"Do you remember, Joseph, the black ribbon he wore the day of the conscription, and how he cried that we were all condemned to death, like those who had gone to Russia?"
I thought how Pinacle had held out the black ribbon for me; and the remembrance, together with the cold, which seemed to freeze the very marrow in our bones, made me shudder. I thought Pinacle was right; that I had seen the last of home, and I cursed those who had forced me from it.
At day-break, wagons arrived with food and brandy for us. The rain had ceased; we made soup, but nothing could warm me; I had caught the fever. I was not the only one in the battalion in that condition; three fourths of the men were suffering from it; and, for a month before, those who could no longer march had lain down by the roadside weeping and calling upon their mothers like little children. Hunger, forced marches, the rain, and grief had done their work, and happy was it for the parents that they could not see the miserable end of their cherished sons.
As the light increased, we saw to the left, on the other side of the river, burnt villages, heaps of dead, abandoned wagons, and broken cannon, stretching as far as the eye could reach. It was worse than at Lutzen. We saw the Prussians deploy, and advance their thousands over the battle-field. They were to join with the Russians and Austrians and close the great circle around us, and we could not prevent them, especially as Bernadotte and the Russian General Benningsen had come up with twenty thousand fresh troops. Thus, after fighting three battles in one day, were we, only one hundred thousand strong, seemingly about to be entrapped in the midst of three hundred thousand bayonets, not to speak of fifty thousand horse and twelve hundred cannon.
From Schoenfeld, the battalion started to rejoin the division at Kohlgarten. All the roads were lined with slow-moving ambulances, filled with wounded; all the wagons of the country around had been impressed for this service; and, in the intervals between them, marched hundreds of poor fellows with their arms in slings, or their heads bandaged—pale, crestfallen, half dead.
We made our way, with a thousand difficulties, through this mass, when, near Kohlgarten, twenty hussars, galloping at full speed, and with levelled pistols, drove back the crowd, right and left, into the fields, shouting as they pressed on:
"The emperor! the emperor!"
The battalion drew up, and presented arms; and a few moments after, the grenadiers-à-cheval of the guard—veritable giants, with their great boots, their immense bear-skin hats, descending to their shoulders and only allowing their mustaches, nose, and eyes to remain visible—passed at a gallop. Our men looked joyfully at them, glad that such robust warriors were on our side.
Scarcely had they passed, when the staff tore after. Imagine a hundred and fifty to two hundred marshals, generals, and other superior officers, mounted on magnificent steeds, and so covered with embroidery that the color of their uniforms was scarcely visible; some tall, thin, and haughty; others short, thick-set, and red-faced; others again young and handsome, sitting like statues in their saddles; all with eager look and flashing eyes. It was a magnificent and terrible sight. But the most striking figure among those captains, who for twenty years had made Europe tremble, was Napoleon himself, with his old hat and gray over-coat; his large, determined chin and neck buried between his shoulders. All shouted, "Vive l'Empereur!" but he heard nothing of it. He paid no more attention to us than to the drizzling rain which filled the air, but gazed with contracted brows at the Prussian army stretching along the Partha to join the Austrians.