The Battle

by Patrick Rambaud

  Lannes's moods shifted quickly from anger to affection. Once he had written to his wife that the Emperor was his worst enemy. 'He is only fond of one on a whim, when he needs one.' But then Napoleon had lavished favours on him and they had fallen into each other's arms. Their destinies remained inseparable. Only a short, while before, the Emperor had clung to his arm on the treacherous escarpment of a Spanish sierra. Inching forward in their high leather boots, lashed by a snowstorm, they had struggled to keep their footing. Together they had climbed onto the barrel of a cannon and, as though on a sleigh, had been hoisted by grenadiers to the top of the Guadarrama pass. Fond memories jostled with nightmares. Lannes sometimes

  regretted not having become a dyer. He had enlisted early and drawn attention to himself by his reckless and headlong courage in the army of the Alps, commanded by Augereau. Slumped in the straw, he was thinking of a hundred conflicting episodes of his life when Berthier entered the room.

  'Whenever there's a commotion, it's bound to be you.' 'You're right, Alexandre. Go on, clap me in irons: at least I'll get a decent night's sleep.'

  'His Majesty is entrusting you with the cavalry.'

  'And Bessieres?'

  'He is to be your subordinate.'

  Lannes and Bessieres detested each other as bitterly and as roundly as Berthier and Davout. The marshal smiled and his mood lifted. 'Let the Archduke attack! We'll meet him with our sabres!'

  At that moment, Perigord and Lejeune arrived out of breath. 'The small bridge has broken!' they announced to the major-general.

  'We're cut off from the left bank. Three-quarters of our troops are trapped on the island.'

  The moon in its last quarter lit up Essling's main street with a feeble light, but nonetheless the Emperor had authorized bivouac fires to be lit under the trees on the lane leading to the village granary, in the square and at the edge of the fields; the enemy must know that the Grande Armee had crossed the Danube since, his plan went, this would provoke them to attack, even though the Archduke Charles was known for his timidity in taking the offensive. Fires were blazing in every direction. Women canteen workers

  Vatric Rambu ud

  moved between them, filling tumblers to the brim with brandy and getting shipped on their ample buttocks for then pains. Some ol the soldiers sang crude drinking songs, while others bolted down their rations and told jokes to give themselves courage lor that was now certain to begin the following day. They had unfastened then cuirasses and taken ofi their maned helmets, and the polished metal ol their equipment lying on the ground reflected the red glow of the fires. Like their horses, the men were preparing to sleep under the stars, protected by a handful ol mostly slightly drunk sentries, who seanned the plain without seeing anything. Some ol them had found .1 hag ol flour, a bottle ol wine 01 .1 duck: nothing really to speak ol, since the villagers had taken almost everything with them, all the n poultry, casks and grain. The cuirassiers occupied the village on then own. Massena had returned to Aspern before nightfall to be close to the small bridge which the river had breached and which the sappers were attempting to repair by torchlight, then lingers frozen and then uniforms soaked by the turbulent, icy waters.

  General Espagne's stall officers had taken refuge in Essling's church lor the night. The painted wooden balustrade dividing the nave had been chopped into firewood for braziers which gave oil a thick smoke and cast hellish silhouettes on the chinch walls. Wrapped m an overcoat, Espagne stood away trom the others and leant his elbows on tin altar. 1 le could find no reassurance in the shadows w hich the flames sent dancing over the stone tloor. Premonitions had been troubling him lor the past tew weeks. He telt no love or fear lor this campaign, only the sense that a judgement had been passed on his life and then deferred:

  in silence, he thought about death. His cuirassiers were aware of their general's superstitious fears, even though he never allowed a sign of them to alter his grave expression. Each of them respected his silence. Each repeated his strange story.

  Troopers Fayolle and Pacotte had shared from a single mess tin a thick, ill-defined soup which now lay like lead on their stomachs. Their conversation had turned to the general, about whom Pacotte knew nothing since he hadn't been with the regiment long. Fayolle knew the whole story.

  'It was at the castle in Bayreuth. We get there late, he's tired, he goes to bed. I wasn't far off, on the main staircase with the others, and suddenly in the middle of the night, we hear shouting.'

