Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon Volume Ii Part 63

"Yes, Sire, and if your Majesty would permit me to deal with him, I would have his information, if he possess any, and that ere long, too."

"Eh, _gaillard_," said he, laughing, as he pinched the old general's ear in jest, "I believe you, with all my heart."

The full truth flashed upon my mind. I was in presence of the Emperor himself. As, however, up to this moment I was unconscious of his presence, I resolved now to affect ignorance of it throughout.

"Had you despatches, sir?" said he, turning towards me with a look of stern severity. "Were any despatches found upon him when he was taken?" This latter question was directed to the aide-de-camp who introduced me, and who still remained at the door.

"No, Sire, nothing was found upon him except this locket."

As he said these words he placed in Napoleon's hands the keepsake which St.

Croix had left with me years before in Spain, and which, as the reader may remember, was a miniature of the Empress Josephine.

The moment the Emperor threw his eyes upon it, the flush which excitement had called into his cheek disappeared at once. He became pale as death, his very lips as bloodless as his wan cheek.

"Leave me, Lefebvre; leave me, Cambronne, for a moment. I will speak with this gentleman alone."

As the door closed upon them he leaned his arm upon the mantelpiece, and with his head sunk upon his bosom, remained some moments without speaking.

"Augure sinistre!" muttered he within his teeth, as his piercing gaze was riveted upon the picture before him. "Voila la troisieme fois peut-etre la derniere." Then suddenly rousing himself, he advanced close to me, and seizing me by the arm with a grasp like iron, inquired:--

"How came you by this picture? The truth, sir; mark me, the truth!"

Without showing any sign of feeling hurt at the insinuation of this question, I detailed, in as few words as I could, the circ.u.mstance by which the locket became mine. Long before I had concluded, however, I could mark that his attention flagged, and finally wandered far away from the matter before him.

"Why will you not give me the information I look for? I seek for no breach of faith. The campaign is all but over. The Prussians were beaten at Ligny, their army routed, their artillery captured, ten thousand prisoners taken.

Your troops and the Dutch were conquered yesterday, and they are in full retreat on Brussels. By to-morrow evening I shall date my bulletin from the palace at Laeken. Antwerp will be in my possession within twenty-four hours. Namur is already mine. Cambronne, Lefebvre," cried he, "cet homme-la n'en sait rien," pointing to me as he spoke; "let us see the other." With this he motioned slightly with his hand as a sign for me to withdraw, and the next moment I was once more in the solitude of my prison-room, thinking over the singular interview I had just had with the great Emperor.

How anxiously pa.s.s the hours of one who, deprived of other means of information, is left to form his conjectures by some pa.s.sing object or some chance murmur. The things which, in the ordinary course of life, are pa.s.sed by unnoticed and unregarded, are now matters of moment,--with what scrutiny he examines the features of those whom he dare not question; with what patient ear he listens to each pa.s.sing word. Thus to me, a prisoner, the hours went by tardily yet anxiously; no sabre clanked; no war-horse neighed; no heavy-booted cuira.s.sier tramped in the courtyard beneath my window, without setting a hundred conjectures afloat as to what was about to happen. For some time there had been a considerable noise and bustle in and about the dwelling. Hors.e.m.e.n came and went continually. The sounds of galloping could be heard along the paved causeway; then the challenge of the sentry at the gate; then the nearer tread of approaching stops, and many voices speaking together, would seem to indicate that some messenger had arrived with despatches. At length all these sounds became hushed and still. No longer were the voices heard; and except the measured tread of the heavy cuira.s.sier, as he paced on the flags beneath, nothing was to be heard. My state of suspense, doubly greater now than when the noise and tumult suggested food for conjecture, continued till towards noon, when a soldier in undress brought me some breakfast, and told me to prepare speedily for the road.

