French Literature – Children Books – Émile Zola – The Downfall (La Débâcle) – Contents
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PART II
Chapter III
INSIDE SEDAN: NAPOLEON’S MIDNIGHT AGONY—TWO WOMEN
Henriette was unable to sleep that night. She was worried by the thought that her husband was at Bazeilles so near the German lines. In vain did she repeat to herself the promise he had made her to return at the first sign of danger; and in vain at each moment did she pause in her work to listen, fancying she could hear him coming. Towards ten o’clock, when it was time for her to go to bed, she opened the window, and remained there, looking out, with her elbow resting on the sill.
The night was very dark, and down below she could scarcely distinguish the pavement of the Rue des Voyards, a narrow, gloomy passage hemmed in by old houses. The only light was a smoky, star-like lamp some distance away, in the direction of the college. And from the depths beneath there ascended a cellar-like, saltpetrous smell, the occasional caterwauling of some angry tom, the heavy footfall of some soldier who had lost his way. Moreover, unaccustomed noises resounded through Sedan behind her, sudden gallops, continuous rumblings, which sped along like threats of death. She listened, with her heart beating loudly, but still and ever she failed to recognise the steps of her husband coming round the corner.
Hours went by, and she became anxious concerning the distant glimmers which she could espy along the country side, beyond the ramparts. It was so dark that she had to picture the situation of the various localities. That huge pale sheet down below was evidently the water covering the flooded meadows. But what was that fire which she had seen flare up and then die away, over yonder, doubtless on the Marfée hill? And there were other fires flaming all along the hills, at Pont-Maugis, Noyers, and Frénois, mysterious fires vacillating above an innumerable multitude, swarming there in the darkness. But it was especially the extraordinary sounds which she heard that made her start and tremble—the tramping of a people on the march, the panting of horses, the clang of arms, quite a chevachie passing along afar off, in the depths of that dim inferno. Suddenly the booming of a cannon resounded, one formidable, frightful report, followed by perfect silence. It froze all the blood in her veins. What could it be? A signal, no doubt—a signal that some movement had succeeded, an announcement that they were ready over yonder, and that the sun might now rise when he pleased.
At about two in the morning Henriette, still dressed, threw herself upon her bed, neglecting even to close the window. She was quite overcome with fatigue and anxiety. What could be the matter with her, that she should now be shivering with fever like that—she, as a rule, so calm, with so light a step that one heard her no more than if she had not existed? She slept painfully, numbed as it were, but with a persistent consciousness of the catastrophe that weighed so heavily in the black atmosphere. All at once, in the midst of her uneasy slumber, the voice of the cannon was heard again; dull, distant reports resounded; and now the firing went on regularly, stubbornly, without cessation. She sat up on her bed shuddering. Where was she? She no longer recognised, no longer even saw the room, which seemed to be full of dense smoke. Then all at once she understood that the mist rising from the neighbouring river must have entered through the open window. Outside, the guns were now sounding more frequently. She sprang off the bed and hastened to the window to listen.
Four o’clock was striking from one of the steeples of Sedan. The morning twilight was breaking, dim, undecided in the dun-coloured mist. It was impossible to see anything; she could no longer distinguish even the college buildings a few yards away. Where were they firing, good heavens? Her first thought was for her brother, Maurice, for the reports were so deadened by the fog that they seemed to her to come from the north, right over the town. Then, however, it appeared certain that the firing was in front of her, and she trembled for her husband. Yes, the firing was undoubtedly at Bazeilles. For a few moments, however, she felt reassured, for it seemed to her, every now and then, as though the reports were, after all, coming from her right. Perhaps they were fighting at Donchery, where the bridge, as she was aware, had not been blown up. And now the most frightful perplexity took possession of her—were they firing from Donchery or from Bazeilles? It was impossible for her to tell, there was such a continuous buzzing in her ears. At last her anguish of mind became so acute that she felt unable to remain waiting there any longer. She quivered with an unrestrainable desire to know the truth at once, and throwing a shawl over her shoulders she went out in search of information.
She hesitated for a moment as she reached the Rue des Voyards down below, for the town still seemed so black in the opaque fog that enveloped it. The morning twilight had not yet reached the damp pavement between the smoky old house-fronts. The only persons she perceived as she went along the Rue au Beurre were two drunken Turcos with a girl, inside a low tavern where a candle was flickering. She had to turn into the Rue Maqua to find some animation—soldiers whose shadows glided furtively along the footways: cowards, possibly, in search of a hiding place; together with a big cuirassier who had lost himself, and who knocked at each door he came to, searching for his captain; and there was also a stream of civilians, perspiring with fear at the idea that they had so long delayed their departure, and packing themselves closely in carts, to see if there were still time to get to Bouillon in Belgium, whither half of Sedan had been emigrating for two days past.
