by Eugène Sue
The cannonier touched off the fuse with his match, and Carmagnole’s discharge rang out several seconds ahead of the general volley of the battery. Gazing again through his field-glass to watch the effect of his shell, Duchemin cried out: “There she is! The stump-nose is knocked off one wheel, and two of her flunkies are keeled over. Long live the Republic!”
In fact, Carmagnole’s ball had crushed one of the wheels of the howitzer and knocked down two of the Austrian artillerists an instant before the hostile battery had gotten in its first shot. But almost immediately the enemy’s guns were crowned with several little clouds of white smoke, lighted up with streaks of flame. A prolonged roar reached the Frenchmen, and Duchemin exclaimed, turning towards the stone wall where the volunteer infantrymen were entrenched:
“Citizens, look out for the shells!”
Hardly had Duchemin sounded the warning when the rain of iron was upon them; the balls screamed, the shells rebounded and burst. The commander of the little republican battery was cut in two by a flying shell; horse and rider went down mangled before the shot. Another shell burst between two cannon, killing one of their crew and wounding two others so severely that they fell and with difficulty dragged themselves to the ambulance sheltered behind the farmhouse.
“Cannoniers! Load at will! Aim for the howitzers!” cried the first lieutenant, assuming command. The trumpet repeated the order through its metal throat. The artillerymen vied with one another in haste to charge their pieces. Then cries of “Fire! Fire!” rang out from the farmhouse, which suddenly became enveloped in thick black smoke. A shell exploding in a hay loft had set the blaze.
“In one way that little bonfire isn’t bad,” said Castillon, “for it is deuced cold. But too much is too much, and now we’re going to roast.” And catching sight of the volunteer Duresnel, pale, propping himself up with his gun, his lips working as though he would talk, though no sound proceeded from them, Castillon continued: “Well, neighbor, here we are, ‘wo’d of honor;’ but what the devil do you see back there to make your eyes pop out so?” So saying, Castillon followed Duresnel’s fixed and frightened stare, and what he saw made him pull the young volunteer toward him, with the words: “Come, comrade, do not look that way. You haven’t got the hang of the thing yet. That is the fortune of war.”
“My heaven,” stammered Duresnel, as he followed Castillon’s advice. “My heaven, it is horrible! Poor victims!”
A ball, rebounding on the inner face of the stone wall, had struck the lines of volunteers sheltered there, killing and maiming all in its path. The dead and wounded weltered in blood. Captain Martin, struck by the spent ball near the end of its course, had been knocked down, but only bruised on the shoulder. Soon recovering from the shock, he lent his aid to the soldiers of his company, John Lebrenn among them, to help or carry the wounded to the surgeons’ post in the rear. These at once gave their care to the cannoniers and to some hussars of the Third, among whom a shell had also wrought its havoc.
Undaunted by these disasters, the republican artillery continued to work marvels. At last the opposing commander, fearing lest his right wing be annihilated, sent word to the regiment of the Gerolstein Cuirassiers to storm the battery. Up to this time masked behind a hill, this regiment of heavy reserve cavalry had taken no part in the conflict. They were part of the contingent put by the principality of Gerolstein at the service of the Germanic Confederation, and were commanded by the Grand Duke himself. This prince was the father of Franz of Gerolstein, whom he held immured in a state dungeon. In spite of his sixty-and-odd years, the old Grand Duke preserved the freshness and buoyancy of youth; to his natural bravery he now added the incentive of hatred for the Revolution. The Count of Plouernel, having made good his second escape from Paris, and now for some time married to the daughter of the Prince of Holtzern, was second in command. The horsemen of this troop wore a cuirass and helmet of steel, over a livery in the Grand Duke’s colors — bright blue with orange facings — with heavy boots, and white wool trousers. In short, the regiment was one of the best equipped and finest in the allied army. The rank and file, lusty fellows in the prime of life, warlike, well drilled, well clad, well fed and well paid, pampered up, in short, like a troop of the chosen, were typical ‘soldiers of monarchy.’ Disciplined by their officers with the cane, after the German fashion, they were the instrument of their master’s will, ready to saber father, mother, brother or fellow-citizen, or to march upon the enemy, with equal indifference, killing merely because some one said “Kill!” or falling in the onslaught because some one said “Forward!” On the right of the regiment rode the Grand Duke, a robust man, tall of frame, and hard and proud of feature. His face was half concealed under the visor of his helmet, which was surmounted with a rich plume of heron feathers. The gentlemen and officers of his household rode somewhat apart from him, while he himself held the following conversation with the Count of Plouernel, who now bore the uniform of a colonel of cuirassiers:
“Count, I saw the Prince of Condé yesterday on his way through Weissenburg to take up quarters at Lauterburg. ‘The Republic,’ he said to me, ’is no longer betrayed by its generals. Our goose is cooked!’ The Prince’s observation was sound; I look forward to a series of reverses to our arms. In case I am killed in to-day’s battle, do not forget the promise you have given me. Go to my son Franz, in the prison where he lies; tell him that my last thoughts were curses upon him. Then,” the Grand Duke added, with a sinister air, “see that justice takes its course with him. My highest court has judged and condemned my unworthy son; he is convicted of a revolutionary plot against the safety of my states, and against my person. He has incurred the penalty of death — the sentence is to be executed with the briefest possible delay. My nephew Otto, whose cousin you married, is to inherit my grand-ducal crown. All the bequests, minutely set forth in my testament, are to be fully carried out.”
“Drive away these dark thoughts, monseigneur,” replied the Count. “You will reign a long time yet, and decide all these matters for yourself.”
The word to advance was given, and the Gerolstein regiment, the Grand Duke at its head, set out at a round trot. The ground shook under the hoofs of its eight hundred horses; the rattle of its sabers, muskets and breastplates made a formidable din. Two hundred rods away rose the hillock on whose brow scowled the republican battery that now menaced every foot of the plain the cuirassiers were advancing over. Unable to outflank the battery, owing to its being protected to the right by the little wood and to the left by the semi-demolished farm buildings, the Grand Duke could see nothing for it but to charge right into the muzzles of the cannon which he hoped to capture, little thinking that they were supported by both infantry and cavalry so cunningly disposed that he was prevented from detecting them.
“The republican position is too strong, monseigneur, to be attacked in front,” said the Count of Plouernel, “and yet it would be difficult to try to turn its flank.”
“I am resolved to take it in front,” replied the Grand Duke. “I rely on the courage of my cuirassiers. Here we are within short range of their cannon, and those fellows do not fire.”
“They await our closer approach, that their discharge may be the more deadly.”
“Then let us close up the distance, and start the action,” exclaimed the Grand Duke.
The trumpets sounded the charge. Formed in a narrow column, to offer less front to the republican fire, the troop trotted rapidly forward. Then, at two hundred paces from the hill, they spread out into two lines, and, at the Grand Duke’s command, spurred their steeds to a gallop. In this order, and uttering loud huzzahs, they reached the foot of the hill. Here their impetuous advance was checked by the steep rise they had to surmount in order to reach the summit and the guns. They discharged their muskets at the cannoniers of the battery, whose pieces, pointed straight down the hill, and till this minute dumb, now spoke out with a fearful volley of shot and shell. The Paris Volunteers, placed as sharpshooters in the fringes of the woo
dy thicket, rained upon their assailants a storm of bullets which mingled with the fire of the other company cloaked in the courtyard of the farmhouse. The rain of lead and iron being especially trained on the steeds of the first advancing line, these fell or stumbled, rolled over on their riders, and threw the second line into such disorder that in spite of its momentum it was forced to waver and flee. The Grand Duke ordered a retreat on the gallop, in order to reform his ranks out of range.
