The Downfall: Chapter 8

Chapter 8

At half-past five o'clock, after the closing of the gates, Delaherche,
in his eager thirst for news, now that he knew the battle lost, had
again returned to the Sous-Prefecture. He hung persistently about the
approaches of the janitor's lodge, tramping up and down the paved
courtyard with feverish impatience, for more than three hours,
watching for every officer who came up and interviewing him, and thus
it was that he had become acquainted, piecemeal, with the rapid series
of events; how General de Wimpffen had tendered his resignation and
then withdrawn it upon the peremptory refusal of Generals Ducrot and
Douay to append their names to the articles of capitulation, how the
Emperor had thereupon invested the General with full authority to
proceed to the Prussian headquarters and treat for the surrender of
the vanquished army on the most advantageous terms obtainable; how,
finally, a council of war had been convened with the object of
deciding what possibilities there were of further protracting the
struggle successfully by the defense of the fortress. During the
deliberations of this council, which consisted of some twenty officers
of the highest rank and seemed to him as if it would never end, the
cloth manufacturer climbed the steps of the huge public building at
least twenty times, and at last his curiosity was gratified by
beholding General de Wimpffen emerge, very red in the face and his
eyelids puffed and swollen with tears, behind whom came two other
generals and a colonel. They leaped into the saddle and rode away over
the Pont de Meuse. The bells had struck eight some time before; the
inevitable capitulation was now to be accomplished, from which there
was no escape.

Delaherche, somewhat relieved in mind by what he had heard and seen,
remembered that it was a long time since he had tasted food and
resolved to turn his steps homeward, but the terrific crowd that had
collected since he first came made him pause in dismay. It is no
exaggeration to say that the streets and squares were so congested, so
thronged, so densely packed with horses, men, and guns, that one would
have declared the closely compacted mass could only have been squeezed
and wedged in there thus by the effort of some gigantic mechanism.
While the ramparts were occupied by the bivouacs of such regiments as
had fallen back in good order, the city had been invaded and submerged
by an angry, surging, desperate flood, the broken remnants of the
various corps, stragglers and fugitives from all arms of the service,
and the dammed-up tide made it impossible for one to stir foot or
hand. The wheels of the guns, of the caissons, and the innumerable
vehicles of every description, had interlocked and were tangled in
confusion worse confounded, while the poor horses, flogged
unmercifully by their drivers and pulled, now in this direction, now
in that, could only dance in their bewilderment, unable to move a step
either forward or back. And the men, deaf to reproaches and threats
alike, forced their way into the houses, devoured whatever they could
lay hands on, flung themselves down to sleep wherever they could find
a vacant space, it might be in the best bedroom or in the cellar. Many
of them had fallen in doorways, where they blocked the vestibule;
others, without strength to go farther, lay extended on the sidewalks
and slept the sleep of death, not even rising when some by-passer trod
on them and bruised an arm or leg, preferring the risk of death to the
fatigue of changing their location.

These things all helped to make Delaherche still more keenly conscious
of the necessity of immediate capitulation. There were some quarters
in which numerous caissons were packed so close together that they
were in contact, and a single Prussian shell alighting on one of them
must inevitably have exploded them all, entailing the immediate
destruction of the city by conflagration. Then, too, what could be
accomplished with such an assemblage of miserable wretches, deprived
of all their powers, mental and physical, by reason of their
long-endured privations, and destitute of either ammunition or
subsistence? Merely to clear the streets and reduce them to a
condition of something like order would require a whole day. The place
was entirely incapable of defense, having neither guns nor provisions.

These were the considerations that had prevailed at the council among
those more reasonable officers who, in the midst of their grief and
sorrow for their country and the army, had retained a clear and
undistorted view of the situation as it was; and the more hot-headed
among them, those who cried with emotion that it was impossible for an
army to surrender thus, had been compelled to bow their head upon
their breast in silence and admit that they had no practicable scheme
to offer whereby the conflict might be recommenced on the morrow.

