The Downfall (La Débâcle). Emile Zola

mind of the soldier, great in its abnegation. And the Emperor, who no longer commanded, was awaiting destiny. They were asked to give their lives and the lives of the army, and they consented to give them. That was the Night of the Crime—the abominable night when a nation was murdered, for thenceforward the army was in distress, one hundred thousand men were sent to the slaughter!

      Despairing and shuddering, Maurice thought of all these things as he watched that shadow on Madame Desroches' dainty muslin curtains, that feverish shadow ever on the tramp, and which the pitiless voice coming from Paris seemed to be urging on. Had not the Empress wished that night for the father's death so that the son might reign? March! march! without a glance behind, under the rain and through the mud, march to extermination, so that this supreme final game for possession of an agonising empire may be played out to the last card! March! march! die like a hero on the piled-up corpses of your people; strike the whole world with compassionate admiration so that it may forgive your posterity! And doubtless the Emperor was marching to death. The kitchen was no longer blazing down below; the equerries, the aides-de-camp, the chamberlains were all asleep; the whole house was black, save for that lighted window, on the curtains of which the shadow was incessantly passing to and fro, the shadow of one who had quietly resigned himself to the fatal sacrifice amid all the deafening uproar occasioned by the Twelfth Army Corps, which was still marching along in the darkness.

      It suddenly occurred to Maurice that if the forward march were resumed the Seventh Corps would not pass through Le Chêne, and he pictured himself left behind, separated from his regiment as though he had deserted. His foot no longer smarted, a skilful dressing, and a few hours of complete rest had calmed its feverishness. When Combette had given him a pair of shoes, broad shoes in which he was quite at his ease, he became desirous of starting at once, hoping that he might still meet the 106th on the Vouziers road. After vainly endeavouring to detain him, the chemist had half made up his mind to drive off with him in his gig, and scour the roads in the chance hope of finding the army corps, when Fernand, Combette's assistant, turned up and explained that he had only absented himself to go and see after a cousin whom he was in love with. It was this tall, pale fellow, with the look of a poltroon, who then put the horse to the trap and drove off with Maurice. It was not yet five o'clock; the rain was streaming like a deluge from the inky sky, and the lamps of the vehicle were dimmed and barely lighted the road, which ran through a vast drenched stretch of country full of tumultuous sounds that caused them to pull up at each half-mile, in the belief that an army was near at hand.

      Meantime Jean, in the camp before Vouziers, had not had a moment's sleep. Since Maurice had explained to him that the retreat would save everything he had been on the look-out, preventing his men from leaving their quarters, and awaiting the orders for raising the camp which the officers might give at any moment. At about two o'clock a great clatter of horses' hoofs resounded amid the dense obscurity, which the camp fires dotted as with ruddy stars. This was an advance guard of cavalry setting out towards Ballay and Quatre-Champs, for the purpose of watching the Boult-aux-Bois and Croix-aux-Bois roads. An hour later the infantry and the artillery set themselves in motion, abandoning those positions of Falaise and Chestres, which during two long days they had seemed so obstinately bent on defending against an enemy who never came. The sky was overcast, and the night still deep, as each regiment retired in profound silence, like a procession of shadows flitting away into the darkness. Each heart, however, was beating joyously as though they had, one and all, escaped some threatening ambush. They already pictured themselves drawn up under the walls of Paris on the eve of the revanche.

      Jean looked around him through the dense night. The road was edged with trees, and it seemed to him that it lay between large meadows. Then came rising ground and then declivities, and they were reaching a village—no doubt Ballay—when a heavy cloud, darkening the sky, suddenly burst, and the rain came down with violence. So much had already fallen on the men, however, that they no longer complained, but simply distended their shoulders. Ballay was speedily left behind; and, as they drew nearer to Quatre-Champs, furious squalls of wind swept through the widening valley. When they had passed Quatre-Champs, and had reached the vast plateau whose barren lands stretch as far as Noirval, the hurricane put forth all its strength, and they were lashed by a frightful deluge. And it was here that orders to halt stopped in turn every regiment.

      The entire Seventh Corps, thirty and odd thousand men, had been gathered together here by the time the dawn arose, a dawn of a muddy hue seen through streaming grey water. What was up? Why were they halting? Disquietude was already spreading through the ranks, and some asserted that the marching orders had just been changed. The men had received instructions to ground their arms, and were forbidden to break the ranks and sit down. At certain moments the wind swept across the high table-land with such violence that they had to stand shoulder to shoulder to avoid being carried away. The icy rain was blinding them, pelting their faces and streaming through their clothes. And two hours went by, an interminable spell of waiting, the reason of which no one knew, though anguish was again oppressing every heart.

      As the daylight gradually increased, Jean endeavoured to ascertain where they were. Some one had pointed out to him the road leading to Le Chêne which climbed a hill to the north-west, on the other side of Quatre-Champs. Why had they not taken it? Why had they wheeled to the right instead of to the left? Then he became interested in the doings of the staff, which was installed at the farm of La Converserie at the edge of the plateau. They all seemed very much upset there; the officers were running about gesticulating and discussing together; and nothing came—what could they be waiting for? The plateau was a kind of arena covered with stubble, overlooked on the north and the east by wooded heights; with dense woods extending on the south, whilst through an opening on the west the valley of the Aisne could be perceived, together with the little white houses of Vouziers. Below La Converserie rose the slated steeple of Quatre-Champs, drenched by the raging downpour, beneath which the few poor mossy roofs of the village seemed to be melting away. And as Jean's glance enfiladed the steep street he clearly distinguished a gig arriving at a fast trot, along the pebbly roadway now transformed into a torrent.

      It was Maurice who, at a bend of the road, on the hill over yonder, had at last caught sight of the Seventh Corps. For a couple of hours he had been scouring the country, deceived by what a peasant had told him, and taken out of his way by the covert ill-will of the young fellow driving him, who was in quite a fever of fear lest they should meet the Prussians. As soon as Maurice reached the farm he sprang out of the vehicle and immediately joined his regiment.

      'What! you here!' exclaimed Jean, quite stupefied. 'Why's that? We were going to call for you on the road.'

      With a gesture Maurice expressed all his anger and his grief. 'Ah, yes! But the march is no longer that way; we are going over there to find our graves.'

      'All right,' the corporal, turning quite pale, replied after an interval of silence. 'At least we shall get our heads cracked together.'

      And, as they had parted, so did they meet again with an embrace. Under the beating downpour the private sought his place in the ranks, whilst the corporal, streaming with rain-water, set an example of stoicism by abstaining from all complaint.

      The news, however, was now spreading. The rumour had become a certainty. They were no longer retreating upon Paris, but again marching upon the Meuse. One of the marshal's aides-de-camp had just brought the Seventh Corps orders to proceed to Nouart and encamp there, whilst the Fifth, advancing on Beauclair, was to form the right wing of the army, and the First was to make for Le Chêne, there to replace the Twelfth, now marching on La Besace, on the left. And if thirty and odd thousand men had been waiting on that plateau with arms grounded for nearly three hours and exposed to that furious hurricane, it was because General Douay, amid the lamentable confusion occasioned by this change of front, experienced intense disquietude as to the fate of the convoy which on the previous day he had sent forward to Chagny. It was necessary to wait until it joined the corps, and it was reported that it had been cut in two at Le Chêne by the Twelfth Corps' convoy. On the other hand, a portion of the matériel—including all the field smithies—having taken the wrong direction, was now returning from Terron by the road to Vouziers, where it would certainly fall into the hands of the Germans. Never was there greater disorder, never was anxiety more keen.

      Perfect