THE DOWNFALL

(La Debacle)(The Smash-up)

By Emile Zola

Translated By E. P. Robins

THE DOWNFALL

PART FIRST

I. 

In the middle of the broad, fertile plain that stretches away in thedirection of the Rhine, a mile and a quarter from Mulhausen, the campwas pitched. In the fitful light of the overcast August day, beneath thelowering sky that was filled with heavy drifting clouds, the long linesof squat white shelter-tents seemed to cower closer to the ground, andthe muskets, stacked at regular intervals along the regimental fronts, made little spots of brightness, while over all the sentries with loadedpieces kept watch and ward, motionless as statues, straining their eyesto pierce the purplish mists that lay on the horizon and showed wherethe mighty river ran. 

It was about five o'clock when they had come in from Belfort; it was noweight, and the men had only just received their rations. There could beno distribution of wood, however, the wagons having gone astray, andit had therefore been impossible for them to make fires and warm theirsoup. They had consequently been obliged to content themselves as bestthey might, washing down their dry hard-tack with copious draughts ofbrandy, a proceeding that was not calculated greatly to help theirtired legs after their long march. Near the canteen, however, behind thestacks of muskets, there were two soldiers pertinaciously endeavoring toelicit a blaze from a small pile of green wood, the trunks of some smalltrees that they had chopped down with their sword-bayonets, and thatwere obstinately determined not to burn. The cloud of thick, blacksmoke, rising slowly in the evening air, added to the generalcheerlessness of the scene. 

There were but twelve thousand men there, all of the 7th corps that thegeneral, Felix Douay, had with him at the time. The 1st division hadbeen ordered to Froeschwiller the day before; the 3d was still at Lyons, and it had been decided to leave Belfort and hurry to the front withthe 2d division, the reserve artillery, and an incomplete divisionof cavalry. Fires had been seen at Lorrach. The _sous-prefet_ atSchelestadt had sent a telegram announcing that the Prussians werepreparing to pass the Rhine at Markolsheim. The general did not likehis unsupported position on the extreme right, where he was cut off fromcommunication with the other corps, and his movement in the directionof the frontier had been accelerated by the intelligence he had receivedthe day before of the disastrous surprise at Wissembourg. Even if heshould not be called on to face the enemy on his own front, he felt thathe was likely at any moment to be ordered to march to the relief of the1st corps. There must be fighting going on, away down the river nearFroeschwiller, on that dark and threatening Saturday, that ominous 6thof August; there was premonition of it in the sultry air, and the straypuffs of wind passed shudderingly over the camp as if fraught withtidings of impending evil. And for two days the division had believedthat it was marching forth to battle; the men had expected to find thePrussians in their front, at the termination of their forced march fromBelfort to Mulhausen. 

The day was drawing to an end, and from a remote corner of the camp therattling drums and the shrill bugles sounded retreat, the sound dyingaway faintly in the distance on the still air of evening. Jean Macquart, who had been securing the tent and driving the pegs home, rose to hisfeet. When it began to be rumored that there was to be war he had leftRognes, the scene of the bloody drama in which he had lost his wife, Francoise and the acres that she brought him; he had re-enlisted at theage of thirty-nine, and been assigned to the 106th of the line, of whichthey were at that time filling up the _cadres_, with his old rank ofcorporal, and there were moments when he could not help wondering howit ever came about that he, who after Solferino had been so glad to quitthe service and cease endangering his own and other people's lives, wasagain wearing the _capote_ of the infantry man. But what is a man to do, when he has neither trade nor calling, neither wife, house, nor home, and his heart is heavy with mingled rage and sorrow? As well go andhave a shot at the enemy, if they come where they are not wanted. And heremembered his old battle cry: Ah! _bon sang_! if he had no longer heartfor honest toil, he would go and defend her, his country, the old landof France!

When Jean was on his legs he cast a look about the camp, where thesummons of the drums and bugles, taken up by one command after another, produced a momentary bustle, the conclusion of the business of the day. Some men were running to take their places in the ranks, while others, already half asleep, arose and stretched their stiff limbs with an airof exasperated weariness. He stood waiting patiently for roll-call, withthat cheerful imperturbability and determination to make the best ofeverything that made him the good soldier that he was. His comrades wereaccustomed to say of him that if he had only had education he would havemade his mark. He could just barely read and write, and his aspirationsdid not rise even so high as to a sergeantcy. Once a peasant, always apeasant. 

But he found something to interest him in the fire of green wood thatwas still smoldering and sending up dense volumes of smoke, and hestepped up to speak to the two men who were busying themselves over it, Loubet and Lapoulle, both members of his squad. 

"Quit that! You are stifling the whole camp. "

Loubet, a lean, active fellow and something of a wag, replied:

"It will burn, corporal; I assure you it will--why don't you blow, you!"

And by way of encouragement he bestowed a kick on Lapoulle, a colossusof a man, who was on his knees puffing away with might and main, hischeeks distended till they were like wine-skins, his face red andswollen, and his eyes starting from their orbits and streaming withtears. Two other men of the squad, Chouteau and Pache, the formerstretched at length upon his back like a man who appreciates the delightof idleness, and the latter engrossed in the occupation of puttinga patch on his trousers, laughed long and loud at the ridiculousexpression on the face of their comrade, the brutish Lapoulle. 

Jean did not interfere to check their merriment. Perhaps the time was athand when they would not have much occasion for laughter, and he, withall his seriousness and his humdrum, literal way of taking things, didnot consider that it was part of his duty to be melancholy, preferringrather to close his eyes or look the other way when his men wereenjoying themselves. But his attention was attracted to a second groupnot far away, another soldier of his squad, Maurice Levasseur, who hadbeen conversing earnestly for near an hour with a civilian, a red-hairedgentleman who was apparently about thirty-six years old, with anintelligent, honest face, illuminated by a pair of big protruding blueeyes, evidently the eyes of a near-sighted man. They had been joined byan artilleryman, a quartermaster-sergeant from the reserves, a knowing, self-satisfied-looking person with brown mustache and imperial, and thethree stood talking like old friends, unmindful of what was going onabout them. 

In the kindness of his heart, in order to save them a reprimand, if notsomething worse, Jean stepped up to them and said:

"You had better be going, sir. It is past retreat, and if the lieutenantshould see you--" Maurice did not permit him to conclude his sentence:

"Stay where you are, Weiss, " he said, and turning to the corporal, curtly added: "This gentleman is my brother-in-law. He has a pass fromthe colonel, who is acquainted with him. "

What business had he to interfere with other people's affairs, thatpeasant whose hands were still reeking of the manure-heap? _He_ was alawyer, had been admitted to the bar the preceding autumn, had enlistedas a volunteer and been received into the 106th without the formalityof passing through the recruiting station, thanks to the favor of thecolonel; it was true that he had condescended to carry a musket, butfrom the very start he had been conscious of a feeling of aversion andrebellion toward that ignorant clown under whose command he was. 

"Very well, " Jean tranquilly replied; "don't blame me if your friendfinds his way to the guardhouse. "

Thereon he turned and went away, assured that Maurice had not beenlying, for the colonel, M. De Vineuil, with his commanding, high-bredmanner and thick white mustache bisecting his long yellow face, passedby just then and saluted Weiss and the soldier with a smile. The colonelpursued his way at a good round pace toward a farmhouse that was visibleoff to the right among the plum trees, a few hundred feet away, wherethe staff had taken up their quarters for the night. No one could saywhether the general commanding the 7th corps was there or not; he wasin deep affliction on account of the death of his brother, slain in theaction at Wissembourg. The brigadier, however, Bourgain-Desfeuilles, inwhose command the 106th was, was certain to be there, brawling as loudas ever, and trundling his fat body about on his short, pudgy legs, withhis red nose and rubicund face, vouchers for the good dinners he hadeaten, and not likely ever to become top-heavy by reason of excessiveweight in his upper story. There was a stir and movement about thefarmhouse that seemed to be momentarily increasing; couriers andorderlies were arriving and departing every minute; they were awaitingthere, with feverish anxiety of impatience, the belated dispatches whichshould advise them of the result of the battle that everyone, all thatlong August day, had felt to be imminent. Where had it been fought? whathad been the issue? As night closed in and darkness shrouded the scene, a foreboding sense of calamity seemed to settle down upon the orchard, upon the scattered stacks of grain about the stables, and spread, andenvelop them in waves of inky blackness. It was said, also, that aPrussian spy had been caught roaming about the camp, and that he hadbeen taken to the house to be examined by the general. Perhaps Colonelde Vineuil had received a telegram of some kind, that he was in suchgreat haste. 

Meantime Maurice had resumed his conversation with his brother-in-lawWeiss and his cousin Honore Fouchard, the quartermaster-sergeant. Retreat, commencing in the remote distance, then gradually swelling involume as it drew near with its blare and rattle, reached them, passedthem, and died away in the solemn stillness of the twilight; they seemedto be quite unconscious of it. The young man was grandson to a hero ofthe Grand Army, and had first seen the light at Chene-Populeux, wherehis father, not caring to tread the path of glory, had held an ill-paidposition as collector of taxes. His mother, a peasant, had died ingiving him birth, him and his twin sister Henriette, who at an early agehad become a second mother to him, and that he was now what he was, a private in the ranks, was owing entirely to his own imprudence, the headlong dissipation of a weak and enthusiastic nature, his moneysquandered and his substance wasted on women, cards, the thousandfollies of the all-devouring minotaur, Paris, when he had concluded hislaw studies there and his relatives had impoverished themselves to makea gentleman of him. His conduct had brought his father to the grave;his sister, when he had stripped her of her little all, had been sofortunate as to find a husband in that excellent young fellow Weiss, whohad long held the position of accountant in the great sugar refinery atChene-Populeux, and was now foreman for M. Delaherche, one of the chiefcloth manufacturers of Sedan. And Maurice, always cheered and encouragedwhen he saw a prospect of amendment in himself, and equally disheartenedwhen his good resolves failed him and he relapsed, generous andenthusiastic but without steadiness of purpose, a weathercock thatshifted with every varying breath of impulse, now believed thatexperience had done its work and taught him the error of his ways. He was a small, light-complexioned man, with a high, well-developedforehead, small nose, and retreating chin, and a pair of attractive grayeyes in a face that indicated intelligence; there were times when hismind seemed to lack balance. 

Weiss, on the eve of the commencement of hostilities, had found thatthere were family matters that made it necessary for him to visitMulhausen, and had made a hurried trip to that city. That he had beenable to employ the good offices of Colonel de Vineuil to afford him anopportunity of shaking hands with his brother-in-law was owing to thecircumstance that that officer was own uncle to young Mme. Delaherche, a pretty young widow whom the cloth manufacturer had married theyear previous, and whom Maurice and Henriette, thanks to their beingneighbors, had known as a girl. In addition to the colonel, moreover, Maurice had discovered that the captain of his company, Beaudoin, wasan acquaintance of Gilberte, Delaherche's young wife; report even had itthat she and the captain had been on terms of intimacy in the days whenshe was Mme. Maginot, living at Meziere, wife of M. Maginot, the timberinspector. 

"Give Henriette a good kiss for me, Weiss, " said the young man, wholoved his sister passionately. "Tell her that she shall have no reasonto complain of me, that I wish her to be proud of her brother. "

Tears rose to his eyes at the remembrance of his misdeeds. Thebrother-in-law, who was also deeply affected, ended the painful scene byturning to Honore Fouchard, the artilleryman. 

"The first time I am anywhere in the neighborhood, " he said, "I will runup to Remilly and tell Uncle Fouchard that I saw you and that you arewell. "

Uncle Fouchard, a peasant, who owned a bit of land and plied the tradeof itinerant butcher, serving his customers from a cart, was a brotherof Henriette's and Maurice's mother. He lived at Remilly, in a houseperched upon a high hill, about four miles from Sedan. 

"Good!" Honore calmly answered; "the father don't worry his head a greatdeal on my account, but go there all the same if you feel inclined. "

At that moment there was a movement over in the direction of thefarmhouse, and they beheld the straggler, the man who had been arrestedas a spy, come forth, free, accompanied only by a single officer. He hadlikely had papers to show, or had trumped up a story of some kind, forthey were simply expelling him from the camp. In the darkening twilight, and at the distance they were, they could not make him out distinctly, only a big, square-shouldered fellow with a rough shock of reddish hair. And yet Maurice gave vent to an exclamation of surprise. 

"Honore! look there. If one wouldn't swear he was the Prussian--youknow, Goliah!"

The name made the artilleryman start as if he had been shot; he strainedhis blazing eyes to follow the receding shape. Goliah Steinberg, thejourneyman butcher, the man who had set him and his father by the ears, who had stolen from him his Silvine; the whole base, dirty, miserablestory, from which he had not yet ceased to suffer! He would have runafter, would have caught him by the throat and strangled him, but theman had already crossed the line of stacked muskets, was moving off andvanishing in the darkness. 

"Oh!" he murmured, "Goliah! no, it can't be he. He is down yonder, fighting on the other side. If I ever come across him--"

He shook his fist with an air of menace at the dusky horizon, at thewide empurpled stretch of eastern sky that stood for Prussia in hiseyes. No one spoke; they heard the strains of retreat again, but verydistant now, away at the extreme end of the camp, blended and lost amongthe hum of other indistinguishable sounds. 

"_Fichtre_!" exclaimed Honore, "I shall have the pleasure of sleeping onthe soft side of a plank in the guard-house unless I make haste back toroll-call. Good-night--adieu, everybody!"

And grasping Weiss by both his hands and giving them a hearty squeeze, he strode swiftly away toward the slight elevation where the guns ofthe reserves were parked, without again mentioning his father's name orsending any word to Silvine, whose name lay at the end of his tongue. 

The minutes slipped away, and over toward the left, where the 2d brigadelay, a bugle sounded. Another, near at hand, replied, and then a third, in the remote distance, took up the strain. Presently there was auniversal blaring, far and near, throughout the camp, whereon Gaude, the bugler of the company, took up his instrument. He was a tall, lank, beardless, melancholy youth, chary of his words, saving his breath forhis calls, which he gave conscientiously, with the vigor of a younghurricane. 

Forthwith Sergeant Sapin, a ceremonious little man with large vagueeyes, stepped forward and began to call the roll. He rattled off thenames in a thin, piping voice, while the men, who had come up and rangedthemselves in front of him, responded in accents of varying pitch, fromthe deep rumble of the violoncello to the shrill note of the piccolo. But there came a hitch in the proceedings. 

"Lapoulle!" shouted the sergeant, calling the name a second time withincreased emphasis. 

There was no response, and Jean rushed off to the place where PrivateLapoulle, egged on by his comrades, was industriously trying to fan therefractory fuel into a blaze; flat on his stomach before the pileof blackening, spluttering wood, his face resembling an underdonebeefsteak, the warrior was now propelling dense clouds of smokehorizontally along the surface of the plain. 

"Thunder and ouns! Quit that, will you!" yelled Jean, "and come andanswer to your name. "

Lapoulle rose to his feet with a dazed look on his face, then appearedto grasp the situation and yelled: "Present!" in such stentorian tonesthat Loubet, pretending to be upset by the concussion, sank to theground in a sitting posture. Pache had finished mending his trousers andanswered in a voice that was barely audible, that sounded more likethe mumbling of a prayer. Chouteau, not even troubling himself to rise, grunted his answer unconcernedly and turned over on his side. 

Lieutenant Rochas, the officer of the guard, was meantime standing a fewsteps away, motionlessly awaiting the conclusion of the ceremony. WhenSergeant Sapin had finished calling the roll and came up to report thatall were present, the officer, with a glance at Weiss, who was stillconversing with Maurice, growled from under his mustache:

"Yes, and one over. What is that civilian doing here?"

"He has the colonel's pass, Lieutenant, " explained Jean, who had heardthe question. 

Rochas made no reply; he shrugged his shoulders disapprovingly andresumed his round among the company streets while waiting for taps tosound. Jean, stiff and sore after his day's march, went and sat down alittle way from Maurice, whose murmured words fell indistinctly upon hisunlistening ear, for he, too, had vague, half formed reflections of hisown that were stirring sluggishly in the recesses of his muddy, torpidmind. 

Maurice was a believer in war in the abstract; he considered it one ofthe necessary evils, essential to the very existence of nations. Thiswas nothing more than the logical sequence of his course in embracingthose theories of evolution which in those days exercised such a potentinfluence on our young men of intelligence and education. Is not lifeitself an unending battle? Does not all nature owe its being to a seriesof relentless conflicts, the survival of the fittest, the maintenanceand renewal of force by unceasing activity; is not death a necessarycondition to young and vigorous life? And he remembered the sensationof gladness that had filled his heart when first the thought occurredto him that he might expiate his errors by enlisting and defending hiscountry on the frontier. It might be that France of the plebiscite, while giving itself over to the Emperor, had not desired war; hehimself, only a week previously, had declared it to be a culpable andidiotic measure. There were long discussions concerning the right of aGerman prince to occupy the throne of Spain; as the question graduallybecame more and more intricate and muddled it seemed as if everyone mustbe wrong, no one right; so that it was impossible to tell from whichside the provocation came, and the only part of the entire business thatwas clear to the eyes of all was the inevitable, the fatal law whichat a given moment hurls nation against nation. Then Paris was convulsedfrom center to circumference; he remembered that burning summer's night, the tossing, struggling human tide that filled the boulevards, the bandsof men brandishing torches before the Hotel de Ville, and yelling:"On to Berlin! on to Berlin!" and he seemed to hear the strains of theMarseillaise, sung by a beautiful, stately woman with the face of aqueen, wrapped in the folds of a flag, from her elevation on the box ofa coach. Was it all a lie, was it true that the heart of Paris had notbeaten then? And then, as was always the case with him, that conditionof nervous excitation had been succeeded by long hours of doubt anddisgust; there were all the small annoyances of the soldier's life; hisarrival at the barracks, his examination by the adjutant, the fitting ofhis uniform by the gruff sergeant, the malodorous bedroom with itsfetid air and filthy floor, the horseplay and coarse language of his newcomrades, the merciless drill that stiffened his limbs and benumbedhis brain. In a week's time, however, he had conquered his firstsqueamishness, and from that time forth was comparatively contented withhis lot; and when the regiment was at last ordered forward to Belfortthe fever of enthusiasm had again taken possession of him. 

For the first few days after they took the field Maurice was convincedthat their success was absolutely certain. The Emperor's plan appearedto him perfectly clear: he would advance four hundred thousand men tothe left bank of the Rhine, pass the river before the Prussians hadcompleted their preparations, separate northern and southern Germanyby a vigorous inroad, and by means of a brilliant victory or two compelAustria and Italy to join hands immediately with France. Had therenot been a short-lived rumor that that 7th corps of which his regimentformed a part was to be embarked at Brest and landed in Denmark, whereit would create a diversion that would serve to neutralize one of thePrussian armies? They would be taken by surprise; the arrogant nationwould be overrun in every direction and crushed utterly within a fewbrief weeks. It would be a military picnic, a holiday excursion fromStrasbourg to Berlin. While they were lying inactive at Belfort, however, his former doubts and fears returned to him. To the 7th corpshad been assigned the duty of guarding the entrance to the Black Forest;it had reached its position in a state of confusion that exceededimagination, deficient in men, material, everything. The 3d divisionwas in Italy; the 2d cavalry brigade had been halted at Lyons to checka threatened rising among the people there, and three batteries hadstraggled off in some direction--where, no one could say. Then theirdestitution in the way of stores and supplies was something wonderful;the depots at Belfort, which were to have furnished everything, wereempty; not a sign of a tent, no mess-kettles, no flannel belts, nohospital supplies, no farriers' forges, not even a horse-shackle. Thequartermaster's and medical departments were without trained assistants. At the very last moment it was discovered that thirty thousand rifleswere practically useless owing to the absence of some small pin or otherinterchangeable mechanism about the breech-blocks, and the officer whoposted off in hot haste to Paris succeeded with the greatest difficultyin securing five thousand of the missing implements. Their inactivity, again, was another matter that kept him on pins and needles; why didthey idle away their time for two weeks? why did they not advance? Hesaw clearly that each day of delay was a mistake that could never berepaired, a chance of victory gone. And if the plan of campaign that hehad dreamed of was clear and precise, its manner of execution was mostlame and impotent, a fact of which he was to learn a great dealmore later on and of which he had then only a faint and glimmeringperception: the seven army corps dispersed along the extended frontierline _en echelon_, from Metz to Bitche and from Bitche to Belfort;the many regiments and squadrons that had been recruited up to onlyhalf-strength or less, so that the four hundred and thirty thousand menon paper melted away to two hundred and thirty thousand at the outside;the jealousies among the generals, each of whom thought only of securingfor himself a marshal's baton, and gave no care to supportinghis neighbor; the frightful lack of foresight, mobilization andconcentration being carried on simultaneously in order to gain time, a process that resulted in confusion worse confounded; a system, in aword, of dry rot and slow paralysis, which, commencing with the head, with the Emperor himself, shattered in health and lacking in promptnessof decision, could not fail ultimately to communicate itself to thewhole army, disorganizing it and annihilating its efficiency, leading itinto disaster from which it had not the means of extricating itself. Andyet, over and above the dull misery of that period of waiting, in theintuitive, shuddering perception of what must infallibly happen, hiscertainty that they must be victors in the end remained unimpaired. 

On the 3d of August the cheerful news had been given to the publicof the victory of Sarrebruck, fought and won the day before. It couldscarcely be called a great victory, but the columns of the newspapersteemed with enthusiastic gush; the invasion of Germany was begun, it wasthe first step in their glorious march to triumph, and the littlePrince Imperial, who had coolly stooped and picked up a bullet from thebattlefield, then commenced to be celebrated in legend. Two dayslater, however, when intelligence came of the surprise and defeat atWissembourg, every mouth was opened to emit a cry of rage and distress. That five thousand men, caught in a trap, had faced thirty-five thousandPrussians all one long summer day, that was not a circumstance to dauntthe courage of anyone; it simply called for vengeance. Yes, the leadershad doubtless been culpably lacking in vigilance and were to be censuredfor their want of foresight, but that would soon be mended; MacMahonhad sent for the 1st division of the 7th corps, the 1st corps would besupported by the 5th, and the Prussians must be across the Rhine againby that time, with the bayonets of our infantry at their backs toaccelerate their movement. And so, beneath the deep, dim vault ofheaven, the thought of the battle that must have raged that day, thefeverish impatience with which the tidings were awaited, the horriblefeeling of suspense that pervaded the air about them, spread from man toman and became each minute more tense and unendurable. 

Maurice was just then saying to Weiss:

"Ah! we have certainly given them a righteous good drubbing to-day. "

Weiss made no reply save to nod his head with an air of anxiety. Hisgaze was directed toward the Rhine, on that Orient region where now thenight had settled down in earnest, like a wall of blackness, concealingstrange forms and shapes of mystery. The concluding strains of thebugles for roll-call had been succeeded by a deep silence, which haddescended upon the drowsy camp and was only broken now and then by thesteps and voices of some wakeful soldiers. A light had been lit--itlooked like a twinkling star--in the main room of the farmhouse wherethe staff, which is supposed never to sleep, was awaiting the telegramsthat came in occasionally, though as yet they were undecided. And thegreen wood fire, now finally left to itself, was still emitting itsfunereal wreaths of dense black smoke, which drifted in the gentlebreeze over the unsleeping farmhouse, obscuring the early stars in theheavens above. 

"A drubbing!" Weiss at last replied, "God grant it may be so!"

Jean, still seated a few steps away, pricked up his ears, whileLieutenant Rochas, noticing that the wish was attended by a doubt, stopped to listen. 

"What!" Maurice rejoined, "have you not confidence? can you believe thatdefeat is possible?"

His brother-in-law silenced him with a gesture; his hands were tremblingwith agitation, his kindly pleasant face was pale and bore an expressionof deep distress. 

"Defeat, ah! Heaven preserve us from that! You know that I was bornin this country; my grandfather and grandmother were murdered by theCossacks in 1814, and whenever I think of invasion it makes me clenchmy fist and grit my teeth; I could go through fire and flood, likea trooper, in my shirt sleeves! Defeat--no, no! I cannot, I will notbelieve it possible. "

He became calmer, allowing his arms to fall by his side indiscouragement. 

"But my mind is not easy, do you see. I know Alsace; I was born there;I am just off a business trip through the country, and we civilianshave opportunities of seeing many things that the generals persist inignoring, although they have them thrust beneath their very eyes. Ah, _we_ wanted war with Prussia as badly as anyone; for a long, long timewe have been waiting patiently for a chance to pay off old scores, butthat did not prevent us from being on neighborly terms with the peoplein Baden and Bavaria; every one of us, almost, has friends or relativesacross the Rhine. It was our belief that they felt like us and would notbe sorry to humble the intolerable insolence of the Prussians. And now, after our long period of uncomplaining expectation, for the past twoweeks we have seen things going from bad to worse, and it vexes andterrifies us. Since the declaration of war the enemy's horse have beensuffered to come among us, terrorizing the villages, reconnoiteringthe country, cutting the telegraph wires. Baden and Bavaria are rising;immense bodies of troops are being concentrated in the Palatinate;information reaches us from every quarter, from the great fairs andmarkets, that our frontier is threatened, and when the citizens, themayors of the communes, take the alarm at last and hurry off to tellyour officers what they know, those gentlemen shrug their shoulders andreply: Those things spring from the imagination of cowards; there is noenemy near here. And when there is not an hour to lose, days and daysare wasted. What are they waiting for? To give the whole German nationtime to concentrate on the other bank of the river?"

His words were uttered in a low, mournful, voice, as if he were recitingto himself a story that had long occupied his thoughts. 

"Ah! Germany, I know her too well; and the terrible part of the businessis that you soldiers seem to know no more about her than you do aboutChina. You must remember my cousin Gunther, Maurice, the young man, who came to pay me a flying visit at Sedan last spring. His mother is asister of my mother, and married a Berliner; the young man is a Germanout and out; he detests everything French. He is a captain in the 5thPrussian corps. I accompanied him to the railway station that night, andhe said to me in his sharp, peremptory way: 'If France declares war onus, she will be soundly whipped!' I can hear his words ringing in myears yet. "

Forthwith, Lieutenant Rochas, who had managed to contain himself untilthen, not without some difficulty, stepped forward in a toweringrage. He was a tall, lean individual of about fifty, with a long, weather-beaten, and wrinkled face; his inordinately long nose, curvedlike the beak of a bird of prey, over a strong but well-shaped mouth, concealed by a thick, bristling mustache that was beginning to betouched with silver. And he shouted in a voice of thunder:

"See here, you, sir! what yarns are those that you are retailing todishearten my men?"

Jean did not interfere with his opinion, but he thought that the lastspeaker was right, for he, too, while beginning to be conscious of theprotracted delay, and the general confusion in their affairs, had neverhad the slightest doubt about that terrible thrashing they were certainto give the Prussians. There could be no question about the matter, forwas not that the reason of their being there?

"But I am not trying to dishearten anyone, Lieutenant, " Weiss answeredin astonishment. "Quite the reverse; I am desirous that others shouldknow what I know, because then they will be able to act with their eyesopen. Look here! that Germany of which we were speaking--"

And he went on in his clear, demonstrative way to explain the reason ofhis fears: how Prussia had increased her resources since Sadowa; how thenational movement had placed her at the head of the other German states, a mighty empire in process of formation and rejuvenation, withthe constant hope and desire for unity as the incentive to theirirresistible efforts; the system of compulsory military service, whichmade them a nation of trained soldiers, provided with the most effectivearms of modern invention, with generals who were masters in the artof strategy, proudly mindful still of the crushing defeat they hadadministered to Austria; the intelligence, the moral force that residedin that army, commanded as it was almost exclusively by young generals, who in turn looked up to a commander-in-chief who seemed destinedto revolutionize the art of war, whose prudence and foresight wereunparalleled, whose correctness of judgment was a thing to wonder at. And in contrast to that picture of Germany he pointed to France: theEmpire sinking into senile decrepitude, sanctioned by the plebiscite, but rotten at its foundation, destroying liberty, and therein stiflingevery idea of patriotism, ready to give up the ghost as soon as itshould cease to satisfy the unworthy appetites to which it had givenbirth; then there was the army, brave, it was true, as was to beexpected from men of their race, and covered with Crimean and Italianlaurels, but vitiated by the system that permitted men to purchasesubstitutes for a money consideration, abandoned to the antiquatedmethods of African routine, too confident of victory to keep abreastwith the more perfect science of modern times; and, finally, thegenerals, men for the most part not above mediocrity, consumed by pettyrivalries, some of them of an ignorance beyond all belief, and at theirhead the Emperor, an ailing, vacillating man, deceiving himself andeveryone with whom he had dealings in that desperate venture on whichthey were embarking, into which they were all rushing blindfold, with nopreparation worthy of the name, with the panic and confusion of a flockof sheep on its way to the shambles. 

Rochas stood listening, open-mouthed, and with staring eyes; histerrible nose dilated visibly. Then suddenly his lantern jaws parted toemit an obstreperous, Homeric peal of laughter. 

"What are you giving us there, you? what do you mean by all thatsilly lingo? Why, there is not the first word of sense in your wholeharangue--it is too idiotic to deserve an answer. Go and tell thosethings to the recruits, but don't tell them to me; no! not to me, whohave seen twenty-seven years of service. "

And he gave himself a thump on the breast with his doubled fist. He wasthe son of a master mason who had come from Limousin to Paris, where theson, not taking kindly to the paternal handicraft, had enlisted at theage of eighteen. He had been a soldier of fortune and had carried theknapsack, was corporal in Africa, sergeant in the Crimea, and afterSolferino had been made lieutenant, having devoted fifteen years oflaborious toil and heroic bravery to obtaining that rank, and was soilliterate that he had no chance of ever getting his captaincy. 

"You, sir, who think you know everything, let me tell you a thing youdon't know. Yes, at Mazagran I was scarce nineteen years old, and therewere twenty-three of us, not a living soul more, and for more than fourdays we held out against twelve thousand Arabs. Yes, indeed! for yearsand years, if you had only been with us out there in Africa, sir, atMascara, at Biskra, at Dellys, after that in Grand Kabylia, after thatagain at Laghouat, you would have seen those dirty niggers run like deeras soon as we showed our faces. And at Sebastopol, sir, _fichtre_! youwouldn't have said it was the pleasantest place in the world. The windblew fit to take a man's hair out by the roots, it was cold enough tofreeze a brass monkey, and those beggars kept us on a continual dancewith their feints and sorties. Never mind; we made them dance in theend; we danced them into the big hot frying pan, and to quick music, too! And Solferino, you were not there, sir! then why do you speak ofit? Yes, at Solferino, where it was so hot, although I suppose more rainfell there that day than you have seen in your whole life, at Solferino, where we had our little brush with the Austrians, it would have warmedyour heart to see how they vanished before our bayonets, riding oneanother down in their haste to get away from us, as if their coat tailswere on fire!"

He laughed the gay, ringing laugh of the daredevil French soldier; heseemed to expand and dilate with satisfaction. It was the old story:the French trooper going about the world with his girl on his arm and aglass of good wine in his hand; thrones upset and kingdoms conquered inthe singing of a merry song. Given a corporal and four men, and greatarmies would bite the dust. His voice suddenly sank to a low, rumblingbass:

"What! whip France? We, whipped by those Prussian pigs, we!" He came upto Weiss and grasped him violently by the lapel of his coat. His entirelong frame, lean as that of the immortal Knight Errant, seemed tobreathe defiance and unmitigated contempt for the foe, whoever he mightbe, regardless of time, place, or any other circumstance. "Listen towhat I tell you, sir. If the Prussians dare to show their faces here, wewill kick them home again. You hear me? we will kick them from here toBerlin. " His bearing and manner were superb; the serene tranquillity ofthe child, the candid conviction of the innocent who knows nothing andfears nothing. "_Parbleu_! it is so, because it is so, and that's allthere is about it!"

Weiss, stunned and almost convinced, made haste to declare that hewished for nothing better. As for Maurice, who had prudently held histongue, not venturing to express an opinion in presence of his superiorofficer, he concluded by joining in the other's merriment; he warmedthe cockles of his heart, that devil of a man, whom he neverthelessconsidered rather stupid. Jean, too, had nodded his approval at everyone of the lieutenant's assertions. He had also been at Solferino, whereit rained so hard. And that showed what it was to have a tongue in one'shead and know how to use it. If all the leaders had talked like thatthey would not be in such a mess, and there would be camp-kettles andflannel belts in abundance. 

It was quite dark by this time, and Rochas continued to gesticulate andbrandish his long arms in the obscurity. His historical studies had beenconfined to a stray volume of Napoleonic memoirs that had found its wayto his knapsack from a peddler's wagon. His excitement refused to bepacified and all his book-learning burst from his lips in a torrent ofeloquence:

"We flogged the Austrians at Castiglione, at Marengo, at Austerlitz, at Wagram; we flogged the Prussians at Eylau, at Jena, at Lutzen; weflogged the Russians at Friedland, at Smolensk and at the Moskowa; weflogged Spain and England everywhere; all creation flogged, flogged, flogged, up and down, far and near, at home and abroad, and now you tellme that it is we who are to take the flogging! Why, pray tell me? How?Is the world coming to an end?" He drew his tall form up higher stilland raised his arm aloft, like the staff of a battle-flag. "Look you, there has been a fight to-day, down yonder, and we are waiting for thenews. Well! I will tell you what the news is--I will tell you, I! Wehave flogged the Prussians, flogged them until they didn't know whetherthey were a-foot or a-horseback, flogged them to powder, so that theyhad to be swept up in small pieces!"

At that moment there passed over the camp, beneath the somber heavens, aloud, wailing cry. Was it the plaint of some nocturnal bird? Or was it amysterious voice, reaching them from some far-distant field of carnage, ominous of disaster? The whole camp shuddered, lying there in theshadows, and the strained, tense sensation of expectant anxiety thathung, miasma-like, in the air became more strained, more feverish, asthey waited for telegrams that seemed as if they would never come. In the distance, at the farmhouse, the candle that lighted thedreary watches of the staff burned up more brightly, with an erect, unflickering flame, as if it had been of wax instead of tallow. 

But it was ten o'clock, and Gaude, rising to his feet from the groundwhere he had been lost in the darkness, sounded taps, the first in allthe camp. Other bugles, far and near, took up the strain, and it passedaway in the distance with a dying, melancholy wail, as if the angel ofslumber had already brushed with his wings the weary men. And Weiss, whohad lingered there so late, embraced Maurice affectionately; courage, and hope! he would kiss Henriette for her brother and would have manythings to tell uncle Fouchard when they met. Then, just as he wasturning to go, a rumor began to circulate, accompanied by the wildestexcitement. A great victory had been won by Marshal MacMahon, so thereport ran; the Crown Prince of Prussia a prisoner, with twenty-fivethousand men, the enemy's army repulsed and utterly destroyed, its gunsand baggage abandoned to the victors. 

"Didn't I tell you so!" shouted Rochas, in his most thundering voice. Then, running after Weiss, who, light of heart, was hastening to getback to Mulhausen: "To Berlin, sir, and we'll kick them every step ofthe way!"

A quarter of an hour later came another dispatch, announcing that thearmy had been compelled to evacuate Woerth and was retreating. Ah, whata night was that! Rochas, overpowered by sleep, wrapped his cloak abouthim, threw himself down on the bare ground, as he had done many a timebefore. Maurice and Jean sought the shelter of the tent, into which werecrowded, a confused tangle of arms and legs, Loubet, Chouteau, Pache, and Lapoulle, their heads resting on their knapsacks. There was room forsix, provided they were careful how they disposed of their legs. Loubet, by way of diverting his comrades and making them forget their hunger, had labored for some time to convince Lapoulle that there was to be aration of poultry issued the next morning, but they were too sleepy tokeep up the joke; they were snoring, and the Prussians might come, itwas all one to them. Jean lay for a moment without stirring, pressingclose against Maurice; notwithstanding his fatigue he was unable tosleep; he could not help thinking of the things that gentleman had said, how all Germany was up in arms and preparing to pour her devastatinghordes across the Rhine; and he felt that his tent-mate was notsleeping, either--was thinking of the same things as he. Then the latterturned over impatiently and moved away, and the other understood thathis presence was not agreeable. There was a lack of sympathy between thepeasant and the man of culture, an enmity of caste and education thatamounted almost to physical aversion. The former, however, experienceda sensation of shame and sadness at this condition of affairs; heshrinkingly drew in his limbs so as to occupy as small a space aspossible, endeavoring to escape from the hostile scorn that he wasvaguely conscious of in his neighbor. But although the night windwithout had blown up chill, the crowded tent was so stifling hot andclose that Maurice, in a fever of exasperation, raised the flap, dartedout, and went and stretched himself on the ground a few steps away. That made Jean still more unhappy, and in his half-sleeping, half-wakingcondition he had troubled dreams, made up of a regretful feeling thatno one cared for him, and a vague apprehension of impending calamity ofwhich he seemed to hear the steps approaching with measured tread fromthe shadowy, mysterious depths of the unknown. 

Two hours passed, and all the camp lay lifeless, motionless under theoppression of the deep, weird darkness, that was instinct with somedreadful horror as yet without a name. Out of the sea of blackness camestifled sighs and moans; from an invisible tent was heard something thatsounded like the groan of a dying man, the fitful dream of some tiredsoldier. Then there were other sounds that to the strained ear losttheir familiarity and became menaces of approaching evil; the neighingof a charger, the clank of a sword, the hurrying steps of some belatedprowler. And all at once, off toward the canteens, a great light flamedup. The entire front was brilliantly illuminated; the long, regularlyaligned array of stacks stood out against the darkness, and the ruddyblaze, reflected from the burnished barrels of the rifles, assumed thehue of new-shed blood; the erect, stern figures of the sentries becamevisible in the fiery glow. Could it be the enemy, whose presence theleaders had been talking of for the past two days, and on whose trailthey had come out from Belfort to Mulhausen? Then a shower of sparksrose high in the air and the conflagration subsided. It was only thepile of green wood that had been so long the object of Loubet's andLapoulle's care, and which, after having smoldered for many hours, hadat last flashed up like a fire of straw. 

Jean, alarmed by the vivid light, hastily left the tent and was nearfalling over Maurice, who had raised himself on his elbow. The darknessseemed by contrast more opaque than it had been before, and the two menlay stretched on the bare ground, a few paces from each other. All thatthey could descry before them in the dense shadows of the night was thewindow of the farm-house, faintly illuminated by the dim candle, whichshone with a sinister gleam, as if it were doing duty by the bedside ofa corpse. What time was it? two o'clock, or three, perhaps. It was plainthat the staff had not made acquaintance with their beds that night. They could hear Bourgain-Desfeuilles' loud, disputatious voice; thegeneral was furious that his rest should be broken thus, and it requiredmany cigars and toddies to pacify him. More telegrams came in; thingsmust be going badly; silhouettes of couriers, faintly drawn against theuncertain sky line, could be descried, galloping madly. There was thesound of scuffling steps, imprecations, a smothered cry as of a mansuddenly stricken down, followed by a blood-freezing silence. What couldit be? Was it the end? A breath, chill and icy as that from the lips ofdeath, had passed over the camp that lay lost in slumber and agonizedexpectation. 

It was at that moment that Jean and Maurice recognized in the tall, thin, spectral form that passed swiftly by, their colonel, de Vineuil. He was accompanied by the regimental surgeon, Major Bouroche, a largeman with a leonine face They were conversing in broken, unfinishedsentences, whisperingly, such a conversation as we sometimes hear indreams. 

"It came by the way of Basle. Our 1st division all cut to pieces. Thebattle lasted twelve hours; the whole army is retreating--"

The colonel's specter halted and called by name another specter, whichcame lightly forward; it was an elegant ghost, faultless in uniform andequipment. 

"Is that you, Beaudoin?"

"Yes, Colonel. "

"Ah! bad news, my friend, terrible news! MacMahon beaten atFroeschwiller, Frossard beaten at Spickeren, and between them de Failly, held in check where he could give no assistance. At Froeschwiller it wasa single corps against an entire army; they fought like heroes. It was acomplete rout, a panic, and now France lies open to their advance--"

His tears choked further utterance, the words came from his lipsunintelligible, and the three shadows vanished, swallowed up in theobscurity. 

Maurice rose to his feet; a shudder ran through his frame. 

"Good God!" he stammeringly exclaimed. 

And he could think of nothing else to say, while Jean, in whose bonesthe very marrow seemed to be congealing, murmured in his resignedmanner:

"Ah, worse luck! The gentleman, that relative of yours, was right allthe same in saying that they are stronger than we. "

Maurice was beside himself, could have strangled him. The Prussiansstronger than the French! The thought made his blood boil. The peasantcalmly and stubbornly added:

"That don't matter, mind you. A man don't give up whipped at the firstknock-down he gets. We shall have to keep hammering away at them all thesame. "

But a tall figure arose before them. They recognized Rochas, stillwrapped in his long mantle, whom the fugitive sounds about him, or itmay have been the intuition of disaster, had awakened from his uneasyslumber. He questioned them, insisted on knowing all. When he wasfinally brought, with much difficulty, to see how matters stood, stupor, immense and profound, filled his boyish, inexpressive eyes. More thanten times in succession he repeated:

"Beaten! How beaten? Why beaten?"

And that was the calamity that had lain hidden in the blackness of thatnight of agony. And now the pale dawn was appearing at the portals ofthe east, heralding a day heavy with bitterest sorrow and striking whiteupon the silent tents, in one of which began to be visible the ashyfaces of Loubet and Lapoulle, of Chouteau and of Pache, who were snoringstill with wide-open mouths. Forth from the thin mists that were slowlycreeping upward from the river off yonder in the distance came the newday, bringing with it mourning and affliction. 

II. 

About eight o'clock the sun dispersed the heavy clouds, and the broad, fertile plain about Mulhausen lay basking in the warm, bright light of aperfect August Sunday. From the camp, now awake and bustling with life, could be heard the bells of the neighboring parishes, pealing merrilyin the limpid air. The cheerful Sunday following so close on ruin anddefeat had its own gayety, its sky was as serene as on a holiday. 

Gaude suddenly took his bugle and gave the call that announced thedistribution of rations, whereat Loubet appeared astonished. What wasit? What did it mean? Were they going to give out chickens, as he hadpromised Lapoulle the night before? He had been born in the Halles, in the Rue de la Cossonerie, was the unacknowledged son of a smallhuckster, had enlisted "for the money there was in it, " as he said, after having been a sort of Jack-of-all-trades, and was now thegourmand, the epicure of the company, continually nosing after somethinggood to eat. But he went off to see what was going on, while Chouteau, the company artist, house-painter by trade at Belleville, something of adandy and a revolutionary republican, exasperated against the governmentfor having called him back to the colors after he had served his time, was cruelly chaffing Pache, whom he had discovered on his knees, behindthe tent, preparing to say his prayers. There was a pious man for you!Couldn't he oblige him, Chouteau, by interceding with God to give hima hundred thousand francs or some such small trifle? But Pache, aninsignificant little fellow with a head running up to a point, who hadcome to them from some hamlet in the wilds of Picardy, received theother's raillery with the uncomplaining gentleness of a martyr. He wasthe butt of the squad, he and Lapoulle, the colossal brute who hadgot his growth in the marshes of the Sologne, so utterly ignorant ofeverything that on the day of his joining the regiment he had asked hiscomrades to show him the King. And although the terrible tidings of thedisaster at Froeschwiller had been known throughout the camp since earlymorning, the four men laughed, joked, and went about their usual taskswith the indifference of so many machines. 

But there arose a murmur of pleased surprise. It was occasioned by Jean, the corporal, coming back from the commissary's, accompanied by Maurice, with a load of firewood. So, they were giving out wood at last, the lackof which the night before had deprived the men of their soup! Twelvehours behind time, only!

"Hurrah for the commissary!" shouted Chouteau. 

"Never mind, so long as it is here, " said Loubet. "Ah! won't I make youa bully _pot-au-feu_!"

He was usually quite willing to take charge of the mess arrangements, and no one was inclined to say him nay, for he cooked like an angel. Onthose occasions, however, Lapoulle would be given the most extraordinarycommissions to execute. 

"Go and look after the champagne--Go out and buy some truffles--"

On that morning a queer conceit flashed across his mind, such aconceit as only a Parisian _gamin_ contemplating the mystification of agreenhorn is capable of entertaining:

"Look alive there, will you! Come, hand me the chicken. "

"The chicken! what chicken, where?"

"Why, there on the ground at your feet, stupid; the chicken that Ipromised you last night, and that the corporal has just brought in. "

He pointed to a large, white, round stone, and Lapoulle, speechless withwonder, finally picked it up and turned it about between his fingers. 

"A thousand thunders! Will you wash the chicken! More yet; wash itsclaws, wash its neck! Don't be afraid of the water, lazybones!"

And for no reason at all except the joke of it, because the prospect ofthe soup made him gay and sportive, he tossed the stone along with themeat into the kettle filled with water. 

"That's what will give the bouillon a flavor! Ah, you didn't know that, _sacree andouille_! You shall have the pope's nose; you'll see howtender it is. "

The squad roared with laughter at sight of Lapoulle's face, whoswallowed everything and was licking his chops in anticipation of thefeast. That funny dog, Loubet, he was the man to cure one of the dumpsif anybody could! And when the fire began to crackle in the sunlight, and the kettle commenced to hum and bubble, they ranged themselvesreverently about it in a circle with an expression of cheerfulsatisfaction on their faces, watching the meat as it danced up and downand sniffing the appetizing odor that it exhaled. They were as hungry asa pack of wolves, and the prospect of a square meal made them forgetfulof all beside. They had had to take a thrashing, but that was no reasonwhy a man should not fill his stomach. Fires were blazing and pots wereboiling from one end of the camp to the other, and amid the silverypeals of the bells that floated from Mulhausen steeples mirth andjollity reigned supreme. 

But just as the clocks were on the point of striking nine a commotionarose and spread among the men; officers came running up, and LieutenantRochas, to whom Captain Beaudoin had come and communicated an order, passed along in front of the tents of his platoon and gave the command:

"Pack everything! Get yourselves ready to march!"

"But the soup?"

"You will have to wait for your soup until some other day; we are tomarch at once. "

Gaude's bugle rang out in imperious accents. Then everywhere wasconsternation; dumb, deep rage was depicted on every countenance. What, march on an empty stomach! Could they not wait a little hour until thesoup was ready! The squad resolved that their bouillon should not go towaste, but it was only so much hot water, and the uncooked meat waslike leather to their teeth. Chouteau growled and grumbled, almostmutinously. Jean had to exert all his authority to make the men hastentheir preparations. What was the great urgency that made it necessaryfor them to hurry off like that? What good was there in hazing peopleabout in that style, without giving them time to regain their strength?And Maurice shrugged his shoulders incredulously when someone said inhis hearing that they were about to march against the Prussians andsettle old scores with them. In less than fifteen minutes the tents werestruck, folded, and strapped upon the knapsacks, the stacks were broken, and all that remained of the camp was the dying embers of the fires onthe bare ground. 

There were reasons, of importance that had induced General Douay'sdetermination to retreat immediately. The despatch from the_sous-prefet_ at Schelestadt, now three days old, was confirmed; therewere telegrams that the fires of the Prussians, threatening Markolsheim, had again been seen, and again, another telegram informed them thatone of the enemy's army corps was crossing the Rhine at Huningue: theintelligence was definite and abundant; cavalry and artillery had beensighted in force, infantry had been seen, hastening from every directionto their point of concentration. Should they wait an hour theenemy would surely be in their rear and retreat on Belfort wouldbe impossible. And now, in the shock consequent on defeat, afterWissembourg and Froeschwiller, the general, feeling himself unsupportedin his exposed position at the front, had nothing left to do but fallback in haste, and the more so that what news he had received thatmorning made the situation look even worse than it had appeared thenight before. 

The staff had gone on ahead at a sharp trot, spurring their horses inthe fear lest the Prussians might get into Altkirch before them. GeneralBourgain-Desfeuilles, aware that he had a hard day's work before him, had prudently taken Mulhausen in his way, where he fortified himselfwith a copious breakfast, denouncing in language more forcible thanelegant such hurried movements. And Mulhausen watched with sorrowfuleyes the officers trooping through her streets; as the news of theretreat spread the citizens streamed out of their houses, deploringthe sudden departure of the army for whose coming they had prayedso earnestly: they were to be abandoned, then, and all the costlymerchandise that was stacked up in the railway station was to become thespoil of the enemy; within a few hours their pretty city was to be inthe hands of foreigners? The inhabitants of the villages, too, and ofisolated houses, as the staff clattered along the country roads, plantedthemselves before their doors with wonder and consternation depicted ontheir faces. What! that army, that a short while before they had seenmarching forth to battle, was now retiring without having fired a shot?The leaders were gloomy, urged their chargers forward and refused toanswer questions, as if ruin and disaster were galloping at their heels. It was true, then, that the Prussians had annihilated the army and werestreaming into France from every direction, like the angry waves ofa stream that had burst its barriers? And already to the frightenedpeasants the air seemed filled with the muttering of distant invasion, rising louder and more threatening at every instant, and already theywere beginning to forsake their little homes and huddle their poorbelongings into farm-carts; entire families might be seen fleeingin single file along the roads that were choked with the retreatingcavalry. 

In the hurry and confusion of the movement the 106th was brought to ahalt at the very first kilometer of their march, near the bridge overthe canal of the Rhone and Rhine. The order of march had been badlyplanned and still more badly executed, so that the entire 2d divisionwas collected there in a huddle, and the way was so narrow, barelymore than sixteen feet in width, that the passage of the troops wasobstructed. 

Two hours elapsed, and still the 106th stood there watching theseemingly endless column that streamed along before their eyes. Inthe end the men, standing at rest with ordered arms, began to becomeimpatient. Jean's squad, whose position happened to be opposite a breakin the line of poplars where the sun had a fair chance at them, feltthemselves particularly aggrieved. 

"Guess we must be the rear-guard, " Loubet observed with good-naturedraillery. 

But Chouteau scolded: "They don't value us at a brass farthing, andthat's why they let us wait this way. We were here first; why didn't wetake the road while it was empty?"

And as they began to discern more clearly beyond the canal, acrossthe wide fertile plain, along the level roads lined with hop-poles andfields of ripening grain, the movement of the troops retiring along thesame way by which they had advanced but yesterday, gibes and jeers roseon the air in a storm of angry ridicule. 

"Ah, we are taking the back track, " Chouteau continued. "I wonder ifthat is the advance against the enemy that they have been dinning in ourears of late! Strikes me as rather queer! No sooner do we get into campthan we turn tail and make off, never even stopping to taste our soup. "

The derisive laughter became louder, and Maurice, who was next toChouteau in the ranks, took sides with him. Why could they not havebeen allowed to cook their soup and eat it in peace, since they had donenothing for the last two hours but stand there in the road like so manysticks? Their hunger was making itself felt again; they had a resentfulrecollection of the savory contents of the kettle dumped out prematurelyupon the ground, and they could see no necessity for this headlongretrograde movement, which appeared to them idiotic and cowardly. Whatchicken-livers they must be, those generals!

But Lieutenant Rochas came along and blew up Sergeant Sapin for notkeeping his men in better order, and Captain Beaudoin, very prim andstarchy, attracted by the disturbance, appeared upon the scene. 

"Silence in the ranks!"

Jean, an old soldier of the army of Italy who knew what discipline was, looked in silent amazement at Maurice, who appeared to be amused byChouteau's angry sneers; and he wondered how it was that a _monsieur_, ayoung man of his acquirements, could listen approvingly to things--theymight be true, all the same--but that should not be blurted out inpublic. The army would never accomplish much, that was certain, ifthe privates were to take to criticizing the generals and giving theiropinions. 

At last, after another hour's waiting, the order was given for the 106thto advance, but the bridge was still so encumbered by the rear of thedivision that the greatest confusion prevailed. Several regiments becameinextricably mingled, and whole companies were swept away and compelledto cross whether they would or no, while others, crowded off to the sideof the road, had to stand there and mark time; and by way of puttingthe finishing touch to the muddle; a squadron of cavalry insisted onpassing, pressing back into the adjoining fields the stragglers that theinfantry had scattered along the roadside. At the end of an hour's marchthe column had entirely lost its formation and was dragging its slowlength along, a mere disorderly rabble. 

Thus it happened that Jean found himself away at the rear, lost in asunken road, together with his squad, whom he had been unwilling toabandon. The 106th had disappeared, nor was there a man or an officerof their company in sight. About them were soldiers, singly or in littlegroups, from all the regiments, a weary, foot-sore crew, knocked up atthe beginning of the retreat, each man straggling on at his own sweetwill whithersoever the path that he was on might chance to lead him. Thesun beat down fiercely, the heat was stifling, and the knapsack, loadedas it was with the tent and implements of every description, made aterrible burden on the shoulders of the exhausted men. To many of themthe experience was an entirely new one, and the heavy great-coats theywore seemed to them like vestments of lead. The first to set an examplefor the others was a little pale faced soldier with watery eyes; he drewbeside the road and let his knapsack slide off into the ditch, heavinga deep sigh as he did so, the long drawn breath of a dying man who feelshimself coming back to life. 

"There's a man who knows what he is about, " muttered Chouteau. 

He still continued to plod along, however, his back bending beneath itsweary burden, but when he saw two others relieve themselves as the firsthad done he could stand it no longer. "Ah! _zut_!" he exclaimed, andwith a quick upward jerk of the shoulder sent his kit rolling down anembankment. Fifty pounds at the end of his backbone, he had had enoughof it, thank you! He was no beast of burden to lug that load about. 

Almost at the same moment Loubet followed his lead and incited Lapoulleto do the same. Pache, who had made the sign of the cross at every stonecrucifix they came to, unbuckled the straps and carefully deposited hisload at the foot of a low wall, as if fully intending to come back forit at some future time. And when Jean turned his head for a look at hismen he saw that every one of them had dropped his burden except Maurice. 

"Take up your knapsacks unless you want to have me put under arrest!"

But the men, although they did not mutiny as yet, were silent and lookedugly; they kept advancing along the narrow road, pushing the corporalbefore them. 

"Will you take up your knapsacks! if you don't I will report you. "

It was as if Maurice had been lashed with a whip across the face. Reportthem! that brute of a peasant would report those poor devils for easingtheir aching shoulders! And looking Jean defiantly in the face, he, too, in an impulse of blind rage, slipped the buckles and let his knapsackfall to the road. 

"Very well, " said the other in his quiet way, knowing that resistancewould be of no avail, "we will settle accounts to-night. "

Maurice's feet hurt him abominably; the big, stiff shoes, to which hewas not accustomed, had chafed the flesh until the blood came. He wasnot strong; his spinal column felt as if it were one long raw sore, although the knapsack that had caused the suffering was no longer there, and the weight of his piece, which he kept shifting from one shoulderto the other, seemed as if it would drive all the breath from his body. Great as his physical distress was, however, his moral agony was greaterstill, for he was in the depths of one of those fits of despair to whichhe was subject. At Paris the sum of his wrongdoing had been merely thefoolish outbreaks of "the other man, " as he put it, of his weak, boyishnature, capable of more serious delinquency should he be subjected totemptation, but now, in this retreat that was so like a rout, in whichhe was dragging himself along with weary steps beneath a blazing sun, hefelt all hope and courage vanishing from his heart, he was but a beastin that belated, straggling herd that filled the roads and fields. It was the reaction after the terrible disasters at Wissembourg andFroeschwiller, the echo of the thunder-clap that had burst in the remotedistance, leagues and leagues away, rattling at the heels of thosepanic-stricken men who were flying before they had ever seen an enemy. What was there to hope for now? Was it not all ended? They were beaten;all that was left them was to lie down and die. 

"It makes no difference, " shouted Loubet, with the _blague_ of a childof the Halles, "but this is not the Berlin road we are traveling, allthe same. "

To Berlin! To Berlin! The cry rang in Maurice's ears, the yell of theswarming mob that filled the boulevards on that midsummer night offrenzied madness when he had determined to enlist. The gentle breeze hadbecome a devastating hurricane; there had been a terrific explosion, and all the sanguine temper of his nation had manifested itself in hisabsolute, enthusiastic confidence, which had vanished utterly at thevery first reverse, before the unreasoning impulse of despair that wassweeping him away among those vagrant soldiers, vanquished and dispersedbefore they had struck a stroke. 

"This confounded blunderbuss must weigh a ton, I think, " Loubet went on. "This is fine music to march by!" And alluding to the sum he received assubstitute: "I don't care what people say, but fifteen hundred 'balls'for a job like this is downright robbery. Just think of the pipes he'llsmoke, sitting by his warm fire, the stingy old miser in whose place I'mgoing to get my brains knocked out!"

"As for me, " growled Chouteau, "I had finished my time. I was going tocut the service, and they keep me for their beastly war. Ah! true as Istand here, I must have been born to bad luck to have got myself intosuch a mess. And now the officers are going to let the Prussians knockus about as they please, and we're dished and done for. " He had beenswinging his piece to and fro in his hand; in his discouragement he gaveit a toss and landed it on the other side of the hedge. "Eh! get yougone for a dirty bit of old iron!"

The musket made two revolutions in the air and fell into a furrow, whereit lay, long and motionless, reminding one somehow of a corpse. Otherssoon flew to join it, and presently the field was filled with abandonedarms, lying in long winrows, a sorrowful spectacle beneath the blazingsky. It was an epidemic of madness, caused by the hunger that wasgnawing at their stomach, the shoes that galled their feet, their wearymarch, the unexpected defeat that had brought the enemy galloping attheir heels. There was nothing more to be accomplished; their leaderswere looking out for themselves, the commissariat did not even feedthem; nothing but weariness and worriment; better to leave the wholebusiness at once, before it was begun. And what then? why, the musketmight go and keep the knapsack company; in view of the work that wasbefore them they might at least as well keep their arms free. And alldown the long line of stragglers that stretched almost far as the eyecould reach in the smooth and fertile country the muskets flew throughthe air to the accompaniment of jeers and laughter such as would havebefitted the inmates of a lunatic asylum out for a holiday. 

Loubet, before parting with his, gave it a twirl as a drum-major doeshis cane. Lapoulle, observing what all his comrades were doing, musthave supposed the performance to be some recent innovation in themanual, and followed suit, while Pache, in the confused idea of dutythat he owed to his religious education, refused to do as the rest weredoing and was loaded with obloquy by Chouteau, who called him a priest'swhelp. 

"Look at the sniveling papist! And all because his old peasant of amother used to make him swallow the holy wafer every Sunday in thevillage church down there! Be off with you and go serve mass; a man whowon't stick with his comrades when they are right is a poor-spiritedcur. "

Maurice toiled along dejectedly in silence, bowing his head beneath theblazing sun. At every step he took he seemed to be advancing deeperinto a horrid, phantom-haunted nightmare; it was as if he saw a yawning, gaping gulf before him toward which he was inevitably tending; itmeant that he was suffering himself to be degraded to the level of themiserable beings by whom he was surrounded, that he was prostituting histalents and his position as a man of education. 

"Hold!" he said abruptly to Chouteau, "what you say is right; there istruth in it. "

And already he had deposited his musket upon a pile of stones, whenJean, who had tried without success to check the shameful proceedings ofhis men, saw what he was doing and hurried toward him. 

"Take up your musket, at once! Do you hear me? take it up at once!"

Jean's face had flushed with sudden anger. Meekest and most pacific ofmen, always prone to measures of conciliation, his eyes were now blazingwith wrath, his voice spoke with the thunders of authority. His men hadnever before seen him in such a state, and they looked at one another inastonishment. 

"Take up your musket at once, or you will have me to deal with!"

Maurice was quivering with anger; he let fall one single word, intowhich he infused all the insult that he had at command:

"Peasant!"

"Yes, that's just it; I am a peasant, while you, you, are a gentleman!And it is for that reason that you are a pig! Yes! a dirty pig! I makeno bones of telling you of it. "

Yells and cat-calls arose all around him, but the corporal continuedwith extraordinary force and dignity:

"When a man has learning he shows it by his actions. If we are brutesand peasants, you owe us the benefit of your example, since you knowmore than we do. Take up your musket, or _Nom de Dieu!_ I will have youshot the first halt we make. "

Maurice was daunted; he stooped and raised the weapon in his hand. Tearsof rage stood in his eyes. He reeled like a drunken man as he laboredonward, surrounded by his comrades, who now were jeering at him forhaving yielded. Ah, that Jean! he felt that he should never cease tohate him, cut to the quick as he had been by that bitter lesson, which he could not but acknowledge he had deserved. And when Chouteau, marching at his side, growled: "When corporals are that way, we justwait for a battle and blow a hole in 'em, " the landscape seemed redbefore his eyes, and he had a distinct vision of himself blowing Jean'sbrains out from behind a wall. 

But an incident occurred to divert their thoughts; Loubet noticed thatwhile the dispute was going on Pache had also abandoned his musket, laying it down tenderly at the foot of an embankment. Why? What werethe reasons that had made him resist the example of his comrades inthe first place, and what were the reasons that influenced him now? Heprobably could not have told himself, nor did he trouble his head aboutthe matter, chuckling inwardly with silent enjoyment, like a schoolboywho, having long been held up as a model for his mates, commits hisfirst offense. He strode along with a self-contented, rakish air, swinging his arms; and still along the dusty, sunlit roads, betweenthe golden grain and the fields of hops that succeeded one another withtiresome monotony, the human tide kept pouring onward; the stragglers, without arms or knapsacks, were now but a shuffling, vagrant mob, a disorderly array of vagabonds and beggars, at whose approach thefrightened villagers barred their doors. 

Something that happened just then capped the climax of Maurice's misery. A deep, rumbling noise had for some time been audible in the distance;it was the artillery, that had been the last to leave the camp and whoseleading guns now wheeled into sight around a bend in the road, barelygiving the footsore infantrymen time to seek safety in the fields. It was an entire regiment of six batteries, and came up in column, insplendid order, at a sharp trot, the colonel riding on the flank at thecenter of the line, every officer at his post. The guns went rattling, bounding by, accurately maintaining their prescribed distances, eachaccompanied by its caisson, men and horses, beautiful in the perfectsymmetry of its arrangement; and in the 5th battery Maurice recognizedhis cousin Honore. A very smart and soldierly appearance thequartermaster-sergeant presented on horseback in his position on theleft hand of the forward driver, a good-looking light-haired man, Adolphe by name, whose mount was a sturdy chestnut, admirably matchedwith the mate that trotted at his side, while in his proper place amongthe six men who were seated on the chests of the gun and its caissonwas the gunner, Louis, a small, dark man, Adolphe's comrade; theyconstituted a team, as it is called, in accordance with the rule of theservice that couples a mounted and an unmounted man together. They allappeared bigger and taller to Maurice, somehow, than when he first madetheir acquaintance at the camp, and the gun, to which four horses wereattached, followed by the caisson drawn by six, seemed to him asbright and refulgent as a sun, tended and cherished as it was by itsattendants, men and animals, who closed around it protectingly as if ithad been a living sentient relative; and then, besides, the contemptuouslook that Honore, astounded to behold him among that unarmed rabble, cast on the stragglers, distressed him terribly. And now the tail endof the regiment was passing, the _materiel_ of the batteries, prolonges, forges, forage-wagons, succeeded by the rag-tag, the spare men andhorses, and then all vanished in a cloud of dust at another turn in theroad amid the gradually decreasing clatter of hoofs and wheels. 

"_Pardi_!" exclaimed Loubet, "it's not such a difficult matter to cut adash when one travels with a coach and four!"

The staff had found Altkirch free from the enemy; not a Prussian hadshown his face there yet. It had been the general's wish, not knowingat what moment they might fall upon his rear, that the retreat shouldbe continued to Dannemarie, and it was not until five o'clock that theheads of columns reached that place. Tents were hardly pitched and fireslighted at eight, when night closed in, so great was the confusion ofthe regiments, depleted by the absence of the stragglers. The men werecompletely used up, were ready to drop with fatigue and hunger. Up toeight o'clock soldiers, singly and in squads, came trailing in, huntingfor their commands; all that long train of the halt, the lame, and thedisaffected that we have seen scattered along the roads. 

As soon as Jean discovered where his regiment lay he went in questof Lieutenant Rochas to make his report. He found him, together withCaptain Beaudoin, in earnest consultation with the colonel at thedoor of a small inn, all of them anxiously waiting to see what tidingsroll-call would give them as to the whereabouts of their missing men. The moment the corporal opened his mouth to address the lieutenant, Colonel Vineuil, who heard what the subject was, called him up andcompelled him to tell the whole story. On his long, yellow face, wherethe intensely black eyes looked blacker still contrasted with the thicksnow-white hair and the long, drooping mustache, there was an expressionof patient, silent sorrow, and as the narrative proceeded, how themiserable wretches deserted their colors, threw away arms and knapsacks, and wandered off like vagabonds, grief and shame traced two new furrowson his blanched cheeks. 

"Colonel, " exclaimed Captain Beaudoin, in his incisive voice, notwaiting for his superior to give an opinion, "it will best to shoot halfa dozen of those wretches. "

And the lieutenant nodded his head approvingly. But the colonel'sdespondent look expressed his powerlessness. 

"There are too many of them. Nearly seven hundred! how are we to go towork, whom are we to select? And then you don't know it, but the generalis opposed. He wants to be a father to his men, says he never punished asoldier all the time he was in Africa. No, no; we shall have to overlookit. I can do nothing. It is dreadful. "

The captain echoed: "Yes, it is dreadful. It means destruction for usall. "

Jean was walking off, having said all he had to say, when he heard MajorBouroche, whom he had not seen where he was standing in the doorwayof the inn, growl in a smothered voice: "No more punishment, an endto discipline, the army gone to the dogs! Before a week is over thescoundrels will be ripe for kicking their officers out of camp, whileif a few of them had been made an example of on the spot it might havebrought the remainder to their senses. "

No one was punished. Some officers of the rear-guard that was protectingthe trains had been thoughtful enough to collect the muskets andknapsacks scattered along the road. They were almost all recovered, andby daybreak the men were equipped again, the operation being conductedvery quietly, as if to hush the matter up as much as possible. Orderswere given to break camp at five o'clock, but reveille sounded at fourand the retreat to Belfort was hurriedly continued, for everyone wascertain that the Prussians were only two or three leagues away. Againthere was nothing to eat but dry biscuit, and as a consequence of theirbrief, disturbed rest and the lack of something to warm their stomachsthe men were weak as cats. Any attempt to enforce discipline on themarch that morning was again rendered nugatory by the manner of theirdeparture. 

The day was worse than its predecessor, inexpressibly gloomy anddisheartening. The aspect of the landscape had changed, they were now ina rolling country where the roads they were always alternately climbingand descending were bordered with woods of pine and hemlock, while thenarrow gorges were golden with tangled thickets of broom. But panicand terror lay heavy on the fair land that slumbered there beneath thebright sun of August, and had been hourly gathering strength since thepreceeding day. A fresh dispatch, bidding the mayors of communes warnthe people that they would do well to hide their valuables, had exciteduniversal consternation. The enemy was at hand, then! Would time begiven them to make their escape? And to all it seemed that the roar ofinvasion was ringing in their ears, coming nearer and nearer, the roarof the rushing torrent that, starting from Mulhausen, had grown louderand more ominous as it advanced, and to which every village that itencountered in its course contributed its own alarm amid the sound ofwailing and lamentation. 

Maurice stumbled along as best he might, like a man walking in a dream;his feet were bleeding, his shoulders sore with the weight of gun andknapsack. He had ceased to think, he advanced automatically intothe vision of horrors that lay before his eyes; he had ceased to beconscious even of the shuffling tramp of the comrades around him, and the only thing that was not dim and unreal to his sense wasJean, marching at his side and enduring the same fatigue and horribledistress. It was lamentable to behold the villages they passed through, a sight to make a man's heart bleed with anguish. No sooner did theinhabitants catch sight of the troops retreating in disorderly array, with haggard faces and bloodshot eyes, than they bestirred themselvesto hasten their flight. They who had been so confident only a shorthalf month ago, those men and women of Alsace, who smiled when warwas mentioned, certain that it would be fought out in Germany! And nowFrance was invaded, and it was among them, above their abodes, intheir fields, that the tempest was to burst, like one of those dreadcataclysms that lay waste a province in an hour when the lightningsflash and the gates of heaven are opened! Carts were backed up againstdoors and men tumbled their furniture into them in wild confusion, careless of what they broke. From the upper windows the women threw outa last mattress, or handed down the child's cradle, that they had beennear forgetting, whereon baby would be tucked in securely and hoisted tothe top of the load, where he reposed serenely among a grove of legs ofchairs and upturned tables. At the back of another cart was the decrepitold grandfather tied with cords to a wardrobe, and he was hauled awayfor all the world as if he had been one of the family chattels. Then there were those who did not own a vehicle, so they piled theirhousehold goods haphazard on a wheelbarrow, while others carried anarmful of clothing, and others still had thought only of saving theclock, which they went off pressing to their bosom as if it had been adarling child. They found they could not remove everything, and therewere chairs and tables, and bundles of linen too heavy to carry, lyingabandoned in the gutter, Some before leaving had carefully locked theirdwellings, and the houses had a deathlike appearance, with their barreddoors and windows, but the greater number, in their haste to get awayand with the sorrowful conviction that nothing would escape destruction, had left their poor abodes open, and the yawning apertures displayed thenakedness of the dismantled rooms; and those were the saddest to behold, with the horrible sadness of a city upon which some great dread hasfallen, depopulating it, those poor houses opened to the winds ofheaven, whence the very cats had fled as if forewarned of the impendingdoom. At every village the pitiful spectacle became more heartrending, the number of the fugitives was greater, as they clove their way throughthe ever thickening press, with hands upraised, amid oaths and tears. 

But in the open country as they drew near Belfort, Maurice's heartwas still more sorely wrung, for there the homeless fugitives werein greater numbers and lined the borders of the road in an unbrokencortege. Ah! the unhappy ones, who had believed that they were to findsafety under the walls of the fortifications! The father lashed the poorold nag, the mother followed after, leading her crying children by thehand, and in this way entire families, sinking beneath the weight oftheir burdens, were strung along the white, blinding road in the fiercesunlight, where the tired little legs of the smaller children wereunable to keep up with the headlong flight. Many had taken off theirshoes and were going barefoot so as to get over the ground more rapidly, and half-dressed mothers gave the breast to their crying babies as theystrode along. Affrighted faces turned for a look backward, tremblinghands were raised as if to shut out the horizon from their sight, whilethe gale of panic tumbled their unkempt locks and sported with theirill-adjusted garments. Others there were, farmers and their men, whopushed straight across the fields, driving before them their flocks andherds, cows, oxen, sheep, horses, that they had driven with sticksand cudgels from their stables; these were seeking the shelter of theinaccessible forests, of the deep valleys and the lofty hill-tops, theircourse marked by clouds of dust, as in the great migrations of otherdays, when invaded nations made way before their barbarian conquerors. They were going to live in tents, in some lonely nook among themountains, where the enemy would never venture to follow them; and thebleating and bellowing of the animals and the trampling of their hoofsupon the rocks grew fainter in the distance, and the golden nimbus thatoverhung them was lost to sight among the thick pines, while down in theroad beneath the tide of vehicles and pedestrians was flowing still asstrong as ever, blocking the passage of the troops, and as they drewnear Belfort the men had to be brought to a halt again and again, soirresistible was the force of that torrent of humanity. 

It was during one of those short halts that Maurice witnessed a scenethat was destined to remain indelibly impressed upon his memory. 

Standing by the road-side was a lonely house, the abode of some poorpeasant, whose lean acres extended up the mountainside in the rear. Theman had been unwilling to leave the little field that was his all andhad remained, for to go away would have been to him like parting withlife. He could be seen within the low-ceiled room, sitting stupidly ona bench, watching with dull, lack-luster eyes the passing of the troopswhose retreat would give his ripe grain over to be the spoil of theenemy. Standing beside him was his wife, still a young woman, holdingin her arms a child, while another was hanging by her skirts; all threewere weeping bitterly. Suddenly the door was thrown open with violenceand in its enframement appeared the grandmother, a very old woman, talland lean of form, with bare, sinewy arms like knotted cords that sheraised above her head and shook with frantic gestures. Her gray, scantylocks had escaped from her cap and were floating about her skinny face, and such was her fury that the words she shouted choked her utteranceand came from her lips almost unintelligible. 

At first the soldiers had laughed. Wasn't she a beauty, the old crazyhag! Then words reached their ears; the old woman was screaming:

"Scum! Robbers! Cowards! Cowards!"

With a voice that rose shriller and more piercing still she kept lashingthem with her tongue, expectorating insult on them, and taunting themfor dastards with the full force of her lungs. And the laughter ceased, it seemed as if a cold wind had blown over the ranks. The men hung theirheads, looked any way save that. 

"Cowards! Cowards! Cowards!"

Then all at once her stature seemed to dilate; she drew herself up, tragic in her leanness, in her poor old apology for a gown, and sweepingthe heavens with her long arm from west to east, with a gesture so broadthat it seemed to fill the dome:

"Cowards, the Rhine is not there! The Rhine lies yonder! Cowards, cowards!"

They got under way again at last, and Maurice, whose look just thenencountered Jean's, saw that the latter's eyes were filled withtears, and it did not alleviate his distress to think that those roughsoldiers, compelled to swallow an insult that they had done nothingto deserve, were shamed by it. He was conscious of nothing save theintolerable aching in his poor head, and in after days could neverremember how the march of that day ended, prostrated as he was by histerrible suffering, mental and physical. 

The 7th corps had spent the entire day in getting over the fourteen orfifteen miles between Dannemarie and Belfort, and it was night againbefore the troops got settled in their bivouacs under the walls of thetown, in the very same place whence they had started four days beforeto march against the enemy. Notwithstanding the lateness of the hourand their spent condition, the men insisted on lighting fires and makingsoup; it was the first time since their departure that they had had anopportunity to put warm food into their stomachs, and seated about thecheerful blaze in the cool air of evening they were dipping their nosesin the porringers and grunting inarticulately in token of satisfactionwhen news came in that burst upon the camp like a thunderbolt, dumfoundering everyone. Two telegrams had just been received: thePrussians had not crossed the Rhine at Markolsheim, and there was not asingle Prussian at Huningue. The passage of the Rhine at Markolsheimand the bridge of boats constructed under the electric light had existedmerely in imagination, were an unexplained, inexplicable nightmare ofthe prefet at Schelestadt; and as for the army corps that had menacedHuningue, that famous corps of the Black Forest, that had made so muchtalk, it was but an insignificant detachment of Wurtemburgers, acouple of battalions of infantry and a squadron of cavalry, which hadmaneuvered with such address, marching and countermarching, appearing inone place and then suddenly popping up in another at a distance, as togain for themselves the reputation of being thirty or forty thousandstrong. And to think that that morning they had been near blowing upthe viaduct at Dannemarie! Twenty leagues of fertile country had beendepopulated by the most idiotic of panics, and at the recollection ofwhat they had seen during their lamentable day's march, the inhabitantsflying in consternation to the mountains, driving their cattle beforethem; the press of vehicles, laden with household effects, streamingcityward and surrounded by bands of weeping women and children, thesoldiers waxed wroth and gave way to bitter, sneering denunciation oftheir leaders. 

"Ah! it is too ridiculous too talk about!" sputtered Loubet, notstopping to empty his mouth, brandishing his spoon. "They take us outto fight the enemy, and there's not a soul to fight with! Twelve leaguesthere and twelve leagues back, and not so much as a mouse in front ofus! All that for nothing, just for the fun of being scared to death!"

Chouteau, who was noisily absorbing the last drops in his porringer, bellowed his opinion of the generals, without mentioning names:

"The pigs! what miserable boobies they are, _hein_! A pretty pack ofdunghill-cocks the government has given us as commanders! Wonder whatthey would do if they had an army actually before them, if they show thewhite feather this way when there's not a Prussian in sight, _hein_!--Ahno, not any of it in mine, thank you; soldiers don't obey suchpigeon-livered gentlemen. "

Someone had thrown another armful of wood on the fire for thepleasurable sensation of comfort there was in the bright, dancing flame, and Lapoulle, who was engaged in the luxurious occupation of toastinghis shins, suddenly went off into an imbecile fit of laughter withoutin the least understanding what it was about, whereon Jean, who had thusfar turned a deaf ear to their talk, thought it time to interfere, whichhe did by saying in a fatherly way:

"You had better hold your tongue, you fellows! It might be the worse foryou if anyone should hear you. "

He himself, in his untutored, common-sense way of viewing things, wasexasperated by the stupid incompetency of their commanders, but thendiscipline must be maintained, and as Chouteau still kept up a lowmuttering he cut him short:

"Be silent, I say! Here is the lieutenant: address yourself to him ifyou have anything to say. "

Maurice had listened in silence to the conversation from his place alittle to one side. Ah, truly, the end was near! Scarcely had they madea beginning, and all was over. That lack of discipline, that seditiousspirit among the men at the very first reverse, had already made thearmy a demoralized, disintegrated rabble that would melt away at thefirst indication of catastrophe. There they were, under the walls ofBelfort, without having sighted a Prussian, and they were whipped. 

The succeeding days were a period of monotony, full of uncertainty andanxious forebodings. To keep his troops occupied General Douay setthem to work on the defenses of the place, which were in a state ofincompleteness; there was great throwing up of earth and cutting throughrock. And not the first item of news! Where was MacMahon's army? Whatwas going on at Metz? The wildest rumors were current, and the Parisianjournals, by their system of printing news only to contradict it thenext day, kept the country in an agony of suspense. Twice, it was said, the general had written and asked for instructions, and had not evenreceived an answer. On the 12th of August, however, the 7th corps wasaugmented by the 3d division, which landed from Italy, but there werestill only two divisions for duty, for the 1st had participated in thedefeat at Froeschwiller, had been swept away in the general rout, and asyet no one had learned where it had been stranded by the current. Aftera week of this abandonment, of this entire separation from the rest ofFrance, a telegram came bringing them the order to march. The news waswell received, for anything was preferable to the prison life they wereleading in Belfort. And while they were getting themselves in readinessconjecture and surmise were the order of the day, for no one as yet knewwhat their destination was to be, some saying that they were to be sentto the defense of Strasbourg, while others spoke with confidence of abold dash into the Black Forest that was to sever the Prussian line ofcommunication. 

Early the next morning the 106th was bundled into cattle-cars andstarted off among the first. The car that contained Jean's squad wasparticularly crowded, so much so that Loubet declared there was not evenroom in it to sneeze. It was a load of humanity, sent off to the warjust as a load of sacks would have been dispatched to the mill, crowdedin so as to get the greatest number into the smallest space, and asrations had been given out in the usual hurried, slovenly manner and themen had received in brandy what they should have received in food, theconsequence was that they were all roaring drunk, with a drunkennessthat vented itself in obscene songs, varied by shrieks and yells. Theheavy train rolled slowly onward; pipes were alight and men could nolonger see one another through the dense clouds of smoke; the heatand odor that emanated from that mass of perspiring human flesh wereunendurable, while from the jolting, dingy van came volleys of shoutsand laughter that drowned the monotonous rattle of the wheels and werelost amid the silence of the deserted fields. And it was not until theyreached Langres that the troops learned that they were being carriedback to Paris. 

"Ah, _nom de Dieu!_" exclaimed Chouteau, who already, by virtue of hisoratorical ability, was the acknowledged sovereign of his corner, "theywill station us at Charentonneau, sure, to keep old Bismarck out of theTuileries. "

The others laughed loud and long, considering the joke a very good one, though no one could say why. The most trivial incidents of the journey, however, served to elicit a storm of yells, cat-calls, and laughter: agroup of peasants standing beside the roadway, or the anxious faces ofthe people who hung about the way-stations in the hope of picking upsome bits of news from the passing trains, epitomizing on a smallscale the breathless, shuddering alarm that pervaded all France in thepresence of invasion. And so it happened that as the train thundered by, a fleeting vision of pandemonium, all that the good burghers obtainedin the way of intelligence was the salutations of that cargo of foodfor powder as it hurried onward to its destination, fast as steam couldcarry it. At a station where they stopped, however, three well-dressedladies, wealthy bourgeoises of the town, who distributed cups ofbouillon among the men, were received with great respect. Some of thesoldiers shed tears, and kissed their hands as they thanked them. 

But as soon as they were under way again the filthy songs and the wildshouts began afresh, and so it went on until, a little while afterleaving Chaumont, they met another train that was conveying somebatteries of artillery to Metz. The locomotives slowed down and thesoldiers in the two trains fraternized with a frightful uproar. Theartillerymen were also apparently very drunk; they stood up in theirseats, and thrusting hands and arms out of the car-windows, gave thiscry with a vehemence that silenced every other sound:

"To the slaughter! to the slaughter! to the slaughter!"

It was as if a cold wind, a blast from the charnel-house, had sweptthrough the car. Amid the sudden silence that descended on them Loubet'sirreverent voice was heard, shouting:

"Not very cheerful companions, those fellows!"

"But they are right, " rejoined Chouteau, as if addressing some pot-houseassemblage; "it is a beastly thing to send a lot of brave boys to havetheir brains blown out for a dirty little quarrel about which they don'tknow the first word. "

And much more in the same strain. He was the type of the Bellevilleagitator, a lazy, dissipated mechanic, perverting his fellow workmen, constantly spouting the ill-digested odds and ends of politicalharangues that he had heard, belching forth in the same breath theloftiest sentiments and the most asinine revolutionary clap-trap. He knew it all, and tried to inoculate his comrades with his ideas, especially Lapoulle, of whom he had promised to make a lad of spirit. 

"Don't you see, old man, it's all perfectly simple. If Badinguet andBismarck have a quarrel, let 'em go to work with their fists and fightit out and not involve in their row some hundreds of thousands of menwho don't even know one another by sight and have not the slightestdesire to fight. "

The whole car laughed and applauded, and Lapoulle, who did not know whoBadinguet[*] was, and could not have told whether it was a king or anemperor in whose cause he was fighting, repeated like the gigantic babythat he was:

[*] Napoleon III. 

"Of course, let 'em fight it out, and take a drink together afterward. "

But Chouteau had turned to Pache, whom he now proceeded to take in hand. 

"You are in the same boat, you, who pretend to believe in the good God. He has forbidden men to fight, your good God has. Why, then, are youhere, you great simpleton?"

"_Dame_!" Pache doubtfully replied, "it is not for any pleasure of minethat I am here--but the gendarmes--"

"Oh, indeed, the gendarmes! let the gendarmes go milk the ducks!--say, do you know what we would do, all of us, if we had the least bit ofspirit? I'll tell you; just the minute that they land us from the carswe'd skip; yes, we'd go straight home, and leave that pig of a Badinguetand his gang of two-for-a-penny generals to settle accounts with theirbeastly Prussians as best they may!"

There was a storm of bravos; the leaven of perversion was doing its workand it was Chouteau's hour of triumph, airing his muddled theories andringing the changes on the Republic, the Rights of Man, the rottennessof the Empire, which must be destroyed, and the treason of theircommanders, who, as it had been proved, had sold themselves to the enemyat the rate of a million a piece. _He_ was a revolutionist, he boldlydeclared; the others could not even say that they were republicans, didnot know what their opinions were, in fact, except Loubet, the concocterof stews and hashes, and _he_ had an opinion, for he had been for soup, first, last, and always; but they all, carried away by his eloquence, shouted none the less lustily against the Emperor, their officers, thewhole d----d shop, which they would leave the first chance they got, see if they wouldn't! And Chouteau, while fanning the flame of theirdiscontent, kept an eye on Maurice, the fine gentleman, who appearedinterested and whom he was proud to have for a companion; so that, byway of inflaming _his_ passions also, it occurred to him to makean attack on Jean, who had thus far been tranquilly watching theproceedings out of his half-closed eyes, unmoved among the generaluproar. If there was any remnant of resentment in the bosom of thevolunteer since the time when the corporal had inflicted such a bitterhumiliation on him by forcing him to resume his abandoned musket, nowwas a fine chance to set the two men by the ears. 

"I know some folks who talk of shooting us, " Chouteau continued, withan ugly look at Jean; "dirty, miserable skunks, who treat us worse thanbeasts, and, when a man's back is broken with the weight of his knapsackand Brownbess, _aie_! _aie_! object to his planting them in the fieldsto see if a new crop will grow from them. What do you suppose they wouldsay, comrades, _hein_! now that we are masters, if we should pitch themall out upon the track, and teach them better manners? That's the wayto do, _hein_! We'll show 'em that we won't be bothered any longer withtheir mangy wars. Down with Badinguet's bed-bugs! Death to the curs whowant to make us fight!"

Jean's face was aflame with the crimson tide that never failed to rushto his cheeks in his infrequent fits of anger. He rose, wedged in thoughas he was between his neighbors as firmly as in a vise, and his blazingeyes and doubled fists had such a look of business about them that theother quailed. 

"_Tonnerre de Dieu!_ will you be silent, pig! For hours I have sat herewithout saying anything, because we have no longer any leaders, and Icould not even send you to the guard-house. Yes, there's no doubt of it, it would be a good thing to shoot such men as you and rid the regimentof the vermin. But see here, as there's no longer any discipline, Iwill attend to your case myself. There's no corporal here now, but ahard-fisted fellow who is tired of listening to your jaw, and he'll seeif he can't make you keep your potato-trap shut. Ah! you d----d coward!You won't fight yourself and you want to keep others from fighting!Repeat your words once and I'll knock your head off!"

By this time the whole car, won over by Jean's manly attitude, haddeserted Chouteau, who cowered back in his seat as if not anxious toface his opponent's big fists. 

"And I care no more for Badinguet than I do for you, do you understand?I despise politics, whether they are republican or imperial, and now, asin the past, when I used to cultivate my little farm, there is butone thing that I wish for, and that is the happiness of all, peaceand good-order, freedom for every man to attend to his affairs. No onedenies that war is a terrible business, but that is no reason why aman should not be treated to the sight of a firing-party when he comestrying to dishearten people who already have enough to do to keep theircourage up. Good Heavens, friends, how it makes a man's pulses leap tobe told that the Prussians are in the land and that he is to go helpdrive them out!"

Then, with the customary fickleness of a mob, the soldiers applauded thecorporal, who again announced his determination to thrash the first manof his squad who should declare non-combatant principles. Bravo, thecorporal! they would soon settle old Bismarck's hash! And, in the midstof the wild ovation of which he was the object, Jean, who had recoveredhis self-control, turned politely to Maurice and addressed him as if hehad not been one of his men:

"Monsieur, you cannot have anything in common with those poltroons. Come, we haven't had a chance at them yet; we are the boys who will givethem a good basting yet, those Prussians!"

It seemed to Maurice at that moment as if a ray of cheering sunshine hadpenetrated his heart. He was humiliated, vexed with himself. What! thatman was nothing more than an uneducated rustic! And he remembered thefierce hatred that had burned in his bosom the day he was compelled topick up the musket that he had thrown away in a moment of madness. Buthe also remembered his emotion at seeing the two big tears that stood inthe corporal's eyes when the old grandmother, her gray hairs streamingin the wind, had so bitterly reproached them and pointed to the Rhinethat lay beneath the horizon in the distance. Was it the brotherhoodof fatigue and suffering endured in common that had served thus todissipate his wrathful feelings? He was Bonapartist by birth, and hadnever thought of the Republic except in a speculative, dreamy way; hisfeeling toward the Emperor, personally, too, inclined to friendliness, and he was favorable to the war, the very condition of nationalexistence, the great regenerative school of nationalities. Hope, all atonce, with one of those fitful impulses of the imagination, that werecommon in his temperament, revived in him, while the enthusiastic ardorthat had impelled him to enlist one night again surged through his veinsand swelled his heart with confidence of victory. 

"Why, of course, Corporal, " he gayly replied, "we shall give them abasting!"

And still the car kept rolling onward with its load of human freight, filled with reeking smoke of pipes and emanations of the crowded men, belching its ribald songs and drunken shouts among the expectant throngsof the stations through which it passed, among the rows of white-facedpeasants who lined the iron-way. On the 20th of August they were at thePantin Station in Paris, and that same evening boarded another trainwhich landed them next day at Rheims _en route_ for the camp at Chalons. 

III. 

Maurice was greatly surprised when the 106th, leaving the cars atRheims, received orders to go into camp there. So they were not to go toChalons, then, and unite with the army there? And when, two hours later, his regiment had stacked muskets a league or so from the city over inthe direction of Courcelles, in the broad plain that lies along thecanal between the Aisne and Marne, his astonishment was greater stillto learn that the entire army of Chalons had been falling back all thatmorning and was about to bivouac at that place. From one extremity ofthe horizon to the other, as far as Saint Thierry and Menvillette, evenbeyond the Laon road, the tents were going up, and when it shouldbe night the fires of four army-corps would be blazing there. It wasevident that the plan now was to go and take a position under the wallsof Paris and there await the Prussians; and it was fortunate that thatplan had received the approbation of the government, for was it not thewisest thing they could do?

Maurice devoted the afternoon of the 21st to strolling about the camp insearch of news. The greatest freedom prevailed; discipline appearedto have been relaxed still further, the men went and came at their ownsweet will. He found no obstacle in the way of his return to the city, where he desired to cash a money-order for a hundred francs that hissister Henriette had sent him. While in a cafe he heard a sergeanttelling of the disaffection that existed in the eighteen battalions ofthe garde mobile of the Seine, which had just been sent back to Paris;the 6th battalion had been near killing their officers. Not a day passedat the camp that the generals were not insulted, and since Froeschwillerthe soldiers had ceased to give Marshal MacMahon the military salute. The cafe resounded with the sound of voices in excited conversation;a violent dispute arose between two sedate burghers in respect to thenumber of men that MacMahon would have at his disposal. One of themmade the wild assertion that there would be three hundred thousand;the other, who seemed to be more at home upon the subject, stated thestrength of the four corps: the 12th, which had just been made completeat the camp with great difficulty with the assistance of provisionalregiments and a division of infanterie de marine; the 1st, which hadbeen coming straggling in in fragments ever since the 14th of themonth and of which they were doing what they could to perfect theorganization; the 5th, defeated before it had ever fought a battle, swept away and broken up in the general panic, and finally, the 7th, then landing from the cars, demoralized like all the rest and minus its1st division, of which it had just recovered the remains at Rheims;in all, one hundred and twenty thousand at the outside, including thecavalry, Bonnemain's and Margueritte's divisions. When the sergeant tooka hand in the quarrel, however, speaking of the army in terms of theutmost contempt, characterizing it as a ruffianly rabble, with no_esprit de corps_, with nothing to keep it together, --a pack ofgreenhorns with idiots to conduct them, to the slaughter, --the twobourgeois began to be uneasy, and fearing there might be troublebrewing, made themselves scarce. 

When outside upon the street Maurice hailed a newsboy and purchased acopy of every paper he could lay hands on, stuffing some in his pocketsand reading others as he walked along under the stately trees that linethe pleasant avenues of the old city. Where could the German armies be?It seemed as if obscurity had suddenly swallowed them up. Two wereover Metz way, of course: the first, the one commanded by General vonSteinmetz, observing the place; the second, that of Prince FrederickCharles, aiming to ascend the right bank of the Moselle in order to cutBazaine off from Paris. But the third army, that of the Crown Princeof Prussia, the army that had been victorious at Wissembourg andFroeschwiller and had driven our 1st and 5th corps, where was it now, where was it to be located amid the tangled mess of contradictoryadvices? Was it still in camp at Nancy, or was it true that it hadarrived before Chalons, and was that the reason why we had abandonedour camp there in such hot haste, burning our stores, clothing, forage, provisions, everything--property of which the value to the nation wasbeyond compute? And when the different plans with which our generalswere credited came to be taken into consideration, then there was moreconfusion, a fresh set of contradictory hypotheses to be encountered. Maurice had until now been cut off in a measure from the outside world, and now for the first time learned what had been the course of eventsin Paris; the blasting effect of defeat upon a populace that had beenconfident of victory, the terrible commotions in the streets, theconvoking of the Chambers, the fall of the liberal ministry that hadeffected the plebiscite, the abrogation of the Emperor's rank as Generalof the Army and the transfer of the supreme command to Marshal Bazaine. The Emperor had been present at the camp of Chalons since the 16th, andall the newspapers were filled with a grand council that had been heldon the 17th, at which Prince Napoleon and some of the generals werepresent, but none of them were agreed upon the decisions that had beenarrived at outside of the resultant facts, which were that GeneralTrochu had been appointed governor of Paris and Marshal MacMahon giventhe command of the army of Chalons, and the inference from this wasthat the Emperor was to be shorn of all his authority. Consternation, irresolution, conflicting plans that were laid aside and replaced byfresh ones hour by hour; these were the things that everybody felt werein the air. And ever and always the question: Where were the Germanarmies? Who were in the right, those who asserted that Bazaine had noforce worth mentioning in front of him and was free to make his retreatthrough the towns of the north whenever he chose to do so, or those whodeclared that he was already besieged in Metz? There was a constantlyrecurring rumor of a series of engagements that had raged during anentire week, from the 14th until the 20th, but it failed to receiveconfirmation. 

Maurice's legs ached with fatigue; he went and sat down upon a bench. Around him the life of the city seemed to be going on as usual; therewere nursemaids seated in the shade of the handsome trees watching thesports of their little charges, small property owners strolled leisurelyabout the walks enjoying their daily constitutional. He had taken up hispapers again, when his eyes lighted on an article that had escaped hisnotice, the "leader" in a rabid republican sheet; then everything wasmade clear to him. The paper stated that at the council of the 17that the camp of Chalons the retreat of the army on Paris had been fullydecided on, and that General Trochu's appointment to the command of thecity had no other object than to facilitate the Emperor's return; butthose resolutions, the journal went on to say, were rendered unavailingby the attitude of the Empress-regent and the new ministry. It was theEmpress's opinion that the Emperor's return would certainly producea revolution; she was reported to have said: "He will never reach theTuileries alive. " Starting with these premises she insisted with theutmost urgency that the army should advance, at every risk, whatevermight be the cost of human life, and effect a junction with the army ofMetz, in which course she was supported moreover by General de Palikao, the Minister of War, who had a plan of his own for reaching Bazaine by arapid and victorious march. And Maurice, letting his paper fall from hishand, his eyes bent on space, believed that he now had the key to theentire mystery; the two conflicting plans, MacMahon's hesitation toundertake that dangerous flank movement with the unreliable army at hiscommand, the impatient orders that came to him from Paris, each moretart and imperative than its predecessor, urging him on to that mad, desperate enterprise. Then, as the central figure in that tragicconflict, the vision of the Emperor suddenly rose distinctly before hisinner eyes, deprived of his imperial authority, which he had committedto the hands of the Empress-regent, stripped of his military command, which he had conferred on Marshal Bazaine; a nullity, the vague andunsubstantial shadow of an emperor, a nameless, cumbersome nonentitywhom no one knew what to do with, whom Paris rejected and who had ceasedto have a position in the army, for he had pledged himself to issue nofurther orders. 

The next morning, however, after a rainy night through which he sleptoutside his tent on the bare ground, wrapped in his rubber blanket, Maurice was cheered by the tidings that the retreat on Paris had finallycarried the day. Another council had been held during the night, it wassaid, at which M. Rouher, the former vice-Emperor, had been present; hehad been sent by the Empress to accelerate the movement toward Verdun, and it would seem that the marshal had succeeded in convincing him ofthe rashness of such an undertaking. Were there unfavorable tidingsfrom Bazaine? no one could say for certain. But the absence of news wasitself a circumstance of evil omen, and all among the most influentialof the generals had cast their vote for the march on Paris, for whichthey would be the relieving army. And Maurice, happy in the convictionthat the retrograde movement would commence not later than the morrow, since the orders for it were said to be already issued, thought he wouldgratify a boyish longing that had been troubling him for some time past, to give the go-by for one day to soldier's fare, to wit and eat hisbreakfast off a cloth, with the accompaniment of plate, knife and fork, carafe, and a bottle of good wine, things of which it seemed to him thathe had been deprived for months and months. He had money in his pocket, so off he started with quickened pulse, as if going out for a lark, tosearch for a place of entertainment. 

It was just at the entrance of the village of Courcelles, across thecanal, that he found the breakfast for which his mouth was watering. Hehad been told the day before that the Emperor had taken up his quartersin one of the houses of the village, and having gone to stroll thereout of curiosity, now remembered to have seen at the junction of the tworoads this little inn with its arbor, the trellises of which were loadedwith big clusters of ripe, golden, luscious grapes. There was an arrayof green-painted tables set out in the shade of the luxuriant vine, while through the open door of the vast kitchen he had caught glimpsesof the antique clock, the colored prints pasted on the walls, and thecomfortable landlady watching the revolving spit. It was cheerful, smiling, hospitable; a regular type of the good old-fashioned Frenchhostelry. 

A pretty, white-necked waitress came up and asked him with a greatdisplay of flashing teeth:

"Will monsieur have breakfast?"

"Of course I will! Give me some eggs, a cutlet, and cheese. And a bottleof white wine!"

She turned to go; he called her back. "Tell me, is it not in one ofthose houses that the Emperor has his quarters?"

"There, monsieur, in that one right before you. Only you can't see it, for it is concealed by the high wall with the overhanging trees. "

He loosed his belt so as to be more at ease in his capote, and enteringthe arbor, chose his table, on which the sunlight, finding its wayhere and there through the green canopy above, danced in little goldenspangles. And constantly his thoughts kept returning to that high wallbehind which was the Emperor. A most mysterious house it was, indeed, shrinking from the public gaze, even its slated roof invisible. Itsentrance was on the other side, upon the village street, a narrowwinding street between dead-walls, without a shop, without even a windowto enliven it. The small garden in the rear, among the sparse dwellingsthat environed it, was like an island of dense verdure. And across theroad he noticed a spacious courtyard, surrounded by sheds and stables, crowded with a countless train of carriages and baggage-wagons, amongwhich men and horses, coming and going, kept up an unceasing bustle. 

"Are those all for the service of the Emperor?" he inquired, meaning tosay something humorous to the girl, who was laying a snow-white clothupon the table. 

"Yes, for the Emperor himself, and no one else!" she pleasantly replied, glad of a chance to show her white teeth once more; and then she went onto enumerate the suite from information that she had probably receivedfrom the stablemen, who had been coming to the inn to drink since thepreceding day; there were the staff, comprising twenty-five officers, the sixty cent-gardes and the half-troop of guides for escort duty, thesix gendarmes of the provost-guard; then the household, seventy-threepersons in all, chamberlains, attendants for the table and the bedroom, cooks and scullions; then four saddle-horses and two carriages for theEmperor's personal use, ten horses for the equerries, eight for thegrooms and outriders, not mentioning forty-seven post-horses; then a_char a banc_ and twelve baggage wagons, two of which, appropriatedto the cooks, had particularly excited her admiration by reason ofthe number and variety of the utensils they contained, all in the mostsplendid order. 

"Oh, sir, you never saw such stew-pans! they shone like silver. And allsorts of dishes, and jars and jugs, and lots of things of which it wouldpuzzle me to tell the use! And a cellar of wine, claret, burgundy, andchampagne--yes! enough to supply a wedding feast. "

The unusual luxury of the snowy table-cloth and the white wine sparklingin his glass sharpened Maurice's appetite; he devoured his two poachedeggs with a zest that made him fear he was developing epicurean tastes. When he turned to the left and looked out through the entrance of theleafy arbor he had before him the spacious plain, covered with long rowsof tents: a busy, populous city that had risen like an exhalation fromthe stubble-fields between Rheims city and the canal. A few clumps ofstunted trees, three wind-mills lifting their skeleton arms in the air, were all there was to relieve the monotony of the gray waste, but abovethe huddled roofs of Rheims, lost in the sea of foliage of the tallchestnut-trees, the huge bulk of the cathedral with its slender spireswas profiled against the blue sky, looming colossal, notwithstandingthe distance, beside the modest houses. Memories of school and boyhood'sdays came over him, the tasks he had learned and recited: all about the_sacre_ of our kings, the _sainte ampoule_, Clovis, Jeanne d'Arc, allthe long list of glories of old France. 

Then Maurice's thoughts reverted again to that unassuming bourgeoisehouse, so mysterious in its solitude, and its imperial occupant; anddirecting his eyes upon the high, yellow wall he was surprised to read, scrawled there in great, awkward letters, the legend: _Vive Napoleon!_among the meaningless obscenities traced by schoolboys. Winter'sstorms and summer's sun had half effaced the lettering; evidently theinscription was very ancient. How strange, to see upon that wall thatold heroic battle-cry, which probably had been placed there in honor ofthe uncle, not of the nephew! It brought all his childhood back to him, and Maurice was again a boy, scarcely out of his mother's arms, downthere in distant Chene-Populeux, listening to the stories of hisgrandfather, a veteran of the Grand Army. His mother was dead, hisfather, in the inglorious days that followed the collapse of the empire, had been compelled to accept a humble position as collector, and therethe grandfather lived, with nothing to support him save his scantypension, in the poor home of the small public functionary, his solecomfort to fight his battles o'er again for the benefit of his twolittle twin grandchildren, the boy and the girl, a pair of golden-hairedyoungsters to whom he was in some sense a mother. He would place Mauriceon his right knee and Henriette on his left, and then for hours on endthe narrative would run on in Homeric strain. 

But small attention was paid to dates; his story was of the direshock of conflicting nations, and was not to be hampered by theminute exactitude of the historian. Successively or together English, Austrians, Prussians, Russians appeared upon the scene, according to thethen prevailing condition of the ever-changing alliances, and it wasnot always an easy matter to tell why one nation received a beating inpreference to another, but beaten they all were in the end, inevitablybeaten from the very commencement, in a whirlwind of genius and heroicdaring that swept great armies like chaff from off the earth. Therewas Marengo, the classic battle of the plain, with the consummategeneralship of its broad plan and the faultless retreat of thebattalions by squares, silent and impassive under the enemy's terriblefire; the battle, famous in story, lost at three o'clock and won at six, where the eight hundred grenadiers of the Consular Guard withstood theonset of the entire Austrian cavalry, where Desaix arrived to changeimpending defeat to glorious victory and die. There was Austerlitz, withits sun of glory shining forth from amid the wintry sky, Austerlitz, commencing with the capture of the plateau of Pratzen and ending withthe frightful catastrophe on the frozen lake, where an entire Russiancorps, men, guns, horses, went crashing through the ice, while Napoleon, who in his divine omniscience had foreseen it all, of course, directedhis artillery to play upon the struggling mass. There was Jena, whereso many of Prussia's bravest found a grave; at first the red flames ofmusketry flashing through the October mists, and Ney's impatience, nearspoiling all until Augereau comes wheeling into line and saves him; thefierce charge that tore the enemy's center in twain, and finally panic, the headlong rout of their boasted cavalry, whom our hussars mow downlike ripened grain, strewing the romantic glen with a harvest of men andhorses. And Eylau, cruel Eylau, bloodiest battle of them all, where themaimed corpses cumbered the earth in piles; Eylau, whose new-fallen snowwas stained with blood, the burial-place of heroes; Eylau, in whosename reverberates still the thunder of the charge of Murat's eightysquadrons, piercing the Russian lines in every direction, heaping theground so thick with dead that Napoleon himself could not refrain fromtears. Then Friedland, the trap into which the Russians again allowedthemselves to be decoyed like a flock of brainless sparrows, themasterpiece of the Emperor's consummate strategy; our left held back asin a leash, motionless, without a sign of life, while Ney was carryingthe city, street by street, and destroying the bridges, then the lefthurled like a thunderbolt on the enemy's right, driving it into theriver and annihilating it in that _cul-de-sac_; the slaughter so greatthat at ten o'clock at night the bloody work was not completed, mostwonderful of all the successes of the great imperial epic. And Wagram, where it was the aim of the Austrians to cut us off from the Danube;they keep strengthening their left in order to overwhelm Massena, who iswounded and issues his orders from an open carriage, and Napoleon, likea malicious Titan, lets them go on unchecked; then all at once a hundredguns vomit their terrible fire upon their weakened center, driving itbackward more than a league, and their left, terror-stricken to finditself unsupported, gives way before the again victorious Massena, sweeping away before it the remainder of the army, as when a broken dikelets loose its torrents upon the fields. And finally the Moskowa, where the bright sun of Austerlitz shone for the last time; where thecontending hosts were mingled in confused _melee_ amid deeds of the mostdesperate daring: mamelons carried under an unceasing fire of musketry, redoubts stormed with the naked steel, every inch of ground fought overagain and again; such determined resistance on the part of the RussianGuards that our final victory was only assured by Murat's mad charges, the concentrated fire of our three hundred pieces of artillery, and thevalor of Ney, who was the hero of that most obstinate of conflicts. And be the battle what it might, ever our flags floated proudly on theevening air, and as the bivouac fires were lighted on the conqueredfield out rang the old battle-cry: _Vive Napoleon!_ France, carrying herinvincible Eagles from end to end of Europe, seemed everywhere athome, having but to raise her finger to make her will respected by thenations, mistress of a world that in vain conspired to crush her andupon which she set her foot. 

Maurice was contentedly finishing his cutlet, cheered not so much by thewine that sparkled in his glass as by the glorious memories thatwere teeming in his brain, when his glance encountered two ragged, dust-stained soldiers, less like soldiers than weary tramps just off theroad; they were asking the attendant for information as to the positionof the regiments that were encamped along the canal. He hailed them. 

"Hallo there, comrades, this way! You are 7th corps men, aren't you?"

"Right you are, sir; 1st division--at least I am, more by token thatI was at Froeschwiller, where it was warm enough, I can tell you. Thecomrade, here, belongs in the 1st corps; he was at Wissembourg, anotherbeastly hole. "

They told their story, how they had been swept away in the generalpanic, had crawled into a ditch half-dead with fatigue and hunger, eachof them slightly wounded, and since then had been dragging themselvesalong in the rear of the army, compelled to lie over in towns when thefever-fits came on, until at last they had reached the camp and were onthe lookout to find their regiments. 

Maurice, who had a piece of Gruyere before him, noticed the hungry eyesfixed on his plate. 

"Hi there, mademoiselle! bring some more cheese, will you--and bread andwine. You will join me, won't you, comrades? It is my treat. Here's toyour good health!"

They drew their chairs up to the table, only too delighted with theinvitation. Their entertainer watched them as they attacked the food, and a thrill of pity ran through him as he beheld their sorry plight, dirty, ragged, arms gone, their sole attire a pair of red trousers andthe capote, kept in place by bits of twine and so patched and piecedwith shreds of vari-colored cloth that one would have taken them for menwho had been looting some battle-field and were wearing the spoil theyhad gathered there. 

"Ah! _foutre_, yes!" continued the taller of the two as he plied hisjaws, "it was no laughing matter there! You ought to have seen it, --tellhim how it was, Coutard. "

And the little man told his story with many gestures, describing figureson the air with his bread. 

"I was washing my shirt, you see, while the rest of them were makingsoup. Just try and picture to yourself a miserable hole, a regular trap, all surrounded by dense woods that gave those Prussian pigs a chance tocrawl up to us before we ever suspected they were there. So, then, aboutseven o'clock the shells begin to come tumbling about our ears. _Nom deDieu!_ but it was lively work! we jumped for our shooting-irons, andup to eleven o'clock it looked as if we were going to polish 'em off infine style. But you must know that there were only five thousand of us, and the beggars kept coming, coming as if there was no end to them. I was posted on a little hill, behind a bush, and I could see themdebouching in front, to right, to left, like rows of black ants swarmingfrom their hill, and when you thought there were none left there werealways plenty more. There's no use mincing matters, we all thought thatour leaders must be first-class nincompoops to thrust us into such ahornet's nest, with no support at hand, and leave us to be crushed therewithout coming to our assistance. And then our General, Douay, [*] poordevil! neither a fool nor a coward, that man, --a bullet comes alongand lays him on his back. That ended it; no one left to command us! Nomatter, though, we kept on fighting all the same; but they were too manyfor us, we had to fall back at last. We held the railway station for along time, and then we fought behind a wall, and the uproar was enoughto wake the dead. And then, when the city was taken, I don't exactlyremember how it came about, but we were upon a mountain, the Geissberg, I think they call it, and there we intrenched ourselves in a sort ofcastle, and how we did give it to the pigs! they jumped about the rockslike kids, and it was fun to pick 'em off and see 'em tumble on theirnose. But what would you have? they kept coming, coming, all the time, ten men to our one, and all the artillery they could wish for. Courageis a very good thing in its place, but sometimes it gets a man intodifficulties, and so, at last, when it got too hot to stand it anylonger, we cut and run. But regarded as nincompoops, our officers were adecided success; don't you think so, Picot?"

[*] This was Abel Douay--not to be confounded with his brother, Felix, who commanded the 7th corps. -TR. 

There was a brief interval of silence. Picot tossed off a glass of thewhite wine and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. 

"Of course, " said he. "It was just the same at Froeschwiller; thegeneral who would give battle under such circumstances is a fit subjectfor a lunatic asylum. That's what my captain said, and he's a little manwho knows what he is talking about. The truth of the matter is thatno one knew anything; we were only forty thousand strong, and we weresurprised by a whole army of those pigs. And no one was expecting tofight that day; battle was joined by degrees, one portion after anotherof our troops became engaged, against the wishes of our commanders, asit seems. Of course, I didn't see the whole of the affair, but what Ido know is that the dance lasted by fits and starts all day long; a bodywould think it was ended; not a bit of it! away would go the music morefuriously than ever. The commencement was at Woerth, a pretty littlevillage with a funny clock-tower that looks like a big stove, owing tothe earthenware tiles they have stuck all over it. I'll be hanged ifI know why we let go our hold of it that morning, for we broke all ourteeth and nails trying to get it back again in the afternoon, withoutsucceeding. Oh, my children, if I were to tell you of the slaughterthere, the throats that were cut and the brains knocked out, you wouldrefuse to believe me! The next place where we had trouble was around avillage with the jaw-breaking name of Elsasshausen. We got a pepperingfrom a lot of guns that banged away at us at their ease from the top ofa blasted hill that we had also abandoned that morning, why, no one hasever been able to tell. And there it was that with these very eyes ofmine I saw the famous charge of the cuirassiers. Ah, how gallantly theyrode to their death, poor fellows! A shame it was, I say, to let men andhorses charge over ground like that, covered with brush and furze, cutup by ditches. And on top of it all, _nom de Dieu!_ what good couldthey accomplish? But it was very _chic_ all the same; it was a beautifulsight to see. The next thing for us to do, shouldn't you suppose so? wasto go and sit down somewhere and try to get our wind again. They had setfire to the village and it was burning like tinder, and the whole gangof Bavarian, Wurtemburgian and Prussian pigs, more than a hundred andtwenty thousand of them there were, as we found out afterward, had gotaround into our rear and on our flanks. But there was to be no restfor us then, for just at that time the fiddles began to play againa livelier tune than ever around Froeschwiller. For there's no usetalking, fellows, MacMahon may be a blockhead but he is a brave man; youought to have seen him on his big horse, with the shells bursting allabout him! The best thing to do would have been to give leg-bail at thebeginning, for it is no disgrace to a general to refuse to fight an armyof superior numbers, but he, once we had gone in, was bound to see thething through to the end. And see it through he did! why, I tell youthat the men down in Froeschwiller were no longer human beings; theywere ravening wolves devouring one another. For near two hours thegutters ran red with blood. All the same, however, we had to knuckleunder in the end. And to think that after it was all over they shouldcome and tell us that we had whipped the Bavarians over on our left!By the piper that played before Moses, if we had only had a hundred andtwenty thousand men, if _we_ had had guns, and leaders with a littlepluck!"

Loud and angry were the denunciations of Coutard and Picot in theirragged, dusty uniforms as they cut themselves huge slices of bread andbolted bits of cheese, evoking their bitter memories there in the shadeof the pretty trellis, where the sun played hide and seek among thepurple and gold of the clusters of ripening grapes. They had come now tothe horrible flight that succeeded the defeat; the broken, demoralized, famishing regiments flying through the fields, the highroads blockedwith men, horses, wagons, guns, in inextricable confusion; all the wreckand ruin of a beaten army that pressed on, on, on, with the chill breathof panic on their backs. As they had not had wit enough to fall backwhile there was time and take post among the passes of the Vosges, where ten thousand men would have sufficed to hold in check a hundredthousand, they should at least have blown up the bridges and destroyedthe tunnels; but the generals had lost their heads, and both sides wereso dazed, each was so ignorant of the other's movements, that for atime each of them was feeling to ascertain the position of its opponent, MacMahon hurrying off toward Luneville, while the Crown Prince ofPrussia was looking for him in the direction of the Vosges. On the 7ththe remnant of the 1st corps passed through Saverne, like a swollenstream that carries away upon its muddy bosom all with which it comes incontact. On the 8th, at Sarrebourg, the 5th corps came tumbling in uponthe 1st, like one mad mountain torrent pouring its waters into another. The 5th was also flying, defeated without having fought a battle, sweeping away with it its commander, poor General de Failly, almostcrazy with the thought that to his inactivity was imputed theresponsibility of the defeat, when the fault all rested in the Marshal'shaving failed to send him orders. The mad flight continued on the 9thand 10th, a stampede in which no one turned to look behind him. On the11th, in order to turn Nancy, which a mistaken rumor had reported tobe occupied by the enemy, they made their way in a pouring rainstorm toBayon; the 12th they camped at Haroue, the 13th at Vicherey, and on the14th were at Neufchateau, where at last they struck the railroad, andfor three days the work went on of loading the weary men into the carsthat were to take them to Chalons. Twenty-four hours after the lasttrain rolled out of the station the Prussians entered the town. "Ah, thecursed luck!" said Picot in conclusion; "how we had to ply our legs! Andwe who should by rights have been in hospital!"

Coutard emptied what was left in the bottle into his own and hiscomrade's glass. "Yes, we got on our pins, somehow, and are running yet. Bah! it is the best thing for us, after all, since it gives us a chanceto drink the health of those who were not knocked over. "

Maurice saw through it all. The sledge hammer blow of Froeschwiller, following so close on the heels of the idiotic surprise at Wissembourg, was the lightning flash whose baleful light disclosed to him the entirenaked, terrible truth. We were taken unprepared; we had neither guns, nor men, nor generals, while our despised foe was an innumerable host, provided with all modern appliances and faultless in discipline andleadership. The three German armies had burst apart the weak line of ourseven corps, scattered between Metz and Strasbourg, like three powerfulwedges. We were doomed to fight our battle out unaided; nothing could behoped for now from Austria and Italy, for all the Emperor's plans weredisconcerted by the tardiness of our operations and the incapacity ofthe commanders. Fate, even, seemed to be working against us, heaping allsorts of obstacles and ill-timed accidents in our path and favoring thesecret plan of the Prussians, which was to divide our armies, throwingone portion back on Metz, where it would be cut off from France, whilethey, having first destroyed the other fragment, should be marching onParis. It was as plain now as a problem in mathematics that our defeatwould be owing to causes that were patent to everyone; it was braverywithout intelligent guidance pitted against numbers and cold science. Men might discuss the question as they would in after days; happenwhat might, defeat was certain in spite of everything, as certain andinexorable as the laws of nature that rule our planet. 

In the midst of his uncheerful revery, Maurice's eyes suddenly lightedon the legend scrawled on the wall before him--_Vive Napoleon!_ and asensation of intolerable distress seemed to pierce his heart like a redhot iron. Could it be true, then, that France, whose victories were thetheme of song and story everywhere, the great nation whose drums hadsounded throughout the length and breadth of Europe, had been thrownin the dust at the first onset by an insignificant race, despised ofeveryone? Fifty years had sufficed to compass it; the world hadchanged, and defeat most fearful had overtaken those who had been deemedinvincible. He remembered the words that had been uttered by Weisshis brother-in-law, during that evening of anxiety when they wereat Mulhausen. Yes, he alone of them had been clear of vision, hadpenetrated the hidden causes that had long been slowly sapping ourstrength, had felt the freshening gale of youth and progress underthe impulse of which Germany was being wafted onward to prosperity andpower. Was not the old warlike age dying and a new one coming to thefront? Woe to that one among the nations which halted in its onwardmarch! the victory is to those who are with the advance-guard, to thosewho are clear of head and strong of body, to the most powerful. 

But just then there came from the smoke-blackened kitchen, where thewalls were bright with the colored prints of Epinal, a sound of voicesand the squalling of a girl who submits, not unwillingly, to be tousled. It was Lieutenant Rochas, availing himself of his privilege as aconquering hero, to catch and kiss the pretty waitress. He came out intothe arbor, where he ordered a cup of coffee to be served him, and as hehad heard the concluding words of Picot's narrative, proceeded to take ahand in the conversation:

"Bah! my children, those things that you are speaking of don't amountto anything. It is only the beginning of the dance; you will see the funcommence in earnest presently. _Pardi_! up to the present time they havebeen five to our one, but things are going to take a change now; justput that in your pipe and smoke it. We are three hundred thousand stronghere, and every move we make, which nobody can see through, is made withthe intention of bringing the Prussians down on us, while Bazaine, whohas got his eye on them, will take them in their rear. And then we'llsmash 'em, _crac_! just as I smash this fly!"

Bringing his hands together with a sounding clap he caught and crusheda fly on the wing, and he laughed loud and cheerily, believing withall his simple soul in the feasibility of a plan that seemed so simple, steadfast in his faith in the invincibility of French courage. Hegood-naturedly informed the two soldiers of the exact position of theirregiments, then lit a cigar and seated himself contentedly before his_demitasse_. 

"The pleasure was all mine, comrades!" Maurice replied to Coutard andPicot, who, as they were leaving, thanked him for the cheese and wine. 

He had also called for a cup of coffee and sat watching the Lieutenant, whose hopefulness had communicated itself to him, a little surprised, however, to hear him enumerate their strength at three hundredthousand men, when it was not more than a hundred thousand, and at hishappy-go-lucky way of crushing the Prussians between the two armies ofChalons and Metz. But then he, too, felt such need of some comfortingillusion! Why should he not continue to hope when all those gloriousmemories of the past that he had evoked were still ringing in his ears?The old inn was so bright and cheerful, with its trellis hung with thepurple grapes of France, ripening in the golden sunlight! And again hisconfidence gained a momentary ascendancy over the gloomy despair thatthe late events had engendered in him. 

Maurice's eyes had rested for a moment on an officer of chasseursd'Afrique who, with his orderly, had disappeared at a sharp trot aroundthe corner of the silent house where the Emperor was quartered, and whenthe orderly came back alone and stopped with his two horses before theinn door he gave utterance to an exclamation of surprise:

"Prosper! Why, I supposed you were at Metz!"

It was a young man of Remilly, a simple farm-laborer, whom he had knownas a boy in the days when he used to go and spend his vacations with hisuncle Fouchard. He had been drawn, and when the war broke out had beenthree years in Africa; he cut quite a dashing figure in his sky-bluejacket, his wide red trousers with blue stripes and red woolen belt, with his sun-dried face and strong, sinewy limbs that indicated greatstrength and activity. 

"Hallo! it's Monsieur Maurice! I'm glad to see you!"

He took things very easily, however, conducting the steaming horsesto the stable, and to his own, more particularly, giving a paternalattention. It was no doubt his affection for the noble animal, contracted when he was a boy and rode him to the plow, that had made himselect the cavalry arm of the service. 

"We've just come in from Monthois, more than ten leagues at a stretch, "he said when he came back, "and Poulet will be wanting his breakfast. "

Poulet was the horse. He declined to eat anything himself; would onlyaccept a cup of coffee. He had to wait for his officer, who had to waitfor the Emperor; he might be five minutes, and then again he might betwo hours, so his officer had told him to put the horses in the stable. And as Maurice, whose curiosity was aroused, showed some disposition topump him, his face became as vacant as a blank page. 

"Can't say. An errand of some sort--papers to be delivered. "

But Rochas looked at the chasseur with an eye of tenderness, for theuniform awakened old memories of Africa. 

"Eh! my lad, where were you stationed out there?"

"At Medeah, Lieutenant. "

Ah, Medeah! And drawing their chairs closer together they started aconversation, regardless of difference in rank. The life of thedesert had become a second nature, for Prosper, where the trumpet wascontinually calling them to arms, where a large portion of their timewas spent on horseback, riding out to battle as they would to the chase, to some grand battue of Arabs. There was just one soup-basin for everysix men, or tribe, as it was called, and each tribe was a family byitself, one of its members attending to the cooking, another washingtheir linen, the others pitching the tent, caring for the horses, andcleaning the arms. By day they scoured the country beneath a sun likea ball of blazing copper, loaded down with the burden of their arms andutensils; at night they built great fires to drive away the mosquitoesand sat around them, singing the songs of France. Often it happened thatin the luminous darkness of the night, thick set with stars, they hadto rise and restore peace among their four-footed friends, who, in thebalmy softness of the air, had set to biting and kicking one another, uprooting their pickets and neighing and snorting furiously. Then therewas the delicious coffee, their greatest, indeed their only, luxury, which they ground by the primitive appliances of a carbine-butt and aporringer, and afterward strained through a red woolen sash. But theirlife was not one of unalloyed enjoyment; there were dark days, also, when they were far from the abodes of civilized man with the enemybefore them. No more fires, then; no singing, no good times. Therewere times when hunger, thirst and want of sleep caused them horriblesuffering, but no matter; they loved that daring, adventurous life, thatwar of skirmishes, so propitious for the display of personal bravery andas interesting as a fairy tale, enlivened by the _razzias_, which wereonly public plundering on a larger scale, and by marauding, or theprivate peculations of the chicken-thieves, which afforded many anamusing story that made even the generals laugh. 

"Ah!" said Prosper, with a more serious face, "it's different here; thefighting is done in quite another way. "

And in reply to a question asked by Maurice, he told the story of theirlanding at Toulon and the long and wearisome march to Luneville. It wasthere that they first received news of Wissembourg and Froeschwiller. After that his account was less clear, for he got the names of townsmixed, Nancy and Saint-Mihiel, Saint-Mihiel and Metz. There must havebeen heavy fighting on the 14th, for the sky was all on fire, but all hesaw of it was four uhlans behind a hedge. On the 16th there was anotherengagement; they could hear the artillery going as early as six o'clockin the morning, and he had been told that on the 18th they started thedance again, more lively than ever. But the chasseurs were not in itthat time, for at Gravelotte on the 16th, as they were standing drawn upalong a road waiting to wheel into column, the Emperor, who passedthat way in a victoria, took them to act as his escort to Verdun. And apretty little jaunt it was, twenty-six miles at a hard gallop, with thefear of being cut off by the Prussians at any moment!

"And what of Bazaine?" asked Rochas. 

"Bazaine? they say that he is mightily well pleased that the Emperorlets him alone. "

But the Lieutenant wanted to know if Bazaine was coming to join them, whereon Prosper made a gesture expressive of uncertainty; what did anyone know? Ever since the 16th their time had been spent in marching andcountermarching in the rain, out on reconnoissance and grand-guard duty, and they had not seen a sign of an enemy. Now they were part of the armyof Chalons. His regiment, together with two regiments of chasseurs deFrance and one of hussars, formed one of the divisions of the cavalry ofreserve, the first division, commanded by General Margueritte, of whomhe spoke with most enthusiastic warmth. 

"Ah, the _bougre_! the enemy will catch a Tartar in him! But what's thegood talking? the only use they can find for us is to send us potteringabout in the mud. "

There was silence for a moment, then Maurice gave some brief news ofRemilly and uncle Fouchard, and Prosper expressed his regret that hecould not go and shake hands with Honore, the quartermaster-sergeant, whose battery was stationed more than a league away, on the other sideof the Laon road. But the chasseur pricked up his ears at hearing thewhinnying of a horse and rose and went out to make sure that Pouletwas not in want of anything. It was the hour sacred to coffee and_pousse-cafe_, and it was not long before the little hostelry was fullto overflowing with officers and men of every arm of the service. There was not a vacant table, and the bright uniforms shone resplendentagainst the green background of leaves checkered with spots of sunshine. Major Bouroche had just come in and taken a seat beside Rochas, whenJean presented himself with an order. 

"Lieutenant, the captain desires me to say that he wishes to see you atthree o'clock on company business. "

Rochas signified by a nod of the head that he had heard, and Jean didnot go away at once, but stood smiling at Maurice, who was lighting acigarette. Ever since the occurrence in the railway car there had been asort of tacit truce between the two men; they seemed to be reciprocallystudying each other, with an increasing interest and attraction. Butjust then Prosper came back, a little out of temper. 

"I mean to have something to eat unless my officer comes out of thatshanty pretty quick. The Emperor is just as likely as not to stay awayuntil dark, confound it all. "

"Tell me, " said Maurice, his curiosity again getting the better of him, "isn't it possible that the news you are bringing may be from Bazaine?"

"Perhaps so. There was a good deal of talk about him down there atMonthois. "

At that moment there was a stir outside in the street, and Jean, who wasstanding by one of the doors of the arbor, turned and said:

"The Emperor!"

Immediately everyone was on his feet. Along the broad, white road, withits rows of poplars on either side, came a troop of cent-gardes, spickand span in their brilliant uniforms, their cuirasses blazing in thesunlight, and immediately behind them rode the Emperor, accompaniedby his staff, in a wide open space, followed by a second troop ofcent-gardes. 

There was a general uncovering of heads, and here and there a hurrahwas heard; and the Emperor raised his head as he passed; his face lookeddrawn, the eyes were dim and watery. He had the dazed appearance of onesuddenly aroused from slumber, smiled faintly at sight of the cheerfulinn, and saluted. From behind them Maurice and Jean distinctly heard oldBouroche growl, having first surveyed the sovereign with his practicedeye:

"There's no mistake about it, that man is in a bad way. " Then hesuccinctly completed his diagnosis: "His jig is up!"

Jean shook his head and thought in his limited, common sense way: "It isa confounded shame to let a man like that have command of the army!" Andten minutes later, when Maurice, comforted by his good breakfast, shook hands with Prosper and strolled away to smoke more cigarettes, hecarried with him the picture of the Emperor, seated on his easy-gaitedhorse, so pale, so gentle, the man of thought, the dreamer, wantingin energy when the moment for action came. He was reputed to begood-hearted, capable, swayed by generous and noble thoughts, a silentman of strong and tenacious will; he was very brave, too, scorningdanger with the scorn of the fatalist for whom destiny has no fears; butin critical moments a fatal lethargy seemed to overcome him; he appearedto become paralyzed in presence of results, and powerless thereafterto struggle against Fortune should she prove adverse. And Maurice askedhimself if his were not a special physiological condition, aggravated bysuffering; if the indecision and increasing incapacity that the Emperorhad displayed ever since the opening of the campaign were not to beattributed to his manifest illness. That would explain everything: aminute bit of foreign substance in a man's system, and empires totter. 

The camp that evening was all astir with activity; officers werebustling about with orders and arranging for the start the followingmorning at five o'clock. Maurice experienced a shock of surprise andalarm to learn that once again all their plans were changed, that theywere not to fall back on Paris, but proceed to Verdun and effect ajunction with Bazaine. There was a report that dispatches had come induring the day from the marshal announcing that he was retreating, andthe young man's thoughts reverted to the officer of chasseurs and hisrapid ride from Monthois; perhaps he had been the bearer of a copyof the dispatch. So, then, the opinions of the Empress-regent and theCouncil of Ministers had prevailed with the vacillating MacMahon, intheir dread to see the Emperor return to Paris and their inflexibledetermination to push the army forward in one supreme attempt to savethe dynasty; and the poor Emperor, that wretched man for whom there wasno place in all his vast empire, was to be bundled to and fro among thebaggage of his army like some worthless, worn-out piece of furniture, condemned to the irony of dragging behind him in his suite his imperialhousehold, cent-gardes, horses, carriages, cooks, silver stew-pans andcases of champagne, trailing his flaunting mantle, embroidered withthe Napoleonic bees, through the blood and mire of the highways of hisretreat. 

At midnight Maurice was not asleep; he was feverishly wakeful, andhis gloomy reflections kept him tossing and tumbling on his pallet. Hefinally arose and went outside, where he found comfort and refreshmentin the cool night air. The sky was overspread with clouds, the darknesswas intense; along the front of the line the expiring watch-firesgleamed with a red and sullen light at distant intervals, and in thedeathlike, boding silence could be heard the long-drawn breathing ofthe hundred thousand men who slumbered there. Then Maurice became moretranquil, and there descended on him a sentiment of brotherhood, fullof compassionate kindness for all those slumbering fellow-creatures, ofwhom thousands would soon be sleeping the sleep of death. Brave fellows!True, many of them were thieves and drunkards, but think of whatthey had suffered and the excuse there was for them in the universaldemoralization! The glorious veterans of Solferino and Sebastopol werebut a handful, incorporated in the ranks of the newly raised troops, toofew in number to make their example felt. The four corps that had beengot together and equipped so hurriedly, devoid of every element ofcohesion, were the forlorn hope, the expiatory band that their rulerswere sending to the sacrifice in the endeavor to avert the wrath ofdestiny. They would bear their cross to the bitter end, atoning withtheir life's blood for the faults of others, glorious amid disaster anddefeat. 

And then it was that Maurice, there in the darkness that was instinctwith life, became conscious that a great duty lay before him. He ceasedto beguile himself with the illusive prospect of great victories to begained; the march to Verdun was a march to death, and he so accepted it, since it was their lot to die, with brave and cheerful resignation. 

IV. 

On Tuesday, the 23d of August, at six o'clock in the morning, campwas broken, and as a stream that has momentarily expanded into a lakeresumes its course again, the hundred and odd thousand men of the armyof Chalons put themselves in motion and soon were pouring onward in aresistless torrent; and notwithstanding the rumors that had been currentsince the preceding day, it was a great surprise to most to see thatinstead of continuing their retrograde movement they were leaving Parisbehind them and turning their faces toward the unknown regions of theEast. 

At five o'clock in the morning the 7th corps was still unsupplied withcartridges. For two days the artillerymen had been working like beaversto unload the _materiel_, horses, and stores that had been streamingfrom Metz into the overcrowded station, and it was only at the very lastmoment that some cars of cartridges were discovered among the tangledtrains, and that a detail which included Jean among its numbers wasenabled to bring back two hundred and forty thousand on carts that theyhad hurriedly requisitioned. Jean distributed the regulation number, onehundred cartridges to a man, among his squad, just as Gaude, the companybugler, sounded the order to march. 

The 106th was not to pass through Rheims, their orders being to turn thecity and debouch into the Chalons road farther on, but on this occasionthere was the usual failure to regulate the order and time of marching, so that, the four corps having commenced to move at the same moment, they collided when they came out upon the roads that they were totraverse in common and the result was inextricable confusion. Cavalryand artillery were constantly cutting in among the infantry and bringingthem to a halt; whole brigades were compelled to leave the road andstand at ordered arms in the plowed fields for more than an hour, waiting until the way should be cleared. And to make matters worse, theyhad hardly left the camp when a terrible storm broke over them, therain pelting down in torrents, drenching the men completely and addingintolerably to the weight of knapsacks and great-coats. Just as the rainbegan to hold up, however, the 106th saw a chance to go forward, whilesome zouaves in an adjoining field, who were forced to wait yet fora while, amused themselves by pelting one another with balls of moistearth, and the consequent condition of their uniforms afforded them muchmerriment. 

The sun suddenly came shining out again in the clear sky, the warm, bright sun of an August morning, and with it came returning gayety; themen were steaming like a wash of linen hung out to dry in the open air:the moisture evaporated from their clothing in little more time than ittakes to tell it, and when they were warm and dry again, like dogs whoshake the water from them when they emerge from a pond, they chaffed oneanother good-naturedly on their bedraggled appearance and the splashesof mud on their red trousers. Wherever two roads intersected anotherhalt was necessitated; the last one was in a little village just beyondthe walls of the city, in front of a small saloon that seemed to bedoing a thriving business. Thereon it occurred to Maurice to treat thesquad to a drink, by way of wishing them all good luck. 

"Corporal, will you allow me--"

Jean, after hesitating a moment, accepted a "pony" of brandy forhimself. Loubet and Chouteau were of the party (the latter had beenwatchful and submissive since that day when the corporal had evinceda disposition to use his heavy fists), and also Pache and Lapoulle, acouple of very decent fellows when there was no one to set them a badexample. 

"Your good health, corporal!" said Chouteau in a respectful, whiningtone. 

"Thank you; here's hoping that you may bring back your head and allyour legs and arms!" Jean politely replied, while the others laughedapprovingly. 

But the column was about to move; Captain Beaudoin came up with ascandalized look on his face and a reproof at the tip of his tongue, while Lieutenant Rochas, more indulgent to the small weaknesses of hismen, turned his head so as not to see what was going on. And now theywere stepping out at a good round pace along the Chalons road, whichstretched before them for many a long league, bordered with trees oneither side, undeviatingly straight, like a never-ending ribbon unrolledbetween the fields of yellow stubble that were dotted here and therewith tall stacks and wooden windmills brandishing their lean arms. Moreto the north were rows of telegraph poles, indicating the position ofother roads, on which they could distinguish the black, crawling linesof other marching regiments. In many places the troops had left thehighway and were moving in deep columns across the open plain. To theleft and front a cavalry brigade was seen, jogging along at an easy trotin a blaze of sunshine. The entire wide horizon, usually so silent anddeserted, was alive and populous with those streams of men, pressingonward, onward, in long drawn, black array, like the innumerable throngof insects from some gigantic ant-hill. 

About nine o'clock the regiment left the Chalons road and wheeled to theleft into another that led to Suippe, which, like the first, extended, straight as an arrow's flight, far as the eye could see. The men marchedat the route-step in two straggling files along either side of the road, thus leaving the central space free for the officers, and Maurice couldnot help noticing their anxious, care-worn air, in striking contrastwith the jollity and good-humor of the soldiers, who were happy aschildren to be on the move once more. As the squad was near the head ofthe column he could even distinguish the Colonel, M. De Vineuil, in thedistance, and was impressed by the grave earnestness of his manner, andhis tall, rigid form, swaying in cadence to the motion of his charger. The band had been sent back to the rear, to keep company with theregimental wagons; it played but once during that entire campaign. Thencame the ambulances and engineer's train attached to the division, andsucceeding that the corps train, an interminable procession of foragewagons, closed vans for stores, carts for baggage, and vehicles ofevery known description, occupying a space of road nearly four miles inlength, and which, at the infrequent curves in the highway, they couldsee winding behind them like the tail of some great serpent. And last ofall, at the extreme rear of the column, came the herds, "rations on thehoof, " a surging, bleating, bellowing mass of sheep and oxen, urged onby blows and raising clouds of dust, reminding one of the old warlikepeoples of the East and their migrations. 

Lapoulle meantime would every now and then give a hitch of his shouldersin an attempt to shift the weight of his knapsack when it began tobe too heavy. The others, alleging that he was the strongest, wereaccustomed to make him carry the various utensils that were common tothe squad, including the big kettle and the water-pail; on this occasionthey had even saddled him with the company shovel, assuring him thatit was a badge of honor. So far was he from complaining that he was nowlaughing at a song with which Loubet, the tenor of the squad, was tryingto beguile the tedium of the way. Loubet had made himself quitefamous by reason of his knapsack, in which was to be found a littleof everything: linen, an extra pair of shoes, haberdashery, chocolate, brushes, a plate and cup, to say nothing of his regular rations ofbiscuit and coffee, and although the all-devouring receptacle alsocontained his cartridges, and his blankets were rolled on top ofit, together with the shelter-tent and stakes, the load neverthelessappeared light, such an excellent system he had of packing his trunk, ashe himself expressed it. 

"It's a beastly country, all the same!" Chouteau kept repeating fromtime to time, casting a look of intense disgust over the dreary plainsof "lousy Champagne. "

Broad expanses of chalky ground of a dirty white lay before and aroundthem, and seemed to have no end. Not a farmhouse to be seen anywhere, not a living being; nothing but flocks of crows, forming small spots ofblackness on the immensity of the gray waste. On the left, far away inthe distance, the low hills that bounded the horizon in that directionwere crowned by woods of somber pines, while on the right an unbrokenwall of trees indicated the course of the river Vesle. But over therebehind the hills they had seen for the last hour a dense smoke wasrising, the heavy clouds of which obscured the sky and told of adreadful conflagration raging at no great distance. 