In the Place Turenne and Place du Rivage, Delaherche succeeded with
the greatest difficulty in working his way through the press. As he
passed the Hotel of the Golden Cross a sorrowful vision greeted his
eyes, that of the generals seated in the dining room, gloomily silent,
around the empty board; there was nothing left to eat in the house,
not even bread. General Bourgain-Desfeuilles, however, who had been
storming and vociferating in the kitchen, appeared to have found
something, for he suddenly held his peace and ran away swiftly up the
stairs, holding in his hands a large paper parcel of a greasy aspect.
Such was the crowd assembled there, to stare through the lighted
windows upon the guests assembled around that famine-stricken _table
d'hote_, that the manufacturer was obliged to make vigorous play with
his elbows, and was frequently driven back by some wild rush of the
mob and lost all the distance, and more, that he had just gained. In
the Grande Rue, however, the obstacles became actually impassable, and
there was a moment when he was inclined to give up in despair; a
complete battery seemed to have been driven in there and the guns and
_materiel_ piled, pell-mell, on top of one another. Deciding finally
to take the bull by the horns, he leaped to the axle of a piece and so
pursued his way, jumping from wheel to wheel, straddling the guns, at
the imminent risk of breaking his legs, if not his neck. Afterward it
was some horses that blocked his way, and he made himself lowly and
stooped, creeping among the feet and underneath the bellies of the
sorry jades, who were ready to die of inanition, like their masters.
Then, when after a quarter of an hour's laborious effort he reached
the junction of the Rue Saint-Michel, he was terrified at the prospect
of the dangers and obstacles that he had still to face, and which,
instead of diminishing, seemed to be increasing, and made up his mind
to turn down the street above mentioned, which would take him into the
Rue des Laboureurs; he hoped that by taking these usually quiet and
deserted passages he should escape the crowd and reach his home in
safety. As luck would have it he almost directly came upon a house of
ill-fame to which a band of drunken soldiers were in process of laying
siege, and considering that a stray shot, should one reach him in the
fracas, would be equally as unpleasant as one intended for him, he
made haste to retrace his steps. Resolving to have done with it he
pushed on to the end of the Grande Rue, now gaining a few feet by
balancing himself, rope-walker fashion, along the pole of some
vehicle, now climbing over an army wagon that barred his way. At the
Place du College he was carried along--bodily on the shoulders of the
throng for a space of thirty paces; he fell to the ground, narrowly
escaped a set of fractured ribs, and saved himself only by the
proximity of a friendly iron railing, by the bars of which he pulled
himself to his feet. And when at last he reached the Rue Maqua,
inundated with perspiration, his clothing almost torn from his back,
he found that he had been more than an hour in coming from the
Sous-Prefecture, a distance which in ordinary times he was accustomed
to accomplish in less than five minutes.

Major Bouroche, with the intention of keeping the ambulance and garden
from being overrun with intruders, had caused two sentries to be
mounted at the door. This measure was a source of great comfort to
Delaherche, who had begun to contemplate the possibilities of his
house being subjected to pillage. The sight of the ambulance in the
garden, dimly lighted by a few candles and exhaling its fetid,
feverish emanations, caused him a fresh constriction of the heart;
then, stumbling over the body of a soldier who was stretched in
slumber on the stone pavement of the walk, he supposed him to be one
of the fugitives who had managed to find his way in there from
outside, until, calling to mind the 7th corps treasure that had been
deposited there and the sentry who had been set over it, he saw how
matters stood: the poor fellow, stationed there since early morning,
had been overlooked by his superiors and had succumbed to his fatigue.
Besides, the house seemed quite deserted; the ground floor was black
as Egypt, and the doors stood wide open. The servants were doubtless
all at the ambulance, for there was no one in the kitchen, which was
faintly illuminated by the light of a wretched little smoky lamp. He
lit a candle and ascended the main staircase very softly, in order not
to awaken his wife and mother, whom he had begged to go to bed early
after a day where the stress, both mental and physical, had been so
intense.