Henriette was instinctively bound for the Sub-Prefecture, where she felt certain she would gain some information; and, to avoid being accosted, the idea occurred to her of cutting through the side streets. But she was unable to pass along the Rue du Four and the Rue des Laboureurs: they were blocked with cannon, endless rows of guns, caissons, and ammunition waggons, which had been huddled together there the day before, and seemed to have been forgotten. There was not even a sentry mounting guard over them; and the sight of all that gloomy, unutilised artillery, slumbering in abandonment in the depths of those deserted by-ways, chilled Henriette’s heart. She now had to retrace her steps by way of the Place du Collège towards the high street, where, outside the Hôtel de l’Europe, she saw some orderlies holding horses, and waiting for a party of field officers, whose voices resounded loudly in the brightly illuminated dining-room. People were still more plentiful on the Place du Rivage and the Place Turenne, where groups of anxious townsfolk, women and children, were mingled with scared, disbanded soldiers, going hither and thither; and she saw a general rush swearing out of the Golden Cross Hotel and gallop off in a rage at the risk of knocking everybody down. For a moment she seemed to think of entering the town-hall; however she ultimately turned into the Rue du Pont-de-Meuse to reach the Sub-Prefecture.
And never before in her eyes had Sedan presented such a tragic aspect as that which it now wore in the dim, dirty morning twilight, full of fog. The houses seemed to be dead; many of them were empty, abandoned a couple of days since; and others, where fear-fraught insomnia could be divined, remained hermetically closed. With all those streets still half deserted, peopled merely with anxious shadows, traversed by abrupt departures in the midst of all the laggard soldiers who had been roaming about since the previous day, it was a morning to make one fairly shiver. The light would gradually increase, and by-and-by the town would be crowded, submerged by the impending disaster; but as yet it was only half-past five, and so far one could barely hear the cannonade, its booming being deadened by the lofty black houses.
Henriette was acquainted with the daughter of the door-portress at the Sub-Prefecture. Rose was the girl’s name; she was a pretty, delicate-looking, little blonde, and worked at Delaherche’s factory. When Henriette stepped into the lodge the mother was not there, but Rose greeted her with her accustomed amiability. ‘Oh, my dear lady, we can no longer keep on our legs,’ said she; ‘mother has had to go and lie down a little. Just fancy, what with all the comings and goings, we have had to remain on foot all night!’
And without waiting for any questions she rattled on and on, feverishly excited by the many extraordinary things that she had seen since the day before. ‘The marshal has slept well,’ she said. ‘But that poor Emperor! No, you can’t imagine how dreadfully he suffers! Last night I went up to help give out some linen, and just as I was passing through a room next to the dressing-room I heard some moaning—oh! such dreadful moaning, as though somebody was dying. It made me tremble all over; and it froze my heart when I learned it was the Emperor. It appears he has a dreadful illness which makes him cry out like that. He restrains himself when anybody’s there, but as soon as he’s alone it masters him, and he calls out and complains—it’s enough to make your hair stand on end.’
‘Do you know where they are fighting this morning?’ interrupted Henriette.
Rose dismissed the question, however, with an impatient wave of the hand. ‘So you understand,’ said she, ‘I wanted to know how he was, and I went up four or five times during the night and listened, with my ear to the partition—and each time that I went I heard him moaning and complaining, and he didn’t cease, he didn’t close his eyes for a moment all night long, I’m sure of it. How terrible, isn’t it, to suffer like that with all the worry he has? For everything’s in confusion, a regular scramble. They all seem to have lost their senses! The doors do nothing but bang, fresh people are always coming. Some of them fly in a rage, and others cry. The house is quite topsy-turvy; everything’s being pillaged. I assure you I saw some officers drinking out of the bottles last night, and some of them even went to bed in their big boots. And after all it’s the Emperor who’s the best of the lot, and who takes up the least room in the little corner where he hides himself to moan.’
Then, as Henriette repeated her question, Rose replied: ‘Where they are fighting? It’s at Bazeilles—they’ve been fighting there since daybreak! A soldier on horseback came to tell the marshal, and he at once went to the Emperor to let him know. The marshal has already been gone some ten minutes or so, and I think the Emperor’s going to join him, for they are dressing him upstairs. I was up there just now, and I caught sight of his valet combing and curling him, and doing all sorts of things to his face.’
Henriette, however, now had the information she desired, and therefore turned to go: ‘Many thanks, Rose, I’m in a hurry,’ she said; whereupon the young girl, complaisantly accompanying her as far as the street, replied: ‘Oh, I’m quite at your service, Madame Weiss. I know that one can tell you everything.’
Henriette quickly returned to her home in the Rue des Voyards. She felt convinced that she would now find her husband there; and, reflecting that he would be alarmed by her absence, she hastened her steps. She raised her head as she drew near to the house, almost fancying that she could see him leaning out of the window, watching for her. But no, there was nobody at the window, which was still wide open. And when she had climbed the stairs, and given a glance into each of the three rooms, she stopped short thunderstruck, her heart filled with anguish at only finding there that same icy fog, deadening the incessant commotion of the cannonade. They were still firing over yonder, and, for a moment, she returned to the window. The morning mist still reared its impenetrable veil, but now that she was informed she immediately realised that the struggle was going on at Bazeilles; she could distinguish the crackling of the mitrailleuses, and the crashing volleys of the French batteries, replying to the distant volleys of the German ones. It seemed, too, as though the detonations were coming nearer; the battle was, every minute, growing more and more violent.
