Tom Burke Of "Ours", Volume II

“Monsieur has served in Egypt?” said the young man, contemptuously, while he measured me from head to foot.

“Would that I had! Would that I could give whatever years I may have before me, for those whose every day shall live in history!”

“You are right, young man,” said the old colonel; “they were glorious times, and a worthy prelude to the greatness that followed them.”

“A bright promise of the future, – never to come,” rejoined the younger, with a flash of anger on his cheek.

“Parbleu, sir, you speak boldly!” said a harsh, low voice from behind. We turned: it was Napoleon, dressed in a gray coat, all covered with fur, and looking like one of the couriers of the army. “I did not know my measures were so freely canvassed as I find them. Who are you, sir?”

“Legrange, Sire, chef d’escadron of the Second Voltigeurs,” said the young man, trembling from head to foot while he uncovered his head, and stood, cap in hand, before him.

“Since when, sir, have I called you into my counsels and asked your advice? or what is it in your position which entitles you to question one in mine? Duroc, come here. Your sword, sir!”

The young man let fall his shako from his hand, and laid it on his sword-hilt.

“Ah!” cried the Emperor, suddenly; “what became of your right arm?”

“I left it at Aboukir, Sire.”

Napoleon muttered something between his teeth; then added, aloud, —

“Come, sir, you are not the first whose hand has saved his head. Return to your duty, and, mark me! be satisfied with doing yours, and leave me to mine. And you, sir,” said he, turning towards me, and using the same harsh tone of voice, “I should know your face.”

“Lieutenant Burke, of the Eighth Hussars.”

“Ah! I remember, – the Chouanist. So, sir, it seems that I stand somewhat higher in your esteem than when you kept company with Messieurs Georges and Pichegru, eh?”

“No, Sire; your Majesty ever occupied the first place in my admiration and devotion.”

“Sacristi! then you took a strange way to show it when first I had the pleasure of your acquaintance. You are on General St. Hilaire’s staff?”

“General d’Auvergne’s, Sire.”

“True. D’Auvergne, a word with you.”

He turned and whispered something to the old general, who during the whole colloquy stood at his back, anxious but not daring to interpose a word.

“Well, well,” said Napoleon, in a voice of much kinder accent, “I am satisfied. Your general, sir, reports favorably of your zeal and capacity. I do not desire to let your former conduct prove any bar to your advancement; and on his recommendation, of which I trust you may prove yourself worthy, I name you to a troop in your own regiment.”

“And still to serve on my staff?” said the general, half questioning the Emperor.

“As you wish it, D’Auvergne.”

With that he moved forward ere I could do more than express my gratitude by a respectful bow.

“I told you, Burke, the time would come for this,” said D’Auvergne, as he pressed my hand warmly, and followed the cortege of the Emperor.

Hitherto I had lived an almost isolated life. My staff duties had so separated me from my brother officers that I only knew them by name; while the other aides-de-camp of the general were men much older than myself, and with none of them had I formed any intimacy whatever. It was not without a sense of this loneliness that I now thought over my promotion. The absence of those who sympathize with our moments of joy and sorrow reduces our enjoyment to a narrow limit indeed. The only one of all I knew who would really have felt happy in my advancement was poor Pioche. He was beyond every thought of pleasure or grief.

Thus reflecting, I turned towards my quarters at Brunn. It was evening: the watchfires were lighted, and round them sat groups of soldiers at their supper, chatting away pleasantly, and recounting the events of the battle. Many had been slightly wounded, and by their bandaged foreheads and disabled arms claimed a marked pre-eminence above the rest. A straw bivouac, with its great blazing fire in front, would denote some officer’s quarters; and here were generally some eight or ten assembled, while the savory odor of some smoking dish, and the merry laughter, proclaimed that feasting was not excluded from the life of a campaign.

As I passed one of these I heard the tones of a voice which, well known, had somehow not been heard by me for many a day before. Who could it be? I listened, but in vain. I asked myself whose was it. I dismounted, and leading my horse by the bridle, passed before the hut. The strong light of the blazing wood lit up the interior, and showed me a party of about a dozen officers, seated and lying on a heap of straw, occupied in discussing a supper, which, however wanting in all the elegancies of table equipment, even where I stood had a most appetizing odor. Various drinking vessels, some of them silver, passed from hand to hand rapidly; and the clinking of cups proclaimed that, although of different regiments, – as I saw they were, – a kindly feeling united them.