"What is burning over there?" was the question that was on the lips ofeveryone. 

The answer was quickly given and ran through the column from front torear. The camp of Chalons had been fired, it was said, by order of theEmperor, to keep the immense collection of stores there from fallinginto the hands of the Prussians, and for the last two days it had beengoing up in flame and smoke. The cavalry of the rear-guard had beeninstructed to apply the torch to two immense warehouses, filled withtents, tent-poles, mattresses, clothing, shoes, blankets, mess utensils, supplies of every kind sufficient for the equipment of a hundredthousand men. Stacks of forage also had been lighted, and were blazinglike huge beacon-fires, and an oppressive silence settled down upon thearmy as it pursued its march across the wide, solitary plain at sightof that dusky, eddying column that rose from behind the distant hills, filling the heavens with desolation. All that was to be heard in thebright sunlight was the measured tramp of many feet upon the hollowground, while involuntarily the eyes of all were turned on that lividcloud whose baleful shadows rested on their march for many a league. 

Their spirits rose again when they made their midday halt in a field ofstubble, where the men could seat themselves on their unslung knapsacksand refresh themselves with a bite. The large square biscuits could onlybe eaten by crumbling them in the soup, but the little round ones werequite a delicacy, light and appetizing; the only trouble was that theyleft an intolerable thirst behind them. Pache sang a hymn, being invitedthereto, the squad joining in the chorus. Jean smiled good-naturedlywithout attempting to check them in their amusement, while Maurice, atsight of the universal cheerfulness and the good order with which theirfirst day's march was conducted, felt a revival of confidence. Theremainder of the allotted task of the day was performed with thesame light-hearted alacrity, although the last five miles tried theirendurance. They had abandoned the high road, leaving the village ofProsnes to their right, in order to avail themselves of a short cutacross a sandy heath diversified by an occasional thin pine wood, andthe entire division, with its interminable train at its heels, turnedand twisted in and out among the trees, sinking ankle deep in theyielding sand at every step. It seemed as if the cheerless waste wouldnever end; all that they met was a flock of very lean sheep, guarded bya big black dog. 

It was about four o'clock when at last the 106th halted for the night atDontrien, a small village on the banks of the Suippe. The little streamwinds among some pretty groves of trees; the old church stands in themiddle of the graveyard, which is shaded in its entire extent by amagnificent chestnut. The regiment pitched its tents on the left bank, in a meadow that sloped gently down to the margin of the river. Theofficers said that all the four corps would bivouac that evening on theline of the Suippe between Auberive and Hentregiville, occupying theintervening villages of Dontrien, Betheniville and Pont-Faverger, makinga line of battle nearly five leagues long. 

Gaude immediately gave the call for "distribution, " and Jean had to runfor it, for the corporal was steward-in-chief, and it behooved him tobe on the lookout to protect his men's interests. He had taken Lapoullewith him, and in a quarter of an hour they returned with some ribs ofbeef and a bundle of firewood. In the short space of time succeedingtheir arrival three steers of the herd that followed the column hadbeen knocked in the head under a great oak-tree, skinned, and cut up. Lapoulle had to return for bread, which the villagers of Dontrien hadbeen baking all that afternoon in their ovens. There was really no lackof anything on that first day, setting aside wine and tobacco, withwhich the troops were to be obliged to dispense during the remainder ofthe campaign. 

Upon Jean's return he found Chouteau engaged in raising the tent, assisted by Pache; he looked at them for a moment with the critical eyeof an old soldier who had no great opinion of their abilities. 

"It will do very well if the weather is fine to-night, " he said at last, "but if it should come on to blow we would like enough wake up and findourselves in the river. Let me show you. "

And he was about to send Maurice with the large pail for water, butthe young man had sat down on the ground, taken off his shoe, and wasexamining his right foot. 

"Hallo, there! what's the matter with you?"

"My shoe has chafed my foot and raised a blister. My other shoes wereworn out, and when we were at Rheims I bought these, like a big fool, because they were a good fit. I should have selected gunboats. "

Jean kneeled and took the foot in his hand, turning it over as carefullyas if it had been a little child's, with a disapproving shake of hishead. 

"You must be careful; it is no laughing matter, a thing like that. Asoldier without the use of his feet is of no good to himself or anyoneelse. When we were in Italy my captain used always to say that it is themen's legs that win battles. "

He bade Pache go for the water, no very hard task, as the river wasbut a few yards away, and Loubet, having in the meantime dug a shallowtrench and lit his fire, was enabled to commence operations on his_pot-au-feu_, which he did by putting on the big kettle full of waterand plunging into it the meat that he had previously corded togetherwith a bit of twine, _secundum artem_. Then it was solid comfort forthem to watch the boiling of the soup; the whole squad, their choresdone up and their day's labor ended, stretched themselves on the grassaround the fire in a family group, full of tender anxiety for thesimmering meat, while Loubet occasionally stirred the pot with a gravityfitted to the importance of his position. Like children and savages, their sole instinct was to eat and sleep, careless of the morrow, whileadvancing to face unknown risks and dangers. 

But Maurice had unpacked his knapsack and come across a newspaper thathe had bought at Rheims, and Chouteau asked:

"Is there anything about the Prussians in it? Read us the news!"

They were a happy family under Jean's mild despotism. Mauricegood-naturedly read such news as he thought might interest them, whilePache, the seamstress of the company, mended his greatcoat for him andLapoulle cleaned his musket. The first item was a splendid victory wonby Bazaine, who had driven an entire Prussian corps into the quarries ofJaumont, and the trumped-up tale was told with an abundance of dramaticdetail, how men and horses went over the precipice and were crushed onthe rocks beneath out of all semblance of humanity, so that there wasnot one whole corpse found for burial. Then there were minute details ofthe pitiable condition of the German armies ever since they had invadedFrance: the ill-fed, poorly equipped soldiers were actually fallingfrom inanition and dying by the roadside of horrible diseases. Anotherarticle told how the king of Prussia had the diarrhea, and how Bismarckhad broken his leg in jumping from the window of an inn where a partyof zouaves had just missed capturing him. Capital news! Lapoulle laughedover it as if he would split his sides, while Chouteau and the others, without expressing the faintest doubt, chuckled at the idea that soonthey would be picking up Prussians as boys pick up sparrows in a fieldafter a hail-storm. But they laughed loudest at old Bismarck's accident;oh! the zouaves and the turcos, they were the boys for one's money! Itwas said that the Germans were in an ecstasy of fear and rage, declaringthat it was unworthy of a nation that claimed to be civilized to employsuch heathen savages in its armies. Although they had been decimatedat Froeschwiller, the foreign troops seemed to have a good deal of lifeleft in them. 

It was just striking six from the steeple of the little church ofDontrien when Loubet shouted:

"Come to supper!"

The squad lost no time in seating themselves in a circle. At the verylast moment Loubet had succeeded in getting some vegetables from apeasant who lived hard by. That made the crowning glory of the feast: asoup perfumed with carrots and onions, that went down the throat soft asvelvet--what could they have desired more? The spoons rattled merrily inthe little wooden bowls. Then it devolved on Jean, who always served theportions, to distribute the beef, and it behooved him that day to do itwith the strictest impartiality, for hungry eyes were watching him andthere would have been a growl had anyone received a larger piece thanhis neighbors. They concluded by licking the porringers, and weresmeared with soup up to their eyes. 

"Ah, _nom de Dieu!_" Chouteau declared when he had finished, throwinghimself flat on his back; "I would rather take that than a beating, anyday!"

Maurice, too, whose foot pained him less now that he could give it alittle rest, was conscious of that sensation of well-being that is theresult of a full stomach. He was beginning to take more kindly to hisrough companions, and to bring himself down nearer to their level underthe pressure of the physical necessities of their life in common. Thatnight he slept the same deep sleep as did his five tent-mates; theyall huddled close together, finding the sensation of animal warmth notdisagreeable in the heavy dew that fell. It is necessary to state thatLapoulle, at the instigation of Loubet, had gone to a stack not faraway and feloniously appropriated a quantity of straw, in which our sixgentlemen snored as if it had been a bed of down. And from Auberive toHentregiville, along the pleasant banks of the Suippe as it meanderedsluggishly between its willows, the fires of those hundred thousandsleeping men illuminated the starlit night for fifteen miles, like along array of twinkling stars. 

At sunrise they made coffee, pulverizing the berries in a wooden bowlwith a musket-butt, throwing the powder into boiling water, and settlingit with a drop of cold water. The luminary rose that morning in a bankof purple and gold, affording a spectacle of royal magnificence, butMaurice had no eye for such displays, and Jean, with the weather-wisdomof a peasant, cast an anxious glance at the red disk, which presagedrain; and it was for that reason that, the surplus of bread baked theday before having been distributed and the squad having received threeloaves, he reproved severely Loubet and Pache for making them faston the outside of their knapsacks; but the tents were folded and theknapsacks packed, and so no one paid any attention to him. Six o'clockwas sounding from all the bells of the village when the army put itselfin motion and stoutly resumed its advance in the bright hopefulness ofthe dawn of the new day. 

The 106th, in order to reach the road that leads from Rheims toVouziers, struck into a cross-road, and for more than an hour their waywas an ascending one. Below them, toward the north, Betheniville wasvisible among the trees, where the Emperor was reported to have slept, and when they reached the Vouziers road the level country of thepreceding day again presented itself to their gaze and the lean fieldsof "lousy Champagne" stretched before them in wearisome monotony. Theynow had the Arne, an insignificant stream, flowing on their left, whileto the right the treeless, naked country stretched far as the eye couldsee in an apparently interminable horizon. They passed through a villageor two: Saint-Clement, with its single winding street bordered by adouble row of houses, Saint-Pierre, a little town of miserly rich menwho had barricaded their doors and windows. The long halt occurred aboutten o'clock, near another village, Saint-Etienne, where the men werehighly delighted to find tobacco once more. The 7th corps had been cutup into several columns, and the 106th headed one of these columns, having behind it only a battalion of chasseurs and the reserveartillery. Maurice turned his head at every bend in the road to catcha glimpse of the long train that had so excited his interest the daybefore, but in vain; the herds had gone off in some other direction, and all he could see was the guns, looming inordinately large upon thoselevel plains, like monster insects of somber mien. 

After leaving Saint-Etienne, however, there was a change for the worse, and the road from bad became abominable, rising by an easy ascentbetween great sterile fields in which the only signs of vegetation werethe everlasting pine woods with their dark verdure, forming a dismalcontrast with the gray-white soil. It was the most forlorn spot they hadseen yet. The ill-paved road, washed by the recent rains, was a lake ofmud, of tenacious, slippery gray clay, which held the men's feet like somuch pitch. It was wearisome work; the troops were exhausted and couldnot get forward, and as if things were not bad enough already, the rainsuddenly began to come down most violently. The guns were mired and hadto be left in the road. 

Chouteau, who had been given the squad's rice to carry, fatigued andexasperated with his heavy load, watched for an opportunity when no onewas looking and dropped the package. But Loubet had seen him. 

"See here, that's no way! you ought not to do that. The comrades will behungry by and by. "

"Let be!" replied Chouteau. "There is plenty of rice; they will give usmore at the end of the march. "

And Loubet, who had the bacon, convinced by such cogent reasoning, dropped his load in turn. 

Maurice was suffering more and more with his foot, of which the heelwas badly inflamed. He limped along in such a pitiable state that Jean'ssympathy was aroused. 

"Does it hurt? is it no better, eh?" And as the men were halted justthen for a breathing spell, he gave him a bit of good advice. "Take offyour shoe and go barefoot; the cool earth will ease the pain. "

And in that way Maurice found that he could keep up with his comradeswith some degree of comfort; he experienced a sentiment of deepgratitude. It was a piece of great good luck that their squad had acorporal like him, a man who had seen service and knew all the tricks ofthe trade: he was an uncultivated peasant, of course, but a good fellowall the same. 

It was late when they reached their place of bivouac at Contreuve, aftermarching a long time on the Chalons and Vouziers road and descending bya steep path into the valley of the Semide, up which they came througha stretch of narrow meadows. The landscape had undergone a change; theywere now in the Ardennes, and from the lofty hills above the villagewhere the engineers had staked off the ground for the 7th corps' camp, the valley of the Aisne was dimly visible in the distance, veiled in thepale mists of the passing shower. 

Six o'clock came and there had been no distribution of rations, whereonJean, in order to keep occupied, apprehensive also of the consequencesthat might result from the high wind that was springing up, determinedto attend in person to the setting up of the tent. He showed his men howit should be done, selecting a bit of ground that sloped away a littleto one side, setting the pegs at the proper angle, and digging a littletrench around the whole to carry off the water. Maurice was excusedfrom the usual nightly drudgery on account of his sore foot, and was aninterested witness of the intelligence and handiness of the big youngfellow whose general appearance was so stolid and ungainly. He wascompletely knocked up with fatigue, but the confidence that they werenow advancing with a definite end in view served to sustain him. Theyhad had a hard time of it since they left Rheims, making nearly fortymiles in two days' marching; if they could maintain the pace and if theykept straight on in the direction they were pursuing, there could beno doubt that they would destroy the second German army and effect ajunction with Bazaine before the third, the Crown Prince of Prussia's, which was said to be at Vitry-le Francois, could get up to Verdun. 

"Oh, come now! I wonder if they are going to let us starve!" wasChouteau's remark when, at seven o'clock, there was still no sign ofrations. 

By way of taking time by the forelock, Jean had instructed Loubetto light the fire and put on the pot, and, as there was no issue offirewood, he had been compelled to be blind to the slight irregularityof the proceeding when that individual remedied the omission by tearingthe palings from an adjacent fence. When he suggested knocking up adish of bacon and rice, however, the truth had to come out, and hewas informed that the rice and bacon were lying in the mud of theSaint-Etienne road. Chouteau lied with the greatest effrontery declaringthat the package must have slipped from his shoulders without hisnoticing it. 

"You are a couple of pigs!" Jean shouted angrily, "to throw awaygood victuals, when there are so many poor devils going with an emptystomach!"

It was the same with the three loaves that had been fastened outside theknapsacks; they had not listened to his warning, and the consequence wasthat the rain had soaked the bread and reduced it to paste. 

"A pretty pickle we are in!" he continued. "We had food in plenty, andnow here we are, without a crumb! Ah! you are a pair of dirty pigs!"

At that moment the first sergeant's call was heard, and Sergeant Sapin, returning presently with his usual doleful air, informed the men thatit would be impossible to distribute rations that evening, and that theywould have to content themselves with what eatables they had on theirpersons. It was reported that the trains had been delayed by the badweather, and as to the herds, they must have straggled off as a resultof conflicting orders. Subsequently it became known that on that day the5th and 12th corps had got up to Rethel, where the headquarters of thearmy were established, and the inhabitants of the neighboring villages, possessed with a mad desire to see the Emperor, had inaugurated a hegiratoward that town, taking with them everything in the way of provisions;so that when the 7th corps came up they found themselves in a land ofnakedness: no bread, no meat, no people, even. To add to their distressa misconception of orders had caused the supplies of the commissarydepartment to be directed on Chene-Populeux. This was a state of affairsthat during the entire campaign formed the despair of the wretchedcommissaries, who had to endure the abuse and execrations of the wholearmy, while their sole fault lay in being punctual at rendezvous atwhich the troops failed to appear. 

"It serves you right, you dirty pigs!" continued Jean in his wrath, "andyou don't deserve the trouble that I am going to have in finding yousomething to eat, for I suppose it is my duty not to let you starve, allthe same. " And he started off to see what he could find, as every goodcorporal does under such circumstances, taking with him Pache, who wasa favorite on account of his quiet manner, although he considered himrather too priest-ridden. 

But Loubet's attention had just been attracted to a little farmhouse, one of the last dwellings in Contreuve, some two or three hundred yardsaway, where there seemed to him to be promise of good results. He calledChouteau and Lapoulle to him and said:

"Come along, and let's see what we can do. I've a notion there's grub tobe had over that way. "

So Maurice was left to keep up the fire and watch the kettle, in whichthe water was beginning to boil. He had seated himself on his blanketand taken off his shoe in order to give his blister a chance to heal. It amused him to look about the camp and watch the behavior of thedifferent squads now that there was to be no issue of rations; thededuction that he arrived at was that some of them were in a chronicstate of destitution, while others reveled in continual abundance, andthat these conditions were ascribable to the greater or less degree oftact and foresight of the corporal and his men. Amid the confusion thatreigned about the stacks and tents he remarked some squads who had notbeen able even to start a fire, others of which the men had abandonedhope and lain themselves resignedly down for the night, while othersagain were ravenously devouring, no one knew what, something good, no doubt. Another thing that impressed him was the good order thatprevailed in the artillery, which had its camp above him, on thehillside. The setting sun peeped out from a rift in the clouds and hisrays were reflected from the burnished guns, from which the men hadcleansed the coat of mud that they had picked up along the road. 

In the meantime General Bourgain-Desfeuilles, commanding the brigade, had found quarters suited to his taste in the little farmhouse towardwhich the designs of Loubet and his companions were directed. He haddiscovered something that had the semblance of a bed and was seated attable with a roasted chicken and an omelette before him; consequentlyhe was in the best of humors, and as Colonel de Vineuil happened in justthen on regimental business, had invited him to dine. They were enjoyingtheir repast, therefore, waited on by a tall, light-haired individualwho had been in the farmer's service only three days and claimed to bean Alsatian, one of those who had been forced to leave their countryafter the disaster of Froeschwiller. The general did not seem to thinkit necessary to use any restraint in presence of the man, commentingfreely on the movements of the army, and finally, forgetful of the factthat he was not an inhabitant of the country, began to question himabout localities and distances. His questions displayed such utterignorance of the country that the colonel, who had once lived atMezieres, was astounded; he gave such information as he had at command, which elicited from the chief the exclamation:

"It is just like our idiotic government! How can they expect us to fightin a country of which we know nothing?"

The colonel's face assumed a look of vague consternation. He knewthat immediately upon the declaration of war maps of Germany had beendistributed among the officers, while it was quite certain that not oneof them had a map of France. He was amazed and confounded by what hehad seen and heard since the opening of the campaign. His unquestionedbravery was his distinctive trait; he was a somewhat weak and not verybrilliant commander, which caused him to be more loved than respected inhis regiment. 

"It's too bad that a man can't eat his dinner in peace!" the generalsuddenly blurted out. "What does all that uproar mean? Go and see whatthe matter is, you Alsatian fellow!"

But the farmer anticipated him by appearing at the door, sobbing andgesticulating like a crazy man. They were robbing him, the zouavesand chasseurs were plundering his house. As he was the only one in thevillage who had anything to sell he had foolishly allowed himself to bepersuaded to open shop. At first he had sold his eggs and chickens, his rabbits, and potatoes, without exacting an extortionate profit, pocketing his money and delivering the merchandise; then the customershad streamed in in a constantly increasing throng, jostling and worryingthe old man, finally crowding him aside and taking all he had withoutpretense of payment. And thus it was throughout the war; if manypeasants concealed their property and even denied a drink of water tothe thirsty soldier, it was because of their fear of the irresistibleinroads of that ocean of men, who swept everything clean before them, thrusting the wretched owners from their houses and beggaring them. 

"Eh! will you hold your tongue, old man!" shouted the general indisgust. "Those rascals ought to be shot at the rate of a dozen a day. What is one to do?" And to avoid taking the measures that the casedemanded he gave orders to close the door, while the colonel explainedto him that there had been no issue of rations and the men were hungry. 

While these things were going on within the house Loubet outside haddiscovered a field of potatoes; he and Lapoulle scaled the fence andwere digging the precious tubers with their hands and stuffing theirpockets with them when Chouteau, who in the pursuit of knowledgewas looking over a low wall, gave a shrill whistle that called themhurriedly to his side. They uttered an exclamation of wonder anddelight; there was a flock of geese, ten fat, splendid geese, pompouslywaddling about a small yard. A council of war was held forthwith, and itwas decided that Lapoulle should storm the place and make prisoners ofthe garrison. The conflict was a bloody one; the venerable gander onwhich the soldier laid his predaceous hands had nearly deprived him ofhis nose with its bill, hard and sharp as a tailor's shears. Then hecaught it by the neck and tried to choke it, but the bird tore histrousers with its strong claws and pummeled him about the body with itsgreat wings. He finally ended the battle by braining it with his fist, and it had not ceased to struggle when he leaped the wall, hotly pursuedby the remainder of the flock, pecking viciously at his legs. 

When they got back to camp, with the unfortunate gander and the potatoeshidden in a bag, they found that Jean and Pache had also been successfulin their expedition, and had enriched the common larder with four loavesof fresh bread and a cheese that they had purchased from a worthy oldwoman. 

"The water is boiling and we will make some coffee, " said the corporal. "Here are bread and cheese; it will be a regular feast!"

He could not help laughing, however, when he looked down and saw thegoose lying at his feet. He raised it, examining and hefting it with thejudgment of an expert. 

"Ah! upon my word, a fine bird! it must weigh twenty pounds. "

"We were out walking and met the bird, " Loubet explained in anunctuously sanctimonious voice, "and it insisted on making ouracquaintance. "

Jean made no reply, but his manner showed that he wished to hear nothingmore of the matter. Men must live, and then why in the name of commonsense should not those poor fellows, who had almost forgotten howpoultry tasted, have a treat once in a way!

Loubet had already kindled the fire into a roaring blaze; Pache andLapoulle set to work to pluck the goose; Chouteau, who had run off tothe artillerymen and begged a bit of twine, came back and stretched itbetween two bayonets; the bird was suspended in front of the hot fireand Maurice was given a cleaning rod and enjoined to keep it turning. The big tin basin was set beneath to catch the gravy. It was a triumphof culinary art; the whole regiment, attracted by the savory odor, cameand formed a circle about the fire and licked their chops. And what afeast it was! roast goose, boiled potatoes, bread, cheese, and coffee!When Jean had dissected the bird the squad applied itself vigorously tothe task before it; there was no talk of portions, every man ate as muchas he was capable of holding. They even sent a plate full over to theartillerymen who had furnished the cord. 

The officers of the regiment that evening were a very hungry set of men, for owing to some mistake the canteen wagon was among the missing, goneoff to look after the corps train, maybe. If the men were inconveniencedwhen there was no issue of ration they scarcely ever failed to findsomething to eat in the end; they helped one another out; the men ofthe different squads "chipped in" their resources, each contributing hismite, while the officer, with no one to look to save himself, was in afair way of starving as soon as he had not the canteen to fall back on. So there was a sneer on Chouteau's face, buried in the carcass of thegoose, as he saw Captain Beaudoin go by with his prim, supercilious air, for he had heard that officer summoning down imprecations on the driverof the missing wagon; and he gave him an evil look out of the corner ofhis eye. 

"Just look at him! See, his nose twitches like a rabbit's. He would givea dollar for the pope's nose. "

They all made merry at the expense of the captain, who was toocallow and too harsh to be a favorite with his men; they called him a_pete-sec_. He seemed on the point of taking the squad in hand for thescandal they were creating with their goose dinner, but thought betterof the matter, ashamed, probably, to show his hunger, and walked off, holding his head very erect, as if he had seen nothing. 

As for Lieutenant Rochas, who was also conscious of a terribly emptysensation in his epigastric region, he put on a brave face and laughedgood-naturedly as he passed the thrice-lucky squad. His men adored him, in the first place because he was at sword's points with the captain, that little whipper-snapper from Saint-Cyr, and also because he had oncecarried a musket like themselves. He was not always easy to get alongwith, however, and there were times when they would have given a gooddeal could they have cuffed him for his brutality. 

Jean glanced inquiringly at his comrades, and their mute reply beingpropitious, arose and beckoned to Rochas to follow him behind the tent. 

"See here, Lieutenant, I hope you won't be offended, but if it isagreeable to you--"

And he handed him half a loaf of bread and a wooden bowl in which therewere a second joint of the bird and six big mealy potatoes. 

That night again the six men required no rocking; they digested theirdinner while sleeping the sleep of the just. They had reason to thankthe corporal for the scientific way in which he had set up their tent, for they were not even conscious of a small hurricane that blew up abouttwo o'clock, accompanied by a sharp down-pour of rain; some of the tentswere blown down, and the men, wakened out of their sound slumber, weredrenched and had to scamper in the pitchy darkness, while theirs stoodfirm and they were warm and dry, thanks to the ingenious device of thetrench. 

Maurice awoke at daylight, and as they were not to march until eighto'clock it occurred to him to walk out to the artillery camp on the hilland say how do you do to his cousin Honore. His foot was less painfulafter his good night's rest. His wonder and admiration were againexcited by the neatness and perfect order that prevailed throughoutthe encampment, the six guns of a battery aligned with mathematicalprecision and accompanied by their caissons, prolonges, forage-wagons, and forges. A short way off, lined up to their rope, stood the horses, whinnying impatiently and turning their muzzles to the rising sun. Hehad no difficulty in finding Honore's tent, thanks to the regulationwhich assigns to the men of each piece a separate street, so that asingle glance at a camp suffices to show the number of guns. 

When Maurice reached his destination the artillerymen were alreadystirring and about to drink their coffee, and a quarrel had arisenbetween Adolphe, the forward driver, and Louis, the gunner, his mate. For the entire three years that they had been "married, " in accordancewith the custom which couples a driver with a gunner, they had livedhappily together, with the one exception of meal-times. Louis, anintelligent man and the better informed of the two, did not grumble atthe airs of superiority that are affected by every mounted over everyunmounted man: he pitched the tent, made the soup, and did the chores, while Adolphe groomed his horses with the pride of a reigning potentate. When the former, a little black, lean man, afflicted with an enormousappetite, rose in arms against the exactions of the latter, a big, burlyfellow with huge blonde mustaches, who insisted on being waited on likea lord, then the fun began. The subject matter of the dispute on thepresent morning was that Louis, who had made the coffee, accused Adolpheof having drunk it all. It required some diplomacy to reconcile them. 

Not a morning passed that Honore failed to go and look after his piece, seeing to it that it was carefully dried and cleansed from the nightdew, as if it had been a favorite animal that he was fearful might takecold, and there it was that Maurice found him, exercising his paternalsupervision in the crisp morning air. 

"Ah, it's you! I knew that the 106th was somewhere in the vicinity; Igot a letter from Remilly yesterday and was intending to start out andhunt you up. Let's go and have a glass of white wine. "

For the sake of privacy he conducted his cousin to the little farmhousethat the soldiers had looted the day before, where the old peasant, undeterred by his losses and allured by the prospect of turning anhonest penny, had tapped a cask of wine and set up a kind of public bar. He had extemporized a counter from a board rested on two empty barrelsbefore the door of his house, and over it he dealt out his stock intrade at four sous a glass, assisted by the strapping young Alsatianwhom he had taken into his service three days before. 

As Honore was touching glasses with Maurice his eyes lighted on thisman. He gazed at him a moment as if stupefied, then let slip a terribleoath. 

"_Tonnerre de Dieu!_ Goliah!"

And he darted forward and would have caught him by the throat, butthe peasant, foreseeing in his action a repetition of his yesterday'sexperience, jumped quickly within the house and locked the door behindhim. For a moment confusion reigned about the premises; soldiers camerushing up to see what was going on, while the quartermaster-sergeantshouted at the top of his voice:

"Open the door, open the door, you confounded idiot! It is a spy, I tellyou, a Prussian spy!"

Maurice doubted no longer; there was no room for mistake now; theAlsatian was certainly the man whom he had seen arrested at the campof Mulhausen and released because there was not evidence enough to holdhim, and that man was Goliah, old Fouchard's quondam assistant on hisfarm at Remilly. When finally the peasant opened his door the house wassearched from top to bottom, but to no purpose; the bird had flown, the gawky Alsatian, the tow-headed, simple-faced lout whom GeneralBourgain-Desfeuilles had questioned the day before at dinner withoutlearning anything and before whom, in the innocence of his heart, he haddisclosed things that would have better been kept secret. It was evidentenough that the scamp had made his escape by a back window which wasfound open, but the hunt that was immediately started throughout thevillage and its environs had no results; the fellow, big as he was, hadvanished as utterly as a smoke-wreath dissolves upon the air. 

Maurice thought it best to take Honore away, lest in his distractedstate he might reveal to the spectators unpleasant family secrets whichthey had no concern to know. 

"_Tonnerre de Dieu!_" he cried again, "it would have done me such goodto strangle him!--The letter that I was speaking of revived all my oldhatred for him. "

And the two of them sat down upon the ground against a stack of rye alittle way from the house, and he handed the letter to his cousin. 

It was the old story: the course of Honore Fouchard's and SilvineMorange's love had not run smooth. She, a pretty, meek-eyed, brown-haired girl, had in early childhood lost her mother, an operativein one of the factories of Raucourt, and Doctor Dalichamp, hergodfather, a worthy man who was greatly addicted to adopting thewretched little beings whom he ushered into the world, had conceivedthe idea of placing her in Father Fouchard's family as small maid ofall work. True it was that the old boor was a terrible skinflint and aharsh, stern taskmaster; he had gone into the butchering business fromsordid love of lucre, and his cart was to be seen daily, rain or shine, on the roads of twenty communes; but if the child was willing to workshe would have a home and a protector, perhaps some small prospect inthe future. At all events she would be spared the contamination of thefactory. And naturally enough it came to pass that in old Fouchard'shousehold the son and heir and the little maid of all work fell in lovewith each other. Honore was then just turned sixteen and she was twelve, and when she was sixteen and he twenty there was a drawing for the army;Honore, to his great delight, secured a lucky number and determinedto marry. Nothing had ever passed between them, thanks to the unusualdelicacy that was inherent in the lad's tranquil, thoughtful nature, more than an occasional hug and a furtive kiss in the barn. But whenhe spoke of the marriage to his father, the old man, who had thestubbornness of the mule, angrily told him that his son might kill him, but never, never would he consent, and continued to keep the girl aboutthe house, not worrying about the matter, expecting it would soon blowover. For two years longer the young folks kept on adoring and desiringeach other, and never the least breath of scandal sullied their names. Then one day there was a frightful quarrel between the two men, afterwhich the young man, feeling he could no longer endure his father'styranny, enlisted and was packed off to Africa, while the butcher stillretained the servant-maid, because she was useful to him. Soon afterthat a terrible thing happened: Silvine, who had sworn that she would betrue to her lover and await his return, was detected one day, two shortweeks after his departure, in the company of a laborer who had beenworking on the farm for some months past, that Goliah Steinberg, thePrussian, as he was called; a tall, simple young fellow with short, light hair, wearing a perpetual smile on his broad, pink face, who hadmade himself Honore's chum. Had Father Fouchard traitorously incitedthe man to take advantage of the girl? or had Silvine, sick at heart andprostrated by the sorrow of parting with her lover, yielded in a momentof unconsciousness? She could not tell herself; was dazed, and sawherself driven by the necessity of her situation to a marriage withGoliah. He, for his part, always with the everlasting smile on his face, made no objection, only insisted on deferring the ceremony until thechild should be born. When that event occurred he suddenly disappeared;it was rumored, subsequently that he had found work on another farm, over Beaumont way. These things had happened three years before thebreaking out of the war, and now everyone was convinced that thatartless, simple Goliah, who had such a way of ingratiating himself withthe girls, was none else than one of those Prussian spies who filled oureastern provinces. When Honore learned the tidings over in Africa hewas three months in hospital, as if the fierce sun of that countryhad smitten him on the neck with one of his fiery javelins, and neverthereafter did he apply for leave of absence to return to his countryfor fear lest he might again set eyes on Silvine and her child. 

The artilleryman's hands shook with agitation as Maurice perused theletter. It was from Silvine, the first, the only one that she had everwritten him. What had been her guiding impulse, that silent, submissivewoman, whose handsome black eyes at times manifested a startlingfixedness of purpose in the midst of her never-ending slavery? Shesimply said that she knew he was with the army, and though she mightnever see him again, she could not endure the thought that he might dieand believe that she had ceased to love him. She loved him still, hadnever loved another; and this she repeated again and again throughfour closely written pages, in words of unvarying import, without theslightest word of excuse for herself, without even attempting to explainwhat had happened. There was no mention of the child, nothing but aninfinitely mournful and tender farewell. 

The letter produced a profound impression upon Maurice, to whom hiscousin had once imparted the whole story. He raised his eyes and sawthat Honore was weeping; he embraced him like a brother. 

"My poor Honore. "

But the sergeant quickly got the better of his emotion. He carefullyrestored the letter to its place over his heart and rebuttoned hisjacket. 

"Yes, those are things that a man does not forget. Ah! the scoundrel, ifI could but have laid hands on him! But we shall see. "

The bugles were sounding the signal to prepare for breaking camp, andeach had to hurry away to rejoin his command. The preparations fordeparture dragged, however, and the troops had to stand waiting in heavymarching order until nearly nine o'clock. A feeling of hesitancy seemedto have taken possession of their leaders; there was not the resolutealacrity of the first two days, when the 7th corps had accomplishedforty miles in two marches. Strange and alarming news, moreover, hadbeen circulating through the camp since morning, that the three othercorps were marching northward, the 1st at Juniville, the 5th and 12that Rethel, and this deviation from their route was accounted for on theground of the necessities of the commissariat. Montmedy had ceased to betheir objective, then? why were they thus idling away their time again?What was most alarming of all was that the Prussians could not now befar away, for the officers had cautioned their men not to fall behindthe column, as all stragglers were liable to be picked up by theenemy's light cavalry. It was the 25th of August, and Maurice, when hesubsequently recalled to mind Goliah's disappearance, was certainthat the man had been instrumental in affording the German staffexact information as to the movements of the army of Chalons, andthus producing the change of front of their third army. The succeedingmorning the Crown Prince of Prussia left Revigny and the great maneuverwas initiated, that gigantic movement by the flank, surrounding andenmeshing us by a series of forced marches conducted in the mostadmirable order through Champagne and the Ardennes. While the Frenchwere stumbling aimlessly about the country, oscillating uncertainlybetween one place and another, the Prussians were making their twentymiles a day and more, gradually contracting their immense circle ofbeaters upon the band of men whom they held within their toils, anddriving their prey onward toward the forests of the frontier. 

A start was finally made, and the result of the day's movement showedthat the army was pivoting on its left; the 7th corps only traversed thetwo short leagues between Contreuve and Vouziers, while the 5th and12th corps did not stir from Rethel, and the 1st went no farther thanAttigny. Between Contreuve and the valley of the Aisne the countrybecame level again and was more bare than ever; as they drew near toVouziers the road wound among desolate hills and naked gray fields, without a tree, without a house, as gloomy and forbidding as a desert, and the day's march, short as it was, was accomplished with such fatigueand distress that it seemed interminably long. Soon after midday, however, the 1st and 3d divisions had passed through the city andencamped in the meadows on the farther bank of the Aisne, while abrigade of the second, which included the 106th, had remained upon theleft bank, bivouacking among the waste lands of which the low foot-hillsoverlooked the valley, observing from their position the Monthois road, which skirts the stream and by which the enemy was expected to make hisappearance. 

And Maurice was dumfoundered to behold advancing along that Monthoisroad Margueritte's entire division, the body of cavalry to which hadbeen assigned the duty of supporting the 7th corps and watching theleft flank of the army. The report was that it was on its way toChene-Populeux. Why was the left wing, where alone they were threatenedby the enemy, stripped in that manner? What sense was there in summoningin upon the center, where they could be of no earthly use, those twothousand horsemen, who should have been dispersed upon our flank, leagues away, as videttes to observe the enemy? And what made mattersworse was that they caused the greatest confusion among the columnsof the 7th corps, cutting in upon their line of march and producingan inextricable jam of horses, guns, and men. A squadron of chasseursd'Afrique were halted for near two hours at the gate of Vouziers, and bythe merest chance Maurice stumbled on Prosper, who had ridden his horsedown to the bank of a neighboring pond to let him drink, and the twomen were enabled to exchange a few words. The chasseur appeared stunned, dazed, knew nothing and had seen nothing since they left Rheims; yes, though, he had: he had seen two uhlans more; oh! but they were will o'the wisps, phantoms, they were, that appeared and vanished, and noone could tell whence they came nor whither they went. Their fame hadspread, and stories of them were already rife throughout the country, such, for instance, as that of four uhlans galloping into a town withdrawn revolvers and taking possession of it, when the corps to whichthey belonged was a dozen miles away. They were everywhere, precedingthe columns like a buzzing, stinging swarm of bees, a living curtain, behind which the infantry could mask their movements and march andcountermarch as securely as if they were at home upon parade. AndMaurice's heart sank in his bosom as he looked at the road, crowded withchasseurs and hussars which our leaders put to such poor use. 

"Well, then, _au revoir_, " said he, shaking Prosper by the hand;"perhaps they will find something for you to do down yonder, after all. "

But the chasseur appeared disgusted with the task assigned him. He sadlystroked Poulet's neck and answered:

"Ah, what's the use talking! they kill our horses and let us rot inidleness. It is sickening. "

When Maurice took off his shoe that evening to have a look at his foot, which was aching and throbbing feverishly, the skin came with it; theblood spurted forth and he uttered a cry of pain. Jean was standing by, and exhibited much pity and concern. 

"Look here, that is becoming serious; you are going to lie right downand not attempt to move. That foot of yours must be attended to. Let mesee it. "

He knelt down, washed the sore with his own hands and bound it upwith some clean linen that he took from his knapsack. He displayed thegentleness of a woman and the deftness of a surgeon, whose big fingerscan be so pliant when necessity requires it. 

A great wave of tenderness swept over Maurice, his eyes were dimmedwith tears, the familiar _thou_ rose from his heart to his lips with anirresistible impulse of affection, as if in that peasant whom he oncehad hated and abhorred, whom only yesterday he had despised, he haddiscovered a long lost brother. 

"Thou art a good fellow, thou! Thanks, good friend. "

And Jean, too, looking very happy, dropped into the second personsingular, with his tranquil smile. 

"Now, my little one, wilt thou have a cigarette? I have some tobaccoleft. "

V. 

On the morning of the following day, the 26th, Maurice arose withstiffened limbs and an aching back, the result of his night under thetent. He was not accustomed yet to sleeping on the bare ground; ordershad been given before the men turned in that they were not to removetheir shoes, and during the night the sergeants had gone the rounds, feeling in the darkness to see if all were properly shod and gaitered, so that his foot was much inflamed and very painful. In addition to hisother troubles he had imprudently stretched his legs outside the canvasto relieve their cramped feeling and taken cold in them. 

Jean said as soon as he set eyes on him:

"If we are to do any marching to-day, my lad, you had better see thesurgeon and get him to give you a place in one of the wagons. "

But no one seemed to know what were the plans for the day, and the mostconflicting reports prevailed. It appeared for a moment as if they wereabout to resume their march; the tents were struck and the entire corpstook the road and passed through Vouziers, leaving on the right bankof the Aisne only one brigade of the second division, apparently tocontinue the observation of the Monthois road; but all at once, as soonas they had put the town behind them and were on the left bank of thestream, they halted and stacked muskets in the fields and meadows thatskirt the Grand-Pre road on either hand, and the departure of the 4thhussars, who just then moved off on that road at a sharp trot, affordedfresh food for conjecture. 

"If we are to remain here I shall stay with you, " declared Maurice, whowas not attracted by the prospect of riding in an ambulance. 

It soon became known that they were to occupy their present camp untilGeneral Douay could obtain definite information as to the movements ofthe enemy. The general had been harassed by an intense and constantlyincreasing anxiety since the day before, when he had seen Margueritte'sdivision moving toward Chene, for he knew that his flank was uncovered, that there was not a man to watch the passes of the Argonne, and that hewas liable to be attacked at any moment. Therefore he had sent outthe 4th hussars to reconnoiter the country as far as the defiles ofGrand-Pre and Croix-aux-Bois, with strict orders not to return withoutintelligence. 

There had been an issue of bread, meat, and forage the day before, thanks to the efficient mayor of Vouziers, and about ten o'clock thatmorning permission had been granted the men to make soup, in the fearthat they might not soon again have so good an opportunity, when anothermovement of troops, the departure of Bordas' brigade over the road takenby the hussars, set all tongues wagging afresh. What! were they going tomarch again? were they not to be given a chance to eat their breakfastin peace, now that the kettle was on the fire? But the officersexplained that Bordas' brigade had only been sent to occupy Buzancy, afew kilometers from there. There were others, indeed, who asserted thatthe hussars had encountered a strong force of the enemy's cavalryand that the brigade had been dispatched to help them out of theirdifficulty. 

Maurice enjoyed a few hours of delicious repose. He had thrown himselfon the ground in a field half way up the hill where the regimenthad halted, and in a drowsy state between sleeping and waking wascontemplating the verdant valley of the Aisne, the smiling meadowsdotted with clumps of trees, among which the little stream wound lazily. Before him and closing the valley in that direction lay Vouziers, anamphitheater of roofs rising one above another and overtopped by thechurch with its slender spire and dome-crowned tower. Below him, nearthe bridge, smoke was curling upward from the tall chimneys of thetanneries, while farther away a great mill displayed its flour-whitenedbuildings among the fresh verdure of the growths that lined thewaterside. The little town that lay there, bounding his horizon, hiddenamong the stately trees, appeared to him to possess a gentle charm; itbrought him memories of boyhood, of the journeys that he had made toVouziers in other days, when he had lived at Chene, the village where hewas born. For an hour he was oblivious of the outer world. 

The soup had long since been made and eaten and everyone was waitingto see what would happen next, when, about half-past two o'clock, thesmoldering excitement began to gain strength, and soon pervaded theentire camp. Hurried orders came to abandon the meadows, and the troopsascended a line of hills between two villages, Chestres and Falaise, some two or three miles apart, and took position there. Already theengineers were at work digging rifle-pits and throwing up epaulments;while over to the left the artillery had occupied the summit of arounded eminence. The rumor spread that General Bordas had sent ina courier to announce that he had encountered the enemy in force atGrand-Pre and had been compelled to fall back on Buzancy, which gavecause to apprehend that he might soon be cut off from retreat onVouziers. For these reasons, the commander of the 7th corps, believingan attack to be imminent, had placed his men in position to sustain thefirst onset until the remainder of the army should have time to cometo his assistance, and had started off one of his aides-de-camp with aletter to the marshal, apprising him of the danger, and asking him forre-enforcements. Fearing for the safety of the subsistence train, whichhad come up with the corps during the night and was again dragging itsinterminable length in the rear, he summarily sent it to the rightabout and directed it to make the best of its way to Chagny. Things werebeginning to look like fight. 

"So, it looks like business this time--eh, Lieutenant?" Maurice venturedto ask Rochas. 

"Yes, thank goodness, " replied the Lieutenant, his long arms going likewindmills. "Wait a little; you'll find it warm enough!"

The soldiers were all delighted; the animation in the camp was stillmore pronounced. A feverish impatience had taken possession of themen, now that they were actually in line of battle between Chestres andFalaise. At last they were to have a sight of those Prussians who, if the newspapers were to be believed, were knocked up by their longmarches, decimated by sickness, starving, and in rags, and every man'sheart beat high with the prospect of annihilating them at a single blow. 

"We are lucky to come across them again, " said Jean. "They've beenplaying hide-and-seek about long enough since they slipped through ourfingers after their battle down yonder on the frontier. But are thesethe same troops that whipped MacMahon, I wonder?"

Maurice could not answer his question with any degree of certainty. It seemed to him hardly probable, in view of what he had read in thenewspapers at Rheims, that the third army, commanded by the Crown Princeof Prussia, could be at Vouziers, when, only two days before, it wasjust on the point of going into camp at Vitry-le-Francois. There hadbeen some talk of a fourth army, under the Prince of Saxony, which wasto operate on the line of the Meuse; this was doubtless the one that wasnow before them, although their promptitude in occupying Grand-Pre wasa matter of surprise, considering the distances. But what put thefinishing touch to the confusion of his ideas was his stupefaction tohear General Bourgain-Desfeuilles ask a countryman if the Meuse did notflow past Buzancy, and if the bridges there were strong. The generalannounced, moreover, in the confidence of his sublime ignorance, thata column of one hundred thousand men was on the way from Grand-Pre toattack them, while another, of sixty thousand, was coming up by the wayof Sainte-Menehould. 

"How's your foot, Maurice?" asked Jean. 

"It don't hurt now, " the other laughingly replied. "If there is to be afight, I think it will be quite well. "

It was true; his nervous excitement was so great that he was hardlyconscious of the ground on which he trod. To think that in the wholecampaign he had not yet burned powder! He had gone forth to thefrontier, he had endured the agony of that terrible night of expectationbefore Mulhausen, and had not seen a Prussian, had not fired a shot;then he had retreated with the rest to Belfort, to Rheims, had now beenmarching five days trying to find the enemy, and his useless _chassepot_was as clean as the day it left the shop, without the least smell ofsmoke on it. He felt an aching desire to discharge his piece once, ifno more, to relieve the tension of his nerves. Since the day, near sixweeks ago, when he had enlisted in a fit of enthusiasm, supposing thathe would surely have to face the foe in a day or two, all that hehad done had been to tramp up and down the country on his poor, sore feet--the feet of a man who had lived in luxury, far from thebattle-field; and so, among all those impatient watchers, there wasnone who watched more impatiently than he the Grand-Pre road, extendingstraight away to a seemingly infinite distance between two rows ofhandsome trees. Beneath him was unrolled the panorama of the valley;the Aisne was, like a silver ribbon, flowing between its willows andpoplars, and ever his gaze returned, solicited by an irresistibleattraction, to that road down yonder that stretched away, far as the eyecould see, to the horizon. 

About four o'clock the 4th hussars returned, having made a wide circuitin the country round about, and stories, which grew as they wererepeated, began to circulate of conflicts with uhlans, tending toconfirm the confident belief which everyone had that an attack wasimminent. Two hours later a courier came galloping in, breathless withterror, to announce that General Bordas had positive information thatthe enemy were on the Vouziers road, and dared not leave Grand-Pre. It was evident that that could not be true, since the courier had justpassed over the road unharmed, but no one could tell at what moment itmight be the case, and General Dumont, commanding the division, set outat once with his remaining brigade to bring off his other brigade thatwas in difficulty. The sun went down behind Vouziers and the roofs ofthe town were sharply profiled in black against a great red cloud. Fora long time the brigade was visible as it receded between the double rowof trees, until finally it was swallowed up in the gathering darkness. 

Colonel de Vineuil came to look after his regiment's position for thenight. He was surprised not to find Captain Beaudoin at his post, andas that officer just then chanced to come in from Vouziers, where healleged in excuse for his absence that he had been breakfasting with theBaronne de Ladicourt, he received a sharp reprimand, which he digestedin silence, with the rigid manner of a martinet conscious of being inthe wrong. 

"My children, " said the Colonel, as he passed along the line of men, "we shall probably be attacked to-night, or if not, then by day-breakto-morrow morning at the latest. Be prepared, and remember that the106th has never retreated before the enemy. "

The little speech was received with loud hurrahs; everyone, in theprevailing suspense and discouragement, preferred to "take the wipe ofthe dish-clout" and have done with it. Rifles were examined to see thatthey were in good order, belts were refilled with cartridges. As theyhad eaten their soup that morning, the men were obliged to contentthemselves with biscuits and coffee. An order was promulgated that therewas to be no sleeping. The grand-guards were out nearly a mile to thefront, and a chain of sentinels at frequent intervals extended downto the Aisne. The officers were seated in little groups about thecamp-fires, and beside a low wall at the left of the road the fitfulblaze occasionally flared up and rescued from the darkness the goldembroideries and bedizened uniforms of the Commander-in-Chief andhis staff, flitting to and fro like phantoms, watching the road andlistening for the tramp of horses in the mortal anxiety they were in asto the fate of the third division. 

It was about one o'clock in the morning when it came Maurice's turn totake his post as sentry at the edge of an orchard of plum-trees, betweenthe road and the river. The night was black as ink, and as soon as hiscomrades left him and he found himself alone in the deep silence of thesleeping fields he was conscious of a sensation of fear creeping overhim, a feeling of abject terror such as he had never known before andwhich he trembled with rage and shame at his inability to conquer. Heturned his head to cheer himself by a sight of the camp-fires, butthey were hidden from him by a wood; there was naught behind him butan unfathomable sea of blackness; all that he could discern was a fewdistant lights still dimly burning in Vouziers, where the inhabitants, doubtless forewarned and trembling at the thought of the impendingcombat, were keeping anxious vigil. His terror was increased, if thatwere possible, on bringing his piece to his shoulder to find that hecould not even distinguish the sights on it. Then commenced a period ofsuspense that tried his nerves most cruelly; every faculty of his beingwas strained and concentrated in the one sense of hearing; sounds sofaint as to be imperceptible reverberated in his ears like the crash ofthunder; the plash of a distant waterfall, the rustling of a leaf, themovement of an insect in the grass, were like the booming of artillery. Was that the tramp of cavalry, the deep rumbling of gun-carriages drivenat speed, that he heard down there to the right? And there on hisleft, what was that? was it not the sound of stealthy whispers, stifledvoices, a party creeping up to surprise him under cover of the darkness?Three times he was on the point of giving the alarm by firing hispiece. The fear that he might be mistaken and incur the ridicule ofhis comrades served to intensify his distress. He had kneeled upon theground, supporting his left shoulder against a tree; it seemed tohim that he had been occupying that position for hours, that they hadforgotten him there, that the army had moved away without him. Thensuddenly, at once, his fear left him; upon the road, that he knew wasnot two hundred yards away, he distinctly heard the cadenced tramp ofmarching men. Immediately it flashed across his mind as a certainty thatthey were the troops from Grand-Pre, whose coming had been awaited withsuch anxiety--General Dumont bringing in Bordas' brigade. At that samemoment the corporal of the guard came along with the relief; he had beenon post a little less than the customary hour. 

He had been right; it was the 3d division returning to camp. Everyonefelt a sensation of deep relief. Increased precautions were taken, nevertheless, for what fresh intelligence they received tended toconfirm what they supposed they already knew of the enemy's approach. Afew uhlans, forbidding looking fellows in their long black cloaks, werebrought in as prisoners, but they were uncommunicative, and so daylightcame at last, the pale, ghastly light of a rainy morning, bringing withit no alleviation of their terrible suspense. No one had dared to closean eye during that long night. About seven o'clock Lieutenant Rochasaffirmed that MacMahon was coming up with the whole army. The truthof the matter was that General Douay, in reply to his dispatch of thepreceding day announcing that a battle at Vouziers was inevitable, hadreceived a letter from the marshal enjoining him to hold the positionuntil re-enforcements could reach him; the forward movement had beenarrested; the 1st corps was being directed on Terron, the 5th onBuzancy, while the 12th was to remain at Chene and constitute our secondline. Then the suspense became more breathless still; it was to be nomere skirmish that the peaceful valley of the Aisne was to witness thatday, but a great battle, in which would participate the entirearmy, that was even now turning its back upon the Meuse and marchingsouthward; and there was no making of soup, the men had to contentthemselves with coffee and hard-tack, for everyone was saying, withouttroubling himself to ask why, that the "wipe of the dish-clout" was setdown for midday. An aide-de-camp had been dispatched to the marshal tourge him to hurry forward their supports, as intelligence received fromevery quarter made it more and more certain that the two Prussian armieswere close at hand, and three hours later still another officer gallopedoff like mad toward Chene, where general headquarters were located, with a request for instructions, for consternation had risen to a higherpitch then ever with the receipt of fresh tidings from the _maire_ ofa country commune, who told of having seen a hundred thousand men atGrand-Pre, while another hundred thousand were advancing by way ofBuzancy. 

Midday came, and not a sign of the Prussians. At one o'clock, at two, it was the same, and a reaction of lassitude and doubt began to prevailamong the troops. Derisive jeers were heard at the expense of thegenerals: perhaps they had seen their shadow on the wall; they should bepresented with a pair of spectacles. A pretty set of humbugs they were, to have caused all that trouble for nothing! A fellow who passed for awit among his comrades shouted:

"It is like it was down there at Mulhausen, eh?"

The words recalled to Maurice's mind a flood of bitter memories. Hethought of that idiotic flight, that panic that had swept away the 7thcorps when there was not a German visible, nor within ten leagues ofwhere they were, and now he had a distinct certainty that they wereto have a renewal of that experience. It was plain that if twenty-fourhours had elapsed since the skirmish at Grand-Pre and they had notbeen attacked, the reason was that the 4th hussars had merely struck upagainst a reconnoitering body of cavalry; the main body of the Prussiansmust be far away, probably a day's march or two. Then the thoughtsuddenly struck him of the time they had wasted, and it terrified him;in three days they had only accomplished the distance from Contreuveto Vouziers, a scant two leagues. On the 25th the other corps, allegingscarcity of supplies, had diverted their course to the north, while now, on the 27th, here they were coming southward again to fight a battlewith an invisible enemy. Bordas' brigade had followed the 4th hussarsinto the abandoned passes of the Argonne, and was supposed to have gotitself into trouble; the division had gone to its assistance, and thathad been succeeded by the corps, and that by the entire army, andall those movements had amounted to nothing. Maurice trembled as hereflected how pricelessly valuable was every hour, every minute, inthat mad project of joining forces with Bazaine, a project that couldbe carried to a successful issue only by an officer of genius, withseasoned troops under him, who should press forward to his end with theresistless energy of a whirlwind, crushing every obstacle that lay inhis path. 

"It is all up with us!" said he, as the whole truth flashed throughhis mind, to Jean, who had given way to despair. Then as the corporal, failing to catch his meaning, looked at him wonderingly, he went on inan undertone, for his friend's ear alone, to speak of their commanders:

"They mean well, but they have no sense, that's certain--and no luck!They know nothing; they foresee nothing; they have neither plans norideas, nor happy intuitions. _Allons_! everything is against us; it isall up!"

And by slow degrees that same feeling of discouragement that Mauricehad arrived at by a process of reasoning settled down upon the denserintellects of the troops who lay there inactive, anxiously awaitingto see what the end would be. Distrust, as a result of their truerperception of the position they were in, was obscurely burrowing inthose darkened minds, and there was no man so ignorant as not to feela sense of injury at the ignorance and irresolution of their leaders, although he might not have been able to express in distinct terms thecauses of his exasperation. In the name of Heaven, what were they doingthere, since the Prussians had not shown themselves? either let themfight and have it over with, or else go off to some place where theycould get some sleep; they had had enough of that kind of work. Sincethe departure of the second aide-de-camp, who had been dispatched inquest of orders, this feeling of unrest had been increasing momentarily;men collected in groups, talking loudly and discussing the situationpro and con, and the general inquietude communicating itself to theofficers, they knew not what answer to make to those of their men whoventured to question them. They ought to be marching, it would notanswer to dawdle thus; and so, when it became known about five o'clockthat the aide-de-camp had returned and that they were to retreat, therewas a sigh of relief throughout the camp and every heart was lighter. 

It seemed that the wiser counsel was to prevail, then, after all! TheEmperor and MacMahon had never looked with favor on the movement towardMontmedy, and now, alarmed to learn that they were again out-marchedand out-maneuvered, and that they were to have the army of the Princeof Saxony as well as that of the Crown Prince to contend with, they hadrenounced the hazardous scheme of uniting their forces with Bazaine, andwould retreat through the northern strongholds with a view to fallingback ultimately on Paris. The 7th corps' destination would be Chagny, byway of Chene, while the 5th corps would be directed on Poix, and the 1stand 12th on Vendresse. But why, since they were about to fall back, hadthey advanced to the line of the Aisne? Why all that waste of time andlabor, when it would have been so easy and so rational to move straightfrom Rheims and occupy the strong positions in the valley of the Marne?Was there no guiding mind, no military talent, no common sense? Butthere should be no more questioning; all should be forgiven, in theuniversal joy at the adoption of that eminently wise counsel, whichwas the only means at their command of extricating themselves from thehornets' nest into which they had rushed so imprudently. All, officersand men, felt that they would be the stronger for the retrogrademovement, that under the walls of Paris they would be invincible, andthat there it was that the Prussians would sustain their inevitabledefeat. But Vouziers must be evacuated before daybreak, and they must bewell on the road to Chene before the enemy should learn of the movement, and forthwith the camp presented a scene of the greatest animation:trumpets sounding, officers hastening to and fro with orders, whilethe baggage and quartermaster's trains, in order not to encumber therear-guard, were sent forward in advance. 

Maurice was delighted. As he was endeavoring to explain to Jean therationale of the impending movement, however, a cry of pain escaped him;his excitement had subsided, and he was again conscious of his foot, aching and burning as if it had been a ball of red-hot metal. 

"What's the matter? is it hurting you again?" the corporal askedsympathizingly. And with his calm and sensible resourcefulness he said:"See here, little one, you told me yesterday that you have acquaintancesin the town, yonder. You ought to get permission from the major and findsome one to drive you over to Chene, where you could have a good night'srest in a comfortable bed. We can pick you up as we go by to-morrow ifyou are fit to march. What do you say to that, _hein_?"

In Falaise, the village near which the camp was pitched, Maurice hadcome across a small farmer, an old friend of his father's, who was aboutto drive his daughter over to Chene to visit an aunt in that town, andthe horse was even then standing waiting, hitched to a light carriole. The prospect was far from encouraging, however, when he broached thesubject to Major Bouroche. 

"I have a sore foot, monsieur the doctor--"

Bouroche, with a savage shake of his big head with its leonine mane, turned on him with a roar:

"I am not monsieur the doctor; who taught you manners?"

And when Maurice, taken all aback, made a stammering attempt to excusehimself, he continued:

"Address me as major, do you hear, you great oaf!"

He must have seen that he had not one of the common herd to deal withand felt a little ashamed of himself; he carried it off with a displayof more roughness. 

"All a cock-and-bull story, that sore foot of yours!--Yes, yes; you maygo. Go in a carriage, go in a balloon, if you choose. We have too manyof you malingerers in the army!"

When Jean assisted Maurice into the carriole the latter turned to thankhim, whereon the two men fell into each other's arms and embraced as ifthey were never to meet again. Who could tell, amid the confusion anddisorder of the retreat, with those bloody Prussians on their track?Maurice could not tell how it was that there was already such a tenderaffection between him and the young man, and twice he turned to wave hima farewell. As he left the camp they were preparing to light great firesin order to mislead the enemy when they should steal away, in deepestsilence, before the dawn of day. 

As they jogged along the farmer bewailed the terrible times throughwhich they were passing. He had lacked the courage to remain at Falaise, and already was regretting that he had left it, declaring that if thePrussians burned his house it would ruin him. His daughter, a tall, paleyoung woman, wept copiously. But Maurice was like a dead man for wantof sleep, and had no ears for the farmer's lamentations; he slumberedpeacefully, soothed by the easy motion of the vehicle, which the littlehorse trundled over the ground at such a good round pace that it tookthem less than an hour and a half to accomplish the four leaguesbetween Vouziers and Chene. It was not quite seven o'clock and scarcelybeginning to be dark when the young man rubbed his eyes and alighted ina rather dazed condition on the public square, near the bridge over thecanal, in front of the modest house where he was born and had passedtwenty years of his life. He got down there in obedience to aninvoluntary impulse, although the house had been sold eighteen monthsbefore to a veterinary surgeon, and in reply to the farmer's questionssaid that he knew quite well where he was going, adding that he was athousand times obliged to him for his kindness. 

He continued to stand stock-still, however, beside the well in themiddle of the little triangular _place_; he was as if stunned; hismemory was a blank. Where had he intended to go? and suddenly his witsreturned to him and he remembered that it was to the notary's, whose house was next door to his father's, and whose mother, MadameDesvallieres, an aged and most excellent lady, had petted him whenhe was an urchin on account of their being neighbors. But he hardlyrecognized Chene in the midst of the hurly-burly and confusion intowhich the little town, ordinarily so dead, was thrown by the presence ofan army corps encamped at its gates and filling its quiet streets withofficers, couriers, soldiers, and camp-followers and stragglers of everydescription. The canal was there as of old, passing through the townfrom end to end and bisecting the market-place in the center into twoequal-sized triangles connected by a narrow stone bridge; and there, onthe other bank, was the old market with its moss-grown roofs, and theRue Berond leading away to the left and the Sedan road to the right, butfilling the Rue de Vouziers in front of him and extending as far as theHotel de Ville was such a compact, swarming, buzzing crowd that he wasobliged to raise his eyes and take a look over the roof of the notary'shouse at the slate-covered bell tower in order to assure himself thatthat was the quiet spot where he had played hop-scotch when he was ayoungster. There seemed to be an effort making to clear the square;some men were roughly crowding back the throng of idlers and gazers, andlooking more closely he was surprised to see, parked like the guns ofa battery, a collection of vans, baggage-wagons, and carriages open andclosed; a miscellaneous assortment of traps that he had certainly seteyes on before. 

It was daylight still; the sun had just sunk in the canal at the pointwhere it vanished in the horizon and the long, straight stretch of waterwas like a sea of blood, and Maurice was trying to make up his mindwhat to do when a woman who stood near stared at him a moment and thenexclaimed:

"Why goodness gracious, is it possible! Are you the Levasseur boy?"

And thereon he recognized Madame Combette, the wife of the druggist, whose shop was on the market-place. As he was trying to explain to herthat he was going to ask good Madame Desvallieres to give him a bed forthe night she excitedly hurried him away. 

"No, no; come to our house. I will tell you why--" When they were in theshop and she had cautiously closed the door she continued: "You couldnot know, my dear boy, that the Emperor is at the Desvallieres. Hisofficers took possession of the house in his name and the family are notany too well pleased with the great honor done them, I can tell you. Tothink that the poor old mother, a woman more than seventy, was compelledto give up her room and go up and occupy a servant's bed in the garret!Look, there, on the place. All that you see there is the Emperor's;those are his trunks, don't you see!"

And then Maurice remembered; they were the imperial carriages andbaggage-wagons, the entire magnificent train that he had seen at Rheims. 

"Ah! my dear boy, if you could but have seen the stuff they took fromthem, the silver plate, and the bottles of wine, and the baskets of goodthings, and the beautiful linen, and everything! I can't help wonderingwhere they find room for such heaps of things, for the house is nota large one. Look, look! see what a fire they have lighted in thekitchen!"

He looked over at the small white, two-storied house that stood atthe corner of the market-place and the Rue de Vouziers, a comfortable, unassuming house of bourgeois aspect; how well he remembered it, insideand out, with its central hall and four rooms on each floor; why, it wasas if he had just left it! There were lights in the corner room on thefirst floor overlooking the square; the apothecary's wife informed himthat it was the bedroom of the Emperor. But the chief center of activityseemed, as she had said, to be the kitchen, the window of which openedon the Rue de Vouziers. In all their lives the good people of Chene hadwitnessed no such spectacle, and the street before the house was filledwith a gaping crowd, constantly coming and going, who stared with alltheir eyes at the range on which was cooking the dinner of an Emperor. To obtain a breath of air the cooks had thrown open the window toits full extent. They were three in number, in jackets of resplendentwhiteness, superintending the roasting of chickens impaled on a hugespit, stirring the gravies and sauces in copper vessels that shonelike gold. And the oldest inhabitant, evoking in memory all the civicbanquets that he had beheld at the Silver Lion, could truthfully declarethat never at any one time had he seen so much wood burning and so muchfood cooking. 

Combette, a bustling, wizened little man, came in from the street ina great state of excitement from all that he had seen and heard. Hisposition as deputy-mayor gave him facilities for knowing what was goingon. It was about half-past three o'clock when MacMahon had telegraphedBazaine that the Crown Prince of Prussia was approaching Chalons, thusnecessitating the withdrawal of the army to the places along the Belgianfrontier, and further dispatches were also in preparation for theMinister of War, advising him of the projected movement and explainingthe terrible dangers of their position. It was uncertain whether or notthe dispatch for Bazaine would get through, for communication withMetz had seemed to be interrupted for the past few days, but the seconddispatch was another and more serious matter; and lowering his voicealmost to a whisper the apothecary repeated the words that he had hearduttered by an officer of rank: "If they get wind of this in Paris, ourgoose is cooked!" Everyone was aware of the unrelenting persistency withwhich the Empress and the Council of Ministers urged the advance of thearmy. Moreover, the confusion went on increasing from hour to hour, the most conflicting advices were continually coming in as to thewhereabouts of the German forces. Could it be possible that the CrownPrince was at Chalons? What, then, were the troops that the 7th corpshad encountered among the passes of the Argonne?

"They have no information at staff headquarters, " continued the littledruggist, raising his arms above his head with a despairing gesture. "Ah, what a mess we are in! But all will be well if the army retreatsto-morrow. " Then, dropping public for private matters, the kind-heartedman said: "Look here, my young friend, I am going to see what I can dofor that foot of yours; then we'll give you some dinner and put you tobed in my apprentice's little room, who has cleared out. "

But Maurice was tormented by such an itching desire for furtherintelligence that he could neither eat nor sleep until he had carriedinto execution his original design of paying a visit to his old friend, Madame Desvallieres, over the way. He was surprised that he was nothalted at the door, which, in the universal confusion, had been leftwide open, without so much as a sentry to guard it. People weregoing out and coming in incessantly, military men and officers of thehousehold, and the roar from the blazing kitchen seemed to rise andpervade the whole house. There was no light in the passage and on thestaircase, however, and he had to grope his way up as best he might. Onreaching the first floor he paused for a few seconds, his heart beatingviolently, before the door of the apartment that he knew contained theEmperor, but not a sound was to be heard in the room; the stillness thatreigned there was as of death. Mounting the last flight he presentedhimself at the door of the servant's room to which Madame Desvalliereshad been consigned; the old lady was at first terrified at sight of him. When she recognized him presently she said:

"Ah, my poor child, what a sad meeting is this! I would cheerfully havesurrendered my house to the Emperor, but the people he has about himhave no sense of decency. They lay hands on everything, without so muchas saying, 'By your leave, ' and I am afraid they will burn the housedown with their great fires! He, poor man, looks like a corpse, and suchsadness in his face--"

And when the young man took leave of her with a few murmured words ofcomfort she went with him to the door, and leaning over the banister:"Look!" she softly said, "you can see him from where you are. Ah! we areall undone. Adieu, my child!"

Maurice remained planted like a statue on one of the steps of the darkstaircase. Craning his neck and directing his glance through the glazedfanlight over the door of the apartment, he beheld a sight that wasnever to fade from his memory. 

In the bare and cheerless room, the conventional bourgeois "parlor, " wasthe Emperor, seated at a table on which his plate was laid, lightedat either end by wax candles in great silver candelabra. Silent in thebackground stood two aides-de-camp with folded arms. The wine in theglass was untasted, the bread untouched, a breast of chicken was coolingon the plate. The Emperor did not stir; he sat staring down at the clothwith those dim, lusterless, watery eyes that the young man rememberedto have seen before at Rheims; but he appeared more weary than then, andwhen, evidently at the cost of a great effort, he had raised a couple ofmouthfuls to his lips, he impatiently pushed the remainder of the foodfrom him with his hand. That was his dinner. His pale face was blanchedwith an expression of suffering endured in silence. 

As Maurice was passing the dining room on the floor beneath, the doorwas suddenly thrown open, and through the glow of candles and thesteam of smoking joints he caught a glimpse of a table of equerries, chamberlains, and aides-de-camp, engaged in devouring the Emperor'sgame and poultry and drinking his champagne, amid a great hubbub ofconversation. Now that the marshal's dispatch had been sent off, allthese people were delighted to know that the retreat was assured. In aweek they would be at Paris and could sleep between clean sheets. 

Then, for the first time, Maurice suddenly became conscious of theterrible fatigue that was oppressing him like a physical burden; therewas no longer room for doubt, the whole army was about to fall back, andthe best thing for him to do was to get some sleep while waiting for the7th corps to pass. He made his way back across the square to the houseof his friend Combette, where, like one in a dream, he ate some dinner, after which he was mistily conscious of someone dressing his foot andthen conducting him upstairs to a bedroom. And then all was blacknessand utter annihilation; he slept a dreamless, unstirring sleep. Butafter an uncertain length of time--hours, days, centuries, he knewnot--he gave a start and sat bolt upright in bed in the surroundingdarkness. Where was he? What was that continuous rolling sound, likethe rattling of thunder, that had aroused him from his slumber? Hisrecollection suddenly returned to him; he ran to the window to see whatwas going on. In the obscurity of the street beneath, where the nightwas usually so peaceful, the artillery was passing, horses, men, andguns, in interminable array, with a roar and clatter that made thelifeless houses quake and tremble. The abrupt vision filled him withunreasoning alarm. What time might it be? The great bell in the Hotelde Ville struck four. He was endeavoring to allay his uneasiness byassuring himself that it was simply the initial movement in the retreatthat had been ordered the day previous, when, raising his eyes, hebeheld a sight that gave him fresh cause for inquietude: there was alight still in the corner window of the notary's house opposite, and theshadow of the Emperor, drawn in dark profile on the curtain, appearedand disappeared at regularly spaced intervals. 

Maurice hastily slipped on his trousers preparatory to going down to thestreet, but just then Combette appeared at the door with a bed-candle inhis hand, gesticulating wildly. 

"I saw you from the square as I was coming home from the _Mairie_, andI came up to tell you the news. They have been keeping me out of my bedall this time; would you believe it, for more than two hours the mayorand I have been busy attending to fresh requisitions. Yes, everything isupset again; there has been another change of plans. Ah! he knew what hewas about, that officer did, who wanted to keep the folks in Paris fromgetting wind of matters!"

He went on for a long time in broken, disjointed phrases, and when hehad finished the young man, speechless, brokenhearted, saw it all. Aboutmidnight the Emperor had received a dispatch from the Minister of War inreply to the one that had been sent by the marshal. Its exact terms werenot known, but an aide-de-camp at the Hotel de Ville had stated openlythat the Empress and the Council declared there would be a revolutionin Paris should the Emperor retrace his steps and abandon Bazaine. Thedispatch, which evinced the utmost ignorance as to the position of theGerman armies and the resources of the army of Chalons, advised, or rather ordered, an immediate forward movement, regardless of allconsiderations, in spite of everything, with a heat and fury that seemedincredible. 

"The Emperor sent for the marshal, " added the apothecary, "and they werecloseted together for near an hour; of course I am not in position tosay what passed between them, but I am told by all the officers thatthere is to be no more retreating, and the advance to the Meuse is to beresumed at once. We have been requisitioning all the ovens in the cityfor the 1st corps, which will come up to-morrow morning and take theplace of the 12th, whose artillery you see at this moment starting forla Besace. The matter is decided for good this time; you will smellpowder before you are much older. "

He ceased. He also was gazing at the lighted window over in the notary'shouse. Then he went on in a low voice, as if talking to himself, with anexpression on his face of reflective curiosity:

"I wonder what they had to say to each other? It strikes one as a ratherpeculiar proceeding, all the same, to run away from a threatened dangerat six in the evening, and at midnight, when nothing has occurred toalter the situation, to rush headlong into the very self-same danger. "

Below them in the street Maurice still heard the gun-carriages rumblingand rattling over the stones of the little sleeping city, that ceaselesstramp of horse and man, that uninterrupted tide of humanity, pouringonward toward the Meuse, toward the unknown, terrible fate that themorrow had in store for them. And still upon the mean, cheap curtains ofthat bourgeois dwelling he beheld the shadow of the Emperor passing andrepassing at regular intervals, the restless activity of the sick man, to whom his cares made sleep impossible, whose sole repose was motion, in whose ears was ever ringing that tramp of horses and men whom he wassuffering to be sent forward to their death. A few brief hours, then, had sufficed; the slaughter was decided on; it was to be. What, indeed, could they have found to say to each other, that Emperor and thatmarshal, conscious, both of them, of the inevitable disaster thatlay before them? Assured as they were at night of defeat, from theirknowledge of the wretched condition the army would be in when the timeshould come for it to meet the enemy, how, knowing as they did that theperil was hourly becoming greater, could they have changed their mind inthe morning? Certain it was that General de Palikao's plan of a swift, bold dash on Montmedy, which seemed hazardous on the 23d and was, perhaps, still not impracticable on the 25th, if conducted with veterantroops and a leader of ability, would on the 27th be an act of sheermadness amid the divided counsels of the chiefs and the increasingdemoralization of the troops. This they both well knew; why, then, didthey obey those merciless drivers who were flogging them onward in theirirresolution? why did they hearken to those furious passions thatwere spurring them forward? The marshal's, it might be said, was thetemperament of the soldier, whose duty is limited to obedience to hisinstructions, great in its abnegation; while the Emperor, who had ceasedentirely to issue orders, was waiting on destiny. They were called on tosurrender their lives and the life of the army; they surrendered them. It was the accomplishment of a crime, the black, abominable night thatwitnessed the murder of a nation, for thenceforth the army rested in theshadow of death; a hundred thousand men and more were sent forward toinevitable destruction. 

While pursuing this train of thought Maurice was watching the shadowthat still kept appearing and vanishing on the muslin of good MadameDesvallieres' curtain, as if it felt the lash of the pitiless voice thatcame to it from Paris. Had the Empress that night desired the death ofthe father in order that the son might reign? March! forward ever! withno look backward, through mud, through rain, to bitter death, that thefinal game of the agonizing empire may be played out, even to the lastcard. March! march! die a hero's death on the piled corpses of yourpeople, let the whole world gaze in awe-struck admiration, for the honorand glory of your name! And doubtless the Emperor was marching to hisdeath. Below, the fires in the kitchen flamed and flashed no longer;equerries, aides-de-camp and chamberlains were slumbering, the wholehouse was wrapped in darkness, while ever the lone shade went and cameunceasingly, accepting with resignation the sacrifice that was to be, amid the deafening uproar of the 12th corps, that was defiling stillthrough the black night. 

Maurice suddenly reflected that, if the advance was to be resumed, the 7th corps would not pass through Chene, and he beheld himself leftbehind, separated from his regiment, a deserter from his post. His footno longer pained him; his friend's dressing and a few hours of completerest had allayed the inflammation. Combette gave him a pair of easyshoes of his own that were comfortable to his feet, and as soon as hehad them on he wanted to be off, hoping that he might yet be able toovertake the 106th somewhere on the road between Chene and Vouziers. Theapothecary labored vainly to dissuade him, and had almost made up hismind to put his horse in the gig and drive him over in person, trustingto fortune to befriend him in finding the regiment, when Fernand, theapprentice, appeared, alleging as an excuse for his absence that he hadbeen to see his sister. The youth was a tall, tallow-faced individual, who looked as if he had not the spirit of a mouse; the horse was quicklyhitched to the carriage and he drove off with Maurice. It was notyet five o'clock; the rain was pouring in torrents from a sky of inkyblackness, and the dim carriage-lamps faintly illuminated the road andcast little fitful gleams of light across the streaming fields on eitherside, over which came mysterious sounds that made them pull up from timeto time in the belief that the army was at hand. 

Jean, meantime, down there before Vouziers, had not been slumbering. Maurice had explained to him how the retreat was to be salvation to themall, and he was keeping watch, holding his men together and waiting forthe order to move, which might come at any minute. About two o'clock, inthe intense darkness that was dotted here and there by the red glow ofthe watch-fires, a great trampling of horses resounded through thecamp; it was the advance-guard of cavalry moving off toward Balayand Quatre-Champs so as to observe the roads from Boult-aux-Bois andCroix-aux-Bois; then an hour later the infantry and artillery also putthemselves in motion, abandoning at last the positions of Chestre andFalaise that they had defended so persistently for two long days againstan enemy who never showed himself. The sky had become overcast, thedarkness was profound, and one by one the regiments marched out indeepest silence, an array of phantoms stealing away into the bosom ofthe night. Every heart beat joyfully, however, as if they were escapingfrom some treacherous pitfall; already in imagination the troops beheldthemselves under the walls of Paris, where their revenge was awaitingthem. 

Jean looked out into the thick blackness. The road was bordered withtrees on either hand and, as far as he could see, appeared to liebetween wide meadows. Presently the country became rougher; there was asuccession of sharp rises and descents, and just as they were enteringa village which he supposed to be Balay, two straggling rows of housesbordering the road, the dense cloud that had obscured the heavens burstin a deluge of rain. The men had received so many duckings within thepast few days that they took this one without a murmur, bowing theirheads and plodding patiently onward; but when they had left Balay behindthem and were crossing a wide extent of level ground near Quatre-Champsa violent wind began to rise. Beyond Quatre-Champs, when they had foughttheir way upward to the wide plateau that extends in a dreary stretch ofwaste land as far as Noirval, the wind increased to a hurricane and thedriving rain stung their faces. There it was that the order, proceedingfrom the head of the column and re-echoed down the line, broughtthe regiments one after another to a halt, and the entire 7th corps, thirty-odd thousand men, found itself once more reunited in the mud andrain of the gray dawn. What was the matter? Why were they halted there?An uneasy feeling was already beginning to pervade the ranks; it wasasserted in some quarters that there had been a change of orders. Themen had been brought to ordered arms and forbidden to leave the ranksor sit down. At times the wind swept over the elevated plateau withsuch violence that they had to press closely to one another to keepfrom being carried off their feet. The rain blinded them and trickled inice-cold streams beneath their collars down their backs. And two hourspassed, a period of waiting that seemed as if it would never end, forwhat purpose no one could say, in an agony of expectancy that chilledthe hearts of all. 

As the daylight increased Jean made an attempt to discern wherethey were. Someone had shown him where the Chene road lay off to thenorthwest, passing over a hill beyond Quatre-Champs. Why had they turnedto the right instead of to the left? Another object of interest to himwas the general and his staff, who had established themselves at theConverserie, a farm on the edge of the plateau. There seemed to bea heated discussion going on; officers were going and coming and theconversation was carried on with much gesticulation. What could they bewaiting for? nothing was coming that way. The plateau formed a sort ofamphitheater, broad expanses of stubble that were commanded to the northand east by wooded heights; to the south were thick woods, while to thewest an opening afforded a glimpse of the valley of the Aisne with thelittle white houses of Vouziers. Below the Converserie rose the slatedsteeple of Quatre-Champs church, looming dimly through the furiousstorm, which seemed as if it would sweep away bodily the few poormoss-grown cottages of the village. As Jean's glance wandered down theascending road he became conscious of a doctor's gig coming up ata sharp trot along the stony road, that was now the bed of a rapidtorrent. 

It was Maurice, who, at a turn in the road, from the hill that laybeyond the valley, had finally discerned the 7th corps. For two hourshe had been wandering about the country, thanks to the stupidity of apeasant who had misdirected him and the sullen ill-will of his driver, whom fear of the Prussians had almost deprived of his wits. As soonas he reached the farmhouse he leaped from the gig and had no furthertrouble in finding the regiment. 

Jean addressed him in amazement:

"What, is it you? What is the meaning of this? I thought you were towait until we came along. "

Maurice's tone and manner told of his rage and sorrow. 

"Ah, yes! we are no longer going in that direction; it is down yonder weare to go, to get ourselves knocked in the head, all of us!"

"Very well, " said the other presently, with a very white face. "We willdie together, at all events. "

The two men met, as they had parted, with an embrace. In the drenchingrain that still beat down as pitilessly as ever, the humble privateresumed his place in the ranks, while the corporal, in his streaminggarments, never murmured as he gave him the example of what a soldiershould be. 

And now the tidings became more definite and spread among the men; theywere no longer retreating on Paris; the advance to the Meuse was againthe order of the day. An aide-de-camp had brought to the 7th corpsinstructions from the marshal to go and encamp at Nonart; the 5th was totake the direction of Beauclair, where it would be the right wing of thearmy, while the 1st was to move up to Chene and relieve the 12th, thenon the march to la Besace on the extreme left. And the reason why morethan thirty thousand men had been kept waiting there at ordered arms, for nearly three hours in the midst of a blinding storm, was thatGeneral Douay, in the deplorable confusion incident on this new changeof front, was alarmed for the safety of the train that had been sentforward the day before toward Chagny; the delay was necessary to givethe several divisions time to close up. In the confusion of all theseconflicting movements it was said that the 12th corps train had blockedthe road at Chene, thus cutting off that of the 7th. On the other hand, an important part of the _materiel_, all the forges of the artillery, had mistaken their road and strayed off in the direction of Terron; theywere now trying to find their way back by the Vouziers road, where theywere certain to fall into the hands of the Germans. Never was there suchutter confusion, never was anxiety so intense. 

A feeling of bitterest discouragement took possession of the troops. Many of them in their despair would have preferred to seat themselves ontheir knapsacks, in the midst of that sodden, wind-swept plain, and waitfor death to come to them. They reviled their leaders and loaded themwith insult: ah! famous leaders, they; brainless boobies, undoing atnight what they had done in the morning, idling and loafing when therewas no enemy in sight, and taking to their heels as soon as he showedhis face! Each minute added to the demoralization that was already rife, making of that army a rabble, without faith or hope, without discipline, a herd that their chiefs were conducting to the shambles by ways ofwhich they themselves were ignorant. Down in the direction of Vouziersthe sound of musketry was heard; shots were being exchanged between therear-guard of the 7th corps and the German skirmishers; and now everyeye was turned upon the valley of the Aisne, where volumes of denseblack smoke were whirling upward toward the sky from which the cloudshad suddenly been swept away; they all knew it was the village ofFalaise burning, fired by the uhlans. Every man felt his blood boil inhis veins; so the Prussians were there at last; they had sat and waitedtwo days for them to come up, and then had turned and fled. The mostignorant among the men had felt their cheeks tingle for very shame as, in their dull way, they recognized the idiocy that had prompted thatenormous blunder, that imbecile delay, that trap into which they hadwalked blindfolded; the light cavalry of the IVth army feinting in frontof Bordas' brigade and halting and neutralizing, one by one, the severalcorps of the army of Chalons, solely to give the Crown Prince time tohasten up with the IIId army. And now, thanks to the marshal's completeand astounding ignorance as to the identity of the troops he had beforehim, the junction was accomplished, and the 5th and 7th corps were tobe roughly handled, with the constant menace of disaster overshadowingthem. 

Maurice's eyes were bent on the horizon, where it was reddened with theflames of burning Falaise. They had one consolation, however: the trainthat had been believed to be lost came crawling along out of the Cheneroad. Without delay the 2d division put itself in motion and struck outacross the forest for Boult-aux-Bois; the 3d took post on the heightsof Belleville to the left in order to keep an eye to the communications, while the 1st remained at Quatre-Champs to wait for the coming up of thetrain and guard its countless wagons. Just then the rain began to comedown again with increased violence, and as the 106th moved off theplateau, resuming the march that should have never been, toward theMeuse, toward the unknown, Maurice thought he beheld again his visionof the night: the shadow of the Emperor, incessantly appearing andvanishing, so sad, so pitiful a sight, on the white curtain of good oldMadame Desvallieres. Ah! that doomed army, that army of despair, thatwas being driven forward to inevitable destruction for the salvation ofa dynasty! March, march, onward ever, with no look behind, through mud, through rain, to the bitter end!

VI. 

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

At Boult-aux-Bois, where they were now encamped, the only rationissued to the men the night before had been an extremely slender oneof potatoes; the commissariat was daily more and more distracted anddisorganized by the everlasting marches and countermarches, neverreaching 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 uponthe 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 belively on an empty stomach. And then there was the rain that poured downincessantly, and the mud in which they had to make their beds. 

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

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

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

But Lieutenant Rochas, passing by just then, made them be silent. It wasscandalous, never to think of anything but their stomachs! When _he_ washungry he tightened up the buckle of his trousers. Now that things werebecoming decidedly squally and the popping of rifles was to be heardoccasionally in the distance, he had recovered all his old sereneconfidence: it was all plain enough, now; the Prussians werethere--well, all they had to do was, go out and lick 'em. And he gavea significant shrug of the shoulders, standing behind Captain Beaudoin, the _very_ young man, as he called him, with his pale face and pursed uplips, whom the loss of his baggage had afflicted so grievously that hehad 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 circumstanceproductive 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, butthe drenching he had received the day before, from the effects of whichhis greatcoat seemed to weigh a ton, had left him with a distinct andseparate ache in every bone of his body. When he was sent to the springto get water for the coffee he took a survey of the plain on the edgeof 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 tothe east, Buzancy way, there is a broad, level expanse, stretching faras the eye can see, with an occasional shallow depression concealing asmall cluster of cottages. Was it from that direction that they were toexpect the enemy? As he was returning from the stream with his bucketfilled with water, the father of a family of wretched peasants hailedhim from the door of his hovel, and asked him if the soldiers were thistime going to stay and defend them. In the confusion of conflictingorders the 5th corps had already traversed the region no less than threetimes. The sound of cannonading had reached them the day before fromthe direction of Bar; the Prussians could not be more than a coupleof leagues away. And when Maurice made answer to the poor folks thatdoubtless the 7th corps would also be called away after a time, theirtears flowed afresh. Then they were to be abandoned to the enemy, andthe soldiers had not come there to fight, whom they saw constantlyvanishing 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 todrink their coffee without sugar; and then, too, if they only had somebiscuit! Most of them had devoured what eatables they had in theirknapsacks, 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 theyshared equally. 

Maurice, who began to feel a twinging sensation in his stomach, uttereda 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 thatmorning, who, on being ordered to go for firewood, had insolentlyrefused, alleging that it was not his turn. Now that everything was sorapidly going to the dogs, insubordination among the men had increasedto such a point that those in authority no longer ventured to reprimandthem, and Jean, with his sober good sense and pacific disposition, sawthat if he would preserve his influence with his squad he must keep thecorporal in the background as far as possible. For this reason he washail-fellow-well-met with his men, who could not fail to see what atreasure they had in a man of his experience, for if those committed tohis care did not always have all they wanted to eat, they had, at allevents, not suffered from hunger, as had been the case with so manyothers. But he was touched by the sight of Maurice's suffering. He sawthat he was losing strength, and looked at him anxiously, asking himselfhow that delicate young man would ever manage to sustain the privationsof that horrible campaign. 

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

"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 thereshould be a fight, knowing that men are often hungry on the battlefield. And then, besides, he had just eaten a potato; that would be sufficientfor him. Perhaps something would turn up later on. 

About ten o'clock the 7th corps made a fresh start. The marshal's firstintention had been to direct it by way of Buzancy upon Stenay, where itwould have passed the Meuse, but the Prussians, outmarching the armyof Chalons, were already in Stenay, and were even reported to be atBuzancy. Crowded back in this manner to the northward, the 7th corps hadreceived orders to move to la Besace, some twelve or fifteen miles fromBoult-aux-Bois, whence, on the next day, they would proceed to pass theMeuse at Mouzon. The start was made in a very sulky humor; the men, withempty stomachs and bodies unrefreshed by repose, unnerved, mentallyand physically, by the experience of the past few days, vented theirdissatisfaction by growling and grumbling, while the officers, withouta spark of their usual cheerful gayety, with a vague sense of impendingdisaster awaiting them at the end of their march, taxed the dilatorinessof their chiefs, and reproached them for not going to the assistance ofthe 5th corps at Buzancy, where the sound of artillery-firing hadbeen heard. That corps, too, was on the retreat, making its way towardNonart, while the 12th was even then leaving la Besace for Mouzon andthe 1st was directing its course toward Raucourt. It was like nothing somuch as the passage of a drove of panic-stricken cattle, with the dogsworrying them and snapping at their heels--a wild stampede toward theMeuse. 

When, in the outstreaming torrent of the three divisions that stripedthe plain with columns of marching men, the 106th left Boult-aux-Bois inthe rear of the cavalry and artillery, the sky was again overspread witha pall of dull leaden clouds that further lowered the spirits of thesoldiers. Its route was along the Buzancy highway, planted on eitherside with rows of magnificent poplars. When they reached Germond, avillage where there was a steaming manure-heap before every one of thedoors that lined the two sides of the straggling street, the sobbingwomen 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 takethem with them. There was not a mouthful of bread to be had in all thehamlet, nor even a potato, After that, the regiment, instead of keepingstraight on toward Buzancy, turned to the left and made for Authe, andwhen the men turned their eyes across the plain and beheld upon thehilltop Belleville, through which they had passed the day before, thefact that they were retracing their steps was impressed more vividly ontheir 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 thinkthat men's legs are cheap. "

The anger and disgust were general. It was not right to make men sufferlike that, just for the fun of walking them up and down the country. They were advancing in column across the naked plain in two filesoccupying the sides of the road, leaving a free central space in whichthe officers could move to and fro and keep an eye on their men, but itwas 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 theknapsack was like a feather to their shoulders, in the belief that soonthey 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 thatseemed to weigh them to the ground, their faith in their leaders gone, and possessed by such bitterness of despair that they only went forwardas does a file of manacled galley-slaves, in terror of the lash. Thewretched army had begun to ascend its Calvary. 

Maurice, however, within the last few minutes had made a discovery thatinterested him greatly. To their left was a range of hills that roseone above another as they receded from the road, and from the skirt of alittle wood, far up on the mountain-side, he had seen a horseman emerge. Then another appeared, and then still another. There they stood, allthree of them, without sign of life, apparently no larger than a man'shand and looking like delicately fashioned toys. He thought they wereprobably part of a detachment of our hussars out on a reconnoissance, when all at once he was surprised to behold little points of lightflashing from their shoulders, doubtless the reflection of the sunlightfrom 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 eyeson. They had been in the field nearly six weeks now, and in all thattime not only had they never smelt powder, but had never even seen anenemy. The news spread through the ranks, and every head was turned tolook 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 aplateau to the left of the little wood, and at sight of the threateningdemonstration the column halted. An officer came riding up with orders, and the 106th moved off a little and took position on the bank of asmall stream behind a clump of trees. The artillery had come hurryingback from the front on a gallop and taken possession of a low, roundedhill. For near two hours they remained there thus in line of battlewithout the occurrence of anything further; the body of hostile cavalryremained motionless in the distance, and finally, concluding that theywere only wasting time that was valuable, the officers set the columnmoving again. 

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

Maurice, too, had felt his finger-tips tingling with the desire to havejust one shot. He kept harping on the theme of the mistake they hadmade the day before in not going to the support of the 5th corps. Ifthe Prussians had not made their attack yet, it must be because theirinfantry had not got up in sufficient strength, whence it was evidentthat their display of cavalry in the distance was made with no otherend than to harass us and check the advance of our corps. We had againfallen into the trap set for us, and thenceforth the regiment wasconstantly greeted with the sight of uhlans popping up on its leftflank wherever the ground was favorable for them, tracking it likesleuthhounds, disappearing behind a farmhouse only to reappear at thecorner of a wood. 

It eventually produced a disheartening effect on the troops to see thatcordon closing in on them in the distance and enveloping them as in themeshes of some gigantic, invisible net. Even Pache and Lapoulle had anopinion on the subject. 

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

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

At Authe the weather cleared, and Maurice, taking his bearings by theposition of the sun, noticed that instead of bearing off toward Chene, which lay three good leagues from where they were, they had turnedand were moving directly eastward. It was two o'clock; the men, aftershivering in the rain for two days, were now suffering from the intenseheat. The road ascended, with long sweeping curves, through a region ofutter desolation: not a house, not a living being, the only relief tothe dreariness of the waste lands an occasional little somber wood; andthe oppressive silence communicated itself to the men, who toiled onwardwith drooping heads, bathed in perspiration. At last Saint-Pierremontappeared before them, a few empty houses on a small elevation. They didnot pass through the village. Maurice observed that here they made asudden wheel to the left, resuming their northern course, toward laBesace. He now understood the route that had been adopted in theirattempt to reach Mouzon ahead of the Prussians; but would they succeed, with such weary, demoralized troops? At Saint-Pierremont the threeuhlans had shown themselves again, at a turn in the road leading toBuzancy, and just as the rear-guard was leaving the village a batterywas unmasked and a few shells came tumbling among them, without doingany injury, however. No response was attempted, and the march wascontinued 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 agesture of discouragement: the men would never be able to accomplish it;they showed it by their shortness of breath, by their haggard faces. Theroad continued to ascend, between gently sloping hills on either sidethat were gradually drawing closer together. The condition of the mennecessitated a halt, but the only effect of their brief repose was toincrease the stiffness of their benumbed limbs, and when the order wasgiven to march the state of affairs was worse than it had been before;the regiments made no progress, men were everywhere falling in theranks. Jean, noticing Maurice's pallid face and glassy eyes, infringedon what was his usual custom and conversed, endeavoring by hisvolubility to divert the other's attention and keep him awake as hemoved automatically forward, unconscious of his actions. 

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

"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! Sheis 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 atMaurice, saw that his eyes were closing and he was about to fall. 

"Hallo there, old fellow! Come, confound it all, brace up! Let me takeyour gun a moment; that will give you a chance to rest. They can't havethe cruelty to make us march any further to-day! we shall leave half ourmen 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, andthe yellow church, embowered in trees, looking down on them from itsperch upon the summit. 

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

He had guessed aright; General Douay saw the exhausted condition of thetroops, and was convinced that it would be useless to attempt to reachla Besace that day. What particularly influenced his determination, however, was the arrival of the train, that ill-starred train that hadbeen trailing in his rear since they left Rheims, and of which thenine long miles of vehicles and animals had so terribly impeded hismovements. He had given instructions from Quatre-Champs to direct itstraight on Saint-Pierremont, and it was not until Osches that the teamscame up with the corps, in such a state of exhaustion that the horsesrefused to stir. It was now five o'clock; the general, not liking theprospect of attempting the pass of Stonne at that late hour, determinedto take the responsibility of abridging the task assigned them by themarshal. The corps was halted and proceeded to encamp; the train belowin the meadows, guarded by a division, while the artillery took positionon the hills to the rear, and the brigade detailed to act as rear-guardon the morrow rested on a height facing Saint-Pierremont. The otherdivision, which included Bourgain-Desfeuilles' brigade, bivouacked on awide plateau, bordered by an oak wood, behind the church. There was suchconfusion in locating the bodies of troops that it was dark before the106th could move into its position at the edge of the wood. 

"_Zut_!" said Chouteau in a furious rage, "no eating for me; I want tosleep!"

And that was the cry of all; they were overcome with fatigue. Many ofthem lacked strength and courage to erect their tents, but droppingwhere they stood, at once fell fast asleep on the bare ground. In orderto eat, moreover, rations would have been necessary, and the commissarywagons, which were waiting for the 7th corps to come to them at laBesace, could not well be at Osches at the same time. In the universalrelaxation of order and system even the customary corporal's call wasomitted: it was everyone for himself. There were to be no more issuesof rations from that time forth; the soldiers were to subsist on theprovisions they were supposed to carry in their knapsacks, and thatevening the sacks were empty; few indeed were those who could muster acrust of bread or some crumbs of the abundance in which they had beenliving at Vouziers of late. There was coffee, and those who were not tootired made and drank it without sugar. 

When Jean thought to make a division of his wealth by eating one of hisbiscuits himself and giving the other to Maurice, he discovered thatthe 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 hadinsisted on having the tent put up, and they were all stretched onthe ground beneath its shelter when Loubet returned from a foragingexpedition, bringing in some carrots that he had found in a neighboringfield. As there was no fire to cook them by they munched them raw, butthe vegetables only served to aggravate their hunger, and they madePache ill. 

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

"Ah, " Lapoulle broke in, "we shall be at Angouleme to-morrow, andthen we'll have some bread. I had a cousin in the army once, who wasstationed 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 hadinsisted that morning that the uhlans that they sighted were some ofBazaine'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 beenpermitted to make fires; the Prussians were known to be only a few milesaway, and it would not do to put them on the alert; orders even weretransmitted in a hushed voice. The officers had notified their menbefore retiring that the start would be made at about four in themorning, in order that they might have all the rest possible, and allhad hastened to turn in and were sleeping greedily, forgetful of theirtroubles. Above the scattered camps the deep respiration of all thoseslumbering crowds, rising upon the stillness of the night, was like thelong-drawn breathing of old Mother Earth. 

Suddenly a shot rang out in the darkness and aroused the sleepers. Itwas about three o'clock, and the obscurity was profound. Immediatelyeveryone was on foot, the alarm spread through the camp; it was supposedthe Prussians were attacking. It was only Loubet who, unable to sleeplonger, 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 itwould 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 whichto conceal himself, he heard the sound of voices and the snapping ofdry branches under heavy footsteps; men were coming toward him; he tookalarm and discharged his piece, believing the Prussians were at hand. Maurice, Jean, and others came running up in haste, when a hoarse voicemade 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 agray blouse, confined at the waist by a red belt, and carried a musketslung by a strap over his shoulder. He hurriedly explained that he wasFrench, a sergeant of francs-tireurs, and had come with two of hismen from the wood of Dieulet, bringing important information for thegeneral. 

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

The men were evidently badly scared, but they came forward. Ducat, shortand fat, with a pale face and scanty hair; Cabasse short and lean, witha 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 Mauricerecoiled a step or two, for this Sambuc had the reputation of being aparticularly hard case, the worthy son of a family of woodcutters whohad all gone to the bad, the drunken father being found one night lyingby the roadside with his throat cut, the mother and daughter, wholived by begging and stealing, having disappeared, most likely, inthe seclusion of some penitentiary. He, Guillaume, did a little in thepoaching and smuggling lines, and only one of that litter of wolves'whelps had grown up to be an honest man, and that was Prosper, thehussar, 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 ofDieulet have something important to say to him. "

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

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

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

The camp was already astir; Jean and Maurice took the francs-tireurs toCaptain Beaudoin, who conducted them to the quarters of Colonel Vineuil. The colonel attempted to question them, but Sambuc, intrenching himselfin his dignity, refused to speak to anyone except the general. NowBourgain-Desfeuilles had taken up his quarters that night with the cureof Osches, and just then appeared, rubbing his eyes, in the doorway ofthe parsonage; he was in a horribly bad humor at his slumbers havingbeen thus prematurely cut short, and the prospect that he saw before himof another day of famine and fatigue; hence his reception of the men whowere brought before him was not exactly lamblike. Who were they? Whencedid they come? What did they want? Ah, some of those francs-tireursgentlemen--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 befamiliar with all these strange names?"

The colonel was distressed by his chief's display of ignorance; hehastily interfered to remind him that Stenay and Mouzon were on theMeuse, 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 thatthe woods of Dieulet are alive with Prussians. There was an engagementyesterday as the 5th corps was leaving Bois-les-Dames, somewhere aboutNonart--"

"What, yesterday? There was fighting yesterday?"

"Yes, General, the 5th corps was engaged as it was falling back; it musthave been at Beaumont last night. So, while some of us hurried off toreport to it the movements of the enemy, we thought it best to come andlet 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 themorning. "

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

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

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

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

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

Since leaving Vouziers the general had stoutly refused to attach anyfurther credit to reports of the junction of the two German armieswhich, as he said, they had been trying to stuff down his throat. He didnot even consider it worth his while to send the francs-tireurs beforehis corps commander, to whom the partisans supposed, all along, thatthey were talking; if they should attempt to listen to all the yarnsthat were brought them by tramps and peasants, they would have theirhands full and be driven from pillar to post without ever advancinga 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 theywere returning to fold the tent, "to have tramped three leagues acrosslots to let us know. "

The young man agreed with him and commended their action, knowing as hedid the country, and deeply alarmed to hear that the Prussians werein Dieulet forest and moving on Sommanthe and Beaumont. He had flunghimself down by the roadside, exhausted before the march had commenced, with a sorrowing heart and an empty stomach, at the dawning of that daywhich he felt was to be so disastrous for them all. Distressed to seehim 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 tothe 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 afalsehood for which he may be forgiven: "Here, take it; I kept yourshare for you. I ate mine a while ago. "

Day was breaking when the 7th corps marched out of Osches en routefor Mouzon by way of la Besace, where they should have bivouacked. Thetrain, cause of so many woes, had been sent on ahead, guarded by thefirst division, and if its own wagons, well horsed as for the most partthey were, got over the ground at a satisfactory pace, the requisitionedvehicles, most of them empty, delayed the troops and produced sadconfusion among the hills of the defile of Stonne. After leaving thehamlet of la Berliere the road rises more sharply between woodedhills on either side. Finally, about eight o'clock, the two remainingdivisions got under way, when Marshal MacMahon came galloping up, vexedto find there those troops that he supposed had left la Besace thatmorning, with only a short march between them and Mouzon; his commentto General Douay on the subject was expressed in warm language. It wasdetermined that the first division and the train should be allowed toproceed on their way to Mouzon, but that the two other divisions, thatthey might not be further retarded by this cumbrous advance-guard, should move by the way of Raucourt and Autrecourt so as to passthe Meuse at Villers. The movement to the north was dictated by themarshal's intense anxiety to place the river between his army and theenemy; 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 themfrom a distant eminence, over in the direction of Saint-Pierremont. Theymade the mistake of firing a few shots in reply; then the last of thetroops filed out of the town. 

Until nearly eleven o'clock the 106th slowly pursued its way along theroad which zigzags through the pass of Stonne between high hills. Onthe left hand the precipitous summits rear their heads, devoid ofvegetation, while to the right the gentler slopes are clad with woodsdown to the roadside. The sun had come out again, and the heat wasintense down in the inclosed valley, where an oppressive solitudeprevailed. After leaving la Berliere, which lies at the foot of a loftyand desolate mountain surmounted by a Calvary, there is not a house tobe seen, not a human being, not an animal grazing in the meadows. Andthe men, the day before so faint with hunger, so spent with fatigue, whosince 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 alongthe roadside, the roar of artillery was heard away at their right;judging from the distinctness of the detonations the firing could notbe more than two leagues distant. Upon the troops, weary with waiting, tired of retreating, the effect was magical; in the twinkling of an eyeeveryone was on his feet, eager, in a quiver of excitement, no longermindful of his hunger and fatigue: why did they not advance? Theypreferred to fight, to die, rather than keep on flying thus, no one knewwhy or whither. 

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

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

Sambuc, with Ducat and Cabasse close at his heels, listened a momentbefore he answered, casting his eye over the wide horizon, and Maurice, standing beside him and gazing out over the panorama of valley andforest that lay beneath him, was struck with admiration. It was likea boundless sea, whose gigantic waves had been arrested by some mightyforce. In the foreground the somber verdure of the woods made splashesof sober color on the yellow of the fields, while in the brilliantsunlight the distant hills were bathed in purplish vapors. And whilenothing was to be seen, not even the tiniest smoke-wreath floating onthe cloudless sky, the cannon were thundering away in the distance, likethe muttering of a rising storm. 

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

"Either at Varniforet or Beaumont, " Ducat observed. 

The general muttered below his breath: "Beaumont, Beaumont--a man cannever 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 toStenay, which runs up the valley yonder. "

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

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

There was silence among them, while the battle raging in the distancegrowled more furiously than ever, and Maurice had to set tight his teethto keep himself from speaking his mind aloud. Why did they not hastenwhither the guns were calling them, without such waste of words? He hadnever known what it was to be excited thus; every discharge found anecho in his bosom and inspired him with a fierce longing to be presentat 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 withtheir hand, and never expend a cartridge? It must be to decide a wagerthat some one had made, that since the beginning of the campaign theywere dragged about the country thus, always flying before the enemy! AtVouziers they had heard the musketry of the rear-guard, at Osches theGerman guns had played a moment on their retreating backs; and now theywere to run for it again, they were not to be allowed to advance atdouble-quick to the succor of comrades in distress! Maurice looked atJean, who was also very pale, his eyes shining with a bright, feverishlight. Every heart leaped in every bosom at the loud summons of theartillery. 

While they were waiting a general, attended by his staff, was seenascending the narrow path that wound up the hill. It was Douay, theircorps-commander, who came hastening up, with anxiety depicted on hiscountenance, and when he had questioned the francs-tireurs he gaveutterance to an exclamation of despair. But what could he have done, even had he learned their tidings that morning? The marshal's orderswere explicit: they must be across the Meuse that night, cost whatit 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 fullretreat on Mouzon by that time, as was indicated by the sound of thefiring, which was receding more and more to the eastward, as a deadlyhurricane moves off after having accomplished its disastrous work. Witha fierce gesture, expressive of his sense of impotency, General Douayoutstretched his arms toward the wide horizon of hill and dale, ofwoods and fields, and the order went forth to proceed with the march toRaucourt. 

Ah, what a march was that through that dismal pass of Stonne, with thelofty summits o'erhanging them on either side, while through the woodson their right came the incessant volleying of the artillery. Colonel deVineuil rode at the head of his regiment, bracing himself firmly in hissaddle, his face set and very pale, his eyes winking like those of onetrying not to weep. Captain Beaudoin strode along in silence, gnawing his mustache, while Lieutenant Rochas let slip an occasionalimprecation, invoking ruin and destruction on himself and everyonebesides. Even the most cowardly among the men, those who had the leaststomach for fighting, were shamed and angered by their continuousretreat; they felt the bitter humiliation of turning their backs whilethose beasts of Prussians were murdering their comrades over yonder. 

After emerging from the pass the road, from a tortuous path among thehills, increased in width and led through a broad stretch of levelcountry, dotted here and there with small woods. The 106th was now aportion of the rear-guard, and at every moment since leaving Oscheshad been expecting to feel the enemy's attack, for the Prussianswere following the column step by step, never letting it escape theirvigilant eyes, waiting, doubtless, for a favorable opportunity to fallon its rear. Their cavalry were on the alert to take advantage of anybit of ground that promised them an opportunity of getting in on ourflank; several squadrons of Prussian Guards were seen advancing frombehind a wood, but they gave up their purpose upon a demonstration madeby a regiment of our hussars, who came up at a gallop, sweeping theroad. Thanks to the breathing-spell afforded them by this circumstancethe retreat went on in sufficiently good order, and Raucourt was notfar away, when a spectacle greeted their eyes that filled them withconsternation and completely demoralized the troops. Upon coming to across-road they suddenly caught sight of a hurrying, straggling, flying throng, wounded officers, soldiers without arms andwithout organization, runaway teams from the train, all--men andanimals--mingled in wildest confusion, wild with panic. It was the wreckof one of the brigades of the 1st division, which had been sent thatmorning to escort the train to Mouzon; there had been an unfortunatemisconception of orders, and this brigade and a portion of the wagonshad taken a wrong road and reached Varniforet, near Beaumont, at thevery time when the 5th corps was being driven back in disorder. Takenunawares, overborne by the flank attack of an enemy superior in numbers, they had fled; and bleeding, with haggard faces, crazed with fear, werenow returning to spread consternation among their comrades; it was as ifthey had been wafted thither on the breath of the battle that had beenraging incessantly since noon. 

Alarm and anxiety possessed everyone, from highest to lowest, as thecolumn poured through Raucourt in wild stampede. Should they turn to theleft, toward Autrecourt, and attempt to pass the Meuse at Villers, ashad been previously decided? The general hesitated, fearing to encounterdifficulties in crossing there, even if the bridge were not alreadyin possession of the Prussians; he finally decided to keep straighton through the defile of Harancourt and thus reach Remilly beforenightfall. First Mouzon, then Villers, and last Remilly; they were stillpressing on northward, with the tramp of the uhlans on the road behindthem. There remained scant four miles for them to accomplish, but it wasfive o'clock, and the men were sinking with fatigue. They had been underarms since daybreak, twelve hours had been consumed in advancing threeshort leagues; they were harassed and fatigued as much by their constanthalts and the stress of their emotions as by the actual toil of themarch. For the last two nights they had had scarce any sleep; theirhunger had been unappeased since they left Vouziers. In Raucourt thedistress was terrible; men fell in the ranks from sheer inanition. 

The little town is rich, with its numerous factories, its handsomethoroughfare lined with two rows of well-built houses, and its prettychurch and _mairie_; but the night before Marshal MacMahon and theEmperor had passed that way with their respective staffs and all theimperial household, and during the whole of the present morning theentire 1st corps had been streaming like a torrent through the mainstreet. The resources of the place had not been adequate to meet therequirements of these hosts; the shelves of the bakers and grocers wereempty, and even the houses of the bourgeois had been swept clean ofprovisions; there was no bread, no wine, no sugar, nothing capable ofallaying hunger or thirst. Ladies had been seen to station themselvesbefore their doors and deal out glasses of wine and cups of bouillonuntil cask and kettle alike were drained of their last drop. And sothere was an end, and when, about three o'clock, the first regimentsof the 7th corps began to appear the scene was a pitiful one; the broadstreet was filled from curb to curb with weary, dust-stained men, dyingwith hunger, and there was not a mouthful of food to give them. Many ofthem stopped, knocking at doors and extending their hands beseechinglytoward windows, begging for a morsel of bread, and women were seen tocry and sob as they motioned that they could not help them, that theyhad nothing left. 

At the corner of the Rue Dix-Potiers Maurice had an attack of dizzinessand 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 ofdispleasure assumed for the occasion:

"_Nom de Dieu!_ why don't you try to behave like a soldier! Do you wantthe Prussians to catch you? Come, get up!"

Then, as the young man, lividly pale, his eyes tight-closed, almostunconscious, made no reply, he let slip another oath, but in another keythis 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 withwater and hurried back to bathe his friend's face. Then, without furtherattempt at concealment, he took from his sack the last remaining biscuitthat he had guarded with such jealous caution, and commenced crumblingit into small bits that he introduced between the other's teeth. Thefamishing man opened his eyes and ate greedily. 

"But you, " he asked, suddenly recollecting himself, "how comes it thatyou 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 asingle draught, and came back smacking his lips in token of satisfactionwith his feast. He, too, was cadaverously pale, and so faint with hungerthat his hands were trembling like a leaf. 

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

Maurice leaned on his arm and suffered himself to be helped along asif he had been a child; never had woman's arm about him so warmed hisheart. In that extremity of distress, with death staring him in theface, it afforded him a deliciously cheering sense of comfort to knowthat someone loved and cared for him, and the reflection that thatheart, which was so entirely his, was the heart of a simple-mindedpeasant, whose aspirations scarcely rose above the satisfaction ofhis daily wants, for whom he had recently experienced a feeling ofrepugnance, served to add to his gratitude a sensation of ineffablejoy. Was it not the brotherhood that had prevailed in the world in itsearlier days, the friendship that had existed before caste and culturewere; that friendship which unites two men and makes them one in theircommon 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 knowthat the latter, his comforter and savior, was stronger than he; whileto Jean, who did not analyze his sensations, it afforded unalloyedpleasure to be the instrument of protecting, in his friend, thatcultivation and intelligence which, in himself, were only rudimentary. Since the death of his wife, who had been snatched away from him by afrightful catastrophe, he had believed that his heart was dead, he hadsworn to have nothing more to do with those creatures, who, even whenthey 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; theyunderstood each other; there was close community of sympathy betweenthem, and, notwithstanding their apparent external dissimilarity, thebond of pity and common suffering made them as one during their terriblemarch that day to Remilly. 

As the French rear-guard left Raucourt by one end of the town theGermans came in at the other, and forthwith two of their batteriescommenced firing from the position they had taken on the heights to theleft; the 106th, retreating along the road that follows the course ofthe Emmane, was directly in the line of fire. A shell cut down a poplaron the bank of the stream; another came and buried itself in the softground close to Captain Beaudoin, but did not burst. From there on toHarancourt, however, the walls of the pass kept approaching nearer andnearer, and the troops were crowded together in a narrow gorge commandedon either side by hills covered with trees. A handful of Prussians inambush on those heights might have caused incalculable disaster. Withthe cannon thundering in their rear and the menace of a possible attackon either flank, the men's uneasiness increased with every stepthey took, and they were in haste to get out of such a dangerousneighborhood; hence they summoned up their reserved strength, andthose soldiers who, but now in Raucourt, had scarce been able todrag themselves along, now, with the peril that lay behind them as anincentive, struck out at a good round pace. The very horses seemed tobe conscious that the loss of a minute might cost them dear. And theimpetus thus given continued; all was going well, the head of thecolumn must have reached Remilly, when, all at once, their progress wasarrested. 

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

The regiment had not yet reached Harancourt, and the shells were stilltumbling about them; while the men were marking time, awaiting theword to go ahead again, one burst, on the right of the column, withoutinjuring anyone, fortunately. Five minutes passed, that seemed tothem long as an eternity, and still they did not move; there was someobstacle on ahead that barred their way as effectually as if a strongwall had been built across the road. The colonel, standing up in hisstirrups, peered nervously to the front, for he saw that it wouldrequire 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 theirdiscontent exasperated by their fears. Yes, yes! they had been broughtthere to be sold, to be delivered over to the Prussians. In the balefulfatality that pursued them, and among all the blunders of theirleaders, those dense intelligences were unable to account for such anuninterrupted succession of disasters on any other ground than that oftreachery. 

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

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

The idle fancy was received as true, and immediately spread up and downthe line; everyone declared that the imperial household had blocked theroad and was responsible for the stoppage. There was a universal chorusof execration, of opprobrious epithets, an unchaining of the hatredand hostility that were inspired by the insolence of the Emperor'sattendants, who took possession of the towns where they stopped at nightas if they owned them, unpacking their luxuries, their costly wines andplate of gold and silver, before the eyes of the poor soldiers who weredestitute of everything, filling the kitchens with the steam of savoryviands while they, poor devils, had nothing for it but to tighten thebelt of their trousers. Ah! that wretched Emperor, that miserable man, deposed from his throne and stripped of his command, a stranger in hisown empire; whom they were conveying up and down the country along withthe other baggage, like some piece of useless furniture, whose doomit 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 ofhis 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. Themen huddled closer together and began to crowd forward, the movementgathering strength as it ran from rear to front. Inarticulate cries wereheard, Lapoulle shouted furiously to go ahead. A minute longer and therewould have been a horrible catastrophe, and many men must have beencrushed to death in the mad struggle to escape from the funnel-likegorge. 

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 whatis 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, andwhispered to him that, in case their comrades began to shove, they twocould leave the road, climb the hill on the left, and make their wayto 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 throughRaucourt. Just then the march was resumed, and almost immediately a bendin the road took them out of range of the German batteries. Later inthe day it was ascertained that it was four cuirassier regiments ofBonnemain'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 woodedhills continued on the right, but to the left the country was morelevel, and a valley was visible in the distance, veiled in bluish mists. At last, just as the shades of night were descending, they stood onthe heights of Remilly and beheld a ribbon of pale silver unrolling itslength upon a broad expanse of verdant plain. It was the Meuse, thatMeuse they had so longed to see, and where it seemed as if victoryawaited them. 

Pointing to some lights in the distance that were beginning to twinklecheerily among the trees, down in that fertile valley that lay thereso peaceful in the mellow twilight, Maurice said to Jean, with the gladcontent of a man revisiting a country that he knows and loves:

"Look! over that way--that is Sedan!"

VII. 

Remilly is built on a hill that rises from the left bank of the Meuse, presenting the appearance of an amphitheater; the one village streetthat meanders circuitously down the sharp descent was thronged with men, horses, and vehicles in dire confusion. Half-way up the hill, in frontof the church, some drivers had managed to interlock the wheels of theirguns, and all the oaths and blows of the artillerymen were unavailing toget them forward. Further down, near the woolen mill, where the Emmanetumbles noisily over the dam, the road was choked with a long line ofstranded baggage wagons, while close at hand, at the inn of the MalteseCross, a constantly increasing crowd of angry soldiers pushed andstruggled, and could not obtain so much as a glass of wine. 

All this mad hurly-burly was going on at the southern end of thevillage, which is here separated from the Meuse by a little grove oftrees, and where the engineers had that morning stretched a bridge ofboats across the river. There was a ferry to the right; the ferryman'shouse stood by itself, white and staring, amid a rank growth of weeds. Great fires had been built on either bank, which, being replenished fromtime to time, glared ruddily in the darkness and made the streamand both its shores as light as day. They served to show the immensemultitude of men massed there, awaiting a chance to cross, while thefootway only permitted the passage of two men abreast, and over thebridge proper the cavalry and artillery were obliged to proceed at awalk, so that the crossing promised to be a protracted operation. It wassaid that the troops still on the left bank comprised a brigade of the1st corps, an ammunition train, and the four regiments of cuirassiersbelonging to Bonnemain's division, while coming up in hot haste behindthem was the 7th corps, over thirty thousand strong, possessed with thebelief that the enemy was at their heels and pushing on with feverisheagerness to gain the security of the other shore. 

For a while despair reigned. What! they had been marching since morningwith nothing to eat, they had summoned up all their energies to escapethat deadly trap at Harancourt pass, only in the end to be landed inthat slough of despond, with an insurmountable wall staring them in theface! It would be hours, perhaps, before it became the last comer's turnto cross, and everyone knew that even if the Prussians should not beenterprising enough to continue their pursuit in the darkness they wouldbe there with the first glimpse of daylight. Orders came for them tostack muskets, however, and they made their camp on the great range ofbare hills which slope downward to the meadows of the Meuse, with theMouzon road running at their base. To their rear and occupying thelevel plateau on top of the range the guns of the reserve artillery werearranged in battery, pointed so as to sweep the entrance of the passshould there be necessity for it. And thus commenced another period ofagonized, grumbling suspense. 

When finally the preparations were all completed the 106th foundthemselves posted in a field of stubble above the road, in a positionthat commanded a view of the broad plain. The men had parted regretfullywith their arms, casting timorous looks behind them that showed theywere apprehensive of a night attack. Their faces were stern and set, andsilence reigned, only broken from time to time by some sullen murmurof angry complaint. It was nearly nine o'clock, they had been there twohours, and yet many of them, notwithstanding their terrible fatigue, could not sleep; stretched on the bare ground, they would start and bendtheir ears to catch the faintest sound that rose in the distance. Theyhad ceased to fight their torturing hunger; they would eat over yonder, on the other bank, when they had passed the river; they would eat grassif nothing else was to be found. The crowd at the bridge, however, seemed to increase rather than diminish; the officers that General Douayhad stationed there came back to him every few minutes, always bringingthe same unwelcome report, that it would be hours and hours before anyrelief could be expected. Finally the general determined to go downto the bridge in person, and the men saw him on the bank, bestirringhimself and others and hurrying the passage of the troops. 

Maurice, seated with Jean against a wall, pointed to the north, as hehad done before. "There is Sedan in the distance. And look! Bazeilles isover yonder--and then comes Douzy, and then Carignan, more to the right. We shall concentrate at Carignan, I feel sure we shall. Ah! there isplenty of room, as you would see if it were daylight!"

And his sweeping gesture embraced the entire valley that lay beneaththem, enfolded in shadow. There was sufficient light remaining in thesky that they could distinguish the pale gleam of the river where it ranits course among the dusky meadows. The scattered trees made clumps ofdenser shade, especially a row of poplars to the left, whose tops wereprofiled on the horizon like the fantastic ornaments on some old castlegateway. And in the background, behind Sedan, dotted with countlesslittle points of brilliant light, the shadows had mustered, denser anddarker, as if all the forests of the Ardennes had collected the inkyblackness of their secular oaks and cast it there. 

Jean's gaze came back to the bridge of boats beneath them. 

"Look there! everything is against us. We shall never get across. "

The fires upon both banks blazed up more brightly just then, and theirlight was so intense that the whole fearful scene was pictured on thedarkness with vivid distinctness. The boats on which the longitudinalgirders rested, owing to the weight of the cavalry and artillery thathad been crossing uninterruptedly since morning, had settled to suchan extent that the floor of the bridge was covered with water. Thecuirassiers were passing at the time, two abreast, in a long unbrokenfile, emerging from the obscurity of the hither shore to be swallowed upin the shadows of the other, and nothing was to be seen of the bridge;they appeared to be marching on the bosom of the ruddy stream, thatflashed and danced in the flickering firelight. The horses snortedand hung back, manifesting every indication of terror as they feltthe unstable pathway yielding beneath their feet, and the cuirassiers, standing erect in their stirrups and clutching at the reins, pouredonward in a steady, unceasing stream, wrapped in their great whitemantles, their helmets flashing in the red light of the flames. Onemight have taken them for some spectral band of knights, with locks offire, going forth to do battle with the powers of darkness. 

Jean's suffering wrested from him a deep-toned exclamation:

"Oh! I am hungry!"

On every side, meantime, the men, notwithstanding the complainings oftheir empty stomachs, had thrown themselves down to sleep. Their fatiguewas so great that it finally got the better of their fears and struckthem down upon the bare earth, where they lay on their back, with openmouth and arms outstretched, like logs beneath the moonless sky. Thebustle of the camp was stilled, and all along the naked range, from endto end, there reigned a silence as of death. 

"Oh! I am hungry; I am so hungry that I could eat dirt!"

Jean, patient as he was and inured to hardship, could not restrain thecry; he had eaten nothing in thirty-six hours, and it was torn from himby sheer stress of physical suffering. Then Maurice, knowing that two orthree hours at all events must elapse before their regiment could moveto pass the stream, said:

"See here, I have an uncle not far from here--you know, Uncle Fouchard, of whom you have heard me speak. His house is five or six hundred yardsfrom here; I didn't like the idea, but as you are so hungry--The deuce!the old man can't refuse us bread!"

His comrade made no objection and they went off together. FatherFouchard's little farm was situated just at the mouth of Harancourtpass, near the plateau where the artillery was posted. The house was alow structure, surrounded by quite an imposing cluster of dependencies;a barn, a stable, and cow-sheds, while across the road was a disusedcarriage-house which the old peasant had converted into an abattoir, where he slaughtered with his own hands the cattle which he afterwardcarried about the country in his wagon to his customers. 

Maurice was surprised as he approached the house to see no light. 

"Ah, the old miser! he has locked and barred everything tight and fast. Like as not he won't let us in. "

But something that he saw brought him to a standstill. Before the housea dozen soldiers were moving to and fro, hungry plunderers, doubtless, on the prowl in quest of something to eat. First they had called, thenhad knocked, and now, seeing that the place was dark and deserted, theywere hammering at the door with the butts of their muskets in an attemptto force it open. A growling chorus of encouragement greeted them fromthe outsiders of the circle. 

"_Nom de Dieu!_ go ahead! smash it in, since there is no one at home!"

All at once the shutter of a window in the garret was thrown back anda tall old man presented himself, bare-headed, wearing the peasant'sblouse, with a candle in one hand and a gun in the other. Beneath thethick shock of bristling white hair was a square face, deeply seamed andwrinkled, with a strong nose, large, pale eyes, and stubborn chin. 

"You must be robbers, to smash things as you are doing!" he shouted inan angry tone. "What do you want?"

The soldiers, taken by surprise, drew back a little way. 

"We are perishing with hunger; we want something to eat. "

"I have nothing, not a crust. Do you suppose that I keep victuals in myhouse to fill a hundred thousand mouths? Others were here before you;yes, General Ducrot's men were here this morning, I tell you, and theycleaned me out of everything. "

The soldiers came forward again, one by one. 

"Let us in, all the same; we can rest ourselves, and you can hunt upsomething--"

And they were commencing to hammer at the door again, when the oldfellow, placing his candle on the window-sill, raised his gun to hisshoulder. 

"As true as that candle stands there, I'll put a hole in the first manthat touches that door!"

The prospect looked favorable for a row. Oaths and imprecationsresounded, and one of the men was heard to shout that they would settlematters with the pig of a peasant, who was like all the rest of themand would throw his bread in the river rather than give a mouthful to astarving soldier. The light of the candle glinted on the barrels of thechassepots as they were brought to an aim; the angry men were about toshoot him where he stood, while he, headstrong and violent, would notyield an inch. 

"Nothing, nothing! Not a crust! I tell you they cleaned me out!"

Maurice rushed in in affright, followed by Jean. 

"Comrades, comrades--"

He knocked up the soldiers' guns, and raising his eyes, saidentreatingly:

"Come, be reasonable. Don't you know me? It is I. "

"Who, I?"

"Maurice Levasseur, your nephew. "

Father Fouchard took up his candle. He recognized his nephew, beyonda doubt, but was firm in his resolve not to give so much as a glass ofwater. 

"How can I tell whether you are my nephew or not in this infernaldarkness? Clear out, everyone of you, or I will fire!"

And amid an uproar of execration, and threats to bring him down and burnthe shanty, he still had nothing to say but: "Clear out, or I'll fire!"which he repeated more than twenty times. 

Suddenly a loud clear voice was heard rising above the din:

"But not on me, father?"

The others stood aside, and in the flickering light of the candle aman appeared, wearing the chevrons of a quartermaster-sergeant. It wasHonore, whose battery was a short two hundred yards from there andwho had been struggling for the last two hours against an irresistiblelonging to come and knock at that door. He had sworn never to set footin that house again, and in all his four years of army life had notexchanged a single letter with that father whom he now addressed socurtly. The marauders had drawn apart and were conversing excitedlyamong themselves; what, the old man's son, and a "non-com. "! it wouldn'tanswer; better go and try their luck elsewhere! So they slunk away andvanished in the darkness. 

When Fouchard saw that he had nothing more to fear he said in amatter-of-course way, as if he had seen his son only the day before:

"It's you--All right, I'll come down. "

His descent was a matter of time. He could be heard inside the houseopening locked doors and carefully fastening them again, the maneuversof a man determined to leave nothing at loose ends. At last the doorwas opened, but only for a few inches, and the strong grasp that held itwould let it go no further. 

"Come in, _thou_! and no one besides!"

He could not turn away his nephew, however, notwithstanding his manifestrepugnance. 

"Well, thou too!"

He shut the door flat in Jean's face, in spite of Maurice's entreaties. But he was obdurate. No, no! he wouldn't have it; he had no use forstrangers and robbers in his house, to smash and destroy his furniture!Finally Honore shoved their comrade inside the door by main strengthand the old man had to make the best of it, grumbling and growlingvindictively. He had carried his gun with him all this time. When atlast he had ushered the three men into the common sitting-room and hadstood his gun in a corner and placed the candle on the table, he sankinto a mulish silence. 

"Say, father, we are perishing with hunger. You will let us have alittle bread and cheese, won't you?"

He made a pretense of not hearing and did not answer, turning his headat every instant toward the window as if listening for some other bandthat might be coming to lay siege to his house. 

"Uncle, Jean has been a brother to me; he deprived himself of food togive it to me. And we have seen such suffering together!"

He turned and looked about the room to assure himself that nothing wasmissing, not giving the three soldiers so much as a glance, and at last, still without a word spoken, appeared to come to a decision. He suddenlyarose, took the candle and went out, leaving them in darkness andcarefully closing and locking the door behind him in order that no onemight follow him. They could hear his footsteps on the stairs that ledto the cellar. There was another long period of waiting, and when hereturned, again locking and bolting everything after him, he placed uponthe table a big loaf of bread and a cheese, amid a silence which, oncehis anger had blown over, was merely the result of cautious cunning, forno one can ever tell what may come of too much talking. The three menthrew themselves ravenously upon the food, and the only sound to beheard in the room was the fierce grinding of their jaws. 

Honore rose, and going to the sideboard brought back a pitcher of water. 

"I think you might have given us some wine, father. "

Whereupon Fouchard, now master of himself and no longer fearing thatthis anger might lead him into unguarded speech, once more found histongue. 

"Wine! I haven't any, not a drop! The others, those fellows of Ducrot's, ate and drank all I had, robbed me of everything!"

He was lying, and try to conceal it as he might the shifty expressionin his great light eyes showed it. For the past two days he had beendriving away his cattle, as well those reserved for work on the farm asthose he had purchased to slaughter, and hiding them, no one knew where, in the depths of some wood or in some abandoned quarry, and he haddevoted hours to burying all his household stores, wine, bread, andthings of the least value, even to the flour and salt, so that anyonemight have ransacked his cupboards and been none the richer for it. Hehad refused to sell anything to the first soldiers who came along; noone knew, he might be able to do better later on; and the patient, slyold curmudgeon indulged himself with vague dreams of wealth. 

Maurice, who was first to satisfy his appetite, commenced to talk. 

"Have you seen my sister Henriette lately?"

The old man was pacing up and down the room, casting an occasionalglance at Jean, who was bolting huge mouthfuls of bread; afterapparently giving the subject long consideration he deliberatelyanswered:

"Henriette, yes, I saw her last month when I was in Sedan. But I sawWeiss, her husband, this morning. He was with Monsieur Delaherche, his boss, who had come over in his carriage to see the soldiers atMouzon--which is the same as saying that they were out for a good time. "

An expression of intense scorn flitted over the old peasant'simpenetrable face. 

"Perhaps they saw more of the army than they wanted to, and didn't havesuch a very good time after all, for ever since three o'clock the roadshave been impassable on account of the crowds of flying soldiers. "

In the same unmoved voice, as if the matter were one of perfectindifference to him, he gave them some tidings of the defeat of the 5thcorps, that had been surprised at Beaumont while the men were makingtheir soup and chased by the Bavarians all the way to Mouzon. Somefugitives who had passed through Remilly, mad with terror, had told himthat they had been betrayed once more and that de Failly had sold themto Bismarck. Maurice's thoughts reverted to the aimless, blunderingmovements of the last two days, to Marshal MacMahon hurrying on theirretreat and insisting on getting them across the Meuse at every cost, after wasting so many precious hours in incomprehensible delays. It wastoo late. Doubtless the marshal, who had stormed so on finding the 7thcorps still at Osches when he supposed it to be at la Besace, had feltassured that the 5th corps was safe in camp at Mouzon when, lingeringin Beaumont, it had come to grief there. But what could they expectfrom troops so poorly officered, demoralized by suspense and incessantretreat, dying with hunger and fatigue?

Fouchard had finally come and planted himself behind Jean's chair, watching with astonishment the inroads he was making on the bread andcheese. In a coldly sarcastic tone he asked:

"Are you beginning to feel better, _hein_?"

The corporal raised his head and replied with the same peasant-likedirectness:

"Just beginning, thank you!"

Honore, notwithstanding his hunger, had ceased from eating whenever itseemed to him that he heard a noise about the house. If he had struggledlong, and finally been false to his oath never to set foot in that houseagain, the reason was that he could no longer withstand his cravingdesire to see Silvine. The letter that he had received from her atRheims lay on his bosom, next his skin, that letter, so tenderlypassionate, in which she told him that she loved him still, that sheshould never love anyone save him, despite the cruel past, despiteGoliah and little Charlot, that man's child. He was thinking of naughtsave her, was wondering why he had not seen her yet, all the timewatching himself that he might not let his father see his anxiety. Atlast his passion became too strong for him, however, and he asked in atone as natural as he could command:

"Is not Silvine with you any longer?"

Fouchard gave his son a glance out of the corner of his eye, chucklinginternally. 

"Yes, yes. "

Then he expectorated and was silent, so that the artillery man hadpresently to broach the subject again. 

"She has gone to bed, then?"

"No, no. "

Finally the old fellow condescended to explain that he, too, had beentaking an outing that morning, had driven over to Raucourt market in hiswagon and taken his little servant with him. He saw no reason, because alot of soldiers happened to pass that way, why folks should cease to eatmeat or why a man should not attend to his business, so he had taken asheep and a quarter of beef over there, as it was his custom to do everyTuesday, and had just disposed of the last of his stock-in-trade whenup came the 7th corps and he found himself in the middle of a terriblehubbub. Everyone was running, pushing, and crowding. Then he becamealarmed lest they should take his horse and wagon from him, and droveoff, leaving his servant, who was just then making some purchases in thetown. 

"Oh, Silvine will come back all right, " he concluded in his tranquilvoice. "She must have taken shelter with Doctor Dalichamp, hergodfather. You would think to look at her that she wouldn't dare to sayboo to a goose, but she is a girl of courage, all the same. Yes, yes;she has lots of good qualities, Silvine has. "

Was it an attempt on his part to be jocose? or did he wish to explainwhy it was he kept her in his service, that girl who had causeddissension between father and son, whose child by the Prussian was inthe house? He again gave his boy that sidelong look and laughed hisvoiceless laugh. 

"Little Charlot is asleep there in his room; she surely won't be longaway, now. "

Honore, with quivering lips, looked so intently at his father that theold man began to pace the floor again. _Mon Dieu!_ yes, the child wasthere; doubtless he would have to look on him. A painful silence filledthe room, while he mechanically cut himself more bread and began to eatagain. Jean also continued his operations in that line, without findingit necessary to say a word. Maurice contemplated the furniture, the oldsideboard, the antique clock, and reflected on the long summer days thathe had spent at Remilly in bygone times with his sister Henriette. Theminutes slipped away, the clock struck eleven. 

"The devil!" he murmured, "it will never do to let the regiment go offwithout us!"

He stepped to the window and opened it, Fouchard making no objection. Beneath lay the valley, a great bowl filled to the brim with blackness;presently, however, when his eyes became more accustomed to theobscurity, he had no difficulty in distinguishing the bridge, illuminated by the fires on the two banks. The cuirassiers were passingstill, like phantoms in their long white cloaks, while their steeds trodupon the bosom of the stream and a chill wind of terror breathed onthem from behind; and so the spectral train moved on, apparentlyinterminable, in an endless, slow-moving vision of unsubstantial forms. Toward the right, over the bare hills where the slumbering army lay, there brooded a stillness and repose like death. 

"Ah well!" said Maurice with a gesture of disappointment, "'twill beto-morrow morning. "

He had left the window open, and Father Fouchard, seizing his gun, straddled the sill and stepped outside, as lightly as a young man. Fora time they could hear his tramp upon the road, as regular as that of asentry pacing his beat, but presently it ceased and the only sound thatreached their ears was the distant clamor on the crowded bridge; it mustbe that he had seated himself by the wayside, where he could watch forapproaching danger and at slightest sign leap to defend his property. 

Honore's anxiety meantime was momentarily increasing; his eyes werefixed constantly on the clock. It was less than four miles from Raucourtto Remilly, an easy hour's walk for a woman as young and strong asSilvine. Why had she not returned in all that time since the old manlost sight of her in the confusion? He thought of the disorder of aretreating army corps, spreading over the country and blocking theroads; some accident must certainly have happened, and he pictured herin distress, wandering among the lonely fields, trampled under foot bythe horsemen. 

But suddenly the three men rose to their feet, moved by a commonimpulse. There was a sound of rapid steps coming up the road and the oldman was heard to cock his weapon. 

"Who goes there?" he shouted. "Is it you, Silvine?"

There was no reply. He repeated his question, threatening to fire. Thena laboring, breathless voice managed to articulate:

"Yes, yes, Father Fouchard; it is I. " And she quickly asked: "AndCharlot?"

"He is abed and asleep. "

"That is well! Thanks. "

There was no longer cause for her to hasten; she gave utterance toa deep-drawn sigh, as if to rid herself of her burden of fatigue anddistress. 

"Go in by the window, " said Fouchard. "There is company in there. "

She was greatly agitated when, leaping lightly into the room, she beheldthe three men. In the uncertain candle-light she gave the impressionof being very dark, with thick black hair and a pair of large, fine, lustrous eyes, the chief adornment of a small oval face, strong byreason of its tranquil resignation. The sudden meeting with Honore hadsent all the blood rushing from her heart to her cheeks; and yet she washardly surprised to find him there; he had been in her thoughts all theway home from Raucourt. 

He, trembling with agitation, his heart in his throat, spoke withaffected calmness:

"Good-evening, Silvine. "

"Good-evening, Honore. "

Then, to keep from breaking down and bursting into tears, she turnedaway, and recognizing Maurice, gave him a smile. Jean's presence wasembarrassing to her. She felt as if she were choking somehow, andremoved the _foulard_ that she wore about her neck. 

Honore continued, dropping the friendly _thou_ of other days:

"We were anxious about you, Silvine, on account of the Prussians beingso near at hand. "

All at once her face became very pale and showed great distress; raisingher hand to her eyes as if to shut out some atrocious vision, anddirecting an involuntary glance toward the room where Charlot wasslumbering, she murmured:

"The Prussians--Oh! yes, yes, I saw them. "

Sinking wearily upon a chair she told how, when the 7th corps came intoRaucourt, she had fled for shelter to the house of her godfather, DoctorDalichamp, hoping that Father Fouchard would think to come and take herup before he left the town. The main street was filled with a surgingthrong, so dense that not even a dog could have squeezed his way throughit, and up to four o'clock she had felt no particular alarm, tranquillyemployed in scraping lint in company with some of the ladies of theplace; for the doctor, with the thought that they might be called onto care for some of the wounded, should there be a battle over in thedirection of Metz and Verdun, had been busying himself for the last twoweeks with improvising a hospital in the great hall of the _mairie_. Some people who dropped in remarked that they might find use for theirhospital sooner than they expected, and sure enough, a little aftermidday, the roar of artillery had reached their ears from over Beaumontway. But that was not near enough to cause anxiety and no one wasalarmed, when, all at once, just as the last of the French troops werefiling out of Raucourt, a shell, with a frightful crash, came tearingthrough the roof of a neighboring house. Two others followed in quicksuccession; it was a German battery shelling the rear-guard of the 7thcorps. Some of the wounded from Beaumont had already been brought into the _mairie_, where it was feared that the enemy's projectiles wouldfinish them as they lay on their mattresses waiting for the doctor tocome and operate on them. The men were crazed with fear, and would haverisen and gone down into the cellars, notwithstanding their mangledlimbs, which extorted from them shrieks of agony. 

