few Paris newspapers reached the troops, and these, by their contradictory statements, increased the black anxiety amid which they were struggling. Twice had the general written asking for orders, and without even receiving an answer. However, on August 12, the Seventh Corps was at last completed by the arrival of its third division from Italy.[10] Still even now the general only had two divisions with him, for the first one, beaten at Frœschweiler, had been carried off in the rout, and it was not known where the current had cast it. At last, after a week of abandonment, of complete separation from the rest of France, a telegram brought orders for departure. The men were delighted, anything was preferable to the blank life they were leading. And whilst they were getting ready speculations were indulged in. No one knew where they were going. Some said they were to be sent to Strasburg to defend it, while others talked of a bold dash into the Black Forest to intercept the Prussian line of retreat.
Next morning the 106th was among the first regiments to start, packed in cattle trucks. The one in which Jean's squad found itself installed was so full that Loubet pretended there wasn't even room to sneeze. Rations, as usual, had been distributed amid great disorder, and the men, having received in brandy what they ought to have received in food, were nearly all drunk—drunk with a violent, brawling intoxication which vented itself in obscene songs. As the train travelled on they could no longer see one another, owing to the smoke of their pipes, which filled the truck as with fog. It was also unbearably hot there, owing to the fermentation of all these closely packed bodies, and as they sped along vociferous cries poured out of the black flying vehicle, drowning the sound of the wheels, and dying away afar off in the mournful country. It was only on reaching Langres that the men realised they were being taken back to Paris.
'Ah! Thunder!' repeated Chouteau, who, by the might of his glib tongue, already reigned undisputed master of his little corner, 'sure enough, we shall be drawn up at Charentonneau to prevent Bismarck from taking a nap at the Tuileries.'
The others roared, thinking this very droll, though they could not say why. However, the slightest incidents of the journey—the sight of some peasants posted beside the line, of the groups of anxious people who, in the hope of obtaining news, were waiting at the smaller stations for the trains to pass, the view, too, of all that region of France scared and quivering in presence of the invasion—sufficed to provoke hooting, shouting, and deafening laughter. And in the gust of wind that swept by as the engine forged onward, amid the rapid view they obtained of the train enveloped in smoke and noise, those that had hastened to the stations received full in the face the howls of these men, all food for powder, who were being carried along at express speed. At one station, however, where they stopped, three well-dressed ladies, rich bourgeoises of the town, who distributed bowls of broth to the soldiers, met with great success. The men cried as they thanked them, and kissed their hands.
But farther on, the filthy songs and the savage yells burst forth again. Shortly after passing Chaumont the train met another one full of some artillerymen who were no doubt being taken to Metz. Speed had just been slackened, and the soldiers of the two trains fraternised amid a fearful clamour. It was, however, the artillerymen, doubtless more intoxicated than the others, who carried off the palm by shaking their fists out of the trucks and raising this cry with such despairing violence that it drowned everything else: 'To the slaughter! slaughter! slaughter!'
It seemed as if a great chill, an icy wind from a charnel-house were passing by. There was a sudden brief silence, amid which one heard Loubet jeering: 'The comrades are not gay.'
'But they are in the right,' rejoined Chouteau, in his tavern-orator's voice; 'it's disgusting to send a lot of brave chaps to get their heads cracked on account of some dirty business they don't know a word about.' And he continued talking in the same strain. This incapable workman of Montmartre, this lounging, dissipated house-painter, who had badly digested some scraps of speeches heard at public meetings, and who mingled revolutionary clap-trap with the great principles of equality and liberty, played the part of the perverter. He knew everything, and indoctrinated his comrades, especially Lapoulle, whom he had promised to make a man of: 'Eh, old fellow? It's simple enough. If Badinguet and Bismarck have a row together let them settle it between them with their fists, instead of troubling hundreds of thousands of men who don't even know one another, and have no wish to fight.'
The whole truck-load laughed, feeling amused and subjugated, and Lapoulle, who did not even know who Badinguet[11] was, and who could not even have said whether he was fighting for an Emperor or a King, repeated, with that overgrown-baby air of his: 'Of course, with their fists—and a glass of wine together afterwards.'
But Chouteau had turned towards Pache, in view of taking him in hand. 'And you—you're religious—Well, your religion forbids fighting. So why are you here, you idiot?'
'Well,' replied Pache, taken aback, 'I'm not here to please myself. Only the gendarmes——'
'The gendarmes! Humbug! Who cares a rap for the gendarmes? Do you know, you others, what we ought to do if we were the right sort? Why, by-and-by, when we get out, we ought to slope—yes, quietly slope and leave that fat hog Badinguet and his clique of twopenny-halfpenny generals to settle matters as they please with their dirty Prussians.'
Bravos resounded, the work of perversion was proceeding, and then Chouteau triumphed, parading his theories, in which were confusedly mingled the Republic, the rights of man, the rottenness of the Empire, which must be overthrown, and the treachery of all the generals who commanded them, and each of whom, as it had been proved, had sold himself for a million! He, Chouteau, proclaimed himself a revolutionist: Loubet also knew what his opinions were, he was in favour of grub and nothing else; but the others did not know whether they were Republicans or not, or even in what fashion a man might be a Republican. Nevertheless, carried away by Chouteau's oratory, they all railed at the Emperor, the officers, the whole cursed show, which they were bent on abandoning at the double-quick the first time they felt worried. While fanning their increasing intoxication, Chouteau stealthily watched Maurice, the gentleman, whom he was enlivening, and whom he felt so proud indeed to have on his side that at last, to impassion him the more, he fell upon Jean, who with his eyes half closed had until now stood there amid all the noise, motionless and as if asleep. If Maurice harboured any spite against the corporal for the bitter lesson the latter had given him in forcing him to pick up his gun, now was the time to urge the one against the other.
'And there are folks I know, who talked of having us shot,' resumed Chouteau, threateningly. 'Dirty curs who treat us worse than brute beasts, and who can't understand that when a man has had enough of his sack and his popgun he pitches the whole lot into the fields. Well, comrades, what would those curs say if we pitched them on to the line now that we have them comfortably in a corner? Is it agreed, eh? We must make an example if we don't want to be plagued any more with this beastly war. To death with Badinguet's vermin! To death with the dirty curs who want us to fight!'
Jean had become very red—red with the rush of blood which rose to his cheeks in his rare moments of anger; and close pressed though he was by his companions, he managed to draw himself up, hold out his clenched fists, and protrude his flaming face with so terrible an air that Chouteau turned quite pale.
'Thunder! just you shut up!' cried the corporal. 'I've said nothing for hours past, for there are no commanders left, and I can't even send you to the lock-up. I know well enough I should have rendered a big service to the regiment by ridding it of a filthy blackguard like you. But never mind, as punishment is mere humbug, you'll have to deal with me. I'm not a corporal now, but simply a chap you pester, and who'll shut your jaw for you. You filthy coward, you won't fight, and you try to prevent others from fighting! Just say all that again, and you'll feel my fists.' All the men in the truck had already turned round, stirred by Jean's gallant defiance, and deserting Chouteau, who stammered and drew back at sight of his adversary's big fists. 'And I don't care a rap for Badinguet any more than you do,' resumed Jean; 'I've never cared a rap for politics, for either Republic or Empire, and when I tilled my
