"Monsieur," broke in the sharp, somewhat high, thin voice of the old Marquis standing by the door, "the court-martial brands you as a traitor. Captain Yeovil and those who were with me last night think you are a thief and worse. But, by St. Louis," continued the old noble, fingering his cross, as was his wont in moments in which he was deeply moved, "I know that you are a soldier and a gentleman."

"A soldier, yes; but a gentleman?—only 'almost,' my lord."

"Not almost but altogether. There is not another man in France who could withstand such a plea from such a woman."

"You heard!" exclaimed Marteau.

"Only the last words. I heard her beg you to live because she loved you."

"And you did not hear——"

"I heard nothing else," said the Marquis firmly. "Would I listen? I spoke almost as soon as I came in. Laure, these Marteaux have lived long enough by the side of the d'Aumeniers to have become ennobled by the contact," he went on naively. "I now know the young man as I know myself. It is useless for you to plead longer. I come to take you away."

"Oh, not yet, not yet."

"Go," said the young officer. "Indeed, I cannot endure this longer, and I must summon my fortitude for to-morrow."

"As for that," said the Marquis, "there must be a postponement of the execution."

"I ask it not, monsieur. It is no favor to me for you to——"

"Thank God! Thank God!" cried the woman. "Every hour means——"

"And I am not postponing it because of you," continued the Marquis coolly. "But he who must not be named——"

"The Emperor."

"So you call him—has landed."

"Yes, yes; for God's sake, tell me more."

"I have no objection to telling you all. He is on the march toward Grenoble. He will be here tomorrow night. Troops have been sent for and will assemble here. He will be met in the gap on the road a few miles below the town. He will be taken. If he resists he will be shot."

"Yes, the violets have bloomed again."

"And they shall draw red nourishment from the soil of France," was the prophetic answer.

"The Emperor!" cried the young man in an exultant dream, "in France again! The Emperor!"

"And so your execution will be deferred until we come back. The Emperor may take warning from it when he witnesses it," continued the imperturbable old royalist.

"I shall see him once more."

"As a prisoner."

Marteau started to speak, checked himself.

"For the last time," said the girl, "I beg——"

"It is useless."

"Let me speak again. My uncle has a kind heart under that hard exterior. He——"

"A kind heart, indeed," said the old man, smiling grimly, as Marteau shook his head at the girl he loved so well. "And, to prove it, here."

He extended a sealed paper. Marteau made no effort to take it. He recognized it at once. For a moment there flashed into the woman's mind that it was a pardon. But the old man undeceived her.

"Do you give it to him, Laure," he said. "It is that patent of nobility that he gave up. Acting for my King, who will, I am sure, approve of what I have done, I return it to him. As he dies with the spirit and soul of a gentleman, so also shall he die with the title. Monsieur le Comte d'Aumenier, I, the head of the house, welcome you into it. I salute you. Farewell. And now," the old man drew out his snuff box, tendered it to the young man with all the grace of the ancient regime. "No?" he said, as Marteau stared in bewilderment. "The young generation has forgot how, it seems. Very well." He took a pinch himself gracefully, closed the box, tapped it gently with his long fingers, as was his wont. "Monsieur will forgive my back," he said, turning abruptly and calling over his shoulder, "and in a moment we must go."

Ah, he could be, he was a gentleman of the ancient school, indeed. It seemed but a second to youth, although it was a long time to age, before he tore them apart and led the half-fainting girl away.



CHAPTER XXVI

THEY MEET A LION IN THE WAY

Morning in the springtime, the sixth of March, 1815, bright and sunny, the air fresh. The parade-ground was filled with troops. There were the veterans of the old Seventh-of-the-Line, under the young Colonel Labedoyere. Here were the close-ranked lines of the Fifth regiment, Major Lestoype astride his big horse at the head of the first battalion. Grenier, Drehon, Suraif and the other officers with their companies, the men in heavy marching order, their white cockades shining in the bright sunlight in their shakos. The artillery was drawn up on the walls, the little squadron of household cavalry was in attendance upon the Marquis. His lean, spare figure looked well upon a horse. He rode with all the grace and ease of a boy.

Yes, there were the colors, too, the white flag of France with the golden lily in the place of the Eagle on the staff, at the head of the column. With ruffling of drums and presenting of arms the flag had been escorted to its place, and from the little group of cavalry had come the words not heard till recently for so many years in France:

"Vive le Roi!"

The troops had assembled silently, somewhat sullenly. They stood undemonstrative now. What they would do no one could tell. The couriers who had dashed into the town yesterday night had told the story to the Marquis. Napoleon had landed five days before. He was within a day's march of Grenoble. His following consisted of eleven hundred French infantry, eighty Polish horsemen, and a few guns; troops of the line, and the grenadiers of the Elba guard. The peasants had been apathetic. He had carefully avoided garrisoned towns, choosing the unfrequented and difficult route over the maritime Alps of Southern France. He was marching straight into the heart of the country, to conquer or to die with this little band. The messenger's news had been for the Governor's ears alone, but it had got out. Indeed, the tidings spread everywhere. Every wind that swept over the mountains seemed to be laden with the story. The whole city knew that the foot of the idol was once more upon the soil of France. They saw no feet of clay to that idol, then.

The news had reached Paris via Marseilles almost before it was known in Grenoble. The terror-stricken government yet acted promptly. Troops were put in motion, fast-riding expresses and couriers warned garrisons and transmitted orders to capture or kill without mercy. By a singular freak of fate most of these orders were perforce given to the old companions in arms of the Emperor. Most of these were openly disaffected toward the King, and eager to welcome Napoleon. A few were indifferent or inimical to the prospective appeal of their former Captain. Still fewer swore to capture him, and one "to bring him back in an iron cage!" Only here and there a royalist pure and simple held high command, as the Marquis at Grenoble.

The old noble acted with great promptitude and decision. As the Governor of Dauphine he had an extensive command. Grenoble was the most important town in the southeast. Within its walls was a great arsenal. It was strongly fortified, and adequately garrisoned. No better place to resist the Emperor, if his initial force had grown sufficiently to make it formidable, could be found. Rumor magnified that force immensely. The Marquis gave the order for the concentration of all the troops in the province, to the number of six thousand. He sent out scouting detachments, and companies of engineers to break down bridges and block up roads—none of whom, by the way, obeyed his orders. In short, he did everything that experience, skill and devotion could suggest to stop the Emperor and terminate the great adventure then and there.

The ruffling of the drums in the square ceased. The old Marquis detached himself from his staff and the cavalry and rode out between the regiments. He lifted his hand. There was an intensity of silence on every hand. Even the people of the town had left their places of business and were crowded close to the lines to hear and see what was to be done.

"Bonaparte," said the Marquis, that high, thin, somewhat cracked old voice carrying with astonishing clearness in every direction, "landed from Elba in the Gulf of Juan a few days ago. This usurper, this bloody-minded tyrant, has broken every oath, disregarded every treaty. He is coming to Grenoble. He will be here to-day. As loyal subjects of our gracious and most catholic Majesty, King Louis XVIII, whom God preserve," continued the old man, taking off his hat, "it becomes our duty to seize, and if he resists, to kill this treacherous monster, who had plunged Europe into a sea of blood and well-nigh ruined France." The old man did not mince words, it appeared! "You, gentlemen and comrades, have all sworn oaths before God and man to be faithful to the King whose bread you eat and whose uniform you wear. It has been said to me that there is disaffection among you. I cannot believe that a soldier of France can be false to his oaths and to his flag. The Fifth Regiment of the Line will march with me to meet the Corsican. The cavalry and my personal escort will keep the gates. If by any chance we should be beaten, which I cannot think possible with such brave men and gallant officers, the town must be held. Colonel Labedoyere, to you I commit the charge. Have your men line the walls. Dispose the troops which will soon be arriving advantageously. See that the guns are double-shotted. If by any chance I do not return, hold the place to the last. Troops are marching to your aid from all over France. Major Lestoype, move your regiment. Vive le Roi!" ended the old man.

Again the cry was echoed, but not by many; the household cavalry, one or two of the newer companies of the brigade, some of the citizens. The Marquis noticed it; everybody noticed it. Well, what difference did it make to the old man? They might cry or they might not cry. Fight they must, and fight they should. He had something of the old Roman spirit in him, the Marquis d'Aumenier. Upon him had devolved the conduct of the critical issue. If he could stop Napoleon then and there his venture would be a mere escapade and a sorry one. If he could not, then God help France and the world.

From the window of his prison, which overlooked the parade, Marteau had seen and heard all. The Emperor was coming and he would not be there to extend him a welcome. He forgot that if Napoleon had been a day later it would have made no difference to Marteau if he never came. He would have given years of his life, if it had been possible, to have marched with the column.

Orders had been published that morning postponing his execution until the return of the regiment. Just what was in the Marquis' mind no one could absolutely say, but he was shrewd enough to recognize the possibility of an outbreak or an attempted mutiny among the troops, when the sentence of execution was being carried out. He did not want any difficulties of that kind then. Not because he feared them or felt unequal to them! Oh, no. But because such an outbreak would make the regiment more difficult to control in the greater emergency, and he knew he needed all the influence and moral power and force he could exercise to keep it in line for the graver duty and more tremendous responsibility it must now face. And because he did not wish to leave it with Marteau in Grenoble, he took the regiment with him. If he could force it to do its duty and arrest Napoleon, he could deal with Marteau at his leisure. The Emperor was the greater issue, and Marteau benefited by that fact.

