French Literature – Children Books – Émile Zola – The Downfall (La Débâcle) – Contents
< < < PART I Chapter VIII
Chapter II > > >
PART II
THE BATTLE OF SEDAN
Chapter I
THE ATTACK ON BAZEILLES—THE EMPEROR UNDER FIRE
Weiss was fast asleep in his little room at Bazeilles, where all was dark, when a sudden disturbance made him spring out of bed. He listened, and heard the roar of cannon. Groping for the candle, he lighted it, and on looking at his watch found it was four o’clock; the dawn was scarcely breaking. He hastily put on his eye-glasses and scanned the high street—the Douzy road, which runs through the village—but the atmosphere there seemed full of thick dust, and nothing could be distinguished. He thereupon entered the adjoining room, the window of which overlooked the meadows on the side of the Meuse, and realised that the morning mist was rising from the river, obscuring the horizon. The guns were thundering more and more loudly from over yonder, across the water, but were hidden from view by the foggy veil. All at once a French battery replied with such a crash, and at so short a distance away, that the walls of the little house fairly shook.
Weiss’s abode was nearly in the centre of Bazeilles, on the right-hand side, near the Place de l’Eglise. It stood back a little from the highway which it faced, and comprised a ground floor and upper floor, the latter being lighted by three windows and surmounted by a garret. In the rear there was a rather large garden, which sloped down towards the meadows, and whence the view extended over the immense panorama of hills from Remilly to Frénois. With the fervour of one who has but recently become a householder, Weiss had remained on his legs till nearly two o’clock in the morning, burying all his provisions in the cellar, and placing mattresses before all the windows, with the view of shielding his furniture as much as possible from the enemy’s fire. He felt enraged at the idea that the Prussians might come and pillage this house, which he had so long coveted, which he had acquired with so much difficulty, and which he had had the enjoyment of during, as yet, so brief a space of time.
All at once he heard some one calling to him from the road: ‘I say, Weiss, do you hear?’
He went down, and on opening the door found Delaherche, who had spent the night at his dyeworks, a large brick building, separated from the house merely by a party wall. All the workmen had already fled through the woods into Belgium, and the only person who remained to protect the place was the door-portress, a mason’s widow, named Françoise Quitard. She, poor, trembling, scared creature, would have fled with the others had it not been for her boy, little Auguste, a lad some ten years of age, who was so ill with typhoid fever that he could not be removed.
‘I say,’ resumed Delaherche, ‘do you hear? It’s beginning nicely—it would be prudent for us to get back to Sedan at once.’
Weiss had formally promised his wife that he would leave Bazeilles as soon as there was any serious danger, and he was quite resolved to keep his promise. So far, however, merely a long-range artillery engagement was being fought, in a more or less random fashion, through the morning mist.
‘Wait a bit,’ the book-keeper replied, ‘there’s no hurry.’
Delaherche’s curiosity was so acute and restless that it had almost lent him some courage. He had not closed his eyes during the night, being greatly interested in the defensive preparations that were being made by the French troops. Foreseeing that he would be attacked at daybreak, General Lebrun, who commanded the Twelfth Army Corps, had employed the night in entrenching himself in Bazeilles. Orders had been given him that he must at any cost prevent the enemy from occupying the village, and accordingly barricades had been thrown up across the high road and the side streets, each house had been garrisoned, and each lane and garden transformed into a fortress. And the men, quietly roused in the inky darkness, were already at their posts at three in the morning, each with ninety cartridges in his pouch and with his chassepot freshly lubricated. Thus it happened that the enemy’s first cannon shot surprised nobody; and the French batteries, posted in the rear between Balan and Bazeilles, immediately answered it, more by way of announcing their presence, however, than for any serious purpose, for the firing was mere guess work and could hardly prove effective in such a fog.
‘The dyeworks will be vigorously defended,’ resumed Delaherche. ‘I’ve got an entire section there. Come and see.’
Forty and odd men of the Marine Infantry had indeed been posted there, under the command of a lieutenant, a tall, fair fellow, very young, but with an energetic, stubborn expression of countenance. His men had already taken possession of the building, and whilst some of them loopholed the shutters on the first floor, others embattled the low wall of the courtyard overlooking the meadows in the rear. It was in the courtyard that Delaherche and Weiss found the lieutenant, who was vainly trying to distinguish the enemy’s positions through the morning mist.
‘What a horrid fog!’ he muttered. ‘We can’t fight groping.’ And immediately afterwards, without the slightest transition, he inquired: ‘What day is it?’
‘Thursday,’ replied Weiss.
‘Thursday—oh, yes! The devil take me, but we live as though the world no longer existed.’
At that moment, amid the thundering of the guns, which did not for a moment cease, a lively fusillade burst forth on the outskirts of the meadows, some two or three hundred yards away. And just then there was a sudden change in the surroundings, similar to a transformation scene at a theatre—the sun arose, the vapour from the Meuse flew away in fragments like shreds of delicate muslin, and a blue sky of spotless limpidity appeared to view. A delightful morning was heralding in a glorious summer day.
