The Downfall

When Jean and Maurice appeared before him the officer, who was holding outstretched his hand filled, as usual, with louis, drew it back.

“Neither of you fellows is a sergeant. No one except sergeants is entitled to receive the money.” Then, in haste to be done with his task, he changed his mind: “Never mind, though; here, you corporal, take this. Step lively, now. Next man!”

And he dropped the gold coins into the kepi that Jean held out to him. The latter, oppressed by the magnitude of the amount, nearly six hundred francs, insisted that Maurice should take one-half. No one could say what might happen; they might be parted from each other.

They made the division in the garden, before the ambulance, and when they had concluded their financial business they entered, having recognized on the straw near the entrance the drummer-boy of their company, Bastian, a fat, good-natured little fellow, who had had the ill-luck to receive a spent ball in the groin about five o’clock the day before, when the battle was ended. He had been dying by inches for the last twelve hours.

In the dim, white light of morning, at that hour of awakening, the sight of the ambulance sent a chill of horror through them. Three more patients had died during the night, without anyone being aware of it, and the attendants were hurriedly bearing away the corpses in order to make room for others. Those who had been operated on the day before opened wide their eyes in their somnolent, semi-conscious state, and looked with dazed astonishment on that vast dormitory of suffering, where the victims of the knife, only half-slaughtered, rested on their straw. It was in vain that some attempts had been made the night before to clean up the room after the bloody work of the operations; there were great splotches of blood on the ill-swept floor; in a bucket of water a great sponge was floating, stained with red, for all the world like a human brain; a hand, its fingers crushed and broken, had been overlooked and lay on the floor of the shed. It was the parings and trimmings of the human butcher shop, the horrible waste and refuse that ensues upon a day of slaughter, viewed in the cold, raw light of dawn.

Bouroche, who, after a few hours of repose, had already resumed his duties, stopped in front of the wounded drummer-boy, Bastian, then passed on with an imperceptible shrug of his shoulders. A hopeless case; nothing to be done. The lad had opened his eyes, however, and emerging from the comatose state in which he had been lying, was eagerly watching a sergeant who, his kepi filled with gold in his hand, had come into the room to see if there were any of his men among those poor wretches. He found two, and to each of them gave twenty francs. Other sergeants came in, and the gold began to fall in showers upon the straw, among the dying men. Bastian, who had managed to raise himself, stretched out his two hands, even then shaking in the final agony.

“Don’t forget me! don’t forget me!”

The sergeant would have passed on and gone his way, as Bouroche had done. What good could money do there? Then yielding to a kindly impulse, he threw some coins, never stopping to count them, into the poor hands that were already cold.

“Don’t forget me! don’t forget me!”

Bastian fell backward on his straw. For a long time he groped with stiffening fingers for the elusive gold, which seemed to avoid him. And thus he died.

“The gentleman has blown his candle out; good-night!” said a little, black, wizened zouave, who occupied the next bed. “It’s vexatious, when one has the wherewithal to pay for wetting his whistle!”

He had his left foot done up in splints. Nevertheless he managed to raise himself on his knees and elbows and in this posture crawl over to the dead man, whom he relieved of all his money, forcing open his hands, rummaging among his clothing and the folds of his capote. When he got back to his place, noticing that he was observed, he simply said:

“There’s no use letting the stuff be wasted, is there?”

Maurice, sick at heart in that atmosphere of human distress and suffering, had long since dragged Jean away. As they passed out through the shed where the operations were performed they saw Bouroche preparing to amputate the leg of a poor little man of twenty, without chloroform, he having been unable to obtain a further supply of the anaesthetic. And they fled, running, so as not to hear the poor boy’s shrieks.

Delaherche, who came in from the street just then, beckoned to them and shouted:

“Come upstairs, come, quick! we are going to have breakfast. The cook has succeeded in procuring some milk, and it is well she did, for we are all in great need of something to warm our stomachs.” And notwithstanding his efforts to do so, he could not entirely repress his delight and exultation. With a radiant countenance he added, lowering his voice: “It is all right this time. General de Wimpffen has set out again for the German headquarters to sign the capitulation.”

Ah, how much those words meant to him, what comfort there was in them, what relief! his horrid nightmare dispelled, his property saved from destruction, his daily life to be resumed, under changed conditions, it is true, but still it was to go on, it was not to cease! It was little Rose who had told him of the occurrences of the morning at the Sous-Prefecture; the girl had come hastening through the streets, now somewhat less choked than they had been, to obtain a supply of bread from an aunt of hers who kept a baker’s shop in the quarter; it was striking nine o’clock. As early as eight General de Wimpffen had convened another council of war, consisting of more than thirty generals, to whom he related the results that had been reached so far, the hard conditions imposed by the victorious foe, and his own fruitless efforts to secure a mitigation of them. His emotion was such that his hands shook like a leaf, his eyes were suffused with tears. He was still addressing the assemblage when a colonel of the German staff presented himself, on behalf of General von Moltke, to remind them that, unless a decision were arrived at by ten o’clock, their guns would open fire on the city of Sedan. With this horrible alternative before them the council could do nothing save authorize the general to proceed once more to the Chateau of Bellevue and accept the terms of the victors. He must have accomplished his mission by that time, and the entire French army were prisoners of war.

