Then, under the lash of fear, loud murmurs arose, a swelling growl of exasperation. Yes, yes; they had been brought there to be sold, to be handed over to the Prussians!
Evil fortune had proved so implacable, the blunders committed had been so excessive, that to these men of narrow minds such a series of disasters could only be explained by treachery.
'We are betrayed! We are betrayed!' they shouted, in maddened voices.
Then, an idea occurring to Loubet he exclaimed: 'It's perhaps that beast of an Emperor who's blocking the road with all his luggage.'
The surmise circulated, till it was positively affirmed that the block was occasioned by the imperial household having intercepted the column. Then the men swore abominable oaths, venting all the hatred that had been roused in their breasts by the insolence of the Emperor's attendants, who took possession of the towns where they slept, unpacking their provisions, their baskets of wine, and their silver plate in the presence of soldiers who were destitute of everything, and setting the kitchens ablaze when the poor devils had to go without a particle of food.
Ah! that wretched Emperor—now without a throne or a command, like a lost child in the midst of his empire, carried off as if he were some useless parcel among the baggage of his troops, condemned to drag about with him the irony of his gala household, his Cent-Gardes, his carriages, his horses, his cooks, his vans, all the pomp of his bee-spangled state robes, sweeping up the blood and the mire of the highways of defeat!
Two more shells now fell in quick succession, and a splinter carried off Lieutenant Rochas's cap. The ranks closed up amid violent pushing—a kind of wave, the ebbing of which spread afar off. Men were calling out in choking voices, and Lapoulle shouted to those in front of him to advance. Another minute, perhaps, and a frightful catastrophe would take place, a sauve-qui-peut which would result in the men engaging in a furious mêlée together, and being crushed to death in the depths of that narrow pass.
The colonel turned round, looking very pale: 'My lads, my lads,' he said, 'a little patience. I have sent some one to see—we are off.'
But the march was not resumed, and the seconds seemed like centuries. Jean had already taken Maurice by the hand, and with admirable calmness was explaining to him in a whisper that if their comrades should again begin pushing, they had better jump aside on the left, and climb through the woods on the other side of the little river. He looked round for the Francs-tireurs, in the idea that they must know the roads, but he was told that they had disappeared while the regiment was passing through Raucourt. And then, all at once, the march was resumed; they turned round a bend of the road, and were thenceforth screened from the German batteries. Later on, some of them learned that it was General de Bonnemain's division of cavalry—four regiments of Cuirassiers—that had thus intercepted and stopped the Seventh Corps in the confusion of that disastrous day.
The night was falling when the 106th passed through Augecourt. The wooded crests still rose upon the right, but on the left the defile grew broader, and a bluish valley could be seen in the distance. At last from the heights of Remilly they perceived, in the evening mist, a pale silvery ribbon winding through the immense rolling expanse of meadow and cultivated land. It was the Meuse—the Meuse they had so longed to reach and where it seemed the victory was to be.