‘Ah!’ exclaimed Delaherche, ‘they are crossing the railway bridge—do you see them trying to gain ground along the line? What crass stupidity on our part—the bridge ought to have been blown up!’
The lieutenant made a gesture of anger. The mine was laid, he related, but, on the previous day, the commanders had forgotten to fire it, after the men had fought during four long hours to recapture this very bridge. ‘It’s our cursed luck,’ he added curtly.
Weiss remained silent, gazing at the scene and trying to understand it. The French occupied a very strong position in Bazeilles. Built on either side of the road from Sedan to Douzy, the village overlooked the plain; and apart from this road, turning to the left and passing in front of the Château, there was only one other, branching out to the right, and leading to the railway bridge. It was, therefore, necessary for the Germans who were now advancing to cross the meadows and cultivated fields, all the vast open expanse edging the Meuse and the railway line. The enemy’s prudence being well known, it seemed unlikely that the real attack would take place on this side, and yet dense masses of men were still coming up by way of the bridge, and this, despite all the havoc wrought in their ranks by the French mitrailleuses posted on the outskirts of the village. Those who succeeded in crossing the bridge immediately threw themselves in skirmishing order among the few pollard willows rising here and there, until the columns managed to reform, and again press forward. It was from this direction that came the fusillade of increasing intensity that had begun to crackle just as the mist rose.
‘Hallo!’ remarked Weiss, ‘those fellows are Bavarians—I can tell it by their helmets.’
At the same time it seemed to him that some other columns, half hidden by the railway line, were pressing onward, on the right, and endeavouring to reach some distant trees, whence, by an oblique movement, they might again descend upon Bazeilles. Should they succeed in thus sheltering themselves in the park of Montivilliers, the village might be captured. This was vaguely but promptly realised by Weiss. However, as the front attack was becoming more determined, he ceased thinking of it. He had abruptly turned towards the heights of Floing, which rose up on the north, above the town of Sedan. A battery installed there had just opened fire, puffs of smoke could be seen ascending in the bright sunlight, and the detonations could be distinctly heard.
‘Hum,’ said Weiss, ‘the dance will be a general one.’
The lieutenant, who was looking in the same direction, made a vigorous gesture of assent, and added: ‘But Bazeilles is the important point. The issue of the battle will be decided here.’
‘Do you really think so?’ Weiss asked.
‘There’s no doubt about it. The marshal himself must certainly have that opinion, for he came here last night to tell us that we must fight to the last man rather than let the enemy take the village.’
Weiss shook his head, however, scanned the horizon around him, and then, in a hesitating way, as though he were talking to himself, remarked: ‘Well, no—no—I hardly fancy that—I’m afraid of something else—something I hardly dare say——’ He spoke no further, but held out his arms as though they were the branches of a vice; and then turning towards the north, he brought his hands together as if the vice-chops had suddenly met. In this fashion he expressed the fears that had been troubling him since the previous day, fears based on his knowledge of the country, and on everything that he had observed of the march of the hostile armies. And even now, when the broad plain expanded in the radiant sunshine, his eyes returned once more to the hills on the left bank of the river, over which, throughout an entire day and an entire night, there had marched such an interminable, black swarm of German troops. A battery was firing from the left of Remilly, but the one whose shells were beginning to fall at Bazeilles was installed at Pont-Maugis on the bank of the river. Weiss folded his eye-glasses one over the other, and held them to one eye that he might the more effectually explore the wooded slopes. However, he could only see the white puffs of smoke with which the guns were, each minute, capping the heights. What had become, then, of the human torrent which had streamed along those hills? All that he could distinguish, after prolonged scrutiny, was a cluster of horses and uniforms—some general and his staff, no doubt—perched at the corner of a pine wood on the Marfée hill, above Noyers and Frénois. Farther on was the loop of the Meuse, barring the west; and on this side the only possible line of retreat on Mézières lay along the narrow road passing through the defile of St. Albert, between the river and the forest of the Ardennes. On the previous day, chancing to meet a general in a hollow road of the valley of Givonne—a general who he afterwards learnt was Ducrot, the commander of the First Corps—Weiss had ventured to speak to him of this one possible line of retreat. Unless the troops immediately retired by the road in question, if they waited until the Prussians had crossed the Meuse at Donchery and intercepted the passage of the river, they would certainly find themselves immobilised, brought to a stand at the Belgian frontier. That same evening, moreover, it had already seemed too late to effect the movement, for the Uhlans were reported to be in possession of the Donchery bridge—another bridge which had not been blown up, in this case through forgetfulness to bring the powder required for the purpose. And now, thought Weiss despairingly, the whole stream of men, the great black swarm, must be crossing the plain of Donchery on its way towards the defile of St. Albert, with its advance guard already threatening St. Menges and Floing, whither he had conducted Jean and Maurice the previous night. He could espy the distant steeple of Floing looking like a fine white needle in the brilliant sunlight.
