Читать книгу The Downfall (La Débâcle) - Emile Zola - Страница 6

The camp was pitched in the centre of a fertile plain at a mile or so from Mulhausen, in the direction of the Rhine. In the twilight of a sultry day in August, under the dull sky, across which heavy clouds were drifting, the rows of shelter-tents could be seen stretching out amid a broad expanse of ploughed land. At regular intervals along the front gleamed the piles of arms, guarded by sentinels with loaded rifles, who stood there stock-still, their eyes fixed dreamily on the violet-tinted mist which was rising from the great river on the far horizon.

The men had arrived from Belfort at about five o' clock. It was now eight, and they had only just received their rations. The firewood, however, had apparently gone astray, for none had been distributed, so that there was neither fire nor soupe. The men had been obliged to munch their hard, dry biscuit, washing it down with copious draughts of brandy, which had dealt the last blow, as it were, to their failing legs, already nerveless through fatigue. Near the canteen, however, beyond the stacks of arms, two men were stubbornly endeavouring to light some green wood—a pile of young tree trunks, which they had cut down with their sword-bayonets, and which obstinately refused to blaze. Merely a coil of thick black smoke of lugubrious aspect ascended from the heap into the evening air.

There were here only 12,000 men, all that General Félix Douay had with him of the Seventh Army Corps. The first division, summoned by MacMahon the day before, had started for Frœschweiler; the third was still at Lyons; and the general had resolved to leave Belfort and advance to the front with merely the second division, supported by the reserve artillery and an incomplete division of horse. Camp fires had been signalled at Lorrach, and the Sub-Prefect of Schelestadt had telegraphed that the Prussians were about to cross the Rhine at Margolsheim. The general, who realised how dangerous was his isolated position at the extreme right of the other army corps, with none of which he was in communication, had hastened his advance to the frontier the more rapidly, as news had reached him, the day before, of the disastrous surprise of Weissenburg. Even supposing he did not have to resist an attack on his own lines, it was now to be feared that he might at any moment be called upon to support the First Army Corps.[1] That very day—that disquieting, stormy Saturday, August 6—there must have been fighting somewhere, most probably near Frœschweiler. There were signs of it in the air, in the heavy, restless sky across which there now and again swept a chilly shudder—a sudden gust of wind which passed by moaning, as if with anguish. For the past two days the troops had been convinced that they were advancing to battle. They one and all expected to find the Prussians in front of them at the end of their forced march from Belfort to Mulhausen.

The daylight was waning, when, from a distant corner of the camp, the tattoo sounded—a roll of the drums followed by a bugle call, faint as yet, wafted away, as it was, through the open air. It was heard, however, by Jean Macquart,[2] who had been endeavouring to strengthen his tent by driving the pickets deeper into the ground, and who now rapidly rose to his feet. Still bleeding from the grievous tragedy in which he had lost Françoise, his wife, and the land she had brought him in marriage, he had left Rognes, and, although nine-and-thirty years of age, had re-enlisted at the first rumour of war. Immediately enrolled, with his old rank of corporal, in the 106th Regiment of the Infantry of the Line, then being brought up to its full strength, Jean sometimes felt astonished to find himself again in uniform—he who had been so delighted to leave the service after the battle of Solferino, so pleased to cease playing the swashbuckler, the part of the man who kills. But what is a fellow to do when he has no trade or profession left him, neither wife nor even a scrap of property that he can call his own in all the wide world, and when grief and rage bring his heart with a leap into his very throat? Surely he has a right to trounce his country's enemies, especially if they plague him. Besides, Jean remembered the cry he had raised: 'Ah! dash it all, he would defend the old soil of France, since he no longer had courage enough to till it!'

On rising up he glanced at the camp, where a final stir was being occasioned by the passage of the tattoo party. Some men were running to their quarters; others, already drowsy, sat up or stretched themselves out with an air of irritated weariness; whilst Jean, the patient fellow, awaited the roll-call with that well-balanced tranquillity of mind which made him such a capital soldier. His comrades said he would probably have risen rapidly in rank had he been more of a scholar, but it happened that he only just knew how to read and write, and he did not even covet a sergeant's stripes. He who has been a peasant always remains one.

Jean was concerned at the sight of the green logs which were still smoking, and called to the two men—Loubet and Lapoulle, both belonging to his squad—who were desperately endeavouring to kindle the fire: 'Just let that be. You're poisoning us with that smoke.'

