“No, no! we're all safe on that score; the armistice is signed. The very despatch in your hands, I believe, concludes the treaty.”
This warned me that I was delaying too long the important duty intrusted to me, and with a hurried entreaty to the Austrian not to leave De Beauvais, I hastened down the stairs, and proceeded to saddle for the road.
“One word, Monsieur,” said the officer, as I was in the act of mounting. “May I ask the name of him to whom my brother officers owe the life of a comrade much beloved?”
“My name is Burke; and yours, Monsieur?”
“Berghausen, chef d'escadron of the Imperial Guard. If ever you should come to Vienna—” But I lost the words that followed, as, spurring my horse to a gallop, I set out towards the headquarters of the Emperor.
As I rode forward, my eyes were ever anxiously bent in the direction of our camp, not knowing at what moment I might see the advance of a column along the road, and dreading lest, before the despatches should reach the Emperor's house, the advanced vedettes should capture the little party at Holitsch. At no period of his career was Napoleon more incensed against the adherents of the Bourbons; and if De Beauvais should fall into his hands, I was well aware that nothing could save him. The Emperor always connected in his mind—and with good reason, too—the machinations of the Royalists with the plans of the English Government. He knew that the land which afforded the asylum to their king was the refuge of the others also; and many of the heaviest denunciations against the “perfide Albion” had no other source than the dread, of which he could never divest himself, that the legitimate monarch would one day be restored to France.
While such were Napoleon's feelings, the death of the Duc d'Enghien had heightened the hatred of the Bourbonists to a pitch little short of madness. My own unhappy experience made me more than ever fearful of being in any way implicated with the members of this party, and I rode on as though life itself depended on my reaching the imperial headquarters some few minutes earlier.
As I approached the camp, I was overjoyed to find that no movement was in contemplation. The men were engaged in cleaning their arms and accoutrements, restoring the broken wagons and gun-carriages, and repairing, as far as might be, the disorders of the day of battle. The officers stood in groups here and there, chatting at their ease; while the only men under arms were the new conscript? just arrived from France,—a force of some thousands,—brought by forced marches from the banks of the Rhine.
The crowd of officers near the headquarters of the Emperor pressed closely about me as I descended from my horse, eager to learn what information I brought from Holitsch; for they were not aware that I had been stationed nearly half-way on the road.
“Well, Burke,” said General d'Auvergne, as he drew his arm within mine, “your coming has been anxiously looked for this morning. I trust the despatches you carry may, if not Contradict, at least explain what has occurred.”