On the east was the other branch of the vice. Although Weiss could descry the line of battle of the Seventh Corps, stretching on the northern side from the plateau of Illy to that of Floing, and ineffectually supported by the Fifth Corps, posted as a reserve force under the ramparts, it was impossible for him to tell what was taking place on the east, where the First Corps was drawn up in the valley of Givonne from the wood of La Garenne to the village of Daigny. However, the guns were already thundering in that direction, and it seemed as if an engagement were being fought in the Chevalier Wood in front of the village. And Weiss was the more disquieted as some peasants had already, on the previous day, reported the arrival of the Prussians at Francheval, so that the movement which was being effected on the west by way of Donchery was also being effected on the east by way of Francheval; and it seemed certain that the vice-chops would eventually meet at the Calvary of Illy, on the northern side, should the all-enveloping march on either hand not be promptly stayed. He knew nothing of military science; he had simply his common sense to guide him, but he trembled at sight of that huge triangle, one side of which was formed by the Meuse, whilst the other two were represented by the Seventh Corps on the north, and the First on the east; the Twelfth posted at Bazeilles on the south, occupying the extreme angle, and all three turning the back to one another and awaiting, nobody knew how or why, the foe who was now coming up on every side. And in the centre, in the depths of a pit as it were, was the town of Sedan, armed with guns that were past service, and having neither a supply of ammunition nor a supply of food.
‘Don’t you see,’ said Weiss, repeating the gesture he had previously made—his arms stretched out and his finger-tips meeting—’that’s how it will be if your generals don’t take care—the enemy are playing with you at Bazeilles.’
He explained himself, however, in a confused, unsatisfactory manner, and the lieutenant, not being acquainted with the district, failed to understand him, and impatiently shrugged his shoulders, full of disdain for this spectacled civilian, who claimed to know better than Marshal MacMahon. On Weiss repeating that the attack upon Bazeilles was probably only a feint, intended to conceal the enemy’s real design, the young officer became quite irritated, and exclaimed: ‘Pray mind your own business. We are going to drive your Bavarians into the Meuse, and they’ll learn what it is to play with us.’
The enemy’s skirmishers seemed to have drawn somewhat nearer during the last minute or two, and several bullets having struck the brick wall of the dyeworks with a dull thud, the French soldiers began to return the fire, sheltered by the low wall of the courtyard. The clear, sharp report of a chassepot resounded every second.
‘Drive them into the Meuse—yes, no doubt,’ muttered Weiss, ‘and pass over them and march back on Carignan—that would be a good idea.’ Then addressing Delaherche, who in his fear of the bullets had hidden himself behind the pump, he added: ‘All the same, the proper plan was to have hurried off to Mézières yesterday evening. I should have preferred that if I’d been in the place of the generals. However, one must fight now, for retreat is not longer possible.’
‘Are you coming?’ asked Delaherche, who, despite his ardent curiosity, was beginning to blanch. ‘If we stay here much longer we sha’n’t be able to get back to Sedan.’
‘Yes, wait a minute. I’ll go with you.’
Then, in spite of the danger to which he exposed himself, Weiss rose on tip-toe, obstinately bent on finding out how matters were progressing. On the right were the meadows flooded by order of the Governor of Sedan, quite a large lake protecting the town from Torcy to Balan. A delicate azure tint suffused the broad sheet of unruffled water in the early sunlight. But the lake did not stretch far enough to cover the outskirts of Bazeilles, and the Bavarians, advancing through the grass, had indeed drawn nearer, taking advantage of every ditch and every tree they came upon. They were now, perhaps, five hundred yards away, and Weiss was struck with the slowness of their movements, the patient manner in which they gradually gained ground, exposing themselves as little as possible. Moreover, a powerful artillery was supporting them, and at each moment shells came hissing through the fresh, pure atmosphere. Weiss raised his eyes and saw that the battery of Pont-Maugis was not the only one that was firing on Bazeilles; two others, planted midway up the Liry hill, had also opened fire, not merely cannonading the village, but sweeping the bare ground of La Moncelle farther on, where the reserves of the Twelfth Corps were posted, and even the wooded slopes of Daigny, occupied by a division of the First Corps. And, indeed, flames were now flashing from all the hill-crests on the left bank of the river. The guns seemed to spring out of the soil. At each moment the circle of fire extended—at Noyers a battery was firing on Balan, at Wadelincourt a battery was firing on Sedan itself, and at Frénois, just below the Marfée hill, a formidable battery was hurling shells right over the town, shells which went plunging and bursting among the troops of the Seventh Corps on the plateau of Floing. And it was with terrified anguish that Weiss now gazed on those slopes that he loved so well, those rounded hills which fringed the valley afar off with so gay a greenery, and which he had never imagined could serve any other purpose than that of delighting the eyesight; but now, all at once, they had become, as it were, a fearful, gigantic fortress, ready to pulverise the futile fortifications of Sedan.