  'Someone was trying to kill the general''

  'Not so fast! Well, the shouting was coming from his room, right enough, so the orderly officers run to it and I follow them with the sentries. The door has been locked from the inside. We break it down, using a couch as a battering ram, we go in . . .'

  'And then?'

  'Patience, man! What do we seer' 'What?'

  'The bed upended in the middle of the room and the general underneath it.' 'And he's shouting.'

  'No, he's unconscious. Quick as a flash, our doctor bleeds him and checks him over, he opens his eyes, he's pale, terrified, he stares at us, the doctor has to give him powders to calm his nerves. Then he says, listen carefully, Pacotte, he says, "I've seen a ghost and it wanted to slit my throat'

  'No!'

  'Don't laugh, you fool. It was when he was wrestling with the ghost that the bed got tipped over.' 'You believe that''

  'He's asked to describe this phantom, which he does to the last detail, and do you know what it was, eh? No, you don't know. Well, I'm going to tell you. It was the White Lady of the Habsburgs!'

  'Who's she.''

  'She appears in the palaces of Vienna when the time has come for a prince of the House of Austria to die. She had already come to Bayreuth three years before, and Prince Louis of Austria had fought with her, just like the general.'

  'And was it the death of him.''

  'Oh, yes, my friend, it was. Near Saalfeld, a hussar's sabre through the throat. The general is as white as death, he says in a very low voice, "Her visit foretells that my end is near," and he goes off to sleep somewhere else.'

  'You believe in fairy tales like that, do you.''

  'We'll see tomorrow.'

  'So you do, Fayolle, you believe in them!' 'And suppose the general is killed'' 'Suppose we are.?' 'Oh, us, that'd just be bad luck . .

  Cuirassier Pacotte felt very sceptical about the general's misadventure. At home, in his market town of Menilmon-tant, no one set too much store by that sort of fancy. An apprentice joiner before being recruited, Pacotte was used to tangible things: turning a table leg, nailing down boards, blowing your pay on cheap wine. Seeing that Fayolle was troubled by the story, he slapped him on the back. 'Got to

  take your mind off it, man. What say we go and pay our respects to our little Austrian friend? She's expecting us. Tied up the way we left her, I can't see her turning into a ghost!'

  'Do you remember where it was?'

  'We'll find it. The village has only got one street.'

  They took a lantern down from a cart and set off through Essling where all the houses looked the same. Twice they chose the wrong one. 'Plague on this,' grumbled Fayolle, 'we'll never find it again.' Further on, by the light of the lantern, Pacotte recognized the body of their attacker, who no one had buried. They smiled at each other and pushed open the door. Pacotte tripped on the step and the candle in the lantern went out.

  'Very smart, you fathead!' said Fayolle, wrapping his hand in his cape to lift off the burning-hot glass while Pacotte struck his tinderbox. When they reached the first floor, they walked to the room at the back of the house, and saw that the girl hadn't moved.

  'How do you say "Hello, my beauty'' in German : ' asked Pacotte.

  'Darned if I know,' said Fayolle.

  'It's strange she's having such a good sleep . . .'

  They put the lantern down on a three-legged stool and Fayolle cut her free with his sabre. Cuirassier Pacotte took out the gag, pocketed the velvet braces with which it had been tied in pla
ce, bent down and kissed her full on the mouth. He jumped back. 'Hell!'

  'Can't you wake her up?' asked Fayolle, grinning.

  'She's dead!'

  Pacotte spat on the ground, then wiped his mouth on his sleeve.

  'But our little doll has still got warm feet,' Fayolle said, prodding the girl.

  'Don't touch her, it's bad luck!'

  'You don't believe in my ghosts, but what, now your teeth start chattering? Out of the way, you sparrow.' 'I'm not staying here.'

  'Well, get out, then. Leave me the lantern.' 'I'm not staying here, Fayolle, you can't do this, any of this . . .'

  'You're talking to a real soldier,' Fayolle laughed mockingly, undoing his belt.

