Читать книгу The Whites and the Blues - Alexandre Dumas - Страница 50

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Pichegru proposed to recover the ground lost by his predecessor at the battle of Haguenau, which had followed the evacuation of the lines of Wissembourg. At that time General Carles had been obliged to move his headquarters across the river from Souffel to Schiltigheim; that is to say, to the very gates of Strasbourg.

It was there that Pichegru, chosen because of his plebeian birth, had taken command of the army, and, thanks to several successful actions, had carried his headquarters as far as Auenheim. For the same reason—plebeian birth—Hoche had been appointed to the command of the Army of the Moselle, and had been ordered to combine his movements with those of Pichegru.

The first battle of any importance was fought at Bercheim; it was there that they had captured the Comte de Sainte-Hermine, in a charge in which his horse had been killed under him. The Prince de Condé had his headquarters at Bercheim; and Pichegru, wishing to try the enemy's columns, while avoiding a general action, had attacked this position.

Repulsed the first time, he had renewed the attack by sending a body of skirmishers, divided into small companies, against the Prince de Condé the next day. These skirmishers, after harassing the enemy for a long time, united at a given signal, and, forming in a column, fell upon the village of Bercheim and took it. But struggles between Frenchmen do not end so easily. The Prince de Condé was behind the village with the battalions of nobles composing the infantry of his army; he made an assault at their head, attacked the Republicans in Bercheim, and made himself master of the village. Pichegru then sent his cavalry to the assistance of the skirmishers; the prince ordered his own to charge, and the two regiments fought with the violence of hate. The advantage remained with the royalist cavalry, which was better mounted than its opponents; the Republicans retreated, abandoning seven cannon and nine hundred men lost.

On their side the royalists lost three hundred cavalry and nine hundred infantry. The Duc de Bourbon, the Prince de Condé's son, was shot down just as he reached Bercheim, and his aides-de-camp were almost all killed or dangerously wounded. But Pichegru would not acknowledge himself beaten; the next day he attacked General Klénau's troops, who occupied a position near Bercheim. The enemy retreated at the first charge, but the Prince de Condé sent them a reinforcement of royalists, both cavalry and infantry.

The struggle became more deadly, and lasted for some time without any perceptible advantage on either side; finally the enemy retreated for the second time, and retired behind Haguenau, leaving the royalists exposed. The Prince de Condé deemed it imprudent to attempt to hold the position any longer, and retreated in good order; and the Republicans entered Bercheim behind him.

The news of the victory arrived at the same time as that of the defeat, and the one counterbalanced the other. Pichegru breathed more easily; the iron belt which was stifling Strasbourg was relieved by one notch.

This time, as Pichegru said, it was more to get away from Auenheim than to resume strategic movements that the army took up its march. However, as it would be necessary some day to recapture Haguenau, which was then occupied by the Austrians, they were, in passing, to attack the village of Dawendorff.

A belt of forest in the shape of a horseshoe, extended from Auenheim to Dawendorff; at eight o'clock in the evening, on a dark but fine winter's night, Pichegru gave the order to start. Charles, without being a good rider, could mount a horse. The general placed him paternally in the midst of his staff, and enjoined them all to look out for him. The army set off silently, for they intended to surprise the enemy.

The battalion of the Indre formed the advance-guard.

During the evening Pichegru had had the forest explored, and had been told that it was unguarded. At two in the morning they arrived at the extremity of the horseshoe-shaped forest. They were separated from the village of Dawendorff by about three miles of woodland. Pichegru gave the order to halt and bivouac.

It was impossible to leave the men without a fire on such a night, and, at the risk of being discovered, Pichegru gave the order for the men to light piles of wood, around which they bivouacked. They had about four hours before them.

During the entire march the general had kept his eye on Charles, to whom he had given a trumpeter's horse, with a saddle that was both high in front and back, and covered with sheepskin, so that it afforded a solid seat even for the most inexperienced rider. But Pichegru saw with pleasure that his young secretary placed himself unhesitatingly in the saddle, and had managed his horse without awkwardness. When they reached the encampment, he himself showed him how to unsaddle and picket his horse, and make a pillow of the saddle. A good riding-coat, which had been put in his portmanteau at the general's direction, made a comfortable mattress and covering.

