With this, the Emperor mounted again, and in a few seconds more was lost to our sight.
“Ventrebleu!” said the old lieutenant, who had served without promotion from the first battles of the Republic, “you'll be a colonel for that scratch on your epaulette, if we only beat the Prussians to-morrow; and here am I, with eight wounds from lead and steel, and the Petit Caporal never bade me visit him at his bivouac. Come, come! I don't wish to be unfriendly; it's not your fault, it's only my bad fortune. And here comes the surgeon.”
The lieutenant was right,—the epaulette had the worst of the adventure; and, in half an hour I proceeded on my way to headquarters.
CHAPTER XXII. L'HOMME ROUGE
On my way to the imperial quarters, I fell in with some squadrons of our dragoons, from whom I learned that General d'Auvergne had just received orders to repair to the Emperor's bivouac, to which several officers in command were also summoned. As I saw, therefore, that I could have no prospect of meeting the Emperor, I resolved merely to hold myself in readiness, should he, which seemed little likely, think of me; and accordingly I took up my post with some young under-officers of our brigade, at a huge fire, where a species of canteen had been established, and coffee and corn-brandy were served out to all comers.
The recent escape of Napoleon at the outposts was already known far and near, and formed the great topic of conversation, in which, I felt hurt to remark, no mention of the part I took was ever made, although there were at least a dozen different versions of the accident. In one, his Majesty was represented to have rode down upon and sabred the advanced picket; in another, it was the Prussians who fired, he having penetrated within their lines to reconnoitre,—each agreeing in the one great fact, that the feat was something which no one save himself could have done or thought of. As for me, I felt it was not my part to speak of the incident at all until his Majesty should first do so. I listened, therefore, with due patience and some amusement to the various narratives about me; which served to show me, by one slight instance, the measure of that exaggeration with which the Emperor's name was ever treated, and convinced me that it required not time nor distance to color every incident of his life with the strongest hues of romance. The topic was a fruitful and favorite one; and certainly few subjects could with more propriety season the hours around a bivouac fire than the exploits of the Emperor Napoleon.
Among those whose reminiscences went farthest back was an old sergeant-major of infantry,—a seared and seamed and weather-beaten little fellow, who, from fatigues and privations, was dried up to a mass of tendons and fibres. This little man presented one of those strange mixtures with which the army abounded,—the shrewdest common sense on all ordinary topics, with a most credulous faith in any story where Napoleon's name occurred. It seemed, indeed, as though that one element, occurring in any tale, dispensed at once with the rules which govern belief in common cases.
The invulnerability of the Emperor was with him a fruitful theme; and he teemed with anecdotes of the Egyptian and Italian campaigns, in which it was incontestably shown that neither shot nor shell had any effect upon him. But of all the superstitions regarding Napoleon, none had such complete hold on his imagination, nor was more implicitly believed by him, than the story of that little “Red Man,” who, it was asserted, visited the Emperor the night before each great battle, and arranged with him the manoeuvres of the succeeding day.
“L'Homme Bouge,” as he was called, was an article of faith in the French army that few of the soldiers ever thought of disputing. Some from pure credulity, some from the force of example, and some again from indolence, believed in this famed personage; but even the veriest scoffer on more solemn subjects would have hesitated ere he ventured to assail the almost universal belief in this supernatural agency. The Emperor's well-known habit of going out alone to visit pickets and outposts on the eve of a battle was a circumstance too favorable to this superstition not to be employed in its defence. Besides, it was well known that he spent hours by himself, when none even of the marshals had access to him; and on these occasions it was said “L'Homme Bouge” was with him. Sentinels had been heard to declare that they could overhear angry words passing between the Emperor and his guest; that threats had been interchanged between them; and on one occasion it was said that the “Red Man” went so 'far as to declare, that if his advice were neglected Napoleon should lose the battle, see his artillery fall into the hands of the enemy, and behold the Guard capitulate.