remilly before nightfall. First Mouzon, then Villers, and last Remilly; they were still pressing on northward, with the tramp of the uhlans on the road behind them. There remained scant four miles for them to accomplish, but it was five o'clock, and the men were sinking with fatigue. They had been under arms since daybreak, twelve hours had been consumed in advancing three short leagues; they were harassed and fatigued as much by their constant halts and the stress of their emotions as by the actual toil of the march. For the last two nights they had had scarce any sleep; their hunger had been unappeased since they left Vouziers. In Raucourt the distress was terrible; men fell in the ranks from sheer inanition.

The little town is rich, with its numerous factories, its handsome thoroughfare lined with two rows of well-built houses, and its pretty church and mairie; but the night before Marshal MacMahon and the Emperor had passed that way with their respective staffs and all the imperial household, and during the whole of the present morning the entire 1st corps had been streaming like a torrent through the main street. The resources of the place had not been adequate to meet the requirements of these hosts; the shelves of the bakers and grocers were empty, and even the houses of the bourgeois had been swept clean of provisions; there was no bread, no wine, no sugar, nothing capable of allaying hunger or thirst. Ladies had been seen to station themselves before their doors and deal out glasses of wine and cups of bouillon until cask and kettle alike were drained of their last drop. And so there was an end, and when, about three o'clock, the first regiments of the 7th corps began to appear the scene was a pitiful one; the broad street was filled from curb to curb with weary, dust-stained men, dying with hunger, and there was not a mouthful of food to give them. Many of them stopped, knocking at doors and extending their hands beseechingly toward windows, begging for a morsel of bread, and women were seen to cry and sob as they motioned that they could not help them, that they had nothing left.

At the corner of the Rue Dix-Potiers Maurice had an attack of dizziness and reeled as if about to fall. To Jean, who came hastening up, he said:

"No, leave me; it is all up with me. I may as well die here!"

He had sunk down upon a door-step. The corporal spoke in a rough tone of displeasure assumed for the occasion:

"Nom de Dieu! why don't you try to behave like a soldier! Do you want the Prussians to catch you? Come, get up!"

Then, as the young man, lividly pale, his eyes tight-closed, almost unconscious, made no reply, he let slip another oath, but in another key this time, in a tone of infinite gentleness and pity:

"Nom de Dieu! Nom de Dieu!"

And running to a drinking-fountain near by, he filled his basin with water and hurried back to bathe his friend's face. Then, without further attempt at concealment, he took from his sack the last remaining biscuit that he had guarded with such jealous caution, and commenced crumbling it into small bits that he introduced between the other's teeth. The famishing man opened his eyes and ate greedily.

"But you," he asked, suddenly recollecting himself, "how comes it that you did not eat it?"

"Oh, I!" said Jean. "I'm tough, I can wait. A good drink of Adam's ale, and I shall be all right."

He went and filled his basin again at the fountain, emptied it at a single draught, and came back smacking his lips in token of satisfaction with his feast. He, too, was cadaverously pale, and so faint with hunger that his hands were trembling like a leaf.

"Come, get up, and let's be going. We must be getting back to the comrades, little one."

Maurice leaned on his arm and suffered himself to be helped along as if he had been a child; never had woman's arm about him so warmed his heart. In that extremity of distress, with death staring him in the face, it afforded him a deliciously cheering sense of comfort to know that someone loved and cared for him, and the reflection that that heart, which was so entirely his, was the heart of a simple-minded peasant, whose aspirations scarcely rose above the satisfaction of his daily wants, for whom he had recently experienced a feeling of repugnance, served to add to his gratitude a sensation of ineffable joy. Was it not the brotherhood that had prevailed in the world in its earlier days, the friendship that had existed before caste and culture were; that friendship which unites two men and makes them one in their common need of assistance, in the presence of Nature, the common enemy? He felt the tie of humanity uniting him and Jean, and was proud to know that the latter, his comforter and savior, was stronger than he; while to Jean, who did not analyze his sensations, it afforded unalloyed pleasure to be the instrument of protecting, in his friend, that cultivation and intelligence which, in himself, were only rudimentary. Since the death of his wife, who had been snatched away from him by a frightful catastrophe, he had believed that his heart was dead, he had sworn to have nothing more to do with those creatures, who, even when they are not wicked and depraved, are cause of so much suffering to man. And thus, to both of them their friendship was a comfort and relief. There was no need of any demonstrative display of affection; they understood each other; there was close community of sympathy between them, and, notwithstanding their apparent external dissimilarity, the bond of pity and common suffering made them as one during their terrible march that day to Remilly.