When she had concluded her narrative Rose launched out into a detailed account of the tremendous excitement the tidings had produced in the city. At the Sous-Prefecture she had seen officers tear the epaulettes from their shoulders, weeping meanwhile like children. Cavalrymen had thrown their sabers from the Pont de Meuse into the river; an entire regiment of cuirassiers had passed, each man tossing his blade over the parapet and sorrowfully watching the water close over it. In the streets many soldiers grasped their muskets by the barrel and smashed them against a wall, while there were artillerymen who removed the mechanism from the mitrailleuses and flung it into the sewer. Some there were who buried or burned the regimental standards. In the Place Turenne an old sergeant climbed upon a gate-post and harangued the throng as if he had suddenly taken leave of his senses, reviling the leaders, stigmatizing them as poltroons and cowards. Others seemed as if dazed, shedding big tears in silence, and others also, it must be confessed (and it is probable that they were in the majority), betrayed by their laughing eyes and pleased expression the satisfaction they felt at the change in affairs. There was an end to their suffering at last; they were prisoners of war, they could not be obliged to fight any more! For so many days they had been distressed by those long, weary marches, with never food enough to satisfy their appetite! And then, too, they were the weaker; what use was there in fighting? If their chiefs had betrayed them, had sold them to the enemy, so much the better; it would be the sooner ended! It was such a delicious thing to think of, that they were to have white bread to eat, were to sleep between sheets!

As Delaherche was about to enter the dining room in company with Maurice and Jean, his mother called to him from above.

“Come up here, please; I am anxious about the colonel.”

M. de Vineuil, with wide-open eyes, was talking rapidly and excitedly of the subject that filled his bewildered brain.

“The Prussians have cut us off from Mezieres, but what matters it! See, they have outmarched us and got possession of the plain of Donchery; soon they will be up with the wood of la Falizette and flank us there, while more of them are coming up along the valley of the Givonne. The frontier is behind us; let us kill as many of them as we can and cross it at a bound. Yesterday, yes, that is what I would have advised – ”

At that moment his burning eyes lighted on Delaherche. He recognized him; the sight seemed to sober him and dispel the hallucination under which he was laboring, and coming back to the terrible reality, he asked for the third time:

“It is all over, is it not?”

The manufacturer explosively blurted out the expression of his satisfaction; he could not restrain it.

“Ah, yes, God be praised! it is all over, completely over. The capitulation must be signed by this time.”

The colonel raised himself at a bound to a sitting posture, notwithstanding his bandaged foot; he took his sword from the chair by the bedside where it lay and made an attempt to break it, but his hands trembled too violently, and the blade slipped from his fingers.

“Look out! he will cut himself!” Delaherche cried in alarm. “Take that thing away from him; it is dangerous!”

Mme. Delaherche took possession of the sword. With a feeling of compassionate respect for the poor colonel’s grief and despair she did not conceal it, as her son bade her do, but with a single vigorous effort snapped it across her knee, with a strength of which she herself would never have supposed her poor old hands capable. The colonel laid himself down again, casting a look of extreme gentleness upon his old friend, who went back to her chair and seated herself in her usual rigid attitude.

In the dining room the cook had meantime served bowls of hot coffee and milk for the entire party. Henriette and Gilberte had awakened, the latter, completely restored by her long and refreshing slumber, with bright eyes and smiling face; she embraced most tenderly her friend, whom she pitied, she said, from the bottom of her heart. Maurice seated himself beside his sister, while Jean, who was unused to polite society, but could not decline the invitation that was extended to him, was Delaherche’s right-hand neighbor. It was Mme. Delaherche’s custom not to come to the table with the family; a servant carried her a bowl, which she drank while sitting by the colonel. The party of five, however, who sat down together, although they commenced their meal in silence, soon became cheerful and talkative. Why should they not rejoice and be glad to find themselves there, safe and sound, with food before them to satisfy their hunger, when the country round about was covered with thousands upon thousands of poor starving wretches? In the cool, spacious dining room the snow-white tablecloth was a delight to the eye and the steaming cafe au lait seemed delicious.