Charles, who had not lost his religious feelings in the midst of this age of irreligion, said his silent prayer, and went to sleep as peacefully as he would have done in his own room at Besançon.

Advance posts placed in the woods, and as sentinels on the flanks, which were relieved every half hour, watched over the safety of the little army. About four o'clock they were awakened by a shot fired by one of the sentinels, and, in an instant, every one was on his feet.

Pichegru glanced at Charles; he had run to his horse, taken the pistols from their holsters, and returned to the general's side, where he remained standing with a pistol in either hand.

The general sent twenty men in the direction whence the shot had been fired; as the sentinel had not repeated the shot, the probability was that he had been killed. But when they approached the spot where he had been posted, the men heard him calling for help; they hastened their steps, and saw, not men, but beasts, who were put to flight by their appearance.

The sentinel had been attacked by a band of five or six famished wolves, who had at first prowled around him, and then, seeing that he stood perfectly still, had become bolder. In order not to be attacked from behind, he had put his back to a tree and for a time had defended himself silently with his bayonet; but finally a wolf had seized the bayonet in his teeth, and then the sentinel had fired upon him, shooting the beast through the head. The wolves, frightened by the report, had at first slunk away, but then, driven by hunger, they had returned, perhaps as much for the sake of eating their comrade as to attack the sentinel. They came back so swiftly that the soldier had not had time to reload his gun. He had therefore defended himself as best he could, and they had already made several attempts to bite him when his comrades came to his aid and drove away the unexpected enemy.

The sub-lieutenant who commanded the squad left four men on guard in the sentinel's place and returned to the camp, taking with him as trophies the skins of the two wolves, the one killed by a bullet, the other by a bayonet. The skins, thickly furred for the winter time, were to be made into rugs for the general.

The soldier was taken before Pichegru, who received him coldly, thinking that the shot was due to carelessness; his brow grew darker and darker as he listened, and learned that the soldier had fired to defend himself from the wolves.

"Do you know," said he, "that I ought to have you shot for firing upon anything except the enemy?"

"But what should I have done, general?" asked the poor devil, so ingenuously that the general smiled in spite of himself.

"You ought to have allowed yourself to be eaten to the last morsel rather than have fired a shot which might have alarmed the enemy, and which has aroused the whole army."

"I did think of that, general; and you see that the rascals began;" and he showed his bleeding arms and cheeks. "But I said to myself, 'Faraud (that is my name, general), they have placed you here to prevent the enemy from passing, and they count on you to prevent them from passing.'"

"Well?" asked Pichegru.

"Well, if I had been eaten, general, there would have been no one to prevent the enemy from passing; it was that thought which determined me to fire. I give you my word of honor that the question of personal safety did not come till later."

"But this shot may have awakened the enemy's advance-posts."

"Don't worry about that, general; if they heard it, they have taken it for a mere poacher's shot."

"Are you a Parisian?"

"Yes, but I belong to the first battalion of the Indre; I am a volunteer."

"Well, Faraud, the only advice I have to give you is not to let me see you again until you have won your corporal's stripes, so that I may forget the breach of discipline which you have committed to-day."

"What shall I do to win them, general?"

"You must bring two Prussian prisoners to your captain to-morrow, or rather, to-day."

"Soldiers or officers, general?"

"Officers would be better, but privates will do."

"I shall do my best, general."

"Who has some brandy?" asked Pichegru.

"I have," said Doumerc.

"Well, give this coward a drink; he has promised to bring us two prisoners to-morrow."

"Suppose I only make one, general?"

"Then you will only be half a corporal, and will only have one stripe to wear."

"Oh! that would make me squint! To-morrow evening I shall have them both, general, or you may say, 'Faraud is dead.' To your health, general!"

"General," said Charles to Pichegru, "it was with words like those that Cæsar made his Gauls invincible."