The Debacle: (1870-71)

by Emile Zola

  So it was that Sergeant Sapin met the death he was expecting. He had turned round and he saw the shell coming when it could no longer be avoided.

  ‘Ah, here it is!’ was all he said.

  His little face, with its big, beautiful eyes, was merely deeply sad, with no terror. His belly was split open. He moaned:

  ‘Oh, don’t leave me here, take me away to the ambulance, please… Take me away!’

  Rochas wanted to shut him up, and was on the point of telling him brutally that with a wound like that there was no point in upsetting all his comrades. But then he was touched:

  ‘Poor old chap, just wait a bit for the stretcher-bearers to come for you.’

  But the wretched man went on, crying now, maddened by the dream of happiness departing with his life-blood.

  ‘Take me away, take me away…’

  Captain Beaudoin, whose jangled nerves were no doubt exasperated by this moaning, asked for two willing men who would carry him into a little spinney close by, where there must be a mobile ambulance. With one bound Chouteau and Loubet leaped up, forestalling the others, and seized the sergeant, one by the shoulders and the other by the feet, and started carrying him off at the double. But on the way they felt him stiffen and expire in a final convulsion.

  ‘Look here, he’s dead,’ declared Loubet. ‘Let’s drop him!’

  Chouteau stuck to it furiously.

  ‘Get a move on, you lazy sod! I’m not bloody well dumping him here and getting called back!’

  They held to their course with the body as far as the spinney, threw it down under a tree and cleared off. They were not seen again until evening.

  The fire intensified, the battery close by had been reinforced with two guns and in the mounting din Maurice was seized by fear, insane fear. At first he had not had this cold sweat and painful sensation of collapse in the pit of the stomach, the irresistible urge to get up and run, screaming. Perhaps even now it was only due to thinking too much, as happens in sensitive and nervous natures. But Jean, who was keeping an eye on him, gripped him with his strong hand and made him stay near him, reading this fit of cowardice in the worried darting of his eyes. He swore at him softly and paternally, trying to shame him out of it with harsh words because he knew that you put courage back into men by giving them a kick up the backside. Others had got the shivers too. Pache had tears in his eyes and was whimpering with a soft, involuntary wail, like a little child’s, which he could not stop. And then Lapoulle had an accident – such an upset of the bowels that he pulled his trousers down there and then, with no time to get to the hedge. He was cheered and they threw clods of earth at his bare arse displayed to bullets and shells. Many of them were taken short in this way, and relieved themselves amid obscene mirth which restored everyone’s courage.

  ‘You cowardly bugger,’ Jean was saying to Maurice, ‘you’re not going to shit yourself like them… I’ll sock you one on the jaw if you don’t behave yourself!’

  He was putting new heart into him with these rough words when all of a sudden, four hundred metres in front of them, they saw ten or so men in dark-coloured uniforms coming out of a little wood. They could tell by their pointed helmets that they were Prussians at last, the first Prussians they had seen within range of their rifles since the beginning of the campaign. Other squads of them followed the first, and in front of them they could make out the little clouds of dust sent up from the ground by shells. It was all clearly defined, the Prussians were sharply outlined like little tin soldiers set out in perfect order. Then, as the shells rained thicker they went back and disappeared into the trees.

  But the Beaudoin company had spotted them and could still see them there. Rifles had gone off of their own accord. Maurice was the first to fire his, and Jean, Pache, Lapoulle and all the others followed. No order had been given, and the captain wanted to stop the firing and only gave in when Rochas waved his arm indicating that the men needed this relief. So at last they were firing, they were using this ammunition they had been carting round for over a month without ever letting any off! Maurice above all was heartened, with something to do for his fear, intoxicating himself with detonations. The edge of the wood looked dreary and not a leaf stirred, nor had a single Prussian reappeared. They were firing all the time at motionless trees.