They conversed, Delaherche, who had recovered his assurance and was again the wealthy manufacturer, the condescending patron courting popularity, severe only toward those who failed to succeed, spoke of Napoleon III., whose face as he saw it last continued to haunt his memory. He addressed himself to Jean, having that simple-minded young man as his neighbor. “Yes, sir, the Emperor has deceived me, and I don’t hesitate to say so. His henchmen may put in the plea of mitigating circumstances, but it won’t go down, sir; he is evidently the first, the only cause of our misfortunes.”

He had quite forgotten that only a few months before he had been an ardent Bonapartist and had labored to ensure the success of the plebiscite, and now he who was henceforth to be known as the Man of Sedan was not even worthy to be pitied; he ascribed to him every known iniquity.

“A man of no capacity, as everyone is now compelled to admit; but let that pass, I say nothing of that. A visionary, a theorist, an unbalanced mind, with whom affairs seemed to succeed as long as he had luck on his side. And there’s no use, don’t you see, sir, in attempting to work on our sympathies and excite our commiseration by telling us that he was deceived, that the opposition refused him the necessary grants of men and money. It is he who has deceived us, he whose crimes and blunders have landed us in the horrible muddle where we are.”

Maurice, who preferred to say nothing on the subject, could not help smiling, while Jean, embarrassed by the political turn the conversation had taken and fearful lest he might make some ill-timed remark, simply replied:

“They say he is a brave man, though.”

But those few words, modestly expressed, fairly made Delaherche jump. All his past fear and alarm, all the mental anguish he had suffered, burst from his lips in a cry of concentrated passion, closely allied to hatred.

“A brave man, forsooth; and what does that amount to! Are you aware, sir, that my factory was struck three times by Prussian shells, and that it is no fault of the Emperor’s that it was not burned! Are you aware that I, I shall lose a hundred thousand francs by this idiotic business! No, no; France invaded, pillaged, and laid waste, our industries compelled to shut down, our commerce ruined; it is a little too much, I tell you! One brave man like that is quite sufficient; may the Lord preserve us from any more of them! He is down in the blood and mire, and there let him remain!”

And he made a forcible gesture with his closed fist as if thrusting down and holding under the water some poor wretch who was struggling to save himself, then finished his coffee, smacking his lips like a true gourmand. Gilberte waited on Henriette as if she had been a child, laughing a little involuntary laugh when the latter made some exhibition of absent-mindedness. And when at last the coffee had all been drunk they still lingered on in the peaceful quiet of the great cool dining room.

And at that same hour Napoleon III. was in the weaver’s lowly cottage on the Donchery road. As early as five o’clock in the morning he had insisted on leaving the Sous-Prefecture; he felt ill at ease in Sedan, which was at once a menace and a reproach to him, and moreover he thought he might, in some measure, alleviate the sufferings of his tender heart by obtaining more favorable terms for his unfortunate army. His object was to have a personal interview with the King of Prussia. He had taken his place in a hired caleche and been driven along the broad highway, with its row of lofty poplars on either side, and this first stage of his journey into exile, accomplished in the chill air of early dawn, must have reminded him forcibly of the grandeur that had been his and that he was putting behind him forever. It was on this road that he had his encounter with Bismarck, who came hurrying to meet him in an old cap and coarse, greased boots, with the sole object of keeping him occupied and preventing him from seeing the King until the capitulation should have been signed. The King was still at Vendresse, some nine miles away. Where was he to go? What roof would afford him shelter while he waited? In his own country, so far away, the Palace of the Tuileries had disappeared from his sight, swallowed up in the bosom of a storm-cloud, and he was never to see it more. Sedan seemed already to have receded into the distance, leagues and leagues, and to be parted from him by a river of blood. In France there were no longer imperial chateaus, nor official residences, nor even a chimney-nook in the house of the humblest functionary, where he would have dared to enter and claim hospitality. And it was in the house of the weaver that he determined to seek shelter, the squalid cottage that stood close to the roadside, with its scanty kitchen-garden inclosed by a hedge and its front of a single story with little forbidding windows. The room above-stairs was simply whitewashed and had a tiled floor; the only furniture was a common pine table and two straw-bottomed chairs. He spent two hours there, at first in company with Bismarck, who smiled to hear him speak of generosity, after that alone in silent misery, flattening his ashy face against the panes, taking his last look at French soil and at the Meuse, winding in and out, so beautiful, among the broad fertile fields.

