MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN.
Part XIV.
"Have I not in my time heard lions roar?
Have I not heard the sea, puft up with wind,
Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat?
Have I not heard great ordnance in the field,
And Heaven's artillery thunder in the skies?
Have I not in the pitched battle heard
Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?"
Shakspeare.
Europe had never seen so complete or so powerful an army as that which was now assembled within sight of Valenciennes. The city was already regarded as in our possession; and crowds of military strangers, from every part of the Continent, came day by day pouring into the allied camp. Nothing could equal the admiration excited by the British troops. The admirable strength, stature, and discipline of the men, and the successes which they had already obtained, made them the first object of universal interest; and the parades of our regiments formed a daily levee of princes and nobles. It was impossible that soldiership could be on a more stately scale. Other times have followed, which have shown the still statelier sight of nations marching to battle; but the hundred thousand men who marched under Cobourg to take up their positions in the lines of Valenciennes, filled the eye of Europe; and never was there a more brilliant spectacle. At length orders were sent to prepare for action, and the staff of the army were busily employed in examining the ground. The Guards were ordered to cover the operations of the pioneers; and all was soon in readiness for the night on which the first trench was to be opened. A siege is always the most difficult labour of an army, and there is none which more perplexes a general. To the troops, it is incessant toil—to the general, continual anxiety. The men always have the sense of that disgust which grows upon the soldier where he contemplates a six weeks' delay in the sight of stone walls; and the commander, alive to every sound of hazard, feels that he yet must stand still, and wait for the attack of every force which can be gathered round the horizon. He may be the lion, but he is the lion in a chain—formidable, perhaps, to those who may venture within its length, but wholly helpless against all beyond. Yet those feelings, inevitable as they are, were but slightly felt in our encampment round the frowning ramparts of the city. We had already swept all before us; we had learned the language of victory; we were in the midst of a country abounding with all the good things of life, and which, though far from exhibiting the luxuriant beauty of the British plains, was yet rich and various enough to please the eye. Our camp was one vast scene of gaiety. War had, if ever, laid aside its darker draperies, and "grim-visaged" as it is, had smoothed its "wrinkled front." The presence of so many visitors of the highest rank gave every thing the air of royalty. High manners, splendid entertainments, and all the habits and indulgences of the life of courts, had fled from France only to be revived in Flanders. Our army was a court on the march; and the commander of the British—the honest, kind-hearted, and brave Duke of York—bore his rank like a prince, and gathered involuntarily round him as showy a circle as ever figured in St James's, or even in the glittering saloons of the Tuileries. Hunting parties, balls, suppers, and amateur theatrical performances, not merely varied the time, but made it fly. Hope had its share too, as well as possession. Paris was before us; and on the road to the capital lay but the one fortress which was about to be destroyed with our fire, and of which our engineers talked with contempt as the decayed work of "old" Vauban.
But the course of victory is like the course of love, which, the poet says, "never does run smooth." The successes of the Allies had been too rapid for their cabinets; and we had found ourselves on the frontiers of France before the guardian genii of Europe, in the shape of the stiff-skirted and full-wigged privy councillors of Vienna and Berlin, had made up their minds as to our disposal of the prize. Startling words suddenly began to make their appearance in the despatches, and "indemnity for the past and security for the future"—those luckless phrases which were yet destined to form so large a portion of senatorial eloquence, and give birth to so prolific an offspring of European ridicule—figured in diplomacy for the first time; while our pioneers stood, pickaxe in hand, waiting the order to break ground. We thus lost day after day. Couriers were busy, while soldiers were yawning themselves to death; and the only war carried on was in the discontents of the military councils. Who was to have Valenciennes? whose flag was to be hoisted on Lille? what army was to garrison Condé? became national questions. Who was to cut the favourite slices of France, employed all the gossips of the camp, in imitation of the graver gossips of the cabinet; and, in the mean time, we were saved the trouble of the division, by a furious decree from the Convention ordering every man in France to take up arms—converting all the churches into arsenals, anathematizing the German princes as so many brute beasts, and recommending to their German subjects the grand republican remedy of the guillotine for all the disorders of the government, past, present, and to come.
Circumstances seldom give an infantry officer more than a view of the movements in front of his regiment; but my intimacy with Guiscard allowed me better opportunities. Among his variety of attainments he was a first-rate engineer, and he was thus constantly employed where any thing connected with the higher departments of the staff required his science. He was now attached to the Prussian mission, which moved with the headquarters of the British force, and our intercourse was continued. I thus joined the reconnoitring parties under his command, and received the most important lessons in my new art. But one of my first questions to him, had been the mode of his escape on the night of our volunteer reconnoisance.
"Escape? Why, I committed the very blunder against which I had cautioned you, and fell into the hands of the first hussar patrole I could possibly have met. But my story is of the briefest kind. I had not rode forward above an hour, when my horse stumbled over something in that most barbaric of highways, and lamed himself. I then ought to have returned; but curiosity urged me on, and leading my unfortunate charger by the bridle, I threaded my way through the most intricate mesh of hedge and ditch within my travelling experience. The trampling of horses, and the murmur of men in march, at last caught my ear; and I began to be convinced that the movement which I expected from Dampier's activity was taking place. I then somewhat questioned my own insouciance in having thrust you into hazard; and attempted to make my way across the country in your direction. To accomplish this object I turned my horse loose, taking it for granted that, lame as he was, he was too good a Prussian to go any where but to his own camp. This accounts for his being found at morn. I had, however, scarcely thus taken the chance of losing a charger which had cost me a hundred and fifty gold ducats, when I received a shot from behind a thicket which disabled my left arm, and I was instantly surrounded by a dozen French hussars. I was foolish enough to be angry, and angry enough to fight. But as I was neither Samson, nor they Philistines, my sabre was soon beaten down, and I had only to surrender. I was next mounted on the croup of one of their horses, and after a gallop of half an hour reached the French advanced guard. It was already hurrying on, and I must confess that, from the silence of the march and the rapid pace of their battalions, I began to be nervous about the consequences, and dreaded the effects of a surprise on some of our camps. My first apprehension, however, was for you. I thought that you must have been entangled in the route of some of the advancing battalions, and I enquired of the colonel of the first to whom I was brought, whether he had taken any prisoners.
"'Plenty,' was the answer of the rough Republican—'chiefly peasants and spies; but we have shot none of them yet. That would make too much noise; so we have sent them to the rear, where I shall send you. You will not be shot till we return to-morrow morning, after having cut up those chiens Anglais.'"
I could not avoid showing my perturbation at the extreme peril in which this distinguished man had involved himself on my account; and expressed something of my regret and gratitude.