The King murmured, unheeding the jest, his eyes glued to the field-glasses that jerked in his shaking hands:
"Even a victory could not bring my soldiers of the Guard to life again. And there! Dost thou see?..."
The Minister turned his own binoculars in the indicated quarter. What remained of a Division of the Prussian 10th Corps, with a brigade of cavalry, Uhlans and Dragoons, was locked in the death-grip with a Cavalry Division of Bazaine's own corps, the Third, on the plain between the Bois de Vionville and the Bois de Gaumont. And even the Chancellor's iron hand trembled as with ague, and his breathing harshened perceptibly as he carefully focused the glasses on the fight. He said after a moment:
"Those three regiments of cavalry on brown horses with green, silver-laced dolmans and red-bagged talpacks are Chasseurs of the Imperial Guard. Fine fellows! They have a man to lead them, it would seem, in that little Colonel with the big paunch."
The Brigadier of the Chasseurs had been killed by a shell, and upon Paunchy had devolved the leadership. Twice he had led the green dolmans in shattering charges, under the stress of which the dark blue islands of infantry had hollowed and caved in. Twice he had fought his way out at the head of his shrunken and mutilated squadrons. Now, sweeping round, the Dragoons and Uhlans had attacked the Chasseurs furiously in the rear.
All that could be seen, even through the binoculars, was a shifting kaleidoscopic jumble of gay uniforms. Men's heads and arms rising and falling, flashing swords, flickering lance-pennons, and the crests and hindquarters of plunging beasts.... Hence Kraus, Klaus, and Klein of the blue infantry could not fire into the mêlée for fear of shooting their countrymen. Red Breeches hesitated to use his chassepot on the same count.
About a bushy knoll to the left of the struggle, the German cavalry circled like swallows, greedily assailing a swarm of green and red dragon-flies. The chasseurs' cartridge-boxes being empty, they used their long sabers as they had used their carbines, coolly and effectively; and Paunchy, lifted above the press by the little knoll referred to, encouraged them with looks and gestures and words.
"Courage, my children! ... Follow me! ... Bravo! ... One moment's breathing-space, and at them again!"
He was only a green and scarlet speck in the midst of an aggregation of other specks on the vast battlefield, yet the King and the Minister watched him with fixed regard.
"Grosser Gott! How that man fights!" the King muttered at one point in the conflict, and the rejoinder came from overhead: