So many accomplished historians have described this glorious action, that we shrink from attempting the task after them; it is not our business to write history according to official facts, but to seek it in episodes that have been overlooked. That is why we shall follow the Beaux Messieurs de Bois-Doré through the carnage, and not allow ourselves to be dazzled by the majesty of the picture as a whole. An additional reason for adopting this course is that they had little leisure to contemplate it themselves.
It was a magnificent scene: a combat of heroes on a sublime stage!
The first cannon-shot awoke echoes of intense excitement in Mario's heart. How he passed the first barricade, whether upon a winged horse or "upon the fiery breath of the god Mars himself;" how he forgot his sworn promise to his father not to leave his side, he never knew. All the passion of his soul, all the fever in his blood, ordinarily restrained by modesty and filial love, produced a sort of volcanic eruption within him.
He even forgot for a moment that his father was following him into the very midst of the fray, and, in order not to lose sight of him, was exposing himself to no less risk.
Aristandre was there, it is true, stationed like a marble wall about his master; but Mario, when the fighting was most desperate, turned more than once to look for the old man's gray plume, which towered above all the rest, and each time, as he saw it waving still, he thanked God and trusted to his lucky star.
The whole affair was carried through so impetuously that it did not cost France the lives of fifty men. It was one of those miraculous days when every man has faith, and when nothing is impossible.
The position carried, Mario was galloping along the Suse road in pursuit of the fugitives, among whom was the Duc de Savoie in person, when he saw a masked horseman riding toward him at full speed on his right.
"Halt, halt!" he shouted; "the king's service before everything! Take my despatches! I know you; I trust you!"
As he spoke, the horseman slipped from his horse in a swoon, while the horse himself, utterly exhausted, fell on his knees.
Mario was the only one of the young men who had the self-restraint to renounce the opportunity to display his prowess farther; he leaped from his horse and picked up the sealed package which the courier had dropped.