The Russians will neither retreat nor surrender, and the carnage is awful; for though overpowered by numbers, they still continue the slaughter, and deal death while dying. The chief farmhouse of the village has been carried by our troops, but the enemy still holds the garden: the low hedge offers a slight obstacle, and over it we dash, and down upon them ride the gallant Tenth with cheers of victory.
At this instant the crashing sound of cannon-shot among masonry is heard. It is the Allied artillery, which, regardless of their own troops, has opened on the village. Every discharge tells; the range is at quarter distance, and whole files fall at every fire. The trumpet sounds a retreat; and I am endeavoring to collect my scattered followers, when my eye falls on the aigulet of a general officer among the heap of dead; and at the same time I perceive that some old and gallant officer has fallen sword in hand, for his long white hair is strewn loosely across his face.
I spring down from my horse and push back the snowy locks, and with a shriek of horror I recognize the friend of my heart,—General d'Auvergne. I lift him in my arms, and search for the wound. Alas! a grapeshot had torn through his chest, and cut asunder that noble heart whose every beat was honor. Though still warm, no ray of life remained: the hand I had so often grasped in friendship, I wrung now in the last energy of despair, and fell upon the corpse in the agony of my grief.
The night was falling fast. All was still around me; none remained near; the village was deserted. The deafening din of the cannonade continued, and at times some straggling shot crashed through the crumbling walls, and brought them thundering to the earth; but all had fled. By the pale crescent of a new moon I dug a grave beneath the ruined wall of the farmhouse. The labor was long and tedious; but my breaking heart took no note of time. My task completed, I sat down beside the grave, and taking his now cold hand in mine, pressed it to my lips. Oh, could I have shared that narrow bed of clay, what rapture would it have brought to my sorrowing soul! I lifted the body and laid it gently in the earth; and as I arose, I found that something had entangled itself in my uniform, and held me. It seemed a locket, which he wore by a ribbon round his neck. I detached it from its place, and put it in my bosom. One lock of the snowy hair I severed from his noble head, and then covered up the grave. “Adieu forever!” I muttered, as I wandered from the spot.
It was the death of a true D'Auvergne,—“on the field of battle!”
CHAPTER XXXIX. THE BRIDGE OF MONTEREAU
Ere I left the village, a shower of shells was thrown into it from the French lines, and in a few minutes the whole blazed up in a red flame, and threw a wide glare over the battlefield. Spurring my horse to his speed, I galloped onward, and now discovered that our troops were retiring in all haste. The Allies had won the battle, and we were falling back on Brienne.
Leaving seventy-three guns in the hands of the enemy, above one thousand prisoners, and six thousand killed in battle, Napoleon drew off his shattered forces, and marched through the long darkness of a winter's night. Thus ended the battle of Arcis-sur-Aube,—the most fatal for the hopes of the Emperor since the dreadful day of Leipzic.
From that hour Fortune seemed to frown on those whose arms she had so often crowned with victory; and he himself, the mighty leader of so many conquering hosts, stood at the window of the château at Brienne the whole night long, dreading lest the enemy should be on his track. He whose battles were wont to be the ovations of a conqueror, now beheld with joy his masses retiring unpursued.