He suddenly raised his head on seeing a little plaster fall to the ground. A bullet had chipped it off the front of his house, which he could perceive above the party-wall. ‘Are those brigands going to demolish my house?’ he growled, feeling greatly annoyed.
Just then, however, he was astonished to hear a slight noise behind him, and on turning round he saw a soldier falling on his back with a bullet in the heart. For a moment the poor fellow’s legs were stirred by a supreme convulsion, but death came so swiftly that his face retained its peaceful, youthful expression. This was the first man killed; Weiss, however, was most disturbed by the clatter of the soldier’s chassepot, which as it escaped from his hands rebounded on the paving-stones of the yard.
‘Oh! I’m off,’ stammered Delaherche. ‘If you won’t come I shall go alone.’
The lieutenant, whom the presence of these civilians disturbed, intervened approvingly: ‘Yes, gentlemen, you had better go away. We may now be attacked at any moment.’
Thereupon, after glancing once more at the meadows, where the Bavarians were still gaining ground, Weiss made up his mind to follow Delaherche. But, on reaching the street, he paused to double-lock the door of his house, and when he again rejoined his companion an unforeseen spectacle once more stayed their flight. The Place de l’Eglise, some three hundred yards away, at the end of the road, was at that moment being attacked by a strong column of Bavarians debouching from the Douzy highway. After a time the regiment of Marine Infantry, entrusted with the defence of the Place, appeared to slacken fire as though to let the foe advance, but, all at once, when the German column was massed in front of the French, the latter resorted to a strange and, on the enemy’s part, evidently unexpected manœuvre. The Marines sprang on one or the other side of the way, a large number of them flinging themselves upon the ground; and then, through the space thus suddenly opened, the French mitrailleuses, in position at the other end of the road, rained a perfect storm of bullets upon the foe. The hostile column was virtually swept away, and the Marines thereupon bounded to their feet and charged the scattered survivors of the Bavarian force at the bayonet’s point, bringing many of them to the ground and throwing the others far back. And twice again was this same manœuvre repeated, and with the same success. Three women, who had remained in a little house at the corner of a lane, could be seen tranquilly installed at one of the windows there, laughing and clapping their hands at the sight, and looking indeed as much amused as though they were at a theatre.
‘Ah! dash it!’ suddenly said Weiss; ‘I forgot to lock up my cellar and take the key. Wait a bit. I sha’n’t be a second.’
As this first attack seemed to have been repulsed, Delaherche, whose curiosity once more began to gain the upper hand, was in less haste to get away. Standing outside the dyeworks, he began talking to the portress, who had stepped to the threshold of the room she occupied, on the ground floor.
‘You ought to come away with us, Françoise,’ he said. ‘It’s not right for a woman to remain here all alone in the midst of such horrible things.’
She raised her trembling arms and answered: ‘Ah, sir, I should certainly have gone away if it hadn’t been for my little Auguste, who’s so ill. Will you come in and look at him, sir?’
He did not go in, but craned his neck forward and shook his head ominously as he espied the lad lying in a clean white bed, with the purple flush of fever suffusing his face, whilst with flaming eyes he looked fixedly at his mother.
‘But now I think of it,’ said the manufacturer, ‘why don’t you take him away? I’ll fix you up at Sedan. Wrap him in a warm blanket, and come with us.’
‘Oh! it can’t be done, sir. The doctor told me it would kill the boy to move him. If only his poor father were still alive. But there are only we two left, and, needing one another as we do, we must be very careful. And, after all, perhaps those Prussians won’t do any harm to a lone woman and a sick child.’
At this moment Weiss returned, delighted at having made every door in his house secure. ‘They’ll have to smash everything if they want to get in,’ said he. ‘And now let’s get off. It won’t be an easy job—we had better keep close to the houses or we may be hit by a bullet.’
The enemy was, indeed, evidently preparing a fresh attack, for the fusillade was increasing in violence, and there was no pause now in the hissing of the shells. A couple of the latter had already fallen in the road about a hundred yards away, whilst a third had plunged into the soft soil of a neighbouring garden without bursting.
‘I must say good-bye to your little Auguste, Françoise,’ resumed Weiss. ‘Oh! he doesn’t look so bad now; in a couple of days he’ll be out of danger. Well, keep your spirits up. Mind you go indoors at once. Don’t venture out here.’
At last the two men turned to go off.
‘Good-bye, Françoise.’
‘Good-bye, gentlemen.’
But at that very moment there was a terrible crash. After overthrowing one of the chimneys of Weiss’s house, a shell had fallen on the footway, where it burst with so fearful an explosion that every window-pane near by was shivered to pieces. For a moment a mass of thick dust, a cloud of heavy smoke obscured everything. Then the front of the dyeworks reappeared, displaying a gaping aperture, and across the threshold of her room lay Françoise, dead, her backbone broken, and her head crushed—now merely a bundle of human rags, covered with blood, and hideous to behold.