  Pacotte raced down the stairs in the pitch black. Outside, he leaned against the wall of the house. He breathed deeply several times. He felt sick. His legs prickled. He didn't dare imagine his accomplice taking that poor peasant girl, suffocated to death by the gag that he, Pacotte, must have tied too tight. He played the part of the swaggerer, true enough, but he had never wanted to kill anybody. In battle, of course, there was no other way of getting out alive, but this?

  Slow minutes passed.

  Over by the church, soldiers were singing.

  Fayolle came out. Neither said a word about the Austrian, Pacotte only asking, 'Give me the light, will you, I'm going to be sick.'

  'You don't need to see for that, but I do.'

  'See what?'

  'My new shoes.'

  He pointed to the body lying in the courtyard. 'Now's the time to relieve this fellow of his boots. I think my need's greater than his, wouldn't you say?'

  Fayolle crouched down and put the lantern on the

  ground. He undid his spurs to try them on the corpse's shoes and cursed: they didn't fit at all. Disappointed, he stood up and called out, 'Pacotte!'

  Holding the lantern at arm's length in front of him, he set off down the street, grumbling, 'Can't you answ er me, you swine?'

  He made out a figure near a tree and walked towards

  it.

  'What, do you need a tree to chuck up your guts :< Striding through the grass and nettles of the verge, he bumped into something: a tree trunk, probably. He kicked it. It wasn't wood. It was soft, like a body. He bent down, the light of the lantern picking out a uniform. As the soldier was lying face down, he turned him over. Smeared with vomit and blood, his friend Pacotte had a knife stuck in his throat.

  'Stand to arms!'

  Nearby, in the shadows, a group of Austrians in mouse-grey jackets and black hats with a cutting of leaves pinned to the crest - the uniform of the Landwehr, their people's militia — ducked down and disappeared into the wheat-fields.

  Massena had ordered braziers to be lit and lamps strung along the stanchions of the small bridge. landing Ins gold embroidered coat and cocked hat to his orderly, he flung himself into pressing on the repairs. Boots sunk in the muddy riverbank, he caught a pontoneer by the collai who had almost drowned in the swirling waters. Massena had the stamina of a wild animal. He scaled girders, carried planks, did as much work as ten of the men whom he led

  by example. He had never been ill. No, he had, once, in Italy, when he had established such a successful traffic in import licences that he made a profit of three million francs. The Emperor found out and asked Massena to pay a third into the Treasury: the marshal pleaded that they were his savings, that his family cost him a fortune; he said he was poor, in debt. The Emperor finally became so exasperated that he confiscated the entire fortune, which was deposited in a bank in Livorno. That was when Massena fell ill.

  But in action, the marshal forgot about his banditry, his avarice and the Genoese gold which he imagined to be slumbering in some safe in Vienna: he'd worry about that later. Without seeming to strain, he lifted up an enormous beam for the sappers to rope to one of the boats ballasted with cannonballs which danced in the violent waves. Some planks broke away from the unfinished roadway and span off in the current. Massena yelled like a devil. Over on the island of Lobau, other pontoneers were trying to join their half of the bridge to his, the two detachments having to make contact somewhere near the middle of this raging branch of the Danube. Now almost within reach, the detachments had started throwing out cables weighted with stones, catching them in mid-air and stretching them taut like the skeleton of a bridge's parapet. The rolling waters were still rising beneath them and they inched forward, beam by beam, plank by plank, pulling, knotting and nailing in the blurred, reddish glow of the bonfires, drenched by the sheets of water which broke on their handiwork, exhausted, numbed and roped together like rosaries of men. Like a lion tamer, Massena exhorted and

  insulted them by turns, cutting a majestic figure with his stock pulled up to his chin and his sleeves rolled up to his elbows. Standing at the edge of the reconstructed roadway he picked up a tangle of chains in his right hand and threw them to a sergeant who was clinging to a pontoon. 'Round that log!' The sergeant's fingers were frozen, he couldn't hook them round the post, and as his boat pitched and the cold waves hit him full in the face he almost lost his balance. Massena climbed down the ropes towards the helpless soldier, pushed him out of the way and fixed the chains in place. A gust of wind blew the smoke back into the men's faces, they coughed and blindly kept on working. 'To the right! More to the right!' Massena shouted, as if, with his one eye, he saw better at night than the pontoneers with all their experience. On the other side of the river, the rest of the army were waiting on the island of Lobau to cross, their knapsacks on their backs, their muskets at their feet. The front ranks watched the marshal, and if they did not love him, they nevertheless admired him that night. Others were praying that this lousy bridge would never hold, that the Danube would shatter it to pieces and that they'd be able to go home.