Repeated cries of “Long live the Republic!” greeted the retreat. The German musketry-fire had gone over the heads of the French; only a few were wounded. All hastened to reload their pieces. The volunteers threw fresh cartridges into their guns, in order to receive the second charge of the enemy. The cuirassiers, galled and goaded by the desire to retrieve their first set-back, reformed while describing a wide circuit on the plain. Then, led on by the example of the impetuous Grand Duke, they came on again, not this time in wide front, but in still narrower column. Again they reached the rise of the hill, bending low over their horses’ manes, and belaboring the animals with boot and spur. They received the new volley of artillery almost point blank, but still almost immediately gained the top of the eminence, the Grand Duke in the lead. They found themselves awaited by the two companies of volunteers, formed in a hollow square about the cannon, whose attendants were furiously reloading them. Of the three ranks which formed the square, the first was on one knee; the others were erect, their bodies bent forward, guns at position; ready to let fly at the command of Captain Martin.
Solemn silence reigned among the volunteers as they saw, some thirty paces from them, the Grand Duke of Gerolstein gain the summit of their hillock, flanked on one side by a colossus in casque and cuirass bearing the regimental standard, and followed by several officers of his military household.
Castillon, who was in the second line, with John Lebrenn half kneeling before him, and the new volunteer Duresnel behind, said to the former, sotto voice:
“Friend John, let us unite to bowl over that drum-major on horseback with the flag. What say you? Let us fire together.”
“I am with you. Take the man — I shall aim for the horse.”
“Citizens, I also shall aim at the giant,” said Duresnel, in his reed-like voice; “if you will permit, I shall be of your party.”
At that moment Captain Martin saw behind the Grand Duke, their bodies half over the brow of the hill, the first rank of cuirassiers. Only then, the cavalry being exposed, did he give the order: “Citizens! Attention! Pick each his man! Aim! Fire!”
“Onward, cuirassiers! Saber this canaille!” shouted the Grand Duke, urging his horse to a great leap in order to reach the serried square. “Onward! Hurrah! Thrust, my braves, and on!”
Attackers and defenders disappeared together in the heavy cloud of smoke from cannon and musket. For long the lurid obscurity of battle hung over the little hill; when the blue haze cleared away, the scene that presented itself to the survivors was one of rejoicing for the Republic, of rout and disaster for its enemies.
The foremost cuirassiers, overwhelmed by the fire from the hollow square, had nearly all either fallen, with their horses, or been trampled down by the following ranks which succeeded in scaling the hill. Still the Grand Duke of Gerolstein and several of his men had been carried by the impetuosity of their charge into the interior of the square, in spite of the forest of bayonets with which it bristled; but they came to a stop when their coursers, exhausted by their last assault, and pierced by the republican bayonets, sank under them. Castillon had been sabered in the shoulder by the old Grand Duke; Duresnel was stunned and bruised but not wounded. Both at once, after their first disorder, beheld the Grand Duke within the square, pinned under his riddled horse. The great orange belt which he wore marked him as a military chieftain. Castillon and Duresnel precipitated themselves upon him and took him prisoner. John Lebrenn, for his part, had aimed accurately, and sent a ball into the chest of the color-bearer’s mount. The giant, proof against musket balls, thanks to the thickness of his helmet, breastplate and heavy boots, leaped clear of his steed, and, his saber in one hand, his standard in the other, defended himself against John, who rushed at him with fixed bayonet. The colossus whirled his sword about him and wounded John in the knee; though wounded, the latter rushed on — and captured the colors.
Simultaneously with this, at a few paces’ distance, another episode was enacting. An under-officer of the Gerolstein Cuirassiers, seeing himself surrounded, fell furiously upon quartermaster Duchemin and his men. Duchemin, old wagoner that he was, entrenched himself behind one of Carmagnole’s wheels, which thus served to shield nearly half his body from the saber and hoof-strokes which his adversary sought to rain upon him. Thus barricaded, and further defending himself with a gun-swab, he at last succeeded in landing so masterful a blow upon his antagonist’s helmet that the latter tumbled from his saddle half senseless. Meanwhile Carmagnole’s other servitors had reloaded her. At a signal the ranks opened, and once more the artillery belched forth its iron hail upon the last squadron of the Gerolstein regiment, a reserve squad which the Count of Plouernel led again to the charge. Suddenly the remaining cuirassiers, seized with panic, wheeled about and fled full tilt down the steep incline. Their hurried departure was not due alone to the lively and sustained fire of the republican battery. The squadron of the Third Hussars, drawn up in battle array behind the burning farm buildings, had so far taken no part in the fray. Its captain had been killed and its lieutenant disabled by an exploding shell. But Oliver, although the youngest of the under-officers, already possessed so great a reputation for bravery that the soldiers, by common accord, voted him the command of the regiment. “Ah, I was sure of it!” said the dashing young man, leaning over to Victoria, as they walked their horses together alongside the first platoon; “I felt that I should either be killed to-day or win my epaulets. I shall be named an officer on the field of battle.”