Weiss rushed up furiously. He was stammering, and oaths alone could give expression to his feelings: ‘Curse them! Curse them!’ he shouted. Yes, she was indeed dead. He had stooped down and felt her hands. As he was rising again his eyes encountered the blotched face of little Auguste, who had raised his head to look at his mother. The lad said nothing, he did not shriek or cry, but his large eyes, full of fever, were quite dilated as they gazed upon that frightfully mangled body, which he could no longer recognise. ‘Curse them!’ shouted Weiss at last, ‘so now they are killing women!’
He had again drawn himself erect, and he shook his fist at the Bavarians, whose helmets were once more appearing to view in the direction of the church. Then the sight of the roof of his house, half broken in by the fallen chimney, put the finishing touch to his mad exasperation. ‘You dirty blackguards!’ he shouted, ‘you kill women and you knock my house to pieces! No, no, it is impossible, I can’t go off like that; I shall stay!’
He darted into the courtyard of the dyeworks, and bounded back again, carrying the chassepot and cartridge pouch of the dead soldier. For use on important occasions, when he was desirous of seeing anything very distinctly, he always carried a pair of spectacles in his pocket, though he seldom wore them through a coquettish regard for the feelings of his young wife. Now, however, he promptly took off his folding glasses and put on his spectacles; and then this stout civilian, whose good-natured, full face was quite transfigured by anger, who looked almost comical yet superb in his heroism, began to fire, aiming at the detachment of Bavarians massed at the end of the street. It was in his blood, as he was wont to say; he had longed to stretch some of them on the ground ever since hearing the stories of 1814, related to him in his childish days, in his Alsatian home.
‘Ah! the dirty blackguards, the dirty blackguards!’
And still he kept on firing—so rapidly in fact that the barrel of his chassepot began to burn his fingers.
Everything now betokened a terrible attack. The fusillade had ceased on the side of the meadows. The Bavarians had become masters of a narrow stream fringed with poplars and pollard willows, and were preparing to assault the houses defending the Place de l’Eglise. Their skirmishers had prudently fallen back, and now the sunshine alone was drowsily streaming in a golden sheet over the immense grassy expanse, flecked here and there with black patches—the corpses of the soldiers who had been killed. And accordingly, the Lieutenant of Marine Infantry, realising that danger would henceforth come from the side of the street, evacuated the courtyard of the dyeworks, leaving merely a sentry there; and speedily ranged his men along the side-walk, informing them that should the enemy obtain possession of the Place de l’Eglise they were to barricade themselves inside the building, on the first floor, and defend it as long as they had a cartridge left them. The men fired as they pleased, lying on the ground, screened by border stones and profiting by the slightest projections of the buildings; and along the broad, deserted highway, bright with sunshine, there now sped a perfect hurricane of lead, with streaks of smoke—a hailstorm, as it were, driven along by a violent wind. A girl was seen to dart madly across the road without receiving any injury; then an old peasant in a blouse, stubbornly bent upon taking his horse into the stable, was struck by a bullet in the forehead, the force of the shock throwing him into the middle of the road. Moreover, the roof of the church had just been broken in by a shell, and two other projectiles had set fire to some houses, whose timbers crackled and blazed in the broad sunlight. And the sight of that poor creature, Françoise, pounded to pieces near her ailing child, of the peasant lying in the road with the bullet in his skull, of the damaged church and the flaming houses, put the finishing touch to the wrath of the inhabitants, who, rather than fly to Belgium, had preferred to stay and meet death in their modest homes. And men of the middle classes and sons of toil, men in coats and men in blouses, fired on the enemy from their windows with a fury akin to madness.
‘Ah! the bandits!’ suddenly exclaimed Weiss. ‘They have got round. I saw them running along the railway line. There! can’t you hear them over yonder on the left?’
A fusillade had indeed just broken out in the rear of the park of Montivilliers which skirted the road. If the foe should secure possession of that park Bazeilles would be captured. The violence of the firing proved, however, that the Commander of the Twelfth Corps had foreseen this movement on the enemy’s part, and that the park was being defended.
‘Take care, you clumsy chap!’ suddenly exclaimed the lieutenant, forcing Weiss to draw back close to the wall; ‘you’ll be cut in half!’
Though he could not help smiling at this big spectacled fellow, he had begun to feel interested in him, doubtless on account of the bravery he displayed; and, hearing a shell coming, he had in a fraternal way pushed him on one side. The projectile fell a dozen paces off, and, in bursting, covered them both with splinters. The civilian, however, remained erect without a scratch, whereas the unfortunate lieutenant had both legs broken. ‘Ah! curse it!’ he muttered. ‘I’m done for.’
