Jean, however, set off again, making a furious gesture of annoyance. No, no, he wasn't going to lie on the hard ground now that he was certain of finding Maurice. And yet, in the depths of his conscience, he was worried by a feeling of remorse, for in his mind's eye he could see the colonel, tall and rigid, indefatigable despite his age, and always sleeping under canvas like his men. Busy with such thoughts as these, Jean began threading the High Street, and, having lost himself amid the increasing tumult that pervaded the town, he ended by applying to a little boy, who conducted him to the Rue Maqua.
It was here that one of Delaherche's grand-uncles had, in the last century, built a monumental factory, which had now been the property of the family for a hundred and sixty years. Sedan counts several cloth manufactories, dating from the earlier years of Louis XV., as large as Louvres, and with regally majestic façades. That in the Rue Maqua had three storeys of lofty windows framed round with carving of a severe style; and, in the rear of the front building, there was a palatial courtyard shaded with old trees, gigantic elms dating from the foundation of the establishment. Three generations of Delaherches had amassed considerable fortunes there, and now it was the younger branch of the family that reigned, the father of Jules Delaherche, the present owner, having inherited the property from a cousin who had died childless. Jules' father had increased the prosperity of the firm, but he was a man of easy morals, and had rendered his wife extremely unhappy. She, on becoming a widow, had feared lest her son should take to the same courses as his father, and after marrying him to a woman who was very devout and of very simple tastes, she had sought to maintain him in a dependent state as though he were a mere youth, and this till he was over fifty years of age. Life, however, sometimes has terrible revenges, and his wife having died, Delaherche, like a mere stripling, fell in love with a young widow of Charleville, pretty Madame Maginot, concerning whom there had been no little gossip, but whom he had ended by marrying during the previous autumn, despite all his mother's remonstrances. Sedan, a very puritanical town, has always looked down severely on Charleville, the abode of gaiety and festivity. It should be said, however, that the marriage would never have taken place had Gilberte not been the niece of Colonel de Vineuil, who, so it seemed, was on the point of becoming a general. This relationship, the idea of allying himself to a military family, had greatly flattered the manufacturer's feelings.
On the morning of August 30, having learnt that the army was near Mouzon, Delaherche, in company with Weiss, his book-keeper, had started on that excursion which old Fouchard had referred to in conversation with Maurice. Tall and stoutly built, with a ruddy complexion, a large nose and thick lips, the manufacturer was of an expansive nature, endowed with all the inquisitiveness of the French bourgeois, who likes nothing better than a brilliant military display. On learning from the chemist at Mouzon that the Emperor was at Baybel farm, he had climbed thither and had seen Napoleon, had almost spoken to him, had met, in fact, with quite an adventure, which he had not ceased talking about since his return to Sedan. But the homeward journey in the midst of the Beaumont panic, along the roads crowded with runaways, had been truly terrible. A score of times had the gig narrowly missed being upset in the wayside ditches; and delayed over and over again by constantly recurring obstacles, Delaherche and Weiss had only got back to Sedan at nightfall. The pleasure trip ended, indeed, in a most unpleasant fashion; the army, which the manufacturer had gone to see, marching along a couple of leagues away, drove him home again with the gallop of its retreat, and this unforeseen, tragical adventure so exercised his mind that on the road back he kept on repeating to his companion: 'And to think that I fancied the army was marching on Verdun—that was why I didn't want to miss the opportunity of seeing it. Well, I have seen it, and no mistake; and I fancy we shall see rather more of it at Sedan than will be altogether pleasant.'
Awakened at five o'clock the next morning by the loud commotion of the Seventh Corps streaming torrent-like through the town, he hastily dressed himself and went out; and the first person whom he met on the Place Turenne was none other than Captain Beaudoin. During the previous year, the captain had been one of the intimates of pretty Madame Maginot at Charleville; and she had introduced him to Delaherche prior to their marriage. According to the scandal-mongers, the captain, who was considered to be the lady's favoured admirer, had retired through a feeling of delicacy, not wishing to stand between his inamorata and the manufacturer's large fortune.
'What! is it you?' exclaimed Delaherche, as he encountered him on the Place. 'Good heavens! What a state you are in!'
The captain, usually so correct and spruce in his get-up, was now indeed in a pitiable condition. Not only was his uniform sadly soiled, but his face and hands were black. He had arrived from Remilly in the company of some Turcos, and was exasperated at having lost his company, how he could not tell. Like all the others, he was dying of hunger and fatigue, but this caused him far less distress than the circumstance that he had been unable to change his linen since leaving Rheims.
'Just fancy!' he immediately whimpered, 'my baggage got lost at Vouziers—lost by some idiots or other; some rascals whose heads I'd break if I could only get hold of them. And I've nothing left; not a handkerchief, not a pair of socks even. 'Pon my honour, it's enough to drive a man mad!'
Delaherche at once insisted on taking him home. But Beaudoin resisted. No, no, he no longer looked like a human being, and he did not wish to frighten people. The manufacturer then had to give him his word of honour that neither his mother nor his wife was up. Besides, he would supply him with water, soap and linen, in fact, everything he might require.
Seven o'clock was striking when Captain Beaudoin, after a wash and a brush, made his entry into the lofty, grey-panelled dining room, wearing one of Delaherche's shirts under his uniform. Madame Delaherche senior was already there, for she invariably rose at dawn, despite her eight-and-seventy years. Her hair was quite white, and she had a long, thin face, with a slender, pointed nose, and a mouth that no longer smiled. She rose from her chair and showed herself extremely polite, inviting the captain to seat himself in front of one of the cups of café-au-lait that were already placed on the table. 'But perhaps, monsieur,' said she, 'you would prefer some meat and wine after so much fatigue?'
He protested the contrary: 'Many thanks, madame, but a little milk and some bread and butter will suit me best.'