The World's Greatest Books - Volume 6 Part 6

These words were uttered in a raised voice, and I took the hint. While Darby was scuffling with the soldiers, I slipped away.

For miles I pressed forward without turning, and in the evening I found myself in Dublin. The union with England was being debated in the Parliament House; huge and angry crowds raged without. Remembering the tactics De Meudon had taught me, I sought to organize the crowd in a kind of military formation against the troops; but a knock on the head with a musket-b.u.t.t ended my labours, and I knew nothing more until I came to myself in the quarters of an old chance acquaintance--Captain Bubbleton.

Here, in the house of this officer--an eccentric and impecunious man, but a most loyal friend--I was discovered by Major Barton and dragged to prison. I was released by the intervention of my father's lawyer, who claimed me as his apprentice.

For weeks I lived with Captain Bubbleton and his brother officers, and nothing could be more cordial than their treatment of me. "Tom Burke of 'Ours,'" the captain used proudly to call me. Only one officer held aloof from me, and from all Irishmen--Montague Crofts--through whom it came about that I left Ireland.

One day an uncouth and ragged woman entered the barracks, and addressed me. It was Darby M'Keown, and he brought me nothing less precious than De Meudon's pocket-book, which had been taken from me, and had been picked up by him on the road. A few minutes later Bubbleton lost a sum at cards to Crofts; knowing he could not pay, I pa.s.sed a note quietly to him. When Bubbleton had gone, Crofts held up the note before me. It was a French note of De Meudon's! I demanded my property back. He refused, and threatened to inform against me. On my seeking to prevent him from leaving the room, he drew his sword, and wounded me; but in the nick of time a blow from a strong arm laid him senseless--dead, perhaps--on the floor.

"We must be far from this by daybreak," whispered Darby.

I walked out of the barracks as steadily as I could. For all I knew, I was implicated in murder--and Ireland was no place for me. In a few days I stood on the sh.o.r.es of France.

_II.--A Blow for the Emperor_

By means of a letter of introduction to the head of the Polytechnique, which De Meudon had placed for me in his pocket-book, I was able to enter that military college, and, after a spell of earnest study, I was appointed to a commission in the Eighth Hussars. Proud as I was to become a soldier of France, yet I could not but feel that I was a foreigner, and almost friendless--unlucky, indeed, in the choice of the few friends I possessed. Chief of them was the Marquis de Beauvais, concerning whom I soon made two discoveries--that he was in the thick of an intrigue against the republic I served, and its First Consul, and that he was in love with Marie de Meudon, my dead friend's sister.

To her, as soon as an opportunity came, I gave the news of her brother's end, and his last message. She was terribly affected; and the love we bore in common to the dead, and her own wonderful beauty, aroused in me a pa.s.sion that was not the less fervent because I felt it was almost hopeless. I did not dare to ask her love, but I had her friends.h.i.+p without asking. She it was who warned me of the dangerous intrigues of De Beauvais and his a.s.sociates. She it was who, when I fell a victim to their intrigues, laboured with General d'Auvergne, who had befriended me while I was at college, to restore me to liberty.

I had heard that De Beauvais and his fellow royalists were plotting in a chateau near Versailles, and that a scheme was afoot to capture them. In hot haste I rode to the chateau, hoping secretly to warn my friend. He did indeed escape, but it was my lot to be caught with the conspirators.

For the second time in my short life I saw the inside of a prison; I was in danger of the guillotine; despair had almost overpowered me, when I learnt that my friends had prevailed--my sword was returned to me. I became again an officer of the army of him who was now emperor, and I set forth determined to wipe out on the battlefield the doubts that still clung to my loyalty. Marie de Meudon was wedded, by the emperor's wish, to the gallant and beloved soldier on whose staff I proudly served--General d'Auvergne.

In four vast columns of march, the mighty army poured into the heart of Germany. But not until we reached Mannheim did we learn the object of the war. We were to destroy the Austro-Russian coalition, and the first blow was to be struck at Ulm. When Ulm had capitulated, General d'Auvergne and his staff returned to Elchingen, and on the night when we reached the place I was on the point of lying down supperless in the open air, when I met an old acquaintance, Corporal Pioche, a giant cuira.s.sier of the Guard, who had fought in all Bonaparte's campaigns.

"Ah, mon lieutenant," said he, "not supped yet, I'll wager. Come along with me; Mademoiselle Minette has opened her canteen!"

Presently we entered a large room, at one end of which sat a very pretty Parisian brunette, who bade me a gracious welcome. The place was crowded with captains and corporals, lieutenants and sergeants, all hobn.o.bbing, hand-shaking, and even kissing each other. "Each man brings what he can find, drinks what he is able, and leaves the rest," remarked Pioche, and invited me to take my share in the common stock.

All went well until I absent-mindedly called out, as if to a waiter, for bread. There was a roar of laughter at my mistake, and a little dark-whiskered fellow stuck his sword into a loaf and handed it to me.

As I took the loaf, he disengaged his point, and scratched the back of my hand with it. Obviously an insult was intended.

"Ah, an accident, _morbleu_!" said he, with an impertinent shrug.

"So is this!" said I, as I seized his sword and smashed it across my knee.

"It's Francois, _maitre d'armes_ of the Fourth," whispered Pioche; "one of the cleverest duellists of the army."

I was hurried out to the court, one adviser counselling me to beware of Francois's lunge in tierce, another to close on him at once, and so on.

For a long time after we had crossed swords, I remained purely on the defensive; at last, after a desperate rally, he made a lunge at my chest, which I received in the muscles of my back; and, wheeling round, I buried my blade in his body.