So, with drums beating and flags flying, the Fifth-of-the-Line marched down the road. With the Colonel and his staff rode Sir Gervaise Yeovil and his son. They had asked permission and it had been accorded them. Indeed, the staff was scanty. Young St. Laurent and an orderly, besides the two Englishmen, alone accompanied the old man. Realizing how critical the situation was, and how important it was that the town should be held, he had left every officer and man upon whom he could count with the cavalry, and with instructions to watch Labedoyere particularly, and check any disloyalty, if possible. If the Marquis alone could not effect his purpose with the regiment, no staff officer could aid him. He was a lonely old man and a hard that morning. The odds against him were tremendous, and his weapons were flawed and breaking in his hand. That only made him the more firmly resolute. He knew how sometimes one man could enforce his will on unwilling thousands. Was he that man that day? He would see.

Some miles south of the town the winding road ran along the side of a high and rocky hill. On the side opposite to the hill was a deep morass. This place was known as the Gap. The Marquis, who had apparently thought of everything, had reconnoitered the country, and had decided upon the defensibleness of a place like this in the case of such an emergency as he was about to face, for along that hillside ran the main highway to the coast of France.

The troops reached it about noon-time. The road was high up on the hillside. The Marquis, riding in advance of his regiment, saw far down the long road and across a little river a moving column of men. Above them floated the tricolor flag, the blue and the red vividly distinct in the bright sun, which seemed to be reflected, as it were, from a crown of glory at the top of the staff. There were perhaps twelve hundred soldiers on foot and a few score on horseback. They were coming steadily along the road. The distance was almost too great to distinguish men, but one rode a white horse at the head. The soldiers could see with their minds and hearts better than their eyes, and they recognized that gray-coated figure on that familiar white horse. They could hear the beating of drums faintly. The bridges had not been broken. The fords were not guarded. The advance parties had failed. Presage of disaster!

The Marquis congratulated himself that he was in time to repair the disobedience of orders, which he promised himself to punish at the first opportunity. Instantly he directed Major Lestoype to deploy the men from column into line, so that they filled the road, which was here very broad and spacious. On a sloping hillside he placed flanking companies. The command was given to load, and the ramrods soon rang in the gun-barrels. Major Lestoype's voice shook as he gave the commands, which were repeated hoarsely, brokenly, nervously, by the company and the platoon officers. The dispositions of the men were soon concluded. The place of the Marquis was behind the line, but he rode to the right of it in a little depression cut out by the rains of winter in the side of the hill, underneath a great tree which was just beginning to show its leaves in the soft spring air and sunshine. From there he could command every part of the line with his glance, or move to the front or rear as the occasion might warrant. There he could see and be seen.

He was always pale, his old face seamed and drawn, but to his friends, the Englishmen, he seemed paler and older than ever, as he sat quietly calming his nervous horse. And Sir Gervaise Yeovil was pale, too. Not that he had any bodily fear, but the incident was so fraught with consequences which a man as experienced as he could so easily foresee, appreciate and dread, that its possibilities oppressed his heart. Young Frank Yeovil was all excitement, however. Napoleon had been buried in Elba, but none mentioned his name in any country in Europe without a thrill. Few do it now without a thrill, for that matter. The young man, modestly in the background, as was proper, leaned forward in his saddle and stared at the approaching men and the figure to the fore. So this was the great Bonaparte? He longed earnestly for a nearer view.

"Think you, my lord," whispered the Baronet to the old Marquis, his great anxiety showing in his voice, "that your men are to be depended upon? That they will——"

The Marquis shook his head, stared down the ranks at the men standing grim and tensely silent at parade-rest.

"They look steady," he replied, shrugging his shoulders. "They have taken an oath to the King, and—God only knows."

"What shall you do?"

"The best I can with the means at hand," was the indomitable answer.

"And if——"

"There are no 'ifs,' monsieur," was the imperious way in which the Marquis silenced the other.

Recognizing that he had said enough, and indeed pitying the old man so alone, the Baronet drew back a little.

"By heaven," whispered young Frank Yeovil to his father, "I wouldn't be elsewhere for a thousand pounds."

"It may cost you that before you get away, and more," said the old man grimly. "It will cost England millions, unless——"

"Monsieur le Commandant," said old Major Lestoype, riding up to the group and saluting respectfully.

"Major Lestoype."

"The command is formed and ready, sir."

"Very good. Take your place and be prepared."

"Will Monsieur le Marquis permit me?" asked the old soldier, who had acquired a genuine respect for the old noble.

"Permit you what?"

"To return his advice," was the not unexpected reply.

"The thought of me, which is evidently back of your words, sir, inclines me to overlook their meaning and its impropriety. Know, sir, that I am always ready," was the grim comment of the ancient soldier.

"Indeed, sir—" began the other, but the Marquis cut him short with an imperious gesture and a word.

"Retire."

The Major saluted, resumed his place in the line. No one spoke. The approaching soldiers were nearer now. They were coming. The Fifth-of-the-Line sensed rather than heard a command down the road. They saw the guns of that little army come from their shoulders to a slanting position across the breast—arms aport! It was the habit of the Guard to go into action at arms aport. What had Dorsenne, Le Beau Dorsenne, said on that famous day? "The Guard fights at the point of the bayonet!" Would the guns come down to a charge? Would they have to meet bayonet thrusts from these terrible soldiers?

There was something ominous in the slow movements of the men, picked men they were, the grenadiers of the Elba Guard especially being of great size, their huge bearskins towering above them. They were marching in columns of fours, but the road was wide; another sharp command and the men with slow yet beautiful precision deployed into a close column of companies at half distance—the very formation for a charge in mass! The brass drums were rolling a famous march, "La Grenadiere," the grenadier's march. The hearts of the Fifth-of-the-Line were keeping time to the beating of those drums.

Ah, they were splendid soldiers, that regiment of infantry. Even the youths got something from the veterans. They stood still, quiet, at parade-rest, staring. The distance was growing shorter, shorter and shorter. Some of the officers looked toward the Marquis. Even his nervous horse seemed to have caught the spirit of the moment, for he was at last still. The old man sat there immobile, his lips pressed, his eyes fixed on the approaching troops and shining like sword-blades in the sunlight—horse and man carved, as it were, out of the rock of the mountains. Presently that high, thin, sharp voice rang out. Men heard it above the rolling of the drums.

"Attention!" he cried. The men straightened up, swung the heavy muskets to their sides. "Carry arms." As one man the battalion lifted its weapons. "Make ready!" With a little crash the guns were dropped into the outstretched hands.

The approaching men were nearer now. Still they came on with arms aport. Still the drums ruffled and rolled at their head. They were not going to make any response apparently to the fire of the Fifth-of-the-Line. Were they, indeed, to come to death's grapple at the bayonet's point with that irresistible Guard? But no, there was a sudden movement, a change in the approaching ranks.

"Secure arms," cried old Cambronne, and with their guns reversed and comfortably tucked under their arms, the old soldiers came on.

The meaning was plain, the battle was to be a moral one, evidently!

"Aim!" cried the sharp voice of the Marquis, and the guns came up to the shoulders of the long line, as they bent their heads and mechanically squinted along the barrels.

The moment had come! Out in the front had ridden the familiar figure on the white horse. They could see the details of his person now. His pale face was flushed under the familiar black, three-cornered cocked hat with its tricolor cockade, his gray redingote was buttoned across his breast. He suddenly raised his hand. The drums stopped beating, the moving grenadiers halted. Ah, at last!

The Emperor sprang from his horse, not heavily, as of late, but with some of the alertness of a boy. He nodded to the ranks. Old General Cambronne, in command of the Guard, stepped forward. He took from the colour-bearer the Eagle. Four grenadiers of the Colour Guard closed about him—one of them was called Bullet-Stopper, by the way. In rear and a little to the right of the Emperor he moved, holding up the flag and the Eagle. A deep breath, almost a sob, ran down the line of the regiment. Protended guns wavered. Napoleon stepped forward. He threw back his gray overcoat, disclosing the familiar green uniform of the Chasseurs of the Guard, which he affected. The cross of the Legion of Honor glittered on his breast, a shining mark at which to aim.

The flush on his ivory face died as quickly as it had come. He was apparently as composed and as steady as if he had been cut out of granite. But tiny beads of sweat bedewed his brow, shaded by that familiar cocked hat. What would the next moment disclose? Would he be a prisoner, the laughing stock, the jest of Europe? Or would he lie dead in the road, a French bullet in his heart? He had faced the guns of every people in Europe, but he had never faced French guns before. Would any finger in that line press a trigger? Only God knew, but the Emperor would soon find out. Better death than exile without wife, child, friend, or France. On the hazard of the moment he staked all. Yet he who could have looked into that broad breast could have seen that heart beating as never before. Firmly he stepped on.



