"My child ... safe ... neutral territory.... Charles ... honest man ... protect my girl from Adelaide! Now ... death! Ah!—agony! Save, Jesu! ... Mary, help!"
A few of his gallant Chasseurs surrendered. But these were only a handful. Nearly the whole strength of his brigade of three regiments lay dead upon that patch of common that was cumbered with their corpses and those of their enemies.
XLV
Bismarck said, lowering his binoculars:
"Lucky that war is so confoundedly expensive. Otherwise, one might get too fond of it!"
The King groaned:
"My Dragoons of the Guard!—my Uhlans, slaughtered in regiments! My infantry shattered—decimated—annihilated in Divisions. The bravest blood of France—poured out upon French soil like water.... Great God!—how shall I defend this carnage to the Queen?..."
The voice behind him said, ironically:
"My wife writes me ten pages every three days, urging upon me in Biblical language the necessity for complete extermination of everything French! Believe me, Sire, he who is guided by the advice of a woman follows, not a Jack, but a Jinny o' Lantern, that will inevitably lead him into a bog!"