The French squadron, now put to a gallop, fell upon the rear ranks of the Gerolstein Cuirassiers just as their head was being thrown into disorder and repulsed by the joint fire of the battery and the volunteer infantrymen. Oliver charged the German horsemen furiously. The broil was desperate. The Count of Plouernel, who strove in vain to rally the fleers, suddenly found himself beset by a young hussar whose cap had fallen off in the tumult of battle.
Apparently careless of self the young cavalier rushed straight at the traitor Count — slashed at his face — one eye he would never see out of again. Infuriated by the wound, the Count made a lunge and drove his saber into his adversary’s breast. Then Neroweg urged his horse towards the left wing of the Austrian army, and escaped the pursuit of the republican hussars.
The young horseman was Victoria.
CHAPTER XXX.
DEATH OF VICTORIA.
NIGHT WAS COME. Across the December fogs glared the watch-fires of the republican army. The French troops rested on the field of battle, establishing headquarters in the ruins of the chateau of Geisberg, half demolished by cannon-balls. A large barn, one of the outbuildings of the estate, was turned over to the hospital corps. There the wounded were stretched upon litters of straw, receiving medical attendance by the light of torches. Everywhere were heard the moans drawn by the pain of an amputation, or the extraction of a ball. At one end of the barn, an enclosure of planks set off the threshing floor from the rest of the building. Mortally wounded by the Count of Plouernel, Victoria was at length carried from the field hospital into this retreat, her sex having been revealed while her wound was receiving its first dressing.
A torch fastened into a post illuminated the scene. John Lebrenn, also wounded, knelt beside his sister, who lay out-stretched upon her pallet, half wrapped in a coverlet. His back to the wall, Oliver buried his face in his hands and with difficulty checked his sobs, while Castillon, whose manly face was streaming tears, stood a little apart, leaning against one of the door posts.
Victoria’s pallor, and her broken breathing, announced t
hat her sands of life were run. Tightly clasped in both of his, her brother held her hand; he felt that hand grow ever colder and colder.
“Adieu, Oliver,” said Victoria feebly, as she turned toward the young fellow. “Love and serve the Republic as you would a mother. Bear in mind that you are a citizen before you are a soldier. Remember above all that those who see in war only a field opened to their ambition and their pride are the worst enemies of the people.” Then, addressing her brother, Victoria continued: “Adieu, brother. Before the battle I had the presentiment that I would die as did our ancestress Anna Bell — whose sad life bears so many resemblances to mine.” Then, struck by a sudden idea, Victoria continued on a new train of thought: “The Grand Duke of Gerolstein is taken prisoner, you told me, brother? St. Just should be told of the services rendered to our cause by Franz of Gerolstein, and the Grand Duke informed that he will be kept in durance until his son is set free. Franz’s liberation will mean one soldier the more for the Revolution.”
“Your recommendations will be followed, sister dear,” replied John between his sobs; “and oh, dear sister, I weep at our separation. You are going on a journey without return. I am young yet, and long years will pass, perhaps, before I will again be able to behold you.”
“Those years will pass for you, brother, as a day — sweetened by the tenderness of your wife, by the love of your children, by the fulfilment of your civic duties.”
Then, just as a lamp before its dying flicker casts still some bright beams, the young woman rose to a sitting position. Her great black eyes shone radiantly from within; her voice, erstwhile choked and gasping, became sonorous and full; her beautiful features glowed with enthusiasm; she exclaimed:
“Ah, brother, I feel it — my spirit is shaking off my present body, in order to inhabit a new envelope beyond. The future unrolls before me —