CHAPTER XXVII

COMRADE! GENERAL! EMPEROR!

"Behold the traitor," shouted the Marquis, his emotion lending depth to that thin voice. "Fire, soldiers!"

No finger pressed a trigger. The silence was ghastly.

Ah! a thrill of hope in the breast of the greater Captain, of despair in the heart of the lesser.

"By God!" muttered Yeovil, "he has lost them!"

The Marquis spurred his horse forward.

"Your oath! For France! The King! Fire!" he shouted.

And now a greater voice broke the silence.

"Comrades! Do you not know me?" said the Emperor. Was there a tremble in his clear, magnificent voice? He paused, his speech stopped. "Behold your General," he resumed. He waited a few seconds again and then finally, desperately, "Let any one among you who wishes to kill his Emperor fire—now."

He raised his voice tremendously with that last word. It almost came with the force and clearness of a battle-cry. The Marquis sat stupefied, his face ghastly pale.

"There is yet time," he cried hoarsely at last. "Is there none here faithful to his King? Fire!"

But the gun-barrels were coming down. "Comrade! General! Emperor!" who could be indifferent to that appeal? Disregarding the old Marquis absolutely, as if he were not on the earth, the Emperor came nearer smiling. He was irresistible to these soldiers when he smiled.

"Well," he said, his hands outstretched and open, "soldiers of the Fifth, who were with me in Italy, how are you all? I am come back to see you again, mes enfants," he went on genially. "Is there any one of you who wishes to kill me?"

"No, no, Sire. Certainly not," came the cry.

"Escape," whispered the Marquis to the Englishman, "while there is yet time to take my niece away. To you I commit her. . . . St. Laurent, to the town with the tidings!"

"By God, no," growled Yeovil, as St. Laurent saluted and galloped rapidly down the road. "I am going to see the end of this. The damned cravens!" he muttered, looking at the soldiers.

"And yet," continued Napoleon to the troops, "you presented your guns at me."

"Sire," cried one of the veterans, dropping his musket and running his ramrod down the barrel, "it is not loaded. We only went through the motions."

The Emperor laughed. He was nearer.

"Lestoype," he said, "is it thou, old comrade, and Grenier and Drehon!"

It was astonishing that he should remember them, but so he did. He went down the line, speaking to the men, inspecting them just as of old. The officers could not keep them in line. They crowded about their old leader. Shouts of "Vive l'Empereur!" rent the air. Men took off their caps, tore out the hated white cockades, trampled them under foot, and from pockets where they had concealed them for this very moment, they replaced them with the tricolor.

In his movements the Emperor at last confronted the Marquis.

"And who is this?" asked Napoleon, staring up at him curiously.

The Marquis' heart was broken. It was not in the human power of any servant of the King to dominate that scene. A greater personality than his was there. The Emperor had shown himself as of yore, and exhibited his mastery. But no greater ideal possessed any man than that in the heart of the old noble. He hated, he loathed, he abominated the man who looked up at him. He saw in the action of the soldiery a picture of the action of France, the downfall of the King. Well, it flashed into his mind that he at least, and perhaps he alone, might put a stop to it. From his holster he whipped out a pistol and leveled it at the Emperor. Lestoype, riding near, struck up his hand, the bullet sped harmlessly, the Emperor stood unharmed. A roar of rage burst from the soldiers who came running. Dropping the weapon and reining his startled horse violently back, so as to give himself a certain present and temporary freedom of action, the Marquis drew his other pistol. Lestoype spurred his horse in front of the Emperor, but Napoleon was not menaced.

"Have no fear," said the Marquis almost gently. "I have failed my King. The bullet goes into a truer heart—my own," he added proudly.

Before any one could stop him there was a flash, a muffled report, the spare figure reeled and fell forward on the saddle. He, at least, after the manner of his house, would not survive a failure which, although he could not prevent it, must inevitably be charged against him.

"A brave man," said the Emperor coolly, staring at him with his hard, bright, gray eyes. "See that his body is cared for in accordance with his rank and his courage. But who are these?" he asked, remounting his horse and facing the two Englishmen, who had dismounted and received the body of the Marquis, stone dead instantly. "As I live, it is the man of law," he said, his marvelous memory serving him well again, "who was at the Chateau d'Aumenier. It only needs Marteau——"

"He is alive, your Majesty," interposed Lestoype eagerly. "He brought back our Eagle and is——"

"Where is it, and why is he not with you?"

"The Eagle is in hiding somewhere in Grenoble, Marteau in prison. He hid it, and because he would not tell where, the Marquis yonder condemned him to death."

"He has not yet been shot?"

"Not yet, Sire. He waits the return of the regiment."

"Good," said the Emperor. "We will surprise him. Face the men about. We shall go on to Grenoble and see what welcome awaits us there."

He was in high spirits. In this first clash with the troops of King Louis he found that he exercised the old influence over them and from the army, at least, he now realized that he had nothing to fear.

One of the men who had stood nearest the Emperor back of Cambronne was an old grenadier. He had recognized the Marquis d'Aumenier, he had heard the Emperor's conversation and the name of Marteau, and a thrill went through the heart of old Bal-Arret when he learned that his beloved officer and friend was yet alive.

The body of the old Marquis—covered with his cloak, and over his heart the now discarded royal standard, for which nobody cared since he was dead—was placed on a farm wagon and escorted back to Grenoble by some of the officers of the regiment and two companies, with reversed arms. He was watched over by the two Englishmen, whom Napoleon freely permitted to follow their own pleasure in their movements, being desirous of not adding fuel to any possible fire of animosity and of showing every respect to every Frenchman, whatever his predilection.

With the Fifth-of-the-Line in the lead, the army moved forward after a halt for noonday meal. The greatly relieved, happy and confident Emperor, riding now with the old regiment of Italy in the van, and now with the grenadiers in the rear, approached Grenoble late in the afternoon. The short March day was drawing to a close when they came in sight of the heavily garrisoned walls of the town.

Labedoyere had obeyed orders in some particulars. The ramparts had been manned, the cannon were loaded, torches were blazing on the walls, and the town was awake and seething with excitement. He had declared for the Emperor, and after a sharp little conflict had disarmed the royalist cavalry and himself held the gates. Every regiment that had come in had cast its lot in with Napoleon. As the soldiers in the town heard, in the twilight, the beating of the drums—"La Grenadiere" the old march again!—the Colonel of the Seventh, having seized the few royalists, opened the gates, marched out at the head of the troops to receive the Emperor with arms, yes, but with open arms. Amid the shouts of the citizens and the delirious joy of the soldiery, the Emperor entered the city; in his train, first fruits of the war, was the body of the old servant of the unfortunate King.

It was Pierre who burst into the apartment of the little Countess with the news.

"The Emperor is here, mademoiselle," he cried enthusiastically. "The soldiers are bringing him to the palace."

"And Marteau?"

"He will be free."

"Thank God!" cried the girl, and then she remembered her uncle. "And the Marquis?" she asked.

"My dearest Laure," said the kindly, sympathetic voice of Captain Frank Yeovil, stepping out of the twilight of the hall into the bright light of the little drawing-room where last night she had bade farewell to Marteau, "prepare yourself for some dreadful——"

"Yes, yes, I know," she interrupted. "The Emperor is here."

"The troops went over to him."

"And my uncle?"

"He——"

"Speak, monsieur. What has happened? Did the Emperor——"

"No one harmed him. He could not survive the disgrace, mademoiselle. Prepare yourself."

"Oh, for God's sake, delay not your tidings."

"He died like a soldier of France on the field, by his own hand rather than survive what he wrongfully thought his shame."

It was the policy of the Emperor to be merciful; it was his wish to be clement. If possible, he wanted peace. If mercy and gentleness could get it he could have it. He gave free permission to Sir Gervaise Yeovil and his son to return to England. He made no objection to their taking with them the Countess Laure, now the last of the line. He, himself, was present at the funeral of the Marquis, who was buried with all the military honors of his rank and station. There were generous hearts among those Frenchmen. As the representative of the King they had hated him, but when he had died so gallantly rather than survive what his nice sensibility believed to be his dishonor, his failure at any rate, they honored him. If he had been a Marshal of France they could have done no more.

Marteau, restored to his rank and position as aide to the Emperor, had but a few moments with the grief-stricken woman.

"No," she said sadly, "it makes no difference. You know my heart. No words that I can utter could add anything more to the testimony I have given you. But I had promised my uncle, and now that he is dead, the promise is doubly sacred. I must go. Thank your Emperor for me for all he has done for me, his enemy, and for my friends, and for what he has done for you. Tell him the story of the Eagle, and the little part in it that I played and—you will not forget me as I will not forget you."

"God grant," said the young soldier, "that I may die for France on some battlefield, my last thought of you."

"Ah, if that should befall you, I should envy you your rest. Would to God I might look forward to such a quick and happy ending," said the grief-stricken woman, turning away.

