Lorraine Part 26

"You know, Marche, that there are three strata of fighting men in Germany--the regular army, the 'reserve,' and the Landwehr. It is a mistake into which many fall to believe that the reserve is the rear of the regular army. The war strength of a regiment is just double its peace strength, and the increment is the reserve.

The blending of the two in time of war is complete; the medalled men of 1866 and of the Holstein campaign, called up from the reserve, are welded into the same ranks with the young soldiers who are serving their first period of three years. It is an utter mistake to think of the Prussian army or the Prussian reserves as a militia like yours or ours. The Prussian reserve man has three years active service with his colours to point back to. Have ours?

The mobilization machine grinds its grinding in this wise. The whole country is divided into districts, in the central city of each of which are the headquarters of the army corps recruited from that district. Thence is sent forth the edict for mobilization to the towns, the villages, and the quiet country parishes. From the forge, from the harvest, from the store, from the school-room, blacksmiths, farmers, clerks, school-masters drop everything at an hour's notice.

"The contingent of a village is sent to headquarters. On the route it meets other contingents until the rendezvous is reached.

And then--the transformation! A yokel enters--a soldier leaves.

The slouch has gone from his shoulders, his chest is thrown forward, his legs straightened, his chin 'well off the stock,'

his step brisk, his carriage military. They are tough as whip-cord, sober, docile, and terribly in earnest. They are orderly, decent, and reputable. They need no sentries, and none are placed; they never get drunk, they are not riotous, and the barrack gates are never infested by those hordes of soldiers'

women."

He paused and puffed at his cigar thoughtfully.

"They are such soldiers as the world has not yet seen. Marching?

I saw them striding steadily forward with the thermometer at eighty-five in the shade, with needle-gun, heavy knapsack, eighty rounds of ammunition, huge great-coat, camp-kettle, sword, spade, water-bottle, haversack, and lots of odds and ends dangling about them, with perhaps a loaf or two under one arm. Sunstroke? No.

Why? Sobriety. No absinthe there, Mr. Marche."

"We beat those men at Saarbruck," said Jack.

Grahame laughed good-humouredly.

"At Saarbruck, when war was declared, the total German garrison consisted of a battalion of infantry and a regiment of Uhlans.

Frossard and his whole corps were looking across at Saarbruck over the ridges of the Spicheren, and n.o.body had the means of knowing what everybody knows now, the reason, so discreditable to French organization, which prevented him from blowing out of his path the few pickets and patrols, and invading the territory which had its frontier only nominally guarded. I was in Saarbruck at the time, and I had the pleasure of dodging sh.e.l.ls there, too.

Why, we were all asking each other if it were possible that the Frenchmen did not know the weakness of the land. Our Uhlans and infantry were manipulated dexterously to make a battalion look like a brigade; but we had an army corps in front of us. We held the place by sheer impudence."

"I know it," said Jack; "it makes me ill to think of it."

"It ought to make Frossard ill! Had a French army of invasion pushed on through Saint-Johann on the 2d of August and marched rapidly into the interior, the Germans could not possibly have concentrated their scattered regiments, and it is my firm conviction that Napoleon would have seen the Rhine without having had to fight a pitched battle. Well, Marche, I drink to neither one side nor the other, but--here's to the men with backbones.

Prosit!"

They laughed and clinked gla.s.ses. Grahame finished his bottle, rose, politely stifled a yawn, and looked humourously at Jack.

"There are two beds in my room; will you take one?" said the young fellow.

"Thank you, I will," said Grahame, "and as soon as you please, my dear fellow."

So Jack led the way and ushered the other into a huge room with two beds, seemingly lost in distant diagonal corners. Grahame promptly kicked off his boots, and sat down on his bed.

"I saw a funny thing in Saarbruck," he said. "It was right in the midst of a cannonade--the sh.e.l.ls were smas.h.i.+ng the chimneys on the Hotel Hagen and raising h.e.l.l generally. And right in the midst of the whole blessed mess, cool as a cuc.u.mber, came sauntering a real live British swell with a coat adorned with field-gla.s.ses and girdle and a dozen pockets, an eye-gla.s.s, a dog that seemed dearer to him than life, and a drawl that had not been perceptibly quickened by the French cannon. He-aw-had been going eastward somewhere to-aw-Constantinople, or Saint-Petersburg, or-aw-somewhere, when he-aw-heard that it might be amusing at Saarbruck. A sh.e.l.l knocked a cart-load of tiles around his head, and he looked at it through his eye-gla.s.s. Marche, I never laughed so in my life. He's a good fellow, though--he's trotting about with the Hohenzollern Regiment now, and, really, I miss him. His name is Hesketh--"

"Not Sir Thorald?" cried Jack.

"Eh?--yes, that's the man. Know him?"