On entering his study, however, he beheld a sight that caused his eyes
to dilate with astonishment. Upon the sofa on which Captain Beaudoin
had snatched a few hours' repose the day before a soldier lay
outstretched; and he could not understand the reason of it until he
had looked and recognized young Maurice Levasseur, Henriette's
brother. He was still more surprised when, on turning his head, he
perceived, stretched on the floor and wrapped in a bed quilt, another
soldier, that Jean, whom he had seen for a moment just before the
battle. It was plain that the poor fellows, in their distress and
fatigue after the conflict, not knowing where else to bestow
themselves, had sought refuge there; they were crushed, annihilated,
like dead men. He did not linger there, but pushed on to his wife's
chamber, which was the next room on the corridor. A lamp was burning
on a table in a corner; the profound silence seemed to shudder.
Gilberte had thrown herself crosswise on the bed, fully dressed,
doubtless in order to be prepared for any catastrophe, and was
sleeping peacefully, while, seated on a chair at her side with her
head declined and resting lightly on the very edge of the mattress,
Henriette was also slumbering, with a fitful, agitated sleep, while
big tears welled up beneath her swollen eyelids. He contemplated them
silently for a moment, strongly tempted to awake and question the
young woman in order to ascertain what she knew. Had she succeeded in
reaching Bazeilles? and why was it that she was back there? Perhaps
she would be able to give him some tidings of his dyehouse were he to
ask her? A feeling of compassion stayed him, however, and he was about
to leave the room when his mother, ghost-like, appeared at the
threshold of the open door and beckoned him to follow her.

As they were passing through the dining room he expressed his
surprise.

"What, have you not been abed to-night?"

She shook her head, then said below her breath:

"I cannot sleep; I have been sitting in an easy-chair beside the
colonel. He is very feverish; he awakes at every instant, almost, and
then plies me with questions. I don't know how to answer them. Come in
and see him, you."

M. de Vineuil had fallen asleep again. His long face, now brightly
red, barred by the sweeping mustache that fell across it like a snowy
avalanche, was scarce distinguishable on the pillow. Mme. Delaherche
had placed a newspaper before the lamp and that corner of the room was
lost in semi-darkness, while all the intensity of the bright lamplight
was concentrated on her where she sat, uncompromisingly erect, in her
fauteuil, her hands crossed before her in her lap, her vague eyes bent
on space, in sorrowful reverie.

"I think he must have heard you," she murmured; "he is awaking again."

It was so; the colonel, without moving his head, had reopened his eyes
and bent them on Delaherche. He recognized him, and immediately asked
in a voice that his exhausted condition made tremulous:

"It is all over, is it not? We have capitulated."

The manufacturer, who encountered the look his mother cast on him at
that moment, was on the point of equivocating. But what good would it
do? A look of discouragement passed across his face.

"What else remained to do? A single glance at the streets of the city
would convince you. General de Wimpffen has just set out for Prussian
general headquarters to discuss conditions."

M. de Vineuil's eyes closed again, his long frame was shaken with a
protracted shiver of supremely bitter grief, and this deep, long-drawn
moan escaped his lips:

"Ah! merciful God, merciful God!" And without opening his eyes he went
on in faltering, broken accents: "Ah! the plan I spoke of yesterday
--they should have adopted it. Yes, I knew the country; I spoke of my
apprehensions to the general, but even him they would not listen to.
Occupy all the heights up there to the north, from Saint-Menges to
Fleigneux, with your army looking down on and commanding Sedan, able
at any time to move on Vrigne-aux-Bois, mistress of Saint-Albert's
pass--and there we are; our positions are impregnable, the Mezieres
road is under our control--"

His speech became more confused as he proceeded; he stammered a few
more unintelligible words, while the vision of the battle that had
been born of his fever little by little grew blurred and dim and at
last was effaced by slumber. He slept, and in his sleep perhaps the
honest officer's dreams were dreams of victory.

"Does the major speak favorably of his case?" Delaherche inquired in a
whisper.

Madame Delaherche nodded affirmatively.

"Those wounds in the foot are dreadful things, though," he went on. "I
suppose he is likely to be laid up for a long time, isn't he?"

