The Sword of Honor Part 60

"The Austrian general, as I foresaw, surprised by our march which has taken from him the offensive, has changed his plan of battle by making his infantry fall back half way upon the plateau of Geisberg. We must haste to profit by the hesitation into which this discreet retreat will have thrown the enemy." Then, addressing one of the artillery officers, Hoche added: "Citizen, order General Ferino to push out with the cavalry and flying artillery of his division. His cannoniers are to open fire upon the enemy's squadrons, and when they weaken, he is to send in his cavalry."

The officer left at a gallop to convey the order to Ferino, who commanded the advance guard. The republican army was drawn up in three columns, the cavalry on the right, the infantry in the center, and the artillery on the left, with the reserves, the supplies and the ambulances in second line. Suddenly a distant booming, deep and prolonged, resounded on the left, in the direction of Nothweiller, and Hoche exclaimed:

"The cannon! The cannon! Gonvion St. Cyr has followed my orders! He is pouring out of the valley of the Lauter and attacking Brunswick's position. There are the Prussians engaged. They will hardly bring aid to the Austrians now! If Desaix has carried out his movement as well, and attacked Conde's body at Lauterburg, the Austrian army is thrown on its own resources. The Lines of Weissenburg are ours, and we shall raise the siege of Landau!"

At that moment General Ferino, in response to Hoche's orders, advanced at a rapid trot at the head of his cavalry and artillery. Beside the General rode Lebas, the Representative of the people on mission to the armies. Recognizing the importance of this first charge for the success of the day, he desired to a.s.sist Hoche, and to march in the front rank.

"On, my brave Ferino," called Hoche to the General as he swept by.

"First shatter the Austrian cavalry with your cannon, and then--a taste of your saber for them!"

"Count on me, General. I'll send the white-cloaks to drink in the Lauter, whether they are thirsty or not," replied Ferino; and waving his sword he turned towards his cohorts and gave the cry:

"Forward, my children, forward! Long live the Republic!"

"Long live the Republic!" shouted back the cavalrymen, flashing their swords in the air as they thundered past Hoche. "Our comrades have retaken Toulon--we shall free Landau!"

"Soldiers," called Hoche, "show yourselves worthy of your past victories. The Republic counts on the Army of the Rhine and Moselle! To victory or death!"

The battle was on. General Ferino's artillery mowed down the Austrian cavalry, Wurmser's first line. Profiting by their disorder, gathering up his squadrons and hurling them with himself at their head upon the enemy, Ferino overthrew the forces which opposed him, and carried his mounted sabers right into the infantry squares of the second line. Then Hoche flung his attacking column upon Wurmser's center, while that general's left wing fell under the fire of several batteries of flying artillery. One of these batteries, consisting of six four-pounders, had taken position on an eminence where lay a solitary farmhouse. From this hillock it was possible to rake the Austrian's left flank from the rear.

A squadron of the Third Hussars and two companies of the Seventh Battalion, Paris Volunteers, were detached to act as guard to this artillery. The captain of the battery, on reconnoitering his position, found that the farmhouse and its buildings occupied nearly the center of a mound about three hundred paces in diameter. Toward the enemy the hill presented a rapid rise of some thirty feet, while on the side of the republican army it was nearly level with the plain occupied by the reserves. A thicket of trees and live brush extended to the right and a little to the rear of the battery's position. The inhabitants of the place had fled with the opening of the engagement, carrying with them their cattle and all their more valuable belongings. One by one the iron spit-fires arrived to take their position in the battery, the first to appear being Carmagnole, the sweetheart of quartermaster d.u.c.h.emin. This piece, by the almost grotesque cut of its furniture, presented a curious example of the oddity of artillery carriages in those days.

The team drew up with a half-turn, d.u.c.h.emin and his eight a.s.sistants leaped to the ground, and confided their horses to the two artillerymen charged with their care. The pin which coupled the piece proper to the caisson was removed, and there she stood in position on her two wheels, some distance ahead of the caisson, in which the cartridges were kept.

