The Great White Army Part 1

The Great White Army.

by Max Pemberton.

AUTHOR'S NOTE

_The greatest military tragedy in history is the retreat of Napoleon's Grand Army from Moscow. Napoleon set out to invade Russia in the spring of the year 1812. In the month of June 600,000 men crossed the River Niemen. Of this vast army, but 20,000 "famished, frost-bitten spectres" staggered across the Bridge of Kovno in the month of December._

_Many pens have described, with more or less fidelity, the details of this unsurpa.s.sable tragedy. The story which we are now about to represent to our readers is that of Surgeon-Major Constant, a veteran who accompanied Napoleon to Moscow, and was one of the survivors who returned ultimately to Paris. Constant had fled from Paris at the beginning of the French Revolution in the year 1792. He lived for a while at Leipsic, where he gave lessons in French and studied medicine.

His nephew, Captain Leon de Courcelles, was one of the famous Velites of the Guard. It is with the exploits of this young and daring soldier that the veteran's narrative is often concerned._

CHAPTER I

THE WOMAN ON THE STAIRS

I

I, Janil de Constant, remember very well the moment when we first beheld the glorious city of Moscow, which we had marched twelve thousand leagues to take.

It would have been the fourteenth day of September. The sun shone fiercely upon our splendid cavalcade, and even in the forests, which we now quitted very willingly, there were oases of light like golden lakes in a wonderland.

It was half-past three o'clock when I myself reached the Mont du Salut, a hill from whose summit the traveller first looks down upon the city.

And what a spectacle to see! What domes and minarets and mighty towers! What a mingling of East and West, of Oriental beauty and the stately splendour of a European capital! You will not wonder that our men drew rein to gaze with awe upon so transcendent a spectacle. This was Mecca truly. Here they would end their labours and here lay their reward.

We thought, with reason surely, that there would be no more talk of war. The Russians had learned their lesson at Borodino, and all that remained for the Russian Tsar to do was to make peace with our Emperor.

Meanwhile there would be many days of holiday such as we had not known since we left France. The riches of this city pa.s.sed the fables, they told us. You will imagine with what feelings the advance posts of the Guard set out to descend the hill and take up their quarters in the governor's palace.

I had hoped to enter Moscow with my nephew Leon, who is one of the Velites of the Guard. I wished to be near that young man at so critical a moment. Even old soldiers lose their heads when they enter an enemy's city, and what could one expect of the young ones? Leon, however, had ridden on with Major Pavart, of the _cha.s.seurs a cheval_, and so it was with old Sergeant Bourgogne, of the Velites, that I entered Moscow and began to think of quarters.

We heard some shots as we went down into the town, and when we came to that broad street which leads to the Place du Gouvernement, a soldier of the line told us that the governor had released the convicts and that they were holding the palace against our outposts. We thought very little of the matter at the time, and were more concerned to admire the magnificence of the street and the beauty of many of its houses. These, it appeared, belonged to the n.o.bility, but we began to perceive that none of the princely owners had remained in Moscow, and that only a few servants occupied these mansions. Many of the latter watched us as we rode by, and at the corner of the great square one of them, a dandy fellow with mincing gait, had the temerity to catch my horse by the bridle and to hold him while he told me that his name was Heriot, and that he had left Paris with the Count of Provence in the year 1790.

"You are a surgeon, are you not?" he went on before I had time to exclaim upon his effrontery. Amazed, I told him that I was.

"Then," said he, "be good enough to come into yonder house and see to one of your own men who is lying there."

I suppose it was a proper thing for the fellow to ask me, yet the _navete_ of it brought a smile to my lips.

"Bon garcon," said I, "you must have many surgeons of your own in Moscow. Why ask me, who am on my way to the Emperor?"

"Because," he said, still holding the bridle, "you will not regret your visit, monsieur. This is a rich house: they will know how to pay you for your services."

There was something mysterious about this remark which excited my curiosity, and turning my horse aside I permitted him to lead it into the stable courtyard. It was to be observed that he slammed the great gate quickly behind us, and bolted it with great bars of iron which would almost have defied artillery. Then he tethered my horse to a pillar and bade me follow him. It was just at the moment when the band of the Fusiliers began to play a lively air and many thousands of our infantry pressed on into the square.

II

We entered the house itself by a wicket upon the left-hand side, which should have led to the kitchens.

It was here, perhaps, that I thought it not a little extraordinary, and it may be somewhat less than prudent, that I, who should have been already at the gates of the palace, had turned aside at the mere nod of this dandy to enter a house of whose people I knew nothing.

Nevertheless, it was the case, and I reflected that if one of my own countrymen were indeed in distress, then was the delay not ill-timed.

We were at the foot of a cold stone staircase by this time, and I observed that the lackey began to mount it with some caution. There was no sound in the house, and when presently we emerged in the gallery of a vast hall the place had all the air of a church which has been long closed.

Here for the first time I discovered the purpose for which I had been brought to the place. A man lay dead upon the flags of the gallery, and it was clear that he had died by a bullet from the pistol which was flung down at his side.

Thousands of men had I seen die since we crossed the River Niemen, yet the sight of this mere youth lying dead upon the flags afflicted me strangely. Perchance it was the great cold hall, or the dim light which filtered through its heavy windows, or the silence of that immense house and all the suggestions of mystery which attended it. Be it as it may, I had less than my usual resource when I knelt by the young man's side and made that brief examination which quickly convinced me that he was dead. The dandy, meanwhile, stood near by taking prodigious pinches of snuff from a box edged with diamonds. His unconcern was remarkable. I could make nothing of such a picture.

"Who is this youth?" I asked him.

He shrugged his shoulders and took another pinch of the snuff.

"One of your own countrymen, as I say--an artist from Frejus who is in the service of my lord, the prince."

"How did he die, then?"

The dandy averted his eyes. Then he said:

"I returned from the great square ten minutes ago and found him here.

You can see as well as I that he shot himself."

"That is not true," I rejoined, looking at him sternly. "Men do not shoot themselves in the middle of the back!"

He was still unconcerned.

"Very well, then," he retorted; "someone must have shot him." And almost upon the words he turned as white as a sheet.

"Listen," he cried in a loud whisper; "did you not hear them?"

I listened and certainly heard the sound of voices.

It came through an open door at the far end of the gallery and rose in a sharp crescendo, which seemed to say that men were quarrelling.

"Who is in the house?" I asked the fellow.

"I do not know," he said gravely enough. "There should be no one here but ourselves. Perhaps you will be good enough to see. You are a soldier; it is your business."

I laughed at his impudence, and having looked to the priming of my pistol, I caught him suddenly by the arm and pushed him on ahead of me.

Justly or not, it had flashed upon me that this might be a trap. Yet why it should be so or what it had to do with a surgeon-major of the Guards I knew no more than the dead.

"We will go together," said I; and so I pushed him down the corridor.

My presence seemed to give him courage. He entered the room with me, and before a man could have counted three he fell headlong with a great gash in his throat that all the surgeons in the French army could not have st.i.tched up.