Then the next day and the days that came after were other wretched stages of that journey; the Chateau of Bellevue, a pretty bourgeois retreat overlooking the river, where he rested that night, where he shed tears after his interview with King William; the sorrowful departure, that most miserable flight in a hired caleche over remote roads to the north of the city, which he avoided, not caring to face the wrath of the vanquished troops and the starving citizens, making a wide circuit over cross-roads by Floing, Fleigneux, and Illy and crossing the stream on a bridge of boats, laid down by the Prussians at Iges; the tragic encounter, the story of which has been so often told, that occurred on the corpse-cumbered plateau of Illy: the miserable Emperor, whose state was such that his horse could not be allowed to trot, had sunk under some more than usually violent attack of his complaint, mechanically smoking, perhaps, his everlasting cigarette, when a band of haggard, dusty, blood-stained prisoners, who were being conducted from Fleigneux to Sedan, were forced to leave the road to let the carriage pass and stood watching it from the ditch; those who were at the head of the line merely eyed him in silence; presently a hoarse, sullen murmur began to make itself heard, and finally, as the caleche proceeded down the line, the men burst out with a storm of yells and cat-calls, shaking their fists and calling down maledictions on the head of him who had been their ruler. After that came the interminable journey across the battlefield, as far as Givonne, amid scenes of havoc and devastation, amid the dead, who lay with staring eyes upturned that seemed to be full of menace; came, too, the bare, dreary fields, the great silent forest, then the frontier, running along the summit of a ridge, marked only by a stone, facing a wooden post that seemed ready to fall, and beyond the soil of Belgium, the end of all, with its road bordered with gloomy hemlocks descending sharply into the narrow valley.

And that first night of exile, that he spent at a common inn, the Hotel de la Poste at Bouillon, what a night it was! When the Emperor showed himself at his window in deference to the throng of French refugees and sight-seers that filled the place, he was greeted with a storm of hisses and hostile murmurs. The apartment assigned him, the three windows of which opened on the public square and on the Semoy, was the typical tawdry bedroom of the provincial inn with its conventional furnishings: the chairs covered with crimson damask, the mahogany armoire a glace, and on the mantel the imitation bronze clock, flanked by a pair of conch shells and vases of artificial flowers under glass covers. On either side of the door was a little single bed, to one of which the wearied aide-de-camp betook himself at nine o’clock and was immediately wrapped in soundest slumber. On the other the Emperor, to whom the god of sleep was less benignant, tossed almost the whole night through, and if he arose to try to quiet his excited nerves by walking, the sole distraction that his eyes encountered was a pair of engravings that were hung to right and left of the chimney, one depicting Rouget de Lisle singing the Marseillaise, the other a crude representation of the Last Judgment, the dead rising from their graves at the sound of the Archangel’s trump, the resurrection of the victims of the battlefield, about to appear before their God to bear witness against their rulers.

The imperial baggage train, cause in its day of so much scandal, had been left behind at Sedan, where it rested in ignominious hiding behind the Sous-Prefet’s lilac bushes. It puzzled the authorities somewhat to devise means for ridding themselves of what was to them a bete noire, for getting it away from the city unseen by the famishing multitude, upon whom the sight of its flaunting splendor would have produced much the same effect that a red rag does on a maddened bull. They waited until there came an unusually dark night, when horses, carriages, and baggage-wagons, with their silver stew-pans, plate, linen, and baskets of fine wines, all trooped out of Sedan in deepest mystery and shaped their course for Belgium, noiselessly, without beat of drum, over the least frequented roads like a thief stealing away in the night.

PART THIRD

I

All the long, long day of the battle Silvine, up on Remilly hill, where Father Fouchard’s little farm was situated, but her heart and soul absent with Honore amid the dangers of the conflict, never once took her eyes from off Sedan, where the guns were roaring. The following day, moreover, her anxiety was even greater still, being increased by her inability to obtain any definite tidings, for the Prussians who were guarding the roads in the vicinity refused to answer questions, as much from reasons of policy as because they knew but very little themselves. The bright sun of the day before was no longer visible, and showers had fallen, making the valley look less cheerful than usual in the wan light.

Toward evening Father Fouchard, who was also haunted by a sensation of uneasiness in the midst of his studied taciturnity, was standing on his doorstep reflecting on the probable outcome of events. His son had no place in his thoughts, but he was speculating how he best might convert the misfortunes of others into fortune for himself, and as he revolved these considerations in his mind he noticed a tall, strapping young fellow, dressed in the peasant’s blouse, who had been strolling up and down the road for the last minute or so, looking as if he did not know what to do with himself. His astonishment on recognizing him was so great that he called him aloud by name, notwithstanding that three Prussians happened to be passing at the time.

“Why, Prosper! Is that you?”

The chasseur d’Afrique imposed silence on him with an emphatic gesture; then, coming closer, he said in an undertone:

“Yes, it is I. I have had enough of fighting for nothing, and I cut my lucky. Say, Father Fouchard, you don’t happen to be in need of a laborer on your farm, do you?”

All the old man’s prudence came back to him in a twinkling. He was looking for someone to help him, but it would be better not to say so at once.