The drivers hurried their horses under shelter of the farmhouse, some fifty paces away. Soon the six spit-fires were in position. The commanders of the squadron of hussars and the two companies of volunteers also took what advantage they could of the lay of the land to protect their men from the fire which an Austrian battery might at any moment be expected to open upon the republican guns. One of the Paris Volunteers' companies was masked in the brush of the little wood just mentioned, in position to fire from under cover in case the enemy should attempt to seize the battery. The other company entrenched itself behind the stone wall which enclosed the courtyard of the farm, and behind the buildings which already acted as cover to the artillery horses.

By the chances of war there were thus reunited among the defenders of the battery Oliver and Victoria, John Lebrenn and Castillon, and finally the young Parisian recruit Duresnel, who also was a member of Captain Martin's company.

"Well, comrade," said Captain Martin to him, "how goes it? Your heart is still whole? Keep up your courage, all will go well."

"So far, captain, things are not going badly. But we must wait for the end--or rather for the beginning, for we haven't begun to fight yet."

"It seems it is going to be warm!" volunteered Castillon. "By my pipe, what a cannonade! That must be comrade d.u.c.h.emin making his Carmagnole spit! Let me see if I can get a glimpse of him over the wall."

Stretching himself on tiptoe, Castillon raised himself sufficiently to cast his eye above the wall, upon the group of cannon, now half enveloped in the smoke of their first volleys. d.u.c.h.emin, kneeling on the ground after conning the hostile battery through his pocket-gla.s.s, was training his piece, already roughly aimed by a brigadier, while his a.s.sistants on either side, armed with their ramrods, sponges and levers, stood ready for action. One of them held the match, waiting for the order to light the fuse. The other five pieces, ranged parallel to Carmagnole, were likewise surrounded by their attendants and being sighted by their under-officers. The captain of artillery and his lieutenants, on horseback, superintended the manoeuvring. In the distance the Austrian lines and the advancing columns of the French were lost almost completely in the smoke and smother of the now general cannonade. Nevertheless, the watchers on the hill soon perceived a large ma.s.s of opposing infantry so cut up and thrown into disorder by the relentless and accurate fire of the battery, that the Austrian general was moving up four howitzers and four six-pounders, with the intention of crippling the republican artillery. Seeing with his gla.s.s the first howitzer advance to the left from the enemy's battery, d.u.c.h.emin at once carefully re-trained his Carmagnole, shook his fist in the howitzer's direction, and growled under his heavy moustache, alluding to the short and stocky build of those pieces:

"Ah, it is you who would presume to silence my Carmagnole, stump-nose!

I'll show you that you were never cast to clip my sweetheart's words!"

Just then, in response to a sign from the captain, the trumpeter of the battery sounded the signal to "Fire!"

"Come, my cadet," cried d.u.c.h.emin to the soldier with the burning match, "the soup is ready--all we need is to serve it! Light her! light her!

Let her go!"

The cannonier touched off the fuse with his match, and Carmagnole's discharge rang out several seconds ahead of the general volley of the battery. Gazing again through his field-gla.s.s to watch the effect of his sh.e.l.l, d.u.c.h.emin cried out: "There she is! The stump-nose is knocked off one wheel, and two of her flunkies are keeled over. Long live the Republic!"

In fact, Carmagnole's ball had crushed one of the wheels of the howitzer and knocked down two of the Austrian artillerists an instant before the hostile battery had gotten in its first shot. But almost immediately the enemy's guns were crowned with several little clouds of white smoke, lighted up with streaks of flame. A prolonged roar reached the Frenchmen, and d.u.c.h.emin exclaimed, turning towards the stone wall where the volunteer infantrymen were entrenched:

"Citizens, look out for the sh.e.l.ls!"

Hardly had d.u.c.h.emin sounded the warning when the rain of iron was upon them; the b.a.l.l.s screamed, the sh.e.l.ls rebounded and burst. The commander of the little republican battery was cut in two by a flying sh.e.l.l; horse and rider went down mangled before the shot. Another sh.e.l.l burst between two cannon, killing one of their crew and wounding two others so severely that they fell and with difficulty dragged themselves to the ambulance sheltered behind the farmhouse.

"Cannoniers! Load at will! Aim for the howitzers!" cried the first lieutenant, a.s.suming command. The trumpet repeated the order through its metal throat. The artillerymen vied with one another in haste to charge their pieces. Then cries of "Fire! Fire!" rang out from the farmhouse, which suddenly became enveloped in thick black smoke. A sh.e.l.l exploding in a hay loft had set the blaze.

