They got him in. The sweat was starting through the rouge upon his livid face as he sank heavily upon the seat of the carriage. His son and cousin followed. Bazaine,—who was accompanied by Canrobert and Bourbaki, and did not dismount, rode up to receive his master's farewells.
He did not entreat again to be relieved of the supreme responsibility. Perhaps the Emperor imagined that he might. For he put out his hand in haste and shook the Marshal's, reiterating:
"All will go well! Excellently, I have no doubt of it! You understand, you have broken the spell."
Of ill-luck, did he mean, clinging to the fatalist whose Star was on the point of setting. He added:
"I go to Verdun and Châlons. Put yourself upon the road for Châlons as soon as possible.... May you be fortunate! Au revoir! En avant!"
The brigadier-general in charge of the escort gave the word. The Advance was sounded, the Chasseurs on their gray Arabs dashed onward, riding in fours, keeping a sharp lookout for Uhlans. A half-troop of Cent Gardes preceded the Emperor's carriage, his equerries and aides and those of the Prince's household followed on their empty, chafing beasts. Another peloton of Cent Gardes were succeeded by three Imperial carriages containing the surgeon, secretaries and valets; grooms followed with led horses; and the Empress's regiment of Dragoons, brass-helmeted, black-plumed warriors, in green with white plastrons, brought up the rear.
It was four o'clock in the morning when they started. Deep defiles rather than roads, with wooded, precipitous banks, stretch between Metz and Gravelotte. By the time the Imperial cortège had extricated itself from the stray columns and batteries choking these, and the cliffy banks had lowered to hedgerows, it was six o'clock and a gloriously sunny morning.
One may imagine, as the landscape broadened and smoothed like a human face relieved from carking anxiety, the young Prince Imperial turning in his seat, and looking back upon the scene he was unwillingly quitting, with a scowl of resentment and dissatisfaction that changed and aged his boyish face.
He saw the white tents of the huge camps of the Imperial Divisions snowing over a vast area of country on the French side of the river, and the clotting of cavalry and infantry in swarms upon the roads, where vast aggregations of baggage and provisions and ambulance wagons impeded their passage. He saw the Imperial Standard break out above the Tricolor on the flagstaff of the Fort of Plappeville, signifying that Bazaine had entered. He could see the artillery-batteries on the high ground at Rezerieulles, and he knew that others were posted behind the woods of Genivaux, and yet others near the quarries of Amanvilliers. The glitter of steel and the flutter of red and white lance-pennons told of the Light Cavalry outposts at St. Ruffine. And sinister moving specks upon the hill-crests beyond the river above St. Barbe—and others moving in the villages, with darker, bigger patches toward Sarrebourg, testified, like the gray-white drifts of powder-smoke that came down upon the northeast breeze, with the reduplicated rattle of musketry, the detonation of field-guns and the yapping of mitrailleuses—to the near, active presence of the ancient, racial foe.
He was drawing nearer, always nearer, to the coveted key-city of the Two Rivers, seated within her ancient fortifications, guarding the northeast frontiers of France. He wanted Metz, with her vast modern arsenal, her huge hospitals and military colleges, her fifteen bridges—(the railway-bridge had been blown up by Bazaine's engineers on the night before last, when the squadron of Uhlans, greatly daring, had made their way into the French lines, with the project of seizing upon the person of papa)—and her glorious Cathedral, whose vast gray bulk was now bathed in the misty golden sunshine of a perfect autumn day.