The Eagle of the Empire: A Story of Waterloo by Cyrus Townsend Brady (if you give a mouse a cookie read aloud txt) 📖

S�zanne was a scene of the wildest confusion that night. It was congested with troops and more and more were arriving every minute. They entered the town in fearful condition. They had been weary and ragged and naked before. Now they were in a state of extreme prostration; wet, cold, covered with mud. The roads were blocked with mired artillery, the guns were sunk into the mud to the hubs, the tired horses could no longer move them. The woods on either side were full of stragglers, many of whom had dropped down on the wet ground and slept the sleep of complete exhaustion. Some, indeed, sick and helpless, died where they lay. Everything eatable and drinkable in S�zanne had vanished as a green field before a swarm of locusts when Marmont's division had come through some hours before.

The town boasted a little square or open space in the midst. A huge fire was burning in the center of this open space. A cordon of grenadiers kept the ground about the fire clear of stragglers. Suddenly the Emperor rode into the midst. He was followed by a wet, cold, mud-spattered, bedraggled staff, all of them unutterably weary. Intense resolution blazed in the Emperor's eyes. He had had nothing to eat or drink since morning, but that ancient bodily vigor, that wonderful power of endurance, which had stood him in such good stead in days gone by, seemed to have come back to him now. He was all fire and energy and determination. So soon as his presence was known, couriers reported to him. Many of them he stopped with questions.

"The convoy of arms, provisions, powder," he snapped out to an officer of Marmont's division approaching him, "which was to meet us here. Have you seen it?"

"It has not appeared, Sire."

"Has anything been heard of it?"

"Nothing yet, your Majesty."

"Have you scouted for it, sent out parties to find it? Where is the Comte de Grouchy?"

"I come from him, Sire. He is ahead of the Duke of Ragusa's corps."

"Has he come in touch with the enemy?"

"Not yet, Sire."

"The roads?"

"Worse than those we have passed over."

"Marshal Marmont?"

"I was ordered by General Grouchy to report to him and then——"

"Well, sir?"

"He sent me back here."

"For what purpose?"

"To find you, Sire, and to say to you most respectfully from the Marshal that the roads are absolutely impassable. He has put four teams to a gun and can scarcely move them. To advance is impossible. He but awaits your order to retrace his steps."

"Retrace his steps!" shouted Napoleon, raising his voice. "Never! He must go on. Our only hope, our only chance, salvation lies in an instant advance. He knows that as well as I."

"But the guns, Sire?"

"Abandon the guns if necessary. We'll take what cannon we need from the enemy."

And that admission evidenced the force with which the Emperor held his convictions as to the present movement. Great, indeed, was the necessity which would induce Napoleon to order the abandonment of a single gun.

"But, Sire——"

"Monsieur," said Napoleon severely, "you are a young officer, although you wear the insignia of a Colonel. Know that I am not accustomed to have my commands questioned by anyone. You will return to Marshal Marmont at once. Exchange your tired horse for one of my own. I still have a fresh one, I believe. And spare him not. Tell the Duc de Ragusa that he must advance at all hazards. Advance with the guns if he can, if not then without them. Stay, as for the guns—— Where is the Mayor of the town?"

"Here, Sire," answered a plain, simple man in civilian's dress standing near.

"Are there any horses left in the countryside, monsieur?"

"Many, your Majesty, wherever the Russians have not passed."

"I thought so. Gentlemen," the Emperor turned to his staff, "ride in every direction. Take the mounted escort. Bid them scatter. Go to every village and farm. Ask my good French people to bring their horses in, to lend them to the Emperor. It is for France. I strike the last blow for them, their homes, their wives and children. Fortune smiles upon us. The enemy is delivered into our hands. They shall be liberally rewarded."

"The men are hungry," cried a voice from a dark group of officers in the background.

"They are weary," exclaimed another, under cover of the darkness.

"Who spoke?" asked the Emperor, but he did not wait for an answer, perhaps he did not care for one. "I, too, am hungry, I, your Emperor, and I am weary. I have eaten nothing and have ridden the day long. There is bread, there are guns in the Field-Marshal's army. We shall take from Bl�cher all that we need. Then we can rest. You hear?"

"We hear, Sire."

"Good. Whose division is yonder?"

"Mine, Sire," answered Marshal Ney, riding up and saluting.

"Ah, Prince," said Napoleon, riding over toward him. "Michael," he added familiarly as he drew nearer, "I am confident that the Prussians have no idea that we are nearer than Troyes to them. We must get forward with what we can at once and fall on them before they learn of our arrival and concentrate. We must move swiftly."

"To-morrow," suggested Ney.

"To-night."

"The conscripts of my young guard are in a state of great exhaustion and depression. If they could have the night to rest in——"

Napoleon shook his head.

"Advance with those who can march," he said decisively. "We must fall on Bl�cher in the morning or we are lost."

"Impossible!" ejaculated Ney.

"I banished that word from my vocabulary when I first went into Italy," said Napoleon. "Where are your troops?"

"Here, your Majesty," answered Ney, turning, pointing back to dark huddled ranks drooping over their muskets at parade rest.

Napoleon wheeled his horse and trotted over to them. The iron hand of Ney had kept some sort of discipline and some sort of organization, but the distress and dismay of the conscripts was but too plainly evident.