"And then, " continued Silvine, "I don't know how it happened, but allat once the uproar was succeeded by a deathlike stillness. I had goneupstairs and was looking from a window that commanded a view of thestreet and fields. There was not a soul in sight, not a 'red-leg' tobe seen anywhere, when I heard the tramp, tramp of heavy footsteps, andthen a voice shouted something that I could not understand and all themuskets came to the ground together with a great crash. And Ilooked down into the street below, and there was a crowd of small, dirty-looking men in black, with ugly, big faces and wearing helmetslike those our firemen wear. Someone told me they were Bavarians. ThenI raised my eyes again and saw, oh! thousands and thousands of them, streaming in by the roads, across the fields, through the woods, inserried, never-ending columns. In the twinkling of an eye the ground wasblack with them, a black swarm, a swarm of black locusts, coming thickerand thicker, so that, in no time at all, the earth was hid from sight. "

She shivered and repeated her former gesture, veiling her vision fromsome atrocious spectacle. 

"And the things that occurred afterward would exceed belief. It seemsthose men had been marching three days, and on top of that had fought atBeaumont like tigers; hence they were perishing with hunger, theireyes were starting from their sockets, they were beside themselves. The officers made no effort to restrain them; they broke into shopsand private houses, smashing doors and windows, demolishing furniture, searching for something to eat and drink, no matter what, boltingwhatever they could lay their hands on. I saw one in the shop ofMonsieur Simonin, the grocer, ladling molasses from a cask with hishelmet. Others were chewing strips of raw bacon, others again had filledtheir mouths with flour. They were told that our troops had been passingthrough the town for the last two days and there was nothing left, buthere and there they found some trifling store that had been hid away, not sufficient to feed so many hungry mouths, and that made them thinkthe folks were lying to them, and they went on to smash things morefuriously than ever. In less than an hour, there was not a butcher's, grocer's, or baker's shop in the city left ungutted; even the privatehouses were entered, their cellars emptied, and their closets pillaged. At the doctor's--did you ever hear of such a thing? I caught one bigfellow devouring the soap. But the cellar was the place where they didmost mischief; we could hear them from upstairs smashing the bottles andyelling like demons, and they drew the spigots of the casks, so thatthe place was flooded with wine; when they came out their hands were redwith the good wine they had spilled. And to show what happens, men whenthey make such brutes of themselves: a soldier found a large bottle oflaudanum and drank it all down, in spite of Monsieur Dalichamp's effortsto prevent him. The poor wretch was in horrible agony when I came away;he must be dead by this time. "

A great shudder ran through her, and she put her hand to her eyes toshut out the horrid sight. 

"No, no! I cannot bear it; I saw too much!"

Father Fouchard had crossed the road and stationed himself at the openwindow where he could hear, and the tale of pillage made him uneasy; hehad been told that the Prussians paid for all they took; were they goingto start out as robbers at that late day? Maurice and Jean, too, weredeeply interested in those details about an enemy whom the girl hadseen, and whom they had not succeeded in setting eyes on in their wholemonth's campaigning, while Honore, pensive and with dry, parched lips, was conscious only of the sound of _her_ voice; he could think ofnothing save her and the misfortune that had parted them. 

Just then the door of the adjoining room was opened, and little Charlotappeared. He had heard his mother's voice, and came trotting into theapartment in his nightgown to give her a kiss. He was a chubby, pinklittle urchin, large and strong for his age, with a thatch of curling, straw-colored hair and big blue eyes. Silvine shivered at his suddenappearance, as if the sight of him had recalled to her mind the image ofsomeone else that affected her disagreeably. Did she no longer recognizehim, then, her darling child, that she looked at him thus, as if he weresome evocation of that horrid nightmare! She burst into tears. 

"My poor, poor child!" she exclaimed, and clasped him wildly to herbreast, while Honore, ghastly pale, noted how strikingly like the littleone was to Goliah; the same broad, pink face, the true Teutonic type, inall the health and strength of rosy, smiling childhood. The son of thePrussian, _the Prussian_, as the pothouse wits of Remilly had styledhim! And the French mother, who sat there, pressing him to her bosom, her heart still bleeding with the recollection of the cruel sights shehad witnessed that day!

"My poor child, be good; come with me back to bed. Say good-night, mypoor child. "

She vanished, bearing him away. When she returned from the adjoiningroom she was no longer weeping; her face wore its customary expressionof calm and courageous resignation. 

It was Honore who, with a trembling voice, started the conversationagain. 

"And what did the Prussians do then?"

"Ah, yes; the Prussians. Well, they plundered right and left, destroyingeverything, eating and drinking all they could lay hands on. They stolelinen as well, napkins and sheets, and even curtains, tearing them instrips to make bandages for their feet. I saw some whose feet were oneraw lump of flesh, so long and hard had been their march. One littlegroup I saw, seated at the edge of the gutter before the doctor'shouse, who had taken off their shoes and were bandaging themselves withhandsome chemises, trimmed with lace, stolen, doubtless, from prettyMadame Lefevre, the manufacturer's wife. The pillage went on untilnight. The houses had no doors or windows left, and one passing inthe street could look within and see the wrecked furniture, a scene ofdestruction that would have aroused the anger of a saint. For my part, Iwas almost wild, and could remain there no longer. They tried in vain tokeep me, telling me that the roads were blocked, that I would certainlybe killed; I started, and as soon as I was out of Raucourt, struck offto the right and took to the fields. Carts, loaded with wounded Frenchand Prussians, were coming in from Beaumont. Two passed quite close tome in the darkness; I could hear the shrieks and groans, and I ran, oh!how I ran, across fields, through woods, I could not begin to tell youwhere, except that I made a wide circuit over toward Villers. 

"Twice I thought I heard soldiers coming and hid, but the only personI met was another woman, a fugitive like myself. She was from Beaumont, she said, and she told me things too horrible to repeat. After thatwe ran harder than ever. And at last I am here, so wretched, oh! sowretched with what I have seen!"

Her tears flowed again in such abundance as to choke her utterance. Thehorrors of the day kept rising to her memory and would not down; sherelated the story that the woman of Beaumont had told her. That personlived in the main street of the village, where she had witnessed thepassage of all the German artillery after nightfall. The column wasaccompanied on either side of the road by a file of soldiers bearingtorches of pitch-pine, which illuminated the scene with the red glareof a great conflagration, and between the flaring, smoking lights theimpetuous torrent of horses, guns, and men tore onward at a mad gallop. Their feet were winged with the tireless speed of victory as they rushedon in devilish pursuit of the French, to overtake them in some lastditch and crush them, annihilate them there. They stopped for nothing;on, on they went, heedless of what lay in their way. Horses fell; theirtraces were immediately cut, and they were left to be ground and tornby the pitiless wheels until they were a shapeless, bleeding mass. Humanbeings, prisoners and wounded men, who attempted to cross the road, wereruthlessly borne down and shared their fate. Although the men were dyingwith hunger the fierce hurricane poured on unchecked; was a loaf thrownto the drivers, they caught it flying; the torch-bearers passed slicesof meat to them on the end of their bayonets, and then, with the samesteel that had served that purpose, goaded their maddened horses onto further effort. And the night grew old, and still the artillery waspassing, with the mad roar of a tempest let loose upon the land, amidthe frantic cheering of the men. 

Maurice's fatigue was too much for him, and notwithstanding the interestwith which he listened to Silvine's narrative, after the substantialmeal he had eaten he let his head decline upon the table on his crossedarms. Jean's resistance lasted a little longer, but presently he toowas overcome and fell dead asleep at the other end of the table. FatherFouchard had gone and taken his position in the road again; Honore wasalone with Silvine, who was seated, motionless, before the still openwindow. 

The artilleryman rose, and drawing his chair to the window, stationedhimself there beside her. The deep peacefulness of the night wasinstinct with the breathing of the multitude that lay lost in slumberthere, but on it now rose other and louder sounds; the straining andcreaking of the bridge, the hollow rumble of wheels; the artillery wascrossing on the half-submerged structure. Horses reared and plunged interror at sight of the swift-running stream, the wheel of a caissonran over the guard-rail; immediately a hundred strong arms seized theencumbrance and hurled the heavy vehicle to the bottom of the riverthat it might not obstruct the passage. And as the young man watchedthe slow, toilsome retreat along the opposite bank, a movement that hadcommenced the day before and certainly would not be ended by the comingdawn, he could not help thinking of that other artillery that had gonestorming through Beaumont, bearing down all before it, crushing menand horses in its path that it might not be delayed the fraction of asecond. 

Honore drew his chair nearer to Silvine, and in the shuddering darkness, alive with all those sounds of menace, gently whispered:

"You are unhappy?"

"Oh! yes; so unhappy!"

She was conscious of the subject on which he was about to speak, and herhead sank sorrowfully on her bosom. 

"Tell me, how did it happen? I wish to know. "

But she could not find words to answer him. 

"Did he take advantage of you, or was it with your consent?"

Then she stammered, in a voice that was barely audible:

"_Mon Dieu!_ I do not know; I swear to you, I do not know, more than ababe unborn. I will not lie to you--I cannot! No, I have no excuse tooffer; I cannot say he beat me. You had left me, I was beside myself, and it happened, how, I cannot, no, I cannot tell!"

Sobs choked her utterance, and he, ashy pale and with a great lumprising in his throat, waited silently for a moment. The thought that shewas unwilling to tell him a lie, however, was an assuagement to his rageand grief; he went on to question her further, anxious to know the manythings, that as yet he had been unable to understand. 

"My father has kept you here, it seems?"

She replied with her resigned, courageous air, without raising her eyes:

"I work hard for him, it does not cost much to keep me, and as thereis now another mouth to feed he has taken advantage of it to reduce mywages. He knows well enough that now, when he orders, there is nothingleft for me but to obey. "

"But why do you stay with him?"

The question surprised her so that she looked him in the face. 

"Where would you have me go? Here my little one and I have at least ahome and enough to keep us from starving. "

They were silent again, both intently reading in the other's eyes, whileup the shadowy valley the sounds of the sleeping camp came faintly totheir ears, and the dull rumble of wheels upon the bridge of boats wenton unceasingly. There was a shriek, the loud, despairing cry of man orbeast in mortal peril, that passed, unspeakably mournful, through thedark night. 

"Listen, Silvine, " Honore slowly and feelingly went on; "you sent me aletter that afforded me great pleasure. I should have never come backhere, but that letter--I have been reading it again this evening--speaksof things that could not have been expressed more delicately--"

She had turned pale when first she heard the subject mentioned. Perhapshe was angry that she had dared to write to him, like one devoid ofshame; then, as his meaning became more clear, her face reddened withdelight. 

"I know you to be truthful, and knowing it, I believe what you wrotein that letter--yes, I believe it now implicitly. You were right insupposing that, if I were to die in battle without seeing you again, itwould be a great sorrow to me to leave this world with the thought thatyou no longer loved me. And therefore, since you love me still, since Iam your first and only love--" His tongue became thick, his emotion wasso deep that expression failed him. "Listen, Silvine; if those beastsof Prussians let me live, you shall yet be mine, yes, as soon as I haveserved my time out we will be married. "

She rose and stood erect upon her feet, gave a cry of joy, and threwherself upon the young man's bosom. She could not speak a word; everydrop of blood in her veins was in her cheeks. He seated himself upon thechair and drew her down upon his lap. 

"I have thought the matter over carefully; it was to say what I havesaid that I came here this evening. Should my father refuse us hisconsent, the earth is large; we will go away. And your little one, noone shall harm him, _mon Dieu!_ More will come along, and among them allI shall not know him from the others. "

She was forgiven, fully and entirely. Such happiness seemed too great tobe true; she resisted, murmuring:

"No, it cannot be; it is too much; perhaps you might repent yourgenerosity some day. But how good it is of you, Honore, and how I loveyou!"

He silenced her with a kiss upon the lips, and strength was wanting herlonger to put aside the great, the unhoped-for good fortune that hadcome to her; a life of happiness where she had looked forward to oneof loneliness and sorrow! With an involuntary, irresistible impulse shethrew her arms about him, kissing him again and again, straining him toher bosom with all her woman's strength, as a treasure that was lost andfound again, that was hers, hers alone, that thenceforth no one was everto take from her. He was hers once more, he whom she had lost, and shewould die rather than let anyone deprive her of him. 

At that moment confused sounds reached their ears; the sleeping campwas awaking amid a tumult that rose and filled the dark vault of heaven. Hoarse voices were shouting orders, bugles were sounding, drumsbeating, and from the naked fields shadowy forms were seen emergingin indistinguishable masses, a surging, billowing sea whose waves werealready streaming downward to the road beneath. The fires on the banksof the stream were dying down; all that could be seen there was massesof men moving confusedly to and fro; it was not even possible to tellif the movement across the river was still in progress. Never had theshades of night veiled such depths of distress, such abject misery ofterror. 

Father Fouchard came to the window and shouted that the troops weremoving. Jean and Maurice awoke, stiff and shivering, and got on theirfeet. Honore took Silvine's hands in his and gave them a swift partingclasp. 

"It is a promise. Wait for me. "

She could find no word to say in answer, but all her soul went out tohim in one long, last look, as he leaped from the window and hurriedaway to find his battery. 

"Good-by, father!"

"Good-by, my boy!"

And that was all; peasant and soldier parted as they had met, withoutembracing, like a father and son whose existence was of little import toeach other. 

Maurice and Jean also left the farmhouse, and descended the steep hillon a run. When they reached the bottom the 106th was nowhere to befound; the regiments had all moved off. They made inquiries, runningthis way and that, and were directed first one way and then another. Atlast, when they had near lost their wits in the fearful confusion, theystumbled on their company, under the command of Lieutenant Rochas; asfor the regiment and Captain Beaudoin, no one could say where they were. And Maurice was astounded when he noticed for the first time that thatmob of men, guns, and horses was leaving Remilly and taking the Sedanroad that lay on the left bank. Something was wrong again; the passageof the Meuse was abandoned, they were in full retreat to the north!

An officer of chasseurs, who was standing near, spoke up in a loudvoice:

"_Nom de Dieu!_ the time for us to make the movement was the 28th, whenwe were at Chene!"

Others were more explicit in their information; fresh news had beenreceived. About two o'clock in the morning one of Marshal MacMahon'saides had come riding up to say to General Douay that the whole armywas ordered to retreat immediately on Sedan, without loss of a minute'stime. The disaster of the 5th corps at Beaumont had involved the threeother corps. The general, who was at that time down at the bridge ofboats superintending operations, was in despair that only a portion ofhis 3d division had so far crossed the stream; it would soon be day, and they were liable to be attacked at any moment. He therefore sentinstructions to the several organizations of his command to make at oncefor Sedan, each independently of the others, by the most direct roads, while he himself, leaving orders to burn the bridge of boats, took theroad on the left bank with his 2d division and the artillery, and the3d division pursued that on the right bank; the 1st, that had felt theenemy's claws at Beaumont, was flying in disorder across the country, noone knew where. Of the 7th corps, that had not seen a battle, all thatremained were those scattered, incoherent fragments, lost among lanesand by-roads, running away in the darkness. 

It was not yet three o'clock, and the night was as black as ever. Maurice, although he knew the country, could not make out where theywere in the noisy, surging throng that filled the road from ditch toditch, pouring onward like a brawling mountain stream. Interspersedamong the regiments were many fugitives from the rout at Beaumont, inragged uniforms, begrimed with blood and dirt, who inoculated the otherswith their own terror. Down the wide valley, from the wooded hillsacross the stream, came one universal, all-pervading uproar, thescurrying tramp of other hosts in swift retreat; the 1st corps, comingfrom Carignan and Douzy, the 12th flying from Mouzon with the shatteredremnants of the 5th, moved like puppets and driven onward, all of them, by that one same, inexorable, irresistible pressure that since the 28thhad been urging the army northward and driving it into the trap where itwas to meet its doom. 

Day broke as Maurice's company was passing through Pont Maugis, and thenhe recognized their locality, the hills of Liry to the left, the Meuserunning beside the road on the right. Bazeilles and Balan presentedan inexpressibly funereal aspect, looming among the exhalations ofthe meadows in the chill, wan light of dawn, while against the somberbackground of her great forests Sedan was profiled in livid outlines, indistinct as the creation of some hideous nightmare. When they had leftWadelincourt behind them and were come at last to the Torcy gate, the governor long refused them admission; he only yielded, after aprotracted conference, upon their threat to storm the place. It was fiveo'clock when at last the 7th corps, weary, cold, and hungry, enteredSedan. 

VIII. 

In the crush on the Place de Torcy that ensued upon the entrance of thetroops into the city Jean became separated from Maurice, and all hisattempts to find him again among the surging crowd were fruitless. Itwas a piece of extreme ill-luck, for he had accepted the young man'sinvitation to go with him to his sister's, where there would be rest andfood for them, and even the luxury of a comfortable bed. The confusionwas so great--the regiments disintegrated, no discipline, and noofficers to enforce it--that the men were free to do pretty much as theypleased. There was plenty of time to look about them and hunt up theircommands; they would have a few hours of sleep first. 

Jean in his bewilderment found himself on the viaduct of Torcy, overlooking the broad meadows which, by the governor's orders, had beenflooded with water from the river. Then, passing through another archwayand crossing the Pont de Meuse, he entered the old, rampart-girt city, where, among the tall and crowded houses and the damp, narrow streets, it seemed to him that night was descending again, notwithstandingthe increasing daylight. He could not so much as remember the nameof Maurice's brother-in-law; he only knew that his sister's name wasHenriette. The outlook was not encouraging; all that kept him awake wasthe automatic movement of walking; he felt that he should drop werehe to stop. The indistinct ringing in his ears was the same that isexperienced by one drowning; he was only conscious of the ceaselessonpouring of the stream of men and animals that carried him along withit on its current. He had partaken of food at Remilly, sleep was now hisgreat necessity; and the same was true of the shadowy bands that he sawflitting past him in those strange, fantastic streets. At every momenta man would sink upon the sidewalk or tumble into a doorway, and therewould remain, as if struck by death. 

Raising his eyes, Jean read upon a signboard: Avenue de laSous-Prefecture. At the end of the street was a monument standing in apublic garden, and at the corner of the avenue he beheld a horseman, a chasseur d'Afrique, whose face seemed familiar to him. Was it notProsper, the young man from Remilly, whom he had seen in Maurice'scompany at Vouziers? Perhaps he had been sent in with dispatches. He haddismounted, and his skeleton of a horse, so weak that he could scarcelystand, was trying to satisfy his hunger by gnawing at the tail-boardof an army wagon that was drawn up against the curb. There had been noforage for the animals for the last two days, and they were literallydying of starvation. The big strong teeth rasped pitifully on thewoodwork of the wagon, while the soldier stood by and wept as he watchedthe poor brute. 

Jean was moving away when it occurred to him that the trooper might beable to give him the address of Maurice's sister. He returned, but theother was gone, and it would have been useless to attempt to find him inthat dense throng. He was utterly disheartened, and wanderingaimlessly from street to street at last found himself again before theSous-Prefecture, whence he struggled onward to the Place Turenne. Herehe was comforted for an instant by catching sight of Lieutenant Rochas, standing in front of the Hotel de Ville with a few men of his company, at the foot of the statue he had seen before; if he could not find hisfriend he could at all events rejoin the regiment and have a tent tosleep under. Nothing had been seen of Captain Beaudoin; doubtless he hadbeen swept away in the press and landed in some place far away, while the lieutenant was endeavoring to collect his scattered men andfruitlessly inquiring of everyone he met where division headquarterswere. As he advanced into the city, however, his numbers, instead ofincreasing, dwindled. One man, with the gestures of a lunatic, enteredan inn and was seen no more. Three others were halted in front of agrocer's shop by a party of zouaves who had obtained possession of asmall cask of brandy; one was already lying senseless in the gutter, while the other two tried to get away, but were too stupid and dazedto move. Loubet and Chouteau had nudged each other with the elbow anddisappeared down a blind alley in pursuit of a fat woman with a loafof bread, so that all who remained with the lieutenant were Pache andLapoulle, with some ten or a dozen more. 

Rochas was standing by the base of the bronze statue of Turenne, making heroic efforts to keep his eyes open. When he recognized Jean hemurmured:

"Ah, is it you, corporal? Where are your men?"

Jean, by a gesture expressive in its vagueness, intimated that he didnot know, but Pache, pointing to Lapoulle, answered with tears in hiseyes:

"Here we are; there are none left but us two. The merciful Lord havepity on our sufferings; it is too hard!"

The other, the colossus with the colossal appetite, looked hungrily atJean's hands, as if to reproach them for being always empty in thosedays. Perhaps, in his half-sleeping state, he had dreamed that Jean wasaway at the commissary's for rations. 

"D----n the luck!" he grumbled, "we'll have to tighten up our beltsanother hole!"

Gaude, the bugler, was leaning against the iron railing, waiting for thelieutenant's order to sound the assembly; sleep came to him so suddenlythat he slid from his position and within a second was lying flat on hisback, unconscious. One by one they all succumbed to the drowsy influenceand snored in concert, except Sergeant Sapin alone, who, with his littlepinched nose in his small pale face, stood staring with distended eyesat the horizon of that strange city, as if trying to read his destinythere. 

Lieutenant Rochas meantime had yielded to an irresistible impulse andseated himself on the ground. He attempted to give an order. 

"Corporal, you will--you will--"

And that was as far as he could proceed, for fatigue sealed his lips, and like the rest he suddenly sank down and was lost in slumber. 

Jean, not caring to share his comrades' fate and pillow his head on thehard stones, moved away; he was bent on finding a bed in which to sleep. At a window of the Hotel of the Golden Cross, on the opposite side ofthe square, he caught a glimpse of General Bourgain-Desfeuilles, alreadyhalf-undressed and on the point of tasting the luxury of clean whitesheets. Why should he be more self-denying than the rest of them? heasked himself; why should he suffer longer? And just then a name cameto his recollection that caused him a thrill of delight, the name ofthe manufacturer in whose employment Maurice's brother-in-law was. M. Delaherche! yes, that was it. He accosted an old man who happened to bepassing. 

"Can you tell me where M. Delaherche lives?"

"In the Rue Maqua, near the corner of the Rue au Beurre; you can'tmistake it; it is a big house, with statues in the garden. "

The old man turned away, but presently came running back. "I see youbelong to the 106th. If it is your regiment you are looking for, it leftthe city by the Chateau, down there. I just met the colonel, Monsieur deVineuil; I used to know him when he lived at Mezieres. "

But Jean went his way, with an angry gesture of impatience. No, no! nosleeping on the hard ground for him, now that he was certain of findingMaurice. And yet he could not help feeling a twinge of remorse as hethought of the dignified old colonel, who stood fatigue so manfullyin spite of his years, sharing the sufferings of his men, with no moreluxurious shelter than his tent. He strode across the Grande Rue withrapid steps and soon was in the midst of the tumult and uproar of thecity; there he hailed a small boy, who conducted him to the Rue Maqua. 

There it was that in the last century a grand-uncle of the presentDelaherche had built the monumental structure that had remained in thefamily a hundred and sixty years. There is more than one cloth factoryin Sedan that dates back to the early years of Louis XV. ; enormouspiles, they are, covering as much ground as the Louvre, and with statelyfacades of royal magnificence. The one in the Rue Maqua was threestories high, and its tall windows were adorned with carvings of severesimplicity, while the palatial courtyard in the center was filledwith grand old trees, gigantic elms that were coeval with the buildingitself. In it three generations of Delaherches had amassed comfortablefortunes for themselves. The father of Charles, the proprietor in ourtime, had inherited the property from a cousin who had died withoutbeing blessed with children, so that it was now a younger branch thatwas in possession. The affairs of the house had prospered under thefather's control, but he was something of a blade and a roisterer, andhis wife's existence with him was not one of unmixed happiness; theconsequence of which was that the lady, when she became a widow, notcaring to see a repetition by the son of the performances of the father, made haste to find a wife for him in the person of a simple-minded andexceedingly devout young woman, and subsequently kept him tied to herapron string until he had attained the mature age of fifty and over. Butno one in this transitory world can tell what time has in store for him;when the devout young person's time came to leave this life Delaherche, who had known none of the joys of youth, fell head over ears in lovewith a young widow of Charleville, pretty Madame Maginot, who had beenthe subject of some gossip in her day, and in the autumn preceding theevents recorded in this history had married her, in spite of all hismother's prayers and tears. It is proper to add that Sedan, which isvery straitlaced in its notions of propriety, has always been inclinedto frown on Charleville, the city of laughter and levity. And thenagain the marriage would never have been effected but for the fact thatGilberte's uncle was Colonel de Vineuil, who it was supposed would soonbe made a general. This relationship and the idea that he had marriedinto army circles was to the cloth manufacturer a source of greatdelight. 

That morning Delaherche, when he learned that the army was to passthrough Mouzon, had invited Weiss, his accountant, to accompany himon that carriage ride of which we have heard Father Fouchard speak toMaurice. Tall and stout, with a florid complexion, prominent nose andthick lips, he was of a cheerful, sanguine temperament and had all theFrench bourgeois' boyish love for a handsome display of troops. Havingascertained from the apothecary at Mouzon that the Emperor was atBaybel, a farm in the vicinity, he had driven up there; had seen themonarch, and even had been near speaking to him, an adventure of suchthrilling interest that he had talked of it incessantly ever since hisreturn. But what a terrible return that had been, over roads choked withthe panic-stricken fugitives from Beaumont! twenty times their cabrioletwas near being overturned into the ditch. Obstacle after obstacle theyhad encountered, and it was night before the two men reached home. Theelement of the tragic and unforeseen there was in the whole business, that army that Delaherche had driven out to pass in review and which hadbrought him home with it, whether he would or no, in the mad gallop ofits retreat, made him repeat again and again during their long drive:

"I supposed it was moving on Verdun and would have given anything ratherthan miss seeing it. Ah well! I have seen it now, and I am afraid weshall see more of it in Sedan than we desire. "

The following morning he was awakened at five o'clock by the hubbub, like the roar of water escaping from a broken dam, made by the 7th corpsas it streamed through the city; he dressed in haste and went out, andalmost the first person he set eyes on in the Place Turenne was CaptainBeaudoin. When pretty Madame Maginot was living at Charleville the yearbefore the captain had been one of her best friends, and Gilberte hadintroduced him to her husband before they were married. Rumor had itthat the captain had abdicated his position as first favorite and madeway for the cloth merchant from motives of delicacy, not caring to standin the way of the great good fortune that seemed coming to his fairfriend. 

"Hallo, is that you?" exclaimed Delaherche. "Good Heavens, what a stateyou're in!"

It was but too true; the dandified Beaudoin, usually so trim and spruce, presented a sorry spectacle that morning in his soiled uniform and withhis grimy face and hands. Greatly to his disgust he had had a party ofTurcos for traveling companions, and could not explain how he had becomeseparated from his company. Like all the others he was ready to dropwith fatigue and hunger, but that was not what most afflicted him; hehad not been able to change his linen since leaving Rheims, and wasinconsolable. 

"Just think of it!" he wailed, "those idiots, those scoundrels, lostmy baggage at Vouziers. If I ever catch them I will break every bone intheir body! And now I haven't a thing, not a handkerchief, not a pair ofsocks! Upon my word, it is enough to make one mad!"

Delaherche was for taking him home to his house forthwith, but heresisted. No, no; he was no longer a human being, he would not frightenpeople out of their wits. The manufacturer had to make solemn oath thatneither his wife nor his mother had risen yet; and besides he shouldhave soap, water, linen, everything he needed. 

It was seven o'clock when Captain Beaudoin, having done what he couldwith the means at his disposal to improve his appearance, and comfortedby the sensation of wearing under his uniform a clean shirt of hishost's, made his appearance in the spacious, high-ceiled dining roomwith its somber wainscoting. The elder Madame Delaherche was alreadythere, for she was always on foot at daybreak, notwithstanding she wasseventy-eight years old. Her hair was snowy white; in her long, leanface was a nose almost preternaturally thin and sharp and a mouththat had long since forgotten how to laugh. She rose, and with statelypoliteness invited the captain to be seated before one of the cups of_cafe au lait_ that stood on the table. 

"But, perhaps, sir, you would prefer meat and wine after the fatigue towhich you have been subjected?"

He declined the offer, however. "A thousand thanks, madame; a littlemilk, with bread and butter, will be best for me. "

At that moment a door was smartly opened and Gilberte entered the roomwith outstretched hand. Delaherche must have told her who was there, forher ordinary hour of rising was ten o'clock. She was tall, lithe of formand well-proportioned, with an abundance of handsome black hair, a pairof handsome black eyes, and a very rosy, wholesome complexion withal;she had a laughing, rather free and easy way with her, and it didnot seem possible she could ever look angry. Her peignoir of beige, embroidered with red silk, was evidently of Parisian manufacture. 

"Ah, Captain, " she rapidly said, shaking hands with the young man, "hownice of you to stop and see us, away up in this out-of-the-world place!"But she was the first to see that she had "put her foot in it" and laughat her own blunder. "Oh, what a stupid thing I am! I might know youwould rather be somewhere else than at Sedan, under the circumstances. But I am very glad to see you once more. "

She showed it; her face was bright and animated, while MadameDelaherche, who could not have failed to hear something of the gossipthat had been current among the scandalmongers of Charleville, watchedthe pair closely with her puritanical air. The captain was very reservedin his behavior, however, manifesting nothing more than a pleasantrecollection of hospitalities previously received in the house where hewas visiting. 

They had no more than sat down at table than Delaherche, burning torelieve himself of the subject that filled his mind, commenced to relatehis experiences of the day before. 

"You know I saw the Emperor at Baybel. "

He was fairly started and nothing could stop him. He began by describingthe farmhouse, a large structure with an interior court, surrounded byan iron railing, and situated on a gentle eminence overlooking Mouzon, to the left of the Carignan road. Then he came back to the 12th corps, whom he had visited in their camp among the vines on the hillsides;splendid troops they were, with their equipments brightly shining inthe sunlight, and the sight of them had caused his heart to beat withpatriotic ardor. 

"And there I was, sir, when the Emperor, who had alighted to breakfastand rest himself a bit, came out of the farmhouse. He wore a general'suniform and carried an overcoat across his arm, although the sun wasvery hot. He was followed by a servant bearing a camp stool. He did notlook to me like a well man; ah no, far from it; his stooping form, the sallowness of his complexion, the feebleness of his movements, allindicated him to be in a very bad way. I was not surprised, for thedruggist at Mouzon, when he recommended me to drive on to Baybel, told me that an aide-de-camp had just been in his shop to get somemedicine--you understand what I mean, medicine for--" The presence ofhis wife and mother prevented him from alluding more explicitly to thenature of the Emperor's complaint, which was an obstinate diarrheathat he had contracted at Chene and which compelled him to make thosefrequent halts at houses along the road. "Well, then, the attendantopened the camp stool and placed it in the shade of a clump of trees atthe edge of a field of wheat, and the Emperor sat down on it. Sittingthere in a limp, dejected attitude, perfectly still, he looked for allthe world like a small shopkeeper taking a sun bath for his rheumatism. His dull eyes wandered over the wide horizon, the Meuse coursing throughthe valley at his feet, before him the range of wooded heights whosesummits recede and are lost in the distance, on the left the wavingtree-tops of Dieulet forest, on the right the verdure-clad eminence ofSommanthe. He was surrounded by his military family, aides and officersof rank, and a colonel of dragoons, who had already applied to me forinformation about the country, had just motioned me not to go away, whenall at once--" Delaherche rose from his chair, for he had reached thepoint where the dramatic interest of his story culminated and it becamenecessary to re-enforce words by gestures. "All at once there is asuccession of sharp reports and right in front of us, over the wood ofDieulet, shells are seen circling through the air. It produced on me nomore effect than a display of fireworks in broad daylight, sir, upon myword it didn't! The people about the Emperor, of course, showed a gooddeal of agitation and uneasiness. The colonel of dragoons comes runningup again to ask if I can give them an idea whence the firing proceeds. I answer him off-hand: 'It is at Beaumont; there is not the slightestdoubt about it. ' He returns to the Emperor, on whose knees anaide-de-camp was unfolding a map. The Emperor was evidently of opinionthat the fighting was not at Beaumont, for he sent the colonel back tome a third time. But I couldn't well do otherwise than stick to whatI had said before, could I, now? the more that the shells kept flyingthrough the air, nearer and nearer, following the line of the Mouzonroad. And then, sir, as sure as I see you standing there, I saw theEmperor turn his pale face toward me. Yes sir, he looked at me a momentwith those dim eyes of his, that were filled with an expression ofmelancholy and distrust. And then his face declined upon his map againand he made no further movement. "

Delaherche, although he was an ardent Bonapartist at the time of theplebiscite, had admitted after our early defeats that the governmentwas responsible for some mistakes, but he stood up for the dynasty, compassionating and excusing Napoleon III. , deceived and betrayed ashe was by everyone. It was his firm opinion that the men at whose doorshould be laid the responsibility for all our disasters were none otherthan those Republican deputies of the opposition who had stood in theway of voting the necessary men and money. 

"And did the Emperor return to the farmhouse?" asked Captain Beaudoin. 

"That's more than I can say, my dear sir; I left him sitting on hisstool. It was midday, the battle was drawing nearer, and it occurred tome that it was time to be thinking of my own return. All that I cantell you besides is that a general to whom I pointed out the positionof Carignan in the distance, in the plain to our rear, appeared greatlysurprised to learn that the Belgian frontier lay in that direction andwas only a few miles away. Ah, that the poor Emperor should have to relyon such servants!"

Gilberte, all smiles, was giving her attention to the captain andkeeping him supplied with buttered toast, as much at ease as she hadever been in bygone days when she received him in her salon during herwidowhood. She insisted that he should accept a bed with them, but hedeclined, and it was agreed that he should rest for an hour or two on asofa in Delaherche's study before going out to find his regiment. Ashe was taking the sugar bowl from the young woman's hands old MadameDelaherche, who had kept her eye on them, distinctly saw him squeeze herfingers, and the old lady's suspicions were confirmed. At that moment aservant came to the door. 

"Monsieur, there is a soldier outside who wants to know the address ofMonsieur Weiss. "

There was nothing "stuck-up" about Delaherche, people said; he was fondof popularity and was always delighted to have a chat with those of aninferior station. 

"He wants Weiss's address! that's odd. Bring the soldier in here. "

Jean entered the room in such an exhausted state that he reeled as ifhe had been drunk. He started at seeing his captain seated at thetable with two ladies, and involuntarily withdrew the hand that he hadextended toward a chair in order to steady himself; he replied brieflyto the questions of the manufacturer, who played his part of thesoldier's friend with great cordiality. In a few words he explained hisrelation toward Maurice and the reason why he was looking for him. 

"He is a corporal in my company, " the captain finally said by way ofcutting short the conversation, and inaugurated a series of questions onhis own account to learn what had become of the regiment. As Jean wenton to tell that the colonel had been seen crossing the city to reachhis camp at the head of what few men were left him, Gilberte againthoughtlessly spoke up, with the vivacity of a woman whose beauty issupposed to atone for her indiscretion:

"Oh! he is my uncle; why does he not come and breakfast with us? Wecould fix up a room for him here. Can't we send someone for him?"

But the old lady discouraged the project with an authority there was nodisputing. The good old bourgeois blood of the frontier towns flowedin her veins; her austerely patriotic sentiments were almost those of aman. She broke the stern silence that she had preserved during the mealby saying:

"Never mind Monsieur de Vineuil; he is doing his duty. "

Her short speech was productive of embarrassment among the party. Delaherche conducted the captain to his study, where he saw him safelybestowed upon the sofa; Gilberte moved lightly off about her business, no more disconcerted by her rebuff than is the bird that shakes itswings in gay defiance of the shower; while the handmaid to whom Jean hadbeen intrusted led him by a very labyrinth of passages and staircasesthrough the various departments of the factory. 

The Weiss family lived in the Rue des Voyards, but their house, whichwas Delaherche's property, communicated with the great structure in theRue Maqua. The Rue des Voyards was at that time one of the most squalidstreets in Sedan, being nothing more than a damp, narrow lane, itsnormal darkness intensified by the proximity of the ramparts, whichran parallel to it. The roofs of the tall houses almost met, the darkpassages were like the mouths of caverns, and more particularly so atthat end where rose the high college walls. Weiss, however, withfree quarters and free fuel on his third floor, found the location aconvenient one on account of its nearness to his office, to which hecould descend in slippers without having to go around by the street. Hislife had been a happy one since his marriage with Henriette, so long theobject of his hopes and wishes since first he came to know her at Chene, filling her dead mother's place when only six years old and keepingthe house for her father, the tax-collector; while he, entering the bigrefinery almost on the footing of a laborer, was picking up an educationas best he could, and fitting himself for the accountant's positionwhich was the reward of his unremitting toil. And even when he hadattained to that measure of success his dream was not to be realized;not until the father had been removed by death, not until the brotherat Paris had been guilty of those excesses: that brother Maurice to whomhis twin sister had in some sort made herself a servant, to whom she hadsacrificed her little all to make him a gentleman--not until then wasHenriette to be his wife. She had never been aught more than a littledrudge at home; she could barely read and write; she had sold house, furniture, all she had, to pay the young man's debts, when good, kindWeiss came to her with the offer of his savings, together with his heartand his two strong arms; and she had accepted him with grateful tears, bringing him in return for his devotion a steadfast, virtuous affection, replete with tender esteem, if not the stormier ardors of a passionatelove. Fortune had smiled on them; Delaherche had spoken of giving Weissan interest in the business, and when children should come to blesstheir union their felicity would be complete. 

"Look out!" the servant said to Jean; "the stairs are steep. "

He was stumbling upward as well as the intense darkness of the placewould let him, when suddenly a door above was thrown open, a broad beltof light streamed out across the landing, and he heard a soft voicesaying:

"It is he. "

"Madame Weiss, " cried the servant, "here is a soldier who has beeninquiring for you. "

There came the sound of a low, pleased laugh, and the same soft voicereplied:

"Good! good! I know who it is. " Then to the corporal, who washesitating, rather diffidently, on the landing: "Come in, Monsieur Jean. Maurice has been here nearly two hours, and we have been wondering whatdetained you. "

Then, in the pale sunlight that filled the room, he saw how like she wasto Maurice, with that wonderful resemblance that often makes twins solike each other as to be indistinguishable. She was smaller and slighterthan he, however; more fragile in appearance, with a rather large mouthand delicately molded features, surmounted by an opulence of the mostbeautiful hair imaginable, of the golden yellow of ripened grain. Thefeature where she least resembled him was her gray eyes, great calm, brave orbs, instinct with the spirit of the grandfather, the hero of theGrand Army. She used few words, was noiseless in her movements, and wasso gentle, so cheerful, so helpfully active that where she passed herpresence seemed to linger in the air, like a fragrant caress. 

"Come this way, Monsieur Jean, " she said. "Everything will soon be readyfor you. "

He stammered something inarticulately, for his emotion was such that hecould find no word of thanks. In addition to that his eyes were closinghe beheld her through the irresistible drowsiness that was settling onhim as a sea-fog drifts in and settles on the land, in which she seemedfloating in a vague, unreal way, as if her feet no longer touchedthe earth. Could it be that it was all a delightful apparition, thatfriendly young woman who smiled on him with such sweet simplicity? Hefancied for a moment that she had touched his hand and that he had feltthe pressure of hers, cool and firm, loyal as the clasp of an old triedfriend. 

That was the last moment in which Jean was distinctly conscious of whatwas going on about him. They were in the dining room; bread and meatwere set out on the table, but for the life of him he could not haveraised a morsel to his lips. A man was there, seated on a chair. Presently he knew it was Weiss, whom he had seen at Mulhausen, but hehad no idea what the man was saying with such a sober, sorrowful air, with slow and emphatic gestures. Maurice was already sound asleep, withthe tranquillity of death resting on his face, on a bed that had beenimprovised for him beside the stove, and Henriette was busying herselfabout a sofa on which a mattress had been thrown; she brought in abolster, pillow and coverings; with nimble, dexterous hands she spreadthe white sheets, snowy white, dazzling in their whiteness. 

Ah! those clean, white sheets, so long coveted, so ardently desired;Jean had eyes for naught save them. For six weeks he had not had hisclothes off, had not slept in a bed. He was as impatient as a childwaiting for some promised treat, or a lover expectant of his mistress'scoming; the time seemed long, terribly long to him, until he couldplunge into those cool, white depths and lose himself there. Quickly, assoon as he was alone, he removed his shoes and tossed his uniform acrossa chair, then, with a deep sigh of satisfaction, threw himself on thebed. He opened his eyes a little way for a last look about him beforehis final plunge into unconsciousness, and in the pale morning lightthat streamed in through the lofty window beheld a repetition of hisformer pleasant vision, only fainter, more aerial; a vision of Henrietteentering the room on tiptoe, and placing on the table at his side awater-jug and glass that had been forgotten before. She seemed to lingerthere a moment, looking at the sleeping pair, him and her brother, withher tranquil, ineffably tender smile upon her lips, then faded into air, and he, between his white sheets, was as if he were not. 

Hours--or was it years? slipped by; Jean and Maurice were like dead men, without a dream, without consciousness of the life that was within them. Whether it was ten years or ten minutes, time had stood still for them;the overtaxed body had risen against its oppressor and annihilated theirevery faculty. They awoke simultaneously with a great start and lookedat each other inquiringly; where were they? what had happened? howlong had they slept? The same pale light was entering through the tallwindow. They felt as if they had been racked; joints stiffer, limbswearier, mouth more hot and dry than when they had lain down; they couldnot have slept more than an hour, fortunately. It did not surprisethem to see Weiss sitting where they had seen him before, in the samedejected attitude, apparently waiting for them to awake. 

"_Fichtre_!" exclaimed Jean, "we must get up and report ourselves to thefirst sergeant before noon. "

He uttered a smothered cry of pain as he jumped to the floor and beganto dress. 

"Before noon!" said Weiss. "Are you aware that it is seven o'clock inthe evening? You have slept about twelve hours. "

Great heavens, seven o'clock! They were thunderstruck. Jean, who by thattime was completely dressed, would have run for it, but Maurice, stillin bed, found he no longer had control of his legs; how were they everto find their comrades? would not the army have marched away? They tookWeiss to task for having let them sleep so long. But the accountantshook his head sorrowfully and said:

"You have done just as well to remain in bed, for all that has beenaccomplished. "

All that day, from early morning, he had been scouring Sedan and itsenvirons in quest of news, and was just come in, discouraged with theinactivity of the troops and the inexplicable delay that had lost themthe whole of that precious day, the 31st. The sole excuse was thatthe men were worn out and rest was an absolute necessity for them, butgranting that, he could not see why the retreat should not have beencontinued after giving them a few hours of repose. 

"I do not pretend to be a judge of such matters, " he continued, "but Ihave a feeling, so strong as to be almost a conviction, that the armyis very badly situated at Sedan. The 12th corps is at Bazeilles, wherethere was a little fighting this morning; the 1st is strung out alongthe Givonne between la Moncelle and Holly, while the 7th is encampedon the plateau of Floing, and the 5th, what is left of it, is crowdedtogether under the ramparts of the city, on the side of the Chateau. And that is what alarms me, to see them all concentrated thus about thecity, waiting for the coming of the Prussians. If I were in command Iwould retreat on Mezieres, and lose no time about it, either. I know thecountry; it is the only line of retreat that is open to us, and if wetake any other course we shall be driven into Belgium. Come here! let meshow you something. "

He took Jean by the hand and led him to the window. 

"Tell me what you see over yonder on the crest of the hills. "

Looking from the window over the ramparts, over the adjacent buildings, their view embraced the valley of the Meuse to the southward of Sedan. There was the river, winding through broad meadows; there, to the left, was Remilly in the background, Pont Maugis and Wadelincourt before themand Frenois to the right; and shutting in the landscape the ranges ofverdant hills, Liry first, then la Marfee and la Croix Piau, with theirdense forests. A deep tranquillity, a crystalline clearness reigned overthe wide prospect that lay there in the mellow light of the decliningday. 

"Do you see that moving line of black upon the hilltops, that processionof small black ants?"

Jean stared in amazement, while Maurice, kneeling on his bed, craned hisneck to see. 

"Yes, yes!" they cried. "There is a line, there is another, and another, and another! They are everywhere. "

"Well, " continued Weiss, "those are Prussians. I have been watching themsince morning, and they have been coming, coming, as if there were noend to them! You may be sure of one thing: if our troops are waiting forthem, they have no intention of disappointing us. And not I alone, butevery soul in the city saw them; it is only the generals who persist inbeing blind. I was talking with a general officer a little while ago; heshrugged his shoulders and told me that Marshal MacMahon was absolutelycertain that he had not over seventy thousand men in his front. Godgrant he may be right! But look and see for yourselves; the ground ishid by them! they keep coming, ever coming, the black swarm!"

At this juncture Maurice threw himself back in his bed and gave way toa violent fit of sobbing. Henriette came in, a smile on her face. Shehastened to him in alarm. 

"What is it?"

But he pushed her away. "No, no! leave me, have nothing more to do withme; I have never been anything but a burden to you. When I think thatyou were making yourself a drudge, a slave, while I was attendingcollege--oh! to what miserable use have I turned that education! And Iwas near bringing dishonor on our name; I shudder to think where I mightbe now, had you not beggared yourself to pay for my extravagance andfolly. "

Her smile came back to her face, together with her serenity. 

"Is that all? Your sleep don't seem to have done you good, my poorfriend. But since that is all gone and past, forget it! Are you notdoing your duty now, like a good Frenchman? I am very proud of you, Iassure you, now that you are a soldier. "

She had turned toward Jean, as if to ask him to come to her assistance, and he looked at her with some surprise that she appeared to him lessbeautiful than yesterday; she was paler, thinner, now that the glamourwas no longer in his drowsy eyes. The one striking point that remainedunchanged was her resemblance to her brother, and yet the difference intheir two natures was never more strongly marked than at that moment;he, weak and nervous as a woman, swayed by the impulse of the hour, displaying in his person all the fitful and emotional temperament ofhis nation, vibrating from one moment to another between the loftiestenthusiasm and the most abject despair; she, the patient, indomitablehousewife, such an inconsiderable little creature in her resignation andself-effacement, meeting adversity with a brave face and eyes full ofinexpugnable courage and resolution, fashioned from the stuff of whichheroes are made. 

"Proud of me!" cried Maurice. "Ah! truly, you have great reason to be. For a month and more now we have been flying, like the cowards that weare!"

"What of it? we are not the only ones, " said Jean with his practicalcommon sense; "we do what we are told to do. "

But the young man broke out more furiously than ever: "I have had enoughof it, I tell you! Our imbecile leaders, our continual defeats, ourbrave soldiers led like sheep to the slaughter--is it not enough, seeingall these things, to make one weep tears of blood? We are here now inSedan, caught in a trap from which there is no escape; you can see thePrussians closing in on us from every quarter, and certain destructionis staring us in the face; there is no hope, the end is come. No! Ishall remain where I am; I may as well be shot as a deserter. Jean, doyou go, and leave me here. No! I won't go back there; I will stay here. "

He sank upon the pillow in a renewed outpour of tears. It was an utterbreakdown of the nervous system, sweeping everything before it, one ofthose sudden lapses into hopelessness to which he was so subject, inwhich he despised himself and all the world. His sister, knowing as shedid the best way of treating such crises, kept an unruffled face. 

"That would not be a nice thing to do, dear Maurice--desert your post inthe hour of danger. "

He rose impetuously to a sitting posture: "Then give me my musket! Iwill go and blow my brains out; that will be the shortest way of endingit. " Then, pointing with outstretched arm to Weiss, where he sat silentand motionless, he said: "There! that is the only sensible man I haveseen; yes, he is the only one who saw things as they were. You rememberwhat he said to me, Jean, at Mulhausen, a month ago?"

"It is true, " the corporal assented; "the gentleman said we should bebeaten. "

And the scene rose again before their mind's eye, that night ofanxious vigil, the agonized suspense, the prescience of the disaster atFroeschwiller hanging in the sultry heavy air, while the Alsatian toldhis prophetic fears; Germany in readiness, with the best of arms andthe best of leaders, rising to a man in a grand outburst of patriotism;France dazed, a century behind the age, debauched, and a prey tointestine disorder, having neither commanders, men, nor arms to enableher to cope with her powerful adversary. How quickly the horribleprediction had proved itself true!

Weiss raised his trembling hands. Profound sorrow was depicted on hiskind, honest face, with its red hair and beard and its great prominentblue eyes. 

"Ah!" he murmured, "I take no credit to myself for being right. I don'tclaim to be wiser than others, but it was all so clear, when one onlyknew the true condition of affairs! But if we are to be beaten we shallfirst have the pleasure of killing some of those Prussians of perdition. There is that comfort for us; I believe that many of us are to leavetheir bones there, and I hope there will be plenty of Prussians to keepthem company; I would like to see the ground down there in the valleyheaped with dead Prussians!" He arose and pointed down the valley of theMeuse. Fire flashed from his myopic eyes, which had exempted him fromservice with the army. "A thousand thunders! I would fight, yes, Iwould, if they would have me. I don't know whether it is seeing themassume the airs of masters in my country--in this country where once theCossacks did such mischief; but whenever I think of their being here, oftheir entering our houses, I am seized with an uncontrollable desire tocut a dozen of their throats. Ah! if it were not for my eyes, ifthey would take me, I would go!" Then, after a moment's silence: "Andbesides; who can tell?"

It was the hope that sprang eternal, even in the breast of the leastconfident, of the possibility of victory, and Maurice, ashamed by thistime of his tears, listened and caught at the pleasing speculation. Wasit not true that only the day before there had been a rumor that Bazainewas at Verdun? Truly, it was time that Fortune should work a miracle forthat France whose glories she had so long protected. Henriette, with animperceptible smile on her lips, silently left the room, and was notthe least bit surprised when she returned to find her brother up anddressed, and ready to go back to his duty. She insisted, however, thathe and Jean should take some nourishment first. They seated themselvesat the table, but the morsels choked them; their stomachs, weakened bytheir heavy slumber, revolted at the food. Like a prudent old campaignerJean cut a loaf in two halves and placed one in Maurice's sack, theother in his own. It was growing dark, it behooved them to be going. Henriette, who was standing at the window watching the Prussian troopsincessantly defiling on distant la Marfee, the swarming legions of blackants that were gradually being swallowed up in the gathering shadows, involuntarily murmured:

"Oh, war! what a dreadful thing it is!"

Maurice, seeing an opportunity to retort her sermon to him, immediatelytook her up:

"How is this, little sister? you are anxious to have people fight, andyou speak disrespectfully of war!"

She turned and faced him, valiantly as ever: "It is true; I abhor it, because it is an abomination and an injustice. It may be simply becauseI am a woman, but the thought of such butchery sickens me. Why cannotnations adjust their differences without shedding blood?"

Jean, the good fellow, seconded her with a nod of the head, and nothingto him, too, seemed easier--to him, the unlettered man--than to cometogether and settle matters after a fair, honest talk; but Maurice, mindful of his scientific theories, reflected on the necessity ofwar--war, which is itself existence, the universal law. Was it not poor, pitiful man who conceived the idea of justice and peace, while impassivenature revels in continual slaughter?

"That is all very fine!" he cried. "Yes, centuries hence, if it shallcome to pass that then all the nations shall be merged in one; centurieshence man may look forward to the coming of that golden age; and even inthat case would not the end of war be the end of humanity? I was a foolbut now; we must go and fight, since it is nature's law. " He smiled andrepeated his brother-in-law's expression: "And besides, who can tell?"

He saw things now through the mirage of his vivid self-delusion, theycame to his vision distorted through the lens of his diseased nervoussensibility. 

"By the way, " he continued cheerfully, "what do you hear of our cousinGunther? You know we have not seen a German yet, so you can't look to meto give you any foreign news. "

The question was addressed to his brother-in-law, who had relapsed intoa thoughtful silence and answered by a motion of his hand, expressive ofhis ignorance. 

"Cousin Gunther?" said Henriette, "Why, he belongs to the Vth corps andis with the Crown Prince's army; I read it in one of the newspapers, Idon't remember which. Is that army in this neighborhood?"

Weiss repeated his gesture, which was imitated by the two soldiers, whocould not be supposed to know what enemies were in front of them whentheir generals did not know. Rising to his feet, the master of the houseat last made use of articulate speech. 

"Come along; I will go with you. I learned this afternoon where the106th's camp is situated. " He told his wife that she need not expect tosee him again that night, as he would sleep at Bazeilles, where theyhad recently bought and furnished a little place to serve them as aresidence during the hot months. It was near a dyehouse that belongedto M. Delaherche. The accountant's mind was ill at ease in relation tocertain stores that he had placed in the cellar--a cask of wine and acouple of sacks of potatoes; the house would certainly be visited bymarauders if it was left unprotected, he said, while by occupying itthat night he would doubtless save it from pillage. His wife watched himclosely while he was speaking. 

"You need not be alarmed, " he added, with a smile; "I harbor no darkerdesign than the protection of our property, and I pledge my word that ifthe village is attacked, or if there is any appearance of danger, I willcome home at once. "

"Well, then, go, " she said. "But remember, if you are not back in goodseason you will see me out there looking for you. "

Henriette went with them to the door, where she embraced Mauricetenderly and gave Jean a warm clasp of the hand. 

"I intrust my brother to your care once more. He has told me of yourkindness to him, and I love you for it. "

He was too flustered to do more than return the pressure of the small, firm hand. His first impression returned to him again, and he beheldHenriette in the light in which she had first appeared to him, withher bright hair of the hue of ripe golden grain, so alert, so sunny, sounselfish, that her presence seemed to pervade the air like a caress. 

Once they were outside they found the same gloomy and forbidding Sedanthat had greeted their eyes that morning. Twilight with its shadows hadinvaded the narrow streets, sidewalk and carriage-way alike were filledwith a confused, surging throng. Most of the shops were closed, thehouses seemed to be dead or sleeping, while out of doors the crowd wasso dense that men trod on one another. With some little difficulty, however, they succeeded in reaching the Place de l'Hotel de Ville, wherethey encountered M. Delaherche, intent on picking up the latest newsand seeing what was to be seen. He at once came up and greeted them, apparently delighted to meet Maurice, to whom he said that he had justreturned from accompanying Captain Beaudoin over to Floing, where theregiment was posted, and he became, if that were possible, even moregracious than ever upon learning that Weiss proposed to pass the nightat Bazeilles, where he himself, he declared, had just been telling thecaptain that he intended to take a bed, in order to see how things werelooking at the dyehouse. 

"We'll go together and be company for each other, Weiss. But first let'sgo as far as the Sous-Prefecture; we may be able to catch a glimpse ofthe Emperor. "

Ever since he had been so near having the famous conversation with himat Baybel his mind had been full of Napoleon III. ; he was not satisfieduntil he had induced the two soldiers to accompany him. The Place de laSous-Prefecture was comparatively empty; a few men were standing aboutin groups, engaged in whispered conversation, while occasionally anofficer hurried by, haggard and careworn. The bright hues of the foliagewere beginning to fade and grow dim in the melancholy, thick-gatheringshades of night; the hoarse murmur of the Meuse was heard as its currentpoured onward beneath the houses to the right. Among the whisperers itwas related how the Emperor--who with the greatest difficulty hadbeen prevailed on to leave Carignan the night before about eleveno'clock--when entreated to push on to Mezieres had refused point-blankto abandon the post of danger and take a step that would prove sodemoralizing to the troops. Others asserted that he was no longer in thecity, that he had fled, leaving behind him a dummy emperor, one of hisofficers dressed in his uniform, a man whose startling resemblance tohis imperial master had often puzzled the army. Others again declared, and called upon their honor to substantiate their story, that theyhad seen the army wagons containing the imperial treasure, one hundredmillions, all in brand-new twenty-franc pieces, drive into the courtyardof the Prefecture. This convoy was, in fact, neither more nor less thanthe vehicles for the personal use of the Emperor and his suite, the_char a banc_, the two _caleches_, the twelve baggage and supply wagons, which had almost excited a riot in the villages through which they hadpassed--Courcelles, le Chene, Raucourt; assuming in men's imaginationthe dimensions of a huge train that had blocked the road and arrestedthe march of armies, and which now, shorn of their glory, execratedby all, had come in shame and disgrace to hide themselves among thesous-prefect's lilac bushes. 

While Delaherche was raising himself on tiptoe and trying to peerthrough the windows of the _rez-de-chaussee_, an old woman at his side, some poor day-worker of the neighborhood, with shapeless form and handscalloused and distorted by many years of toil, was mumbling between herteeth:

"An emperor--I should like to see one once--just once--so I could say Ihad seen him. "

Suddenly Delaherche exclaimed, seizing Maurice by the arm:

"See, there he is! at the window, to the left. I had a good view of himyesterday; I can't be mistaken. There, he has just raised the curtain;see, that pale face, close to the glass. "

The old woman had overheard him and stood staring with wide-openmouth and eyes, for there, full in the window, was an apparition thatresembled a corpse more than a living being; its eyes were lifeless, itsfeatures distorted; even the mustache had assumed a ghastly whiteness inthat final agony. The old woman was dumfounded; forthwith she turned herback and marched off with a look of supreme contempt. 

"That thing an emperor! a likely story. "

A zouave was standing near, one of those fugitive soldiers who werein no haste to rejoin their commands. Brandishing his chassepot andexpectorating threats and maledictions, he said to his companion:

"Wait! see me put a bullet in his head!"

Delaherche remonstrated angrily, but by that time the Emperor haddisappeared. The hoarse murmur of the Meuse continued uninterruptedly;a wailing lament, inexpressibly mournful, seemed to pass above themthrough the air, where the darkness was gathering intensity. Othersounds rose in the distance, like the hollow muttering of the risingstorm; were they the "March! march!" that terrible order from Paris thathad driven that ill-starred man onward day by day, dragging behind himalong the roads of his defeat the irony of his imperial escort, untilnow he was brought face to face with the ruin he had foreseen and comeforth to meet? What multitudes of brave men were to lay down their livesfor his mistakes, and how complete the wreck, in all his being, ofthat sick man, that sentimental dreamer, awaiting in gloomy silence thefulfillment of his destiny!

Weiss and Delaherche accompanied the two soldiers to the plateau ofFloing, where the 7th corps camps were. 

"Adieu!" said Maurice as he embraced his brother-in-law. 

"No, no; not adieu, the deuce! Au _revoir_!" the manufacturer gaylycried. 

Jean's instinct led him at once to their regiment, the tents of whichwere pitched behind the cemetery, where the ground of the plateau beginsto fall away. It was nearly dark, but there was sufficient light yetremaining in the sky to enable them to distinguish the black huddle ofroofs above the city, and further in the distance Balan and Bazeilles, lying in the broad meadows that stretch away to the range of hillsbetween Remilly and Frenois, while to the right was the dusky wood of laGarenne, and to the left the broad bosom of the Meuse had the dull gleamof frosted silver in the dying daylight. Maurice surveyed the broadlandscape that was momentarily fading in the descending shadows. 

"Ah, here is the corporal!" said Chouteau. "I wonder if he has beenlooking after our rations!"

The camp was astir with life and bustle. All day the men had been comingin, singly and in little groups, and the crowd and confusion were suchthat the officers made no pretense of punishing or even reprimandingthem; they accepted thankfully those who were so kind as to return andasked no questions. Captain Beaudoin had made his appearance only ashort time before, and it was about two o'clock when Lieutenant Rochashad brought in his collection of stragglers, about one-third of thecompany strength. Now the ranks were nearly full once more. Some ofthe men were drunk, others had not been able to secure even a morselof bread and were sinking from inanition; again there had been nodistribution of rations. Loubet, however, had discovered some cabbagesin a neighboring garden, and cooked them after a fashion, but there wasno salt or lard; the empty stomachs continued to assert their claims. 

"Come, now, corporal, you are a knowing old file, " Chouteau tauntinglycontinued, "what have you got for us? Oh, it's not for myself I care;Loubet and I had a good breakfast; a lady gave it us. You were not atdistribution, then?"

Jean beheld a circle of expectant eyes bent on him; the squad had beenwaiting for him with anxiety, Pache and Lapoulle in particular, lucklessdogs, who had found nothing they could appropriate; they all relied onhim, who, as they expressed it, could get bread out of a stone. And thecorporal's conscience smote him for having abandoned his men; he tookpity on them and divided among them half the bread that he had in hissack. 

"Name o' God! Name o' God!" grunted Lapoulle as he contentedly munchedthe dry bread; it was all he could find to say; while Pache repeated a_Pater_ and an _Ave_ under his breath to make sure that Heaven shouldnot forget to send him his breakfast in the morning. 

Gaude, the bugler, with his darkly mysterious air, as of a man who hashad troubles of which he does not care to speak, sounded the call forevening muster with a glorious fanfare; but there was no necessity forsounding taps that night, the camp was immediately enveloped in profoundsilence. And when he had verified the names and seen that none of hishalf-section were missing, Sergeant Sapin, with his thin, sickly faceand his pinched nose, softly said:

"There will be one less to-morrow night. "

Then, as he saw Jean looking at him inquiringly, he added with calmconviction, his eyes bent upon the blackness of the night, as if readingthere the destiny that he predicted:

"It will be mine; I shall be killed to-morrow. "

It was nine o'clock, with promise of a chilly, uncomfortable night, fora dense mist had risen from the surface of the river, so that the starswere no longer visible. Maurice shivered, where he lay with Jean beneatha hedge, and said they would do better to go and seek the shelter ofthe tent; the rest they had taken that day had left them wakeful, theirjoints seemed stiffer and their bones sorer than before; neither couldsleep. They envied Lieutenant Rochas, who, stretched on the damp groundand wrapped in his blanket, was snoring like a trooper, not far away. For a long time after that they watched with interest the feeble lightof a candle that was burning in a large tent where the colonel andsome officers were in consultation. All that evening M. De Vineuil hadmanifested great uneasiness that he had received no instructions toguide him in the morning. He felt that his regiment was too much "in theair, " too much advanced, although it had already fallen back from theexposed position that it had occupied earlier in the day. Nothing hadbeen seen of General Bourgain-Desfeuilles, who was said to be ill in bedat the Hotel of the Golden Cross, and the colonel decided to send oneof his officers to advise him of the danger of their new position in thetoo extended line of the 7th corps, which had to cover the long stretchfrom the bend in the Meuse to the wood of la Garenne. There could be nodoubt that the enemy would attack with the first glimpse of daylight;only for seven or eight hours now would that deep tranquillity remainunbroken. And shortly after the dim light in the colonel's tent wasextinguished Maurice was amazed to see Captain Beaudoin glide by, keeping close to the hedge, with furtive steps, and vanish in thedirection of Sedan. 

The darkness settled down on them, denser and denser; the chill mistsrose from the stream and enshrouded everything in a dank, noisome fog. 

"Are you asleep, Jean?"

Jean was asleep, and Maurice was alone. He could not endure thethought of going to the tent where Lapoulle and the rest of them wereslumbering; he heard their snoring, responsive to Rochas' strains, andenvied them. If our great captains sleep soundly the night before abattle, it is like enough for the reason that their fatigue will notlet them do otherwise. He was conscious of no sound save the equal, deep-drawn breathing of that slumbering multitude, rising from thedarkening camp like the gentle respiration of some huge monster; beyondthat all was void. He only knew that the 5th corps was close at hand, encamped beneath the rampart, that the 1st's line extended from the woodof la Garenne to la Moncelle, while the 12th was posted on the otherside of the city, at Bazeilles; and all were sleeping; the whole lengthof that long line, from the nearest tent to the most remote, for milesand miles, that low, faint murmur ascended in rhythmic unison fromthe dark, mysterious bosom of the night. Then outside this circlelay another region, the realm of the unknown, whence also sounds cameintermittently to his ears, so vague, so distant, that he scarcely knewwhether they were not the throbbings of his own excited pulses; theindistinct trot of cavalry plashing over the low ground, the dull rumbleof gun and caisson along the roads, and, still more marked, the heavytramp of marching men; the gathering on the heights above of that blackswarm, engaged in strengthening the meshes of their net, from whichnight itself had not served to divert them. And below, there by theriver's side, was there not the flash of lights suddenly extinguished, was not that the sound of hoarse voices shouting orders, adding to thedread suspense of that long night of terror while waiting for the comingof the dawn?

Maurice put forth his hand and felt for Jean's; at last he slumbered, comforted by the sense of human companionship. From a steeple in Sedancame the deep tones of a bell, slowly, mournfully, tolling the hour;then all was blank and void. 

PART SECOND

I. 

Weiss, in the obscurity of his little room at Bazeilles, was arousedby a commotion that caused him to leap from his bed. It was the roar ofartillery. Groping about in the darkness he found and lit a candle toenable him to consult his watch: it was four o'clock, just beginning tobe light. He adjusted his double eyeglass upon his nose and looked outinto the main street of the village, the road that leads to Douzy, butit was filled with a thick cloud of something that resembled dust, whichmade it impossible to distinguish anything. He passed into the otherroom, the windows of which commanded a view of the Meuse and theintervening meadows, and saw that the cause of his obstructed visionwas the morning mist arising from the river. In the distance, behind theveil of fog, the guns were barking more fiercely across the stream. Allat once a French battery, close at hand, opened in reply, with such atremendous crash that the walls of the little house were shaken. 

Weiss's house was situated near the middle of the village, on the rightof the road and not far from the Place de l'Eglise. Its front, standingback a little from the street, displayed a single story with threewindows, surmounted by an attic; in the rear was a garden of some extentthat sloped gently downward toward the meadows and commanded a widepanoramic view of the encircling hills, from Remilly to Frenois. Weiss, with the sense of responsibility of his new proprietorship strong uponhim, had spent the night in burying his provisions in the cellar andprotecting his furniture, as far as possible, against shot and shell byapplying mattresses to the windows, so that it was nearly two o'clockbefore he got to bed. His blood boiled at the idea that the Prussiansmight come and plunder the house, for which he had toiled so long andwhich had as yet afforded him so little enjoyment. 

He heard a voice summoning him from the street. 

"I say, Weiss, are you awake?"

He descended and found it was Delaherche, who had passed the night athis dyehouse, a large brick structure, next door to the accountant'sabode. The operatives had all fled, taking to the woods and making forthe Belgian frontier, and there was no one left to guard the propertybut the woman concierge, Francoise Quittard by name, the widow of amason; and she also, beside herself with terror, would have gone withthe others had it not been for her ten-year-old boy Charles, who was soill with typhoid fever that he could not be moved. 

"I say, " Delaherche continued, "do you hear that? It is a promisingbeginning. Our best course is to get back to Sedan as soon as possible. "

Weiss's promise to his wife, that he would leave Bazeilles at the firstsign of danger, had been given in perfect good faith, and he had fullyintended to keep it; but as yet there was only an artillery duel at longrange, and the aim could not be accurate enough to do much damage in theuncertain, misty light of early morning. 

"Wait a bit, confound it!" he replied. "There is no hurry. "

Delaherche, too, was curious to see what would happen; his curiositymade him valiant. He had been so interested in the preparations fordefending the place that he had not slept a wink. General Lebrun, commanding the 12th corps, had received notice that he would beattacked at daybreak, and had kept his men occupied during the night instrengthening the defenses of Bazeilles, which he had instructions tohold in spite of everything. Barricades had been thrown up across theDouzy road, and all the smaller streets; small parties of soldiers hadbeen thrown into the houses by way of garrison; every narrow lane, every garden had become a fortress, and since three o'clock the troops, awakened from their slumbers without beat of drum or call of bugle inthe inky blackness, had been at their posts, their chassepots freshlygreased and cartridge boxes filled with the obligatory ninety rounds ofammunition. It followed that when the enemy opened their fire no one wastaken unprepared, and the French batteries, posted to the rear betweenBalan and Bazeilles, immediately commenced to answer, rather with theidea of showing they were awake than for any other purpose, for in thedense fog that enveloped everything the practice was of the wildest. 

"The dyehouse will be well defended, " said Delaherche. "I have a wholesection in it. Come and see. "

It was true; forty and odd men of the infanterie de marine had beenposted there under the command of a lieutenant, a tall, light-hairedyoung fellow, scarcely more than a boy, but with an expression of energyand determination on his face. His men had already taken full possessionof the building, some of them being engaged in loopholing the shuttersof the ground-floor windows that commanded the street, while others, inthe courtyard that overlooked the meadows in the rear, were breachingthe wall for musketry. It was in this courtyard that Delaherche andWeiss found the young officer, straining his eyes to discover what washidden behind the impenetrable mist. 

"Confound this fog!" he murmured. "We can't fight when we don't knowwhere the enemy is. " Presently he asked, with no apparent change ofvoice or manner: "What day of the week is this?"

"Thursday, " Weiss replied. 

"Thursday, that's so. Hanged if I don't think the world might come to anend and we not know it!"

But just at that moment the uninterrupted roar of the artillery wasdiversified by a brisk rattle of musketry proceeding from the edge ofthe meadows, at a distance of two or three hundred yards. And at thesame time there was a transformation, as rapid and startling, almost, asthe stage effect in a fairy spectacle: the sun rose, the exhalations ofthe Meuse were whirled away like bits of finest, filmiest gauze, and theblue sky was revealed, in serene limpidity, undimmed by a single cloud. It was the exquisite morning of a faultless summer day. 

"Ah!" exclaimed Delaherche, "they are crossing the railway bridge. See, they are making their way along the track. How stupid of us not to haveblown up the bridge!"

The officer's face bore an expression of dumb rage. The mines had beenprepared and charged, he averred, but they had fought four hours the daybefore to regain possession of the bridge and then had forgot to touchthem off. 

"It is just our luck, " he curtly said. 

Weiss was silent, watching the course of events and endeavoring to formsome idea of the true state of affairs. The position of the French inBazeilles was a very strong one. The village commanded the meadows, andwas bisected by the Douzy road, which, turning sharp to the left, passedunder the walls of the Chateau, while another road, the one that led tothe railway bridge, bent around to the right and forked at the Placede l'Eglise. There was no cover for any force advancing by these twoapproaches; the Germans would be obliged to traverse the meadows and thewide, bare level that lay between the outskirts of the village and theMeuse and the railway. Their prudence in avoiding unnecessary risks wasnotorious, hence it seemed improbable that the real attack would comefrom that quarter. They kept coming across the bridge, however, indeep masses, and that notwithstanding the slaughter that a battery ofmitrailleuses, posted at the edge of the village, effected in theirranks, and all at once those who had crossed rushed forward in openorder, under cover of the straggling willows, the columns were re-formedand began to advance. It was from there that the musketry fire, whichwas growing hotter, had proceeded. 

"Oh, those are Bavarians, " Weiss remarked. "I recognize them by thebraid on their helmets. "

But there were other columns, moving to the right and partiallyconcealed by the railway embankment, whose object, it seemed to him, was to gain the cover of some trees in the distance, whence they mightdescend and take Bazeilles in flank and rear. Should they succeed ineffecting a lodgment in the park of Montivilliers, the village mightbecome untenable. This was no more than a vague, half-formed idea, thatflitted through his mind for a moment and faded as rapidly as it hadcome; the attack in front was becoming more determined, and his everyfaculty was concentrated on the struggle that was assuming, with everymoment, larger dimensions. 

Suddenly he turned his head and looked away to the north, over the cityof Sedan, where the heights of Floing were visible in the distance. Abattery had just commenced firing from that quarter; the smoke rose inthe bright sunshine in little curls and wreaths, and the reports came tohis ears very distinctly. It was in the neighborhood of five o'clock. 

"Well, well, " he murmured, "they are all going to have a hand in thebusiness, it seems. "

The lieutenant of marines, who had turned his eyes in the samedirection, spoke up confidently:

"Oh! Bazeilles is the key of the position. This is the spot where thebattle will be won or lost. "

"Do you think so?" Weiss exclaimed. 

"There is not the slightest doubt of it. It is certainly the marshal'sopinion, for he was here last night and told us that we must hold thevillage if it cost the life of every man of us. "

Weiss slowly shook his head, and swept the horizon with a glance; thenin a low, faltering voice, as if speaking to himself, he said:

"No--no! I am sure that is a mistake. I fear the danger lies in anotherquarter--where, or what it is, I dare not say--"

He said no more. He simply opened wide his arms, like the jaws of avise, then, turning to the north, brought his hands together, as if thevise had closed suddenly upon some object there. 

This was the fear that had filled his mind for the last twenty-fourhours, for he was thoroughly acquainted with the country and had watchednarrowly every movement of the troops during the previous day, and now, again, while the broad valley before him lay basking in the radiantsunlight, his gaze reverted to the hills of the left bank, where, forthe space of all one day and all one night, his eyes had beheld theblack swarm of the Prussian hosts moving steadily onward to someappointed end. A battery had opened fire from Remilly, over to the left, but the one from which the shells were now beginning to reach the Frenchposition was posted at Pont-Maugis, on the river bank. He adjusted hisbinocle by folding the glasses over, the one upon the other, to lengthenits range and enable him to discern what was hidden among the recessesof the wooded slopes, but could distinguish nothing save the whitesmoke-wreaths that rose momentarily on the tranquil air and floatedlazily away over the crests. That human torrent that he had seen solately streaming over those hills, where was it now--where were massedthose innumerable hosts? At last, at the corner of a pine wood, aboveNoyers and Frenois, he succeeded in making out a little cluster ofmounted men in uniform--some general, doubtless, and his staff. Andoff there to the west the Meuse curved in a great loop, and in thatdirection lay their sole line of retreat on Mezieres, a narrow roadthat traversed the pass of Saint-Albert, between that loop and the darkforest of Ardennes. While reconnoitering the day before he had met ageneral officer who, he afterward learned, was Ducrot, commanding the1st corps, on a by-road in the valley of Givonne, and had made boldto call his attention to the importance of that, their only line ofretreat. If the army did not retire at once by that road while it wasstill open to them, if it waited until the Prussians should have crossedthe Meuse at Donchery and come up in force to occupy the pass, it wouldbe hemmed in and driven back on the Belgian frontier. As early even asthe evening of that day the movement would have been too late. It wasasserted that the uhlans had possession of the bridge, another bridgethat had not been destroyed, for the reason, this time, that some onehad neglected to provide the necessary powder. And Weiss sorrowfullyacknowledged to himself that the human torrent, the invading horde, could now be nowhere else than on the plain of Donchery, invisible tohim, pressing onward to occupy Saint-Albert pass, pushing forward itsadvanced guards to Saint-Menges and Floing, whither, the day previous, he had conducted Jean and Maurice. In the brilliant sunshine the steepleof Floing church appeared like a slender needle of dazzling whiteness. 

And off to the eastward the other arm of the powerful vise was slowlyclosing in on them. Casting his eyes to the north, where there was astretch of level ground between the plateaus of Illy and of Floing, hecould make out the line of battle of the 7th corps, feebly supported bythe 5th, which was posted in reserve under the ramparts of the city; buthe could not discern what was occurring to the east, along the valley ofthe Givonne, where the 1st corps was stationed, its line stretching fromthe wood of la Garenne to Daigny village. Now, however, the guns werebeginning to thunder in that direction also; the conflict seemed to beraging in Chevalier's wood, in front of Daigny. His uneasiness was owingto reports that had been brought in by peasants the day previous, thatthe Prussian advance had reached Francheval, so that the movement whichwas being conducted at the west, by way of Donchery, was also in processof execution at the east, by way of Francheval, and the two jaws ofthe vise would come together up there at the north, near the Calvary ofIlly, unless the two-fold flanking movement could be promptly checked. He knew nothing of tactics or strategy, had nothing but his commonsense to guide him; but he looked with fear and trembling on that greattriangle that had the Meuse for one of its sides, and for the othertwo the 7th and 1st corps on the north and east respectively, while theextreme angle at the south was occupied by the 12th at Bazeilles--allthe three corps facing outward on the periphery of a semicircle, awaiting the appearance of an enemy who was to deliver his attack atsome one point, where or when no one could say, but who, instead, fellon them from every direction at once. And at the very center of all, asat the bottom of a pit, lay the city of Sedan, her ramparts furnishedwith antiquated guns, destitute of ammunition and provisions. 

"Understand, " said Weiss, with a repetition of his previous gesture, extending his arms and bringing his hands slowly together, "that is howit will be unless your generals keep their eyes open. The movement atBazeilles is only a feint--"

But his explanation was confused and unintelligible to the lieutenant, who knew nothing of the country, and the young man shrugged hisshoulders with an expression of impatience and disdain for the bourgeoisin spectacles and frock coat who presumed to set his opinion against themarshal's. Irritated to hear Weiss reiterate his view that the attack onBazeilles was intended only to mask other and more important movements, he finally shouted:

"Hold your tongue, will you! We shall drive them all into the Meuse, those Bavarian friends of yours, and that is all they will get by theirprecious feint. "

While they were talking the enemy's skirmishers seemed to have come upcloser; every now and then their bullets were heard thudding againstthe dyehouse wall, and our men, kneeling behind the low parapet ofthe courtyard, were beginning to reply. Every second the report of achassepot rang out, sharp and clear, upon the air. 

"Oh, of course! drive them into the Meuse, by all means, " mutteredWeiss, "and while we are about it we might as well ride them down andregain possession of the Carignan road. " Then addressing himself toDelaherche, who had stationed himself behind the pump where he might beout of the way of the bullets: "All the same, it would have been theirwisest course to make tracks last night for Mezieres, and if I were intheir place I would much rather be there than here. As it is, however, they have got to show fight, since retreat is out of the question now. "

"Are you coming?" asked Delaherche, who, notwithstanding his eagercuriosity, was beginning to look pale in the face. "We shall be unableto get into the city if we remain here longer. "

"Yes, in one minute I will be with you. "

In spite of the danger that attended the movement he raised himselfon tiptoe, possessed by an irresistible desire to see how things wereshaping. On the right lay the meadows that had been flooded by order ofthe governor for the protection of the city, now a broad lake stretchingfrom Torcy to Balan, its unruffled bosom glimmering in the morningsunlight with a delicate azure luster. The water did not extend as faras Bazeilles, however, and the Prussians had worked their way forwardacross the fields, availing themselves of the shelter of every ditch, of every little shrub and tree. They were now distant some five hundredyards, and Weiss was impressed by the caution with which they moved, thedogged resolution and patience with which they advanced, gaining groundinch by inch and exposing themselves as little as possible. They had apowerful artillery fire, moreover, to sustain them; the pure, cool airwas vocal with the shrieking of shells. Raising his eyes he saw that thePont-Maugis battery was not the only one that was playing on Bazeilles;two others, posted half way up the hill of Liry, had opened fire, andtheir projectiles not only reached the village, but swept the nakedplain of la Moncelle beyond, where the reserves of the 12th corps were, and even the wooded slopes of Daigny, held by a division of the 1stcorps, were not beyond their range. There was not a summit, moreover, on the left bank of the stream that was not tipped with flame. The gunsseemed to spring spontaneously from the soil, like some noxious growth;it was a zone of fire that grew hotter and fiercer every moment; therewere batteries at Noyers shelling Balan, batteries at Wadelincourtshelling Sedan, and at Frenois, down under la Marfee, there was abattery whose guns, heavier than the rest, sent their missiles hurtlingover the city to burst among the troops of the 7th corps on the plateauof Floing. Those hills that he had always loved so well, that he hadsupposed were planted there solely to delight the eye, encircling withtheir verdurous slopes the pretty, peaceful valley that lay beneath, were now become a gigantic, frowning fortress, vomiting ruin anddestruction on the feeble defenses of Sedan, and Weiss looked on themwith terror and detestation. Why had steps not been taken to defend themthe day before, if their leaders had suspected this, or why, rather, hadthey insisted on holding the position?

A sound of falling plaster caused him to raise his head; a shot hadgrazed his house, the front of which was visible to him above the partywall. It angered him excessively, and he growled:

"Are they going to knock it about my ears, the brigands!"

Then close behind him there was a little dull, strange sound that he hadnever heard before, and turning quickly he saw a soldier, shot throughthe heart, in the act of falling backward. There was a brief convulsivemovement of the legs; the youthful, tranquil expression of the faceremained, stamped there unalterably by the hand of death. It was thefirst casualty, and the accountant was startled by the crash of themusket falling and rebounding from the stone pavement of the courtyard. 

"Ah, I have seen enough, I am going, " stammered Delaherche. "Come, ifyou are coming; if not, I shall go without you. "

The lieutenant, whom their presence made uneasy, spoke up:

"It will certainly be best for you to go, gentlemen. The enemy mayattempt to carry the place at any moment. "

Then at last, casting a parting glance at the meadows, where theBavarians were still gaining ground, Weiss gave in and followedDelaherche, but when they had gained the street he insisted upon goingto see if the fastening of his door was secure, and when he came back tohis companion there was a fresh spectacle, which brought them both to ahalt. 

At the end of the street, some three hundred yards from where theystood, a strong Bavarian column had debouched from the Douzy road andwas charging up the Place de l'Eglise. The square was held by a regimentof sailor-boys, who appeared to slacken their fire for a moment asif with the intention of drawing their assailants on; then, when theclose-massed column was directly opposite their front, a most surprisingmaneuver was swiftly executed: the men abandoned their formation, someof them stepping from the ranks and flattening themselves against thehouse fronts, others casting themselves prone upon the ground, and downthe vacant space thus suddenly formed the mitrailleuses that had beenplaced in battery at the farther end poured a perfect hailstorm ofbullets. The column disappeared as if it had been swept bodily from offthe face of the earth. The recumbent men sprang to their feet with abound and charged the scattered Bavarians with the bayonet, driving themand making the rout complete. Twice the maneuver was repeated, each timewith the same success. Two women, unwilling to abandon their home, asmall house at the corner of an intersecting lane, were sitting at theirwindow; they laughed approvingly and clapped their hands, apparentlyglad to have an opportunity to behold such a spectacle. 

"There, confound it!" Weiss suddenly said, "I forgot to lock the cellardoor! I must go back. Wait for me; I won't be a minute. "

There was no indication that the enemy contemplated a renewal of theirattack, and Delaherche, whose curiosity was reviving after the shock ithad sustained, was less eager to get away. He had halted in front ofhis dyehouse and was conversing with the concierge, who had come for amoment to the door of the room she occupied in the _rez-de-chaussee_. 

"My poor Francoise, you had better come along with us. A lone womanamong such dreadful sights--I can't bear to think of it!"

She raised her trembling hands. "Ah, sir, I would have gone when theothers went, indeed I would, if it had not been for my poor sick boy. Come in, sir, and look at him. "

He did not enter, but glanced into the apartment from the threshold, andshook his head sorrowfully at sight of the little fellow in his clean, white bed, his face exhibiting the scarlet hue of the disease, and hisglassy, burning eyes bent wistfully on his mother. 

"But why can't you take him with you?" he urged. "I will find quartersfor you in Sedan. Wrap him up warmly in a blanket, and come along withus. "

"Oh, no, sir, I cannot. The doctor told me it would kill him. If onlyhis poor father were alive! but we two are all that are left, andwe must live for each other. And then, perhaps the Prussians will bemerciful; perhaps they won't harm a lone woman and a sick boy. "

Just then Weiss reappeared, having secured his premises to hissatisfaction. "There, I think it will trouble them some to get in now. Come on! And it is not going to be a very pleasant journey, either; keepclose to the houses, unless you want to come to grief. "

There were indications, indeed, that the enemy were making ready foranother assault. The infantry fire was spluttering away more furiouslythan ever, and the screaming of the shells was incessant. Two hadalready fallen in the street a hundred yards away, and a third hadimbedded itself, without bursting, in the soft ground of the adjacentgarden. 

"Ah, here is Francoise, " continued the accountant. "I must have a lookat your little Charles. Come, come, you have no cause for alarm; he willbe all right in a couple of days. Keep your courage up, and the firstthing you do go inside, and don't put your nose outside the door. " Andthe two men at last started to go. 

"_Au revoir_, Francoise. "

"_Au revoir_, sirs. "

And as they spoke, there came an appalling crash. It was a shell, which, having first wrecked the chimney of Weiss's house, fell upon thesidewalk, where it exploded with such terrific force as to break everywindow in the vicinity. At first it was impossible to distinguishanything in the dense cloud of dust and smoke that rose in the air, but presently this drifted away, disclosing the ruined facade of thedyehouse, and there, stretched across the threshold, Francoise, acorpse, horribly torn and mangled, her skull crushed in, a fearfulspectacle. 

Weiss sprang to her side. Language failed him; he could only express hisfeelings by oaths and imprecations. 

"_Nom de Dieu!_ _Nom de Dieu!_"

Yes, she was dead. He had stooped to feel her pulse, and as he arosehe saw before him the scarlet face of little Charles, who had raisedhimself in bed to look at his mother. He spoke no word, he uttered nocry; he gazed with blazing, tearless eyes, distended as if they wouldstart from their sockets, upon the shapeless mass that was strange, unknown to him; and nothing more. 

Weiss found words at last: "_Nom de Dieu!_ they have taken to killingwomen!"

He had risen to his feet; he shook his fist at the Bavarians, whosebraid-trimmed helmets were commencing to appear again in the directionof the church. The chimney, in falling, had crushed a great hole in theroof of his house, and the sight of the havoc made him furious. 

"Dirty loafers! You murder women, you have destroyed my house. No, no! Iwill not go now, I cannot; I shall stay here. "

He darted away and came running back with the dead soldier's rifleand ammunition. He was accustomed to carry a pair of spectacles on hisperson for use on occasions of emergency, when he wished to see withgreat distinctness, but did not wear them habitually out of respect forthe wishes of his young wife. He now impatiently tore off his doubleeyeglass and substituted the spectacles, and the big, burly bourgeois, his overcoat flapping about his legs, his honest, kindly, round faceablaze with wrath, who would have been ridiculous had he not been sosuperbly heroic, proceeded to open fire, peppering away at the Bavariansat the bottom of the street. It was in his blood, he said; he had beenhankering for something of the kind ever since the days of his boyhood, down there in Alsace, when he had been told all those tales of 1814. "Ah! you dirty loafers! you dirty loafers!" And he kept firing away withsuch eagerness that, finally, the barrel of his musket became so hot itburned his fingers. 

The assault was made with great vigor and determination. There wasno longer any sound of musketry in the direction of the meadows. TheBavarians had gained possession of a narrow stream, fringed with willowsand poplars, and were making preparations for storming the houses, or rather fortresses, in the Place de l'Eglise. Their skirmishers hadfallen back with the same caution that characterized their advance, andthe wide grassy plain, dotted here and there with a black form wheresome poor fellow had laid down his life, lay spread in the mellow, slumbrous sunshine like a great cloth of gold. The lieutenant, knowingthat the street was now to be the scene of action, had evacuated thecourtyard of the dyehouse, leaving there only one man as guard. Herapidly posted his men along the sidewalk with instructions, should theenemy carry the position, to withdraw into the building, barricade thefirst floor, and defend themselves there as long as they had a cartridgeleft. The men fired at will, lying prone upon the ground, and shelteringthemselves as best they might behind posts and every little projectionof the walls, and the storm of lead, interspersed with tongues of flameand puffs of smoke, that tore through that broad, deserted, sunny avenuewas like a downpour of hail beaten level by the fierce blast of winter. A woman was seen to cross the roadway, running with wild, uncertainsteps, and she escaped uninjured. Next, an old man, a peasant, inhis blouse, who would not be satisfied until he saw his worthless nagstabled, received a bullet square in his forehead, and the violence ofthe impact was such that it hurled him into the middle of the street. Ashell had gone crashing through the roof of the church; two others felland set fire to houses, which burned with a pale flame in the intensedaylight, with a loud snapping and crackling of their timbers. And thatpoor woman, who lay crushed and bleeding in the doorway of the housewhere her sick boy was, that old man with a bullet in his brain, allthat work of ruin and devastation, maddened the few inhabitants who hadchosen to end their days in their native village rather than seek safetyin Belgium. Other bourgeois, and workingmen as well, the neatly attiredcitizen alongside the man in overalls, had possessed themselves ofthe weapons of dead soldiers, and were in the street defending theirfiresides or firing vengefully from the windows. 

"Ah!" suddenly said Weiss, "the scoundrels have got around to our rear. I saw them sneaking along the railroad track. Hark! don't you hear themoff there to the left?"

The heavy fire of musketry that was now audible behind the park ofMontivilliers, the trees of which overhung the road, made it evidentthat something of importance was occurring in that direction. Should theenemy gain possession of the park Bazeilles would be at their mercy, but the briskness of the firing was in itself proof that the generalcommanding the 12th corps had anticipated the movement and that theposition was adequately defended. 

"Look out, there, you blockhead!" exclaimed the lieutenant, violentlyforcing Weiss up against the wall; "do you want to get yourself blown topieces?"

He could not help laughing a little at the queer figure of the biggentleman in spectacles, but his bravery had inspired him with a verygenuine feeling of respect, so, when his practiced ear detected a shellcoming their way, he had acted the part of a friend and placed thecivilian in a safer position. The missile landed some ten paces fromwhere they were and exploded, covering them both with earth and debris. The citizen kept his feet and received not so much as a scratch, whilethe officer had both legs broken. 

"It is well!" was all he said; "they have sent me my reckoning!"

He caused his men to take him across the sidewalk and place him with hisback to the wall, near where the dead woman lay, stretched acrossher doorstep. His boyish face had lost nothing of its energy anddetermination. 

"It don't matter, my children; listen to what I say. Don't fire toohurriedly; take your time. When the time comes for you to charge, I willtell you. "

And he continued to command them still, with head erect, watchful ofthe movements of the distant enemy. Another house was burning, directlyacross the street. The crash and rattle of musketry, the roar ofbursting shells, rent the air, thick with dust and sulphurous smoke. Mendropped at the corner of every lane and alley; corpses scattered hereand there upon the pavement, singly or in little groups, made splotchesof dark color, hideously splashed with red. And over the doomed villagea frightful uproar rose and swelled, the vindictive shouts of thousands, devoting to destruction a few hundred brave men, resolute to die. 

Then Delaherche, who all this time had been frantically shouting toWeiss without intermission, addressed him one last appeal:

"You won't come? Very well! then I shall leave you to your fate. Adieu!"

It was seven o'clock, and he had delayed his departure too long. Solong as the houses were there to afford him shelter he took advantageof every doorway, of every bit of projecting wall, shrinking at everyvolley into cavities that were ridiculously small in comparison with hisbulk. He turned and twisted in and out with the sinuous dexterity ofthe serpent; he would never have supposed that there was so much of hisyouthful agility left in him. When he reached the end of the village, however, and had to make his way for a space of some three hundred yardsalong the deserted, empty road, swept by the batteries on Liry hill, although the perspiration was streaming from his face and body, heshivered and his teeth chattered. For a minute or so he advancedcautiously along the bed of a dry ditch, bent almost double, then, suddenly forsaking the protecting shelter, burst into the open and ranfor it with might and main, wildly, aimlessly, his ears ringing withdetonations that sounded to him like thunder-claps. His eyes burned likecoals of fire; it seemed to him that he was wrapt in flame. It was aneternity of torture. Then he suddenly caught sight of a little houseto his left, and he rushed for the friendly refuge, gained it, with asensation as if an immense load had been lifted from his breast. Theplace was tenanted, there were men and horses there. At first hecould distinguish nothing. What he beheld subsequently filled him withamazement. 

Was not that the Emperor, attended by his brilliant staff? He hesitated, although for the last two days he had been boasting of his acquaintancewith him, then stood staring, open-mouthed. It was indeed Napoleon III. ;he appeared larger, somehow, and more imposing on horseback, and hismustache was so stiffly waxed, there was such a brilliant color on hischeeks, that Delaherche saw at once he had been "made up" and paintedlike an actor. He had had recourse to cosmetics to conceal from his armythe ravages that anxiety and illness had wrought in his countenance, theghastly pallor of his face, his pinched nose, his dull, sunken eyes, and having been notified at five o'clock that there was fighting atBazeilles, had come forth to see, sadly and silently, like a phantomwith rouged cheeks. 

There was a brick-kiln near by, behind which there was safety from therain of bullets that kept pattering incessantly on its other front andthe shells that burst at every second on the road. The mounted group hadhalted. 

"Sire, " someone murmured, "you are in danger--"

But the Emperor turned and motioned to his staff to take refuge inthe narrow road that skirted the kiln, where men and horses would besheltered from the fire. 

"Really, Sire, this is madness. Sire, we entreat you--"

His only answer was to repeat his gesture; probably he thought that theappearance of a group of brilliant uniforms on that deserted road woulddraw the fire of the batteries on the left bank. Entirely unattendedhe rode forward into the midst of the storm of shot and shell, calmly, unhurriedly, with his unvarying air of resigned indifference, the airof one who goes to meet his appointed fate. Could it be that he heardbehind him the implacable voice that was urging him onward, that voicefrom Paris: "March! march! die the hero's death on the piled corpses ofthy countrymen, let the whole world look on in awe-struck admiration, sothat thy son may reign!"--could that be what he heard? He rode forward, controlling his charger to a slow walk. For the space of a hundred yardshe thus rode forward, then halted, awaiting the death he had comethere to seek. The bullets sang in concert with a music like the fierceautumnal blast; a shell burst in front of him and covered him withearth. He maintained his attitude of patient waiting. His steed, withdistended eyes and quivering frame, instinctively recoiled before thegrim presence who was so close at hand and yet refused to smite horseor rider. At last the trying experience came to an end, and the Emperor, with his stoic fatalism, understanding that his time was not yetcome, tranquilly retraced his steps, as if his only object had been toreconnoiter the position of the German batteries. 

"What courage, Sire! We beseech you, do not expose yourself further--"

But, unmindful of their solicitations, he beckoned to his staff tofollow him, not offering at present to consult their safety more thanhe did his own, and turned his horse's head toward la Moncelle, quittingthe road and taking the abandoned fields of la Ripaille. A captain wasmortally wounded, two horses were killed. As he passed along the line ofthe 12th corps, appearing and vanishing like a specter, the men eyed himwith curiosity, but did not cheer. 

To all these events had Delaherche been witness, and now he trembledat the thought that he, too, as soon as he should have left the brickworks, would have to run the gauntlet of those terrible projectiles. Helingered, listening to the conversation of some dismounted officers whohad remained there. 

"I tell you he was killed on the spot; cut in two by a shell. "

"You are wrong, I saw him carried off the field. His wound was notsevere; a splinter struck him on the hip. "

"What time was it?"

"Why, about an hour ago--say half-past six. It was up there around laMoncelle, in a sunken road. "

"I know he is dead. "

"But I tell you he is not! He even sat his horse for a moment after hewas hit, then he fainted and they carried him into a cottage to attendto his wound. "

"And then returned to Sedan?"

"Certainly; he is in Sedan now. "

Of whom could they be speaking? Delaherche quickly learned that itwas of Marshal MacMahon, who had been wounded while paying a visit ofinspection to his advanced posts. The marshal wounded! it was "just ourluck, " as the lieutenant of marines had put it. He was reflectingon what the consequences of the mishap were likely to be when an_estafette_ dashed by at top speed, shouting to a comrade, whom herecognized:

"General Ducrot is made commander-in-chief! The army is ordered toconcentrate at Illy in order to retreat on Mezieres!"

The courier was already far away, galloping into Bazeilles under theconstantly increasing fire, when Delaherche, startled by the strangetidings that came to him in such quick succession and not relishing theprospect of being involved in the confusion of the retreating troops, plucked up courage and started on a run for Balan, whence he regainedSedan without much difficulty. 

The _estafette_ tore through Bazeilles on a gallop, disseminating thenews, hunting up the commanders to give them their instructions, andas he sped swiftly on the intelligence spread among the troops: MarshalMacMahon wounded, General Ducrot in command, the army falling back onIlly!

"What is that they are saying?" cried Weiss, whose face by this timewas grimy with powder. "Retreat on Mezieres at this late hour! but it isabsurd, they will never get through!"

And his conscience pricked him, he repented bitterly having given thatcounsel the day before to that very general who was now invested withthe supreme command. Yes, certainly, that was yesterday the best, the only plan, to retreat, without loss of a minute's time, by theSaint-Albert pass, but now the way could be no longer open to them, theblack swarms of Prussians had certainly anticipated them and were on theplain of Donchery. There were two courses left for them to pursue, bothdesperate; and the most promising, as well as the bravest, of them wasto drive the Bavarians into the Meuse, and cut their way through andregain possession of the Carignan road. 

Weiss, whose spectacles were constantly slipping down upon his nose, adjusted them nervously and proceeded to explain matters to thelieutenant, who was still seated against the wall with his two stumps oflegs, very pale and slowly bleeding to death. 

"Lieutenant, I assure you I am right. Tell your men to stand theirground. You can see for yourself that we are doing well. One more effortlike the last, and we shall drive them into the river. "

It was true that the Bavarians' second attack had been repulsed. Themitrailleuses had again swept the Place de l'Eglise, the heaps ofcorpses in the square resembled barricades, and our troops, emergingfrom every cross street, had driven the enemy at the point of thebayonet through the meadows toward the river in headlong flight, whichmight easily have been converted into a general rout had there beenfresh troops to support the sailor-boys, who had suffered severely andwere by this time much distressed. And in Montivilliers Park, again, thefiring did not seem to advance, which was a sign that in that quarter, also, reinforcements, could they have been had, would have cleared thewood. 

"Order your men to charge them with the bayonet, lieutenant. "

The waxen pallor of death was on the poor boy-officer's face; yet he hadstrength to murmur in feeble accents:

"You hear, my children; give them the bayonet!"

It was his last utterance; his spirit passed, his ingenuous, resoluteface and his wide open eyes still turned on the battle. The fliesalready were beginning to buzz about Francoise's head and settle there, while lying on his bed little Charles, in an access of delirium, wascalling on his mother in pitiful, beseeching tones to give him somethingto quench his thirst. 

"Mother, mother, awake; get up--I am thirsty, I am so thirsty. "

But the instructions of the new chief were imperative, and the officers, vexed and grieved to see the successes they had achieved thus renderednugatory, had nothing for it but to give orders for the retreat. It wasplain that the commander-in-chief, possessed by a haunting dread ofthe enemy's turning movement, was determined to sacrifice everything inorder to escape from the toils. The Place de l'Eglise was evacuated, the troops fell back from street to street; soon the broad avenue wasemptied of its defenders. Women shrieked and sobbed, men swore and shooktheir fists at the retiring troops, furious to see themselves abandonedthus. Many shut themselves in their houses, resolved to die in theirdefense. 

"Well, _I_ am not going to give up the ship!" shouted Weiss, besidehimself with rage. "No! I will leave my skin here first. Let them comeon! let them come and smash my furniture and drink my wine!"

Wrath filled his mind to the exclusion of all else, a wild, fiercedesire to fight, to kill, at the thought that the hated foreigner shouldenter his house, sit in his chair, drink from his glass. It wroughta change in all his nature; everything that went to make up hisdaily life--wife, business, the methodical prudence of the smallbourgeois--seemed suddenly to become unstable and drift away from him. And he shut himself up in his house and barricaded it, he paced theempty apartments with the restless impatience of a caged wild beast, going from room to room to make sure that all the doors and windowswere securely fastened. He counted his cartridges and found he had fortyleft, then, as he was about to give a final look to the meadows to seewhether any attack was to be apprehended from that quarter, the sightof the hills on the left bank arrested his attention for a moment. The smoke-wreaths indicated distinctly the position of the Prussianbatteries, and at the corner of a little wood on la Marfee, over thepowerful battery at Frenois, he again beheld the group of uniforms, morenumerous than before, and so distinct in the bright sunlight that bysupplementing his spectacles with his binocle he could make out the goldof their epaulettes and helmets. 

"You dirty scoundrels, you dirty scoundrels!" he twice repeated, extending his clenched fist in impotent menace. 

Those who were up there on la Marfee were King William and his staff. Asearly as seven o'clock he had ridden up from Vendresse, where he hadhad quarters for the night, and now was up there on the heights, out ofreach of danger, while at his feet lay the valley of the Meuse and thevast panorama of the field of battle. Far as the eye could reach, fromnorth to south, the bird's-eye view extended, and standing on the summitof the hill, as from his throne in some colossal opera box, the monarchsurveyed the scene. 

In the central foreground of the picture, and standing out in boldrelief against the venerable forests of the Ardennes, that stretchedaway on either hand from right to left, filling the northern horizonlike a curtain of dark verdure, was the city of Sedan, with thegeometrical lines and angles of its fortifications, protected on thesouth and west by the flooded meadows and the river. In Bazeilles houseswere already burning, and the dark cloud of war hung heavy over thepretty village. Turning his eyes eastward he might discover, holding theline between la Moncelle and Givonne, some regiments of the 12th and1st corps, looking like diminutive insects at that distance and lost tosight at intervals in the dip of the narrow valley in which the hamletslay concealed; and beyond that valley rose the further slope, anuninhabited, uncultivated heath, of which the pale tints made the darkgreen of Chevalier's Wood look black by contrast. To the north the 7thcorps was more distinctly visible in its position on the plateau ofFloing, a broad belt of sere, dun fields, that sloped downward from thelittle wood of la Garenne to the verdant border of the stream. Furtherstill were Floing, Saint-Menges, Fleigneux, Illy, small villages thatlay nestled in the hollows of that billowing region where the landscapewas a succession of hill and dale. And there, too, to the left was thegreat bend of the Meuse, where the sluggish stream, shimmering likemolten silver in the bright sunlight, swept lazily in a great horseshoearound the peninsula of Iges and barred the road to Mezieres, leavingbetween its further bank and the impassable forest but one singlegateway, the defile of Saint-Albert. 

It was in that triangular space that the hundred thousand men and fivehundred guns of the French army had now been crowded and brought tobay, and when His Prussian Majesty condescended to turn his gaze stillfurther to the westward he might perceive another plain, the plain ofDonchery, a succession of bare fields stretching away toward Briancourt, Marancourt, and Vrigne-aux-Bois, a desolate expanse of gray wastebeneath the clear blue sky; and did he turn him to the east, he againhad before his eyes, facing the lines in which the French were soclosely hemmed, a vast level stretch of country in which were numerousvillages, first Douzy and Carignan, then more to the north Rubecourt, Pourru-aux-Bois, Francheval, Villers-Cernay, and last of all, near thefrontier, Chapelle. All about him, far as he could see, the land washis; he could direct the movements of the quarter of a million of menand the eight hundred guns that constituted his army, could master ata glance every detail of the operations of his invading host. Even thenthe XIth corps was pressing forward toward Saint-Menges, while the Vthwas at Vrigne-aux-Bois, and the Wurtemburg division was near Donchery, awaiting orders. This was what he beheld to the west, and if, turningto the east, he found his view obstructed in that quarter by tree-cladhills, he could picture to himself what was passing, for he had seen theXIIth corps entering the wood of Chevalier, he knew that by that timethe Guards were at Villers-Cernay. There were the two arms of thegigantic vise, the army of the Crown Prince of Prussia on the left, theSaxon Prince's army on the right, slowly, irresistibly closing on eachother, while the two Bavarian corps were hammering away at Bazeilles. 

Underneath the King's position the long line of batteries, stretchingwith hardly an interval from Remilly to Frenois, kept up anunintermittent fire, pouring their shells into Daigny and la Moncelle, sending them hurtling over Sedan city to sweep the northern plateaus. Itwas barely eight o'clock, and with eyes fixed on the gigantic board hedirected the movements of the game, awaiting the inevitable end, calmlycontrolling the black cloud of men that beneath him swept, an array ofpigmies, athwart the smiling landscape. 

II. 

In the dense fog up on the plateau of Floing Gaude, the bugler, soundedreveille at peep of day with all the lung-power he was possessed of, butthe inspiring strain died away and was lost in the damp, heavy air, and the men, who had not had courage even to erect their tents and hadthrown themselves, wrapped in their blankets, upon the muddy ground, didnot awake or stir, but lay like corpses, their ashen features set andrigid in the slumber of utter exhaustion. To arouse them from theirtrance-like sleep they had to be shaken, one by one, and, with ghastlyfaces and haggard eyes, they rose to their feet, like beings summoned, against their will, back from another world. It was Jean who awokeMaurice. 

"What is it? Where are we!" asked the younger man. He lookedaffrightedly around him, and beheld only that gray waste, in which werefloating the unsubstantial forms of his comrades. Objects twenty yardsaway were undistinguishable; his knowledge of the country availed himnot; he could not even have indicated in which direction lay Sedan. Justthen, however, the boom of cannon, somewhere in the distance, fell uponhis ear. "Ah! I remember; the battle is for to-day; they are fighting. So much the better; there will be an end to our suspense!"

He heard other voices around him expressing the same idea. There was afeeling of stern satisfaction that at last their long nightmare was tobe dispelled, that at last they were to have a sight of those Prussianswhom they had come out to look for, and before whom they had beenretreating so many weary days; that they were to be given a chance totry a shot at them, and lighten the load of cartridges that had beentugging at their belts so long, with never an opportunity to burn asingle one of them. Everyone felt that, this time, the battle would not, could not be avoided. 

But the guns began to thunder more loudly down at Bazeilles, and Jeanbent his ear to listen. 

"Where is the firing?"

"Faith, " replied Maurice, "it seems to me to be over toward the Meuse;but I'll be hanged if I know where we are. "

"Look here, youngster, " said the corporal, "you are going to stick closeby me to-day, for unless a man has his wits about him, don't you see, heis likely to get in trouble. Now, I have been there before, and can keepan eye out for both of us. "

The others of the squad, meantime, were growling angrily because theyhad nothing with which to warm their stomachs. There was no possibilityof kindling fires without dry wood in such weather as prevailed then, and so, at the very moment when they were about to go into battle, theinner man put in his claim for recognition, and would not be denied. Hunger is not conducive to heroism; to those poor fellows eating wasthe great, the momentous question of life; how lovingly they watched theboiling pot on those red-letter days when the soup was rich and thick;how like children or savages they were in their wrath when rations werenot forthcoming!

"No eat, no fight!" declared Chouteau. "I'll be blowed if I am going torisk my skin to-day!"

The radical was cropping out again in the great hulking house-painter, the orator of Belleville, the pothouse politician, who drowned whatfew correct ideas he picked up here and there in a nauseous mixture ofineffable folly and falsehood. 

"Besides, " he went on, "what good was there in making fools of us asthey have been doing all along, telling us that the Prussians were dyingof hunger and disease, that they had not so much as a shirt to theirback, and were tramping along the highways like ragged, filthy paupers!"

Loubet laughed the laugh of the Parisian gamin, who has experienced thevarious vicissitudes of life in the Halles. 

"Oh, that's all in my eye! it is we fellows who have been catching itright along; we are the poor devils whose leaky brogans and tatteredtoggery would make folks throw us a copper. And then those greatvictories about which they made such a fuss! What precious liars theymust be, to tell us that old Bismarck had been made prisoner and that aGerman army had been driven over a quarry and dashed to pieces! Oh yes, they fooled us in great shape. "

Pache and Lapoulle, who were standing near, shook their heads andclenched their fists ominously. There were others, also, who made noattempt to conceal their anger, for the course of the newspapers inconstantly printing bogus news had had most disastrous results; allconfidence was destroyed, men had ceased to believe anything or anybody. And so it was that in the soldiers, children of a larger growth, theirbright dreams of other days had now been supplanted by exaggeratedanticipations of misfortune. 

"_Pardi_!" continued Chouteau, "the thing is accounted for easilyenough, since our rulers have been selling us to the enemy right fromthe beginning. You all know that it is so. "

Lapoulle's rustic simplicity revolted at the idea. 

"For shame! what wicked people they must be!"

"Yes, sold, as Judas sold his master, " murmured Pache, mindful of hisstudies in sacred history. 

It was Chouteau's hour of triumph. "_Mon Dieu!_ it is as plain as thenose on your face. MacMahon got three millions and each of the othergenerals got a million, as the price of bringing us up here. The bargainwas made at Paris last spring, and last night they sent up a rocket as asignal to let Bismarck know that everything was fixed and he might comeand take us. "

The story was so inanely stupid that Maurice was disgusted. There hadbeen a time when Chouteau, thanks to his facundity of the faubourg, hadinterested and almost convinced him, but now he had come to detest thatapostle of falsehood, that snake in the grass, who calumniated honesteffort of every kind in order to sicken others of it. 

"Why do you talk such nonsense?" he exclaimed. "You know very well thereis no truth in it. "

"What, not true? Do you mean to say it is not true that we are betrayed?Ah, come, my aristocratic friend, perhaps you are one of them, perhapsyou belong to the d--d band of dirty traitors?" He came forwardthreateningly. "If you are you have only to say so, my fine gentleman, for we will attend to your case right here, and won't wait for yourfriend Bismarck, either. "

The others were also beginning to growl and show their teeth, and Jeanthought it time that he should interfere. 

"Silence there! I will report the first man who says another word!"

But Chouteau sneered and jeered at him; what did he care whether hereported him or not! He was not going to fight unless he chose, and theyneed not try to ride him rough-shod, because he had cartridges in hisbox for other people beside the Prussians. They were going into actionnow, and what discipline had been maintained by fear would be at anend: what could they do to him, anyway? he would just skip as soon as hethought he had enough of it. And he was profane and obscene, egging themen on against the corporal, who had been allowing them to starve. Yes, it was his fault that the squad had had nothing to eat in the lastthree days, while their neighbors had soup and fresh meat in plenty, but "monsieur" had to go off to town with the "aristo" and enjoy himselfwith the girls. People had spotted 'em, over in Sedan. 

"You stole the money belonging to the squad; deny it if you dare, you_bougre_ of a belly-god!"

Things were beginning to assume an ugly complexion; Lapoulle wasdoubling his big fists in a way that looked like business, and Pache, with the pangs of hunger gnawing at his vitals, laid aside his naturaldouceness and insisted on an explanation. The only reasonable one amongthem was Loubet, who gave one of his pawky laughs and suggested that, being Frenchmen, they might as well dine off the Prussians as eat oneanother. For his part, he took no stock in fighting, either with fistsor firearms, and alluding to the few hundred francs that he had earnedas substitute, added:

"And so, that was all they thought my hide was worth! Well, I am notgoing to give them more than their money's worth. "

Maurice and Jean were in a towering rage at the idotic onslaught, talking loudly and repelling Chouteau's insinuations, when out from thefog came a stentorian voice, bellowing:

"What's this? what's this? Show me the rascals who dare quarrel in thecompany street!"

And Lieutenant Rochas appeared upon the scene, in his old _kepi_, whencethe rain had washed all the color, and his great coat, minus many ofits buttons, evincing in all his lean, shambling person the extreme ofpoverty and distress. Notwithstanding his forlorn aspect, however, hissparkling eye and bristling mustache showed that his old time confidencehad suffered no impairment. 

Jean spoke up, scarce able to restrain himself. "Lieutenant, it isthese men, who persist in saying that we are betrayed. Yes, they dare toassert that our generals have sold us--"

The idea of treason did not appear so extremely unnatural to Rochas'sthick understanding, for it served to explain those reverses that hecould not account for otherwise. 

"Well, suppose they are sold, is it any of their business? What concernis it of theirs? The Prussians are there all the same, aren't they? andwe are going to give them one of the old-fashioned hidings, such as theywon't forget in one while. " Down below them in the thick sea of fog theguns at Bazeilles were still pounding away, and he extended his armswith a broad, sweeping gesture: "_Hein_! this is the time that we've gotthem! We'll see them back home, and kick them every step of the way!"

All the trials and troubles of the past were to him as if they had notbeen, now that his ears were gladdened by the roar of the guns: thedelays and conflicting orders of the chiefs, the demoralization of thetroops, the stampede at Beaumont, the distress of the recent forcedretreat on Sedan--all were forgotten. Now that they were about to fightat last, was not victory certain? He had learned nothing and forgottennothing; his blustering, boastful contempt of the enemy, his entireignorance of the new arts and appliances of war, his rooted convictionthat an old soldier of Africa, Italy, and the Crimea could by nopossibility be beaten, had suffered no change. It was really a littletoo comical that a man at his age should take the back track and beginat the beginning again!

All at once his lantern jaws parted and gave utterance to a loud laugh. He was visited by one of those impulses of good-fellowship that madehis men swear by him, despite the roughness of the jobations that hefrequently bestowed on them. 

"Look here, my children, in place of quarreling it will be a great dealbetter to take a good nip all around. Come, I'm going to treat, and youshall drink my health. "

From the capacious pocket of his capote he extracted a bottle of brandy, adding, with his all-conquering air, that it was the gift of a lady. (Hehad been seen the day before, seated at the table of a tavern in Floingand holding the waitress on his lap, evidently on the best of terms withher. ) The soldiers laughed and winked at one another, holding out theirporringers, into which he gayly poured the golden liquor. 

"Drink to your sweethearts, my children, if you have any and don'tforget to drink to the glory of France. Them's my sentiments, so _vivela joie_!"

"That's right, Lieutenant. Here's to your health, and everybody else's!"

They all drank, and their hearts were warmed and peace reigned oncemore. The "nip" had much of comfort in it, in the chill morning, just asthey were going into action, and Maurice felt it tingling in his veins, giving him cheer and a sort of what is known colloquially as "Dutchcourage. " Why should they not whip the Prussians? Have not battles theirsurprises? has not history embalmed many an instance of the ficklenessof fortune? That mighty man of war, the lieutenant, added that Bazainewas on the way to join them, would be with them before the day was over:oh, the information was positive; he had it from an aid to one of thegenerals; and although, in speaking of the route the marshal was to comeby, he pointed to the frontier of Belgium, Maurice yielded to one ofthose spasmodic attacks of hopefulness of his, without which life tohim would not have been worth living. Might it not be that the day ofreckoning was at hand?

"Why don't we move, Lieutenant?" he made bold to ask. "What are wewaiting for?"

Rochas made a gesture, which the other interpreted to mean that noorders had been received. Presently he asked:

"Has anybody seen the captain?"

No one answered. Jean remembered perfectly having seen him making forSedan the night before, but to the soldier who knows what is good forhimself, his officers are always invisible when they are not on duty. Heheld his tongue, therefore, until happening to turn his head, he caughtsight of a shadowy form flitting along the hedge. 

"Here he is, " said he. 

It was Captain Beaudoin in the flesh. They were all surprised by thenattiness of his appearance, his resplendent shoes, his well-brusheduniform, affording such a striking contrast to the lieutenant's pitifulstate. And there was a finicking completeness, moreover, about histoilet, greater than the male being is accustomed to bestow uponhimself, in his scrupulously white hands and his carefully curledmustache, and a faint perfume of Persian lilac, which had the effect ofreminding one in some mysterious way of the dressing room of a young andpretty woman. 

"Hallo!" said Loubet, with a sneer, "the captain has recovered hisbaggage!"

But no one laughed, for they all knew him to be a man with whom it wasnot well to joke. He was stiff and consequential with his men, and wasdetested accordingly; a _pete sec_, to use Rochas's expression. Hehad seemed to regard the early reverses of the campaign as personalaffronts, and the disaster that all had prognosticated was to him anunpardonable crime. He was a strong Bonapartist by conviction; hisprospects for promotion were of the brightest; he had several importantsalons looking after his interests; naturally, he did not take kindly tothe changed condition of affairs that promised to make his cake dough. He was said to have a remarkably fine tenor voice, which had helped himno little in his advancement. He was not devoid of intelligence, thoughperfectly ignorant as regarded everything connected with his profession;eager to please, and very brave, when there was occasion for being so, without superfluous rashness. 

"What a nasty fog!" was all he said, pleased to have found his companyat last, for which he had been searching for more than half an hour. 

At the same time their orders came, and the battalion moved forward. They had to proceed with caution, feeling their way, for the exhalationscontinued to rise from the stream and were now so dense that they wereprecipitated in a fine, drizzling rain. A vision rose before Maurice'seyes that impressed him deeply; it was Colonel de Vineuil, who loomedsuddenly from out the mist, sitting his horse, erect and motionless, atthe intersection of two roads--the man appearing of preternatural size, and so pale and rigid that he might have served a sculptor as a studyfor a statue of despair; the steed shivering in the raw, chill air ofmorning, his dilated nostrils turned in the direction of the distantfiring. Some ten paces to their rear were the regimental colors, whichthe sous-lieutenant whose duty it was to bear them had thus early takenfrom their case and proudly raised aloft, and as the driving, vaporousrack eddied and swirled about them, they shone like a radiant vision ofglory emblazoned on the heavens, soon to fade and vanish from the sight. Water was dripping from the gilded eagle, and the tattered, shot-riddledtri-color, on which were embroidered the names of former victories, wasstained and its bright hues dimmed by the smoke of many a battlefield;the sole bit of brilliant color in all the faded splendor was theenameled cross of honor that was attached to the _cravate_. 

Another billow of vapor came scurrying up from the river, enshrouding inits fleecy depths colonel, standard, and all, and the battalion passedon, whitherward no one could tell. First their route had conducted themover descending ground, now they were climbing a hill. On reaching thesummit the command, halt! started at the front and ran down the column;the men were cautioned not to leave the ranks, arms were ordered, andthere they remained, the heavy knapsacks forming a grievous burden toweary shoulders. It was evident that they were on a plateau, but todiscern localities was out of the question; twenty paces was the extremerange of vision. It was now seven o'clock; the sound of firing reachedthem more distinctly, other batteries were apparently opening on Sedanfrom the opposite bank. 

"Oh! I, " said Sergeant Sapin with a start, addressing Jean and Maurice, "I shall be killed to-day. "

It was the first time he had opened his lips that morning; an expressionof dreamy melancholy had rested on his thin face, with its big, handsomeeyes and thin, pinched nose. 

"What an idea!" Jean exclaimed; "who can tell what is going to happenhim? Every bullet has its billet, they say, but you stand no worsechance than the rest of us. "

"Oh, but me--I am as good as dead now. I tell you I shall be killedto-day. "

The near files turned and looked at him curiously, asking him if he hadhad a dream. No, he had dreamed nothing, but he felt it; it was there. 

"And it is a pity, all the same, because I was to be married when I gotmy discharge. "

A vague expression came into his eyes again; his past life rose beforehim. He was the son of a small retail grocer at Lyons, and had beenpetted and spoiled by his mother up to the time of her death; thenrejecting the proffer of his father, with whom he did not hit it offwell, to assist in purchasing his discharge, he had remained with thearmy, weary and disgusted with life and with his surroundings. Cominghome on furlough, however, he fell in love with a cousin and they becameengaged; their intention was to open a little shop on the smallcapital which she would bring him, and then existence once more becamedesirable. He had received an elementary education; could read, write, and cipher. For the past year he had lived only in anticipation of thishappy future. 

He shivered, and gave himself a shake to dispel his revery, repeatingwith his tranquil air:

"Yes, it is too bad; I shall be killed to-day. "

No one spoke; the uncertainty and suspense continued. They knew notwhether the enemy was on their front or in their rear. Strange soundscame to their ears from time to time from out the depths of themysterious fog: the rumble of wheels, the deadened tramp of movingmasses, the distant clatter of horses' hoofs; it was the evolutionsof troops, hidden from view behind the misty curtain, the batteries, battalions, and squadrons of the 7th corps taking up their positions inline of battle. Now, however, it began to look as if the fog was aboutto lift; it parted here and there and fragments floated lightly off, like strips of gauze torn from a veil, and bits of sky appeared, nottransparently blue, as on a bright summer's day, but opaque and of thehue of burnished steel, like the cheerless bosom of some deep, sullenmountain tarn. It was in one of those brighter moments when the sun wasendeavoring to struggle forth that the regiments of chasseurs d'Afrique, constituting part of Margueritte's division, came riding by, giving theimpression of a band of spectral horsemen. They sat very stiff and erectin the saddle, with their short cavalry jackets, broad red sashes andsmart little _kepis_, accurate in distance and alignment and managingadmirably their lean, wiry mounts, which were almost invisible underthe heterogeneous collection of tools and camp equipage that they hadto carry. Squadron after squadron they swept by in long array, to beswallowed in the gloom from which they had just emerged, vanishing as ifdissolved by the fine rain. The truth was, probably, that they were inthe way, and their leaders, not knowing what use to put them to, hadpacked them off the field, as had often been the case since the openingof the campaign. They had scarcely ever been employed on scouting orreconnoitering duty, and as soon as there was prospect of a fight weretrotted about for shelter from valley to valley, useless objects, buttoo costly to be endangered. 

Maurice thought of Prosper as he watched them. "That fellow, yonder, looks like him, " he said, under his breath. "I wonder if it is he?"

"Of whom are you speaking?" asked Jean. 

"Of that young man of Remilly, whose brother we met at Osches, youremember. "

Behind the chasseurs, when they had all passed, came a general officerand his staff dashing down the descending road, and Maurice recognizedthe general of their brigade, Bourgain-Desfeuilles, shouting andgesticulating wildly. He had torn himself reluctantly from hiscomfortable quarters at the Hotel of the Golden Cross, and it wasevident from the horrible temper he was in that the condition of affairsthat morning was not satisfactory to him. In a tone of voice so loudthat everyone could hear he roared:

"In the devil's name, what stream is that off yonder, the Meuse or theMoselle?"

The fog dispersed at last, this time in earnest. As at Bazeilles theeffect was theatrical; the curtain rolled slowly upward to the flies, disclosing the setting of the stage. From a sky of transparent bluethe sun poured down a flood of bright, golden light, and Maurice was nolonger at a loss to recognize their position. 

"Ah!" he said to Jean, "we are on the plateau de l'Algerie. That villagethat you see across the valley, directly in our front, is Floing, andthat more distant one is Saint-Menges, and that one, more distant still, a little to the right, is Fleigneux. Then those scrubby trees on thehorizon, away in the background, are the forest of the Ardennes, andthere lies the frontier--"

He went on to explain their position, naming each locality and pointingto it with outstretched hand. The plateau de l'Algerie was a belt ofreddish ground, something less than two miles in length, sloping gentlydownward from the wood of la Garenne toward the Meuse, from which itwas separated by the meadows. On it the line of the 7th corps hadbeen established by General Douay, who felt that his numbers were notsufficient to defend so extended a position and properly maintain histouch with the 1st corps, which was posted at right angles with hisline, occupying the valley of la Givonne, from the wood of la Garenne toDaigny. 

"Oh, isn't it grand, isn't it magnificent!"

And Maurice, revolving on his heel, made with his hand a sweepinggesture that embraced the entire horizon. From their position on theplateau the whole wide field of battle lay stretched before them to thesouth and west: Sedan, almost at their feet, whose citadel they couldsee overtopping the roofs, then Balan and Bazeilles, dimly seen throughthe dun smoke-clouds that hung heavily in the motionless air, andfurther in the distance the hills of the left bank, Liry, la Marfee, laCroix-Piau. It was away toward the west, however, in the direction ofDonchery, that the prospect was most extensive. There the Meuse curvedhorseshoe-wise, encircling the peninsula of Iges with a ribbon of palesilver, and at the northern extremity of the loop was distinctly visiblethe narrow road of the Saint-Albert pass, winding between the river bankand a beetling, overhanging hill that was crowned with the little woodof Seugnon, an offshoot of the forest of la Falizette. At the summit ofthe hill, at the _carrefour_ of la Maison-Rouge, the road from Doncheryto Vrigne-aux-Bois debouched into the Mezieres pike. 

"See, that is the road by which we might retreat on Mezieres. "

Even as he spoke the first gun was fired from Saint-Menges. The fogstill hung over the bottom-lands in shreds and patches, and throughit they dimly descried a shadowy body of men moving through theSaint-Albert defile. 

"Ah, they are there, " continued Maurice, instinctively lowering hisvoice. "Too late, too late; they have intercepted us!"

It was not eight o'clock. The guns, which were thundering more fiercelythan ever in the direction of Bazeilles, now also began to makethemselves heard at the eastward, in the valley of la Givonne, which washid from view; it was the army of the Crown Prince of Saxony, debouchingfrom the Chevalier wood and attacking the 1st corps, in front of Daignyvillage; and now that the XIth Prussian corps, moving on Floing, hadopened fire on General Douay's troops, the investment was complete atevery point of the great periphery of several leagues' extent, and theaction was general all along the line. 

Maurice suddenly perceived the enormity of their blunder in notretreating on Mezieres during the night; but as yet the consequenceswere not clear to him; he could not foresee all the disaster that wasto result from that fatal error of judgment. Moved by some indefinableinstinct of danger, he looked with apprehension on the adjacent heightsthat commanded the plateau de l'Algerie. If time had not been allowedthem to make good their retreat, why had they not backed up against thefrontier and occupied those heights of Illy and Saint-Menges, whence, if they could not maintain their position, they would at least have beenfree to cross over into Belgium? There were two points that appearedto him especially threatening, the _mamelon_ of Hattoy, to the north ofFloing on the left, and the Calvary of Illy, a stone cross with alinden tree on either side, the highest bit of ground in the surroundingcountry, to the right. General Douay was keenly alive to the importanceof these eminences, and the day before had sent two battalions to occupyHattoy; but the men, feeling that they were "in the air" and too remotefrom support, had fallen back early that morning. It was understood thatthe left wing of the 1st corps was to take care of the Calvary of Illy. The wide expanse of naked country between Sedan and the Ardennesforest was intersected by deep ravines, and the key of the positionwas manifestly there, in the shadow of that cross and the two lindens, whence their guns might sweep the fields in every direction for a longdistance. 

Two more cannon shots rang out, quickly succeeded by a salvo; theydetected the bluish smoke rising from the underbrush of a low hill tothe left of Saint-Menges. 

"Our turn is coming now, " said Jean. 

Nothing more startling occurred just then, however. The men, stillpreserving their formation and standing at ordered arms, found somethingto occupy their attention in the fine appearance made by the 2ddivision, posted in front of Floing, with their left refused and facingthe Meuse, so as to guard against a possible attack from that quarter. The ground to the east, as far as the wood of la Garenne, beneath Illyvillage, was held by the 3d division, while the 1st, which had lostheavily at Beaumont, formed a second line. All night long the engineershad been busy with pick and shovel, and even after the Prussians hadopened fire they were still digging away at their shelter trenches andthrowing up epaulments. 

Then a sharp rattle of musketry, quickly silenced, however, was heardproceeding from a point beneath Floing, and Captain Beaudoin receivedorders to move his company three hundred yards to the rear. Their newposition was in a great field of cabbages, upon reaching which thecaptain made his men lie down. The sun had not yet drunk up the moisturethat had descended on the vegetables in the darkness, and every foldand crease of the thick, golden-green leaves was filled with tremblingdrops, as pellucid and luminous as brilliants of the fairest water. 

"Sight for four hundred yards, " the captain ordered. 

Maurice rested the barrel of his musket on a cabbage that reared itshead conveniently before him, but it was impossible to see anything inhis recumbent position: only the blurred surface of the fields traversedby his level glance, diversified by an occasional tree or shrub. GivingJean, who was beside him, a nudge with his elbow, he asked what theywere to do there. The corporal, whose experience in such matters wasgreater, pointed to an elevation not far away, where a battery was justtaking its position; it was evident that they had been placed there tosupport that battery, should there be need of their services. Maurice, wondering whether Honore and his guns were not of the party, raised hishead to look, but the reserve artillery was at the rear, in the shelterof a little grove of trees. 

"_Nom de Dieu!_" yelled Rochas, "will you lie down!"

And Maurice had barely more than complied with this intimation when ashell passed screaming over him. From that time forth there seemed tobe no end to them. The enemy's gunners were slow in obtaining the range, their first projectiles passing over and landing well to the rear of thebattery, which was now opening in reply. Many of their shells, too, fellupon the soft ground, in which they buried themselves without exploding, and for a time there was a great display of rather heavy wit at theexpense of those bloody sauerkraut eaters. 

"Well, well!" said Loubet, "their fireworks are a fizzle!"

"They ought to take them in out of the rain, " sneered Chouteau. 

Even Rochas thought it necessary to say something. "Didn't I tell youthat the dunderheads don't know enough even to point a gun?"

But they were less inclined to laugh when a shell burst only ten yardsfrom them and sent a shower of earth flying over the company; Loubetaffected to make light of it by ordering his comrades to get out theirbrushes from the knapsacks, but Chouteau suddenly became very pale andhad not a word to say. He had never been under fire, nor had Pache andLapoulle, nor any member of the squad, in fact, except Jean. Over eyesthat had suddenly lost their brightness lids flickered tremulously;voices had an unnatural, muffled sound, as if arrested by someobstruction in the throat. Maurice, who was sufficiently master ofhimself as yet, endeavored to diagnose his symptoms; he could not beafraid, for he was not conscious that he was in danger; he only felt aslight sensation of discomfort in the epigastric region, and hishead seemed strangely light and empty; ideas and images came and wentindependent of his will. His recollection of the brave show made by thetroops of the 2d division made him hopeful, almost to buoyancy; victoryappeared certain to him if only they might be allowed to go at the enemywith the bayonet. 

"Listen!" he murmured, "how the flies buzz; the place is full of them. "Thrice he had heard something that sounded like the humming of a swarmof bees. 

"That was not a fly, " Jean said, with a laugh. "It was a bullet. "

Again and again the hum of those invisible wings made itself heard. Themen craned their necks and looked about them with eager interest; theircuriosity was uncontrollable--would not allow them to remain quiet. 

"See here, " Loubet said mysteriously to Lapoulle, with a view to raisea laugh at the expense of his simple-minded comrade, "when you see abullet coming toward you you must raise your forefinger before yournose--like that; it divides the air, and the bullet will go by to theright or left. "

"But I can't see them, " said Lapoulle. 

A loud guffaw burst from those near. 

"Oh, crickey! he says he can't see them! Open your garret windows, stupid! See! there's one--see! there's another. Didn't you see that one?It was of the most beautiful green. "

And Lapoulle rolled his eyes and stared, placing his finger before hisnose, while Pache fingered the scapular he wore and wished it was largeenough to shield his entire person. 

Rochas, who had remained on his feet, spoke up and said jocosely:

"Children, there is no objection to your ducking to the shells whenyou see them coming. As for the bullets, it is useless; they are toonumerous!"

At that very instant a soldier in the front rank was struck on the headby a fragment of an exploding shell. There was no outcry; simply a spurtof blood and brain, and all was over. 

"Poor devil!" tranquilly said Sergeant Sapin, who was quite cool andexceedingly pale. "Next!"

But the uproar had by this time become so deafening that the men couldno longer hear one another's voice; Maurice's nerves, in particular, suffered from the infernal _charivari_. The neighboring batterywas banging away as fast as the gunners could load the pieces; thecontinuous roar seemed to shake the ground, and the mitrailleuses wereeven more intolerable with their rasping, grating, grunting noise. Werethey to remain forever reclining there among the cabbages? There wasnothing to be seen, nothing to be learned; no one had any idea how thebattle was going. And _was_ it a battle, after all--a genuine affair?All that Maurice could make out, projecting his eyes along the levelsurface of the fields, was the rounded, wood-clad summit of Hattoy inthe remote distance, and still unoccupied. Neither was there a Prussianto be seen anywhere on the horizon; the only evidence of life werethe faint, blue smoke-wreaths that rose and floated an instant in thesunlight. Chancing to turn his head, he was greatly surprised to beholdat the bottom of a deep, sheltered valley, surrounded by precipitousheights, a peasant calmly tilling his little field, driving the plowthrough the furrow with the assistance of a big white horse. Why shouldhe lose a day? The corn would keep growing, let them fight as theywould, and folks must live. 

Unable longer to control his impatience, the young man jumped to hisfeet. He had a fleeting vision of the batteries of Saint-Menges, crownedwith tawny vapors and spewing shot and shell upon them; he had also timeto see, what he had seen before and had not forgotten, the road fromSaint-Albert's pass black with minute moving objects--the swarminghordes of the invader. Then Jean seized him by the legs and pulled himviolently to his place again. 

"Are you crazy? Do you want to leave your bones here?"

And Rochas chimed in:

"Lie down, will you! What am I to do with such d----d rascals, who getthemselves killed without orders!"

"But you don't lie down, lieutenant, " said Maurice. 

"That's a different thing. I have to know what is going on. "

Captain Beaudoin, too, kept his legs like a man, but never opened hislips to say an encouraging word to his men, having nothing in commonwith them. He appeared nervous and unable to remain long in one place, striding up and down the field, impatiently awaiting orders. 

No orders came, nothing occurred to relieve their suspense. Maurice'sknapsack was causing him horrible suffering; it seemed to be crushinghis back and chest in that recumbent position, so painful whenmaintained for any length of time. The men had been cautioned againstthrowing away their sacks unless in case of actual necessity, and hekept turning over, first on his right side, then on the left, to easehimself a moment of his burden by resting it on the ground. The shellscontinued to fall around them, but the German gunners did not succeed ingetting the exact range; no one was killed after the poor fellow who laythere on his stomach with his skull fractured. 

"Say, is this thing to last all day?" Maurice finally asked Jean, insheer desperation. 

"Like enough. At Solferino they put us in a field of carrots, and therewe stayed five mortal hours with our noses to the ground. " Then headded, like the sensible fellow he was: "Why do you grumble? we are notso badly off here. You will have an opportunity to distinguish yourselfbefore the day is over. Let everyone have his chance, don't you see; ifwe should all be killed at the beginning there would be none left forthe end. "

"Look, " Maurice abruptly broke in, "look at that smoke over Hattoy. Theyhave taken Hattoy; we shall have plenty of music to dance to now!"

For a moment his burning curiosity, which he was conscious was now forthe first time beginning to be dashed with personal fear, had sufficientto occupy it; his gaze was riveted on the rounded summit of the_mamelon_, the only elevation that was within his range of vision, dominating the broad expanse of plain that lay level with his eye. Hattoy was too far distant to permit him to distinguish the gunners ofthe batteries that the Prussians had posted there; he could see nothingat all, in fact, save the smoke that at each discharge rose above a thinbelt of woods that served to mask the guns. The enemy's occupation ofthe position, of which General Douay had been forced to abandon thedefense, was, as Maurice had instinctively felt, an event of the gravestimportance and destined to result in the most disastrous consequences;its possessors would have entire command of all the surrounding plateau. This was quickly seen to be the case, for the batteries that opened onthe second division of the 7th corps did fearful execution. They hadnow perfected their range, and the French battery, near which Beaudoin'scompany was stationed, had two men killed in quick succession. Aquartermaster's man in the company had his left heel carried away bya splinter and began to howl most dismally, as if visited by a suddenattack of madness. 

"Shut up, you great calf!" said Rochas. "What do you mean by yellinglike that for a little scratch!"

The man suddenly ceased his outcries and subsided into a stupid silence, nursing his foot in his hand. 

And still the tremendous artillery duel raged, and the death-dealingmissiles went screaming over the recumbent ranks of the regiments thatlay there on the sullen, sweltering plain, where no thing of life wasto be seen beneath the blazing sun. The crashing thunder, the destroyinghurricane, were masters in that solitude, and many long hours wouldpass before the end. But even thus early in the day the Germans haddemonstrated the superiority of their artillery; their percussionshells had an enormous range, and exploded, with hardly an exception, on reaching their destination, while the French time-fuse shells, with amuch shorter range, burst for the most part in the air and werewasted. And there was nothing left for the poor fellows exposed to thatmurderous fire save to hug the ground and make themselves as small aspossible; they were even denied the privilege of firing in reply, whichwould have kept their mind occupied and given them a measure of relief;but upon whom or what were they to direct their rifles? since there wasnot a living soul to be seen upon the entire horizon!