Loubet, who was lithe and active, with the look of a wag, sneeringly replied, 'It's catching alight, corporal; I assure you it is.' And giving his comrade Lapoulle a push, he added, 'Here, you, why don't you blow?'

In point of fact, Lapoulle, a perfect colossus, was exhausting himself in his efforts to raise a tempest, with his cheeks puffed out like goat-skins full of liquor, his whole face suffused by a rush of blood, and his eyes red and full of tears. Two other men of the squad, Chouteau and Pache—the former of whom lay on his back like a lazybones fond of his ease, whilst the other had assumed a crouching posture that he might carefully repair a rent in his trousers—were greatly amused by the fearful grimace which that brute Lapoulle was making, and burst at last into a roar of laughter.

Jean let them laugh. There would, perhaps, not be many more opportunities for gaiety; and despite the serious expression which sat on his full, round, regular-featured face, he was by no means a partisan of melancholy. Indeed, he closed his eyes readily enough whenever his men wished to amuse themselves. However, another group now attracted his attention. For nearly an hour one of the privates of his squad, Maurice Levasseur, had been chatting with a civilian, a red-haired individual, looking some six-and-thirty years of age, with a good-dog-Tray sort of face, and large blue goggle eyes—short-sighted eyes, which had led to his being exempted from military service. A quartermaster of the reserve artillery, who with his dark moustache and imperial had a bold confident air, had joined the couple; and the three of them tarried there, making themselves at home.

To spare them a reprimand, Jean, in his obliging way, thought it his duty to intervene. 'You would do well to leave, sir,' he said to the civilian. 'Here comes the tattoo, and if the lieutenant saw you——'

Maurice did not let him finish. 'Don't go, Weiss,' said he; and, addressing the corporal, he dryly added, 'This gentleman is my brother-in-law. The colonel knows him, and has given him permission to remain in camp.'

Why did this peasant, Jean Macquart, whose hands still smelt of the dungheap, interfere in a matter that did not concern him? thought Maurice. He, who had been called to the bar during the previous autumn, and who, on joining the army as a volunteer, had been forthwith enrolled in the 106th of the Line, thanks to the colonel's protection, and without having to undergo the usual probation at the depôt—carried his knapsack willingly enough; but, at the very outset, a feeling of repugnance, of covert revolt, had turned him against this illiterate corporal, the clodhopper who commanded him.

'All right,' retorted Jean, in his quiet way. 'Get yourselves caught. I don't care a rap.'

Then he abruptly faced about on finding that Maurice had not told him a fib; for at that very moment the colonel, M. de Vineuil, whose long yellow face was intersected by bushy white moustaches, passed by with that grand aristocratic air of his, and acknowledged the salute of Weiss and Maurice with a smile. The colonel was walking rapidly towards a farmhouse which peeped out from among some plum trees on the right hand, a few hundred paces away. The staff was installed there for the night, but no one knew whether the commander of the Army Corps—struck down by the grievous tidings that his brother had been killed at Weissenburg[3]—was there or not. Major-General Bourgain-Desfeuilles, to whose brigade the 106th Regiment belonged, was, however, assuredly at the farm, brawling no doubt according to his wont, with his huge belly swaying to and fro atop of his diminutive legs, and with his face highly coloured, like the face of one fond of the table, who is not troubled with any excess of brains. There was an increasing stir around the farmhouse; every minute or so estafettes were galloping off and returning; and feverish, indeed, were the long hours of waiting for the belated telegrams that were expected to bring news of the great battle, which since daybreak everyone had deemed inevitable and proximate. Where had it been fought, and how had it resulted? By degrees, as the night fell, it seemed as though the spirit of anxiety were brooding over the orchards, over the scattered stacks, and around the cow-sheds, spreading itself out on all sides like a shadowy sea. The men told one another that a Prussian spy had been caught prowling about the camp, and had been conducted to the farm to be questioned by the general. If Colonel de Vineuil ran there so fast it was, perhaps, because he had received a telegram.