"In one way that little bonfire isn't bad," said Castillon, "for it is deuced cold. But too much is too much, and now we're going to roast."

And catching sight of the volunteer Duresnel, pale, propping himself up with his gun, his lips working as though he would talk, though no sound proceeded from them, Castillon continued: "Well, neighbor, here we are, 'wo'd of honor;' but what the devil do you see back there to make your eyes pop out so?" So saying, Castillon followed Duresnel's fixed and frightened stare, and what he saw made him pull the young volunteer toward him, with the words: "Come, comrade, do not look that way. You haven't got the hang of the thing yet. That is the fortune of war."

"My heaven," stammered Duresnel, as he followed Castillon's advice. "My heaven, it is horrible! Poor victims!"

A ball, rebounding on the inner face of the stone wall, had struck the lines of volunteers sheltered there, killing and maiming all in its path. The dead and wounded weltered in blood. Captain Martin, struck by the spent ball near the end of its course, had been knocked down, but only bruised on the shoulder. Soon recovering from the shock, he lent his aid to the soldiers of his company, John Lebrenn among them, to help or carry the wounded to the surgeons' post in the rear. These at once gave their care to the cannoniers and to some hussars of the Third, among whom a sh.e.l.l had also wrought its havoc.

Undaunted by these disasters, the republican artillery continued to work marvels. At last the opposing commander, fearing lest his right wing be annihilated, sent word to the regiment of the Gerolstein Cuira.s.siers to storm the battery. Up to this time masked behind a hill, this regiment of heavy reserve cavalry had taken no part in the conflict. They were part of the contingent put by the princ.i.p.ality of Gerolstein at the service of the Germanic Confederation, and were commanded by the Grand Duke himself. This prince was the father of Franz of Gerolstein, whom he held immured in a state dungeon. In spite of his sixty-and-odd years, the old Grand Duke preserved the freshness and buoyancy of youth; to his natural bravery he now added the incentive of hatred for the Revolution.

The Count of Plouernel, having made good his second escape from Paris, and now for some time married to the daughter of the Prince of Holtzern, was second in command. The hors.e.m.e.n of this troop wore a cuira.s.s and helmet of steel, over a livery in the Grand Duke's colors--bright blue with orange facings--with heavy boots, and white wool trousers. In short, the regiment was one of the best equipped and finest in the allied army. The rank and file, l.u.s.ty fellows in the prime of life, warlike, well drilled, well clad, well fed and well paid, pampered up, in short, like a troop of the chosen, were typical 'soldiers of monarchy.' Disciplined by their officers with the cane, after the German fashion, they were the instrument of their master's will, ready to saber father, mother, brother or fellow-citizen, or to march upon the enemy, with equal indifference, killing merely because some one said "Kill!" or falling in the onslaught because some one said "Forward!" On the right of the regiment rode the Grand Duke, a robust man, tall of frame, and hard and proud of feature. His face was half concealed under the visor of his helmet, which was surmounted with a rich plume of heron feathers. The gentlemen and officers of his household rode somewhat apart from him, while he himself held the following conversation with the Count of Plouernel, who now bore the uniform of a colonel of cuira.s.siers:

"Count, I saw the Prince of Conde yesterday on his way through Weissenburg to take up quarters at Lauterburg. 'The Republic,' he said to me, 'is no longer betrayed by its generals. _Our goose is cooked!_'

The Prince's observation was sound; I look forward to a series of reverses to our arms. In case I am killed in to-day's battle, do not forget the promise you have given me. Go to my son Franz, in the prison where he lies; tell him that my last thoughts were curses upon him.

Then," the Grand Duke added, with a sinister air, "see that justice takes its course with him. My highest court has judged and condemned my unworthy son; he is convicted of a revolutionary plot against the safety of my states, and against my person. He has incurred the penalty of death--the sentence is to be executed with the briefest possible delay.

My nephew Otto, whose cousin you married, is to inherit my grand-ducal crown. All the bequests, minutely set forth in my testament, are to be fully carried out."

"Drive away these dark thoughts, monseigneur," replied the Count. "You will reign a long time yet, and decide all these matters for yourself."

