I was all obedience, a knight of Prussia, and therefore at his highness's service.
"Well, well, I thought so. You English gentlemen are ready for every thing. In the mean time, while your horse is saddling, look over this letter. That was a gallant attempt of Clairfait's, and, if we had not been too far off to support him, we might have pounced upon the main body as effectually as he did upon the rear. Chazot has escaped, but one of M. Dumourier's aides-de-camp, a remarkably intelligent fellow, has been taken, and on him has been found the papers which I beg you to peruse."
It was a letter from the commander-in-chief to the Bureau de la Guerre in Paris.
"MONSIEUR LE MINISTRE,—I write this, after having been on horseback for eighteen hours. We must have reinforcements without a moment's delay, or we are lost—the honour of France is lost—France herself is lost. I have with me less than 20,000 men to defend the road to Paris against 100,000. The truth must be told—truth becomes a citizen. We have been beaten! I have been unable to hold the passes of Argonne, and the enemy's hussars are already scouring the country in my rear. I have sent order upon order to Kellerman, and all my answer is, that he is preparing to advance; but he has not stirred a step. I daresay, that he is playing trictrac at Metz this moment.
"My march from the Argonne has been a bold manoeuvre, but it has cost us something. Chazot, to whom I entrusted the protection of the march, and to whom I had given the strictest orders to keep the enemy's light troops at a distance, has suffered himself to be entrapped by those experienced campaigners, and has lost men. Duval fought bravely at the head of his brigade, and Miranda narrowly escaped being taken, in a dashing attempt to save the park of artillery. He had a horse killed under him, and was taken from the field insensible. Macdonald, who takes this, will explain more. He is a promising officer—give him a step. In the mean time, send me every man that you can. France is in danger."
"The object now," observed the duke, "will be, to press upon the enemy in his present state of disorder, until we shall either be enabled to force him to fight a pitched battle at a disadvantage, or strike in between him and the capital. And now forward!"
I mounted, and we rode through the camp—the duke occasionally giving some order for the morning to the officers commanding the successive divisions, and conversing with me on the points in discussion between England and the Allies. He was evidently dissatisfied with continental politics.
"The king and the emperor are both sincere; but that is more than I can always say for those about them. We have too many Italians, and even Frenchmen, at our German courts. They are republicans to a man; and, by consequence, every important measure is betrayed. I can perceive, in the manoeuvres of the enemy's general, that he must have been acquainted with my last despatch from Berlin; and, I am so thoroughly persuaded of the fact, that I mean to manoeuvre to-morrow on that conviction. The order from Berlin is, that I shall act upon his flanks. Within two hours after daylight I shall make a push for his centre; and, breaking through that, shall separate his wings, and crush them at my leisure. One would think," said he, pausing, and looking round him with the exaltation of conscious power, "that the troops had overheard us, and already anticipated a victory."
The sight from the knoll, where we drew our bridles, was certainly of the most striking kind. The fires, which at first I had seen glittering only on the mountain tops, were now blazing in all quarters; in the cleared spaces of the forest, on the heaths and in the ravines: the heaps of fagots gathered for the winter consumption of the cities, by woodmen of the district, were put in requisition, and the axes of the pioneers laid many a huge larch and elm on the blaze. Soldiers seldom think much of those who are to come after them; and the flames shot up among the thickets with the most unsparing brilliancy. Cheerfulness, too, prevailed; the sounds of laughter, and gay voices, and songs, arose on every side. The well-preserved game of this huge hunting-ground, the old vexation of the French peasant, now fell into hands which had no fear of the galleys for a shot at a wild boar, or bringing down a partridge. The fires exhibited many a substantial specimen of forest luxury in the act of preparation. No man enjoys rest and food like the soldier. A day's fighting and fasting gives a sense of delight to both, such as the man of cities can scarcely conceive. No epicure at his most recherché board ever knew the true pleasure of the senses, equal to the campaigner stretched upon the grass, until his supper was ready, and then sitting down to it. I acknowledge, that to me that simple rest, and that simple meal, often gave a sense of enjoyment which I have never even conceived in the luxuries of higher life. The instantaneous sleep that followed; the night without a restless moment; the awaking with all my powers refreshed, and yet with as complete an unconsciousness of the hours past away, as if I had lain down but the moment before, and started from night into sunshine—all belong to the campaigner: he has his troubles, but his enjoyments are his own, exclusive, delicious, incomparable.
An officer of the staff now rode up to make a report on some movement of the division intended to lead in the morning, and the duke gave me permission to retire. He galloped off in the direction of the column, and I slowly pursued my way to my quarters. Yet I could not resist many a halt, to gaze on the singular beauty of the bursts of flame which lighted the landscape. More than once, it reminded me of the famous Homeric description of the Trojan bivouac by the ships. All the images were the same, except that, for the sea, we had the endless meadows of Champagne, and, for the ships, the remote tents of the enemy. We had the fire, the exulting troops, the carouse, the picketed horses, the shouts and songs, the lustre of the autumnal sky, and the bold longings for victory and the dawn. Even in Pope's feeble translation, the scene is animated—