She made him no answer this time, as if all her being, all her
faculties were concentrated on contemplating the great calamity of
their defeat. She was of another age; she was a survivor of that
strong old race of frontier burghers who defended their towns so
valiantly in the good days gone by. The clean-cut lines of her stern,
set face, with its fleshless, uncompromising nose and thin lips, which
the brilliant light of the lamp brought out in high relief against the
darkness of the room, told the full extent of her stifled rage and
grief and the wound sustained by her antique patriotism, the revolt of
which refused even to let her sleep.

About that time Delaherche became conscious of a sensation of
isolation, accompanied by a most uncomfortable feeling of physical
distress. His hunger was asserting itself again, a griping,
intolerable hunger, and he persuaded himself that it was debility
alone that was thus robbing him of courage and resolution. He tiptoed
softly from the room and, with his candle, again made his way down to
the kitchen, but the spectacle he witnessed there was even still more
cheerless; the range cold and fireless, the closets empty, the floor
strewn with a disorderly litter of towels, napkins, dish-clouts and
women's aprons; as if the hurricane of disaster had swept through that
place as well, bearing away on its wings all the charm and cheer that
appertain naturally to the things we eat and drink. At first he
thought he was not going to discover so much as a crust, what was left
over of the bread having all found its way to the ambulance in the
form of soup. At last, however, in the dark corner of a cupboard he
came across the remainder of the beans from yesterday's dinner, where
they had been forgotten, and ate them. He accomplished his luxurious
repast without the formality of sitting down, without the
accompaniment of salt and butter, for which he did not care to trouble
himself to ascend to the floor above, desirous only to get away as
speedily as possible from that dismal kitchen, where the blinking,
smoking little lamp perfumed the air with fumes of petroleum.

It was not much more than ten o'clock, and Delaherche had no other
occupation than to speculate on the various probabilities connected
with the signing of the capitulation. A persistent apprehension
haunted him; a dread lest the conflict might be renewed, and the
horrible thought of what the consequences must be in such an event, of
which he could not speak, but which rested on his bosom like an
incubus. When he had reascended to his study, where he found Maurice
and Jean in exactly the same position he had left them in, it was
all in vain that he settled himself comfortably in his favorite
easy-chair; sleep would not come to him; just as he was on the point
of losing himself the crash of a shell would arouse him with a great
start. It was the frightful cannonade of the day, the echoes of which
were still ringing in his ears; and he would listen breathlessly for a
moment, then sit and shudder at the equally appalling silence by which
he was now surrounded. As he could not sleep he preferred to move
about; he wandered aimlessly among the rooms, taking care to avoid
that in which his mother was sitting by the colonel's bedside, for the
steady gaze with which she watched him as he tramped nervously up and
down had finally had the effect of disconcerting him. Twice he
returned to see if Henriette had not awakened, and he paused an
instant to glance at his wife's pretty face, so calmly peaceful, on
which seemed to be flitting something like the faint shadow of a
smile. Then, knowing not what to do, he went downstairs again, came
back, moved about from room to room, until it was nearly two in the
morning, wearying his ears with trying to decipher some meaning in the
sounds that came to him from without.

This condition of affairs could not last. Delaherche resolved to
return once more to the Sous-Prefecture, feeling assured that all rest
would be quite out of the question for him so long as his ignorance
continued. A feeling of despair seized him, however, when he went
downstairs and looked out upon the densely crowded street, where the
confusion seemed to be worse than ever; never would he have the
strength to fight his way to the Place Turenne and back again through
obstacles the mere memory of which caused every bone in his body to
ache again. And he was mentally discussing matters, when who should
come up but Major Bouroche, panting, perspiring, and swearing.

"_Tonnerre de Dieu!_ I wonder if my head's on my shoulders or not!"

He had been obliged to visit the Hotel de Ville to see the mayor about
his supply of chloroform, and urge him to issue a requisition for a
quantity, for he had many operations to perform, his stock of the drug
was exhausted, and he was afraid, he said, that he should be compelled
to carve up the poor devils without putting them to sleep.

"Well?" inquired Delaherche.

"Well, they can't even tell whether the apothecaries have any or not!"

