Supper was on the table when I introduced the Prussian philosopher to my brother officers, and they were delighted with him. But he was the philosopher no longer, or rather had thrown off the half misanthropy which had made him so strong a contrast to my honest friend Varnhorst. His very countenance had adopted a different expression. It was no longer stern and sarcastic, but was lighted up with pleasantry; and the only conception of the change which I could form was, either that he had arrived at that height of philosophy to which every thing seems trivial, or that he had met with some of those extraordinary instances of good fortune which throw all the world into sunshine for the moment.
But he was full of knowledge on the subject most interesting to his hearers; and he gave us his information of the allied councils, and the movements of the armies, with a copiousness and courtesy which all our questioning could not tire.
“We have now,” said he, “the finest army in line that Europe has ever seen; little less than 200,000 men are under the command of the prince. If he is suffered to move them in a mass, they must break through any part of the French territory which they choose. If they divide, they will be beaten. It will now take only three pitched battles to reach Paris—for the three covering armies fight with the guillotine in their rear. But a single unlucky skirmish may bring every peasant in France upon us; and it takes but fifteen days to make the French peasant a soldier. Blows, and those straightforward, are our true policy. If we negotiate, we shall be beaten; if beaten here, we shall be beaten on the Rhine, and perhaps even on the Danube.”
The news of Dumourier’s attempt to overthrow his government had reached us, but in the usual way of mystification. The answer of Guiscard was prompt and plain. “Dumourier,” said he, “is one of those men who has a one-sided understanding. He is a capital soldier, but a childish statesman; and, with an absurdity by no means limited to himself, he thinks that his talent lies in statesmanship. The result has been, that the factions have always managed him as they do all men of his calibre. When he attempted to act for himself, they crushed him without mercy; when he ceased to be a tool, he necessarily became a victim. The army is now in retreat. To the French retreat is always ruin; the horseman sells his horse; the foot-soldier sells his musket; and the artilleryman sells his powder and ball, breaks up his gun-carriage for a fire, and throws his gun into the next ditch. The peasantry then fall on them all, repay their plunder with the pike and the pitchfork, and in three days the army is dissolved.”
“But will Cobourg follow up his blow?” was the question on all sides.
“The commander-in chief,” was the answer, “is intelligent and brave. He has learned his profession under the greatest soldier whom Russia has produced, or perhaps ever will produce—Suwarrow. But he is himself under orders. If he were a republican general he would instantly march, and within a week he would be in the Tuileries. But as an Austrian commander, he must wait for the opinion of men too far off to know a single fact of the campaign, too blind to know them if they were on the spot, and too jealous even of their own general to suffer him to beat the enemy if victory would throw their own nothingness into the shade.”
Every hour now produced its event. A general feu-de-joie announced the first great success of the campaign; Mayence had been taken, with its garrison of 20,000 men. The French general Custine, had made an unsuccessful attack on the lines of the besiegers, to relieve the fortress in its last extremity, had been beaten, and driven back into the Vosges, where he was at liberty to starve among the most barren mountains of France. But this intelligence came qualified by the formidable rumour that Prussia was already making terms with the French, that it had acknowledged the government as the “Republic,” and even that the Prussians had sung the Marsellaise. Thus we had the light and shade.
