The Bronze Eagle Part 44

It was deserted, of course, as all isolated cottages and houses had been in the vicinity of Quatre Bras or Mont Saint Jean. Bertrand struck a tinder and lighted a tallow candle that stood forlorn on a deal table in the centre of the room. The flickering light revealed a tiny cottage kitchen--hastily abandoned but scrupulously clean--white-washed walls, a red-tiled floor, the iron hearth, the painted dresser decorated with white crockery, shiny tin pans hung in rows against the walls and two or three rush chairs. Napoleon sat down.

"I again entreat you, Sire--" began Berthier more earnestly than before.

But the Emperor was staring straight out before him, with eyes that apparently saw something beyond that rough white wall opposite, on which the flickering candle-light threw such weird gargantuan shadows. The precious minutes sped on: minutes wherein death or capture strode with giant steps across the fields of Flanders to this lonely cottage where the once mightiest ruler in Europe sat dreaming of what might have been.

The silence of the night was broken by the thunder of flying horses'

hoofs, by the cries of "Sauve qui peut!" and distant volleys of artillery proclaiming from far away that Death had not finished all his work yet.

Bertrand and Berthier stood by, with heads uncovered: silent, moody and anxious.

Suddenly the dreamer roused himself for a moment and spoke abruptly and with his usual peremptory impatience: "De Marmont," he said. "Has either of you seen him?"

"Not lately, Sire," replied Colonel Bertrand, "not since five o'clock at any rate."

"What was he doing then?"

"He was riding furiously in the direction of Nivelles. I shouted to him.

He told me that he was making for Brussels by a circuitous way."

"Ah! that is right! Well done, my brave de Marmont! Braver than your treacherous kinsman ever was! So you saw him, did you, Bertrand? Did he tell you that he had just come from Genappe?"

"Yes, Sire, he did," replied Bertrand moodily. "He told me that by your orders he had sent a messenger from there to Paris with news of your victory: and that by to-morrow morning the capital would be ringing with enthusiasm and with cheers."

"And by the time de Marmont came back from Genappe," interposed the Prince of Wagram with a sneer, "the plains of Waterloo were ringing with the Grand Army's '_Sauve qui peut!_'"

"An episode, Prince, only an episode!" said Napoleon with an angry frown of impatience. "To hear you now one would imagine that Essling had never been. We have been beaten back, of course, but for the moment the world does not know that. Paris to-morrow will be be-flagged and the bells of Notre Dame will send forth their joyous peals to cheer the hearts of my people. And in Brussels this afternoon thousands of our enemies--Belgians, Dutch, Hanoverians, Brunswickers--were rushing helter-skelter into the town--demoralised and disorganised after that brilliant charge of our cuira.s.siers against the Allied left."

"Would to G.o.d the British had been among them too," murmured old Colonel Bertrand. "But for their stand . . ."

"And a splendid stand it was. Ah! but for that. . . . To think that if Grouchy had kept the Prussians away, in only another hour we . . ."

The dreamer paused in his dream of the might have been: then he continued more calmly:

"But I was not thinking of that just now. I was thinking of those who fled to Brussels this afternoon with the news of our victory and of Wellington's defeat."

"Even then the truth is known in Brussels by now," protested Berthier.

"Yes! but not before de Marmont has had the time and the pluck to save us and our Empire! . . . Berthier," he continued more vehemently, "don't stand there so gloomy, man . . . and you, too, my old Bertrand. . . .

Surely, surely you have realised that at this terrible juncture we must utilise every circ.u.mstance which is in our favour. . . . That early news of our victory . . . we can make use of that. . . . A big throw in this mighty game, but we can do it . . . Berthier, do you see how we can do it . . . ?"

"No, Sire, I confess that I do not," replied the Marshal gloomily.

"You do not see?" retorted the Emperor with a frown of angry impatience.

"De Marmont did--at once--but he is young--and enthusiastic, whereas you. . . . But don't you see that the news of Wellington's defeat must have enormous consequences on the money markets of the world--if only for a few hours? . . . It must send the prices on the foreign Bourses tumbling about people's ears and create an absolute panic on the London Stock Exchange. Only for a few hours of course . . . but do you not see that if any man is wise enough to buy stock in London during that panic he can make a fortune by re-selling the moment the truth is known?"