But the manufacturer was thinking of other things than chloroform.
"No, no," he continued. "Have they brought matters to a conclusion
yet? Have they signed the agreement with the Prussians?"

The major made a gesture of impatience. "There is nothing concluded,"
he cried. "It appears that those scoundrels are making demands out of
all reason. Ah, well; let 'em commence afresh, then, and we'll all
leave our bones here. That will be best!"

Delaherche's face grew very pale as he listened. "But are you quite
sure these things are so?"

"I was told them by those fellows of the municipal council, who are in
permanent session at the city hall. An officer had been dispatched
from the Sous-Prefecture to lay the whole affair before them."

And he went on to furnish additional details. The interview had taken
place at the Chateau de Bellevue, near Donchery, and the participants
were General de Wimpffen, General von Moltke, and Bismarck. A stern
and inflexible man was that von Moltke, a terrible man to deal with!
He began by demonstrating that he was perfectly acquainted with the
hopeless situation of the French army; it was destitute of ammunition
and subsistence, demoralization and disorder pervaded its ranks, it
was utterly powerless to break the iron circle by which it was girt
about; while on the other hand the German armies occupied commanding
positions from which they could lay the city in ashes in two hours.
Coldly, unimpassionedly, he stated his terms: the entire French army
to surrender arms and baggage and be treated as prisoners of war.
Bismarck took no part in the discussion beyond giving the general his
support, occasionally showing his teeth, like a big mastiff, inclined
to be pacific on the whole, but quite ready to rend and tear should
there be occasion for it. General de Wimpffen in reply protested with
all the force he had at his command against these conditions, the most
severe that ever were imposed on a vanquished army. He spoke of his
personal grief and ill-fortune, the bravery of the troops, the danger
there was in driving a proud nation to extremity; for three hours he
spoke with all the energy and eloquence of despair, alternately
threatening and entreating, demanding that they should content
themselves with interning their prisoners in France, or even in
Algeria; and in the end the only concession granted was, that the
officers might retain their swords, and those among them who should
enter into a solemn arrangement, attested by a written parole, to
serve no more during the war, might return to their homes. Finally,
the armistice to be prolonged until the next morning at ten o'clock;
if at that time the terms had not been accepted, the Prussian
batteries would reopen fire and the city would be burned.

"That's stupid!" exclaimed Delaherche; "they have no right to burn a
city that has done nothing to deserve it!"

The major gave him still further food for anxiety by adding that some
officers whom he had met at the Hotel de l'Europe were talking of
making a sortie _en masse_ just before daylight. An extremely excited
state of feeling had prevailed since the tenor of the German demands
had become known, and measures the most extravagant were proposed and
discussed. No one seemed to be deterred by the consideration that it
would be dishonorable to break the truce, taking advantage of the
darkness and giving the enemy no notification, and the wildest, most
visionary schemes were offered; they would resume the march on
Carignan, hewing their way through the Bavarians, which they could do
in the black night; they would recapture the plateau of Illy by a
surprise; they would raise the blockade of the Mezieres road, or, by a
determined, simultaneous rush, would force the German lines and throw
themselves into Belgium. Others there were, indeed, who, feeling the
hopelessness of their position, said nothing; they would have accepted
any terms, signed any paper, with a glad cry of relief, simply to have
the affair ended and done with.

"Good-night!" Bouroche said in conclusion. "I am going to try to sleep
a couple of hours; I need it badly."