The word to advance was given, and the Gerolstein regiment, the Grand Duke at its head, set out at a round trot. The ground shook under the hoofs of its eight hundred horses; the rattle of its sabers, muskets and breastplates made a formidable din. Two hundred rods away rose the hillock on whose brow scowled the republican battery that now menaced every foot of the plain the cuira.s.siers were advancing over. Unable to outflank the battery, owing to its being protected to the right by the little wood and to the left by the semi-demolished farm buildings, the Grand Duke could see nothing for it but to charge right into the muzzles of the cannon which he hoped to capture, little thinking that they were supported by both infantry and cavalry so cunningly disposed that he was prevented from detecting them.

"The republican position is too strong, monseigneur, to be attacked in front," said the Count of Plouernel, "and yet it would be difficult to try to turn its flank."

"I am resolved to take it in front," replied the Grand Duke. "I rely on the courage of my cuira.s.siers. Here we are within short range of their cannon, and those fellows do not fire."

"They await our closer approach, that their discharge may be the more deadly."

"Then let us close up the distance, and start the action," exclaimed the Grand Duke.

The trumpets sounded the charge. Formed in a narrow column, to offer less front to the republican fire, the troop trotted rapidly forward.

Then, at two hundred paces from the hill, they spread out into two lines, and, at the Grand Duke's command, spurred their steeds to a gallop. In this order, and uttering loud huzzahs, they reached the foot of the hill. Here their impetuous advance was checked by the steep rise they had to surmount in order to reach the summit and the guns. They discharged their muskets at the cannoniers of the battery, whose pieces, pointed straight down the hill, and till this minute dumb, now spoke out with a fearful volley of shot and sh.e.l.l. The Paris Volunteers, placed as sharpshooters in the fringes of the woody thicket, rained upon their a.s.sailants a storm of bullets which mingled with the fire of the other company cloaked in the courtyard of the farmhouse. The rain of lead and iron being especially trained on the steeds of the first advancing line, these fell or stumbled, rolled over on their riders, and threw the second line into such disorder that in spite of its momentum it was forced to waver and flee. The Grand Duke ordered a retreat on the gallop, in order to reform his ranks out of range.

Repeated cries of "Long live the Republic!" greeted the retreat. The German musketry-fire had gone over the heads of the French; only a few were wounded. All hastened to reload their pieces. The volunteers threw fresh cartridges into their guns, in order to receive the second charge of the enemy. The cuira.s.siers, galled and goaded by the desire to retrieve their first set-back, reformed while describing a wide circuit on the plain. Then, led on by the example of the impetuous Grand Duke, they came on again, not this time in wide front, but in still narrower column. Again they reached the rise of the hill, bending low over their horses' manes, and belaboring the animals with boot and spur. They received the new volley of artillery almost point blank, but still almost immediately gained the top of the eminence, the Grand Duke in the lead. They found themselves awaited by the two companies of volunteers, formed in a hollow square about the cannon, whose attendants were furiously reloading them. Of the three ranks which formed the square, the first was on one knee; the others were erect, their bodies bent forward, guns at position; ready to let fly at the command of Captain Martin.

Solemn silence reigned among the volunteers as they saw, some thirty paces from them, the Grand Duke of Gerolstein gain the summit of their hillock, flanked on one side by a colossus in casque and cuira.s.s bearing the regimental standard, and followed by several officers of his military household.

Castillon, who was in the second line, with John Lebrenn half kneeling before him, and the new volunteer Duresnel behind, said to the former, sotto voice:

"Friend John, let us unite to bowl over that drum-major on horseback with the flag. What say you? Let us fire together."

"I am with you. Take the man--I shall aim for the horse."

"Citizens, I also shall aim at the giant," said Duresnel, in his reed-like voice; "if you will permit, I shall be of your party."

At that moment Captain Martin saw behind the Grand Duke, their bodies half over the brow of the hill, the first rank of cuira.s.siers. Only then, the cavalry being exposed, did he give the order: "Citizens!

Attention! Pick each his man! Aim! Fire!"

"Onward, cuira.s.siers! Saber this canaille!" shouted the Grand Duke, urging his horse to a great leap in order to reach the serried square.