"Even then, Sire," stammered Berthier, a little confused by this avalanche of seemingly irrelevant facts hurled at him at a moment when the whole map of Europe was being changed by destiny and her future trembled in the hands of G.o.d.

"Ah, de Marmont saw it all . . . at once . . ." continued the Emperor earnestly, "he saw eye to eye with me. He knows that money--a great deal of money--is just what I want now . . . money to reorganise my army, to re-equip and reform it. The Chamber and my Ministers will never give me what I want. . . . My G.o.d! they are such cowards! and some of them would rather see the foreign troops again in Paris than Napoleon Emperor at the Tuileries. You should know that, Marechal, and you, too, my good Bertrand. De Marmont knows it . . . that is why he rode to Brussels at the hour when I alone knew that all was lost at Waterloo, but when half Europe still thought that the Corsican ogre had conquered again. . . .

De Marmont is in Brussels now . . . to-night he crosses over to England--to-morrow morning he and his broker will be in the Stock Exchange in London--calm, silent, watchful. An operation on the Bourse, what? like hundreds that have been done before . . . but in this case the object will be to turn one million into fifty so that with it I might rebuild my Empire again."

He spoke with absolute conviction, and with indomitable fervour, sitting here quietly, he--the architect of the mightiest empire of modern days--just as he used to do in the camps at Austerlitz and Jena and Wagram and Friedland--with one clenched hand resting upon the rough deal table, the flickering light of the tallow candle illuminating the wide brow, the heavy jaw, those piercing eyes that still gazed--in this hour of supreme catastrophe--into a glorious future destined never to be--scheming, planning, scheming still, even while his Grand Army was melting into nothingness all around him, and distant volleys of musketry were busy consummating the final annihilation of the Empire which he had created and still hoped to rebuild.

Berthier gave a quick sign of impatience.

Rebuild an Empire, ye G.o.ds!--an Empire!--when the flower of its manhood lies pale and stark like the windrows of corn after the harvester has done his work. Thoughts of a dreamer! Schemes of a visionary! How will the quaking lips which throughout the length and breadth of this vast hecatomb now cry, "Sauve qui peut!" how will they ever intone again the old "Vive l'Empereur!"

The conqueror of Wagram gave a bitter sigh and faithful Bertrand hung his head gloomily; but de Marmont had neither sighed nor doubted: but then de Marmont was young--he too was a dreamer, and an enthusiast and a visionary. His idol in his eyes had never had feet of clay. For him the stricken man was his Emperor still--the architect, the creator, the invincible conqueror--checked for a moment in his glorious work, but able at his will to rebuild the Empire of France again on the very ruins that smouldered now on the fields of Waterloo.

"I can do it, Sire," he had cried exultantly, when his Emperor first expounded his great, new scheme to him. "I can be in Brussels in an hour, and catch the midnight packet for England at Ostend. At dawn I shall be in London, and by ten o'clock at my post. I know a financier--a Jew, and a mightily clever one--he will operate for me. I have a million or two francs invested in England, we'll use these for our operations!

Money, Sire! You shall have millions! Our differences on the Stock Exchange will equip the finest army that even you have ever had! Fifty millions? I'll bring you a hundred! G.o.d has not yet decreed the downfall of the Empire of France!"

So de Marmont had spoken this afternoon in the enthusiasm of his youth and of his hero-worship: and since then the great dreamer had continued to weave his dreams! Nothing was lost, nothing could be lost whilst enthusiasm such as that survived in the hearts of the young.

And still wrapped in his dream he sat on, while danger and death and disgrace threatened him on every side. Berthier and Bertrand entreated in vain, in vain tried to drag him away from this solitary place, where any moment a party of Prussians might find and capture him.

