THE STORMING OF THE REDOUBT.
"I rejoined the regiment on the evening of the 4th September. I found the colonel at the bivouac. At first he received me rather roughly; but after reading General B's. letter of recommendation, he changed his manner, and spoke a few obliging words. He presented me to my captain, who had just returned from a reconnoissance. This captain, whom I had little opportunity to become acquainted with, was a tall dark man, of hard and repulsive physiognomy. He had been a private soldier, and had won his cross and his epaulets on the battle-field. His voice, hoarse and weak, contrasted strangely with his gigantic stature. They told me he was indebted for this singular voice to a bullet that had passed completely through his body at Jena.
"On hearing that I came from the school at Fontainbleau, he made a wry face, and said, 'My lieutenant died yesterday.'—I understood that he meant to say, 'You are to replace him, and you are not able.' A sharp word rose to my lips, but I repressed it.
"The moon rose behind the redoubt of Cheverino, situate at twice cannon-shot from our bivouac. She was large and red, as is common at her rising; but that night she seemed to me of extraordinary size. For an instant the black outline of the redoubt stood out against the moon's brilliant disc, resembling the cone of a volcano at the moment of an eruption.
"An old soldier who stood near me, noticed the colour of the moon. 'She is very red,' he said; ''tis a sign that yon famous redoubt will cost us dear.' I was always superstitious, and this augury, just at that moment, affected me. I lay down, but could not sleep; I got up and walked for some time, gazing at the immense line of fires covering the heights beyond the village of Cheverino.
"When I deemed my blood sufficient cooled by the fresh night air, I returned to the fire, wrapped myself carefully in my cloak, and shut my eyes, hoping not to re-open them till daylight. But sleep shunned me. Insensibly my thoughts took a gloomy turn. I said to myself, that I had not one friend amongst the hundred thousand men covering that plain. If I were wounded, I should be in an hospital, carelessly treated by ignorant surgeons. All that I had heard of surgical operations returned to my memory. My heart beat violently; and mechanically I arranged, as a species of cuirass, the handkerchief and portfolio that I carried in the breast of my uniform. I was overwhelmed by fatigue, and continually fell into a doze, but as often as I did so, some sinister idea awoke me with a start. Fatigue, however, at last got the upper hand, and I was fast asleep when the reveillé sounded. We formed up, the roll was called, then arms were piled, and according to all appearance the day was to pass quietly.
"Towards three o'clock an aid-de-camp arrived with an order. We resumed our arms; our skirmishers spread themselves over the plain; we followed slowly; and in twenty minutes we saw the Russian pickets withdraw to the redoubt. A battery of artillery took post on our right hand, another on our left, but both considerably in advance. They opened a vigorous fire upon the enemy, who replied with energy, and soon the redoubt of Cheverino disappeared behind a cloud of smoke.
"Our regiment was almost protected from the Russian fire by a ridge. Their bullets, which seldom came in our direction—for they preferred aiming them at the artillery—passed over our heads, or at most sent earth and pebbles in our faces.
"When we had received the order to advance, my captain looked at me with an attention which made me pass my hand two or three times over my young mustache, in the most cavalier manner I could assume. I felt no fear, save that of being thought to feel it. These harmless cannon-balls contributed to maintain me in my heroic calmness. My vanity told me that I ran a real danger, since I was under fire of a battery. I was enchanted to feel myself so much at my ease, and I thought with what pleasure I should narrate the capture of the redoubt of Cheverino in the drawing-room of Madame de B——, Rue de Provence.
"The colonel passed along the front of our company and spoke to me. 'Well!' he said, 'you will see sharp work for your first affair.'
"I smiled most martially, and brushed my coat-sleeve, on which a ball, fallen about thirty paces from me, had sent a little dust.
"It seems the Russians perceived how small was the effect of their round shot, for they replaced them by shells, which could reach us better in the hollow where we were posted. A tolerably large fragment of one of these knocked off my shako and killed a mail beside me.
"'I congratulate you,' said the captain, as I picked up my shako. 'You are safe for to-day.' I knew the military superstition which holds the maxim Non bis in idem to be as applicable on a battle-field as in a court of justice. I proudly replaced my shako on my head. 'An unceremonious way of making people bow,' said I, as gaily as I could. Under the circumstances, this poor joke appeared excellent. 'I congratulate you,' repeated the captain; 'you will not be hit again, and to-night you will command a company, for I feel that my turn is coming. Every time I have been wounded, the officer near me has received a spent ball, and,' he added in a low voice, and almost ashamed, 'all their names began with a P.'
"I affected to laugh at such superstitions. Many would have done as I did—many would have been struck, as I was, by these prophetic words. As a raw recruit I understood that I must keep my feelings to myself, and always appear coldly intrepid.
"After half an hour the Russian fire sensibly slackened; then we emerged from our cover to march against the redoubt. Our regiment was composed of three battalions. The second was charged to take the redoubt in flank on the side of the gorge; the two others were to deliver the assault. I was in the third battalion.
"On appearing from behind the sort of ridge that had protected us, we were received by several volleys of musketry, which did little harm in our ranks. The whistling of the bullets surprised me: I turned my head several times, thus incurring the jokes of my comrades, to whom the noise was more familiar. 'All things considered,' said I to myself, 'a battle is not such a terrible thing.'