"Are we never to have a shot at them? I would give a dollar for just onechance!" said Maurice, in a frenzy of impatience. "It is disgusting tohave them blazing away at us like this and not be allowed to answer. "

"Be patient; the time will come, " Jean imperturbably replied. 

Their attention was attracted by the sound of mounted men approachingon their left, and turning their heads they beheld General Douay, who, accompanied by his staff, had come galloping up to see how his troopswere behaving under the terrible fire from Hattoy. He appeared wellpleased with what he saw and was in the act of making some suggestionsto the officers grouped around him, when, emerging from a sunken road, General Bourgain-Desfeuilles also rode up. This officer, though he owedhis advancement to "influence" was wedded to the antiquated Africanroutine and had learned nothing by experience, sat his horse with greatcomposure under the storm of projectiles. He was shouting to the men andgesticulating wildly, after the manner of Rochas: "They are coming, theywill be here right away, and then we'll let them have the bayonet!" whenhe caught sight of General Douay and drew up to his side. 

"Is it true that the marshal is wounded, general?" he asked. 

"It is but too true, unfortunately. I received a note from Ducrot onlya few minutes ago, in which he advises me of the fact, and also notifiesme that, by the marshal's appointment, he is in command of the army. "

"Ah! so it is Ducrot who is to have his place! And what are the ordersnow?"

The general shook his head sorrowfully. He had felt that the armywas doomed, and for the last twenty-four hours had been strenuouslyrecommending the occupation of Illy and Saint-Menges in order to keep away of retreat open on Mezieres. 

"Ducrot will carry out the plan we talked of yesterday: the whole armyis to be concentrated on the plateau of Illy. "

And he repeated his previous gesture, as if to say it was too late. 

His words were partly inaudible in the roar of the artillery, butMaurice caught their significance clearly enough, and it left himdumfounded by astonishment and alarm. What! Marshal MacMahon woundedsince early that morning, General Ducrot commanding in his place forthe last two hours, the entire army retreating to the northward ofSedan--and all these important events kept from the poor devilsof soldiers who were squandering their life's blood! and all theirdestinies, dependent on the life of a single man, were to be intrustedto the direction of fresh and untried hands! He had a distinctconsciousness of the fate that was in reserve for the army of Chalons, deprived of its commander, destitute of any guiding principle of action, dragged purposelessly in this direction and in that, while the Germanswent straight and swift to their preconcerted end with mechanicalprecision and directness. 

Bourgain-Desfeuilles had wheeled his horse and was moving away, whenGeneral Douay, to whom a grimy, dust-stained hussar had galloped up withanother dispatch, excitedly summoned him back. 

"General! General!"

His voice rang out so loud and clear, with such an accent of surprise, that it drowned the uproar of the guns. 

"General, Ducrot is no longer in command; de Wimpffen is chief. You knowhe reached here yesterday, just in the very thick of the disaster atBeaumont, to relieve de Failly at the head of the 5th corps--and hewrites me that he has written instructions from the Minister of Warassigning him to the command of the army in case the post should becomevacant. And there is to be no more retreating; the orders now are toreoccupy our old positions, and defend them to the last. "

General Bourgain-Desfeuilles drank in the tidings, his eyes bulging withastonishment. "_Nom de Dieu!_" he at last succeeded in ejaculating, "onewould like to know--But it is no business of mine, anyhow. " And off hegalloped, not allowing himself to be greatly agitated by this unexpectedturn of affairs, for he had gone into the war solely in the hope ofseeing his name raised a grade higher in the army list, and it washis great desire to behold the end of the beastly campaign as soon aspossible, since it was productive of so little satisfaction to anyone. 

Then there was an explosion of derision and contempt among the men ofBeaudoin's company. Maurice said nothing, but he shared the opinionof Chouteau and Loubet, who chaffed and blackguarded everyone withoutmercy. "See-saw, up and down, move as I pull the string! A fine gangthey were, those generals! they understood one another; they were notgoing to pull all the blankets off the bed! What was a poor devil of asoldier to do when he had such leaders put over him? Three commanders intwo hours' time, three great numskulls, none of whom knew what was theright thing to do, and all of them giving different orders! Demoralized, were they? Good Heavens, it was enough to demoralize God Almightyhimself, and all His angels!" And the inevitable accusation of treasonwas again made to do duty; Ducrot and de Wimpffen wanted to get threemillions apiece out of Bismarck, as MacMahon had done. 

Alone in advance of his staff General Douay sat on his horse a longtime, his gaze bent on the distant positions of the enemy and inhis eyes an expression of infinite melancholy. He made a minute andprotracted observation of Hattoy, the shells from which came tumblingalmost at his very feet; then, giving a glance at the plateau of Illy, called up an officer to carry an order to the brigade of the 5th corpsthat he had borrowed the day previous from General de Wimpffen, andwhich served to connect his right with the left of General Ducrot. Hewas distinctly heard to say these words:

"If the Prussians should once get possession of the Calvary it wouldbe impossible for us to hold this position an hour; we should be driveninto Sedan. "

He rode off and was lost to view, together with his escort, at theentrance of the sunken road, and the German fire became hotter thanbefore. They had doubtless observed the presence of the group of mountedofficers; but now the shells, which hitherto had come from the front, began to fall upon them laterally, from the left; the batteries atFrenois, together with one which the enemy had carried across the riverand posted on the peninsula of Iges, had established, in connectionwith the guns on Hattoy, an enfilading fire which swept the plateau del'Algerie in its entire length and breadth. The position of the companynow became most lamentable; the men, with death in front of them and ontheir flank, knew not which way to turn or which of the menacing perilsto guard themselves against. In rapid succession three men were killedoutright and two severely wounded. 

It was then that Sergeant Sapin met the death that he had predicted forhimself. He had turned his head, and caught sight of the approachingmissile when it was too late for him to avoid it. 

"Ah, here it is!" was all he said. 

There was no terror in the thin face, with its big handsome eyes; it wasonly pale; very pale and inexpressibly mournful. The wound was in theabdomen. 

"Oh! do not leave me here, " he pleaded; "take me to the ambulance, Ibeseech you. Take me to the rear. "

Rochas endeavored to silence him, and it was on his brutal lips to saythat it was useless to imperil two comrades' lives for one whose woundwas so evidently mortal, when his better nature made its influence feltand he murmured:

"Be patient for a little, my poor boy, and the litter-bearers will comeand get you. "

But the wretched man, whose tears were now flowing, kept crying, as onedistraught that his dream of happiness was vanishing with his tricklinglife-blood:

"Take me away, take me away--"

Finally Captain Beaudoin, whose already unstrung nerves were furtherirritated by his pitiful cries, called for two volunteers to carry himto a little piece of woods a short way off where a flying ambulancehad been established. Chouteau and Loubet jumped to their feetsimultaneously, anticipating the others, seized the sergeant, one ofthem by the shoulders, the other by the legs, and bore him away on arun. They had gone but a little way, however, when they felt the bodybecoming rigid in the final convulsion; he was dying. 

"I say, he's dead, " exclaimed Loubet. "Let's leave him here. "

But Chouteau, without relaxing his speed, angrily replied:

"Go ahead, you booby, will you! Do you take me for a fool, to leave himhere and have them call us back!"

They pursued their course with the corpse until they came to the littlewood, threw it down at the foot of a tree, and went their way. That wasthe last that was seen of them until nightfall. 

The battery beside them had been strengthened by three additional guns;the cannonade on either side went on with increased fury, and in thehideous uproar terror--a wild, unreasoning terror--filled Maurice'ssoul. It was his first experience of the sensation; he had not until nowfelt that cold sweat trickling down his back, that terrible sinking atthe pit of the stomach, that unconquerable desire to get on his feet andrun, yelling and screaming, from the field. It was nothing more thanthe strain from which his nervous, high-strung temperament was sufferingfrom reflex action; but Jean, who was observing him narrowly, detectedthe incipient crisis in the wandering, vacant eyes, and seizing him withhis strong hand, held him down firmly at his side. The corporal lecturedhim paternally in a whisper, not mincing his words, but employing good, vigorous language to restore him to a sense of self-respect, for heknew by experience that a man in panic is not to be coaxed out of hiscowardice. There were others also who were showing the white feather, among them Pache, who was whimpering involuntarily, in the low, softvoice of a little baby, his eyes suffused with tears. Lapoulle's stomachbetrayed him and he was very ill; and there were many others who alsofound relief in vomiting, amid their comrade's loud jeers and laughter, which helped to restore their courage to them all. 

"My God!" ejaculated Maurice, ghastly pale, his teeth chattering. "MyGod!"

Jean shook him roughly. "You infernal coward, are you going to be sicklike those fellows over yonder? Behave yourself, or I'll box your ears. "

He was trying to put heart into his friend by gruff but friendlyspeeches like the above, when they suddenly beheld a dozen dark formsemerging from a little wood upon their front and about four hundredyards away. Their spiked helmets announced them to be Prussians; thefirst Prussians they had had within reach of their rifles since theopening of the campaign. This first squad was succeeded by others, andin front of their position the little dust clouds that rose where theFrench shells struck were distinctly visible. It was all very vividand clear-cut in the transparent air of morning; the Germans, outlinedagainst the dark forest, presented the toy-like appearance of thoseminiature soldiers of lead that are the delight of children; then, asthe enemy's shells began to drop in their vicinity with uncomfortablefrequency, they withdrew and were lost to sight within the wood whencethey had come. 

But Beaudoin's company had seen them there once, and to their eyes theywere there still; the chassepots seemed to go off of their own accord. Maurice was the first man to discharge his piece; Jean, Pache, Lapoulleand the others all followed suit. There had been no order given tocommence firing, and the captain made an attempt to check it, butdesisted upon Rochas's representation that it was absolutely necessaryas a measure of relief for the men's pent-up feelings. So, then, theywere at liberty to shoot at last, they could use up those cartridgesthat they had been lugging around with them for the last month, withoutever burning a single one! The effect on Maurice in particular waselectrical; the noise he made had the effect of dispelling his fear andblunting the keenness of his sensations. The little wood had resumedits former deserted aspect; not a leaf stirred, no more Prussians showedthemselves; and still they kept on blazing away as madly as ever at theimmovable trees. 

Raising his eyes presently Maurice was startled to see Colonel deVineuil sitting his big horse at no great distance, man and steedimpassive and motionless as if carved from stone, patient were theyunder the leaden hail, with face turned toward the enemy. The entireregiment was now collected in that vicinity, the other companies beingposted in the adjacent fields; the musketry fire seemed to be drawingnearer. The young man also beheld the regimental colors a little to therear, borne aloft by the sturdy arm of the standard-bearer, but it wasno longer the phantom flag that he had seen that morning, shroudedin mist and fog; the golden eagle flashed and blazed in the fiercesunlight, and the tri-colored silk, despite the rents and stains of manya battle, flaunted its bright hues defiantly to the breeze. Waving inthe breath of the cannon, floating proudly against the blue of heaven, it shone like an emblem of victory. 

And why, now that the day of battle had arrived, should not victoryperch upon that banner? With that reflection Maurice and his companionskept on industriously wasting their powder on the distant wood, producing havoc there among the leaves and twigs. 

III. 

Sleep did not visit Henriette's eyes that night. She knew her husband tobe a prudent man, but the thought that he was in Bazeilles, so near theGerman lines, was cause to her of deep anxiety. She tried to soothe herapprehensions by reminding herself that she had his solemn promise toreturn at the first appearance of danger; it availed not, and atevery instant she detected herself listening to catch the sound of hisfootstep on the stair. At ten o'clock, as she was about to go to bed, she opened her window, and resting her elbows on the sill, gazed outinto the night. 

The darkness was intense; looking downward, she could scarce discern thepavement of the Rue des Voyards, a narrow, obscure passage, overhung byold frowning mansions. Further on, in the direction of the college, a smoky street lamp burned dimly. A nitrous exhalation rose fromthe street; the squall of a vagrant cat; the heavy step of a belatedsoldier. From the city at her back came strange and alarming sounds:the patter of hurrying feet, an ominous, incessant rumbling, a muffledmurmur without a name that chilled her blood. Her heart beat loudly inher bosom as she bent her ear to listen, and still she heard not thefamiliar echo of her husband's step at the turning of the street below. 

Hours passed, and now distant lights that began to twinkle in the openfields beyond the ramparts excited afresh her apprehensions. It was sodark that it cost her an effort of memory to recall localities. She knewthat the broad expanse that lay beneath her, reflecting a dim light, was the flooded meadows, and that flame that blazed up and was suddenlyextinguished, surely it must be on la Marfee. But never, to her certainknowledge, had there been farmer's house or peasant's cottage on thoseheights; what, then, was the meaning of that light? And then on everyhand, at Pont-Maugis, Noyers, Frenois, other fires arose, coruscatingfitfully for an instant and giving mysterious indication of the presenceof the swarming host that lay hidden in the bosom of the night. Yet more: there were strange sounds and voices in the air, subduedmurmurings such as she had never heard before, and that made her startin terror; the stifled hum of marching men, the neighing and snortingof steeds, the clash of arms, hoarse words of command, given in gutturalaccents; an evil dream of a demoniac crew, a witch's sabbat, in thedepths of those unholy shades. Suddenly a single cannon-shot rang out, ear-rending, adding fresh terror to the dead silence that succeededit. It froze her very marrow; what could it mean? A signal, doubtless, telling of the successful completion of some movement, announcing thateverything was ready, down there, and that now the sun might rise. 

It was about two o'clock when Henriette, forgetting even to close herwindow, at last threw herself, fully dressed, upon her bed. Her anxietyand fatigue had stupefied her and benumbed her faculties. What could ailher, thus to shiver and burn alternately, she who was always so calmand self-reliant, moving with so light a step that those about her wereunconscious of her existence? Finally she sank into a fitful, brokenslumber that brought with it no repose, in which was present still thatpersistent sensation of impending evil that filled the dusky heavens. All at once, arousing her from her unrefreshing stupor, the firingcommenced again, faint and muffled in the distance, not a singleshot this time, but peal after peal following one another in quicksuccession. Trembling, she sat upright in bed. The firing continued. Where was she? The place seemed strange to her; she could notdistinguish the objects in her chamber, which appeared to be filled withdense clouds of smoke. Then she remembered: the fog must have rolled infrom the near-by river and entered the room through the window. Without, the distant firing was growing fiercer. She leaped from her bed and ranto the casement to listen. 

Four o'clock was striking from a steeple in Sedan, and day was breaking, tingeing the purplish mists with a sickly, sinister light. It wasimpossible to discern objects; even the college buildings, distant buta few yards, were undistinguishable. Where could the firing be, _monDieu_! Her first thought was for her brother Maurice; for the reportswere so indistinct that they seemed to her to come from the north, abovethe city; then, listening more attentively, her doubt became certainty;the cannonading was there, before her, and she trembled for her husband. It was surely at Bazeilles. For a little time, however, she sufferedherself to be cheered by a ray of hope, for there were moments whenthe reports seemed to come from the right. Perhaps the fighting was atDonchery, where she knew that the French had not succeeded in blowingup the bridge. Then she lapsed into a condition of most horribleuncertainty; it seemed to be now at Donchery, now at Bazeilles; which, it was impossible to decide, there was such a ringing, buzzing sensationin her head. At last the feeling of suspense became so acute that shefelt she could not endure it longer; she _must_ know; every nerve in herbody was quivering with the ungovernable desire, so she threw a shawlover her shoulders and left the house in quest of news. 

When she had descended and was in the street Henriette hesitated a briefmoment, for the little light that was in the east had not yet creptdownward along the weather-blackened house-fronts to the roadway, andin the old city, shrouded in opaque fog, the darkness still reignedimpenetrable. In the tap-room of a low pot-house in the Rue au Beurre, dimly lighted by a tallow candle, she saw two drunken Turcos anda woman. It was not until she turned into the Rue Maqua that sheencountered any signs of life: soldiers slinking furtively along thesidewalk and hugging the walls, deserters probably, on the lookout fora place in which to hide; a stalwart trooper with despatches, searchingfor his captain and knocking thunderously at every door; a group of fatburghers, trembling with fear lest they had tarried there too long, and preparing to crowd themselves into one small carriole if so be theymight yet reach Bouillon, in Belgium, whither half the population ofSedan had emigrated within the last two days. She instinctivelyturned her steps toward the Sous-Prefecture, where she might depend onreceiving information, and her desire to avoid meeting acquaintancesdetermined her to take a short cut through lanes and by-ways. Onreaching the Rue du Four and the Rue des Laboureurs, however, she foundan obstacle in her way; the place had been pre-empted by the ordnancedepartment, and guns, caissons, forges were there in interminable array, having apparently been parked away in that remote corner the day beforeand then forgotten there. There was not so much as a sentry to guardthem. It sent a chill to her heart to see all that artillery lying theresilent and ineffective, sleeping its neglected sleep in the concealmentof those deserted alleys. She was compelled to retrace her steps, therefore, which she did by passing through the Place du College to theGrande-Rue, where in front of the Hotel de l'Europe she saw a groupof orderlies holding the chargers of some general officers, whosehigh-pitched voices were audible from the brilliantly lighted diningroom. On the Place du Rivage and the Place Turenne the crowd was evengreater still, composed of anxious groups of citizens, with women andchildren interspersed among the struggling, terror-stricken throng, hurrying in every direction; and there she saw a general emerge from theHotel of the Golden Cross, swearing like a pirate, and spur his horseoff up the street at a mad gallop, careless whom he might overturn. Fora moment she seemed about to enter the Hotel de Ville, then changedher mind, and taking the Rue du Pont-de-Meuse, pushed on to theSous-Prefecture. 

Never had Sedan appeared to her in a light so tragically sinister asnow, when she beheld it in the livid, forbidding light of early dawn, enveloped in its shroud of fog. The houses were lifeless and silent astombs; many of them had been empty and abandoned for the last two days, others the terrified owners had closely locked and barred. Shuddering, the city awoke to the cares and occupations of the new day; the morningwas fraught with chill misery in those streets, still half deserted, peopled only by a few frightened pedestrians and those hurryingfugitives, the remnant of the exodus of previous days. Soon the sunwould rise and send down its cheerful light upon the scene; soon thecity, overwhelmed in the swift-rising tide of disaster, would be crowdedas it had never been before. It was half-past five o'clock; the roarof the cannon, caught and deadened among the tall dingy houses, soundedmore faintly in her ears. 

At the Sous-Prefecture Henriette had some acquaintance with theconcierge's daughter, Rose by name, a pretty little blonde of refinedappearance who was employed in Delaherche's factory. She made her way atonce to the lodge; the mother was not there, but Rose received her withher usual amiability. 

"Oh! dear lady, we are so tired we can scarcely stand; mamma has gone tolie down and rest a while. Just think! all night long people have beencoming and going, and we have not been able to get a wink of sleep. "

And burning to tell all the wonderful sights that she had been witnessto since the preceding day, she did not wait to be questioned, but ranon volubly with her narrative. 

"As for the marshal, he slept very well, but that poor Emperor! youcan't think what suffering he has to endure! Yesterday evening, do youknow, I had gone upstairs to help give out the linen, and as I enteredthe apartment that adjoins his dressing-room I heard groans, oh, _such_groans! just like someone dying. I thought a moment and knew it must bethe Emperor, and I was so frightened I couldn't move; I just stood andtrembled. It seems he has some terrible complaint that makes him cry outthat way. When there are people around he holds in, but as soon as he isalone it is too much for him, and he groans and shrieks in a way to makeyour hair stand on end. "

"Do you know where the fighting is this morning?" asked Henriette, desiring to check her loquacity. 

Rose dismissed the question with a wave of her little hand and went onwith her narrative. 

"That made me curious to know more, you see, and I went upstairs four orfive times during the night and listened, and every time it was just thesame; I don't believe he was quiet an instant all night long, or got aminute's sleep. Oh! what a terrible thing it is to suffer like that withall he has to worry him! for everything is upside down; it is all a mostdreadful mess. Upon my word, I believe those generals are out of theirsenses; such ghostly faces and frightened eyes! And people coming allthe time, and doors banging and some men scolding and others crying, andthe whole place like a sailor's boarding-house; officers drinking frombottles and going to bed in their boots! The Emperor is the best of thewhole lot, and the one who gives least trouble, in the corner wherehe conceals himself and his suffering!" Then, in reply to Henriette'sreiterated question: "The fighting? there has been fighting at Bazeillesthis morning. A mounted officer brought word of it to the marshal, whowent immediately to notify the Emperor. The marshal has been gone tenminutes, and I shouldn't wonder if the Emperor intends to follow him, for they are dressing him upstairs. I just now saw them combing him andplastering his face with all sorts of cosmetics. "

But Henriette, having finally learned what she desired to know, rose togo. 

"Thank you, Rose. I am in somewhat of a hurry this morning. "

The young girl went with her to the street door, and took leave of herwith a courteous:

"Glad to have been of service to you, Madame Weiss. I know that anythingsaid to you will go no further. "

Henriette hurried back to her house in the Rue des Voyards. She feltquite certain that her husband would have returned, and even reflectedthat he would be alarmed at not finding her there, and hastened hersteps in consequence. As she drew near the house she raised her eyes inthe expectation of seeing him at the window watching for her, but thewindow, wide open as she had left it when she went out, was vacant, and when she had run up the stairs and given a rapid glance throughher three rooms, it was with a sinking heart that she saw they wereuntenanted save for the chill fog and continuous roar of the cannonade. The distant firing was still going on. She went and stood for a momentat the window; although the encircling wall of vapor was not less densethan it had been before, she seemed to have a clearer apprehension, nowthat she had received oral information, of the details of the conflictraging at Bazeilles, the grinding sound of the mitrailleuses, thecrashing volleys of the French batteries answering the German batteriesin the distance. The reports seemed to be drawing nearer to the city, the battle to be waxing fiercer and fiercer with every moment. 

Why did not Weiss return? He had pledged himself so faithfully not tooutstay the first attack! And Henriette began to be seriously alarmed, depicting to herself the various obstacles that might have detained him:perhaps he had not been able to leave the village, perhaps the roadswere blocked or rendered impassable by the projectiles. It might even bethat something had happened him, but she put the thought aside and wouldnot dwell on it, preferring to view things on their brighter side andfinding in hope her safest mainstay and reliance. For an instant sheharbored the design of starting out and trying to find her husband, butthere were considerations that seemed to render that course inadvisable:supposing him to have started on his return, what would become of hershould she miss him on the way? and what would be his anxiety should hecome in and find her absent? Her guiding principle in all her thoughtsand actions was her gentle, affectionate devotedness, and she sawnothing strange or out of the way in a visit to Bazeilles under suchextraordinary circumstances, accustomed as she was, like an affectionatelittle woman, to perform her duty in silence and do the thing that shedeemed best for their common interest. Where her husband was, there washer place; that was all there was about it. 

She gave a sudden start and left the window, saying:

"Monsieur Delaherche, how could I forget--"

It had just come to her recollection that the cloth manufacturer hadalso passed the night at Bazeilles, and if he had returned would be ableto give her the intelligence she wanted. She ran swiftly down thestairs again. In place of taking the more roundabout way by the Rue desVoyards, she crossed the little courtyard of her house and entered thepassage that conducted to the huge structure that fronted on theRue Maqua. As she came out into the great central garden, pavedwith flagstones now and retaining of its pristine glories only a fewvenerable trees, magnificent century-old elms, she was astonished tosee a sentry mounting guard at the door of a carriage-house; then itoccurred to her that she had been told the day before that the campchests of the 7th corps had been deposited there for safe keeping, and it produced a strange impression on her mind that all the gold, millions, it was said to amount to, should be lying in that shed whilethe men for whom it was destined were being killed not far away. As shewas about to ascend the private staircase, however, that conducted tothe apartment of Gilberte, young Madame Delaherche, she experiencedanother surprise in an encounter that startled her so that she retracedher steps a little way, doubtful whether it would not be better toabandon her intention, and go home again. An officer, a captain, hadcrossed her path, as noiselessly as a phantom and vanishing as swiftly, and yet she had had time to recognize him, having seen him in the pastat Gilberte's house in Charleville, in the days when she was stillMadame Maginot. She stepped back a few steps in the courtyard and raisedher eyes to the two tall windows of the bedroom, the blinds of whichwere closed, then dismissed her scruples and entered. 

Upon reaching the first floor, availing herself of that privilege ofold acquaintanceship by virtue of which one woman often drops in uponanother for an unceremonious early morning chat, she was about to knockat the door of the dressing-room, but apparently someone had left theroom hastily and failed to secure the door, so that it was standingajar, and all she had to do was give it a push to find herself inthe dressing room, whence she passed into the bedroom. From the loftyceiling of the latter apartment depended voluminous curtains of redvelvet, protecting the large double bed. The warm, moist air wasfragrant with a faint perfume of Persian lilac, and there was no soundto break the silence save a gentle, regular respiration, scarcelyaudible. 

"Gilberte!" said Henriette, very softly. 

The young woman was sleeping peacefully, and the dim light that enteredthe room between the red curtains of the high windows displayed herexquisitely rounded head resting upon a naked arm and her profusionof beautiful hair straying in disorder over the pillow. Her lips wereparted in a smile. 

"Gilberte!"

She slightly moved and stretched her arms, without opening her eyes. 

"Yes, yes; good-by. Oh! please--" Then, raising her head and recognizingHenriette: "What, is it you! How late is it?"

When she learned that it had not yet struck six she seemed disconcerted, assuming a sportive air to hide her embarrassment, saying it wasunfair to come waking people up at such an hour. Then, to her friend, questioning her about her husband, she made answer:

"Why, he has not returned; I don't look for him much before nineo'clock. What makes you so eager to see him at this hour of themorning?"

Henriette's voice had a trace of sternness in it as she answered, seeingthe other so smiling, so dull of comprehension in her happy waking. 

"I tell you there has been fighting all the morning at Bazeilles, and Iam anxious about my husband. "

"Oh, my dear, " exclaimed Gilberte, "I assure you there is not theslightest reason for your feeling so. My husband is so prudent that hewould have been home long ago had there been any danger. Until you seehim back here you may rest easy, take my word for it. "

Henriette was struck by the justness of the argument; Delaherche, itwas true, was distinctly not a man to expose himself uselessly. She wasreassured, and went and drew the curtains and threw back the blinds; thetawny light from without, where the sun was beginning to pierce the fogwith his golden javelins, streamed in a bright flood into the apartment. One of the windows was part way open, and in the soft air of thespacious bedroom, but now so close and stuffy, the two women could hearthe sound of the guns. Gilberte, half recumbent, her elbow resting onthe pillow, gazed out upon the sky with her lustrous, vacant eyes. 

"So, then, they are fighting, " she murmured. Her chemise had slippeddownward, exposing a rosy, rounded shoulder, half hidden beneath thewandering raven tresses, and her person exhaled a subtle, penetratingodor, the odor of love. "They are fighting, so early in the morning, _mon Dieu!_ It would be ridiculous if it were not for the horror of it. "

But Henriette, in looking about the room, had caught sight of a pair ofgauntlets, the gloves of a man, lying forgotten on a small table, andshe started perceptibly. Gilberte blushed deeply, and extending her armswith a conscious, caressing movement, drew her friend to her and restedher head upon her bosom. 

"Yes, " she almost whispered, "I saw that you noticed it. Darling, youmust not judge me too severely. He is an old friend; I told you allabout it at Charleville, long ago, you remember. " Her voice sanklower still; there was something that sounded very like a laugh ofsatisfaction in her tender tones. "He pleaded so with me yesterdaythat I would see him just once more. Just think, this morning he is inaction; he may be dead by this. How could I refuse him?" It was allso heroic and so charming, the contrast was so delicious between war'sstern reality and tender sentiment; thoughtless as a linnet, she smiledagain, notwithstanding her confusion. Never could she have found itin her heart to drive him from her door, when circumstances all werepropitious for the interview. "Do you condemn me?"

Henriette had listened to her confidences with a very grave face. Suchthings surprised her, for she could not understand them; it must be thatshe was constituted differently from other women. Her heart that morningwas with her husband, her brother, down there where the battle wasraging. How was it possible that anyone could sleep so peacefully and beso gay and cheerful when the loved ones were in peril?

"But think of your husband, my dear, and of that poor young man as well. Does not your heart yearn to be with them? You do not reflect thattheir lifeless forms may be brought in and laid before your eyes at anymoment. "

Gilberte raised her adorable bare arm before her face to shield hervision from the frightful picture. 

"O Heaven! what is that you say? It is cruel of you to destroy allthe pleasure of my morning in this way. No, no; I won't think of suchthings. They are too mournful. "

Henriette could not refrain from smiling in spite of her anxiety. Shewas thinking of the days of their girlhood, and how Gilberte's father, Captain de Vineuil, an old naval officer who had been made collector ofcustoms at Charleville when his wounds had incapacitated him for activeservice, hearing his daughter cough and fearing for her the fate ofhis young wife, who had been snatched from his arms by that terribledisease, consumption, had sent her to live at a farm-house nearChene-Populeux. The little maid was not nine years old, and alreadyshe was a consummate actress--a perfect type of the village coquette, queening it over her playmates, tricked out in what old finery she couldlay hands on, adorning herself with bracelets and tiaras made from thesilver paper wrappings of the chocolate. She had not changed a bit when, later, at the age of twenty, she married Maginot, the inspector of woodsand forests. Mezieres, a dark, gloomy town, surrounded by ramparts, wasnot to her taste, and she continued to live at Charleville, where thegay, generous life, enlivened by many festivities, suited her better. Her father was dead, and with a husband whom, by reason of his inferiorsocial position, her friends and acquaintances treated with scantcourtesy, she was absolutely mistress of her own actions. She did notescape the censure of the stern moralists who inhabit our provincialcities, and in those days was credited with many lovers; but of the gaythrong of officers who, thanks to her father's old connection and herkinship to Colonel de Vineuil, disported themselves in her drawing-room, Captain Beaudoin was the only one who had really produced an impression. She was light and frivolous--nothing more--adoring pleasure andliving entirely in the present, without the least trace of perverseinclination; and if she accepted the captain's attentions, it is prettycertain that she did it out of good-nature and love of admiration. 

"You did very wrong to see him again, " Henriette finally said, in hermatter-of-fact way. 

"Oh! my dear, since I could not possibly do otherwise, and it was onlyfor just that once. You know very well I would die rather than deceivemy new husband. "

She spoke with much feeling, and seemed distressed to see her friendshake her head disapprovingly. They dropped the subject, andclasped each other in an affectionate embrace, notwithstanding theirdiametrically different natures. Each could hear the beating of theother's heart, and they might have understood the tongues those organsspoke--one, the slave of pleasure, wasting and squandering all thatwas best in herself; the other, with the mute heroism of a lofty soul, devoting herself to a single ennobling affection. 

"But hark! how the cannon are roaring, " Gilberte presently exclaimed. "Imust make haste and dress. "

The reports sounded more distinctly in the silent room now that theirconversation had ceased. Leaving her bed, the young woman accepted theassistance of her friend, not caring to summon her maid, and rapidlymade her toilet for the day, in order that she might be ready togo downstairs should she be needed there. As she was completing thearrangement of her hair there was a knock at the door, and, recognizingthe voice of the elder Madame Delaherche, she hastened to admit her. 

"Certainly, dear mother, you may come in. "

With the thoughtlessness that was part of her nature, she allowed theold lady to enter without having first removed the gauntlets from thetable. It was in vain that Henriette darted forward to seize them andthrow them behind a chair. Madame Delaherche stood glaring for someseconds at the spot where they had been with an expression on herface as if she were slowly suffocating. Then her glance wanderedinvoluntarily from object to object in the room, stopping finally at thegreat red-curtained bed, the coverings thrown back in disorder. 

"I see that Madame Weiss has disturbed your slumbers. Then you were ableto sleep, daughter?"

It was plain that she had had another purpose in coming there thanto make that speech. Ah, that marriage that her son had insisted oncontracting, contrary to her wish, at the mature age of fifty, aftertwenty years of joyless married life with a shrewish, bony wife; he, whohad always until then deferred so to her will, now swayed only by hispassion for this gay young widow, lighter than thistle-down! She hadpromised herself to keep watch over the present, and there was thepast coming back to plague her. But ought she to speak? Her life inthe household was one of silent reproach and protest; she kept herselfalmost constantly imprisoned in her chamber, devoting herself rigidly tothe observances of her austere religion. Now, however, the wrong was soflagrant that she resolved to speak to her son. 

Gilberte blushingly replied, without an excessive manifestation ofembarrassment, however:

"Oh, yes, I had a few hours of refreshing sleep. You know that Jules hasnot returned--"

Madame Delaherche interrupted her with a grave nod of her head. Eversince the artillery had commenced to roar she had been watching eagerlyfor her son's return, but she was a Spartan mother, and concealed hergnawing anxiety under a cloak of brave silence. And then she rememberedwhat was the object of her visit there. 

"Your uncle, the colonel, has sent the regimental surgeon with a notein pencil, to ask if we will allow them to establish a hospital here. Heknows that we have abundance of space in the factory, and I have alreadyauthorized the gentlemen to make use of the courtyard and the bigdrying-room. But you should go down in person--"

"Oh, at once, at once!" exclaimed Henriette, hastening toward the door. "We will do what we can to help. "

Gilberte also displayed much enthusiasm for her new occupation as nurse;she barely took the time to throw a lace scarf over her head, and thethree women went downstairs. When they reached the bottom and stood inthe spacious vestibule, looking out through the main entrance, of whichthe leaves had been thrown wide back, they beheld a crowd collected inthe street before the house. A low-hung carriage was advancing slowlyalong the roadway, a sort of carriole, drawn by a single horse, whicha lieutenant of zouaves was leading by the bridle. They took it to bea wounded man that they were bringing to them, the first of theirpatients. 

"Yes, yes! This is the place; this way!"

But they were quickly undeceived. The sufferer recumbent in the carriolewas Marshal MacMahon, severely wounded in the hip, who, his hurt havingbeen provisionally cared for in the cottage of a gardener, was now beingtaken to the Sous-Prefecture. He was bareheaded and partially divestedof his clothing, and the gold embroidery on his uniform was tarnishedwith dust and blood. He spoke no word, but had raised his head fromthe pillow where it lay and was looking about him with a sorrowfulexpression, and perceiving the three women where they stood, wide eyedwith horror, their joined hands resting on their bosom, in presence ofthat great calamity, the whole army stricken in the person of its chiefat the very beginning of the conflict, he slightly bowed his head, witha faint, paternal smile. A few of those about him removed their hats;others, who had no time for such idle ceremony, were circulating thereport of General Ducrot's appointment to the command of the army. Itwas half-past seven o'clock. 

"And what of the Emperor?" Henriette inquired of a bookseller, who wasstanding at his door. 

"He left the city near an hour ago, " replied the neighbor. "I wasstanding by and saw him pass out at the Balan gate. There is a rumorthat his head was taken off by a cannon ball. "

But this made the grocer across the street furious. "Hold your tongue, "he shouted, "it is an infernal lie! None but the brave will leave theirbones there to-day!"

When near the Place du College the marshal's carriole was lost tosight in the gathering crowd, among whose numbers the most strange andcontradictory reports from the field of battle were now beginning tocirculate. The fog was clearing; the streets were bright with sunshine. 

A hail, in no gentle terms, was heard proceeding from the courtyard:"Now then, ladies, here is where you are wanted, not outside!"

They all three hastened inside and found themselves in presence of MajorBouroche, who had thrown his uniform coat upon the floor, in a corner ofthe room, and donned a great white apron. Above the broad expanse of, asyet, unspotted white, his blazing, leonine eyes and enormous head, with shock of harsh, bristling hair, seemed to exhale energy anddetermination. So terrible did he appear to them that the women were hismost humble servants from the very start, obedient to his every sign, treading on one another to anticipate his wishes. 

"There is nothing here that is needed. Get me some linen; try and see ifyou can't find some more mattresses; show my men where the pump is--"

And they ran as if their life was at stake to do his bidding; were soactive that they seemed to be ubiquitous. 

The factory was admirably adapted for a hospital. The drying-room wasa particularly noticeable feature, a vast apartment with numerous andlofty windows for light and ventilation, where they could put in ahundred beds and yet have room to spare, and at one side was a shed thatseemed to have been built there especially for the convenience of theoperators: three long tables had been brought in, the pump was close athand, and a small grass-plot adjacent might serve as ante-chamber forthe patients while awaiting their turn. And the handsome old elms, withtheir deliciously cool shade, roofed the spot in most agreeably. 

Bouroche had considered it would be best to establish himself inSedan at the commencement, foreseeing the dreadful slaughter and theinevitable panic that would sooner or later drive the troops to theshelter of the ramparts. All that he had deemed it necessary to leavewith the regiment was two flying ambulances and some "first aids, " thatwere to send him in the casualties as rapidly as possible after applyingthe primary dressings. The details of litter-bearers were all out there, whose duty it was to pick up the wounded under fire, and with themwere the ambulance wagons and _fourgons_ of the medical train. The twoassistant-surgeons and three hospital stewards whom he had retained, leaving two assistants on the field, would doubtless be sufficient toperform what operations were necessary. He had also a corps of dressersunder him. But he was not gentle in manner and language, for all he didwas done impulsively, zealously, with all his heart and soul. 

"_Tonnerre de Dieu!_ how do you suppose we are going to distinguishthe cases from one another when they begin to come in presently? Takea piece of charcoal and number each bed with a big figure on the walloverhead, and place those mattresses closer together, do you hear?We can strew some straw on the floor in that corner if it becomesnecessary. "

The guns were barking, preparing his work for him; he knew that at anymoment now the first carriage might drive up and discharge its load ofmaimed and bleeding flesh, and he hastened to get all in readinessin the great, bare room. Outside in the shed the preparations were ofanother nature: the chests were opened and their contents arrangedin order on a table, packages of lint, bandages, compresses, rollers, splints for fractured limbs, while on another table, alongside a greatjar of cerate and a bottle of chloroform, were the surgical cases withtheir blood-curdling array of glittering instruments, probes, forceps, bistouries, scalpels, scissors, saws, an arsenal of implements of everyimaginable shape adapted to pierce, cut, slice, rend, crush. But therewas a deficient supply of basins. 

"You must have pails, pots, jars about the house--something that willhold water. We can't work besmeared with blood all day, that's certain. And sponges, try to get me some sponges. "

Madame Delaherche hurried away and returned, followed by three womenbearing a supply of the desired vessels. Gilberte, standing by the tablewhere the instruments were laid out, summoned Henriette to her side bya look and pointed to them with a little shudder. They grasped eachother's hand and stood for a moment without speaking, but their muteclasp was eloquent of the solemn feeling of terror and pity that filledboth their souls. And yet there was a difference, for one retained, evenin her distress, the involuntary smile of her bright youth, while in theeyes of the other, pale as death, was the grave earnestness of the heartwhich, one love lost, can never love again. 

"How terrible it must be, dear, to have an arm or leg cut off!"

"Poor fellows!"

Bouroche had just finished placing a mattress on each of the threetables, covering them carefully with oil-cloth, when the sound ofhorses' hoofs was heard outside and the first ambulance wagon rolledinto the court. There were ten men in it, seated on the lateral benches, only slightly wounded; two or three of them carrying their arm in asling, but the majority hurt about the head. They alighted withbut little assistance, and the inspection of their cases commencedforthwith. 

One of them, scarcely more than a boy, had been shot through theshoulder, and as Henriette was tenderly assisting him to draw off hisgreatcoat, an operation that elicited cries of pain, she took notice ofthe number of his regiment. 

"Why, you belong to the 106th! Are you in Captain Beaudoin's company?"

No, he belonged to Captain Bonnaud's company, but for all that he waswell acquainted with Corporal Macquart and felt pretty certain that hissquad had not been under fire as yet. The tidings, meager as theywere, sufficed to remove a great load from the young woman's heart: herbrother was alive and well; if now her husband would only return, as shewas expecting every moment he would do, her mind would be quite at rest. 

At that moment, just as Henriette raised her head to listen to thecannonade, which was then roaring with increased viciousness, she wasthunderstruck to see Delaherche standing only a few steps away inthe middle of a group of men, to whom he was telling the story of thefrightful dangers he had encountered in getting from Bazeilles to Sedan. How did he happen to be there? She had not seen him come in. She dartedtoward him. 

"Is not my husband with you?"

But Delaherche, who was just then replying to the fond questions of hiswife and mother, was in no haste to answer. 

"Wait, wait a moment. " And resuming his narrative: "Twenty times betweenBazeilles and Balan I just missed being killed. It was a storm, aregular hurricane, of shot and shell! And I saw the Emperor, too. Oh!but he is a brave man!--And after leaving Balan I ran--"

Henriette shook him by the arm. 

"My husband?"

"Weiss? why, he stayed behind there, Weiss did. "

"What do you mean, behind there?"

"Why, yes; he picked up the musket of a dead soldier, and is fightingaway with the best of them. "

"He is fighting, you say?--and why?"

"He must be out of his head, I think. He would not come with me, and ofcourse I had to leave him. "

Henriette gazed at him fixedly, with wide-dilated eyes. For a moment noone spoke; then in a calm voice she declared her resolution. 

"It is well; I will go to him. "

What, she, go to him? But it was impossible, it was preposterous!Delaherche had more to say of his hurricane of shot and shell. Gilberteseized her by the wrists to detain her, while Madame Delaherche usedall her persuasive powers to convince her of the folly of the madundertaking. In the same gentle, determined tone she repeated:

"It is useless; I will go to him. "

She would only wait to adjust upon her head the lace scarf that Gilbertehad been wearing and which the latter insisted she should accept. In thehope that his offer might cause her to abandon her resolve Delaherchedeclared that he would go with her at least as far as the Balan gate, but just then he caught sight of the sentry, who, in all the turmoiland confusion of the time, had been pacing uninterruptedly up and downbefore the building that contained the treasure chests of the 7th corps, and suddenly he remembered, was alarmed, went to give a look and assurehimself that the millions were there still. In the meantime Henriettehad reached the portico and was about to pass out into the street. 

"Wait for me, won't you? Upon my word, you are as mad as your husband!"

Another ambulance had driven up, moreover, and they had to wait to letit pass in. It was smaller than the other, having but two wheels, and the two men whom it contained, both severely wounded, rested onstretchers placed upon the floor. The first one whom the attendants tookout, using the most tender precaution, had one hand broken and his sidetorn by a splinter of shell; he was a mass of bleeding flesh. The secondhad his left leg shattered; and Bouroche, giving orders to extend thelatter on one of the oil-cloth-covered mattresses, proceeded forthwithto operate on him, surrounded by the staring, pushing crowd of dressersand assistants. Madame Delaherche and Gilberte were seated near thegrass-plot, employed in rolling bandages. 

In the street outside Delaherche had caught up with Henriette. 

"Come, my dear Madame Weiss, abandon this foolhardy undertaking. Howcan you expect to find Weiss in all that confusion? Most likely he isno longer there by this time; he is probably making his way home throughthe fields. I assure you that Bazeilles is inaccessible. "

But she did not even listen to him, only increasing her speed, and hadnow entered the Rue de Menil, her shortest way to the Balan gate. It wasnearly nine o'clock, and Sedan no longer wore the forbidding, funerealaspect of the morning, when it awoke to grope and shudder amid thedespair and gloom of its black fog. The shadows of the houses weresharply defined upon the pavement in the bright sunlight, the streetswere filled with an excited, anxious throng, through which orderlies andstaff officers were constantly pushing their way at a gallop. The chiefcenters of attraction were the straggling soldiers who, even at thisearly hour of the day, had begun to stream into the city, minus armsand equipments, some of them slightly wounded, others in an extremecondition of nervous excitation, shouting and gesticulating likelunatics. And yet the place would have had very much its every-dayaspect, had it not been for the tight-closed shutters of the shops, thelifeless house-fronts, where not a blind was open. Then there was thecannonade, that never-ceasing cannonade, beneath which earth and rocks, walls and foundations, even to the very slates upon the roofs, shook andtrembled. 

What between the damage that his reputation as a man of bravery andpoliteness would inevitably suffer should he desert Henriette in hertime of trouble, and his disinclination to again face the iron hailon the Bazeilles road, Delaherche was certainly in a very unpleasantpredicament. Just as they reached the Balan gate a bevy of mountedofficers, returning to the city, suddenly came riding up, and they wereparted. There was a dense crowd of people around the gate, waiting fornews. It was all in vain that he ran this way and that, looking for theyoung woman in the throng; she must have been beyond the walls by thattime, speeding along the road, and pocketing his gallantry for use onsome future occasion, he said to himself aloud:

"Very well, so much the worse for her; it was too idiotic. "

Then the manufacturer strolled about the city, bourgeois-like desirousto lose no portion of the spectacle, and at the same time tormented bya constantly increasing feeling of anxiety. How was it all to end?and would not the city suffer heavily should the army be defeated? Thequestions were hard ones to answer; he could not give a satisfactorysolution to the conundrum when so much depended on circumstances, butnone the less he was beginning to feel very uneasy for his factory andhouse in the Rue Maqua, whence he had already taken the precaution toremove his securities and valuables and bury them in a place of safety. He dropped in at the Hotel de Ville, found the Municipal Council sittingin permanent session, and loitered away a couple of hours there withouthearing any fresh news, unless that affairs outside the walls werebeginning to look very threatening. The army, under the pushing andhauling process, pushed back to the rear by General Ducrot during thehour and a half while the command was in his hands, hauled forward tothe front again by de Wimpffen, his successor, knew not where to yieldobedience, and the entire lack of plan and competent leadership, theincomprehensible vacillation, the abandonment of positions only toretake them again at terrible cost of life, all these things could notfail to end in ruin and disaster. 

From there Delaherche pushed forward to the Sous-Prefecture to ascertainwhether the Emperor had returned yet from the field of battle. The onlytidings he gleaned here were of Marshal MacMahon, who was said to beresting comfortably, his wound, which was not dangerous, having beendressed by a surgeon. About eleven o'clock, however, as he was againgoing the rounds, his progress was arrested for a moment in theGrande-Rue, opposite the Hotel de l'Europe, by a sorry cavalcade ofdust-stained horsemen, whose jaded nags were moving at a walk, and attheir head he recognized the Emperor, who was returning after havingspent four hours on the battle-field. It was plain that death would havenothing to do with him. The big drops of anguish had washed the rougefrom off those painted cheeks, the waxed mustache had lost its stiffnessand drooped over the mouth, and in that ashen face, in those dim eyes, was the stupor of one in his last agony. One of the officers alightedin front of the hotel and proceeded to give some friends, who werecollected there, an account of their route, from la Moncelle to Givonne, up the entire length of the little valley among the soldiers of the 1stcorps, who had already been pressed back by the Saxons across the littlestream to the right bank; and they had returned by the sunken road ofthe Fond de Givonne, which was even then in such an encumbered conditionthat had the Emperor desired to make his way to the front again he wouldhave found the greatest difficulty in doing so. Besides, what would ithave availed?

As Delaherche was drinking in these particulars with greedy ears a loudexplosion shook the quarter. It was a shell, which had demolished achimney in the Rue Sainte-Barbe, near the citadel. There was a generalrush and scramble; men swore and women shrieked. He had flattenedhimself against the wall, when another explosion broke the windows ina house not far away. The consequences would be dreadful if they shouldshell Sedan; he made his way back to the Rue Maqua on a keen run, andwas seized by such an imperious desire to learn the truth that he didnot pause below stairs, but hurried to the roof, where there was aterrace that commanded a view of the city and its environs. 

A glance of the situation served to reassure him; the German fire wasnot directed against the city; the batteries at Frenois and la Marfeewere shelling the Plateau de l'Algerie over the roofs of the houses, and now that his alarm had subsided he could even watch with a certaindegree of admiration the flight of the projectiles as they sailed overSedan in a wide, majestic curve, leaving behind them a faint trail ofsmoke upon the air, like gigantic birds, invisible to mortal eye and tobe traced only by the gray plumage shed by their pinions. At first itseemed to him quite evident that what damage had been done so far wasthe result of random practice by the Prussian gunners: they were notbombarding the city yet; then, upon further consideration, he was ofopinion that their firing was intended as a response to the ineffectualfire of the few guns mounted on the fortifications of the place. Turningto the north he looked down from his position upon the extended andcomplex system of defenses of the citadel, the frowning curtains blackwith age, the green expanses of the turfed glacis, the stern bastionsthat reared their heads at geometrically accurate angles, prominentamong them the three cyclopean salients, the Ecossais, the Grand Jardin, and la Rochette, while further to the west, in extension of the line, were Fort Nassau and Fort Palatinat, above the faubourg of Menil. Thesight produced in him a melancholy impression of immensity and futility. Of what avail were they now against the powerful modern guns with theirimmense range? Besides, the works were not manned; cannon, ammunition, men were wanting. Some three weeks previously the governor had invitedthe citizens to organize and form a National Guard, and these volunteerswere now doing duty as gunners; and thus it was that there were threeguns in service at Palatinat, while at the Porte de Paris there may havebeen a half dozen. As they had only seven or eight rounds to each gun, however, the men husbanded their ammunition, limiting themselves toa shot every half hour, and that only as a sort of salve to theirself-respect, for none of their missiles reached the enemy; allwere lost in the meadows opposite them. Hence the enemy's batteries, disdainful of such small game, contemptuously pitched a shell at themfrom time to time, out of charity, as it were. 

Those batteries over across the river were objects of great interest toDelaherche. He was eagerly scanning the heights of la Marfee with hisnaked eye, when all at once he thought of the spy-glass with which hesometimes amused himself by watching the doings of his neighbors fromthe terrace. He ran downstairs and got it, returned and placed it inposition, and as he was slowly sweeping the horizon and trees, fields, houses came within his range of vision, he lighted on that group ofuniforms, at the angle of a pine wood, over the main battery at Frenois, of which Weiss had caught a glimpse from Bazeilles. To him, however, thanks to the excellence of his glass, it would have been no difficultmatter to count the number of officers of the staff, so distinctly hemade them out. Some of them were reclining carelessly on the grass, others were conversing in little groups, and in front of them all stooda solitary figure, a spare, well-proportioned man to appearances, inan unostentatious uniform, who yet asserted in some indefinable way hismasterhood. It was the Prussian King, scarce half finger high, one ofthose miniature leaden toys that afford children such delight. Althoughhe was not certain of this identity until later on the manufacturerfound himself, by reason of some inexplicable attraction, constantlyreturning to that diminutive puppet, whose face, scarce larger than apin's head, was but a pale point against the immense blue sky. 

It was not midday yet, and since nine o'clock the master had beenwatching the movements, inexorable as fate, of his armies. Onward, everonward, they swept, by roads traced for them in advance, completingthe circle, slowly but surely closing in and enveloping Sedan in theirliving wall of men and guns. The army on his left, that had come upacross the level plain of Donchery, was debouching still from the passof Saint-Albert and, leaving Saint-Menges in its rear, was beginningto show its heads of columns at Fleigneux; and, in the rear of the XIthcorps, then sharply engaged with General Douay's force, he could discernthe Vth corps, availing itself of the shelter of the woods and advancingstealthily on Illy, while battery upon battery came wheeling intoposition, an ever-lengthening line of thundering guns, until thehorizon was an unbroken ring of fire. On the right the army was now inundisputed possession of the valley of the Givonne; the XIIth corps hadtaken la Moncelle, the Guards had forced the passage of the stream atDaigny, compelling General Ducrot to seek the protection of the wood ofla Garenne, and were pushing up the right bank, likewise in full marchupon the plateau of Illy. Their task was almost done; one effort more, and up there at the north, among those barren fields, on the very vergeof the dark forests of the Ardennes, the Crown Prince of Prussia wouldjoin hands with the Crown Prince of Saxony. To the south of Sedan thevillage of Bazeilles was lost to sight in the dense smoke of its burninghouses, in the clouds of dun vapor that rose above the furious conflict. 

And tranquilly, ever since the morning, the King had been watching andwaiting. An hour yet, two hours, it might be three, it mattered not;it was only a question of time. Wheel and pinion, cog and lever, wereworking in harmony, the great engine of destruction was in motion, andsoon would have run its course. In the center of the immense horizon, beneath the deep vault of sunlit sky, the bounds of the battlefield wereever becoming narrower, the black swarms were converging, closing in ondoomed Sedan. There were fiery reflexions in the windows of the city; tothe left, in the direction of the Faubourg de la Cassine, it seemed asif a house was burning. And outside the circle of flame and smoke, inthe fields no longer trodden by armed men, over by Donchery, over byCarignan, peace, warm and luminous, lay upon the land; the bright watersof the Meuse, the lusty trees rejoicing in their strength, the broad, verdant meadows, the fertile, well-kept farms, all rested peacefullybeneath the fervid noonday sun. 

Turning to his staff, the King briefly called for information uponsome point. It was the royal will to direct each move on the giganticchessboard; to hold in the hollow of his hand the hosts who looked tohim for guidance. At his left, a flock of swallows, affrighted by thenoise of the cannonade, rose high in air, wheeled, and vanished in thesouth. 

IV. 

Between the city and Balan, Henriette got over the ground at a good, round pace. It was not yet nine o'clock; the broad footpath, bordered bygardens and pretty cottages, was as yet comparatively free, although asshe approached the village it began to be more and more obstructed byflying citizens and moving troops. When she saw a great surge of thehuman tide advancing on her she hugged the walls and house-fronts, andby dint of address and perseverance slipped through, somehow. The foldof black lace that half concealed her fair hair and small, pale face, the sober gown that enveloped her slight form, made her an inconspicuousobject among the throng; she went her way unnoticed by the by-passers, and nothing retarded her light, silent steps. 

At Balan, however, she found the road blocked by a regiment ofinfanterie de marine. It was a compact mass of men, drawn up under thetall trees that concealed them from the enemy's observation, awaitingorders. She raised herself on tiptoe, and could not see the end; still, she made herself as small as she could and attempted to worm her waythrough. The men shoved her with their elbows, and the butts of theirmuskets made acquaintance with her ribs; when she had advanced a dozenpaces there was a chorus of shouts and angry protests. A captain turnedon her and roughly cried:

"Hi, there, you woman! are you crazy? Where are you going?"

"I am going to Bazeilles. "

"What, to Bazeilles?"

There was a shout of laughter. The soldiers pointed at her with theirfingers; she was the object of their witticisms. The captain, also, greatly amused by the incident, had to have his joke. 

"You should take us along with you, my little dear, if you are goingto Bazeilles. We were there a short while ago, and I am in hope thatwe shall go back there, but I can tell you that the temperature of theplace is none too cool. "

"I am going to Bazeilles to look for my husband, " Henriette declared, in her gentle voice, while her blue eyes shone with undiminishedresolution. 

The laughter ceased; an old sergeant extricated her from the crowd thathad collected around her, and forced her to retrace her steps. 

"My poor child, you see it is impossible to get through. Bazeilles isno place for you. You will find your husband by and by. Come, listen toreason!"

She had to obey, and stood aside beneath the trees, raising herselfon her toes at every moment to peer before her, firm in her resolveto continue her journey as soon as she should be allowed to pass. Shelearned the condition of affairs from the conversation that went onaround her. Some officers were criticising with great acerbity the orderfor the abandonment of Bazeilles, which had occurred at a quarter-pasteight, at the time when General Ducrot, taking over the command from themarshal, had considered it best to concentrate the troops on the plateauof Illy. What made matters worse was, that the valley of the Givonnehaving fallen into the hands of the Germans through the prematureretirement of the 1st corps, the 12th corps, which was even thensustaining a vigorous attack in front, was overlapped on its left flank. Now that General de Wimpffen had relieved General Ducrot, it seemed thatthe original plan was to be carried out. Orders had been received toretake Bazeilles at every cost, and drive the Bavarians into the Meuse. And so, in the ranks of that regiment that had been halted there infull retreat at the entrance of the village and ordered to resume theoffensive, there was much bitter feeling, and angry words were rife. Was ever such stupidity heard of? to make them abandon a position, andimmediately tell them to turn round and retake it from the enemy! Theywere willing enough to risk their life in the cause, but no one cared tothrow it away for nothing!

A body of mounted men dashed up the street and General de Wimpffenappeared among them, and raising himself erect on his stirrups, withflashing eyes, he shouted, in ringing tones:

"Friends, we cannot retreat; it would be ruin to us all. And if we dohave to retreat, it shall be on Carignan, and not on Mezieres. But weshall be victorious! You beat the enemy this morning; you will beat themagain!"

He galloped off on a road that conducted to la Moncelle. It was saidthat there had been a violent altercation between him and GeneralDucrot, each upholding his own plan, and decrying the plan ofthe other--one asserting that retreat by way of Mezieres had beenimpracticable all that morning; the other predicting that, unless theyfell back on Illy, the army would be surrounded before night. And therewas a great deal of bitter recrimination, each taxing the other withignorance of the country and of the situation of the troops. The pity ofit was that both were right. 

But Henriette, meantime, had made an encounter that caused her toforget her project for a moment. In some poor outcasts; stranded by thewayside, she had recognized a family of honest weavers from Bazeilles, father, mother, and three little girls, of whom the largest was onlynine years old. They were utterly disheartened and forlorn, and so wearyand footsore that they could go no further, and had thrown themselvesdown at the foot of a wall. 

"Alas! dear lady, " the wife and mother said to Henriette, "we havelost our all. Our house--you know where our house stood on the Place del'Eglise--well, a shell came and burned it. Why we and the children didnot stay and share its fate I do not know--"

At these words the three little ones began to cry and sob afresh, while the mother, in distracted language, gave further details of thecatastrophe. 

"The loom, I saw it burn like seasoned kindling wood, and the bed, the chairs and tables, they blazed like so much straw. And even theclock--yes, the poor old clock that I tried to save and could not. "

"My God! my God!" the man exclaimed, his eyes swimming with tears, "whatis to become of us?"

Henriette endeavored to comfort them, but it was in a voice thatquavered strangely. 

"You have been preserved to each other, you are safe and unharmed; yourthree little girls are left you. What reason have you to complain?"

Then she proceeded to question them to learn how matters stood inBazeilles, whether they had seen her husband, in what state they hadleft her house, but in their half-dazed condition they gave conflictinganswers. No, they had not seen M. Weiss. One of the little girls, however, declared that she had seen him, and that he was lying on theground with a great hole in his head, whereon the father gave her a boxon the ear, bidding her hold her tongue and not tell such lies to thelady. As for the house, they could say with certainty that it was intactat the time of their flight; they even remembered to have observed, asthey passed it, that the doors and windows were tightly secured, as ifit was quite deserted. At that time, moreover, the only foothold thatthe Bavarians had secured for themselves was in the Place de l'Eglise, and to carry the village they would have to fight for it, street bystreet, house by house. They must have been gaining ground since then, though; all Bazeilles was in flames by that time, like enough, and nota wall left standing, thanks to the fierceness of the assailants andthe resolution of the defenders. And so the poor creatures went on, withtrembling, affrighted gestures, evoking the horrid sights their eyes hadseen and telling their dreadful tale of slaughter and conflagration andcorpses lying in heaps upon the ground. 

"But my husband?" Henriette asked again. 

They made no answer, only continued to cover their face with their handsand sob. Her cruel anxiety, as she stood there erect, with no outwardsign of weakness, was only evinced by a slight quivering of the lips. What was she to believe? Vainly she told herself the child was mistaken;her mental vision pictured her husband lying there dead before herin the street with a bullet wound in the head. Again, that house, sosecurely locked and bolted, was another source of alarm; why was itso? was he no longer in it? The conviction that he was dead sent anicy chill to her heart; but perhaps he was only wounded, perhaps he wasbreathing still; and so sudden and imperious was the need she felt offlying to his side that she would again have attempted to force herpassage through the troops had not the bugles just then sounded theorder for them to advance. 

The regiment was largely composed of raw, half-drilled recruits fromToulon, Brest, and Rochefort, men who had never fired a shot, but allthat morning they had fought with a bravery and firmness that wouldnot have disgraced veteran troops. They had not shown much aptitude formarching on the road from Rheims to Mouzon, weighted as they were withtheir unaccustomed burdens, but when they came to face the enemy theirdiscipline and sense of duty made themselves felt, and notwithstandingthe righteous anger that was in their hearts, the bugle had but to soundand they returned to brave the fire and encounter the foe. Three severaltimes they had been promised a division to support them; it never came. They felt that they were deserted, sacrificed; it was the offering oftheir life that was demanded of them by those who, having first madethem evacuate the place, were now sending them back into the fieryfurnace of Bazeilles. And they knew it, and they gave their life, freely, without a murmur, closing up their ranks and leaving the shelterof the trees to meet afresh the storm of shell and bullets. 

Henriette gave a deep sigh of relief; at last they were about to move!She followed them, with the hope that she might enter the villageunperceived in their rear, prepared to run with them should they takethe double-quick. But they had scarcely begun to move when they came toa halt again. The projectiles were now falling thick and fast; to regainpossession of Bazeilles it would be necessary to dispute every inch ofthe road, occupying the cross-streets, the houses and gardens on eitherside of the way. A brisk fire of musketry proceeded from the head ofthe column, the advance was irregular, by fits and starts, every pettyobstacle entailed a delay of many minutes. She felt that she would neverattain her end by remaining there at the rear of the column, waitingfor it to fight its way through, and with prompt decision she bent hercourse to the right and took a path that led downward between two hedgesto the meadows. 

Henriette's plan now was to reach Bazeilles by those broad levels thatborder the Meuse. She was not very clear about it in her mind, however, and continued to hasten onward in obedience to that blind instinct whichhad originally imparted to her its impulse. She had not gone far beforeshe found herself standing and gazing in dismay at a miniature oceanwhich barred her further progress in that direction. It was theinundated fields, the low-lying lands that a measure of defense hadconverted into a lake, which had escaped her memory. For a single momentshe thought of turning back; then, at the risk of leaving her shoesbehind, she pushed on, hugging the bank, through the water that coveredthe grass and rose above her ankles. For a hundred yards her way, thoughdifficult, was not impracticable; then she encountered a garden-walldirectly in her front; the ground fell off sharply, and where the wallterminated the water was six feet deep. Her path was closed effectually;she clenched her little fists and had to summon up all her resolutionto keep from bursting into tears. When the first shock of disappointmenthad passed over she made her way along the enclosure and found a narrowlane that pursued a tortuous course among the scattered houses. Shebelieved that now her troubles were at an end, for she was acquaintedwith that labyrinth, that tangled maze of passages, which, to one whohad the key to them, ended at the village. 

But the missiles seemed to be falling there even more thickly thanelsewhere. Henriette stopped short in her tracks and all the blood inher body seemed to flow back upon her heart at a frightful detonation, so close that she could feel the wind upon her cheek. A shell hadexploded directly before her and only a few yards away. She turned herhead and scrutinized for a moment the heights of the left bank, abovewhich the smoke from the German batteries was curling upward; she sawwhat she must do, and when she started on her way again it was with eyesfixed on the horizon, watching for the shells in order to avoid them. There was method in the rash daring of her proceeding, and all the bravetranquillity that the prudent little housewife had at her command. Shewas not going to be killed if she could help it; she wished to find herhusband and bring him back with her, that they might yet have many daysof happy life together. The projectiles still came tumbling frequentlyas ever; she sped along behind walls, made a cover of boundary stones, availed herself of every slight depression. But presently she came to anopen space, a bit of unprotected road where splinters and fragmentsof exploded shells lay thick, and she was watching behind a shed for achance to make a dash when she perceived, emerging from a sort of cleftin the ground in front of her, a human head and two bright eyes thatpeered about inquisitively. It was a little, bare-footed, ten-year-oldboy, dressed in a shirt and ragged trousers, an embryonic tramp, who waswatching the battle with huge delight. At every report his small blackbeady eyes would snap and sparkle, and he jubilantly shouted:

"Oh my! aint it bully!--Look out, there comes another one! don't stir!Boom! that was a rouser!--Don't stir! don't stir!"

And each time there came a shell he dived to the bottom of his hole, then reappeared, showing his dirty, elfish face, until it was time toduck again. 

Henriette now noticed that the projectiles all came from Liry, while thebatteries at Pont-Maugis and Noyers were confining their attention toBalan. At each discharge she could see the smoke distinctly, immediatelyafterward she heard the scream of the shell, succeeded by the explosion. Just then the gunners afforded them a brief respite; the bluish hazeabove the heights drifted slowly away upon the wind. 

"They've stopped to take a drink, you can go your money on it, " said theurchin. "Quick, quick, give me your hand! Now's the time to skip!"

He took her by the hand and dragged her along with him, and in this waythey crossed the open together, side by side, running for dear life, with head and shoulders down. When they were safely ensconced behind astack that opportunely offered its protection at the end of their courseand turned to look behind them, they beheld another shell come rushingthrough the air and alight upon the shed at the very spot they hadoccupied so lately. The crash was fearful; the shed was knocked tosplinters. The little ragamuffin considered that a capital joke, andfairly danced with glee. 

"Bravo, hit 'em agin! that's the way to do it!--But it was time for usto skip, though, wasn't it?"

But again Henriette struck up against insurmountable obstacles in theshape of hedges and garden-walls, that offered absolutely no outlet. Herirrepressible companion, still wearing his broad grin and remarking thatwhere there was a will there was a way, climbed to the coping of a walland assisted her to scale it. On reaching the further side they foundthemselves in a kitchen garden among beds of peas and string-beans andsurrounded by fences on every side; their sole exit was through thelittle cottage of the gardener. The boy led the way, swinging his armsand whistling unconcernedly, with an expression on his face of mostprofound indifference. He pushed open a door that admitted him to abedroom, from which he passed on into another room, where there was anold woman, apparently the only living being upon the premises. She wasstanding by a table, in a sort of dazed stupor; she looked at the twostrangers who thus unceremoniously made a highway of her dwelling, butaddressed them no word, nor did they speak a word to her. They vanishedas quickly as they had appeared, emerging by the exit opposite theirentrance upon an alley that they followed for a moment. After that therewere other difficulties to be surmounted, and thus they went on for morethan half a mile, scaling walls, struggling through hedges, availingthemselves of every short cut that offered, it might be the door ofa stable or the window of a cottage, as the exigencies of the casedemanded. Dogs howled mournfully; they had a narrow escape from beingrun down by a cow that was plunging along, wild with terror. It seemedas if they must be approaching the village, however; there was an odorof burning wood in the air, and momentarily volumes of reddish smoke, like veils of finest gauze floating in the wind, passed athwart the sunand obscured his light. 

All at once the urchin came to a halt and planted himself in front ofHenriette. 

"I say, lady, tell us where you're going, will you?"

"You can see very well where I am going; to Bazeilles. "

He gave a low whistle of astonishment, following it up with the shrilllaugh of the careless vagabond to whom nothing is sacred, who is notparticular upon whom or what he launches his irreverent gibes. 

"To Bazeilles--oh, no, I guess not; I don't think my business lies thatway--I have another engagement. Bye-bye, ta-ta!"

He turned on his heel and was off like a shot, and she was none thewiser as to whence he came or whither he went. She had found him in ahole, she had lost sight of him at the corner of a wall, and never wasshe to set eyes on him again. 

When she was alone again Henriette experienced a strange sensation offear. He had been no protection to her, that scrubby urchin, but hischatter had been a distraction; he had kept her spirits up by his way ofmaking game of everything, as if it was all one huge raree show. Nowshe was beginning to tremble, her strength was failing her, she, whoby nature was so courageous. The shells no longer fell around her: theGermans had ceased firing on Bazeilles, probably to avoid killing theirown men, who were now masters of the village; but within the last fewminutes she had heard the whistling of bullets, that peculiar sound likethe buzzing of a bluebottle fly, that she recognized by having heard itdescribed. There was such a raging, roaring clamor rising to the heavensin the distance, the confused uproar of other sounds was so violent, that in it she failed to distinguish the report of musketry. As she wasturning the corner of a house there was a deadened thud close at herear, succeeded by the sound of falling plaster, which brought her to asudden halt; it was a bullet that had struck the facade. She was pale asdeath, and asked herself if her courage would be sufficient to carryher through to the end; and before she had time to frame an answer, shereceived what seemed to her a blow from a hammer upon her forehead, andsank, stunned, upon her knees. It was a spent ball that had ricochetedand struck her a little above the left eyebrow with sufficient forceto raise an ugly contusion. When she came to, raising her hands to herforehead, she withdrew them covered with blood. But the pressure of herfingers had assured her that the bone beneath was uninjured, and shesaid aloud, encouraging herself by the sound of her own voice:

"It is nothing, it is nothing. Come, I am not afraid; no, no! I am notafraid. "

And it was the truth; she arose, and from that time walked amid thestorm of bullets with absolute indifference, like one whose soul isparted from his body, who reasons not, who gives his life. She marchedstraight onward, with head erect, no longer seeking to shelter herself, and if she struck out at a swifter pace it was only that she might reachher appointed end more quickly. The death-dealing missiles pattered onthe road before and behind her; twenty times they were near taking herlife; she never noticed them. At last she was at Bazeilles, and struckdiagonally across a field of lucerne in order to regain the road, themain street that traversed the village. Just as she turned into it shecast her eyes to the right, and there, some two hundred paces fromher, beheld her house in a blaze. The flames were invisible against thebright sunlight; the roof had already fallen in in part, the windowswere belching dense clouds of black smoke. She could restrain herself nolonger, and ran with all her strength. 

Ever since eight o'clock Weiss, abandoned by the retiring troops, hadbeen a self-made prisoner there. His return to Sedan had become animpossibility, for the Bavarians, immediately upon the withdrawal of theFrench, had swarmed down from the park of Montivilliers and occupiedthe road. He was alone and defenseless, save for his musket and what fewcartridges were left him, when he beheld before his door a little bandof soldiers, ten in number, abandoned, like himself, and parted fromtheir comrades, looking about them for a place where they might defendthemselves and sell their lives dearly. He ran downstairs to admit them, and thenceforth the house had a garrison, a lieutenant, corporal andeight men, all bitterly inflamed against the enemy, and resolved neverto surrender. 

"What, Laurent, you here!" he exclaimed, surprised to recognize amongthe soldiers a tall, lean young man, who held in his hand a musket, doubtless taken from some corpse. 

Laurent was dressed in jacket and trousers of blue cloth; he was helperto a gardener of the neighborhood, and had lately lost his mother andhis wife, both of whom had been carried off by the same insidious fever. 

"And why shouldn't I be?" he replied. "All I have is my skin, and I'mwilling to give that. And then I am not such a bad shot, you know, andit will be just fun for me to blaze away at those rascals and knock oneof 'em over every time. "

The lieutenant and the corporal had already begun to make an inspectionof the premises. There was nothing to be done on the ground floor; allthey did was to push the furniture against the door and windows in sucha way as to form as secure a barricade as possible. After attending tothat they proceeded to arrange a plan for the defense of the three smallrooms of the first floor and the open attic, making no change, however, in the measures that had been already taken by Weiss, the protection ofthe windows by mattresses, the loopholes cut here and there in the slatsof the blinds. As the lieutenant was leaning from the window to take asurvey of their surroundings, he heard the wailing cry of a child. 

"What is that?" he asked. 

Weiss looked from the window, and, in the adjoining dyehouse, beheld thelittle sick boy, Charles, his scarlet face resting on the white pillow, imploringly begging his mother to bring him a drink: his mother, who laydead across the threshold, beyond hearing or answering. With a sorrowfulexpression he replied:

"It is a poor little child next door, there, crying for his mother, whowas killed by a Prussian shell. "

"_Tonnerre de Dieu!_" muttered Laurent, "how are they ever going to payfor all these things!"

As yet only a few random shots had struck the front of the house. Weiss and the lieutenant, accompanied by the corporal and two men, hadascended to the attic, where they were in better position to observe theroad, of which they had an oblique view as far as the Place de l'Eglise. The square was now occupied by the Bavarians, but any further advancewas attended by difficulties that made them very circumspect. A handfulof French soldiers, posted at the mouth of a narrow lane, held themin check for nearly a quarter of an hour, with a fire so rapid andcontinuous that the dead bodies lay in piles. The next obstacle theyencountered was a house on the opposite corner, which also detained themsome time before they could get possession of it. At one time a woman, with a musket in her hands, was seen through the smoke, firing from oneof the windows. It was the abode of a baker, and a few soldiers werethere in addition to the regular occupants; and when the house wasfinally carried there was a hoarse shout: "No quarter!" a surging, struggling, vociferating throng poured from the door and rolled acrossthe street to the dead-wall opposite, and in the raging torrent wereseen the woman's skirt, the jacket of a man, the white hairs of thegrandfather; then came the crash of a volley of musketry, and the wallwas splashed with blood from base to coping. This was a point on whichthe Germans were inexorable; everyone caught with arms in his handsand not belonging to some uniformed organization was shot without theformality of a trial, as having violated the law of nations. They wereenraged at the obstinate resistance offered them by the village, andthe frightful loss they had sustained during the five hours' conflictprovoked them to the most atrocious reprisals. The gutters ran red withblood, the piled dead in the streets formed barricades, some of the moreopen places were charnel-houses, from whose depths rose the death-rattleof men in their last agony. And in every house that they had to carry byassault in this way men were seen distributing wisps of lighted straw, others ran to and fro with blazing torches, others smeared the walls andfurniture with petroleum; soon whole streets were burning, Bazeilles wasin flames. 

And now Weiss's was the only house in the central portion of the villagethat still continued to hold out, preserving its air of menace, likesome stern citadel determined not to yield. 

"Look out! here they come!" shouted the lieutenant. 

A simultaneous discharge from the attic and the first floor laid lowthree of the Bavarians, who had come forward hugging the walls. Theremainder of the body fell back and posted themselves under coverwherever the street offered facilities, and the siege of the housebegan; the bullets pelted on the front like rattling hail. For nearlyten minutes the fusillade continued without cessation, damaging thestucco, but not doing much mischief otherwise, until one of the men whomthe lieutenant had taken with him to the garret was so imprudent asto show himself at a window, when a bullet struck him square in theforehead, killing him instantly. It was plain that whoever exposedhimself would do so at peril of his life. 

"Doggone it! there's one gone!" growled the lieutenant. "Be careful, will you; there's not enough of us that we can afford to let ourselvesbe killed for the fun of it!"

He had taken a musket and was firing away like the rest of them frombehind the protection of a shutter, at the same time watching andencouraging his men. It was Laurent, the gardener's helper, however, whomore than all the others excited his wonder and admiration. Kneeling onthe floor, with his chassepot peering out of the narrow aperture of aloophole, he never fired until absolutely certain of his aim; he eventold in advance where he intended hitting his living target. 

"That little officer in blue that you see down there, in theheart. --That other fellow, the tall, lean one, between the eyes. --Idon't like the looks of that fat man with the red beard; I think I'lllet him have it in the stomach. "

And each time his man went down as if struck by lightning, hit in thevery spot he had mentioned, and he continued to fire at intervals, coolly, without haste, there being no necessity for hurrying himself, ashe remarked, since it would require too long a time to kill them all inthat way. 

"Oh! if I had but my eyes!" Weiss impatiently exclaimed. He had brokenhis spectacles a while before, to his great sorrow. He had his doubleeye-glass still, but the perspiration was rolling down his face in suchstreams that it was impossible to keep it on his nose. His usual calmcollectedness was entirely lost in his over-mastering passion; and thus, between his defective vision and his agitated nerves, many of his shotswere wasted. 

"Don't hurry so, it is only throwing away powder, " said Laurent. "Do yousee that man who has lost his helmet, over yonder by the grocer'sshop? Well, now draw a bead on him, --carefully, don't hurry. That'sfirst-rate! you have broken his paw for him and made him dance a jig inhis own blood. "

Weiss, rather pale in the face, gave a look at the result of hismarksmanship. 

"Put him out of his misery, " he said. 

"What, waste a cartridge! Not, much. Better save it for another of 'em. "

The besiegers could not have failed to notice the remarkable practice ofthe invisible sharpshooter in the attic. Whoever of them showed himselfin the open was certain to remain there. They therefore brought upre-enforcements and placed them in position, with instructions tomaintain an unremitting fire upon the roof of the building. It was notlong before the attic became untenable; the slates were perforated asif they had been tissue paper, the bullets found their way to every nookand corner, buzzing and humming as if the room had been invaded by aswarm of angry bees. Death stared them all in the face if they remainedthere longer. 

"We will go downstairs, " said the lieutenant. "We can hold the firstfloor for awhile yet. " But as he was making for the ladder a bulletstruck him in the groin and he fell. "Too late, doggone it!"

Weiss and Laurent, aided by the remaining soldiers, carried him below, notwithstanding his vehement protests; he told them not to waste theirtime on him, his time had come; he might as well die upstairs as down. He was still able to be of service to them, however, when they had laidhim on a bed in a room of the first floor, by advising them what wasbest to do. 

"Fire into the mass, " he said; "don't stop to take aim. They are toocowardly to risk an advance unless they see your fire begin to slacken. "

And so the siege of the little house went on as if it was to last foreternity. Twenty times it seemed as if it must be swept away bodily bythe storm of iron that beat upon it, and each time, as the smoke driftedaway, it was seen amid the sulphurous blasts, torn, pierced, mangled, but erect and menacing, spitting fire and lead with undiminished venomfrom each one of its orifices. The assailants, furious that they shouldbe detained for such length of time and lose so many men before such ahovel, yelled and fired wildly in the distance, but had not courage toattempt to carry the lower floor by a rush. 

"Look out!" shouted the corporal, "there is a shutter about to fall!"

The concentrated fire had torn one of the inside blinds from its hinges, but Weiss darted forward and pushed a wardrobe before the window, andLaurent was enabled to continue his operations under cover. One of thesoldiers was lying at his feet with his jaw broken, losing blood freely. Another received a bullet in his chest, and dragged himself over tothe wall, where he lay gasping in protracted agony, while convulsivemovements shook his frame at intervals. They were but eight, now, alltold, not counting the lieutenant, who, too weak to speak, his backsupported by the headboard of the bed, continued to give his directionsby signs. As had been the case with the attic, the three rooms of thefirst floor were beginning to be untenable, for the mangled mattressesno longer afforded protection against the missiles; at every instant theplaster fell in sheets from the walls and ceiling, and the furniture wasin process of demolition: the sides of the wardrobe yawned as if theyhad been cloven by an ax. And worse still, the ammunition was nearlyexhausted. 

"It's too bad!" grumbled Laurent; "just when everything was going sobeautifully!"

But suddenly Weiss was struck with an idea. 

"Wait!"

He had thought of the dead soldier up in the garret above, and climbedup the ladder to search for the cartridges he must have about him. Awide space of the roof had been crushed in; he saw the blue sky, apatch of bright, wholesome light that made him start. Not wishing to bekilled, he crawled over the floor on his hands and knees, then, when hehad the cartridges in his possession, some thirty of them, he made hastedown again as fast his legs could carry him. 

Downstairs, as he was sharing his newly acquired treasure with thegardener's lad, a soldier uttered a piercing cry and sank to his knees. They were but seven; and presently they were but six, a bullet havingentered the corporal's head at the eye and lodged in the brain. 

From that time on, Weiss had no distinct consciousness of what wasgoing on around him; he and the five others continued to blaze awaylike lunatics, expending their cartridges, with not the faintest idea intheir heads that there could be such a thing as surrender. In the threesmall rooms the floor was strewn with fragments of the broken furniture. Ingress and egress were barred by the corpses that lay before the doors;in one corner a wounded man kept up a pitiful wail that was frightful tohear. Every inch of the floor was slippery with blood; a thin stream ofblood from the attic was crawling lazily down the stairs. And the airwas scarce respirable, an air thick and hot with sulphurous fumes, heavywith smoke, filled with an acrid, nauseating dust; a darkness denseas that of night, through which darted the red flame-tongues of themusketry. 

"By God's thunder!" cried Weiss, "they are bringing up artillery!"

It was true. Despairing of ever reducing that handful of madmen, who hadconsumed so much of their time, the Bavarians had run up a gun to thecorner of the Place de l'Eglise, and were putting it into position;perhaps they would be allowed to pass when they should have knocked thehouse to pieces with their solid shot. And the honor there was to themin the proceeding, the gun trained on them down there in the square, excited the bitter merriment of the besieged; the utmost intensityof scorn was in their gibes. Ah! the cowardly _bougres_, with theirartillery! Kneeling in his old place still, Laurent carefully adjustedhis aim and each time picked off a gunner, so that the service of thepiece became impossible, and it was five or six minutes before theyfired their first shot. It ranged high, moreover, and only clipped awaya bit of the roof. 

But the end was now at hand. It was all in vain that they searchedthe dead men's belts; there was not a single cartridge left. Withvacillating steps and haggard faces the six groped around the room, seeking what heavy objects they might find to hurl from the windows upontheir enemies. One of them showed himself at the casement, vociferatinginsults, and shaking his fist; instantly he was pierced by a dozenbullets; and there remained but five. What were they to do? go down andendeavor to make their escape by way of the garden and the meadows? Thequestion was never answered, for at that moment a tumult arose below, afurious mob came tumbling up the stairs: it was the Bavarians, who hadat last thought of turning the position by breaking down the backdoor and entering the house by that way. For a brief moment a terriblehand-to-hand conflict raged in the small rooms among the dead bodiesand the debris of the furniture. One of the soldiers had his chesttransfixed by a bayonet thrust, the two others were made prisoners, while the attitude of the lieutenant, who had given up the ghost, wasthat of one about to give an order, his mouth open, his arm raisedaloft. 

While these things were occurring an officer, a big, flaxen-haired man, carrying a revolver in his hand, whose bloodshot eyes seemed burstingfrom their sockets, had caught sight of Weiss and Laurent, both in theircivilian attire; he roared at them in French:

"Who are you, you fellows? and what are you doing here?"

Then, glancing at their faces, black with powder-stains, he saw howmatters stood, he heaped insult and abuse on them in guttural German, in a voice that shook with anger. Already he had raised his revolver andwas about to send a bullet into their heads, when the soldiers of hiscommand rushed in, seized Laurent and Weiss, and hustled them out tothe staircase. The two men were borne along like straws upon a mill-raceamidst that seething human torrent, under whose pressure they werehurled from out the door and sent staggering, stumbling across thestreet to the opposite wall amid a chorus of execration that drownedthe sound of their officers' voices. Then, for a space of two or threeminutes, while the big fair-haired officer was endeavoring to extricatethem in order to proceed with their execution, an opportunity wasafforded them to raise themselves erect and look about them. 

Other houses had taken fire; Bazeilles was now a roaring, blazingfurnace. Flames had begun to appear at the tall windows of the churchand were creeping upward toward the roof. Some soldiers who were drivinga venerable lady from her home had compelled her to furnish the matcheswith which to fire her own beds and curtains. Lighted by blazing brandsand fed by petroleum in floods, fires were rising and spreading in everyquarter; it was no longer civilized warfare, but a conflict of savages, maddened by the long protracted strife, wreaking vengeance for theirdead, their heaps of dead, upon whom they trod at every step they took. Yelling, shouting bands traversed the streets amid the scurrying smokeand falling cinders, swelling the hideous uproar into which enteredsounds of every kind: shrieks, groans, the rattle of musketry, the crashof falling walls. Men could scarce see one another; great livid cloudsdrifted athwart the sun and obscured his light, bearing with them anintolerable stench of soot and blood, heavy with the abominations of theslaughter. In every quarter the work of death and destruction still wenton: the human brute unchained, the imbecile wrath, the mad fury, of mandevouring his brother man. 

And Weiss beheld his house burn before his eyes. Some soldiers hadapplied the torch, others fed the flame by throwing upon it thefragments of the wrecked furniture. The _rez-de-chaussee_ was quickly ina blaze, the smoke poured in dense black volumes from the wounds in thefront and roof. But now the dyehouse adjoining was also on fire, andhorrible to relate, the voice of little Charles, lying on his beddelirious with fever, could be heard through the crackling of theflames, beseeching his mother to bring him a draught of water, while theskirts of the wretched woman who, with her disfigured face, lay acrossthe door-sill, were even then beginning to kindle. 

"Mamma, mamma, I am thirsty! Mamma, bring me a drink of water--"

The weak, faint voice was drowned in the roar of the conflagration; thecheering of the victors rose on the air in the distance. 

But rising above all other sounds, dominating the universal clamor, aterrible cry was heard. It was Henriette, who had reached the place atlast, and now beheld her husband, backed up against the wall, facing aplatoon of men who were loading their muskets. 

She flew to him and threw her arms about his neck. 

"My God! what is it! They cannot be going to kill you!"

Weiss looked at her with stupid, unseeing eyes. She! his wife, so longthe object of his desire, so fondly idolized! A great shudder passedthrough his frame and he awoke to consciousness of his situation. Whathad he done? why had he remained there, firing at the enemy, instead ofreturning to her side, as he had promised he would do? It all flashedupon him now, as the darkness is illuminated by the lightning's glare:he had wrecked their happiness, they were to be parted, forever parted. Then he noticed the blood upon her forehead. 

"Are you hurt?" he asked. "You were mad to come--"

She interrupted him with an impatient gesture. 

"Never mind me; it is a mere scratch. But you, you! why are you here?They shall not kill you; I will not suffer it!"

The officer, who was endeavoring to clear the road in order to give thefiring party the requisite room, came up on hearing the sound ofvoices, and beholding a woman with her arms about the neck of one of hisprisoners, exclaimed loudly in French:

"Come, come, none of this nonsense here! Whence come you? What is yourbusiness here?"

"Give me my husband. "

"What, is he your husband, that man? His sentence is pronounced; the lawmust take its course. "

"Give me my husband. "

"Come, be rational. Stand aside; we do not wish to harm you. "

"Give me my husband. "

Perceiving the futility of arguing with her, the officer was aboutto give orders to remove her forcibly from the doomed man's arms whenLaurent, who until then had maintained an impassive silence, ventured tointerfere. 

"See here, Captain, I am the man who killed so many of your men; goahead and shoot me--that will be all right, especially as I haveneither chick nor child in all the world. But this gentleman's case isdifferent; he is a married man, don't you see. Come, now, let him go;then you can settle my business as soon as you choose. "

Beside himself with anger, the captain screamed:

"What is all this lingo? Are you trying to make game of me? Come, stepout here, some one of you fellows, and take away this woman!"

He had to repeat his order in German, whereon a soldier came forwardfrom the ranks, a short stocky Bavarian, with an enormous headsurrounded by a bristling forest of red hair and beard, beneath whichall that was to be seen were a pair of big blue eyes and a massive nose. He was besmeared with blood, a hideous spectacle, like nothing so muchas some fierce, hairy denizen of the woods, emerging from his cavern andlicking his chops, still red with the gore of the victims whose bones hehas been crunching. 

With a heart-rending cry Henriette repeated:

"Give me my husband, or let me die with him. "

This seemed to cause the cup of the officer's exasperation to overrun;he thumped himself violently on the chest, declaring that he was noexecutioner, that he would rather die than harm a hair of an innocenthead. There was nothing against her; he would cut off his right handrather than do her an injury. And then he repeated his order that she betaken away. 

As the Bavarian came up to carry out his instructions Henriettetightened her clasp on Weiss's neck, throwing all her strength into herfrantic embrace. 

"Oh, my love! Keep me with you, I beseech you; let me die with you--"

Big tears were rolling down his cheeks as, without answering, heendeavored to loosen the convulsive clasp of the fingers of the poorcreature he loved so dearly. 

"You love me no longer, then, that you wish to die without me. Hold me, keep me, do not let them take me. They will weary at last, and will killus together. "

He had loosened one of the little hands, and carried it to his lips andkissed it, working all the while to make the other release its hold. 

"No, no, it shall not be! I will not leave thy bosom; they shall piercemy heart before reaching thine. I will not survive--"

But at last, after a long struggle, he held both the hands in his. Thenhe broke the silence that he had maintained until then, uttering onesingle word:

"Farewell, dear wife. "

And with his own hands he placed her in the arms of the Bavarian, who carried her away. She shrieked and struggled, while the soldier, probably with intent to soothe her, kept pouring in her ear anuninterrupted stream of words in unmelodious German. And, having freedher head, looking over the shoulder of the man, she beheld the end. 

It lasted not five seconds. Weiss, whose eye-glass had slipped from itsposition in the agitation of their parting, quickly replaced it uponhis nose, as if desirous to look death in the face. He stepped back andplaced himself against the wall, and the face of the self-contained, strong young man, as he stood there in his tattered coat, was sublimelybeautiful in its expression of tranquil courage. Laurent, who stoodbeside him, had thrust his hands deep down into his pockets. The coldcruelty of the proceeding disgusted him; it seemed to him that theycould not be far removed from savagery who could thus slaughter menbefore the eyes of their wives. He drew himself up, looked them squarein the face, and in a tone of deepest contempt expectorated:

"Dirty pigs!"

The officer raised his sword; the signal was succeeded by a crashingvolley, and the two men sank to the ground, an inert mass, thegardener's lad upon his face, the other, the accountant, upon his side, lengthwise of the wall. The frame of the latter, before he expired, contracted in a supreme convulsion, the eyelids quivered, the mouthopened as if he was about to speak. The officer came up and stirred himwith his foot, to make sure that he was really dead. 

Henriette had seen the whole: the fading eyes that sought her in death, the last struggle of the strong man in agony, the brutal boot spurningthe corpse. And while the Bavarian still held her in his arms, conveyingher further and further from the object of her love, she uttered no cry;she set her teeth, in silent fury, into what was nearest: a human hand, it chanced to be. The soldier gave vent to a howl of anguish and dashedher to the ground; raising his uninjured fist above her head he was onthe point of braining her. And for a moment their faces were in contact;she experienced a feeling of intensest loathing for the monster, andthat blood-stained hair and beard, those blue eyes, dilated and brimmingwith hate and rage, were destined to remain forever indelibly imprintedon her memory. 

In after days Henriette could never account distinctly to herself forthe time immediately succeeding these events. She had but one desire: toreturn to the spot where her loved one had died, take possession ofhis remains, and watch and weep over them; but, as in an evil dream, obstacles of every sort arose before her and barred the way. First aheavy infantry fire broke out afresh, and there was great activity amongthe German troops who were holding Bazeilles; it was due to the arrivalof the infanterie de marine and other regiments that had been despatchedfrom Balan to regain possession of the village, and the battle commencedto rage again with the utmost fury. The young woman, in company witha band of terrified citizens, was swept away to the left into a darkalley. The result of the conflict could not remain long doubtful, however; it was too late to reconquer the abandoned positions. For nearhalf an hour the infantry struggled against superior numbers and faceddeath with splendid bravery, but the enemy's strength was constantlyincreasing, their re-enforcements were pouring in from every direction, the roads, the meadows, the park of Montivilliers; no force at ourcommand could have dislodged them from the position, so dearly bought, where they had left thousands of their bravest. Destruction anddevastation now had done their work; the place was a shambles, disgraceful to humanity, where mangled forms lay scattered among smokingruins, and poor Bazeilles, having drained the bitter cup, went up atlast in smoke and flame. 

Henriette turned and gave one last look at her little house, whosefloors fell in even as she gazed, sending myriads of little sparkswhirling gayly upward on the air. And there, before her, prone at thewall's foot, she saw her husband's corpse, and in her despair and griefwould fain have returned to him, but just then another crowd came up andsurged around her, the bugles were sounding the signal to retire, shewas borne away, she knew not how, among the retreating troops. Herfaculty of self-guidance left her; she was as a bit of flotsam sweptonward by the eddying human tide that streamed along the way. And thatwas all she could remember until she became herself again and foundshe was at Balan, among strangers, her head reclined upon a table in akitchen, weeping. 

V. 

It was nearly ten o'clock up on the Plateau de l'Algerie, and still themen of Beaudoin's company were resting supine, among the cabbages, inthe field whence they had not budged since early morning. The cross firefrom the batteries on Hattoy and the peninsula of Iges was hotter thanever; it had just killed two more of their number, and there were noorders for them to advance. Were they to stay there and be shelled allday, without a chance to see anything of the fighting?

They were even denied the relief of discharging their chassepots. Captain Beaudoin had at last put his foot down and stopped the firing, that senseless fusillade against the little wood in front of them, whichseemed entirely deserted by the Prussians. The heat was stifling; itseemed to them that they should roast, stretched there on the groundunder the blazing sky. 

Jean was alarmed, on turning to look at Maurice, to see that he haddeclined his head and was lying, with closed eyes, apparently inanimate, his cheek against the bare earth. He was very pale, there was no sign oflife in his face. 

"Hallo there! what's the matter?"

But Maurice was only sleeping. The mental strain, conjointly with hisfatigue, had been too much for him, in spite of the dangers that menacedthem at every moment. He awoke with a start and stared about him, andthe peace that slumber had left in his wide-dilated eyes was immediatelysupplanted by a look of startled affright as it dawned on him where hewas. He had not the remotest idea how long he had slept; all he knewwas that the state from which he had been recalled to the horrors of thebattlefield was one of blessed oblivion and tranquillity. 

"Hallo! that's funny; I must have been asleep!" he murmured. "Ah! it hasdone me good. "

It was true that he suffered less from that pressure about his templesand at his heart, that horrible constriction that seems as if itwould crush one's bones. He chaffed Lapoulle, who had manifested muchuneasiness since the disappearance of Chouteau and Loubet and spoke ofgoing to look for them. A capital idea! so he might get away and hidebehind a tree, and smoke a pipe! Pache thought that the surgeonshad detained them at the ambulance, where there was a scarcity ofsick-bearers. That was a job that he had no great fancy for, to goaround under fire and collect the wounded! And haunted by a lingeringsuperstition of the country where he was born, he added that it wasunlucky to touch a corpse; it brought death. 

"Shut up, confound you!" roared Lieutenant Rochas. "Who is going todie?"

Colonel de Vineuil, sitting his tall horse, turned his head and gave asmile, the first that had been seen on his face that morning. Then heresumed his statue-like attitude, waiting for orders as impassively asever under the tumbling shells. 

Maurice's attention was attracted to the sick-bearers, whose movementshe watched with interest as they searched for wounded men among thedepressions of the ground. At the end of a sunken road, and protected bya low ridge not far from their position, a flying ambulance of firstaid had been established, and its emissaries had begun to explore theplateau. A tent was quickly erected, while from the hospital van theattendants extracted the necessary supplies; compresses, bandages, linen, and the few indispensable instruments required for the hastydressings they gave before dispatching the patients to Sedan, whichthey did as rapidly as they could secure wagons, the supply of which waslimited. There was an assistant surgeon in charge, with two subordinatesof inferior rank under him. In all the army none showed more gallantryand received less acknowledgment than the litter-bearers. They could beseen all over the field in their gray uniform, with the distinctive redbadge on their cap and on their arm, courageously risking their livesand unhurriedly pushing forward through the thickest of the fire tothe spots where men had been seen to fall. At times they would creep onhands and knees: would always take advantage of a hedge or ditch, orany shelter that was afforded by the conformation of the ground, neverexposing themselves unnecessarily out of bravado. When at last theyreached the fallen men their painful task commenced, which was mademore difficult and protracted by the fact that many of the subjects hadfainted, and it was hard to tell whether they were alive or dead. Somelay face downward with their mouths in a pool of blood, in danger ofsuffocating, others had bitten the ground until their throats werechoked with dry earth, others, where a shell had fallen among a group, were a confused, intertwined heap of mangled limbs and crushed trunks. With infinite care and patience the bearers would go through the tangledmass, separating the living from the dead, arranging their limbs andraising the head to give them air, cleansing the face as well as theycould with the means at their command. Each of them carried a bucketof cool water, which he had to use very savingly. And Maurice could seethem thus engaged, often for minutes at a time, kneeling by some manwhom they were trying to resuscitate, waiting for him to show some signof life. 

He watched one of them, some fifty yards away to the left, working overthe wound of a little soldier from the sleeve of whose tunic a thinstream of blood was trickling, drop by drop. The man of the red crossdiscovered the source of the hemorrhage and finally checked it bycompressing the artery. In urgent cases, like that of the littlesoldier, they rendered these partial attentions, locating fractures, bandaging and immobilizing the limbs so as to reduce the danger oftransportation. And the transportation, even, was an affair that calledfor a great deal of judgment and ingenuity; they assisted those whocould walk, and carried others, either in their arms, like littlechildren, or pickaback when the nature of the hurt allowed it; at othertimes they united in groups of two, three, or four, according to therequirements of the case, and made a chair by joining their hands, or carried the patient off by his legs and shoulders in a recumbentposture. In addition to the stretchers provided by the medicaldepartment there were all sorts of temporary makeshifts, such as thestretchers improvised from knapsack straps and a couple of muskets. Andin every direction on the unsheltered, shell-swept plain they couldbe seen, singly or in groups, hastening with their dismal loads to therear, their heads bowed and picking their steps, an admirable spectacleof prudent heroism. 

Maurice saw a pair on his right, a thin, puny little fellow lugginga burly sergeant, with both legs broken, suspended from his neck; thesight reminded the young man of an ant, toiling under a burden manytimes larger than itself; and even as he watched them a shell burstdirectly in their path and they were lost to view. When the smokecleared away the sergeant was seen lying on his back, having receivedno further injury, while the bearer lay beside him, disemboweled. Andanother came up, another toiling ant, who, when he had turned his deadcomrade on his back and examined him, took the sergeant up and made offwith his load. 

It gave Maurice a chance to read Lapoulle a lesson. 

"I say, if you like the business, why don't you go and give that man alift!"

For some little time the batteries at Saint-Menges had been thunderingas if determined to surpass all previous efforts, and Captain Beaudoin, who was still tramping nervously up and down before his company line, at last stepped up to the colonel. It was a pity, he said, to waste themen's morale in that way and keep their minds on the stretch for hoursand hours. 

"I can't help it; I have no orders, " the colonel stoically replied. 

They had another glimpse of General Douay as he flew by at a gallop, followed by his staff. He had just had an interview with General deWimpffen, who had ridden up to entreat him to hold his ground, which hethought he could promise to do, but only so long as the Calvary of Illy, on his right, held out; Illy once taken, he would be responsible fornothing; their defeat would be inevitable. General de Wimpffen averredthat the 1st corps would look out for the position at Illy, and indeeda regiment of zouaves was presently seen to occupy the Calvary, so thatGeneral Douay, his anxiety being relieved on that score, sent Dumont'sdivision to the assistance of the 12th corps, which was then being hardpushed. Scarcely fifteen minutes later, however, as he was returningfrom the left, whither he had ridden to see how affairs were looking, he was surprised, raising his eyes to the Calvary, to see it wasunoccupied; there was not a zouave to be seen there, they had abandonedthe plateau that was no longer tenable by reason of the terrific firefrom the batteries at Fleigneux. With a despairing presentiment ofimpending disaster he was spurring as fast as he could to the right, when he encountered Dumont's division, flying in disorder, broken andtangled in inextricable confusion with the debris of the 1st corps. Thelatter, which, after its retrograde movement, had never been able toregain possession of the posts it had occupied in the morning, leavingDaigny in the hands of the XIIth Saxon corps and Givonne to the PrussianGuards, had been compelled to retreat in a northerly direction acrossthe wood of Garenne, harassed by the batteries that the enemy had postedon every summit from one end of the valley to the other. The terriblecircle of fire and flame was contracting; a portion of the Guards hadcontinued their march on Illy, moving from east to west and turning theeminences, while from west to east, in the rear of the XIth corps, nowmasters of Saint-Menges, the Vth, moving steadily onward, had passedFleigneux and with insolent temerity was constantly pushing itsbatteries more and more to the front, and so contemptuous were they ofthe ignorance and impotence of the French that they did not even waitfor the infantry to come up to support their guns. It was midday; theentire horizon was aflame, concentrating its destructive fire on the 7thand 1st corps. 

Then General Douay, while the German artillery was thus preparing theway for the decisive movement that should make them masters ofthe Calvary, resolved to make one last desperate attempt to regainpossession of the hill. He dispatched his orders, and throwing himselfin person among the fugitives of Dumont's division, succeeded in forminga column which he sent forward to the plateau. It held its ground fora few minutes, but the bullets whistled so thick, the naked, treelessfields were swept by such a tornado of shot and shell, that it wasnot long before the panic broke out afresh, sweeping the men adown theslopes, rolling them up as straws are whirled before the wind. And thegeneral, unwilling to abandon his project, ordered up other regiments. 

A staff officer galloped by, shouting to Colonel de Vineuil as he passedan order that was lost in the universal uproar. Hearing, the colonel waserect in his stirrups in an instant, his face aglow with the gladness ofbattle, and pointing to the Calvary with a grand movement of his sword:

"Our turn has come at last, boys!" he shouted. "Forward!"

A thrill of enthusiasm ran through the ranks at the brief address, andthe regiment put itself in motion. Beaudoin's company was among thefirst to get on its feet, which it did to the accompaniment of muchgood-natured chaff, the men declaring they were so rusty they could notmove; the gravel must have penetrated their joints. The fire was so hot, however, that by the time they had advanced a few feet they were glad toavail themselves of the protection of a shelter trench that lay in theirpath, along which they crept in an undignified posture, bent almostdouble. 

"Now, young fellow, look out for yourself!" Jean said to Maurice; "we'rein for it. Don't let 'em see so much as the end of your nose, for if youdo they will surely snip it off, and keep a sharp lookout for your legsand arms unless you have more than you care to keep. Those who come outof this with a whole skin will be lucky. "

Maurice did not hear him very distinctly; the words were lost in theall-pervading clamor that buzzed and hummed in the young man's ears. Hecould not have told now whether he was afraid or not; he went forwardbecause the others did, borne along with them in their headlong rush, without distinct volition of his own; his sole desire was to have theaffair ended as soon as possible. So true was it that he was a mere dropin the on-pouring torrent that when the leading files came to the endof the trench and began to waver at the prospect of climbing the exposedslope that lay before them, he immediately felt himself seized by asensation of panic, and was ready to turn and fly. It was simply anuncontrollable instinct, a revolt of the muscles, obedient to everypassing breath. 

Some of the men had already faced about when the colonel came hurryingup. 

"Steady there, my children. You won't cause me this great sorrow; youwon't behave like cowards. Remember, the 106th has never turned its backupon the enemy; will you be the first to disgrace our flag?"

And he spurred his charger across the path of the fugitives, addressingthem individually, speaking to them, of their country, in a voice thattrembled with emotion. 

Lieutenant Rochas was so moved by his words that he gave way to anungovernable fit of anger, raising his sword and belaboring the men withthe flat as if it had been a club. 

"You dirty loafers, I'll see whether you will go up there or not! I'llkick you up! About face! and I'll break the jaw of the first man thatrefuses to obey!"

But such an extreme measure as kicking a regiment into action wasrepugnant to the colonel. 

"No, no, lieutenant; they will follow me. Won't you, my children? Youwon't let your old colonel fight it out alone with the Prussians! Upthere lies the way; forward!"

He turned his horse and left the trench, and they did all follow, to aman, for he would have been considered the lowest of the low who couldhave abandoned their leader after that brave, kind speech. He was theonly one, however, who, while crossing the open fields, erect on histall horse, was cool and unconcerned; the men scattered, advancing inopen order and availing themselves of every shelter afforded by theground. The land sloped upward; there were fully five hundred yards ofstubble and beet fields between them and the Calvary, and in place ofthe correctly aligned columns that the spectator sees advancing whena charge is ordered in field maneuvers, all that was to be seen wasa loose array of men with rounded backs, singly or in small groups, hugging the ground, now crawling warily a little way on hands and knees, now dashing forward for the next cover, like huge insects fighting theirway upward to the crest by dint of agility and address. The enemy'sbatteries seemed to have become aware of the movement; their fire was sorapid that the reports of the guns were blended in one continuous roar. Five men were killed, a lieutenant was cut in two. 

Maurice and Jean had considered themselves fortunate that their way ledalong a hedge behind which they could push forward unseen, but the manimmediately in front of them was shot through the temples and fell backdead in their arms; they had to cast him down at one side. By this time, however, the casualties had ceased to excite attention; they were toonumerous. A man went by, uttering frightful shrieks and pressing hishands upon his protruding entrails; they beheld a horse dragging himselfalong with both thighs broken, and these anguishing sights, thesehorrors of the battlefield, affected them no longer. They were sufferingfrom the intolerable heat, the noonday sun that beat upon their backsand burned like hot coals. 

"How thirsty I am!" Maurice murmured. "My throat is like an ash barrel. Don't you notice that smell of something scorching, a smell like burningwoolen?"

Jean nodded. "It was just the same at Solferino; perhaps it is the smellthat always goes with war. But hold, I have a little brandy left; we'llhave a sup. "

And they paused behind the hedge a moment and raised the flask to theirlips, but the brandy, instead of relieving their thirst, burned theirstomach. It irritated them, that nasty taste of burnt rags in theirmouths. Moreover they perceived that their strength was commencing tofail for want of sustenance and would have liked to take a bite from thehalf loaf that Maurice had in his knapsack, but it would not do to stopand breakfast there under fire, and then they had to keep up with theircomrades. There was a steady stream of men coming up behind them alongthe hedge who pressed them forward, and so, doggedly bending their backsto the task before them, they resumed their course. Presently they madetheir final rush and reached the crest. They were on the plateau, atthe very foot of the Calvary, the old weather-beaten cross that stoodbetween two stunted lindens. 

"Good for our side!" exclaimed Jean; "here we are! But the next thing isto remain here!"

He was right; it was not the pleasantest place in the world to be in, as Lapoulle remarked in a doleful tone that excited the laughter of thecompany. They all lay down again, in a field of stubble, and for allthat three men were killed in quick succession. It was pandemoniumlet loose up there on the heights; the projectiles from Saint-Menges, Fleigneux, and Givonne fell in such numbers that the ground fairlyseemed to smoke, as it does at times under a heavy shower of rain. Itwas clear that the position could not be maintained unless artillerywas dispatched at once to the support of the troops who had been senton such a hopeless undertaking. General Douay, it was said, had giveninstructions to bring up two batteries of the reserve artillery, and themen were every moment turning their heads, watching anxiously for theguns that did not come. 

"It is absurd, ridiculous!" declared Beaudoin, who was again fidgetingup and down before the company. "Who ever heard of placing a regimentin the air like this and giving it no support!" Then, observing aslight depression on their left, he turned to Rochas: "Don't you think, Lieutenant, that the company would be safer there?"

Rochas stood stock still and shrugged his shoulders. "It is six of oneand half a dozen of the other, Captain. My opinion is that we will dobetter to stay where we are. "

Then the captain, whose principles were opposed to swearing, forgothimself. 

"But, good God! there won't a man of us escape! We can't allow the mento be murdered like this!"

And he determined to investigate for himself the advantages of theposition he had mentioned, but had scarcely taken ten steps when hewas lost to sight in the smoke of an exploding shell; a splinter of theprojectile had fractured his right leg. He fell upon his back, emittinga shrill cry of alarm, like a woman's. 

"He might have known as much, " Rochas muttered. "There's no use hismaking such a fuss over it; when the dose is fixed for one, he has totake it. "

Some members of the company had risen to their feet on seeing theircaptain fall, and as he continued to call lustily for assistance, Jeanfinally ran to him, immediately followed by Maurice. 

"Friends, friends, for Heaven's sake do not leave me here; carry me tothe ambulance!"

"_Dame_, Captain, I don't know that we shall be able to get so far, butwe can try. "

As they were discussing how they could best take hold to raise him theyperceived, behind the hedge that had sheltered them on their way up, two stretcher-bearers who seemed to be waiting for something to do, and finally, after protracted signaling, induced them to draw near. Allwould be well if they could only get the wounded man to the ambulancewithout accident, but the way was long and the iron hail more pitilessthan ever. 

The bearers had tightly bandaged the injured limb in order to keep thebones in position and were about to bear the captain off the field onwhat children call a "chair, " formed by joining their hands and slippingan arm of the patient over each of their necks, when Colonel deVineuil, who had heard of the accident, came up, spurring his horse. Hemanifested much emotion, for he had known the young man ever since hisgraduation from Saint-Cyr. 

"Cheer up, my poor boy; have courage. You are in no danger; the doctorswill save your leg. "

The captain's face wore an expression of resignation, as if he hadsummoned up all his courage to bear his misfortune manfully. 

"No, my dear Colonel; I feel it is all up with me, and I would ratherhave it so. The only thing that distresses me is the waiting for theinevitable end. "

The bearers carried him away, and were fortunate enough to reach thehedge in safety, behind which they trotted swiftly away with theirburden. The colonel's eyes followed them anxiously, and when he saw themreach the clump of trees where the ambulance was stationed a look ofdeep relief rose to his face. 

"But you, Colonel, " Maurice suddenly exclaimed, "you are wounded too!"

He had perceived blood dripping from the colonel's left boot. Aprojectile of some description had carried away the heel of thefoot-covering and forced the steel shank into the flesh. 

M. De Vineuil bent over his saddle and glanced unconcernedly at themember, in which the sensation at that time must have been far frompleasurable. 

"Yes, yes, " he replied, "it is a little remembrance that I receiveda while ago. A mere scratch, that don't prevent me from sitting myhorse--" And he added, as he turned to resume his position to the rearof his regiment: "As long as a man can stick on his horse he's allright. "

At last the two batteries of reserve artillery came up. Their arrivalwas an immense relief to the anxiously expectant men, as if the gunswere to be a rampart of protection to them and at the same time demolishthe hostile batteries that were thundering against them from every side. And then, too, it was in itself an exhilarating spectacle to see themagnificent order they preserved as they came dashing up, each gunfollowed by its caisson, the drivers seated on the near horse andholding the off horse by the bridle, the cannoneers bolt upright on thechests, the chiefs of detachment riding in their proper position on theflank. Distances were preserved as accurately as if they were on parade, and all the time they were tearing across the fields at headlong speed, with the roar and crash of a hurricane. 

Maurice, who had lain down again, arose and said to Jean in greatexcitement:

"Look! over there on the left, that is Honore's battery. I can recognizethe men. "

Jean gave him a back-handed blow that brought him down to his recumbentposition. 

"Lie down, will you! and make believe dead!"

But they were both deeply interested in watching the maneuvers of thebattery, and never once removed their eyes from it; it cheered theirheart to witness the cool and intrepid activity of those men, who, theyhoped, might yet bring victory to them. 

The battery had wheeled into position on a bare summit to the left, where it brought up all standing; then, quick as a flash, the cannoneersleaped from the chests and unhooked the limbers, and the drivers, leaving the gun in position, drove fifteen yards to the rear, where theywheeled again so as to bring team and limber face to the enemy and thereremained, motionless as statues. In less time than it takes to tellit the guns were in place, with the proper intervals between them, distributed into three sections of two guns each, each section commandedby a lieutenant, and over the whole a captain, a long maypole of aman, who made a terribly conspicuous landmark on the plateau. And thiscaptain, having first made a brief calculation, was heard to shout:

"Sight for sixteen hundred yards!"

Their fire was to be directed upon a Prussian battery, screened by somebushes, to the left of Fleigneux, the shells from which were renderingthe position of the Calvary untenable. 

"Honore's piece, you see, " Maurice began again, whose excitement wassuch that he could not keep still, "Honore's piece is in the centersection. There he is now, bending over to speak to the gunner; youremember Louis, the gunner, don't you? the little fellow with whomwe had a drink at Vouziers? And that fellow in the rear, who sits sostraight on his handsome chestnut, is Adolphe, the driver--"

First came the gun with its chief and six cannoneers, then the limberwith its four horses ridden by two men, beyond that the caisson withits six horses and three drivers, still further to the rear were the_prolonge_, forge, and battery wagon; and this array of men, horses and_materiel_ extended to the rear in a straight unbroken line of more thana hundred yards in length; to say nothing of the spare caisson andthe men and beasts who were to fill the places of those removed bycasualties, who were stationed at one side, as much as possible out ofthe enemy's line of fire. 

And now Honore was attending to the loading of his gun. The two menwhose duty it was to fetch the cartridge and the projectile returnedfrom the caisson, where the corporal and the artificer were stationed;two other cannoneers, standing at the muzzle of the piece, slipped intothe bore the cartridge, a charge of powder in an envelope of serge, andgently drove it home with the rammer, then in like manner introduced theshell, the studs of which creaked faintly in the spirals of the rifling. When the primer was inserted in the vent and all was in readiness, Honore thought he would like to point the gun himself for the firstshot, and throwing himself in a semi-recumbent posture on the trail, working with one hand the screw that regulated the elevation, with theother he signaled continually to the gunner, who, standing behind him, moved the piece by imperceptible degrees to right or left with theassistance of the lever. 

"That ought to be about right, " he said as he arose. 

The captain came up, and stooping until his long body was bent almostdouble, verified the elevation. At each gun stood the assistant gunner, waiting to pull the lanyard that should ignite the fulminate by means ofa serrated wire. And the orders were given in succession, deliberately, by number:

"Number one, Fire! Number two, Fire!"

Six reports were heard, the guns recoiled, and while they were beingbrought back to position the chiefs of detachment observed the effectof the shots and found that the range was short. They made the necessarycorrection and the evolution was repeated, in exactly the same manner asbefore; and it was that cool precision, that mechanical routine of duty, without agitation and without haste, that did so much to maintain the_morale_ of the men. They were a little family, united by the tie ofa common occupation, grouped around the gun, which they loved andreverenced as if it had been a living thing; it was the object of alltheir care and attention, to it all else was subservient, men, horses, caisson, everything. Thence also arose the spirit of unity and cohesionthat animated the battery at large, making all its members worktogether for the common glory and the common good, like a well-regulatedhousehold. 

The 106th had cheered lustily at the completion of the first round; theywere going to make those bloody Prussian guns shut their mouths at last!but their elation was succeeded by dismay when it was seen that theprojectiles fell short, many of them bursting in the air and neverreaching the bushes that served to mask the enemy's artillery. 

"Honore, " Maurice continued, "says that all the other pieces are popgunsand that his old girl is the only one that is good for anything. Ah, hisold girl! He talks as if she were his wife and there were not anotherlike her in the world! Just notice how jealously he watches her andmakes the men clean her off! I suppose he is afraid she will overheatherself and take cold!"

He continued rattling on in this pleasant vein to Jean, both of themcheered and encouraged by the cool bravery with which the artillerymenserved their guns; but the Prussian batteries, after firing threerounds, had now got the range, which, too long at the beginning, theyhad at last ciphered down to such a fine point that their shellswere landed invariably among the French pieces, while the latter, notwithstanding the efforts that were made to increase their range, still continued to place their projectiles short of the enemy'sposition. One of Honore's cannoneers was killed while loading the piece;the others pushed the body out of their way, and the service went onwith the same methodical precision, with neither more nor less haste. In the midst of the projectiles that fell and burst continually the sameunvarying rhythmical movements went on uninterruptedly about the gun;the cartridge and shell were introduced, the gun was pointed, thelanyard pulled, the carriage brought back to place; and all withsuch undeviating regularity that the men might have been taken forautomatons, devoid of sight and hearing. 

What impressed Maurice, however, more than anything else, was theattitude of the drivers, sitting straight and stiff in their saddlesfifteen yards to the rear, face to the enemy. There was Adolphe, thebroad-chested, with his big blond mustache across his rubicund face; andwho shall tell the amount of courage a man must have to enable him tosit without winking and watch the shells coming toward him, and he notallowed even to twirl his thumbs by way of diversion! The men whoserved the guns had something to occupy their minds, while the drivers, condemned to immobility, had death constantly before their eyes, andplenty of leisure to speculate on probabilities. They were made to facethe battlefield because, had they turned their backs to it, the cowardthat so often lurks at the bottom of man's nature might have got thebetter of them and swept away man and beast. It is the unseen dangerthat makes dastards of us; that which we can see we brave. The armyhas no more gallant set of men in its ranks than the drivers in theirobscure position. 

Another man had been killed, two horses of a caisson had beendisemboweled, and the enemy kept up such a murderous fire that therewas a prospect of the entire battery being knocked to pieces should theypersist in holding that position longer. It was time to take some stepto baffle that tremendous fire, notwithstanding the danger there wasin moving, and the captain unhesitatingly gave orders to bring up thelimbers. 

The risky maneuver was executed with lightning speed; the drivers cameup at a gallop, wheeled their limber into position in rear of the gun, when the cannoneers raised the trail of the piece and hooked on. Themovement, however, collecting as it did, momentarily, men and horses onthe battery front in something of a huddle, created a certain degree ofconfusion, of which the enemy took advantage by increasing the rapidityof their fire; three more men dropped. The teams darted away atbreakneck speed, describing an arc of a circle among the fields, and thebattery took up its new position some fifty or sixty yards more to theright, on a gentle eminence that was situated on the other flank of the106th. The pieces were unlimbered, the drivers resumed their station atthe rear, face to the enemy, and the firing was reopened; and so littletime was lost between leaving their old post and taking up the new thatthe earth had barely ceased to tremble under the concussion. 

Maurice uttered a cry of dismay, when, after three attempts, thePrussians had again got their range; the first shell landed squarely onHonore's gun. The artilleryman rushed forward, and with a trembling handfelt to ascertain what damage had been done his pet; a great wedge hadbeen chipped from the bronze muzzle. But it was not disabled, and thework went on as before, after they had removed from beneath the wheelsthe body of another cannoneer, with whose blood the entire carriage wasbesplashed. 

"It was not little Louis; I am glad of that, " said Maurice, continuingto think aloud. "There he is now, pointing his gun; he must be wounded, though, for he is only using his left arm. Ah, he is a brave lad, islittle Louis; and how well he and Adolphe get on together, in spiteof their little tiffs, only provided the gunner, the man who serves onfoot, shows a proper amount of respect for the driver, the man who ridesa horse, notwithstanding that the latter is by far the more ignorant ofthe two. Now that they are under fire, though, Louis is as good a man asAdolphe--"

Jean, who had been watching events in silence, gave utterance to adistressful cry:

"They will have to give it up! No troops in the world could stand such afire. "

Within the space of five minutes the second position had become asuntenable as was the first; the projectiles kept falling with thesame persistency, the same deadly precision. A shell dismounted a gun, fracturing the chase, killing a lieutenant and two men. Not one of theenemy's shots failed to reach, and at each discharge they secured astill greater accuracy of range, so that if the battery should remainthere another five minutes they would not have a gun or a man left. Thecrushing fire threatened to wipe them all out of existence. 

Again the captain's ringing voice was heard ordering up the limbers. The drivers dashed up at a gallop and wheeled their teams into place toallow the cannoneers to hook on the guns, but before Adolphe had time toget up Louis was struck by a fragment of shell that tore open his throatand broke his jaw; he fell across the trail of the carriage just ashe was on the point of raising it. Adolphe was there instantly, andbeholding his prostrate comrade weltering in his blood, jumped from hishorse and was about to raise him to his saddle and bear him away. And atthat moment, just as the battery was exposed flank to the enemy in theact of wheeling, offering a fair target, a crashing discharge came, andAdolphe reeled and fell to the ground, his chest crushed in, with armswide extended. In his supreme convulsion he seized his comrade about thebody, and thus they lay, locked in each other's arms in a last embrace, "married" even in death. 

Notwithstanding the slaughtered horses and the confusion that thatdeath-dealing discharge had caused among the men, the battery hadrattled up the slope of a hillock and taken post a few yards from thespot where Jean and Maurice were lying. For the third time the guns wereunlimbered, the drivers retired to the rear and faced the enemy, and thecannoneers, with a gallantry that nothing could daunt, at once reopenedfire. 

"It is as if the end of all things were at hand!" said Maurice, thesound of whose voice was lost in the uproar. 

It seemed indeed as if heaven and earth were confounded in that hideousdin. Great rocks were cleft asunder, the sun was hid from sight at timesin clouds of sulphurous vapor. When the cataclysm was at its heightthe horses stood with drooping heads, trembling, dazed with terror. Thecaptain's tall form was everywhere upon the eminence; suddenly he wasseen no more; a shell had cut him clean in two, and he sank, as a ship'smast that is snapped off at the base. 

But it was about Honore's gun, even more than the others, that theconflict raged, with cool efficiency and obstinate determination. Thenon-commissioned officer found it necessary to forget his chevrons forthe time being and lend a hand in working the piece, for he had now butthree cannoneers left; he pointed the gun and pulled the lanyard, whilethe others brought ammunition from the caisson, loaded, and handled therammer and the sponge. He had sent for men and horses from the batteryreserves that were kept to supply the places of those removed bycasualties, but they were slow in coming, and in the meantime thesurvivors must do the work of the dead. It was a great discouragementto all that their projectiles ranged short and burst almost withoutexception in the air, inflicting no injury on the powerful batteriesof the foe, the fire of which was so efficient. And suddenly Honore letslip an oath that was heard above the thunder of the battle; ill-luck, ill-luck, nothing but ill-luck! the right wheel of his piece wassmashed! _Tonnerre de Dieu!_ what a state she was in, the poor darling!stretched on her side with a broken paw, her nose buried in the ground, crippled and good for nothing! The sight brought big tears to his eyes, he laid his trembling hand upon the breech, as if the ardor of his lovemight avail to warm his dear mistress back to life. And the best gun ofthem all, the only one that had been able to drop a few shells among theenemy! Then suddenly he conceived a daring project, nothing less than torepair the injury there and then, under that terrible fire. Assisted byone of his men he ran back to the caisson and secured the sparewheel that was attached to the rear axle, and then commenced the mostdangerous operation that can be executed on a battlefield. Fortunatelythe extra men and horses that he had sent for came up just then, and hehad two cannoneers to lend him a hand. 

For the third time, however, the strength of the battery was so reducedas practically to disable it. To push their heroic daring further wouldbe madness; the order was given to abandon the position definitely. 

"Make haste, comrades!" Honore exclaimed. "Even if she is fit for nofurther service we'll carry her off; those fellows shan't have her!"

To save the gun, even as men risk their life to save the flag; that washis idea. And he had not ceased to speak when he was stricken down as bya thunderbolt, his right arm torn from its socket, his left flank laidopen. He had fallen upon his gun he loved so well, and lay there asif stretched on a bed of honor, with head erect, his unmutilated faceturned toward the enemy, and bearing an expression of proud defiancethat made him beautiful in death. From his torn jacket a letter hadfallen to the ground and lay in the pool of blood that dribbled slowlyfrom above. 

The only lieutenant left alive shouted the order: "Bring up thelimbers!"

A caisson had exploded with a roar that rent the skies. They wereobliged to take the horses from another caisson in order to save a gunof which the team had been killed. And when, for the last time, thedrivers had brought up their smoking horses and the guns had beenlimbered up, the whole battery flew away at a gallop and never stoppeduntil they reached the edge of the wood of la Garenne, nearly twelvehundred yards away. 

Maurice had seen the whole. He shivered with horror, and murmuredmechanically, in a faint voice:

"Oh! poor fellow, poor fellow!"

In addition to this feeling of mental distress he had a horriblesensation of physical suffering, as if something was gnawing at hisvitals. It was the animal portion of his nature asserting itself; hewas at the end of his endurance, was ready to sink with hunger. Hisperceptions were dimmed, he was not even conscious of the dangerousposition the regiment was in now it no longer was protected by thebattery. It was more than likely that the enemy would not long delay toattack the plateau in force. 

"Look here, " he said to Jean, "I _must_ eat--if I am to be killed for itthe next minute, I must eat. "

He opened his knapsack and, taking out the bread with shaking hands, set his teeth in it voraciously. The bullets were whistling above theirheads, two shells exploded only a few yards away, but all was as naughtto him in comparison with his craving hunger. 

"Will you have some, Jean?"

The corporal was watching him with hungry eyes and a stupid expressionon his face; his stomach was also twinging him. 

"Yes, I don't care if I do; this suffering is more than I can stand. "

They divided the loaf between them and each devoured his portiongluttonously, unmindful of what was going on about them so long as acrumb remained. And it was at that time that they saw their colonel forthe last time, sitting his big horse, with his blood-stained boot. Theregiment was surrounded on every side; already some of the companies hadleft the field. Then, unable longer to restrain their flight, with tearsstanding in his eyes and raising his sword above his head:

"My children, " cried M. De Vineuil, "I commend you to the protection ofGod, who thus far has spared us all!"

He rode off down the hill, surrounded by a swarm of fugitives, andvanished from their sight. 

Then, they knew not how, Maurice and Jean found themselves once morebehind the hedge, with the remnant of their company. Some forty menat the outside were all that remained, with Lieutenant Rochas as theircommander, and the regimental standard was with them; the subaltern whocarried it had furled the silk about the staff in order to try to saveit. They made their way along the hedge, as far as it extended, to acluster of small trees upon a hillside, where Rochas made them halt andreopen fire. The men, dispersed in skirmishing order and sufficientlyprotected, could hold their ground, the more that an important calvarymovement was in preparation on their right and regiments of infantrywere being brought up to support it. 

It was at that moment that Maurice comprehended the full scope ofthat mighty, irresistible turning movement that was now drawing nearcompletion. That morning he had watched the Prussians debouching bythe Saint-Albert pass and had seen their advanced guard pushed forward, first to Saint-Menges, then to Fleigneux, and now, behind the wood of laGarenne, he could hear the thunder of the artillery of the Guard, couldbehold other German uniforms arriving on the scene over the hillsof Givonne. Yet a few moments, it might be, and the circle would becomplete; the Guard would join hands with the Vth corps, surroundingthe French army with a living wall, girdling them about with a beltof flaming artillery. It was with the resolve to make one supreme, desperate effort, to try to hew a passage through that advancing wall, that General Margueritte's division of the reserve cavalry was massingbehind a protecting crest preparatory to charging. They were about tocharge into the jaws of death, with no possibility of achieving anyuseful result, solely for the glory of France and the French army. AndMaurice, whose thoughts turned to Prosper, was a witness of the terriblespectacle. 

What between the messages that were given him to carry and theiranswers, Prosper had been kept busy since daybreak spurring up and downthe plateau of Illy. The cavalrymen had been awakened at peep of dawn, man by man, without sound of trumpet, and to make their morning coffeehad devised the ingenious expedient of screening their fires with agreatcoat so as not to attract the attention of the enemy. Then therecame a period when they were left entirely to themselves, with nothingto occupy them; they seemed to be forgotten by their commanders. Theycould hear the sound of the cannonading, could descry the puffs ofsmoke, could see the distant movements of the infantry, but were utterlyignorant of the battle, its importance, and its results. Prosper, as faras he was concerned, was suffering from want of sleep. The cumulativefatigue induced by many nights of broken rest, the invincible somnolencycaused by the easy gait of his mount, made life a burden. He dreameddreams and saw visions; now he was sleeping comfortably in a bed betweenclean sheets, now snoring on the bare ground among sharpened flints. For minutes at a time he would actually be sound asleep in his saddle, a lifeless clod, his steed's intelligence answering for both. Under suchcircumstances comrades had often tumbled from their seats upon the road. They were so fagged that when they slept the trumpets no longer awakenedthem; the only way to rouse them from their lethargy and get them ontheir feet was to kick them soundly. 

"But what are they going to do, what are they going to do with us?"Prosper kept saying to himself. It was the only thing he could think ofto keep himself awake. 

For six hours the cannon had been thundering. As they climbed a hill twocomrades, riding at his side, had been struck down by a shell, and asthey rode onward seven or eight others had bit the dust, pierced byrifle-balls that came no one could say whence. It was becoming tiresome, that slow parade, as useless as it was dangerous, up and down thebattlefield. At last--it was about one o'clock--he learned that ithad been decided they were to be killed off in a somewhat more decentmanner. Margueritte's entire division, comprising three regiments ofchasseurs d'Afrique, one of chasseurs de France, and one of hussars, hadbeen drawn in and posted in a shallow valley a little to the south ofthe Calvary of Illy. The trumpets had sounded: "Dismount!" and then theofficers' command ran down the line to tighten girths and look to packs. 

Prosper alighted, stretched his cramped limbs, and gave Zephyr afriendly pat upon the neck. Poor Zephyr! he felt the degradation ofthe ignominious, heartbreaking service they were subjected to almostas keenly as his master; and not only that, but he had to carry a smallarsenal of stores and implements of various kinds: the holsters stuffedwith his master's linen and underclothing and the greatcoat rolledabove, the stable suit, blouse, and overalls, and the sack containingbrushes, currycomb, and other articles of equine toilet behind thesaddle, the haversack with rations slung at his side, to say nothing ofsuch trifles as side-lines and picket-pins, the watering bucket and thewooden basin. The cavalryman's tender heart was stirred by a feelingof compassion, as he tightened up the girth and looked to see thateverything was secure in its place. 

It was a trying moment. Prosper was no more a coward than the next man, but his mouth was intolerably dry and hot; he lit a cigarette in thehope that it would relieve the unpleasant sensation. When about tocharge no man can assert with any degree of certainty that he will rideback again. The suspense lasted some five or six minutes; it was saidthat General Margueritte had ridden forward to reconnoiter the groundover which they were to charge; they were awaiting his return. The fiveregiments had been formed in three columns, each column having a depthof seven squadrons; enough to afford an ample meal to the hostile guns. 

Presently the trumpets rang out: "To horse!" and this was succeededalmost immediately by the shrill summons: "Draw sabers!"

The colonel of each regiment had previously ridden out and taken hisproper position, twenty-five yards to the front, the captains were allat their posts at the head of their squadrons. Then there was anotherperiod of anxious waiting, amid a silence heavy as that of death. Not asound, not a breath, there, beneath the blazing sun; nothing, save thebeating of those brave hearts. One order more, the supreme, thedecisive one, and that mass, now so inert and motionless, would become aresistless tornado, sweeping all before it. 

At that juncture, however, an officer appeared coming over the crest ofthe hill in front, wounded, and preserving his seat in the saddle onlyby the assistance of a man on either side. No one recognized him atfirst, but presently a deep, ominous murmur began to run from squadronto squadron, which quickly swelled into a furious uproar. It was GeneralMargueritte, who had received a wound from which he died a few dayslater; a musket-ball had passed through both cheeks, carrying away aportion of the tongue and palate. He was incapable of speech, but wavedhis arm in the direction of the enemy. The fury of his men knew nobounds; their cries rose louder still upon the air. 

"It is our general! Avenge him, avenge him!"

Then the colonel of the first regiment, raising aloft his saber, shoutedin a voice of thunder:

"Charge!"

The trumpets sounded, the column broke into a trot and was away. Prosperwas in the leading squadron, but almost at the extreme right of theright wing, a position of less danger than the center, upon which theenemy always naturally concentrate their hottest fire. When they hadtopped the summit of the Calvary and began to descend the slope beyondthat led downward into the broad plain he had a distinct view, sometwo-thirds of a mile away, of the Prussian squares that were to be theobject of their attack. Beside that vision all the rest was dim andconfused before his eyes; he moved onward as one in a dream, with astrange ringing in his ears, a sensation of voidness in his mind thatleft him incapable of framing an idea. He was a part of the great enginethat tore along, controlled by a superior will. The command ran alongthe line: "Keep touch of knees! Keep touch of knees!" in order to keepthe men closed up and give their ranks the resistance and rigidity ofa wall of granite, and as their trot became swifter and swifter andfinally broke into a mad gallop, the chasseurs d'Afrique gave their wildArab cry that excited their wiry steeds to the verge of frenzy. Onwardthey tore, faster and faster still, until their gallop was a race ofunchained demons, their shouts the shrieks of souls in mortal agony;onward they plunged amid a storm of bullets that rattled on casque andbreastplate, on buckle and scabbard, with a sound like hail; into thebosom of that hailstorm flashed that thunderbolt beneath which the earthshook and trembled, leaving behind it, as it passed, an odor of burnedwoolen and the exhalations of wild beasts. 

At five hundred yards the line wavered an instant, then swirled andbroke in a frightful eddy that brought Prosper to the ground. Heclutched Zephyr by the mane and succeeded in recovering his seat. Thecenter had given way, riddled, almost annihilated as it was by themusketry fire, while the two wings had wheeled and ridden back alittle way to renew their formation. It was the foreseen, foredoomeddestruction of the leading squadron. Disabled horses covered the ground, some quiet in death, but many struggling violently in their strongagony; and everywhere dismounted riders could be seen, running as fastas their short legs would let them, to capture themselves anothermount. Many horses that had lost their master came galloping back to thesquadron and took their place in line of their own accord, to rush withtheir comrades back into the fire again, as if there was some strangeattraction for them in the smell of gunpowder. The charge was resumed;the second squadron went forward, like the first, at a constantlyaccelerated rate of speed, the men bending upon their horses' neck, holding the saber along the thigh, ready for use upon the enemy. Twohundred yards more were gained this time, amid the thunderous, deafeninguproar, but again the center broke under the storm of bullets; men andhorses went down in heaps, and the piled corpses made an insurmountablebarrier for those who followed. Thus was the second squadron in its turnmown down, annihilated, leaving its task to be accomplished by those whocame after. 

When for the third time the men were called upon to charge and respondedwith invincible heroism, Prosper found that his companions wereprincipally hussars and chasseurs de France. Regiments and squadrons, as organizations, had ceased to exist; their constituent elements weredrops in the mighty wave that alternately broke and reared its crestagain, to swallow up all that lay in its destructive path. He had longsince lost distinct consciousness of what was going on around him, andsuffered his movements to be guided by his mount, faithful Zephyr, whohad received a wound in the ear that seemed to madden him. He was now inthe center, where all about him horses were rearing, pawing the air, andfalling backward; men were dismounted as if torn from their saddle bythe blast of a tornado, while others, shot through some vital part, retained their seat and rode onward in the ranks with vacant, sightlesseyes. And looking back over the additional two hundred yards that thiseffort had won for them, they could see the field of yellow stubblestrewn thick with dead and dying. Some there were who had fallenheadlong from their saddle and buried their face in the soft earth. Others had alighted on their back and were staring up into the sun withterror-stricken eyes that seemed bursting from their sockets. Therewas a handsome black horse, an officer's charger, that had beendisemboweled, and was making frantic efforts to rise, his fore feetentangled in his entrails. Beneath the fire, that became constantly moremurderous as they drew nearer, the survivors in the wings wheeled theirhorses and fell back to concentrate their strength for a fresh onset. 

Finally it was the fourth squadron, which, on the fourth attempt, reached the Prussian lines. Prosper made play with his saber, hackingaway at helmets and dark uniforms as well as he could distinguishthem, for all was dim before him, as in a dense mist. Blood flowed intorrents; Zephyr's mouth was smeared with it, and to account for it hesaid to himself that the good horse must have been using his teeth onthe Prussians. The clamor around him became so great that he could nothear his own voice, although his throat seemed splitting from theyells that issued from it. But behind the first Prussian line there wasanother, and then another, and then another still. Their gallant effortswent for nothing; those dense masses of men were like a tangled junglethat closed around the horses and riders who entered it and buried themin its rank growths. They might hew down those who were within reach oftheir sabers; others stood ready to take their place, the last squadronswere lost and swallowed up in their vast numbers. The firing, atpoint-blank range, was so furious that the men's clothing was ignited. Nothing could stand before it, all went down; and the work that it leftunfinished was completed by bayonet and musket butt. Of the brave menwho rode into action that day two-thirds remained upon the battlefield, and the sole end achieved by that mad charge was to add another gloriouspage to history. And then Zephyr, struck by a musket-ball full in thechest, dropped in a heap, crushing beneath him Prosper's right thigh;and the pain was so acute that the young man fainted. 

Maurice and Jean, who had watched the gallant effort with burninginterest, uttered an exclamation of rage. 

"_Tonnerre de Dieu!_ what bravery wasted!"

And they resumed their firing from among the trees of the low hill wherethey were deployed in skirmishing order. Rochas himself had picked up anabandoned musket and was blazing away with the rest. But the plateauof Illy was lost to them by this time beyond hope of recovery; thePrussians were pouring in upon it from every quarter. It was somewherein the neighborhood of two o'clock, and their great movement wasaccomplished; the Vth corps and the Guards had effected their junction, the investment of the French army was complete. 

Jean was suddenly brought to the ground. 

"I am done for, " he murmured. 

He had received what seemed to him like a smart blow of a hammer on thecrown of his head, and his _kepi_ lay behind him with a great furrowplowed through its top. At first he thought that the bullet hadcertainly penetrated the skull and laid bare the brain; his dread offinding a yawning orifice there was so great that for some secondshe dared not raise his hand to ascertain the truth. When finally heventured, his fingers, on withdrawing them, were red with an abundantflow of blood, and the pain was so intense that he fainted. 

