CHAPTER XXII. JENA AND AUERSTÄDT.
“He has forgotten me!” said I, half aloud, as I watched the retiring figures of the Emperor and his staff till they were concealed by the mist; “he has forgotten me! Now to find out my brigade. A great battle is before us, and there may still be a way to refresh his memory.” With such thoughts I set forward in the direction of the picket-fires, full sure that I should meet some skirmishers of our cavalry there.
As I went, the drums were beating towards the distant left, and gradually the sounds crept nearer and nearer, as the infantry battalions began to form and collect their stragglers. A dense fog seemed to shut out the dawn, and with a thin and misty rain, the heavy vapor settled down upon the earth, wrapping all things in a darkness deep as night itself. From none could I learn any intelligence of the cavalry quarter, nor had any of those I questioned seen horsemen pass near them.
“The voltigeurs in the valley yonder may perhaps tell you something,” said an officer to me, pointing to some fires in a deep glen beneath us. And thither I now bent my steps.
The dull rolling of the drums gradually swelled into one continued roar, through which the clank of steel and the tremulous tramp of marching columns could be heard. Spirit-stirring echoes were they, these awakening sounds of coming conflict! and how they nerved my heart, and set it bounding again with a soldier's ardor! As I descended the hill, the noise became gradually fainter, till at length I found myself in a narrow ravine, still and silent as the grave itself. The transition was so sudden and unexpected, that for a moment I felt a sense of loneliness and depression; and the thought struck me, “What if I have pushed on too far? Can it be that I have passed our lines? But the officer spoke of the voltigeurs in front; I had seen the fires myself; there could be no doubt about it.” I now increased my speed, and in less than half an hour gained a spot where the ground became more open and extended in front, and not more than a few hundred paces in advance were the watchfires; and as I looked I heard the swell of a number of voices singing in chorus on different sides of me. The effect was most singular, for the sounds came from various quarters at the same instant, and, as they all chanted the same air, the refrain rang out and filled the valley; beating time with their feet, they stepped to the tune, and formed themselves to the melody, as though it were the band of the regiment. I had often heard that this was a voltigeur habit, but never was witness to it before. The air was one well known in that suburb of Paris whence the wildest and most reckless of our soldiers came, and which they all joined in celebrating in this rude verse:—
“Picardy first, and then Champagne,—
France to the battle! on boys, on!
Anjou, Brittany, and Maine,—
Hurrah for the Faubourg of St. Antoine I
“How pleasant the life of a voltigeur!
In the van of the fight he must ever be;
Of roughing and rations he 's always sure,—
With a comrade's share he may well make free.
“Picardy first, and then Champagne,—
France to the battle I on boys, on!
Anjou, Brittany, and Maine,—
Hurrah for the Faubourg of St. Antoine!
“The great guns thunder on yonder hill,—
Closer than that they durst not go;
But the voltigeur comes nearer still,—
With his bayonet fixed he meets the foe.
“The hussar's coat is slashed with gold;
He rides an Arab courser fleet:
But is the voltigeur less bold
Who meets his enemy on his feet?
“The cuirassier is clad in steel;
His massive sword is straight and strong:
But the voltigeur can charge and wheel
With a step,—his bayonet is just as long.
“The artillery-driver must halt his team
If the current be fast or the water deep:
But the voltigeur can swim the stream,
And climb the bank, be it e'er so steep.
“The voltigeur needs no trumpet sound,—
No bugle has he to cheer him on:
Where the fire is hottest, that 's his ground,—
Hurrah for the Faubourg of St. Antoine!”
As they came to the conclusion of this song, they kept up the air without words, imitating by their voices the roll of the drum in marching time. Joining the first party I came up with, I asked the officer in what direction of the field I should find the cuirassier brigade.
“That I can't tell you, Comrade,” said he. “No cavalry have appeared in our neighborhood, nor are they likely; for all the ground is cut up and intersected so much they could not act. But our maître d'armes is the fellow to tell you. Halloo, François! come up here for a moment.”
Before I could ask whether this was not my old antagonist at Elchingen, the individual himself appeared.
“Eh, what?” cried he, as he lifted a piece of firewood from the ground, and stared me in the face by its light. “Not my friend Burke, eh? By Jove! so it is.”