Why did not Weiss return? He had promised so positively that he would come back at the first attack. Henriette’s disquietude was increasing; she pictured obstacles: the road might be cut, perhaps the shells already rendered a retreat too dangerous. And perhaps, too, an irreparable misfortune had happened. But she dismissed that thought, sustained by hope which urged her to action. For a moment she thought of going to Bazeilles, of starting to meet her husband. Then she hesitated, for they might cross one another on the way, and what would become of her if she should miss him? And how alarmed he would be if he came home and did not find her there! On the other hand, however, bold as it was to think of going to Bazeilles at such a moment, it seemed to her a natural course to follow—the proper course, indeed, for an active woman like herself, who did whatever was requisite in her household affairs without asking for instructions. And besides, wherever her husband was, she ought to be there too; that was the long and short of it.
All at once, however, possessed by a fresh idea, she left the window, saying:
‘And Monsieur Delaherche—I must see.’
It had just occurred to her that the manufacturer also had spent the night at Bazeilles, and that if he had returned he would be able to give her some news of her husband. She swiftly went downstairs again, and this time, instead of passing out by way of the Rue des Voyards, she crossed the narrow yard of the house, and followed the passage leading to the large factory buildings, whose monumental façade overlooked the Rue Maqua. As she reached the old central garden, now paved with stones, and retaining only a lawn girt round with superb trees, gigantic elms of the last century, she was greatly surprised at sight of a sentry mounting guard in front of the closed doors of a coach-house. Then she suddenly remembered why he was there. She had learnt the day before that the treasury chest of the Seventh Army Corps had been deposited there, and she experienced a singular feeling at thought of all that gold, millions of francs, so it was said, hidden away in that coach-house, whilst they were already killing one another over yonder.
However, at the moment when she was beginning to ascend the servant’s staircase, on her way to Gilberte’s room, she met with a fresh surprise, indeed so unforeseen an encounter that she hastily stepped down the three stairs which she had already climbed, doubting whether she would still dare to go and knock at the door above. A soldier, a captain, had just tripped past her as lightly as a fleeting apparition, and yet she had had sufficient time to recognise him, having met him at Gilberte’s house at Charleville in the days when she—Gilberte—was still Madame Maginot. Henriette took a few steps across the courtyard, and looked up at the two lofty bedroom windows, the shutters of which were still closed. Then, having come to a decision, she climbed the stairs.
A friend since childhood, quite intimate with Gilberte, she occasionally went to chat with her of a morning; and she intended, on reaching the first landing, to knock, as was her wont, at the dressing-room door. But she found that it had been left ajar, and she merely had to push it open and cross the dressing-room to reach the bedchamber, an extremely lofty apartment, from the ceiling of which descended flowing curtains of red velvet, enveloping a large bedstead. All was quiet in this room, the atmosphere of which was saturated with a vague perfume of lilac; there was merely a sound of calm breathing, and even that was so faint as to be scarcely audible.
‘Gilberte!’ called Henriette, gently. In the dim light that filtered through the red curtains drawn before the windows she could see her friend’s pretty round head, which had slipped from off the pillow and was resting on one of her bare arms, whilst all around streamed her beautiful black hair, which had become uncoiled. ‘Gilberte!’
The young woman moved, stretched herself, but did not at first open her eyes. All at once, however, raising her head and recognising Henriette, she exclaimed: ‘Why, is it you? What o’clock is it?’
When she learnt that six was striking she felt uncomfortable, and in order to hide it began jesting, asking whether that were a proper time to come and awaken people. Then, at the first question respecting her husband, she exclaimed: ‘But he hasn’t come home. I hardly expect he will be here before nine o’clock. Why should he come back so early?’
And as she still continued smiling in her sleepy torpor, Henriette had to insist: ‘But I tell you that they have been fighting at Bazeilles since daybreak, and as I am very anxious about my husband——’
‘Oh! my dear,’ exclaimed Gilberte, ‘there is no occasion for anxiety. My husband is so prudent that he would have been here long ago had there been the slightest danger. As long as you don’t see him you may be quite easy.’
Henriette was impressed by this remark. Delaherche was certainly not the man to expose himself unnecessarily. And, thereupon, feeling reassured, she approached the windows, drew back the curtains, and threw the shutters open. The ruddy light from the sky where the sun was now beginning to show itself, gilding the fog, streamed into the room. One of the windows remained slightly open, and now in this large, warm chamber, so close and suffocating a moment previously, the cannon could be distinctly heard.
Sitting up, with one elbow buried in the pillow, Gilberte gazed at the sky with her pretty, expressionless eyes. Her chemise had slipped from one of her shoulders, and her skin looked beautifully pink and delicate under her scattered locks of black hair. ‘And so they are fighting,’ she murmured. ‘Fighting so early! How ridiculous it is to fight!’