Just then Rochas gave the order to fall back. The Prussians had creptup on them and were only two or three hundred yards away; they were indanger of being captured. 

"Be cool, don't hurry; face about and give 'em another shot. Rallybehind that low wall that you see down there. "

Maurice was in despair; he knew not what to do. 

"We are not going to leave our corporal behind, are we, lieutenant?"

"What are we to do? he has turned up his toes. "

"No, no! he is breathing still. Take him along!"

Rochas shrugged his shoulders as if to say they could not botherthemselves for every man that dropped. A wounded man is esteemedof little value on the battlefield. Then Maurice addressed hissupplications to Lapoulle and Pache. 

"Come, give me a helping hand. I am not strong enough to carry himunassisted. "

They were deaf to his entreaties; all they could hear was the voice thaturged them to seek safety for themselves. The Prussians were now notmore than a hundred yards from them; already they were on their handsand knees, crawling as fast as they could go toward the wall. 

And Maurice, weeping tears of rage, thus left alone with his unconsciouscompanion, raised him in his arms and endeavored to lug him away, buthe found his puny strength unequal to the task, exhausted as he was byfatigue and the emotions of the day. At the first step he took hereeled and fell with his burden. If only he could catch sight of astretcher-bearer! He strained his eyes, thought he had discovered oneamong the crowd of fugitives, and made frantic gestures of appeal; noone came, they were left behind, alone. Summoning up his strength with adetermined effort of the will he seized Jean once more and succeeded inadvancing some thirty paces, when a shell burst near them and he thoughtthat all was ended, that he, too, was to die on the body of his comrade. 

Slowly, cautiously, Maurice picked himself up. He felt his body, arms, and legs; nothing, not a scratch. Why should he not look out for himselfand fly, alone? There was time left still; a few bounds would takehim to the wall and he would be saved. His horrible sensation of fearreturned and made him frantic. He was collecting his energies tobreak away and run, when a feeling stronger than death intervened andvanquished the base impulse. What, abandon Jean! he could not do it. Itwould be like mutilating his own being; the brotherly affection that hadbourgeoned and grown between him and that rustic had struck its rootsdown into his life, too deep to be slain like that. The feeling wentback to the earliest days, was perhaps as old as the world itself; itwas as if there were but they two upon earth, of whom one couldnot forsake the other without forsaking himself, and being doomedthenceforth to an eternity of solitude. Molded of the same clay, quickened by the same spirit, duty imperiously commanded to save himselfin saving his brother. 

Had it not been for the crust of bread he ate an hour before under thePrussian shells Maurice could never have done what he did; _how_ he didit he could never in subsequent days remember. He must have hoisted Jeanupon his shoulders and crawled through the brush and brambles, falling adozen times only to pick himself up and go on again, stumbling at everyrut, at every pebble. His indomitable will sustained him, his doggedresolution would have enabled him to bear a mountain on his back. Behindthe low wall he found Rochas and the few men that were left of thesquad, firing away as stoutly as ever and defending the flag, whichthe subaltern held beneath his arm. It had not occurred to anyone todesignate lines of retreat for the several army corps in case the dayshould go against them; owing to this want of foresight every generalwas at liberty to act as seemed to him best, and at this stage of theconflict they all found themselves being crowded back upon Sedanunder the steady, unrelaxing pressure of the German armies. The seconddivision of the 7th corps fell back in comparatively good order, whilethe remnants of the other divisions, mingled with the debris of the1st corps, were already streaming into the city in terrible disorder, aroaring torrent of rage and fright that bore all, men and beasts, beforeit. 

But to Maurice, at that moment, was granted the satisfaction of seeingJean unclose his eyes, and as he was running to a stream that flowednear by, for water with which to bathe his friend's face, he wassurprised, looking down on his right into a sheltered valley that laybetween rugged slopes, to behold the same peasant whom he had seen thatmorning, still leisurely driving the plow through the furrow with theassistance of his big white horse. Why should he lose a day? Men mightfight, but none the less the corn would keep on growing; and folks mustlive. 

VI. 

Up on his lofty terrace, whither he had betaken himself to watch howaffairs were shaping, Delaherche at last became impatient and was seizedwith an uncontrollable desire for news. He could see that the enemy'sshells were passing over the city and that the few projectiles which hadfallen on the houses in the vicinity were only responses, made at longintervals, to the irregular and harmless fire from Fort Palatinat, buthe could discern nothing of the battle, and his agitation was rising tofever heat; he experienced an imperious longing for intelligence, whichwas constantly stimulated by the reflection that his life and fortunewould be in danger should the army be defeated. He found it impossibleto remain there longer, and went downstairs, leaving behind him thetelescope on its tripod, turned on the German batteries. 

When he had descended, however, he lingered a moment, detained by theaspect of the central garden of the factory. It was near one o'clock, and the ambulance was crowded with wounded men; the wagons kept drivingup to the entrance in an unbroken stream. The regular ambulance wagonsof the medical department, two-wheeled and four-wheeled, were too fewin number to meet the demand, and vehicles of every description from theartillery and other trains, _prolonges_, provision vans, everything onwheels that could be picked up on the battlefield, came rolling upwith their ghastly loads; and later in the day even carrioles andmarket-gardeners' carts were pressed into the service and harnessedto horses that were found straying along the roads. Into these motleyconveyances were huddled the men collected from the flying ambulances, where their hurts had received such hasty attention as could beafforded. It was a sight to move the most callous to behold theunloading of those poor wretches, some with a greenish pallor on theirface, others suffused with the purple hue that denotes congestion; manywere in a state of coma, others uttered piercing cries of anguish; somethere were who, in their semi-conscious condition, yielded themselves tothe arms of the attendants with a look of deepest terror in their eyes, while a few, the minute a hand was laid on them, died of the consequentshock. They continued to arrive in such numbers that soon every bed inthe vast apartment would have its occupant, and Major Bouroche had givenorders to make use of the straw that had been spread thickly upon thefloor at one end. He and his assistants had thus far been able to attendto all the cases with reasonable promptness; he had requested Mme. Delaherche to furnish him with another table, with mattress and oilclothcover, for the shed where he had established his operating room. The assistant would thrust a napkin saturated with chloroform to thepatient's nostrils, the keen knife flashed in the air, there was thefaint rasping of the saw, barely audible, the blood spurted in short, sharp jets that were checked immediately. As soon as one subject hadbeen operated on another was brought in, and they followed one anotherin such quick succession that there was barely time to pass a spongeover the protecting oilcloth. At the extremity of the grass plot, screened from sight by a clump of lilac bushes, they had set up akind of morgue whither they carried the bodies of the dead, which wereremoved from the beds without a moment's delay in order to make roomfor the living, and this receptacle also served to receive the amputatedlegs, and arms, whatever debris of flesh and bone remained upon thetable. 

Mme. Delaherche and Gilberte, seated at the foot of one of the greattrees, found it hard work to keep pace with the demand for bandages. Bouroche, who happened to be passing, his face very red, his apron whiteno longer, threw a bundle of linen to Delaherche and shouted:

"Here! be doing something; make yourself useful!"

But the manufacturer objected. "Oh! excuse me; I must go and try to pickup some news. One can't tell whether his neck is safe or not. " Then, touching his lips to his wife's hair: "My poor Gilberte, to think that ashell may burn us out of house and home at any moment! It is horrible. "

She was very pale; she raised her head and glanced about her, shudderingas she did so. Then, involuntarily, her unextinguishable smile returnedto her lips. 

"Oh, horrible, indeed! and all those poor men that they are cutting andcarving. I don't see how it is that I stay here without fainting. "

Mme. Delaherche had watched her son as he kissed the young woman's hair. She made a movement as if to part them, thinking of that other man whomust have kissed those tresses so short a time ago; then her old handstrembled, she murmured beneath her breath:

"What suffering all about us, _mon Dieu!_ It makes one forget his own. "

Delaherche left them, with the assurance that he would be away no longerthan was necessary to ascertain the true condition of affairs. In theRue Maqua he was surprised to observe the crowds of soldiers thatwere streaming into the city, without arms and in torn, dust-staineduniforms. It was in vain, however, that he endeavored to slake histhirst for news by questioning them; some answered with vacant, stupidlooks that they knew nothing, while others told long rambling stories, with the maniacal gestures and whirling words of one bereft of reason. He therefore mechanically turned his steps again toward the SousPrefecture as the likeliest quarter in which to look for information. As he was passing along the Place du College two guns, probably all thatremained of some battery, came dashing up to the curb on a gallop, andwere abandoned there. When at last he turned into the Grande Rue hehad further evidence that the advanced guards of the fugitives werebeginning to take possession, of the city; three dismounted hussars hadseated themselves in a doorway and were sharing a loaf of bread; twoothers were walking their mounts up and down, leading them by thebridle, not knowing where to look for stabling for them; officerswere hurrying to and fro distractedly, seemingly without any distinctpurpose. On the Place Turenne a lieutenant counseled him not to loiterunnecessarily, for the shells had an unpleasant way of dropping thereevery now and then; indeed, a splinter had just demolished the railingabout the statue of the great commander who overran the Palatinate. Andas if to emphasize the officer's advice, while he was making fast timedown the Rue de la Sous Prefecture he saw two projectiles explode, witha terrible crash, on the Pont de Meuse. 

He was standing in front of the janitor's lodge, debating with himselfwhether it would be best to send in his card and try to interview one ofthe aides-de-camp, when he heard a girlish voice calling him by name. 

"M. Delaherche! Come in here, quick; it is not safe out there. "

It was Rose, his little operative, whose existence he had quiteforgotten. She might be a useful ally in assisting him to gain accessto headquarters; he entered the lodge and accepted her invitation to beseated. 

"Just think, mamma is down sick with the worry and confusion; she can'tleave her bed, so, you see, I have to attend to everything, for papais with the National Guards up in the citadel. A little while ago theEmperor left the building--I suppose he wanted to let people see he isnot a coward--and succeeded in getting as far as the bridge down at theend of the street. A shell alighted right in front of him; one of hisequerries had his horse killed under him. And then he came back--hecouldn't do anything else, could he, now?"

"You must have heard some talk of how the battle is going. What do theysay, those gentlemen upstairs?"

She looked at him in surprise. Her pretty face was bright and smiling, with its fluffy golden hair and the clear, childish eyes of one whobestirred herself among her multifarious duties, in the midst of allthose horrors, which she did not well understand. 

"No, I know nothing. About midday I sent up a letter for MarshalMacMahon, but it could not be given him right away, because the Emperorwas in the room. They were together nearly an hour, the Marshal lyingon his bed, the Emperor close beside him seated on a chair. That much Iknow for certain, because I saw them when the door was opened. "

"And then, what did they say to each other?"

She looked at him again, and could not help laughing. 

"Why, I don't know; how could you expect me to? There's not a livingsoul knows what they said to each other. "

She was right; he made an apologetic gesture in recognition of thestupidity of his question. But the thought of that fateful conversationhaunted him; the interest there was in it for him who could have heardit! What decision had they arrived at?

"And now, " Rose added, "the Emperor is back in his cabinet again, wherehe is having a conference with two generals who have just come in fromthe battlefield. " She checked herself, casting a glance at the mainentrance of the building. "See! there is one of them, now--and therecomes the other. "

He hurried from the room, and in the two generals recognized Ducrot andDouay, whose horses were standing before the door. He watched them climbinto their saddles and gallop away. They had hastened into the city, each independently of the other, after the plateau of Illy had beencaptured by the enemy, to notify the Emperor that the battle was lost. They placed the entire situation distinctly before him; the army andSedan were even then surrounded on every side; the result could not helpbut be disastrous. 

For some minutes the Emperor continued silently to pace the floor of hiscabinet, with the feeble, uncertain step of an invalid. There was nonewith him save an aide-de-camp, who stood by the door, erect and mute. And ever, to and fro, from the window to the fireplace, from thefireplace to the window, the sovereign tramped wearily, the inscrutableface now drawn and twitching spasmodically with a nervous tic. The backwas bent, the shoulders bowed, as if the weight of his falling empirepressed on them more heavily, and the lifeless eyes, veiled by theirheavy lids, told of the anguish of the fatalist who has played his lastcard against destiny and lost. Each time, however, that his walk broughthim to the half-open window he gave a start and lingered there a second. And during one of those brief stoppages he faltered with trembling lips:

"Oh! those guns, those guns, that have been going since the morning!"

The thunder of the batteries on la Marfee and at Frenois seemed, indeed, to resound with more terrific violence there than elsewhere. It was onecontinuous, uninterrupted crash, that shook the windows, nay, the verywalls themselves; an incessant uproar that exasperated the nerves by itspersistency. And he could not banish the reflection from his mind that, as the struggle was now hopeless, further resistance would be criminal. What would avail more bloodshed, more maiming and mangling; why add morecorpses to the dead that were already piled high upon that bloody field?They were vanquished, it was all ended; then why not stop the slaughter?The abomination of desolation raised its voice to heaven: let it cease. 

The Emperor, again before the window, trembled and raised his hands tohis ears, as if to shut out those reproachful voices. 

"Oh, those guns, those guns! Will they never be silent!"

Perhaps the dreadful thought of his responsibilities arose before him, with the vision of all those thousands of bleeding forms with whichhis errors had cumbered the earth; perhaps, again, it was but thecompassionate impulse of the tender-hearted dreamer, of the well-meaningman whose mind was stocked with humanitarian theories. At the momentwhen he beheld utter ruin staring him in the face, in that frightfulwhirlwind of destruction that broke him like a reed and scattered hisfortunes in the dust, he could yet find tears for others. Almost crazedat the thought of the slaughter that was mercilessly going on so nearhim, he felt he had not strength to endure it longer; each report ofthat accursed cannonade seemed to pierce his heart and intensified athousandfold his own private suffering. 

"Oh, those guns, those guns! they must be silenced at once, at once!"

And that monarch who no longer had a throne, for he had delegated allhis functions to the Empress regent, that chief without an army, sincehe had turned over the supreme command to Marshal Bazaine, now felt thathe must once more take the reins in his hand and be the master. Sincethey left Chalons he had kept himself in the background, had issued noorders, content to be a nameless nullity without recognized position, acumbrous burden carried about from place to place among the baggage ofhis troops, and it was only in their hour of defeat that the Emperorreasserted itself in him; the one order that he was yet to give, outof the pity of his sorrowing heart, was to raise the white flag on thecitadel to request an armistice. 

"Those guns, oh! those guns! Take a sheet, someone, a tablecloth, itmatters not what! only hasten, hasten, and see that it is done!"

The aide-de-camp hurried from the room, and with unsteady steps theEmperor continued to pace his beat, back and forth, between the windowand the fireplace, while still the batteries kept thundering, shakingthe house from garret to foundation. 

Delaherche was still chatting with Rose in the room below when anon-commissioned officer of the guard came running in and interruptedthem. 

"Mademoiselle, the house is in confusion, I cannot find a servant. Canyou let me have something from your linen closet, a white cloth of somekind?"

"Will a napkin answer?"

"No, no, it would not be large enough. Half of a sheet, say. "

Rose, eager to oblige, was already fumbling in her closet. 

"I don't think I have any half-sheets. No, I don't see anything thatlooks as if it would serve your purpose. Oh, here is something; couldyou use a tablecloth?"

"A tablecloth! just the thing. Nothing could be better. " And he added ashe left the room: "It is to be used as a flag of truce, and hoisted onthe citadel to let the enemy know we want to stop the fighting. Muchobliged, mademoiselle. "

Delaherche gave a little involuntary start of delight; they were to havea respite at last, then! Then he thought it might be unpatriotic to bejoyful at such a time, and put on a long face again; but none the lesshis heart was very glad and he contemplated with much interest a coloneland captain, followed by the sergeant, as they hurriedly left theSous-Prefecture. The colonel had the tablecloth, rolled in a bundle, beneath his arm. He thought he should like to follow them, and tookleave of Rose, who was very proud that her napery was to be put to suchuse. It was then just striking two o'clock. 

In front of the Hotel de Ville Delaherche was jostled by a disorderlymob of half-crazed soldiers who were pushing their way down from theFaubourg de la Cassine; he lost sight of the colonel, and abandoned hisdesign of going to witness the raising of the white flag. He certainlywould not be allowed to enter the citadel, and then again he had heardit reported that shells were falling on the college, and a new terrorfilled his mind; his factory might have been burned since he left it. All his feverish agitation returned to him and he started off on a run;the rapid motion was a relief to him. But the streets were blocked bygroups of men, at every crossing he was delayed by some new obstacle. Itwas only when he reached the Rue Maqua and beheld the monumental facadeof his house intact, no smoke or sign of fire about it, that his anxietywas allayed, and he heaved a deep sigh of satisfaction. He entered, andfrom the doorway shouted to his mother and wife:

"It is all right! they are hoisting the white flag; the cannonade won'tlast much longer. "

He said nothing more, for the appearance presented by the ambulance wastruly horrifying. 

In the vast drying-room, the wide door of which was standing open, notonly was every bed occupied, but there was no more room upon the litterthat had been shaken down on the floor at the end of the apartment. They were commencing to strew straw in the spaces between the beds, the wounded were crowded together so closely that they were in contact. Already there were more than two hundred patients there, and morewere arriving constantly; through the lofty windows the pitiless whitedaylight streamed in upon that aggregation of suffering humanity. Nowand then an unguarded movement elicited an involuntary cry of anguish. The death-rattle rose on the warm, damp air. Down the room a low, mournful wail, almost a lullaby, went on and ceased not. And all aboutwas silence, intense, profound, the stolid resignation of despair, thesolemn stillness of the death-chamber, broken only by the tread andwhispers of the attendants. Rents in tattered, shell-torn uniformsdisclosed gaping wounds, some of which had received a hasty dressing onthe battlefield, while others were still raw and bleeding. There werefeet, still incased in their coarse shoes, crushed into a mass likejelly; from knees and elbows, that were as if they had been smashed bya hammer, depended inert limbs. There were broken hands, and fingersalmost severed, ready to drop, retained only by a strip of skin. Mostnumerous among the casualties were the fractures; the poor arms andlegs, red and swollen, throbbed intolerably and were heavy as lead. Butthe most dangerous hurts were those in the abdomen, chest, and head. There were yawning fissures that laid open the entire flank, the knottedviscera were drawn into great hard lumps beneath the tight-drawn skin, while as the effect of certain wounds the patient frothed at the mouthand writhed like an epileptic. Here and there were cases where the lungshad been penetrated, the puncture now so minute as to permit no escapeof blood, again a wide, deep orifice through which the red tide of lifeescaped in torrents; and the internal hemorrhages, those that were hidfrom sight, were the most terrible in their effects, prostrating theirvictim like a flash, making him black in the face and delirious. And finally the head, more than any other portion of the frame, gaveevidence of hard treatment; a broken jaw, the mouth a pulp of teeth andbleeding tongue, an eye torn from its socket and exposed upon the cheek, a cloven skull that showed the palpitating brain beneath. Those in whosecase the bullet had touched the brain or spinal marrow were already asdead men, sunk in the lethargy of coma, while the fractures and otherless serious cases tossed restlessly on their pallets and beseechinglycalled for water to quench their thirst. 

Leaving the large room and passing out into the courtyard, the shedwhere the operations were going on presented another scene of horror. In the rush and hurry that had continued unabated since morning itwas impossible to operate on every case that was brought in, so theirattention had been confined to those urgent cases that imperativelydemanded it. Whenever Bouroche's rapid judgment told him that amputationwas necessary, he proceeded at once to perform it. In the same wayhe lost not a moment's time in probing the wound and extracting theprojectile whenever it had lodged in some locality where it might dofurther mischief, as in the muscles of the neck, the region of thearm pit, the thigh joint, the ligaments of the knee and elbow. Severedarteries, too, had to be tied without delay. Other wounds were merelydressed by one of the hospital stewards under his direction and leftto await developments. He had already with his own hand performed fouramputations, the only rest that he allowed himself being to attend tosome minor cases in the intervals between them, and was beginning tofeel fatigue. There were but two tables, his own and another, presidedover by one of his assistants; a sheet had been hung between them, to isolate the patients from each other. Although the sponge was keptconstantly at work the tables were always red, and the buckets that wereemptied over a bed of daisies a few steps away, the clear water in whicha single tumbler of blood sufficed to redden, seemed to be buckets ofunmixed blood, torrents of blood, inundating the gentle flowers of theparterre. Although the room was thoroughly ventilated a nauseating smellarose from the tables and their horrid burdens, mingled with the sweetlyinsipid odor of chloroform. 

Delaherche, naturally a soft-hearted man, was in a quiver ofcompassionate emotion at the spectacle that lay before his eyes, whenhis attention was attracted by a landau that drove up to the door. Itwas a private carriage, but doubtless the ambulance attendants had foundnone other ready to their hand and had crowded their patients into it. There were eight of them, sitting on one another's knees, and as thelast man alighted the manufacturer recognized Captain Beaudoin, and gaveutterance to a cry of terror and surprise. 

"Ah, my poor friend! Wait, I will call my mother and my wife. "

They came running up, leaving the bandages to be rolled by servants. Theattendants had already raised the captain and brought him into the room, and were about to lay him down upon a pile of straw when Delaherchenoticed, lying on a bed, a soldier whose ashy face and staring eyesexhibited no sign of life. 

"Look, is he not dead, that man?"

"That's so!" replied the attendant. "He may as well make room forsomeone else!"

He and one of his mates took the body by the arms and legs and carriedit off to the morgue that had been extemporized behind the lilac bushes. A dozen corpses were already there in a row, stiff and stark, some drawnout to their full length as if in an attempt to rid themselves of theagony that racked them, others curled and twisted in every attitudeof suffering. Some seemed to have left the world with a sneer on theirfaces, their eyes retroverted till naught was visible but the whites, the grinning lips parted over the glistening teeth, while in others, with faces unspeakably sorrowful, big tears still stood on the cheeks. One, a mere boy, short and slight, half whose face had been shot away bya cannon-ball, had his two hands clasped convulsively above his heart, and in them a woman's photograph, one of those pale, blurred picturesthat are made in the quarters of the poor, bedabbled with his blood. And at the feet of the dead had been thrown in a promiscuous pilethe amputated arms and legs, the refuse of the knife and saw of theoperating table, just as the butcher sweeps into a corner of his shopthe offal, the worthless odds and ends of flesh and bone. 

Gilberte shuddered as she looked on Captain Beaudoin. Good God! how palehe was, stretched out on his mattress, his face so white beneath theencrusting grime! And the thought that but a few short hours before hehad held her in his arms, radiant in all his manly strength and beauty, sent a chill of terror to her heart. She kneeled beside him. 

"What a terrible misfortune, my friend! But it won't amount to anything, will it?" And she drew her handkerchief from her pocket and beganmechanically to wipe his face, for she could not bear to look at it thussoiled with powder, sweat, and clay. It seemed to her, too, that shewould be helping him by cleansing him a little. "Will it? it is onlyyour leg that is hurt; it won't amount to anything. "

The captain made an effort to rouse himself from his semi-consciousstate, and opened his eyes. He recognized his friends and greeted themwith a faint smile. 

"Yes, it is only the leg. I was not even aware of being hit; I thought Ihad made a misstep and fallen--" He spoke with great difficulty. "Oh! Iam so thirsty!"

Mme. Delaherche, who was standing at the other side of the mattress, looking down compassionately on the young man, hastily left the room. She returned with a glass and a carafe of water into which a littlecognac had been poured, and when the captain had greedily swallowed thecontents of the glass, she distributed what remained in the carafeamong the occupants of the adjacent beds, who begged with tremblingoutstretched hands and tearful voices for a drop. A zouave, for whomthere was none left, sobbed like a child in his disappointment. 

Delaherche was meantime trying to gain the major's ear to see if hecould not prevail on him to take up the captain's case out ofits regular turn. Bouroche came into the room just then, with hisblood-stained apron and lion's mane hanging in confusion about hisperspiring face, and the men raised their heads as he passed andendeavored to stop him, all clamoring at once for recognition andimmediate attention: "This way, major! It's my turn, major!" Falteringwords of entreaty went up to him, trembling hands clutched at hisgarments, but he, wrapped up in the work that lay before him and puffingwith his laborious exertions, continued to plan and calculate andlistened to none of them. He communed with himself aloud, counting themover with his finger and classifying them, assigning them their numbers;this one first, then that one, then that other fellow; one, two, three;the jaw, the arm, then the thigh; while the assistant who accompaniedhim on his round made himself all ears in his effort to memorize hisdirections. 

"Major, " said Delaherche, plucking him by the sleeve, "there is anofficer over here, Captain Beaudoin--"

Bouroche interrupted him. "What, Beaudoin here! Ah, the poor devil!" Andhe crossed over at once to the side of the wounded man. A single glance, however, must have sufficed to show him that the case was a bad one, for he added in the same breath, without even stooping to examine theinjured member: "Good! I will have them bring him to me at once, just assoon as I am through with the operation that is now in hand. "

And he went back to the shed, followed by Delaherche, who would not losesight of him for fear lest he might forget his promise. 

The business that lay before him now was the rescision of ashoulder-joint in accordance with Lisfranc's method, which surgeonsnever fail to speak of as a "very pretty" operation, something neatand expeditious, barely occupying forty seconds in the performance. Thepatient was subjected to the influence of chloroform, while an assistantgrasped the shoulder with both hands, the fingers under the armpit, thethumbs on top. Bouroche, brandishing the long, keen knife, cried: "Raisehim!" seized the deltoid with his left hand and with a swift movement ofthe right cut through the flesh of the arm and severed the muscle;then, with a deft rearward cut, he disarticulated the joint at a singlestroke, and presto! the arm fell on the table, taken off in threemotions. The assistant slipped his thumbs over the brachial artery insuch manner as to close it. "Let him down!" Bouroche could not restraina little pleased laugh as he proceeded to secure the artery, for he haddone it in thirty-five seconds. All that was left to do now was tobring a flap of skin down over the wound and stitch it, in appearancesomething like a flat epaulette. It was not only "pretty, " but exciting, on account of the danger, for a man will pump all the blood out of hisbody in two minutes through the brachial, to say nothing of the riskthere is in bringing a patient to a sitting posture when under theinfluence of anaesthetics. 

Delaherche was white as a ghost; a thrill of horror ran down his back. He would have turned and fled, but time was not given him; the arm wasalready off. The soldier was a new recruit, a sturdy peasant lad; onemerging from his state of coma he beheld a hospital attendant carryingaway the amputated limb to conceal it behind the lilacs. Giving a quickdownward glance at his shoulder, he saw the bleeding stump and knew whathad been done, whereon he became furiously angry. 

"Ah, _nom de Dieu!_ what have you been doing to me? It is a shame!"

Bouroche was too done up to make him an immediate answer, but presently, in his fatherly way:

"I acted for the best; I didn't want to see you kick the bucket, my boy. Besides, I asked you, and you told me to go ahead. "

"I told you to go ahead! I did? How could I know what I was saying!" Hisanger subsided and he began to weep scalding tears. "What is going tobecome of me now?"

They carried him away and laid him on the straw, and gave the table andits covering a thorough cleansing; and the buckets of blood-red waterthat they threw out across the grass plot gave to the pale daisies astill deeper hue of crimson. 

When Delaherche had in some degree recovered his equanimity he wasastonished to notice that the bombardment was still going on. Why hadit not been silenced? Rose's tablecloth must have been hoisted over thecitadel by that time, and yet it seemed as if the fire of the Prussianbatteries was more rapid and furious than ever. The uproar was suchthat one could not hear his own voice; the sustained vibration tried thestoutest nerves. On both operators and patients the effect could notbut be most unfavorable of those incessant detonations that seemed topenetrate the inmost recesses of one's being. The entire hospital was ina state of feverish alarm and apprehension. 

"I supposed it was all over; what can they mean by keeping it up?"exclaimed Delaherche, who was nervously listening, expecting each shotwould be the last. 

Returning to Bouroche to remind him of his promise and conduct him tothe captain, he was astonished to find him seated on a bundle of strawbefore two pails of iced water, into which he had plunged both his arms, bared to the shoulder. The major, weary and disheartened, overwhelmedby a sensation of deepest melancholy and dejection, had reached one ofthose terrible moments when the practitioner becomes conscious of hisown impotency; he had exhausted his strength, physical and moral, andtaken this means to restore it. And yet he was not a weakling; hewas steady of hand and firm of heart; but the inexorable question hadpresented itself to him: "What is the use?" The feeling that he couldaccomplish so little, that so much must be left undone, had suddenlyparalyzed him. What was the use? since Death, in spite of his utmosteffort, would always be victorious. Two attendants came in, bearingCaptain Beaudoin on a stretcher. 

"Major, " Delaherche ventured to say, "here is the captain. "

Bouroche opened his eyes, withdrew his arms from their cold bath, shookand dried them on the straw. Then, rising to his feet:

"Ah, yes; the next one--Well, well, the day's work is not yet done. "And he shook the tawny locks upon his lion's head, rejuvenated andrefreshed, restored to himself once more by the invincible habit of dutyand the stern discipline of his profession. 

"Good! just above the right ankle, " said Bouroche, with unusualgarrulity, intended to quiet the nerves of the patient. "You displayedwisdom in selecting the location of your wound; one is not much theworse for a hurt in that quarter. Now we'll just take a little look atit. "

But Beaudoin's persistently lethargic condition evidently alarmedhim. He inspected the contrivance that had been applied by the fieldattendant to check the flow of blood, which was simply a cord passedaround the leg outside the trousers and twisted tight with theassistance of a bayonet sheath, with a growling request to be informedwhat infernal ignoramus had done that. Then suddenly he saw how matterswere and was silent; while they were bringing him in from the field inthe overcrowded landau the improvised tourniquet had become loosened andslipped down, thus giving rise to an extensive hemorrhage. He relievedhis feelings by storming at the hospital steward who was assisting him. 

"You confounded snail, cut! Are you going to keep me here all day?"

The attendant cut away the trousers and drawers, then the shoe and sock, disclosing to view the leg and foot in their pale nudity, stained withblood. Just over the ankle was a frightful laceration, into which thesplinter of the bursting shell had driven a piece of the red cloth ofthe trousers. The muscle protruded from the lips of the gaping orifice, a roll of whitish, mangled tissue. 

Gilberte had to support herself against one of the uprights of the shed. Ah! that flesh, that poor flesh that was so white; now all torn andmaimed and bleeding! Despite the horror and terror of the sight shecould not turn away her eyes. 

"Confound it!" Bouroche exclaimed, "they have made a nice mess here!"

He felt the foot and found it cold; the pulse, if any, was so feeble asto be undistinguishable. His face was very grave, and he pursed hislips in a way that was habitual with him when he had a more than usuallyserious case to deal with. 

"Confound it, " he repeated, "I don't like the looks of that foot!"

The captain, whom his anxiety had finally aroused from hissemi-somnolent state, asked:

"What were you saying, major?"

Bouroche's tactics, whenever an amputation became necessary, were neverto appeal directly to the patient for the customary authorization. Hepreferred to have the patient accede to it voluntarily. 

"I was saying that I don't like the looks of that foot, " he murmured, asif thinking aloud. "I am afraid we shan't be able to save it. "

In a tone of alarm Beaudoin rejoined: "Come, major, there is no usebeating about the bush. What is your opinion?"

"My opinion is that you are a brave man, captain, and that you are goingto let me do what the necessity of the case demands. "

To Captain Beaudoin it seemed as if a sort of reddish vapor arose beforehis eyes through which he saw things obscurely. He understood. Butnotwithstanding the intolerable fear that appeared to be clutching athis throat, he replied, unaffectedly and bravely:

"Do as you think best, major. "

The preparations did not consume much time. The assistant had saturateda cloth with chloroform and was holding it in readiness; it was at onceapplied to the patient's nostrils. Then, just at the moment that thebrief struggle set in that precedes anaesthesia, two attendants raisedthe captain and placed him on the mattress upon his back, in such aposition that the legs should be free; one of them retained his grasp onthe left limb, holding it flexed, while an assistant, seizing the right, clasped it tightly with both his hands in the region of the groin inorder to compress the arteries. 

Gilberte, when she saw Bouroche approach the victim with the glitteringsteel, could endure no more. 

"Oh, don't! oh, don't! it is too horrible!"

And she would have fallen had it not been that Mme. Delaherche put forthher arm to sustain her. 

"But why do you stay here?"

Both the women remained, however. They averted their eyes, not wishingto see the rest; motionless and trembling they stood locked in eachother's arms, notwithstanding the little love there was between them. 

At no time during the day had the artillery thundered more loudly thannow. It was three o'clock, and Delaherche declared angrily that he gaveit up--he could not understand it. There could be no doubt about it now, the Prussian batteries, instead of slackening their fire, were extendingit. Why? What had happened? It was as if all the forces of the netherregions had been unchained; the earth shook, the heavens were on fire. The ring of flame-belching mouths of bronze that encircled Sedan, theeight hundred guns of the German armies, that were served with suchactivity and raised such an uproar, were expending their thunders on theadjacent fields; had that concentric fire been focused upon the city, had the batteries on those commanding heights once begun to play uponSedan, it would have been reduced to ashes and pulverized into dust inless than fifteen minutes. But now the projectiles were again commencingto fall upon the houses, the crash that told of ruin and destructionwas heard more frequently. One exploded in the Rue des Voyards, anothergrazed the tall chimney of the factory, and the bricks and mortar cametumbling to the ground directly in front of the shed where the surgeonswere at work. Bouroche looked up and grumbled:

"Are they trying to finish our wounded for us? Really, this racket isintolerable. "

In the meantime an attendant had seized the captain's leg, and themajor, with a swift circular motion of his hand, made an incision in theskin below the knee and some two inches below the spot where he intendedto saw the bone; then, still employing the same thin-bladed knife, thathe did not change in order to get on more rapidly, he loosened the skinon the superior side of the incision and turned it back, much as onewould peel an orange. But just as he was on the point of dividing themuscles a hospital steward came up and whispered in his ear:

"Number two has just slipped his cable. "

The major did not hear, owing to the fearful uproar. 

"Speak up, can't you! My ear drums are broken with their d-----dcannon. "

"Number two has just slipped his cable. "

"Who is that, number two?"

"The arm, you know. "

"Ah, very good! Well, then, you can bring me number three, the jaw. "

And with wonderful dexterity, never changing his position, he cutthrough the muscles clean down to the bone with a single motion of hiswrist. He laid bare the tibia and fibula, introduced between them animplement to keep them in position, drew the saw across them once, andthey were sundered. And the foot remained in the hands of the attendantwho was holding it. 

The flow of blood had been small, thanks to the pressure maintained bythe assistant higher up the leg, at the thigh. The ligature of the threearteries was quickly accomplished, but the major shook his head, andwhen the assistant had removed his fingers he examined the stump, murmuring, certain that the patient could not hear as yet:

"It looks bad; there's no blood coming from the arterioles. "

And he completed his diagnosis of the case by an expressive gesture:Another poor fellow who was soon to answer the great roll-call! whileon his perspiring face was again seen that expression of weariness andutter dejection, that hopeless, unanswerable: "What is the use?" sinceout of every ten cases that they assumed the terrible responsibility ofoperating on they did not succeed in saving four. He wiped his forehead, and set to work to draw down the flap of skin and put in the threesutures that were to hold it in place. 

Delaherche having told Gilberte that the operation was completed, sheturned her gaze once more upon the table; she caught a glimpse of thecaptain's foot, however, as the attendant was carrying it away to theplace behind the lilacs. The charnel house there continued to receivefresh occupants; two more corpses had recently been brought in and addedto the ghastly array, one with blackened lips still parted wide asif rending the air with shrieks of anguish, the other, his form socontorted and contracted in the convulsions of the last agony that hewas like a stunted, malformed boy. Unfortunately, there was beginningto be a scarcity of room in the little secluded corner, and the humandebris had commenced to overflow and invade the adjacent alley. Theattendant hesitated a moment, in doubt what to do with the captain'sfoot, then finally concluded to throw it on the general pile. 

"Well, captain, that's over with, " the major said to Beaudoin when heregained consciousness. "You'll be all right now. "

But the captain did not show the cheeriness that follows a successfuloperation. He opened his eyes and made an attempt to raise himself, thenfell back on his pillow, murmuring wearily, in a faint voice:

"Thanks, major. I'm glad it's over. "

He was conscious of the pain, however, when the alcohol of the dressingtouched the raw flesh. He flinched a little, complaining that they wereburning him. And just as they were bringing up the stretcher preparatoryto carrying him back into the other room the factory was shaken to itsfoundations by a most terrific explosion; a shell had burst directlyin the rear of the shed, in the small courtyard where the pump wassituated. The glass in the windows was shattered into fragments, and adense cloud of smoke came pouring into the ambulance. The wounded men, stricken with panic terror, arose from their bed of straw; all wereclamoring with affright; all wished to fly at once. 

Delaherche rushed from the building in consternation to see what damagehad been done. Did they mean to burn his house down over his head?What did it all mean? Why did they open fire again when the Emperor hadordered that it should cease?

"Thunder and lightning! Stir yourselves, will you!" Bouroche shoutedto his staff, who were standing about with pallid faces, transfixed byterror. "Wash off the table; go and bring me in number three!"

They cleansed the table; and once more the crimson contents of thebuckets were hurled across the grass plot upon the bed of daisies, whichwas now a sodden, blood-soaked mat of flowers and verdure. And Bouroche, to relieve the tedium until the attendants should bring him "numberthree, " applied himself to probing for a musket-ball, which, havingfirst broken the patient's lower jaw, had lodged in the root ofthe tongue. The blood flowed freely and collected on his fingers inglutinous masses. 

Captain Beaudoin was again resting on his mattress in the large room. Gilberte and Mme. Delaherche had followed the stretcher when he wascarried from the operating table, and even Delaherche, notwithstandinghis anxiety, came in for a moment's chat. 

"Lie here and rest a few minutes, Captain. We will have a room preparedfor you, and you shall be our guest. "

But the wounded man shook off his lethargy and for a moment had commandof his faculties. 

"No, it is not worth while; I feel that I am going to die. "

And he looked at them with wide eyes, filled with the horror of death. 

"Oh, Captain! why do you talk like that?" murmured Gilberte, with ashiver, while she forced a smile to her lips. "You will be quite well amonth hence. "

He shook his head mournfully, and in the room was conscious of nopresence save hers; on all his face was expressed his unutterableyearning for life, his bitter, almost craven regret that he was to besnatched away so young, leaving so many joys behind untasted. 

"I am going to die, I am going to die. Oh! 'tis horrible--"

Then suddenly he became conscious of his torn, soiled uniform and thegrime upon his hands, and it made him feel uncomfortable to be in thecompany of women in such a state. It shamed him to show such weakness, and his desire to look and be the gentleman to the last restored tohim his manhood. When he spoke again it was in a tone almost ofcheerfulness. 

"If I have got to die, though, I would rather it should be with cleanhands. I should count it a great kindness, madame, if you would moistena napkin and let me have it. "

Gilberte sped away and quickly returned with the napkin, with which sheherself cleansed the hands of the dying man. Thenceforth, desirous ofquitting the scene with dignity, he displayed much firmness. Delaherchedid what he could to cheer him, and assisted his wife in the smallattentions she offered for his comfort. Old Mme. Delaherche, too, in presence of the man whose hours were numbered, felt her enmitysubsiding. She would be silent, she who knew all and had sworn to imparther knowledge to her son. What would it avail to excite discord in thehousehold, since death would soon obliterate all trace of the wrong?

The end came very soon. Captain Beaudoin, whose strength was ebbingrapidly, relapsed into his comatose condition, and a cold sweat brokeout and stood in beads upon his neck and forehead. He opened his eyesagain, and began to feebly grope about him with his stiffening fingers, as if feeling for a covering that was not there, pulling at it with agentle, continuous movement, as if to draw it up around his shoulders. 

"It is cold--Oh! it is so cold. "

And so he passed from life, peacefully, without a struggle; and on hiswasted, tranquil face rested an expression of unspeakable melancholy. 

Delaherche saw to it that the remains, instead of being borne away andplaced among the common dead, were deposited in one of the outbuildingsof the factory. He endeavored to prevail on Gilberte, who was tearfuland disconsolate, to retire to her apartment, but she declared that tobe alone now would be more than her nerves could stand, and begged tobe allowed to remain with her mother-in-law in the ambulance, where thenoise and movement would be a distraction to her. She was seen presentlyrunning to carry a drink of water to a chasseur d'Afrique whom his feverhad made delirious, and she assisted a hospital steward to dress thehand of a little recruit, a lad of twenty, who had had his thumb shotaway and come in on foot from the battlefield; and as he was jolly andamusing, treating his wound with all the levity and nonchalance of theParisian rollicker, she was soon laughing and joking as merrily as he. 

While the captain lay dying the cannonade seemed, if that were possible, to have increased in violence; another shell had landed in the garden, shattering one of the old elms. Terror-stricken men came running in tosay that all Sedan was in danger of destruction; a great fire had brokenout in the Faubourg de la Cassine. If the bombardment should continuewith such fury for any length of time there would be nothing left of thecity. 

"It can't be; I am going to see about it!" Delaherche exclaimed, violently excited. 

"Where are you going, pray?" asked Bouroche. 

"Why, to the Sous-Prefecture, to see what the Emperor means by foolingus in this way, with his talk of hoisting the white flag. "

For some few seconds the major stood as if petrified at the idea ofdefeat and capitulation, which presented itself to him then for thefirst time in the midst of his impotent efforts to save the lives of thepoor maimed creatures they were bringing in to him from the field. Rageand grief were in his voice as he shouted:

"Go to the devil, if you will! All you can do won't keep us from beingsoundly whipped!"

On leaving the factory Delaherche found it no easy task to squeezehis way through the throng; at every instant the crowd of stragglingsoldiers that filled the streets received fresh accessions. Hequestioned several of the officers whom he encountered; not one of themhad seen the white flag on the citadel. Finally he met a colonel, whodeclared that he had caught a momentary glimpse of it: that it had beenrun up and then immediately hauled down. That explained matters; eitherthe Germans had not seen it, or seeing it appear and disappear soquickly, had inferred the distressed condition of the French andredoubled their fire in consequence. There was a story in circulationhow a general officer, enraged beyond control at the sight of the flag, had wrested it from its bearer, broken the staff, and trampled it in themud. And still the Prussian batteries continued to play upon the city, shells were falling upon the roofs and in the streets, houses were inflames; a woman had just been killed at the corner of the Rue Pont deMeuse and the Place Turenne. 

At the Sous-Prefecture Delaherche failed to find Rose at her usualstation in the janitor's lodge. Everywhere were evidences of disorder;all the doors were standing open; the reign of terror had commenced. Asthere was no sentry or anyone to prevent, he went upstairs, encounteringon the way only a few scared-looking men, none of whom made any offer tostop him. He had reached the first story and was hesitating what to donext when he saw the young girl approaching him. 

"Oh, M. Delaherche! isn't this dreadful! Here, quick! this way, if youwould like to see the Emperor. "

On the left of the corridor a door stood ajar, and through the narrowopening a glimpse could be had of the sovereign, who had resumed hisweary, anguished tramp between the fireplace and the window. Back andforth he shuffled with heavy, dragging steps, and ceased not, despitehis unendurable suffering. An aide-de-camp had just entered the room--itwas he who had failed to close the door behind him--and Delaherche heardthe Emperor ask him in a sorrowfully reproachful voice:

"What is the reason of this continued firing, sir, after I gave ordersto hoist the white flag?"

The torture to him had become greater than he could bear, thatnever-ceasing cannonade, that seemed to grow more furious with everyminute. Every time he approached the window it pierced him to the heart. More spilling of blood, more useless squandering of human life! At everymoment the piles of corpses were rising higher on the battlefield, andhis was the responsibility. The compassionate instincts that entered solargely into his nature revolted at it, and more than ten times alreadyhe had asked that question of those who approached him. 

"I gave orders to raise the white flag; tell me, why do they continuefiring?"

The aide-de-camp made answer in a voice so low that Delaherche failed tocatch its purport. The Emperor, moreover, seemed not to pause to listen, drawn by some irresistible attraction to that window at which, each timehe approached it, he was greeted by that terrible salvo of artillerythat rent and tore his being. His pallor was greater even than it hadbeen before; his poor, pinched, wan face, on which were still visibletraces of the rouge that had been applied that morning, bore witness tohis anguish. 

At that moment a short, quick-motioned man in dust-soiled uniform, whomDelaherche recognized as General Lebrun, hurriedly crossed the corridorand pushed open the door, without waiting to be announced. And scarcelywas he in the room when again was heard the Emperor's so oft repeatedquestion. 

"Why do they continue to fire, General, when I have given orders tohoist the white flag?"

The aide-de-camp left the apartment, shutting the door behind him, andDelaherche never knew what was the general's answer. The vision hadfaded from his sight. 

"Ah!" said Rose, "things are going badly; I can see that clearly enoughby all those gentlemen's faces. It is bad for my tablecloth, too; I amafraid I shall never see it again; somebody told me it had been tornin pieces. But it is for the Emperor that I feel most sorry in all thisbusiness, for he is in a great deal worse condition than the marshal;he would be much better off in his bed than in that room, where he iswearing himself out with his everlasting walking. "

She spoke with much feeling, and on her pretty pink and white face therewas an expression of sincere pity, but Delaherche, whose Bonapartistardor had somehow cooled considerably during the last two days, said tohimself that she was a little fool. He nevertheless remained chattingwith her a moment in the hall below while waiting for General Lebrun totake his departure, and when that officer appeared and left the buildinghe followed him. 

General Lebrun had explained to the Emperor that if it was thought bestto apply for an armistice, etiquette demanded that a letter to thateffect, signed by the commander-in-chief of the French forces, shouldbe dispatched to the German commander-in-chief. He had also offered towrite the letter, go in search of General de Wimpffen, and obtain hissignature to it. He left the Sous-Prefecture with the letter in hispocket, but apprehensive he might not succeed in finding de Wimpffen, entirely ignorant as he was of the general's whereabouts on the field ofbattle. Within the ramparts of Sedan, moreover, the crowd was so densethat he was compelled to walk his horse, which enabled Delaherche tokeep him in sight until he reached the Minil gate. 

Once outside upon the road, however, General Lebrun struck into agallop, and when near Balan had the good fortune to fall in with thechief. Only a few minutes previous to this the latter had written to theEmperor: "Sire, come and put yourself at the head of your troops; theywill force a passage through the enemy's lines for you, or perish in theattempt;" therefore he flew into a furious passion at the mere mentionof the word armistice. No, no! he would sign nothing, he would fightit out! This was about half-past three o'clock, and it was shortlyafterward that occurred the gallant, but mad attempt, the last seriouseffort of the day, to pierce the Bavarian lines and regain possession ofBazeilles. In order to put heart into the troops a ruse was resorted to:in the streets of Sedan and in the fields outside the walls the shoutwas raised: "Bazaine is coming up! Bazaine is at hand!" Ever sincemorning many had allowed themselves to be deluded by that hope;each time that the Germans opened fire with a fresh battery it wasconfidently asserted to be the guns of the army of Metz. In theneighborhood of twelve hundred men were collected, soldiers of all arms, from every corps, and the little column bravely advanced into the stormof missiles that swept the road, at double time. It was a splendidspectacle of heroism and endurance while it lasted; the numerouscasualties did not check the ardor of the survivors, nearly five hundredyards were traversed with a courage and nerve that seemed almost likemadness; but soon there were great gaps in the ranks, the bravest beganto fall back. What could they do against overwhelming numbers? It was amad attempt, anyway; the desperate effort of a commander who couldnot bring himself to acknowledge that he was defeated. And it ended byGeneral de Wimpffen finding himself and General Lebrun alone together onthe Bazeilles road, which they had to make up their mind to abandon tothe enemy, for good and all. All that remained for them to do was toretreat and seek security under the walls of Sedan. 

Upon losing sight of the general at the Minil gate Delaherche hadhurried back to the factory at the best speed he was capable of, impelled by an irresistible longing to have another look from hisobservatory at what was going on in the distance. Just as he reachedhis door, however, his progress was arrested a moment by encounteringColonel de Vineuil, who, with his blood-stained boot, was being broughtin for treatment in a condition of semi-consciousness, upon a bed ofstraw that had been prepared for him on the floor of a market-gardener'swagon. The colonel had persisted in his efforts to collect the scatteredfragments of his regiment until he dropped from his horse. He wasimmediately carried upstairs and put to bed in a room on the firstfloor, and Bouroche, who was summoned at once, finding the injury notof a serious character, had only to apply a dressing to the wound, from which he first extracted some bits of the leather of the boot. The worthy doctor was wrought up to a high pitch of excitement; heexclaimed, as he went downstairs, that he would rather cut off one ofhis own legs than continue working in that unsatisfactory, slovenly way, without a tithe of either the assistants or the appliances that he oughtto have. Below in the ambulance, indeed, they no longer knew where tobestow the cases that were brought them, and had been obliged to haverecourse to the lawn, where they laid them on the grass. There werealready two long rows of them, exposed beneath the shrieking shells, filling the air with their dismal plaints while waiting for hisministrations. The number of cases brought in since noon exceeded fourhundred, and in response to Bouroche's repeated appeals for assistancehe had been sent one young doctor from the city. Good as was his will, he was unequal to the task; he probed, sliced, sawed, sewed like aman frantic, and was reduced to despair to see his work continuallyaccumulating before him. Gilberte, satiated with sights of horror, unable longer to endure the sad spectacle of blood and tears, remainedupstairs with her uncle, the colonel, leaving to Mme. Delaherche thecare of moistening fevered lips and wiping the cold sweat from the browof the dying. 

Rapidly climbing the stairs to his terrace, Delaherche endeavored toform some idea for himself of how matters stood. The city hadsuffered less injury than was generally supposed; there was one greatconflagration, however, over in the Faubourg de la Cassine, from whichdense volumes of smoke were rising. Fort Palatinat had discontinuedits fire, doubtless because the ammunition was all expended; the gunsmounted on the Porte de Paris alone continued to make themselves heardat infrequent intervals. But something that he beheld presently hadgreater interest for his eyes than all beside; they had run up the whiteflag on the citadel again, but it must be that it was invisible from thebattlefield, for there was no perceptible slackening of the fire. TheBalan road was concealed from his vision by the neighboring roofs; hewas unable to make out what the troops were doing in that direction. Applying his eye to the telescope, however, which remained as he hadleft it, directed on la Marfee, he again beheld the cluster of officersthat he had seen in that same place about midday. The master of themall, that miniature toy-soldier in lead, half finger high, in whom hehad thought to recognize the King of Prussia, was there still, erect inhis plain, dark uniform before the other officers, who, in their showytrappings, were for the most part reclining carelessly on the grass. Among them were officers from foreign lands, aides-de-camp, generals, high officials, princes; all of them with field glasses in their hands, with which, since early morning, they had been watching every phase ofthe death-struggle of the army of Chalons, as if they were at the play. And the direful drama was drawing to its end. 

From among the trees that clothed the summit of la Marfee King Williamhad just witnessed the junction of his armies. It was an accomplishedfact; the third army, under the leadership of his son, the CrownPrince, advancing by the way of Saint-Menges and Fleigneux, had securedpossession of the plateau of Illy, while the fourth, commanded by theCrown Prince of Saxony, turning the wood of la Garenne and, coming upthrough Givonne and Daigny, had also reached its appointed rendezvous. There, too, the XIth and Vth corps had joined hands with the XIIth corpsand the Guards. The gallant but ineffectual charge of Margueritte'sdivision in its supreme effort to break through the hostile lines at thevery moment when the circle was being rounded out had elicited from theking the exclamation: "Ah, the brave fellows!" Now the great movement, inexorable as fate, the details of which had been arranged with suchmathematical precision, was complete, the jaws of the vise had closed, and stretching on his either hand far in the distance, a mighty wall ofadamant surrounding the army of the French, were the countless menand guns that called him master. At the north the contracting linesmaintained a constantly increasing pressure on the vanquished, forcingthem back upon Sedan under the merciless fire of the batteries thatlined the horizon in an array without a break. Toward the south, atBazeilles, where the conflict had ceased to rage and the scene was oneof mournful desolation, great clouds of smoke were rising from the ruinsof what had once been happy homes, while the Bavarians, now masters ofBalan, had advanced their batteries to within three hundred yards of thecity gates. And the other batteries, those posted on the left bank atPont Maugis, Noyers, Frenois, Wadelincourt, completing the impenetrablerampart of flame and bringing it around to the sovereign's feet on hisright, that had been spouting fire uninterruptedly for nearly twelvehours, now thundered more loudly still. 

But King William, to give his tired eyes a moment's rest, dropped hisglass to his side and continued his observations with unassisted vision. The sun was slanting downward to the woods on his left, about to set ina sky where there was not a cloud, and the golden light that lay uponthe landscape was so transcendently clear and limpid that the mostinsignificant objects stood out with startling distinctness. He couldalmost count the houses in Sedan, whose windows flashed back the levelrays of the departing day-star, and the ramparts and fortifications, outlined in black against the eastern sky, had an unwonted aspect offrowning massiveness. Then, scattered among the fields to right andleft, were the pretty, smiling villages, reminding one of the toyvillages that come packed in boxes for the little ones; to the westDonchery, seated at the border of her broad plain; Douzy and Carignanto the east, among the meadows. Shutting in the picture to the north wasthe forest of the Ardennes, an ocean of sunlit verdure, while the Meuse, loitering with sluggish current through the plain with many a bend andcurve, was like a stream of purest molten gold in that caressing light. And seen from that height, with the sun's parting kiss resting on it, the horrible battlefield, with its blood and smoke, became an exquisiteand highly finished miniature; the dead horsemen and disemboweled steedson the plateau of Floing were so many splashes of bright color; onthe right, in the direction of Givonne, those minute black specks thatwhirled and eddied with such apparent lack of aim, like motes dancing inthe sunshine, were the retreating fragments of the beaten army; while onthe left a Bavarian battery on the peninsula of Iges, its guns thesize of matches, might have been taken for some mechanical toy as itperformed its evolutions with clockwork regularity. The victory wascrushing, exceeding all that the victor could have desired or hoped, and the King felt no remorse in presence of all those corpses, of thosethousands of men that were as the dust upon the roads of that broadvalley where, notwithstanding the burning of Bazeilles, the slaughterof Illy, the anguish of Sedan, impassive nature yet could don her gayestrobe and put on her brightest smile as the perfect day faded into thetranquil evening. 

But suddenly Delaherche descried a French officer climbing the steeppath up the flank of la Marfee; he was a general, wearing a blue tunic, mounted on a black horse, and preceded by a hussar bearing a whiteflag. It was General Reille, whom the Emperor had entrusted with thiscommunication for the King of Prussia: "My brother, as it has beendenied me to die at the head of my army, all that is left me is tosurrender my sword to Your Majesty. I am Your Majesty's affectionatebrother, Napoleon. " Desiring to arrest the butchery and being no longermaster, the Emperor yielded himself a prisoner, in the hope to placatethe conqueror by the sacrifice. And Delaherche saw General Reille reinup his charger and dismount at ten paces from the King, then advance anddeliver his letter; he was unarmed and merely carried a riding whip. Thesun was setting in a flood of rosy light; the King seated himself on achair in the midst of a grassy open space, and resting his hand on theback of another chair that was held in place by a secretary, repliedthat he accepted the sword and would await the appearance of an officerempowered to settle the terms of the capitulation. 

VII. 

As when the ice breaks up and the great cakes come crashing, grindingdown upon the bosom of the swollen stream, carrying away all beforethem, so now, from every position about Sedan that had been wrested fromthe French, from Floing and the plateau of Illy, from the wood of laGarenne, the valley of la Givonne and the Bazeilles road, the stampedecommenced; a mad torrent of horses, guns, and affrighted men camepouring toward the city. It was a most unfortunate inspiration thatbrought the army under the walls of that fortified place. There was toomuch in the way of temptation there; the shelter that it afforded theskulker and the deserter, the assurance of safety that even thebravest beheld behind its ramparts, entailed widespread panic anddemoralization. Down there behind those protecting walls, so everyoneimagined, was safety from that terrible artillery that had been blazingwithout intermission for near twelve hours; duty, manhood, reason wereall lost sight of; the man disappeared and was succeeded by the brute, and their fierce instinct sent them racing wildly for shelter, seeking aplace where they might hide their head and lie down and sleep. 

When Maurice, bathing Jean's face with cool water behind the shelter oftheir bit of wall, saw his friend open his eyes once more, he uttered anexclamation of delight. 

"Ah, poor old chap, I was beginning to fear you were done for! And don'tthink I say it to find fault, but really you are not so light as youwere when you were a boy. "

It seemed to Jean, in his still dazed condition, that he was awakingfrom some unpleasant dream. Then his recollection returned to himslowly, and two big tears rolled down his cheeks. To think that littleMaurice, so frail and slender, whom he had loved and petted like achild, should have found strength to lug him all that distance!

"Let's see what damage your knowledge-box has sustained. "

The wound was not serious; the bullet had plowed its way through thescalp and considerable blood had flowed. The hair, which was now mattedwith the coagulated gore, had served to stanch the current, thereforeMaurice refrained from applying water to the hurt, so as not to cause itto bleed afresh. 

"There, you look a little more like a civilized being, now that you havea clean face on you. Let's see if I can find something for you to wearon your head. " And picking up the _kepi_ of a soldier who lay dead notfar away, he tenderly adjusted it on his comrade. "It fits you to a T. Now if you can only walk everyone will say we are a very good-lookingcouple. "

Jean got on his legs and gave his head a shake to assure himself it wassecure. It seemed a little heavier than usual, that was all; he thoughthe should get along well enough. A great wave of tenderness sweptthrough his simple soul; he caught Maurice in his arms and hugged him tohis bosom, while all he could find to say was:

"Ah! dear boy, dear boy!"

But the Prussians were drawing near: it would not answer to loiterbehind the wall. Already Lieutenant Rochas, with what few men were lefthim, was retreating, guarding the flag, which the sous-lieutenant stillcarried under his arm, rolled around the staff. Lapoulle's great heightenabled him to fire an occasional shot at the advancing enemy overthe coping of the wall, while Pache had slung his chassepot across hisshoulder by the strap, doubtless considering that he had done a fairday's work and it was time to eat and sleep. Maurice and Jean, stoopinguntil they were bent almost double, hastened to rejoin them. There wasno scarcity of muskets and ammunition; all they had to do was stoop andpick them up. They equipped themselves afresh, having left everythingbehind, knapsacks included, when one lugged the other out of dangeron his shoulders. The wall extended to the wood of la Garenne, and thelittle band, believing that now their safety was assured, made a rushfor the protection afforded by some farm buildings, whence they readilygained the shelter of the trees. 

"Ah!" said Rochas, drawing a long breath, "we will remain here a momentand get our wind before we resume the offensive. " No adversity couldshake his unwavering faith. 

They had not advanced many steps before all felt that they were enteringthe valley of death, but it was useless to think of retracing theirsteps; their only line of retreat lay through the wood, and cross itthey must, at every hazard. At that time, instead of la Garenne, itsmore fitting name would have been the wood of despair and death;the Prussians, knowing that the French troops were retiring in thatdirection, were riddling it with artillery and musketry. Its shatteredbranches tossed and groaned as if enduring the scourging of a mightytempest. The shells hewed down the stalwart trees, the bullets broughtthe leaves fluttering to the earth in showers; wailing voices seemed toissue from the cleft trunks, sobs accompanied the little twigs as theyfell bleeding from the parent stem. It might have been taken for theagony of some vast multitude, held there in chains and unable to fleeunder the pelting of that pitiless iron hail; the shrieks, the terrorof thousands of creatures rooted to the ground. Never was anguish sopoignant as of that bombarded forest. 

Maurice and Jean, who by this time had caught up with their companions, were greatly alarmed. The wood where they then were was a growth oflarge trees, and there was no obstacle to their running, but thebullets came whistling about their ears from every direction, making itimpossible for them to avail themselves of the shelter of the trunks. Two men were killed, one of them struck in the back, the other in front. A venerable oak, directly in Maurice's path, had its trunk shattered bya shell, and sank, with the stately grace of a mailed paladin, carryingdown all before it, and even as the young man was leaping back the topof a gigantic ash on his left, struck by another shell, came crashing tothe ground like some tall cathedral spire. Where could they fly? whitherbend their steps? Everywhere the branches were falling; it was asone who should endeavor to fly from some vast edifice menaced withdestruction, only to find himself in each room he enters in successionconfronted with crumbling walls and ceilings. And when, in order toescape being crushed by the big trees, they took refuge in a thicket ofbushes, Jean came near being killed by a projectile, only it fortunatelyfailed to explode. They could no longer make any progress now on accountof the dense growth of the shrubbery; the supple branches caught themaround the shoulders, the rank, tough grass held them by the ankles, impenetrable walls of brambles rose before them and blocked their way, while all the time the foliage was fluttering down about them, clippedby the gigantic scythe that was mowing down the wood. Another man wasstruck dead beside them by a bullet in the forehead, and he retainedhis erect position, caught in some vines between two small birch trees. Twenty times, while they were prisoners in that thicket, did they feeldeath hovering over them. 

"Holy Virgin!" said Maurice, "we shall never get out of this alive. "

His face was ashy pale, he was shivering again with terror; and Jean, always so brave, who had cheered and comforted him that morning, he, also, was very white and felt a strange, chill sensation creeping downhis spine. It was fear, horrible, contagious, irresistible fear. Againthey were conscious of a consuming thirst, an intolerable dryness of themouth, a contraction of the throat, painful as if someone were chokingthem. These symptoms were accompanied by nausea and qualms at the pitof the stomach, while maleficent goblins kept puncturing their aguish, trembling legs with needles. Another of the physical effects of theirfear was that in the congested condition of the blood vessels of theretina they beheld thousands upon thousands of small black specksflitting past them, as if it had been possible to distinguish the flyingbullets. 

"Confound the luck!" Jean stammered. "It is not worth speaking of, butit's vexatious all the same, to be here getting one's head broken forother folks, when those other folks are at home, smoking their pipe incomfort. "

"Yes, that's so, " Maurice replied, with a wild look. "Why should it be Irather than someone else?"

It was the revolt of the individual Ego, the unaltruistic refusal of theone to make himself a sacrifice for the benefit of the species. 

"And then again, " Jean continued, "if a fellow could but know the rightsof the matter; if he could be sure that any good was to come from itall. " Then turning his head and glancing at the western sky: "Anyway, I wish that blamed sun would hurry up and go to roost. Perhaps they'llstop fighting when it's dark. "

With no distinct idea of what o'clock it was and no means of measuringthe flight of time, he had long been watching the tardy declinationof the fiery disk, which seemed to him to have ceased to move, hangingthere in the heavens over the woods of the left bank. And this wasnot owing to any lack of courage on his part; it was simply theovermastering, ever increasing desire, amounting to an imperiousnecessity, to be relieved from the screaming and whistling of thoseprojectiles, to run away somewhere and find a hole where he might hidehis head and lose himself in oblivion. Were it not for the feeling ofshame that is implanted in men's breasts and keeps them from showing thewhite feather before their comrades, every one of them would lose hishead and run, in spite of himself, like the veriest poltroon. 

Maurice and Jean, meanwhile, were becoming somewhat more accustomed totheir surroundings, and even when their terror was at its highest therecame to them a sort of exalted self-unconsciousness that had in itsomething of bravery. They finally reached a point when they did noteven hasten their steps as they made their way through the accursedwood. The horror of the bombardment was even greater than it had beenpreviously among that race of sylvan denizens, killed at their post, struck down on every hand, like gigantic, faithful sentries. In thedelicious twilight that reigned, golden-green, beneath their umbrageousbranches, among the mysterious recesses of romantic, moss-carpetedretreats, Death showed his ill-favored, grinning face. The solitaryfountains were contaminated; men fell dead in distant nooks whose depthshad hitherto been trod by none save wandering lovers. A bullet pierced aman's chest; he had time to utter the one word: "hit!" and fell forwardon his face, stone dead. Upon the lips of another, who had both legsbroken by a shell, the gay laugh remained; unconscious of his hurt, hesupposed he had tripped over a root. Others, injured mortally, would runon for some yards, jesting and conversing, until suddenly they went downlike a log in the supreme convulsion. The severest wounds were hardlyfelt at the moment they were received; it was only at a later periodthat the terrible suffering commenced, venting itself in shrieks and hottears. 

Ah, that accursed wood, that wood of slaughter and despair, where, amidthe sobbing of the expiring trees, arose by degrees and swelled theagonized clamor of wounded men. Maurice and Jean saw a zouave, nearlydisemboweled, propped against the trunk of an oak, who kept up a mostterrific howling, without a moment's intermission. A little way beyondanother man was actually being slowly roasted; his clothing had takenfire and the flames had run up and caught his beard, while he, paralyzedby a shot that had broken his back, was silently weeping scalding tears. Then there was a captain, who, one arm torn from its socket and hisflank laid open to the thigh, was writhing on the ground in agonyunspeakable, beseeching, in heartrending accents, the by-passers to endhis suffering. There were others, and others, and others still, whosetorments may not be described, strewing the grass-grown paths in suchnumbers that the utmost caution was required to avoid treading themunder foot. But the dead and wounded had ceased to count; the comradewho fell by the way was abandoned to his fate, forgotten as if he hadnever been. No one turned to look behind. It was his destiny, poordevil! Next it would be someone else, themselves, perhaps. 

They were approaching the edge of the wood when a cry of distress washeard behind them. 

"Help! help!"

It was the subaltern standard-bearer, who had been shot through the leftlung. He had fallen, the blood pouring in a stream from his mouth, andas no one heeded his appeal he collected his fast ebbing strength foranother effort:

"To the colors!"

Rochas turned and in a single bound was at his side. He took the flag, the staff of which had been broken in the fall, while the young officermurmured in words that were choked by the bubbling tide of blood andfroth:

"Never mind me; I am a goner. Save the flag!"

And they left him to himself in that charming woodland glade to writhein protracted agony upon the ground, tearing up the grass with hisstiffening fingers and praying for death, which would be hours yet ereit came to end his misery. 

At last they had left the wood and its horrors behind them. BesideMaurice and Jean all that were left of the little band were LieutenantRochas, Lapoulle and Pache. Gaude, who had strayed away from hiscompanions, presently came running from a thicket to rejoin them, hisbugle hanging from his neck and thumping against his back with everystep he took. It was a great comfort to them all to find themselves onceagain in the open country, where they could draw their breath; and then, too, there were no longer any whistling bullets and crashing shells toharass them; the firing had ceased on this side of the valley. 

The first object they set eyes on was an officer who had reined in hissmoking, steaming charger before a farm-yard gate and was ventinghis towering rage in a volley of Billingsgate. It was GeneralBourgain-Desfeuilles, the commander of their brigade, covered with dustand looking as if he was about to tumble from his horse with fatigue. The chagrin on his gross, high-colored, animal face told how deeply hetook to heart the disaster that he regarded in the light of a personalmisfortune. His command had seen nothing of him since morning. Doubtlesshe was somewhere on the battlefield, striving to rally the remnants ofhis brigade, for he was not the man to look closely to his own safetyin his rage against those Prussian batteries that had at the same timedestroyed the empire and the fortunes of a rising officer, the favoriteof the Tuileries. 

"_Tonnerre de Dieu!_" he shouted, "is there no one of whom one can ask aquestion in this d-----d country?"

The farmer's people had apparently taken to the woods. At last a veryold woman appeared at the door, some servant who had been forgotten, orwhose feeble legs had compelled her to remain behind. 

"Hallo, old lady, come here! Which way from here is Belgium?"

She looked at him stupidly, as one who failed to catch his meaning. Thenhe lost all control of himself and effervesced, forgetful that the womanwas only a poor peasant, bellowing that he had no idea of going back toSedan to be caught like a rat in a trap; not he! he was going to maketracks for foreign parts, he was, and d-----d quick, too! Some soldiershad come up and stood listening. 

"But you won't get through, General, " spoke up a sergeant; "thePrussians are everywhere. This morning was the time for you to cutstick. "

There were stories even then in circulation of companies that had becomeseparated from their regiments and crossed the frontier without anyintention of doing so, and of others that, later in the day, hadsucceeded in breaking through the enemy's lines before the armies hadeffected their final junction. 

The general shrugged his shoulders impatiently. "What, with a few daringfellows of your stripe, do you mean to say we couldn't go where weplease? I think I can find fifty daredevils to risk their skin in theattempt. " Then, turning again to the old peasant: "_Eh!_ you old mummy, answer, will you, in the devil's name! where is the frontier?"

She understood him this time. She extended her skinny arm in thedirection of the forest. 

"That way, that way!"

"Eh? What's that you say? Those houses that we see down there, at theend of the field?"

"Oh! farther, much farther. Down yonder, away down yonder!"

The general seemed as if his anger must suffocate him. "It is toodisgusting, an infernal country like this! one can make neither top nortail of it. There was Belgium, right under our nose; we were all afraidwe should put our foot in it without knowing it; and now that one wantsto go there it is somewhere else. No, no! it is too much; I've hadenough of it; let them take me prisoner if they will, let them do whatthey choose with me; I am going to bed!" And clapping spurs to hishorse, bobbing up and down on his saddle like an inflated wine skin, hegalloped off toward Sedan. 

A winding path conducted the party down into the Fond de Givonne, anoutskirt of the city lying between two hills, where the single villagestreet, running north and south and sloping gently upward toward theforest, was lined with gardens and modest houses. This street was justthen so obstructed by flying soldiers that Lieutenant Rochas, withPache, Lapoulle, and Gaude, found himself caught in the throng andunable for the moment to move in either direction. Maurice and Jeanhad some difficulty in rejoining them; and all were surprised to hearthemselves hailed by a husky, drunken voice, proceeding from the tavernon the corner, near which they were blockaded. 

"My stars, if here ain't the gang! Hallo, boys, how are you? My stars, I'm glad to see you!"

They turned, and recognized Chouteau, leaning from a window of theground floor of the inn. He seemed to be very drunk, and went on, interspersing his speech with hiccoughs:

"Say, fellows, don't stand on ceremony if you're thirsty. There's enoughleft for the comrades. " He turned unsteadily and called to someone whowas invisible within the room: "Come here, you lazybones. Give thesegentlemen something to drink--"

Loubet appeared in turn, advancing with a flourish and holding aloft ineither hand a full bottle, which he waved above his head triumphantly. He was not so far gone as his companion; with his Parisian _blague_, imitating the nasal drawl of the coco-venders of the boulevards on apublic holiday, he cried:

"Here you are, nice and cool, nice and cool! Who'll have a drink?"

Nothing had been seen of the precious pair since they had vanishedunder pretense of taking Sergeant Sapin into the ambulance. It wassufficiently evident that since then they had been strolling and seeingthe sights, taking care to keep out of the way of the shells, untilfinally they had brought up at this inn that was given over to pillage. 

Lieutenant Rochas was very angry. "Wait a bit, you scoundrels, justwait, and I'll attend to your case! deserting and getting drunk whilethe rest of your company were under fire!"

But Chouteau would have none of his reprimand. "See here, you oldlunatic, I want you to understand that the grade of lieutenant isabolished; we are all free and equal now. Aren't you satisfied with thebasting the Prussians gave you to-day, or do you want some more?"

The others had to restrain the lieutenant to keep him from assaultingthe socialist. Loubet himself, dandling his bottles affectionately inhis arms, did what he could to pour oil upon the troubled waters. 

"Quit that, now! what's the use quarreling, when all men are brothers!"And catching sight of Lapoulle and Pache, his companions in the squad:"Don't stand there like great gawks, you fellows! Come in here and takesomething to wash the dust out of your throats. "

Lapoulle hesitated a moment, dimly conscious of the impropriety therewas in the indulgence when so many poor devils were in such soredistress, but he was so knocked up with fatigue, so terribly hungry andthirsty! He said not a word, but suddenly making up his mind, gave onebound and landed in the room, pushing before him Pache, who, equallysilent, yielded to the temptation he had not strength to resist. Andthey were seen no more. 

"The infernal scoundrels!" muttered Rochas. "They deserve to be shot, every mother's son of them!"

He had now remaining with him of his party only Jean, Maurice, andGaude, and all four of them, notwithstanding their resistance, weregradually involved and swallowed up in the torrent of stragglers andfugitives that streamed along the road, filling its whole width fromditch to ditch. Soon they were at a distance from the inn. It was therouted army rolling down upon the ramparts of Sedan, a roily, roaringflood, such as the disintegrated mass of earth and boulders that thestorm, scouring the mountainside, sweeps down into the valley. From allthe surrounding plateaus, down every slope, up every narrow gorge, bythe Floing road, by Pierremont, by the cemetery, by the Champ de Mars, as well as through the Fond de Givonne, the same sorry rabble wasstreaming cityward in panic haste, and every instant brought freshaccessions to its numbers. And who could reproach those wretched men, who, for twelve long, mortal hours, had stood in motionless array underthe murderous artillery of an invisible enemy, against whom they coulddo nothing? The batteries now were playing on them from front, flank, and rear; as they drew nearer the city they presented a fairer markfor the convergent fire; the guns dealt death and destruction out bywholesale on that dense, struggling mass of men in that accursed hole, where there was no escape from the bursting shells. Some regiments ofthe 7th corps, more particularly those that had been stationed aboutFloing, had left the field in tolerably good order, but in the Fond deGivonne there was no longer either organization or command; the troopswere a pushing, struggling mob, composed of debris from regiments ofevery description, zouaves, turcos, chasseurs, infantry of the line, most of them without arms, their uniforms soiled and torn, with grimyhands, blackened faces, bloodshot eyes starting from their sockets andlips swollen and distorted from their yells of fear or rage. At timesa riderless horse would dash through the throng, overturning those whowere in his path and leaving behind him a long wake of consternation. Then some guns went thundering by at breakneck speed, a retreatingbattery abandoned by its officers, and the drivers, as if drunk, rodedown everything and everyone, giving no word of warning. And still theshuffling tramp of many feet along the dusty road went on and ceasednot, the close-compacted column pressed on, breast to back, side toside; a retreat _en masse_, where vacancies in the ranks were filled assoon as made, all moved by one common impulse, to reach the shelter thatlay before them and be behind a wall. 

Again Jean raised his head and gave an anxious glance toward the west;through the dense clouds of dust raised by the tramp of that greatmultitude the luminary still poured his scorching rays down upon theexhausted men. The sunset was magnificent, the heavens transparently, beautifully blue. 

"It's a nuisance, all the same, " he muttered, "that plaguey sun thatstays up there and won't go to roost!"

Suddenly Maurice became aware of the presence of a young woman whom themovement of the resistless throng had jammed against a wall and whowas in danger of being injured, and on looking more attentively wasastounded to recognize in her his sister Henriette. For near a minutehe stood gazing at her in open-mouthed amazement, and finally it wasshe who spoke, without any appearance of surprise, as if she found themeeting entirely natural. 

"They shot him at Bazeilles--and I was there. Then, in the hope thatthey might at least let me have his body, I had an idea--"

She did not mention either Weiss or the Prussians by name; it seemed toher that everyone must understand. Maurice did understand. It made hisheart bleed; he gave a great sob. 

"My poor darling!"

When, about two o'clock, Henriette recovered consciousness, she foundherself at Balan, in the kitchen of some people who were strangers toher, her head resting on a table, weeping. Almost immediately, however, she dried her tears; already the heroic element was reassertingitself in that silent woman, so frail, so gentle, yet of a spirit soindomitable that she could suffer martyrdom for the faith, or the love, that was in her. She knew not fear; her quiet, undemonstrative couragewas lofty and invincible. When her distress was deepest she had summonedup her resolution, devoting her reflections to how she might recover herhusband's body, so as to give it decent burial. Her first projectwas neither more nor less than to make her way back to Bazeilles, buteveryone advised her against this course, assuring her that it wouldbe absolutely impossible to get through the German lines. She thereforeabandoned the idea, and tried to think of someone among her acquaintancewho would afford her the protection of his company, or at least assisther in the necessary preliminaries. The person to whom she determinedshe would apply was a M. Dubreuil, a cousin of hers, who had beenassistant superintendent of the refinery at Chene at the time herhusband was employed there; Weiss had been a favorite of his; he wouldnot refuse her his assistance. Since the time, now two years ago, whenhis wife had inherited a handsome fortune, he had been occupying apretty villa, called the Hermitage, the terraces of which could be seenskirting the hillside of a suburb of Sedan, on the further side of theFond de Givonne. And thus it was toward the Hermitage that she was nowbending her steps, compelled at every moment to pause before some freshobstacle, continually menaced with being knocked down and trampled todeath. 

Maurice, to whom she briefly explained her project, gave it hisapproval. 

"Cousin Dubreuil has always been a good friend to us. He will be ofservice to you. "

Then an idea of another nature occurred to him. Lieutenant Rochas wasgreatly embarrassed as to what disposition he should make of the flag. They all were firmly resolved to save it--to do anything rather thanallow it to fall into the hands of the Prussians. It had been suggestedto cut it into pieces, of which each should carry one off under hisshirt, or else to bury it at the foot of a tree, so noting the localityin memory that they might be able to come and disinter it at some futureday; but the idea of mutilating the flag, or burying it like a corpse, affected them too painfully, and they were considering if they might notpreserve it in some other manner. When Maurice, therefore, proposed toentrust the standard to a reliable person who would conceal it and, incase of necessity, defend it, until such day as he should restore it tothem intact, they all gave their assent. 

"Come, " said the young man, addressing his sister, "we will go with youto the Hermitage and see if Dubreuil is there. Besides, I do not wish toleave you without protection. "

It was no easy matter to extricate themselves from the press, but theysucceeded finally and entered a path that led upward on their left. Theysoon found themselves in a region intersected by a perfect labyrinthof lanes and narrow passages, a district where truck farms and gardenspredominated, interspersed with an occasional villa and small holdingsof extremely irregular outline, and these lanes and passages woundcircuitously between blank walls, turning sharp corners at every fewsteps and bringing up abruptly in the cul-de-sac of some courtyard, affording admirable facilities for carrying on a guerilla warfare; therewere spots where ten men might defend themselves for hours against aregiment. Desultory firing was already beginning to be heard, for thesuburb commanded Balan, and the Bavarians were already coming up on theother side of the valley. 

When Maurice and Henriette, who were in the rear of the others, hadturned once to the left, then to the right and then to the left again, following the course of two interminable walls, they suddenly came outbefore the Hermitage, the door of which stood wide open. The grounds, at the top of which was a small park, were terraced off in three broadterraces, on one of which stood the residence, a roomy, rectangularstructure, approached by an avenue of venerable elms. Facing it, andseparated from it by the deep, narrow valley, with its steeply slopingbanks, were other similar country seats, backed by a wood. 

Henriette's anxiety was aroused at sight of the open door, "They are notat home, " she said; "they must have gone away. "

The truth was that Dubreuil had decided the day before to take hiswife and children to Bouillon, where they would be in safety from thedisaster he felt was impending. And yet the house was not unoccupied;even at a distance and through the intervening trees the approachingparty were conscious of movements going on within its walls. As theyoung woman advanced into the avenue she recoiled before the dead bodyof a Prussian soldier. 

"The devil!" exclaimed Rochas; "so they have already been exchangingcivilities in this quarter!"

Then all hands, desiring to ascertain what was going on, hurried forwardto the house, and there their curiosity was quickly gratified; thedoors and windows of the _rez-de-chaussee_ had been smashed in withmusket-butts and the yawning apertures disclosed the destruction thatthe marauders had wrought in the rooms within, while on the graveledterrace lay various articles of furniture that had been hurled fromthe stoop. Particularly noticeable was a drawing-room suite insky-blue satin, its sofa and twelve fauteuils piled in dire confusion, helter-skelter, on and around a great center table, the marble top ofwhich was broken in twain. And there were zouaves, chasseurs, liners, and men of the infanterie de marine running to and fro excitedly behindthe buildings and in the alleys, discharging their pieces into thelittle wood that faced them across the valley. 

"Lieutenant, " a zouave said to Rochas, by way of explanation, "we founda pack of those dirty Prussian hounds here, smashing things and raisingCain generally. We settled their hash for them, as you can see foryourself; only they will be coming back here presently, ten to our one, and that won't be so pleasant. "

Three other corpses of Prussian soldiers were stretched upon theterrace. As Henriette was looking at them absently, her thoughtsdoubtless far away with her husband, who, amid the blood and ashes ofBazeilles, was also sleeping his last sleep, a bullet whistled close toher head and struck a tree that stood behind her. Jean sprang forward. 

"Madame, don't stay there. Go inside the house, quick, quick!"

His heart overflowed with pity as he beheld the change her terribleaffliction had wrought in her, and he recalled her image as she hadappeared to him only the day before, her face bright with the kindlysmile of the happy, loving wife. At first he had found no word to sayto her, hardly knowing even if she would recognize him. He felt that hecould gladly give his life, if that would serve to restore her peace ofmind. 

"Go inside, and don't come out. At the first sign of danger we will comefor you, and we will all escape together by way of the wood up yonder. "

But she apathetically replied:

"Ah, M. Jean, what is the use?"

Her brother, however, was also urging her, and finally she ascendedthe stoop and took her position within the vestibule, whence her visioncommanded a view of the avenue in its entire length. She was a spectatorof the ensuing combat. 

Maurice and Jean had posted themselves behind one of the elms nearthe house. The gigantic trunks of the centenarian monarchs were amplysufficient to afford shelter to two men. A little way from them Gaude, the bugler, had joined forces with Lieutenant Rochas, who, unwilling toconfide the flag to other hands, had rested it against the tree at hisside while he handled his musket. And every trunk had its defenders;from end to end the avenue was lined with men covered, Indian fashion, by the trees, who only exposed their head when ready to fire. 

In the wood across the valley the Prussians appeared to be receivingre-enforcements, for their fire gradually grew warmer. There was no oneto be seen; at most, the swiftly vanishing form now and then of a manchanging his position. A villa, with green shutters, was occupiedby their sharpshooters, who fired from the half-open windows of the_rez-de-chaussee_. It was about four o'clock, and the noise of thecannonade in the distance was diminishing, the guns were beingsilenced one by one; and there they were, French and Prussians, in thatout-of-the-way-corner whence they could not see the white flag floatingover the citadel, still engaged in the work of mutual slaughter, as iftheir quarrel had been a personal one. Notwithstanding the armisticethere were many such points where the battle continued to rage until itwas too dark to see; the rattle of musketry was heard in the faubourg ofthe Fond de Givonne and in the gardens of Petit-Pont long after it hadceased elsewhere. 

For a quarter of an hour the bullets flew thick and fast from one sideof the valley to the other. Now and again someone who was so incautiousas to expose himself went down with a ball in his head or chest. Therewere three men lying dead in the avenue. The rattling in the throat ofanother man who had fallen prone upon his face was something horrible tolisten to, and no one thought to go and turn him on his back to easehis dying agony. Jean, who happened to look around just at that moment, beheld Henriette glide tranquilly down the steps, approach the woundedman and turn him over, then slip a knapsack beneath his head by way ofpillow. He ran and seized her and forcibly brought her back behind thetree where he and Maurice were posted. 

"Do you wish to be killed?"

She appeared to be entirely unconscious of the danger to which she hadexposed herself. 

"Why, no--but I am afraid to remain in that house, all alone. I wouldrather be outside. "

And so she stayed with them. They seated her on the ground at theirfeet, against the trunk of the tree, and went on expending the fewcartridges that were left them, blazing away to right and left, withsuch fury that they quite forgot their sensations of fear and fatigue. They were utterly unconscious of what was going on around them, acting mechanically, with but one end in view; even the instinct ofself-preservation had deserted them. 

"Look, Maurice, " suddenly said Henriette; "that dead soldier therebefore us, does he not belong to the Prussian Guard?"

She had been eying attentively for the past minute or two one of thedead bodies that the enemy had left behind them when they retreated, ashort, thick-set young man, with big mustaches, lying upon his side onthe gravel of the terrace. 

The chin-strap had broken, releasing the spiked helmet, which had rolledaway a few steps. And it was indisputable that the body was attired inthe uniform of the Guard; the dark gray trousers, the blue tunic withwhite facings, the greatcoat rolled and worn, belt-wise, across theshoulder. 

"It is the Guard uniform, " she said; "I am quite certain of it. It isexactly like the colored plate I have at home, and then the photographthat Cousin Gunther sent us--" She stopped suddenly, and with herunconcerned, fearless air, before anyone could make a motion to detainher, walked up to the corpse, bent down and read the number of theregiment. "Ah, the Forty-third!" she exclaimed. "I knew it. "

And she returned to her position, while a storm of bulletswhistled around her ears. "Yes, the Forty-third; Cousin Gunther'sregiment--something told me it must be so. Ah! if my poor husband wereonly here!"

After that all Jean's and Maurice's entreaties were ineffectual to makeher keep quiet. She was feverishly restless, constantly protruding herhead to peer into the opposite wood, evidently harassed by some anxietythat preyed upon her mind. Her companions continued to load and firewith the same blind fury, pushing her back with their knee whenever sheexposed herself too rashly. It looked as if the Prussians were beginningto consider that their numbers would warrant them in attacking, forthey showed themselves more frequently and there were evidences ofpreparations going on behind the trees. They were suffering severely, however, from the fire of the French, whose bullets at that short rangerarely failed to bring down their man. 

"That may be your cousin, " said Jean. "Look, that officer over there, who has just come out of the house with the green shutters. "

He was a captain, as could be seen by the gold braid on the collar ofhis tunic and the golden eagle on his helmet that flashed back the levelray of the setting sun. He had discarded his epaulettes, and carryinghis saber in his right hand, was shouting an order in a sharp, imperative voice; and the distance between them was so small, a scanttwo hundred yards, that every detail of his trim, slender figure wasplainly discernible, as well as the pinkish, stern face and slight blondmustache. 

Henriette scrutinized him with attentive eyes. "It is he, " she replied, apparently unsurprised. "I recognize him perfectly. "

With a look of concentrated rage Maurice drew his piece to his shoulderand covered him. "The cousin--Ah! sure as there is a God in heaven heshall pay for Weiss. "

But, quivering with excitement, she jumped to her feet and knocked upthe weapon, whose charge was wasted on the air. 

"Stop, stop! we must not kill acquaintances, relatives! It is toobarbarous. "

And, all her womanly instincts coming back to her, she sank down behindthe tree and gave way to a fit of violent weeping. The horror of it allwas too much for her; in her great dread and sorrow she was forgetful ofall beside. 

Rochas, meantime, was in his element. He had excited the few zouaves andother troops around him to such a pitch of frenzy, their fire had becomeso murderously effective at sight of the Prussians, that the latterfirst wavered and then retreated to the shelter of their wood. 

"Stand your ground, my boys! don't give way an inch! Aha, see 'em run, the cowards! we'll fix their flint for 'em!"

He was in high spirits and seemed to have recovered all his unboundedconfidence, certain that victory was yet to crown their efforts. Therehad been no defeat. The handful of men before him stood in his eyes forthe united armies of Germany, and he was going to destroy them at hisleisure. All his long, lean form, all his thin, bony face, where thehuge nose curved down upon the self-willed, sensual mouth, exhaled alaughing, vain-glorious satisfaction, the joy of the conquering trooperwho goes through the world with his sweetheart on his arm and a bottleof good wine in his hand. 

"_Parbleu_, my children, what are we here for, I'd like to know, if notto lick 'em out of their boots? and that's the way this affair is goingto end, just mark my words. We shouldn't know ourselves any longer ifwe should let ourselves be beaten. Beaten! come, come, that is too good!When the neighbors tread on our toes, or when we feel we are beginningto grow rusty for want of something to do, we just turn to and give 'ema thrashing; that's all there is to it. Come, boys, let 'em have it oncemore, and you'll see 'em run like so many jackrabbits!"

He bellowed and gesticulated like a lunatic, and was such a good fellowwithal in the comforting illusion of his ignorance that the men wereinoculated with his confidence. He suddenly broke out again:

"And we'll kick 'em, we'll kick 'em, we'll kick 'em to the frontier!Victory, victory!"

But at that juncture, just as the enemy across the valley seemed reallyto be falling back, a hot fire of musketry came pouring in on them fromthe left. It was a repetition of the everlasting flanking movement thathad done the Prussians such good service; a strong detachment of theGuards had crept around toward the French rear through the Fond deGivonne. It was useless to think of holding the position longer; thelittle band of men who were defending the terraces were caught betweentwo fires and menaced with being cut off from Sedan. Men fell on everyside, and for a moment the confusion was extreme; the Prussians werealready scaling the wall of the park, and advancing along the pathways. Some zouaves rushed forward to repel them, and there was a fiercehand-to-hand struggle with the bayonet. There was one zouave, a big, handsome, brown-bearded man, bare-headed and with his jacket hangingin tatters from his shoulders, who did his work with appallingthoroughness, driving his reeking bayonet home through splintering bonesand yielding tissues, cleansing it of the gore that it had contractedfrom one man by plunging it into the flesh of another; and when it brokehe laid about him, smashing many a skull, with the butt of his musket;and when finally he made a misstep and lost his weapon he sprung, bare-handed, for the throat of a burly Prussian, with such tigerishfierceness that both men rolled over and over on the gravel to theshattered kitchen door, clasped in a mortal embrace. The trees of thepark looked down on many such scenes of slaughter, and the green lawnwas piled with corpses. But it was before the stoop, around the sky-bluesofa and fauteuils, that the conflict raged with greatest fury; amaddened mob of savages, firing at one another at point-blank range, sothat hair and beards were set on fire, tearing one another with teethand nails when a knife was wanting to slash the adversary's throat. 

Then Gaude, with his sorrowful face, the face of a man who has had histroubles of which he does not care to speak, was seized with a sort ofsudden heroic madness. At that moment of irretrievable defeat, when hemust have known that the company was annihilated and that there was nota man left to answer his summons, he grasped his bugle, carried itto his lips and sounded the general, in so tempestuous, ear-splittingstrains that one would have said he wished to wake the dead. Nearer andnearer came the Prussians, but he never stirred, only sounding the callthe louder, with all the strength of his lungs. He fell, pierced withmany bullets, and his spirit passed in one long-drawn, parting wail thatdied away and was lost upon the shuddering air. 

Rochas made no attempt to fly; he seemed unable to comprehend. Even moreerect than usual, he waited the end, stammering:

"Well, what's the matter? what's the matter?"

Such a possibility had never entered his head as that they could bedefeated. They were changing everything in these degenerate days, evento the manner of fighting; had not those fellows a right to remain ontheir own side of the valley and wait for the French to go and attackthem? There was no use killing them; as fast as they were killed morekept popping up. What kind of a d-----d war was it, anyway, where theywere able to collect ten men against their opponent's one, where theynever showed their face until evening, after blazing away at you allday with their artillery until you didn't know on which end you werestanding? Aghast and confounded, having failed so far to acquire thefirst idea of the rationale of the campaign, he was dimly conscious ofthe existence of some mysterious, superior method which he could notcomprehend, against which he ceased to struggle, although in his doggedstubbornness he kept repeating mechanically:

"Courage, my children! victory is before us!"

Meanwhile he had stooped and clutched the flag. That was his last, hisonly thought, to save the flag, retreating again, if necessary, so thatit might not be defiled by contact with Prussian hands. But the staff, although it was broken, became entangled in his legs; he narrowlyescaped falling. The bullets whistled past him, he felt that deathwas near; he stripped the silk from the staff and tore it into shreds, striving to destroy it utterly. And then it was that, stricken atonce in the neck, chest, and legs, he sank to earth amid the brighttri-colored rags, as if they had been his pall. He survived a momentyet, gazing before him with fixed, dilated eyes, reading, perhaps, inthe vision he beheld on the horizon the stern lesson that War conveys, the cruel, vital struggle that is to be accepted not otherwise thangravely, reverently, as immutable law. Then a slight tremor ran throughhis frame, and darkness succeeded to his infantine bewilderment; hepassed away, like some poor dumb, lowly creature of a day, a joyousinsect that mighty, impassive Nature, in her relentless fatality, hascaught and crushed. In him died all a legend. 

When the Prussians began to draw near Jean and Maurice had retreated, retiring from tree to tree, face to the enemy, and always, as far aspossible, keeping Henriette behind them. They did not give over firing, discharging their pieces and then falling back to seek a fresh cover. Maurice knew where there was a little wicket in the wall at the upperpart of the park, and they were so fortunate as to find it unfastened. With lighter hearts when they had left it behind them, they foundthemselves in a narrow by-road that wound between two high walls, butafter following it for some distance the sound of firing in front causedthem to turn into a path on their left. As luck would have it, it endedin an _impasse_; they had to retrace their steps, running the gauntletof the bullets, and take the turning to the right. When they came toexchange reminiscences in later days they could never agree on whichroad they had taken. In that tangled network of suburban lanes andpassages there was firing still going on from every corner thatafforded a shelter, protracted battles raged at the gates of farmyards, everything that could be converted into a barricade had its defenders, from whom the assailants tried to wrest it; all with the utmost fury andvindictiveness. And all at once they came out upon the Fond de Givonneroad, not far from Sedan. 

For the third time Jean raised his eyes toward the western sky, thatwas all aflame with a bright, rosy light; and he heaved a sigh ofunspeakable relief. 

"Ah, that pig of a sun! at last he is going to bed!"

And they ran with might and main, all three of them, never once stoppingto draw breath. About them, filling the road in all its breadth, was therear-guard of fugitives from the battlefield, still flowing onward withthe irresistible momentum of an unchained mountain torrent. When theycame to the Balan gate they had a long period of waiting in the midstof the impatient, ungovernable throng. The chains of the drawbridge hadgiven way, and the only path across the fosse was by the foot-bridge, so that the guns and horses had to turn back and seek admission by thebridge of the chateau, where the jam was said to be even still morefearful. At the gate of la Cassine, too, people were trampled to deathin their eagerness to gain admittance. From all the adjacent heights theterror-stricken fragments of the army came tumbling into the city, asinto a cesspool, with the hollow roar of pent-up water that has burstits dam. The fatal attraction of those walls had ended by making cowardsof the bravest; men trod one another down in their blind haste to beunder cover. 

Maurice had caught Henriette in his arms, and in a voice that trembledwith suspense:

"It cannot be, " he said, "that they will have the cruelty to close thegate and shut us out. "

That was what the crowd feared would be done. To right and left, however, upon the glacis soldiers were already arranging their bivouacs, while entire batteries, guns, caissons, and horses, in confusion worseconfounded, had thrown themselves pell-mell into the fosse for safety. 

But now shrill, impatient bugle calls rose on the evening air, followedsoon by the long-drawn strains of retreat. They were summoning thebelated soldiers back to their comrades, who came running in, singly andin groups. A dropping fire of musketry still continued in the faubourgs, but it was gradually dying out. Heavy guards were stationed on thebanquette behind the parapet to protect the approaches, and at lastthe gate was closed. The Prussians were within a hundred yards of thesally-port; they could be seen moving on the Balan road, tranquillyestablishing themselves in the houses and gardens. 

Maurice and Jean, pushing Henriette before them to protect her from thejostling of the throng, were among the last to enter Sedan. Six o'clockwas striking. The artillery fire had ceased nearly an hour ago. Soon thedistant musketry fire, too, was silenced. Then, to the deafening uproar, to the vengeful thunder that had been roaring since morning, theresucceeded a stillness as of death. Night came, and with it came a bodingsilence, fraught with terror. 

VIII. 

At half-past five o'clock, after the closing of the gates, Delaherche, in his eager thirst for news, now that he knew the battle lost, hadagain returned to the Sous-Prefecture. He hung persistently aboutthe approaches of the janitor's lodge, tramping up and down the pavedcourtyard with feverish impatience, for more than three hours, watchingfor every officer who came up and interviewing him, and thus it was thathe had become acquainted, piecemeal, with the rapid series of events;how General de Wimpffen had tendered his resignation and then withdrawnit upon the peremptory refusal of Generals Ducrot and Douay to appendtheir names to the articles of capitulation, how the Emperor hadthereupon invested the General with full authority to proceed to thePrussian headquarters and treat for the surrender of the vanquished armyon the most advantageous terms obtainable; how, finally, a council ofwar had been convened with the object of deciding what possibilitiesthere were of further protracting the struggle successfully by thedefense of the fortress. During the deliberations of this council, whichconsisted of some twenty officers of the highest rank and seemed to himas if it would never end, the cloth manufacturer climbed the stepsof the huge public building at least twenty times, and at last hiscuriosity was gratified by beholding General de Wimpffen emerge, veryred in the face and his eyelids puffed and swollen with tears, behindwhom came two other generals and a colonel. They leaped into the saddleand rode away over the Pont de Meuse. The bells had struck eight sometime before; the inevitable capitulation was now to be accomplished, from which there was no escape. 

Delaherche, somewhat relieved in mind by what he had heard and seen, remembered that it was a long time since he had tasted food and resolvedto turn his steps homeward, but the terrific crowd that had collectedsince he first came made him pause in dismay. It is no exaggerationto say that the streets and squares were so congested, so thronged, sodensely packed with horses, men, and guns, that one would have declaredthe closely compacted mass could only have been squeezed and wedged inthere thus by the effort of some gigantic mechanism. While the rampartswere occupied by the bivouacs of such regiments as had fallen backin good order, the city had been invaded and submerged by an angry, surging, desperate flood, the broken remnants of the various corps, stragglers and fugitives from all arms of the service, and the dammed-uptide made it impossible for one to stir foot or hand. The wheels ofthe guns, of the caissons, and the innumerable vehicles of everydescription, had interlocked and were tangled in confusion worseconfounded, while the poor horses, flogged unmercifully by their driversand pulled, now in this direction, now in that, could only dance intheir bewilderment, unable to move a step either forward or back. Andthe men, deaf to reproaches and threats alike, forced their way into thehouses, devoured whatever they could lay hands on, flung themselves downto sleep wherever they could find a vacant space, it might be in thebest bedroom or in the cellar. Many of them had fallen in doorways, where they blocked the vestibule; others, without strength to gofarther, lay extended on the sidewalks and slept the sleep of death, noteven rising when some by-passer trod on them and bruised an arm or leg, preferring the risk of death to the fatigue of changing their location. 

These things all helped to make Delaherche still more keenly consciousof the necessity of immediate capitulation. There were some quarters inwhich numerous caissons were packed so close together that they werein contact, and a single Prussian shell alighting on one of them mustinevitably have exploded them all, entailing the immediate destructionof the city by conflagration. Then, too, what could be accomplished withsuch an assemblage of miserable wretches, deprived of all their powers, mental and physical, by reason of their long-endured privations, anddestitute of either ammunition or subsistence? Merely to clear thestreets and reduce them to a condition of something like order wouldrequire a whole day. The place was entirely incapable of defense, havingneither guns nor provisions. 

These were the considerations that had prevailed at the council amongthose more reasonable officers who, in the midst of their griefand sorrow for their country and the army, had retained a clear andundistorted view of the situation as it was; and the more hot-headedamong them, those who cried with emotion that it was impossible for anarmy to surrender thus, had been compelled to bow their head upon theirbreast in silence and admit that they had no practicable scheme to offerwhereby the conflict might be recommenced on the morrow. 

In the Place Turenne and Place du Rivage, Delaherche succeeded with thegreatest difficulty in working his way through the press. As he passedthe Hotel of the Golden Cross a sorrowful vision greeted his eyes, thatof the generals seated in the dining room, gloomily silent, around theempty board; there was nothing left to eat in the house, not evenbread. General Bourgain-Desfeuilles, however, who had been storming andvociferating in the kitchen, appeared to have found something, for hesuddenly held his peace and ran away swiftly up the stairs, holding inhis hands a large paper parcel of a greasy aspect. Such was the crowdassembled there, to stare through the lighted windows upon theguests assembled around that famine-stricken _table d'hote_, that themanufacturer was obliged to make vigorous play with his elbows, and wasfrequently driven back by some wild rush of the mob and lost all thedistance, and more, that he had just gained. In the Grande Rue, however, the obstacles became actually impassable, and there was a moment whenhe was inclined to give up in despair; a complete battery seemed to havebeen driven in there and the guns and _materiel_ piled, pell-mell, ontop of one another. Deciding finally to take the bull by the horns, heleaped to the axle of a piece and so pursued his way, jumping from wheelto wheel, straddling the guns, at the imminent risk of breaking hislegs, if not his neck. Afterward it was some horses that blocked hisway, and he made himself lowly and stooped, creeping among the feetand underneath the bellies of the sorry jades, who were ready to die ofinanition, like their masters. Then, when after a quarter of an hour'slaborious effort he reached the junction of the Rue Saint-Michel, he wasterrified at the prospect of the dangers and obstacles that he had stillto face, and which, instead of diminishing, seemed to be increasing, andmade up his mind to turn down the street above mentioned, which wouldtake him into the Rue des Laboureurs; he hoped that by taking theseusually quiet and deserted passages he should escape the crowd and reachhis home in safety. As luck would have it he almost directly came upon ahouse of ill-fame to which a band of drunken soldiers were in process oflaying siege, and considering that a stray shot, should one reach him inthe fracas, would be equally as unpleasant as one intended for him, he made haste to retrace his steps. Resolving to have done with ithe pushed on to the end of the Grande Rue, now gaining a few feet bybalancing himself, rope-walker fashion, along the pole of some vehicle, now climbing over an army wagon that barred his way. At the Place duCollege he was carried along--bodily on the shoulders of the throng fora space of thirty paces; he fell to the ground, narrowly escaped a setof fractured ribs, and saved himself only by the proximity of a friendlyiron railing, by the bars of which he pulled himself to his feet. Andwhen at last he reached the Rue Maqua, inundated with perspiration, hisclothing almost torn from his back, he found that he had been more thanan hour in coming from the Sous-Prefecture, a distance which in ordinarytimes he was accustomed to accomplish in less than five minutes. 

Major Bouroche, with the intention of keeping the ambulance and gardenfrom being overrun with intruders, had caused two sentries to be mountedat the door. This measure was a source of great comfort to Delaherche, who had begun to contemplate the possibilities of his house beingsubjected to pillage. The sight of the ambulance in the garden, dimlylighted by a few candles and exhaling its fetid, feverish emanations, caused him a fresh constriction of the heart; then, stumbling over thebody of a soldier who was stretched in slumber on the stone pavement ofthe walk, he supposed him to be one of the fugitives who had managed tofind his way in there from outside, until, calling to mind the 7th corpstreasure that had been deposited there and the sentry who had been setover it, he saw how matters stood: the poor fellow, stationed theresince early morning, had been overlooked by his superiors and hadsuccumbed to his fatigue. Besides, the house seemed quite deserted;the ground floor was black as Egypt, and the doors stood wide open. Theservants were doubtless all at the ambulance, for there was no one inthe kitchen, which was faintly illuminated by the light of a wretchedlittle smoky lamp. He lit a candle and ascended the main staircase verysoftly, in order not to awaken his wife and mother, whom he had beggedto go to bed early after a day where the stress, both mental andphysical, had been so intense. 

On entering his study, however, he beheld a sight that caused his eyesto dilate with astonishment. Upon the sofa on which Captain Beaudoin hadsnatched a few hours' repose the day before a soldier lay outstretched;and he could not understand the reason of it until he had looked andrecognized young Maurice Levasseur, Henriette's brother. He was stillmore surprised when, on turning his head, he perceived, stretched on thefloor and wrapped in a bed quilt, another soldier, that Jean, whom hehad seen for a moment just before the battle. It was plain that the poorfellows, in their distress and fatigue after the conflict, not knowingwhere else to bestow themselves, had sought refuge there; they werecrushed, annihilated, like dead men. He did not linger there, but pushedon to his wife's chamber, which was the next room on the corridor. Alamp was burning on a table in a corner; the profound silence seemedto shudder. Gilberte had thrown herself crosswise on the bed, fullydressed, doubtless in order to be prepared for any catastrophe, and wassleeping peacefully, while, seated on a chair at her side with her headdeclined and resting lightly on the very edge of the mattress, Henriettewas also slumbering, with a fitful, agitated sleep, while big tearswelled up beneath her swollen eyelids. He contemplated them silentlyfor a moment, strongly tempted to awake and question the young womanin order to ascertain what she knew. Had she succeeded in reachingBazeilles? and why was it that she was back there? Perhaps she wouldbe able to give him some tidings of his dyehouse were he to ask her? Afeeling of compassion stayed him, however, and he was about to leave theroom when his mother, ghost-like, appeared at the threshold of the opendoor and beckoned him to follow her. 

As they were passing through the dining room he expressed his surprise. 

"What, have you not been abed to-night?"

She shook her head, then said below her breath:

"I cannot sleep; I have been sitting in an easy-chair beside thecolonel. He is very feverish; he awakes at every instant, almost, andthen plies me with questions. I don't know how to answer them. Come inand see him, you. "

M. De Vineuil had fallen asleep again. His long face, now brightlyred, barred by the sweeping mustache that fell across it like a snowyavalanche, was scarce distinguishable on the pillow. Mme. Delaherche hadplaced a newspaper before the lamp and that corner of the room was lostin semi-darkness, while all the intensity of the bright lamplightwas concentrated on her where she sat, uncompromisingly erect, in herfauteuil, her hands crossed before her in her lap, her vague eyes benton space, in sorrowful reverie. 

"I think he must have heard you, " she murmured; "he is awaking again. "

It was so; the colonel, without moving his head, had reopened his eyesand bent them on Delaherche. He recognized him, and immediately asked ina voice that his exhausted condition made tremulous:

"It is all over, is it not? We have capitulated. "

The manufacturer, who encountered the look his mother cast on him atthat moment, was on the point of equivocating. But what good would itdo? A look of discouragement passed across his face. 

"What else remained to do? A single glance at the streets of the citywould convince you. General de Wimpffen has just set out for Prussiangeneral headquarters to discuss conditions. "

M. De Vineuil's eyes closed again, his long frame was shaken with aprotracted shiver of supremely bitter grief, and this deep, long-drawnmoan escaped his lips:

"Ah! merciful God, merciful God!" And without opening his eyes hewent on in faltering, broken accents: "Ah! the plan I spoke ofyesterday--they should have adopted it. Yes, I knew the country; I spokeof my apprehensions to the general, but even him they would not listento. Occupy all the heights up there to the north, from Saint-Menges toFleigneux, with your army looking down on and commanding Sedan, ableat any time to move on Vrigne-aux-Bois, mistress of Saint-Albert'spass--and there we are; our positions are impregnable, the Mezieres roadis under our control--"

His speech became more confused as he proceeded; he stammered a few moreunintelligible words, while the vision of the battle that had beenborn of his fever little by little grew blurred and dim and at lastwas effaced by slumber. He slept, and in his sleep perhaps the honestofficer's dreams were dreams of victory. 

"Does the major speak favorably of his case?" Delaherche inquired in awhisper. 

Madame Delaherche nodded affirmatively. 

"Those wounds in the foot are dreadful things, though, " he went on. "Isuppose he is likely to be laid up for a long time, isn't he?"

She made him no answer this time, as if all her being, all her facultieswere concentrated on contemplating the great calamity of their defeat. She was of another age; she was a survivor of that strong old race offrontier burghers who defended their towns so valiantly in the good daysgone by. The clean-cut lines of her stern, set face, with its fleshless, uncompromising nose and thin lips, which the brilliant light of the lampbrought out in high relief against the darkness of the room, told thefull extent of her stifled rage and grief and the wound sustained by herantique patriotism, the revolt of which refused even to let her sleep. 

About that time Delaherche became conscious of a sensation of isolation, accompanied by a most uncomfortable feeling of physical distress. Hishunger was asserting itself again, a griping, intolerable hunger, and hepersuaded himself that it was debility alone that was thus robbing himof courage and resolution. He tiptoed softly from the room and, withhis candle, again made his way down to the kitchen, but the spectaclehe witnessed there was even still more cheerless; the range cold andfireless, the closets empty, the floor strewn with a disorderly litterof towels, napkins, dish-clouts and women's aprons; as if the hurricaneof disaster had swept through that place as well, bearing away on itswings all the charm and cheer that appertain naturally to the things weeat and drink. At first he thought he was not going to discover so muchas a crust, what was left over of the bread having all found its way tothe ambulance in the form of soup. At last, however, in the dark cornerof a cupboard he came across the remainder of the beans from yesterday'sdinner, where they had been forgotten, and ate them. He accomplishedhis luxurious repast without the formality of sitting down, without theaccompaniment of salt and butter, for which he did not care to troublehimself to ascend to the floor above, desirous only to get away asspeedily as possible from that dismal kitchen, where the blinking, smoking little lamp perfumed the air with fumes of petroleum. 

It was not much more than ten o'clock, and Delaherche had no otheroccupation than to speculate on the various probabilities connected withthe signing of the capitulation. A persistent apprehension haunted him;a dread lest the conflict might be renewed, and the horrible thought ofwhat the consequences must be in such an event, of which he couldnot speak, but which rested on his bosom like an incubus. When he hadreascended to his study, where he found Maurice and Jean in exactly thesame position he had left them in, it was all in vain that he settledhimself comfortably in his favorite easy-chair; sleep would not come tohim; just as he was on the point of losing himself the crash of a shellwould arouse him with a great start. It was the frightful cannonadeof the day, the echoes of which were still ringing in his ears; andhe would listen breathlessly for a moment, then sit and shudder at theequally appalling silence by which he was now surrounded. As he couldnot sleep he preferred to move about; he wandered aimlessly among therooms, taking care to avoid that in which his mother was sitting by thecolonel's bedside, for the steady gaze with which she watched him ashe tramped nervously up and down had finally had the effect ofdisconcerting him. Twice he returned to see if Henriette had notawakened, and he paused an instant to glance at his wife's pretty face, so calmly peaceful, on which seemed to be flitting something likethe faint shadow of a smile. Then, knowing not what to do, he wentdownstairs again, came back, moved about from room to room, until itwas nearly two in the morning, wearying his ears with trying to deciphersome meaning in the sounds that came to him from without. 

This condition of affairs could not last. Delaherche resolved to returnonce more to the Sous-Prefecture, feeling assured that all rest would bequite out of the question for him so long as his ignorance continued. A feeling of despair seized him, however, when he went downstairs andlooked out upon the densely crowded street, where the confusion seemedto be worse than ever; never would he have the strength to fight his wayto the Place Turenne and back again through obstacles the mere memory ofwhich caused every bone in his body to ache again. And he was mentallydiscussing matters, when who should come up but Major Bouroche, panting, perspiring, and swearing. 

"_Tonnerre de Dieu!_ I wonder if my head's on my shoulders or not!"

He had been obliged to visit the Hotel de Ville to see the mayor abouthis supply of chloroform, and urge him to issue a requisition for aquantity, for he had many operations to perform, his stock of the drugwas exhausted, and he was afraid, he said, that he should be compelledto carve up the poor devils without putting them to sleep. 

"Well?" inquired Delaherche. 

"Well, they can't even tell whether the apothecaries have any or not!"

But the manufacturer was thinking of other things than chloroform. "No, no, " he continued. "Have they brought matters to a conclusion yet? Havethey signed the agreement with the Prussians?"

The major made a gesture of impatience. "There is nothing concluded, " hecried. "It appears that those scoundrels are making demands out of allreason. Ah, well; let 'em commence afresh, then, and we'll all leave ourbones here. That will be best!"

Delaherche's face grew very pale as he listened. "But are you quite surethese things are so?"

"I was told them by those fellows of the municipal council, who are inpermanent session at the city hall. An officer had been dispatched fromthe Sous-Prefecture to lay the whole affair before them. "

And he went on to furnish additional details. The interview had takenplace at the Chateau de Bellevue, near Donchery, and the participantswere General de Wimpffen, General von Moltke, and Bismarck. A sternand inflexible man was that von Moltke, a terrible man to deal with!He began by demonstrating that he was perfectly acquainted with thehopeless situation of the French army; it was destitute of ammunitionand subsistence, demoralization and disorder pervaded its ranks, it wasutterly powerless to break the iron circle by which it was girt about;while on the other hand the German armies occupied commanding positionsfrom which they could lay the city in ashes in two hours. Coldly, unimpassionedly, he stated his terms: the entire French army tosurrender arms and baggage and be treated as prisoners of war. Bismarcktook no part in the discussion beyond giving the general his support, occasionally showing his teeth, like a big mastiff, inclined to bepacific on the whole, but quite ready to rend and tear should there beoccasion for it. General de Wimpffen in reply protested with all theforce he had at his command against these conditions, the most severethat ever were imposed on a vanquished army. He spoke of his personalgrief and ill-fortune, the bravery of the troops, the danger there wasin driving a proud nation to extremity; for three hours he spoke withall the energy and eloquence of despair, alternately threatening andentreating, demanding that they should content themselves with interningtheir prisoners in France, or even in Algeria; and in the end the onlyconcession granted was, that the officers might retain their swords, andthose among them who should enter into a solemn arrangement, attested bya written parole, to serve no more during the war, might return to theirhomes. Finally, the armistice to be prolonged until the next morningat ten o'clock; if at that time the terms had not been accepted, thePrussian batteries would reopen fire and the city would be burned. 

"That's stupid!" exclaimed Delaherche; "they have no right to burn acity that has done nothing to deserve it!"

The major gave him still further food for anxiety by adding that someofficers whom he had met at the Hotel de l'Europe were talking of makinga sortie _en masse_ just before daylight. An extremely excited state offeeling had prevailed since the tenor of the German demands had becomeknown, and measures the most extravagant were proposed and discussed. No one seemed to be deterred by the consideration that it would bedishonorable to break the truce, taking advantage of the darknessand giving the enemy no notification, and the wildest, most visionaryschemes were offered; they would resume the march on Carignan, hewingtheir way through the Bavarians, which they could do in the black night;they would recapture the plateau of Illy by a surprise; they would raisethe blockade of the Mezieres road, or, by a determined, simultaneousrush, would force the German lines and throw themselves into Belgium. Others there were, indeed, who, feeling the hopelessness of theirposition, said nothing; they would have accepted any terms, signed anypaper, with a glad cry of relief, simply to have the affair ended anddone with. 

"Good-night!" Bouroche said in conclusion. "I am going to try to sleep acouple of hours; I need it badly. "

When left by himself Delaherche could hardly breathe. What, could it betrue that they were going to fight again, were going to burn and razeSedan! It was certainly to be, soon as the morrow's sun should be highenough upon the hills to light the horror of the sacrifice. And onceagain he almost unconsciously climbed the steep ladder that led to theroofs and found himself standing among the chimneys, at the edge of thenarrow terrace that overlooked the city; but at that hour of the nightthe darkness was intense and he could distinguish absolutely nothingamid the swirling waves of the Cimmerian sea that lay beneath him. Thenthe buildings of the factory below were the first objects which, one byone, disentangled themselves from the shadows and stood out before hisvision in indistinct masses, which he had no difficulty in recognizing:the engine-house, the shops, the drying rooms, the storehouses, and whenhe reflected that within twenty-four hours there would remain of thatimposing block of buildings, his fortune and his pride, naught savecharred timbers and crumbling walls, he overflowed with pity forhimself. He raised his glance thence once more to the horizon, andsent it traveling in a circuit around that profound, mysterious veil ofblackness behind which lay slumbering the menace of the morrow. To thesouth, in the direction of Bazeilles, a few quivering little flames thatrose fitfully on the air told where had been the site of the unhappyvillage, while toward the north the farmhouse in the wood of la Garenne, that had been fired late in the afternoon, was burning still, and thetrees about were dyed of a deep red with the ruddy blaze. Beyond theintermittent flashing of those two baleful fires no light to be seen;the brooding silence unbroken by any sound save those half-heardmutterings that pass through the air like harbingers of evil; aboutthem, everywhere, the unfathomable abyss, dead and lifeless. Off therein the distance, very far away, perhaps, perhaps upon the ramparts, wasa sound of someone weeping. It was all in vain that he strained his eyesto pierce the veil, to see something of Liry, la Marfee, the batteriesof Frenois, and Wadelincourt, that encircling belt of bronze monstersof which he could instinctively feel the presence there, with theiroutstretched necks and yawning, ravenous muzzles. And as he recalled hisglance and let it fall upon the city that lay around and beneath him, heheard its frightened breathing. It was not alone the unquiet slumbers ofthe soldiers who had fallen in the streets, the blending of inarticulatesounds produced by that gathering of guns, men, and horses; what hefancied he could distinguish was the insomnia, the alarmed watchfulnessof his bourgeois neighbors, who, no more than he, could sleep, quiveringwith feverish terrors, awaiting anxiously the coming of the day. Theyall must be aware that the capitulation had not been signed, and wereall counting the hours, quaking at the thought that should it notbe signed the sole resource left them would be to go down into theircellars and wait for their own walls to tumble in on them and crush thelife from their bodies. The voice of one in sore straits came up, itseemed to him, from the Rue des Voyards, shouting: "Help! murder!" amidthe clash of arms. He bent over the terrace to look, then remained aloftthere in the murky thickness of the night where there was not a star tocheer him, wrapped in such an ecstasy of terror that the hairs of hisbody stood erect. 

Below-stairs, at early daybreak, Maurice awoke upon his sofa. He wassore and stiff as if he had been racked; he did not stir, but laylooking listlessly at the windows, which gradually grew white under thelight of a cloudy dawn. The hateful memories of the day before all cameback to him with that distinctness that characterizes the impressionsof our first waking, how they had fought, fled, surrendered. It all rosebefore his vision, down to the very least detail, and he brooded withhorrible anguish on the defeat, whose reproachful echoes seemed topenetrate to the inmost fibers of his being, as if he felt that all theresponsibility of it was his. And he went on to reason on the cause ofthe evil, analyzing himself, reverting to his old habit of bitter andunavailing self-reproach. He would have felt so brave, so glorious hadvictory remained with them! And now, in defeat, weak and nervous asa woman, he once again gave way to one of those overwhelming fits ofdespair in which the entire world, seemed to him to be foundering. Nothing was left them; the end of France was come. His frame was shakenby a storm of sobs, he wept hot tears, and joining his hands, theprayers of his childhood rose to his lips in stammering accents. 

"O God! take me unto Thee! O God! take unto Thyself all those who areweary and heavy-laden!"

Jean, lying on the floor wrapped in his bed-quilt, began to show somesigns of life. Finally, astonished at what he heard, he arose to asitting posture. 

"What is the matter, youngster? Are you ill?" Then, with a glimmeringperception of how matters stood, he adopted a more paternal tone. "Come, tell me what the matter is. You must not let yourself be worried by sucha little thing as this, you know. "

"Ah!" exclaimed Maurice, "it is all up with us, _va_! we are Prussiansnow, and we may as well make up our mind to it. "

As the peasant, with the hard-headedness of the uneducated, expressedsurprise to hear him talk thus, he endeavored to make it clear to himthat, the race being degenerate and exhausted, it must disappear andmake room for a newer and more vigorous strain. But the other, with anobstinate shake of the head, would not listen to the explanation. 

"What! would you try to make me believe that my bit of land is no longermine? that I would permit the Prussians to take it from me while I amalive and my two arms are left to me? Come, come!"

Then painfully, in such terms as he could command, he went on to tellhow affairs looked to him. They had received an all-fired good basting, that was sure as sure could be! but they were not all dead yet, hedidn't believe; there were some left, and those would suffice to rebuildthe house if they only behaved themselves, working hard and not drinkingup what they earned. When a family has trouble, if its members work andput by a little something, they will pull through, in spite of all thebad luck in the world. And further, it is not such a bad thing to get agood cuffing once in a way; it sets one thinking. And, great heavens! ifa man has something rotten about him, if he has gangrene in his arms orlegs that is spreading all the time, isn't it better to take a hatchetand lop them off rather than die as he would from cholera?

"All up, all up! Ah, no, no! no, no!" he repeated several times. "It isnot all up with me, I know very well it is not. "

And notwithstanding his seedy condition and demoralized appearance, hishair all matted and pasted to his head by the blood that had flowed fromhis wound, he drew himself up defiantly, animated by a keen desire tolive, to take up the tools of his trade or put his hand to the plow, inorder, to use his own expression, to "rebuild the house. " He was of theold soil where reason and obstinacy grow side by side, of the land oftoil and thrift. 

"All the same, though, " he continued, "I am sorry for the Emperor. Affairs seemed to be going on well; the farmers were getting a goodprice for their grain. But surely it was bad judgment on his part toallow himself to become involved in this business!"

Maurice, who was still in "the blues, " spoke regretfully: "Ah, theEmperor! I always liked him in my heart, in spite of my republicanideas. Yes, I had it in the blood, on account of my grandfather, Isuppose. And now that that limb is rotten and we shall have to lop itoff, what is going to become of us?"

His eyes began to wander, and his voice and manner evinced such distressthat Jean became alarmed and was about to rise and go to him, whenHenriette came into the room. She had just awakened on hearing the soundof voices in the room adjoining hers. The pale light of a cloudy morningnow illuminated the apartment. 

"You come just in time to give him a scolding, " he said, with anaffectation of liveliness. "He is not a good boy this morning. "

But the sight of his sister's pale, sad face and the recollection of heraffliction had had a salutary effect on Maurice by determining a suddencrisis of tenderness. He opened his arms and took her to his bosom, andwhen she rested her head upon his shoulder, when he held her locked ina close embrace, a feeling of great gentleness pervaded him and theymingled their tears. 

"Ah, my poor, poor darling, why have I not more strength and courageto console you! for my sorrows are as nothing compared with yours. Thatgood, faithful Weiss, the husband who loved you so fondly! What willbecome of you? You have always been the victim; always, and never amurmur from your lips. Think of the sorrow I have already caused you, and who can say that I shall not cause you still more in the future!"

She was silencing him, placing her hand upon his mouth, when Delaherchecame into the room, beside himself with indignation. While still on theterrace he had been seized by one of those uncontrollable nervous fitsof hunger that are aggravated by fatigue, and had descended to thekitchen in quest of something warm to drink, where he had found, keepingcompany with his cook, a relative of hers, a carpenter of Bazeilles, whom she was in the act of treating to a bowl of hot wine. This person, who had been one of the last to leave the place while the conflagrationswere at their height, had told him that his dyehouse was utterlydestroyed, nothing left of it but a heap of ruins. 

"The robbers, the thieves! Would you have believed it, _hein_?" hestammered, addressing Jean and Maurice. "There is no hope left; theymean to burn Sedan this morning as they burned Bazeilles yesterday. I'm ruined, I'm ruined!" The scar that Henriette bore on her foreheadattracted his attention, and he remembered that he had not spoken toher yet. "It is true, you went there, after all; you got that wound--Ah!poor Weiss!"

And seeing by the young woman's tears that she was acquainted with herhusband's fate, he abruptly blurted out the horrible bit of news thatthe carpenter had communicated to him among the rest. 

"Poor Weiss! it seems they burned him. Yes, after shooting all thecivilians who were caught with arms in their hands, they threw theirbodies into the flames of a burning house and poured petroleum overthem. "

Henriette was horror-stricken as she listened. Her tears burst forth, her frame was shaken by her sobs. My God, my God, not even the poorcomfort of going to claim her dear dead and give him decent sepulture;his ashes were to be scattered by the winds of heaven! Maurice had againclasped her in his arms and spoke to her endearingly, calling her hispoor Cinderella, beseeching her not to take the matter so to heart, abrave woman as she was. 

After a time, during which no word was spoken, Delaherche, who had beenstanding at the window watching the growing day, suddenly turned andaddressed the two soldiers:

"By the way, I was near forgetting. What I came up here to tell you isthis: down in the courtyard, in the shed where the treasure chests weredeposited, there is an officer who is about to distribute the moneyamong the men, so as to keep the Prussians from getting it. You hadbetter go down, for a little money may be useful to you, that is, provided we are all alive a few hours hence. "

The advice was good, and Maurice and Jean acted on it, having firstprevailed on Henriette to take her brother's place on the sofa. If shecould not go to sleep again, she would at least be securing some repose. As for Delaherche, he passed through the adjoining chamber, whereGilberte with her tranquil, pretty face was slumbering still as soundlyas a child, neither the sound of conversation nor even Henriette's sobshaving availed to make her change her position. From there he went tothe apartment where his mother was watching at Colonel de Vineuil'sbedside, and thrust his head through the door; the old lady was asleepin her fauteuil, while the colonel, his eyes closed, was like a corpse. He opened them to their full extent and asked:

"Well, it's all over, isn't it?"

Irritated by the question, which detained him at the very moment whenhe thought he should be able to slip away unobserved, Delaherche gave awrathful look and murmured, sinking his voice:

"Oh, yes, all over! until it begins again! There is nothing signed. "

The colonel went on in a voice scarcely higher than a whisper; deliriumwas setting in. 

"Merciful God, let me die before the end! I do not hear the guns. Whyhave they ceased firing? Up there at Saint-Menges, at Fleigneux, wehave command of all the roads; should the Prussians dare turn Sedanand attack us, we will drive them into the Meuse. The city is there, aninsurmountable obstacle between us and them; our positions, too, are thestronger. Forward! the 7th corps will lead, the 12th will protect theretreat--"

And his fingers kept drumming on the counterpane with a measuredmovement, as if keeping time with the trot of the charger he was ridingin his vision. Gradually the motion became slower and slower as hiswords became more indistinct and he sank off into slumber. It ceased, and he lay motionless and still, as if the breath had left his body. 

"Lie still and rest, " Delaherche whispered; "when I have news I willreturn. "

Then, having first assured himself that he had not disturbed hismother's slumber, he slipped away and disappeared. 

Jean and Maurice, on descending to the shed in the courtyard, had foundthere an officer of the pay department, seated on a common kitchen chairbehind a little unpainted pine table, who, without pen, ink, or paper, without taking receipts or indulging in formalities of any kind, wasdispensing fortunes. He simply stuck his hand into the open mouth ofthe bags filled with bright gold pieces, and as the sergeants of the 7thcorps passed in line before him he filled their _kepis_, never countingwhat he bestowed with such rapid liberality. The understanding was thatthe sergeants were subsequently to divide what they received with thesurviving men of their half-sections. Each of them received his portionawkwardly, as if it had been a ration of meat or coffee, then stalkedoff in an embarrassed, self-conscious sort of way, transferring thecontents of the _kepi_ to his trousers' pockets so as not to display hiswealth to the world at large. And not a word was spoken; there was not asound to be heard but the crystalline chink and rattle of the coin as itwas received by those poor devils, dumfounded to see the responsibilityof such riches thrust on them when there was not a place in the citywhere they could purchase a loaf of bread or a quart of wine. 

When Jean and Maurice appeared before him the officer, who was holdingoutstretched his hand filled, as usual, with louis, drew it back. 

"Neither of you fellows is a sergeant. No one except sergeants isentitled to receive the money. " Then, in haste to be done with his task, he changed his mind: "Never mind, though; here, you corporal, take this. Step lively, now. Next man!"

And he dropped the gold coins into the _kepi_ that Jean held out to him. The latter, oppressed by the magnitude of the amount, nearly six hundredfrancs, insisted that Maurice should take one-half. No one could saywhat might happen; they might be parted from each other. 

They made the division in the garden, before the ambulance, and whenthey had concluded their financial business they entered, havingrecognized on the straw near the entrance the drummer-boy of theircompany, Bastian, a fat, good-natured little fellow, who had had theill-luck to receive a spent ball in the groin about five o'clock the daybefore, when the battle was ended. He had been dying by inches for thelast twelve hours. 

In the dim, white light of morning, at that hour of awakening, thesight of the ambulance sent a chill of horror through them. Three morepatients had died during the night, without anyone being aware of it, and the attendants were hurriedly bearing away the corpses in orderto make room for others. Those who had been operated on the day beforeopened wide their eyes in their somnolent, semi-conscious state, andlooked with dazed astonishment on that vast dormitory of suffering, where the victims of the knife, only half-slaughtered, rested on theirstraw. It was in vain that some attempts had been made the night beforeto clean up the room after the bloody work of the operations; there weregreat splotches of blood on the ill-swept floor; in a bucket of watera great sponge was floating, stained with red, for all the world like ahuman brain; a hand, its fingers crushed and broken, had been overlookedand lay on the floor of the shed. It was the parings and trimmings ofthe human butcher shop, the horrible waste and refuse that ensues upon aday of slaughter, viewed in the cold, raw light of dawn. 

Bouroche, who, after a few hours of repose, had already resumed hisduties, stopped in front of the wounded drummer-boy, Bastian, thenpassed on with an imperceptible shrug of his shoulders. A hopeless case;nothing to be done. The lad had opened his eyes, however, and emergingfrom the comatose state in which he had been lying, was eagerly watchinga sergeant who, his _kepi_ filled with gold in his hand, had come intothe room to see if there were any of his men among those poor wretches. He found two, and to each of them gave twenty francs. Other sergeantscame in, and the gold began to fall in showers upon the straw, among thedying men. Bastian, who had managed to raise himself, stretched out histwo hands, even then shaking in the final agony. 

"Don't forget me! don't forget me!"

The sergeant would have passed on and gone his way, as Bouroche haddone. What good could money do there? Then yielding to a kindly impulse, he threw some coins, never stopping to count them, into the poor handsthat were already cold. 

"Don't forget me! don't forget me!"

Bastian fell backward on his straw. For a long time he groped withstiffening fingers for the elusive gold, which seemed to avoid him. Andthus he died. 

"The gentleman has blown his candle out; good-night!" said a little, black, wizened zouave, who occupied the next bed. "It's vexatious, whenone has the wherewithal to pay for wetting his whistle!"

He had his left foot done up in splints. Nevertheless he managed toraise himself on his knees and elbows and in this posture crawl over tothe dead man, whom he relieved of all his money, forcing open his hands, rummaging among his clothing and the folds of his capote. When he gotback to his place, noticing that he was observed, he simply said:

"There's no use letting the stuff be wasted, is there?"

Maurice, sick at heart in that atmosphere of human distress andsuffering, had long since dragged Jean away. As they passed out throughthe shed where the operations were performed they saw Bouroche preparingto amputate the leg of a poor little man of twenty, without chloroform, he having been unable to obtain a further supply of the anaesthetic. Andthey fled, running, so as not to hear the poor boy's shrieks. 

Delaherche, who came in from the street just then, beckoned to them andshouted:

"Come upstairs, come, quick! we are going to have breakfast. The cookhas succeeded in procuring some milk, and it is well she did, for weare all in great need of something to warm our stomachs. " Andnotwithstanding his efforts to do so, he could not entirely repress hisdelight and exultation. With a radiant countenance he added, loweringhis voice: "It is all right this time. General de Wimpffen has set outagain for the German headquarters to sign the capitulation. "

Ah, how much those words meant to him, what comfort there was in them, what relief! his horrid nightmare dispelled, his property saved fromdestruction, his daily life to be resumed, under changed conditions, itis true, but still it was to go on, it was not to cease! It waslittle Rose who had told him of the occurrences of the morning at theSous-Prefecture; the girl had come hastening through the streets, nowsomewhat less choked than they had been, to obtain a supply of breadfrom an aunt of hers who kept a baker's shop in the quarter; it wasstriking nine o'clock. As early as eight General de Wimpffen hadconvened another council of war, consisting of more than thirtygenerals, to whom he related the results that had been reached so far, the hard conditions imposed by the victorious foe, and his own fruitlessefforts to secure a mitigation of them. His emotion was such that hishands shook like a leaf, his eyes were suffused with tears. He was stilladdressing the assemblage when a colonel of the German staff presentedhimself, on behalf of General von Moltke, to remind them that, unless adecision were arrived at by ten o'clock, their guns would open fireon the city of Sedan. With this horrible alternative before them thecouncil could do nothing save authorize the general to proceed once moreto the Chateau of Bellevue and accept the terms of the victors. He musthave accomplished his mission by that time, and the entire French armywere prisoners of war. 

When she had concluded her narrative Rose launched out into a detailedaccount of the tremendous excitement the tidings had produced in thecity. At the Sous-Prefecture she had seen officers tear the epaulettesfrom their shoulders, weeping meanwhile like children. Cavalrymen hadthrown their sabers from the Pont de Meuse into the river; an entireregiment of cuirassiers had passed, each man tossing his blade over theparapet and sorrowfully watching the water close over it. In the streetsmany soldiers grasped their muskets by the barrel and smashed themagainst a wall, while there were artillerymen who removed the mechanismfrom the mitrailleuses and flung it into the sewer. Some there were whoburied or burned the regimental standards. In the Place Turenne an oldsergeant climbed upon a gate-post and harangued the throng as if he hadsuddenly taken leave of his senses, reviling the leaders, stigmatizingthem as poltroons and cowards. Others seemed as if dazed, sheddingbig tears in silence, and others also, it must be confessed (and it isprobable that they were in the majority), betrayed by their laughingeyes and pleased expression the satisfaction they felt at the changein affairs. There was an end to their suffering at last; they wereprisoners of war, they could not be obliged to fight any more! For somany days they had been distressed by those long, weary marches, withnever food enough to satisfy their appetite! And then, too, they werethe weaker; what use was there in fighting? If their chiefs had betrayedthem, had sold them to the enemy, so much the better; it would be thesooner ended! It was such a delicious thing to think of, that they wereto have white bread to eat, were to sleep between sheets!

As Delaherche was about to enter the dining room in company with Mauriceand Jean, his mother called to him from above. 

"Come up here, please; I am anxious about the colonel. "

M. De Vineuil, with wide-open eyes, was talking rapidly and excitedly ofthe subject that filled his bewildered brain. 

"The Prussians have cut us off from Mezieres, but what matters it! See, they have outmarched us and got possession of the plain of Donchery;soon they will be up with the wood of la Falizette and flank us there, while more of them are coming up along the valley of the Givonne. Thefrontier is behind us; let us kill as many of them as we can and crossit at a bound. Yesterday, yes, that is what I would have advised--"

At that moment his burning eyes lighted on Delaherche. He recognizedhim; the sight seemed to sober him and dispel the hallucination underwhich he was laboring, and coming back to the terrible reality, he askedfor the third time:

"It is all over, is it not?"

The manufacturer explosively blurted out the expression of hissatisfaction; he could not restrain it. 

"Ah, yes, God be praised! it is all over, completely over. Thecapitulation must be signed by this time. "

The colonel raised himself at a bound to a sitting posture, notwithstanding his bandaged foot; he took his sword from the chair bythe bedside where it lay and made an attempt to break it, but his handstrembled too violently, and the blade slipped from his fingers. 

"Look out! he will cut himself!" Delaherche cried in alarm. "Take thatthing away from him; it is dangerous!"

Mme. Delaherche took possession of the sword. With a feeling ofcompassionate respect for the poor colonel's grief and despair shedid not conceal it, as her son bade her do, but with a single vigorouseffort snapped it across her knee, with a strength of which she herselfwould never have supposed her poor old hands capable. The colonel laidhimself down again, casting a look of extreme gentleness upon his oldfriend, who went back to her chair and seated herself in her usual rigidattitude. 

In the dining room the cook had meantime served bowls of hot coffeeand milk for the entire party. Henriette and Gilberte had awakened, thelatter, completely restored by her long and refreshing slumber, withbright eyes and smiling face; she embraced most tenderly her friend, whom she pitied, she said, from the bottom of her heart. Maurice seatedhimself beside his sister, while Jean, who was unused to polite society, but could not decline the invitation that was extended to him, wasDelaherche's right-hand neighbor. It was Mme. Delaherche's custom not tocome to the table with the family; a servant carried her a bowl, whichshe drank while sitting by the colonel. The party of five, however, whosat down together, although they commenced their meal in silence, soonbecame cheerful and talkative. Why should they not rejoice and be gladto find themselves there, safe and sound, with food before them tosatisfy their hunger, when the country round about was covered withthousands upon thousands of poor starving wretches? In the cool, spacious dining room the snow-white tablecloth was a delight to the eyeand the steaming _cafe au lait_ seemed delicious. 

They conversed, Delaherche, who had recovered his assurance and wasagain the wealthy manufacturer, the condescending patron courtingpopularity, severe only toward those who failed to succeed, spoke ofNapoleon III. , whose face as he saw it last continued to haunt hismemory. He addressed himself to Jean, having that simple-minded youngman as his neighbor. "Yes, sir, the Emperor has deceived me, and Idon't hesitate to say so. His henchmen may put in the plea of mitigatingcircumstances, but it won't go down, sir; he is evidently the first, theonly cause of our misfortunes. "

He had quite forgotten that only a few months before he had beenan ardent Bonapartist and had labored to ensure the success of theplebiscite, and now he who was henceforth to be known as the Man ofSedan was not even worthy to be pitied; he ascribed to him every knowniniquity. 

