by Eugène Sue
“Off to General Donadieu. But look out for yourself if your confidences are a sham!” And seeing that little Rodin made ready to follow the prisoner, the soldier added: “Has this brat also revelations to make? Has he got anything to do with you?”
“The child will attest, by his tender candor, the sincerity of my communications, and will complete them in case of gaps in my memory.”
General Donadieu, commandant of a brigade of light cavalry in the Army of the Rhine and Moselle, had just finished reading the order he had received, when one of his aides-de-camp informed him that a spy, condemned to be shot at sunrise, asked for an audience to give him information of the utmost importance, but requested that the interview have no other witness than the child who would accompany him.
“I do not accept the scoundrel’s proposal,” replied the General to his aide-de-camp. “His condition is compromising. Send him in, and stay here yourself.”
Accompanied by his god-son, the Jesuit appeared. Both were calm. The General looked the spy over from head to foot, and said to him sharply:
“You pretend to have important matters to disclose to me, which, you say, concern the army? I shall listen to you. But be brief. Do not abuse my patience.”
“When we are alone,” replied the Jesuit, glancing at the aide-de-camp. “Our interview must be in secret.”
“My aide is my second self. He may hear all. Speak, then. Speak at once, or go to the devil!”
“I shall speak, then, General, since you command it. The day after the battle of Watignies a cavalry colonel in the republican army was taken prisoner. He was marched to headquarters—”
“Wait a moment!” cried General Donadieu, visibly troubled at these opening words of the Jesuit’s. “You hope to obtain a suspension of sentence as the price of your revelations?”
“More than that. I must be set at liberty.”
“I can grant you neither delay nor liberation without the authority of the Representatives of the people. Captain, find Citizen St. Just at once, and ask him whether I may suspend the execution of this man if his revelations seem worthy of it.”
“At your orders, General,” replied the aide, as he left the room.
The General, at last overcoming the uneasiness which the Jesuit’s first words caused him, now resumed, haughtily:
“As you were saying, the day after the battle of Watignies a cavalry colonel—”
“General Donadieu,” came imperiously from the Jesuit, “your moments are numbered. If, before your aide returns, you have not contrived a way to set me at liberty, you are lost. Think it over. A prisoner at the battle of Watignies, you were conducted by the Count of Plouernel before Monseigneur the Prince of Condé, who received you most flatteringly. You admitted to him that it was with regret that you served in an army so lacking in military pride as to submit to the yoke of the Representatives of the people. You added — still speaking, be it remembered, to the Prince of Condé — these words, literally: ‘Monseigneur, my dignity as an officer is so outraged by subjection to the tyranny of these bourgeois pro-consuls, that, without the slightest scruple of conscience, I would offer you my sword and serve on your side.’”
“Ah, indeed? So I said that to the Prince of Condé, did I? And perhaps you have proofs of what you say?”
“The proofs are inscribed in a certain register kept in the Prince’s staff headquarters. In that register are kept the names of all the officers in the republican army on whom, in case of need, the royalist party thinks it can call. The fact which concerns you was related to me by the Count of Plouernel, former colonel in the French Guards, who was present at your interview with Monseigneur the Prince of Condé; which interview was continued by his Most Serene Highness in these words: ‘My dear colonel, remain in the republican army. You will there be able to serve the cause of our rightful King most efficaciously by spurring your regiment to rebel at the proper moment in the name of military honor, against these miserable bourgeois pro-consuls. Be sure, my dear colonel, that the day the good cause triumphs you will be rewarded as you deserve. Until then, keep snug behind your republican mask.’ So,” continued the Jesuit, “you have so well worn your mask that after being returned to the army in the exchange of prisoners, you were first promoted to the rank of Brigadier General, then to Division General—”
“Enough, stop,” cut in Donadieu in a sardonic tone of complete reassurance. “What now is your project? You intend to make your disclosures to others besides me, if I do not at once enable you to escape?”
“Aye, General, that is my intention.”