Meanwhile, Maurice Levasseur had begun to chat again with his brother-in-law Weiss, and his cousin Honoré Fouchard, the quartermaster. The tattoo party, coming from afar off with its numbers gradually strengthened, passed near them, drumming and trumpeting in the melancholy twilight peacefulness; and yet they did not seem to hear it even. Grandson of a hero of the First Napoleon's armies, Maurice was born at Le Chêne Populeux, in the Argonne. His father, being turned away from the paths of glory, had sunk down to a meagre tax-collectorship; and his mother, a peasant woman, had expired in bringing him and his twin sister, Henriette, into the world. If Maurice had enlisted in the army, it was because of grave offences, the outcome of a course of dissipation in which his weak, excitable nature had embarked at the time when he had repaired to Paris to read for the bar, and when his relatives had pinched and stinted themselves to make a gentleman of him. But he had squandered their money in gaming, on women, and on the thousand and one follies of the all-devouring city, and his conduct had hastened his father's death. His sister, after parting with her all to pay his debts, had been lucky enough to secure a husband, that honest fellow Weiss, an Alsatian of Mulhausen, who had long been an accountant at the refinery of Le Chêne Populeux, and was now an overseer in the employ of M. Delaherche, owner of one of the principal cloth-weaving establishments of Sedan. Maurice, who with his nervous nature was seized as promptly with hope as with despair, who was both generous and enthusiastic, but utterly devoid of stability—the slave indeed of each shifting, passing breeze—imagined that he was now quite cured of his follies. Fair and short, with an unusually large forehead, a small nose and chin, and generally refined features, he had grey, caressing eyes, in which there gleamed at times a spark of madness.

Weiss had hastened to Mulhausen on the eve of hostilities, having suddenly become desirous of settling some family affair; and if he had availed himself of Colonel de Vineuil's kindness, in order to shake hands with his brother-in-law, Maurice, it was because the colonel happened to be the uncle of young Madame Delaherche, a pretty widow, whom the cloth merchant of Sedan had married the year before, and whom both Maurice and Henriette had known when she was a child, her parents then being neighbours of their own. Besides the colonel, Maurice had come across another of Madame Delaherche's connections in the person of Captain Beaudoin, who commanded his company, and who had been this lady's most intimate friend, it was insinuated, at the time when she was Madame Maginot of Mézières, wife of M. Maginot, inspector of the State forest.

'Mind you kiss Henriette for me,' said Maurice, again and again—he was, indeed, passionately fond of his sister—'tell her she will have every reason to be pleased, and that I want to make her proud of me.'

Tears filled his eyes as he thought of his foolish conduct in Paris; but his brother-in-law, touched in his turn, changed the conversation by saying to Honoré Fouchard, the artilleryman: 'The first time I pass by Remilly I shall run up and tell uncle Fouchard that I saw you and found you well.'

Uncle Fouchard, a peasant with a little land of his own, who plied the calling of itinerant village butcher, was a brother of Maurice's mother. He lived at Remilly, right at the top of the hill, at four miles or so from Sedan.

'All right,' said Honoré, quietly; 'the old man doesn't care a rap about me, but, if it pleases you, you can go to see him.'

Just at that moment there was a stir in front of the farmhouse, and they saw the prowler—the man accused of being a Prussian spy—come out, accompanied by an officer. He had no doubt produced some papers, related some plausible tale or other, for he was no longer under arrest—the officer was simply turning him out of the camp. At that distance, in the impending darkness, one could only vaguely distinguish his huge, square-built figure and tawny head. Maurice, however, impetuously exclaimed: 'Look there, Honoré. Isn't that fellow like the Prussian—you know the man I mean—Goliath?'

The quartermaster started on hearing this name, and fixed his ardent eyes upon the supposed spy. This mention of Goliath Steinberg, the slaughterman, the rascal who had made bad blood between himself and his father, who had robbed him of his sweetheart Silvine, had revived all the horrible story—the filthy abomination that still caused him so much suffering—and he felt a sudden impulse to run after the man and strangle him. But the spy, if such he was, had already passed beyond the camp lines, and, walking rapidly away, soon vanished in the darkness of the night.

'Oh! Goliath,' muttered Honoré; 'it isn't possible. He must be over there with the others. Ah! if ever I meet him——'

And with a threatening gesture he pointed to the darkening horizon, the violet-tinted eastern sky which to him meant Prussia.

They all relapsed into silence, and the tattoo was again heard afar off, at the other end of the camp. 'Blazes!' resumed Honoré, 'I shall get into trouble if I'm not back for the roll call. Good night. Good-bye to all!' Then having once more pressed Weiss's hands he hastily strode away towards the hillock where the reserve artillery was massed; he had not again mentioned his father, nor had he even sent any message to Silvine, whose name burnt his lips.

A few minutes had elapsed, when a bugle call was heard on the left, near the quarters of the second brigade. Another bugle nearer at hand replied. Then a third rang out, afar off. They were all sounding, far and near, when Gaude, the bugler of Jean's company, made up his mind to discharge a volley of sonorous notes. He was a big, skinny, sorrowful, taciturn man, without a hair on his chin, and blew his instrument with the lungs of a whirlwind.

