Thus to P. C. Breagh, stumbling with his burden over roads strewn with weapons, accouterments, mess-tins, and water-bottles, boxes of biscuit and halves of sugar-loaves discarded by troops retiring in haste, the appearance of a very tall peasant leading a little white-faced donkey came as an unspeakably welcome relief. For a franc in good French money the owner of the donkey was more than willing to hire out his beast. Thus, seated on this humble animal, P. C. Breagh's Infanta returned to the cottage where she had passed the previous night.
It was one of a hamlet boasting the name of Petit Plappeville. To reach it they skirted the frightful carnage at St. Hubert, threaded the wood of Châtel St. Germain, crossed the railroad, unmolested by the Prussian patrols, and, following narrow lanes hidden between copses, came at last upon its single street.
Madame Guyot, stout, hospitable, and voluble, received Juliette with cries of welcome and open arms. Mademoiselle should have something better than dry bread on this occasion, for a neighbor had that morning killed a calf. Hence veal cutlet, fried in batter—for some of the hens, scared by yesterday's bombardment, had already begun laying—and an omelette with fine herbs. No less than young demoiselles, wounded soldiers require nourishment, and here behold, English Monsieur accompanying Mademoiselle, here upon the pallet-bed in the corner of the kitchen one of France's brave defenders in the person of my Cousin Boisset. Pardon that he cannot rise to salute you, for the Prussians have made it impossible. During the battle of St. Privat yesterday, my Cousin Boisset was twice wounded while serving with the Eighteenth Field Battery of the Sixth Army Corps....
Thus introduced, the gunner told his story, and told it with vivacity in spite of his evident pain. His bandaged head and the useless leg roughly swathed in a homespun towel of Madame Guyot's told their story no less than his nimble tongue and vivacious eyes and hands.
"We were overcome by force of numbers.... The Germans know nothing of scientific warfare.... Believe me, Mademoiselle and Monsieur, we swept them down in rows like ninepins painted black. At twelve hundred yards, and again at fourteen hundred—and the more we killed the more there were to kill. Name of a pipe!—pardon, Mademoiselle!—it was inconceivable! We were compelled at length to cease our fire because our ammunition failed us, and it was not possible to butcher any more!—Worst of all, our generals lost their heads, and issued contradictory orders!—Commissariat broke down before the ammunition-service—we had had nothing to eat for two days—then we ceased to have shrapnel with which to feed our guns.... So we stood in front of a wood in which we might have taken cover, being peppered by Prussian fire of infantry and artillery, for three whole hours!—Three solid hours, Monsieur and Mademoiselle—until we were remembered, and ordered to retire. When the order came, few officers remained, and not a single non-commissioned officer was left to us. Of the three batteries of our brigade Division, two-thirds lay dead upon the field. With my wounded leg trailing behind me, I crawled over rank after rank of bodies, pausing over many of my old comrades.... Then I lay in the wood till dusk, and made crutches of saplings I cut down with my penknife. With the day I reached my cousin's house.... You may say 'All this is War'—but what kind of War? is what I ask you.... I—a soldier when has fought and bled for France!"
It was the voice of Juliette that answered from the corner of the blackened oaken settle, where she sat huddled in the leaden stupor that is born of grief and fatigue:
"Soldier of France, I will try to answer your question.... I am young and ignorant, but I have read and thought much. And now I have experienced what never can be forgotten.... I have sat by the corpse of my father on the battlefield.... I have looked in the face of the great man who is my country's cruel enemy...."
Madame Guyot, who was frying a panful of veal cutlet, started and looked round from her sputtering, savory-smelling cookery. The wounded gunner, propped up on the pallet-bed that stood in the corner of the low-ceiled, stone-built kitchen, turned keen dark eyes and a resolute bearded face toward the quarter whence came the silvery voice:
"It is Bismarck's War," she said. "Stone by stone he has built up Prussia until her vast shadow has swallowed up all Germany. He has seen—this huge man of colossal ambitions—that the road to Power greater still leads through the gate of France. And Diplomacy could not steal the key, so War is the lever with which he opens it."
"Alas, Mademoiselle," returned the gunner sorrowfully, "it would never have opened while a French soldier was left alive—if we had not been betrayed! Have you seen the picture of Cham in last week's Charivari? It reached my battery through one of our officers. It is true—mon Dieu!—it is desperately true. There is the Little Napoleon of To-day dressed up in the old cocked hat and the tattered rags of the capote that used to be worn by the Great Napoleon. He begs at the street-corner for sous—and even the prostitute turns away from the impostor. 'The End of the Legend!' is written underneath. It is furiously chic and terribly clever—and frightfully true, Mademoiselle. For the Napoleonic legend is done with—finished, for good and all!"