Henriette, however, had just espied a pair of gloves, military gloves, lying forgotten upon a side table, and at this significant discovery she could not restrain a start. Then Gilberte flushed a deep crimson, and drawing her friend to the side of the bed, in a confused, coaxing way, she hid her face against her shoulder. ‘I felt you must know it, that you must have seen him,’ she murmured; ‘you must not judge me too severely, darling. I have known him so long. You remember, at Charleville, I confessed to you——.’ And then, lowering her voice, she continued, with a touch of emotion through which there stole, however, something like a little laugh: ‘You do not know how he spoke to me when I met him again yesterday. And, only think, he has to fight this morning, and perhaps he will be killed. What could I do?’ She had simply wished that he might be happy before he went to risk his life for his country on the battlefield. And such was her bird-like giddiness, that it was this which somehow made her smile, despite all her confusion. ‘Do you condemn me?’ she asked.
Henriette had listened to her with a grave expression on her face. Such things surprised her; she could not understand them. Doubtless she herself was different. Her heart was with her husband and her brother over yonder, where the bullets were raining. How was it possible to slumber peacefully, or think of passion, and smile and jest when loved ones were in peril?
‘But your husband, my dear, and that young fellow too; does it not stir your heart not to be with them?’ she said. ‘Think of it; they may be brought back to you, dead, at any moment.’
With a wave of her beautiful bare arm Gilberte swiftly drove the frightful vision away. ‘Good heavens! what’s that you say? How cruel of you to spoil my morning for me like that. No, no, I won’t think of it; it is too dreadful.’
Then even Henriette could not help smiling. She remembered their childhood, when Gilberte had been sent for the benefit of her health to a farm near Le Chêne Populeux; her father, Commander de Vineuil—Director of Customs at Charleville since his retirement from the army in consequence of his wounds—having felt the more anxious about her when he had found her coughing, as he was haunted by the remembrance of his young wife, carried off by phthisis a short time previously. Gilberte was then only nine years old, but she was already a turbulent coquette, fond of juvenile theatricals, invariably wishing to play the part of the queen, draped in all the scraps of finery she could find, and carefully preserving the silver paper wrapped round her chocolate in order to make crowns and bracelets of it. And she had remained much the same when in her twentieth year she had become the wife of M. Maginot of Mézières, an inspector of the State forests. Mézières, which is cramped up within its ramparts, was not to her liking; she infinitely preferred the open, fête-enlivened life of Charleville, and continued residing there. Her father was no longer alive and she enjoyed complete liberty, her husband being such a perfect cipher that she in nowise troubled herself about him. Provincial malignity had bestowed many lovers upon her at that time, but although, by reason of her father’s old connections and her relationship to Colonel de Vineuil, she lived amid a perfect stream of uniforms, she had really had but one weakness, and that for Captain Beaudoin. She was not of a perverse nature; she was simply giddy, fond of pleasure, and, if she had erred, it certainly seemed to be because of the irresistible need she experienced to be beautiful and gay.
‘It was very wrong of you,’ said Henriette, at last, with a grave look.
She might have said more, but Gilberte with one of her pretty caressing gestures closed her mouth. And there they remained, neither speaking any further, but linked in an affectionate embrace albeit so dissimilar from one another. They could hear the beating of each other’s hearts, and might have realised how different was their language—the one the heart of a woman who gave herself up to mirth, who wasted and frittered away her life; the other a heart that was bound up in one unique devotion, full of the great, mute heroism of a strong and lofty soul.
‘It’s true; they are fighting,’ Gilberte at last exclaimed. ‘I must make haste and dress.’
The detonations seemed to have been growing louder since silence had reigned in the room. Gilberte sprang out of bed, and, unwilling to summon her maid, asked Henriette to help her. She put on a dress and a pair of boots, so that she might be ready either to receive or to go out, and she was hastily dressing her hair—indeed, had almost finished doing so—when there came a knock at the door, and, on recognising the voice of old Madame Delaherche, she ran to open it. ‘Certainly, mother dear, you can come in,’ she said, and with her usual thoughtlessness she ushered her mother-in-law into the room, forgetting that the gloves were still lying on the side-table.
In vain did Henriette dart forward to take and throw them behind an arm-chair. They must have been seen by the old lady, for she stopped short as if she were stifling, as though unable to catch her breath. But at last, after glancing around the room, she said: ‘So Madame Weiss came up to wake you. Were you able to sleep, then?’
She had evidently not come for the mere purpose of talking in that strain. Ah! that unfortunate second marriage which her son had insisted upon, despite all her remonstrances, which he had contracted after twenty years of frigid matrimony with a skinny, sulky wife! During all that time he had been so sensible and reasonable, and then, all at once, at fifty years of age, he had been carried away by quite a youthful desire for that pretty widow, so frivolous and gay. She, the mother, had vowed that she would watch over the present, and now here was the past coming back again! But ought she to speak out? Her presence in the house nowadays was like a silent blame, and she almost always remained in her own room occupied with her devotions. This time, however, the wrong was so serious that she resolved to warn her son.