Sergeant Sapin, an affected little fellow, with big dreamy eyes, began to call the roll, shouting out the men's names in a shrill voice, whilst they, having drawn near to him, made answer in a variety of tones, now akin to the sound of a violoncello and now to that of a flute. A break, however, suddenly occurred in the responses. 'Lapoulle!' repeated the sergeant, shouting as loud as he could. There was still no answer, and Jean had to rush to the pile of green logs, which Lapoulle, egged on by his comrades, was still obstinately trying to ignite. Stretched there on his stomach, with his face quite scorched, he continued blowing away the smoke of the blackening wood.

'Thunder!' shouted Jean, 'just leave that alone and answer to your name.'

Lapoulle sat up with a bewildered air, then appeared to understand, and finally bellowed 'Present!' in a voice so like that of a savage that Loubet fell flop on the ground, so amazingly funny did he consider the incident. Pache, who had finished his sewing, replied to his name in a scarcely audible voice as though he were mumbling a prayer. Chouteau, without even rising, let his answer drop disdainfully from his lips, and then stretched himself out more comfortably. Meanwhile, Rochas, the lieutenant on duty, stood waiting, motionless, a few yards off. When the roll had been called, and Sergeant Sapin came to tell him that there was no one missing, he protruded his chin in the direction of Weiss, who was still chatting with Maurice, and growled from under his moustache, 'There's even one man too many. Why on earth is that fellow here?'

'He has the colonel's permission, sir,' explained Jean, who had overheard the question.

Rochas shrugged his shoulders, and, without replying, began walking up and down in front of the tents pending the time to turn in, whilst Jean, worn out by the day's march, sat down not far from Maurice, whose words reached him without any intentional listening on his part, occupied as he was with vague dim reflections that were germinating in the depths of his slow, dull brain.

Maurice was a believer in war, which he considered to be inevitable—necessary, even, to the existence of nations. This doctrine had imposed itself upon him since he had adopted the theory of evolution, which already at that time impassionated young men of culture. Is not life itself an incessant battle, which does not flag, even for a second? Continuous fighting, the victory of the fittest, the maintenance and renewal of strength by action, and the resuscitation of juvenescent life from death itself—are not these the very essence of the natural law? Maurice remembered the great transport that had buoyed him up when, with the view of atoning for his errors, he had thought of becoming a soldier and hurrying to the frontier. Possibly the voters of the Plebiscitum, though surrendering themselves to the Emperor, had not really desired war. Maurice himself, but a week previously, had declared that such a war as was being spoken of would be both culpable and idiotic. People were then discussing the candidature of a German prince to the Spanish throne, and in the confusion which gradually arose it seemed as if everybody were in the wrong. No one could say precisely from which side the provocation had come, and only the inevitable remained, the fatal law which at a given hour impels one people against another. Then a great thrill swept through Paris, and Maurice in his mind's eye still beheld the scenes of that torrid night, the boulevards a human sea, the bands of men who waved their torches and shouted: 'To Berlin! To Berlin! To Berlin!' And he again saw a tall woman[4] with a sculptural figure and a queenly profile mount on a carriage-box in front of the Hôtel de Ville, and, swathed in the folds of a tricolour flag, chant the 'Marseillaise.' Was all that a lie? Had not the heart of Paris really beaten that night?

As was always the case with Maurice, however, after this nervous excitement there had come long hours of fearful wavering and disgust. His arrival at the barracks, the adjutant to whom he had reported himself, the sergeant who had provided him with his uniform, the stinking and repulsively filthy dormitory, the rough familiarity of his new companions, the mechanical exercises which had exhausted his limbs and rendered his brain so heavy—all these had been unpleasant experiences. In less than a week, however, he had become accustomed to his new life, and displayed no further repugnance for it. And, indeed, when the regiment at last set out for Belfort, enthusiasm again seized hold of him.