Unceremoniously the Prince of Wagram had blown out the flickering light that might have attracted the attention of the pursuers. It was a very elementary precaution, the only one he or Bertrand was able to take. The horses were out in the yard for anyone to see, and the greatest spoil of victory might at any moment fall into the hands of the meanest Prussian soldier out for loot.

But the dreamer still sat on in the gloom, with the pale light of the moon streaming in through the narrow cas.e.m.e.nt window and illumining that marble-like face, rigid and set, that seemed only to live by the glowing eyes--the eyes that looked into the future and the past and heeded not the awful present.

Close on a quarter of an hour went by until at last he jumped to his feet, with the sudden cry of "To Genappe!"

Berthier heaved a sigh of relief and Bertrand hurried out to unfasten the horses.

"You are impatient, Prince," said the Emperor almost gaily, as he strode with a firm step to the door. "You are afraid those cursed Prussians will put the Corsican ogre into a cage and send him at once to His Victorious Bourbon Majesty King Louis XVIII. Not so, my good Berthier, not so. The Star of my Destiny has not yet declined. I've done all the thinking I wanted to do. Now we'll to Genappe, where we'll rally the remnants of our army and then quietly await de Marmont's return with the millions which we want. After that we'll boldly on to Paris and defy my enemies there . . . En avant, Marechal! the Corsican ogre is not in the iron cage yet!"

Outside Bertrand was holding his stirrup for him. He swung himself lightly in the saddle and turned out of the farmyard gate into the open, throwing back his head and sniffing the storm-laden air as if he was about to lead his army to one of his victorious charges. Not waiting to see how close the other two men followed him, he put his horse at once at a gallop.

He rode on--never pausing--never looking round even on that gigantic desolation which the cold light of the moon weirdly and fitfully revealed--his mind was fixed upon a fresh throw on the gaming table of the world.

Overhead the storm-driven clouds chased one another with unflagging fury across the moonlit sky, now obscuring, now revealing that gigantic dissolution of the Grand Army, so like the melting of ice and frost under the fierce kiss of the sun.

More than men in an attack, less than women in a retreat, the finest cavalry Europe had ever seen was flying like sand before the wind: but the somnambulist rode on in his sleep, forgetting that on these vast and billowing fields twenty-six thousand gallant French heroes had died for the sake of his dreams.

Bertrand and the Prince of Wagram followed--gloomy and silent--they knew that all suggestions would be useless, all saner advice remain unheeded.

Besides, de Marmont had gone, and after all, what did it all matter?

What did anything matter, now that Empire, glory, hope, everything were irretrievably lost?

And in faithful Bertrand's deep-set eyes there came a strange, far-off look, almost of premonition, as if in his mind he could already see that lonely island rock in the Atlantic, and the great gambler there, eating out his heart with vain and bitter regrets.

II

But de Marmont had never had any doubts, never any forebodings: he only had boundless faith in his hero and boundless enthusiasm for his cause.

Accustomed to handle money since early manhood, owner of a vast fortune which he had administered himself with no mean skill, he had no doubt that the Emperor's scheme for manufacturing a few millions in a wild gamble on the Stock Exchange was not only feasible but certain of success.

Undoubtedly the false news of Wellington's defeat would reach London to-morrow, as it had already reached Paris and Brussels. The panic in the money market was a foregone conclusion: the quick rise in prices when the truth became known was equally certain. It only meant forestalling the arrival of Wellington's despatches in London by four and twenty hours, and one million would make fifty during that time.

As de Marmont had told his Emperor, he had several hundred thousand pounds invested in England, on which he could lay his hands: operations on the Bourse were nothing new to him: and already while he was still listening with respect and enthusiasm to his Emperor's instructions, he was longing to get away. He knew the country well between here and Brussels, and he was wildly longing to be at work, to be flying across the low-lying land, on to Brussels and then across to England in the wake of the awful news of complete disaster.

He would steal the uniform of some poor dead wretch--a Belgium or a Hanoverian or a black Brunswicker, he didn't care which--it wouldn't take long to strip the dead, and the greatness of the work at stake would justify the sacrilege. In the uniform of one of the Allied army he could safely continue his journey to Brussels, and with luck could reach the city long before sunset.