Scarcely had he left the room, when the rumbling noise of wagons was heard below, and a train of artillery carts moved into the little courtyard loaded with wounded men. It was a sad and frightful sight to see these poor fellows, as, crammed side by side in the straw of the _charrette_, they lay, their ghastly wounds opening with every motion of the wagon, while their wan, pale faces were convulsed with agony and suffering. Of every rank, from the sous-lieutenant to the humble soldier, from every arm of the service, from the heavy cuira.s.sier of the guard to the light and intrepid tirailleur, they were there. I well remember one, an artillery-man of the guard, who, as they lifted him forth from the cart, presented the horrifying spectacle of one both of whose legs had been carried away by a cannon-shot. Pale, cold, and corpse-like, ha lay in their arms; his head lay heavily to one side, his arms fell pa.s.sively as in death. It was at this moment a troop of lancers, the advanced guard of D'Erlon's Division, came trotting up the road; the cry of "Vive l'Empereur!" burst from them as they approached; its echo rang within the walls of the farm-house, when suddenly the dying man, as though some magic touch had called him back to life and vigor, sprang up erect between his bearers, his filmy eye flashing fire, a burning spot of red coloring his bloodless cheek. He cast one wild and hurried look around him, like one called back from death to look upon the living; and as he raised his blood-stained hand above his head, shouted, in a heart-piercing cry, "Vive l'Empereur!" The effort was his last. It was the expiring tribute of allegiance to the chief he adored. The blood spouted in cataracts from his half-closed wounds, a convulsive spasm worked through his frame, his eyes rolled fearfully, as his outstretched hands seemed striving to clutch some object before them, and he was dead.

Fresh arrivals of wounded continued to pour in; and now I thought I could detect at intervals the distant noise of a cannonade. The wind, however, was from the southward, and the sounds were too indistinct to be relied on.

"Allons, aliens, mon cher!" said a rough but good-humored looking fellow, as he strode into my room. He was the quartermaster of Milhaud's Dragoons, under whose care I was now placed, and came to inform me that we were to set out immediately.

Monsieur Bonnard was a character in his way; and if it were not so near the conclusion of my history, I should like to present him to my readers. As it is, I shall merely say he was a thorough specimen of one cla.s.s of his countrymen,--a loud talker, a louder swearer, a vaporing, boasting, overbearing, good-natured, and even soft-hearted fellow, who firmly believed that Frenchmen were the climax of the species, and Napoleon the climax of Frenchmen. Being a great _bavard_, he speedily told me all that had taken place during the last two days. From him I learned that the Prussians had really been beaten at Ligny, and had fallen back, he knew not where. They were, however, he said, hotly pursued by Grouchy, with thirty-five thousand men, while the Emperor himself was now following the British and Dutch armies with seventy thousand more.

"You see," continued he, "l'affaire est faite! Who can resist the Emperor?"

These were sad tidings for me; and although I did not place implicit confidence in my informant, I had still my fears that much of what he said was true.

"And the British, now," said I, "what direction have they taken?"

"Bah, they're in retreat on Brussels, and will probably capitulate to-morrow."

"Capitulate!"

"Oui, oui; ne vous fachez pas, camarade," said he, laughing. "What could you do against Napoleon? You did not expect to beat him, surely? But come, we must move on; I have my orders to bring you to Planchenoit this evening, and our horses are tired enough already."

"Mine, methinks, should be fresh," said I.

"_Parbleu, mon!_" replied he; "he has twice made the journey to Fresnes this morning with despatches for Marshal Ney; the Emperor is enraged with the marshal for having retreated last night, having the wood in his possession; he says he should have waited till daybreak, and then fallen upon your retreating columns. As it is, you are getting away without much loss. _Sacristie_, that was a fine charge!" These last words he muttered to himself, adding, between his teeth, "Sixty-four killed and wounded."

"What was that? Who were they?" said I.

"Our fellows," replied he, frankly; "the Emperor ordered up two twelve-pounders, and eight squadrons of lancers; they fell upon your light dragoons in a narrow part of the high road. But suddenly we heard a noise in front; your hussars fell back, and a column of your heavy dragoons came thundering down upon us. _Parbleu!_ they swept over us as if we were broken infantry; and there! there!" said he, pointing to the courtyard, from whence the groans of the wounded still rose,--"there are the fruits of that terrible charge."

I could not restrain an outbreak of triumphant pleasure at this gallant feat of my countrymen.

"Yes, yes," said the honest quartermaster; "it was a fine thing; but a heavy reckoning is at hand. But come, now, let us take the road."