“There is only one obstacle—”
“And that is, General? Have the goodness to make it known to me. We will find a way around it.”
“Eh!” replied Donadieu, moving towards the door, “It is that I shall call the mounted patrolman who brought you hither, order him to shoot you on the spot, and your secret dies with you. The solution is swift and simple.”
“And St. Just, to whom you have just applied for permission to remit my sentence? You have forgotten that detail.”
“I shall tell St. Just that your revelations were rubbish, and I let the execution take its course. St. Just is not the man to reproach me for hastening the death of a counter-revolutionist. So, then,” continued General Donadieu, taking another step toward the door, “you will be shot at once. Our conversation in over.”
“And me?” piped up little Rodin, who had so far kept himself motionless and silent in a dark corner of the room. “And me? They won’t shoot me, I’m very sure. I am hardly eleven. So then, if you send my good god-father to the angels, I shall tell everyone what I have just seen and heard.”
“Whence it follows, General,” chimed in the reverend, “that you have no other safe course than to shut your eyes to our flight, and if you are wise, accompany us, and carry the plan of to-morrow’s battle to the Austrian headquarters with you.”
“This low window opens on the ground,” volunteered Rodin, examining the casing. “We will be able to clear out through it, General, before your aide-de-camp comes back. The rest — God will care for.”
“The light will help us to avoid your picket lines, among whom we fell last night,” added the prelate, in turn approaching the window, whence he beheld the first grey streaks of dawn. Then to Donadieu, who stood paralyzed with fear, he added: “Come, General, loose me of my bonds. I must have this place far behind me when your aide returns.”
“What shall I do?” stammered the bewildered General. “My aide will return with St. Just’s orders. The prisoners’ escape will be the end of me — I shall be suspected of having assisted in it — and suspicion is death!”
“Good god-father,” cried Rodin, who had been ferreting around the room and had just opened a door leading into a neighboring apartment, “listen, the General does not wish to fly with us — he will let us escape. He will say to his aide-de-camp that while he was in the next room a minute or two, we profited by his momentary absence to cut the cords on your wrists and to vanish by yonder window.”
“What presence of mind!” exclaimed the Jesuit; and, turning to the General, “My god-son is right. There is nothing else left for you to do. You will be accused of negligence; that is grave. But you will at least have a chance of averting suspicion.”
“All the more, seeing that if the General had had the intention of letting us escape he would not have sent his aide to St. Just for orders,” judicially added Rodin. “You have every chance not to be molested because of our escape, General. But if you have my god-father shot, I shall denounce you to St. Just.”
This reasoning commanded prompt action. General Donadieu chose of the two evils the lesser. Hurriedly whipping off the prelate’s bonds he said: “Fly, quick. You will find a clump of trees a hundred paces off, within our picket line. Hide there; and lie close till you hear the cannon, which will announce to you the battle is on. Then you will have nothing more to fear. Now go!” cried the General, flinging open the window, “Go
, quickly!”
“I shall not prove an ingrate,” promised the Jesuit as he passed towards the opening the other had made for him. “When I see the Prince of Condé, I shall report to him that he may always count on you.”
The prelate’s god-son slipped like a serpent through the window, and was gone. The Jesuit followed suit.
“Ah, well,” said General Donadieu to himself. “If St. Just suspects me, over I go to the enemy. We soldiers know how to serve or mis-serve according as our interests or safety demand. If I carry the plans of the battle to the Austrians, I shall at least have saved my life and general’s commission. Devil take the Republic!”
CHAPTER XXIX.
BATTLE OF THE LINES OF WEISSENBURG.
TOWARDS EIGHT O’CLOCK on the morning of the 6th Nivose, year II (December 26, 1793), under cover of a thick fog, St. Just and Hoche began their advance. The two leaders walked their horses side by side, close behind a squad of cavalrymen detailed as scouts. A short distance to the rear of the Representative of the people and the Commander-in-chief followed a group of aides-de-camp and artillery officers.
