had been merely chaff. There was Marengo, the classical engagement on level ground, with the long lines of troops skilfully deployed, and the faultless retreat in échelon order of the battalions so silent and impassive under fire. This was the legendary battle lost at three o'clock, won at six; the battle when eight hundred grenadiers of the Consular Guard arrested the onslaught of the entire Austrian cavalry; when Desaix came up to meet his death and to change an impending rout into an immortal victory. Then there was Austerlitz, with its beautiful sun of glory shining through the wintry mist; Austerlitz, commencing with the capture of the plateau of Pritzen and ending with the terrifying disruption of the ice on the frozen lakes, when an entire Russian army corps, men and horses, sank into the water amid a frightful crash; whilst the god-like Napoleon, who had naturally foreseen everything, completed the disaster with his round shot. Next there was Jena, where Prussia's power was entombed; at first, the skirmishers firing through the October fog, and Ney, by his impatience, almost compromising everything; then Augereau's advance that extricated Ney, the great onslaught, so violent that it swept away the enemy's entire centre; and finally the panic, the sauve-qui-peut of an over-vaunted cavalry, whom the French Hussars mowed down like ripe oats, strewing the romantic valley with men and horses. Then there was Eylau—Eylau, the abominable—the most bloody of battles, when such was the slaughter that the hideously disfigured bodies lay on the ground in heaps; Eylau, blood red under its snow storm, with its mournful cemetery of heroes; Eylau still loudly re-echoing the thunderous charge of Murat's eighty squadrons, which cut right through the Russian army and strewed the field with such a depth of corpses that even Napoleon himself wept at the sight.
Then there was Friedland, the fearful trap into which the Russians, like a flight of careless sparrows, again fell; Friedland, the strategical masterpiece of that Emperor who knew everything and could do everything. At first the French left wing remained motionless and imperturbable, whilst Ney, having captured the town, was destroying the bridges; then the French left wing rushed upon the enemy's right, throwing it into the river, overwhelming it in the inextricable position into which it had been forced; and so much slaughter had to be accomplished that the French were still killing the foe at ten o'clock at night. Next there was Wagram—the Austrians wishing to cut the French off from the Danube, and repeatedly reinforcing their left wing so that they might overcome Masséna, who, being wounded, reclined in a carriage whilst commanding his troops; and meantime the artful, Titanic Napoleon allowed the Austrians to pursue this course till all at once the terrible fire of a hundred guns rained upon their weakened centre, sweeping it more than a league away; whereupon their left wing, terrified at its isolation, and already falling back before Masséna, who had retrieved his earlier reverses, carried off with it the remainder of the Austrian army with devastation akin to that caused by a breaking dyke. And at last there was the Moskowa, when the bright sun of Austerlitz shone out again for the last time, a terrible mêlée of men, with all the confusion born of vast numbers of antagonists and of stubborn courage, hillocks carried under an incessant fusillade, redoubts captured by assault at the bayonet's point, repeated offensive returns of the enemy, who disputed the ground inch by inch, and such desperate bravery on the part of the Russian Guards that the furious charges of Murat, the simultaneous thunder of three hundred guns, and all the valour of Ney, the triumphant prince of the day, were needed to secure victory. But whatever the battle was, the flags were stirred by the same glorious fluttering in the evening air; the same shouts of 'Vive Napoléon!' resounded when the bivouac fires were being lighted on the conquered positions; France was everywhere at home—a conqueress who marched her invincible eagles from one end of Europe to the other, and who needed but to set her foot on the soil of foreign kingdoms for the humbled nations to sink into the ground!
Less intoxicated by the white wine that sparkled in his glass than by the glorious memories carolling in his mind, Maurice was finishing his chop when his glance fell upon two ragged, mud-stained soldiers, who looked like bandits weary of roaming the highways; and on hearing them question the servant girl respecting the precise positions of the regiments encamped alongside the canal, he called out to them, 'Eh, comrades, here! You belong to the Seventh Corps, don't you?'
'Of course—to the first division,' replied one of the men; 'there's no mistake about it I warrant you. The best proof is, I was at Frœschweiler, where it wasn't cold by any means. And the comrade here belongs to the First Corps—he was at Weissenburg, another filthy hole!'
Then they told their tale, how both being slightly wounded they had fallen in the panic and the rout, lying half dead with fatigue in a ditch, and then dragging themselves along in the rear of the army, forced by exhausting attacks of fever to linger behind in the towns, and so belated at last that they were now only just arriving, somewhat restored to health, and bent upon joining their squads. Maurice, who was about to tackle a piece of Gruyère cheese, noticed, with his heart oppressed, the envious glances which they darted at his plate. 'Some more cheese, and some bread and some wine!' he called. 'You'll join me, comrades, eh? I stand treat! Here's to your health!'
They sat down delighted; and Maurice, with an increasing chill at his heart, noted to what a lamentable condition they had fallen, with no weapons, and with their overcoats and red trousers fastened with so many bits of string, and patched with so many different shreds of cloth that they looked like pillagers—gipsies who had donned some old garments stolen from corpses on the battlefield.
'Ah! curse it, yes!' resumed the bigger of the two, with his mouth full. 'It wasn't all fun over there. You should have seen it. Just tell your tale, Coutard.'
Then the little one, gesticulating with a hunk of bread in his hand, began his story: 'I was washing my shirt while the soupe was being got ready—we were in a beastly hole, a regular funnel with big woods all round it which enabled those swinish Prussians to creep up on all fours without our knowing it—then, just at seven o'clock, their shells began falling in our pots. We rushed to arms in a jiffy, curse it! and up to eleven o'clock we fancied we were giving them a downright licking—but there weren't more than five thousand of us, you must know, and fresh detachments of those pigs kept constantly coming up. I was on a little hill, lying down behind a bush, and in front of me and right and left of me I could see them marching up, swarming like ants, like lines of black ants that never came to an end. Well, you know, we couldn't help thinking that the commanders were regular duffers to have shoved us into such a wasp's nest, far away from our comrades, and to leave us there too, to be crushed without any help coming. Then, in the midst of it all, our general, that poor devil General Douay,[16] who was neither a fool nor a capon, was hit by a ball and toppled over with his legs in the air. His account was settled! All the same, we still held out, but there were too many of them, and we had to slope. Next we fought in an inclosure, and defended the station with such a thundering row going on that one was quite deafened. Then, I hardly know, but the town must have been captured, and we found ourselves on a mountain—the Geissberg they call it, I think—and there, having entrenched ourselves in a kind of château, we kept on potting those pigs. They jumped into the air as we hit them, and it was a sight to see how they came down again on their snouts. But it was all no good; they kept on coming up till they were quite ten to one, and with as many guns as they wanted.[17] It is all very well to be brave, but bravery in an affair like that simply means leaving one's carcase on the field. Well, we were quite in a jelly at last, and we had to take ourselves off. All the same, our officers showed themselves regular duffers—didn't they, Picot?'
There was a pause. Picot, the taller of the two men, drained a glass of white wine, and then, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, rejoined: 'Of course. It was the same at Frœschweiler. Only idiots would have thought of giving battle with affairs in such a state. My captain, an artful little beggar, said so. The truth is, the commanders can have known nothing. An entire army of those beasts fell on us when we were barely forty thousand. No fighting was expected that day, it seems; but the battle began little by little, without the officers wanting it. Of course, I didn't see everything, but I know well enough that the dancing went on all day, and that just when one thought it had ended the music began afresh. First at Wœrth, a pretty little village with a comical steeple, covered with earthenware tiles, which make it look like a stove. The devil, too, if I know