He had been thrown down on the side-walk, and he instructed his men to place him in a sitting posture with his back against a door, near the spot where the corpse of that unfortunate woman Françoise was stretched across the threshold of her room. And the lieutenant’s young face still retained its stubborn, energetic expression. ‘It’s of no consequence, my lads,’ said he. ‘Listen to me. Fire at your ease, don’t hurry—I’ll tell you when the time comes to charge them.’
And thus, with his head erect, watching the distant movements of the foe, he continued commanding his men. Another house across the road caught fire. The crackling of the fusillade and the loud explosions of the shells rent the dust-and-smoke-pervaded atmosphere. Men were toppling over at each street corner, and wherever the dead had fallen—now singly, now in clusters—there were dark spots splashed with blood; whilst over and above the village arose a frightful, growing clamour, the threatening uproar of thousands of men rushing on a few hundred brave fellows who were resolved to die.
And now Delaherche, who had repeatedly called to Weiss, asked him for the last time: ‘Are you coming? No? So much the worse, but I’m off—good-bye!’
It was about seven o’clock, and he had already delayed his departure longer than was prudent. So far as there were houses skirting the road, he took advantage of their projections and recesses, bolting into a doorway or behind a wall each time there was a volley. And so rapidly did he glide along, with all the suppleness of a snake, that he was surprised to find himself still so young and nimble. But on reaching the limits of Bazeilles, when it became necessary that he should follow the bare, deserted road, swept by the Liry batteries for a distance of three hundred yards, he fairly shivered, albeit he was perspiring from every pore. For a moment or two, bending low, he continued advancing along a ditch, then all at once he broke into a mad gallop and rushed straight before him along the road, with detonation after detonation resounding like thunderclaps in his ears. His eyes were burning, and he fancied he was running through flames. It seemed to last an eternity; but all at once he espied a small house on his left, and promptly darted towards it. Once sheltered by its walls he felt a tremendous weight uplifted from his chest. There were several people near him, men on foot and men on horseback. At first he failed to distinguish any of them, but as he recovered his self-possession the sight he beheld filled him with astonishment.
Was not that the Emperor and his staff? He hesitated to answer the query affirmatively, although, since he had almost spoken to Napoleon at Baybel, he had flattered himself he should at once recognise him anywhere. Then he suddenly opened his mouth and looked on gaping. Yes, it was indeed Napoleon III., to all appearance taller now that he was on horseback,[26] and with his moustaches so carefully waxed, and his cheeks so highly coloured that Delaherche immediately came to the conclusion that he had sought to make himself look young again—in a word, that he had made himself up for the occasion like an actor. Ay, without doubt he had caused his valet to paint his face so that he might not appear among his troops spreading discouragement and fright around him with his pale, haggard countenance distorted by suffering, his contracted nose, and dim, bleared eyes. And warned, at five o’clock, that there was fighting going on at Bazeilles, he had set out thither, silent and mournful like a phantom, but with his cheeks all aglow with rouge.
On the way some brickworks afforded a shelter. The walls on one side were being riddled by the bullets raining upon them; and shells were at every moment falling on the road. The entire escort halted.
‘It is really dangerous, sire,’ said some one; but the Emperor turned round, and with a wave of the hand simply ordered his staff to draw up in a narrow lane skirting the works, where both men and horses would be completely hidden. ‘It’s really madness, sire—we beg you, sire——’
However, he simply repeated his gesture, as though to say that the appearance of a number of uniforms on that bare road would certainly attract the attention of the hostile batteries on the left bank of the Meuse. And then, all alone, he rode forward amid the bullets and the shells, without evincing any haste, but still and ever in the same mournful, indifferent manner, as though he were going in search of Destiny. And doubtless, he could hear behind him that implacable voice that had ever urged him forward, the voice that rang out from Paris, calling: ‘March, march, die like a hero on the corpses of your people, strike the whole universe with compassionate admiration, so that your son may reign!’ And forward he went, slowly walking his horse. For nearly a hundred yards he thus continued advancing; and then he halted to await the fate that he had come in search of. The bullets whistled by like an equinoctial gale, and a shell burst near him covering him with earth. Yet still he remained there waiting. His charger’s mane stood up, the animal was quivering all over, instinctively recoiling at thus finding itself in the presence of death which passed by every moment, unwilling, however, to touch either man or beast. And then, after that infinite period of waiting, the Emperor, realising like the resigned fatalist he was, that it was not there he should find his destiny, quietly rode back again, as though he had merely gone forward to reconnoitre the exact positions of the German batteries.
‘What courage you have shown, sire! But we beg of you not to expose yourself again!’
However, with another wave of the hand he summoned the members of his staff to follow him, now sparing them no more than he had spared himself; and off he rode across the fields, over the bare ground of La Rapaille towards the position of La Moncelle. On the way a captain of the escort fell dead, and two horses were killed under their riders. The regiments of the Twelfth Corps, before which Napoleon passed, saw him appear and vanish like a spectre; not once was he saluted nor once acclaimed.
Delaherche witnessed all this, and it made him shudder, especially when he reflected that on leaving the brickworks he should again find himself in the open, exposed to all the projectiles. So he lingered there, listening to some officers who had remained behind, their horses having been previously shot under them.