Francois lingered for a long time between life and death, and for several days I was incapacitated, tenderly nursed by Minette.

As soon as I was recovered the order came to advance.

Not many days pa.s.sed ere the chance came to me for which I had longed-- the chance of striking a blow for the emperor. Hand-to-hand with the Russian dragoons on the field of Austerlitz, sweeping along afterwards with the imperial hosts in the full tide of victory, I learnt for the first time the exhilaration of military glory; and I had the good fortune to receive the emperor's favour--not only was I promoted, but I was appointed to the _compagnie d'elite_ that was to carry the spoils of victory to Paris.

A few weeks after my return to Paris, the whole garrison was placed in review order to receive the wounded of Austerlitz.

As the emperor rode forward bareheaded to greet his maimed veterans, I heard laughter among the staff that surrounded him. Stepping up, I saw my old friend Pioche, who had been dangerously wounded, with his hand in salute.

"Thou wilt not have promotion, nor a pension," said Napoleon, smiling.

"Hast any friend whom I could advance?"

"Yes," answered Pioche, scratching his forehead in confusion. "She is a brave girl, and had she been a man----"

"Whom can he mean?"

"I was talking of Minette, our _vivandiere_."

"Dost wish I should make her my aide-de-camp?" said Napoleon, laughing.

"_Parbleu_! Thou hast more ill-favoured ones among them," said Pioche, with a glance at the grim faces of Rapp and Daru. "I've seen the time when thou'd have said, 'Is it Minette that was wounded at the Adige and stood in the square at Marengo? I'll give her the Cross of the Legion!'"

"And she shall have it!" said Napoleon. Minette advanced, and as the emperor's own cross was attached to her b.u.t.tonhole she sat pale as death, overcome by her pride.

For two hours waggon after waggon rolled on, filled with the shattered remnants of an army. Every eye brightened as the emperor drew near, the feeblest gazed with parted lips when he spoke, and the faint cry of "_Vive l'Empereur_" pa.s.sed along the line.

_III.--Broken Dreams_

Ere I had left Paris to join in the campaign against Prussia, I had made, and broken off, another dangerous friends.h.i.+p. In the _compagnie d'elite_ was an officer named d.u.c.h.esne who took a liking to me--a royalist at heart, and a cynic who was unfailing in his sneers at all the doings of Napoleon. His att.i.tude was detected, and he was forced to resign his commission; and his slights upon the uniform I wore grew so unbearable that I abandoned his company--little guessing the revenge he would take upon me.

Once more the Grand Army was set in motion, and the hosts of France pressed upon Russia from the south and west. Napoleon turned the enemy's right flank, and compelled him to retire and concentrate his troops around Jena, which was plainly to be the scene of a great battle.

My regiment was ordered on September 13, 1806, to proceed without delay to the emperor's headquarters at Jena, and I was sent ahead to make arrangements for quarters. In the darkness I lost my way, and came upon an artillery battery stuck fast in a ravine, unable to move back or forwards. The colonel was in despair, for the whole artillery of the division was following him, and would inevitably be involved in the same mishap. Wild shouting had been succeeded by a sullen silence, when a stern voice called out: "Cannoniers, dismount; bring the torches to the front!"

When the order was obeyed, the light of the firewood fell upon the features of Napoleon himself. Instantly the work began afresh, directed by the emperor with a blazing torch in his hand. Gradually the gun-carriages were released, and began to move slowly along the ravine.

Napoleon turned, and rode off at full speed in the darkness towards Jena. It was my destination, and I followed him.

He preceded me by about fifty paces--the greatest monarch of the world, alone, his thoughts bent on the great events before him. On the top of an ascent the brilliant spectacle of a thousand watch-fires met the eye.

Napoleon, lost in meditation, saw nothing, and rode straight into the lines. Twice the challenge "_Qui vive?"_ rang out. Napoleon heard it not. There was a bang of a musket, then another, and another. Napoleon threw himself from his horse, and lay flat on the ground. I dashed up, shouting, "The emperor! The emperor!" My horse was killed, and I was wounded in the shoulder; but I repeated the cry until Napoleon stepped calmly forward.

"Ye are well upon the alert, _mes enfants_," he said, smiling. Then, turning to me, he asked quickly, "Are you wounded?"

"A mere scratch, sire."

"Let the surgeon see to it, and do you come to headquarters when you are able."

In the morning I went to headquarters, but the emperor was busy; seemingly I was forgotten. My regiment was out of reach, so, at the invitation of my old duelling antagonist, Francois, I joined the Voltigeurs. My friends could not understand why, after tasting the delights of infantry fighting, I should wish to rejoin the hussars; but I went back to my old regiment after the victory, and rode with it to Berlin.

Soon after our arrival there I read my name in a general order among those on whom the Cross of the Legion was to be conferred. On the morning of the day when I was to receive the decoration, I was requested to attend the bureau of the adjutant-general. There I was confronted with Marshal Berthier, who held up a letter before me. I saw, by the handwriting, it was d.u.c.h.esne's.

"There, sir, that letter belongs to you," he said. "There is enough in it to make your conduct the matter of a court-martial; but I am satisfied that a warning will be sufficient. I need hardly say that you will not receive the Cross of the Legion."

I glanced at the letter, and realised d.u.c.h.esne's treachery. Knowing that all doubtful letters were opened and read by the authorities, he had sent me a letter bitterly attacking the emperor, and professing to regard me as a royalist conspirator.