The next morning, with great ceremony and much rejoicing, the Eagle was brought out, and the Emperor once more presented it to the regiment. He did more than that. He signalized the action of the Fifth-of-the-Line, the news of which had been sent broadcast by couriers and which struck a keynote for the army to follow, by incorporating it as a supplementary Fifth regiment of Grenadiers of the Guard. He promised them a new flag and new bearskins. He promoted Lestoype to be a lieutenant-colonel, Labedoyere to be a general, and promised every veteran officer his old rank or higher in the new army to be formed. The men were promised bounties and rewards, and, with high hopes and glorious anticipations, the march for Paris was begun.

So by the wayside and in the fields around this little army in that springtime, the violets bloomed again.



BOOK III

THE LAST TRY

CHAPTER XXVIII

AT THE STAMP OF THE EMPEROR'S FOOT

The wonderful genius of Napoleon, which had been so clearly manifested in so many ways during his varied career, was never exhibited to better advantage than in the three months after his return from Elba. During that period he reorganized the government, recreated and reequipped an army. The veterans flocked to his standards, and within the time mentioned he had actually two hundred and fifty thousand men under arms.

With the better moiety of this force, the best armed, the best equipped, the best officered contingent, he took the field early in the month of June. The Emperor did not want war any more than France did. He began his new reign with the most pacific of proclamations, which probably reflected absolutely the whole desire of his heart. But the patience of Europe had been exhausted and the belief of rulers and peoples in the honesty of his professions, declarations or intentions, had been hopelessly shattered.

His arrival effected an immediate resurrection of the almost moribund Congress of Vienna. The squabbling, arguing, trifling plenipotentiaries of the powers had burst into gigantic laughter—literally, actual merriment, albeit of a somewhat grim character!—when they received the news of Napoleon's return. They were not laughing at Napoleon but at themselves. They had been dividing the lion's skin in high-flown phrases, which meant nothing, endeavoring to incorporate the Decalogue and the Sermon on the Mount in their protocols and treaties, when they suddenly discovered that the Emperor was still to be reckoned with.

Differences were instantly laid aside and forgotten. Russia, Prussia and Austria immediately agreed to put in the field two hundred and fifty thousand men each. The smaller powers, Sweden, Spain, the Low Countries, promised contingents. England once more assumed the familiar role of paymaster by immediately placing a vast subsidy at the disposal of the allies. She gave them also what was of more value than a subsidy, a soldier of the first rank to command the armies in the field.

The Duke of Wellington had never crossed swords with the greatest captain of his day and perhaps of all time. But he had measured himself with the ablest and most famous of Napoleon's Marshals. With greatly inferior forces, through four years of desperate fighting, he had defeated the Marshals and armies of France. The dashing and gallant Junot had been routed at Vimiero, Victor had been overwhelmed at Talavera. Wily old Massena with all his ability could look back to the disaster of the blood-stained hill of Busaco, Marmont, the dainty tactician, had been smashed at Salamanca, stubborn Jourdan had been at last decisively defeated at Victoria. Finally, the brilliant Soult had been hurled out of the Pyrenees and had met his master at Toulouse. Still, great as were these soldiers and highly trained as they had been in the best of schools, not one of them was a Napoleon; all of them together were not, for that matter. Would the luster of Wellington's fame, which extended from the Ganges to the Ebro, be tarnished when he met the Emperor? It was a foregone conclusion, of course, that Schwarzenberg would command the Austrians; Bluecher, the "Hussar General," the hard-fighting, downright old "Marshal Vorwaerts," the Prussians; and the Emperor Alexander, with his veteran captains, the vast horde of Russians.

To assemble, arm, equip and move two hundred and fifty thousand men was a great task in those days even for a rich and populous country flushed with victory and in the enjoyment of an abundance of time and unlimited means. The organizing, it almost might be said the creative, ability of Napoleon was not shared by his opponents. Try as they would, June found their preparations still woefully incomplete. The Austrians had scarcely moved at all. The slower Russians, who were farther away and were to constitute the reserve army, could be discounted from any present calculation of the enemies of the Empire. The English and their smaller allies from the Low Countries, and the Prussians, whose hatred of France and the Emperor was greater than that of any other nation, were quicker to move. Two hundred and fifteen thousand men, half of them Prussians, a third of the other moiety English, the remaining two-thirds Belgians, Hollanders, and other miscellaneous nationalities, had joined the colors on the northwestern frontier of France. One-half of this joint assembly was commanded by Bluecher and the other half by Wellington.

Leaving the weaker half of his own great army to complete its equipment, and placing strong detachments in fortress and at strategetic points to oppose the Austrians should they advance, the Emperor, as has been said, with about one hundred and twenty-five thousand men took the field. Naturally, inevitably, Belgium, the immemorial battleground of the nations, and the great English-Prussian army were his objectives. He saw clearly the dangers that encompassed him, the demands he must meet and the conditions over which he must triumph.

It was by no means certain, even if he decisively defeated his enemies in Belgium and occupied Brussels, that his trouble would be over. There would still be left a possible five hundred thousand trained and disciplined men with whom he would have to deal, under rulers and generals the inveteracy of whose hatreds he could well understand. But at least his position would be greatly improved by a successful preliminary campaign, any success in short, to say nothing of so great a one. If he could show himself once more the inimitable Captain, the thunderbolt of war, the organizer of victory, the Napoleon of other days, the effect upon France, at least, would be electrical. And the world would again take notice.

The Emperor had to admit that, save in the army, there had not been much response from tired-out, exhausted France, to the appeals of its once irresistible and beloved leader. But the spirit of the army was that of devotion itself. There was a kind of a blind madness in it of which men spoke afterward as a phenomenon that could only be recognized, that could never be explained or understood. They could not account for it. Yet it was a powerful factor, the most powerful, indeed, that enabled the Emperor to accomplish so much, and fall short of complete triumph by so narrow a margin.

The spirit of this new army was not that burning love of liberty which had animated the armies of the early republic and turned its tatterdemalion legions into paladins. It was not the heroic consecration of the veterans of later years to their native land. It was a strange, mysterious obsession, a personal attachment to Napoleon, the individual—an unlimited, unbounded tribute to his fascination, to his own unique personality. It has not died out, and seems destined to live. Even in death Napoleon, after a century, exercises the same fascination over all sorts and conditions of men! Wise and foolish alike acknowledge his spell. Men hate, men loathe much of that for which the Corsican adventurer and soldier of fortune stood; they see clearly and admit freely the thorough and entire selfishness of the colossal man, but they cannot resist his appeal, even after one hundred years!

Yet in the long run no personal attachment, however deep, however ardent, however complete, can take the place as the inspiration for heroic deeds of that deeper passion of love of country. Nor can any personal devotion to a mere man produce such a steadfastness of character as is brought about by adherence to a great cause or a great land. A great passion like the love of a people for a great country and that for which it stands is eternal. Usually the feet of clay upon which the idol stands have only to be recognized to dissipate the ardor and fervor of the worshipers. But Napoleon was then an exception to all rules. Though he slew men, wasted them, threw them away, they trusted him. We look at him through the vista of years and in some way understand his soldiers. Reason to the contrary, we can experience in some degree, at least, even in the cold-blooded humanitarian materialism of the present, the old thrill and the old admiration. Did his contemporaries love him because they believed he thought in terms of France, we wonder?

So that this body of soldiery was probably the most formidable army in the quality of its units that had ever been mustered on the globe. There was not a man in it who was not a veteran. Some of them were veterans of fifteen years of campaigning with Napoleon. This that came was to be the sixtieth pitched battle in which some of them had participated. Even the younger men had gone through more than one campaign and taken part in much hard fighting. Back from the prisons where they had been confined and the great fortresses they had held until the Emperor's abdication had come the veterans. The Old Guard had been reconstituted. As a reward for its action at Grenoble, the Fifth-of-the-Line had been incorporated in it as a supplementary regiment, a second Fifth regiment of Grenadiers. The ranks of the Guard had been most carefully culled, the unserviceable had been weeded out, their places taken by men well fitted by their record, their physical prowess and their personal appearance to belong to that famous corps. Not the Immortals of Xerxes, the Spartan Band of Leonidas, the Companion Cavalry of Alexander, the Carthaginians of Hannibal, the Tenth Legion of Caesar, the Spanish Infantry of Parma, or the Ironsides of Cromwell, had surpassed the record of these Pretorians of Imperial France.

The same weeding-out process had been carried out in the rest of the army. The flower of French cavalry, the matchless French artillery and the famous infantry which had trampled down the world were ranged under the Eagles. Other corps had been drained for equipment. But in some particulars the army differed from the Imperial armies of the past. With two exceptions, the great Marshals were not there. Murat, king of horsemen and swordsmen, was a prisoner in his ignoble Neapolitan realm awaiting trial and execution. Marmont and Mortier dared not present themselves before the Emperor they had betrayed. Wily Massena, the wisest and ablest of them all, was old and in convenient retirement. Macdonald, the incorruptible, was with the fat-bodied, fat-witted Bourbon King in Ghent. Berthier, with his marvelous mastery of detail and his almost uncanny ability to translate the Emperor's thoughts even into orders, had not rejoined the Eagles—a terrible loss, indeed.

