They made another halt; some conferences took place. It had stopped snowing. A cold wind was driving the clouds, and innumerable stars were sparkling in the sky behind them, gradually paling in the rosy light of dawn.
A staff officer came forward to receive the detachment. But when he asked who was being carried in the litter, the form stirred; two little hands moved aside the big blue army capes and, rosy as the dawn, with two eyes that were brighter than the stars that had just faded from sight, and a smile as radiant as the morn, a dainty face appeared.
"It is I, monsieur."
The soldiers, wild with delight, clapped their hands and bore the young girl in triumph into the midst of the camp, that was just getting to arms. Presently General Carrel arrived on the scene. At nine o"clock the Prussians made an attack. They beat a retreat at noon.
That evening, as Lieutenant Lare, overcome by fatigue, was sleeping on a bundle of straw, he was sent for by the general. He found the commanding officer in his tent, chatting with the old man whom they had come across during the night. As soon as he entered the tent the general took his hand, and addressing the stranger, said:
"My dear comte, this is the young man of whom you were telling me just now; he is one of my best officers."
He smiled, lowered his tone, and added:
"The best."
Then, turning to the astonished lieutenant, he presented "Comte de Ronfi-Quedissac."
The old man took both his hands, saying:
"My dear lieutenant, you have saved my daughter"s life. I have only one way of thanking you. You may come in a few months to tell me-if you like her."
One year later, on the very same day, Captain Lare and Miss Louise-Hortense-Genevieve de Ronfi-Quedissac were married in the church of St. Thomas Aquinas.
She brought a dowry of six thousand francs, and was said to be the prettiest bride that had been seen that year.
THE HORRIBLE
The shadows of a balmy night were slowly falling. The women remained in the drawing-room of the villa. The men, seated, or astride of garden chairs, were smoking outside the door of the house, around a table laden with cups and liqueur gla.s.ses.
Their lighted cigars shone like eyes in the darkness, which was gradually becoming more dense. They had been talking about a frightful accident which had occurred the night before-two men and three women drowned in the river before the eyes of the guests.
General de G--remarked:
"Yes, these things are affecting, but they are not horrible.
"Horrible, that well-known word, means much more than terrible. A frightful accident like this affects, upsets, terrifies; it does not horrify. In order that we should experience horror, something more is needed than emotion, something more than the spectacle of a dreadful death; there must be a shuddering sense of mystery, or a sensation of abnormal terror, more than natural. A man who dies, even under the most tragic circ.u.mstances, does not excite horror; a field of battle is not horrible; blood is not horrible; the vilest crimes are rarely horrible.
"Here are two personal examples which have shown me what is the meaning of horror.
"It was during the war of 1870. We were retreating toward Pont-Audemer, after having pa.s.sed through Rouen. The army, consisting of about twenty thousand men, twenty thousand routed men, disbanded, demoralized, exhausted, were going to disband at Havre.
"The earth was covered with snow. The night was falling. They had not eaten anything since the day before. They were fleeing rapidly, the Prussians not being far off.
"All the Norman country, sombre, dotted with the shadows of the trees surrounding the farms, stretched out beneath a black, heavy, threatening sky.
"Nothing else could be heard in the wan twilight but the confused sound, undefined though rapid, of a marching throng, an endless tramping, mingled with the vague clink of tin bowls or swords. The men, bent, round-shouldered, dirty, in many cases even in rags, dragged themselves along, hurried through the snow, with a long, broken-backed stride.
"The skin of their hands froze to the b.u.t.t ends of their muskets, for it was freezing hard that night. I frequently saw a little soldier take off his shoes in order to walk barefoot, as his shoes hurt his weary feet; and at every step he left a track of blood. Then, after some time, he would sit down in a field for a few minutes" rest, and he never got up again. Every man who sat down was a dead man.
"Should we have left behind us those poor, exhausted soldiers, who fondly counted on being able to start afresh as soon as they had somewhat refreshed their stiffened legs? But scarcely had they ceased to move, and to make their almost frozen blood circulate in their veins, than an unconquerable torpor congealed them, nailed them to the ground, closed their eyes, and paralyzed in one second this overworked human mechanism. And they gradually sank down, their foreheads on their knees, without, however, falling over, for their loins and their limbs became as hard and immovable as wood, impossible to bend or to stand upright.
"And the rest of us, more robust, kept straggling on, chilled to the marrow, advancing by a kind of inertia through the night, through the snow, through that cold and deadly country, crushed by pain, by defeat, by despair, above all overcome by the abominable sensation of abandonment, of the end, of death, of nothingness.
"I saw two gendarmes holding by the arm a curious-looking little man, old, beardless, of truly surprising aspect.
"They were looking for an officer, believing that they had caught a spy. The word "spy" at once spread through the midst of the stragglers, and they gathered in a group round the prisoner. A voice exclaimed: "He must be shot!" And all these soldiers who were falling from utter prostration, only holding themselves on their feet by leaning on their guns, felt all of a sudden that thrill of furious and b.e.s.t.i.a.l anger which urges on a mob to ma.s.sacre.
"I wanted to speak. I was at that time in command of a battalion; but they no longer recognized the authority of their commanding officers; they would even have shot me.
"One of the gendarmes said: "He has been following us for the three last days. He has been asking information from every one about the artillery.""
I took it on myself to question this person.
"What are you doing? What do you want? Why are you accompanying the army?"
"He stammered out some words in some unintelligible dialect. He was, indeed, a strange being, with narrow shoulders, a sly look, and such an agitated air in my presence that I really no longer doubted that he was a spy. He seemed very aged and feeble. He kept looking at me from under his eyes with a humble, stupid, crafty air.
"The men all round us exclaimed.
""To the wall! To the wall!"
"I said to the gendarmes:
""Will you be responsible for the prisoner?"
"I had not ceased speaking when a terrible shove threw me on my back, and in a second I saw the man seized by the furious soldiers, thrown down, struck, dragged along the side of the road, and flung against a tree. He fell in the snow, nearly dead already.
"And immediately they shot him. The soldiers fired at him, reloaded their guns, fired again with the desperate energy of brutes. They fought with each other to have a shot at him, filed off in front of the corpse, and kept on firing at him, as people at a funeral keep sprinkling holy water in front of a coffin.
"But suddenly a cry arose of "The Prussians! the Prussians!"
"And all along the horizon I heard the great noise of this panic-stricken army in full flight.
"A panic, the result of these shots fired at this vagabond, had filled his very executioners with terror; and, without realizing that they were themselves the originators of the scare, they fled and disappeared in the darkness.
"I remained alone with the corpse, except for the two gendarmes whose duty compelled them to stay with me.
"They lifted up the riddled ma.s.s of bruised and bleeding flesh.
""He must be searched," I said. And I handed them a box of taper matches which I had in my pocket. One of the soldiers had another box. I was standing between the two.
"The gendarme who was examining the body announced:
""Clothed in a blue blouse, a white shirt, trousers, and a pair of shoes."