"A man of no capacity, as everyone is now compelled to admit; but letthat pass, I say nothing of that. A visionary, a theorist, an unbalancedmind, with whom affairs seemed to succeed as long as he had luck on hisside. And there's no use, don't you see, sir, in attempting to work onour sympathies and excite our commiseration by telling us that he wasdeceived, that the opposition refused him the necessary grants of menand money. It is he who has deceived us, he whose crimes and blundershave landed us in the horrible muddle where we are. "

Maurice, who preferred to say nothing on the subject, could not helpsmiling, while Jean, embarrassed by the political turn the conversationhad taken and fearful lest he might make some ill-timed remark, simplyreplied:

"They say he is a brave man, though. "

But those few words, modestly expressed, fairly made Delaherche jump. All his past fear and alarm, all the mental anguish he had suffered, burst from his lips in a cry of concentrated passion, closely allied tohatred. 

"A brave man, forsooth; and what does that amount to! Are you aware, sir, that my factory was struck three times by Prussian shells, and thatit is no fault of the Emperor's that it was not burned! Are you awarethat I, I shall lose a hundred thousand francs by this idiotic business!No, no; France invaded, pillaged, and laid waste, our industriescompelled to shut down, our commerce ruined; it is a little too much, I tell you! One brave man like that is quite sufficient; may the Lordpreserve us from any more of them! He is down in the blood and mire, andthere let him remain!"

And he made a forcible gesture with his closed fist as if thrusting downand holding under the water some poor wretch who was struggling tosave himself, then finished his coffee, smacking his lips like a truegourmand. Gilberte waited on Henriette as if she had been a child, laughing a little involuntary laugh when the latter made some exhibitionof absent-mindedness. And when at last the coffee had all been drunkthey still lingered on in the peaceful quiet of the great cool diningroom. 

And at that same hour Napoleon III. Was in the weaver's lowly cottageon the Donchery road. As early as five o'clock in the morning he hadinsisted on leaving the Sous-Prefecture; he felt ill at ease in Sedan, which was at once a menace and a reproach to him, and moreover hethought he might, in some measure, alleviate the sufferings of histender heart by obtaining more favorable terms for his unfortunate army. His object was to have a personal interview with the King of Prussia. Hehad taken his place in a hired caleche and been driven along the broadhighway, with its row of lofty poplars on either side, and this firststage of his journey into exile, accomplished in the chill air of earlydawn, must have reminded him forcibly of the grandeur that had been hisand that he was putting behind him forever. It was on this road that hehad his encounter with Bismarck, who came hurrying to meet him in anold cap and coarse, greased boots, with the sole object of keeping himoccupied and preventing him from seeing the King until the capitulationshould have been signed. The King was still at Vendresse, some ninemiles away. Where was he to go? What roof would afford him shelter whilehe waited? In his own country, so far away, the Palace of the Tuilerieshad disappeared from his sight, swallowed up in the bosom of astorm-cloud, and he was never to see it more. Sedan seemed already tohave receded into the distance, leagues and leagues, and to be partedfrom him by a river of blood. In France there were no longer imperialchateaus, nor official residences, nor even a chimney-nook in the houseof the humblest functionary, where he would have dared to enter andclaim hospitality. And it was in the house of the weaver that hedetermined to seek shelter, the squalid cottage that stood close to theroadside, with its scanty kitchen-garden inclosed by a hedge andits front of a single story with little forbidding windows. The roomabove-stairs was simply whitewashed and had a tiled floor; the onlyfurniture was a common pine table and two straw-bottomed chairs. Hespent two hours there, at first in company with Bismarck, who smiledto hear him speak of generosity, after that alone in silent misery, flattening his ashy face against the panes, taking his last look atFrench soil and at the Meuse, winding in and out, so beautiful, amongthe broad fertile fields. 

Then the next day and the days that came after were other wretchedstages of that journey; the Chateau of Bellevue, a pretty bourgeoisretreat overlooking the river, where he rested that night, where he shedtears after his interview with King William; the sorrowful departure, that most miserable flight in a hired caleche over remote roads to thenorth of the city, which he avoided, not caring to face the wrath of thevanquished troops and the starving citizens, making a wide circuit overcross-roads by Floing, Fleigneux, and Illy and crossing the stream ona bridge of boats, laid down by the Prussians at Iges; the tragicencounter, the story of which has been so often told, that occurred onthe corpse-cumbered plateau of Illy: the miserable Emperor, whose statewas such that his horse could not be allowed to trot, had sunk undersome more than usually violent attack of his complaint, mechanicallysmoking, perhaps, his everlasting cigarette, when a band of haggard, dusty, blood-stained prisoners, who were being conducted from Fleigneuxto Sedan, were forced to leave the road to let the carriage pass andstood watching it from the ditch; those who were at the head of the linemerely eyed him in silence; presently a hoarse, sullen murmur began tomake itself heard, and finally, as the caleche proceeded down the line, the men burst out with a storm of yells and cat-calls, shaking theirfists and calling down maledictions on the head of him who had beentheir ruler. After that came the interminable journey across thebattlefield, as far as Givonne, amid scenes of havoc and devastation, amid the dead, who lay with staring eyes upturned that seemed to be fullof menace; came, too, the bare, dreary fields, the great silent forest, then the frontier, running along the summit of a ridge, marked only bya stone, facing a wooden post that seemed ready to fall, and beyondthe soil of Belgium, the end of all, with its road bordered with gloomyhemlocks descending sharply into the narrow valley. 

And that first night of exile, that he spent at a common inn, the Hotelde la Poste at Bouillon, what a night it was! When the Emperor showedhimself at his window in deference to the throng of French refugees andsight-seers that filled the place, he was greeted with a storm of hissesand hostile murmurs. The apartment assigned him, the three windows ofwhich opened on the public square and on the Semoy, was the typicaltawdry bedroom of the provincial inn with its conventional furnishings:the chairs covered with crimson damask, the mahogany _armoire a glace_, and on the mantel the imitation bronze clock, flanked by a pair of conchshells and vases of artificial flowers under glass covers. On eitherside of the door was a little single bed, to one of which the weariedaide-de-camp betook himself at nine o'clock and was immediately wrappedin soundest slumber. On the other the Emperor, to whom the god of sleepwas less benignant, tossed almost the whole night through, and ifhe arose to try to quiet his excited nerves by walking, the soledistraction that his eyes encountered was a pair of engravings that werehung to right and left of the chimney, one depicting Rouget de Lislesinging the Marseillaise, the other a crude representation of theLast Judgment, the dead rising from their graves at the sound of theArchangel's trump, the resurrection of the victims of the battlefield, about to appear before their God to bear witness against their rulers. 

The imperial baggage train, cause in its day of so much scandal, hadbeen left behind at Sedan, where it rested in ignominious hiding behindthe Sous-Prefet's lilac bushes. It puzzled the authorities somewhat todevise means for ridding themselves of what was to them a _bete noire_, for getting it away from the city unseen by the famishing multitude, upon whom the sight of its flaunting splendor would have produced muchthe same effect that a red rag does on a maddened bull. They waiteduntil there came an unusually dark night, when horses, carriages, andbaggage-wagons, with their silver stew-pans, plate, linen, and basketsof fine wines, all trooped out of Sedan in deepest mystery and shapedtheir course for Belgium, noiselessly, without beat of drum, over theleast frequented roads like a thief stealing away in the night. 

PART THIRD

I. 

All the long, long day of the battle Silvine, up on Remilly hill, whereFather Fouchard's little farm was situated, but her heart and soulabsent with Honore amid the dangers of the conflict, never once tookher eyes from off Sedan, where the guns were roaring. The following day, moreover, her anxiety was even greater still, being increased by herinability to obtain any definite tidings, for the Prussians who wereguarding the roads in the vicinity refused to answer questions, as muchfrom reasons of policy as because they knew but very little themselves. The bright sun of the day before was no longer visible, and showershad fallen, making the valley look less cheerful than usual in the wanlight. 

Toward evening Father Fouchard, who was also haunted by a sensation ofuneasiness in the midst of his studied taciturnity, was standing on hisdoorstep reflecting on the probable outcome of events. His son had noplace in his thoughts, but he was speculating how he best might convertthe misfortunes of others into fortune for himself, and as he revolvedthese considerations in his mind he noticed a tall, strapping youngfellow, dressed in the peasant's blouse, who had been strolling up anddown the road for the last minute or so, looking as if he did not knowwhat to do with himself. His astonishment on recognizing him was sogreat that he called him aloud by name, notwithstanding that threePrussians happened to be passing at the time. 

"Why, Prosper! Is that you?"

The chasseur d'Afrique imposed silence on him with an emphatic gesture;then, coming closer, he said in an undertone:

"Yes, it is I. I have had enough of fighting for nothing, and I cut mylucky. Say, Father Fouchard, you don't happen to be in need of a laboreron your farm, do you?"

All the old man's prudence came back to him in a twinkling. He _was_looking for someone to help him, but it would be better not to say so atonce. 

"A lad on the farm? faith, no--not just now. Come in, though, all thesame, and have a glass. I shan't leave you out on the road when you'rein trouble, that's sure. "

Silvine, in the kitchen, was setting the pot of soup on the fire, whilelittle Charlot was hanging by her skirts, frolicking and laughing. Shedid not recognize Prosper at first, although they had formerly servedtogether in the same household, and it was not until she came in, bringing a bottle of wine and two glasses, that she looked him squarelyin the face. She uttered a cry of joy and surprise; her sole thought wasof Honore. 

"Ah, you were there, weren't you? Is Honore all right?"

Prosper's answer was ready to slip from his tongue; he hesitated. For the last two days he had been living in a dream, among a rapidsuccession of strange, ill-defined events which left behind them noprecise memory, as a man starts, half-awakened, from a slumber peopledwith fantastic visions. It was true, doubtless, he believed he had seenHonore lying upon a cannon, dead, but he would not have cared to swearto it; what use is there in afflicting people when one is not certain?

"Honore, " he murmured, "I don't know, I couldn't say. "

She continued to press him with her questions, looking at him steadily. 

"You did not see him, then?"

He waved his hands before him with a slow, uncertain motion and anexpressive shake of the head. 

"How can you expect one to remember! There were such lots of things, such lots of things. Look you, of all that d-----d battle, if I was todie for it this minute, I could not tell you that much--no, not even theplace where I was. I believe men get to be no better than idiots, 'ponmy word I do!" And tossing off a glass of wine, he sat gloomily silent, his vacant eyes turned inward on the dark recesses of his memory. "Allthat I remember is that it was beginning to be dark when I recoveredconsciousness. I went down while we were charging, and then the sun wasvery high. I must have been lying there for hours, my right leg caughtunder poor old Zephyr, who had received a piece of shell in the middleof his chest. There was nothing to laugh at in my position, I can tellyou; the dead comrades lying around me in piles, not a living soulin sight, and the certainty that I should have to kick the bucket toounless someone came to put me on my legs again. Gently, gently, I triedto free my leg, but it was no use; Zephyr's weight must have been fullyup to that of the five hundred thousand devils. He was warm still. Ipatted him, I spoke to him, saying all the pretty things I could thinkof, and here's a thing, do you see, that I shall never forget as longas I live: he opened his eyes and made an effort to raise his poor oldhead, which was resting on the ground beside my own. Then we had a talktogether: 'Poor old fellow, ' says I, 'I don't want to say a word to hurtyour feelings, but you must want to see me croak with you, you hold medown so hard. ' Of course he didn't say he did; he couldn't, but for allthat I could read in his great sorrowful eyes how bad he felt to haveto part with me. And I can't say how the thing happened, whether heintended it or whether it was part of the death struggle, but all atonce he gave himself a great shake that sent him rolling away to oneside. I was enabled to get on my feet once more, but ah! in what apickle; my leg was swollen and heavy as a leg of lead. Never mind, Itook Zephyr's head in my arms and kept on talking to him, telling himall the kind thoughts I had in my heart, that he was a good horse, thatI loved him dearly, that I should never forget him. He listened to me, he seemed to be so pleased! Then he had another long convulsion, and sohe died, with his big vacant eyes fixed on me till the last. It is verystrange, though, and I don't suppose anyone will believe me; still, itis the simple truth that great, big tears were standing in his eyes. Poor old Zephyr, he cried just like a man--"

At this point Prosper's emotion got the better of him; tears choked hisutterance and he was obliged to break off. He gulped down anotherglass of wine and went on with his narrative in disjointed, incompletesentences. It kept growing darker and darker, until there was onlya narrow streak of red light on the horizon at the verge of thebattlefield; the shadows of the dead horses seemed to be projectedacross the plain to an infinite distance. The pain and stiffness in hisleg kept him from moving; he must have remained for a long time besideZephyr. Then, with his fears as an incentive, he had managed to get onhis feet and hobble away; it was an imperative necessity to him not tobe alone, to find comrades who would share his fears with him and makethem less. Thus from every nook and corner of the battlefield, fromhedges and ditches and clumps of bushes, the wounded who had been leftbehind dragged themselves painfully in search of companionship, formingwhen possible little bands of four or five, finding it less hard toagonize and die in the company of their fellow-beings. In the wood of laGarenne Prosper fell in with two men of the 43d regiment; they were notwounded, but had burrowed in the underbrush like rabbits, waiting forthe coming of the night. When they learned that he was familiar withthe roads they communicated to him their plan, which was to traverse thewoods under cover of the darkness and make their escape into Belgium. At first he declined to share their undertaking, for he would havepreferred to proceed direct to Remilly, where he was certain to finda refuge, but where was he to obtain the blouse and trousers thathe required as a disguise? to say nothing of the impracticability ofgetting past the numerous Prussian pickets and outposts that filled thevalley all the way from la Garenne to Remilly. He therefore ended byconsenting to act as guide to the two comrades. His leg was less stiffthan it had been, and they were so fortunate as to secure a loaf ofbread at a farmhouse. Nine o'clock was striking from the church of avillage in the distance as they resumed their way. The only point wherethey encountered any danger worth mentioning was at la Chapelle, wherethey fell directly into the midst of a Prussian advanced post beforethey were aware of it; the enemy flew to arms and blazed away into thedarkness, while they, throwing themselves on the ground and alternatelycrawling and running until the fire slackened, ultimately regained theshelter of the trees. After that they kept to the woods, observingthe utmost vigilance. At a bend in the road, they crept up behind anout-lying picket and, leaping on his back, buried a knife in his throat. Then the road was free before them and they no longer had to observeprecaution; they went ahead, laughing and whistling. It was about threein the morning when they reached a little Belgian village, where theyknocked up a worthy farmer, who at once opened his barn to them; theysnuggled among the hay and slept soundly until morning. 

The sun was high in the heavens when Prosper awoke. As he opened hiseyes and looked about him, while the two comrades were still snoring, hebeheld their entertainer engaged in hitching a horse to a great carrioleloaded with bread, rice, coffee, sugar, and all sorts of eatables, the whole concealed under sacks of charcoal, and a little questioningelicited from the good man the fact that he had two married daughtersliving at Raucourt, in France, whom the passage of the Bavarian troopshad left entirely destitute, and that the provisions in the carriolewere intended for them. He had procured that very morning thesafe-conduct that was required for the journey. Prosper was immediatelyseized by an uncontrollable desire to take a seat in that carrioleand return to the country that he loved so and for which his heart wasyearning with such a violent nostalgia. It was perfectly simple; thefarmer would have to pass through Remilly to reach Raucourt; he wouldalight there. The matter was arranged in three minutes; he obtained aloan of the longed-for blouse and trousers, and the farmer gave out, wherever they stopped, that he was his servant; so that about sixo'clock he got down in front of the church, not having been stopped morethan two or three times by the German outposts. 

They were all silent for a while, then: "No, I had enough of it!" saidProsper. "If they had but set us at work that amounted to something, asout there in Africa! but this going up the hill only to come down again, the feeling that one is of no earthly use to anyone, that is no kindof a life at all. And then I should be lonely, now that poor Zephyr isdead; all that is left me to do is to go to work on a farm. That willbe better than living among the Prussians as a prisoner, don't you thinkso? You have horses, Father Fouchard; try me, and see whether or not Iwill love them and take good care of them. "

The old fellow's eyes gleamed, but he touched glasses once more with theother and concluded the arrangement without any evidence of eagerness. 

"Very well; I wish to be of service to you as far as lies in my power;I will take you. As regards the question of wages, though, you must notspeak of it until the war is over, for really I am not in need of anyoneand the times are too hard. "

Silvine, who had remained seated with Charlot on her lap, had neveronce taken her eyes from Prosper's face. When she saw him rise with theintention of going to the stable and making immediate acquaintance withits four-footed inhabitants, she again asked:

"Then you say you did not see Honore?"

The question repeated thus abruptly made him start, as if it hadsuddenly cast a flood of light in upon an obscure corner of his memory. He hesitated for a little, but finally came to a decision and spoke. 

"See here, I did not wish to grieve you just now, but I don't believeHonore will ever come back. "

"Never come back--what do you mean?"

"Yes, I believe that the Prussians did his business for him. I saw himlying across his gun, his head erect, with a great wound just beneaththe heart. "

There was silence in the room. Silvine's pallor was frightful tobehold, while Father Fouchard displayed his interest in the narrative byreplacing upon the table his glass, into which he had just poured whatwine remained in the bottle. 

"Are you quite certain?" she asked in a choking voice. 

"_Dame_! as certain as one can be of a thing he has seen with his owntwo eyes. It was on a little hillock, with three trees in a group rightbeside it; it seems to me I could go to the spot blindfolded. "

If it was true she had nothing left to live for. That lad who had beenso good to her, who had forgiven her her fault, had plighted his trothand was to marry her when he came home at the end of the campaign! andthey had robbed her of him, they had murdered him, and he was lying outthere on the battlefield with a wound under the heart! She had neverknown how strong her love for him had been, and now the thought that shewas to see him no more, that he who was hers was hers no longer, arousedher almost to a pitch of madness and made her forget her usual tranquilresignation. She set Charlot roughly down upon the floor, exclaiming:

"Good! I shall not believe that story until I see the evidence of it, until I see it with my own eyes. Since you know the spot you shallconduct me to it. And if it is true, if we find him, we will bring himhome with us. "

Her tears allowed her to say no more; she bowed her head upon the table, her frame convulsed by long-drawn, tumultuous sobs that shook her fromhead to foot, while the child, not knowing what to make of such unusualtreatment at his mother's hands, also commenced to weep violently. Shecaught him up and pressed him to her heart, with distracted, stammeringwords:

"My poor child! my poor child!"

Consternation was depicted on old Fouchard's face. Appearancesnotwithstanding, he did love his son, after a fashion of his own. Memories of the past came back to him, of days long vanished, when hiswife was still living and Honore was a boy at school, and two bigtears appeared in his small red eyes and trickled down his old leatherycheeks. He had not wept before in more than ten years. In the end hegrew angry at the thought of that son who was his and upon whom he wasnever to set eyes again; he rapped out an oath or two. 

"_Nom de Dieu!_ it is provoking all the same, to have only one boy, andthat he should be taken from you!"

When their agitation had in a measure subsided, however, Fouchard wasannoyed that Silvine still continued to talk of going to search forHonore's body out there on the battlefield. She made no further noisydemonstration, but harbored her purpose with the dogged silence ofdespair, and he failed to recognize in her the docile, obedient servantwho was wont to perform her daily tasks without a murmur; her great, submissive eyes, in which lay the chief beauty of her face, had assumedan expression of stern determination, while beneath her thick brown hairher cheeks and brow wore a pallor that was like death. She had torn offthe red kerchief that was knotted about her neck, and was entirely inblack, like a widow in her weeds. It was all in vain that he tried toimpress on her the difficulties of the undertaking, the dangers shewould be subjected to, the little hope there was of recovering thecorpse; she did not even take the trouble to answer him, and he sawclearly that unless he seconded her in her plan she would start outalone and do some unwise thing, and this aspect of the case worried himon account of the complications that might arise between him and thePrussian authorities. He therefore finally decided to go and lay thematter before the mayor of Remilly, who was a kind of distant cousin ofhis, and they two between them concocted a story: Silvine was to passas the actual widow of Honore, Prosper became her brother, so that theBavarian colonel, who had his quarters in the Hotel of the Maltese Crossdown in the lower part of the village, made no difficulty about grantinga pass which authorized the brother and sister to bring home the body ofthe husband, provided they could find it. By this time it was night; theonly concession that could be obtained from the young woman was that shewould delay starting on her expedition until morning. 

When morning came old Fouchard could not be prevailed on to allow oneof his horses to be taken, fearing he might never set eyes on it again. What assurance had he that the Prussians would not confiscate the entireequipage? At last he consented, though with very bad grace, to loan herthe donkey, a little gray animal, and his cart, which, though small, would be large enough to hold a dead man. He gave minute instructionsto Prosper, who had had a good night's sleep, but was anxious andthoughtful at the prospect of the expedition now that, being rested andrefreshed, he attempted to remember something of the battle. At the lastmoment Silvine went and took the counterpane from her own bed, foldingand spreading it on the floor of the cart. Just as she was about tostart she came running back to embrace Charlot. 

"I entrust him to your care, Father Fouchard; keep an eye on him and seethat he doesn't get hold of the matches. "

"Yes, yes; never fear!"

They were late in getting off; it was near seven o'clock when the littleprocession, the donkey, hanging his head and drawing the narrow cart, leading, descended the steep hill of Remilly. It had rained heavilyduring the night, and the roads were become rivers of mud; greatlowering clouds hung in the heavens, imparting an air of cheerlessdesolation to the scene. 

Prosper, wishing to save all the distance he could, had determined ontaking the route that lay through the city of Sedan, but before theyreached Pont-Maugis a Prussian outpost halted the cart and held it forover an hour, and finally, after their pass had been referred, one afteranother, to four or five officials, they were told they might resumetheir journey, but only on condition of taking the longer, roundaboutroute by way of Bazeilles, to do which they would have to turn intoa cross-road on their left. No reason was assigned; their object wasprobably to avoid adding to the crowd that encumbered the streets ofthe city. When Silvine crossed the Meuse by the railroad bridge, thatill-starred bridge that the French had failed to destroy and which, moreover, had been the cause of such slaughter among the Bavarians, she beheld the corpse of an artilleryman floating lazily down with thesluggish current. It caught among some rushes near the bank, hung therea moment, then swung clear and started afresh on its downward way. 

Bazeilles, through which they passed from end to end at a slow walk, afforded a spectacle of ruin and desolation, the worst that war canperpetrate when it sweeps with devastating force, like a cyclone, through a land. The dead had been removed; there was not a single corpseto be seen in the village streets, and the rain had washed away theblood; pools of reddish water were to be seen here and there in theroadway, with repulsive, frowzy-looking debris, matted masses that onecould not help associating in his mind with human hair. But what shockedand saddened one more than all the rest was the ruin that was visibleeverywhere; that charming village, only three days before so bright andsmiling, with its pretty houses standing in their well-kept gardens, nowrazed, demolished, annihilated, nothing left of all its beauties savea few smoke-stained walls. The church was burning still, a huge pyreof smoldering beams and girders, whence streamed continually upward acolumn of dense black smoke that, spreading in the heavens, overshadowedthe city like a gigantic funeral pall. Entire streets had been sweptaway, not a house left on either side, nor any trace that houses hadever been there, save the calcined stone-work lying in the gutter in apasty mess of soot and ashes, the whole lost in the viscid, ink-blackmud of the thoroughfare. Where streets intersected the corner houseswere razed down to their foundations, as if they had been carried awaybodily by the fiery blast that blew there. Others had suffered less; onein particular, owing to some chance, had escaped almost without injury, while its neighbors on either hand, literally torn to pieces by the ironhail, were like gaunt skeletons. An unbearable stench was everywhere, noticeable, the nauseating odor that follows a great fire, aggravatedby the penetrating smell of petroleum, that had been used without stintupon floors and walls. Then, too, there was the pitiful, mute spectacleof the household goods that the people had endeavored to save, thepoor furniture that had been thrown from windows and smashed upon thesidewalk, crazy tables with broken legs, presses with cloven sides andsplit doors, linen, also, torn and soiled, that was trodden under foot;all the sorry crumbs, the unconsidered trifles of the pillage, of whichthe destruction was being completed by the dissolving rain. Through thebreach in a shattered house-front a clock was visible, securely fastenedhigh up on the wall above the mantel-shelf, that had miraculouslyescaped intact. 

"The beasts! the pigs!" growled Prosper, whose blood, though he was nolonger a soldier, ran hot at the sight of such atrocities. 

He doubled his fists, and Silvine, who was white as a ghost, hadto exert the influence of her glance to calm him every time theyencountered a sentry on their way. The Bavarians had posted sentinelsnear all the houses that were still burning, and it seemed as if thosemen, with loaded muskets and fixed bayonets, were guarding the fires inorder that the flames might finish their work. They drove away the meresightseers who strolled about in the vicinity, and the persons who hadan interest there as well, employing first a menacing gesture, and incase that was not sufficient, uttering a single brief, guttural word ofcommand. A young woman, her hair streaming about her shoulders, her gownplastered with mud, persisted in hanging about the smoking ruins ofa little house, of which she desired to search the hot ashes, notwithstanding the prohibition of the sentry. The report ran that thewoman's little baby had been burned with the house. And all at once, asthe Bavarian was roughly thrusting her aside with his heavy hand, sheturned on him, vomiting in his face all her despair and rage, lashinghim with taunts and insults that were redolent of the gutter, withobscene words which likely afforded her some consolation in her griefand distress. He could not have understood her, for he drew back a paceor two, eying her with apprehension. Three comrades came running up andrelieved him of the fury, whom they led away screaming at the top of hervoice. Before the ruins of another house a man and two little girls, allthree so weary and miserable that they could not stand, lay on the bareground, sobbing as if their hearts would break; they had seen theirlittle all go up in smoke and flame, and had no place to go, no place tolay their head. But just then a patrol went by, dispersing the knots ofidlers, and the street again assumed its deserted aspect, peopled onlyby the stern, sullen sentries, vigilant to see that their iniquitousinstructions were enforced. 

"The beasts! the pigs!" Prosper repeated in a stifled voice. "How Ishould like, oh! how I should like to kill a few of them!"

Silvine again made him be silent. She shuddered. A dog, shut up in acarriage-house that the flames had spared and forgotten there for thelast two days, kept up an incessant, continuous howling, in a key soinexpressibly mournful that a brooding horror seemed to pervade the low, leaden sky, from which a drizzling rain had now begun to fall. They werethen just abreast of the park of Montivilliers, and there they witnesseda most horrible sight. Three great covered carts, those carts that passalong the streets in the early morning before it is light and collectthe city's filth and garbage, stood there in a row, loaded with corpses;and now, instead of refuse, they were being filled with dead, stoppingwherever there was a body to be loaded, then going on again withthe heavy rumbling of their wheels to make another stop further on, threading Bazeilles in its every nook and corner until their hideouscargo overflowed. They were waiting now upon the public road to bedriven to the place of their discharge, the neighboring potter'sfield. Feet were seen projecting from the mass into the air. A head, half-severed from its trunk, hung over the side of the vehicle. Whenthe three lumbering vans started again, swaying and jolting over theinequalities of the road, a long, white hand was hanging outward fromone of them; the hand caught upon the wheel, and little by little theiron tire destroyed it, eating through skin and flesh clean down to thebones. 

By the time they reached Balan the rain had ceased, and Prosperprevailed on Silvine to eat a bit of the bread he had had the foresightto bring with them. When they were near Sedan, however, they werebrought to a halt by another Prussian post, and this time theconsequences threatened to be serious; the officer stormed at them, and even refused to restore their pass, which he declared, in excellentFrench, to be a forgery. Acting on his orders some soldiers had run thedonkey and the little cart under a shed. What were they to do? were theyto be forced to abandon their undertaking? Silvine was in despair, whenall at once she thought of M. Dubreuil, Father Fouchard's relative, withwhom she had some slight acquaintance and whose place, the Hermitage, was only a few hundred yards distant, on the summit of the eminence thatoverlooked the faubourg. Perhaps he might have some influence withthe military, seeing that he was a citizen of the place. As they wereallowed their freedom, conditionally upon abandoning their equipage, sheleft the donkey and cart under the shed and bade Prosper accompanyher. They ascended the hill on a run, found the gate of the Hermitagestanding wide open, and on turning into the avenue of secular elmsbeheld a spectacle that filled them with amazement. 

"The devil!" said Prosper; "there are a lot of fellows who seem to betaking things easy!"

On the fine-crushed gravel of the terrace, at the bottom of the stepsthat led to the house, was a merry company. Arranged in order around amarble-topped table were a sofa and some easy-chairs in sky-blue satin, forming a sort of fantastic open-air drawing-room, which must have beenthoroughly soaked by the rain of the preceding day. Two zouaves, seatedin a lounging attitude at either end of the sofa, seemed to be laughingboisterously. A little infantryman, who occupied one of the fauteuils, his head bent forward, was apparently holding his sides to keep themfrom splitting. Three others were seated in a negligent pose, theirelbows resting on the arms of their chairs, while a chasseur had hishand extended as if in the act of taking a glass from the table. Theyhad evidently discovered the location of the cellar, and were enjoyingthemselves. 

"But how in the world do they happen to be here?" murmured Prosper, whose stupefaction increased as he drew nearer to them. "Have therascals forgotten there are Prussians about?"

But Silvine, whose eyes had dilated far beyond their natural size, suddenly uttered an exclamation of horror. The soldiers never moved handor foot; they were stone dead. The two zouaves were stiff and cold; theyboth had had the face shot away, the nose was gone, the eyes were tornfrom their sockets. If there appeared to be a laugh on the face ofhim who was holding his sides, it was because a bullet had cut a greatfurrow through the lower portion of his countenance, smashing allhis teeth. The spectacle was an unimaginably horrible one, those poorwretches laughing and conversing in their attitude of manikins, withglassy eyes and open mouths, when Death had laid his icy hand on themand they were never more to know the warmth and motion of life. Had theydragged themselves, still living, to that place, so as to die inone another's company? or was it not rather a ghastly prank of thePrussians, who had collected the bodies and placed them in a circleabout the table, out of derision for the traditional gayety of theFrench nation?

"It's a queer start, though, all the same, " muttered Prosper, whose facewas very pale. And casting a look at the other dead who lay scatteredabout the avenue, under the trees and on the turf, some thirtybrave fellows, among them Lieutenant Rochas, riddled with wounds andsurrounded still by the shreds of the flag, he added seriously and withgreat respect: "There must have been some very pretty fighting abouthere! I don't much believe we shall find the bourgeois for whom you arelooking. "

Silvine entered the house, the doors and windows of which had beenbattered in and afforded admission to the damp, cold air from without. It was clear enough that there was no one there; the masters must havetaken their departure before the battle. She continued to prosecute hersearch, however, and had entered the kitchen, when she gave utterance toanother cry of terror. Beneath the sink were two bodies, fast locked ineach other's arms in mortal embrace, one of them a zouave, a handsome, brown-bearded man, the other a huge Prussian with red hair. The teeth ofthe former were set in the latter's cheek, their arms, stiff in death, had not relaxed their terrible hug, binding the pair with such a bond ofeverlasting hate and fury that ultimately it was found necessary to burythem in a common grave. 

Then Prosper made haste to lead Silvine away, since they couldaccomplish nothing in that house where Death had taken up his abode, andupon their return, despairing, to the post where the donkey and carthad been detained, it so chanced that they found, in company with theofficer who had treated them so harshly, a general on his way to visitthe battlefield. This gentleman requested to be allowed to see the pass, which he examined attentively and restored to Silvine; then, with anexpression of compassion on his face, he gave directions that the poorwoman should have her donkey returned to her and be allowed to go inquest of her husband's body. Stopping only long enough to thank herbenefactor, she and her companion, with the cart trundling after them, set out for the Fond de Givonne, obedient to the instructions that wereagain given them not to pass through Sedan. 

After that they bent their course to the left in order to reach theplateau of Illy by the road that crosses the wood of la Garenne, buthere again they were delayed; twenty times they nearly abandoned allhope of getting through the wood, so numerous were the obstacles theyencountered. At every step their way was barred by huge trees that hadbeen laid low by the artillery fire, stretched on the ground likemighty giants fallen. It was the part of the forest that had suffered soseverely from the cannonade, where the projectiles had plowed their waythrough the secular growths as they might have done through a squareof the Old Guard, meeting in either case with the sturdy resistanceof veterans. Everywhere the earth was cumbered with gigantic trunks, stripped of their leaves and branches, pierced and mangled, even asmortals might have been, and this wholesale destruction, the sight ofthe poor limbs, maimed, slaughtered and weeping tears of sap, inspiredthe beholder with the sickening horror of a human battlefield. Therewere corpses of men there, too; soldiers, who had stood fraternally bythe trees and fallen with them. A lieutenant, from whose mouth exudeda bloody froth, had been tearing up the grass by handfuls in his agony, and his stiffened fingers were still buried in the ground. A littlefarther on a captain, prone on his stomach, had raised his head to venthis anguish in yells and screams, and death had caught and fixed him inthat strange attitude. Others seemed to be slumbering among the herbage, while a zouave; whose blue sash had taken fire, had had his hair andbeard burned completely from his head. And several times it happened, as they traversed those woodland glades, that they had to remove a bodyfrom the path before the donkey could proceed on his way. Presently theycame to a little valley, where the sights of horror abruptly ended. The battle had evidently turned at this point and expended its force inanother direction, leaving this peaceful nook of nature untouched. Thetrees were all uninjured; the carpet of velvety moss was undefiled byblood. A little brook coursed merrily among the duckweed, the path thatran along its bank was shaded by tall beeches. A penetrating charm, atender peacefulness pervaded the solitude of the lovely spot, where theliving waters gave up their coolness to the air and the leaves whisperedsoftly in the silence. 

Prosper had stopped to let the donkey drink from the stream. 

"Ah, how pleasant it is here!" he involuntarily exclaimed in hisdelight. 

Silvine cast an astonished look about her, as if wondering how it wasthat she, too, could feel the influence of the peaceful scene. Why should there be repose and happiness in that hidden nook, whensurrounding it on every side were sorrow and affliction? She made agesture of impatience. 

"Quick, quick, let us be gone. Where is the spot? Where did you tell meyou saw Honore?"

And when, at some fifty paces from there, they at last came out on theplateau of Illy, the level plain unrolled itself in its full extentbefore their vision. It was the real, the true battlefield that theybeheld now, the bare fields stretching away to the horizon under thewan, cheerless sky, whence showers were streaming down continually. There were no piles of dead visible; all the Prussians must have beenburied by this time, for there was not a single one to be seen amongthe corpses of the French that were scattered here and there, along theroads and in the fields, as the conflict had swayed in one direction oranother. The first that they encountered was a sergeant, propped againsta hedge, a superb man, in the bloom of his youthful vigor; his face wastranquil and a smile seemed to rest on his parted lips. A hundred pacesfurther on, however, they beheld another, lying across the road, who hadbeen mutilated most frightfully, his head almost entirely shot away, hisshoulders covered with great splotches of brain matter. Then, as theyadvanced further into the field, after the single bodies, distributedhere and there, they came across little groups; they saw seven menaligned in single rank, kneeling and with their muskets at the shoulderin the position of aim, who had been hit as they were about to fire, while close beside them a subaltern had also fallen as he was in the actof giving the word of command. After that the road led along the brinkof a little ravine, and there they beheld a spectacle that aroused theirhorror to the highest pitch as they looked down into the chasm, intowhich an entire company seemed to have been blown by the fiery blast;it was choked with corpses, a landslide, an avalanche of maimed andmutilated men, bent and twisted in an inextricable tangle, who withconvulsed fingers had caught at the yellow clay of the bank to savethemselves in their descent, fruitlessly. And a dusky flock of ravensflew away, croaking noisily, and swarms of flies, thousands uponthousands of them, attracted by the odor of fresh blood, were buzzingover the bodies and returning incessantly. 

"Where is the spot?" Silvine asked again. 

They were then passing a plowed field that was completely covered withknapsacks. It was manifest that some regiment had been roughly handledthere, and the men, in a moment of panic, had relieved themselvesof their burdens. The debris of every sort with which the ground wasthickly strewn served to explain the episodes of the conflict. There wasa stubble field where the scattered _kepis_, resembling huge poppies, shreds of uniforms, epaulettes, and sword-belts told the story of one ofthose infrequent hand-to-hand contests in the fierce artillery duelthat had lasted twelve hours. But the objects that were encounteredmost frequently, at every step, in fact, were abandoned weapons, sabers, bayonets, and, more particularly, chassepots; and so numerous were theythat they seemed to have sprouted from the earth, a harvest that hadmatured in a single ill-omened day. Porringers and buckets, also, werescattered along the roads, together with the heterogeneous contents ofknapsacks, rice, brushes, clothing, cartridges. The fields everywherepresented an uniform scene of devastation: fences destroyed, treesblighted as if they had been struck by lightning, the very soil itselftorn by shells, compacted and hardened by the tramp of countless feet, and so maltreated that it seemed as if seasons must elapse before itcould again become productive. Everything had been drenched and soakedby the rain of the preceding day; an odor arose and hung in the airpersistently, that odor of the battlefield that smells like fermentingstraw and burning cloth, a mixture of rottenness and gunpowder. 

Silvine, who was beginning to weary of those fields of death over whichshe had tramped so many long miles, looked about her with increasingdistrust and uneasiness. 

"Where is the spot? where is it?"

But Prosper made no answer; he also was becoming uneasy. What distressedhim even more than the sights of suffering among his fellow-soldiers wasthe dead horses, the poor brutes that lay outstretched upon their side, that were met with in great numbers. Many of them presented a mostpitiful spectacle, in all sorts of harrowing attitudes, with heads tornfrom the body, with lacerated flanks from which the entrails protruded. Many were resting on their back, with their four feet elevated in theair like signals of distress. The entire extent of the broad plain wasdotted with them. There were some that death had not released aftertheir two days' agony; at the faintest sound they would raise theirhead, turning it eagerly from right to left, then let it fall again uponthe ground, while others lay motionless and momentarily gave utteranceto that shrill scream which one who has heard it can never forget, thelament of the dying horse, so piercingly mournful that earth and heavenseemed to shudder in unison with it. And Prosper, with a bleeding heart, thought of poor Zephyr, and told himself that perhaps he might see himonce again. 

Suddenly he became aware that the ground was trembling under thethundering hoof-beats of a headlong charge. He turned to look, and hadbarely time to shout to his companion:

"The horses, the horses! Get behind that wall!"

From the summit of a neighboring eminence a hundred riderless horses, some of them still bearing the saddle and master's kit, were plungingdown upon them at break-neck speed. They were cavalry mounts that hadlost their masters and remained on the battlefield, and instinct hadcounseled them to associate together in a band. They had had neitherhay nor oats for two days, and had cropped the scanty grass from off theplain, shorn the hedge-rows of leaves and twigs, gnawed the bark fromthe trees, and when they felt the pangs of hunger pricking at theirvitals like a keen spur, they started all together at a mad gallop andcharged across the deserted, silent fields, crushing the dead out of allhuman shape, extinguishing the last spark of life in the wounded. 

The band came on like a whirlwind; Silvine had only time to pull thedonkey and cart to one side where they would be protected by the wall. 

"_Mon Dieu!_ we shall be killed!"

But the horses had taken the obstacle in their stride and were alreadyscouring away in the distance on the other side with a rumble like thatof a receding thunder-storm; striking into a sunken road they pursuedit as far as the corner of a little wood, behind which they were lost tosight. 

Silvine, when she had brought the cart back into the road, insisted thatProsper should answer her question before they proceeded further. 

"Come, where is it? You told me you could find the spot with your eyesbandaged; where is it? We have reached the ground. "

He, drawing himself up and anxiously scanning the horizon in everydirection, seemed to become more and more perplexed. 

"There were three trees, I must find those three trees in the firstplace. Ah, _dame_! see here, one's sight is not of the clearest whenhe is fighting, and it is no such easy matter to remember afterward theroads one has passed over!"

Then perceiving people to his left, two men and a woman, it occurred tohim to question them, but the woman ran away at his approach and the menrepulsed him with threatening gestures; and he saw others of the samestripe, clad in sordid rags, unspeakably filthy, with the ill-favoredfaces of thieves and murderers, and they all shunned him, slinking awayamong the corpses like jackals or other unclean, creeping beasts. Thenhe noticed that wherever these villainous gentry passed the dead behindthem were shoeless, their bare, white feet exposed, devoid of covering, and he saw how it was: they were the tramps and thugs who followed theGerman armies for the sake of plundering the dead, the detestable crewwho followed in the wake of the invasion in order that they might reaptheir harvest from the field of blood. A tall, lean fellow arosein front of him and scurried away on a run, a sack slung across hisshoulder, the watches and small coins, proceeds of his robberies, jingling in his pockets. 

A boy about fourteen or fifteen years old, however, allowed Prosper toapproach him, and when the latter, seeing him to be French, rated himsoundly, the boy spoke up in his defense. What, was it wrong for a poorfellow to earn his living? He was collecting chassepots, and receivedfive sous for every chassepot he brought in. He had run away from hisvillage that morning, having eaten nothing since the day before, andengaged himself to a contractor from Luxembourg, who had an arrangementwith the Prussians by virtue of which he was to gather the muskets fromthe field of battle, the Germans fearing that should the scattered armsbe collected by the peasants of the frontier, they might be conveyedinto Belgium and thence find their way back to France. And so it wasthat there was quite a flock of poor devils hunting for muskets andearning their five sous, rummaging among the herbage, like the women whomay be seen in the meadows, bent nearly double, gathering dandelions. 

"It's a dirty business, " Prosper growled. 

"What would you have! A chap must eat, " the boy replied. "I am notrobbing anyone. "

Then, as he did not belong to that neighborhood and could not give theinformation that Prosper wanted, he pointed out a little farmhouse notfar away where he had seen some people stirring. 

Prosper thanked him and was moving away to rejoin Silvine when he caughtsight of a chassepot, partially buried in a furrow. His first thoughtwas to say nothing of his discovery; then he turned about suddenly andshouted, as if he could not help it:

"Hallo! here's one; that will make five sous more for you. "

As they approached the farmhouse Silvine noticed other peasants engagedwith spades and picks in digging long trenches; but these men wereunder the direct command of Prussian officers, who, with nothing moreformidable than a light walking-stick in their hands, stood by, stiffand silent, and superintended the work. They had requisitioned theinhabitants of all the villages of the vicinity in this manner, fearingthat decomposition might be hastened, owing to the rainy weather. Twocart-loads of dead bodies were standing near, and a gang of men wasunloading them, laying the corpses side by side in close contiguity toone another, not searching them, not even looking at their faces, whiletwo men followed after, equipped with great shovels, and covered therow with a layer of earth, so thin that the ground had already begun tocrack beneath the showers. The work was so badly and hastily done thatbefore two weeks should have elapsed each of those fissures would bebreathing forth pestilence. Silvine could not resist the impulse topause at the brink of the trench and look at those pitiful corpses asthey were brought forward, one after another. She was possessed by ahorrible fear that in each fresh body the men brought from the cart shemight recognize Honore. Was not that he, that poor wretch whose left eyehad been destroyed? No! Perhaps that one with the fractured jaw was he?The one thing certain to her mind was that if she did not make haste tofind him, wherever he might be on that boundless, indeterminate plateau, they would pick him up and bury him in a common grave with the others. She therefore hurried to rejoin Prosper, who had gone on to thefarmhouse with the cart. 

"_Mon Dieu!_ how is it that you are not better informed? Where is theplace? Ask the people, question them. "

There were none but Prussians at the farm, however, together with awoman servant and her child, just come in from the woods, where theyhad been near perishing of thirst and hunger. The scene was one ofpatriarchal simplicity and well-earned repose after the fatigues ofthe last few days. Some of the soldiers had hung their uniforms froma clothes-line and were giving them a thorough brushing, another wasputting a patch on his trousers, with great neatness and dexterity, while the cook of the detachment had built a great fire in the middleof the courtyard on which the soup was boiling in a huge pot fromwhich ascended a most appetizing odor of cabbage and bacon. There is nodenying that the Prussians generally displayed great moderation towardthe inhabitants of the country after the conquest, which was made theeasier to them by the spirit of discipline that prevailed among thetroops. These men might have been taken for peaceable citizens just comein from their daily avocations, smoking their long pipes. On a benchbeside the door sat a stout, red-bearded man, who had taken up theservant's child, a little urchin five or six years old, and was dandlingit and talking baby-talk to it in German, delighted to see the littleone laugh at the harsh syllables which it could not understand. 

Prosper, fearing there might be more trouble in store for them, hadturned his back on the soldiers immediately on entering, but thosePrussians were really good fellows; they smiled at the little donkey, and did not even trouble themselves to ask for a sight of the pass. 

Then ensued a wild, aimless scamper across the bosom of the great, sinister plain. The sun, now sinking rapidly toward the horizon, showedits face for a moment from between two clouds. Was night to descend andsurprise them in the midst of that vast charnel-house? Anothershower came down; the sun was obscured, the rain and mist formed animpenetrable barrier about them, so that the country around, roads, fields, trees, was shut out from their vision. Prosper knew not wherethey were; he was lost, and admitted it: his memory was all astray, hecould recall nothing precise of the occurrences of that terrible daybut one before. Behind them, his head lowered almost to the ground, the little donkey trotted along resignedly, dragging the cart, withhis customary docility. First they took a northerly course, then theyreturned toward Sedan. They had lost their bearings and could not tellin which direction they were going; twice they noticed that they werepassing localities that they had passed before and retraced their steps. They had doubtless been traveling in a circle, and there came a momentwhen in their exhaustion and despair they stopped at a place where threeroads met, without courage to pursue their search further, the rainpelting down on them, lost and utterly miserable in the midst of a seaof mud. 

But they heard the sound of groans, and hastening to a lonely littlehouse on their left, found there, in one of the bedrooms, two woundedmen. All the doors were standing open; the two unfortunates hadsucceeded in dragging themselves thus far and had thrown themselves onthe beds, and for the two days that they had been alternately shiveringand burning, their wounds having received no attention, they had seenno one, not a living soul. They were tortured by a consuming thirst, andthe beating of the rain against the window-panes added to their torment, but they could not move hand or foot. Hence, when they heard Silvineapproaching, the first word that escaped their lips was: "Drink! Giveus to drink!" that longing, pathetic cry, with which the wounded alwayspursue the by-passer whenever the sound of footsteps arouses them fromtheir lethargy. There were many cases similar to this, where men wereoverlooked in remote corners, whither they had fled for refuge. Somewere picked up even five and six days later, when their sores werefilled with maggots and their sufferings had rendered them delirious. 

When Silvine had given the wretched men a drink Prosper, who, in themore sorely injured of the twain, had recognized a comrade of hisregiment, a chasseur d'Afrique, saw that they could not be far from theground over which Margueritte's division had charged, inasmuch asthe poor devil had been able to drag himself to that house. All theinformation he could get from him, however, was of the vaguest; yes, itwas over that way; you turned to the left, after passing a big field ofpotatoes. 

Immediately she was in possession of this slender clue Silvine insistedon starting out again. An inferior officer of the medical departmentchanced to pass with a cart just then, collecting the dead; she hailedhim and notified him of the presence of the wounded men, then, throwingthe donkey's bridle across her arm, urged him along over the muddy road, eager to reach the designated spot, beyond the big potato field. Whenthey had gone some distance she stopped, yielding to her despair. 

"My God, where is the place! Where can it be?"

Prosper looked about him, taxing his recollection fruitlessly. 

"I told you, it is close beside the place where we made our charge. Ifonly I could find my poor Zephyr--"

And he cast a wistful look on the dead horses that lay around them. Ithad been his secret hope, his dearest wish, during the entire time theyhad been wandering over the plateau, to see his mount once more, to bidhim a last farewell. 

"It ought to be somewhere in this vicinity, " he suddenly said. "See! over there to the left, there are the three trees. You see thewheel-tracks? And, look, over yonder is a broken-down caisson. We havefound the spot; we are here at last!"

Quivering with emotion, Silvine darted forward and eagerly scanned thefaces of two corpses, two artillerymen who had fallen by the roadside. 

"He is not here! He is not here! You cannot have seen aright. Yes, thatis it; some delusion must have cheated your eyes. " And little by littlean air-drawn hope, a wild delight crept into her mind. "If you weremistaken, if he should be alive! And be sure he is alive, since he isnot here!"

Suddenly she gave utterance to a low, smothered cry. She had turned, and was standing on the very position that the battery had occupied. The scene was most frightful, the ground torn and fissured as by anearthquake and covered with wreckage of every description, the deadlying as they had fallen in every imaginable attitude of horror, armsbent and twisted, legs doubled under them, heads thrown back, the lipsparted over the white teeth as if their last breath had been expended inshouting defiance to the foe. A corporal had died with his hands pressedconvulsively to his eyes, unable longer to endure the dread spectacle. Some gold coins that a lieutenant carried in a belt about his body hadbeen spilled at the same time as his life-blood, and lay scattered amonghis entrails. There were Adolphe, the driver, and the gunner, Louis, clasped in each other's arms in a fierce embrace, their sightless orbsstarting from their sockets, mated even in death. And there, at last, was Honore, recumbent on his disabled gun as on a bed of honor, withthe great rent in his side that had let out his young life, his face, unmutilated and beautiful in its stern anger, still turned defiantlytoward the Prussian batteries. 

"Oh! my friend, " sobbed Silvine, "my friend, my friend--"

She had fallen to her knees on the damp, cold ground, her hands joinedas if in prayer, in an outburst of frantic grief. The word friend, theonly name by which it occurred to her to address him, told the story ofthe tender affection she had lost in that man, so good, so loving, whohad forgiven her, had meant to make her his wife, despite the ugly past. And now all hope was dead within her bosom, there was nothing left tomake life desirable. She had never loved another; she would put away herlove for him at the bottom of her heart and hold it sacred there. Therain had ceased; a flock of crows that circled above the three trees, croaking dismally, affected her like a menace of evil. Was he to betaken from her again, her cherished dead, whom she had recovered withsuch difficulty? She dragged herself along upon her knees, and with atrembling hand brushed away the hungry flies that were buzzing about herfriend's wide-open eyes. 

She caught sight of a bit of blood-stained paper between Honore'sstiffened fingers. It troubled her; she tried to gain possession of thepaper, pulling at it gently, but the dead man would not surrender it, seemingly tightening his hold on it, guarding it so jealously that itcould not have been taken from him without tearing it in bits. It wasthe letter she had written him, that he had always carried next hisheart, and that he had taken from its hiding place in the moment of hissupreme agony, as if to bid her a last farewell. It seemed so strange, was such a revelation, that he should have died thinking of her; whenshe saw what it was a profound delight filled her soul in the midst ofher affliction. Yes, surely, she would leave it with him, the letterthat was so dear to him! she would not take it from him, since he was sobent on carrying it with him to the grave. Her tears flowed afresh, butthey were beneficent tears this time, and brought healing and comfortwith them. She arose and kissed his hands, kissed him on the forehead, uttering meanwhile but that one word, which was in itself a prolongedcaress:

"My friend! my friend--"

Meantime the sun was declining; Prosper had gone and taken thecounterpane from the cart, and between them they raised Honore's body, slowly, reverently, and laid it on the bed-covering, which they hadstretched upon the ground; then, first wrapping him in its folds, theybore him to the cart. It was threatening to rain again, and they hadstarted on their return, forming, with the donkey, a sorrowful littlecortege on the broad bosom of the accursed plain, when a deep rumblingas of thunder was heard in the distance. Prosper turned his head and hadonly time to shout:

"The horses! the horses!"

It was the starving, abandoned cavalry mounts making another charge. They came up this time in a deep mass across a wide, smooth field, manesand tails streaming in the wind, froth flying from their nostrils, and the level rays of the fiery setting sun sent the shadow of theinfuriated herd clean across the plateau. Silvine rushed forward andplanted herself before the cart, raising her arms above her head as ifher puny form might have power to check them. Fortunately the groundfell off just at that point, causing them to swerve to the left;otherwise they would have crushed donkey, cart, and all to powder. Theearth trembled, and their hoofs sent a volley of clods and small stonesflying through the air, one of which struck the donkey on the head andwounded him. The last that was seen of them they were tearing down aravine. 

"It's hunger that starts them off like that, " said Prosper. "Poorbeasts!"

Silvine, having bandaged the donkey's ear with her handkerchief, tookhim again by the bridle, and the mournful little procession began toretrace its steps across the plateau, to cover the two leagues that laybetween it and Remilly. Prosper had turned and cast a look on the deadhorses, his heart heavy within him to leave the field without havingseen Zephyr. 

A little below the wood of la Garenne, as they were about to turn offto the left to take the road that they had traversed that morning, theyencountered another German post and were again obliged to exhibit theirpass. And the officer in command, instead of telling them to avoidSedan, ordered them to keep straight on their course and pass throughthe city; otherwise they would be arrested. This was the most recentorder; it was not for them to question it. Moreover, their journey wouldbe shortened by a mile and a quarter, which they did not regret, wearyand foot-sore as they were. 

When they were within Sedan, however, they found their progress retardedowing to a singular cause. As soon as they had passed the fortificationstheir nostrils were saluted by such a stench, they were obliged to wadethrough such a mass of abominable filth, reaching almost to theirknees, as fairly turned their stomachs. The city, where for three daysa hundred thousand men had lived without the slightest provision beingmade for decency or cleanliness, had become a cesspool, a foul sewer, and this devil's broth was thickened by all sorts of solid matter, rotting hay and straw, stable litter, and the excreta of animals. Thecarcasses of the horses, too, that were knocked on the head, skinned, and cut up in the public squares, in full view of everyone, had theirfull share in contaminating the atmosphere; the entrails lay decaying inthe hot sunshine, the bones and heads were left lying on the pavement, where they attracted swarms of flies. Pestilence would surely breakout in the city unless they made haste to rid themselves of all thatcarrion, of that stratum of impurity, which, in the Rue de Minil, theRue Maqua, and even on the Place Turenne, reached a depth of twelveinches. The Prussian authorities had taken the matter up, and theirplacards were to be seen posted about the city, requisitioning theinhabitants, irrespective of rank, laborers, merchants, bourgeois, magistrates, for the morrow; they were ordered to assemble, armed withbrooms and shovels, and apply themselves to the task, and were warnedthat they would be subjected to heavy penalties if the city was notclean by night. The President of the Tribunal had taken time by theforelock, and might even then be seen scraping away at the pavementbefore his door and loading the results of his labors upon a wheelbarrowwith a fire-shovel. 

Silvine and Prosper, who had selected the Grande Rue as their route fortraversing the city, advanced but slowly through that lake of malodorousslime. In addition to that the place was in a state of ferment andagitation that made it necessary for them to pull up almost at everymoment. It was the time that the Prussians had selected for searchingthe houses in order to unearth those soldiers, who, determined that theywould not give themselves up, had hidden themselves away. When, at abouttwo o'clock of the preceding day, General de Wimpffen had returnedfrom the chateau of Bellevue after signing the capitulation, the reportimmediately began to circulate that the surrendered troops were tobe held under guard in the peninsula of Iges until such time asarrangements could be perfected for sending them off to Germany. Somefew officers had expressed their intention of taking advantage of thatstipulation which accorded them their liberty conditionally on theirsigning an agreement not to serve again during the campaign. Only onegeneral, so it was said, Bourgain-Desfeuilles, alleging his rheumatismas a reason, had bound himself by that pledge, and when, that verymorning, his carriage had driven up to the door of the Hotel of theGolden Cross and he had taken his seat in it to leave the city, the people had hooted and hissed him unmercifully. The operation ofdisarming had been going on since break of day; the manner of itsperformance was, the troops defiled by battalions on the Place Turenne, where each man deposited his musket and bayonet on the pile, like amountain of old iron, which kept rising higher and higher, in a cornerof the place. There was a Prussian detachment there under the command ofa young officer, a tall, pale youth, wearing a sky-blue tunic and a capadorned with a cock's feather, who superintended operations with a loftybut soldier-like air, his hands encased in white gloves. A zouave, ina fit of insubordination, having refused to give up his chassepot, theofficer ordered that he be taken away, adding, in the same even toneof voice: "And let him be shot forthwith!" The rest of the battalioncontinued to defile with a sullen and dejected air, throwing down theirarms mechanically, as if in haste to have the ceremony ended. Butwho could estimate the number of those who had disarmed themselvesvoluntarily, those whose muskets lay scattered over the country, outyonder on the field of battle? And how many, too, within the lasttwenty-four hours had concealed themselves, flattering themselveswith the hope that they might escape in the confusion that reignedeverywhere! There was scarcely a house but had its crew of thoseheadstrong idiots who refused to respond when called on, hiding away incorners and shamming death; the German patrols that were sent throughthe city even discovered them stowed away under beds. And as many, evenafter they were unearthed, stubbornly persisted in remaining in thecellars whither they had fled for shelter, the patrols were obliged tofire on them through the coal-holes. It was a man-hunt, a brutal andcruel battue, during which the city resounded with rifle-shots andoutlandish oaths. 

At the Pont du Meuse they found a throng which the donkey was unable topenetrate and were brought to a stand-still. The officer commanding theguard at the bridge, suspecting they were endeavoring to carry on anillicit traffic in bread or meat, insisted on seeing with his own eyeswhat was contained in the cart; drawing aside the covering, he gazed foran instant on the corpse with a feeling expression, then motioned themto go their way. Still, however, they were unable to get forward, thecrowd momentarily grew denser and denser; one of the first detachmentsof French prisoners was being conducted to the peninsula of Iges underescort of a Prussian guard. The sorry band streamed on in long array, the men in their tattered, dirty uniforms crowding one another, treadingon one another's heels, with bowed heads and sidelong, hang-dog looks, the dejected gait and bearing of the vanquished to whom had been leftnot even so much as a knife with which to cut their throat. The harsh, curt orders of the guard urging them forward resounded like the crackingof a whip in the silence, which was unbroken save for the plashing oftheir coarse shoes through the semi-liquid mud. Another shower beganto fall, and there could be no more sorrowful sight than that band ofdisheartened soldiers, shuffling along through the rain, like beggarsand vagabonds on the public highway. 

All at once Prosper, whose heart was beating as if it would burst hisbosom with repressed sorrow and indignation, nudged Silvine and calledher attention to two soldiers who were passing at the moment. He hadrecognized Maurice and Jean, trudging along with their companions, likebrothers, side by side. They were near the end of the line, and as therewas now no impediment in their way, he was enabled to keep them in viewas far as the Faubourg of Torcy, as they traversed the level road whichleads to Iges between gardens and truck farms. 

"Ah!" murmured Silvine, distressed by what she had just seen, fixing hereyes on Honore's body, "it may be that the dead have the better part!"

Night descended while they were at Wadelincourt, and it was pitchy darklong before they reached Remilly. Father Fouchard was greatly surprisedto behold the body of his son, for he had felt certain that it wouldnever be recovered. He had been attending to business during the day, and had completed an excellent bargain; the market price for officers'chargers was twenty francs, and he had bought three for forty-fivefrancs. 

II. 

The crush was so great as the column of prisoners was leaving Torcy thatMaurice, who had stopped a moment to buy some tobacco, was parted fromJean, and with all his efforts was unable thereafter to catch up withhis regiment through the dense masses of men that filled the road. Whenhe at last reached the bridge that spans the canal which intersects thepeninsula of Iges at its base, he found himself in a mixed company ofchasseurs d'Afrique and troops of the infanterie de marine. 

There were two pieces of artillery stationed at the bridge, theirmuzzles turned upon the interior of the peninsula; it was a place easyof access, but from which exit would seem to be attended with somedifficulties. Immediately beyond the canal was a comfortable house, where the Prussians had established a post, commanded by a captain, uponwhich devolved the duty of receiving and guarding the prisoners. Theformalities observed were not excessive; they merely counted the men, as if they had been sheep, as they came streaming in a huddle acrossthe bridge, without troubling themselves overmuch about uniforms ororganizations, after which the prisoners were free of the fields and atliberty to select their dwelling-place wherever chance and the road theywere on might direct. 

The first thing that Maurice did was to address a question to a Bavarianofficer, who was seated astride upon a chair, enjoying a tranquil smoke. 

"The 106th of the line, sir, can you tell me where I shall find it?"

Either the officer was unlike most German officers and did notunderstand French, or thought it a good joke to mystify a poor devil ofa soldier. He smiled and raised his hand, indicating by his motion thatthe other was to keep following the road he was pursuing. 

Although Maurice had spent a good part of his life in the neighborhoodhe had never before been on the peninsula; he proceeded to explore hisnew surroundings, as a mariner might do when cast by a tempest on theshore of a desolate island. He first skirted the Tour a Glaire, a veryhandsome country-place, whose small park, situated as it was on the bankof the Meuse, possessed a peculiarly attractive charm. After that theroad ran parallel with the river, of which the sluggish current flowedon the right hand at the foot of high, steep banks. The way from therewas a gradually ascending one, until it wound around the gentle eminencethat occupied the central portion of the peninsula, and there wereabandoned quarries there and excavations in the ground, in which anetwork of narrow paths had their termination. A little further on wasa mill, seated on the border of the stream. Then the road curved andpursued a descending course until it entered the village of Iges, whichwas built on the hillside and connected by a ferry with the furthershore, just opposite the rope-walk at Saint-Albert. Last of all camemeadows and cultivated fields, a broad expanse of level, treelesscountry, around which the river swept in a wide, circling bend. In vainhad Maurice scrutinized every inch of uneven ground on the hillside; allhe could distinguish there was cavalry and artillery, preparing theirquarters for the night. He made further inquiries, applying among othersto a corporal of chasseurs d'Afrique, who could give him no information. The prospect for finding his regiment looked bad; night was coming down, and, leg-weary and disheartened, he seated himself for a moment on astone by the wayside. 

As he sat there, abandoning himself to the sensation of loneliness anddespair that crept over him, he beheld before him, across the Meuse, the accursed fields where he had fought the day but one before. Bittermemories rose to his mind, in the fading light of that day of gloom andrain, as he surveyed the saturated, miry expanse of country thatrose from the river's bank and was lost on the horizon. The defile ofSaint-Albert, the narrow road by which the Prussians had gained theirrear, ran along the bend of the stream as far as the white cliffs ofthe quarries of Montimont. The summits of the trees in the wood ofla Falizette rose in rounded, fleecy masses over the rising groundof Seugnon. Directly before his eyes, a little to the left, wasSaint-Menges, the road from which descended by a gentle slope and endedat the ferry; there, too, were the mamelon of Hattoy in the center, and Illy, in the far distance, in the background, and Fleigneux, almosthidden in its shallow vale, and Floing, less remote, on the right. Herecognized the plateau where he had spent interminable hours among thecabbages, and the eminences that the reserve artillery had struggledso gallantly to hold, where he had seen Honore meet his death on hisdismounted gun. And it was as if the baleful scene were again beforehim with all its abominations, steeping his mind in horror and disgust, until he was sick at heart. 

The reflection that soon it would be quite dark and it would not do toloiter there, however, caused him to resume his researches. He saidto himself that perhaps the regiment was encamped somewhere beyond thevillage on the low ground, but the only ones he encountered there weresome prowlers, and he decided to make the circuit of the peninsula, following the bend of the stream. As he was passing through a field ofpotatoes he was sufficiently thoughtful to dig a few of the tubers andput them in his pockets; they were not ripe, but he had nothing better, for Jean, as luck would have it, had insisted on carrying both the twoloaves of bread that Delaherche had given them when they left his house. He was somewhat surprised at the number of horses he met with, roamingabout the uncultivated lands, that fell off in an easy descent from thecentral elevation to the Meuse, in the direction of Donchery. Why shouldthey have brought all those animals with them? how were they to be fed?And now it was night in earnest, and quite dark, when he came to a smallpiece of woods on the water's brink, in which he was surprised to findthe cent-gardes of the Emperor's escort, providing for their creaturecomforts and drying themselves before roaring fires. These gentlemen, who had a separate encampment to themselves, had comfortable tents;their kettles were boiling merrily, there was a milch cow tied to atree. It did not take Maurice long to see that he was not regarded withfavor in that quarter, poor devil of an infantryman that he was, withhis ragged, mud-stained uniform. They graciously accorded him permissionto roast his potatoes in the ashes of their fires, however, and hewithdrew to the shelter of a tree, some hundred yards away, to eat them. It was no longer raining; the sky was clear, the stars were shiningbrilliantly in the dark blue vault. He saw that he should have to spendthe night in the open air and defer his researches until the morrow. He was so utterly used up that he could go no further; the trees wouldafford him some protection in case it came on to rain again. 

The strangeness of his situation, however, and the thought of his vastprison house, open to the winds of heaven, would not let him sleep. Ithad been an extremely clever move on the part of the Prussians to selectthat place of confinement for the eighty thousand men who constitutedthe remnant of the army of Chalons. The peninsula was approximatelythree miles long by one wide, affording abundant space for the brokenfragments of the vanquished host, and Maurice could not fail to observethat it was surrounded on every side by water, the bend of the Meuseencircling it on the north, east and west, while on the south, at thebase, connecting the two arms of the loop at the point where they drewtogether most closely, was the canal. Here alone was an outlet, thebridge, that was defended by two guns; wherefore it may be seen that theguarding of the camp was a comparatively easy task, notwithstanding itsgreat extent. He had already taken note of the chain of sentries on thefarther bank, a soldier being stationed by the waterside at every fiftypaces, with orders to fire on any man who should attempt to escape byswimming. In the rear the different posts were connected by patrols ofuhlans, while further in the distance, scattered over the broad fields, were the dark lines of the Prussian regiments; a threefold living, moving wall, immuring the captive army. 

Maurice, in his sleeplessness, lay gazing with wide-open eyes into theblackness of the night, illuminated here and there by the smolderingwatch-fires; the motionless forms of the sentinels were dimly visiblebeyond the pale ribbon of the Meuse. Erect they stood, duskier spotsagainst the dusky shadows, beneath the faint light of the twinklingstars, and at regular intervals their guttural call came to his ears, amenacing watch-cry that was drowned in the hoarse murmur of the river inthe distance. At sound of those unmelodious phrases in a foreign tongue, rising on the still air of a starlit night in the sunny land of France, the vision of the past again rose before him: all that he had beheld inmemory an hour before, the plateau of Illy cumbered still with dead, theaccursed country round about Sedan that had been the scene of such diredisaster; and resting on the ground in that cool, damp corner of a wood, his head pillowed on a root, he again yielded to the feeling of despairthat had overwhelmed him the day before while lying on Delaherche'ssofa. And that which, intensifying the suffering of his wounded pride, now harassed and tortured him, was the question of the morrow, thefeverish longing to know how deep had been their fall, how great thewreck and ruin sustained by their world of yesterday. The Emperorhad surrendered his sword to King William; was not, therefore, theabominable war ended? But he recalled the remark he had heard made bytwo of the Bavarians of the guard who had escorted the prisonersto Iges: "We're all in France, we're all bound for Paris!" In hissemi-somnolent, dreamy state the vision of what was to be suddenly rosebefore his eyes: the empire overturned and swept away amid a howlof universal execration, the republic proclaimed with an outburst ofpatriotic fervor, while the legend of '92 would incite men to emulatethe glorious past, and, flocking to the standards, drive from thecountry's soil the hated foreigner with armies of brave volunteers. Hereflected confusedly upon all the aspects of the case, and speculationsfollowed one another in swift succession through his poor wearied brain:the harsh terms imposed by the victors, the bitterness of defeat, thedetermination of the vanquished to resist even to the last drop ofblood, the fate of those eighty thousand men, his companions, who wereto be captives for weeks, months, years, perhaps, first on the peninsulaand afterward in German fortresses. The foundations were giving way, andeverything was going down, down to the bottomless depths of perdition. 

The call of the sentinels, now loud, now low, seemed to sound morefaintly in his ears and to be receding in the distance, when suddenly, as he turned on his hard couch, a shot rent the deep silence. A hollowgroan rose on the calm air of night, there was a splashing in the water, the brief struggle of one who sinks to rise no more. It was somepoor wretch who had attempted to escape by swimming the Meuse and hadreceived a bullet in his brain. 

The next morning Maurice was up and stirring with the sun. The sky wascloudless; he was desirous to rejoin Jean and his other comrades of thecompany with the least possible delay. For a moment he had an ideaof going to see what there was in the interior of the peninsula, thenresolved he would first complete its circuit. And on reaching the canalhis eyes were greeted with the sight of the 106th--or rather what wasleft of it--a thousand men, encamped along the river bank among somewaste lands, with no protection save a row of slender poplars. If he hadonly turned to the left the night before instead of pursuing a straightcourse he could have been with his regiment at once. And he noticed thatalmost all the line regiments were collected along that part of the bankthat extends from the Tour a Glaire to the Chateau of Villette--anotherbourgeois country place, situated more in the direction of Donchery andsurrounded by a few hovels--all of them having selected theirbivouac near the bridge, sole issue from their prison, as sheep willinstinctively huddle together close to the door of their fold, knowingthat sooner or later it will be opened for them. 

Jean uttered a cry of pleasure. "Ah, so it's you, at last! I had begunto think you were in the river. "

He was there with what remained of the squad, Pache and Lapoulle, Loubetand Chouteau. The last named had slept under doorways in Sedan untilthe attention of the Prussian provost guard had finally restored them totheir regiment. The corporal, moreover, was the only surviving officerof the company, death having taken away Sergeant Sapin, LieutenantRochas and Captain Beaudoin, and although the victors had abolisheddistinction of rank among the prisoners, deciding that obedience was dueto the German officers alone, the four men had, nevertheless, ralliedto him, knowing him to be a leader of prudence and experience, upon whomthey could rely in circumstances of difficulty. Thus it was thatpeace and harmony reigned among them that morning, notwithstanding thestupidity of some and the evil designs of others. In the first place, the night before he had found them a place to sleep in that wascomparatively dry, where they had stretched themselves on the ground, the only thing they had left in the way of protection from the weatherbeing the half of a shelter-tent. After that he had managed to securesome wood and a kettle, in which Loubet made coffee for them, thecomforting warmth of which had fortified their stomachs. The rain hadceased, the day gave promise of being bright and warm, they had a smallsupply of biscuit and bacon left, and then, as Chouteau said, it was acomfort to have no orders to obey, to have their fill of loafing. Theywere prisoners, it was true, but there was plenty of room to move about. Moreover, they would be away from there in two or three days. Underthese circumstances the day, which was Sunday, the 4th, passedpleasantly enough. 

Maurice, whose courage had returned to him now that he was with thecomrades once more, found nothing to annoy him except the Prussianbands, which played all the afternoon beyond the canal. Toward eveningthere was vocal music, and the men sang in chorus. They could be seenoutside the chain of sentries, walking to and fro in little groupsand singing solemn melodies in a loud, ringing voice in honor of theSabbath. 

"Confound those bands!" Maurice at last impatiently exclaimed. "Theywill drive me wild!"

Jean, whose nerves were less susceptible, shrugged his shoulders. 

"_Dame_! they have reason to feel good; and then perhaps they think itaffords us pleasure. It hasn't been such a bad day; don't let's findfault. "

As night approached, however, the rain began to fall again. Some of themen had taken possession of what few unoccupied houses there were on thepeninsula, others were provided with tents that they erected, but by farthe greater number, without shelter of any sort, destitute of blanketseven, were compelled to pass the night in the open air, exposed to thepouring rain. 

About one o'clock Maurice, who had been sleeping soundly as a result ofhis fatigue, awoke and found himself in the middle of a miniaturelake. The trenches, swollen by the heavy downpour, had overflowed andinundated the ground where he lay. Chouteau's and Loubet's wrath venteditself in a volley of maledictions, while Pache shook Lapoulle, who, unmindful of his ducking, slept through it all as if he was never towake again. Then Jean, remembering the row of poplars on the bank of thecanal, collected his little band and ran thither for shelter; and therethey passed the remainder of that wretched night, crouching with theirbacks to the trees, their legs doubled under them, so as to expose aslittle of their persons as might be to the big drops. 

The next day, and the day succeeding it, the weather was trulydetestable, what with the continual showers, that came down so copiouslyand at such frequent intervals that the men's clothing had not time todry on their backs. They were threatened with famine, too; there was nota biscuit left in camp, and the coffee and bacon were exhausted. Duringthose two days, Monday and Tuesday, they existed on potatoes that theydug in the adjacent fields, and even those vegetables had become soscarce toward the end of the second day that those soldiers who hadmoney paid as high as five sous apiece for them. It was true that thebugles sounded the call for "distribution"; the corporal had nearly runhis legs off trying to be the first to reach a great shed near the Toura Glaire, where it was reported that rations of bread were to be issued, but on the occasion of a first visit he had waited there three hours andgone away empty-handed, and on a second had become involved in aquarrel with a Bavarian. It was well known that the French officers werethemselves in deep distress and powerless to assist their men; had theGerman staff driven the vanquished army out there in the mud and rainwith the intention of letting them starve to death? Not the first stepseemed to have been taken, not an effort had been made, to provide forthe subsistence of those eighty thousand men in that hell on earththat the soldiers subsequently christened Camp Misery, a name thatthe bravest of them could never hear mentioned in later days without ashudder. 

On his return from his wearisome and fruitless expedition to the shed, Jean forgot his usual placidity and gave way to anger. 

"What do they mean by calling us up when there's nothing for us? I'll behanged if I'll put myself out for them another time!"

And yet, whenever there was a call, he hurried off again. It was inhumanto sound the bugles thus, merely because regulations prescribed certaincalls at certain hours, and it had another effect that was near breakingMaurice's heart. Every time that the trumpets sounded the French horses, that were running free on the other side of the canal, came rushing upand dashed into the water to rejoin their squadron, as excited at thewell-known sound as they would be at the touch of the spur; but in theirexhausted condition they were swept away by the current and few attainedthe shore. It was a cruel sight to see their struggles; they weredrowned in great numbers, and their bodies, decomposing and swellingin the hot sunshine, drifted on the bosom of the canal. As for those ofthem that got to land, they seemed as if stricken with sudden madness, galloping wildly off and hiding among the waste places of the peninsula. 

"More bones for the crows to pick!" sorrowfully said Maurice, remembering the great droves of horses that he had encountered ona previous occasion. "If we remain here a few days we shall all bedevouring one another. Poor brutes!"

The night between Tuesday and Wednesday was most terrible of all, andJean, who was beginning to feel seriously alarmed for Maurice's feverishstate, made him wrap himself in an old blanket that they had purchasedfrom a zouave for ten francs, while he, with no protection save hiswater-soaked capote, cheerfully took the drenching of the deluge whichthat night pelted down without cessation. Their position under thepoplars had become untenable; it was a streaming river of mud, the waterrested in deep puddles on the surface of the saturated ground. Whatwas worst of all was that they had to suffer on an empty stomach, theevening meal of the six men having consisted of two beets which they hadbeen compelled to eat raw, having no dry wood to make a fire with, andthe sweet taste and refreshing coolness of the vegetables had quicklybeen succeeded by an intolerable burning sensation. Some cases ofdysentery had appeared among the men, caused by fatigue, improper foodand the persistent humidity of the atmosphere. More than ten timesthat night did Jean stretch forth his hand to see that Maurice had notuncovered himself in the movements of his slumber, and thus hekept watch and ward over his friend--his back supported by the sametree-trunk, his legs in a pool of water--with tenderness unspeakable. Since the day that on the plateau of Illy his comrade had carried himoff in his arms and saved him from the Prussians he had repaid the debta hundred-fold. He stopped not to reason on it; it was the free gift ofall his being, the total forgetfulness of self for love of the other, the finest, most delicate, grandest exhibition of friendship possible, and that, too, in a peasant, whose lot had always been the lowly one ofa tiller of the soil and who had never risen far above the earth, who could not find words to express what he felt, acting purely frominstinct, in all simplicity of soul. Many a time already he had takenthe food from his mouth, as the men of the squad were wont to say; nowhe would have divested himself of his skin if with it he might havecovered the other, to protect his shoulders, to warm his feet. Andin the midst of the savage egoism that surrounded them, among thataggregation of suffering humanity whose worst appetites were inflamedand intensified by hunger, he perhaps owed it to his complete abnegationof self that he had preserved thus far his tranquillity of mind and hisvigorous health, for he among them all, his great strength unimpaired, alone maintained his composure and something like a level head. 

After that distressful night Jean determined to carry into execution aplan that he had been reflecting over since the day previous. 

"See here, little one, we can get nothing to eat, and everyone seems tohave forgotten us here in this beastly hole; now unless we want to diethe death of dogs, it behooves us to stir about a bit. How are yourlegs?"

The sun had come out again, fortunately, and Maurice was warmed andcomforted. 

"Oh, my legs are all right!"

"Then we'll start off on an exploring expedition. We've money in ourpockets, and the deuce is in it if we can't find something to buy. Andwe won't bother our heads about the others; they don't deserve it. Letthem take care of themselves. "

The truth was that Loubet and Chouteau had disgusted him by theirtrickiness and low selfishness, stealing whatever they could lay handson and never dividing with their comrades, while no good was to be gotout of Lapoulle, the brute, and Pache, the sniveling devotee. 

The pair, therefore, Maurice and Jean, started out by the road along theMeuse which the former had traversed once before, on the night of hisarrival. At the Tour a Glaire the park and dwelling-house presented asorrowful spectacle of pillage and devastation, the trim lawns cut upand destroyed, the trees felled, the mansion dismantled. A ragged, dirtycrew of soldiers, with hollow cheeks and eyes preternaturally brightfrom fever, had taken possession of the place and were living likebeasts in the filthy chambers, not daring to leave their quarters fora moment lest someone else might come along and occupy them. A littlefurther on they passed the cavalry and artillery, encamped on thehillsides, once so conspicuous by reason of the neatness and jauntinessof their appearance, now run to seed like all the rest, theirorganization gone, demoralized by that terrible, torturing hunger thatdrove the horses wild and sent the men straggling through the fields inplundering bands. Below them, to the right, they beheld an apparentlyinterminable line of artillerymen and chasseurs d'Afrique defilingslowly before the mill; the miller was selling them flour, measuring outtwo handfuls into their handkerchiefs for a franc. The prospect of thelong wait that lay before them, should they take their place at the endof the line, determined them to pass on, in the hope that some betteropportunity would present itself at the village of Iges; but great wastheir consternation when they reached it to find the little place asbare and empty as an Algerian village through which has passed a swarmof locusts; not a crumb, not a fragment of anything eatable, neitherbread, nor meat, nor vegetables, the wretched inhabitants utterlydestitute. General Lebrun was said to be there, closeted with the mayor. He had been endeavoring, ineffectually, to arrange for an issue ofbonds, redeemable at the close of the war, in order to facilitate thevictualing of the troops. Money had ceased to have any value when therewas nothing that it could purchase. The day before two francs had beenpaid for a biscuit, seven francs for a bottle of wine, a small glass ofbrandy was twenty sous, a pipeful of tobacco ten sous. And now officers, sword in hand, had to stand guard before the general's house and theneighboring hovels, for bands of marauders were constantly passing, breaking down doors and stealing even the oil from the lamps anddrinking it. 

Three zouaves invited Maurice and Jean to join them. Five would do thework more effectually than three. 

"Come along. There are horses dying in plenty, and if we can but getsome dry wood--"

Then they fell to work on the miserable cabin of a poor peasant, smashing the closet doors, tearing the thatch from the roof. Someofficers, who came up on a run, threatened them with their revolvers andput them to flight. 

Jean, who saw that the few villagers who had remained at Iges were nobetter off than the soldiers, perceived he had made a mistake in passingthe mill without buying some flour. 

"There may be some left; we had best go back. "

But Maurice was so reduced from inanition and was beginning to sufferso from fatigue that he left him behind in a sheltered nook among thequarries, seated on a fragment of rock, his face turned upon the widehorizon of Sedan. He, after waiting in line for two long hours, finallyreturned with some flour wrapped in a piece of rag. And they ate ituncooked, dipping it up in their hands, unable to devise any other way. It was not so very bad; It had no particular flavor, only the insipidtaste of dough. Their breakfast, such as it was, did them some good, however. They were even so fortunate as to discover a little pool ofrain-water, comparatively pure, in a hollow of a rock, at which theyquenched their thirst with great satisfaction. 

But when Jean proposed that they should spend the remainder of theafternoon there, Maurice negatived the motion with a great display ofviolence. 

"No, no; not here! I should be ill if I were to have that scene beforemy eyes for any length of time--" With a hand that trembled he pointedto the remote horizon, the hill of Hattoy, the plateaux of Floingand Illy, the wood of la Garenne, those abhorred, detested fields ofslaughter and defeat. "While you were away just now I was obliged toturn my back on it, else I should have broken out and howled withrage. Yes, I should have howled like a dog tormented by boys--you can'timagine how it hurts me; it drives me crazy!"

Jean looked at him in surprise; he could not understand that pride, sensitive as a raw sore, that made defeat so bitter to him; he wasalarmed to behold in his eyes that wandering, flighty look that he hadseen there before. He affected to treat the matter lightly. 

"Good! we'll seek another country; that's easy enough to do. "

Then they wandered as long as daylight lasted, wherever the paths theytook conducted them. They visited the level portion of the peninsulain the hope of finding more potatoes there, but the artillerymen hadobtained a plow and turned up the ground, and not a single potato hadescaped their sharp eyes. They retraced their steps, and again theypassed through throngs of listless, glassy-eyed, starving soldiers, strewing the ground with their debilitated forms, falling by hundredsin the bright sunshine from sheer exhaustion. They were themselves manytimes overcome by fatigue and forced to sit down and rest; then theirdeep-seated sensation of suffering would bring them to their feet againand they would recommence their wandering, like animals impelled byinstinct to move on perpetually in quest of pasturage. It seemed tothem to last for years, and yet the moments sped by rapidly. In the moreinland region, over Donchery way, they received a fright from the horsesand sought the protection of a wall, where they remained a long time, too exhausted to rise, watching with vague, lack-luster eyes the wildcourse of the crazed beasts as they raced athwart the red western skywhere the sun was sinking. 

As Maurice had foreseen, the thousands of horses that shared thecaptivity of the army, and for which it was impossible to provideforage, constituted a peril that grew greater day by day. At firstthey had nibbled the vegetation and gnawed the bark off trees, then hadattacked the fences and whatever wooden structures they came across, and now they seemed ready to devour one another. It was a frequentoccurrence to see one of them throw himself upon another and tear outgreat tufts from his mane or tail, which he would grind between histeeth, slavering meanwhile at the mouth profusely. But it was at nightthat they became most terrible, as if they were visited by visions ofterror in the darkness. They collected in droves, and, attracted by thestraw, made furious rushes upon what few tents there were, overturningand demolishing them. It was to no purpose that the men built greatfires to keep them away; the device only served to madden them the more. Their shrill cries were so full of anguish, so dreadful to the ear, thatthey might have been mistaken for the howls of wild beasts. Were theydriven away, they returned, more numerous and fiercer than before. Scarce a moment passed but out in the darkness could be heard theshriek of anguish of some unfortunate soldier whom the crazed beasts hadcrushed in their wild stampede. 

The sun was still above the horizon when Jean and Maurice, on their wayback to the camp, were astonished by meeting with the four men of thesquad, lurking in a ditch, apparently for no good purpose. Loubet hailedthem at once, and Chouteau constituted himself spokesman:

"We are considering ways and means for dining this evening. We shall dieif we go on this way; it is thirty-six hours since we have had anythingto put in our stomach--so, as there are horses plenty, and horse-meatisn't such bad eating--"

"You'll join us, won't you, corporal?" said Loubet, interrupting, "for, with such a big, strong animal to handle, the more of us there arethe better it will be. See, there is one, off yonder, that we've beenkeeping an eye on for the last hour; that big bay that is in such a badway. He'll be all the easier to finish. "

And he pointed to a horse that was dying of starvation, on the edge ofwhat had once been a field of beets. He had fallen on his flank, andevery now and then would raise his head and look about him pleadingly, with a deep inhalation that sounded like a sigh. 

"Ah, how long we have to wait!" grumbled Lapoulle, who was sufferingtorment from his fierce appetite. "I'll go and kill him--shall I?"

But Loubet stopped him. Much obliged! and have the Prussians down onthem, who had given notice that death would be the penalty for killing ahorse, fearing that the carcass would breed a pestilence. They must waituntil it was dark. And that was the reason why the four men were lurkingin the ditch, waiting, with glistening, hungry eyes fixed on the dyingbrute. 

"Corporal, " asked Pache, in a voice that faltered a little, "you havelots of ideas in your head; couldn't you kill him painlessly?"

Jean refused the cruel task with a gesture of disgust. What, kill thatpoor beast that was even then in its death agony! oh, no, no! His firstimpulse had been to fly and take Maurice with him, that neither ofthem might be concerned in the revolting butchery; but looking at hiscompanion and beholding him so pale and faint, he reproached himself forsuch an excess of sensibility. What were animals created for after all, _mon Dieu_, unless to afford sustenance to man! They could not allowthemselves to starve when there was food within reach. And it rejoicedhim to see Maurice cheer up a little at the prospect of eating; he saidin his easy, good-natured way:

"Faith, you're wrong there; I've no ideas in my head, and if he has gotto be killed without pain--"

"Oh! that's all one to me, " interrupted Lapoulle. "I'll show you. "

The two newcomers seated themselves in the ditch and joined the othersin their expectancy. Now and again one of the men would rise and makecertain that the horse was still there, its neck outstretched to catchthe cool exhalations of the Meuse and the last rays of the setting sun, as if bidding farewell to life. And when at last twilight crept slowlyo'er the scene the six men were erect upon their feet, impatient thatnight was so tardy in its coming, casting furtive, frightened looksabout them to see they were not observed. 

"Ah, _zut_!" exclaimed Chouteau, "the time is come!"

Objects were still discernible in the fields by the uncertain, mysterious light "between dog and wolf, " and Lapoulle went forwardfirst, followed by the five others. He had taken from the ditch a large, rounded boulder, and, with it in his two brawny hands, rushing upon thehorse, commenced to batter at his skull as with a club. At the secondblow, however, the horse, stung by the pain, attempted to get on hisfeet. Chouteau and Loubet had thrown themselves across his legs and wereendeavoring to hold him down, shouting to the others to help them. The poor brute's cries were almost human in their accent of terror anddistress; he struggled desperately to shake off his assailants, andwould have broken them like a reed had he not been half dead withinanition. The movements of his head prevented the blows from takingeffect; Lapoulle was unable to despatch him. 

"_Nom de Dieu!_ how hard his bones are! Hold him, somebody, until Ifinish him. "

Jean and Maurice stood looking at the scene in silent horror; they heardnot Chouteau's appeals for assistance; were powerless to raise a hand. And Pache, in a sudden outburst of piety and pity, dropped on his knees, joined his hands, and began to mumble the prayers that are repeated atthe bedside of the dying. 

"Merciful God, have pity on him. Let him, good Lord, depart in peace--"

Again Lapoulle struck ineffectually, with no other effect than todestroy an ear of the wretched creature, that threw back its head andgave utterance to a loud, shrill scream. 

"Hold on!" growled Chouteau; "this won't do; he'll get us all in thelockup. We must end the matter. Hold him fast, Loubet. "

He took from his pocket a penknife, a small affair of which the bladewas scarcely longer than a man's finger, and casting himself prone onthe animal's body and passing an arm about its neck, began to hackaway at the live flesh, cutting away great morsels, until he found andsevered the artery. He leaped quickly to one side; the blood spurtedforth in a torrent, as when the plug is removed from a fountain, whilethe feet stirred feebly and convulsive movements ran along the skin, succeeding one another like waves of the sea. It was near five minutesbefore the horse was dead. His great eyes, dilated wide and filled withmelancholy and affright, were fixed upon the wan-visaged men who stoodwaiting for him to die; then they grew dim and the light died from outthem. 

"Merciful God, " muttered Pache, still on his knees, "keep him in thyholy protection--succor him, Lord, and grant him eternal rest. "

Afterward, when the creature's movements had ceased, they were at a lossto know where the best cut lay and how they were to get at it. Loubet, who was something of a Jack-of-all-trades, showed them what was to bedone in order to secure the loin, but as he was a tyro at the butcheringbusiness and, moreover, had only his small penknife to work with, hequickly lost his way amid the warm, quivering flesh. And Lapoulle, in his impatience, having attempted to be of assistance by making anincision in the belly, for which there was no necessity whatever, thescene of bloodshed became truly sickening. They wallowed in the goreand entrails that covered the ground about them, like a pack of raveningwolves collected around the carcass of their prey, fleshing their keenfangs in it. 

"I don't know what cut that may be, " Loubet said at last, rising to hisfeet with a huge lump of meat in his hands, "but by the time we've eatenit, I don't believe any of us will be hungry. "

Jean and Maurice had averted their eyes in horror from the disgustingspectacle; still, however, the pangs of hunger were gnawing at theirvitals, and when the band slunk rapidly away, so as not to be caught inthe vicinity of the incriminating carcass, they followed it. Chouteauhad discovered three large beets, that had somehow been overlooked byprevious visitors to the field, and carried them off with him. Loubethad loaded the meat on Lapoulle's shoulders so as to have his own armsfree, while Pache carried the kettle that belonged to the squad, whichthey had brought with them on the chance of finding something to cook init. And the six men ran as if their lives were at stake, never stoppingto take breath, as if they heard the pursuers at their heels. 

Suddenly Loubet brought the others to a halt. 

"It's idiotic to run like this; let's decide where we shall go to cookthe stuff. "

Jean, who was beginning to recover his self-possession, proposed thequarries. They were only three hundred yards distant, and in them weresecret recesses in abundance where they could kindle a fire withoutbeing seen. When they reached the spot, however, difficulties of everydescription presented themselves. First, there was the question of wood;fortunately a laborer, who had been repairing the road, had gone homeand left his wheelbarrow behind him; Lapoulle quickly reduced it tofragments with the heel of his boot. Then there was no water to be hadthat was fit to drink; the hot sunshine had dried up all the pools ofrain-water. True there was a pump at the Tour a Glaire, but that was toofar away, and besides it was never accessible before midnight; the menforming in long lines with their bowls and porringers, only too happywhen, after waiting for hours, they could escape from the jam with theirsupply of the precious fluid unspilled. As for the few wells in theneighborhood, they had been dry for the last two days, and the bucketbrought up nothing save mud and slime. Their sole resource appeared tobe the water of the Meuse, which was parted from them by the road. 

"I'll take the kettle and go and fill it, " said Jean. 

The others objected. 

"No, no! We don't want to be poisoned; it is full of dead bodies!"

They spoke the truth. The Meuse was constantly bringing down corpsesof men and horses; they could be seen floating with the current at anymoment of the day, swollen and of a greenish hue, in the early stagesof decomposition. Often they were caught in the weeds and bushes on thebank, where they remained to poison the atmosphere, swinging to the tidewith a gentle, tremulous motion that imparted to them a semblance oflife. Nearly every soldier who had drunk that abominable water hadsuffered from nausea and colic, often succeeded afterward by dysentery. It seemed as if they must make up their mind to use it, however, asthere was no other; Maurice explained that there would be no danger indrinking it after it was boiled. 

"Very well, then; I'll go, " said Jean. And he started, taking Lapoullewith him to carry the kettle. 

By the time they got the kettle filled and on the fire it was quitedark. Loubet had peeled the beets and thrown them into the water tocook--a feast fit for the gods, he declared it would be--and fed thefire with fragments of the wheelbarrow, for they were all suffering sofrom hunger that they could have eaten the meat before the pot began toboil. Their huge shadows danced fantastically in the firelight on therocky walls of the quarry. Then they found it impossible longer torestrain their appetite, and threw themselves upon the unclean mess, tearing the flesh with eager, trembling fingers and dividing it amongthem, too impatient even to make use of the knife. But, famishing asthey were, their stomachs revolted; they felt the want of salt, theycould not swallow that tasteless, sickening broth, those chunks ofhalf-cooked, viscid meat that had a taste like clay. Some among themhad a fit of vomiting. Pache was very ill. Chouteau and Loubet heapedmaledictions on that infernal old nag, that had caused them such troubleto get him to the pot and then given them the colic. Lapoulle was theonly one among them who ate abundantly, but he was in a very badway that night when, with his three comrades, he returned to theirresting-place under the poplars by the canal. 

On their way back to camp Maurice, without uttering a word, tookadvantage of the darkness to seize Jean by the arm and drag him intoa by-path. Their comrades inspired him with unconquerable disgust; hethought he should like to go and sleep in the little wood where he hadspent his first night on the peninsula. It was a good idea, and Jeancommended it highly when he had laid himself down on the warm, dryground, under the shelter of the dense foliage. They remained thereuntil the sun was high in the heavens, and enjoyed a sound, refreshingslumber, which restored to them something of their strength. 

The following day was Thursday, but they had ceased to note the days;they were simply glad to observe that the weather seemed to be comingoff fine again. Jean overcame Maurice's repugnance and prevailed on himto return to the canal, to see if their regiment was not to move thatday. Not a day passed now but detachments of prisoners, a thousand totwelve hundred strong, were sent off to the fortresses in Germany. Theday but one before they had seen, drawn up in front of the Prussianheadquarters, a column of officers of various grades, who were going toPont-a-Mousson, there to take the railway. Everyone was possessed witha wild, feverish longing to get away from that camp where they had seensuch suffering. Ah! if it but might be their turn! And when they foundthe 106th still encamped on the bank of the canal, in the inevitabledisorder consequent upon such distress, their courage failed them andthey despaired. 

Jean and Maurice that day thought they saw a prospect of obtainingsomething to eat. All the morning a lively traffic had been going onbetween the prisoners and the Bavarians on the other side of the canal;the former would wrap their money in a handkerchief and toss it acrossto the opposite shore, the latter would return the handkerchief witha loaf of coarse brown bread, or a plug of their common, damp tobacco. Even soldiers who had no money were not debarred from participatingin this commerce, employing, instead of currency, their white uniformgloves, for which the Germans appeared to have a weakness. For two hourspackages were flying across the canal in its entire length under thisprimitive system of exchanges. But when Maurice dispatched his cravatwith a five-franc piece tied in it to the other bank, the Bavarian whowas to return him a loaf of bread gave it, whether from awkwardness ormalice, such an ineffectual toss that it fell in the water. The incidentelicited shouts of laughter from the Germans. Twice again Mauricerepeated the experiment, and twice his loaf went to feed the fishes. Atlast the Prussian officers, attracted by the uproar, came running up andprohibited their men from selling anything to the prisoners, threateningthem with dire penalties and punishments in case of disobedience. Thetraffic came to a sudden end, and Jean had hard work to pacify Maurice, who shook his fists at the scamps, shouting to them to give him back hisfive-franc pieces. 

This was another terrible day, notwithstanding the warm, brightsunshine. Twice the bugle sounded and sent Jean hurrying off to the shedwhence rations were supposed to be issued, but on each occasion he onlygot his toes trod on and his ribs racked in the crush. The Prussians, whose organization was so wonderfully complete, continued to manifestthe same brutal inattention to the necessities of the vanquished army. On the representations of Generals Douay and Lebrun, they had indeedsent in a few sheep as well as some wagon-loads of bread, but so littlecare was taken to guard them that the sheep were carried off bodily andthe wagons pillaged as soon as they reached the bridge, the consequenceof which was that the troops who were encamped a hundred yards furtheron were no better off than before; it was only the worst element, theplunderers and bummers, who benefited by the provision trains. Andthereon Jean, who, as he said, saw how the trick was done, broughtMaurice with him to the bridge to keep an eye on the victuals. 

It was four o'clock, and they had not had a morsel to eat all thatbeautiful bright Thursday, when suddenly their eyes were gladdened bythe sight of Delaherche. A few among the citizens of Sedan had withinfinite difficulty obtained permission to visit the prisoners, to whomthey carried provisions, and Maurice had on several occasions expressedhis surprise at his failure to receive any tidings of his sister. Assoon as they recognized Delaherche in the distance, carrying a largebasket and with a loaf of bread under either arm, they darted forwardfast as their legs could carry them, but even thus they were too late;a crowding, jostling mob closed in, and in the confusion the dazedmanufacturer was relieved of his basket and one of his loaves, whichvanished from his sight so expeditiously that he was never able to tellthe manner of their disappearance. 

"Ah, my poor friends!" he stammered, utterly crestfallen in hisbewilderment and stupefaction, he who but a moment before had comethrough the gate with a smile on his lips and an air of good-fellowship, magnanimously forgetting his superior advantages in his desire forpopularity. 

Jean had taken possession of the remaining loaf and saved it from thehungry crew, and while he and Maurice, seated by the roadside, weremaking great inroads in it, Delaherche opened his budget of news fortheir benefit. His wife, the Lord be praised! was very well, but he wasgreatly alarmed for the colonel, who had sunk into a condition of deepprostration, although his mother continued to bear him company frommorning until night. 

"And my sister?" Maurice inquired. 

"Ah, yes! your sister; true. She insisted on coming with me; it wasshe who brought the two loaves of bread. She had to remain over yonder, though, on the other side of the canal; the sentries wouldn't let herpass the gate. You know the Prussians have strictly prohibited thepresence of women in the peninsula. "

Then he spoke of Henriette, and of her fruitless attempts to see herbrother and come to his assistance. Once in Sedan chance had broughther face to face with Cousin Gunther, the man who was captain in thePrussian Guards. He had passed her with his haughty, superciliousair, pretending not to recognize her. She, also, with a sensationof loathing, as if she were in the presence of one of her husband'smurderers, had hurried on with quickened steps; then, with a suddenchange of purpose for which she could not account, had turned back andtold him all the manner of Weiss's death, in harsh accents of reproach. And he, thus learning how horribly a relative had met his fate, hadtaken the matter coolly; it was the fortune of war; the same thing mighthave happened to himself. His face, rendered stoically impassive by thediscipline of the soldier, had barely betrayed the faintest evidenceof interest. After that, when she informed him that her brother wasa prisoner and besought him to use his influence to obtain for her anopportunity of seeing him, he had excused himself on the ground that hewas powerless in the matter; the instructions were explicit and mightnot be disobeyed. He appeared to place the regimental orderly book ona par with the Bible. She left him with the clearly defined impressionthat he believed he was in the country for the sole purpose of sittingin judgment on the French people, with all the intolerance and arroganceof the hereditary enemy, swollen by his personal hatred for the nationwhom it had devolved on him to chastise. 

"And now, " said Delaherche in conclusion, "you won't have to go to bedsupperless to-night; you have had a little something to eat. The worstis that I am afraid I shall not be able to secure another pass. "

He asked them if there was anything he could do for them outside, andobligingly consented to take charge of some pencil-written lettersconfided to him by other soldiers, for the Bavarians had more than oncebeen seen to laugh as they lighted their pipes with missives which theyhad promised to forward. Then, when Jean and Maurice had accompanied himto the gate, he exclaimed:

"Look! over yonder, there's Henriette! Don't you see her waving herhandkerchief?"

True enough, among the crowd beyond the line of sentinels theydistinguished a little, thin, pale face, a white dot that trembled inthe sunshine. Both were deeply affected, and, with moist eyes, raisingtheir hands above their head, answered her salutation by waving themfrantically in the air. 

The following day was Friday, and it was then that Maurice felt that hiscup of horror was full to overflowing. After another night of tranquilslumber in the little wood he was so fortunate as to secure anothermeal, Jean having come across an old woman at the Chateau of Villettewho was selling bread at ten francs the pound. But that day theywitnessed a spectacle of which the horror remained imprinted on theirminds for many weeks and months. 

The day before Chouteau had noticed that Pache had ceased complainingand was going about with a careless, satisfied air, as a man might dowho had dined well. He immediately jumped at the conclusion that the slyfox must have a concealed treasure somewhere, the more so that he hadseen him absent himself for near an hour that morning and come back witha smile lurking on his face and his mouth filled with unswallowedfood. It must be that he had had a windfall, had probably joined somemarauding party and laid in a stock of provisions. And Chouteau laboredwith Loubet and Lapoulle to stir up bad feeling against the comrade, with the latter more particularly. _Hein!_ wasn't he a dirty dog, if hehad something to eat, not to go snacks with the comrades! He ought tohave a lesson that he would remember, for his selfishness. 

"To-night we'll keep a watch on him, don't you see. We'll learn whetherhe dares to stuff himself on the sly, when so many poor devils arestarving all around him. "

"Yes, yes, that's the talk! we'll follow him, " Lapoulle angrilydeclared. "We'll see about it!"

He doubled his fists; he was like a crazy man whenever the subject ofeating was mentioned in his presence. His enormous appetite caused himto suffer more than the others; his torment at times was such that hehad been known to stuff his mouth with grass. For more than thirty-sixhours, since the night when they had supped on horseflesh and he hadcontracted a terrible dysentery in consequence, he had been withoutfood, for he was so little able to look out for himself that, notwithstanding his bovine strength, whenever he joined the others in amarauding raid he never got his share of the booty. He would have beenwilling to give his blood for a pound of bread. 

As it was beginning to be dark Pache stealthily made his way to the Toura Glaire and slipped into the park, while the three others cautiouslyfollowed him at a distance. 

"It won't do to let him suspect anything, " said Chouteau. "Be on yourguard in case he should look around. "

But when he had advanced another hundred paces Pache evidently had noidea there was anyone near, for he began to hurry forward at a swiftgait, not so much as casting a look behind. They had no difficulty intracking him to the adjacent quarries, where they fell on him as he wasin the act of removing two great flat stones, to take from the cavitybeneath part of a loaf of bread. It was the last of his store; he hadenough left for one more meal. 

"You dirty, sniveling priest's whelp!" roared Lapoulle, "so that is whyyou sneak away from us! Give me that; it's my share!"

Why should he give his bread? Weak and puny as he was, his slight formdilated with anger, while he clutched the loaf against his bosom withall the strength he could master. For he also was hungry. 

"Let me alone. It's mine. "

Then, at sight of Lapoulle's raised fist, he broke away and ran, slidingdown the steep banks of the quarries, making his way across the barefields in the direction of Donchery, the three others after him inhot pursuit. He gained on them, however, being lighter than they, andpossessed by such overmastering fear, so determined to hold on towhat was his property, that his speed seemed to rival the wind. He hadalready covered more than half a mile and was approaching the littlewood on the margin of the stream when he encountered Jean and Maurice, who were on their way back to their resting-place for the night. Headdressed them an appealing, distressful cry as he passed; while they, astounded by the wild hunt that went fleeting by, stood motionlessat the edge of a field, and thus it was that they beheld the ensuingtragedy. 

As luck would have it, Pache tripped over a stone and fell. In aninstant the others were on top of him--shouting, swearing, their passionroused to such a pitch of frenzy that they were like wolves that had rundown their prey. 

"Give me that, " yelled Lapoulle, "or by G-d I'll kill you!"

And he had raised his fist again when Chouteau, taking from his pocketthe penknife with which he had slaughtered the horse and opening it, placed it in his hand. 

"Here, take it! the knife!"

But Jean meantime had come hurrying up, desirous to prevent the mischiefhe saw brewing, losing his wits like the rest of them, indiscreetlyspeaking of putting them all in the guardhouse; whereon Loubet, with anugly laugh, told him he must be a Prussian, since they had no longer anycommanders, and the Prussians were the only ones who issued orders. 

"_Nom de Dieu!_" Lapoulle repeated, "will you give me that?"

Despite the terror that blanched his cheeks Pache hugged the bread moreclosely to his bosom, with the obstinacy of the peasant who never cedesa jot or tittle of that which is his. 

"No!"

Then in a second all was over; the brute drove the knife into theother's throat with such violence that the wretched man did not evenutter a cry. His arms relaxed, the bread fell to the ground, into thepool of blood that had spurted from the wound. 

At sight of the imbecile, uncalled-for murder, Maurice, who had untilthen been a silent spectator of the scene, appeared as if stricken bya sudden fit of madness. He raved and gesticulated, shaking his fist inthe face of the three men and calling them murderers, assassins, with aviolence that shook his frame from head to foot. But Lapoulle seemednot even to hear him. Squatted on the ground beside the corpse, he wasdevouring the bloodstained bread, an expression of stupid ferocity onhis face, with a loud grinding of his great jaws, while Chouteau andLoubet, seeing him thus terrible in the gratification of his wild-beastappetite, did not even dare claim their portion. 

By this time night had fallen, a pleasant night with a clear skythick-set with stars, and Maurice and Jean, who had regained the shelterof their little wood, presently perceived Lapoulle wandering up and downthe river bank. The two others had vanished, had doubtless returned tothe encampment by the canal, their mind troubled by reason of the corpsethey left behind them. He, on the other hand, seemed to dread going torejoin the comrades. When he was more himself and his brutish, sluggishintellect showed him the full extent of his crime, he had evidentlyexperienced a twinge of anguish that made motion a necessity, and notdaring to return to the interior of the peninsula, where he would haveto face the body of his victim, had sought the bank of the stream, wherehe was now tramping to and fro with uneven, faltering steps. What wasgoing on within the recesses of that darkened mind that guided theactions of that creature, so degraded as to be scarce higher than theanimal? Was it the awakening of remorse? or only the fear lest his crimemight be discovered? He could not remain there; he paced his beat asa wild beast shambles up and down its cage, with a sudden andever-increasing longing to fly, a longing that ached and pained like aphysical hurt, from which he felt he should die, could he do nothingto satisfy it. Quick, quick, he must fly, must fly at once, from thatprison where he had slain a fellow-being. And yet, the coward in him, itmay be, gaining the supremacy, he threw himself on the ground, and for along time lay crouched among the herbage. 

And Maurice said to Jean in his horror and disgust:

"See here, I cannot remain longer in this place; I tell you plainly Ishould go mad. I am surprised that the physical part of me holds out asit does; my bodily health is not so bad, but the mind is going; yes! itis going, I am certain of it. If you leave me another day in this hell Iam lost. I beg you, let us go away, let us start at once!"

And he went on to propound the wildest schemes for getting away. Theywould swim the Meuse, would cast themselves on the sentries and stranglethem with a cord he had in his pocket, or would beat out their brainswith rocks, or would buy them over with the money they had left and dontheir uniform to pass through the Prussian lines. 

"My dear boy, be silent!" Jean sadly answered; "it frightens me to hearyou talk so wildly. Is there any reason in what you say, are any of yourplans feasible? Wait; to-morrow we'll see about it. Be silent!"

He, although his heart, no less than his friend's, was wrung by thehorrors that surrounded them on every side, had preserved his mentalbalance amid the debilitating effects of famine, among the grislyvisions of that existence than which none could approach more nearlythe depth of human misery. And as his companion's frenzy continued toincrease and he talked of casting himself into the Meuse, he was obligedto restrain him, even to the point of using violence, scolding andsupplicating, tears standing in his eyes. Then suddenly he said:

"See! look there!"

A splash was heard coming from the river, and they saw it was Lapoulle, who had finally decided to attempt to escape by the stream, firstremoving his capote in order that it might not hinder his movements; andhis white shirt made a spot of brightness that was distinctly visibleupon the dusky bosom of the moving water. He was swimming up-streamwith a leisurely movement, doubtless on the lookout for a place wherehe might land with safety, while on the opposite shore there was nodifficulty in discerning the shadowy forms of the sentries, erect andmotionless in the semi-obscurity. There came a sudden flash that torethe black veil of night, a report that went with bellowing echoes andspent itself among the rocks of Montimont. The water boiled and bubbledfor an instant, as it does under the wild efforts of an unpracticedoarsman. And that was all; Lapoulle's body, the white spot on the duskystream, floated away, lifeless, upon the tide. 

The next day, which was Saturday, Jean aroused Maurice as soon as it wasday and they returned to the camp of the 106th, with the hope that theymight move that day, but there were no orders; it seemed as though theregiment's existence were forgotten. Many of the troops had been sentaway, the peninsula was being depopulated, and sickness was terriblyprevalent among those who were left behind. For eight long days diseasehad been germinating in that hell on earth; the rains had ceased, butthe blazing, scorching sunlight had only wrought a change of evils. The excessive heat completed the exhaustion of the men and gave tothe numerous cases of dysentery an alarmingly epidemic character. The excreta of that army of sick poisoned the air with their noxiousemanations. No one could approach the Meuse or the canal, owing to theoverpowering stench that rose from the bodies of drowned soldiers andhorses that lay festering among the weeds. And the horses, that droppedin the fields from inanition, were decomposing so rapidly and formingsuch a fruitful source of pestilence that the Prussians, commencingto be alarmed on their own account, had provided picks and shovels andforced the prisoners to bury them. 

That day, however, was the last on which they suffered from famine. Astheir numbers were so greatly reduced and provisions kept pouring infrom every quarter, they passed at a single bound from the extreme ofdestitution to the most abundant plenty. Bread, meat, and wine, even, were to be had without stint; eating went on from morning till night, until they were ready to drop. Darkness descended, and they wereeating still; in some quarters the gorging was continued until the nextmorning. To many it proved fatal. 

That whole day Jean made it his sole business to keep watch overMaurice, who he saw was ripe for some rash action. He had been drinking;he spoke of his intention of cuffing a Prussian officer in order that hemight be sent away. And at night Jean, having discovered an unoccupiedcorner in the cellar of one of the outbuildings at the Tour a Glaire, thought it advisable to go and sleep there with his companion, thinkingthat a good night's rest would do him good, but it turned out to bethe worst night in all their experience, a night of terror duringwhich neither of them closed an eye. The cellar was inhabited by othersoldiers; lying in the same corner were two who were dying of dysentery, and as soon as it was fairly dark they commenced to relieve theirsufferings by moans and inarticulate cries, a hideous death-rattle thatwent on uninterruptedly until morning. These sounds finally became sohorrific there in the intense darkness, that the others who were restingthere, wishing to sleep, allowed their anger to get the better of themand shouted to the dying men to be silent. They did not hear; the rattlewent on, drowning all other sounds, while from without came the drunkenclamor of those who were eating and drinking still, with insatiableappetite. 

Then commenced for Maurice a period of agony unspeakable. He would havefled from the awful sounds that brought the cold sweat of anguish ingreat drops to his brow, but when he arose and attempted to grope hisway out he trod on the limbs of those extended there, and finally fellto the ground, a living man immured there in the darkness with thedying. He made no further effort to escape from this last trial. Theentire frightful disaster arose before his mind, from the time of theirdeparture from Rheims to the crushing defeat of Sedan. It seemed tohim that in that night, in the inky blackness of that cellar, wherethe groans of two dying soldiers drove sleep from the eyelids of theircomrades, the ordeal of the army of Chalons had reached its climax. Ateach of the stations of its passion the army of despair, the expiatoryband, driven forward to the sacrifice, had spent its life-blood inatonement for the faults of others; and now, unhonored amid disaster, covered with contumely, it was enduring martyrdom in that cruelscourging, the severity of which it had done nothing to deserve. He feltit was too much; he was heartsick with rage and grief, hungering forjustice, burning with a fierce desire to be avenged on destiny. 

When daylight appeared one of the soldiers was dead, the other waslingering on in protracted agony. 

"Come along, little one, " Jean gently said; "we'll go and get a breathof fresh air; it will do us good. "

But when the pair emerged into the pure, warm morning air and, pursuingthe river bank, were near the village of Iges, Maurice grew flightierstill, and extending his hand toward the vast expanse of sunlitbattlefield, the plateau of Illy in front of them, Saint-Menges to theleft, the wood of la Garenne to the right, he cried:

"No, I cannot, I cannot bear to look on it! The sight pierces my heartand drives me mad. Take me away, oh! take me away, at once, at once!"

It was Sunday once more; the bells were pealing from the steeples ofSedan, while the music of a German military band floated on the air inthe distance. There were still no orders for their regiment to move, andJean, alarmed to see Maurice's deliriousness increasing, determined toattempt the execution of a plan that he had been maturing in his mindfor the last twenty-four hours. On the road before the tents of thePrussians another regiment, the 5th of the line, was drawn up inreadiness for departure. Great confusion prevailed in the column, and anofficer, whose knowledge of the French language was imperfect, had beenunable to complete the roster of the prisoners. Then the two friends, having first torn from their uniform coat the collar and buttons inorder that the number might not betray their identity, quietly tooktheir place in the ranks and soon had the satisfaction of crossing thebridge and leaving the chain of sentries behind them. The same idea musthave presented itself to Loubet and Chouteau, for they caught sight ofthem somewhat further to the rear, peering anxiously about them with theguilty eyes of murderers. 

Ah, what comfort there was for them in that first blissful moment!Outside their prison the sunlight was brighter, the air more bracing; itwas like a resurrection, a bright renewal of all their hopes. Whateverevil fortune might have in store for them, they dreaded it not; theysnapped their fingers at it in their delight at having seen the last ofthe horrors of Camp Misery. 

III. 

That morning Maurice and Jean listened for the last time to the gay, ringing notes of the French bugles, and now they were on their way toPont-a-Mousson, marching in the ranks of the convoy of prisoners, whichwas guarded front and rear by platoons of Prussian infantry, whilea file of men with fixed bayonets flanked the column on either side. Whenever they came to a German post they heard only the lugubrious, ear-piercing strains of the Prussian trumpets. 

Maurice was glad to observe that the column took the left-hand road andwould pass through Sedan; perhaps he would have an opportunity of seeinghis sister Henriette. All the pleasure, however, that he had experiencedat his release from that foul cesspool where he had spent nine days ofagony was dashed to the ground and destroyed during the three-mile marchfrom the peninsula of Iges to the city. It was but another form of hisold distress to behold that array of prisoners, shuffling timorouslythrough the dust of the road, like a flock of sheep with the dog attheir heels. There is no spectacle in all the world more pitiful thanthat of a column of vanquished troops being marched off into captivityunder guard of their conquerors, without arms, their empty hands hangingidly at their sides; and these men, clad in rags and tatters, besmearedwith the filth in which they had lain for more than a week, gaunt andwasted after their long fast, were more like vagabonds than soldiers;they resembled loathsome, horribly dirty tramps, whom the gendarmeswould have picked up along the highways and consigned to the lockup. As they passed through the Faubourg of Torcy, where men paused on thesidewalks and women came to their doors to regard them with mournful, compassionate interest, the blush of shame rose to Maurice's cheek, hehung his head and a bitter taste came to his mouth. 

Jean, whose epidermis was thicker and mind more practical, thought onlyof their stupidity in not having brought off with them a loaf of breadapiece. In the hurry of their abrupt departure they had even gone offwithout breakfasting, and hunger soon made its presence felt by thenerveless sensation in their legs. Others among the prisoners appearedto be in the same boat, for they held out money, begging the people ofthe place to sell them something to eat. There was one, an extremelytall man, apparently very ill, who displayed a gold piece, extending itabove the heads of the soldiers of the escort; and he was almost franticthat he could purchase nothing. Just at that time Jean, who had beenkeeping his eyes open, perceived a bakery a short distance ahead, beforewhich were piled a dozen loaves of bread; he immediately got his moneyready and, as the column passed, tossed the baker a five-franc piece andendeavored to secure two of the loaves; then, when the Prussian whowas marching at his side pushed him back roughly into the ranks, heprotested, demanding that he be allowed to recover his money from thebaker. But at that juncture the captain commanding the detachment, ashort, bald-headed man with a brutal expression of face, came hasteningup; he raised his revolver over Jean's head as if about to strike himwith the butt, declaring with an oath that he would brain the first manthat dared to lift a finger. And the rest of the captives continued toshamble on, stirring up the dust of the road with their shuffling feet, with eyes averted and shoulders bowed, cowed and abjectly submissive asa drove of cattle. 

"Oh! how good it would seem to slap the fellow's face just once!"murmured Maurice, as if he meant it. "How I should like to let him havejust one from the shoulder, and drive his teeth down his dirty throat!"

And during the remainder of their march he could not endure to look onthat captain, with his ugly, supercilious face. 

They had entered Sedan and were crossing the Pont de Meuse, and thescenes of violence and brutality became more numerous than ever. A womandarted forward and would have embraced a boyish young sergeant--likelyshe was his mother--and was repulsed with a blow from a musket-butt thatfelled her to the ground. On the Place Turenne the guards hustled andmaltreated some citizens because they cast provisions to the prisoners. In the Grande Rue one of the convoy fell in endeavoring to secure abottle that a lady extended to him, and was assisted to his feet withkicks. For a week now Sedan had witnessed the saddening spectacle ofthe defeated driven like cattle through its streets, and seemed no moreaccustomed to it than at the beginning; each time a fresh detachmentpassed the city was stirred to its very depths by a movement of pity andindignation. 

Jean had recovered his equanimity; his thoughts, like Maurice's, reverted to Henriette, and the idea occurred to him that they might seeDelaherche somewhere among the throng. He gave his friend a nudge of theelbow. 

"Keep your eyes open if we pass through their street presently, willyou?"

They had scarce more than struck into the Rue Maqua, indeed, when theybecame aware of several pairs of eyes turned on the column from oneof the tall windows of the factory, and as they drew nearer recognizedDelaherche and his wife Gilberte, their elbows resting on the railingof the balcony, and behind them the tall, rigid form of old MadameDelaherche. They had a supply of bread with them, and the manufacturerwas tossing the loaves down into the hands that were upstretched withtremulous eagerness to receive them. Maurice saw at once that his sisterwas not there, while Jean anxiously watched the flying loaves, fearingthere might none be left for them. They both had raised their arms andwere waving them frantically above their head, shouting meanwhile withall the force of their lungs:

"Here we are! This way, this way!"

The Delaherches seemed delighted to see them in the midst of theirsurprise. Their faces, pallid with emotion, suddenly brightened, and they displayed by the warmth of their gestures the pleasure theyexperienced in the encounter. There was one solitary loaf left, whichGilberte insisted on throwing with her own hands, and pitched it intoJean's extended arms in such a charmingly awkward way that she gave awinsome laugh at her own expense. Maurice, unable to stop on account ofthe pressure from the rear, turned his head and shouted, in a tone ofanxious inquiry:

"And Henriette? Henriette?"

Delaherche replied with a long farrago, but his voice was inaudible inthe shuffling tramp of so many feet. He seemed to understand that theyoung man had failed to catch his meaning, for he gesticulated like asemaphore; there was one gesture in particular that he repeated severaltimes, extending his arm with a sweeping motion toward the south, apparently intending to convey the idea of some point in the remotedistance: Off there, away off there. Already the head of the column waswheeling into the Rue du Minil, the facade of the factory was lost tosight, together with the kindly faces of the three Delaherches; the lastthe two friends saw of them was the fluttering of the white handkerchiefwith which Gilberte waved them a farewell. 

"What did he say?" asked Jean. 

Maurice, in a fever of anxiety, was still looking to the rear wherethere was nothing to be seen. "I don't know; I could not understand him;I shall have no peace of mind until I hear from her. "

And the trailing, shambling line crept slowly onward, the Prussiansurging on the weary men with the brutality of conquerors; the columnleft the city by the Minil gate in straggling, long-drawn array, hastening their steps, like sheep at whose heels the dogs are snapping. 

When they passed through Bazeilles Jean and Maurice thought of Weiss, and cast their eyes about in an effort to distinguish the site of thelittle house that had been defended with such bravery. While theywere at Camp Misery they had heard the woeful tale of slaughter andconflagration that had blotted the pretty village from existence, andthe abominations that they now beheld exceeded all they had dreamed ofor imagined. At the expiration of twelve days the ruins were smokingstill; the tottering walls had fallen in, there were not ten housesstanding. It afforded them some small comfort, however, to meet aprocession of carts and wheelbarrows loaded with Bavarian helmets andmuskets that had been collected after the conflict. That evidence of thechastisement that had been inflicted on those murderers and incendiarieswent far toward mitigating the affliction of defeat. 

The column was to halt at Douzy to give the men an opportunity to eatbreakfast. It was not without much suffering that they reached thatplace; already the prisoners' strength was giving out, exhausted as theywere by their ten days of fasting. Those who the day before had availedof the abundant supplies to gorge themselves were seized with vertigo, their enfeebled legs refused to support their weight, and theirgluttony, far from restoring their lost strength, was a further sourceof weakness to them. The consequence was that, when the train was haltedin a meadow to the left of the village, these poor creatures flungthemselves upon the ground with no desire to eat. Wine was wanting; somecharitable women who came, bringing a few bottles, were driven off bythe sentries. One of them in her affright fell and sprained her ankle, and there ensued a painful scene of tears and hysterics, during whichthe Prussians confiscated the bottles and drank their contents amidjeers and insulting laughter. This tender compassion of the peasants forthe poor soldiers who were being led away into captivity was manifestedconstantly along the route, while it was said the harshness theydisplayed toward the generals amounted almost to cruelty. At that sameDouzy, only a few days previously, the villagers had hooted and revileda number of paroled officers who were on their way to Pont-a-Mousson. The roads were not safe for general officers; men wearing theblouse--escaped soldiers, or deserters, it may be--fell on them withpitch-forks and endeavored to take their life as traitors, credulouslypinning their faith to that legend of bargain and sale which, eventwenty years later, was to continue to shed its opprobrium upon thoseleaders who had commanded armies in that campaign. 

Maurice and Jean ate half their bread, and were so fortunate as to havea mouthful of brandy with which to wash it down, thanks to the kindnessof a worthy old farmer. When the order was given to resume theiradvance, however, the distress throughout the convoy was extreme. Theywere to halt for the night at Mouzon, and although the march was a shortone, it seemed as if it would tax the men's strength more severelythan they could bear; they could not get on their feet without givingutterance to cries of pain, so stiff did their tired legs become themoment they stopped to rest. Many removed their shoes to relieve theirgalled and bleeding feet. Dysentery continued to rage; a man fell beforethey had gone half a mile, and they had to prop him against a wall andleave him. A little further on two others sank at the foot of a hedge, and it was night before an old woman came along and picked them up. Allwere stumbling, tottering, and dragging themselves along, supportingtheir forms with canes, which the Prussians, perhaps in derision, hadsuffered them to cut at the margin of a wood. They were a stragglingarray of tramps and beggars, covered with sores, haggard, emaciated, andfootsore; a sight to bring tears to the eyes of the most stony-hearted. And the guards continued to be as brutally strict as ever; those who forany purpose attempted to leave the ranks were driven back with blows, and the platoon that brought up the rear had orders to prod with theirbayonets those who hung back. A sergeant having refused to go further, the captain summoned two of his men and instructed them to seize him, one by either arm, and in this manner the wretched man was dragged overthe ground until he agreed to walk. And what made the whole thing morebitter and harder to endure was the utter insignificance of that littlepimply-faced, bald-headed officer, so insufferably consequential in hisbrutality, who took advantage of his knowledge of French to vituperatethe prisoners in it in curt, incisive words that cut and stung like thelash of a whip. 

"Oh!" Maurice furiously exclaimed, "to get the puppy in my hands anddrain him of his blood, drop by drop!"

His powers of endurance were almost exhausted, but it was his rage thathe had to choke down, even more than his fatigue, that was cause ofhis suffering. Everything exasperated him and set on edge his tinglingnerves; the harsh notes of the Prussian trumpets particularly, whichinspired him with a desire to scream each time he heard them. He felt heshould never reach the end of their cruel journey without some outbreakthat would bring down on him the utmost severity of the guard. Even now, when traversing the smallest hamlets, he suffered horribly and feltas if he should die with shame to behold the eyes of the women fixedpityingly on him; what would it be when they should enter Germany, andthe populace of the great cities should crowd the streets to laugh andjeer at them as they passed? And he pictured to himself the cattle carsinto which they would be crowded for transportation, the discomforts andhumiliations they would have to suffer on the journey, the dismal lifein German fortresses under the leaden, wintry sky. No, no; he would havenone of it; better to take the risk of leaving his bones by the roadsideon French soil than go and rot off yonder, for months and months, perhaps, in the dark depths of a casemate. 

"Listen, " he said below his breath to Jean, who was walking at his side;"we will wait until we come to a wood; then we'll break through theguards and run for it among the trees. The Belgian frontier is not faraway; we shall have no trouble in finding someone to guide us to it. "

Jean, accustomed as he was to look at things coolly and calculatechances, put his veto on the mad scheme, although he, too, in hisrevolt, was beginning to meditate the possibilities of an escape. 

"Have you taken leave of your senses! the guard will fire on us, and weshall both be killed. "

But Maurice replied there was a chance the soldiers might not hit them, and then, after all, if their aim should prove true, it would not matterso very much. 

"Very well!" rejoined Jean, "but what is going to become of usafterward, dressed in uniform as we are? You know perfectly well thatthe country is swarming in every direction with Prussian troops; wecould not go far unless we had other clothes to put on. No, no, my lad, it's too risky; I'll not let you attempt such an insane project. "

And he took the young man's arm and held it pressed against his side, as if they were mutually sustaining each other, continuing meanwhile tochide and soothe him in a tone that was at once rough and affectionate. 

Just then the sound of a whispered conversation close behind them causedthem to turn and look around. It was Chouteau and Loubet, who had leftthe peninsula of Iges that morning at the same time as they, and whomthey had managed to steer clear of until the present moment. Now thetwo worthies were close at their heels, and Chouteau must have overheardMaurice's words, his plan for escaping through the mazes of a forest, for he had adopted it on his own behalf. His breath was hot upon theirneck as he murmured:

"Say, comrades, count us in on that. That's a capital idea of yours, toskip the ranch. Some of the boys have gone already, and sure we're notgoing to be such fools as to let those bloody pigs drag us away likedogs into their infernal country. What do you say, eh? Shall we fourmake a break for liberty?"

Maurice's excitement was rising to fever-heat again; Jean turned andsaid to the tempter:

"If you are so anxious to get away, why don't you go? there's nothing toprevent you. What are you up to, any way?"

He flinched a little before the corporal's direct glance, and allowedthe true motive of his proposal to escape him. 

"_Dame_! it would be better that four should share the undertaking. Oneor two of us might have a chance of getting off. "

Then Jean, with an emphatic shake of the head, refused to have anythingwhatever to do with the matter; he distrusted the gentleman, he said, as he was afraid he would play them some of his dirty tricks. He had toexert all his authority with Maurice to retain him on his side, forat that very moment an opportunity presented itself for attempting theenterprise; they were passing the border of a small but very dense wood, separated from the road only by the width of a field that was covered bya thick growth of underbrush. Why should they not dash across thatfield and vanish in the thicket? was there not safety for them in thatdirection?

Loubet had so far said nothing. His mind was made up, however, that hewas not going to Germany to run to seed in one of their dungeons, andhis nose, mobile as a hound's, was sniffing the atmosphere, his shiftyeyes were watching for the favorable moment. He would trust to his legsand his mother wit, which had always helped him out of his scrapes thusfar. His decision was quickly made. 

"Ah, _zut_! I've had enough of it; I'm off!"

He broke through the line of the escort, and with a single bound was inthe field, Chouteau following his example and running at his side. Twoof the Prussian soldiers immediately started in pursuit, but the othersseemed dazed, and it did not occur to them to send a ball after thefugitives. The entire episode was so soon over that it was not easy tonote its different phases. Loubet dodged and doubled among the bushesand it appeared as if he would certainly succeed in getting off, whileChouteau, less nimble, was on the point of being captured, but thelatter, summoning up all his energies in a supreme burst of speed, caught up with his comrade and dexterously tripped him; and while thetwo Prussians were lumbering up to secure the fallen man, the otherdarted into the wood and vanished. The guard, finally remembering thatthey had muskets, fired a few ineffectual shots, and there was someattempt made to search the thicket, which resulted in nothing. 

Meantime the two soldiers were pummeling poor Loubet, who had notregained his feet. The captain came running up, beside himself withanger, and talked of making an example, and with this encouragementkicks and cuffs and blows from musket-butts continued to rain down uponthe wretched man with such fury that when at last they stood him onhis feet he was found to have an arm broken and his skull fractured. Apeasant came along, driving a cart, in which he was placed, but he diedbefore reaching Mouzon. 

"You see, " was all that Jean said to Maurice. 

The two friends cast a look in the direction of the wood thatsufficiently expressed their sentiments toward the scoundrel who hadgained his freedom by such base means, while their hearts were stirredwith feelings of deepest compassion for the poor devil whom he had madehis victim, a guzzler and a toper, who certainly did not amount to much, but a merry, good-natured fellow all the same, and nobody's fool. And that was always the way with those who kept bad company, Jeanmoralizingly observed: they might be very fly, but sooner or later abigger rascal was sure to come along and make a meal of them. 

Notwithstanding this terrible lesson Maurice, upon reaching Mouzon, wasstill possessed by his unalterable determination to attempt an escape. The prisoners were in such an exhausted condition when they reached theplace that the Prussians had to assist them to set up the few tents thatwere placed at their disposal. The camp was formed near the town, on lowand marshy ground, and the worst of the business was that anotherconvoy having occupied the spot the day before, the field was absolutelyinvisible under the superincumbent filth; it was no better than acommon cesspool, of unimaginable foulness. The sole means the men had ofself-protection was to scatter over the ground some large flat stones, of which they were so fortunate as to find a number in the vicinity. By way of compensation they had a somewhat less hard time of it thatevening; the strictness of their guardians was relaxed a little once thecaptain had disappeared, doubtless to seek the comforts of an inn. Thesentries began by winking at the irregularity of the proceeding whensome children came along and commenced to toss fruit, apples and pears, over their heads to the prisoners; the next thing was they allowed thepeople of the neighborhood to enter the lines, so that in a short timethe camp was swarming with impromptu merchants, men and women, offeringfor sale bread, wine, cigars, even. Those who had money had no troublein supplying their needs so far as eating, drinking, and smoking wereconcerned. A bustling animation prevailed in the dim twilight; it waslike a corner of the market place in a town where a fair is being held. 

But Maurice drew Jean behind their tent and again said to him in hisnervous, flighty way:

"I can't stand it; I shall make an effort to get away as soon as it isdark. To-morrow our course will take us away from the frontier; it willbe too late. "

"Very well, we'll try it, " Jean replied, his powers of resistanceexhausted, his imagination, too, seduced by the pleasing idea offreedom. "They can't do more than kill us. "

After that he began to scrutinize more narrowly the venders whosurrounded him on every side. There were some among the comrades who hadsucceeded in supplying themselves with blouse and trousers, and it wasreported that some of the charitable people of the place had regularstocks of garments on hand, designed to assist prisoners in escaping. And almost immediately his attention was attracted to a pretty girl, atall blonde of sixteen with a pair of magnificent eyes, who had on herarm a basket containing three loaves of bread. She was not crying herwares like the rest; an anxious, engaging smile played on her red lips, her manner was hesitating. He looked her steadily in the face; theirglances met and for an instant remained confounded. Then she came up, with the embarrassed smile of a girl unaccustomed to such business. 

"Do you wish to buy some bread?"

He made no reply, but questioned her by an imperceptible movement ofthe eyelids. On her answering yes, by an affirmative nod of the head, heasked in a very low tone of voice:

"There is clothing?"

"Yes, under the loaves. "

Then she began to cry her merchandise aloud: "Bread! bread! who'll buymy bread?" But when Maurice would have slipped a twenty-franc piece intoher fingers she drew back her hand abruptly and ran away, leaving thebasket with them. The last they saw of her was the happy, tender look inher pretty eyes, as in the distance she turned and smiled on them. 

When they were in possession of the basket Jean and Maurice founddifficulties staring them in the face. They had strayed away from theirtent, and in their agitated condition felt they should never succeed infinding it again. Where were they to bestow themselves? and how effecttheir change of garments? It seemed to them that the eyes of the entireassemblage were focused on the basket, which Jean carried with anawkward air, as if it contained dynamite, and that its contents mustbe plainly visible to everyone. It would not do to waste time, however;they must be up and doing. They stepped into the first vacant tent theycame to, where each of them hurriedly slipped on a pair of trousers anddonned a blouse, having first deposited their discarded uniforms in thebasket, which they placed on the ground in a dark corner of the tent andabandoned to its fate. There was a circumstance that gave them no smalluneasiness, however; they found only one head-covering, a knitted woolencap, which Jean insisted Maurice should wear. The former, fearing hisbare-headedness might excite suspicion, was hanging about the precinctsof the camp on the lookout for a covering of some description, when itoccurred to him to purchase his hat from an extremely dirty old man whowas selling cigars. 

"Brussels cigars, three sous apiece, two for five!"

Customs regulations were in abeyance since the battle of Sedan, and theimports of Belgian merchandise had been greatly stimulated. The old manhad been making a handsome profit from his traffic, but that did notprevent him from driving a sharp bargain when he understood the reasonwhy the two men wanted to buy his hat, a greasy old affair of felt witha great hole in its crown. He finally consented to part with it for twofive-franc pieces, grumbling that he should certainly have a cold in hishead. 

Then Jean had another idea, which was neither more nor less than to buyout the old fellow's stock in trade, the two dozen cigars that remainedunsold. The bargain effected, he pulled his hat down over his eyes andbegan to cry in the itinerant hawker's drawling tone:

"Here you are, Brussels cigars, two for three sous, two for three sous!"

Their safety was now assured. He signaled Maurice to go on before. Ithappened to the latter to discover an umbrella lying on the grass; hepicked it up and, as a few drops of rain began to fall just then, openedit tranquilly as they were about to pass the line of sentries. 

"Two for three sous, two for three sous, Brussels cigars!"

It took Jean less than two minutes to dispose of his stock ofmerchandise. The men came crowding about him with chaff and laughter:a reasonable fellow, that; he didn't rob poor chaps of their money! ThePrussians themselves were attracted by such unheard-of bargains, and hewas compelled to trade with them. He had all the time been working hisway toward the edge of the enceinte, and his last two cigars went toa big sergeant with an immense beard, who could not speak a word ofFrench. 

"Don't walk so fast, confound it!" Jean breathed in a whisper behindMaurice's back. "You'll have them after us. "

Their legs seemed inclined to run away with them, although they didtheir best to strike a sober gait. It caused them a great effort topause a moment at a cross-roads, where a number of people were collectedbefore an inn. Some villagers were chatting peaceably with Germansoldiers, and the two runaways made a pretense of listening, and evenhazarded a few observations on the weather and the probability of therain continuing during the night. They trembled when they beheld a man, a fleshy gentleman, eying them attentively, but as he smiled with anair of great good-nature they thought they might venture to address him, asking in a whisper:

"Can you tell us if the road to Belgium is guarded, sir?"

"Yes, it is; but you will be safe if you cross this wood and afterwardcut across the fields, to the left. "

Once they were in the wood, in the deep, dark silence of the slumberingtrees, where no sound reached their ears, where nothing stirred and theybelieved their safety was assured them, they sank into each other's armsin an uncontrollable impulse of emotion. Maurice was sobbing violently, while big tears trickled slowly down Jean's cheeks. It was the naturalrevulsion of their overtaxed feelings after the long-protracted ordealthey had passed through, the joy and delight of their mutual assurancethat their troubles were at an end, and that thenceforth suffering andthey were to be strangers. And united by the memory of what they hadendured together in ties closer than those of brotherhood, they claspedeach other in a wild embrace, and the kiss that they exchanged at thatmoment seemed to them to possess a savor and a poignancy such as theyhad never experienced before in all their life; a kiss such asthey never could receive from lips of woman, sealing their undyingfriendship, giving additional confirmation to the certainty thatthereafter their two hearts would be but one, for all eternity. 

