Thus, on their arrival in France, Colonel Gilbert and Lory de Vasselot were greeted with the news that Orleans had fallen into the hands of the enemy. It was the same story of incompetence pitted against perfect organization—order and discipline meeting and vanquishing ill-considered bravery. All the world knows now that France should have capitulated after Sedan. But the world knows also that Paris need never have fallen, could France only have produced one mediocre military genius in this her moment of need. The capital was indeed surrounded, cut off from all the world; but the surrounding line was so thin that good generalship from within could have pierced it, and there was an eager army of brave men waiting to join issue from the Loire.
It was to this army of the Loire that Colonel Gilbert and de Vasselot were accredited. And it was an amateur army. It came from every part of France, and in its dress it ran to the picturesque. Franctireurs de Cannes rubbed shoulders with Mobiles from the far northern departments. Spahis and Zouaves from Africa bivouacked with fair-haired men whose native tongue was German. There were soldiers who had followed the drum all their lives, and there were soldiers who did not know how to load their chassepots. There were veteran non-commissioned officers hurriedly drilling embryo priests; and young gentlemen from St. Cyr trying to form in line grey-headed peasants who wore sabots. There were fancy soldiers and picturesque fighters, who joined a regiment because its costume appealed to their conception of patriotism. And if a man prefers to fight for his country in the sombrero and cloak of a comic-opera brigand, what boots it so long as he fights well? It must be remembered, moreover, that it is quite as painful to die under a sombrero as under a plainer covering. A man who wears such clothes sees the picturesque side of life, and may therefore hold existence as dear as more practical persons who take little heed of their appearance. For when the time came these gentlemen fought well enough, and ruined their picturesque get-up with their own blood. And if they shouted very loud in the café, they shouted, Heaven knows, as loud on the battle-field, when they faced those hated, deadly, steady Bavarians, and died shouting.
Of such material was the army of the Loire; and when Chanzy came to them from North Africa—that Punjaub of this stricken India from whence the strong men came when they were wanted—when Chanzy came to lead them, they commanded the respect of all the world. For these were men fighting a losing fight, without hope of victory, for the honour of France. They fought with a deadly valour against superior numbers behind entrenchments; they endeavoured to turn the Germans out of insignificant villages after allowing them time to fortify the position. They fought in the open against an invisible enemy superior in numbers, superior in artillery, and here and there they gained a pitiful little hard-earned advantage.
De Vasselot, still unable to go to the front, was put to train these men in a little quiet town on the Loire, where he lodged with a shoemaker, and worked harder than any man in that sunny place had ever worked before. It was his business to gather together such men as could sit a horse, and teach them to be cavalry soldiers. But first of all he taught them that the horse was an animal possessing possibilities far beyond their most optimistic conception of that sagacious but foolish quadruped. He taught them a hundred tricks of heel and wrist, by which a man may convey to a horse that which he wishes him to do. He made the horse and the man understand each other, and when they did this he sent them to the front.
In the meantime France fed herself upon false news and magnified small successes into great victories. Gambetta made many eloquent speeches, and issued fiery manifestoes to the soldiers; but speeches and manifestoes do not win battles. Paris hoped all things of the army of the Loire, and the army of the Loire expected a successful sortie from Paris. And those men of iron, Bismarck, Moltke, and the emperor, sat at Versailles and waited. While they waited the winter came.
De Vasselot, who had daily attempted to use his wounded limbs, at length found himself fit for active service, and got permission to join the army. Gilbert was no longer a colonel. He was a general now, and commanded a division which had already made its mark upon that man of misfortune—von der Tann, a great soldier with no luck.
One frosty morning de Vasselot rode out of the little town upon the Loire at the head of a handful of his newly trained men. He was going to take up his appointment: for he held the command of the whole of the cavalry of General Gilbert's division. These were days of quick promotion, of comet-like reputations and of great careers cut short. De Vasselot had written to Jane de Mélide the previous night, telling her of his movements in the immediate future, of his promotion, of his hopes. One hope which he did not mention was that Denise might be at Fréjus, and would see the letter. Indeed, it was written to Denise, though it was addressed to the Baronne de Mélide.
Then he went blithely enough out to fight. For he was quite a simple person, as many soldiers and many horse-lovers are. He was also that which is vaguely called a sportsman, and was ready to take a legitimate risk not only cheerfully, but with joy.
“It is my only chance of making her care for me,” he said to himself. He may have been right or wrong. There is a wisdom which is the exclusive possession of the simple. And Lory may have known that it is wiser to store up in a woman's mind memories that will bear honour and respect in the future, than to make appeal to her vanity in the present. For the love that is won by vanity is itself vanity.
He said he was fighting for France, but it was also for Denise that he fought. France and Denise had got inextricably mixed in his mind, and both spelt honour. His only method of making Denise love him was to make himself worthy of her—an odd, old-fashioned theory of action, and the only one that enables two people to love each other all their lives.