From the very outset he had felt confident of victory. The Emperor's plan was quite clear to him. Four hundred thousand men were to cross the Rhine before the Prussians were ready, and by a bold, vigorous dash to separate Northern from Southern Germany; whilst, at the same time, thanks to some brilliant success, Austria and Italy would speedily be compelled to ally themselves with France. Had it not been rumoured, too, at one moment, that the Seventh Army Corps, to which Maurice's regiment belonged, was to put to sea at Brest in view of landing in Denmark and creating a diversion which would compel Prussia to immobilise one of her armies? She was to be surprised, overwhelmed on every side, crushed in a few weeks' time. There was to be a mere military promenade—from Strasburg to Berlin. Since that period of waiting at Belfort, however, Maurice had been distracted by anxiety. The Seventh Corps, whose allotted task was to watch the outlets of the Black Forest, had reached Belfort in fearful confusion, deficient in men, and lacking everything. It was necessary to wait for the third division to arrive from Italy.[5] The second cavalry brigade had to remain at Lyons, as some rioting was feared there; and three batteries of artillery had actually gone astray, no one knew where. Moreover, the corps was in an extraordinary state of destitution. The magazines of Belfort, which were to have supplied all requisites, proved to be empty; there were no tents, no pots or pans, no flannel waistbands, no pharmaceutical supplies, no field smithies, no horse-locks, not an ambulance attendant, nor an artificer. At the last moment, too, it was discovered that the indispensable spare mechanism for thirty thousand chassepots was wanting, and it became necessary to send an officer to Paris, whence he returned with barely sufficient for five thousand weapons, and he had had the utmost difficulty in obtaining even these.

On the other hand, Maurice was particularly worried by the inaction of the army. What! they had been there a fortnight—why did they not march forward? He fully realised that each day's delay was an irreparable blunder, an opportunity of victory irretrievably lost. And, confronting the plan he had dreamt of, there rose up the reality, the blundering fashion in which this plan had been executed. Of this he was as yet but anxiously and dimly conscious; it was only at a later period that he knew the truth—the Seventh Army Corps écheloned or rather disseminated along the frontier from Metz to Bitche and from Bitche to Belfort—the regiments invariably below their assumed strength, there being at best but 230,000 men, when it was supposed that there were 430,000; the generals jealous of one another, each bent on gaining his own marshal's bâton without helping his neighbour; the most fearful lack of foresight, mobilisation and concentration being carried out simultaneously to gain time, but resulting in inextricable confusion; and above all else that creeping paralysis, originating in high quarters, with the ailing Emperor, who was incapable of prompt decision, and which was to spread over the entire army, disorganise and annihilate it, and toss it to the most fearful disasters, without any possibility of its defending itself. And yet, above the secret disquietude of those days of waiting, there still lingered an instinctive confidence in victory.

Suddenly, on August 3, the news of the victory of Saarbrucken, gained the day before, burst upon one. Nobody knew whether it was a great victory or not, but the newspapers were brimful of enthusiasm. So Germany was invaded at last. This was the first step in the glorious march; and then began the legend of the Prince Imperial, who had calmly picked up a bullet on the battle field. Two days later, when the surprise and crushing reverse of Weissenburg became known, a cry of rage arose from every breast. Five thousand Frenchmen, caught in an ambuscade, had for ten long hours gallantly resisted five-and-thirty thousand Prussians—this evidently demanded vengeance! The commanders had no doubt been guilty in not keeping a better look-out, and in not foreseeing what had happened; but everything was about to be remedied. MacMahon had summoned the first division of the Seventh Army Corps; the First Corps was to be supported by the Fifth;[6] and at the present time, no doubt, the Prussians had recrossed the Rhine with the bayonets of the French linesmen in their loins. And the thought that there must have been some furious fighting that very day, the increasing, feverish longing for news, all the prevailing anxiety grew and spread under the broad pale heavens.

Thus it was that Maurice discoursed to Weiss.

'Ah!' he added, 'they must certainly have received a good licking to-day.'

Instead of replying, Weiss nodded his head with a thoughtful air. He also was looking towards the Rhine—towards the east, where night had now completely fallen, and where the sky, darkened as with mystery, had the aspect of a great black wall. Since the last bugle calls of the mustering, a profound silence had been falling over the drowsy camp, disturbed only by the footsteps and converse of a few belated soldiers. A light, looking like a twinkling star, had just been placed in the room of the farmhouse where the staff officers sat keeping their vigil, waiting for the telegrams which arrived at intervals, bringing as yet only ambiguous tidings. The fire of green wood had been abandoned at last, but some dense, funereal smoke still ascended from it, and was driven away by the breeze over the restless farm and towards the sky, where it dimmed the early stars.

'A licking!' repeated Weiss, at last. 'God grant it!'

Jean, who was still seated a few steps away, pricked up his ears; and Lieutenant Rochas, noticing the accent of doubt that quivered in Weiss's wish, stopped short to listen.

'What, do you lack confidence?' Maurice resumed; 'do you think a defeat possible?'

