My comrades were in front, on the road, in the train of King Louis XVII.; I saw their white clocks and red uniforms, right away on the northern horizon; Bonaparte’s lancers, who were watching and following our retreat step by step, from time to time showed the tricolour pennons of their lances on the opposite sky-line. A lost shoe had delayed my horse; he was young and strong, and I urged him on, so that I might rejoin my squadron; he set off at a rapid trot. I put my hand to my belt,—it was well enough furnished with gold pieces; I heard the iron scabbard of my sabre ringing against the stirrup, and I felt very proud and perfectly happy.
It was still raining, and I was still singing. However, I soon grew silent, tired of hearing no one but myself, and I no longer heard anything but the rain and the hoofs of my horse, which was floundering in the ruts. The road was unpaved; I was sinking, and was obliged to go at a walk. My top-boots were covered, outside, with a thick crust of mud as yellow as ochre; inside they were filling with rain. I looked at my brand-new gold epaulettes, my joy and comfort; they were roughened by the wet, which distressed me.
My horse lowered his head; I did the same: I began to think, and to wonder, for the first time, where I was going. I knew absolutely nothing about it; but that did not trouble me long: I was certain that, my squadron being there, there was my duty also. Feeling at my heart a deep, unchangeable calm, I gave thanks for it to the indescribable sense of Duty, and I tried to explain it to myself. Seeing at close quarters how unaccustomed fatigues were gaily borne by heads so fair, or so white, how a secure future was so cavalierly risked by so many prosperous men of the world, and taking my share in that miraculous satisfaction which is imparted to every man by the conviction that he cannot evade any debt of Honour, I concluded that an easier and more common thing than people imagine, is Self-sacrifice.
I wondered whether Self-sacrifice was not a feeling innate in us; what was this need of obeying, and resigning our will into another’s hands, as if it were a heavy and wearisome load; whence came the secret happiness at being rid of this burden, and why human pride had never rebelled against it. I saw clearly how this mysterious instinct bound peoples together, everywhere, into powerful unions, but nowhere did I see, so entire and so formidable as in Armies, this renunciation of individual actions, words, wishes and almost of thoughts. I saw resistance possible and usual everywhere, the citizen, in all places, practising a discerning and intelligent obedience which examines into matters, and may be suspended. I saw how even the wife’s tender submission ends as soon as she is bidden to do wrong, and how the law defends her; but military obedience, passive and active at one and the same time, receiving the order and carrying it out, striking, with eyes shut, like the ancient Destiny! I traced the possible consequences of the soldier’s Self-sacrifice, irretrievable, unconditional, and sometimes leading to terrible duties.
Thus I thought as I journeyed on at my horse’s pleasure, looking at the time by my watch, and seeing the road still stretching out in a straight line, without a tree or a house, and cutting the plain as far as eye could see, like a broad yellow stripe on a grey canvas. Sometimes the watery stripe blended with the watery earth around it, and, when a rather less pallid light illuminated this desolate stretch of country, I saw myself in the midst of a muddy sea, following a current of slime and plaster.
As I carefully examined this yellow stripe of road, I noticed on it, about a quarter of a league off, a little black moving speck. This gave me pleasure,—it was somebody. I saw that this black speck was going like myself in the direction of Lille, and that it was travelling in a zigzag, a sign of a laborious journey. I accelerated my pace and gained on this object, which lengthened somewhat and grew larger beneath my gaze. I resumed a trot on firmer ground, and thought I made out a kind of small black vehicle. I was hungry, I hoped that it was a canteen-woman’s cart, and, regarding my poor horse as a boat, I rowed it with all my might to reach that fortunate isle, in that sea wherein at times it sank up to the middle.
A hundred paces off, I was able to distinguish clearly a little white wooden cart, covered with three hoops and with black oilcloth. It looked like a little cradle set on two wheels. The wheels were sunk in the mud up to the axle-trees; a little mule which drew them was laboriously led by a man on foot who held the bridle. I drew near and viewed him with attention.
He was a man of about fifty, with a white moustache, tall and strong, with back bent like those old infantry officers who have carried the knapsack. He wore their uniform, and you caught a glimpse of a major’s epaulette under a short blue cloak, much worn. His face was rugged, but kind, as so many are in the army. He looked at me sideways under his thick black eyebrows, and briskly drew from his cart a gun, which he cocked, at the same time crossing to the other side of his mule, of which he made a rampart. Having seen his white cockade, I contented myself with showing the sleeve of my red uniform, and he replaced his gun in the cart, saying:
“Ah! that makes a difference, I took you for one of those fellows who are chasing us. Will you have a drink?”
“With pleasure,” I said, approaching him, “I have drunk nothing for twenty-four hours.”