The Eagle of the Empire Part 14

"Many, your Majesty, wherever the Russians have not pa.s.sed."

"I thought so. Gentlemen," the Emperor turned to his staff, "ride in every direction. Take the mounted escort. Bid them scatter. Go to every village and farm. Ask my good French people to bring their horses in, to lend them to the Emperor. It is for France. I strike the last blow for them, their homes, their wives and children. Fortune smiles upon us. The enemy is delivered into our hands. They shall be liberally rewarded."

"The men are hungry," cried a voice from a dark group of officers in the background.

"They are weary," exclaimed another, under cover of the darkness.

"Who spoke?" asked the Emperor, but he did not wait for an answer, perhaps he did not care for one. "I, too, am hungry, I, your Emperor, and I am weary. I have eaten nothing and have ridden the day long.

There is bread, there are guns in the Field-Marshal's army. We shall take from Blucher all that we need. Then we can rest. You hear?"

"We hear, Sire."

"Good. Whose division is yonder?"

"Mine, Sire," answered Marshal Ney, riding up and saluting.

"Ah, Prince," said Napoleon, riding over toward him. "Michael," he added familiarly as he drew nearer, "I am confident that the Prussians have no idea that we are nearer than Troyes to them. We must get forward with what we can at once and fall on them before they learn of our arrival and concentrate. We must move swiftly."

"To-morrow," suggested Ney.

"To-night."

"The conscripts of my young guard are in a state of great exhaustion and depression. If they could have the night to rest in----"

Napoleon shook his head.

"Advance with those who can march," he said decisively. "We must fall on Blucher in the morning or we are lost."

"Impossible!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Ney.

"I banished that word from my vocabulary when I first went into Italy,"

said Napoleon. "Where are your troops?"

"Here, your Majesty," answered Ney, turning, pointing back to dark huddled ranks drooping over their muskets at parade rest.

Napoleon wheeled his horse and trotted over to them. The iron hand of Ney had kept some sort of discipline and some sort of organization, but the distress and dismay of the conscripts was but too plainly evident.

"My friends," said the Emperor, raising his voice, "you are hungry----"

a dull murmur of acquiescence came from the battalion--"you are weary and cold----" a louder murmur--"you are discouraged----" silence.

"Some of you have no arms. You would fain rest. Well I, your Emperor, am weary, I am hungry, I am old enough to be the father of most of you and I am wet and cold. But we must forget those things. You wonder why I have marched you all the day and most of the night through the cold and the wet and the mud. The Prussians are in front of us. They are drawn out in long widely separated columns. They have no idea that we are near them. One more effort, one more march, and we shall fall upon them. We shall pierce their lines, cut them to pieces, beat them in detail; we shall seize their camps, their guns, their clothes, their food. We shall take back the plunder they have gathered as they have ravaged France. They have stolen and destroyed and murdered--you have seen it. One more march, one more battle for----" he hesitated a moment--"for me," he said with magnificent egotism and audacity. "I have not forgotten how to lead, nor you to follow. We will show them that at the great game of war we are still master players. Come, if there be one too weary to walk, he shall have his Emperor's horse and I will march afoot as I have often done for France."

He spoke with all his old force and power. The tremendous personal magnetism of the man was never more apparent. The young men of Ney's corps thrilled to the splendid appeal. There was something fascinating, alluring in the picture. They hated the Prussians. They had seen the devastated fields, the dead men and women, the ruined farms. The light from the fire played mystically about the great Emperor on his white horse. He seemed to them like a demi-G.o.d. There were a few old soldiers in the battalion. The habit of years was upon them.

"_Vive l'Empereur_," one veteran shouted.

Another caught it up and finally the whole division roared out that frightful and thrilling battle cry in unison.

"That's well," said the Emperor, a little color coming into his face.

"If the lads are of this mettle, what may I expect of the old soldiers of the guard?"

"Forward! Forward!" shouted a beardless boy in one of the front ranks.

"You hear, Marshal Ney?" said Napoleon, turning to his fighting Captain. "With such soldiers as these I can go anywhere and do anything."

"Your Majesty," cried a staff officer, riding up at a gallop, "the peasants are bringing their horses in. There is a section of country to the eastward which has not yet been ridden over by the enemy."

"Good," said the Emperor. "As fast as they come up dispatch them to Marmont. You will find me there by the fire in the square for the next hour. Meanwhile I want the next brigade of horse that reaches Sezanne to be directed to scout in the direction of Aumenier for that missing wagon-train for which we----"

There was a sudden confusion on the edge of the line. The grenadiers forming a circle around the fire had caught a man wearing a Russian greatcoat and were dragging him into the light.

"What's this? _Mon Dieu_!" exclaimed Napoleon, recognizing the green uniform which he had seen on many a battlefield. "A Russian! Here!"

"A soldier of France, Sire," came the astonis.h.i.+ng answer in excellent French from the supposed prisoner.

At this amazing remark in their own tongue the bewildered grenadiers on guard released him. He tore off the green cap and dashed it to the ground.

"Give me a shako. Let me feel the bearskin of the guard again," he cried impetuously, as his hands ripped open his overcoat, disclosing his uniform. "I am a grenadier of the line, Sire."

Napoleon peered down at him.

"Ah," he said, "I know you. You are called----"

"Bal-Arret, your Majesty."

"Exactly. Have you stopped any more this time?"

"There is one in my left arm. Your guards hurt when they grasped it.

But it is nothing. I didn't come here to speak of bullets, but of----"

"What?"

"The Russians, the Prussians."

"Where did you get that coat and cap?"

"I rode with Jean Marteau," answered the grenadier, greatly excited.

"What of him? Is he alive?"

"I think so."

"Did you leave him?"

"I did, Sire."

"And why?"

"To bring you news."