"My friends," said the Emperor, raising his voice, "you are hungry——" a dull murmur of acquiescence came from the battalion—"you are weary and cold——" a louder murmur—"you are discouraged——" silence. "Some of you have no arms. You would fain rest. Well I, your Emperor, am weary, I am hungry, I am old enough to be the father of most of you and I am wet and cold. But we must forget those things. You wonder why I have marched you all the day and most of the night through the cold and the wet and the mud. The Prussians are in front of us. They are drawn out in long widely separated columns. They have no idea that we are near them. One more effort, one more march, and we shall fall upon them. We shall pierce their lines, cut them to pieces, beat them in detail; we shall seize their camps, their guns, their clothes, their food. We shall take back the plunder they have gathered as they have ravaged France. They have stolen and destroyed and murdered—you have seen it. One more march, one more battle for——" he hesitated a moment—"for me," he said with magnificent egotism and audacity. "I have not forgotten how to lead, nor you to follow. We will show them that at the great game of war we are still master players. Come, if there be one too weary to walk, he shall have his Emperor's horse and I will march afoot as I have often done for France."

He spoke with all his old force and power. The tremendous personal magnetism of the man was never more apparent. The young men of Ney's corps thrilled to the splendid appeal. There was something fascinating, alluring in the picture. They hated the Prussians. They had seen the devastated fields, the dead men and women, the ruined farms. The light from the fire played mystically about the great Emperor on his white horse. He seemed to them like a demi-god. There were a few old soldiers in the battalion. The habit of years was upon them.

"Vive l'Empereur," one veteran shouted.

Another caught it up and finally the whole division roared out that frightful and thrilling battle cry in unison.

"That's well," said the Emperor, a little color coming into his face. "If the lads are of this mettle, what may I expect of the old soldiers of the guard?"

"Forward! Forward!" shouted a beardless boy in one of the front ranks.

"You hear, Marshal Ney?" said Napoleon, turning to his fighting Captain. "With such soldiers as these I can go anywhere and do anything."

"Your Majesty," cried a staff officer, riding up at a gallop, "the peasants are bringing their horses in. There is a section of country to the eastward which has not yet been ridden over by the enemy."

"Good," said the Emperor. "As fast as they come up dispatch them to Marmont. You will find me there by the fire in the square for the next hour. Meanwhile I want the next brigade of horse that reaches S�zanne to be directed to scout in the direction of Aumenier for that missing wagon-train for which we——"

There was a sudden confusion on the edge of the line. The grenadiers forming a circle around the fire had caught a man wearing a Russian greatcoat and were dragging him into the light.

"What's this? Mon Dieu!" exclaimed Napoleon, recognizing the green uniform which he had seen on many a battlefield. "A Russian! Here!"

"A soldier of France, Sire," came the astonishing answer in excellent French from the supposed prisoner.

At this amazing remark in their own tongue the bewildered grenadiers on guard released him. He tore off the green cap and dashed it to the ground.

"Give me a shako. Let me feel the bearskin of the guard again," he cried impetuously, as his hands ripped open his overcoat, disclosing his uniform. "I am a grenadier of the line, Sire."

Napoleon peered down at him.

"Ah," he said, "I know you. You are called——"

"Bal-Arr�t, your Majesty."

"Exactly. Have you stopped any more this time?"

"There is one in my left arm. Your guards hurt when they grasped it. But it is nothing. I didn't come here to speak of bullets, but of——"

"What?"

"The Russians, the Prussians."

"Where did you get that coat and cap?"

"I rode with Jean Marteau," answered the grenadier, greatly excited.

"What of him? Is he alive?"

"I think so."

"Did you leave him?"

"I did, Sire."

"And why?"

"To bring you news."

"Of Marshal Bl�cher's armies?"

The grenadier nodded his head.

"What of them? Quick man, your tidings? Have you been among them?"

"All day long."

"Where are they?"

"General Yorck with his men is at �tampes."

"And Macdonald?"

"Fighting a rearguard action beyond Ch�teau-Thierry."

"On what side of the Marne?"

"The north side, Sire. Right at La Ferte-sous-Jouarre."

"What else?"

"Sacken's Russians are advancing along the main road through Montmirail toward Paris. Olusuvieff's Russian division is at Champaubert."

"And where are Bl�cher and Wittgenstein and Wrede?"

"Major Marteau will have to tell you that, Sire. He went that way."

"You separated?"

"Yes, Sire."

"You were to meet somewhere?"

"At the Ch�teau d'Aumenier."

"Did you go there?"

"I did, Sire."

"And you found?"

"The ground around the ch�teau filled with wagons."

"A train?"

"Of arms, clothing, ammunition, everything the army lacks."

"What was it doing there?"

"There had been a battle. Horses and men were slain; Frenchmen, Cossacks, Russians. I pillaged one wagon," continued the grenadier.

He drew forth from the pocket of the coat a bottle and a handful of hard bread, together with what remained of the roast pig.

"Will you share your meal with a brother soldier?" asked the Emperor, who was ordinarily the most fastidious of mortals, but who could on occasion assume the manner of the rudest private soldier.

"Gladly," said the proud and delighted grenadier, handing the bottle, the bread and the meat to Napoleon, who took them and drank and ate rapidly as he continued to question amid the approving murmurs of the soldiers, who were so delighted to see their Emperor eat like a common man that they quite forgot their own hunger.

"What were the wagons doing there unguarded?"

"I think the men who captured the train were pursuing its guard. Just as I approached the chateau they came riding back. I remained quiet, watching them ride up to the door of the house, which they found barred apparently, for I could hear them beat