Scarcely had they reached the spacious porch, when, the gate being open, they saw that a crowd had assembled in the street. A low vehicle was slowly approaching, a kind of tilted cart drawn by one horse, which a lieutenant of Zouaves was leading. They at once thought that a wounded man was being brought to them.
'Yes, yes, it's here; come in!'
But they learned that they were mistaken. The wounded man lying in the cart was Marshal MacMahon, whose left hip had been half carried away by a splinter of a shell, and who, after a first dressing at a gardener's little house, was now being taken to the Sub-Prefecture. His head was bare, he was half undressed, and the gold embroidery of his uniform was soiled with dust and blood. He did not speak, but he had raised his head and was glancing vaguely around him. On perceiving the three women who stood there painfully impressed, their hands clasped at sight of the great misfortune that was passing—the whole army struck in the person of its commander at the very first shells fired by the foe—he made a slight inclination of the head, smiling feebly in a paternal way. Some of the bystanders respectfully uncovered, whilst others bustled about, relating that General Ducrot had just been appointed commander-in-chief. It was now half-past seven o'clock.
'And the Emperor?' asked Henriette of a bookseller who was standing at his door near by.
'He passed about an hour ago. I followed him, and saw him go off by the Balan gate. There's a report that a cannon ball has carried off his head.'
At this, however, a grocer over the way became quite indignant. 'It's all a pack of lies,' said he. 'Only brave men come to any harm.'
The cart conveying the marshal was now drawing near to the Place du Collège, where it became lost to view amid a swelling crowd, through which the most extraordinary rumours from the battlefield were already circulating. The fog was at last dispersing, and the streets were filling with sunlight.
'Now, ladies, it isn't outside, but here that you are wanted,' a gruff voice suddenly called from the courtyard.
They all three went in again, and found themselves in presence of Major Bouroche, who had already flung his uniform in a corner and donned a large white apron. Above all this whiteness, as yet unspotted, that huge head of his, covered with coarse bristling hair, that lion-like countenance was glowing with haste and energy. And so terrible did he seem to them, that they at once became his slaves, obedient to his beck and call, and bustling about to satisfy him.
'We have nothing,' said he; 'give me some linen. Try and find me some more mattresses. Show my men where the pump is.' And thereupon they ran hither and thither, and multiplied themselves as though they were his servants.