There were but two of the Marshals of old with Napoleon. Soult, in some respects the acutest strategist and finest tactician, was Chief of Staff. He tried his best to fill Berthier's position and did it acceptably, if not with the success of that master. The other Marshal was preeminently the battle-leader, red-headed Michael Ney, the fighter of fighters, a man whose personality was worth an army-corps, whose reputation and influence with the soldiers was of the very highest.

The rest of the officers, while veterans, were younger and less-known men. Drouet d'Erlon commanded one of the corps; Reille another; Grouchy another; Druot was the leader of the Guard; Kellerman, Milhaud, Gerard and Maurice the cavalry. It was an army of veterans, officered by young men, commanded by the greatest of soldiers.

But the army had not yet "found itself." It had no natural coherence and there had been no time to acquire any. It had not yet been welded together. Officers, men, regiments, brigades, divisions were, more or less, new and strange to one another. There was a vast deal of suspicion in the ranks. The discipline was rather because of past habit than present practice. That army needed a few victories, and badly needed them. A welding process was required. Given time and success to shake it together, and it might laugh at the world.

Would it get time and win victory? That was the question. And if it got neither, what then? How would it stand up under the strain? Would the tie that bound hold in defeat? Could the rest of the army live up to the Guard, for instance? Yes, that was the grave, the all-important question.

There was an enormous disparity in numbers between the French army—or it would better be called Napoleon's army—and that of the allies he purposed to attack. The allies were to the French in the ratio of about two to one. Whatever else was lacking, Napoleon had not lost his audacity, nor when his intentions are disclosed by a study of his plans, can it be argued that his strategic intention was lacking in brilliancy or daring.

He determined with his smaller but compact and manageable army to thrust himself between the two wings of the somewhat loosely coherent enemy under its divided command; to hold off one while he smashed the other and then to concentrate upon the surviving half and mete out to it the same hard fortune. In other words, trusting to his ability, he deliberately placed his own army between two others, each of which practically equaled his own. He thrust himself within the jaws of a trap, to use a homely simile, intending to hold one arm of the trap open while he broke up the other. He intended to burst through the allied line and smash up each half in succession.

Of course there was always the danger that he could not burst through that line; or that he could not hold back one half while he fought the other, or that holding back one half he could not beat the other, or having beaten one half he would be too weak to fall on the other. There was always the danger that the trap would be sprung, that he would be caught in its jaws or, to change the metaphor, that he would be like the wheat between the upper and the nether millstone. Still he did not think so, and he did not go into the undertaking blindly. As he had said, in his own case, "War was not a conjectural art," and he had most carefully counted the cost, estimated the probabilities. In short, he looked well before he leaped—yet a man may look well and leap wrong after all.

On these considerations he based his grand strategy. The army of the Prussians had approached the French frontier from the east; the army of the English and allies from the northwest. Napoleon had a complete knowledge of one of the Captains opposing him. He knew and accurately estimated Bluecher. He did not know and he did not accurately estimate Wellington. He viewed the latter with contempt; the former with a certain amount of disdainful approbation, for while Bluecher was no strategist and less of a tactician, he was a fighter and a fighter is always dangerous and to be dreaded. Gneisenau, a much more accomplished soldier, was Bluecher's second in command, but he was a negligible factor in the Emperor's mind. The fact that Wellington had beaten all of Napoleon's Marshals with whom he had come in contact had intensified the Emperor's hatred. Instead of begetting caution in dealing with him, Napoleon's antagonism had blinded him as to Wellington's ability.

He also rated the Prussians higher than the English as fighters, and when his officers, who had felt the power of the thin red line which had so often wrecked the French column, explained to him that there were no better defensive fighters on earth than the English, not even the Russians, he had laughed them to scorn, attributing their warnings to the fact that they had been beaten in Spain and had grown timid. The Emperor did not purpose to be beaten in France or Belgium by the stolid English.

In more detail his first plan was to confuse Wellington, who held the right of the allied line, then fall upon him before he had time to concentrate, and beat him or contain him with a detachment under Ney, while the Emperor in person thereafter put Bluecher to rout—and all of these things he came very near accomplishing completely. Certainly, he carried out his plans successfully and to the letter until the final day of battle.

He reasoned that if he could beat Bluecher and threaten his communications, what was left of the Prussian army, which Napoleon hoped would not be much, would immediately retreat eastward; and that when Bluecher had been thrown out of the game for the present, he could turn on Wellington and his English and allies and make short work of him. It did not occur to him that even if he beat Bluecher and beat Wellington, provided the defeats did not end in utter routs, and they both retreated, they might withdraw on parallel lines and effect a junction later when even after the double defeat they would still so greatly outnumber him that his chances of success would be faint indeed.

The possibility of their pursuing any other course than that he had forecast for them never entered his mind. His own conception of their action was, in fact, an obsession with him. Yet that which he thought they would do they did not; and that which he was confident they would not do they did!



CHAPTER XXIX

WATERLOO—THE FINAL REVIEW

In a romance like this, in which campaigns and marches, maneuvers and battles, however decisive they may be in history, are only incidental to the careers of the characters herein presented to the reader, it is not necessary for the chronicler to turn himself into a military historian, much as he would like it. Therefore, in great restraint, he presses on, promising hereafter only so much history as may serve to show forth the somber background.

In this setting of the scene of the great drama to be played, young Marteau has been necessarily somewhat lost sight of. He was very much in evidence during that hundred days of feverish and frantic activity. Napoleon had distinguished him highly. He had given him the rank of a Colonel of the Guard, but he had still retained him on his staff. Good and experienced staff-officers were rare, and the Emperor needed all he could get; he could have used many more than were available. And as Marteau was one of those who were attached to the Emperor by the double motive of love of the man and love of his country, believing as he did that the destiny of the two could not be dissevered, he had served the Emperor most efficiently, with that blind, passionate devotion to duty by which men give to a cause the best that is in them and which sometimes leads them to almost inconceivable heights of achievements.

Suffice it to say that the great strategic conception of Napoleon was carried out with rather striking success in the first three days of the campaign. The Emperor, crossing the Sambre, interposed himself between Wellington and Bluecher, completely deceived the Englishman, who thought his extreme right was threatened, detached Ney to seize the village of Quatre Bras, where Wellington had at last decided to concentrate, and with eighty thousand men fell on the Prussians at Ligny.

Ney did not seize Quatre Bras; Wellington got there ahead of him and stubbornly held the position. Although Ney had twice the number of troops at the beginning of the battle that the English Field-Marshal could muster, they were not well handled and no adequate use was made of the French preponderance. Napoleon, on the far right of Ney, at Ligny, on the contrary, fought the Prussians with his old-time skill and brilliance. The contending forces there were about equal, the Prussians having the advantage in numbers, but victory finally declared for the Emperor. It was the last victory, not the least brilliant and not the least desperately fought of his long career. The importance and quality of the battle has been lost sight of in the greater struggle of Waterloo, which took place two days after, but it was a great battle, nevertheless. One of the crude ways in which to estimate a battle is by what is called the "butcher's bill" and eighteen thousand dead and wounded Prussians and twelve thousand Frenchmen tells its tale. But it was not the decisive battle that Napoleon had planned to make it.

The Prussians retreated. They had to. But they retreated in good order. Bluecher having been unhorsed and temporarily incapacitated in a charge, the command and direction of the retreat devolved upon Gneisenau. His chief claim to military distinction lies in the fact that he did not do what Napoleon expected, and what Bluecher would have done. He retreated to the north instead of the east! A pursuit was launched, but it did not pursue the Prussians. It went off, as it were, into thin air. It pursued Napoleon's idea, his forecast, which owing to the accident to Bluecher was wrong!

One reason why the victory of Ligny and the drawn battle at Quatre Bras were not decisive was because of a strange lack of generalship and a strange confusion of orders for which Napoleon and Ney are both responsible. Ney was constructively a victor at Quatre Bras, finally. That is, the English retreated at nightfall and abandoned the field to him; but they retreated not because they were beaten but because Wellington, finding his position could be bettered by retirement and concentration, decided upon withdrawal. But Ney could have been the victor in every sense, in spite of his indifferent tactics, if it had not been for the same blunder that the Emperor committed.

D'Erlon, at the head of perhaps the finest corps in the army, numbering twenty thousand men, through the long hours of that hot June day marched from the vicinity of Quatre Bras to Ligny, whence he could actually see the battle raging, only to be summoned back from Ligny to Quatre Bras by orders from Ney. Retracing his course, therefore, he marched back over the route he had just traversed, arriving at Quatre Bras too late to be of any service to Ney! Like the famous King of France who with twenty thousand men marched up the hill and then marched down again, this splendid corps which, thrown into either battle, would have turned the Prussian retreat into a rout on the one hand, or have utterly cut to pieces Wellington on the other, did nothing. The principal fault was Napoleon's. He saw d'Erlon's corps approaching, but he sent no order and took no steps to put it into the battle.

Well, in spite of the fact that the energies of d'Erlon had been spent in marching instead of fighting, the Emperor was a happy man that night. He had got himself safely placed between the two armies and he had certainly severely if not decisively beaten one of them. Strategically, his operations had been characterized by unusual brilliancy. If things went as he hoped, surmised and confidently expected, all would be well. He was absolutely sure that Bluecher was retiring to the east, toward Namur. He dispatched Grouchy with thirty-five thousand of his best men to pursue him in the direction which he supposed he had taken.