Gradually, in the teeth of a stiff north wind, the fog began again to lift. The gallop of an approaching horse was heard, and one of Hoche’s aides loomed out of the thinning haze, made straight for his commander-in-chief, and said, as he reined in his mount:
“Citizen General, our scouts just encountered a party of Uhlans. We charged them and reached the enemy’s advance guard near enough to make out a considerable body of cavalry.”
The north wind continued to blow, clearing away the mists, and soon, from the rising ground where they had taken their station, St. Just, Hoche, and their staff were able to sweep with their eye the field of the approaching battle. Before them, from northwest to southeast at the extreme edge of the horizon, stretched the regular outline of the “Lines” or entrenchments of Weissenburg, parallel to the course of the Lauter, a rapid river which served as moat to these fortified works. To the right, the now leafless fastnesses of the forest of Bienvalt, which also bordered on the Lauter over which the remnants of the fog still hung, reached away till they lost themselves in the distance toward Lauterburg, a town situated in one of the bends of the Rhine, now the headquarters of the army of Condé.
With his glass Hoche examined the position of the Austrian army, and said to St. Just:
“The Austrian general, as I foresaw, surprised by our march which has taken from him the offensive, has changed his plan of battle by making his infantry fall back half way upon the plateau of Geisberg. We must haste to profit by the hesitation into which this discreet retreat will have thrown the enemy.” Then, addressing one of the artillery officers, Hoche added: “Citizen, order General Ferino to push out with the cavalry and flying artillery of his division. His cannoniers are to open fire upon the enemy’s squadrons, and when they weaken, he is to send in his cavalry.”
The officer left at a gallop to convey the order to Ferino, who commanded the advance guard. The republican army was drawn up in three columns, the cavalry on the right, the infantry in the center, and the artillery on the left, with the reserves, the supplies and the ambulances in second line. Suddenly a distant booming, deep and prolonged, resounded on the left, in the direction of Nothweiller, and Hoche exclaimed:
“The cannon! The cannon! Gonvion St. Cyr has followed my orders! He is pouring out of the valley of the Lauter and attacking Brunswick’s position. There are the Prussians engaged. They will hardly bring aid to the Austrians now! If Desaix has carried out his movement as well, and attacked Condé’s body at Lauterburg, the Austrian army is thrown on its own resources. The Lines of Weissenburg are ours, and we shall raise the siege of Landau!”
At that moment General Ferino, in response to Hoche’s orders, advanced at a rapid trot at the head of his cavalry and artillery. Beside the General rode Lebas, the Representative of the people on mission to the armies. Recognizing the importance of this first charge for the success of the day, he desired to assist Hoche, and to march in the front rank.
“On, my brave Ferino,” called Hoche to the General as he swept by. “First shatter the Austrian cavalry with your cannon, and then — a taste of your saber for them!”
“Count on me, General. I’ll send the white-cloaks to drink in the Lauter, whether they are thirsty or not,” replied Ferino; and waving his sword he turned towards his cohorts and gave the cry:
“Forward, my children, forward! Long live the Republic!”
“Long live the Republic!” shouted back the cavalrymen, flashing their swords in the air as they thundered past Hoche. “Our comrades have retaken Toulon — we shall free Landau!”
“Soldiers,” called Hoche, “show yourselves worthy of your past victories. The Republic counts on the Army of the Rhine and Moselle! To victory or death!”