When they had separated at last: "Little one, " said Jean, in a tremblingvoice, "it is well for us to be here, but we are not at the end. We mustlook about a bit and try to find our bearings. "

Maurice, although he had no acquaintance with that part of the frontier, declared that all they had to do was to pursue a straight course, whereon they resumed their way, moving among the trees in Indian filewith the greatest circumspection, until they reached the edge of thethicket. There, mindful of the injunction of the kind-hearted villager, they were about to turn to the left and take a short cut across thefields, but on coming to a road, bordered with a row of poplars oneither side they beheld directly in their path the watch-fire of aPrussian detachment. The bayonet of the sentry, pacing his beat, gleamedin the ruddy light, the men were finishing their soup and conversing;the fugitives stood not upon the order of their going, but plunged intothe recesses of the wood again, in mortal terror lest they might bepursued. They thought they heard the sound of voices, of footsteps ontheir trail, and thus for over an hour they wandered at random among thecopses, until all idea of locality was obliterated from their brain; nowracing like affrighted animals through the underbrush, again brought upall standing, the cold sweat trickling down their face, before a tree inwhich they beheld a Prussian. And the end of it was that they again cameout on the poplar-bordered road not more than ten paces from the sentry, and quite near the soldiers, who were toasting their toes in tranquilcomfort. 

"Hang the luck!" grumbled Jean. "This must be an enchanted wood. "

This time, however, they had been heard. The sound of snapping twigs androlling stones betrayed them. And as they did not answer the challengeof the sentry, but made off at the double-quick, the men seized theirmuskets and sent a shower of bullets crashing through the thicket, intowhich the fugitives had plunged incontinently. 

"_Nom de Dieu!_" ejaculated Jean, with a stifled cry of pain. 

He had received something that felt like the cut of a whip in the calfof his left leg, but the impact was so violent that it drove him upagainst a tree. 

"Are you hurt?" Maurice anxiously inquired. 

"Yes, and in the leg, worse luck!"

They both stood holding their breath and listening, in dread expectancyof hearing their pursuers clamoring at their heels; but the firing hadceased and nothing stirred amid the intense stillness that had againsettled down upon the wood and the surrounding country. It was evidentthat the Prussians had no inclination to beat up the thicket. 

Jean, who was doing his best to keep on his feet; forced back a groan. Maurice sustained him with his arm. 

"Can't you walk?"

"I should say not!" He gave way to a fit of rage, he, always soself-contained. He clenched his fists, could have thumped himself. "Godin Heaven, if this is not hard luck! to have one's legs knocked fromunder him at the very time he is most in need of them! It's too bad, toobad, by my soul it is! Go on, you, and put yourself in safety!"

But Maurice laughed quietly as he answered:

"That is silly talk!"

He took his friend's arm and helped him along, for neither of them hadany desire to linger there. When, laboriously and by dint of heroiceffort, they had advanced some half-dozen paces further, they haltedagain with renewed alarm at beholding before them a house, standing atthe margin of the wood, apparently a sort of farmhouse. Not a light wasvisible at any of the windows, the open courtyard gate yawned upon thedark and deserted dwelling. And when they plucked up their courage alittle and ventured to enter the courtyard, great was their surprise tofind a horse standing there with a saddle on his back, with nothing toindicate the why or wherefore of his being there. Perhaps it was theowner's intention to return, perhaps he was lying behind a bush with abullet in his brain. They never learned how it was. 

But Maurice had conceived a new scheme, which appeared to afford himgreat satisfaction. 

"See here, the frontier is too far away; we should never succeed inreaching it without a guide. What do you say to changing our plan andgoing to Uncle Fouchard's, at Remilly? I am so well acquainted withevery inch of the road that I'm sure I could take you there with my eyesbandaged. Don't you think it's a good idea, eh? I'll put you on thishorse, and I suppose Uncle Fouchard will grumble, but he'll take us in. "

Before starting he wished to take a look at the injured leg. There weretwo orifices; the ball appeared to have entered the limb and passedout, fracturing the tibia in its course. The flow of blood had notbeen great; he did nothing more than bandage the upper part of the calftightly with his handkerchief. 

"Do you fly, and leave me here, " Jean said again. 

"Hold your tongue; you are silly!"

When Jean was seated firmly in the saddle Maurice took the bridle andthey made a start. It was somewhere about eleven o'clock, and he hopedto make the journey in three hours, even if they should be unable toproceed faster than a walk. A difficulty that he had not thought ofuntil then, however, presented itself to his mind and for a momentfilled him with consternation: how were they to cross the Meuse inorder to get to the left bank? The bridge at Mouzon would certainly beguarded. At last he remembered that there was a ferry lower down thestream, at Villers, and trusting to luck to befriend him, he shaped hiscourse for that village, striking across the meadows and tilled fieldsof the right bank. All went well enough at first; they had only to dodgea cavalry patrol which forced them to hide in the shadow of a wall andremain there half an hour. Then the rain began to come down in earnestand his progress became more laborious, compelled as he was to trampthrough the sodden fields beside the horse, which fortunately showeditself to be a fine specimen of the equine race, and perfectly gentle. On reaching Villers he found that his trust in the blind goddess, Fortune, had not been misplaced; the ferryman, who, at that late hour, had just returned from setting a Bavarian officer across the river, took them at once and landed them on the other shore without delay oraccident. 

And it was not until they reached the village, where they narrowlyescaped falling into the clutches of the pickets who were stationedalong the entire length of the Remilly road, that their dangers andhardships really commenced; again they were obliged to take to thefields, feeling their way along blind paths and cart-tracks thatcould scarcely be discerned in the darkness. The most trivial obstaclesufficed to drive them a long way out of their course. They squeezedthrough hedges, scrambled down and up the steep banks of ditches, forceda passage for themselves through the densest thickets. Jean, in whoma low fever had developed under the drizzling rain, had sunk downcrosswise on his saddle in a condition of semi-consciousness, holding onwith both hands by the horse's mane, while Maurice, who had slipped thebridle over his right arm, had to steady him by the legs to keep himfrom tumbling to the ground. For more than a league, for two long, weary hours that seemed like an eternity, did they toil onward in thisfatiguing way; floundering, stumbling, slipping in such a manner that itseemed at every moment as if men and beast must land together in a heapat the bottom of some descent. The spectacle they presented was one ofutter, abject misery, besplashed with mud, the horse trembling in everylimb, the man upon his back a helpless mass, as if at his last gasp, theother, wild-eyed and pale as death, keeping his feet only by an effortof fraternal love. Day was breaking; it was not far from five o'clockwhen at last they came to Remilly. 

In the courtyard of his little farmhouse, which was situated at theextremity of the pass of Harancourt, overlooking the village, FatherFouchard was stowing away in his carriole the carcasses of two sheepthat he had slaughtered the day before. The sight of his nephew, coming to him at that hour and in that sorry plight, caused him suchperturbation of spirit that, after the first explanatory words, heroughly cried:

"You want me to take you in, you and your friend? and then settlematters with the Prussians afterward, I suppose. I'm much obliged toyou, but no! I might as well die right straight off and have done withit. "

He did not go so far, however, as to prohibit Maurice and Prosper fromtaking Jean from the horse and laying him on the great table in thekitchen. Silvine ran and got the bolster from her bed and slipped itbeneath the head of the wounded man, who was still unconscious. But itirritated the old fellow to see the man lying on his table; he grumbledand fretted, saying that the kitchen was no place for him; why did theynot take him away to the hospital at once? since there fortunately was ahospital at Remilly, near the church, in the old schoolhouse; and therewas a big room in it, with everything nice and comfortable. 

"To the hospital!" Maurice hotly replied, "and have the Prussians packhim off to Germany as soon as he is well, for you know they treat allthe wounded as prisoners of war. Do you take me for a fool, uncle? I didnot bring him here to give him up. "

Things were beginning to look dubious, the uncle was threatening topitch them out upon the road, when someone mentioned Henriette's name. 

"What about Henriette?" inquired the young man. 

And he learned that his sister had been an inmate of the house atRemilly for the last two days; her affliction had weighed so heavily onher that life at Sedan, where her existence had hitherto been a happyone, was become a burden greater than she could bear. Chancing to meetwith Doctor Dalichamp of Raucourt, with whom she was acquainted, herconversation with him had been the means of bringing her to take up herabode with Father Fouchard, in whose house she had a little bedroom, in order to devote herself entirely to the care of the sufferers in theneighboring hospital. That alone, she said, would serve to quiet herbitter memories. She paid her board and was the means of introducingmany small comforts into the life of the farmhouse, which caused FatherFouchard to regard her with an eye of favor. The weather was always finewith him, provided he was making money. 

"Ah! so my sister is here, " said Maurice. "That must have been whatM. Delaherche wished to tell me, with his gestures that I could notunderstand. Very well; if she is here, that settles it; we shallremain. "

Notwithstanding his fatigue he started off at once in quest of her atthe ambulance, where she had been on duty during the preceding night, while the uncle cursed his luck that kept him from being off with thecarriole to sell his mutton among the neighboring villages, so long asthe confounded business that he had got mixed up in remained unfinished. 

When Maurice returned with Henriette they caught the old man makinga critical examination of the horse, that Prosper had led away to thestable. The animal seemed to please him; he was knocked up, but showedsigns of strength and endurance. The young man laughed and told hisuncle he might have him as a gift if he fancied him, while Henriette, taking her relative aside, assured him Jean should be no expense to him;that she would take charge of him and nurse him, and he might have thelittle room behind the cow-stables, where no Prussian would ever thinkto look for him. And Father Fouchard, still wearing a very sulky faceand but half convinced that there was anything to be made out of theaffair, finally closed the discussion by jumping into his carriole anddriving off, leaving her at liberty to act as she pleased. 

It took Henriette but a few minutes, with the assistance of Silvine andProsper, to put the room in order; then she had Jean brought in andthey laid him on a cool, clean bed, he giving no sign of life during theoperation save to mutter some unintelligible words. He opened hiseyes and looked about him, but seemed not to be conscious of anyone'spresence in the room. Maurice, who was just beginning to be aware howutterly prostrated he was by his fatigue, was drinking a glass of wineand eating a bit of cold meat, left over from the yesterday's dinner, when Doctor Dalichamp came in, as was his daily custom previous tovisiting the hospital, and the young man, in his anxiety for his friend, mustered up his strength to follow him, together with his sister, to thebedside of the patient. 

The doctor was a short, thick-set man, with a big round head, on whichthe hair, as well as the fringe of beard about his face, had long sincebegun to be tinged with gray. The skin of his ruddy, mottled face wastough and indurated as a peasant's, spending as he did most of histime in the open air, always on the go to relieve the sufferings ofhis fellow-creatures; while the large, bright eyes, the massive nose, indicative of obstinacy, and the benignant if somewhat sensual mouthbore witness to the lifelong charities and good works of the honestcountry doctor; a little brusque at times, not a man of genius, but whommany years of practice in his profession had made an excellent healer. 

When he had examined Jean, still in a comatose state, he murmured:

"I am very much afraid that amputation will be necessary. "

The words produced a painful impression on Maurice and Henriette. Presently, however, he added:

"Perhaps we may be able to save the leg, but it will require the utmostcare and attention, and will take a very long time. For the moment hisphysical and mental depression is such that the only thing to do is tolet him sleep. To-morrow we shall know more. "

Then, having applied a dressing to the wound, he turned to Maurice, whomhe had known in bygone days, when he was a boy. 

"And you, my good fellow, would be better off in bed than sittingthere. "

The young man continued to gaze before him into vacancy, as if he hadnot heard. In the confused hallucination that was due to his fatigue hedeveloped a kind of delirium, a supersensitive nervous excitation thatembraced all he had suffered in mind and body since the beginning ofthe campaign. The spectacle of his friend's wretched state, his owncondition, scarce less pitiful, defeated, his hands tied, good fornothing, the reflection that all those heroic efforts had culminated insuch disaster, all combined to incite him to frantic rebellion againstdestiny. At last he spoke. 

"It is not ended; no, no! we have not seen the end, and I must go away. Since _he_ must lie there on his back for weeks, for months, perhaps, I cannot stay; I must go, I must go at once. You will assist me, won'tyou, doctor? you will supply me with the means to escape and get back toParis?"

Pale and trembling, Henriette threw her arms about him and caught him toher bosom. 

"What words are those you speak? enfeebled as you are, after all thesuffering you have endured! but think not I shall let you go; you shallstay here with me! Have you not paid the debt you owe your country? andshould you not think of me, too, whom you would leave to loneliness? ofme, who have nothing now in all the wide world save you?"

Their tears flowed and were mingled. They held each other in a wildtumultuous embrace, with that fond affection which, in twins, oftenseems as if it antedated existence. But for all that his exaltation didnot subside, but assumed a higher pitch. 

"I tell you I must go. Should I not go I feel I should die of grief andshame. You can have no idea how my blood boils and seethes in my veinsat the thought of remaining here in idleness. I tell you that thisbusiness is not going to end thus, that we must be avenged. On whom, onwhat? Ah! that I cannot tell; but avenged we must and shall be for suchmisfortune, in order that we may yet have courage to live on!"

Doctor Dalichamp, who had been watching the scene with intense interest, cautioned Henriette by signal to make no reply. Maurice would doubtlessbe more rational after he should have slept; and sleep he did, all thatday and all the succeeding night, for more than twenty hours, and neverstirred hand or foot. When he awoke next morning, however, he wasas inflexible as ever in his determination to go away. The fever hadsubsided; he was gloomy and restless, in haste to withdraw himself frominfluences that he feared might weaken his patriotic fervor. His sister, with many tears, made up her mind that he must be allowed to have hisway, and Doctor Dalichamp, when he came to make his morning visit, promised to do what he could to facilitate the young man's escape byturning over to him the papers of a hospital attendant who had diedrecently at Raucourt. It was arranged that Maurice should don the grayblouse with the red cross of Geneva on its sleeve and pass throughBelgium, thence to make his way as best he might to Paris, access towhich was as yet uninterrupted. 

He did not leave the house that day, keeping himself out of sight andwaiting for night to come. He scarcely opened his mouth, although he didmake an attempt to enlist the new farm-hand in his enterprise. 

"Say, Prosper, don't you feel as if you would like to go back and haveone more look at the Prussians?"

The ex-chasseur d'Afrique, who was eating a cheese sandwich, stopped andheld his knife suspended in the air. 

"It don't strike me that it is worth while, from what we were allowedto see of them before. Why should you wish me to go back there, when theonly use our generals can find for the cavalry is to send it in afterthe battle is ended and let it be cut to pieces? No, faith, I'm sickof the business, giving us such dirty work as that to do!" There wassilence between them for a moment; then he went on, doubtless to quietthe reproaches of his conscience as a soldier: "And then the work is tooheavy here just now; the plowing is just commencing, and then there'llbe the fall sowing to be looked after. We must think of the farm work, mustn't we? for fighting is well enough in its way, but what wouldbecome of us if we should cease to till the ground? You see how it is;I can't leave my work. Not that I am particularly in love with FatherFouchard, for I doubt very strongly if I shall ever see the color of hismoney, but the beasties are beginning to take to me, and faith! whenI was up there in the Old Field this morning, and gave a look at thatd----d Sedan lying yonder in the distance, you can't tell how good itmade me feel to be guiding my oxen and driving the plow through thefurrow, all alone in the bright sunshine. "

As soon as it was fairly dark, Doctor Dalichamp came driving up in hisold gig. It was his intention to see Maurice to the frontier. FatherFouchard, well pleased to be rid of one of his guests at least, steppedout upon the road to watch and make sure there were none of the enemy'spatrols prowling in the neighborhood, while Silvine put a few stitchesin the blouse of the defunct ambulance man, on the sleeve of which thered cross of the corps was prominently displayed. The doctor, beforetaking his place in the vehicle, examined Jean's leg anew, but could notas yet promise that he would be able to save it. The patient was stillin a profound lethargy, recognizing no one, never opening his mouthto speak, and Maurice was about to leave him without the comfort of afarewell, when, bending over to give him a last embrace, he saw him openhis eyes to their full extent; the lips parted, and in a faint voice hesaid:

"You are going away?" And in reply to their astonished looks: "Yes, Iheard what you said, though I could not stir. Take the remainder of themoney, then. Put your hand in my trousers' pocket and take it. "

Each of them had remaining nearly two hundred francs of the sum they hadreceived from the corps paymaster. 

But Maurice protested. "The money!" he exclaimed. "Why, you have moreneed of it than I, who have the use of both my legs. Two hundred francswill be abundantly sufficient to see me to Paris, and to get knockedin the head afterward won't cost me a penny. I thank you, though, oldfellow, all the same, and good-by and good-luck to you; thanks, too, forhaving always been so good and thoughtful, for, had it not been for you, I should certainly be lying now at the bottom of some ditch, like a deaddog. "

Jean made a deprecating gesture. "Hush. You owe me nothing; we arequits. Would not the Prussians have gathered me in out there the otherday had you not picked me up and carried me off on your back? andyesterday again you saved me from their clutches. Twice have I beenbeholden to you for my life, and now I am in your debt. Ah, how unhappyI shall be when I am no longer with you!" His voice trembled and tearsrose to his eyes. "Kiss me, dear boy!"

They embraced, and, as it had been in the wood the day before, thatkiss set the seal to the brotherhood of dangers braved in each other'scompany, those few weeks of soldier's life in common that had servedto bind their hearts together with closer ties than years of ordinaryfriendship could have done. Days of famine, sleepless nights, thefatigue of the weary march, death ever present to their eyes, thesethings made the foundation on which their affection rested. When twohearts have thus by mutual gift bestowed themselves the one upon theother and become fused and molten into one, is it possible ever to severthe connection? But the kiss they had exchanged the day before, amongthe darkling shadows of the forest, was replete with the joy of theirnew-found safety and the hope that their escape awakened in theirbosom, while this was the kiss of parting, full of anguish and doubtunutterable. Would they meet again some day? and how, under whatcircumstances of sorrow or of gladness?

Doctor Dalichamp had clambered into his gig and was calling to Maurice. The young man threw all his heart and soul into the embrace he gave hissister Henriette, who, pale as death in her black mourning garments, looked on his face in silence through her tears. 

"He whom I leave to your care is my brother. Watch over him, love him asI love him!"

IV. 

Jean's chamber was a large room, with floor of brick and whitewashedwalls, that had once done duty as a store-room for the fruit grown onthe farm. A faint, pleasant odor of pears and apples lingered therestill, and for furniture there was an iron bedstead, a pine tableand two chairs, to say nothing of a huge old walnut clothes-press, tremendously deep and wide, that looked as if it might hold an army. A lazy, restful quiet reigned there all day long, broken only by thedeadened sounds that came from the adjacent stables, the faint lowingof the cattle, the occasional thud of a hoof upon the earthen floor. The window, which had a southern aspect, let in a flood of cheerfulsunlight; all the view it afforded was a bit of hillside and a wheatfield, edged by a little wood. And this mysterious chamber was so wellhidden from prying eyes that never a one in all the world would havesuspected its existence. 

As it was to be her kingdom, Henriette constituted herself lawmaker fromthe beginning. The regulation was that no one save she and the doctorshould have access to Jean; this in order to avert suspicion. Silvine, even, was never to set foot in the room unless by direction. Early eachmorning the two women came in and put things to rights, and after that, all the long day, the door was as impenetrable as if it had been a wallof stone. And thus it was that Jean found himself suddenly secluded fromthe world, after many weeks of tumultuous activity, seeing no face savethat of the gentle woman whose footfall on the floor gave back no sound. She appeared to him, as he had beheld her for the first time downyonder in Sedan, like an apparition, with her somewhat large mouth, herdelicate, small features, her hair the hue of ripened grain, hoveringabout his bedside and ministering to his wants with an air of infinitegoodness. 

The patient's fever was so violent during the first few days thatHenriette scarce ever left him. Doctor Dalichamp dropped in everymorning on his way to the hospital and examined and dressed the wound. As the ball had passed out, after breaking the tibia, he was surprisedthat the case presented no better aspect; he feared there was a splinterof the bone remaining there that he had not succeeded in finding withthe probe, and that might make resection necessary. He mentioned thematter to Jean, but the young man could not endure the thought of anoperation that would leave him with one leg shorter than the other andlame him permanently. No, no! he would rather die than be a cripple forlife. So the good doctor, leaving the wound to develop further symptoms, confined himself for the present to applying a dressing of lintsaturated with sweet oil and phenic acid having first inserted adrain--an India rubber tube--to carry off the pus. He frankly told hispatient, however, that unless he submitted to an operation he must nothope to have the use of his limb for a very long time. Still, after thesecond week, the fever subsided and the young man's general conditionwas improved, so long as he could be content to rest quiet in his bed. 

Then Jean's and Henriette's relations began to be established on a moresystematic basis. Fixed habits commenced to prevail; it seemed to themthat they had never lived otherwise--that they were to go on livingforever in that way. All the hours and moments that she did not devoteto the ambulance were spent with him; she saw to it that he had his foodand drink at proper intervals. She assisted him to turn in bed witha strength of wrist that no one, seeing her slender arms, would havesupposed was in her. At times they would converse; but as a generalthing, especially in the earlier days, they had not much to say. Theynever seemed to tire of each other's company, though. On the whole itwas a very pleasant life they led in that calm, restful atmosphere, hewith the horrible scenes of the battlefield still fresh in his memory, she in her widow's weeds, her heart bruised and bleeding with the greatloss she had sustained. At first he had experienced a sensation ofembarrassment, for he felt she was his superior, almost a lady, indeed, while he had never been aught more than a common soldier and a peasant. He could barely read and write. When finally he came to see that sheaffected no airs of superiority, but treated him on the footing of anequal, his confidence returned to him in a measure and he showed himselfin his true colors, as a man of intelligence by reason of his sound, unpretentious common sense. Besides, he was surprised at times to thinkhe could note a change was gradually coming over him; it seemed to himthat his mind was less torpid than it had been, that it was clearerand more active, that he had novel ideas in his head, and more of them;could it be that the abominable life he had been leading for the lasttwo months, his horrible sufferings, physical and moral, had exerted arefining influence on him? But that which assisted him most to overcomehis shyness was to find that she was really not so very much wiser thanhe. She was but a little child when, at her mother's death, she becamethe household drudge, with her three men to care for, as she herselfexpressed it--her grandfather, her father, and her brother--and she hadnot had the time to lay in a large stock of learning. She could read andwrite, could spell words that were not too long, and "do sums, " if theywere not too intricate; and that was the extent of her acquirement. Andif she continued to intimidate him still, if he considered her far andaway the superior of all other women upon earth, it was because heknew the ineffable tenderness, the goodness of heart, the unflinchingcourage, that animated that frail little body, who went about her dutiessilently and met them as if they had been pleasures. 

They had in Maurice a subject of conversation that was of commoninterest to them both and of which they never wearied. It was toMaurice's friend, his brother, to whom she was devoting herself thustenderly, the brave, kind man, so ready with his aid in time of trouble, who she felt had made her so many times his debtor. She was full tooverflowing with a sentiment of deepest gratitude and affection, thatwent on widening and deepening as she came to know him better andrecognize his sterling qualities of head and heart, and he, whom she wastending like a little child, was actuated by such grateful sentimentsthat he would have liked to kiss her hands each time she gave him acup of bouillon. Day by day did this bond of tender sympathy draw themnearer to each other in that profound solitude amid which they lived, harassed by an anxiety that they shared in common. When he had utterlyexhausted his recollections of the dismal march from Rheims to Sedan, tothe particulars of which she never seemed to tire of listening, the samequestion always rose to their lips: what was Maurice doing then? whydid he not write? Could it be that the blockade of Paris was alreadycomplete, and was that the reason why they received no news? They had asyet had but one letter from him, written at Rouen, three days after hisleaving them, in which he briefly stated that he had reached that cityon his way to Paris, after a long and devious journey. And then for aweek there had been no further word; the silence had remained unbroken. 

In the morning, after Doctor Dalichamp had attended to his patient, heliked to sit a while and chat, putting his cares aside for the moment. Sometimes he also returned at evening and made a longer visit, and itwas in this way that they learned what was going on in the great worldoutside their peaceful solitude and the terrible calamities that weredesolating their country. He was their only source of intelligence; hisheart, which beat with patriotic ardor, overflowed with rage andgrief at every fresh defeat, and thus it was that his sole topic ofconversation was the victorious progress of the Prussians, who, sinceSedan, had spread themselves over France like the waves of some blackocean. Each day brought its own tidings of disaster, and restingdisconsolately on one of the two chairs that stood by the bedside, he would tell in mournful tones and with trembling gestures of theincreasing gravity of the situation. Oftentimes he came with his pocketsstuffed with Belgian newspapers, which he would leave behind him when hewent away. And thus the echoes of defeat, days, weeks, after the event, reverberated in that quiet room, serving to unite yet more closely incommunity of sorrow the two poor sufferers who were shut within itswalls. 

It was from some of those old newspapers that Henriette read to Jean theoccurrences at Metz, the Titanic struggle that was three times renewed, separated on each occasion by a day's interval. The story was alreadyfive weeks old, but it was new to him, and he listened with a bleedingheart to the repetition of the miserable narrative of defeat to which hewas not a stranger. In the deathly stillness of the room the incidentsof the woeful tale unfolded themselves as Henriette, with the sing-songenunciation of a schoolgirl, picked out her words and sentences. When, after Froeschwiller and Spickeren, the 1st corps, routed and broken intofragments, had swept away with it the 5th, the other corps stationedalong the frontier _en echelon_ from Metz to Bitche, first wavering, then retreating in their consternation at those reverses, had ultimatelyconcentrated before the intrenched camp on the right bank of theMoselle. But what waste of precious time was there, when they should nothave lost a moment in retreating on Paris, a movement that was presentlyto be attended with such difficulty! The Emperor had been compelledto turn over the supreme command to Marshal Bazaine, to whom everyonelooked with confidence for a victory. Then, on the 14th[*] came theaffair of Borny, when the army was attacked at the moment when it wasat last about to cross the stream, having to sustain the onset of twoGerman armies: Steinmetz's, which was encamped in observation in frontof the intrenched camp, and Prince Frederick Charles's, which had passedthe river higher up and come down along the left bank in order to barthe French from access to their country; Borny, where the firing did notbegin until it was three o'clock; Borny, that barren victory, at the endof which the French remained masters of their positions, but which leftthem astride the Moselle, tied hand and foot, while the turning movementof the second German army was being successfully accomplished. Afterthat, on the 16th, was the battle of Rezonville; all our corps were atlast across the stream, although, owing to the confusion that prevailedat the junction of the Mars-la-Tour and Etain roads, which the Prussianshad gained possession of early in the morning by a brilliant movement oftheir cavalry and artillery, the 3d and 4th corps were hindered in theirmarch and unable to get up; a slow, dragging, confused battle, which, up to two o'clock, Bazaine, with only a handful of men opposed tohim, should have won, but which he wound up by losing, thanks to hisinexplicable fear of being cut off from Metz; a battle of immenseextent, spreading over leagues of hill and plain, where the French, attacked in front and flank, seemed willing to do almost anything exceptadvance, affording the enemy time to concentrate and to all appearancesco-operating with them to ensure the success of the Prussian plan, whichwas to force their withdrawal to the other side of the river. And on the18th, after their retirement to the intrenched camp, Saint-Privat wasfought, the culmination of the gigantic struggle, where the line ofbattle extended more than eight miles in length, two hundred thousandGermans with seven hundred guns arrayed against a hundred and twentythousand French with but five hundred guns, the Germans facing towardGermany, the French toward France, as if invaders and invaded hadinverted their roles in the singular tactical movements that had beengoing on; after two o'clock the conflict was most sanguinary, thePrussian Guard being repulsed with tremendous slaughter and Bazaine, with a left wing that withstood the onsets of the enemy like a wall ofadamant, for a long time victorious, up to the moment, at the approachof evening, when the weaker right wing was compelled by the terrificlosses it had sustained to abandon Saint-Privat, involving in its routthe remainder of the army, which, defeated and driven back under thewalls of Metz, was thenceforth to be imprisoned in a circle of flame andiron. 

[*] August. --TR. 

As Henriette pursued her reading Jean momentarily interrupted her tosay:

"Ah, well! and to think that we fellows, after leaving Rheims, werelooking for Bazaine! They were always telling us he was coming; now Ican see why he never came!"

The marshal's despatch, dated the 19th, after the battle ofSaint-Privat, in which he spoke of resuming his retrograde movement byway of Montmedy, that despatch which had for its effect the advanceof the army of Chalons, would seem to have been nothing more than thereport of a defeated general, desirous to present matters under theirmost favorable aspect, and it was not until a considerably later period, the 29th, when the tidings of the approach of this relieving armyhad reached him through the Prussian lines, that he attempted a finaleffort, on the right bank this time, at Noiseville, but in such afeeble, half-hearted way that on the 1st of September, the day when thearmy of Chalons was annihilated at Sedan, the army of Metz fell backto advance no more, and became as if dead to France. The marshal, whoseconduct up to that time may fairly be characterized as that of a leaderof only moderate ability, neglecting his opportunities and failing tomove when the roads were open to him, after that blockaded by forcesgreatly superior to his own, was now about to be seduced by alluringvisions of political greatness and become a conspirator and a traitor. 

But in the papers that Doctor Dalichamp brought them Bazaine was stillthe great man and the gallant soldier, to whom France looked for hersalvation. 

And Jean wanted certain passages read to him again, in order that hemight more clearly understand how it was that while the third Germanarmy, under the Crown Prince of Prussia, had been leading them such adance, and the first and second were besieging Metz, the latter wereso strong in men and guns that it had been possible to form from them afourth army, which, under the Crown Prince of Saxony, had done so muchto decide the fortune of the day at Sedan. Then, having obtained theinformation he desired, resting on that bed of suffering to which hiswound condemned him, he forced himself to hope in spite of all. 

"That's how it is, you see; we were not so strong as they! No one canever get at the rights of such matters while the fighting is going on. Never mind, though; you have read the figures as the newspapers givethem: Bazaine has a hundred and fifty thousand men with him, he hasthree hundred thousand small arms and more than five hundred pieces ofartillery; take my word for it, he is not going to let himself be caughtin such a scrape as we were. The fellows all say he is a tough man todeal with; depend on it he's fixing up a nasty dose for the enemy, andhe'll make 'em swallow it. "

Henriette nodded her head and appeared to agree with him, in orderto keep him in a cheerful frame of mind. She could not follow thosecomplicated operations of the armies, but had a presentiment of coming, inevitable evil. Her voice was fresh and clear; she could have gone onreading thus for hours; only too glad to have it in her power to relievethe tedium of his long day, though at times, when she came to somenarrative of slaughter, her eyes would fill with tears that made thewords upon the printed page a blur. She was doubtless thinking of herhusband's fate, how he had been shot down at the foot of the wall andhis body desecrated by the touch of the Bavarian officer's boot. 

"If it gives you such pain, " Jean said in surprise, "you need not readthe battles; skip them. "

But, gentle and self-sacrificing as ever, she recovered herselfimmediately. 

"No, no; don't mind my weakness; I assure you it is a pleasure to me. "

One evening early in October, when the wind was blowing a smallhurricane outside, she came in from the ambulance and entered the roomwith an excited air, saying:

"A letter from Maurice! the doctor just gave it me. "

With each succeeding morning the twain had been becoming more and morealarmed that the young man sent them no word, and now that for a wholeweek it had been rumored everywhere that the investment of Paris wascomplete, they were more disturbed in mind than ever, despairing ofreceiving tidings, asking themselves what could have happened him afterhe left Rouen. And now the reason of the long silence was made clear tothem: the letter that he had addressed from Paris to Doctor Dalichamp onthe 18th, the very day that ended railway communication with Havre, hadgone astray and had only reached them at last by a miracle, after a longand circuitous journey. 

"Ah, the dear boy!" said Jean, radiant with delight. "Read it to me, quick!"

The wind was howling and shrieking more dismally than ever, the windowof the apartment strained and rattled as if someone were trying to forcean entrance. Henriette went and got the little lamp, and placing it onthe table beside the bed applied herself to the reading of the missive, so close to Jean that their faces almost touched. There was a sensationof warmth and comfort in the peaceful room amid the roaring of the stormthat raged without. 

It was a long letter of eight closely filled pages, in which Mauricefirst told how, soon after his arrival on the 16th, he had had the goodfortune to get into a line regiment that was being recruited up to itsfull strength. Then, reverting to facts of history, he described inbrief but vigorous terms the principal events of that month of terror:how Paris, recovering her sanity in a measure after the madness intowhich the disasters of Wissembourg and Froeschwiller had driven her, hadcomforted herself with hopes of future victories, had cheered herselfwith fresh illusions, such as lying stories of the army's successes, theappointment of Bazaine to the chief command, the _levee en masse_, bogus dispatches, which the ministers themselves read from the tribune, telling of hecatombs of slaughtered Prussians. And then he went on totell how, on the 3d of September, the thunderbolt had a second timeburst over the unhappy capital: all hope gone, the misinformed, abused, confiding city dazed by that crushing blow of destiny, the cries: "Downwith the Empire!" that resounded at night upon the boulevards, the briefand gloomy session of the Chamber at which Jules Favre read the draftof the bill that conceded the popular demand. Then on the next day, theever-memorable 4th of September, was the upheaval of all things, thesecond Empire swept from existence in atonement for its mistakes andcrimes, the entire population of the capital in the streets, a torrentof humanity a half a million strong filling the Place de la Concorde andstreaming onward in the bright sunshine of that beautiful Sabbath day tothe great gates of the Corps Legislatif, feebly guarded by a handful oftroops, who up-ended their muskets in the air in token of sympathywith the populace--smashing in the doors, swarming into the assemblychambers, whence Jules Favre, Gambetta and other deputies of the Leftwere even then on the point of departing to proclaim the Republic at theHotel de Ville; while on the Place Saint-Germain-l'Auxerrois a littlewicket of the Louvre opened timidly and gave exit to the Empress-regent, attired in black garments and accompanied by a single female friend, both the women trembling with affright and striving to concealthemselves in the depths of the public cab, which went jolting with itsscared inmates from the Tuileries, through whose apartments the mob wasat that moment streaming. On the same day Napoleon III. Left the inn atBouillon, where he had passed his first night of exile, bending his waytoward Wilhelmshohe. 

Here Jean, a thoughtful expression on his face, interrupted Henriette. 

"Then we have a republic now? So much the better, if it is going to helpus whip the Prussians!"

But he shook his head; he had always been taught to look distrustfullyon republics when he was a peasant. And then, too, it did not seem tohim a good thing that they should be of differing minds when the enemywas fronting them. After all, though, it was manifest there had to bea change of some kind, since everyone knew the Empire was rotten to thecore and the people would have no more of it. 

Henriette finished the letter, which concluded with a mention of theapproach of the German armies. On the 13th, the day when a committeeof the Government of National Defense had established its quarters atTours, their advanced guards had been seen at Lagny, to the east ofParis. On the 14th and 15th they were at the very gates of the city, at Creteil and Joinville-le-Pont. On the 18th, however, the day whenMaurice wrote, he seemed to have ceased to believe in the possibilityof maintaining a strict blockade of Paris; he appeared to be under theinfluence of one of his hot fits of blind confidence, characterisingthe siege as a senseless and impudent enterprise that would come toan ignominious end before they were three weeks older, relying on thearmies that the provinces would surely send to their relief, to saynothing of the army of Metz, that was already advancing by way of Verdunand Rheims. And the links of the iron chain that their enemies hadforged for them had been riveted together; it encompassed Paris, and nowParis was a city shut off from all the world, whence no letter, no wordof tidings longer came, the huge prison-house of two millions of livingbeings, who were to their neighbors as if they were not. 

Henriette was oppressed by a sense of melancholy. "Ah, merciful heaven!"she murmured, "how long will all this last, and shall we ever see himmore!"

A more furious blast bent the sturdy trees out-doors and made thetimbers of the old farmhouse creak and groan. Think of the sufferingsthe poor fellows would have to endure should the winter be severe, fighting in the snow, without bread, without fire!

"Bah!" rejoined Jean, "that's a very nice letter of his, and it's acomfort to have heard from him. We must not despair. "

Thus, day by day, the month of October ran its course, with graymelancholy skies, and if ever the wind went down for a short space itwas only to bring the clouds back in darker, heavier masses. Jean'swound was healing very slowly; the outflow from the drain was not the"laudable pus" which would have permitted the doctor to remove theappliance, and the patient was in a very enfeebled state, refusing, however, to be operated on in his dread of being left a cripple. Anatmosphere of expectant resignation, disturbed at times by transientmisgivings for which there was no apparent cause, pervaded theslumberous little chamber, to which the tidings from abroad came invague, indeterminate shape, like the distorted visions of an evil dream. The hateful war, with its butcheries and disasters, was still raging outthere in the world, in some quarter unknown to them, without theirever being able to learn the real course of events, without their beingconscious of aught save the wails and groans that seemed to fill the airfrom their mangled, bleeding country. And the dead leaves rustled in thepaths as the wind swept them before it beneath the gloomy sky, and overthe naked fields brooded a funereal silence, broken only by the cawingof the crows, presage of a bitter winter. 

A principal subject of conversation between them at this time was thehospital, which Henriette never left except to come and cheer Jean withher company. When she came in at evening he would question her, makingthe acquaintance of each of her charges, desirous to know who would dieand who recover; while she, whose heart and soul were in her occupation, never wearied, but related the occurrences of the day in their minutestdetails. 

"Ah, " she would always say, "the poor boys, the poor boys!"

It was not the ambulance of the battlefield, where the blood from thewounded came in a fresh, bright stream, where the flesh the surgeon'sknife cut into was firm and healthy; it was the decay and rottenness ofthe hospital, where the odor of fever and gangrene hung in the air, dampwith the exhalations of the lingering convalescents and those who weredying by inches. Doctor Dalichamp had had the greatest difficulty inprocuring the necessary beds, sheets and pillows, and every day he hadto accomplish miracles to keep his patients alive, to obtain for thembread, meat and desiccated vegetables, to say nothing of bandages, compresses and other appliances. As the Prussian officers in chargeof the military hospital in Sedan had refused him everything, evenchloroform, he was accustomed to send to Belgium for what he required. And yet he had made no discrimination between French and Germans; he waseven then caring for a dozen Bavarian soldiers who had been broughtin there from Bazeilles. Those bitter adversaries who but a short timebefore had been trying to cut each other's throat now lay side by side, their passions calmed by suffering. And what abodes of distress andmisery they were, those two long rooms in the old schoolhouse ofRemilly, where, in the crude light that streamed through the tallwindows, some thirty beds in each were arranged on either side of anarrow passage. 

As late even as ten days after the battle wounded men had beendiscovered in obscure corners, where they had been overlooked, andbrought in for treatment. There were four who had crawled into avacant house at Balan and remained there, without attendance, kept fromstarving in some way, no one could tell how, probably by the charity ofsome kind-hearted neighbor, and their wounds were alive with maggots;they were as dead men, their system poisoned by the corruption thatexuded from their wounds. There was a purulency, that nothing couldcheck or overcome, that hovered over the rows of beds and emptied them. As soon as the door was passed one's nostrils were assailed by theodor of mortifying flesh. From drains inserted in festering sores fetidmatter trickled, drop by drop. Oftentimes it became necessary toreopen old wounds in order to extract a fragment of bone that had beenoverlooked. Then abscesses would form, to break out after an intervalin some remote portion of the body. Their strength all gone, reduced toskeletons, with ashen, clayey faces, the miserable wretches suffered thetorments of the damned. Some, so weakened they could scarcely draw theirbreath, lay all day long upon their back, with tight shut, darkenedeyes, like corpses in which decomposition had already set in; whileothers, denied the boon of sleep, tossing in restless wakefulness, drenched with the cold sweat that streamed from every pore, raved likelunatics, as if their suffering had made them mad. And whether theywere calm or violent, it mattered not; when the contagion of the feverreached them, then was the end at hand, the poison doing its work, flying from bed to bed, sweeping them all away in one mass ofcorruption. 

But worst of all was the condemned cell, the room to which were assignedthose who were attacked by dysentery, typhus or small-pox. There weremany cases of black small-pox. The patients writhed and shrieked inunceasing delirium, or sat erect in bed with the look of specters. Others had pneumonia and were wasting beneath the stress of theirfrightful cough. There were others again who maintained a continuoushowling and were comforted only when their burning, throbbing wound wassprayed with cold water. The great hour of the day, the one that waslooked forward to with eager expectancy, was that of the doctor'smorning visit, when the beds were opened and aired and an opportunitywas afforded their occupants to stretch their limbs, cramped byremaining long in one position. And it was the hour of dread and terroras well, for not a day passed that, as the doctor went his rounds, hewas not pained to see on some poor devil's skin the bluish spots thatdenoted the presence of gangrene. The operation would be appointed forthe following day, when a few more inches of the leg or arm would besliced away. Often the gangrene kept mounting higher and higher, andamputation had to be repeated until the entire limb was gone. 

Every evening on her return Henriette answered Jean's questions in thesame tone of compassion:

"Ah, the poor boys, the poor boys!"

And her particulars never varied; they were the story of the dailyrecurring torments of that earthly hell. There had been an amputation atthe shoulder-joint, a foot had been taken off, a humerus resected; butwould gangrene or purulent contagion be clement and spare the patient?Or else they had been burying some one of their inmates, most frequentlya Frenchman, now and then a German. Scarcely a day passed but a coarsecoffin, hastily knocked together from four pine boards, left thehospital at the twilight hour, accompanied by a single one of theattendants, often by the young woman herself, that a fellow-creaturemight not be laid away in his grave like a dog. In the little cemeteryat Remilly two trenches had been dug, and there they slumbered, side byside, French to the right, Germans to the left, their enmity forgottenin their narrow bed. 

Jean, without ever having seen them, had come to feel an interest incertain among the patients. He would ask for tidings of them. 

"And 'Poor boy, ' how is he getting on to-day?"

This was a little soldier, a private in the 5th of the line, notyet twenty years old, who had doubtless enlisted as a volunteer. Theby-name: "Poor boy" had been given him and had stuck because he alwaysused the words in speaking of himself, and when one day he was asked thereason he replied that that was the name by which his mother had alwayscalled him. Poor boy he was, in truth, for he was dying of pleurisybrought on by a wound in his left side. 

"Ah, poor fellow, " replied Henriette, who had conceived a specialfondness for this one of her charges, "he is no better; he coughed allthe afternoon. It pained my heart to hear him. "

"And your bear, Gutman, how about him?" pursued Jean, with a faintsmile. "Is the doctor's report more favorable?"

"Yes, he thinks he may be able to save his life. But the poor mansuffers dreadfully. "

Although they both felt the deepest compassion for him, they never spokeof Gutman but a smile of gentle amusement came to their lips. Almostimmediately upon entering on her duties at the hospital the young womanhad been shocked to recognize in that Bavarian soldier the features:big blue eyes, red hair and beard and massive nose, of the man who hadcarried her away in his arms the day they shot her husband at Bazeilles. He recognized her as well, but could not speak; a musket ball, enteringat the back of the neck, had carried away half his tongue. For two daysshe recoiled with horror, an involuntary shudder passed through herframe, each time she had to approach his bed, but presently her heartbegan to melt under the imploring, very gentle looks with which hefollowed her movements in the room. Was he not the blood-splashedmonster, with eyes ablaze with furious rage, whose memory was everpresent to her mind? It cost her an effort to recognize him now in thatsubmissive, uncomplaining creature, who bore his terrible suffering withsuch cheerful resignation. The nature of his affliction, which is notof frequent occurrence, enlisted for him the sympathies of the entirehospital. It was not even certain that his name was Gutman; he wascalled so because the only sound he succeeded in articulating was a wordof two syllables that resembled that more than it did anything else. Asregarded all other particulars concerning him everyone was in thedark; it was generally believed, however, that he was married and hadchildren. He seemed to understand a few words of French, for he wouldanswer questions that were put to him with an emphatic motion of thehead: "Married?" yes, yes! "Children?" yes, yes! The interest andexcitement he displayed one day that he saw some flour induced them tobelieve he might have been a miller. And that was all. Where was themill, whose wheel had ceased to turn? In what distant Bavarian villagewere the wife and children now weeping their lost husband and father?Was he to die, nameless, unknown, in that foreign country, and leave hisdear ones forever ignorant of his fate?

"To-day, " Henriette told Jean one evening, "Gutman kissed his hand tome. I cannot give him a drink of water, or render him any othertrifling service, but he manifests his gratitude by the most extravagantdemonstrations. Don't smile; it is too terrible to be buried thus alivebefore one's time has come. "

Toward the end of October Jean's condition began to improve. The doctorthought he might venture to remove the drain, although he still lookedapprehensive whenever he examined the wound, which, neverthelessappeared to be healing as rapidly as could be expected. The convalescentwas able to leave his bed, and spent hours at a time pacing his roomor seated at the window, looking out on the cheerless, leaden sky. Thentime began to hang heavy on his hands; he spoke of finding something todo, asked if he could not be of service on the farm. Among the secretcares that disturbed his mind was the question of money, for he did notsuppose he could have lain there for six long weeks and not exhaust hislittle fortune of two hundred francs, and if Father Fouchard continuedto afford him hospitality it must be that Henriette had been paying hisboard. The thought distressed him greatly; he did not know how tobring about an explanation with her, and it was with a feeling of deepsatisfaction that he accepted the position of assistant at the farm, with the understanding that he was to help Silvine with the housework, while Prosper was to be continued in charge of the out-door labors. 

Notwithstanding the hardness of the times Father Fouchard could wellafford to take on another hand, for his affairs were prospering. Whilethe whole country was in the throes of dissolution and bleeding at everylimb, he had succeeded in so extending his butchering business that hewas now slaughtering three and even four times as many animals as he hadever done before. It was said that since the 31st of August he had beencarrying on a most lucrative business with the Prussians. He who on the30th had stood at his door with his cocked gun in his hand and refusedto sell a crust of bread to the starving soldiers of the 7th corps hadon the following day, upon the first appearance of the enemy, openedup as dealer in all kinds of supplies, had disinterred from his cellarimmense stocks of provisions, had brought back his flocks and herds fromthe fastnesses where he had concealed them; and since that day hehad been one of the heaviest purveyors of meat to the German armies, exhibiting consummate address in bargaining with them and in gettinghis money promptly for his merchandise. Other dealers at times sufferedgreat inconvenience from the insolent arbitrariness of the victors, whereas he never sold them a sack of flour, a cask of wine or a quarterof beef that he did not get his pay for it as soon as delivered in goodhard cash. It made a good deal of talk in Remilly; people said it wasscandalous on the part of a man whom the war had deprived of his onlyson, whose grave he never visited, but left to be cared for by Silvine;but nevertheless they all looked up to him with respect as a man who wasmaking his fortune while others, even the shrewdest, were having a hardtime of it to keep body and soul together. And he, with a sly leerout of his small red eyes, would shrug his shoulders and growl in hisbull-headed way:

"Who talks of patriotism! I am more a patriot than any of them. Wouldyou call it patriotism to fill those bloody Prussians' mouths gratis?What they get from me they have to pay for. Folks will see how it issome of these days!"

On the second day of his employment Jean remained too long on foot, andthe doctor's secret fears proved not to be unfounded; the wound opened, the leg became greatly inflamed and swollen, he was compelled to taketo his bed again. Dalichamp suspected that the mischief was due to aspicule of bone that the two consecutive days of violent exercise hadserved to liberate. He explored the wound and was so fortunate asto find the fragment, but there was a shock attending the operation, succeeded by a high fever, which exhausted all Jean's strength. He hadnever in his life been reduced to a condition of such debility: hisrecovery promised to be a work of time, and faithful Henriette resumedher position as nurse and companion in the little chamber, where winterwith icy breath now began to make its presence felt. It was earlyNovember, already the east wind had brought on its wings a smart flurryof snow, and between those four bare walls, on the uncarpeted floorwhere even the tall, gaunt old clothes-press seemed to shiver withdiscomfort, the cold was extreme. As there was no fireplace in the roomthey determined to set up a stove, of which the purring, droning murmurassisted to brighten their solitude a bit. 

The days wore on, monotonously, and that first week of the relapsewas to Jean and Henriette the dreariest and saddest in all their long, unsought intimacy. Would their suffering never end? were they to hopefor no surcease of misery, the danger always springing up afresh? Atevery moment their thoughts sped away to Maurice, from whom they hadreceived no further word. They were told that others were gettingletters, brief notes written on tissue paper and brought in bycarrier-pigeons. Doubtless the bullet of some hated German had slainthe messenger that, winging its way through the free air of heaven, wasbringing them their missive of joy and love. Everything seemed to retireinto dim obscurity, to die and be swallowed up in the depths of thepremature winter. Intelligence of the war only reached them a long timeafter the occurrence of events, the few newspapers that Doctor Dalichampstill continued to supply them with were often a week old by the timethey reached their hands. And their dejection was largely owing to theirwant of information, to what they did not know and yet instinctivelyfelt to be the truth, to the prolonged death-wail that, spite of all, came to their ears across the frozen fields in the deep silence that layupon the country. 

One morning the doctor came to them in a condition of deepestdiscouragement. With a trembling hand he drew from his pocket a Belgiannewspaper and threw it on the bed, exclaiming:

"Alas, my friends, poor France is murdered; Bazaine has played thetraitor!"

Jean, who had been dozing, his back supported by a couple of pillows, suddenly became wide-awake. 

"What, a traitor?"

"Yes, he has surrendered Metz and the army. It is the experience ofSedan over again, only this time they drain us of our last drop oflife-blood. " Then taking up the paper and reading from it: "One hundredand fifty thousand prisoners, one hundred and fifty-three eagles andstandards, one hundred and forty-one field guns, seventy-six machineguns, eight hundred casemate and barbette guns, three hundred thousandmuskets, two thousand military train wagons, material for eighty-fivebatteries--"

And he went on giving further particulars: how Marshal Bazaine had beenblockaded in Metz with the army, bound hand and foot, making no effortto break the wall of adamant that surrounded him; the doubtful relationsthat existed between him and Prince Frederick Charles, his indecisionand fluctuating political combinations, his ambition to play a greatrole in history, but a role that he seemed not to have fixed uponhimself; then all the dirty business of parleys and conferences, andthe communications by means of lying, unsavory emissaries with Bismarck, King William and the Empress-regent, who in the end put her foot downand refused to negotiate with the enemy on the basis of a cession ofterritory; and, finally, the inevitable catastrophe, the completionof the web that destiny had been weaving, famine in Metz, a compulsorycapitulation, officers and men, hope and courage gone, reduced to acceptthe bitter terms of the victor. France no longer had an army. 

"In God's name!" Jean ejaculated in a deep, low voice. He had not fullyunderstood it all, but until then Bazaine had always been for him thegreat captain, the one man to whom they were to look for salvation. "What is left us to do now? What will become of them at Paris?"

The doctor was just coming to the news from Paris, which was of adisastrous character. He called their attention to the fact that thepaper from which he was reading was dated November 5. The surrender ofMetz had been consummated on the 27th of October, and the tidings werenot known in Paris until the 30th. Coming, as it did, upon the heels ofthe reverses recently sustained at Chevilly, Bagneux and la Malmaison, after the conflict at Bourget and the loss of that position, theintelligence had burst like a thunderbolt over the desperate populace, angered and disgusted by the feebleness and impotency of the governmentof National Defense. And thus it was that on the following day, the31st, the city was threatened with a general insurrection, an immensethrong of angry men, a mob ripe for mischief, collecting on the Place del'Hotel de Ville, whence they swarmed into the halls and public offices, making prisoners the members of the Government, whom the National Guardrescued later in the day only because they feared the triumph of thoseincendiaries who were clamoring for the commune. And the Belgian journalwound up with a few stinging comments on the great City of Paris, thus torn by civil war when the enemy was at its gates. Was it not thepresage of approaching decomposition, the puddle of blood and mire thatwas to engulf a world?

"That's true enough!" said Jean, whose face was very white. "They've nobusiness to be squabbling when the Prussians are at hand!"

But Henriette, who had said nothing as yet, always making it her rule tohold her tongue when politics were under discussion, could not restraina cry that rose from her heart. Her thoughts were ever with her brother. 

"_Mon Dieu_, I hope that Maurice, with all the foolish ideas he has inhis head, won't let himself get mixed up in this business!"

They were all silent in their distress; and it was the doctor, who wasardently patriotic, who resumed the conversation. 

"Never mind; if there are no more soldiers, others will grow. Metz hassurrendered, Paris may surrender, even; but it don't follow from thatthat France is wiped out. Yes, the strong-box is all right, as ourpeasants say, and we will live on in spite of all. "

It was clear, however, that he was hoping against hope. He spoke of thearmy that was collecting on the Loire, whose initial performances, inthe neighborhood of Arthenay, had not been of the most promising;it would become seasoned and would march to the relief of Paris. His enthusiasm was aroused to boiling pitch by the proclamations ofGambetta, who had left Paris by balloon on the 7th of October and twodays later established his headquarters at Tours, calling on everycitizen to fly to arms, and instinct with a spirit at once so virileand so sagacious that the entire country gave its adhesion to thedictatorial powers assumed for the public safety. And was there not talkof forming another army in the North, and yet another in the East, ofcausing soldiers to spring from the ground by sheer force of faith? Itwas to be the awakening of the provinces, the creation of all that waswanting by exercise of indomitable will, the determination to continuethe struggle until the last sou was spent, the last drop of blood shed. 

"Bah!" said the doctor in conclusion as he arose to go, "I have manya time given up a patient, and a week later found him as lively as acricket. "

Jean smiled. "Doctor, hurry up and make a well man of me, so I can goback to my post down yonder. "

But those evil tidings left Henriette and him in a terribly disheartenedstate. There came another cold wave, with snow, and when the next dayHenriette came in shivering from the hospital she told her friend thatGutman was dead. The intense cold had proved fatal to many among thewounded; it was emptying the rows of beds. The miserable man whom theloss of his tongue had condemned to silence had lain two days in thethroes of death. During his last hour she had remained seated at hisbedside, unable to resist the supplication of his pleading gaze. Heseemed to be speaking to her with his tearful eyes, trying to tell, itmay be, his real name and the name of the village, so far away, where awife and little ones were watching for his return. And he had gonefrom them a stranger, known of none, sending her a last kiss with hisuncertain, stiffening fingers, as if to thank her once again for allher gentle care. She was the only one who accompanied the remains to thecemetery, where the frozen earth, the unfriendly soil of the stranger'scountry, rattled with a dull, hollow sound on the pine coffin, mingledwith flakes of snow. 

The next day, again, Henriette said upon her return at evening:

"'Poor boy' is dead. " She could not keep back her tears at mentionof his name. "If you could but have seen and heard him in his pitifuldelirium! He kept calling me: 'Mamma! mamma!' and stretched his poorthin arms out to me so entreatingly that I had to take him on my lap. His suffering had so wasted him that he was no heavier than a boy often, poor fellow. And I held and soothed him, so that he might die inpeace; yes, I held him in my arms, I whom he called his mother and whowas but a few years older than himself. He wept, and I myself could notrestrain my tears; you can see I am weeping still--" Her utterancewas choked with sobs; she had to pause. "Before his death he murmuredseveral times the name which he had given himself: 'Poor boy, poor boy!'Ah, how just the designation! poor boys they are indeed, some of themso young and all so brave, whom your hateful war maims and mangles andcauses to suffer so before they are laid away at last in their narrowbed!"

Never a day passed now but Henriette came in at night in this anguishedstate, caused by some new death, and the suffering of others had theeffect of bringing them together even more closely still during thesorrowful hours that they spent, secluded from all the world, in thesilent, tranquil chamber. And yet those hours were full of sweetness, too, for affection, a feeling which they believed to be a brother's andsister's love, had sprung up in those two hearts which little bylittle had come to know each other's worth. To him, with his observant, thoughtful nature, their long intimacy had proved an elevatinginfluence, while she, noting his unfailing kindness of heart andevenness of temper, had ceased to remember that he was one of thelowly of the earth and had been a tiller of the soil before he became asoldier. Their understanding was perfect; they made a very goodcouple, as Silvine said with her grave smile. There was never the leastembarrassment between them; when she dressed his leg the calm serenitythat dwelt in the eyes of both was undisturbed. Always attired in black, in her widow's garments, it seemed almost as if she had ceased to be awoman. 

But during those long afternoons when Jean was left to himself he couldnot help giving way to speculation. The sentiment he experienced for hisfriend was one of boundless gratitude, a sort of religious reverence, which would have made him repel the idea of love as if it were a sort ofsacrilege. And yet he told himself that had he had a wife like her, so gentle, so loving, so helpful, his life would have been an earthlyparadise. His great misfortune, his unhappy marriage, the evil yearshe had spent at Rognes, his wife's tragic end, all the sad past, arosebefore him with a softened feeling of regret, with an undefined hope forthe future, but without distinct purpose to try another effort to masterhappiness. He closed his eyes and dropped off into a doze, and then hehad a confused vision of being at Remilly, married again and owner of abit of land, sufficient to support a family of honest folks whose wantswere not extravagant. But it was all a dream, lighter than thistle-down;he knew it could never, never be. He believed his heart to be capable ofno emotion stronger than friendship, he loved Henriette as he did solelybecause he was Maurice's brother. And then that vague dream of marriagehad come to be in some measure a comfort to him, one of those fancies ofthe imagination that we know is never to be realized and with which wefondle ourselves in our hours of melancholy. 

For her part, such thoughts had never for a moment presented themselvesto Henriette's mind. Since the day of the horrible tragedy at Bazeillesher bruised heart had lain numb and lifeless in her bosom, and ifconsolation in the shape of a new affection had found its way thither, it could not be otherwise than without her knowledge; the latentmovement of the seed deep-buried in the earth, which bursts its sheathand germinates, unseen of human eye. She failed even to perceivethe pleasure it afforded her to remain for hours at a time by Jean'sbedside, reading to him those newspapers that never brought them tidingssave of evil. Never had her pulses beat more rapidly at the touch of hishand, never had she dwelt in dreamy rapture on the vision of the futurewith a longing to be loved once more. And yet it was in that chamberalone that she found comfort and oblivion. When she was there, busyingherself with noiseless diligence for her patient's well-being, she wasat peace; it seemed to her that soon her brother would return and allwould be well, they would all lead a life of happiness together andnever more be parted. And it appeared to her so natural that thingsshould end thus that she talked of their relations without the slightestfeeling of embarrassment, without once thinking to question her heartmore closely, unaware that she had already made the chaste surrender ofit. 

But as she was on the point of leaving for the hospital one afternoonshe looked into the kitchen as she passed and saw there a Prussiancaptain and two other officers, and the icy terror that filled herat the sight, then, for the first time, opened her eyes to the deepaffection she had conceived for Jean. It was plain that the men hadheard of the wounded man's presence at the farm and were come to claimhim; he was to be torn from them and led away captive to the dungeon ofsome dark fortress deep in Germany. She listened tremblingly, her heartbeating tumultuously. 

The captain, a big, stout man, who spoke French with scarce a trace offoreign accent, was rating old Fouchard soundly. 

"Things can't go on in this way; you are not dealing squarely by us. Icame myself to give you warning, once for all, that if the thing happensagain I shall take other steps to remedy it; and I promise you theconsequences will not be agreeable. "

Though entirely master of all his faculties the old scamp assumed anair of consternation, pretending not to understand, his mouth agape, hisarms describing frantic circles on the air. 

"How is that, sir, how is that?"

"Oh, come, there's no use attempting to pull the wool over my eyes; youknow perfectly well that the three beeves you sold me on Sunday lastwere rotten--yes, diseased, and rotten through and through; they musthave been where there was infection, for they poisoned my men; there aretwo of them in such a bad way that they may be dead by this time for allI know. "

Fouchard's manner was expressive of virtuous indignation. "What, mycattle diseased! why, there's no better meat in all the country; a sickwoman might feed on it to build her up!" And he whined and sniveled, thumping himself on the chest and calling God to witness he was anhonest man; he would cut off his right hand rather than sell badmeat. For more than thirty years he had been known throughout theneighborhood, and not a living soul could say he had ever been wrongedin weight or quality. "They were as sound as a dollar, sir, and if yourmen had the belly-ache it was because they ate too much--unless somevillain hocussed the pot--"

And so he ran on, with such a flux of words and absurd theories thatfinally the captain, his patience exhausted, cut him short. 

"Enough! You have had your warning; see you profit by it! And thereis another matter: we have our suspicions that all you people of thisvillage give aid and comfort to the francs-tireurs of the wood ofDieulet, who killed another of our sentries day before yesterday. Mindwhat I say; be careful!"

When the Prussians were gone Father Fouchard shrugged his shoulders witha contemptuous sneer. Why, yes, of course he sold them carcasses thathad never been near the slaughter house; that was all they would everget to eat from him. If a peasant had a cow die on his hands of therinderpest, or if he found a dead ox lying in the ditch, was not thecarrion good enough for those dirty Prussians? To say nothing of thepleasure there was in getting a big price out of them for tainted meatat which a dog would turn up his nose. He turned and winked slylyat Henriette, who was glad to have her fears dispelled, mutteringtriumphantly:

"Say, little girl, what do you think now of the wicked people who goabout circulating the story that I am not a patriot? Why don't they doas I do, eh? sell the blackguards carrion and put their money in theirpocket. Not a patriot! why, good Heavens! I shall have killed more ofthem with my diseased cattle than many a soldier with his chassepot!"

When the story reached Jean's ears, however, he was greatly disturbed. If the German authorities suspected that the people of Remilly wereharboring the francs-tireurs from Dieulet wood they might at any timecome and beat up his quarters and unearth him from his retreat. Theidea that he should be the means of compromising his hosts or bringingtrouble to Henriette was unendurable to him. Yielding to the youngwoman's entreaties, however, he consented to delay his departure yet fora few days, for his wound was very slow in healing and he was not strongenough to go away and join one of the regiments in the field, either inthe North or on the Loire. 

From that time forward, up to the middle of December, the stress oftheir anxiety and mental suffering exceeded even what had gone before. The cold was grown to be so intense that the stove no longer sufficedto heat the great, barn-like room. When they looked from their window onthe crust of snow that covered the frozen earth they thought of Maurice, entombed down yonder in distant Paris, that was now become a city ofdeath and desolation, from which they scarcely ever received reliableintelligence. Ever the same questions were on their lips: what was hedoing, why did he not let them hear from him? They dared not voice theirdreadful doubts and fears; perhaps he was ill, or wounded; perhaps evenhe was dead. The scanty and vague tidings that continued to reach themoccasionally through the newspapers were not calculated to reassurethem. After numerous lying reports of successful sorties, circulatedone day only to be contradicted the next, there was a rumor of a greatvictory gained by General Ducrot at Champigny on the 2d of December; butthey speedily learned that on the following day the general, abandoningthe positions he had won, had been forced to recross the Marne and sendhis troops into cantonments in the wood of Vincennes. With each new daythe Parisians saw themselves subjected to fresh suffering and privation:famine was beginning to make itself felt; the authorities, having firstrequisitioned horned cattle, were now doing the same with potatoes, gaswas no longer furnished to private houses, and soon the fiery flight ofthe projectiles could be traced as they tore through the darkness ofthe unlighted streets. And so it was that neither of them could draw abreath or eat a mouthful without being haunted by the image of Mauriceand those two million living beings, imprisoned in their giganticsepulcher. 

From every quarter, moreover, from the northern as well as from thecentral districts, most discouraging advices continued to arrive. In thenorth the 22d army corps, composed of gardes mobiles, depot companiesfrom various regiments and such officers and men as had not beeninvolved in the disasters of Sedan and Metz, had been forced to abandonAmiens and retreat on Arras, and on the 5th of December Rouen had alsofallen into the hands of the enemy, after a mere pretense of resistanceon the part of its demoralized, scanty garrison. In the center thevictory of Coulmiers, achieved on the 3d of November by the army of theLoire, had resuscitated for a moment the hopes of the country: Orleanswas to be reoccupied, the Bavarians were to be put to flight, themovement by way of Etampes was to culminate in the relief of Paris; buton December 5 Prince Frederick Charles had retaken Orleans and cut intwo the army of the Loire, of which three corps fell back on Bourges andVierzon, while the remaining two, commanded by General Chanzy, retiredto Mans, fighting and falling back alternately for a whole week, mostgallantly. The Prussians were everywhere, at Dijon and at Dieppe, at Vierzon as well as at Mans. And almost every morning came theintelligence of some fortified place that had capitulated, unable longerto hold out under the bombardment. Strasbourg had succumbed as earlyas the 28th of September, after standing forty-six days of siege andthirty-seven of shelling, her walls razed and her buildings riddled bymore than two hundred thousand projectiles. The citadel of Laon hadbeen blown into the air; Toul had surrendered; and following them, amelancholy catalogue, came Soissons with its hundred and twenty-eightpieces of artillery, Verdun, which numbered a hundred and thirty-six, Neufbrisach with a hundred, La Fere with seventy, Montmedy, sixty-five. Thionville was in flames, Phalsbourg had only opened her gates after adesperate resistance that lasted eighty days. It seemed as if allFrance were doomed to burn and be reduced to ruins by the never-ceasingcannonade. 

One morning that Jean manifested a fixed determination to be gone, Henriette seized both his hands and held them tight clasped in hers. 

"Ah, no! I beg you, do not go and leave me here alone. You are notstrong enough; wait a few days yet, only a few days. I will let you go, I promise you I will, whenever the doctor says you are well enough to goand fight. "

V. 

The cold was intense on that December evening. Silvine and Prosper, together with little Charlot, were alone in the great kitchen of thefarmhouse, she busy with her sewing, he whittling away at a whip that heproposed should be more than usually ornate. It was seven o'clock; theyhad dined at six, not waiting for Father Fouchard, who they supposedhad been detained at Raucourt, where there was a scarcity of meat, andHenriette, whose turn it was to watch that night at the hospital, hadjust left the house, after cautioning Silvine to be sure to replenishJean's stove with coal before she went to bed. 

Outside a sky of inky blackness overhung the white expanse of snow. Nosound came from the village, buried among the drifts; all that was to beheard in the kitchen was the scraping of Prosper's knife as he fashionedelaborate rosettes and lozenges on the dogwood stock. Now and then hestopped and cast a glance at Charlot, whose flaxen head was noddingdrowsily. When the child fell asleep at last the silence seemed moreprofound than ever. The mother noiselessly changed the position of thecandle that the light might not strike the eyes of her little one; thensitting down to her sewing again, she sank into a deep reverie. AndProsper, after a further period of hesitation, finally mustered upcourage to disburden himself of what he wished to say. 

"Listen, Silvine; I have something to tell you. I have been watching foran opportunity to speak to you in private--"

Alarmed by his preface, she raised her eyes and looked him in the face. 

"This is what it is. You'll forgive me for frightening you, but it isbest you should be forewarned. In Remilly this morning, at the corner bythe church, I saw Goliah; I saw him as plain as I see you sitting there. Oh, no! there can be no mistake; I was not dreaming!"

Her face suddenly became white as death; all she was capable of utteringwas a stifled moan:

"My God! my God!"

Prosper went on, in words calculated to give her least alarm, andrelated what he had learned during the day by questioning one person andanother. No one doubted now that Goliah was a spy, that he had formerlycome and settled in the country with the purpose of acquainting himselfwith its roads, its resources, the most insignificant details pertainingto the life of its inhabitants. Men reminded one another of the timewhen he had worked for Father Fouchard on his farm and of his suddendisappearance; they spoke of the places he had had subsequently to thatover toward Beaumont and Raucourt. And now he was back again, holdinga position of some sort at the military post of Sedan, its dutiesapparently not very well defined, going about from one village toanother, denouncing this man, fining that, keeping an eye to the fillingof the requisitions that made the peasants' lives a burden to them. Thatvery morning he had frightened the people of Remilly almost out of theirwits in relation to a delivery of flour, alleging it was short in weightand had not been furnished within the specified time. 

"You are forewarned, " said Prosper in conclusion, "and now you'll knowwhat to do when he shows his face here--"

She interrupted him with a terrified cry. 

"Do you think he will come here?"

"_Dame_! it appears to me extremely probable he will. It would showgreat lack of curiosity if he didn't, since he knows he has a young onehere that he has never seen. And then there's you, besides, and you'renot so very homely but he might like to have another look at you. "

She gave him an entreating glance that silenced his rude attempt atgallantry. Charlot, awakened by the sound of their voices, had raisedhis head. With the blinking eyes of one suddenly aroused from slumber helooked about the room, and recalled the words that some idle fellow ofthe village had taught him; and with the solemn gravity of a little manof three he announced:

"Dey're loafers, de Prussians!"

His mother went and caught him frantically in her arms and seated him onher lap. Ah! the poor little waif, at once her delight and her despair, whom she loved with all her soul and who brought the tears to her eyesevery time she looked on him, flesh of her flesh, whom it wrungher heart to hear the urchins with whom he consorted in the streettauntingly call "the little Prussian!" She kissed him, as if she wouldhave forced the words back into his mouth. 

"Who taught my darling such naughty words? It's not nice; you must notsay them again, my loved one. "

Whereon Charlot, with the persistency of childhood, laughing andsquirming, made haste to reiterate:

"Dey're dirty loafers, de Prussians!"

And when his mother burst into tears he clung about her neck and alsobegan to howl dismally. _Mon Dieu_, what new evil was in store for her!Was it not enough that she had lost in Honore the one single hope of herlife, the assured promise of oblivion and future happiness? and was thatman to appear upon the scene again to make her misery complete?

"Come, " she murmured, "come along, darling, and go to bed. Mamma willkiss her little boy all the same, for he does not know the sorrow hecauses her. "

And she went from the room, leaving Prosper alone. The good fellow, notto add to her embarrassment, had averted his eyes from her face and wasapparently devoting his entire attention to his carving. 

Before putting Charlot to bed it was Silvine's nightly custom to takehim in to say good-night to Jean, with whom the youngster was on termsof great friendship. As she entered the room that evening, holding hercandle before her, she beheld the convalescent seated upright in bed, his open eyes peering into the obscurity. What, was he not asleep?Faith, no; he had been ruminating on all sorts of subjects in thesilence of the winter night; and while she was cramming the stove withcoal he frolicked for a moment with Charlot, who rolled and tumbled onthe bed like a young kitten. He knew Silvine's story, and had a verykindly feeling for the meek, courageous girl whom misfortune had triedso sorely, mourning the only man she had ever loved, her sole comfortthat child of shame whose existence was a daily reproach to her. Whenshe had replaced the lid on the stove, therefore, and came to thebedside to take the boy from his arms, he perceived by her red eyes thatshe had been weeping. What, had she been having more trouble? But shewould not answer his question: some other day she would tell him whatit was if it seemed worth the while. _Mon Dieu!_ was not her life one ofcontinual suffering now?

Silvine was at last lugging Charlot away in her arms when there arosefrom the courtyard of the farm a confused sound of steps and voices. Jean listened in astonishment. 

"What is it? It can't be Father Fouchard returning, for I did not hearhis wagon wheels. " Lying on his back in his silent chamber, with nothingto occupy his mind, he had become acquainted with every detail of theroutine of home life on the farm, of which the sounds were all familiarto his ears. Presently he added: "Ah, I see; it is those men again, thefrancs-tireurs from Dieulet, after something to eat. "

"Quick, I must be gone!" said Silvine, hurrying from the room andleaving him again in darkness. "I must make haste and see they get theirloaves. "

A loud knocking was heard at the kitchen door and Prosper, who wasbeginning to tire of his solitude, was holding a hesitating parley withthe visitors. He did not like to admit strangers when the master wasaway, fearing he might be held responsible for any damage that mightensue. His good luck befriended him in this instance, however, for justthen Father Fouchard's carriole came lumbering up the acclivity, thetramp of the horse's feet resounding faintly on the snow that coveredthe road. It was the old man who welcomed the newcomers. 

"Ah, good! it's you fellows. What have you on that wheelbarrow?"

Sambuc, lean and hungry as a robber and wrapped in the folds of ablue woolen blouse many times too large for him, did not even hear thefarmer; he was storming angrily at Prosper, his honest brother, as hecalled him, who had only then made up his mind to unbar the door. 

"Say, you! do you take us for beggars that you leave us standing in thecold in weather such as this?"

But Prosper did not trouble himself to make any other reply than wasexpressed in a contemptuous shrug of the shoulders, and while he wasleading the horse off to the stable old Fouchard, bending over thewheelbarrow, again spoke up. 

"So, it's two dead sheep you've brought me. It's lucky it's freezingweather, otherwise we should know what they are by the smell. "

Cabasse and Ducat, Sambuc's two trusty henchmen, who accompanied him inall his expeditions, raised their voices in protest. 

"Oh!" cried the first, with his loud-mouthed Provencal volubility, "they've only been dead three days. They're some of the animals thatdied on the Raffins farm, where the disease has been putting in its finework of late. "

"_Procumbit humi bos_, " spouted the other, the ex-court officer whoseexcessive predilection for the ladies had got him into difficulties, andwho was fond of airing his Latin on occasion. 

Father Fouchard shook his head and continued to disparage theirmerchandise, declaring it was too "high. " Finally he took the three meninto the kitchen, where he concluded the business by saying:

"After all, they'll have to take it and make the best of it. It comesjust in season, for there's not a cutlet left in Raucourt. When a man'shungry he'll eat anything, won't he?" And very well pleased at heart, he called to Silvine, who just then came in from putting Charlot to bed:"Let's have some glasses; we are going to drink to the downfall of oldBismarck. "

Fouchard maintained amicable relations with these francs-tireurs fromDieulet wood, who for some three months past had been emerging atnightfall from the fastnesses where they made their lurking place, killing and robbing a Prussian whenever they could steal upon himunawares, descending on the farms and plundering the peasants when therewas a scarcity of the other kind of game. They were the terror ofall the villages in the vicinity, and the more so that every time aprovision train was attacked or a sentry murdered the German authoritiesavenged themselves on the adjacent hamlets, the inhabitants of whichthey accused of abetting the outrages, inflicting heavy penalties onthem, carrying off their mayors as prisoners, burning their poor hovels. Nothing would have pleased the peasants more than to deliver Sambucand his band to the enemy, and they were only deterred from doing so bytheir fear of being shot in the back at a turn in the road some nightshould their attempt fail of success. 

It had occurred to Fouchard to inaugurate a traffic with them. Roamingabout the country in every direction, peering with their sharp eyes intoditches and cattle sheds, they had become his purveyors of dead animals. Never an ox or a sheep within a radius of three leagues was strickendown by disease but they came by night with their barrow and wheeled itaway to him, and he paid them in provisions, most generally in bread, that Silvine baked in great batches expressly for the purpose. Besides, if he had no great love for them, he experienced a secret feeling ofadmiration for the francs-tireurs, a set of handy rascals who went theirway and snapped their fingers at the world, and although he was makinga fortune from his dealings with the Prussians, he could never refrainfrom chuckling to himself with grim, savage laughter as often as heheard that one of them had been found lying at the roadside with histhroat cut. 

"Your good health!" said he, touching glasses with the three men. Then, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand: "Say, have you heard of thefuss they're making over the two headless uhlans that they picked upover there near Villecourt? Villecourt was burned yesterday, you know;they say it was the penalty the village had to pay for harboring you. You'll have to be prudent, don't you see, and not show yourselves abouthere for a time. I'll see the bread is sent you somewhere. "

Sambuc shrugged his shoulders and laughed contemptuously. What did hecare for the Prussians, the dirty cowards! And all at once he explodedin a fit of anger, pounding the table with his fist. 

"_Tonnerre de Dieu!_ I don't mind the uhlans so much; they're not sobad, but it's the other one I'd like to get a chance at once--you knowwhom I mean, the other fellow, the spy, the man who used to work foryou. "

"Goliah?" said Father Fouchard. 

Silvine, who had resumed her sewing, dropped it in her lap and listenedwith intense interest. 

"That's his name, Goliah! Ah, the brigand! he is as familiar with everyinch of the wood of Dieulet as I am with my pocket, and he's likeenough to get us pinched some fine morning. I heard of him to-day at theMaltese Cross making his boast that he would settle our business for usbefore we're a week older. A dirty hound, he is, and he served as guideto the Prussians the day before the battle of Beaumont; I leave it tothese fellows if he didn't. "

"It's as true as there's a candle standing on that table!" attestedCabasse. 

"_Per silentia amica lunoe_, " added Ducat, whose quotations were notalways conspicuous for their appositeness. 

But Sambuc again brought his heavy fist down upon the table. "He hasbeen tried and adjudged guilty, the scoundrel! If ever you hear of hisbeing in the neighborhood just send me word, and his head shall go andkeep company with the heads of the two uhlans in the Meuse; yes, by G-d!I pledge you my word it shall. "

There was silence. Silvine was very white, and gazed at the men withunwinking, staring eyes. 

"Those are things best not be talked too much about, " old Fouchardprudently declared. "Your health, and good-night to you. "

They emptied the second bottle, and Prosper, who had returned from thestable, lent a hand to load upon the wheelbarrow, whence the deadsheep had been removed, the loaves that Silvine had placed in an oldgrain-sack. But he turned his back and made no reply when his brotherand the other two men, wheeling the barrow before them through the snow, stalked away and were lost to sight in the darkness, repeating:

"Good-night, good-night! _an plaisir_!"

They had breakfasted the following morning, and Father Fouchard wasalone in the kitchen when the door was thrown open and Goliah in theflesh entered the room, big and burly, with the ruddy hue of health onhis face and his tranquil smile. If the old man experienced anythingin the nature of a shock at the suddenness of the apparition he letno evidence of it escape him. He peered at the other through hishalf-closed lids while he came forward and shook his former employerwarmly by the hand. 

"How are you, Father Fouchard?"

Then only the old peasant seemed to recognize him. 

"Hallo, my boy, is it you? You've been filling out; how fat you are!"

And he eyed him from head to foot as he stood there, clad in a sortof soldier's greatcoat of coarse blue cloth, with a cap of the samematerial, wearing a comfortable, prosperous air of self-content. Hisspeech betrayed no foreign accent, moreover; he spoke with the slow, thick utterance of the peasants of the district. 

"Yes, Father Fouchard, it's I in person. I didn't like to be in theneighborhood without dropping in just to say how-do-you-do to you. "

The old man could not rid himself of a feeling of distrust. What was thefellow after, anyway? Could he have heard of the francs-tireurs' visitto the farmhouse the night before? That was something he must tryto ascertain. First of all, however, it would be best to treat himpolitely, as he seemed to have come there in a friendly spirit. 

"Well, my lad, since you are so pleasant we'll have a glass together forold times' sake. "

He went himself and got a bottle and two glasses. Such expenditure ofwine went to his heart, but one must know how to be liberal when he hasbusiness on hand. The scene of the preceding night was repeated, theytouched glasses with the same words, the same gestures. 

"Here's to your good health, Father Fouchard. "

"And here's to yours, my lad. "

Then Goliah unbent and his face assumed an expression of satisfaction;he looked about him like a man pleased with the sight of objects thatrecalled bygone times. He did not speak of the past, however, nor, forthe matter of that, did he speak of the present. The conversation ranon the extremely cold weather, which would interfere with farmingoperations; there was one good thing to be said for the snow, however:it would kill off the insects. He barely alluded, with a slightly painedexpression, to the partially concealed hatred, the affright and scorn, with which he had been received in the other houses of Remilly. Everyman owes allegiance to his country, doesn't he? It is quite clear heshould serve his country as well as he knows how. In France, however, no one looked at the matter in that light; there were things about whichpeople had very queer notions. And as the old man listened and lookedat that broad, innocent, good-natured face, beaming with frankness andgood-will, he said to himself that surely that excellent fellow had hadno evil designs in coming there. 

"So you are all alone to-day, Father Fouchard?"

"Oh, no; Silvine is out at the barn, feeding the cows. Would you like tosee her?"

Goliah laughed. "Well, yes. To be quite frank with you, it was onSilvine's account that I came. "

Old Fouchard felt as if a great load had been taken off his mind; hewent to the door and shouted at the top of his voice:

"Silvine! Silvine! There's someone here to see you. "

And he went away about his business without further apprehension, sincethe lass was there to look out for the property. A man must be in a badway, he reflected, to let a fancy for a girl keep such a hold on himafter such a length of time, years and years. 

When Silvine entered the room she was not surprised to find herself inpresence of Goliah, who remained seated and contemplated her with hisbroad smile, in which, however, there was a trace of embarrassment. Shehad been expecting him, and stood stock-still immediately she steppedacross the doorsill, nerving herself and bracing all her faculties. Little Charlot came running up and hid among her petticoats, astonishedand frightened to see a strange man there. Then succeeded a few secondsof awkward silence. 

"And this is the little one, then?" Goliah asked at last in his mostdulcet tone. 

"Yes, " was Silvine's curt, stern answer. 

Silence again settled down upon the room. He had known there was achild, although he had gone away before the birth of his offspring, butthis was the first time he had laid eyes on it. He therefore wished toexplain matters, like a young man of sense who is confident he can givegood reasons for his conduct. 

"Come, Silvine, I know you cherish bitter feelings against me--and yetthere is no reason why you should. If I went away, if I have been causeto you of so much suffering, you might have told yourself that perhapsit was because I was not my own master. When a man has masters over himhe must obey them, mustn't he? If they had sent me off on foot to makea journey of a hundred leagues I should have been obliged to go. And, ofcourse, I couldn't say a word to you about it; you have no idea how badit made me feel to go away as I did without bidding you good-by. I won'tsay to you now that I felt certain I should return to you some day;still, I always fully expected that I should, and, as you see, here I amagain--"

She had turned away her head and was looking through the window at thesnow that carpeted the courtyard, as if resolved to hear no wordhe said. Her persistent silence troubled him; he interrupted hisexplanations to say:

"Do you know you are prettier than ever!"

True enough, she was very beautiful in her pallor, with her magnificentgreat eyes that illuminated all her face. The heavy coils of raven hairthat crowned her head seemed the outward symbol of the inward sorrowthat was gnawing at her heart. 

"Come, don't be angry! you know that I mean you no harm. If I did notlove you still I should not have come back, that's very certain. Nowthat I am here and everything is all right once more we shall see eachother now and then, shan't we?"

She suddenly stepped a pace backward, and looking him squarely in theface:

"Never!"

"Never!--and why? Are you not my wife, is not that child ours?"

She never once took her eyes from off his face, speaking with impressiveslowness:

"Listen to me; it will be better to end that matter once for all. Youknew Honore; I loved him, he was the only man who ever had my love. Andnow he is dead; you robbed me of him, you murdered him over there on thebattlefield, and never again will I be yours. Never!"

She raised her hand aloft as if invoking heaven to record her vow, whilein her voice was such depth of hatred that for a moment he stood as ifcowed, then murmured:

"Yes, I heard that Honore was dead; he was a very nice young fellow. Butwhat could you expect? Many another has died as well; it is the fortuneof war. And then it seemed to me that once he was dead there would nolonger be a barrier between us, and let me remind you, Silvine, thatafter all I was never brutal toward you--"

But he stopped short at sight of her agitation; she seemed as if aboutto tear her own flesh in her horror and distress. 

"Oh! that is just it; yes, it is that which seems as if it would driveme wild. Why, oh! why did I yield when I never loved you? Honore'sdeparture left me so broken down, I was so sick in mind and body thatnever have I been able to recall any portion of the circumstances;perhaps it was because you talked to me of him and appeared to love him. My God! the long nights I have spent thinking of that time and weepinguntil the fountain of my tears was dry! It is dreadful to have done athing that one had no wish to do and afterward be unable to explain thereason of it. And he had forgiven me, he had told me that he would marryme in spite of all when his time was out, if those hateful Prussiansonly let him live. And you think I will return to you. No, never, never!not if I were to die for it!"

Goliah's face grew dark. She had always been so submissive, and now hesaw she was not to be shaken in her fixed resolve. Notwithstanding hiseasy-going nature he was determined he would have her, even if he shouldbe compelled to use force, now that he was in a position to enforcehis authority, and it was only his inherent prudence, the instinct thatcounseled him to patience and diplomacy, that kept him from resortingto violent measures now. The hard-fisted colossus was averse to bringinghis physical powers into play; he therefore had recourse to anothermethod for making her listen to reason. 

"Very well; since you will have nothing more to do with me I will takeaway the child. "

"What do you mean?"

Charlot, whose presence had thus far been forgotten by them both, hadremained hanging to his mother's skirts, struggling bravely to keep downhis rising sobs as the altercation waxed more warm. Goliah, leaving hischair, approached the group. 

"You're my boy, aren't you? You're a good little Prussian. Come alongwith me. "

But before he could lay hands on the child Silvine, all a-quiver withexcitement, had thrown her arms about it and clasped it to her bosom. 

"He, a Prussian, never! He's French, was born in France!"

"You say he's French! Look at him, and look at me; he's my very image. Can you say he resembles you in any one of his features?"

She turned her eyes on the big, strapping lothario, with his curlinghair and beard and his broad, pink face, in which the great blue eyesgleamed like globes of polished porcelain; and it was only too true, thelittle one had the same yellow thatch, the same rounded cheeks, the samelight eyes; every feature of the hated race was reproduced faithfully inhim. A tress of her jet black hair that had escaped from its confinementand wandered down upon her shoulder in the agitation of the momentshowed her how little there was in common between the child and her. 

"I bore him; he is mine!" she screamed in fury. "He's French, andwill grow up to be a Frenchman, knowing no word of your dirty Germanlanguage; and some day he shall go and help to kill the whole pack ofyou, to avenge those whom you have murdered!"

Charlot, tightening his clasp about her neck, began to cry, shrieking:

"Mammy, mammy, I'm 'fraid! take me away!"

Then Goliah, doubtless because he did not wish to create a scandal, stepped back, and in a harsh, stern voice, unlike anything she had everheard from his lips before, made this declaration:

"Bear in mind what I am about to tell you, Silvine. I know all thathappens at this farm. You harbor the francs-tireurs from the wood ofDieulet, among them that Sambuc who is brother to your hired man; yousupply the bandits with provisions. And I know that that hired man, Prosper, is a chasseur d'Afrique and a deserter, and belongs to usby rights. Further, I know that you are concealing on your premisesa wounded man, another soldier, whom a word from me would sufficeto consign to a German fortress. What do you think: am I not wellinformed?"

She was listening to him now, tongue-tied and terror-stricken, whilelittle Charlot kept piping in her ear with lisping voice:

"Oh! mammy, mammy, take me away, I'm 'fraid!"

"Come, " resumed Goliah, "I'm not a bad fellow, and I don't like quarrelsand bickering, as you are well aware, but I swear by all that's holy Iwill have them all arrested, Father Fouchard and the rest, unless youconsent to admit me to your chamber on Monday next. I will take thechild, too, and send him away to Germany to my mother, who will be veryglad to have him; for you have no further right to him, you know, if youare going to leave me. You understand me, don't you? The folks will allbe gone, and all I shall have to do will be to come and carry him away. I am the master; I can do what pleases me--come, what have you to say?"

But she made no answer, straining the little one more closely to herbreast as if fearing he might be torn from her then and there, and inher great eyes was a look of mingled terror and execration. 

"It is well; I give you three days to think the matter over. See to itthat your bedroom window that opens on the orchard is left open. If Ido not find the window open next Monday evening at seven o'clock I willcome with a detail the following day and arrest the inmates of the houseand then will return and bear away the little one. Think of it well; _aurevoir_, Silvine. "

He sauntered quietly away, and she remained standing, rooted to herplace, her head filled with such a swarming, buzzing crowd of terriblethoughts that it seemed to her she must go mad. And during the whole ofthat long day the tempest raged in her. At first the thought occurredto her instinctively to take her child in her arms and fly with him, wherever chance might direct, no matter where; but what would becomeof them when night should fall and envelop them in darkness? how earn alivelihood for him and for herself? Then she determined she would speakto Jean, would notify Prosper, and Father Fouchard himself, and againshe hesitated and changed her mind: was she sufficiently certain ofthe friendship of those people that she could be sure they would notsacrifice her to the general safety, she who was cause that they weremenaced all with such misfortune? No, she would say nothing to anyone;she would rely on her own efforts to extricate herself from the perilshe had incurred by braving that bad man. But what scheme could shedevise; _mon Dieu!_ how could she avert the threatened evil, for herupright nature revolted; she could never have forgiven herself had shebeen the instrument of bringing disaster to so many people, to Jean inparticular, who had always been so good to Charlot. 

The hours passed, one by one; the next day's sun went down, and stillshe had decided upon nothing. She went about her household duties asusual, sweeping the kitchen, attending to the cows, making the soup. Noword fell from her lips, and rising ever amid the ominous silence shepreserved, her hatred of Goliah grew with every hour and impregnated hernature with its poison. He had been her curse; had it not been for himshe would have waited for Honore, and Honore would be living now, and she would be happy. Think of his tone and manner when he made herunderstand he was the master! He had told her the truth, moreover;there were no longer gendarmes or judges to whom she could apply forprotection; might made right. Oh, to be the stronger! to seize andoverpower him when he came, he who talked of seizing others! All sheconsidered was the child, flesh of her flesh; the chance-met fatherwas naught, never had been aught, to her. She had no particle ofwifely feeling toward him, only a sentiment of concentrated rage, thedeep-seated hatred of the vanquished for the victor, when she thoughtof him. Rather than surrender the child to him she would have killed it, and killed herself afterward. And as she had told him, the child he hadleft her as a gift of hate she would have wished were already grown andcapable of defending her; she looked into the future and beheld him witha musket, slaughtering hecatombs of Prussians. Ah, yes! one Frenchmanmore to assist in wreaking vengeance on the hereditary foe!

There was but one day remaining, however; she could not afford to wastemore time in arriving at a decision. At the very outset, indeed, ahideous project had presented itself among the whirling thoughts thatfilled her poor, disordered mind: to notify the francs-tireurs, to giveSambuc the information he desired so eagerly; but the idea had not thenassumed definite form and shape, and she had put it from her as tooatrocious, not suffering herself even to consider it: was not that manthe father of her child? she could not be accessory to his murder. Thenthe thought returned, and kept returning at more frequently recurringintervals, little by little forcing itself upon her and enfolding her inits unholy influence; and now it had entire possession of her, holdingher captive by the strength of its simple and unanswerable logic. Theperil and calamity that overhung them all would vanish with that man; hein his grave, Jean, Prosper, Father Fouchard would have nothing moreto fear, while she herself would retain possession of Charlot and therewould be never a one in all the world to challenge her right to him. All that day she turned and re-turned the project in her mind, devoid offurther strength to bid it down, considering despite herself themurder in its different aspects, planning and arranging its most minutedetails. And now it was become the one fixed, dominant idea, making aportion of her being, that she no longer stopped to reason on, and whenfinally she came to act, in obedience to that dictate of the inevitable, she went forward as in a dream, subject to the volition of another, asomeone within her whose presence she had never known till then. 

Father Fouchard had taken alarm, and on Sunday he dispatched a messengerto the francs-tireurs to inform them that their supply of bread wouldbe forwarded to the quarries of Boisville, a lonely spot a mile and aquarter from the house, and as Prosper had other work to do the old mansent Silvine with the wheelbarrow. It was manifest to the young womanthat Destiny had taken the matter in its hands; she spoke, she madean appointment with Sambuc for the following evening, and there was notremor in her voice, as if she were pursuing a course marked out forher from which she could not depart. The next day there were still othersigns which proved that not only sentient beings, but inanimate objectsas well, favored the crime. In the first place Father Fouchard wascalled suddenly away to Raucourt, and knowing he could not get backuntil after eight o'clock, instructed them not to wait dinner for him. Then Henriette, whose night off it was, received word from the hospitallate in the afternoon that the nurse whose turn it was to watch was illand she would have to take her place; and as Jean never left hischamber under any circumstances, the only remaining person from whominterference was to be feared was Prosper. It revolted the chasseurd'Afrique, the idea of killing a man that way, three against one, butwhen his brother arrived, accompanied by his faithful myrmidons, thedisgust he felt for the villainous crew was lost in his detestation ofthe Prussians; sure he wasn't going to put himself out to save oneof the dirty hounds, even if they did do him up in a way that was notaccording to rule; and he settled matters with his conscience by goingto bed and burying his head under the blankets, that he might hearnothing that would tempt him to act in accordance with his soldierlyinstincts. 

It lacked a quarter of seven, and Charlot seemed determined not to go tosleep. As a general thing his head declined upon the table the moment hehad swallowed his last mouthful of soup. 

"Come, my darling, go to sleep, " said Silvine, who had taken him toHenriette's room; "mamma has put you in the nice lady's big bed. "

But the child was excited by the novelty of the situation; he kicked andsprawled upon the bed, bubbling with laughter and animal spirits. 

"No, no--stay, little mother--play, little mother. "

She was very gentle and patient, caressing him tenderly and repeating:

"Go to sleep, my darling; shut your eyes and go to sleep, to pleasemamma. "

And finally slumber overtook him, with a happy laugh upon his lips. Shehad not taken the trouble to undress him; she covered him warmly andleft the room, and so soundly was he in the habit of sleeping that shedid not even think it necessary to turn the key in the door. 

Silvine had never known herself to be so calm, so clear and alert ofmind. Her decision was prompt, her movements were light, as if shehad parted company with her material frame and were acting under thedomination of that other self, that inner being which she had neverknown till then. She had already let in Sambuc, with Cabasse and Ducat, enjoining upon them the exercise of the strictest caution, and now sheconducted them to her bedroom and posted them on either side thewindow, which she threw open wide, notwithstanding the intense cold. Thedarkness was profound; barely a faint glimmer of light penetratedthe room, reflected from the bosom of the snow without. A deathlikestillness lay on the deserted fields, the minutes lagged interminably. Then, when at last the deadened sound was heard of footsteps drawingnear, Silvine withdrew and returned to the kitchen, where she seatedherself and waited, motionless as a corpse, her great eyes fixed on theflickering flame of the solitary candle. 

And the suspense was long protracted, Goliah prowling warily about thehouse before he would risk entering. He thought he could depend on theyoung woman, and had therefore come unarmed save for a single revolverin his belt, but he was haunted by a dim presentiment of evil; hepushed open the window to its entire extent and thrust his head into theapartment, calling below his breath:

"Silvine! Silvine!"

Since he found the window open to him it must be that she had thoughtbetter of the matter and changed her mind. It gave him great pleasure tohave it so, although he would rather she had been there to welcome himand reassure his fears. Doubtless Father Fouchard had summoned her away;some odds and ends of work to finish up. He raised his voice a little:

"Silvine! Silvine!"

No answer, not a sound. And he threw his leg over the window-sill andentered the room, intending to get into bed and snuggle away among theblankets while waiting, it was so bitter cold. 

All at once there was a furious rush, with the noise of trampling, shuffling feet, and smothered oaths and the sound of labored breathing. Sambuc and his two companions had thrown themselves on Goliah, andnotwithstanding their superiority in numbers they found it no easy taskto overpower the giant, to whom his peril lent tenfold strength. Thepanting of the combatants, the straining of sinews and crackingof joints, resounded for a moment in the obscurity. The revolver, fortunately, had fallen to the floor in the struggle. Cabasse's choking, inarticulate voice was heard exclaiming: "The cords, the cords!" andDucat handed to Sambuc the coil of thin rope with which they had had theforesight to provide themselves. Scant ceremony was displayed in bindingtheir hapless victim; the operation was conducted to the accompanimentof kicks and cuffs. The legs were secured first, then the arms werefirmly pinioned to the sides, and finally they wound the cord at randommany times around the Prussian's body, wherever his contortions wouldallow them to place it, with such an affluence of loops and knotsthat he had the appearance of being enmeshed in a gigantic net. To hisunintermitting outcries Ducat's voice responded: "Shut your jaw!" andCabasse silenced him more effectually by gagging him with an old bluehandkerchief. Then, first waiting a moment to get their breath, theycarried him, an inert mass, to the kitchen and deposited him upon thebig table, beside the candle. 

"Ah, the Prussian scum!" exclaimed Sambuc, wiping the sweat from hisforehead, "he gave us trouble enough! Say, Silvine, light anothercandle, will you, so we can get a good view of the d----d pig and seewhat he looks like. "

Silvine arose, her wide-dilated eyes shining bright from out hercolorless face. She spoke no word, but lit another candle and came andplaced it by Goliah's head on the side opposite the other; he producedthe effect, thus brilliantly illuminated, of a corpse between twomortuary tapers. And in that brief moment their glances met; his was thewild, agonized look of the supplicant whom his fears have overmastered, but she affected not to understand, and withdrew to the sideboard, whereshe remained standing with her icy, unyielding air. 

"The beast has nearly chewed my finger off, " growled Cabasse, from whosehand blood was trickling. "I'm going to spoil his ugly mug for him. "

He had taken the revolver from the floor and was holding it poised bythe barrel in readiness to strike, when Sambuc disarmed him. 

"No, no! none of that. We are not murderers, we francs-tireurs; we arejudges. Do you hear, you dirty Prussian? we're going to try you; andyou need have no fear, your rights shall be respected. We can't let youspeak in your own defense, for if we should unmuzzle you you wouldsplit our ears with your bellowing, but I'll see that you have a lawyerpresently, and a famous good one, too!"

He went and got three chairs and placed them in a row, forming what itpleased him to call the court, he sitting in the middle with one ofhis followers on either hand. When all three were seated he aroseand commenced to speak, at first ironically aping the gravity of themagistrate, but soon launching into a tirade of blood-thirsty invective. 

"I have the honor to be at the same time President of the Court andPublic Prosecutor. That, I am aware, is not strictly in order, but thereare not enough of us to fill all the roles. I accuse you, therefore, of entering France to play the spy on us, recompensing us for ourhospitality with the most abominable treason. It is to you to whom weare principally indebted for our recent disasters, for after the battleof Nouart you guided the Bavarians across the wood of Dieulet by nightto Beaumont. No one but a man who had lived a long time in the countryand was acquainted with every path and cross-road could have done it, and on this point the conviction of the court is unalterable; you wereseen conducting the enemy's artillery over roads that had become lakesof liquid mud, where eight horses had to be hitched to a single gunto drag it out of the slough. A person looking at those roads wouldhesitate to believe that an army corps could ever have passed over them. Had it not been for you and your criminal action in settling among usand betraying us the surprise of Beaumont would have never been, weshould not have been compelled to retreat on Sedan, and perhaps inthe end we might have come off victorious. I will say nothing of thedisgusting career you have been pursuing since then, coming here indisguise, terrorizing and denouncing the poor country people, so thatthey tremble at the mention of your name. You have descended to a depthof depravity beyond which it is impossible to go, and I demand from thecourt sentence of death. "

Silence prevailed in the room. He had resumed his seat, and finally, rising again, said:

"I assign Ducat to you as counsel for the defense. He has been sheriff'sofficer, and might have made his mark had it not been for his littleweakness. You see that I deny you nothing; we are disposed to treat youwell. "

Goliah, who could not stir a finger, bent his eyes on his improviseddefender. It was in his eyes alone that evidence of life remained, eyesthat burned intensely with ardent supplication under the ashy brow, where the sweat of anguish stood in big drops, notwithstanding the cold. 

Ducat arose and commenced his plea. "Gentlemen, my client, to tell thetruth, is the most noisome blackguard that I ever came across in mylife, and I should not have been willing to appear in his defense had Inot a mitigating circumstance to plead, to wit: they are all that wayin the country he came from. Look at him closely; you will read hisastonishment in his eyes; he does not understand the gravity of hisoffense. Here in France we may employ spies, but no one would touch oneof them unless with a pair of pincers, while in that country espionageis considered a highly honorable career and an extremely meritoriousmanner of serving the state. I will even go so far as to say, gentlemen, that possibly they are not wrong; our noble sentiments do us honor, butthey have also the disadvantage of bringing us defeat. If I may ventureto speak in the language of Cicero and Virgil, _quos vult perdereJupiter dementat_. You will understand the allusion, gentlemen. "

And he took his seat again, while Sambuc resumed:

"And you, Cabasse, have you nothing to say either for or against thedefendant?"

"All I have to say, " shouted the Provencal, "is that we are wasting adeal of breath in settling that scoundrel's hash. I've had my littletroubles in my lifetime, and plenty of 'em, but I don't like to seepeople trifle with the affairs of the law; it's unlucky. Let him die, Isay!"

Sambuc rose to his feet with an air of profound gravity. 

"This you both declare to be your verdict, then--death?"

"Yes, yes! death!"

The chairs were pushed back, he advanced to the table where Goliah lay, saying:

"You have been tried and sentenced; you are to die. "

The flame of the two candles rose about their unsnuffed wicks andflickered in the draught, casting a fitful, ghastly light on Goliah'sdistorted features. The fierce efforts he made to scream for mercy, to vociferate the words that were strangling him, were such that thehandkerchief knotted across his mouth was drenched with spume, and itwas a sight most horrible to see, that strong man reduced to silence, voiceless already as a corpse, about to die with that torrent of excuseand entreaty pent in his bosom. 

Cabasse cocked the revolver. "Shall I let him have it?" he asked. 

"No, no!" Sambuc shouted in reply; "he would be only too glad. " Andturning to Goliah: "You are not a soldier; you are not worthy of thehonor of quitting the world with a bullet in your head. No, you shalldie the death of a spy and the dirty pig that you are. "

He looked over his shoulder and politely said:

"Silvine, if it's not troubling you too much, I would like to have atub. "

During the whole of the trial scene Silvine had not moved a muscle. Shehad stood in an attitude of waiting, with drawn, rigid features, as ifmind and body had parted company, conscious of nothing but the one fixedidea that had possessed her for the last two days. And when she wasasked for a tub she received the request as a matter of course andproceeded at once to comply with it, disappearing into the adjoiningshed, whence she returned with the big tub in which she washed Charlot'slinen. 

"Hold on a minute! place it under the table, close to the edge. "

She placed the vessel as directed, and as she rose to her feet her eyesagain encountered Goliah's. In the look of the poor wretch was a supremeprayer for mercy, the revolt of the man who cannot bear the thought ofbeing stricken down in the pride of his strength. But in that momentthere was nothing of the woman left in her; nothing but the fiercedesire for that death for which she had been waiting as a deliverance. She retreated again to the buffet, where she remained standing in silentexpectation. 

Sambuc opened the drawer of the table and took from it a large kitchenknife, the one that the household employed to slice their bacon. 

"So, then, as you are a pig, I am going to stick you like a pig. "

He proceeded in a very leisurely manner, discussing with Cabasse, andDucat the proper method of conducting the operation. They even came nearquarreling, because Cabasse alleged that in Provence, the country hecame from, they hung pigs up by the heels to stick them, at which Ducatexpressed great indignation, declaring that the method was a barbarousand inconvenient one. 

"Bring him well forward to the edge of the table, his head over the tub, so as to avoid soiling the floor. "

They drew him forward, and Sambuc went about his task in a tranquil, decent manner. With a single stroke of the keen knife he slit the throatcrosswise from ear to ear, and immediately the blood from the severedcarotid artery commenced to drip, drip into the tub with the gentleplashing of a fountain. He had taken care not to make the incision toodeep; only a few drops spurted from the wound, impelled by the actionof the heart. Death was the slower in coming for that, but no convulsionwas to be seen, for the cords were strong and the body was utterlyincapable of motion. There was no death-rattle, not a quiver of theframe. On the face alone was evidence of the supreme agony, on thatterror-distorted mask whence the blood retreated drop by drop, leavingthe skin colorless, with a whiteness like that of linen. The expressionfaded from the eyes; they became dim, the light died from out them. 

"Say, Silvine, we shall want a sponge, too. "

She made no reply, standing riveted to the floor in an attitude ofunconsciousness, her arms folded tightly across her bosom, her throatconstricted as by the clutch of a mailed hand, gazing on the horriblespectacle. Then all at once she perceived that Charlot was there, grasping her skirts with his little hands; he must have awaked andmanaged to open the intervening doors, and no one had seen him comestealing in, childlike, curious to know what was going on. How long hadhe been there, half-concealed behind his mother? From beneath his shockof yellow hair his big blue eyes were fixed on the trickling blood, thethin red stream that little by little was filling the tub. Perhaps hehad not understood at first and had found something diverting in thesight, but suddenly he seemed to become instinctively aware of all theabomination of the thing; he gave utterance to a sharp, startled cry:

"Oh, mammy! oh, mammy! I'm 'fraid, take me away!"

It gave Silvine a shock, so violent that it convulsed her in every fiberof her being. It was the last straw; something seemed to give way inher, the excitement that had sustained her for the last two days whileunder the domination of her one fixed idea gave way to horror. It wasthe resurrection of the dormant woman in her; she burst into tears, andwith a frenzied movement caught Charlot up and pressed him wildly to herheart. And she fled with him, running with distracted terror, unable tosee or hear more, conscious of but one overmastering need, to find somesecret spot, it mattered not where, in which she might cast herself uponthe ground and seek oblivion. 

It was at this crisis that Jean rose from his bed and, softly openinghis door, looked out into the passage. Although he generally gavebut small attention to the various noises that reached him from thefarmhouse, the unusual activity that prevailed this evening, thetrampling of feet, the shouts and cries, in the end excited hiscuriosity. And it was to the retirement of his sequestered chamber thatSilvine, sobbing and disheveled, came for shelter, her form convulsed bysuch a storm of anguish that at first he could not grasp the meaning ofthe rambling, inarticulate words that fell from her blanched lips. Shekept constantly repeating the same terrified gesture, as if tothrust from before her eyes some hideous, haunting vision. At last heunderstood, the entire abominable scene was pictured clearly to hismind: the traitorous ambush, the slaughter, the mother, her little oneclinging to her skirts, watching unmoved the murdered father, whoselife-blood was slowly ebbing; and it froze his marrow--the peasant andthe soldier was sick at heart with anguished horror. Ah, hateful, cruelwar! that changed all those poor folks to ravening wolves, bespatteringthe child with the father's blood! An accursed sowing, to end in aharvest of blood and tears!

Resting on the chair where she had fallen, covering with frantic kisseslittle Charlot, who clung, sobbing, to her bosom, Silvine repeated againand again the one unvarying phrase, the cry of her bleeding heart. 

"Ah, my poor child, they will no more say you are a Prussian! Ah, mypoor child, they will no more say you are a Prussian!"

Meantime Father Fouchard had returned and was in the kitchen. He hadcome hammering at the door with the authority of the master, and therewas nothing left to do but open to him. The surprise he experienced wasnot exactly an agreeable one on beholding the dead man outstretched onhis table and the blood-filled tub beneath. It followed naturally, hisdisposition not being of the mildest, that he was very angry. 

"You pack of rascally slovens! say, couldn't you have gone outdoors todo your dirty work? Do you take my place for a shambles, eh? cominghere and ruining the furniture with such goings-on?" Then, as Sambucendeavored to mollify him and explain matters, the old fellow went onwith a violence that was enhanced by his fears: "And what do you supposeI am to do with the carcass, pray? Do you consider it a gentlemanlything to do, to come to a man's house like this and foist a stiff offon him without so much as saying by your leave? Suppose a patrol shouldcome along, what a nice fix I should be in! but precious little youfellows care whether I get my neck stretched or not. Now listen: do youtake that body at once and carry it away from here; if you don't, byG-d, you and I will have a settlement! You hear me; take it by the head, take it by the heels, take it any way you please, but get it out of hereand don't let there be a hair of it remaining in this room at the end ofthree minutes from now!"

In the end Sambuc prevailed on Father Fouchard to let him have a sack, although it wrung the old miser's heartstrings to part with it. Heselected one that was full of holes, remarking that anything was goodenough for a Prussian. Cabasse and Ducat had all the trouble in theworld to get Goliah into it; it was too short and too narrow for thelong, broad body, and the feet protruded at its mouth. Then they carriedtheir burden outside and placed it on the wheelbarrow that had served toconvey to them their bread. 

"You'll not be troubled with him any more, I give you my word of honor!"declared Sambuc. "We'll go and toss him into the Meuse. "

"Be sure and fasten a couple of big stones to his feet, " recommendedFouchard, "so the lubber shan't come up again. "

And the little procession, dimly outlined against the white waste ofsnow, started and soon was buried in the blackness of the night, givingno sound save the faint, plaintive creaking of the barrow. 

In after days Sambuc swore by all that was good and holy he had obeyedthe old man's directions, but none the less the corpse came to thesurface and was discovered two days afterward by the Prussians among theweeds at Pont-Maugis, and when they saw the manner of their countryman'smurder, his throat slit like a pig, their wrath and fury knew no bounds. Their threats were terrible, and were accompanied by domiciliary visitsand annoyances of every kind. Some of the villagers must have blabbed, for there came a party one night and arrested Father Fouchard andthe Mayor of Remilly on the charge of giving aid and comfort to thefrancs-tireurs, who were manifestly the perpetrators of the crime. And Father Fouchard really came out very strong under those untowardcircumstances, exhibiting all the impassability of a shrewd old peasant, who knew the value of silence and a tranquil demeanor. He went with hiscaptors without the least sign of perturbation, without even asking themfor an explanation. The truth would come out. In the country roundaboutit was whispered that he had already made an enormous fortune fromthe Prussians, sacks and sacks of gold pieces, that he buried awaysomewhere, one by one, as he received them. 

All these stories were a terrible source of alarm to Henriette when shecame to hear of them. Jean, fearing he might endanger the safety of hishosts, was again eager to get away, although the doctor declared he wasstill too weak, and she, saddened by the prospect of their approachingseparation, insisted on his delaying his departure for two weeks. At thetime of Father Fouchard's arrest Jean had escaped a like fate by hidingin the barn, but he was liable to be taken and led away captive at anymoment should there be further searches made. She was also anxious as toher uncle's fate, and so she resolved one morning to go to Sedan andsee the Delaherches, who had, it was said, a Prussian officer of greatinfluence quartered in their house. 

"Silvine, " she said, as she was about to start, "take good care ofour patient; see he has his bouillon at noon and his medicine at fouro'clock. "

The maid of all work, ever busy with her daily recurring tasks, wasagain the submissive and courageous woman she had been of old; she hadthe care of the farm now, moreover, in the absence of the master, whilelittle Charlot was constantly at her heels, frisking and gambolingaround her. 

"Have no fear, madame, he shall want for nothing. I am here and willlook out for him. "

VI. 

Life had fallen back into something like its accustomed routine with theDelaherches at their house in the Rue Maqua after the terrible shockof the capitulation, and for nearly four months the long days hadbeen slowly slipping by under the depressing influence of the Prussianoccupation. 

There was one corner, however, of the immense structure that was alwaysclosed, as if it had no occupant: it was the chamber that Colonel deVineuil still continued to inhabit, at the extreme end of the suitewhere the master and his family spent their daily life. While the otherwindows were thrown open, affording evidence by sight and sound ofthe activity that prevailed within, those of that room were dark andlifeless, their blinds invariably drawn. The colonel had complained thatthe daylight hurt his eyes; no one knew whether or not this was strictlytrue, but a lamp was kept burning at his bedside day and night to humorhim in his fancy. For two long months he had kept his bed, althoughMajor Bouroche asserted there was nothing more serious than a contusionof the ankle and a fragment of bone chipped away; the wound refused toheal and complications of various kinds had ensued. He was able toget up now, but was in such a state of utter mental prostration, hismysterious ailment had taken such firm hold upon his system, that he wascontent to spend his days in idleness, stretched on a lounge beforea great wood fire. He had wasted away until he was little more thana shadow, and still the physician who was attending him could find nolesion to account for that lingering death. He was slowly fading away, like the flame of a lamp in which the supply of oil is giving out. 

Mme. Delaherche, the mother, had immured herself there with him on theday succeeding the occupation. No doubt they understood each other, and had expressed in two words, once for all, their common purposeto seclude themselves in that apartment so long as there shouldbe Prussians quartered in the house. They had afforded compulsoryhospitality to many of the enemy for various lengths of time; one, aCaptain, M. Gartlauben, was there still, had taken up his abode withthem permanently. But never since that first day had mention of thosethings passed the colonel's and the old lady's lips. Notwithstanding herseventy-eight years she was up every morning soon as it was day andcame and took her position in the fauteuil that was awaiting her in thechimney nook opposite her old friend. There, by the steady, tranquillamplight, she applied herself industriously to knitting socks for thechildren of the poor, while he, his eyes fixed on the crumbling brands, with no occupation for body or mind, was as one already dead, in a stateof constantly increasing stupor. They certainly did not exchange twentywords in the course of a day; whenever she, who still continued to goabout the house at intervals, involuntarily allowed some bit of newsfrom the outer world to escape her lips, he silenced her with a gesture, so that no tidings of the siege of Paris, the disasters on the Loireand all the daily renewed horrors of the invasion had gained admissionthere. But the colonel might stop his ears and shut out the light of dayas he would in his self-appointed tomb; the air he breathed must havebrought him through key-hole and crevices intelligence of the calamitythat was everywhere throughout the land, for every new day beheld himsinking, slowly dying, despite his determination not to know the evilnews. 

While matters were in this condition at one end of the house Delaherche, who was never contented unless occupied, was bustling about andmaking attempts to start up his business once more, but what with thedisordered condition of the labor market and the pecuniary embarrassmentof many among his customers, he had so far only put a few looms inmotion. Then it occurred to him, as a means of killing the time thathung heavy on his hands, to make a complete inventory of his businessand perfect certain changes and improvements that he had long had inmind. To assist him in his labors he had just then at his disposal ayoung man, the son of an old business acquaintance, who had driftedin on him after the battle. Edmond Lagarde, who, although he wastwenty-three years old, would not have been taken for more thaneighteen, had grown to man's estate in his father's little dry-goodsshop at Passy; he was a sergeant in the 5th line regiment and had foughtwith great bravery throughout the campaign, so much so that he had beenknocked over near the Minil gate about five o'clock, when the battle wasvirtually ended, his left arm shattered by one of the last shots firedthat day, and Delaherche, when the other wounded were removed from theimprovised ambulance in the drying room, had good-naturedly received himas an inmate of his house. It was under these circumstances that Edmondwas now one of the family, having an apartment in the house and takinghis meals at the common table, and, now that his wound was healed, acting as a sort of secretary to the manufacturer while waiting for achance to get back to Paris. He had signed a parole binding himself notto attempt to leave the city, and owing to this and to his protector'sinfluence the Prussian authorities did not interfere with him. He wasfair, with blue eyes, and pretty as a woman; so timid withal that hisface assumed a beautiful hue of rosy red whenever anyone spoke tohim. He had been his mother's darling; she had impoverished herself, expending all the profits of their little business to send him tocollege. And he adored Paris and bewailed his compulsory absence from itwhen talking to Gilberte, did this wounded cherub, whom the young womanhad displayed great good-fellowship in nursing. 

Finally, their household had received another addition in the person ofM. De Gartlauben, a captain in the German landwehr, whose regiment hadbeen sent to Sedan to supply the place of troops dispatched to servicein the field. He was a personage of importance, notwithstanding hiscomparatively modest rank, for he was nephew to the governor-general, who, from his headquarters at Rheims, exercised unlimited power overall the district. He, too, prided himself on having lived at Paris, andseized every occasion ostentatiously to show he was not ignorant of itspleasures and refinements; concealing beneath this film of varnish hisinborn rusticity, he assumed as well as he was able the polish of oneaccustomed to good society. His tall, portly form was always tightlybuttoned in a close-fitting uniform, and he lied outrageously abouthis age, never being able to bring himself to own up to his forty-fiveyears. Had he had more intelligence he might have made himself an objectof greater dread, but as it was his over-weening vanity, kept him ina continual state of satisfaction with himself, for never could such athing have entered his mind as that anyone could dare to ridicule him. 

At a subsequent period he rendered Delaherche services that were ofinestimable value. But what days of terror and distress were those thatfollowed upon the heels of the capitulation! the city, overrunwith German soldiery, trembled in momentary dread of pillage andconflagration. Then the armies of the victors streamed away toward thevalley of the Seine, leaving behind them only sufficient men to forma garrison, and the quiet that settled upon the place was that of anecropolis: the houses all closed, the shops shut, the streets desertedas soon as night closed in, the silence unbroken save for the hoarsecries and heavy tramp of the patrols. No letters or newspapers reachedthem from the outside world; Sedan was become a dungeon, where theimmured citizens waited in agonized suspense for the tidings of disasterwith which the air was instinct. To render their misery completethey were threatened with famine; the city awoke one morning from itsslumbers to find itself destitute of bread and meat and the countryroundabout stripped naked, as if a devouring swarm of locusts had passedthat way, by the hundreds of thousands of men who for a week past hadbeen pouring along its roads and across its fields in a devastatingtorrent. There were provisions only for two days, and the authoritieswere compelled to apply to Belgium for relief; all supplies now camefrom their neighbors across the frontier, whence the customs guards haddisappeared, swept away like all else in the general cataclysm. Finallythere were never-ending vexations and annoyances, a conflict thatcommenced to rage afresh each morning between the Prussian governorand his underlings, quartered at the Sous-Prefecture, and the MunicipalCouncil, which was in permanent session at the Hotel de Ville. Itwas all in vain that the city fathers fought like heroes, discussing, objecting, protesting, contesting the ground inch by inch; theinhabitants had to succumb to the exactions that constantly became moreburdensome, to the whims and unreasonableness of the stronger. 

In the beginning Delaherche suffered great tribulation from the officersand soldiers who were billeted on him. It seemed as if representativesfrom every nationality on the face of the globe presented themselvesat his door, pipe in mouth. Not a day passed but there came tumbling inupon the city two or three thousand men, horse, foot and dragoons, andalthough they were by rights entitled to nothing more than shelter andfiring, it was often found expedient to send out in haste and get themprovisions. The rooms they occupied were left in a shockingly filthycondition. It was not an infrequent occurrence that the officers camein drunk and made themselves even more obnoxious than their men. Suchstrict discipline was maintained, however, that instances of violenceand marauding were rare; in all Sedan there were but two cases reportedof outrages committed on women. It was not until a later period, whenParis displayed such stubbornness in her resistance, that, exasperatedby the length to which the struggle was protracted, alarmed by theattitude of the provinces and fearing a general rising of the populace, the savage war which the francs-tireurs had inaugurated, they laid thefull weight of their heavy hand upon the suffering people. 

Delaherche had just had an experience with a lodger who had beenquartered on him, a captain of cuirassiers, who made a practice of goingto bed with his boots on and when he went away left his apartment inan unmentionably filthy condition, when in the last half of SeptemberCaptain de Gartlauben came to his door one evening when it was rainingin torrents. The first hour he was there did not promise well for thepleasantness of their future relations; he carried matters with a highhand, insisting that he should be given the best bedroom, trailing thescabbard of his sword noisily up the marble staircase; but encounteringGilberte in the corridor he drew in his horns, bowed politely, andpassed stiffly on. He was courted with great obsequiousness, foreveryone was well aware that a word from him to the colonel commandingthe post of Sedan would suffice to mitigate a requisition or secure therelease of a friend or relative. It was not very long since hisuncle, the governor-general at Rheims, had promulgated a particularlydetestable and cold-blooded order, proclaiming martial law and decreeingthe penalty of death to whomsoever should give aid and comfort to theenemy, whether by acting for them as a spy, by leading astray Germantroops that had been entrusted to their guidance, by destroying bridgesand artillery, or by damaging the railroads and telegraph lines. The enemy meant the French, of course, and the citizens scowled andinvoluntarily doubled their fists as they read the great white placardnailed against the door of post headquarters which attributed to them asa crime their best and most sacred aspirations. It was so hard, too, to have to receive their intelligence of German victories through thecheering of the garrison! Hardly a day passed over their heads thatthey were spared this bitter humiliation; the soldiers would light greatfires and sit around them, feasting and drinking all night long, whilethe townspeople, who were not allowed to be in the streets after nineo'clock, listened to the tumult from the depths of their darkenedhouses, crazed with suspense, wondering what new catastrophe hadbefallen. It was on one of these occasions, somewhere about the middleof October, that M. De Gartlauben for the first time proved himself tobe possessed of some delicacy of feeling. Sedan had been jubilant allthat day with renewed hopes, for there was a rumor that the army of theLoire, then marching to the relief of Paris, had gained a great victory;but how many times before had the best of news been converted intotidings of disaster! and sure enough, early in the evening it becameknown for certain that the Bavarians had taken Orleans. Some soldiershad collected in a house across the way from the factory in the RueMaqua, and were so boisterous in their rejoicings that the Captain, noticing Gilberte's annoyance, went and silenced them, remarking that hehimself thought their uproar ill-timed. 

Toward the close of the month M. De Gartlauben was in position to rendersome further trifling services. The Prussian authorities, in the courseof sundry administrative reforms inaugurated by them, had appointed aGerman Sous-Prefect, and although this step did not put an end to theexactions to which the city was subjected, the new official showedhimself to be comparatively reasonable. One of the most frequent amongthe causes of difference that were constantly springing up between theofficers of the post and the municipal council was that which arose fromthe custom of requisitioning carriages for the use of the staff, andthere was a great hullaballoo raised one morning that Delaherche failedto send his caleche and pair to the Sous-Prefecture: the mayor wasarrested and the manufacturer would have gone to keep him company up inthe citadel had it not been for M. De Gartlauben, who promptly quelledthe rising storm. Another day he secured a stay of proceedings for thecity, which had been mulcted in the sum of thirty thousand francs topunish it for its alleged dilatoriness in rebuilding the bridge ofVillette, a bridge that the Prussians themselves had destroyed: adisastrous piece of business that was near being the ruin of Sedan. Itwas after the surrender at Metz, however, that Delaherche contractedhis main debt of gratitude to his guest. The terrible news burst on thecitizens like a thunderclap, dashing to the ground all their remaininghopes, and early in the ensuing week the streets again began to beencumbered with the countless hosts of the German forces, streaming downfrom the conquered fortress: the army of Prince Frederick Charles movingon the Loire, that of General Manteuffel, whose destination was Amiensand Rouen, and other corps on the march to reinforce the besiegersbefore Paris. For several days the houses were full to overflowing withsoldiers, the butchers' and bakers' shops were swept clean, to the lastbone, to the last crumb; the streets were pervaded by a greasy, tallowyodor, as after the passage of the great migratory bands of olden times. The buildings in the Rue Maqua, protected by a friendly influence, escaped the devastating irruption, and were only called on to giveshelter to a few of the leaders, men of education and refinement. 

Owing to these circumstances, Delaherche at last began to lay aside hisfrostiness of manner. As a general thing the bourgeois families shutthemselves in their apartments and avoided all communication with theofficers who were billeted on them; but to him, who was of a sociablenature and liked to extract from life what enjoyment it had to offer, this enforced sulkiness in the end became unbearable. His great, silent house, where the inmates lived apart from one another in a chillatmosphere of distrust and mutual dislike, damped his spirits terribly. He began by stopping M. De Gartlauben on the stairs one day to thank himfor his favors, and thus by degrees it became a regular habit with thetwo men to exchange a few words when they met. The result was that oneevening the Prussian captain found himself seated in his host's studybefore the fireplace where some great oak logs were blazing, smokinga cigar and amicably discussing the news of the day. For the first twoweeks of their new intimacy Gilberte did not make her appearance in theroom; he affected to ignore her existence, although, at every faintestsound, his glance would be directed expectantly upon the door of theconnecting apartment. It seemed to be his object to keep his positionas an enemy as much as possible in the background, trying to show he wasnot narrow-minded or a bigoted patriot, laughing and joking pleasantlyover certain rather ridiculous requisitions. For example, a demand wasmade one day for a coffin and a shroud; that shroud and coffin affordedhim no end of amusement. As regarded other things, such as coal, oil, milk, sugar, butter, bread, meat, to say nothing of clothing, stovesand lamps--all the necessaries of daily life, in a word--he shrugged hisshoulders: _mon Dieu!_ what would you have? No doubt it was vexatious;he was even willing to admit that their demands were excessive, but thatwas how it was in war times; they had to keep themselves alive in theenemy's country. Delaherche, who was very sore over these incessantrequisitions, expressed his opinion of them with frankness, pulling themto pieces mercilessly at their nightly confabs, in much the same wayas he might have criticised the cook's kitchen accounts. On only oneoccasion did their discussion become at all acrimonious, and that was inrelation to the impost of a million francs that the Prussian prefetat Rethel had levied on the department of the Ardennes, the allegedpretense of which was to indemnify Germany for damages caused byFrench ships of war and by the expulsion of Germans domiciled in Frenchterritory. Sedan's proportionate share of the assessment was forty-twothousand francs. And he labored strenuously with his visitor toconvince him of the iniquity of the imposition; the city was differentlycircumstanced from the other towns, it had had more than its share ofaffliction, and should not be burdened with that new exaction. The pairalways came out of their discussions better friends than when they wentin; one delighted to have had an opportunity of hearing himself talk, the other pleased with himself for having displayed a truly Parisianurbanity. 

One evening Gilberte came into the room, with her air of thoughtlessgayety. She paused at the threshold, affecting embarrassment. M. DeGartlauben rose, and with much tact presently withdrew, but on repeatinghis visit the following evening and finding Gilberte there again, hesettled himself in his usual seat in the chimney-corner. It was thecommencement of a succession of delightful evenings that theypassed together in the study of the master of the house, not in thedrawing-room--wherein lay a nice distinction. And at a later periodwhen, yielding to their guest's entreaties, the young woman consented toplay for him, she did not invite him to the salon, but entered theroom alone, leaving the communicating door open. In those bitter winterevenings the old oaks of the Ardennes gave out a grateful warmth fromthe depths of the great cavernous fireplace; there was a cup offragrant tea for them about ten o'clock; they laughed and chatted in thecomfortable, bright room. And it did not require extra powers of visionto see that M. De Gartlauben was rapidly falling head over ears in lovewith that sprightly young woman, who flirted with him as audaciously asshe had flirted in former days at Charleville with Captain Beaudoin'sfriends. He began to pay increased attention to his person, displayeda gallantry that verged on the fantastic, was raised to the pinnacleof bliss by the most trifling favor, tormented by the one ever-presentanxiety not to appear a barbarian in her eyes, a rude soldier who didnot know the ways of women. 

And thus it was that in the big, gloomy house in the Rue Maqua a twofoldlife went on. While at meal-times Edmond, the wounded cherub with thepretty face, lent a listening ear to Delaherche's unceasing chatter, blushing if ever Gilberte asked him to pass her the salt, while atevening M. De Gartlauben, seated in the study, with eyes upturned insilent ecstasy, listened to a sonata by Mozart performed for his benefitby the young woman in the adjoining drawing-room, a stillness as ofdeath continued to pervade the apartment where Colonel de Vineuil andMadame Delaherche spent their days, the blinds tight drawn, the lampcontinually burning, like a votive candle illuminating a tomb. Decemberhad come and wrapped the city in a winding-sheet of snow; the cruel newsseemed all the bitterer for the piercing cold. After General Ducrot'srepulse at Champigny, after the loss of Orleans, there was left but onedark, sullen hope: that the soil of France might avenge their defeat, exterminate and swallow up the victors. Let the snow fall thicker andthicker still, let the earth's crust crack and open under the bitingfrost, that in it the entire German nation might find a grave! And therecame another sorrow to wring poor Madame Delaherche's heart. One nightwhen her son was from home, having been suddenly called away to Belgiumon business, chancing to pass Gilberte's door she heard within a lowmurmur of voices and smothered laughter. Disgusted and sick at heart shereturned to her own room, where her horror of the abominable thing shesuspected the existence of would not let her sleep: it could have beennone other but the Prussian whose voice she heard; she had thought shehad noticed glances of intelligence passing; she was prostrated by thissupreme disgrace. Ah, that woman, that abandoned woman, whom her son hadinsisted on bringing to the house despite her commands and prayers, whomshe had forgiven, by her silence, after Captain Beaudoin's death! Andnow the thing was repeated, and this time the infamy was even worse. What was she to do? Such an enormity must not go unpunished beneathher roof. Her mind was torn by the conflict that raged there, in heruncertainty as to the course she should pursue. The colonel, desiring toknow nothing of what occurred outside his room, always checked her witha gesture when he thought she was about to give him any piece of news, and she had said nothing to him of the matter that had caused her suchsuffering; but on those days when she came to him with tears standing inher eyes and sat for hours in mournful silence, he would look at her andsay to himself that France had sustained yet another defeat. 

This was the condition of affairs in the house in the Rue Maquawhen Henriette dropped in there one morning to endeavor to secureDelaherche's influence in favor of Father Fouchard. She had heard peoplespeak, smiling significantly as they did so, of the servitude to whichGilberte had reduced Captain de Gartlauben; she was, therefore, somewhatembarrassed when she encountered old Madame Delaherche, to whom shethought it her duty to explain the object of her visit, ascending thegreat staircase on her way to the colonel's apartment. 

"Dear madame, it would be so kind of you to assist us! My uncle is ingreat danger; they talk of sending him away to Germany. "

The old lady, although she had a sincere affection for Henriette, couldscarce conceal her anger as she replied:

"I am powerless to help you, my child; you should not apply to me. " Andshe continued, notwithstanding the agitation on the other's face: "Youhave selected an unfortunate moment for your visit; my son has to go toBelgium to-night. Besides, he could not have helped you; he has no moreinfluence than I have. Go to my daughter-in-law; she is all powerful. "

And she passed on toward the colonel's room, leaving Henriettedistressed to have unwittingly involved herself in a family drama. Within the last twenty-four hours Madame Delaherche had made up her mindto lay the whole matter before her son before his departure for Belgium, whither he was going to negotiate a large purchase of coal to enablehim to put some of his idle looms in motion. She could not endure thethought that the abominable thing should be repeated beneath her eyeswhile he was absent, and was only waiting to make sure he would notdefer his departure until some other day, as he had been doing all thepast week. It was a terrible thing to contemplate: the wreck of herson's happiness, the Prussian disgraced and driven from their doors, the wife, too, thrust forth upon the street and her name ignominiouslyplacarded on the walls, as had been threatened would be done with anywoman who should dishonor herself with a German. 

Gilberte gave a little scream of delight on beholding Henriette. 

"Ah, how glad I am to see you! It seems an age since we met, and onegrows old so fast in the midst of all these horrors!" Thus runningon she dragged her friend to her bedroom, where she seated her on thelounge and snuggled down close beside her. "Come, take off your things;you must stay and breakfast with us. But first we'll talk a bit; youmust have such lots and lots of things to tell me! I know that you arewithout news of your brother. Ah, that poor Maurice, how I pity him, shut up in Paris, with no gas, no wood, no bread, perhaps! And thatyoung man whom you have been nursing, that friend of your brother's--oh!a little bird has told me all about it--isn't it for his sake you arehere to-day?"

Henriette's conscience smote her, and she did not answer. Was it notreally for Jean's sake that she had come, in order that, the old unclebeing released, the invalid, who had grown so dear to her, might have nofurther cause for alarm? It distressed her to hear his name mentioned byGilberte; she could not endure the thought of enlisting in his favor aninfluence that was of so ambiguous a character. Her inbred scruples ofa pure, honest woman made themselves felt, now it seemed to her that therumors of a liaison with the Prussian captain had some foundation. 

"Then I'm to understand that it's in behalf of this young man that youcome to us for assistance?" Gilberte insistently went on, as if enjoyingher friend's discomfiture. And as the latter, cornered and unable tomaintain silence longer, finally spoke of Father Fouchard's arrest:"Why, to be sure! What a silly thing I am--and I was talking of it onlythis morning! You did well in coming to us, my dear; we must go aboutyour uncle's affair at once and see what we can do for him, for the lastnews I had was not reassuring. They are on the lookout for someone ofwhom to make an example. "

"Yes, I have had you in mind all along, " Henriette hesitatingly replied. "I thought you might be willing to assist me with your advice, perhapswith something more substantial--"

The young woman laughed merrily. "You little goose, I'll have youruncle released inside three days. Don't you know that I have a Prussiancaptain here in the house who stands ready to obey my every order?Understand, he can refuse me nothing!" And she laughed more heartilythan ever, in the giddy, thoughtless triumph of her coquettish nature, holding in her own and patting the hands of her friend, who was souncomfortable that she could not find words in which to express herthanks, horrified by the avowal that was implied in what she had justheard. But how to account for such serenity, such childlike gayety?"Leave it to me; I'll send you home to-night with a mind at rest. "

When they passed into the dining room Henriette was struck by Edmond'sdelicate beauty, never having seen him before. She eyed him with thepleasure she would have felt in looking at a pretty toy. Could it bepossible that that boy had served in the army? and how could they havebeen so cruel as to break his arm? The story of his gallantry in thefield made him even more interesting still, and Delaherche, who hadreceived Henriette with the cordiality of a man to whom the sight of anew face is a godsend, while the servants were handing round the cutletsand the potatoes cooked in their jackets, never seemed to tire ofeulogizing his secretary, who was as industrious and well behaved as hewas handsome. They made a very pleasant and homelike picture, the four, thus seated around the bright table in the snug, warm dining room. 

"So you want us to interest ourselves in Father Fouchard's case, and it's to that we owe the pleasure of your visit, eh?" said themanufacturer. "I'm extremely sorry that I have to go away to-night, but my wife will set things straight for you in a jiffy; there's noresisting her, she has only to ask for a thing to get it. " He laughedas he concluded his speech, which was uttered in perfect simplicityof soul, evidently pleased and flattered that his wife possessed suchinfluence, in which he shone with a kind of reflected glory. Thenturning suddenly to her: "By the way, my dear, has Edmond told you ofhis great discovery?"

"No; what discovery?" asked Gilberte, turning her pretty caressing eyesfull on the young sergeant. 

The cherub blushed whenever a woman looked at him in that way, as ifthe exquisiteness of his sensations was too much for him. "It's nothing, madame; only a bit of old lace; I heard you saying the other day youwanted some to put on your mauve peignoir. I happened yesterday to comeacross five yards of old Bruges point, something really handsome andvery cheap. The woman will be here presently to show it to you. "

She could have kissed him, so delighted was she. "Oh, how nice of you!You shall have your reward. "

Then, while a terrine of foie-gras, purchased in Belgium, was beingserved, the conversation took another turn; dwelling for an instanton the quantities of fish that were dying of poison in the Meuse, andfinally coming around to the subject of the pestilence that menacedSedan when there should be a thaw. Even as early as November, there hadbeen several cases of disease of an epidemic character. Six thousandfrancs had been expended after the battle in cleansing the city andcollecting and burning clothing, knapsacks, haversacks, all thedebris that was capable of harboring infection; but, for all that, thesurrounding fields continued to exhale sickening odors wheneverthere came a day or two of warmer weather, so replete were they withhalf-buried corpses, covered only with a few inches of loose earth. Inevery direction the ground was dotted with graves; the soil cracked andsplit in obedience to the forces acting beneath its surface, and fromthe fissures thus formed the gases of putrefaction issued to poisonthe living. In those more recent days, moreover, another center ofcontamination had been discovered, the Meuse, although there had alreadybeen removed from it the bodies of more than twelve hundred dead horses. It was generally believed that there were no more human remains leftin the stream, until, one day, a _garde champetre_, looking attentivelydown into the water where it was some six feet deep, discovered someobjects glimmering at the bottom, that at first he took for stones;but they proved to be corpses of men, that had been mutilated in sucha manner as to prevent the gas from accumulating in the cavities of thebody and hence had been kept from rising to the surface. For near fourmonths they had been lying there in the water among the eel-grass. Whengrappled for the irons brought them up in fragments, a head, an arm, or a leg at a time; at times the force of the current would suffice todetach a hand or foot and send it rolling down the stream. Great bubblesof gas rose to the surface and burst, still further empoisoning the air. 

"We shall get along well enough as long as the cold weather lasts, "remarked Delaherche, "but as soon as the snow is off the ground we shallhave to go to work in earnest to abate the nuisance; if we don't weshall be wanting graves for ourselves. " And when his wife laughinglyasked him if he could not find some more agreeable subject to talk aboutat the table, he concluded by saying: "Well, it will be a long timebefore any of us will care to eat any fish out of the Meuse. "

They had finished their repast, and the coffee was being poured, whenthe maid came to the door and announced that M. De Gartlauben presentedhis compliments and wanted to know if he might be allowed to see themfor a moment. There was a slight flutter of excitement, for it wasthe first time he had ever presented himself at that hour of the day. Delaherche, seeing in the circumstance a favorable opportunity forpresenting Henriette to him, gave orders that he should be introducedat once. The doughty captain, when he beheld another young woman in theroom, surpassed himself in politeness, even accepting a cup of coffee, which he took without sugar, as he had seen many people do at Paris. He had only asked to be received at that unusual hour, he said, that hemight tell Madame he had succeeded in obtaining the pardon of one ofher proteges, a poor operative in the factory who had been arrested onaccount of a squabble with a Prussian. And Gilberte thereon seized theopportunity to mention Father Fouchard's case. 