  Having glanced up, Maurice was surprised to see Colonel de Vineuil a few paces away, on his big horse, man and beast quite undisturbed as though made of stone. With his face to the enemy the colonel waited in the hail of bullets. The whole 106th must have closed in there, other companies were lying in the adjoining fields and the rifle-fire was spreading from one to another. A little to the rear Maurice also saw the flag and the strong arm of the subaltern who was bearing it. But now it was not that ghostly flag half lost in the morning mist. In the blazing sun the golden eagle shone forth and the silk tricolor gleamed in brilliant tones in spite of all the wear and tear of battles. Against the blue sky, in the hurricane of gunfire, it floated like a flag of victory.

  Why shouldn’t they win now that they were fighting? Maurice and all the others went mad and fired as though to kill the distant wood, in which a slow silent rain of twigs came down.

  3

  HENRIETTE could not get to sleep all night, tortured by the thought that her husband was at Bazeilles, so near to the German lines. In vain she kept reminding herself of his promise to come home at the first sign of danger, and every minute she was straining her ears, thinking she could hear him. At about ten, before going to bed, she opened the window, leaned out and forgot all about time.

  It was a very dark night and she could hardly make out beneath her the cobbles of the rue des Voyards, a dark, narrow passage between the old houses. Further off, towards the school there was only the smoky star of a street lamp. From down there somewhere there came up a musty smell of cellars, the miaowing of a fighting cat, the heavy tread of some stray soldier. Then behind her, from all over Sedan, there came unusual sounds, rapid gallopings, and rumbling noises like premonitions of death. As she listened her heart thudded faster, but still she did not recognize her husband’s step round the corner.

  Hours went by, and now she was worried by distant lights out in the country beyond the ramparts. It was so dark that she had to make an effort to place things. That great pale sheet down there must be the flooded meadows. So what was that light she had seen come on and then go out up there, perhaps on La Marfée? Others flared up in all directions, at Pont-Maugis, Noyers, Frénois, mysterious lights twinkling as if over a countless multitude teeming in the night. And then another thing, extraordinary noises startled her, like the tramp of a people on the move, snorting of animals, clashing of arms, a whole cavalcade in this infernal darkness. Suddenly a single cannon shot rang out, terrifying in the absolute silence that followed. It froze her blood. What could it be? No doubt some signal, some manoeuvre successfully carried out, an announcement that they were now ready over there and that the sun could come out.

  At about two Henriette threw herself on the bed, fully clothed, not even bothering to shut the window. She was overcome with fatigue and anxiety. What was the matter with her, shivering like this as though she had a temperature, for she was usually so placid, so light on her feet that you hardly heard her busying herself about. She fell into a troubled doze, numbed with a persistent sensation of impending doom in the black sky. Suddenly she was dragged from the depths of her uneasy sleep by the gunfire starting again with dull, distant boomings, but this time it went on, regular and persistent. She sat up, shuddering. Where was she? She did not recognize or even see the room, which seemed to be filled with dense smoke. Then she understood – the fog rising from the river near by must have got into the room. Out there the gunfire was getting heavier. She jumped up and ran to the window to listen.

  Some church clock in Sedan was striking four. Day was just breaking, evil-looking and murky in the brownish fog. Impossible to see anything, she could not make out the school buildings a few metres away. Oh God, w
here were they firing? Her first thought was for her brother Maurice, for the reports were so muffled that they seemed to be coming from the north and over the town. Then, and there was no doubt about it, they were firing there, in front of her, and she trembled for her husband. It was at Bazeilles for certain. And yet she felt reassured again for a few minutes because the detonations seemed occasionally to be coming from her right. Perhaps the fighting was at Donchery where she knew they had not been able to blow up the bridge. And then she was seized by cruel uncertainty – was it Donchery, was it Bazeilles? With the noises in her head it was impossible to tell. Soon the torture was such that she felt she could not stay there waiting any longer. Quivering with an imperative need to know, she threw a shawl over her shoulders and went out to find news.

