Читать книгу The Life of the Moselle - Octavius Rooke - Страница 10

Gustave wrote often: first he was learning his drill, then he had finished his initiation and was in favour with his superiors, often being able to assist with his clear head and ready pen.

Soon after these, a letter came to say the regiment was to hasten to Marseilles, there to embark for Eastern service.

A long silence, and a battle had been fought upon the plains of Alma: his name was not in the lists of killed and wounded—those fearful lists that break the hearts of many; it is not those fighting, but those left behind we ought to pity.

Then came a day of joy: Gustave had performed one of those daring feats of which the Russian war gave so many instances—he had been promoted; and Adèle’s eyes sparkled, and her bosom heaved, as friends came flocking in offering their congratulations.

The long winter was rolling on; still the enemy, with desperate courage, defended the beleaguered city; and men died fast of fatigue, and cold, and want, both within and without the walls.

Gustave was strong and healthy, never sick or suffering; but, alas! a day came when, after a night sortie gallantly repelled by the French, who followed the enemy nearly into the very town, it was found that he had not returned; and his men reported that he had fallen mortally wounded close to the city walls: they had endeavoured to bring him off, but the task was too difficult, and he was left to breathe his last where he had fallen.

The Colonel himself wrote to his friends, and a decoration was forwarded; but did those words of praise, did that cold cross, repay Adèle for her lost lover? Often, when no eye but that of God was on her, she sat with these treasures in her lap, but from her eyes the tears would flow, and the cross and words were dimly seen through the descending drops—no, Adèle was not consoled, though he had died for France; hollow were to her the words, “Mourir pour la Patrie.”