“Is it true that the marshal is wounded, general?” he asked.
“It is but too true, unfortunately. I received a note from Ducrot only a few minutes ago, in which he advises me of the fact, and also notifies me that, by the marshal’s appointment, he is in command of the army.”
“Ah! so it is Ducrot who is to have his place! And what are the orders now?”
The general shook his head sorrowfully. He had felt that the army was doomed, and for the last twenty-four hours had been strenuously recommending the occupation of Illy and Saint-Menges in order to keep a way of retreat open on Mézières.
“Ducrot will carry out the plan we talked of yesterday: the whole army is to be concentrated on the plateau of Illy.”
And he repeated his previous gesture, as if to say it was too late.
His words were partly inaudible in the roar of the artillery, but Maurice caught their significance clearly enough, and it left him dumfounded by astonishment and alarm. What! Marshal MacMahon wounded since early that morning, General Ducrot commanding in his place for the last two hours, the entire army retreating to the northward of Sedan—and all these important events kept from the poor devils of soldiers who were squandering their life’s blood! and all their destinies, dependent on the life of a single man, were to be intrusted to the direction of fresh and untried hands! He had a distinct consciousness of the fate that was in reserve for the army of Châlons, deprived of its commander, destitute of any guiding principle of action, dragged purposelessly in this direction and in that, while the Germans went straight and swift to their preconcerted end with mechanical precision and directness.
Bourgain-Desfeuilles had wheeled his horse and was moving away, when General Douay, to whom a grimy, dust-stained hussar had galloped up with another dispatch, excitedly summoned him back.
“General! General!”
His voice rang out so loud and clear, with such an accent of surprise, that it drowned the uproar of the guns.