  Down in the rue des Voyards Henriette had a moment of hesitation because the town seemed so dark still in the impenetrable fog which enveloped it. The light of dawn had not reached down to the damp cobbles between the black walls of the old houses. In the rue au Beurre all she saw was two drunken Algerians with a girl in a sleazy bar lit by one flickering candle. She had to turn into the rue Maqua before she found any sign of life – shapes of soldiers furtively making their way along the pavements, probably deserters looking for somewhere to hide; a tall cuirassier wandering about, sent to find his captain and knocking violently on doors; a stream of bourgeois sweating with fear because they had dallied so long in deciding to pile into a cart and try to see whether there was still time to reach Bouillon in Belgium, where half Sedan had been emigrating over the past two days. She instinctively made for the Sub-Prefecture, feeling sure she would get some information there, and as she wanted to avoid meeting anybody she thought she would cut through side streets. But at the rue du Four and rue des Laboureurs she could not get through, for there was an unbroken line of guns, gun-carriages and ammunition waggons that must have been parked in this back street the day before and apparently forgotten. There was not even a single man guarding them. It struck cold into her heart to see all this useless artillery dismally sleeping abandoned in these deserted alleys. So she had to retrace her steps through the Place du College towards the Grand-Rue where, in front of the Hôtel de l’Europe, orderlies were holding horses in readiness for high officers whose loud voices could be heard coming from the dining-room, which was brilliantly lit. On the Place du Rivage and Place Turenne there were still more people, groups of worried townsfolk, women and children mingling with some of the soldiers who had deserted and were running wild, and there she saw a general come swearing out of the Hôtel de la Croix d’Or and gallop off madly without bothering about knocking everyone down. For a moment it looked as if she might go into the Hôtel de Ville, but in the end she took the rue du Pont de Meuse and went on to the Sub-Prefecture.

  Never before had Sedan given her this impression of being a tragic, doomed town as it did now, seen in the murky, misty early morning. The very houses seemed dead, and many had been abandoned and empty for two days, others remained hermetically sealed and one sensed inside them a frightened insomnia. It was a really shivery morning, with streets still half deserted and only peopled by anxious shadows or enlivened by some hurried departure, with doubtful characters still hanging about since the day before. It was beginning to get lighter and soon the town would become crowded and overwhelmed by the disaster. It was half-past five and the noise of the gunfire, deadened between these lofty, dark buildings, could hardly be heard.

  At the Sub-Prefecture Henriette saw the concierge’s daughter Rose, a fair, delicate-looking pretty little thing, who worked at the Delaherche mill. She went straight to the lodge. The mother was not there, but Rose greeted her in her charming way.

  ‘Oh, dear lady, we’re simply dropping! Mother has just gone for a little rest. Just think, all night long and we have had to be on our feet with these continual comings and goings!’

  And without waiting to be asked, she talked on and on, thoroughly worked up about the extraordinary things she had seen since the day before.

  ‘Oh, the marshal slept all right, he did. But the poor Emperor! No, you can’t imagine what he is going through. Just fancy, yesterday evening I went upstairs to help put out some linen. Well, going into the room next to the bathroom I heard groans, yes, groans, as though somebody was dying. And there I stood trembling, and my blood ran cold when I realized that it was the Emperor… It seems he has some awful illness that makes him cry out like that. When there are people about he holds it in, but as soon as he is alone it gets the better of his self-control, and he shouts and moans fit to make your hair stand on end.’

  ‘Where has the fighting been this morning, do you know?’ asked Henriette, trying to cut her short.

  Rose waved the question aside and went on:

  ‘So you see, I wanted to find out, so I went up again four or five times during the night and glued my ear to the wall… He was still moaning and hasn’t ever stopped, and hasn’t slept a minute, I’m quite sure… Isn’t it awful to be in such pain, with all the worries he must have on his mind, for it’s a real mess, a madhouse. Upon my word, they all look mad! And always somebody else arriving, and doors banging, and people in a temper and others crying, and the whole building is being pillaged, everything upside down, what with the officers drinking out of bottles and lying in beds with their boots on! When you come to think of it, it is really the Emperor who is the nicest and takes up least room in the corner where he goes off and hides so as he can moan!’