The battle was on. General Ferino’s artillery mowed down the Austrian cavalry, Wurmser’s first line. Profiting by their disorder, gathering up his squadrons and hurling them with himself at their head upon the enemy, Ferino overthrew the forces which opposed him, and carried his mounted sabers right into the infantry squares of the second line. Then Hoche flung his attacking column upon Wurmser’s center, while that general’s left wing fell under the fire of several batteries of flying artillery. One of these batteries, consisting of six four-pounders, had taken position on an eminence where lay a solitary farmhouse. From this hillock it was possible to rake the Austrian’s left flank from the rear. A squadron of the Third Hussars and two companies of the Seventh Battalion, Paris Volunteers, were detached to act as guard to this artillery. The captain of the battery, on reconnoitering his position, found that the farmhouse and its buildings occupied nearly the center of a mound about three hundred paces in diameter. Toward the enemy the hill presented a rapid rise of some thirty feet, while on the side of the republican army it was nearly level with the plain occupied by the reserves. A thicket of trees and live brush extended to the right and a little to the rear of the battery’s position. The inhabitants of the place had fled with the opening of the engagement, carrying with them their cattle and all their more valuable belongings. One by one the iron spit-fires arrived to take their position in the battery, the first to appear being Carmagnole, the sweetheart of quartermaster Duchemin. This piece, by the almost grotesque cut of its furniture, presented a curious example of the oddity of artillery carriages in those days.
The team drew up with a half-turn, Duchemin and his eight assistants leaped to the ground, and confided their horses to the two artillerymen charged with their care. The pin which coupled the piece proper to the caisson was removed, and there she stood in position on her two wheels, some distance ahead of the caisson, in which the cartridges were kept. The drivers hurried their horses under shelter of the farmhouse, some fifty paces away. Soon the six spit-fires were in position. The commanders of the squadron of hussars and the two companies of volunteers also took what advantage they could of the lay of the land to protect their men from the fire which an Austrian battery might at any moment be expected to open upon the republican guns. One of the Paris Volunteers’ companies was masked in the brush of the little wood just mentioned, in position to fire from under cover in case the enemy should attempt to seize the battery. The other company entrenched itself behind the stone wall which enclosed the courtyard of the farm, and behind the buildings which already acted as cover to the artillery horses.
By the chances of war there were thus reunited among the defenders of the battery Oliver and Victoria, John Lebrenn and Castillon, and finally the young Parisian recruit Duresnel, who also was a member of Captain Martin’s company.
“Well, comrade,” said Captain Martin to him, “how goes it? Your heart is still whole? Keep up your courage, all will go well.”
“So far, captain, things are not going badly. But we must wait for the end — or rather for the beginning, for we haven’t begun to fight yet.”
“It seems it is going to be warm!” volunteered Cas
tillon. “By my pipe, what a cannonade! That must be comrade Duchemin making his Carmagnole spit! Let me see if I can get a glimpse of him over the wall.”
Stretching himself on tiptoe, Castillon raised himself sufficiently to cast his eye above the wall, upon the group of cannon, now half enveloped in the smoke of their first volleys. Duchemin, kneeling on the ground after conning the hostile battery through his pocket-glass, was training his piece, already roughly aimed by a brigadier, while his assistants on either side, armed with their ramrods, sponges and levers, stood ready for action. One of them held the match, waiting for the order to light the fuse. The other five pieces, ranged parallel to Carmagnole, were likewise surrounded by their attendants and being sighted by their under-officers. The captain of artillery and his lieutenants, on horseback, superintended the manoeuvring. In the distance the Austrian lines and the advancing columns of the French were lost almost completely in the smoke and smother of the now general cannonade. Nevertheless, the watchers on the hill soon perceived a large mass of opposing infantry so cut up and thrown into disorder by the relentless and accurate fire of the battery, that the Austrian general was moving up four howitzers and four six-pounders, with the intention of crippling the republican artillery. Seeing with his glass the first howitzer advance to the left from the enemy’s battery, Duchemin at once carefully re-trained his Carmagnole, shook his fist in the howitzer’s direction, and growled under his heavy moustache, alluding to the short and stocky build of those pieces:
“Ah, it is you who would presume to silence my Carmagnole, stump-nose! I’ll show you that you were never cast to clip my sweetheart’s words!”
Just then, in response to a sign from the captain, the trumpeter of the battery sounded the signal to “Fire!”
“Come, my cadet,” cried Duchemin to the soldier with the burning match, “the soup is ready — all we need is to serve it! Light her! light her! Let her go!”