As the French rear-guard left Raucourt by one end of the town the Germans came in at the other, and forthwith two of their batteries commenced firing from the position they had taken on the heights to the left; the 106th, retreating along the road that follows the course of the Emmane, was directly in the line of fire. A shell cut down a poplar on the bank of the stream; another came and buried itself in the soft ground close to Captain Beaudoin, but did not burst. From there on to Harancourt, however, the walls of the pass kept approaching nearer and nearer, and the troops were crowded together in a narrow gorge commanded on either side by hills covered with trees. A handful of Prussians in ambush on those heights might have caused incalculable disaster. With the cannon thundering in their rear and the menace of a possible attack on either flank, the men's uneasiness increased with every step they took, and they were in haste to get out of such a dangerous neighborhood; hence they summoned up their reserved strength, and those soldiers who, but now in Raucourt, had scarce been able to drag themselves along, now, with the peril that lay behind them as an incentive, struck out at a good round pace. The very horses seemed to be conscious that the loss of a minute might cost them dear. And the impetus thus given continued; all was going well, the head of the column must have reached Remilly, when, all at once, their progress was arrested.

"Heavens and earth!" said Chouteau, "are they going to leave us here in the road?"

The regiment had not yet reached Harancourt, and the shells were still tumbling about them; while the men were marking time, awaiting the word to go ahead again, one burst, on the right of the column, without injuring anyone, fortunately. Five minutes passed, that seemed to them long as an eternity, and still they did not move; there was some obstacle on ahead that barred their way as effectually as if a strong wall had been built across the road. The colonel, standing up in his stirrups, peered nervously to the front, for he saw that it would require but little to create a panic among his men.

"We are betrayed; everybody can see it," shouted Chouteau.

Murmurs of reproach arose on every side, the sullen muttering of their discontent exasperated by their fears. Yes, yes! they had been brought there to be sold, to be delivered over to the Prussians. In the baleful fatality that pursued them, and among all the blunders of their leaders, those dense intelligences were unable to account for such an uninterrupted succession of disasters on any other ground than that of treachery.

"We are betrayed! we are betrayed!" the men wildly repeated.

Then Loubet's fertile intellect evolved an idea: "It is like enough that that pig of an Emperor has sat himself down in the road, with his baggage, on purpose to keep us here."

The idle fancy was received as true, and immediately spread up and down the line; everyone declared that the imperial household had blocked the road and was responsible for the stoppage. There was a universal chorus of execration, of opprobrious epithets, an unchaining of the hatred and hostility that were inspired by the insolence of the Emperor's attendants, who took possession of the towns where they stopped at night as if they owned them, unpacking their luxuries, their costly wines and plate of gold and silver, before the eyes of the poor soldiers who were destitute of everything, filling the kitchens with the steam of savory viands while they, poor devils, had nothing for it but to tighten the belt of their trousers. Ah! that wretched Emperor, that miserable man, deposed from his throne and stripped of his command, a stranger in his own empire; whom they were conveying up and down the country along with the other baggage, like some piece of useless furniture, whose doom it was ever to drag behind him the irony of his imperial state: cent-gardes, horses, carriages, cooks, and vans, sweeping, as it were, the blood and mire from the roads of his defeat with the magnificence of his court mantle, embroidered with the heraldic bees!

In rapid succession, one after the other, two more shells fell; Lieutenant Rochas had his kepi carried away by a fragment. The men huddled closer together and began to crowd forward, the movement gathering strength as it ran from rear to front. Inarticulate cries were heard, Lapoulle shouted furiously to go ahead. A minute longer and there would have been a horrible catastrophe, and many men must have been crushed to death in the mad struggle to escape from the funnel-like gorge.

The colonel—he was very pale—turned and spoke to the soldiers:

"My children, my children, be a little patient. I have sent to see what is the matter—it will only be a moment—"

But they did not advance, and the seconds seemed like centuries. Jean, quite cool and collected, resumed his hold of Maurice's hand, and whispered to him that, in case their comrades began to shove, they two could leave the road, climb the hill on the left, and make their way to the stream. He looked about to see where the francs-tireurs were, thinking he might gain some information from them regarding the roads, but was told they had vanished while the column was passing through Raucourt. Just then the march was resumed, and almost immediately a bend in the road took them out of range of the German batteries. Later in the day it was ascertained that it was four cuirassier regiments of Bonnemain's division who, in the disorder of that ill-starred retreat, had thus blocked the road of the 7th corps and delayed the march.

It was nearly dark when the 106th passed through Angecourt. The wooded hills continued on the right, but to the left the country was more level, and a valley was visible in the distance, veiled in bluish mists. At last, just as the shades of night were descending, they stood on the heights of Remilly and beheld a ribbon of pale silver unrolling its length upon a broad expanse of verdant plain. It was the Meuse, that Meuse they had so longed to see, and where it seemed as if victory awaited them.

Pointing to some lights in the distance that were beginning to twinkle cheerily among the trees, down in that fertile valley that lay there so peaceful in the mellow twilight, Maurice said to Jean, with the glad content of a man revisiting a country that he knows and loves:

"Look! over that way—that is Sedan!"

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