Napoleon's orders were positive, and he was accustomed to exact implicit obedience from his subordinates. He had a habit of discouraging independent action in the sternest of ways, and for the elimination of this great force from the subsequent battle the Emperor himself must accept the larger responsibility. But all this does not excuse Grouchy. He carried out his orders faithfully, to be sure, but a more enterprising and more independent commander would have sooner discovered that he was pursuing stragglers and would earlier have taken the right course to regain his touch with his chief and to harry the Prussian Field-Marshal. He did turn to the north at last, but when the great battle was joined he was miles away and of no more use than if he had been in Egypt. His attack on the Prussian rear-guard at Wavre, while it brought about a smart little battle with much hard and gallant fighting, really amounted to nothing and had absolutely no bearing on the settlement of the main issue elsewhere. He did not disobey orders, but many a man has gained immortality and fame by doing that very thing. Grouchy had his chance and failed to improve it. He was a veteran and a successful soldier, too.

Comes the day of Waterloo. Bluecher had retreated north to Wavre and was within supporting distance of Wellington. His army had been beaten but not crushed, its spirit was not abated. The old Prussian Marshal, badly bruised and shaken from being unhorsed and overridden in a cavalry charge in which he had joined like a common trooper, but himself again, promised in a famous interview between the two to come to the support of the younger English Marshal, should he be attacked, with his whole army. Wellington had retreated as far as he intended to. He established his headquarters on a hill called Mont St. Jean, back of a ridge near a village called Waterloo, where his army commanded the junction point of the highroads to the south and west. He drew up his lines, his red-coated countrymen and his blue-coated allies on the long ridge in front of Mont St. Jean, facing south, overlooking a gently sloping valley which was bounded by other parallel ridges about a mile away. On the right center of Wellington's lines, a short distance below the crest of the ridge, embowered in trees, lay a series of stone buildings, in extent and importance between a chateau and a farmhouse, called Hougomont. These were surrounded by a stone wall and the place was impregnable against everything but artillery if it were properly manned and resolutely held. Both those conditions were met that day. Opposite the left center of the Duke's line was another strong place, a farmhouse consisting of a series of stone buildings on three sides of a square, the fourth closed by a wall, called La Haye Sainte. These outposts were of the utmost value, rightly used.

The Duke had sixty-seven thousand men and one hundred and eighty guns. His right had been strengthened at the expense of his left, because he expected Napoleon to attack the right and he counted on Bluecher's arrival to support his left. To meet him Napoleon had seventy-five thousand men and two hundred and sixty guns. Off to the northeast lay Bluecher at Wavre with nearly eighty thousand more men and two hundred guns, and wandering around in the outer darkness was Grouchy with thirty-five thousand.

The valley was highly cultivated. The ripening grain still stood in the fallow fields separated by low hedges. Broad roads ran through the valley in different directions. The weather was horrible. It rained torrents during the night and the earlier part of the morning. The fields were turned into quagmires, the roads into morasses. It was hot and close. The humidity was great. Little air was stirring. Throughout the day the mist hung heavy over the valley and the ridges which bordered it. But the rain ceased in the morning and Napoleon made no attack until afternoon, waiting for the ground to dry out somewhat. It was more important to him that his soldiers should have good footing than to the English, for the offensive, the attack, the charge fell to him. Wellington determined to fight strictly on the defensive. Nevertheless, precious hours were wasted. Every passing moment brought some accession to the allied army, and every passing hour brought Bluecher nearer. With all the impetuosity of his soul, the old man was urging his soldiers forward over the horrible roads.

"Boys," he said in his rough, homely way to some bitterly complaining artillerists stalled in the mud, "I promised. You would not have me break my word, would you?"

Grouchy meanwhile had at last determined that the Prussians had gone the other way. He had learned that they were at Wavre and he had swung about and was coming north. Of course, he should have marched toward the sound of the cannon—generally the safest guide for a soldier!—but, at any rate, he was trying to get into touch with the enemy. No one can question his personal courage or his loyalty to his cause.

Napoleon, when he should have been on the alert, was very drowsy and dull that day at Waterloo. He had shown himself a miracle of physical strength and endurance in that wonderful four days of campaigning and fighting, but the soldiers passing by the farmhouse of La Belle Alliance—singular name which referred so prophetically to the enemy—sometimes saw him sitting on a chair by a table outside the house, his feet resting on a bundle of straw to keep them from the wet ground, nodding, asleep! And no wonder. It is doubtful if he had enjoyed as much as eight hours of sleep since he crossed the Sambre, and those not consecutive! Still, if ever he should have kept awake, that eighteenth of June was the day of days!

So far as one can discern his intention, his battle plan had been to feint at Hougomont on the right center, cause the Duke of Wellington to weaken his line to support the chateau, and then to break through the left center and crush him by one of those massed attacks under artillery fire for which he had become famous. The line once broken, the end, of course, would be more or less certain.

The difference in the temperaments of the two great Captains was well illustrated before the battle was joined. The Duke mainly concealed his men behind the ridge. All that the French saw when they came on the field were guns, officers and a few men. The English-Belgian army was making no parade. What the British and Flemish saw was very different. The Emperor displayed his full hand. The French, who appeared not to have been disorganized at all by the hard fighting at Ligny and Quatre Bras, came into view in most splendid style; bands playing, drums rolling, swords waving, bayonets shining even in the dull air of the wretched morning. They came on the field in solid columns, deployed and took their positions, out of cannon-shot range, of course, in the most deliberate manner. The uniforms of the army were brand-new, and it was the fashion to fight in one's best in those days. They presented a magnificent spectacle.

Presently the Duke, his staff, the gunners and the others who were on the top of the ridge and watching, saw a body of horsemen gallop rapidly along the French lines. One gray-coated figure riding a white horse was in advance of the rest. The cheers, the almost delirious shouts and cries, told the watchers that it was the Emperor. It was his last grand review, his last moment of triumph.

It was after one o'clock before the actual battle began. More books have been written about that battle than any other that was ever fought. One is tempted to say, almost than all others that were ever fought. And the closest reasoners arrive at different conclusions and disagree as to many vital and important details. The Duke of Wellington himself left two accounts, one in his dispatches and one in notes written long afterward, which were irreconcilable, but some things are certain, upon some things all historians are agreed.

The battle began with an attack on the Hougomont Chateau and the conflict actually raged around that chateau for over six hours, or until the French were in retreat. Macdonell, Home and Saltoun, Scotsmen all, with their regiments of the Household Guard, held that chateau, although it was assailed over and over again, finally, by the whole of Reille's corps. They held that chateau, although it burned over their heads, although the French actually broke into it on occasion. They held it, although every other man in it was shot down and scarcely a survivor was without a wound. It was assaulted with a fury and a resolution which was only matched by the fury and resolution of its defense. Why it was not battered to pieces with artillery no one knows. At any rate, it occupied practically the whole of Reille's corps during the whole long afternoon of fighting.

The space between Hougomont and La Haye Sainte was about a thousand yards. La Haye Sainte was assaulted also but, to anticipate events, it held out until about five o'clock in the evening, when, after another wonderful defense, it was carried. The French established themselves in it eighty yards from Wellington's line.



CHAPTER XXX

WATERLOO—THE CHARGE OF D'ERLON

Meanwhile the French had not confined their efforts to the isolated forts, if they may be so called, on Wellington's center and left center. After a tremendous artillery duel d'Erlon's men had been formed up for that massed attack for which the Emperor was famous, and with which it was expected the English line would be pierced and the issue decided. The Emperor, as has been noted, had intended the attack on Hougomont as a mere feint, hoping to induce the Duke of Wellington to reinforce his threatened right and thereby to weaken his left center. It was no part of the Emperor's plan that an attempt to capture Hougomont should become the main battle on his own left that it had, nor could he be sure that even the tremendous attack upon it had produced the effect at which he aimed. Nevertheless, the movement of d'Erlon had to be tried.

It must be remembered that Napoleon had never passed through the intermediate army grades. He had been jumped from a regimental officer to a General. He had never handled a regiment, a brigade, a division, a corps—only an army, or armies. Perhaps that was one reason why he was accustomed to leaving details and the execution of his plans to subordinates. He was the greatest of strategists and the ablest of tacticians, but minor tactics did not interest him, and the arrangement of this great assault he left to the corps and its commander.

Giving orders to Ney and d'Erlon, therefore, the Emperor at last launched his grand attack. One hundred and twenty guns were concentrated on that part of the English left beyond the westernmost of the two outlying positions, through which it was determined to force a way. Under cover of the smoke, which all day hung thick and heavy in the valley and clung to the ridges, d'Erlon's splendid corps, which had been so wasted between Quatre Bras and Ligny, and which was burning to achieve something, was formed in four huge parallel close-ranked columns, slightly echeloned under Donzelot, Marcognet, Durutte and Allix. With greatly mistaken judgment, these four columns were crowded close together. The disposition was a very bad one. In the first place, their freedom of movement was so impaired by lack of proper distance as to render deployment almost impossible. Unless the columns could preserve their solid formation until the very point of contact, the charge would be a fruitless one. In the second place, they made an enormous target impossible to miss. The attack was supported by light batteries of artillery and the cavalry in the flanks.

