“General d'Auvergne! Where is he now?”
“With the light cavalry brigade, in front; I saw him pass here two hours since.”
“And how looks he, François?”
“A little stooped, or so, more than you knew him; but his seat in the saddle seems just as firm. Ventrebleu! if he 'd been a voltigeur, he 'd be a good man these ten years to come.”
Delighted to learn that I was so near my dearest and oldest friend in the world, I shook Francois's hand, and parted; but not without a pledge, that whenever I joined the infantry, the Fifth Voltigeurs of the Line were to have the preference.
As we advanced towards Brienne the distant thunder of large guns was heard; which gradually grew louder and more sustained, and betokened that the battle had already begun. The roads, blocked up with dense masses of infantry and long trains of wagons, prevented our rapid advance; and when we tried the fields at either side, the soil, cut up with recent rains, made us sink to the very girths of our horses. Still, order after order came for the troops to press forward, and every effort was made to obey the command.
It was five o'clock as we debouched into the plain, and beheld the fields whereon the battle had been contested; for already the enemy were retiring, and the French troops in eager pursuit. Behind, however, lay the town of Brienne, still held by the Russians, but now little better than a heap of smoking ruins, the tremendous fire of the French artillery having reduced the place to ashes. Conspicuous above all rose the dismantled walls of the ancient military college; the school where Napoleon had learned his first lesson in war, where first he essayed to point those guns which now with such fearful havoc he turned against itself. What a strange, sad Subject of contemplation for him who now gazed on it! On either side, the fire of the artillery continued till nightfall; but the Russians still held the town. A few straggling shots closed the combat; and darkness now spread over the wide plain, save where the watchfires marked out the position of the French troops.
A sudden flash of lurid flame, however, threw its gleam over the town, and a wild cheer was heard rising above the clatter of musketry. It was a surprise party of grenadiers, who had forced their way into the grounds of the old château, where Blücher held his headquarters. Louder and louder grew the firing, and a red glare in the dark sky told how the battle was raging. Up that steep street, at the top of which the venerable château stood, poured the infantry columns in a run. The struggle was short. The dull sound of the Russian drum soon proclaimed a retreat; and a rocket darting through the black sky announced to the Emperor that the position had been won.
The next day the Emperor fixed his headquarters at the château, and a battalion of the guard bivouacked in the park around it. I had sent forward the letter to Général Damrémont, and was wondering when and in what terms the reply might come, when the general himself rode up, accompanied by a single aide-de-camp.
“I have had the opportunity, sir, to speak of your conduct in the proper quarter,” said he, courteously; “and the result is, your appointment as major of the Tenth Hussars, or, if you prefer it, the staff.”