Pale faces, working in terror, peered from the café of the Boule d’Or. Tuck-of-Drum burst open the door. On the little tables glasses of bock, tiny glasses of spirits, stood half emptied. The men had all risen; the tawdry, gilded mirrors, cracked and dusty, distorted their faces, showing them more pallid, more unhealthy even than in life. Three or four old men—not so old as the veterans by many years—three or four washed-out-looking lads, rejected even by the army that had dragged men in from the very highways and hedges to resist the invaders—turned startled looks on the newcomers.
“The enemy is coming!” said Tuck-of-Drum. “Comrades, let us march against them, like the men of Dreux, of Châteauneuf! Look—the sun of Austerlitz is going down! Today, all France must help——”
They exchanged glances; they huddled together like sheep.
“What is the use?” one muttered.
“Aye, what is the use?”
A youth sniggered vacuously. “You are sixty years too late, Monsieur Tuck-of-Drum. If the great Emperor could come back now, if France had a man—” The speaker shrugged his shoulders, spread out his hands with a gesture of helplessness and looked round for assent.
“If—if—if!” cried Dominique Laplume. “We will lead you—we, of the Grand Army! Today all France must rise. All must help. It is the great effort. Today France conquers—or is conquered. ‘If’ never won a battle. Come, I say! Jules Brienne, your grandfather carried an eagle at Marengo. Monsieur Grenier, your uncle fell by our side, fighting bravely, on the field of Austerlitz.”
He argued, ordered, entreated; in vain.
“Bah! Poltroons!” he muttered, and turned on his heel.
Again the drum sounded.