CHAPTER XVII.
FACING A BATTERY OF MITRAILLEUSES.
The night passed over quietly, and without alarm; but with dawn of day came an officer of Uhlans, attended by a trumpeter, flying at full speed along the line of advanced posts, calling in all the out-pickets, while the King was probably already telegraphing to Berlin as usual:—
'Another new victory! Thank God for His mercy!'
Referring to the official pietism of the Prussian monarch at this crisis, a very impartial historian of the war says thus:—'How little his armies were controlled by regard for humanity—the most essential element of any religion—will appear in lurid colours. Abu Bekr, the successor of Mohammed, enjoined his soldiers not to kill old people, women, or children; to cut down no palm-trees, nor burn any fields of corn; to spare all fruit-trees; and slay no cattle but such as they could take for their own use. But the Prussians made a desert of France, burned villages and small towns, and treated old people and women with horrible barbarity. But they were prodigal of religious words, and words with many have too often a greater weight than facts.'
But with all this, it should be borne in mind, from past experience of French invading armies, how would those of the Emperor have behaved had they reached Berlin?
One of a thousand of such episodes, as were daily occurring along the frontiers of Alsace and Lorraine, would no doubt have desolated for ever the household of M. de Caillé but for the timely arrival of Pierrepont and his twenty Thuringians.
Aware of this, when the Uhlan trumpet sounded, Célandine de Caillé, like most young girls, a light sleeper, heard it before the war-worn Charlie, and pale and startled, came forth in the prettiest of morning robes to bid him farewell, and to stuff his havresack, and the havresacks of his men (though they were Prussians), with all that the Bavarians had not consumed last night.
Charlie thought how fresh and radiant the young girl looked in her white morning dress, with blue breastknots, and a ribbon of the same colour in her hair, a soft light shining in her blue eyes, and a little colour in her peach-like cheek, that reminded him of Ernestine; but, ah! who was like Ernestine?
A soldier fresh from one battle and going forth to fight another is an object of interest to all; but a handsome, frank, and free-hearted young fellow, like Charlie Pierrepont, was doubly so to an impassionable girl like Mademoiselle de Caillé; thus her blue eyes filled with tears as he kissed her tremulous little hand, which, like her taper arm, came so delicately forth from the wide-laced sleeves of her dress.