“How came you by this picture? The truth, sir; mark me, the truth!”
Without showing any sign of feeling hurt at the insinuation of this question, I detailed, in as few words as I could, the circumstance by which the locket became mine. Long before I had concluded, however, I could mark that his attention flagged, and finally wandered far away from the matter before him.
“Why will you not give me the information I look for? I seek for no breach of faith. The campaign is all but over. The Prussians were beaten at Ligny, their army routed, their artillery captured, ten thousand prisoners taken. Your troops and the Dutch were conquered yesterday, and they are in full retreat on Brussels. By to-morrow evening I shall date my bulletin from the palace at Laeken. Antwerp will be in my possession within twenty-four hours. Namur is already mine. Cambronne, Lefebvre,” cried he, “cet homme-là n’en sait rien,” pointing to me as he spoke; “let us see the other.” With this he motioned slightly with his hand as a sign for me to withdraw, and the next moment I was once more in the solitude of my prison-room, thinking over the singular interview I had just had with the great Emperor.
How anxiously pass the hours of one who, deprived of other means of information, is left to form his conjectures by some passing object or some chance murmur. The things which, in the ordinary course of life, are passed by unnoticed and unregarded, are now matters of moment,—with what scrutiny he examines the features of those whom he dare not question; with what patient ear he listens to each passing word. Thus to me, a prisoner, the hours went by tardily yet anxiously; no sabre clanked; no war-horse neighed; no heavy-booted cuirassier tramped in the courtyard beneath my window, without setting a hundred conjectures afloat as to what was about to happen. For some time there had been a considerable noise and bustle in and about the dwelling. Horsemen came and went continually. The sounds of galloping could be heard along the paved causeway; then the challenge of the sentry at the gate; then the nearer tread of approaching stops, and many voices speaking together, would seem to indicate that some messenger had arrived with despatches. At length all these sounds became hushed and still. No longer were the voices heard; and except the measured tread of the heavy cuirassier, as he paced on the flags beneath, nothing was to be heard. My state of suspense, doubly greater now than when the noise and tumult suggested food for conjecture, continued till towards noon, when a soldier in undress brought me some breakfast, and told me to prepare speedily for the road.
Scarcely had he left the room, when the rumbling noise of wagons was heard below, and a train of artillery carts moved into the little courtyard loaded with wounded men. It was a sad and frightful sight to see these poor fellows, as, crammed side by side in the straw of the charrette, they lay, their ghastly wounds opening with every motion of the wagon, while their wan, pale faces were convulsed with agony and suffering. Of every rank, from the sous-lieutenant to the humble soldier, from every arm of the service, from the heavy cuirassier of the guard to the light and intrepid tirailleur, they were there. I well remember one, an artillery-man of the guard, who, as they lifted him forth from the cart, presented the horrifying spectacle of one both of whose legs had been carried away by a cannon-shot. Pale, cold, and corpse-like, ha lay in their arms; his head lay heavily to one side, his arms fell passively as in death. It was at this moment a troop of lancers, the advanced guard of D’Erlon’s Division, came trotting up the road; the cry of “Vive l’Empereur!” burst from them as they approached; its echo rang within the walls of the farm-house, when suddenly the dying man, as though some magic touch had called him back to life and vigor, sprang up erect between his bearers, his filmy eye flashing fire, a burning spot of red coloring his bloodless cheek. He cast one wild and hurried look around him, like one called back from death to look upon the living; and as he raised his blood-stained hand above his head, shouted, in a heart-piercing cry, “Vive l’Empereur!” The effort was his last. It was the expiring tribute of allegiance to the chief he adored. The blood spouted in cataracts from his half-closed wounds, a convulsive spasm worked through his frame, his eyes rolled fearfully, as his outstretched hands seemed striving to clutch some object before them, and he was dead. Fresh arrivals of wounded continued to pour in; and now I thought I could detect at intervals the distant noise of a cannonade. The wind, however, was from the southward, and the sounds were too indistinct to be relied on.
“Allons, aliens, mon cher!” said a rough but good-humored looking fellow, as he strode into my room. He was the quartermaster of Milhaud’s Dragoons, under whose care I was now placed, and came to inform me that we were to set out immediately.
Monsieur Bonnard was a character in his way; and if it were not so near the conclusion of my history, I should like to present him to my readers. As it is, I shall merely say he was a thorough specimen of one class of his countrymen,—a loud talker, a louder swearer, a vaporing, boasting, overbearing, good-natured, and even soft-hearted fellow, who firmly believed that Frenchmen were the climax of the species, and Napoleon the climax of Frenchmen. Being a great bavard, he speedily told me all that had taken place during the last two days. From him I learned that the Prussians had really been beaten at Ligny, and had fallen back, he knew not where. They were, however, he said, hotly pursued by Grouchy, with thirty-five thousand men, while the Emperor himself was now following the British and Dutch armies with seventy thousand more.
“You see,” continued he, “l’affaire est faite! Who can resist the Emperor?”
These were sad tidings for me; and although I did not place implicit confidence in my informant, I had still my fears that much of what he said was true.
“And the British, now,” said I, “what direction have they taken?”