“Well, François,” said the same voice, whose accents were so familiar to me without my being able to say why, – “well, Francois, you have not told us how it happened.”

“Easily enough,” said another; “he broke my blade in his back, and gave point afterwards and ran me through the chest.” It was the maître d’armes of the Fourth, my old antagonist, who said this, and I drew near to hear the remainder. “You could not call the thing unfair,” continued he; “but, after all, no one ever heard of such a passe.”

“I could have told you of it, though,” rejoined the other; “for I remember once, in the fencing school at the Polytechnique, I saw him catch his antagonist’s blade in his sleeve, and when he had it secure, snap it across, and then thrust home with his own. Parbleu! he lost a coat by it; and I believe, at the time, poor fellow, he could ill spare it.”

This story, which was told of myself, was an incident which occurred in a school duel, and was only known to two or three others; and again was I puzzled to think which of my former companions the speaker could be. My curiosity was now stronger than aught else; and so, affecting to seek a light for my cigar, I approached the blaze.

“Halloo, Comrade! a cup of wine with you,” cried out a voice from within; “Melniker is no bad drinking – ”

“When Chambertin can’t be had,” said another, handing me a goblet of red wine.

“Par Saint Denis! it’s the very man himself,” shouted a third. “Why, Burke, my old comrade, do you forget Tascher?”

“What!” said I, in amazement, turning from one to the other of the mustached faces, and unable to discover my former friend, while they laughed loud and long at my embarrassment.

“Make way for him there; make way, lads! Come, Burke, here’s your place,” said he, stretching out his hand and pressing me down beside him on the straw. “So you did not remember me?”

In truth, there was enough of change in his appearance since last I saw him to warrant my forgetfulness. A dark, bushy beard, worn cuirassier fashion, around the mouth and high on the cheeks, almost concealed his face, while in figure he had grown both taller and stouter.

“Art colonel of the Eighth Regiment?” said he, laughing; “you know I promised you were to be, when we were to meet again.”

“No; but, if I mistake not,” said a hussar officer opposite, “monsieur is in the way to become so. Were you not named to a troop, about half an hour ago, by the Emperor himself?”

“Yes!” said I, with an effort to suppress my pride.

“Diantre bleu!” exclaimed Tascher, “what good fortune you always have I I wish you joy of it, with all my heart. I say, Comrades, let us drown his commission for him.”

“Agreed! agreed!” cried they all in a breath. “Francois will make us a bowl of punch for the occasion.”

“Most willingly,” said the little maître d’armes. “Monsieur le Capitaine, I am sure, bears me no ill-will for our little affair. I thought not,” added he, seizing my hand in both his. “Ma foi! you spoiled my tierce for me; I shall never be the same man again. Now, gentlemen, pass down the brandy, and let the man with most credit go seek for sugar at the canteen.”

While François commenced his operations, Tascher proceeded to recount to me the miserable life he had spent in garrison towns, till the outbreak of the campaign had called him on active service.

“It was no use that I asked the Empress to intercede for me, and get me appointed to another regiment; being the nephew of Napoleon seemed to set a complete bar to my advancement. Even now,” said he, “my name has been sent forward by my colonel for promotion, and I wager you fifty Naps I shall be passed over.”

“And what if you be?” said a huge, heavy-browed major beside him; “what great hardship is it to be a lieutenant in the cuirassiers at two and twenty? I was a sergeant ten years later.”

“Ay, parbleu!” cried another, “I won my epaulettes at Cairo, when three officers were reported living, in a whole regiment.”

“To be sure,” said François, looking up from his operation of lemon-squeezing; “here am I, a maître d’armes, after twenty-six years’ service; and there’s Davoust, who never could stand before me, he’s a general of brigade.”

The whole party laughed aloud at the grievances of Maître Francois, whose seriousness on the subject was perfectly real.

“Ah; you may laugh,” said he, half in pique; “but what a mere accident can determine a man’s fortune in life! Would Junot there be a major-general to-day if he did not measure six feet without his boots? We were at school together, and, ma foi! he was always at the bottom of the class.”