The Downfall (La Débâcle). Emile Zola

      'Bazaine? It's said he was devilish pleased that the Emperor had taken himself off.'

      The lieutenant wished to know, however, if Bazaine were approaching, and Prosper could only reply by a gesture. Who could tell? He and his comrades had spent long days marching and counter-marching in the rain, in reconnoitring, and on outpost duty—and without once seeing an enemy. They now belonged to the army of Châlons. His regiment, with two others of Chasseurs and one of Hussars, formed the first division of the reserve cavalry, and were commanded by General Margueritte, of whom Prosper spoke with enthusiastic affection. 'Ah! the devil,' said he, 'there's a lion for you! But what good is it?—so far they've never known what to do with us except to send us floundering through the mud.'

      A pause followed, and then Maurice talked about Remilly and uncle Fouchard, and Prosper expressed his regret at not being able to go and shake hands with Honoré, the quartermaster, whose battery must be stationed more than a league away, on the other side of the road to Laon. Hearing a horse snort, however, he rose and hurried off to satisfy himself that Zephyr wanted nothing. It was the time for coffee and for something short to help it down, and soldiers of all arms and all ranks were now invading the tavern. There was not an unoccupied table, and bright was the display of uniforms amid the green vine-leaves flecked with sunshine. Surgeon-Major Bouroche had just seated himself beside Rochas, when Jean appeared and addressed himself to the lieutenant: 'The captain will expect you at three o'clock, for orders, sir.'

      Rochas nodded, as much as to say that he would be punctual, and Jean, instead of immediately retiring, turned to smile at Maurice, who was lighting a cigarette. Since the scene in the train, there was a tacit truce between the two men, as though they were studying one another in a more and more kindly way.

      Prosper, who had just returned, now exclaimed impatiently: 'I shall have something to eat if my officer doesn't come out of that shanty. It's disgusting; the Emperor may not be back before to-night.'

      'I say,' exclaimed Maurice, whose curiosity was again aroused, 'it's perhaps some news of Bazaine that you've brought?'

      'Perhaps so. They were talking about him at Monthois.'

      Just then there was a sudden stir, and Jean, who had been standing at one of the entrances of the arbour, turned round and said: 'The Emperor!'

      They all sprang to their feet. Between the poplars lining the white high road there appeared a platoon of Cent-Gardes still correctly dressed in their luxurious, resplendent uniforms, with large golden suns glittering upon their breastplates. In the open space behind them came the Emperor on horseback, escorted by his staff, which was followed by a second detachment of Cent-Gardes. Everyone uncovered, and a few acclamations were heard; and the Emperor raised his head as he passed by, so that one could clearly see his face, drawn and very pale, with dim wavering eyes which appeared full of water. He seemed as if he were waking out of a doze, smiled faintly at sight of the sunlit tavern, and then saluted.

      Meantime, Bouroche had darted at Napoleon the quick glance of an experienced practitioner, and Jean and Maurice, who were standing in front of the surgeon, distinctly heard him growl: 'There's a nasty stone there, and no mistake.' And then he completed his diagnosis in two words, 'Done for!'

      Jean, with his narrow-minded common-sense, had shaken his head sorrowfully; what fearful bad luck for an army to have such a chief as that! Ten minutes later, when Maurice, after shaking hands with Prosper, went off delighted with his nicely served breakfast, to stroll about and smoke some more cigarettes, he carried away with him the recollection of that pale, dim-eyed Emperor, passing by on horseback at a jog-trot. So that was the conspirator, the dreamer deficient in energy at the decisive moment. He was said to be kind-hearted, to be quite capable of great and generous ideas, and, silent man that he was, to have a very tenacious will; and he was also undoubtedly very brave, disdainful of danger, like a fatalist always ready to accept his destiny. But in great crises he seemed struck with stupor, paralysed as it were in presence of accomplished facts; and thenceforward he was unable to contend against evil fortune. Maurice wondered if this were not some special physiological condition which agony had aggravated; if the disease from which the Emperor was evidently suffering were not the cause of the growing indecision and incapacity that he had displayed since the outset of the campaign. In that way, everything would have been explained. A grain of sand in a man's flesh, and empires totter and fall!

      Quite a stir suddenly arose in camp that evening after the roll call, the officers running hither and thither, transmitting orders, and arranging everything for the men's departure next morning at five o'clock. With mingled surprise and disquietude, Maurice learnt that everything was again changed, and that instead of falling back on Paris they were about to march on Verdun, in view of joining Bazaine. A rumour circulated that a despatch had arrived from the latter during the day, announcing that he was effecting his retreat; and Maurice then remembered Prosper and the officer he had come with from Monthois, perhaps to bring the Emperor a copy of this despatch. Thus the Empress-Regent and the Council of Ministers, so frightened at the thought of the Emperor's return to Paris, and so obstinately bent upon throwing the army forward at any cost in order that it might make a supreme attempt to save the dynasty, had triumphed at last over the perpetual hesitation of Marshal MacMahon. And that wretched Emperor, that poor devil who no longer had any place in his own empire, was to be carried off like a useless, cumbersome parcel among the baggage-train of his troops, condemned—oh! the irony of it—to drag after him all his Imperial household, his bodyguards, his carriages, his horses, his cooks, his vans full of silver saucepans and sparkling wine of Champagne—in a word, all the pomp of his bee-spangled, imperial robes, which could now only serve to sweep up the blood and mire that covered the high-roads of defeat!

      At midnight, Maurice had not yet got to sleep. Feverish insomnia, fraught with ugly dreams, made him turn over and over in the tent. At last he ended by coming outside, and felt relieved on standing up and inhaling the cold, wind-swept air. The sky was covered with huge clouds, the night was becoming very dense, with an infinitely mournful darkness, which the last expiring fires along the camp front faintly illumined with star-like lights. And amidst the black, silent peacefulness one could detect the slow breathing of the hundred thousand men who were lying there. Then Maurice's anguish became quieted, and a feeling of fraternity came to him, of indulgent affection for all those living sleepers, thousands of whom would soon be sleeping the sleep of death. After all, they were good fellows. They were scarcely disciplined; they got drunk, and they robbed; but what sufferings had they not already endured, and what excuses there were for them in the Downfall of the entire nation! Among them there remained but a small number of the glorious veterans of Sebastopol and Solferino, mingled with men who were but lads, and incapable of any prolonged resistance. These four army corps, hastily assembled and reorganised, without any solid ties to bind them together, formed, so to say, the army of despair, the expiatory flock which was to be sent to the sacrifice in an endeavour to avert the anger of Destiny. And this army must climb its Calvary to the bitter end, paying, with the red flood of its blood, for the faults of everyone, and attaining to fame by the very horror of the disasters that awaited it.

      Meditating thus in the depths of the quivering darkness, Maurice became conscious of the great duty that lay before him. He no longer indulged the braggart hope of repeating the legendary victories. This march upon Verdun was a march to Death, and he accepted it with stout and cheerful resignation, since die he must.

      CHAPTER IV

      ON THE MARCH—THE SPY

      The camp was raised on Tuesday, August 23, at six o'clock in the morning, and the hundred thousand men of the army of Châlons set out on the march, flowing away in an immense stream, like some human river resuming its torrential course after expanding for a time into a lake. Despite the rumours current the evening before, it was a thorough surprise to many of the men to find that, instead of continuing their movement of retreat, they now had to turn their backs on Paris, and march towards the East—towards the Unknown.

      At five o'clock in the morning, the Seventh Army Corps had not received any cartridges. For two days past the artillerymen had been exhausting themselves in removing their horses and matériel from the