‘I tell you he was killed on the spot,’ said one; ‘a shell cut him in half.’
‘No, no. I myself saw him carried off. He was merely wounded—a splinter of a shell in the hip——’
‘At what time did it occur?’
‘At about half-past six, an hour ago. It was in a hollow road over yonder, near La Moncelle.’
‘And was he taken back to Sedan?’
‘Certainly, he’s there now.’
Whom could they be speaking of? All at once Delaherche realised that they must be referring to Marshal MacMahon, wounded whilst on his way to the outposts. The marshal wounded! Such was our cursed luck, as the lieutenant of Marine Infantry had said. And the manufacturer was reflecting on the consequences of this unfortunate casualty when an estafette galloped by with reins down, and shouted to a comrade whom he recognised: ‘General Ducrot is commander-in-chief. The entire army is to concentrate at Illy, to retreat on Mézières!’
The next moment the estafette was already far away, entering Bazeilles under a fire of increasing intensity, and Delaherche, scared by the extraordinary tidings that had reached him in such rapid succession, and liable to find himself caught in the midst of the retreating troops, at last made up his mind to start off again, and ran all the way to Balan, whence he managed to reach Sedan without any very great difficulty. And, meantime, the estafette was still galloping through Bazeilles, seeking the commanders that he might give them their orders. And the tidings were also galloping along—Marshal MacMahon wounded, General Ducrot appointed commander-in-chief, the whole army to fall back on Illy!
‘What! what are they saying?’ exclaimed Weiss, already black with powder. ‘Retreat on Mézières at this time of day? Why, it’s madness; the army could not possibly get through!’
He was in despair, full of remorse that he himself had advised that very course the day before, and had advised it precisely to General Ducrot, who was now invested with the supreme command. Certainly, on the previous day there was no other reasonable plan to follow. The army ought to have retreated, retreated immediately by the defile of St. Albert. But at the present time the road must be intercepted by all that black swarm of Prussians that had streamed along, over yonder, towards the plain of Donchery. And, madness for madness, the only truly valiant, desperate course was to hurl the Bavarians into the Meuse, pass over them, and march once more on Carignan.
Hitching up his falling spectacles every minute with a touch of his finger-tips, Weiss explained the position of affairs to the lieutenant, who was still seated there with his limbs shattered and his back against the door. He was now looking extremely pale, however—indeed he was dying from loss of blood. ‘I assure you that I’m right, lieutenant,’ said Weiss. ‘Tell your men to keep firm. You can see that we are victorious. Another effort and we shall fling them into the Meuse.’
The second attack of the Bavarians had, in fact, just been repulsed. The mitrailleuses had again swept the Place de l’Eglise, with such effect that the enemy’s dead now lay there in heaps, which rose up here and there like barricades; and the disbanded foe, charged at the bayonet’s point, was now being driven from all the lanes into the meadows, where there began a flight towards the river, that would assuredly have become a rout if the Marines, already extenuated and decimated, had been supported by fresh troops. On the other hand, the fusillade in the park of Montivilliers was coming no nearer, making it evident that the wood might be cleared of the enemy if reinforcements only came up.
‘Tell your men to charge them, lieutenant!’ suddenly shouted Weiss; ‘at the bayonet’s point!’
The lieutenant, now of a waxy whiteness, still had sufficient strength left him to murmur in a dying voice: ‘You hear, my lads; at them with the bayonet!’
And those were his last words. He expired with his stubborn head still erect and his eyes open, gazing on the battle. Flies were already buzzing around and settling on Françoise’s shapeless head, whilst little Auguste, lying in bed, a prey to feverish delirium, was calling and asking for something to drink in a low, supplicating voice: ‘Wake up, get up, mother—I’m thirsty, I’m so thirsty.’
However, General Ducrot’s orders were peremptory, and the officers had to command a retreat, lamenting that they were prevented from profiting by the advantage they had just gained. Plainly enough, the new commander, full of fears with regard to the enemy’s turning movement, was disposed to sacrifice everything to a mad attempt to escape his clutches. So the Place de l’Eglise was evacuated, the troops fell back from lane to lane, and the road was soon empty. Women could be heard wailing and sobbing, and men swore and shook their fists in their anger at being thus abandoned. Many of them shut themselves in their houses, determined to defend them and die.
‘Oh! I’m not going off like that!’ exclaimed Weiss, quite beside himself. ‘I prefer to leave my carcase here. We’ll see if they’ll come to smash my furniture and drink my wine.’