When left by himself Delaherche could hardly breathe. What, could it
be true that they were going to fight again, were going to burn and
raze Sedan! It was certainly to be, soon as the morrow's sun should be
high enough upon the hills to light the horror of the sacrifice. And
once again he almost unconsciously climbed the steep ladder that led
to the roofs and found himself standing among the chimneys, at the
edge of the narrow terrace that overlooked the city; but at that hour
of the night the darkness was intense and he could distinguish
absolutely nothing amid the swirling waves of the Cimmerian sea that
lay beneath him. Then the buildings of the factory below were the
first objects which, one by one, disentangled themselves from the
shadows and stood out before his vision in indistinct masses, which he
had no difficulty in recognizing: the engine-house, the shops, the
drying rooms, the storehouses, and when he reflected that within
twenty-four hours there would remain of that imposing block of
buildings, his fortune and his pride, naught save charred timbers and
crumbling walls, he overflowed with pity for himself. He raised his
glance thence once more to the horizon, and sent it traveling in a
circuit around that profound, mysterious veil of blackness behind
which lay slumbering the menace of the morrow. To the south, in the
direction of Bazeilles, a few quivering little flames that rose
fitfully on the air told where had been the site of the unhappy
village, while toward the north the farmhouse in the wood of la
Garenne, that had been fired late in the afternoon, was burning still,
and the trees about were dyed of a deep red with the ruddy blaze.
Beyond the intermittent flashing of those two baleful fires no light
to be seen; the brooding silence unbroken by any sound save those
half-heard mutterings that pass through the air like harbingers of
evil; about them, everywhere, the unfathomable abyss, dead and
lifeless. Off there in the distance, very far away, perhaps, perhaps
upon the ramparts, was a sound of someone weeping. It was all in vain
that he strained his eyes to pierce the veil, to see something of
Liry, la Marfee, the batteries of Frenois, and Wadelincourt, that
encircling belt of bronze monsters of which he could instinctively
feel the presence there, with their outstretched necks and yawning,
ravenous muzzles. And as he recalled his glance and let it fall upon
the city that lay around and beneath him, he heard its frightened
breathing. It was not alone the unquiet slumbers of the soldiers who
had fallen in the streets, the blending of inarticulate sounds
produced by that gathering of guns, men, and horses; what he fancied
he could distinguish was the insomnia, the alarmed watchfulness of his
bourgeois neighbors, who, no more than he, could sleep, quivering with
feverish terrors, awaiting anxiously the coming of the day. They all
must be aware that the capitulation had not been signed, and were all
counting the hours, quaking at the thought that should it not be
signed the sole resource left them would be to go down into their
cellars and wait for their own walls to tumble in on them and crush
the life from their bodies. The voice of one in sore straits came up,
it seemed to him, from the Rue des Voyards, shouting: "Help! murder!"
amid the clash of arms. He bent over the terrace to look, then
remained aloft there in the murky thickness of the night where there
was not a star to cheer him, wrapped in such an ecstasy of terror that
the hairs of his body stood erect.

Below-stairs, at early daybreak, Maurice awoke upon his sofa. He was
sore and stiff as if he had been racked; he did not stir, but lay
looking listlessly at the windows, which gradually grew white under
the light of a cloudy dawn. The hateful memories of the day before all
came back to him with that distinctness that characterizes the
impressions of our first waking, how they had fought, fled,
surrendered. It all rose before his vision, down to the very least
detail, and he brooded with horrible anguish on the defeat, whose
reproachful echoes seemed to penetrate to the inmost fibers of his
being, as if he felt that all the responsibility of it was his. And he
went on to reason on the cause of the evil, analyzing himself,
reverting to his old habit of bitter and unavailing self-reproach. He
would have felt so brave, so glorious had victory remained with them!
And now, in defeat, weak and nervous as a woman, he once again gave
way to one of those overwhelming fits of despair in which the entire
world, seemed to him to be foundering. Nothing was left them; the end
of France was come. His frame was shaken by a storm of sobs, he wept
hot tears, and joining his hands, the prayers of his childhood rose to
his lips in stammering accents.

"O God! take me unto Thee! O God! take unto Thyself all those who are
weary and heavy-laden!"

Jean, lying on the floor wrapped in his bed-quilt, began to show some
signs of life. Finally, astonished at what he heard, he arose to a
sitting posture.

"What is the matter, youngster? Are you ill?" Then, with a glimmering
perception of how matters stood, he adopted a more paternal tone.
"Come, tell me what the matter is. You must not let yourself be
worried by such a little thing as this, you know."

"Ah!" exclaimed Maurice, "it is all up with us, _va_! we are Prussians
now, and we may as well make up our mind to it."