But while politicians tremble, soldiers are gay. What were all those shiftings and doublings to us? We had all the luxuries of the most luxurious of all lives, the foreign camp. We had now marched from the country of fogs and bogs, and were moving through the richest soil, and not the least beautiful landscape, of the Continent. Holland was left behind, Flanders was round us, France was before us. We had the finest army of Europe, untouched by disaster, confident in its strength, and the enemy in full flight. If we despised the fugitives, we fully as much despised the politicians; the man with the sword in his hand naturally scorns the man with the pen behind his ear. Thus we galloped, danced, and dreamed on. The spring, too, had come; the harshness of a foreign winter had been changed within a few days to the delightful softness of early summer. The fields were covered with flowers, and the country was filled with the preparations for the rural fêtes of the first of May. I enjoyed the scene doubly, for I had been sent along with a squadron of dragoons to the advanced posts, and thus escaped the turmoil of the camp. My quarters were in one of the old Flemish country-houses, which had been the headquarters of the French general, and had thus escaped the usual ravage. The chateau was large, well furnished in the national fashion, and the half-dozen domestics who remained after the escape of their master, were charmed with the expenditure which always follows the presence of English troops. My companion, the captain of dragoons, was one of the finest specimens of his country—the heir of a noble family, generous and gay, brave as his own sword, and knowing as little of the soldier’s life as became a young aristocrat with the prospect of thirty thousand a-year. He insisted on our giving a ball to the Flemings; and our invitations were sent out accordingly for half a dozen leagues round. They included, of course, the camp; and every lounger who could obtain leave for the night came crowding in upon us. Nothing could succeed better. All was festivity within doors. But not so all without, for the night suddenly changed from serenity to storm. England is not the only spot famed for fickleness of atmosphere. By midnight every beech and elm round the chateau was tossing and bending down to the roots, and a heavy snowfall was already sheeting the fields. As the storm rose, it occurred to me to ascertain what provision might have been made against it by our soldiers, who were lodged in the barns and extensive outhouses of the chateau. Leaving my dragoon friend to act as master of the ceremonies, I sallied forth. The storm was now at its height; and it was with some difficulty that I could make my way. In the midst of the excessive darkness, I felt some animal make a sudden spring on me, which nearly brought me to the ground. Wolves were not common in the country, but there had been some recent instances of their issuing from the forests, and my first idea was that I had been thus attacked. But the barking and bounding of a dog soon put an end to this conception; and I recognised in my assailant the huge house-dog of the chateau, with whom I had already struck up a particular friendship. More sharpsighted than myself, he had rushed across the wood after me, and exhibited all imaginable rejoicing at the rencontre. I reached the barns, found all my men wrapped in that quiet which cares nothing for the troubles of kings and cabinet councils, and was preparing to return, when Cæsar, with every demonstration of having found something of importance, brought me a letter which he had dug out of the snow. By the light of the lantern, I discovered it to be the report of an engineer officer dispatched from the French army to ascertain the condition of our outposts, informing the head of the staff of an intended ball, and proposing a plan for carrying off the whole party together. I was thunderstruck. The letter was dated three days before, and though evidently dropped by some negligence of the officer, yet giving full time for him to make his report in person, and bring the force necessary for our capture. If it succeeded, an exploit of this order might have paralysed the whole campaign; for nearly the entire staff of the army, besides a crowd of regimental officers of all grades, were within the walls of the chateau.
I hastened back, showed the report to one or two of the principal officers, in private, for the purpose of avoiding alarm to our fair partners, and we then considered what means were left to protect us from the approaching catastrophe. Our little council of war was nearly as much perplexed as matters of this kind are in general; and the propositions, various as they were, came finally to the usual result, that we had got into a scrape, and that we must get out of it as well as we could. To send the ladies away was impossible, in a tempest which already flooded every road, and with all the trees crashing over their heads. To expect reinforcements from the camp, at such a distance, and in such weather, was hopeless; with the recollection that the whole affair might be over in the next quarter of an hour, and our entire assembly be in march before the French hussars. This was the first occasion of my responsibility as a soldier; and I learned, from this time forth, to give commanders-in-chief some credit for their responsibilities. The agonies of that half hour I have never forgotten. Military failure was nothing compared to the universal shame and blighting which must fall on the officer who suffered such a disgrace to be inflicted on him in the presence of the whole army; and such a calamity to arrest the progress of that army, if not the hopes of Europe. My resolution was desperately but decidedly taken, if the post fell into the enemy’s hands, on that night to throw away my sword and abandon my profession, unless some French bayonet or bullet relieved me from all the anxieties of this feverish world. To offer the command of the post to any of the superior officers present was, as I well knew, contrary to rule; and on me and the dragoon devolved the whole duty.
