A GARRET IN PRAGUE
The great parties at Chambord followed and lasted all through June. They were like the one in December, but they were not illuminated by the wit, the beauty, the ineffable charm of Francezka. It may be imagined how little I enjoyed them. My heart was like lead in my bosom. Every waking hour, and often in my dreams, I saw Francezka’s face as I had last seen it, pale and despairing.
There was something else besides pleasuring at Chambord; the fêtes were meant to disguise more serious events. On an August morning at daylight Count Saxe changed his ball costume for his riding dress and set forth to take command of the van of Marshal Belle-Isle’s army, which was to cross the Rhine at Fort Louis, thirty miles below Strasburg. Gaston Cheverny was not to be with us. He was to go with the army of Marshal Maillebois, which was to cross the Rhine near Düsseldorf.
Count Saxe had been in a quandary about inviting Gaston Cheverny to resume his old place as aide-de-camp. There could be no doubt that Gaston merited much from Count Saxe, as it was owing to Count Saxe’s own imprudence in remaining unguarded at Hüningen 449 that Gaston Cheverny had been lost to life and love for seven years. Yet my master felt toward him the same coldness of heart that I did. It is true that Gaston’s alleged inability to use his right arm properly would be a drawback, but one likely to be passed over by any commander who really wished his services, and especially by Count Saxe, taking the past into consideration. In truth there was every reason why Count Saxe should again offer a place in his military family to Gaston Cheverny. But he felt a singular indisposition to do it.
Gaston, ever quick of wit, relieved Count Saxe of his awkward predicament. He wrote, saying that Marshal Maillebois had made him an admirable offer, and while he recognized Count Saxe’s right to his services, he scarcely thought anything so promising could be given him in the army of Marshal Belle-Isle. My master jumped at this easy way out of his difficulty and wrote, desiring Gaston Cheverny to suit himself. At the same time he inclosed a letter highly recommending Gaston to Marshal Maillebois. Every word in that letter, which I wrote myself, was true, because it referred to the Gaston Cheverny we had known before 1740.
Gaston replied most handsomely, and so the matter was settled to everybody’s satisfaction. But it gave me a feeling of stupefaction that the person we were trying to part from decently, and to avoid with the greatest seeming tenderness, was the Gaston Cheverny whom I had loved the instant my eyes had rested on him, whom my master had bade me capture for Courland, who had served us as loyally as man could serve in all those adventurous days, who had been Count Saxe’s right-hand man, and whose readiness and devotion to Count 450 Saxe had cost such a price as Gaston had paid. It was staggering.
On that rosy August dawn Count Saxe, with a small escort, started for the Rhine by way of Châlons. This did not take us near Brabant, and there seemed no chance of my seeing Francezka. This gave me great uneasiness of mind. I was haunted by a whole troop of malignant fears, of dreadful apprehensions about that being, so ineffably dear to me. And these hideous shapes marched with me, and kept watch over me, and visited me nightly in my dreams. And to no one, not even to Count Saxe, could I speak of them! I could only go on steadfastly doing my duty.
We reached Fort Louis, and Count Saxe being put in command of the vanguard, consisting of about fifteen thousand men, of Marshal Belle-Isle’s army, we began the crossing of the river. We knew we were playing a game of war with loaded dice, but soldiers must not inquire too curiously into their orders. Marshal Belle-Isle had gone to Germany the year before with a basket of eggs, which he reckoned as full-grown chickens, but the eggs mostly addled and would not hatch, so the game with the loaded dice was substituted.
We were on the march early in September, through the blue Bavarian mountains, where the air, though sharp, was like good wine, and then into the wild Bohemian country, full of rocks and bogs and black chasms, and shaggy mountains, ever colder and bleaker, ever farther and farther away from our base. Marshal Saxe was troubled with the company of the King of Saxony, whom Marshal Belle-Isle made King of Moravia; 451 as Count Saxe said: “He is King of Moravia very much as I am Duke of Courland.”
At last, in the midst of the storms, the snows, the fierce winds of November in that wild Bohemian country, we found ourselves set down before Prague. And Prague we must take or starve—starve all of us—men and horses together.