As the peasant, with the hard-headedness of the uneducated, expressed
surprise to hear him talk thus, he endeavored to make it clear to him
that, the race being degenerate and exhausted, it must disappear and
make room for a newer and more vigorous strain. But the other, with an
obstinate shake of the head, would not listen to the explanation.

"What! would you try to make me believe that my bit of land is no
longer mine? that I would permit the Prussians to take it from me
while I am alive and my two arms are left to me? Come, come!"

Then painfully, in such terms as he could command, he went on to tell
how affairs looked to him. They had received an all-fired good
basting, that was sure as sure could be! but they were not all dead
yet, he didn't believe; there were some left, and those would suffice
to rebuild the house if they only behaved themselves, working hard and
not drinking up what they earned. When a family has trouble, if its
members work and put by a little something, they will pull through, in
spite of all the bad luck in the world. And further, it is not such a
bad thing to get a good cuffing once in a way; it sets one thinking.
And, great heavens! if a man has something rotten about him, if he has
gangrene in his arms or legs that is spreading all the time, isn't it
better to take a hatchet and lop them off rather than die as he would
from cholera?

"All up, all up! Ah, no, no! no, no!" he repeated several times. "It
is not all up with me, I know very well it is not."

And notwithstanding his seedy condition and demoralized appearance,
his hair all matted and pasted to his head by the blood that had
flowed from his wound, he drew himself up defiantly, animated by a
keen desire to live, to take up the tools of his trade or put his hand
to the plow, in order, to use his own expression, to "rebuild the
house." He was of the old soil where reason and obstinacy grow side by
side, of the land of toil and thrift.

"All the same, though," he continued, "I am sorry for the Emperor.
Affairs seemed to be going on well; the farmers were getting a good
price for their grain. But surely it was bad judgment on his part to
allow himself to become involved in this business!"

Maurice, who was still in "the blues," spoke regretfully: "Ah, the
Emperor! I always liked him in my heart, in spite of my republican
ideas. Yes, I had it in the blood, on account of my grandfather, I
suppose. And now that that limb is rotten and we shall have to lop it
off, what is going to become of us?"

His eyes began to wander, and his voice and manner evinced such
distress that Jean became alarmed and was about to rise and go to him,
when Henriette came into the room. She had just awakened on hearing
the sound of voices in the room adjoining hers. The pale light of a
cloudy morning now illuminated the apartment.

"You come just in time to give him a scolding," he said, with an
affectation of liveliness. "He is not a good boy this morning."

But the sight of his sister's pale, sad face and the recollection of
her affliction had had a salutary effect on Maurice by determining a
sudden crisis of tenderness. He opened his arms and took her to his
bosom, and when she rested her head upon his shoulder, when he held
her locked in a close embrace, a feeling of great gentleness pervaded
him and they mingled their tears.

"Ah, my poor, poor darling, why have I not more strength and courage
to console you! for my sorrows are as nothing compared with yours.
That good, faithful Weiss, the husband who loved you so fondly! What
will become of you? You have always been the victim; always, and never
a murmur from your lips. Think of the sorrow I have already caused
you, and who can say that I shall not cause you still more in the
future!"

She was silencing him, placing her hand upon his mouth, when
Delaherche came into the room, beside himself with indignation. While
still on the terrace he had been seized by one of those uncontrollable
nervous fits of hunger that are aggravated by fatigue, and had
descended to the kitchen in quest of something warm to drink, where he
had found, keeping company with his cook, a relative of hers, a
carpenter of Bazeilles, whom she was in the act of treating to a bowl
of hot wine. This person, who had been one of the last to leave the
place while the conflagrations were at their height, had told him that
his dyehouse was utterly destroyed, nothing left of it but a heap of
ruins.

"The robbers, the thieves! Would you have believed it, _hein_?" he
stammered, addressing Jean and Maurice. "There is no hope left; they
mean to burn Sedan this morning as they burned Bazeilles yesterday.
I'm ruined, I'm ruined!" The scar that Henriette bore on her forehead
attracted his attention, and he remembered that he had not spoken to
her yet. "It is true, you went there, after all; you got that
wound-- Ah! poor Weiss!"

