“No, no; Pierre must stay,” interrupted Monsieur Laplume. “Eh? He must stay, too, and hear the stories of the olden days—the days of the glories of France.” The boy’s eyes lit up. “Come, we are ready. He shall sit by the little Josephine.”
By and bye Madame Laplume brought in the meal, steaming from the oven. Bottles of red wine were ranged on the table.
“There were five of us last year,” Dufour muttered. “Buffet and Deyrolles have dismissed.”
“Eight the year before,” said Bergeret, rubbing his hands and smiling vacuously.
“The ranks grow thin, comrades,” said Laplume. “Well, the first toast!”
They rose, and drank in silence to the memory of that great man whom they had fought and bled and suffered for long since—and still remembered and adored. They drank to the old Marshals, to the Grande Armée, to village comrades whose bones lay in the Peninsula, in Germany, in Belgium, in the churchyards of France, but whose faces, dim and mournful, still looked at them through the mists of years, and whose voices still echoed in their memories. They lit cigars and pipes; but the room was full of the smoke of ancient battles. They talked of Desaix, Bessières, Junot, Murat, Lannes, Masséna, Ney—the old, unforgotten names. If they could come again! Ah, if he could come again—how the scattered remnants of his lost legions would rally round him, and young France hurry to the eagles, and the glorious days return!
“But we are making an end; we are making an end,” cried Tuck-of-Drum fiercely, bringing down his fist and making plates and bottles jump with the vehemence of the blow. “Chanzy and Duerot have them in the trap at last. I said so—did I not? Even the little Josephine remembers. On the day of Austerlitz——”
An ominous booming, distant, sullen, like an echo of old years of strife, sounded in their ears.
“It is thunder!” cried Pierre. Little Josephine clutched her mother’s arm.
The veterans exchanged glances. “What the devil—” began Laplume. They flung open the door and stepped into the village street. Two or three people, white-faced, had stopped to listen.