His brother-in-law stopped him with a gesture, his hands trembling, his good-natured face suddenly convulsed and quite pale. 'A defeat! Heaven shield us from it! I belong to this part of the country, you know. My grandfather and grandmother were murdered by the Cossacks, in 1814, and whenever I think of invasion my hands clench instinctively, and I feel inclined to go and fight the enemy in my frock-coat, just as I am! But a defeat—no, no, I won't believe it possible!'

He became calmer, and his shoulders drooped as though he felt oppressed. 'All the same,' he resumed, 'I am not at ease. I know Alsace well; I have just travelled through the province on business, and have seen things which stared our generals in the face, but which they refused to see. We Alsatians certainly desired war with Prussia; we have long been awaiting an opportunity to pay off old scores. But that did not interfere with our friendly intercourse with Baden and Bavaria. We most of us have friends or relatives just across the Rhine. We thought that, like ourselves, they dreamed of curbing the unbearable pride of the Prussians. Calm and resolute as we usually are, we have, nevertheless, been seized with impatience and disquietude for a fortnight past, on seeing how everything has gone from bad to worse. Ever since the declaration of war the enemy's cavalry scouts have been allowed to come and terrify our villages, reconnoitre the country, and cut the telegraph wires. Baden and Bavaria are rising, masses of troops are marching through the Palatinate, and the information that has come in from all sides, from the fairs and the markets, shows that the frontier is menaced. But when the frightened villagers and their mayors come and tell all this to the passing officers, the latter shrug their shoulders and think these peasants are mere poltroons troubled with hallucinations. The enemy is far away! Ah! the truth is we ought not to have lost an hour, whereas days and days go by. What can we be waiting for? For the whole of Germany to fall upon us?'

He spoke in a low, sorrowful voice, as though repeating things that he had long thought out: 'Ah! Germany, I know it well, and the pity is that you others seem to know as little about it as you know of China. Do you remember my cousin Gunther, Maurice, the young fellow who came to shake hands with me last spring at Sedan? He is my cousin on the women's side. My mother and his are sisters; she was married at Berlin, and he is a true Prussian; he hates France. He is now serving as a captain in the Prussian Guards. On the evening when I saw him Off at the railway station—I still seem to hear him—he said to me in that rasping voice of his: "If France ever declares war against us she will be beaten."'

Lieutenant Rochas had, so far, restrained himself, but on hearing this he stepped forward with a furious air. He was a tall, thin fellow, nearly fifty years old, with a long, battered, tanned, smoked face. His huge, hooked nose fell over a large mouth—expressive both of violence and kindliness—above which bristled his coarse grey moustache. 'What the—— are you about,' he thundered, 'discouraging our men like that?'

Without taking part in the dispute, Jean considered the lieutenant to be in the right. Though astonished by the long delays and the prevailing confusion, he had never doubted that they would give the Prussians a fearful thrashing. It was sure and certain, indeed, since he and his comrades had been sent there for no other purpose.

'But I don't want to discourage anyone,' replied Weiss, somewhat taken aback. 'On the contrary, I wish everyone knew what I know, for forewarned is forearmed. But listen, Germany——'

Then, with that sober-minded air of his, he explained his fears: the victory of Sadowa had brought Prussia increased power, a national movement was placing her at the head of the other German States, a vast empire was in progress of formation, men were seized with an enthusiastic, irresistible impulse to secure the unification of the Fatherland. Thanks to the system of compulsory military service the whole nation was up in arms, fully instructed, well disciplined, provided with a powerful war material, trained also to European warfare, and still flushed with the glory of its triumph over Austria. The intelligence and moral strength of this army were also to be noted; nearly all the commanders were young men, and took their orders from a generalissimo who seemed destined to revolutionise the entire art of war, whose prudence and foresight were perfect, and whose perspicuity was marvellous. Then, confronting Germany, Weiss boldly depicted France: the Empire greatly aged, still acclaimed, as witness the Plebiscitum,[7] but rotten at the basis, having weakened love of country by destroying liberty, and having reverted to liberal courses when these could be of no avail but could only accelerate its fall; and exposed, moreover, to crumble away as soon as it ceased to encourage the appetite for enjoyment which itself had fostered. The army, still laden with the laurels of the Crimea and Italy, was certainly splendidly brave; but the system of allowing men to escape service by a pecuniary payment had tampered with its efficiency; and it had been abandoned to the routine of the Algerian school, and was far too confident of victory to make any real effort for proficiency in the new science of war. Finally, the generals, for the most part of indifferent merit, were consumed by rivalry, whilst some were crassly ignorant, and at the head of them there was the Emperor, ailing and hesitating, deceived by others and deceiving himself as to the outcome of this frightful adventure, into which they all plunged like blind men, without any attempt at serious preparation, and amid universal bewilderment and confusion, like that of a scared flock driven to the slaughter-house.