And seeing by the young woman's tears that she was acquainted with her
husband's fate, he abruptly blurted out the horrible bit of news that
the carpenter had communicated to him among the rest.

"Poor Weiss! it seems they burned him. Yes, after shooting all the
civilians who were caught with arms in their hands, they threw their
bodies into the flames of a burning house and poured petroleum over
them."

Henriette was horror-stricken as she listened. Her tears burst forth,
her frame was shaken by her sobs. My God, my God, not even the poor
comfort of going to claim her dear dead and give him decent sepulture;
his ashes were to be scattered by the winds of heaven! Maurice had
again clasped her in his arms and spoke to her endearingly, calling
her his poor Cinderella, beseeching her not to take the matter so to
heart, a brave woman as she was.

After a time, during which no word was spoken, Delaherche, who had
been standing at the window watching the growing day, suddenly turned
and addressed the two soldiers:

"By the way, I was near forgetting. What I came up here to tell you is
this: down in the courtyard, in the shed where the treasure chests
were deposited, there is an officer who is about to distribute the
money among the men, so as to keep the Prussians from getting it. You
had better go down, for a little money may be useful to you, that is,
provided we are all alive a few hours hence."

The advice was good, and Maurice and Jean acted on it, having first
prevailed on Henriette to take her brother's place on the sofa. If she
could not go to sleep again, she would at least be securing some
repose. As for Delaherche, he passed through the adjoining chamber,
where Gilberte with her tranquil, pretty face was slumbering still as
soundly as a child, neither the sound of conversation nor even
Henriette's sobs having availed to make her change her position. From
there he went to the apartment where his mother was watching at
Colonel de Vineuil's bedside, and thrust his head through the door;
the old lady was asleep in her fauteuil, while the colonel, his eyes
closed, was like a corpse. He opened them to their full extent and
asked:

"Well, it's all over, isn't it?"

Irritated by the question, which detained him at the very moment when
he thought he should be able to slip away unobserved, Delaherche gave
a wrathful look and murmured, sinking his voice:

"Oh, yes, all over! until it begins again! There is nothing signed."

The colonel went on in a voice scarcely higher than a whisper;
delirium was setting in.

"Merciful God, let me die before the end! I do not hear the guns. Why
have they ceased firing? Up there at Saint-Menges, at Fleigneux, we
have command of all the roads; should the Prussians dare turn Sedan
and attack us, we will drive them into the Meuse. The city is there,
an insurmountable obstacle between us and them; our positions, too,
are the stronger. Forward! the 7th corps will lead, the 12th will
protect the retreat--"

And his fingers kept drumming on the counterpane with a measured
movement, as if keeping time with the trot of the charger he was
riding in his vision. Gradually the motion became slower and slower as
his words became more indistinct and he sank off into slumber. It
ceased, and he lay motionless and still, as if the breath had left his
body.

"Lie still and rest," Delaherche whispered; "when I have news I will
return."

Then, having first assured himself that he had not disturbed his
mother's slumber, he slipped away and disappeared.

Jean and Maurice, on descending to the shed in the courtyard, had
found there an officer of the pay department, seated on a common
kitchen chair behind a little unpainted pine table, who, without pen,
ink, or paper, without taking receipts or indulging in formalities of
any kind, was dispensing fortunes. He simply stuck his hand into the
open mouth of the bags filled with bright gold pieces, and as the
sergeants of the 7th corps passed in line before him he filled their
_kepis_, never counting what he bestowed with such rapid liberality.
The understanding was that the sergeants were subsequently to divide
what they received with the surviving men of their half-sections. Each
of them received his portion awkwardly, as if it had been a ration of
meat or coffee, then stalked off in an embarrassed, self-conscious
sort of way, transferring the contents of the _kepi_ to his trousers'
pockets so as not to display his wealth to the world at large. And not
a word was spoken; there was not a sound to be heard but the
crystalline chink and rattle of the coin as it was received by those
poor devils, dumfounded to see the responsibility of such riches
thrust on them when there was not a place in the city where they could
purchase a loaf of bread or a quart of wine.

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.

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