Other things being equal, the quality of soldiers being the same, the column is at an obvious disadvantage when attacking the line. It was so in this instance. Although it was magnificently led by Ney and d'Erlon in person, and although it comprised troops of the highest order, the division commanders being men of superb courage and resolution, no valor, no determination could make up for these disadvantages. The tremendous artillery-fire of the French, which did great execution among the English, kept them down until the dark columns of infantry mounting the ridge got in the way of the French guns which, of course, ceased to fire.

The drums were rolling madly, the Frenchmen were cheering loudly when the ridge was suddenly covered with long red lines. There were not many blue-coated allies left. Many of them had already laid down their lives; of the survivors more were exhausted by the fierce battling of the preceding days when the Belgians had nobly sustained the fighting traditions of a race to which nearly two thousand years before Caesar himself had borne testimony. As a matter of fact, most of the allies were moved to the rear. They did not leave the field. They were formed up again back of the battle line to constitute the reserve. The English did not intend to flee either. They were not accustomed to it and they saw no reason for doing it now.

Wellington moved the heavy cavalry over to support the threatened point of the line and bade his soldiers restrain their fire. There was something ominous in the silent, steady, rock-like red wall. It was much more threatening to the mercuric Gallic spirit than the shouting of the French was to the unemotional English disposition. Still, they came intrepidly on.

Meanwhile, renewed attacks were hurled against the chateau and the farmhouse. Ney and d'Erlon had determined to break the English line with the bayonet. Suddenly, when the French came within point-blank range, the English awoke to action. The English guns hurled shot into the close-ranked masses, each discharge doing frightful execution. Ney's horse was shot from under him at the first fire. But the unwounded Marshal scrambled to his feet and, mounting another horse, pressed on.

The slow-moving ranks were nearer. At point-blank range the English infantrymen now opened fire. Shattering discharges were poured upon the French. The fronts of the divisions were obliterated. The men in advance who survived would have given back, but the pressure of the masses in their rear forced them to go on. The divisions actually broke into a run. Again and again the British battalions spoke, the black muskets in the hands of the red coats were tipped with redder flame. It was not in human flesh and blood to sustain very long such a fire.

It was a magnificent charge, gloriously delivered, and such was its momentum that it almost came in touch with the English line. It did not quite. That momentum was spent at last. The French deployed as well as they could in the crowded space and at half-pistol-shot distance began to return the English fire. The French guns joined in the infernal tumult. The advance had been stopped, but it had not been driven back. The French cavalry were now coming up. Before they arrived that issue had to be decided. The critical moment was at hand, and Wellington's superb judgment determined the action. He let loose on them the heavy cavalry, led by the Scots Grays on their big horses. As the ranks of the infantry opened to give them room, the men of the Ninety-second Highlanders, mad with the enthusiasm of the moment, caught the stirrup-straps of the Horse and, half running, half dragged, joined in the charge.

The splendid body of heavy cavalry fell on the flank of the halted columns. There was no time for the French to form a square. Nay more, there was no room for them to form a square. In an instant, however, they faced about and delivered a volley which did great execution, but nothing could stop the maddened rush of the gigantic horsemen. Back on the heights of Rossomme Napoleon, aroused from his lethargy at last, stared at the great attack.

"Mon Dieu!" he exclaimed as he saw the tremendous onfall of the cavalrymen upon his helpless infantry, "how terrible are those gray horsemen!"

Yes, they were more terrible to the men at the point of contact than they were to those back of La Belle Alliance. No infantry that ever lived in the position in which the French found themselves could have stood up against such a charge as that. Trampling, hacking, slashing, thrusting, the horses biting and fighting like the men, the heavy cavalry broke up two of the columns. The second and third began to retreat under an awful fire. But the dash of the British troopers was spent. They had become separated, disorganized. They had lost coherence. The French cavalry now arrived on the scene. Admirably handled, they were thrown on the scattered English. There was nothing for the latter to do but retire. Retire they did, having accomplished all that anyone could expect of cavalry, fighting every step of the way. Just as soon as they opened the fronts of the regiments' in line, the infantry and artillery began again, and then the French cavalry got its punishment in its turn.

It takes but moments to tell of this charge and, indeed, in the battlefield it seemed but a few moments. But the French did not give way until after long hard fighting. From the beginning of the preliminary artillery-duel to the repulse of the charge an hour and a half elapsed. Indeed, they did not give way altogether either, for Donzelot and Allix, who commanded the left divisions, were the men who finally succeeded in capturing La Haye Sainte. And both sides suffered furiously before the French gave back.

There was plenty of fight left in the French yet. Ney, whatever his strategy and tactics, showed himself as of yore the bravest of the brave. It is quite safe to say that the hero of the retreat from Russia, the last of the Grand Army, the star of many a hotly contested battle, surpassed even his own glorious record for personal courage on that day. Maddened by the repulse, he gathered up all the cavalry, twelve thousand in number, and with Kellerman, greatest of cavalrymen, to second him and with division leaders like Milhaud and Maurice, he hurled himself upon the English line between Hougomont and La Haye Sainte. But the English made no tactical mistakes like that of Ney and d'Erlon. The artillerists stood to their guns until the torrent of French horsemen was about to break upon them, then they ran back to the safety of the nearest English square.

The English had been put in such formation that the squares lay checkerwise. Each side was four men deep. The front rank knelt, the second rank bent over at a charge bayonets, the third and the fourth ranks stood erect and fired. The French horsemen might have endured the tempest of bullets but they could not ride down the chevaux de frise, the fringe of steel. They tried it. No one could find fault with that army. It was doing its best; it was fighting and dying for its Emperor. Over and over they sought to break those stubborn British squares. One or two of them were actually penetrated, but unavailingly.

Men mad with battle-lust threw themselves and their horses upon the bayonets. The guns were captured and recaptured. The horsemen overran the ridge, they got behind the squares, they counter-charged over their own tracks, they rode until the breasts of the horses touched the guns. They fired pistols in the face of the English. One such charge is enough to immortalize its makers, and during that afternoon they made twelve!

Ney, raging over the field, had five horses killed under him. The British suffered horribly. If the horsemen did draw off to take breath, and reform for another effort, the French batteries, the English squares presenting easy targets, sent ball after ball through them. And nobody stopped fighting to watch the cavalry. Far and wide the battle raged. Toward the close of the day some of the English squares had become so torn to pieces that regiments, brigades and divisions had to be combined to keep from being overwhelmed.

Still the fight raged around Hougomont. Now, from a source of strength, La Haye Sainte had become a menace. There the English attacked and the French held. Off to the northeast the country was black with advancing masses of men. No, it was not Grouchy and his thirty-five thousand who, if they had been there at the beginning, might have decided the day. It was the Prussians.

They, at least, had marched to the sound of the cannon. Grouchy was off at Wavre. He at last got in touch with one of Bluecher's rear corps and he was fighting a smart little battle ten miles from the place where the main issue was to be decided. As a diversion, his efforts were negligible, for without that corps the allies outnumbered the French two to one.

Telling the troops that the oncoming soldiers were their comrades of Grouchy's command who would decide the battle, Napoleon detached the gallant Lobau, who had stood like a stone wall at Aspern, with the Young Guard to seize the village of Planchenoit and to hold the Prussians back, for if they broke in the end would be as certain as it was swift. And well did Lobau with the Young Guard perform that task. Buelow, commanding the leading corps, hurled himself again and again upon the French line. His heavy columns fared exactly as the French columns had fared when they assaulted the English. But it was not within the power of ten thousand men to hold off thirty thousand forever, and there were soon that number of Prussians at the point of contact. Frantic messages from Lobau caused the Emperor to send one of the divisions of the Old Guard, the last reserve, to his support.

It was now after six o'clock, the declining sun was already low on the horizon, the long June day was drawing to a close. The main force of the Prussians had not yet come up to the hill and ridge of Mont St. Jean. Wellington, in great anxiety, was clinging desperately to the ridge with his shattered lines wondering how long he could hold them, whether he could sustain another of those awful attacks. His reserves, except two divisions of light cavalry, Vivian's and Vandeleur's, and Maitland's and Adams' brigades headed by Colborne's famous Fifty-second Foot, among his troops the de luxe veterans of the Peninsula, had all been expended.

Lobau was still holding back the Prussians by the most prodigious and astounding efforts. If Napoleon succeeded in his last titanic effort to break that English line, Bluecher would be too late. Unless night or Bluecher came quickly, if Napoleon made that attack and it was not driven back, victory in this struggle of the war gods would finally go to the French.

Hougomont still held out. The stubborn defense of it was Wellington's salvation. While it stood his right was more or less protected. But La Haye Sainte offered a convenient point of attack upon him. If Napoleon brought up his remaining troops behind it they would only have a short distance to go before they were at death's grapple hand to hand with the shattered, exhausted, but indomitable defenders of the ridge.