‘You know that Jules has not come back?’ said Gilberte.
The old lady nodded. Since the beginning of the cannonade she had felt anxious, and had been watching for her son’s return. She was, however, a brave mother. And now she remembered for what reason she had come upstairs. ‘Your uncle, the colonel,’ she said to her daughter-in-law, ‘has sent us Major Bouroche with a note in pencil, asking if we will allow an ambulance to be installed here. He knows that we have plenty of room in the factory, and I have already placed the drying room and the courtyard at the gentlemen’s disposal. Only, you ought to come down.’
‘Oh! at once, at once!’ said Henriette, stepping forward, ‘we will help.’
Gilberte herself gave signs of emotion, and became quite enraptured with the idea of playing the nurse, which to her was a novel part. She barely took time to fasten a strip of lace over her hair, and the three women thereupon went down.
Scarcely had they reached the spacious porch, when, the gate being open, they saw that a crowd had assembled in the street. A low vehicle was slowly approaching, a kind of tilted cart drawn by one horse, which a lieutenant of Zouaves was leading. They at once thought that a wounded man was being brought to them.
‘Yes, yes, it’s here; come in!’
But they learned that they were mistaken. The wounded man lying in the cart was Marshal MacMahon, whose left hip had been half carried away by a splinter of a shell, and who, after a first dressing at a gardener’s little house, was now being taken to the Sub-Prefecture. His head was bare, he was half undressed, and the gold embroidery of his uniform was soiled with dust and blood. He did not speak, but he had raised his head and was glancing vaguely around him. On perceiving the three women who stood there painfully impressed, their hands clasped at sight of the great misfortune that was passing—the whole army struck in the person of its commander at the very first shells fired by the foe—he made a slight inclination of the head, smiling feebly in a paternal way. Some of the bystanders respectfully uncovered, whilst others bustled about, relating that General Ducrot had just been appointed commander-in-chief. It was now half-past seven o’clock.
‘And the Emperor?’ asked Henriette of a bookseller who was standing at his door near by.
‘He passed about an hour ago. I followed him, and saw him go off by the Balan gate. There’s a report that a cannon ball has carried off his head.’
At this, however, a grocer over the way became quite indignant. ‘It’s all a pack of lies,’ said he. ‘Only brave men come to any harm.’
The cart conveying the marshal was now drawing near to the Place du Collège, where it became lost to view amid a swelling crowd, through which the most extraordinary rumours from the battlefield were already circulating. The fog was at last dispersing, and the streets were filling with sunlight.
‘Now, ladies, it isn’t outside, but here that you are wanted,’ a gruff voice suddenly called from the courtyard.
They all three went in again, and found themselves in presence of Major Bouroche, who had already flung his uniform in a corner and donned a large white apron. Above all this whiteness, as yet unspotted, that huge head of his, covered with coarse bristling hair, that lion-like countenance was glowing with haste and energy. And so terrible did he seem to them, that they at once became his slaves, obedient to his beck and call, and bustling about to satisfy him.
‘We have nothing,’ said he; ‘give me some linen. Try and find me some more mattresses. Show my men where the pump is.’ And thereupon they ran hither and thither, and multiplied themselves as though they were his servants.
It was a capital idea to select the factory for an ambulance. Merely in the drying room, a vast hall with large windows, there was ample space to make up a hundred beds, and an adjoining shed would suit remarkably well as an operating room. A long table had just been placed in it; the pump was only a few steps off, and the men who were but slightly wounded could wait on the lawn near by. And, moreover, it was all so very pleasant with those beautiful old elms, which spread such delightful shade around.
Bouroche had preferred to establish his quarters inside Sedan immediately; for he foresaw the massacre, the fearful onslaught which would eventually throw the troops into the town. He had therefore contented himself with leaving a couple of field ambulances with the Seventh Corps in the rear of Floing; and the injured men, after having their wounds summarily dressed there, were to be sent on to him. All the bearer-squads had remained with the troops for the purpose of picking up the wounded on the field, and the entire transport matériel—stretchers, waggons, vans—was with them. And, on the other hand, excepting a couple of assistant surgeons, whom he had left in charge of the field-ambulances, Bouroche had brought with him to the factory his entire medical staff, two second-class surgeons, and three under-assistant surgeons, who would no doubt suffice for the operations that might have to be performed. He also had with him three apothecaries and a dozen infirmary attendants.
However, he did not cease fuming, for he could never do anything otherwise than in a passionate way: ‘What the deuce are you up to? Just place those mattresses closer together! We’ll lay some straw in that corner if necessary!’ he shouted.