  Then as Henriette repeated her question:

  ‘Where the fighting is? At Bazeilles, they’ve been fighting there since first thing. A soldier on horseback came to report it to the marshal who went straight to the Emperor to warn him… It’s already ten minutes since the marshal went off, and I think the Emperor must be joining him because up there they’re dressing him… I saw just now they were combing his hair and dolling him up with all sorts of stuff on his face.’

  But knowing now what she wanted to know, Henriette fled.

  ‘Thanks, Rose, I’m in a hurry.’

  The girl obligingly escorted her to the street and threw in by way of a farewell:

  ‘You’re very welcome, Madame Weiss. I know I can say anything to you.’

  Henriette hurried back home to the rue des Voyards. She was certain she would find her husband back, and she even thought that if he didn’t find her at home he would be very worried, and that made her quicken her step still more. As she approached the house she looked up, thinking she could see him up there leaning out of the window, watching for her return. But the window was still wide open and empty. When she got up there and had glanced round the three rooms she was sick at heart on finding nothing but the icy fog and the continual rumbling of cannon. The firing out there never stopped. She went back to the window for a moment. Now that she knew what was happening, even though the wall of morning mist was still impenetrable, she could follow out the battle going on at Bazeilles, with the crackling of machine-guns and shattering volleys of the French batteries replying to the distant volleys of the German ones. One had the impression that the detonations were getting closer together and that the battle was getting fiercer every minute.

  Why wasn’t Weiss back? He had so solemnly promised to come home at the first attack! Henriette’s anxiety steadily grew as in her imagination she saw obstacles, the road cut, shells already making retreat too perilous. Perhaps something dreadful had happened to him. She thrust the thought aside, finding in hope a strong incentive for action. She thought for a moment of setting off in that direction to meet her husband, but second thoughts held her back – they might cross, and then what would happen to her if she missed him? And what agonies he would go through if he came back and didn’t find her. But the courage needed for a visit to Bazeilles at that moment seemed perfectly natural to her and not a case of foolhardy heroism, just part of her function as an active wife quietly carrying out whatever the proper running of her home demanded. Where her husband was she would b
e, that was all.

  But then she made a sudden gesture and said aloud, as she left the window:

  ‘And Monsieur Delaherche… I’ll go and see.’

  It had just occured to her that the mill-owner had slept at Bazeilles too, and that if he was back she would get news from him. She went downstairs again at once, but instead of going out by the rue des Voyards she crossed the narrow courtyard and took the passage leading to the huge factory buildings, the monumental frontage of which looked on to the rue Maqua. As she emerged into what was once the inner garden, now paved over except for a lawn surrounded by some superb trees, giant elms dating from the last century, she was at first surprised to see a sentry posted in front of the locked door of a coach-house, until she remembered that she had heard the day before that the cash of the 7th corps was deposited there, and it struck her as odd that all this gold, millions it was said, was hidden in this coach-house while they were already killing each other all round. But just as she was going up the service stairs to get to Gilberte’s room another surprise brought her to a standstill, such an unexpected encounter that she came down the three steps she had already climbed, wondering whether she dared to go up and knock. A soldier, a captain had crossed her path, swift as a vision, and vanished. Nevertheless she had had time to recognize him, having seen him in Charleville at Gilberte’s when she was still Madame Maginot. She walked about in the courtyard for a few moments, looked up at the two lofty windows of the bedroom, the shutters of which were still closed. Then she made up her mind and went up all the same.

  On the first floor she thought she would knock on the door of the dressing-room as an intimate childhood friend who sometimes came for a morning chat. But this door had not been shut properly in a hurried departure, and was ajar. She only had to give it a push and she was in the dressing-room and then in the bedroom. It was a room with a very lofty ceiling from which hung voluminous red velvet curtains which surrounded the whole bed. Not a sound, the sultry silence of a happy night, nothing except a regular, almost inaudible breathing in an atmosphere vaguely scented with essence of lilac.