  Two hundred metres away, in a clearing at the centre of the island, the officers of the General Staff and their entourages were reclining on the turf. Many of them carried rings, or miniatures, or a lock of their mistress's hair in small, finely worked boxes and they extolled those ladies' merits in an attempt to distract themselves from the present. Others sang nostalgic airs in chorus,

  ^ Ram baud

  You are leaving me, my dear, to go where glory waits My tender heart will follow, at every step you take.

  Lejeune was silent, sitting under an elm tree. His orderly, on all tours, was fanning a fire ot branches while Vincent Paradis skinned two hares he had killed with his catapult. Inspired by the bucolic night and the serene, verdant countryside, Perigord was concluding a disquisition on Jean-Jacques Rousseau. 'Sleeping on the grass,, under the stars, is all very fine, but one shouldn't make a point ot it. There are ants, tor one thing. And then the birds wake you up at dawn with their racket. One is tar better oft between sheets, with the window firmly shut, and. it at all possible, in company: I am somewhat sensitive to the cold."

  He turned to Paradis. 'Keep the skins for me. my boy. They will be pertection itselt when my boots need a polish . . . Rabbits' Every time I see those little creatures it makes me think of that charade of a shoot at Grosbois. What a tool he is, our major-general!'

  'Clumsy perhaps.' Lejeune corrected him in a somewhat vexed tone, 'but not a fool. Don't exaggerate, Edmond. Anyway, we weren't even at that shoot."

  'What are you talking about.?' asked a colonel ot Hussars, who was keenly looking forward to the stew.

  'About the day when, to flatter the Emperor . . .'

  'To oblige him,' corrected Lejeune.

  'It amounts to the same thing. Louis-Francois''

  'Xo, it doesn't.'

  'The marshal, in order to flatter His Majesty," repeated the hussar, encouraging Perigord in his scandalmongering.

  'Marshal Berthier," the latter continued, 'had invited the Emperor to a rabbit shoot on his land at Grosbois. Well,

  Grosbois may have small game, but it hasn't a single rabbit. So what does the marshal do : He orders a thousand. The day arrives and the rabbits are set loose
but instead of scampering away from the guns, these animals run straight towards the guests, make a great fuss of them, nuzzle against their boots - none of them in the slightest bit wild - and almost trip up His Majesty. The marshal had forgotten to make it clear that they had to be wild, so the suppliers had delivered a thousand tame rabbits. When thev saw such a crowd of people, they quite naturally thought it was feeding time!"

  This made Perigord and the hussar cry with laughter. Lejeune, however, had stood up before the end of the story, which he had heard too many times and no longer found amusing. Everybody was making the major-general out to be an ass and it upset Lejeune, who owed his rank and his duties to Berthier. A young infantry officer in Holland and then, through merit, an officer in the engineers, Lejeune had been picked out by Berthier and taken on as an aide-de-camp. His first mission, Lejeune remembered, had been to deliver sacks of gold to some priests in the Yalais who were to help drag the artillery over the Alps. He hadn't lett the marshal's side since. He, more than anyone, was aware of the marshal's courage and his record: s he'd fought alongside the American rebels at New York and Yorktown, his meeting with Frederick II at Potsdam, his devotion to the young General Bonaparte, whose destiny he foresaw during the war of Italy, and his equal devotion to the Napoleon this general had become, for whom, by turns, he played the part of secret agent, confidant, nursemaid and whipping boy. Davout and Massena had been spreading unjust rumours about him for weeks. It was true that when