The cannon was growling, and he knew very well that work—waggon-loads of mangled, bleeding flesh—would be arriving at the factory in a few moments; so with violent haste he got everything ready in the large hall which as yet was empty. Then, other preparations had to be made under the shed, the pharmaceutical and dressing chests were opened and set out on a plank, with packets of lint, rollers, compresses, linen-cloths, and fracture bandages; whilst on another plank, beside a large pot of cerate and a bottle of chloroform, the cases of bright steel instruments were spread out—the probes, forceps, catlings, scissors, saws, quite an arsenal of everything pointed and cutting, everything that searches, opens, gashes, slices, and lops off. There was, however, a lack of basins.
‘You must have some pans or pails, or earthenware pots,’ said Bouroche; ‘give us whatever you like. Of course we are not going to smear ourselves with blood up to our eyes. And some sponges, too; try and get me some sponges.’
Old Madame Delaherche went off at once, and returned with three servant girls carrying all the pans she could find. Gilberte, standing meanwhile before the instrument cases, signed to Henriette to approach, and, with a faint shudder, showed her the terrific arsenal. And then they remained standing there in silence, holding each other by the hand, their grasp pregnant with all the vague terror and anxious pity that agitated them.
‘Ah! my dear, just think of having a leg or an arm cut off!’
‘Poor fellows!’
Bouroche had just placed a mattress on the long table in the shed, and was covering it with some oilcloth, when the stamping of horses was heard under the porch. It was the first ambulance waggon entering the courtyard. The ten men, seated face to face in the vehicle, were, however, only slightly wounded: a few who were injured in the head had their foreheads bandaged, whilst each of the others had an arm in a sling. They alighted with a little assistance, and the inspection at once began.
Whilst Henriette was gently helping a young fellow, with a bullet in his shoulder, to take off his capote, an operation which drew from him many cries of pain, she noticed the number of his regiment on his collar. ‘Why, you belong to the 106th,’ said she; ‘are you in Captain Beaudoin’s company?’
No, he was in Captain Ravaud’s, he replied; but all the same he knew Corporal Jean Macquart, and he felt certain that the latter’s squad had not yet taken part in the fighting. This information, vague as it was, sufficed to make the young woman quite cheerful: her brother was alive and she would feel altogether at her ease as soon as she had kissed her husband, whose arrival she was still every minute expecting.
At this moment, however, as she raised her head she was thunderstruck to see Delaherche standing in a group a few paces off, engaged in recounting all the terrible dangers through which he had just passed on his way back from Bazeilles. How did he happen to be there? She had not seen him come in.
‘Isn’t my husband with you?’ she asked.
Delaherche, however, whom his mother and wife were complaisantly questioning, was in no hurry to answer her. ‘Wait a bit,’ said he, and returning to his narrative he continued: ‘I was nearly killed a score of times between Bazeilles and Balan. There was a perfect hurricane of bullets and shells. And I met the Emperor—oh! he was very brave—and then I ran from Balan here——’
‘My husband?’ asked Henriette, shaking his arm.
‘Weiss? Why, he stopped there.’
‘Stopped there!’
‘Yes; he picked up a dead soldier’s chassepot, and he’s fighting!’
‘Fighting, how’s that?’
‘Oh! he was quite mad! He wouldn’t come, though I asked him over and over again to do so, and at last, of course, I left him——’
Henriette was gazing at Delaherche with fixed, dilated eyes. A pause ensued, during which she quietly made up her mind. ‘Then I’m going there,’ she said.
Going there, indeed! But it was impossible, senseless. And again did Delaherche talk of the bullets and shells that were sweeping the road. Gilberte, too, again took hold of her hands, this time to detain her; whilst old Madame Delaherche did all she could to show her how blindly rash her project was. But with that unpretending, gentle air of hers, she repeated: ‘It is of no use talking to me; I am going.’
And she became obstinate, and would take no advice, accept nothing but the strip of black lace that covered Gilberte’s head. Hoping that he might still convince her of her folly, Delaherche ended by declaring that he would accompany her at least as far as the Balan gate. However, he had just caught sight of the sentry who, amid all the confusion occasioned by the establishment of the ambulance, had not ceased marching slowly up and down in front of the coach-house, where the treasure chest of the Seventh Corps was deposited; and suddenly remembering it, and feeling anxious for its safety, Delaherche went to glance at the coach-house door by way of making sure that the millions were still there. Henriette, meanwhile, turned towards the porch.
‘Wait for me!’ exclaimed the manufacturer. ‘Upon my word you are every bit as mad as your husband!’
It so happened that another ambulance cart was just then arriving, and they had to step aside to let it pass. It was a smaller vehicle than the first, on two wheels only, and contained a couple of men both severely wounded and lying on sacking. The first, who was taken out with every kind of precaution, appeared to be one mass of bleeding flesh; one of his hands was shattered, and his side had been ripped open by a splinter of a shell. The other had his right leg crushed. He was immediately laid up on the oilcloth, covering the mattress on the long table, and Bouroche began to perform his first operation, whilst his assistants and the attendants hurried hither and thither. Meanwhile, old Madame Delaherche and Gilberte sat on the lawn, busily rolling linen bands.