But this state of almost nervous torture was as brief as it was painful, and my faculties became suddenly clear. The service of outposts was a branch of soldiership, at that period, wholly unpractised by the British troops; but I had seen it already on its most perfect scale in the Prussian retreat, which I and my hussars had our share in covering. My first step was to warn my soldiers and the dragoons of the probability of attack, and my second to call for a favourite quadrille, in which I saw all our guests busily engaged before I left the chateau. My next was to repeat my Prussian lesson in reconnoitring all the avenues to the house. This, which ought to have been our first act on taking possession, had been neglected, in the common belief that the enemy were in full retreat. The gallant captain of dragoons prepared to take a gallop at the head of a party along the chaussée, and ascertain whether there were any symptoms of movement along the road. He mounted and was gone. Posting the dragoons in the farm-yard, I went to the front to make such preparations as the time might allow for the enemy. Like the greater number of the Flemish chateaux, it was approached by a long avenue lined with stately trees; but it wanted the customary canal, or the fosse, which, however detestable as an accompaniment to the grounds in peace, makes a tolerable protection in times of war, at least from marauding parties. All was firm, grand, and open, except where the garden walls and hedges of the lawn shut it in. As the avenue was the only approach accessible to cavalry, and as this was the force which would probably be used for a coup-de-main, if it were to be attempted at all, I set all hands to work to secure it. Wild as the night was, my men wielded the spade and mattock with good will; and we had completed a trench of some feet deep and wide, half across the road, when I caught the trampling of cavalry at a distance. My chagrin was irrepressible; the enemy would be upon us before we had got through our work, and we must be taken or fly. My men worked vigorously; but the cavalry were upon us—and to my utter astonishment and infinite relief, our labours produced a roar of laughter. The party were our dragoons, who had looked for the French advance in vain, and were now amusing themselves with our waste of toil. We forgave them their jest; they passed, and we prepared to follow to our quarters. But still the French officer’s report haunted me; the precision of its terms, and the feasibility of the enterprise itself, struck with new force; and even after I had given the word to move, I halted the men, and climbing a little pleasure turret by the side of the avenue, gave a parting glance round the horizon. Nothing was to be seen. The night was dark as a dungeon, and I prepared to descend, when at that moment the distant sound of a trumpet broke on the air. I listened, and thought that I recognised the French call for cavalry to saddle and mount. I sprang down; every man piled his arms, took spade and mattock in hand once more, and in a few minutes the trench was completed across the road. Still no further notice of approaching troops was to be heard; and I heard a low, but rather provoking laugh among my company. Still I determined to persevere, and ordering some of the trees round us to be cut down, formed a rude species of chevaux-de-frise in front of our trench. It was scarcely finished, when the distant trampling of cavalry was heard in the lull of the gale. All were now convinced, and dispatching a notice to the dragoons to be ready, we stood to our arms. Giving the strictest orders that not a word should be spoken, nor a shot fired, I waited for the enemy. The trampling increased every moment, and it was evident that the body of cavalry must be large, though of its actual numbers we could form no conjecture. They suddenly stopped at the entrance of the avenue, and I was in fear that my trou-de-rat would be discovered; but the national impatience soon spared me this vexation. The cavalry, hearing nothing in the shape of resistance, and not relishing the pelting of the storm in the open country, rushed in without further search, and came pouring on at the gallop. The avenue was long, and the whole corps was already within it, when the leading squadrons came at full speed upon my rude fortifications. In they dashed, into the very heart of my chevaux-de-frise. Nothing could equal the confusion. Some sprang over the trees, but it was only to be flung into the trench; some even leaped the trench, but it was only to be met by our bayonets. The greater number, startled by the cries of their unlucky comrades in front, attempted to rein back; but found it impossible, from the weight of the squadrons still pushing on from behind. At this point, while they stood a struggling mass, wholly unable to move either backward or forward, I gave the word to fire, and poured in a volley with terrible execution. An ineffectual firing of pistols was their only return. Some of their officers now rushed to the front, with the usual gallantry of their character, called on their men to advance, and charged the trench; but this dash only filled it with falling men and horses. I gave them a second volley, which was followed by a howl of despair; the whole of their leading squadron was brought down—every shot had told. The mass still stood, evidently taken by surprise, and wholly unable to extricate themselves. I now ordered our dragoons to mount, take a circuit to the head of the avenue, and, if possible, close them in. In a few minutes, I heard the effect of my order in their galloping through the enclosures, and in the shout of a charge at the further end of the avenue. The staff and other officers in the chateau had hurried out at the sound of our firing, and some had come up to us, and others had joined the dragoons. A proposal was now sent by a general officer to the commandant of the brigade, to surrender, with a threat of being put to the sword in case of an instant’s delay. The brave Frenchman was indignant at the proposal, and threatened to hang the bearer of it to the next tree. But the British camp had palpably been alarmed by this time. Bugles and trumpets were heard in every direction. Our dragoons had already shut up the avenue; and after some slight discussion, the advance of a few squadrons more, which came up at the gallop, proved the total impossibility of escape, and the affair was at an end. This night’s mêlée had no rival in the campaign; it put into our hands twelve hundred of the best cavalry in the French army, and almost wholly stripped the enemy of the means of protecting his flanks, while it made a most brilliant figure in the Gazette—the true triumph of the British soldier.