He had completely given himself up to his rage, to the unquenchable fury of battle. The thought of the foreigner entering his house, sitting in his chair, and drinking out of his glass made his whole body revolt, and drove away all thoughts of his accustomed life, his wife, and his business affairs, all the prudence that he usually displayed like a sensible petty bourgeois. And now he shut himself, barricaded himself, inside his house, walking up and down like a caged animal, proceeding from room to room, and making sure that every aperture was properly closed. He counted his cartridges, and found he had about forty left. Then, as he was giving a last glance over towards the Meuse to make certain that no attack was to be feared by way of the meadows, the spectacle furnished by the hills on the left bank once more arrested his attention. The position of the German batteries was clearly indicated by the puffs of smoke ascending from them; and above the formidable battery of Frénois, on the verge of a little wood on the Marfée hill, he again espied that same cluster of uniforms which he had already seen, but now looking larger than on the previous occasion, and so brilliant in the broad sunlight that, on placing his folders in front of his spectacles, he could distinguish the gold or brass of epaulettes and helmets.
‘The dirty blackguards! The dirty blackguards!’ he repeated, shaking his fist at the group.
It was King William of Prussia who was perched up there, on the Marfée hill, with his staff. He had already, at seven o’clock, arrived there from Vendresse, where he had slept, and there he was, well out of harm’s way, with the valley of the Meuse, the whole unbounded battlefield spread out below him. The vast panorama extended from one horizon to another, and he looked down upon it from the hill as upon a gala performance from a throne reared in some gigantic court-box.
Sedan, with the geometrical lines of its fortifications bathed on the south and the west by the flooded meadows and the river, stood out in the centre against the dark background of the Ardennes Forest, which draped the horizon as with a curtain of antique greenery. Houses were already blazing at Bazeilles, where all was misty with the dust of battle. Then, on the east, from La Moncelle to Givonne, only a few regiments of the Twelfth and First French Corps could be seen, looking like lines of insects as they crossed the stubble, and now and again disappearing in a narrow valley where some hamlets were also hidden; and, farther on, the ground rose again, and pale-tinted fields could be perceived, blotched with the green mass of the Chevalier Wood. The Seventh French Corps was especially well in view on the north, with its regiments represented by numerous black specks moving hither and thither over the plateau of Floing, a broad band of dark grey soil, which descended from the little wood of La Garenne to the herbage on the river bank. Beyond were Floing, St. Menges, Fleigneux, and Illy, all the villages scattered across the surging expanse, quite a rugged region, intersected by steep escarpments. And on the left, also, was the loop of the Meuse, with its slow waters glittering like new silver in the clear sunlight, and its long languid bend forming the peninsula of Iges, and intercepting all communication with Mézières save on one point, where, between the farther bank and the impassable forest, there opened the only entrance to the defile of St. Albert.
The hundred thousand men and the five hundred guns of the French army were heaped together, brought to bay within the triangle; and when the King of Prussia turned his eyes westward he perceived another plain, that of Donchery, with bare fields spreading out towards Briancourt, Marancourt, and Vrignes-aux-Bois, an infinite expanse of grey soil dusty under the blue sky; and when he turned to the east he also beheld, confronting the confined French lines, another immense open expanse, with an abundance of villages, first Douzy and Carignan, and then, ascending northwards, Rubécourt, Pourru-aux-Bois, Francheval, and Villers-Cernay, till at last there came La Chapelle, near the Belgian frontier. And all this surrounding ground belonged to him, and as he pushed forward at his pleasure the two hundred and fifty thousand men and the eight hundred guns of his armies, he could, at one glance, survey their invading march. The Eleventh German Army Corps was, on the one hand, already advancing on St. Menges, whilst the Fifth Corps was at Vrignes-aux-Bois, and the division of Wurtembergers was waiting near Donchery; and although, on the other side, the King’s view was somewhat obstructed by the trees and hills, it was yet easy for him to realise the movements that were being accomplished. He had just seen the Twelfth German Corps enter the Chevalier Wood, and he knew that the Guard must by this time have reached Villers-Cernay. And the army of the Crown Prince of Prussia on the left, and the army of the Crown Prince of Saxony on the right, formed, as it were, the two branches of the vice which were opening and ascending with irresistible force to meet over yonder; whilst on their side the two Bavarian Army Corps were rushing upon Bazeilles.
And, at King William’s feet, the German batteries, disposed in an almost uninterrupted line from Remilly to Frénois, were now thundering without cessation, covering La Moncelle and Daigny with shells, and sweeping the plateaux on the north with other projectiles which passed right over the town of Sedan. As yet it was hardly more than eight in the morning, and the King was already waiting for the inevitable result of the battle, his eyes fixed on the gigantic chessboard before him, his mind busy with the movements of that human dust, the bellicose madness of those few black specks which here and there dotted the surface of smiling and eternal nature.
< < < PART I Chapter VIII
Chapter II > > >
French Literature – Children Books – Émile Zola – The Downfall (La Débâcle) – Contents
Copyright holders – Public Domain Book
| If you liked this site, subscribe , put likes, write comments! Share on social networks Check out Our Latest Posts |
© 2023 Akirill.com – All Rights Reserved
AKirill, Learn, apprenez, translation, traduction, livres bilingues, bilingual books 