"Captain, I wish to make you acquainted with one of my dearest friends, who desires to place herself under your protection. She is the nieceof the farmer who was arrested lately at Remilly, as you are aware, forbeing mixed up with that business of the francs-tireurs. "

"Yes, yes, I know; the affair of the spy, the poor fellow who was foundin a sack with his throat cut. It's a bad business, a very bad business. I am afraid I shall not be able to do anything. "

"Oh, Captain, don't say that! I should consider it such a favor!"

There was a caress in the look she cast on him, while he beamed withsatisfaction, bowing his head in gallant obedience. Her wish was hislaw!

"You would have all my gratitude, sir, " faintly murmured Henriette, towhose memory suddenly rose the image of her husband, her dear Weiss, slaughtered down yonder at Bazeilles, filling her with invinciblerepugnance. 

Edmond, who had discreetly taken himself off on the arrival of thecaptain, now reappeared and whispered something in Gilberte's ear. Sherose quickly from the table, and, announcing to the company that she wasgoing to inspect her lace, excused herself and followed the young manfrom the room. Henriette, thus left alone with the two men, went andtook a seat by herself in the embrasure of a window, while they remainedseated at the table and went on talking in a loud tone. 

"Captain, you'll have a _petit verre_ with me. You see I don't stand onceremony with you; I say whatever comes into my head, because I knowyou to be a fair-minded man. Now I tell you your prefet is all wrongin trying to extort those forty-two thousand francs from the city. Justthink once of all our losses since the beginning of the war. In thefirst place, before the battle, we had the entire French army on ourhands, a set of ragged, hungry, exhausted men; and then along came yourrascals, and their appetites were not so very poor, either. The passageof those troops through the place, what with requisitions, repairingdamages and expenses of all sorts, stood us in a million and a half. Add as much more for the destruction caused by your artillery and byconflagration during the battle; there you have three millions. Finally, I am well within bounds in estimating the loss sustained by our tradeand manufactures at two millions. What do you say to that, eh? Agrand total of five million francs for a city of thirteen thousandinhabitants! And now you come and ask us for forty-two thousand more asa contribution to the expense of carrying on the war against us! Is itfair, is it reasonable? I leave it to your own sense of justice. "

M. De Gartlauben nodded his head with an air of profundity, and madeanswer:

"What can you expect? It is the fortune of war, the fortune of war. "

To Henriette, seated in her window seat, her ears ringing, and vague, sad images of every sort fleeting through her brain, the time seemedto pass with mortal slowness, while Delaherche asserted on his word ofhonor that Sedan could never have weathered the crisis produced by theexportation of all their specie had it not been for the wisdom of thelocal magnates in emitting an issue of paper money, a step that hadsaved the city from financial ruin. 

"Captain, will you have just a drop of cognac more?" and he skippedto another topic. "It was not France that started the war; it was theEmperor. Ah, I was greatly deceived in the Emperor. He need never expectto sit on the throne again; we would see the country dismembered first. Look here! there was just one man in this country last July who sawthings as they were, and that was M. Thiers; and his action at thepresent time in visiting the different capitals of Europe is most wiseand patriotic. He has the best wishes of every good citizen; may he besuccessful!"

He expressed the conclusion of his idea by a gesture, for he wouldhave considered it improper to speak of his desire for peace before aPrussian, no matter how friendly he might be, although the desire burnedfiercely in his bosom, as it did in that of every member of the oldconservative bourgeoisie who had favored the plebiscite. Their men andmoney were exhausted, it was time for them to throw up the sponge; and adeep-seated feeling of hatred toward Paris, for the obstinacy with whichit held out, prevailed in all the provinces that were in possessionof the enemy. He concluded in a lower tone, his allusion being toGambetta's inflammatory proclamations:

"No, no, we cannot give our suffrages to fools and madmen. The coursethey advocate would end in general massacre. I, for my part, am for M. Thiers, who would submit the questions at issue to the popular vote, andas for their Republic, great heavens! let them have it if they wantit, while waiting for something better; it don't trouble me in theslightest. "

Captain de Gartlauben continued to nod his head very politely with anapproving air, murmuring:

"To be sure, to be sure--"

Henriette, whose feeling of distress had been increasing, could standtheir talk no longer. She could assign no definite reason for thesensation of inquietude that possessed her; it was only a longing to getaway, and she rose and left the room quietly in quest of Gilberte, whoseabsence had been so long protracted. On entering the bedroom, however, she was greatly surprised to find her friend stretched on the lounge, weeping bitterly and manifestly suffering from some extremely painfulemotion. 

"Why, what is the matter? What has happened you?"

The young woman's tears flowed faster still and she would not speak, manifesting a confusion that sent every drop of blood coursing from herheart up to her face. At last, throwing herself into the arms that wereopened to receive her and concealing her face in the other's bosom, shestammered:

"Oh, darling if you but knew. I shall never dare to tell you--and yet Ihave no one but you, you alone perhaps can tell me what is best to do. "A shiver passed through her frame, her voice was scarcely audible. "Iwas with Edmond--and then--and then Madame Delaherche came into the roomand caught me--"

"Caught you! What do you mean?"

"Yes, we were here in the room; he was holding me in his arms andkissing me--" And clasping Henriette convulsively in her trembling armsshe told her all. "Oh, my darling, don't judge me severely; I could notbear it! I know I promised you it should never happen again, but youhave seen Edmond, you know how brave he is, how handsome! And think onceof the poor young man, wounded, ill, with no one to give him a mother'scare! And then he has never had the enjoyments that wealth affords; hisfamily have pinched themselves to give him an education. I could not beharsh with him. "

Henriette listened, the picture of surprise; she could not recover fromher amazement. "What! you don't mean to say it was the little sergeant!Why, my dear, everyone believes the Prussian to be your lover!"

Gilberte straightened herself up with an indignant air, and dried hereyes. "The Prussian my lover? No, thank you! He's detestable; I can'tendure him. I wonder what they take me for? What have I ever done thatthey should suppose I could be guilty of such baseness? No, never!I would rather die than do such a thing!" In the earnestness of herprotestations her beauty had assumed an angry and more lofty cast thatmade her look other than she was. And all at once, sudden as a flash, her coquettish gayety, her thoughtless levity, came back to her face, accompanied by a peal of silvery laughter. "I won't deny that I amusemyself at his expense. He adores me, and I have only to give him a lookto make him obey. You have no idea what fun it is to bamboozle thatgreat big man, who seems to think he will have his reward some day. "

"But that is a very dangerous game you're playing, " Henriette gravelysaid. 

"Oh, do you think so? What risk do I incur? When he comes to see he hasnothing to expect he can't do more than be angry with me and go away. But he will never see it! You don't know the man; I read him like a bookfrom the very start: he is one of those men with whom a woman can dowhat she pleases and incur no danger. I have an instinct that guides mein these matters and which has never deceived me. He is too consumed byvanity; no human consideration will ever drive it into his head that byany possibility a woman could get the better of him. And all he willget from me will be permission to carry away my remembrance, with theconsoling thought that he has done the proper thing and behaved himselflike a gallant man who has long been an inhabitant of Paris. " And withher air of triumphant gayety she added: "But before he leaves he shallcause Uncle Fouchard to be set at liberty, and all his recompense forhis trouble shall be a cup of tea sweetened by these fingers. "

But suddenly her fears returned to her: she remembered what must bethe terrible consequences of her indiscretion, and her eyes were againbedewed with tears. 

"_Mon Dieu!_ and Madame Delaherche--how will it all end? She bears me nolove; she is capable of telling the whole story to my husband. "

Henriette had recovered her composure. She dried her friend's eyes, andmade her rise from the lounge and arrange her disordered clothing. 

"Listen, my dear; I cannot bring myself to scold you, and yet you knowwhat my sentiments must be. But I was so alarmed by the stories I heardabout the Prussian, the business wore such an extremely ugly aspect, that this affair really comes to me as a sort of relief by comparison. Cease weeping; things may come out all right. "

Her action was taken none too soon, for almost immediately Delahercheand his mother entered the room. He said that he had made up his mind totake the train for Brussels that afternoon and had been giving orders tohave a carriage ready to carry him across the frontier into Belgium;so he had come to say good-by to his wife. Then turning and addressingHenriette:

"You need have no further fears. M. De Gartlauben, just is he was goingaway, promised me he would attend to your uncle's case, and although Ishall not be here, my wife will keep an eye to it. "

Since Madame Delaherche had made her appearance in the apartmentGilberte had not once taken her anxious eyes from off her face. Wouldshe speak, would she tell what she had seen, and keep her son fromstarting on his projected journey? The elder lady, also, soon asshe crossed the threshold, had bent her fixed gaze in silence on herdaughter-in-law. Doubtless her stern patriotism induced her to view thematter in somewhat the same light that Henriette had viewed it. _MonDieu!_ since it was that young man, that Frenchman who had fought sobravely, was it not her duty to forgive, even as she had forgiven oncebefore, in Captain Beaudoin's case? A look of greater softness rose toher eyes; she averted her head. Her son might go; Edmond would be thereto protect Gilberte against the Prussian. She even smiled faintly, shewhose grim face had never once relaxed since the news of the victory atCoulmiers. 

"_Au revoir_, " she said, folding her son in her arms. "Finish up yourbusiness quickly as you can and come back to us. "

And she took herself slowly away, returning to the prison-like chamberacross the corridor, where the colonel, with his dull gaze, was peeringinto the shadows that lay outside the disk of bright light which fellfrom the lamp. 

Henriette returned to Remilly that same evening, and one morning, threedays afterward, had the pleasure to see Father Fouchard come walkinginto the house, as calmly as if he had merely stepped out to transactsome business in the neighborhood. He took a seat by the table andrefreshed himself with some bread and cheese, and to all the questionsthat were put to him replied with cool deliberation, like a man who hadnever seen anything to alarm him in his situation. What reason had he tobe afraid? He had done nothing wrong; it was not he who had killed thePrussian, was it? So he had just said to the authorities: "Investigatethe matter; I know nothing about it. " And they could do nothing butrelease him, and the mayor as well, seeing they had no proofs againstthem. But the eyes of the crafty, sly old peasant gleamed with delightat the thought of how nicely he had pulled the wool over the eyes ofthose dirty blackguards, who were beginning to higgle with him over thequality of the meat he furnished to them. 

December was drawing near its end, and Jean insisted on going away. Hisleg was quite strong again, and the doctor announced that he was fitto go and join the army. This was to Henriette a subject of profoundestsorrow, which she kept locked in her bosom as well as she was able. No tidings from Paris had reached them since the disastrous battle ofChampigny; all they knew was that Maurice's regiment had been exposedto a murderous fire and had suffered severely. Ever that deep, unbrokensilence; no letter, never the briefest line for them, when they knewthat families in Raucourt and Sedan were receiving intelligence of theirloved ones by circuitous ways. Perhaps the pigeon that was bringing themthe so eagerly wished-for news had fallen a victim to some hungry birdof prey, perhaps the bullet of a Prussian had brought it to the groundat the margin of a wood. But the fear that haunted them most of all wasthat Maurice was dead; the silence of the great city off yonder inthe distance, uttering no cry in the mortal hug of the investment, wasbecome to them in their agonized suspense the silence of death. Theyhad abandoned all hope of tidings, and when Jean declared his settledpurpose to be gone, Henriette only gave utterance to this stifled cry ofdespair:

"My God! then all is ended, and I am to be left alone!"

It was Jean's desire to go and serve with the Army of the North, whichhad recently been re-formed under General Faidherbe. Now that GeneralManteuffel's corps had moved forward to Dieppe there were threedepartments, cut off from the rest of France, that this army had todefend, le Nord, le Pas-de-Calais, and la Somme, and Jean's plan, not adifficult one to carry into execution, was simply to make for Bouillonand thence complete his journey across Belgian territory. He knew thatthe 23d corps was being recruited, mainly from such old soldiers ofSedan and Metz as could be gathered to the standards. He had heard itreported that General Faidherbe was about to take the field, andhad definitely appointed the next ensuing Sunday as the day of hisdeparture, when news reached him of the battle of Pont-Noyelle, thatdrawn battle which came so near being a victory for the French. 

It was Dr. Dalichamp again in this instance who offered the services ofhis gig and himself as driver to Bouillon. The good man's courageand kindness were boundless. At Raucourt, where typhus was raging, communicated by the Bavarians, there was not a house where he had notone or more patients, and this labor was additional to his regularattendance at the two hospitals at Raucourt and Remilly. His ardentpatriotism, the impulse that prompted him to protest against unnecessarybarbarity, had twice led to his being arrested by the Prussians, onlyto be released on each occasion. He gave a little laugh of satisfaction, therefore, the morning he came with his vehicle to take up Jean, pleasedto be the instrument of assisting the escape of another of the victimsof Sedan, those poor, brave fellows, as he called them, to whom he gavehis professional services and whom he aided with his purse. Jean, whoknew of Henriette's straitened circumstances and had been suffering fromlack of funds since his relapse, accepted gratefully the fifty francsthat the doctor offered him for traveling expenses. 

Father Fouchard did things handsomely at the leave-taking, sendingSilvine to the cellar for two bottles of wine and insisting thateveryone should drink a glass to the extermination of the Germans. He was a man of importance in the country nowadays and had his "plum"hidden away somewhere or other; he could sleep in peace now that thefrancs-tireurs had disappeared, driven like wild beasts from their lair, and his sole wish was for a speedy conclusion of the war. He had evengone so far in one of his generous fits as to pay Prosper his wages inorder to retain his services on the farm, which the young man had nothought of leaving. He touched glasses with Prosper, and also withSilvine, whom he at times was half inclined to marry, knowing what atreasure he had in his faithful, hard-working little servant; but whatwas the use? he knew she would never leave him, that she would still bethere when Charlot should be grown and go in turn to serve his countryas a soldier. And touching his glass to Henriette's, Jean's, and thedoctor's, he exclaimed:

"Here's to the health of you all! May you all prosper and be no worseoff than I am!"

Henriette would not let Jean go away without accompanying him as faras Sedan. He was in citizen's dress, wearing a frock coat and derby hatthat the doctor had loaned him. The day was piercingly cold; the sun'srays were reflected from a crust of glittering snow. Their intention hadbeen to pass through the city without stopping, but when Jeanlearned that his old colonel was still at the Delaherches' he felt anirresistible desire to go and pay his respects to him, and at the sametime thank the manufacturer for his many kindnesses. His visit wasdestined to bring him an additional, a final sorrow, in that city ofmournful memories. On reaching the structure in the Rue Maqua they foundthe household in a condition of the greatest distress and disorder, Gilberte wringing her hands, Madame Delaherche weeping great silenttears, while her son, who had come in from the factory, where work wasgradually being resumed, uttered exclamations of surprise. The colonelhad just been discovered, stone dead, lying exactly as he had fallen, ina heap on the floor of his chamber. The physician, who was summonedwith all haste, could assign no cause for the sudden death; there was noindication of paralysis or heart trouble. The colonel had been strickendown, and no one could tell from what quarter the blow came; but thefollowing morning, when the room was thrown open, a piece of an oldnewspaper was found, lying on the carpet, that had been wrapped around abook and contained the account of the surrender of Metz. 

"My, dear, " said Gilberte to Henriette, "as Captain de Gartlauben wascoming downstairs just now he removed his hat as he passed the doorof the room where my uncle's body is lying. Edmond saw it; he's anextremely well-bred man, don't you think so?"

In all their intimacy Jean had never yet kissed Henriette. Beforeresuming his seat in the gig with the doctor he endeavored to thankher for all her devoted kindness, for having nursed and loved him as abrother, but somehow the words would not come at his command; he openedhis arms and, with a great sob, clasped her in a long embrace, and she, beside herself with the grief of parting, returned his kiss. Then thehorse started, he turned about in his seat, there was a waving of hands, while again and again two sorrowful voices repeated in choking accents:

"Farewell! Farewell!"

On her return to Remilly that evening Henriette reported for duty atthe hospital. During the silent watches of the night she was visitedby another convulsive attack of sobbing, and wept, wept as if her tearswould never cease to flow, clasping her hands before her as if betweenthem to strangle her bitter sorrow. 

VII. 

On the day succeeding the battle of Sedan the mighty hosts of the twoGerman armies, without the delay of a moment, commenced their march onParis, the army of the Meuse coming in by the north through thevalley of the Marne, while the third army, passing the Seine atVilleneuve-Saint-Georges, turned the city to the south and moved onVersailles; and when, on that bright, warm September morning, GeneralDucrot, to whom had been assigned the command of the as yet incomplete14th corps, determined to attack the latter force while it was marchingby the flank, Maurice's new regiment, the 115th, encamped in the woodsto the left of Meudon, did not receive its orders to advance until theday was lost. A few shells from the enemy sufficed to do the work; thepanic started with a regiment of zouaves made up of raw recruits, andquickly spreading to the other troops, all were swept away in a headlongrout that never ceased until they were safe behind the walls of Paris, where the utmost consternation prevailed. Every position in advance ofthe southern line of fortifications was lost, and that evening the wiresof the Western Railway telegraph, the city's sole remaining means ofcommunicating with the rest of France, were cut. Paris was cut off fromthe world. 

The condition of their affairs caused Maurice a terrible dejection. Hadthe Germans been more enterprising they might have pitched their tentsthat night in the Place du Carrousel, but with the prudence of theirrace they had determined that the siege should be conducted accordingto rule and precept, and had already fixed upon the exact lines ofinvestment, the position of the army of the Meuse being at the north, stretching from Croissy to the Marne, through Epinay, the cordon of thethird army at the south, from Chennevieres to Chatillon and Bougival, while general headquarters, with King William, Bismarck, and General vonMoltke, were established at Versailles. The gigantic blockade, that noone believed could be successfully completed, was an accomplished fact;the city, with its girdle of fortifications eight leagues and a halfin length, embracing fifteen forts and six detached redoubts, washenceforth to be transformed into a huge prison-pen. And the army of thedefenders comprised only the 13th corps, commanded by General Vinoy, andthe 14th, then in process of reconstruction under General Ducrot, thetwo aggregating an effective strength of eighty thousand men; to whichwere to be added fourteen thousand sailors, fifteen thousand of thefrancs corps, and a hundred and fifteen thousand mobiles, not tomention the three hundred thousand National Guards distributed among thesectional divisions of the ramparts. If this seems like a large forceit must be remembered that there were few seasoned and trained soldiersamong its numbers. Men were constantly being drilled and equipped; Pariswas a great intrenched camp. The preparations for the defense wenton from hour to hour with feverish haste; roads were built, housesdemolished within the military zone; the two hundred siege guns and thetwenty-five hundred pieces of lesser caliber were mounted in position, other guns were cast; an arsenal, complete in every detail, seemedto spring from the earth under the tireless efforts of Dorian, thepatriotic war minister. When, after the rupture of the negotiations atFerrieres, Jules Favre acquainted the country with M. Von Bismarck'sdemands--the cession of Alsace, the garrison of Strasbourg to besurrendered, three milliards of indemnity--a cry of rage went up andthe continuation of the war was demanded by acclaim as a conditionindispensable to the country's existence. Even with no hope of victoryParis must defend herself in order that France might live. 

On a Sunday toward the end of September Maurice was detailed to carry amessage to the further end of the city, and what he witnessed alongthe streets he passed through filled him with new hope. Ever since thedefeat of Chatillon it had seemed to him that the courage of the peoplewas rising to a level with the great task that lay before them. Ah!that Paris that he had known so thoughtless, so wayward, so keen in thepursuit of pleasure; he found it now quite changed, simple, earnest, cheerfully brave, ready for every sacrifice. Everyone was in uniform;there was scarce a head that was not decorated with the _kepi_ of theNational Guard. Business of every sort had come to a sudden standstill, as the hands of a watch cease to move when the mainspring snaps, and atthe public meetings, among the soldiers in the guard-room, or wherethe crowds collected in the streets, there was but one subject ofconversation, inflaming the hearts and minds of all--the determinationto conquer. The contagious influence of illusion, scattered broadcast, unbalanced weaker minds; the people were tempted to acts of generousfolly by the tension to which they were subjected. Already there was ataint of morbid, nervous excitability in the air, a feverish conditionin which men's hopes and fears alike became distorted and exaggerated, arousing the worst passions of humanity at the slightest breath ofsuspicion. And Maurice was witness to a scene in the Rue des Martyrsthat produced a profound impression on him, the assault made by a bandof infuriated men on a house from which, at one of the upper windows, a bright light had been displayed all through the night, a signal, evidently, intended to reach the Prussians at Bellevue over the roofs ofParis. There were jealous citizens who spent all their nights on theirhouse-tops, watching what was going on around them. The day before apoor wretch had had a narrow escape from drowning at the hands of themob, merely because he had opened a map of the city on a bench in theTuileries gardens and consulted it. 

And that epidemic of suspicion Maurice, who had always hitherto beenso liberal and fair-minded, now began to feel the influence of in thealtered views he was commencing to entertain concerning men and things. He had ceased to give way to despair, as he had done after the rout atChatillon, when he doubted whether the French army would ever muster upsufficient manhood to fight again: the sortie of the 30th of Septemberon l'Hay and Chevilly, that of the 13th of October, in which the mobilesgained possession of Bagneux, and finally that of October 21, when hisregiment captured and held for some time the park of la Malmaison, hadrestored to him all his confidence, that flame of hope that a sparksufficed to light and was extinguished as quickly. It was true thePrussians had repulsed them in every direction, but for all that thetroops had fought bravely; they might yet be victorious in the end. It was Paris now that was responsible for the young man's gloomyforebodings, that great fickle city that at one moment was cheered bybright illusions and the next was sunk in deepest despair, ever hauntedby the fear of treason in its thirst for victory. Did it not seem asif Trochu and Ducrot were treading in the footsteps of the Emperor andMarshal MacMahon and about to prove themselves incompetent leaders, theunconscious instruments of their country's ruin? The same movement thathad swept away the Empire was now threatening the Government of NationalDefense, a fierce longing of the extremists to place themselves incontrol in order that they might save France by the methods of '92;even now Jules Favre and his co-members were more unpopular than the oldministers of Napoleon III. Had ever been. Since they would not fightthe Prussians, they would do well to make way for others, for thoserevolutionists who saw an assurance of victory in decreeing the _leveeen masse_, in lending an ear to those visionaries who proposed to minethe earth beneath the Prussians' feet, or annihilate them all by meansof a new fashioned Greek fire. 

Just previous to the 31st of October Maurice was more than usually avictim to this malady of distrust and barren speculation. He listenednow approvingly to crude fancies that would formerly have brought asmile of contempt to his lips. Why should he not? Were not imbecilityand crime abroad in the land? Was it unreasonable to look for themiraculous when his world was falling in ruins about him? Ever since thetime he first heard the tidings of Froeschwiller, down there in frontof Mulhausen, he had harbored a deep-seated feeling of rancor in hisbreast; he suffered from Sedan as from a raw sore, that bled afresh withevery new reverse; the memory of their defeats, with all the anguishthey entailed, was ever present to his mind; body and mind enfeebledby long marches, sleepless nights, and lack of food, inducing a mentaltorpor that left them doubtful even if they were alive; and the thoughtthat so much suffering was to end in another and an irremediabledisaster maddened him, made of that cultured man an unreflecting being, scarce higher in the scale than a very little child, swayed by eachpassing impulse of the moment. Anything, everything, destruction, extermination, rather than pay a penny of French money or yield an inchof French soil! The revolution that since the first reverse had beenat work within him, sweeping away the legend of Napoleonic glory, thesentimental Bonapartism that he owed to the epic narratives of hisgrandfather, was now complete. He had ceased to be a believer inRepublicanism, pure and simple, considering the remedy not drasticenough; he had begun to dabble in the theories of the extremists, he wasa believer in the necessity of the Terror as the only means of riddingthem of the traitors and imbeciles who were about to slay the country. And so it was that he was heart and soul with the insurgents when, onthe 31st of October, tidings of disaster came pouring in on them inquick succession: the loss of Bourget, that had been captured from theenemy only a few days before by a dashing surprise; M. Thiers' returnto Versailles from his visit to the European capitals, prepared to treatfor peace, so it was said, in the name of Napoleon III. ; and finally thecapitulation of Metz, rumors of which had previously been current andwhich was now confirmed, the last blow of the bludgeon, another Sedan, only attended by circumstances of blacker infamy. And when he learnednext day the occurrences at the Hotel de Ville--how the insurgents hadbeen for a brief time successful, how the members of the Government ofNational Defense had been made prisoners and held until four o'clock inthe morning, how finally the fickle populace, swayed at one moment bydetestation for the ministers and at the next terrified by the prospectof a successful revolution, had released them--he was filled with regretat the miscarriage of the attempt, at the non-success of the Commune, which might have been their salvation, calling the people to arms, warning them of the country's danger, arousing the cherished memories ofa nation that wills it will not perish. Thiers did not dare even toset his foot in Paris, where there was some attempt at illumination tocelebrate the failure of the negotiations. 

The month of November was to Maurice a period of feverish expectancy. There were some conflicts of no great importance, in which he had noshare. His regiment was in cantonments at the time in the vicinity ofSaint-Ouen, whence he made his escape as often as he could to satisfyhis craving for news. Paris, like him, was awaiting the issue of eventsin eager suspense. The election of municipal officers seemed to haveappeased political passion for the time being, but a circumstance thatboded no good for the future was that those elected were rabid adherentsof one or another party. And what Paris was watching and praying forin that interval of repose was the grand sortie that was to bringthem victory and deliverance. As it had always been, so it was now;confidence reigned everywhere: they would drive the Prussians from theirposition, would pulverize them, annihilate them. Great preparations werebeing made in the peninsula of Gennevilliers, the point where there wasmost likelihood of the operation being attended with success. Then onemorning came the joyful tidings of the victory at Coulmiers; Orleans wasrecaptured, the army of the Loire was marching to the relief of Paris, was even then, so it was reported, in camp at Etampes. The aspect ofaffairs was entirely changed: all they had to do now was to go andeffect a junction with it beyond the Marne. There had been a generalreorganization of the forces; three armies had been created, onecomposed of the battalions of National Guards and commanded by GeneralClement Thomas, another, comprising the 13th and 14th corps, to whichwere added a few reliable regiments, selected indiscriminately whereverthey could be found, was to form the main column of attack under thelead of General Ducrot, while the third, intended to act as a reserve, was made up entirely of mobiles and turned over to General Vinoy. Andwhen Maurice laid him down to sleep in the wood of Vincennes on thenight of the 28th of November, with his comrades of the 115th, he waswithout a doubt of their success. The three corps of the second armywere all there, and it was common talk that their junction with the armyof the Loire had been fixed for the following day at Fontainebleau. Thenensued a series of mischances, the usual blunders arising from want offoresight; a sudden rising of the river, which prevented the engineersfrom laying the pontoon bridge; conflicting orders, which delayed themovement of the troops. The 115th was among the first regiments topass the river on the following night, and in the neighborhood often o'clock, with Maurice in its ranks, it entered Champigny under adestructive fire. The young man was wild with excitement; he firedso rapidly that his chassepot burned his fingers, notwithstandingthe intense cold. His sole thought was to push onward, ever onward, surmounting every obstacle until they should join their brothers fromthe provinces over there across the river. But in front of Champigny andBry the army fell up against the park walls of Coeuilly and Villiers, that the Prussians had converted into impregnable fortresses, more thana quarter of a mile in length. The men's courage faltered, and afterthat the action went on in a half-hearted way; the 3d corps was slow ingetting up, the 1st and 2d, unable to advance, continued for two dayslonger to hold Champigny, which they finally abandoned on the night ofDecember 2, after their barren victory. The whole army retired to thewood of Vincennes, where the men's only shelter was the snow-ladenbranches of the trees, and Maurice, whose feet were frost-bitten, laidhis head upon the cold ground and cried. 

The gloom and dejection that reigned in the city, after the failure ofthat supreme effort, beggars the powers of description. The great sortiethat had been so long in preparation, the irresistible eruption that wasto be the deliverance of Paris, had ended in disappointment, and threedays later came a communication from General von Moltke under a flag oftruce, announcing that the army of the Loire had been defeated and thatthe German flag again waved over Orleans. The girdle was being drawntighter and tighter about the doomed city all whose struggles werehenceforth powerless to burst its iron fetters. But Paris seemed toaccumulate fresh powers of resistance in the delirium of its despair. It was certain that ere long they would have to count famine among thenumber of their foes. As early as October the people had been restrictedin their consumption of butcher's meat, and in December, of all theimmense herds of beeves and flocks of sheep that had been turned loosein the Bois de Boulogne, there was not a single creature left alive, andhorses were being slaughtered for food. The stock of flour and wheat, with what was subsequently taken for the public use by forced sale, itwas estimated would keep the city supplied with bread for four months. When the flour was all consumed mills were erected in the railwaystations to grind the grain. The supply of coal, too, was giving out;it was reserved to bake the bread and for use in the mills and armsfactories. And Paris, her streets without gas and lighted by petroleumlamps at infrequent intervals; Paris, shivering under her icy mantle;Paris, to whom the authorities doled out her scanty daily ration ofblack bread and horse flesh, continued to hope--in spite of all, talkingof Faidherbe in the north, of Chanzy on the Loire, of Bourbaki in theeast, as if their victorious armies were already beneath the walls. The men and women who stood waiting, their feet in snow and slush, ininterminable lines before the bakers' and butchers' shops, brightened upa bit at times at the news of some imaginary success of the army. After the discouragement of each defeat the unquenchable flame of theirillusion would burst out and blaze more brightly than ever amongthose wretched people, whom starvation and every kind of sufferinghad rendered almost delirious. A soldier on the Place du Chateau d'Eauhaving spoken of surrender, the by-standers mobbed and were near killinghim. While the army, its endurance exhausted, feeling the end was near, called for peace, the populace clamored still for the sortie _en masse_, the torrential sortie, in which the entire population of the capital, men, women, and children, even, should take part, rushing upon thePrussians like water from a broken dyke and overwhelming them by sheerforce of numbers. 

And Maurice kept himself apart from his comrades, with anever-increasing disgust for the life and duties of a soldier, thatcondemned him to inactivity and uselessness behind the ramparts ofMont-Valerien. He grasped every occasion to get away and hasten toParis, where his heart was. It was in the midst of the great city'sthronging masses alone that he found rest and peace of mind; he triedto force himself to hope as they hoped. He often went to witness thedeparture of the balloons, which were sent up every other day from thestation of the Northern Railway with a freight of despatches and carrierpigeons. They rose when the ropes were cast loose and soon were lostto sight in the cheerless wintry sky, and all hearts were filledwith anguish when the wind wafted them in the direction of the Germanfrontier. Many of them were never heard of more. He had himself twicewritten to his sister Henriette, without ever learning if she hadreceived his letters. The memory of his sister and of Jean, living asthey did in that outer, shadowy world from which no tidings ever reachedhim now, was become so blurred and faint that he thought of them butseldom, as of affections that he had left behind him in some previousexistence. The incessant conflict of despair and hope in which he livedoccupied all the faculties of his being too fully to leave room for merehuman feelings. Then, too, in the early days of January he was goaded tothe verge of frenzy by the action of the enemy in shelling the districton the left bank of the river. He had come to credit the Prussians withreasons of humanity for their abstention, which was in fact due simplyto the difficulties they experienced in bringing up their guns andgetting them in position. Now that a shell had killed two little girlsat the Val-de-Grace, his scorn and hatred knew no bounds for thosebarbarous ruffians who murdered little children and threatened to burnthe libraries and museums. After the first days of terror, however, Paris had resumed its life of dogged, unfaltering heroism. 

Since the reverse of Champigny there had been but one other attempt, ending in disaster like the rest, in the direction of Bourget; and theevening when the plateau of Avron was evacuated, under the fire of theheavy siege artillery battering away at the forts, Maurice was a sharerin the rage and exasperation that possessed the entire city. The growingunpopularity that threatened to hurl from power General Trochu andthe Government of National Defense was so augmented by this additionalrepulse that they were compelled to attempt a supreme and hopelesseffort. What, did they refuse the services of the three hundred thousandNational Guards, who from the beginning had been demanding their sharein the peril and in the victory! This time it was to be the torrentialsortie that had all along been the object of the popular clamor;Paris was to throw open its dikes and drown the Prussians beneath theon-pouring waves of its children. Notwithstanding the certainty of afresh defeat, there was no way of avoiding a demand that had its originin such patriotic motives; but in order to limit the slaughter as faras possible, the chiefs determined to employ, in connection with theregular army, only the fifty-nine mobilized battalions of the NationalGuard. The day preceding the 19th of January resembled some greatpublic holiday; an immense crowd gathered on the boulevards and in theChamps-Elysees to witness the departing regiments, which marched proudlyby, preceded by their bands, the men thundering out patriotic airs. Women and children followed them along the sidewalk, men climbed on thebenches to wish them Godspeed. The next morning the entire population ofthe city hurried out to the Arc de Triomphe, and it was almostfrantic with delight when at an early hour news came of the captureof Montretout; the tales that were told of the gallant behavior of theNational Guard sounded like epics; the Prussians had been beaten allalong the line, the French would occupy Versailles before night. Asa natural result the consternation was proportionately great when, atnightfall, the inevitable defeat became known. While the left wing wasseizing Montretout the center, which had succeeded in carrying the outerwall of Buzanval Park, had encountered a second inner wall, before whichit broke. A thaw had set in, the roads were heavy from the effects ofa fine, drizzling rain, and the guns, those guns that had been cast bypopular subscription and were to the Parisians as the apple of theireye, could not get up. On the right General Ducrot's column was tardyin getting into action and saw nothing of the fight. Further effort wasuseless, and General Trochu was compelled to order a retreat. Montretoutwas abandoned, and Saint-Cloud as well, which the Prussians burned, andwhen it became fully dark the horizon of Paris was illuminated by theconflagration. 

Maurice himself this time felt that the end was come. For four hours hehad remained in the park of Buzanval with the National Guards under thegalling fire from the Prussian intrenchments, and later, when he gotback to the city, he spoke of their courage in the highest terms. It wasundisputed that the Guards fought bravely on that occasion; after thatwas it not self-evident that all the disasters of the army were to beattributed solely to the imbecility and treason of its leaders? In theRue de Rivoli he encountered bands of men shouting: "Hurrah for theCommune! down with Trochu!" It was the leaven of revolution beginning towork again in the popular mind, a fresh outbreak of public opinion, and so formidable this time that the Government of National Defense, in order to preserve its own existence, thought it necessary to compelGeneral Trochu's resignation and put General Vinoy in his place. On thatsame day Maurice, chancing to enter a hall in Belleville where a publicmeeting was going on, again heard the _levee en masse_ demanded withclamorous shouts. He knew the thing to be chimerical, and yet it set hisheart a-beating more rapidly to see such a determined will to conquer. When all is ended, is it not left us to attempt the impossible? All thatnight he dreamed of miracles. 

Then a long week went by, during which Paris lay agonizing without amurmur. The shops had ceased to open their doors; in the lonely streetsthe infrequent wayfarer never met a carriage. Forty thousand horses hadbeen eaten; dogs, cats and rats were now luxuries, commanding a highprice. Ever since the supply of wheat had given out the bread was madefrom rice and oats, and was black, damp, and slimy, and hard to digest;to obtain the ten ounces that constituted a day's ration involveda wait, often of many hours, in line before the bake-house. Ah, thesorrowful spectacle it was, to see those poor women shivering in thepouring rain, their feet in the ice-cold mud and water! the misery andheroism of the great city that would not surrender! The death rate hadincreased threefold; the theaters were converted into hospitals. As soonas it became dark the quarters where luxury and vice had formerly heldcarnival were shrouded in funereal blackness, like the faubourgs ofsome accursed city, smitten by pestilence. And in that silence, inthat obscurity, naught was to be heard save the unceasing roar of thecannonade and the crash of bursting shells, naught to be seen save thered flash of the guns illuminating the wintry sky. 

On the 28th of January the news burst on Paris like a thunderclap thatfor the past two days negotiations had been going on, between JulesFavre and M. Von Bismarck, looking to an armistice, and at the same timeit learned that there was bread for only ten days longer, a space oftime that would hardly suffice to revictual the city. Capitulation wasbecome a matter of material necessity. Paris, stupefied by the hardtruths that were imparted to it at that late day, remained sullenlysilent and made no sign. Midnight of that day heard the last shotfrom the German guns, and on the 29th, when the Prussians had takenpossession of the forts, Maurice went with his regiment into the campthat was assigned them over by Montrouge, within the fortifications. The life that he led there was an aimless one, made up of idleness andfeverish unrest. Discipline was relaxed; the soldiers did pretty much asthey pleased, waiting in inactivity to be dismissed to their homes. He, however, continued to hang around the camp in a semi-dazed condition, moody, nervous, irritable, prompt to take offense on the most trivialprovocation. He read with avidity all the revolutionary newspapers hecould lay hands on; that three weeks' armistice, concluded solely forthe purpose of allowing France to elect an assembly that should ratifythe conditions of peace, appeared to him a delusion and a snare, another and a final instance of treason. Even if Paris were forced tocapitulate, he was with Gambetta for the prosecution of the war in thenorth and on the line of the Loire. He overflowed with indignation atthe disaster of Bourbaki's army in the east, which had been compelled tothrow itself into Switzerland, and the result of the elections made himfurious: it would be just as he had always predicted; the base, cowardlyprovinces, irritated by Paris' protracted resistance, would insist onpeace at any price and restore the monarchy while the Prussian gunswere still directed on the city. After the first sessions, at Bordeaux, Thiers, elected in twenty-six departments and constituted by unanimousacclaim the chief executive, appeared to his eyes a monster of iniquity, the father of lies, a man capable of every crime. The terms of the peaceconcluded by that assemblage of monarchists seemed to him to put thefinishing touch to their infamy, his blood boiled merely at the thoughtof those hard conditions: an indemnity of five milliards, Metz to begiven up, Alsace to be ceded, France's blood and treasure pouring fromthe gaping wound, thenceforth incurable, that was thus opened in herflank. 

Late in February Maurice, unable to endure his situation longer, made uphis mind he would desert. A stipulation of the treaty provided that thetroops encamped about Paris should be disarmed and returned to theirabodes, but he did not wait to see it enforced; it seemed to him that itwould break his heart to leave brave, glorious Paris, which only faminehad been able to subdue, and so he bade farewell to army life and hiredfor himself a small furnished room next the roof of a tall apartmenthouse in the Rue des Orties, at the top of the butte des Moulins, whencehe had an outlook over the immense sea of roofs from the Tuileries tothe Bastille. An old friend, whom he had known while pursuing his lawstudies, had loaned him a hundred francs. In addition to that he hadcaused his name to be inscribed on the roster of a battalion of NationalGuards as soon as he was settled in his new quarters, and his pay, thirty sous a day, would be enough to keep him alive. The idea of goingto the country and there leading a tranquil life, unmindful of what washappening to the country, filled him with horror; the letters eventhat he received from his sister Henriette, to whom he had writtenimmediately after the armistice, annoyed him by their tone of entreaty, their ardent solicitations that he would come home to Remilly and rest. He refused point-blank; he would go later on when the Prussians shouldbe no longer there. 

And so Maurice went on leading an idle, vagabondish sort of life, in astate of constant feverish agitation. He had ceased to be tormented byhunger; he devoured the first white bread he got with infinite gusto;but the city was a prison still: German guards were posted at the gates, and no one was allowed to pass them until he had been made to give anaccount of himself. There had been no resumption of social life as yet;industry and trade were at a standstill; the people lived from dayto day, watching to see what would happen next, doing nothing, simplyvegetating in the bright sunshine of the spring that was now coming onapace. During the siege there had been the military service to occupymen's minds and tire their limbs, while now the entire population, isolated from all the world, had suddenly been reduced to a state ofutter stagnation, mental as well as physical. He did as others did, loitering his time away from morning till night, living in an atmospherethat for months had been vitiated by the germs arising from thehalf-crazed mob. He read the newspapers and was an assiduous frequenterof public meetings, where he would often smile and shrug his shouldersat the rant and fustian of the speakers, but nevertheless would go awaywith the most ultra notions teeming in his brain, ready to engage inany desperate undertaking in the defense of what he considered truth andjustice. And sitting by the window in his little bedroom, and lookingout over the city, he would still beguile himself with dreams ofvictory; would tell himself that France and the Republic might yet besaved, so long as the treaty of peace remained unsigned. 

The 1st of March was the day fixed for the entrance of the Prussiansinto Paris, and a long-drawn howl of wrath and execration went up fromevery heart. Maurice never attended a meeting now that he did not hearThiers, the Assembly, even the men of September 4th themselves, cursedand reviled because they had not spared the great heroic city thatcrowning degradation. He was himself one night aroused to such a pitchof frenzy that he took the floor and shouted that it was the duty of allParis to go and die on the ramparts rather than suffer the entrance ofa single Prussian. It was quite natural that the spirit of insurrectionshould show itself thus, should bud and blossom in the full light ofday, among that populace that had first been maddened by months ofdistress and famine and then had found itself reduced to a condition ofidleness that afforded it abundant leisure to brood on the suspicionsand fancied wrongs that were largely the product of its own disorderedimagination. It was one of those moral crises that have been noticedas occurring after every great siege, in which excessive patriotism, thwarted in its aims and aspirations, after having fired men's minds, degenerates into a blind rage for vengeance and destruction. The CentralCommittee, elected by delegates from the National Guard battalions, hadprotested against any attempt to disarm their constituents. Then came animmense popular demonstration on the Place de la Bastille, where therewere red flags, incendiary speeches and a crowd that overflowed thesquare, the affair ending with the murder of a poor inoffensive agent ofpolice, who was bound to a plank, thrown into the canal, and then stonedto death. And forty-eight hours later, during the night of the 26thof February, Maurice, awakened by the beating of the long roll and thesound of the tocsin, beheld bands of men and women streaming along theBoulevard des Batignolles and dragging cannon after them. He descendedto the street, and laying hold of the rope of a gun along with sometwenty others, was told how the people had gone to the Place Wagram andtaken the pieces in order that the Assembly might not deliver them tothe Prussians. There were seventy of them; teams were wanting, but thestrong arms of the mob, tugging at the ropes and pushing at the limbersand axles, finally brought them to the summit of Montmartre with the madimpetuosity of a barbarian horde assuring the safety of its idols. Whenon March 1 the Prussians took possession of the quarter of the ChampsElysees, which they were to occupy only for one day, keeping themselvesstrictly within the limits of the barriers, Paris looked on in sullensilence, its streets deserted, its houses closed, the entire citylifeless and shrouded in its dense veil of mourning. 

Two weeks more went by, during which Maurice could hardly have told howhe spent his time while awaiting the approach of the momentous events ofwhich he had a distinct presentiment. Peace was concluded definitely atlast, the Assembly was to commence its regular sessions at Versailleson the 20th of the month; and yet for him nothing was concluded: he feltthat they were ere long to witness the beginning of a dreadful drama ofatonement. On the 18th of March, as he was about to leave his room, he received a letter from Henriette urging him to come and join her atRemilly, coupled with a playful threat that she would come and carry himoff with her if he delayed too long to afford her that great pleasure. Then she went on to speak of Jean, concerning whose affairs she wasextremely anxious; she told how, after leaving her late in December tojoin the Army of the North, he had been seized with a low fever that hadkept him long a prisoner in a Belgian hospital, and only the precedingweek he had written her that he was about to start for Paris, notwithstanding his enfeebled condition, where he was determined to seekactive service once again. Henriette closed her letter by begging herbrother to give her a faithful account of how matters were with Jean assoon as he should have seen him. Maurice laid the open letter beforehim on the table and sank into a confused revery. Henriette, Jean; hissister whom he loved so fondly, his brother in suffering and privation;how absent from his daily thoughts had those dear ones been since thetempest had been raging in his bosom! He aroused himself, however, andas his sister advised him that she had been unable to give Jean thenumber of the house in the Rue des Orties, promised himself to go thatvery day to the office where the regimental records were kept and huntup his friend. But he had barely got beyond his door and was crossingthe Rue Saint-Honore when he encountered two fellow-soldiers of hisbattalion, who gave him an account of what had happened that morning andduring the night before at Montmartre, and the three men started off ona run toward the scene of the disturbance. 

Ah, that day of the 18th of March, the elation and enthusiasm that itaroused in Maurice! In after days he could never remember clearly whathe said and did. First he beheld himself dimly, as through a veilof mist, convulsed with rage at the recital of how the troops hadattempted, in the darkness and quiet that precedes the dawn, to disarmParis by seizing the guns on Montmartre heights. It was evident thatThiers, who had arrived from Bordeaux, had been meditating the blowfor the last two days, in order that the Assembly at Versailles mightproceed without fear to proclaim the monarchy. Then the scene shifted, and he was on the ground at Montmartre itself--about nine o'clock itwas--fired by the narrative of the people's victory: how the soldieryhad come sneaking up in the darkness, how the delay in bringing up theteams had given the National Guards an opportunity to fly to arms, thetroops, having no heart to fire on women and children, reversingtheir muskets and fraternizing with the people. Then he had wandereddesultorily about the city, wherever chance directed his footsteps, andby midday had satisfied himself that the Commune was master of Paris, without even the necessity of striking a blow, for Thiers and theministers had decamped from their quarters in the Ministry of ForeignAffairs, the entire government was flying in disorder to Versailles, thethirty thousand troops had been hastily conducted from the city, leavingmore than five thousand deserters from their numbers along the lineof their retreat. And later, about half-past five in the afternoon, hecould recall being at a corner of the exterior boulevard in the midst ofa mob of howling lunatics, listening without the slightest evidence ofdisapproval to the abominable story of the murder of Generals Lecomteand Clement Thomas. Generals, they called themselves; fine generals, they! The leaders they had had at Sedan rose before his memory, voluptuaries and imbeciles; one more, one less, what odds did it make!And the remainder of the day passed in the same state of half-crazedexcitement, which served to distort everything to his vision; it was aninsurrection that the very stones of the streets seemed to have favored, spreading, swelling, finally becoming master of all at a stroke in theunforeseen fatality of its triumph, and at ten o'clock in the eveningdelivering the Hotel de Ville over to the members of the CentralCommittee, who were greatly surprised to find themselves there. 

There was one memory, however, that remained very distinct to Maurice'smind: his unexpected meeting with Jean. It was three days now since thelatter had reached Paris, without a sou in his pocket, emaciatedand enfeebled by the illness that had consigned him to a hospital inBrussels and kept him there two months, and having had the luck to fallin with Captain Ravaud, who had commanded a company in the 106th, he hadenlisted at once in his former acquaintance's new company in the 124th. His old rank as corporal had been restored to him, and that evening hehad just left the Prince Eugene barracks with his squad on his way tothe left bank, where the entire army was to concentrate, when a mobcollected about his men and stopped them as they were passing along theboulevard Saint-Martin. The insurgents yelled and shouted, and evidentlywere preparing to disarm his little band. With perfect coolness hetold them to let him alone, that he had no business with them or theiraffairs; all he wanted was to obey his orders without harming anybody. Then a cry of glad surprise was heard, and Maurice, who had chancedto pass that way, threw himself on the other's neck and gave him abrotherly hug. 

"What, is it you! My sister wrote me about you. And just think, no laterthan this very morning I was going to look you up at the war office!"

Jean's eyes were dim with big tears of pleasure. 

"Ah, my dear lad how glad I am to see you once more! I have been lookingfor you, too, but where could a fellow expect to find you in thisconfounded great big place?"

To the crowd, continuing their angry muttering, Maurice turned and said:

"Let me talk to them, citizens! They're good fellows; I'll answerfor them. " He took his friend's hands in his, and lowering his voice:"You'll join us, won't you?"

Jean's face was the picture of surprise. "How, join you? I don'tunderstand. " Then for a moment he listened while Maurice railed againstthe government, against the army, raking up old sores and recalling alltheir sufferings, telling how at last they were going to be masters, punish dolts and cowards and preserve the Republic. And as he struggledto get the problems the other laid before him through his brain, thetranquil face of the unlettered peasant was clouded with an increasingsorrow. "Ah, no! ah, no! my boy. I can't join you if it's for that finework you want me. My captain told me to go with my men to Vaugirard, andthere I'm going. In spite of the devil and his angels I will go there. That's natural enough; you ought to know how it is yourself. " He laughedwith frank simplicity and added:

"It's you who'll come along with us. "

But Maurice released his hands with an angry gesture of dissent, andthus they stood for some seconds, face to face, one under the influenceof that madness that was sweeping all Paris off its feet, the maladythat had been bequeathed to them by the crimes and follies of the latereign, the other strong in his ignorance and practical common sense, untainted as yet because he had grown up apart from the contaminatingprinciple, in the land where industry and thrift were honored. They werebrothers, however, none the less; the tie that united them was strong, and it was a pang to them both when the crowd suddenly surged forwardand parted them. 

"_Au revoir_, Maurice!"

"_Au revoir_, Jean!"

It was a regiment, the 79th, debouching from a side street, that hadcaused the movement among the crowd, forcing the rioters back to thesidewalks by the weight of its compact column, closed in mass. Therewas some hooting, but no one ventured to bar the way against the soldierboys, who went by at double time, well under control of their officers. An opportunity was afforded the little squad of the 124th to make theirescape, and they followed in the wake of the larger body. 

"_Au revoir_, Jean!"

"_Au revoir_, Maurice!"

They waved their hands once more in a parting salute, yielding to thefatality that decreed their separation in that manner, but each none theless securely seated in the other's heart. 

The extraordinary occurrences of the next and the succeeding dayscrowded on the heels of one another in such swift sequence that Mauricehad scarcely time to think. On the morning of the 19th Paris awokewithout a government, more surprised than frightened to learn that apanic during the night had sent army, ministers, and all the publicservice scurrying away to Versailles, and as the weather happened to befine on that magnificent March Sunday, Paris stepped unconcernedly downinto the streets to have a look at the barricades. A great white poster, bearing the signature of the Central Committee and convoking the peoplefor the communal elections, attracted attention by the moderation of itslanguage, although much surprise was expressed at seeing it signed bynames so utterly unknown. There can be no doubt that at this incipientstage of the Commune Paris, in the bitter memory of what it had endured, in the suspicions by which it was haunted, and in its unslaked thirstfor further fighting, was against Versailles. It was a condition ofabsolute anarchy, moreover, the conflict for the moment being betweenthe mayors and the Central Committee, the former fruitlessly attemptingto introduce measures of conciliation, while the latter, uncertainas yet to what extent it could rely on the federated National Guard, continued modestly to lay claim to no higher title than that ofdefender of the municipal liberties. The shots fired against the pacificdemonstration in the Place Vendome, the few corpses whose blood reddenedthe pavements, first sent a thrill of terror circulating through thecity. And while these things were going on, while the insurgentswere taking definite possession of the ministries and all the publicbuildings, the agitation, rage and alarm prevailing at Versailles wereextreme, the government there hastening to get together sufficienttroops to repel the attack which they felt sure they should not have towait for long. The steadiest and most reliable divisions of the armiesof the North and of the Loire were hurried forward. Ten days sufficed tocollect a force of nearly eighty thousand men, and the tide of returningconfidence set in so strongly that on the 2d of April two divisionsopened hostilities by taking from the federates Puteaux and Courbevoie. 

It was not until the day following the events just mentioned thatMaurice, starting out with his battalion to effect the conquest ofVersailles, beheld, amid the throng of misty, feverish memories thatrose to his poor wearied brain, Jean's melancholy face as he had seen itlast, and seemed to hear the tones of his last mournful _au revoir_. The military operations of the Versaillese had filled the National Guardwith alarm and indignation; three columns, embracing a total strength offifty thousand men, had gone storming that morning through Bougival andMeudon on their way to seize the monarchical Assembly and Thiers, themurderer. It was the torrential sortie that had been demanded with suchinsistence during the siege, and Maurice asked himself where he shouldever see Jean again unless among the dead lying on the field ofbattle down yonder. But it was not long before he knew the result; hisbattalion had barely reached the Plateau des Bergeres, on the road toReuil, when the shells from Mont-Valerien came tumbling among the ranks. Universal consternation reigned; some had supposed that the fort washeld by their comrades of the Guard, while others averred that thecommander had promised solemnly to withhold his fire. A wild panicseized upon the men; the battalions broke and rushed back to Paris fastas their legs would let them, while the head of the column, diverted bya flanking movement of General Vinoy, was driven back on Reuil and cutto pieces there. 

Then Maurice, who had escaped unharmed from the slaughter, his nervesstill quivering with the fury that had inspired him on the battlefield, was filled with fresh detestation for that so-called government of lawand order which always allowed itself to be beaten by the Prussians, andcould only muster up a little courage when it came to oppressing Paris. And the German armies were still there, from Saint-Denis to Charenton, watching the shameful spectacle of internecine conflict! Thus, in thefierce longing for vengeance and destruction that animated him, hecould not do otherwise than sanction the first measures of communisticviolence, the building of barricades in the streets and public squares, the arrest of the archbishop, some priests, and former officeholders, who were to be held as hostages. The atrocities that distinguishedeither side in that horrible conflict were already beginning to manifestthemselves, Versailles shooting the prisoners it made, Paris retaliatingwith a decree that for each one of its soldiers murdered three hostagesshould forfeit their life. The horror of it, that fratricidal conflict, that wretched nation completing the work of destruction by devouringits own children! And the little reason that remained to Maurice, inthe ruin of all the things he had hitherto held sacred, was quicklydissipated in the whirlwind of blind fury that swept all before it. Inhis eyes the Commune was to be the avenger of all the wrongs theyhad suffered, the liberator, coming with fire and sword to purify andpunish. He was not quite clear in mind about it all, but rememberedhaving read how great and flourishing the old free cities had become, how wealthy provinces had federated and imposed their law upon theworld. If Paris should be victorious he beheld her, crowned with anaureole of glory, building up a new France, where liberty and justiceshould be the watchwords, organizing a new society, having first sweptaway the rotten debris of the old. It was true that when the resultof the elections became known he was somewhat surprised by the strangemixture of moderates, revolutionists, and socialists of every sect andshade to whom the accomplishment of the great work was intrusted; hewas acquainted with several of the men and knew them to be of extremelymediocre abilities. Would not the strongest among them come incollision and neutralize one another amid the clashing ideas which theyrepresented? But on the day when the ceremony of the inauguration ofthe Commune took place before the Hotel de Ville, amid the thunderof artillery and trophies and red banners floating in the air, hisboundless hopes again got the better of his fears and he ceased todoubt. Among the lies of some and the unquestioning faith of others, theillusion started into life again with renewed vigor, in the acute crisisof the malady raised to paroxysmal pitch. 

During the entire month of April Maurice was on duty in the neighborhoodof Neuilly. The gentle warmth of the early spring had brought out theblossoms on the lilacs, and the fighting was conducted among the brightverdure of the gardens; the National Guards came into the city at nightwith bouquets of flowers stuck in their muskets. The troops collectedat Versailles were now so numerous as to warrant their formation in twoarmies, a first line under the orders of Marshal MacMahon and a reservecommanded by General Vinoy. The Commune had nearly a hundred thousandNational Guards mobilized and as many more on the rosters who could becalled out at short notice, but fifty thousand were as many as theyever brought into the field at one time. Day by day the plan of attackadopted by the Versaillese became more manifest: after occupying Neuillythey had taken possession of the Chateau of Becon and soon after ofAsnieres, but these movements were simply to make the investment morecomplete, for their intention was to enter the city by the Point-du-Joursoon as the converging fire from Mont-Valerien and Fort d'Issy shouldenable them to carry the rampart there. Mont-Valerien was theirsalready, and they were straining every nerve to capture Issy, utilizingthe works abandoned by the Germans for the purpose. Since the middleof April the fire of musketry and artillery had been incessant; atLevallois and Neuilly the fighting never ceased, the skirmishers blazingaway uninterruptedly, by night as well as by day. Heavy guns, mountedon armored cars, moved to and fro on the Belt Railway, shelling Asnieresover the roofs of Levallois. It was at Vanves and Issy, however, thatthe cannonade was fiercest; it shook the windows of Paris as the siegehad done when it was at its height. And when finally, on the 9th ofMay, Fort d'Issy was obliged to succumb and fell into the hands of theVersailles army the defeat of the Commune was assured, and in theirfrenzy of panic the leaders resorted to most detestable measures. 

Maurice favored the creation of a Committee of Public Safety. Thewarnings of history came to his mind; had not the hour struck foradopting energetic methods if they wished to save the country? There wasbut one of their barbarities that really pained him, and that was thedestruction of the Vendome column; he reproached himself for the feelingas being a childish weakness, but his grandfather's voice still soundedin his ears repeating the old familiar tales of Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, Eylau, Friedland, Wagram, the Moskowa--those epic narratives thatthrilled his pulses yet as often as he thought of them. But that theyshould demolish the house of the murderer Thiers, that they shouldretain the hostages as a guarantee and a menace, was not that rightand just when the Versaillese were unchaining their fury on Paris, bombarding it, destroying its edifices, slaughtering women and childrenwith their shells? As he saw the end of his dream approaching darkthoughts of ruin and destruction filled his mind. If their ideas ofjustice and retribution were not to prevail, if they were to be crushedout of them with their life-blood, then perish the world, swept away inone of those cosmic upheavals that are the beginning of a new life. LetParis sink beneath the waves, let it go up in smoke and flame, like agigantic funeral pyre, sooner than let it be again delivered over to itsformer state of vice and misery, to that old vicious social system ofabominable injustice. And he dreamed another dark, terrible dream, thegreat city reduced to ashes, naught to be seen on either side the Seinebut piles of smoldering ruins, the festering wound purified and healedwith fire, a catastrophe without a name, such as had never been before, whence should arise a new race. Wild stories were everywhere circulated, which interested him intensely, of the mines that were driven under allthe quarters of the city, the barrels of powder with which the catacombswere stuffed, the monuments and public buildings ready to be blown intothe air at a moment's notice; and all were connected by electric wiresin such a way that a single spark would suffice to set them off; therewere great stores of inflammable substances, too, especially petroleum, with which the streets and avenues were to be converted into seethinglakes of flame. The Commune had sworn that should the Versaillese enterthe city not one of them would ever get beyond the barricades thatclosed the ends of the streets; the pavements would yawn, the houseswould sink in ruins, Paris would go up in flames, and bury assailantsand assailed under its ashes. 

And if Maurice solaced himself with these crazy dreams, it was becauseof his secret discontent with the Commune itself. He had lost allconfidence in its members, he felt it was inefficient, drawn this wayand that by so many conflicting elements, losing its head and becomingpurposeless and driveling as it saw the near approach of the peril withwhich it was menaced. Of the social reforms it had pledged itself toit had not been able to accomplish a single one, and it was now quitecertain that it would leave behind it no great work to perpetuate itsname. But what more than all beside was gnawing at its vitals wasthe rivalries by which it was distracted, the corroding suspicion anddistrust in which each of its members lived. For some time past manyof them, the more moderate and the timid, had ceased to attend itssessions. The others shaped their course day by day in accordance withevents, trembling at the idea of a possible dictatorship; they hadreached that point where the factions of revolutionary assemblagesexterminate one another by way of saving the country. Cluzeret hadbecome suspected, then Dombrowski, and Rossel was about to share theirfate. Delescluze, appointed Civil Delegate at War, could do nothingof his own volition, notwithstanding his great authority. And thusthe grand social effort that they had had in view wasted itself inthe ever-widening isolation about those men, whose power had become anullity, whose actions were the result of their despair. 

In Paris there was an increasing feeling of terror. Paris, irritated atfirst against Versailles, shivering at the recollection of what it hadsuffered during the siege, was now breaking away from the Commune. Thecompulsory enrollment, the decree incorporating every man under fortyin the National Guard, had angered the more sedate citizens and been themeans of bringing about a general exodus: men in disguise and providedwith forged papers of Alsatian citizenship made their escape by way ofSaint-Denis; others let themselves down into the moat in the darkness ofthe night with ropes and ladders. The wealthy had long since taken theirdeparture. None of the factories and workshops had opened their doors;trade and commerce there was none; there was no employment for labor;the life of enforced idleness went on amid the alarmed expectancy of thefrightful denouement that everyone felt could not be far away. And thepeople depended for their daily bread on the pay of the National Guards, that dole of thirty sous that was paid from the millions extorted fromthe Bank of France, the thirty sous for the sake of which alone many menwere wearing the uniform, which had been one of the primary causes andthe _raison d'etre_ of the insurrection. Whole districts were deserted, the shops closed, the house-fronts lifeless. In the bright May sunshinethat flooded the empty streets the few pedestrians beheld nothing movingsave the barbaric display of the burial of some federates killed inaction, the funeral train where no priest walked, the hearse drapedwith red flags, followed by a crowd of men and women bearing bouquetsof immortelles. The churches were closed and did duty each evening aspolitical club-rooms. The revolutionary journals alone were hawked aboutthe streets; the others had been suppressed. Great Paris was indeed anunhappy city in those days, what with its republican sympathiesthat made it detest the monarchical Assembly at Versailles and itsever-increasing terror of the Commune, from which it prayed mostfervently to be delivered among all the grisly stories that werecurrent, the daily arrests of citizens as hostages, the casks ofgunpowder that filled the sewers, where men patrolled by day and nightawaiting the signal to apply the torch. 

Maurice, who had never been a drinking man, allowed himself to beseduced by the too prevalent habit of over-indulgence. It had becomea thing of frequent occurrence with him now, when he was out on picketduty or had to spend the night in barracks, to take a "pony" ofbrandy, and if he took a second it was apt to go to his head in thealcohol-laden atmosphere that he was forced to breathe. It had becomeepidemic, that chronic drunkenness, among those men with whom bread wasscarce and who could have all the brandy they wanted by asking for it. Toward evening on Sunday, the 21st of May, Maurice came home drunk, forthe first time in his life, to his room in the Rue des Orties, where hewas in the habit of sleeping occasionally. He had been at Neuilly againthat day, blazing away at the enemy and taking a nip now and then withthe comrades, to see if it would not relieve the terrible fatigue fromwhich he was suffering. Then, with a light head and heavy legs, he cameand threw himself on the bed in his little chamber; it must have beenthrough force of instinct, for he could never remember how he got there. And it was not until the following morning, when the sun was high in theheavens, that he awoke, aroused by the ringing of the alarm bells, the blare of trumpets and beating of drums. During the night theVersaillese, finding a gate undefended, had effected an unresistedentrance at the Point-du-Jour. 

When he had thrown on his clothes and hastened down into the street, his musket slung across his shoulder by the strap, a band of frightenedsoldiers whom he fell in with at the _mairie_ of the arrondissementrelated to him the occurrences of the night, in the midst of a confusionsuch that at first he had hard work to understand. Fort d'Issy and thegreat battery at Montretout, seconded by Mont Valerien, for the lastten days had been battering the rampart at the Point-du-Jour, as aconsequence of which the Saint-Cloud gate was no longer tenable and anassault had been ordered for the following morning, the 22d; but someonewho chanced to pass that way at about five o'clock perceived thatthe gate was unprotected and immediately notified the guards in thetrenches, who were not more than fifty yards away. Two companies of the37th regiment of regulars were the first to enter the city, and werequickly followed by the entire 4th corps under General Douay. All nightlong the troops were pouring in in an uninterrupted stream. At seveno'clock Verge's division marched down to the bridge at Grenelle, crossed, and pushed on to the Trocadero. At nine General Clinchamp wasmaster of Passy and la Muette. At three o'clock in the morning the 1stcorps had pitched its tents in the Bois de Boulogne, while at about thesame hour Bruat's division was passing the Seine to seize the Sevresgate and facilitate the movement of the 2d Corps, General de Cissey's, which occupied the district of Grenelle an hour later. The Versaillesarmy, therefore, on the morning of the 22d, was master of the Trocaderoand the Chateau of la Muette on the right bank, and of Grenelle on theleft; and great was the rage and consternation that prevailed among theCommunists, who were already accusing one another of treason, frantic atthe thought of their inevitable defeat. 

When Maurice at last understood the condition of affairs his firstthought was that the end had come, that all left him was to go forth andmeet his death. But the tocsin was pealing, drums were beating, womenand children, even, were working on the barricades, the streets werealive with the stir and bustle of the battalions hurrying to assume thepositions assigned them in the coming conflict. By midday it was seenthat the Versaillese were remaining quiet in their new positions, and then fresh courage returned to the hearts of the soldiers of theCommune, who were resolved to conquer or die. The enemy's army, whichthey had feared to see in possession of the Tuileries by that time, profiting by the stern lessons of experience and imitating the prudenttactics of the Prussians, conducted its operations with the utmostcaution. The Committee of Public Safety and Delescluze, Delegate at War, directed the defense from their quarters in the Hotel de Ville. Itwas reported that a last proposal for a peaceable arrangement had beenrejected by them with disdain. That served to inspire the men with stillmore courage, the triumph of Paris was assured, the resistance wouldbe as unyielding as the attack was vindictive, in the implacable hate, swollen by lies and cruelties, that inflamed the heart of either army. And that day was spent by Maurice in the quarters of the Champ de Marsand the Invalides, firing and falling back slowly from street to street. He had not been able to find his battalion; he fought in the ranks withcomrades who were strangers to him, accompanying them in their march tothe left bank without taking heed whither they were going. About fouro'clock they had a furious conflict behind a barricade that had beenthrown across the Rue de l'Universite, where it comes out on theEsplanade, and it was not until twilight that they abandoned it onlearning that Bruat's division, stealing up along the _quai_, had seizedthe Corps Legislatif. They had a narrow escape from capture, and it waswith great difficulty that they managed to reach the Rue de Lille aftera long circuit through the Rue Saint-Dominique and the Rue Bellechasse. At the close of that day the army of Versailles occupied a line which, beginning at the Vanves gate, led past the Corps Legislatif, the Palaceof the Elysee, St. Augustine's Church, the Lazare station, and ended atthe Asnieres gate. 

The next day, Tuesday, the 23d, was warm and bright, and a terrible dayit was for Maurice. The few hundred federates with whom he was, and inwhose ranks were men of many different battalions, were charged withthe defense of the entire quartier, from the _quai_ to the RueSaint-Dominique. Most of them had bivouacked in the gardens of the greatmansions that line the Rue de Lille; he had had an unbroken night's reston a grass-plot at one side of the Palace of the Legion of Honor. It washis belief that soon as it was light enough the troops would move outfrom their shelter behind the Corps Legislatif and force them back uponthe strong barricades in the Rue du Bac, but hour after hour passed andthere was no sign of an attack. There was only some desultory firingat long range between parties posted at either end of the streets. TheVersaillese, who were not desirous of attempting a direct attack on thefront of the formidable fortress into which the insurgents had convertedthe terrace of the Tuileries, developed their plan of action with greatcircumspection; two strong columns were sent out to right and left that, skirting the ramparts, should first seize Montmartre and the Observatoryand then, wheeling inward, swoop down on the central quarters, surrounding them and capturing all they contained, as a shoal of fishis captured in the meshes of a gigantic net. About two o'clock Mauriceheard that the tricolor was floating over Montmartre: the great batteryof the Moulin de la Galette had succumbed to the combined attack ofthree army corps, which hurled their battalions simultaneously on thenorthern and western faces of the butte through the Rues Lepic, desSaules and du Mont-Cenis; then the waves of the victorious troops hadpoured back on Paris, carrying the Place Saint-Georges, Notre-Dame deLorette, the _mairie_ in the Rue Drouot and the new Opera House, whileon the left bank the turning movement, starting from the cemetery ofMont-Parnasse, had reached the Place d'Enfer and the Horse Market. Thesetidings of the rapid progress of the hostile army were received by thecommunards with mingled feelings of rage and terror amounting almostto stupefaction. What, Montmartre carried in two hours; Montmartre, theglorious, the impregnable citadel of the insurrection! Maurice saw thatthe ranks were thinning about him; trembling soldiers, fearing thefate that was in store for them should they be caught, were slinkingfurtively away to look for a place where they might wash the powdergrime from hands and face and exchange their uniform for a blouse. Therewas a rumor that the enemy were making ready to attack the Croix-Rougeand take their position in flank. By this time the barricades in theRues Martignac and Bellechasse had been carried, the red-legs werebeginning to make their appearance at the end of the Rue de Lille, andsoon all that remained was a little band of fanatics and men withthe courage of their opinions, Maurice and some fifty more, who wereresolved to sell their lives dearly, killing as many as they could ofthose Versaillese, who treated the federates like thieves and murderers, dragging away the prisoners they made and shooting them in the rear ofthe line of battle. Their bitter animosity had broadened and deepenedsince the days before; it was war to the knife between those rebelsdying for an idea and that army, inflamed with reactionary passions andirritated that it was kept so long in the field. 

About five o'clock, as Maurice and his companions were finally fallingback to seek the shelter of the barricades in the Rue du Bac, descendingthe Rue de Lille and pausing at every moment to fire another shot, hesuddenly beheld volumes of dense black smoke pouring from an open windowin the Palace of the Legion of Honor. It was the first fire kindledin Paris, and in the furious insanity that possessed him it gave him afierce delight. The hour had struck; let the whole city go up in flame, let its people be cleansed by the fiery purification! But a sight thathe saw presently filled him with surprise: a band of five or six mencame hurrying out of the building, headed by a tall varlet in whom herecognized Chouteau, his former comrade in the squad of the 106th. Hehad seen him once before, after the 18th of March, wearing a gold-laced_kepi_; he seemed by his bedizened uniform to have risen in rank, wasprobably on the staff of some one of the many generals who were neverseen where there was fighting going on. He remembered the accountsomebody had given him of that fellow Chouteau, of his quarteringhimself in the Palace of the Legion of Honor and living there, guzzlingand swilling, in company with a mistress, wallowing with his boots onin the great luxurious beds, smashing the plate-glass mirrors with shotsfrom his revolver, merely for the amusement there was in it. It was evenasserted that the woman left the building every morning in one of thestate carriages, under pretense of going to the Halles for her day'smarketing, carrying off with her great bundles of linen, clocks, andeven articles of furniture, the fruit of their thieveries. And Maurice, as he watched him running away with his men, carrying a bucket ofpetroleum on his arm, experienced a sickening sensation of doubt andfelt his faith beginning to waver. How could the terrible work they wereengaged in be good, when men like that were the workmen?

Hours passed, and still he fought on, but with a bitter feeling ofdistress, with no other wish than that he might die. If he had erred, let him at least atone for his error with his blood! The barricadeacross the Rue de Lille, near its intersection with the Rue du Bac, wasa formidable one, composed of bags and casks filled with earth and facedby a deep ditch. He and a scant dozen of other federates were itsonly defenders, resting in a semi-recumbent position on the ground, infallibly causing every soldier who exposed himself to bite the dust. He lay there, without even changing his position, until nightfall, usingup his cartridges in silence, in the dogged sullenness of his despair. The dense clouds of smoke from the Palace of the Legion of Honor werebillowing upward in denser masses, the flames undistinguishable as yetin the dying daylight, and he watched the fantastic, changing forms theytook as the wind whirled them downward to the street. Another fire hadbroken out in an hotel not far away. And all at once a comrade camerunning up to tell him that the enemy, not daring to advance along thestreet, were making a way for themselves through the houses and gardens, breaking down the walls with picks. The end was close at hand; theymight come out in the rear of the barricade at any moment. A shothaving been fired from an upper window of a house on the corner, he sawChouteau and his gang, with their petroleum and their lighted torch, rush with frantic speed to the buildings on either side and climb thestairs, and half an hour later, in the increasing darkness, the entiresquare was in flames, while he, still prone on the ground behind hisshelter, availed himself of the vivid light to pick off any venturesomesoldier who stepped from his protecting doorway into the narrow street. 

How long did Maurice keep on firing? He could not tell; he had lostall consciousness of time and place. It might be nine o'clock, or ten, perhaps. He continued to load and fire; his condition of hopelessnessand gloom was pitiable; death seemed to him long in coming. Thedetestable work he was engaged in gave him now a sensation of nausea, as the fumes of the wine he has drunk rise and nauseate the drunkard. Anintense heat began to beat on him from the houses that were burning onevery side--an air that scorched and asphyxiated. The carrefour, withthe barricades that closed it in, was become an intrenched camp, guardedby the roaring flames that rose on every side and sent down showersof sparks. Those were the orders, were they not? to fire the adjacenthouses before they abandoned the barricades, arrest the progress ofthe troops by an impassable sea of flame, burn Paris in the face of theenemy advancing to take possession of it. And presently he became awarethat the houses in the Rue du Bac were not the only ones that weredevoted to destruction; looking behind him he beheld the whole skysuffused with a bright, ruddy glow; he heard an ominous roar in thedistance, as if all Paris were bursting into conflagration. Chouteau wasno longer to be seen; he had long since fled to save his skin from thebullets. His comrades, too, even those most zealous in the cause, hadone by one stolen away, affrighted at the approaching prospect of beingoutflanked. At last he was left alone, stretched at length betweentwo sand bags, his every faculty bent on defending the front of thebarricade, when the soldiers, who had made their way through the gardensin the middle of the block, emerged from a house in the Rue du Bac andpounced on him from the rear. 

For two whole days, in the fevered excitement of the supreme conflict, Maurice had not once thought of Jean, nor had Jean, since he enteredParis with his regiment, which had been assigned to Bruat's division, for a single moment remembered Maurice. The day before his duties hadkept him in the neighborhood of the Champ de Mars and the Esplanadeof the Invalides, and on this day he had remained in the Place duPalais-Bourbon until nearly noon, when the troops were sent forwardto clean out the barricades of the quartier, as far as the Rue desSaints-Peres. A feeling of deep exasperation against the rioters hadgradually taken possession of him, usually so calm and self-contained, as it had of all his comrades, whose ardent wish it was to be allowedto go home and rest after so many months of fatigue. But of all theatrocities of the Commune that stirred his placid nature and made himforgetful even of his tenderest affections, there were none that angeredhim as did those conflagrations. What, burn houses, set fire to palaces, and simply because they had lost the battle! Only robbers and murdererswere capable of such work as that. And he who but the day before hadsorrowed over the summary executions of the insurgents was now like amadman, ready to rend and tear, yelling, shouting, his eyes startingfrom their sockets. 

Jean burst like a hurricane into the Rue du Bac with the few men of hissquad. At first he could distinguish no one; he thought the barricadehad been abandoned. Then, looking more closely, he perceived a communardextended on the ground between two sand bags; he stirred, he brought hispiece to the shoulder, was about to discharge it down the Rue du Bac. And impelled by blind fate, Jean rushed upon the man and thrust hisbayonet through him, nailing him to the barricade. 

Maurice had not had time to turn. He gave a cry and raised his head. Theblinding light of the burning buildings fell full on their faces. 

"O Jean, dear old boy, is it you?"

To die, that was what he wished, what he had been longing for. But todie by his brother's hand, ah! the cup was too bitter; the thought ofdeath no longer smiled on him. 

"Is it you, Jean, old friend?"

Jean, sobered by the terrible shock, looked at him with wild eyes. Theywere alone; the other soldiers had gone in pursuit of the fugitives. About them the conflagrations roared and crackled and blazed up higherthan before; great sheets of white flame poured from the windows, whilefrom within came the crash of falling ceilings. And Jean cast himself onthe ground at Maurice's side, sobbing, feeling him, trying to raise himto see if he might not yet be saved. 

"My boy, oh! my poor, poor boy!"

VIII. 

When at about nine o'clock the train from Sedan, after innumerabledelays along the way, rolled into the Saint-Denis station, the sky tothe south was lit up by a fiery glow as if all Paris was burning. Thelight had increased with the growing darkness, and now it filled thehorizon, climbing constantly higher up the heavens and tingeing withblood-red hues some clouds, that lay off to the eastward in the gloomwhich the contrast rendered more opaque than ever. 

The travelers alighted, Henriette among the first, alarmed by the glarethey had beheld from the windows of the cars as they rushed onwardacross the darkling fields. The soldiers of a Prussian detachment, moreover, that had been sent to occupy the station, went through thetrain and compelled the passengers to leave it, while two of theirnumber, stationed on the platform, shouted in guttural French:

"Paris is burning. All out here! this train goes no further. Paris isburning, Paris is burning!"

Henriette experienced a terrible shock. _Mon Dieu!_ was she too late, then? Receiving no reply from Maurice to her two last letters, thealarming news from Paris had filled her with such mortal terror that shedetermined to leave Remilly and come and try to find her brother inthe great city. For months past her life at Uncle Fouchard's had beena melancholy one; the troops occupying the village and the surroundingcountry had become harsher and more exacting as the resistance of Pariswas protracted, and now that peace was declared and the regiments werestringing along the roads, one by one, on their way home to Germany, the country and the cities through which they passed were taxed totheir utmost to feed the hungry soldiers. The morning when she aroseat daybreak to go and take the train at Sedan, looking out into thecourtyard of the farmhouse she had seen a body of cavalry who had sleptthere all night, scattered promiscuously on the bare ground, wrapped intheir long cloaks. They were so numerous that the earth was hidden bythem. Then, at the shrill summons of a trumpet call, all had risen totheir feet, silent, draped in the folds of those long mantles, and insuch serried, close array that she involuntarily thought of the gravesof a battlefield opening and giving up their dead at the call of thelast trump. And here again at Saint-Denis she encountered the Prussians, and it was from Prussian lips that came that cry which caused her suchdistress:

"All out here! this train goes no further. Paris is burning!"

Henriette, her little satchel in her hand, rushed distractedly up to themen in quest of information. There had been heavy fighting in Paris forthe last two days, they told her, the railway had been destroyed, theGermans were watching the course of events. But she insisted on pursuingher journey at every risk, and catching sight upon the platform of theofficer in command of the detachment detailed to guard the station, shehurried up to him. 

"Sir, I am terribly distressed about my brother, and am trying to get tohim. I entreat you, furnish me with the means to reach Paris. " The lightfrom a gas jet fell full on the captain's face she stopped in surprise. "What, Otto, is it you! Oh, _mon Dieu_, be good to me, since chance hasonce more brought us together!"

It was Otto Gunther, the cousin, as stiff and ceremonious as ever, tight-buttoned in his Guard's uniform, the picture of a narrow-mindedmartinet. At first he failed to recognize the little, thin, insignificant-looking woman, with the handsome light hair and the pale, gentle face; it was only by the brave, honest look that filled her eyesthat he finally remembered her. His only answer was a slight shrug ofthe shoulders. 

"You know I have a brother in the army, " Henriette eagerly went on. "Heis in Paris; I fear he has allowed himself to become mixed up withthis horrible conflict. O Otto, I beseech you, assist me to continue myjourney. "

At last he condescended to speak. "But I can do nothing to help you;really I cannot. There have been no trains running since yesterday; Ibelieve the rails have been torn up over by the ramparts somewhere. And I have neither a horse and carriage nor a man to guide you at mydisposal. "

She looked him in the face with a low, stifled murmur of pain and sorrowto behold him thus obdurate. "Oh, you will do nothing to aid me. My God, to whom then can I turn!"

It was an unlikely story for one of those Prussians to tell, whose hostswere everywhere all-powerful, who had the city at their beck and call, could have requisitioned a hundred carriages and brought a thousandhorses from their stables. And he denied her prayer with the haughty airof a victor who has made it a law to himself not to interfere with theconcerns of the vanquished, lest thereby he might defile himself andtarnish the luster of his new-won laurels. 

"At all events, " continued Henriette, "you know what is going on in thecity; you won't refuse to tell me that much. "

He gave a smile, so faint as scarce to be perceptible. "Paris isburning. Look! come this way, you can see more clearly. "

Leaving the station, he preceded her along the track for a hundred stepsor so until they came to an iron foot-bridge that spanned the road. When they had climbed the narrow stairs and reached the floor of thestructure, resting their elbows on the railing, they beheld the broadlevel plain outstretched before them, at the foot of the slope of theembankment. 

"You see, Paris is burning. "

It was in the neighborhood of ten o'clock. The fierce red glare thatlit the southern sky was ever mounting higher. The blood-red clouds haddisappeared from where they had floated in the east; the zenith waslike a great inverted bowl of inky blackness, across which ran thereflections of the distant flames. The horizon was one unbroken lineof fire, but to the right they could distinguish spots where theconflagration was raging with greater fury, sending up great spiresand pinnacles of flame, of the most vivid scarlet, to pierce the denseopacity above, amid billowing clouds of smoke. It was like the burningof some great forest, where the fire bridges intervening space, andleaps from tree to tree; one would have said the very earth must becalcined and reduced to ashes beneath the heat of Paris' giganticfuneral pyre. 

"Look, " said Otto, "that eminence that you see profiled in black againstthe red background is Montmartre. There on the left, at Belleville andla Villette, there has not been a house burned yet; it must be they areselecting the districts of the wealthy for their work; and it spreads, it spreads. Look! there is another conflagration breaking out; watch theflames there to the right, how they seethe and rise and fall; observethe shifting tints of the vapors that rise from the blazing furnace. Andothers, and others still; the heavens are on fire!"

He did not raise his voice or manifest any sign of feeling, and it frozeHenriette's blood that a human being could stand by and witness such aspectacle unmoved. Ah, that those Prussians should be there to see thatsight! She saw an insult in his studied calmness, in the faint smilethat played upon his lips, as if he had long foreseen and been watchingfor that unparalleled disaster. So, Paris was burning then at last, Paris, upon whose monuments the German shells had scarce been able toinflict more than a scratch! and he was there to see it burn, and inthe spectacle found compensation for all his grievances, the inordinatelength to which the siege had been protracted, the bitter, freezingweather, the difficulties they had surmounted only to see them presentthemselves anew under some other shape, the toil and trouble they hadhad in mounting their heavy guns, while all the time Germany from behindwas reproaching them with their dilatoriness. Nothing in all the gloryof their victory, neither the ceded provinces nor the indemnity of fivemilliards, appealed to him so strongly as did that sight of Paris, ina fit of furious madness, immolating herself and going up in smoke andflame on that beautiful spring night. 

"Ah, it was sure to come, " he added in a lower voice. "Fine work, mymasters!"

It seemed to Henriette as if her heart would break in presence of thatdire catastrophe. Her personal grief was lost to sight for some minutes, swallowed up in the great drama of a people's atonement that wasbeing enacted before her eyes. The thought of the lives that wouldbe sacrificed to the devouring flames, the sight of the great capitalblazing on the horizon, emitting the infernal light of the cities thatwere accursed and smitten for their iniquity, elicited from her aninvoluntary cry of anguish. She clasped her hands, asking:

"Oh, merciful Father, of what have we been guilty that we should bepunished thus?"

Otto raised his arm in an oratorical attitude. He was on the point ofspeaking, with the stern, cold-blooded vehemence of the militarybigot who has ever a quotation from Holy Writ at his tongue's end, butglancing at the young woman, the look he encountered from her candid, gentle eyes checked him. Besides, his gesture had spoken for him; ittold his hatred for the nation, his conviction that he was in France tomete out justice, delegated by the God of Armies, to chastise a perverseand stiff-necked generation. Paris was burning off there on the horizonin expiation of its centuries of dissolute life, of its heaped-upmeasure of crime and lust. Once again the German race were to be thesaviors of the world, were to purge Europe of the remnant of Latincorruption. He let his arm fall to his side and simply said:

"It is the end of all. There is another quartier doomed, for see, afresh fire has broken out there to the right. In that direction, thatline of flame that creeps onward like a stream of lava--"

Neither spoke for a long time; an awed silence rested on them. The greatwaves of flame continued to ascend, sending up streamers and ribbonsof vivid light high into the heavens. Beneath the sea of fire was everymoment extending its boundaries, a tossing, stormy, burning ocean, whence now arose dense clouds of smoke that collected over the city ina huge pall of a somber coppery hue, which was wafted slowly athwart theblackness of the night, streaking the vault of heaven with its accursedrain of ashes and of soot. 

Henriette started as if awaking from an evil dream, and, the thoughtof her brother flowing in again upon her mind, once more became asupplicant. 

"Can you do nothing for me? won't you assist me to get to Paris?"

With his former air of unconcern Otto again raised his eyes to thehorizon, smiling vaguely. 

"What would be the use? since to-morrow morning the city will be a pileof ruins!"

And that was all; she left the bridge, without even bidding him good-by, flying, she knew not whither, with her little satchel, while he remainedyet a long time at his post of observation, a motionless figure, rigidand erect, lost in the darkness of the night, feasting his eyes on thespectacle of that Babylon in flames. 

Almost the first person that Henriette encountered on emerging fromthe station was a stout lady who was chaffering with a hackman overhis charge for driving her to the Rue Richelieu in Paris, and the youngwoman pleaded so touchingly, with tears in her eyes, that finally thelady consented to let her occupy a seat in the carriage. The driver, alittle swarthy man, whipped up his horse and did not open his lips onceduring the ride, but the stout lady was extremely loquacious, tellinghow she had left the city the day but one before after tightly lockingand bolting her shop, but had been so imprudent as to leave somevaluable papers behind, hidden in a hole in the wall; hence her mind hadbeen occupied by one engrossing thought for the two hours that the cityhad been burning, how she might return and snatch her property from theflames. The sleepy guards at the barrier allowed the carriage to passwithout much difficulty, the worthy lady allaying their scruples with afib, telling them she was bringing back her niece with her to Paris toassist in nursing her husband, who had been wounded by the Versaillese. It was not until they commenced to make their way along the pavedstreets that they encountered serious obstacles; they were obliged atevery moment to turn out in order to avoid the barricades that wereerected across the roadway, and when at last they reached the boulevardPoissoniere the driver declared he would go no further. The two womenwere therefore forced to continue their way on foot, through the Rue duSentier, the Rue des Jeuneurs, and all the circumscribing region of theBourse. As they approached the fortifications the blazing sky had madetheir way as bright before them as if it had been broad day; now theywere surprised by the deserted and tranquil condition of the streets, where the only sound that disturbed the stillness was a dull, distantroar. In the vicinity of the Bourse, however, they were alarmed by thesound of musketry; they slipped along with great caution, hugging thewalls. On reaching the Rue Richelieu and finding her shop had not beendisturbed, the stout lady was so overjoyed that she insisted on seeingher traveling companion safely housed; they struck through the Rue duHazard, the Rue Saint-Anne, and finally reached the Rue des Orties. Some federates, whose battalion was still holding the Rue Saint-Anne, attempted to prevent them from passing. It was four o'clock and alreadyquite light when Henriette, exhausted by the fatigue of her long day andthe stress of her emotions, reached the old house in the Rue des Ortiesand found the door standing open. Climbing the dark, narrow staircase, she turned to the left and discovered behind a door a ladder that ledupward toward the roof. 

Maurice, meantime, behind the barricade in the Rue du Bac, had succeededin raising himself to his knees, and Jean's heart throbbed with a wild, tumultuous hope, for he believed he had pinned his friend to the earth. 

"Oh, my little one, are you alive still? is that great happiness instore for me, brute that I am? Wait a moment, let me see. "

He examined the wound with great tenderness by the light of the burningbuildings. The bayonet had gone through the right arm near the shoulder, but a more serious part of the business was that it had afterwardentered the body between two of the ribs and probably touched the lung. Still, the wounded man breathed without much apparent difficulty, butthe right arm hung useless at his side. 

"Poor old boy, don't grieve! We shall have time to say good-by to eachother, and it is better thus, you see; I am glad to have done with itall. You have done enough for me to make up for this, for I should havedied long ago in some ditch, even as I am dying now, had it not been foryou. "

But Jean, hearing him speak thus, again gave way to an outburst ofviolent grief. 

"Hush, hush! Twice you saved me from the clutches of the Prussians. Wewere quits; it was my turn to devote my life, and instead of that Ihave slain you. Ah, _tonnerre de Dieu!_ I must have been drunk not torecognize you; yes, drunk as a hog from glutting myself with blood. "

Tears streamed from his eyes at the recollection of their last parting, down there, at Remilly, when they embraced, asking themselves if theyshould ever meet again, and how, under what circumstances of sorrow orof gladness. It was nothing, then, that they had passed toilsome daysand sleepless nights together, with death staring them in the face? Itwas to bring them to this abominable thing, to this senseless, atrociousfratricide, that their hearts had been fused in the crucible of thoseweeks of suffering endured in common? No, no, it could not be; he turnedin horror from the thought. 

"Let's see what I can do, little one; I must save you. "

The first thing to be done was to remove him to a place of safety, forthe troops dispatched the wounded Communists wherever they found them. They were alone, fortunately; there was not a minute to lose. He firstripped the sleeve from wrist to shoulder with his knife, then took offthe uniform coat. Some blood flowed; he made haste to bandage the armsecurely with strips that he tore from the lining of the garment for thepurpose. After that he staunched as well as he could the wound in theside and fastened the injured arm over it, He luckily had a bit of cordin his pocket, which he knotted tightly around the primitive dressing, thus assuring the immobility of the injured parts and preventinghemorrhage. 

"Can you walk?"

"Yes, I think so. "

But he did not dare to take him through the streets thus, in his shirtsleeves. Remembering to have seen a dead soldier lying in an adjacentstreet, he hurried off and presently came back with a capote and a_kepi_. He threw the greatcoat over his friend's shoulders and assistedhim to slip his uninjured arm into the left sleeve. Then, when he hadput the _kepi_ on his head:

"There, now you are one of us--where are we to go?"

That was the question. His reviving hope and courage were suddenlydamped by a horrible uncertainty. Where were they to look for a shelterthat gave promise of security? the troops were searching the houses, were shooting every Communist they took with arms in his hands. And inaddition to that, neither of them knew a soul in that portion of thecity to whom they might apply for succor and refuge; not a place wherethey might hide their heads. 

"The best thing to do would be to go home where I live, " said Maurice. "The house is out of the way; no one will ever think of visiting it. Butit is in the Rue des Orties, on the other side of the river. "

Jean gave vent to a muttered oath in his irresolution and despair. 

"_Nom de Dieu!_ What are we to do?"

It was useless to think of attempting to pass the Pont Royal, whichcould not have been more brilliantly illuminated if the noonday sun hadbeen shining on it. At every moment shots were heard coming from eitherbank of the river. Besides that, the blazing Tuileries lay directlyin their path, and the Louvre, guarded and barricaded, would be aninsurmountable obstacle. 

"That ends it, then; there's no way open, " said Jean, who had spent sixmonths in Paris on his return from the Italian campaign. 

An idea suddenly flashed across his brain. There had formerly been aplace a little below the Pont Royal where small boats were kept forhire; if the boats were there still they would make the venture. The route was a long and dangerous one, but they had no choice, and, further, they must act with decision. 

"See here, little one, we're going to clear out from here; the localityisn't healthy. I'll manufacture an excuse for my lieutenant; I'll tellhim the communards took me prisoner and I got away. "

Taking his unhurt arm he sustained him for the short distance they hadto traverse along the Rue du Bac, where the tall houses on either handwere now ablaze from cellar to garret, like huge torches. The burningcinders fell on them in showers, the heat was so intense that the hairon their head and face was singed, and when they came out on the _quai_they stood for a moment dazed and blinded by the terrific light of theconflagrations, rearing their tall crests heavenward, on either side theSeine. 

"One wouldn't need a candle to go to bed by here, " grumbled Jean, withwhose plans the illumination promised to interfere. And it was only whenhe had helped Maurice down the steps to the left and a little way downstream from the bridge that he felt somewhat easy in mind. There wasa clump of tall trees standing on the bank of the stream, whose shadowgave them a measure of security. For near a quarter of an hour the darkforms moving to and fro on the opposite _quai_ kept them in a fever ofapprehension. There was firing, a scream was heard, succeeded by aloud splash, and the bosom of the river was disturbed. The bridge wasevidently guarded. 

"Suppose we pass the night in that shed?" suggested Maurice, pointing tothe wooden structure that served the boatman as an office. 

"Yes, and get pinched to-morrow morning!"

Jean was still harboring his idea. He had found quite a flotilla ofsmall boats there, but they were all securely fastened with chains; howwas he to get one loose and secure a pair of oars? At last he discoveredtwo oars that had been thrown aside as useless; he succeeded in forcinga padlock, and when he had stowed Maurice away in the bow, shoved offand allowed the boat to drift with the current, cautiously hugging theshore and keeping in the shadow of the bathing-houses. Neither of themspoke a word, horror-stricken as they were by the baleful spectacle thatpresented itself to their vision. As they floated down the stream andtheir horizon widened the enormity of the terrible sight increased, andwhen they reached the bridge of Solferino a single glance sufficed toembrace both the blazing _quais_. 

On their left the palace of the Tuileries was burning. It was not yetdark when the Communists had fired the two extremities of the structure, the Pavilion de Flore and the Pavilion de Marsan, and with rapid stridesthe flames had gained the Pavilion de l'Horloge in the central portion, beneath which, in the Salle des Marechaux, a mine had been prepared bystacking up casks of powder. At that moment the intervening buildingswere belching from their shattered windows dense volumes of reddishsmoke, streaked with long ribbons of blue flame. The roofs, yawning asdoes the earth in regions where volcanic agencies prevail, were seamedwith great cracks through which the raging sea of fire beneath wasvisible. But the grandest, saddest spectacle of all was that afforded bythe Pavilion de Flore, to which the torch had been earliest applied andwhich was ablaze from its foundation to its lofty summit, burning with adeep, fierce roar that could be heard far away. The petroleum with whichthe floors and hangings had been soaked gave the flames an intensitysuch that the ironwork of the balconies was seen to twist and writhe inthe convolutions of a serpent, and the tall monumental chimneys, withtheir elaborate carvings, glowed with the fervor of live coals. 

Then, still on their left, were, first, the Chancellerie of the Legionof Honor, which was fired at five o'clock in the afternoon and hadbeen burning nearly seven hours, and next, the Palace of the Councilof State, a huge rectangular structure of stone, which was spoutingtorrents of fire from every orifice in each of its two colonnadedstories. The four structures surrounding the great central court had allcaught at the same moment, and the petroleum, which here also had beendistributed by the barrelful, had poured down the four grand staircasesat the four corners of the building in rivers of hellfire. On thefacade that faced the river the black line of the mansard was profileddistinctly against the ruddy sky, amid the red tongues that rose to lickits base, while colonnades, entablatures, friezes, carvings, all stoodout with startling vividness in the blinding, shimmering glow. So greatwas the energy of the fire, so terrible its propulsive force, thatthe colossal structure was in some sort raised bodily from the earth, trembling and rumbling on its foundations, preserving intact only itsfour massive walls, in the fierce eruption that hurled its heavy zincroof high in air. Then, close at one side were the d'Orsay barracks, which burned with a flame that seemed to pierce the heavens, so purelywhite and so unwavering that it was like a tower of light. And finally, back from the river, were still other fires, the seven houses in the Ruedu Bac, the twenty-two houses in the Rue de Lille, helping to tingethe sky a deeper crimson, profiling their flames on other flames, in ablood-red ocean that seemed to have no end. 

Jean murmured in awed tone:

"Did ever mortal man look on the like of this! the very river is onfire. "

Their boat seemed to be sailing on the bosom of an incandescent stream. As the dancing lights of the mighty conflagrations were caught by theripples of the current the Seine seemed to be pouring down torrents ofliving coals; flashes of intensest crimson played fitfully across itssurface, the blazing brands fell in showers into the water and wereextinguished with a hiss. And ever they floated downward with the tideon the bosom of that blood-red stream, between the blazing palaces oneither hand, like wayfarers in some accursed city, doomed to destructionand burning on the banks of a river of molten lava. 

"Ah!" exclaimed Maurice, with a fresh access of madness at the sight ofthe havoc he had longed for, "let it burn, let it all go up in smoke!"

But Jean silenced him with a terrified gesture, as if he feared suchblasphemy might bring them evil. Where could a young man whom he lovedso fondly, so delicately nurtured, so well informed, have picked up suchideas? And he applied himself more vigorously to the oars, for they hadnow passed the bridge of Solferino and were come out into a wide openspace of water. The light was so intense that the river was illuminatedas by the noonday sun when it stands vertically above men's heads andcasts no shadow. The most minute objects, such as the eddies in thestream, the stones piled on the banks, the small trees along the_quais_, stood out before their vision with wonderful distinctness. Thebridges, too, were particularly noticeable in their dazzling whiteness, and so clearly defined that they could have counted every stone; theyhad the appearance of narrow gangways thrown across the fiery stream toconnect one conflagration with the other. Amid the roar of the flamesand the general clamor a loud crash occasionally announced the fall ofsome stately edifice. Dense clouds of soot hung in the air and settledeverywhere, the wind brought odors of pestilence on its wings. Andanother horror was that Paris, those more distant quarters of the citythat lay back from the banks of the Seine, had ceased to exist forthem. To right and left of the conflagration that raged with such fierceresplendency was an unfathomable gulf of blackness; all that presenteditself to their strained gaze was a vast waste of shadow, an empty void, as if the devouring element had reached the utmost limits of the cityand all Paris were swallowed up in everlasting night. And the heavens, too, were dead and lifeless; the flames rose so high that theyextinguished the stars. 

Maurice, who was becoming delirious, laughed wildly. 

"High carnival at the Consoil d'Etat and at the Tuileries to-night! Theyhave illuminated the facades, women are dancing beneath the sparklingchandeliers. Ah, dance, dance and be merry, in your smoking petticoats, with your chignons ablaze--"

And he drew a picture of the feasts of Sodom and Gomorrah, themusic, the lights, the flowers, the unmentionable orgies of lust anddrunkenness, until the candles on the walls blushed at the shamelessnessof the display and fired the palaces that sheltered such depravity. Suddenly there was a terrific explosion. The fire, approaching fromeither extremity of the Tuileries, had reached the Salle des Marechaux, the casks of powder caught, the Pavilion de l'Horloge was blown into theair with the violence of a powder mill. A column of flame mounted highin the heavens, and spreading, expanded in a great fiery plume on theinky blackness of the sky, the crowning display of the horrid _fete_. 

"Bravo!" exclaimed Maurice, as at the end of the play, when the lightsare extinguished and darkness settles on the stage. 

Again Jean, in stammering, disconnected sentences, besought him to bequiet. No, no, it was not right to wish evils to anyone! And if theyinvoked destruction, would not they themselves perish in the generalruin? His sole desire was to find a landing place so that he might nolonger have that horrid spectacle before his eyes. He considered it bestnot to attempt to land at the Pont de la Concorde, but, roundingthe elbow of the Seine, pulled on until they reached the Quai de laConference, and even at that critical moment, instead of shoving theskiff out into the stream to take its chances, he wasted some preciousmoments in securing it, in his instinctive respect for the property ofothers. While doing this he had seated Maurice comfortably on thebank; his plan was to reach the Rue des Orties through the Place de laConcorde and the Rue Saint-Honore. Before proceeding further he climbedalone to the top of the steps that ascended from the _quai_ to explorethe ground, and on witnessing the obstacles they would have to surmounthis courage was almost daunted. There lay the impregnable fortress ofthe Commune, the terrace of the Tuileries bristling with cannon, theRues Royale, Florentin, and Rivoli obstructed by lofty and massivebarricades; and this state of affairs explained the tactics of thearmy of Versailles, whose line that night described an immense arc, the center and apex resting on the Place de la Concorde, one of the twoextremities being at the freight depot of the Northern Railway on theright bank, the other on the left bank, at one of the bastions ofthe ramparts, near the gate of Arcueil. But as the night advancedthe Communards had evacuated the Tuileries and the barricades and theregular troops had taken possession of the quartier in the midstof further conflagrations; twelve houses at the junction of the RueSaint-Honore and the Rue Royale had been burning since nine o'clock inthe evening. 

When Jean descended the steps and reached the river-bank again he foundMaurice in a semi-comatose condition, the effects of the reaction afterhis hysterical outbreak. 

"It will be no easy job. I hope you are going to be able to walk, youngster?"

"Yes, yes; don't be alarmed. I'll get there somehow, alive or dead. "

It was not without great difficulty that he climbed the stone steps, andwhen he reached the level ground of the _quai_ at the summit he walkedvery slowly, supported by his companion's arm, with the shuffling gaitof a somnambulist. The day had not dawned yet, but the reflected lightfrom the burning buildings cast a lurid illumination on the wide Place. They made their way in silence across its deep solitude, sick at heartto behold the mournful scene of devastation it presented. At eitherextremity, beyond the bridge and at the further end of the Rue Royale, they could faintly discern the shadowy outlines of the Palais Bourbonand the Church of the Madeleine, torn by shot and shell. The terrace ofthe Tuileries had been breached by the fire of the siege guns andwas partially in ruins. On the Place itself the bronze railings andornaments of the fountains had been chipped and defaced by theballs; the colossal statue of Lille lay on the ground shattered by aprojectile, while near at hand the statue of Strasbourg, shrouded inheavy veils of crape, seemed to be mourning the ruin that surroundedit on every side. And near the Obelisk, which had escaped unscathed, a gas-pipe in its trench had been broken by the pick of a carelessworkman, and the escaping gas, fired by some accident, was flaring up ina great undulating jet, with a roaring, hissing sound. 

Jean gave a wide berth to the barricade erected across the Rue Royalebetween the Ministry of Marine and the Garde-Meuble, both of which thefire had spared; he could hear the voices of the soldiers behind thesand bags and casks of earth with which it was constructed. Its frontwas protected by a ditch, filled with stagnant, greenish water, inwhich was floating the dead body of a federate, and through one ofits embrasures they caught a glimpse of the houses in the carrefourSaint-Honore, which were burning still in spite of the engines that hadcome in from the suburbs, of which they heard the roar and clatter. Toright and left the trees and the kiosks of the newspaper venders wereriddled by the storm of bullets to which they had been subjected. Loudcries of horror arose; the firemen, in exploring the cellar of one ofthe burning houses, had come across the charred bodies of seven of itsinmates. 

Although the barricade that closed the entrance to the RueSaint-Florentin and the Rue de Rivoli by its skilled constructionand great height appeared even more formidable than the other, Jean'sinstinct told him they would have less difficulty in getting by it. Itwas completely evacuated, indeed, and the Versailles troops had notyet entered it. The abandoned guns were resting in the embrasures inpeaceful slumber, the only living thing behind that invincible rampartwas a stray dog, that scuttled away in haste. But as Jean was makingwhat speed he could along the Rue Saint-Florentin, sustaining Maurice, whose strength was giving out, that which he had been in fear of came topass; they fell directly into the arms of an entire company of the 88thof the line, which had turned the barricade. 

"Captain, " he explained, "this is a comrade of mine, who has just beenwounded by those bandits. I am taking him to the hospital. "

It was then that the capote which he had thrown over Maurice'sshoulders stood them in good stead, and Jean's heart was beating likea trip-hammer as at last they turned into the Rue Saint-Honore. Daywas just breaking, and the sound of shots reached their ears from thecross-streets, for fighting was going on still throughout the quartier. It was little short of a miracle that they finally reached the Rue desFrondeurs without sustaining any more disagreeable adventure. Theirprogress was extremely slow; the last four or five hundred yardsappeared interminable. In the Rue des Frondeurs they struck up againsta communist picket, but the federates, thinking a whole regiment was athand, took to their heels. And now they had but a short bit of the Rued'Argenteuil to traverse and they would be safe in the Rue des Orties. 

For four long hours that seemed like an eternity Jean's longing desirehad been bent on that Rue des Orties with feverish impatience, and nowthey were there it appeared like a haven of safety. It was dark, silent, and deserted, as if there were no battle raging within a hundred leaguesof it. The house, an old, narrow house without a concierge, was still asthe grave. 

"I have the keys in my pocket, " murmured Maurice. "The big one opens thestreet door, the little one is the key of my room, way at the top of thehouse. "

He succumbed and fainted dead away in Jean's arms, whose alarm anddistress were extreme. They made him forget to close the outer door, and he had to grope his way up that strange, dark staircase, bearinghis lifeless burden and observing the greatest caution not to stumble ormake any noise that might arouse the sleeping inmates of the rooms. Whenhe had gained the top he had to deposit the wounded man on the floorwhile he searched for the chamber door by striking matches, of which hefortunately had a supply in his pocket, and only when he had found andopened it did he return and raise him in his arms again. Entering, helaid him on the little iron bed that faced the window, which he threwopen to its full extent in his great need of air and light. It was broadday; he dropped on his knees beside the bed, sobbing as if his heartwould break, suddenly abandoned by all his strength as the fearfulthought again smote him that he had slain his friend. 

Minutes passed; he was hardly surprised when, raising his eyes, he sawHenriette standing by the bed. It was perfectly natural: her brother wasdying, she had come. He had not even seen her enter the room; for all heknew she might have been standing there for hours. He sank into a chairand watched her with stupid eyes as she hovered about the bed, her heartwrung with mortal anguish at sight of her brother lying there senseless, in his blood-stained garments. Then his memory began to act again; heasked:

"Tell me, did you close the street door?"

She answered with an affirmative motion of the head, and as she cametoward him, extending her two hands in her great need of sympathy andsupport, he added:

"You know it was I who killed him. "

She did not understand; she did not believe him. He felt no flutter inthe two little hands that rested confidingly in his own. 

"It was I who killed him--yes, 'twas over yonder, behind a barricade, Idid it. He was fighting on one side, I on the other--"

There began to be a fluttering of the little hands. 

"We were like drunken men, none of us knew what he as about--it was Iwho killed him. "

Then Henriette, shivering, pale as death, withdrew her hands, fixing onhim a gaze that was full of horror. Father of Mercy, was the end of allthings come! was her crushed and bleeding heart to know no peace forever more! Ah, that Jean, of whom she had been thinking that very day, happy in the unshaped hope that perhaps she might see him once again!And it was he who had done that abominable thing; and yet he had savedMaurice, for was it not he who had brought him home through so manyperils? She could not yield her hands to him now without a revolt of allher being, but she uttered a cry into which she threw the last hope ofher tortured and distracted heart. 

"Oh! I will save him; I _must_ save him, now!"

She had acquired considerable experience in surgery during the longtime she had been in attendance on the hospital at Remilly, and nowshe proceeded without delay to examine her brother's hurt, who remainedunconscious while she was undressing him. But when she undid the rudebandage of Jean's invention, he stirred feebly and uttered a faintcry of pain, opening wide his eyes that were bright with fever. Herecognized her at once and smiled. 

"You here! Ah, how glad I am to see you once more before I die!"

She silenced him, speaking in a tone of cheerful confidence. 

"Hush, don't talk of dying; I won't allow it! I mean that you shalllive! There, be quiet, and let me see what is to be done. "

However, when Henriette had examined the injured arm and the wound inthe side, her face became clouded and a troubled look rose to her eyes. She installed herself as mistress in the room, searching until she founda little oil, tearing up old shirts for bandages, while Jean descendedto the lower regions for a pitcher of water. He did not open his mouth, but looked on in silence as she washed and deftly dressed the wounds, incapable of aiding her, seemingly deprived of all power of action byher presence there. When she had concluded her task, however, noticingher alarmed expression, he proposed to her that he should go and securea doctor, but she was in possession of all her clear intelligence. No, no; she would not have a chance-met doctor, of whom they knew nothing, who, perhaps, would betray her brother to the authorities. They musthave a man they could depend on; they could afford to wait a few hours. Finally, when Jean said he must go and report for duty with his company, it was agreed that he should return as soon as he could get away, andtry to bring a surgeon with him. 

He delayed his departure, seemingly unable to make up his mind toleave that room, whose atmosphere was pervaded by the evil he hadunintentionally done. The window, which had been closed for a moment, had been opened again, and from it the wounded man, lying on his bed, his head propped up by pillows, was looking out over the city, while theothers, also, in the oppressive silence that had settled on the chamber, were gazing out into vacancy. 

From that elevated point of the Butte des Moulins a good half of Parislay stretched beneath their eyes in a vast panorama: first the centraldistricts, from the Faubourg Saint-Honore to the Bastille, then theSeine in its entire course through the city, with the thickly-built, densely-populated regions of the left bank, an ocean of roofs, treetops, steeples, domes, and towers. The light was growing stronger, theabominable night, than which there have been few more terrible inhistory, was ended; but beneath the rosy sky, in the pure, clear lightof the rising sun, the fires were blazing still. Before them lay theburning Tuileries, the d'Orsay barracks, the Palaces of the Council ofState and the Legion of Honor, the flames from which were paled by thesuperior refulgence of the day-star. Even beyond the houses in theRue de Lille and the Rue du Bac there must have been other structuresburning, for clouds of smoke were visible rising from the carrefour ofla Croix-Rouge, and, more distant still, from the Rue Vavin and the RueNotre-Dame-des-Champs. Nearer at hand and to their right the firesin the Rue Saint-Honore were dying out, while to the left, at thePalais-Royal and the new Louvre, to which the torch had not been applieduntil near morning, the work of the incendiaries was apparently afailure. But what they were unable to account for at first was the densevolume of black smoke which, impelled by the west wind, came drivingpast their window. Fire had been set to the Ministry of Finance at threeo'clock in the morning and ever since that time it had been smoldering, emitting no blaze, among the stacks and piles of documents that werecontained in the low-ceiled, fire-proof vaults and chambers. And ifthe terrific impressions of the night were not there to preside at theawakening of the great city--the fear of total destruction, the Seinepouring its fiery waves past their doors, Paris kindling into flamefrom end to end--a feeling of gloom and despair, hung heavy over thequartiers that had been spared, with that dense, on-pouring smoke, whose dusky cloud was ever spreading. Presently the sun, which had risenbright and clear, was hid by it, and the golden sky was filled with thegreat funeral pall. 

Maurice, who appeared to be delirious again, made a slow, sweepinggesture that embraced the entire horizon, murmuring:

"Is it all burning? Ah, how long it takes!"

Tears rose to Henriette's eyes, as if her burden of misery was madeheavier for her by the share her brother had had in those deeds ofhorror. And Jean, who dared neither take her hand nor embrace hisfriend, left the room with the air of one crazed by grief. 

"I will return soon. _Au revoir_!"

It was dark, however, nearly eight o'clock, before he was able toredeem his promise. Notwithstanding his great distress he was happy;his regiment had been transferred from the first to the second line andassigned the task of protecting the quartier, so that, bivouacking withhis company in the Place du Carrousel, he hoped to get a chance to runin each evening to see how the wounded man was getting on. And he didnot return alone; as luck would have it he had fallen in with the formersurgeon of the 106th and had brought him along with him, having beenunable to find another doctor, consoling himself with the reflectionthat the terrible, big man with the lion's mane was not such a bad sortof fellow after all. 

When Bouroche, who knew nothing of the patient he was summoned with suchinsistence to attend and grumbled at having to climb so many stairs, learned that it was a Communist he had on his hands he commenced tostorm. 

"God's thunder, what do you take me for? Do you suppose I'm going towaste my time on those thieving, murdering, house-burning scoundrels? Asfor this particular bandit, his case is clear, and I'll take it upon meto see he is cured; yes, with a bullet in his head!"

But his anger subsided suddenly at sight of Henriette's pale face andher golden hair streaming in disorder over her black dress. 

"He is my brother, doctor, and he was with you at Sedan. "

He made no reply, but uncovered the injuries and examined them insilence; then, taking some phials from his pocket, he made a freshdressing, explaining to the young woman how it was done. When he hadfinished he turned suddenly to the patient and asked in his loud, roughvoice:

"Why did you take sides with those ruffians? What could cause you to beguilty of such an abomination?"

Maurice, with a feverish luster in his eyes, had been watching him sincehe entered the room, but no word had escaped his lips. He answered in avoice that was almost fierce, so eager was it:

"Because there is too much suffering in the world, too much wickedness, too much infamy!"

Bouroche's shrug of the shoulders seemed to indicate that he thought ayoung man was likely to make his mark who carried such ideas about inhis head. He appeared to be about to say something further, but changedhis mind and bowed himself out, simply adding:

"I will come in again. "

To Henriette, on the landing, he said he would not venture to make anypromises. The injury to the lung was serious; hemorrhage might setin and carry off the patient without a moment's warning. And when shere-entered the room she forced a smile to her lips, notwithstanding thesharp stab with which the doctor's words had pierced her heart, for hadshe not promised herself to save him? and could she permit him tobe snatched from them now that they three were again united, with aprospect of a lifetime of affection and happiness before them? She hadnot left the room since morning, an old woman who lived on the landinghaving kindly offered to act as her messenger for the purchase of suchthings as she required. And she returned and resumed her place upon achair at her brother's bedside. 

But Maurice, in his febrile excitation, questioned Jean, insisting onknowing what had happened since the morning. The latter did not tell himeverything, maintaining a discreet silence upon the furious rage whichParis, now it was delivered from its tyrants, was manifesting towardthe dying Commune. It was now Wednesday. For two interminable dayssucceeding the Sunday evening when the conflict first broke out thecitizens had lived in their cellars, quaking with fear, and when theyventured out at last on Wednesday morning, the spectacle of bloodshedand devastation that met their eyes on every side, and more particularlythe frightful ruin entailed by the conflagrations, aroused in theirbreasts feelings the bitterest and most vindictive. It was felt in everyquarter that the punishment must be worthy of the crime. The houses inthe suspected quarters were subjected to a rigorous search and men andwomen who were at all tainted with suspicion were led away in droves andshot without formality. At six o'clock of the evening of that day thearmy of the Versaillese was master of the half of Paris, following theline of the principal avenues from the park of Montsouris to the stationof the Northern Railway, and the remainder of the braver members ofthe Commune, a mere handful, some twenty or so, had taken refuge in the_mairie_ of the eleventh arrondissement, in the Boulevard Voltaire. 

They were silent when he concluded his narration, and Maurice, hisglance vaguely wandering over the city through the open window that letin the soft, warm air of evening, murmured:

"Well, the work goes on; Paris continues to burn!"

It was true: the flames were becoming visible again in the increasingdarkness and the heavens were reddened once more with the ill-omenedlight. That afternoon the powder magazine at the Luxembourg had explodedwith a frightful detonation, which gave rise to a report that thePantheon had collapsed and sunk into the catacombs. All that day, moreover, the conflagrations of the night pursued their courseunchecked; the Palace of the Council of State and the Tuileries wereburning still, the Ministry of Finance continued to belch forth itsbillowing clouds of smoke. A dozen times Henriette was obliged to closethe window against the shower of blackened, burning paper that the hotbreath of the fire whirled upward into the sky, whence it descendedto earth again in a fine rain of fragments; the streets of Paris werecovered with them, and some were found in the fields of Normandy, thirtyleagues away. And now it was not the western and southern districtsalone which seemed devoted to destruction, the houses in the Rue Royaleand those of the Croix-Rouge and the Rue Notre-Dame-des-Champs: theentire eastern portion of the city appeared to be in flames, the Hotelde Ville glowed on the horizon like a mighty furnace. And in thatdirection also, blazing like gigantic beacon-fires upon themountain tops, were the Theatre-Lyrique, the _mairie_ of the fourtharrondissement, and more than thirty houses in the adjacent streets, to say nothing of the theater of the Porte-Saint-Martin, further tothe north, which illuminated the darkness of its locality as a stack ofgrain lights up the deserted, dusky fields at night. There is no doubtthat in many cases the incendiaries were actuated by motives of personalrevenge; perhaps, too, there were criminal records which the partiesimplicated had an object in destroying. It was no longer a question ofself-defense with the Commune, of checking the advance of the victorioustroops by fire; a delirium of destruction raged among its adherents:the Palace of Justice, the Hotel-Dieu and the cathedral of Notre-Dameescaped by the merest chance. They would destroy solely for the sake ofdestroying, would bury the effete, rotten humanity beneath the ruins ofa world, in the hope that from the ashes might spring a new and innocentrace that should realize the primitive legends of an earthly paradise. And all that night again did the sea of flame roll its waves over Paris. 

"Ah; war, war, what a hateful thing it is!" said Henriette to herself, looking out on the sore-smitten city. 

Was it not indeed the last act, the inevitable conclusion of thetragedy, the blood-madness for which the lost fields of Sedan and Metzwere responsible, the epidemic of destruction born from the siege ofParis, the supreme struggle of a nation in peril of dissolution, in themidst of slaughter and universal ruin?

But Maurice, without taking his eyes from the fires that were raging inthe distance, feebly, and with an effort, murmured:

"No, no; do not be unjust toward war. It is good; it has its appointedwork to do--"

There were mingled hatred and remorse in the cry with which Jeaninterrupted him. 

"Good God! When I see you lying there, and know it is through myfault--Do not say a word in defense of it; it is an accursed thing, iswar!"

The wounded man smiled faintly. 

"Oh, as for me, what matters it? There is many another in my condition. It may be that this blood-letting was necessary for us. War is life, which cannot exist without its sister, death. "

And Maurice closed his eyes, exhausted by the effort it had cost himto utter those few words. Henriette signaled Jean not to continue thediscussion. It angered her; all her being rose in protest against suchsuffering and waste of human life, notwithstanding the calm bravery ofher frail woman's nature, with her clear, limpid eyes, in which livedagain all the heroic spirit of the grandfather, the veteran of theNapoleonic wars. 

Two days more, Thursday and Friday, passed, like their predecessors, amid scenes of slaughter and conflagration. The thunder of the artillerywas incessant; the batteries of the army of Versailles on the heightsof Montmartre roared against those that the federates had establishedat Belleville and Pare-Lachaise without a moment's respite, while thelatter maintained a desultory fire on Paris. Shells had fallen in theRue Richelieu and the Place Vendome. At evening on the 25th the entireleft bank was in possession of the regular troops, but on the right bankthe barricades in the Place Chateau d'Eau and the Place de la Bastillecontinued to hold out; they were veritable fortresses, from whichproceeded an uninterrupted and most destructive fire. At twilight, whilethe last remaining members of the Commune were stealing off to makeprovision for their safety, Delescluze took his cane and walkedleisurely away to the barricade that was thrown across the BoulevardVoltaire, where he died a hero's death. At daybreak on the followingmorning, the 26th, the Chateau d'Eau and Bastille positions werecarried, and the Communists, now reduced to a handful of brave menwho were resolved to sell their lives dearly, had only la Villette, Belleville, and Charonne left to them, And for two more days theyremained and fought there with the fury of despair. 

On Friday evening, as Jean was on his way from the Place du Carrouselto the Rue des Orties, he witnessed a summary execution in the RueRichelieu that filled him with horror. For the last forty-eight hourstwo courts-martial had been sitting, one at the Luxembourg, the otherat the Theatre du Chatelet; the prisoners convicted by the former weretaken into the garden and shot, while those found guilty by the latterwere dragged away to the Lobau barracks, where a platoon of soldiersthat was kept there in constant attendance for the purpose mowed themdown, almost at point-blank range. The scenes of slaughter there weremost horrible: there were men and women who had been condemned to deathon the flimsiest evidence: because they had a stain of powder on theirhands, because their feet were shod with army shoes; there wereinnocent persons, the victims of private malice, who had been wrongfullydenounced, shrieking forth their entreaties and explanations and findingno one to lend an ear to them; and all were driven pell-mell against awall, facing the muzzles of the muskets, often so many poor wretches inthe band at once that the bullets did not suffice for all and it becamenecessary to finish the wounded with the bayonet. From morning untilnight the place was streaming with blood; the tumbrils were kept busybearing away the bodies of the dead. And throughout the length andbreadth of the city, keeping pace with the revengeful clamors of thepeople, other executions were continually taking place, in front ofbarricades, against the walls in the deserted streets, on the steps ofthe public buildings. It was under such circumstances that Jean saw awoman and two men dragged by the residents of the quartier beforethe officer commanding the detachment that was guarding the TheatreFrancais. The citizens showed themselves more bloodthirsty than thesoldiery, and those among the newspapers that had resumed publicationwere howling for measures of extermination. A threatening crowdsurrounded the prisoners and was particularly violent against the woman, in whom the excited bourgeois beheld one of those _petroleuses_ who werethe constant bugbear of terror-haunted imaginations, whom they accusedof prowling by night, slinking along the darkened streets past thedwellings of the wealthy, to throw cans of lighted petroleum intounprotected cellars. This woman, was the cry, had been found bendingover a coal-hole in the Rue Sainte-Anne. And notwithstanding herdenials, accompanied by tears and supplications, she was hurled, together with the two men, to the bottom of the ditch in front of anabandoned barricade, and there, lying in the mud and slime, they wereshot with as little pity as wolves caught in a trap. Some by-passersstopped and looked indifferently on the scene, among them a lady hangingon her husband's arm, while a baker's boy, who was carrying home a tartto someone in the neighborhood, whistled the refrain of a popular air. 

As Jean, sick at heart, was hurrying along the street toward the housein the Rue des Orties, a sudden recollection flashed across his mind. Was not that Chouteau, the former member of his squad, whom he hadseen, in the blouse of a respectable workman, watching the execution andtestifying his approval of it in a loud-mouthed way? He was a proficientin his role of bandit, traitor, robber, and assassin! For a moment thecorporal thought he would retrace his steps, denounce him, and send himto keep company with the other three. Ah, the sadness of the thought;the guilty ever escaping punishment, parading their unwhipped infamy inthe bright light of day, while the innocent molder in the earth!

Henriette had come out upon the landing at the sound of footsteps comingup the stairs, where she welcomed Jean with a manner that indicatedgreat alarm. 

"'Sh! he has been extremely violent all day long. The major was here, Iam in despair--"

Bouroche, in fact, had shaken his head ominously, saying he couldpromise nothing as yet. Nevertheless the patient might pull through, inspite of all the evil consequences he feared; he had youth on his side. 

"Ah, here you are at last, " Maurice said impatiently to Jean, as soon ashe set eyes on him. "I have been waiting for you. What is going on--howdo matters stand?" And supported by the pillows at his back, his faceto the window which he had forced his sister to open for him, he pointedwith his finger to the city, where, on the gathering darkness, thelambent flames were beginning to rise anew. "You see, it is breaking outagain; Paris is burning. All Paris will burn this time!"

As soon as daylight began to fade, the distant quarters beyond the Seinehad been lighted up by the burning of the Grenier d'Abondance. Fromtime to time there was an outburst of flame, accompanied by a shower ofsparks, from the smoking ruins of the Tuileries, as some wall or ceilingfell and set the smoldering timbers blazing afresh. Many houses, wherethe fire was supposed to be extinguished, flamed up anew; for the lastthree days, as soon as darkness descended on the city it seemed as ifit were the signal for the conflagrations to break out again; as if theshades of night had breathed upon the still glowing embers, reanimatingthem, and scattering them to the four corners of the horizon. Ah, thatcity of the damned, that had harbored for a week within its bosom thedemon of destruction, incarnadining the sky each evening as soon astwilight fell, illuminating with its infernal torches the nights ofthat week of slaughter! And when, that night, the docks at la Villetteburned, the light they shed upon the huge city was so intense that itseemed to be on fire in every part at once, overwhelmed and drownedbeneath the sea of flame. 

"Ah, it is the end!" Maurice repeated. "Paris is doomed!"

He reiterated the words again and again with apparent relish, actuatedby a feverish desire to hear the sound of his voice once more, afterthe dull lethargy that had kept him tongue-tied for three days. But thesound of stifled sobs causes him to turn his head. 

"What, sister, you, brave little woman that you are! You weep because Iam about to die--"

She interrupted him, protesting:

"But you are not going to die!"

"Yes, yes; it is better it should be so; it must be so. Ah, I shall beno great loss to anyone. Up to the time the war broke out I was a sourceof anxiety to you, I cost you dearly in heart and purse. All the follyand the madness I was guilty of, and which would have landed me, whoknows where? in prison, in the gutter--"

Again she took the words from his mouth, exclaiming hotly:

"Hush! be silent!--you have atoned for all. "

He reflected a moment. "Yes, perhaps I shall have atoned, when I amdead. Ah, Jean, old fellow, you didn't know what a service you wererendering us all when you gave me that bayonet thrust. "

But the other protested, his eyes swimming with tears:

"Don't, I entreat you, say such things! do you wish to make me go anddash out my brains against a wall?"

Maurice pursued his train of thought, speaking in hurried, eager tones. 

"Remember what you said to me the day after Sedan, that it was not sucha bad thing, now and then, to receive a good drubbing. And you addedthat if a man had gangrene in his system, if he saw one of his limbswasting from mortification, it would be better to take an ax and chopoff that limb than to die from the contamination of the poison. I havemany a time thought of those words since I have been here, withouta friend, immured in this city of distress and madness. And I am thediseased limb, and it is you who have lopped it off--" He went on withincreasing vehemence, regardless of the supplications of his terrifiedauditors, in a fervid tirade that abounded with symbols and strikingimages. It was the untainted, the reasoning, the substantial portionof France, the peasantry, the tillers of the soil, those who had alwayskept close contact with their mother Earth, that was suppressingthe outbreak of the crazed, exasperated part, the part that had beenvitiated by the Empire and led astray by vain illusions and emptydreams; and in the performance of its duty it had had to cut deep intothe living flesh, without being fully aware of what it was doing. But the baptism of blood, French blood, was necessary; the abominableholocaust, the living sacrifice, in the midst of the purifying flames. Now they had mounted the steps of the Calvary and known their bitterestagony; the crucified nation had expiated its faults and would be bornagain. "Jean, old friend, you and those like you are strong in yoursimplicity and honesty. Go, take up the spade and the trowel, turn thesod in the abandoned field, rebuild the house! As for me, you didwell to lop me off, since I was the ulcer that was eating away yourstrength!"

After that his language became more and more incoherent; he insisted onrising and going to sit by the window. "Paris burns, Paris burns; nota stone of it will be left standing. Ah! the fire that I invoked, itdestroys, but it heals; yes, the work it does is good. Let me go downthere; let me help to finish the work of humanity and liberty--"

Jean had the utmost difficulty in getting him back to bed, whileHenriette tearfully recalled memories of their childhood, and entreatedhim, for the sake of the love they bore each other, to be calm. Over theimmensity of Paris the fiery glow deepened and widened; the sea of flameseemed to be invading the remotest quarters of the horizon; the heavenswere like the vaults of a colossal oven, heated to red heat. And athwartthe red light of the conflagrations the dense black smoke-clouds fromthe Ministry of Finance, which had been burning three days and givenforth no blaze, continued to pour in unbroken, slow procession. 

The following, Saturday, morning brought with it a decided improvementin Maurice's condition: he was much calmer, the fever had subsided, andit afforded Jean inexpressible delight to behold a smile on Henriette'sface once more, as the young woman fondly reverted to her cherisheddream, a pact of reciprocal affection between the three of them, thatshould unite them in a future that might yet be one of happiness, underconditions that she did not care to formulate even to herself. Woulddestiny be merciful? Would it save them all from an eternal farewellby saving her brother? Her nights were spent in watching him; she neverstirred outside that chamber, where her noiseless activity and gentleministrations were like a never-ceasing caress. And Jean, that evening, while sitting with his friends, forgot his great sorrow in a delightthat astonished him and made him tremble. The troops had carriedBelleville and the Buttes-Chaumont that day; the only remaining pointwhere there was any resistance now was the cemetery of Pere-Lachaise, which had been converted into a fortified camp. It seemed to him thatthe insurrection was ended; he even declared that the troops had ceasedto shoot their prisoners, who were being collected in droves and senton to Versailles. He told of one of those bands that he had seen thatmorning on the _quai_, made up of men of every class, from the mostrespectable to the lowest, and of women of all ages and conditions, wrinkled old bags and young girls, mere children, not yet out of theirteens; pitiful aggregation of misery and revolt, driven like cattleby the soldiers along the street in the bright sunshine, and that thepeople of Versailles, so it was said, received with revilings and blows. 

But Sunday was to Jean a day of terror. It rounded out and fitly endedthat accursed week. With the triumphant rising of the sun on thatbright, warm Sabbath morning he shudderingly heard the news that was theculmination of all preceding horrors. It was only at that late day thatthe public was informed of the murder of the hostages; the archbishop, the cure of the Madeleine and others, shot at la Roquette on Wednesday, the Dominicans of Arcueil coursed like hares on Thursday, more priestsand gendarmes, to the number of forty-seven in all, massacred incold blood in the Rue Haxo on Friday; and a furious cry went up forvengeance, the soldiers bunched the last prisoners they made and shotthem in mass. All day long on that magnificent Sunday the volleys ofmusketry rang out in the courtyard of the Lobau barracks, that werefilled with blood and smoke and the groans of the dying. At la Roquettetwo hundred and twenty-seven miserable wretches, gathered in here andthere by the drag-net of the police, were collected in a huddle, and thesoldiers fired volley after volley into the mass of human beings untilthere was no further sign of life. At Pere-Lachaise, which had beenshelled continuously for four days and was finally carried by ahand-to-hand conflict among the graves, a hundred and forty-eight ofthe insurgents were drawn up in line before a wall, and when the firingceased the stones were weeping great tears of blood; and three of them, despite their wounds, having succeeded in making their escape, theywere retaken and despatched. Among the twelve thousand victims of theCommune, who shall say how many innocent people suffered for everymalefactor who met his deserts! An order to stop the executions had beenissued from Versailles, so it was said, but none the less the slaughterstill went on; Thiers, while hailed as the savior of his country, wasto bear the stigma of having been the Jack Ketch of Paris, and MarshalMacMahon, the vanquished of Froeschwiller, whose proclamation announcingthe triumph of law and order was to be seen on every wall, was toreceive the credit of the victory of Pere-Lachaise. And in the pleasantsunshine Paris, attired in holiday garb, appeared to be _en fete_; thereconquered streets were filled with an enormous crowd; men and women, glad to breathe the air of heaven once more, strolled leisurely fromspot to spot to view the smoking ruins; mothers, holding their littlechildren by the hand, stopped for a moment and listened with an air ofinterest to the deadened crash of musketry from the Lobau barracks. 

When Jean ascended the dark staircase of the house in the Rue desOrties, in the gathering obscurity of that Sunday evening, his heart wasoppressed by a chill sense of impending evil. He entered the room, andsaw at once that the inevitable end was come; Maurice lay dead on thelittle bed; the hemorrhage predicted by Bouroche had done its work. Thered light of the setting sun streamed through the open window and restedon the wall as if in a last farewell; two tapers were burning on a tablebeside the bed. And Henriette, alone with her dead, in her widow's weedsthat she had not laid aside, was weeping silently. 

At the noise of footsteps she raised her head, and shuddered onbeholding Jean. He, in his wild despair, was about to hurry toward herand seize her hands, mingle his grief with hers in a sympathetic clasp, but he saw the little hands were trembling, he felt as by instinct therepulsion that pervaded all her being and was to part them for evermore. Was not all ended between them now? Maurice's grave would be there, ayawning chasm, to part them as long as they should live. And he couldonly fall to his knees by the bedside of his dead friend, sobbingsoftly. After the silence had lasted some moments, however, Henriettespoke:

"I had turned my back and was preparing a cup of bouillon, when he gavea cry. I hastened to his side, but had barely time to reach the bedbefore he expired, with my name upon his lips, and yours as well, amidan outgush of blood--"

Her Maurice, her twin brother, whom she might almost be said to haveloved in the prenatal state, her other self, whom she had watched overand saved! sole object of her affection since at Bazeilles she had seenher poor Weiss set against a wall and shot to death! And now cruel warhad done its worst by her, had crushed her bleeding heart; henceforthher way through life was to be a solitary one, widowed and forsaken asshe was, with no one upon whom to bestow her love. 

"Ah, _bon sang_!" cried Jean, amid his sobs, "behold my work! Mypoor little one, for whom I would have laid down my life, and whom Imurdered, brute that I am! What is to become of us? Can you ever forgiveme?"

At that moment their glances met, and they were stricken withconsternation at what they read in each other's eyes. The past rosebefore them, the secluded chamber at Remilly, where they had spent somany melancholy yet happy days. His dream returned to him, that dreamof which at first he had been barely conscious and which even at a laterperiod could not be said to have assumed definite shape: life down therein the pleasant country by the Meuse, marriage, a little house, a littlefield to till whose produce should suffice for the needs of two peoplewhose ideas were not extravagant. Now the dream was become an eagerlonging, a penetrating conviction that, with a wife as loving andindustrious as she, existence would be a veritable earthly paradise. Andshe, the tranquillity of whose mind had never in those days been ruffledby thoughts of that nature, in the chaste and unconscious bestowal ofher heart, now saw clearly and understood the true condition of herfeelings. That marriage, of which she had not admitted to herself thepossibility, had been, unknown to her, the object of her desire. Theseed that had germinated had pushed its way in silence and in darkness;it was love, not sisterly affection, that she bore toward that youngman whose company had at first been to her nothing more than a source ofcomfort and consolation. And that was what their eyes told each other, and the love thus openly expressed could have no other fruition than aneternal farewell. It needed but that frightful sacrifice, the rendingof their heart-strings by that supreme parting, the prospect of theirlife's happiness wrecked amid all the other ruins, swept away by thecrimson tide that ended their brother's life. 

With a slow and painful effort Jean rose from his knees. 

"Farewell!"

Henriette stood motionless in her place. 

"Farewell!"

But Jean could not tear himself away thus. Advancing to the bedside hesorrowfully scanned the dead man's face, with its lofty forehead thatseemed loftier still in death, its wasted features, its dull eyes, whence the wild look that had occasionally been seen there in life hadvanished. He longed to give a parting kiss to his little one, as he hadcalled him so many times, but dared not. It seemed to him that his handswere stained with his friend's blood; he shrank from the horror of theordeal. Ah, what a death to die, amid the crashing ruins of a sinkingworld! On the last day, among the shattered fragments of the dyingCommune, might not this last victim have been spared? He had gone fromlife, hungering for justice, possessed by the dream that haunted him, the sublime and unattainable conception of the destruction of the oldsociety, of Paris chastened by fire, of the field dug up anew, thatfrom the soil thus renewed and purified might spring the idyl of anothergolden age. 

His heart overflowing with bitter anguish, Jean turned and looked outon Paris. The setting sun lay on the edge of the horizon, and its levelrays bathed the city in a flood of vividly red light. The windows inthousands of houses flamed as if lighted by fierce fires within; theroofs glowed like beds of live coals; bits of gray wall and tall, sober-hued monuments flashed in the evening air with the sparkle of abrisk fire of brushwood. It was like the show-piece that is reserved forthe conclusion of a _fete_, the huge bouquet of gold and crimson, as ifParis were burning like a forest of old oaks and soaring heavenward ina rutilant cloud of sparks and flame. The fires were burning still;volumes of reddish smoke continued to rise into the air; a confusedmurmur in the distance sounded on the ear, perhaps the last groans ofthe dying Communists at the Lobau barracks, or it may have been thehappy laughter of women and children, ending their pleasant afternoon bydining in the open air at the doors of the wine-shops. And in the midstof all the splendor of that royal sunset, while a large part of Pariswas crumbling away in ashes, from plundered houses and gutted palaces, from the torn-up streets, from the depths of all that ruin andsuffering, came sounds of life. 

Then Jean had a strange experience. It seemed to him that in the slowlyfading daylight, above the roofs of that flaming city, he beheld thedawning of another day. And yet the situation might well be consideredirretrievable. Destiny appeared to have pursued them with her utmostfury; the successive disasters they had sustained were such as nonation in history had ever known before; defeat treading on the heels ofdefeat, their provinces torn from them, an indemnity of milliards to beraised, a most horrible civil war that had been quenched in blood, theirstreets cumbered with ruins and unburied corpses, without money, theirhonor gone, and order to be re-established out of chaos! His share ofthe universal ruin was a heart lacerated by the loss of Maurice andHenriette, the prospect of a happy future swept away in the furiousstorm! And still, beyond the flames of that furnace whose fiery glowhad not subsided yet, Hope, the eternal, sat enthroned in the limpidserenity of the tranquil heavens. It was the certain assurance of theresurrection of perennial nature, of imperishable humanity; the harvestthat is promised to him who sows and waits; the tree throwing out a newand vigorous shoot to replace the rotten limb that has been lopped away, which was blighting the young leaves with its vitiated sap. 

"Farewell!" Jean repeated with a sob. 

"Farewell!" murmured Henriette, her bowed face hidden in her hands. 

The neglected field was overgrown with brambles, the roof-tree of theruined house lay on the ground; and Jean, bearing his heavy burdenof affliction with humble resignation, went his way, his face setresolutely toward the future, toward the glorious and arduous task thatlay before him and his countrymen, to create a new France. 

THE END.