Rochas stood there listening, agape, with his eyes wide open and his terrible nose contracted. Suddenly, however, he made up his mind to laugh, with a huge laugh that distended his jaws from ear to ear. 'What are you cackling there? What does all this humbug mean?' he shouted. 'There's no sense in it; it is too stupid for anyone to trouble his head about. Go and tell it to the marines if you like, but not to me; no, not to me. I've seen twenty-seven years' service!'

So saying, he struck his chest with his clenched hand. The son of a journeyman mason from the Limousin country, Rochas had been born in Paris, and not caring for his father's calling had enlisted when he was only eighteen. A true soldier of fortune, he started off with his knapsack, gaining a corporal's stripes in Algeria, rising to the rank of a sergeant at Sebastopol, and promoted to a lieutenancy after Solferino. Fifteen years of hardship and heroic bravery was the price he had paid to become an officer, but he was so painfully ignorant that it was certain he would never be made a captain.

'Come, sir,' said he to Weiss, 'although you know everything, here's something you don't know. At Mazagran—I was barely nineteen at the time—we were only one hundred and twenty-three men, neither more nor less, yet we held out during four days against twelve thousand Arabs. Yes, indeed, for years and years out there in Africa, at Mascara, Biskra, and Dellys, then too in Khabylia, and later on at Laghouat, if you had only been with us, sir, you would have seen how all those dirty blackamoors skedaddled as soon as ever we appeared. And at Sebastopol, sir—ah! dash it, it can't be said that we had an easy time of it out there. Gales strong enough to tear the very hair out of your head, such bitter cold and ceaseless alerts, and then, at the very end, everything blown into the air by those savages! But all the same we made them dance—dance to our tune in our own frying pan. And then Solferino—you were not there, sir, so why do you speak of it? Ah! it was warm at Solferino—though there fell more water from the sky that day than you have seen fall in all your life—and a nice dressing we gave the Austrians. You should have seen how they ran away from our bayonets, how they galloped and pushed one another aside to run the faster, as if they were on fire!'

He was brimming over with delight, and all the old military gaiety of France rang out in his triumphant laugh. This was the legend—the French trooper marching victoriously all over the world with his sweetheart on one hand and a glass of good wine in the other; the universe conquered whilst singing a drinking refrain. A French corporal and four men, and lo! immense armies of foreigners bit the dust.

But he suddenly thundered out: 'Beaten, France beaten! Those Prussian pigs beat such men as we!' Then stepping up to Weiss he caught hold of a lapel of his coat. His tall, slim, knight-errant style of figure expressed profound contempt for any enemy, no matter who that enemy might be, and supreme indifference as to conditions of time and place. 'Listen to me, sir,' he said; 'if the Prussians dare to come here we will escort them home again—we'll kick them all the way back—all the way back to Berlin. You hear me!'

Then he waved his hand superbly, with the serenity of a child, the candid conviction of the innocent babe that knows nothing and fears nothing. 'Parbleu!' he added. 'That's how it is, because it can't be otherwise.'

Dazed and almost convinced, Weiss hastily declared that he asked for nothing better. As for Maurice, who held his tongue, not daring to speak out before his superior, he ended by laughing in unison with him. That devil of a lieutenant, stupid though he was, had warmed his heart. Jean, too, with a nod of the head, had approved each of the lieutenant's words. He also had fought at Solferino, when it rained so heavily. Moreover, that was the proper way to speak. If all the officers had spoken like that, the men would not have cared a fig about there being no pots or pans, or flannel waistbands.

For some time past the night had completely fallen, and in the darkness Rochas continued waving his long arms. He had never spelt through more than one book—a volume on the victories of Napoleon I. that had found its way from a pedlar's box into his knapsack—and unable to calm himself he vented all his science in this impetuous outburst: 'At Castiglione, Marengo, Austerlitz and Wagram we thrashed the Austrians! At Eylau, Jena, and Lutzen we thrashed Prussia! At Friedland, Smolensko, and the Moskowa we thrashed the Russians! We thrashed Spain and England everywhere! We thrashed the whole world, right and left, from top to bottom. Yet to-day you say we are to be thrashed ourselves! Why? How? Has the world suddenly been changed?'