In a few moments more I found myself seated upon a heavy Norman horse, whose lumbering demi-peak saddle was nearly cleft in two by a sabre-cut.

"Ay, ay," said Monsieur Bonnard, as he saw my eye fixed on the spot, "it was one of your fellows did that; and the same cut clove poor Pierre from the neck to the seat."

"I hope," said I, laughing, "the saddle may not prove an unlucky one."

"No, no," said the Frenchman, seriously; "it has paid its debt to fate."

As we pressed on our road, which, broken by the heavy guns, and ploughed up in many places by the artillery, was nearly impa.s.sable, we could distinctly hear from time to time the distant boom of the large guns, as the retiring and pursuing armies replied to each other; while behind us, but still a long way off, a dark ma.s.s appeared on the horizon: they were the advancing columns of Ney's Division.

"Have the troops come in contact more than once this morning?"

"Not closely," said the quartermaster; "the armies have kept a respectful distance; they were like nothing I can think of," said the figurative Frenchman, "except two hideous serpents wallowing in mire, and vomiting at each other whole rivers of fire and flame."

As we approached Planchenoit, we came up to the rear-guard of the French army; from them we learned that Ney's Division, consisting of the Eighth Corps, had joined the Emperor; that the British were still in retreat, but that nothing of any importance had occurred between the rival armies, the French merely firing their heavy guns from time to time to ascertain by the reply the position of the retreating forces. The rain poured down in torrents; gusts of cold and stormy wind swept across the wide plains, or moaned sorrowfully through the dense forest. As I rode on by the side of my companion, I could not help remarking how little the effects of a fatiguing march and unfavorable weather were apparent on those around me. The spirit of excited gayety pervaded every rank; and unlike the stern features which the discipline of our service enforces, the French soldiers were talking, laughing and even singing, as they marched; the canteens pa.s.sed freely from hand to hand, and jests and toasts flew from front to rear along the dark columns; many carried their loaves of dark rye-bread on the tops of their bayonets; and to look upon that noisy and tumultuous ma.s.s as they poured along, it would have needed a practised eye to believe them the most disciplined of European armies.

The sun was just setting, as mounting a ridge of high land beside the high road, my companion pointed with his finger to a small farm-house, which, standing alone in the plain, commands an extensive view on every side of it.

"There," said he,--"there is the _quartier general_; the Emperor sleeps there to-night. The King of Holland will afford him a bed to-morrow night."

The dark shadows of the coming night were rapidly falling as I strained my eyes to trace the British position. A hollow, rumbling sound announced the movement of artillery in our front.

"What is it, Arnotte?" said the quartermaster to a dragoon officer who rode past.

"It is nothing," replied the other, laughing, "but a _ruse_ of the Emperor.

He wishes to ascertain if the enemy are in force, or if we have only a strong rear-guard before us."

As he spoke fifteen heavy guns opened there fire, and the still air reverberated with a loud thunder. The sound had not died away, the very smoke lay yet heavily upon the moist earth, when forty pieces of British cannon rang out their answer, and the very plain trembled beneath the shock.

"Ha, they are there, then!" exclaimed the dragoon, as his eyes flashed with ecstasy. "Look! see! the artillery are limbering up already. The Emperor is satisfied."

And so it was. A dark column of twelve hundred horse that accompanied the guns into the plain, now wheeled slowly round, and wound their long track far away to the right. The rain fell in torrents; the wind was hushed; and as the night fell in darkness, the columns moved severally to their destinations. The bivouacs were formed; the watch-fires were lighted; and seventy thousand men and two hundred pieces of cannon occupied the heights of Planchenoit.

"My orders are to bring you to La Caillon," said the quartermaster; "and if you only can spur your jaded horse into a trot, we shall soon reach it."

About a hundred yards from the little farm-house, stood a small cottage of a peasant. Here some officers of Marshal Soult's staff had taken up their quarters; and thither my guide now bent his steps.

"Comment, Bonnard!" said an aide-de-camp, as we rode up. "Another prisoner?

_Sacrebleu!_ We shall have the whole British staff among us. You are in better luck than your countryman, the general, I hope," said the aide-decamp. "His is a sad affair; and I'm sorry for it, too. He's a fine, soldier-like looking fellow."