[CHAPTER XXVIII]
THE DRUM-HEAD MARRIAGE
That same day, about four o'clock in the afternoon, the two generals were bending over a large map of the department of the Lower Rhine. Charles sat writing at a little distance from them, dressed in a becoming coat of dark blue, with pale blue facings and collar, and wearing the red cap of the staff secretaries. This cap was what he had found in the package referred to by the general.
The two generals had just decided that the following day, the 21st of December, the troops should pass over the curved line which divides Dawendorff from the heights of Reichsoffen, Froeschwiller and Woerth, where the Prussians were intrenched; these heights once carried, communication with Weissembourg would be cut off, and Haguenau, thus isolated, would be compelled to surrender. The army was to march in three columns, two to attack in front, and the third, traversing the woods and uniting with the artillery, to attack the Prussians on the flank.
As fast as they arrived at each decision, Charles wrote them down and Pichegru signed them; then the division commanders, who were waiting in another room, were called, and each departed to rejoin his regiment, and to hold himself in readiness to execute the order he had just received.
While they were thus engaged, word was brought to Hoche that the battalion of the rear-guard, having been unable to find quarters in the village, refused to bivouac in the fields, and showed signs of insubordination. Hoche asked the number of the battalion, and learned that it was the third.
"Very well," he said, "go and tell the third battalion for me that it will not have the honor of sharing in the first attack," and he calmly continued to issue his orders.
A quarter of an hour later four soldiers from the mutinous battalion entered, and, in the name of their comrades, asked the general's pardon, and requested permission for the battalion, which was about to bivouac on the spot indicated, to march first against the enemy.
"That cannot be," said Pichegru; "the battalion of the Indre deserves a reward, and they are to march first, but you shall be second."
The last orders had just been issued when an organ-grinder began to play the first strains of the "Marseillaise," "Allons enfants de la patrie," beneath the general's window.