"We advanced at storming pace, preceded by skirmishers. Suddenly the Russians gave three hurras, very distinct ones, and then remained silent, and without firing. 'I don't like that silence,' said my captain. 'It bodes us little good.' I thought our soldiers rather too noisy, and I could not help internally comparing the tumultuous clamour with the imposing stillness of the enemy.
"We rapidly attained the foot of the redoubt: the palisades had been broken, and the earth ploughed by our cannonade. With shouts of 'Vive l'Empereur!' louder than might have been expected from fellows who had already shouted so much, our soldiers dashed over the ruins.
"I looked up, and never shall I forget the spectacle I beheld. The great mass of smoke had arisen, and hung suspended like a canopy twenty feet above the redoubt. Through a gray mist were seen the Russian grenadiers, erect behind their half-demolished parapet, with levelled arms, and motionless as statues. I think I still see each individual soldier, his left eye riveted on us, the right one hidden by his musket. In an embrasure, a few feet from us, stood a man with a lighted fuse in his hand.
"I shuddered, and thought my last hour was come. 'The dance is going to begin,' cried my captain. Good-night.' They were the last words I heard him utter.
"The roll of drums resounded in the redoubt. I saw the musket muzzles sink. I shut my eyes, and heard a frightful noise, followed by cries and groans. I opened my eyes surprised to find myself still alive. The redoubt was again enveloped in smoke. Dead and wounded men lay all around me. My captain was stretched at my feet; his head had been smashed by a cannon-ball, and I was covered with his blood and brains. Of the whole company, only six men and myself were on their legs.
"A moment of stupefaction followed this carnage. Then the colonel, putting his hat on the point of his sword, ascended the parapet, crying 'Vive l'Empereur!' He was instantly followed by all the survivors. I have no clear recollection of what then occurred. We entered the redoubt, I know not how. They fought hand to hand in the middle of a smoke so dense that they could not see each other. I believe I fought too, for my sabre was all bloody. At last I heard a shout of victory, and, the smoke diminishing, I saw the redoubt completely covered with blood and dead bodies. About two hundred men in French uniform stood in a group, without military order, some loading their muskets, others wiping their bayonets. Eleven Russian prisoners were with them.
"Our colonel lay bleeding on a broken tumbril. Several soldiers were attending to him, as I drew near—'Where is the senior captain?' said he to a sergeant. The sergeant shrugged his shoulders in a most expressive manlier. 'And the senior lieutenant?' 'Here is Monsieur, who joined yesterday,' replied the sergeant, in a perfectly calm tone. The colonel smiled bitterly. 'You command in chief, sir,' he said to me; 'make haste to fortify the gorge of the redoubt with those carts, for the enemy is in force; but General C. will send you a support.'—'Colonel,' said I, 'you are badly wounded.'—'Foutre, mon cher, but the redoubt is taken.'"
"Carmen," M. Mérimée's latest production, appeared a few months since in the Revue des Deux Mondes, which appears to have got the monopoly of his pen, as it has of many of the cleverest pens in France. "Carmen" is a graceful and animated sketch, in style as brilliant as anything by the same author—in the character of its incidents less strikingly original than some of his other tales. It is a story of Spanish life, not in cities and palaces, in court or camp, but in the barranca and the forest, the gipsy suburb of Seville, the woodland bivouac and smuggler's lair. Carmen is a gipsy, a sort of Spanish Esmeralda, but without the good qualities of Hugo's charming creation. She has no Djali; she is fickle and mercenary, the companion of robbers, the instigator of murder. She inveigles a young soldier from his duty, leads him into crime, deceives and betrays him, and finally meets her death at his hand. M. Mérimée has been much in Spain, and—unlike some of his countrymen, who apparently go thither with the sole view of spying out the nakedness of the land and making odious comparisons, and who, in their excess of patriotic egotism, prefer Versailles to the Alhambra, and the Bal Mabille to a village fandango—he has a vivid perception of the picturesque and characteristic, of the couleur locale, to use the French term, whether in men or manners, scenery or costume, and he embodies his impressions in pointed and sparkling phrase. As an antiquarian and linguist, he unites qualities precious for the due appreciation of Spain. Well-versed in the Castilian, he also displays a familiarity with the Cantabrian tongue—that strange and difficult Vascuense which the Evil One himself, according to a provincial proverb, spent seven years of fruitless labour in endeavouring to acquire. And he patters Romani, the mysterious jargon of the gitanos, in a style no way inferior—so far as we can discover—to Bible Borrow himself. That gentleman, by the bye, when next he goes a missionarying, would find M. Mérimée an invaluable auxiliary, and the joint narrative of their adventures would doubtless be in the highest degree curious. The grave earnestness of the Briton would contrast curiously with the lively half-scoffing tone of the witty and learned Frenchman. Indeed, there would be danger of persons of such opposite character falling out upon the road, and fighting a mortal duel, with the king of the gipsies for bottle-holder. The proverbial jealousy between persons of the same trade might prove another motive of strife. Both are dealers in the romantic. And "Carmen," related as the personal experience of the author during an archæological tour in Andalusia the autumn of 1830, is as graphic and fascinating as any chapters of the great tract-monger's remarkable wanderings.