“Do you remember the pay for which you asked?” he questioned, taking her hand.
“Yes, I can never forget it.”
“Then——”
She stepped serenely into the carriage. “Then,” she whispered, “I shall get it, I suppose, when I really want it,” and she swiftly shut the door in his face. “Drive to the hotel of the Duc de Pontchartrain,” was her order.
André swore softly. The Duke was his friend and also perhaps the greatest libertine in Paris. She should not escape him. In a quarter of an hour he was supping with the Duke and his merry crew; women there were in plenty, but this sorceress, the daughter of a Paris flower girl, had neither been invited nor had so much as exchanged a word with his grace. And when André, weary of lansquenet, ribald songs, and copious toasts, slunk to bed with the rising sun he was strangely glad that she had tricked him. But if she was not what she so cynically professed to be what did it mean? And why in her presence did he always have that irritating feeling that somewhere and somehow he had met her before?
CHAPTER VIII
THE VIVANDIÈRE OF FONTENOY
The sun of spring had set on May 10, 1745, the eve of a day memorable in the military annals of the British and French nations. Behind a camp-fire in the entrenchments of Fontenoy André warmed himself, one of the many camp-fires which flared into the dusk on that plain which for two centuries has been the cock-pit of Europe; and as he stared out absently into the swiftly falling night an answering gleam scarcely a mile and a half away yonder to the south-east at Maubray told him that there lay the headquarters of the allied forces of the foe, English, Dutch, and Austrians, commanded by an English prince of the blood-royal, the Duke of Cumberland.
There had been some warm skirmishing to-day. The British and the Austrians by sheer weight of numbers had tumbled out of the enclosures and copses the Pandours and Grassins thrown out as irregular out-posts from the French army; and since then André and St. Benôit with many others had watched the allied generals and their staff reconnoitring at a safe distance the masterly position drawn along the slopes of Fontenoy by Monseigneur le Maréchal de Saxe. A hard nut to crack, gentlemen, these lines, study them through your spy-glasses as you will. Nor will you find it easy to detect the place to push through. Yes; you may attack any time now night or day, for Tournay to our rear is hard pressed and unless relieved will fall into the hands of our master, Louis XV. Well and good; what better could a Chevau-léger de la Garde desire than that the pot-bellied Dutch traders, the Austrian hounds, and the British dogs should dash themselves to pieces on our lines. Mark you how the trenches run from the forest of Barry covering our left away in the north, winding in a gentle semicircle along the rim of the curving slope two miles and more down to the spot where the Château of Anthoin guards the passage of the sluggish Scheldt. And meanwhile we lie here snug and safe behind our redoubts bristling with guns, with logs cut from the forest piled breast-high to aid the advantage our general has given us, and with the flower of the French army crouched and ready to roll you up when you come. See how open the plain in front is, sloping gradually away from us; we can hammer you in the most murderous fashion from under cover if you are mad enough to dream that any troops can drive from its lair a French army that remembers Dettingen and will have Tournay or perish. Our Maréchal de Saxe, who knows something of the art of war, has pronounced it impossible, and God have mercy on your silly, reckless souls if you try, for the French guards are here and the Maison du Roi, and our King’s eye is on us to see that we do our duty!
Yes, His Majesty is here and with him Monsieur le Dauphin, and not a few ladies greatly daring, and the royal household, chamberlains and equerries, serving-men and serving-women, the bluest blood of France, and the wenches of the commissariat, and the actors and actresses of the Théâtre Français. Was there ever such a medley—soldiers, courtesans, and sutlers, thieves, marauders, sluts and wantons, and the gilded coaches and footmen of the beauty and birth that have the right to throng the Staircase des Ambassadeurs at Versailles and have the entrée to the Grand Lever of the King of France?
The camp-fires smoke into the chill dusk; the lights twinkle in the packed villages where battalions of foot bivouac with squadrons of horse. In front smoulders and glares the hamlet of Bourgeon fired by our Grassins when they were driven out this morning. Everywhere the confused turmoil of a great camp, the sharp blare of fitful trumpets, the dull throb of drums, a feverish shot from yonder where skirmishing is still going on, the neighing of horses, the rumble of waggons. Hard by André here the men are taking their evening meal, chattering, laughing, singing, dancing. Such women as can live in camps are drinking too, singing when they cannot thieve. There are wounded to be cared for, or robbed; throats there are beyond the lines to be cut, purses and gold lace to be won from the fallen. Make love while you can. To-morrow’s eve may never come. Have your season of pleasure, Messieurs; to-morrow the wench whom you kiss to-night will strip you in the dusk of the victory and leave you to the mercy of the dogs, the spring frosts, and of God—the God of battles.