He drew himself still more erect, raising his arm like a flag-staff. 'Listen, there has been fighting to-day, and the staff are waiting for news. Well, I'll tell you what news will come! The Prussians have been thrashed—thrashed to such a point that they have neither arms nor legs left them, thrashed to such a degree that only crumbs of them remain for us to sweep away!'

At that moment a loud, dolorous cry resounded under the sombre heavens. Was it the plaintive note of some night bird? Was it the sobbing voice of Mystery coming from afar? The whole camp, shrouded in darkness, shuddered at the sound, and the disquietude fostered by the delay in the arrival of the expected despatches became more intense, feverish, and widespread. The flame of the candle that illuminated the anxious vigil of the staff had shot up higher, and now it was shining erect, without a flicker, like the flame of a taper beside a death-bed.

But it was ten o'clock; and Gaude, springing from the dark ground where he had been lost to view, was the first to sound the signal for the men to retire for the night. Far and near, the other bugles replied, till the sound gradually died away in a faint flourish, as though the very instruments were drowsy. Then Weiss, who had lingered there so long, affectionately pressed Maurice to his heart, and bade him be brave and hopeful. He would kiss Henriette for him, and say all manner of kind things to uncle Fouchard.

Just as he was going off a rumour sped through the camp causing a feverish agitation: Marshal MacMahon had gained a great victory, it was said; the Crown Prince of Prussia and 25,000 men had been taken prisoners; the enemy had been driven back, annihilated, leaving his guns and baggage in the hands of the French.

'Of course!' exclaimed Rochas in his thundering voice; and running after Weiss, who, quite delighted, was hastening away towards Mulhausen, he added: 'We'll kick them all the way back, sir, all the way back!'

A quarter of an hour later, however, a despatch announced that the army had been obliged to abandon Wœrth,[8] and was in full retreat. Ah! What a night! Rochas, overcome by sleep, had wrapped himself in his cloak, and as often happened was slumbering on the ground, disdaining any shelter. Maurice and Jean had slipped into the tent, where, with their heads resting on their knapsacks, Loubet, Chouteau, Pache, and Lapoulle had already settled themselves. There was just room for six men, provided they curled up their legs. At the outset Loubet enlivened all these hungry fellows by convincing Lapoulle that some fowls would be given out at ration time, next day; they felt so tired, however, that they were soon snoring, careless whether the Prussians came or not. Jean remained for a moment quite motionless, pressed close against Maurice. Despite his great fatigue he could not get to sleep, for everything that Weiss had said of the innumerable, all-devouring German nation, that was up in arms against France, was revolving in his brain; and he realised that his companion also was awake, thinking of the self-same things. Suddenly Maurice drew back impatiently, and Jean divined that he inconvenienced him. The instinctive enmity and repugnance, due to difference of class and education, that separated the peasant from the young man of culture, assumed a form of physical dislike. It filled Jean with a feeling of shame and secret sadness, and he tried to make himself small, as it were, to escape the hostile contempt that he divined in Maurice. The night was freshening, but inside the tent, with all these closely packed bodies, the atmosphere became so stifling that Maurice, seized with feverish exasperation, at length bounded outside, and stretched himself on the ground a few paces off. Jean, feeling quite wretched, sank into a kind of semi-somnolence, full of unpleasant dreams, in which his sorrow that nobody cared for him was mingled with the apprehension of a terrible misfortune, which he fancied he could hear galloping along, afar off, in the depths of the Unknown.

Several hours must have elapsed, and the whole black, motionless camp seemed to be annihilated beneath the oppressive weight of that dense, evil night, heavy with something fearful which was as yet without a name. Every now and again there was an upheaval of that sea of darkness, a sudden groan resounded from some invisible tent, the gasp of some soldier in a fitful dream. Then there came noises that were not easily recognised, the snorting of a horse, the clash of a sabre, the hasty footsteps of some belated prowler—all those commonplace sounds which acquire at times a menacing sonority. Suddenly a great glow blazed forth near the canteen. The front was brilliantly illuminated, and the piles of arms could be seen with ruddy reflections streaking the burnished barrels of the guns, as if with trickling runnels of freshly shed blood. The sentinels stood out dark and erect amid this sudden conflagration. Was this the enemy, whose appearance the officers had been predicting for two days past, and to meet whom they had marched expressly from Belfort to Mulhausen? Then, amid a great crackling and sparkling, the flame suddenly went out. After smouldering for hours, the pile of green wood, with which Lapoulle and Loubet had busied themselves so long, had all at once blazed up and burnt away as though it had been so much straw.