Delaherche overtook Henriette just outside. ‘Now surely, my dear Madame Weiss,’ said he, ‘you are not going to do anything so rash—how can you possibly join Weiss over there? Besides, he can’t be there now, he must have come away; no doubt he’s returning through the fields. I assure you you cannot possibly get to Bazeilles.’
She did not listen to him, however; she hastened her steps and turned into the Rue du Ménil to reach the Balan gate. It was nearly nine o’clock, and nothing in the aspect of Sedan now suggested that black shivering of a few hours previously, that lonesome, groping awakening amid the dense fog. At present an oppressive sun clearly outlined the shadows cast by the houses, and the paved streets were obstructed by an anxious crowd through which estafettes were continually galloping. The townsfolk clustered more particularly around the few unarmed soldiers who had already come in from the battle, some of them slightly wounded, others shouting and gesticulating, in an extraordinary state of nervous excitement. And yet the town would almost have worn its everyday aspect had it not been for the closed shops, the lifeless house-fronts, where not a shutter was opened; and had it not been also for the cannonade, that incessant cannonade, that shook every stone, the roadways, the walls, and even the slates of the house-roofs.
A most unpleasant conflict was going on in the mind of Delaherche. On the one hand was his duty as a brave man, which required that he should not leave Henriette; on the other, his terror at the thought of going back to Bazeilles, through the shells. All at once, just as they were reaching the Balan gate, they were separated by a stream of mounted officers, returning from the fight. There was quite a crush of townsfolk near this gate, waiting for news; and in vain did Delaherche run hither and thither, looking for the young woman; she was gone, she must have already passed the rampart, and was doubtless hurrying along the road. He did not allow his zeal to take him any farther, but suddenly caught himself exclaiming: ‘Ah! well, so much the worse; it’s too stupid!’
And then he began strolling through Sedan, like an inquisitive bourgeois bent on missing none of the sights, though to tell the truth he was now labouring under increasing disquietude. What would be the end of it all? Would not the town suffer a great deal if the army were beaten? Such were the questions he put to himself; but the answers remained obscure, being almost wholly dependent on the course that events might take. Nevertheless, he began to feel very anxious about his factory, his house property in the Rue Maqua, whence, by the way, he had been careful to remove all his securities, burying them in a safe place. At last he repaired to the town-hall, where, finding the municipal council assembled en permanence, he lingered a long while, without, however, learning anything fresh, except that the battle was progressing unfavourably. The army no longer knew whom to obey—drawn back as it had been by General Ducrot during the two hours when he had exercised the chief command, and suddenly thrown forward again by General de Wimpffen, who had succeeded him; and these incomprehensible veerings, these positions which had to be reconquered after being abandoned, the utter absence of any plan, any energetic direction, all combined to precipitate the disaster.
Delaherche next went as far as the Sub-Prefecture to ascertain whether the Emperor had returned. But here they could only give him news of Marshal MacMahon, who, having had his wound, which was of but little gravity, dressed by a surgeon, was now lying quietly in bed. At about eleven o’clock, however, whilst Delaherche was again roaming the streets, he was stopped for a moment in the Grande Rue, just in front of the Hôtel de l’Europe, by a cortège of dusty horsemen, who were slowly walking their dejected steeds. And at the head of the party he recognised the Emperor, who was now returning to his quarters after spending four hours on the battlefield. Decidedly, death had not been willing to take him. The perspiration caused by the anguish of that long ride through the defeat, had made the paint trickle from his cheeks, and softened the wax of his moustaches, which were now drooping low, whilst his cadaverous countenance expressed the painful stupor of mortal agony. An officer, who alighted at the hotel, began to explain to a cluster of townsfolk that they had ridden all along the little valley from La Moncelle to Givonne, among the troops of the First Corps, whom the Saxons had thrown back on to the right bank of the stream; and they had returned by way of the hollow road of the Fond-de-Givonne, which was already so obstructed that had the Emperor desired to proceed once more to the front, he could only have done so with very great difficulty. Besides, what would have been the good of it?
Whilst Delaherche was listening to these particulars a violent explosion shook the entire neighbourhood. A shell had just carried away a chimney in the Rue Ste.-Barbe near the Keep. There was quite a sauve-qui-peut, and women were heard shrieking. For his own part he had drawn close to a wall, when all at once another detonation shattered the window panes of a neighbouring house. Matters were becoming terrible if the enemy were bombarding Sedan, and he hastened as fast as he could to the Rue Maqua, seized with so pressing a desire to ascertain the truth that, without pausing for a moment, he darted up the stairs to a terrace on the roof, whence he could overlook the town and its environs.
