'It is really dangerous, sire,' said some one; but the Emperor turned round, and with a wave of the hand simply ordered his staff to draw up in a narrow lane skirting the works, where both men and horses would be completely hidden. 'It's really madness, sire—we beg you, sire——'
However, he simply repeated his gesture, as though to say that the appearance of a number of uniforms on that bare road would certainly attract the attention of the hostile batteries on the left bank of the Meuse. And then, all alone, he rode forward amid the bullets and the shells, without evincing any haste, but still and ever in the same mournful, indifferent manner, as though he were going in search of Destiny. And doubtless, he could hear behind him that implacable voice that had ever urged him forward, the voice that rang out from Paris, calling: 'March, march, die like a hero on the corpses of your people, strike the whole universe with compassionate admiration, so that your son may reign!' And forward he went, slowly walking his horse. For nearly a hundred yards he thus continued advancing; and then he halted to await the fate that he had come in search of. The bullets whistled by like an equinoctial gale, and a shell burst near him covering him with earth. Yet still he remained there waiting. His charger's mane stood up, the animal was quivering all over, instinctively recoiling at thus finding itself in the presence of death which passed by every moment, unwilling, however, to touch either man or beast. And then, after that infinite period of waiting, the Emperor, realising like the resigned fatalist he was, that it was not there he should find his destiny, quietly rode back again, as though he had merely gone forward to reconnoitre the exact positions of the German batteries.
'What courage you have shown, sire! But we beg of you not to expose yourself again!'
However, with another wave of the hand he summoned the members of his staff to follow him, now sparing them no more than he had spared himself; and off he rode across the fields, over the bare ground of La Rapaille towards the position of La Moncelle. On the way a captain of the escort fell dead, and two horses were killed under their riders. The regiments of the Twelfth Corps, before which Napoleon passed, saw him appear and vanish like a spectre; not once was he saluted nor once acclaimed.
Delaherche witnessed all this, and it made him shudder, especially when he reflected that on leaving the brickworks he should again find himself in the open, exposed to all the projectiles. So he lingered there, listening to some officers who had remained behind, their horses having been previously shot under them.
'I tell you he was killed on the spot,' said one; 'a shell cut him in half.'
'No, no. I myself saw him carried off. He was merely wounded—a splinter of a shell in the hip——'
'At what time did it occur?'
'At about half-past six, an hour ago. It was in a hollow road over yonder, near La Moncelle.'