"A little," said Jack, laughing, and went out, bidding Graham good-night, and promising to have him roused at dawn.

"Aren't you going to turn in?" called Grahame, fearful of having inconvenienced Jack in his own quarters.

"Yes," said the young fellow. "I won't wake you--I'll be back in an hour." And he closed the door, and went down-stairs.

For a few moments he stood on the cool terrace, listening to the movement of the host below; and always the tramp of feet, the snort of horses, and the metallic jingle of pa.s.sing cannon filled his ears.

The big cuira.s.sier sentinel had been joined by two more, all of the Hundred-Guards. Jack noticed their carbines, wondering a little to see cuira.s.siers so armed, and marvelling at the long, slender, lance-like bayonets that were attached to the muzzles.

Presently he went into the house, and, entering the smoking-room, met his aunt coming out.

"Jack," she said, "I am a little nervous--the Emperor is still in the dining-room with a crowd of officers, and he has just sent an aide-de-camp to the Chateau de Nesville to summon the marquis. It will be most awkward; your uncle and he are not friendly, and the Marquis de Nesville hates the Emperor."

"Why did the Emperor send for him?" asked Jack, wondering.

"I don't know--he wishes for a private interview with the marquis. He may refuse to come--he is a very strange man, you know."

"Then, if he is, he may come; that would be stranger still," said Jack.

"Your uncle is not well, Jack," continued Madame de Morteyn; "he is quite upset by being obliged to entertain the Emperor. You know how all the Royalists feel. But, Jack, dear, if you could have seen your uncle it would have been a lesson in chivalry to you which any young man could ill afford to miss--he was so perfectly simple, so proudly courteous--ah, Jack, your uncle is one in a nation!"

"He is--and so are you!" said Jack, kissing her faded cheek. "Are you going to retire now?"

"Yes; your uncle needs me. The lights are out everywhere.

Lorraine, dear child, is asleep in the next room to mine. Is Mr.

Grahame comfortable? I am glad. The Prince Imperial is sleeping too, poor child--sleeping like a worn-out baby."

Jack conducted his aunt to her chamber, and bade her good-night.

Then he went softly back through the darkened house, and across the hall to the dining-room. The door was open, letting out a flood of lamp-light, and the generals and staff-officers were taking leave of the Emperor and filing out one by one, Frossard leading, his head bent on his breast. Some went away to rooms a.s.signed them, guided by a flunky, some pa.s.sed across the terrace with swords trailing and spurs ringing, and disappeared in the darkness. They had not all left the Emperor, when, suddenly, Jack heard behind him the voice of the Marquis de Nesville, cold, sneering, ironical.

"Oh," he said, seeing Jack standing by the door, "can you tell me where I may find the Emperor of the French? I am sent for."

Turning on the aide-de-camp at his side: "This gentleman courteously notified me that the Emperor desired my presence. I am here, but I do not choose to go alone, and I shall demand, Monsieur Marche, that you accompany me and remain during the interview."

The aide-de-camp looked at him darkly, but the marquis sneered in his face.

"I want a witness," he said, insolently; "you can tell that to your Emperor."

The aide-de-camp, helmet under his arm, from which streamed a horse-hair plume, entered the dining-room as the last officer left it.

Jack looked uneasily at the marquis, and was about to speak when the aid returned and requested the marquis to enter.

"Monsieur Marche, remain here, I beg you," said the marquis, coolly; "I shall call you presently. It is a service I ask of you. Will you oblige me?"

"Yes," said Jack.

The door opened for a second.

Napoleon III. sat at the long table, his head drooping on his breast; he was picking absently at threads in the texture of the table-cloth. That was all Jack saw--a glimpse of a table covered with half-empty gla.s.ses and fruit, an old man picking at the cloth in the lamplight; then the door shut, and he was alone in the dark hall. Out on the terrace he heard the tramp of the cuira.s.sier sentinels, and beyond that the uproar of artillery, pa.s.sing, always pa.s.sing. He stared about in the darkness, he peered up the staircase into the gloom. A bat was flying somewhere near--he felt the wind from its mousy wings.

Suddenly the door was flung open beside him, and the marquis called to him in a voice vibrating with pa.s.sion. As he entered and bowed low to the Emperor, he saw the marquis, tall, white with anger, his blue eyes glittering, standing in the centre of the room. He paid no attention to Jack, but the Emperor raised his impa.s.sible face, haggard and gray, and acknowledged the young man's respectful salutation.

"You have asked me a question," said the marquis, harshly, "and I demanded to answer it in the presence of a witness. Is your majesty willing that this gentleman shall hear my reply?"

The Emperor looked at him with half-closed, inscrutable eyes, then, turning his heavy face to Jack's, smiled wearily and inclined his head.