He almost immediately felt somewhat reassured. The fight was being waged over the housetops. The German batteries of La Marfée and Frénois were sweeping the plateau of Algeria beyond the town. For a moment Delaherche even became quite interested in watching the flight of the shells, the long curved sweep of light smoke which they left above Sedan, like a slender track of grey feathers scattered by invisible birds. At first it seemed to him evident that the few shells which had damaged some of the roofs around him were simply stray projectiles. The town was not as yet being bombarded. On a more careful inspection, however, it occurred to him that these shells must have been aimed in reply to the infrequent shots fired by the guns of Sedan itself. He then turned round and began to examine the citadel on the northern side—a formidable, complicated mass of fortifications, huge pieces of blackened wall, green patches of glacis, a swarming of geometrical bastions, prominent among which were the threatening angles of three gigantic horn-works, Les Ecossais, Le Grand Jardin, and La Rochette; whilst on the west, like a Cyclopean prolongation of the defences, came the fort of Nassau, followed by that of the Palatinate, above the suburb of Le Ménil. This survey left him a melancholy impression, however. All these works were enormous, yet how child-like! Of what possible use were they nowadays, when artillery could so easily send projectiles flying from one horizon to the other? Moreover, they were not armed, they had neither the guns, nor the ammunition, nor the men that were needed to turn them to account. Barely three weeks had elapsed since the Governor had begun to organise a national guard, formed of volunteer citizens, for the purpose of working the few guns that were in a serviceable condition. It thus happened that three cannon were firing from the Palatinate fort, and perhaps half a dozen from the Paris gate. As, however, the ammunition was limited to seven or eight charges per gun, it was necessary to husband it, so that a shot was only fired every half-hour or so, and then simply for honour’s sake; for the projectiles did not carry the required distance, but fell in the meadows just in front, for which reason the enemy’s disdainful batteries merely replied at long intervals, and as though out of charity.
It was those batteries of the foe that interested Delaherche. His keen eyes were exploring the slopes of the Marfée hill, when he suddenly remembered that he had a telescope which, by way of amusement, he had in former times often pointed on the environs from that very terrace. He fetched it and set it in position, and whilst he was taking his bearings, slowly moving the instrument so that the fields, trees, and houses passed in turn before him, his eyes fell on the same cluster of uniforms, grouped at the corner of a pine wood, above the great battery of Frénois, that Weiss had faintly espied from Bazeilles. Delaherche, however, thanks to the magnifying power of his telescope could have counted the officers of this staff, so plainly did he see them. Some were reclining on the grass, others stood up, grouped together, and in advance of them was one man, all by himself, lean and slim, in a uniform free from all showiness, but whom he instinctively divined to be the master. It was, indeed, the King of Prussia, barely half an inch high, like one of those diminutive tin soldiers that children play with. Delaherche only became quite certain of it later on; still, from that moment he scarcely took his eyes off that tiny little fellow whose face, the size of a pin’s head, appeared simply like a pale spot under the vast blue heavens.
It was not yet noon; the King was verifying the mathematical, inexorable march of his armies since nine o’clock. They were ever pressing onward and onward, following the routes traced out for them, completing the circle, and raising, step by step, around Sedan their wall of men and iron. That on the left, which had proceeded by way of the level plain of Donchery, was still debouching from the defile of St. Albert, passing beyond St. Menges, and beginning to reach Fleigneux; and in the rear of his Eleventh Corps, hotly grappling with General Douay’s troops, the King could distinctly see the stealthy advance of his Fifth Corps, which, under cover of the woods, was making for the Calvary of Illy. And meantime batteries were being added to batteries, the line of thundering guns was incessantly being prolonged, and the entire horizon was gradually becoming one belt of flames. The army on the right hand henceforth occupied the whole valley of the Givonne; the Twelfth German Corps had seized La Moncelle, and the Guard had just passed through Daigny, and was already ascending the banks of the stream, also marching upon the Calvary of Illy, after compelling General Ducrot to fall back behind the wood of La Garenne. One more effort and the Crown Princes of Prussia and Saxony would join hands over yonder, amid those bare fields on the very verge of the forest of the Ardennes. South of Sedan one could no longer perceive Bazeilles; it had disappeared in the smoke of the burning houses, in the dun-coloured dust of a furious struggle.
And the King was tranquilly looking on, waiting as he had waited since the early morning. One, two, perhaps three hours must still elapse: it was merely a question of time, one wheel was impelling another, the pounding machine was at work, and would complete its task. The battlefield was now contracting under the infinite expanse of sunny sky; all the furious mêlée of black specks was tumbling and settling closer and closer around Sedan. In the town some window panes were aglow; it seemed as though a house were burning on the left, near the Faubourg de la Cassine. Far around, however, in the once more deserted fields, towards Donchery and towards Carignan, there was a warm, luminous peacefulness that stretched in the powerful noontide glow over the clear waters of the Meuse, over the trees so pleased with life, the large fertile expanses of arable land, and the broad emerald meadows.
The King, in a few words, had just asked for some information. He wished to know every move that was made, hold in his hand, as it were, the human dust that he commanded on that colossal chessboard. On his right a flight of swallows, frightened by the cannonade, rose whirling, ascended to a great height, and vanished southward.
< < < Chapter II
Chapter IV > > >
French Literature – Children Books – Émile Zola – The Downfall (La Débâcle) – Contents
Copyright holders – Public Domain Book
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