CHAPTER XXXI

WATERLOO—THE LAST OF THE GUARD

Long and earnestly, one from the heights of Mont St. Jean, the other from those of Rossomme, the two great Captains scanned the opposing line. Napoleon seemed to have recovered from his indisposition. Indeed, he had undergone frightful fatigues which would have been incredible if sustained by a younger man, and which would have been impossible to any other man than he. To add to his fatigue, he was ill. He could not sleep and the nature of his illness was such that it was agony for him to mount a horse. This condition had been aggravated by the awful exertion, physical and mental, he had made and the strain of that long afternoon of desperate fighting. Nor had he eaten anything the livelong day. Yet at about half after six that night he did get into the saddle again. Conquering his anguish, he rode down to the fifteen battalions of the Guard still held in reserve at La Belle Alliance, all that was left intact of that proud and gallant army.

"My children," he said hoarsely in last appeal, "I must sleep in Brussels to-night. There is the enemy. Go and break the English line for me."

Cambronne, to whom nature and education alike had denied every attribute of grace or greatness except unbounded devotion and stubborn courage, mustered the Guard. Ney, le terrible Rougeaud, the soldiers' idol, his torn uniform covered with dust, one of his epaulets slashed from his shoulder, his coat open, his shirt likewise, his bared breast black with powder, his face red-streaked with blood, for many bullets had grazed him, his hair matted with sweat—the weather had grown frightfully hot, the air was terribly humid—his eyes blazing, flecks of foam about his mouth, placed himself in the lead. Every staff officer left joined the great Marshal.

With the brass drums beating "La Grenadiere," that famous grenadier quick-step, the great Guard moved out. Here, again, in the excitement of the conflict, an opportunity was overlooked. They could have gone up in rear of La Haye Sainte with practically no danger, but they went straight out into the open, between farm and chateau. Up the road, over the fields of bloody grain, through the torn hedges, trampling over the bodies of their comrades, the last hope advanced to meet the enemy.

All over the field the tide of battle ebbed and flowed. The armies came together for the last try. Off to the right Lobau still held his appointed station, but now the Prussians in great masses were swarming on the field about Planchenoit. Division after division, avoiding Lobau meanwhile, mounted the ridge to join the English line. It had almost been broken by d'Erlon at La Haye Sainte. Mouffling, Wellington's Prussian aide, had galloped over to Ziethen in command of the advance with the news that unless the English were reinforced heavily at once their line would be pierced and they would be routed. On to the field opposite La Haye Sainte came the Prussians. Still raged the battle around Hougomont and the English right, but the eyes of every spectator not engaged in fighting for his life were concentrated on the advance of the Guard.

Napoleon had ridden down from Rossomme to La Belle Alliance. He sat his horse within easy cannon-shot of the English as the devoted Guard passed by in its last review. His physical pain was forgot in the great anxiety with which he watched them. The battle was practically lost. This was the last desperate throw of the gambler, the last stake he could place upon the board. He knew it, every officer knew it, perhaps even the more experienced grenadiers like old Bullet-Stopper of the Guard knew it. That did not matter to them. They were his men and at his word, for him, they were going forward to conquer or die.

Tramp, tramp, tramp, keeping time to the long continuous rolling of the drums whose notes were heard even above the roar of the cannon and the tumult of the battle, the Guard, from whose lips came one continuous cry of "Vive l'Empereur!" marched forward. Covered as usual by the fire of one of those great batteries of concentrated guns so conspicuous in Napoleonic tactics, through the smoke and the mist and the shadows of the evening, they passed on. Napoleon himself with three battalions in reserve followed a little distance behind them.

Now they were mounting the hill, now they were abreast of La Haye Sainte; now the ridge in front of them was topped with English. Away off could be heard the thunder of the oncoming Prussian horsemen, the roar of the Prussian guns. Back of the ridge the brigades of light cavalry stood ready. The infantry reserve with brave Colborne and the Fifty-second, thirteen hundred strong, in the lead, were quivering with excitement. Even the stolid British phlegm had vanished. This was the last supreme moment. Throbbed wildly the usually steady hearts of the cool islanders. If they could stop this grand advance the battle would be gained. The hill would be held. Could they do it? And if not——!

Out of the smoke and mist opposite the English soldiers of the Royal Guard came their Imperial enemies. The waiting British saw the black bearskins of the tall Guard, the imperial insignia on cross-belts and uniforms. They were so near that they could see the grim faces of the old soldiers, their mustaches working, their lips drawn back over their teeth, snarling, sputtering like savage beasts. Here and there mouths were tight shut in a firm line. Here and there men came silently, but mostly they were yelling. And they came up, arms aport, after the precept and example of Dorsenne, le beau Dorsenne, alas, no longer with them, to try conclusions for the last time with the soldiers' white weapon, the bayonet, cold steel! Would the English wait for that? They would not.

"Fire!" cried an English voice just when the suspense had become unbearable.

The heavens were shattered by the discharge. Ney pitched from his horse, the sixth that day to be shot under him. He was up in a moment, his sword out. He advanced on foot at the head of the Guard. It was his last charge. He was to face muskets again, but in Paris, in the hands of a firing-squad, with his back to the wall. He was not given the coveted privilege of dying on that stricken field, though he sought for it wildly everywhere, but when he did die it was as he had lived, undaunted. Now, his great voice uplifted, he led forward the devoted and immortal band. His sword was shot out of his hand. Seizing a gun and a bayonet from a falling grenadier, he fought in the ranks as in Russia.

Again, the tactics were faulty, as d'Erlon's men the Guard came in solid columns. Right in front of the rapid-firing English, the muskets and cannon in one continuous roar now, they sought to deploy and return that terrible withering fire. The Prussian infantry, panting like dogs, now gained the crest of the ridge and, animated by more than human hatred, fell into disorderly but determined lines and opened fire. Harsh German oaths and exclamations mingled with hearty English curses and cheers. The Guard was firing rapidly now, straight into the faces of the English. And still the columns came on. Like a great wave which rushes forward at first swiftly and then goes slower and slower and slower as it rolls up the beach it advanced. By and by it stopped. The end was at hand. With bent heads the men stood and took the hail of lead and iron.

"Come!" said Ney, frantic with battle fever. "Come! See how a Marshal of France can die."

Now was the crucial moment. The Iron Duke saw it. The two armies were face to face firing into each other. To which side would the victory incline? He spoke to Maitland, to Adams, to Colborne. That gallant soldier threw his men on the exposed flank of the column which had obliqued, bent to the right. Before they could face about out of the smoke came the yelling English! They found the men on the flank of the column the next morning just where it had stood lying in ordered ranks dead.

Still they did not give back. Vivian and Vandeleur, daring light horsemen, were now hurled on the devoted division. At it they ran. On it they fell. Still it stood. It was incredible. It was almost surrounded now. The attack had failed. To advance was impossible, to retreat was dishonor. They would stand! Their case was hopeless. Appeals were made for the survivors to lay down their arms and surrender. Into the faces of the assailants vulgar but heroic Cambronne hurled a disgusting but graphic word. No, nobody said so, but the Guard would not surrender. It would die.

Back of his Guard, the Emperor, having stopped not far from the chateau, watched them die. He was paler than ever, sweat poured from his face, his eyes and lips twitched nervously and spasms of physical pain added their torture to the mental agony of the moment. He muttered again and again:

"Mon Dieu! Mais ils sont meles ensemble."

Now the Prussian horsemen, the Death-head Hussars, added their weight to Vandeleur's and Vivian's swordsmen and lancers. Other regiments supplemented the withering fire of the advancing Fifty-second and the reserve brigades. Now, at last, the Guard began to give back. Slowly, reluctantly, clinging to their positions, fighting, firing, savage, mad—they began to give way.

"Tout est perdu," whispered Napoleon.

"The Guard retreats!" cried someone near the Emperor.

"La Garde recule!" rose here and there from the battlefield. "La Garde recule!" Men caught up the cry in wonder and despair. Could it be true? Yes. Back they came out of the smoke. Now was the supreme opportunity for the allies. The Duke, recklessly exposing himself on the crest of the hill, bullets flying about him, as they flew about Napoleon, yet leading apparently a charmed life, closed his field-glass and turned to the red line that had made good its defense.

"Up!" he cried, waving his hand and not finishing his sentence.

They needed no other signal. Their time to attack had come. Down the hill they rushed, yelling, followed by Belgians, Netherlanders, and all the rest, pressing hard upon their heels. La Haye Sainte was recaptured in the twinkling of an eye. The shattered broken remains of the Guard were driven in headlong rout. The assailers of Hougomont were themselves assaulted. At last numbers had overwhelmed Lobau. The survivors of an army of a hundred and thirty thousand flushed with victory fell on the survivors of an army of seventy thousand already defeated.

At half-past seven the battle was lost. At eight the withdrawal became a retreat, the retreat a rout. At set of sun lost was the Emperor, lost was the Empire. Ended was the age-long struggle which had begun with the fall of the Bastile more than a score of years before. Once again from France, with the downfall of Napoleon, had been snatched the hegemony of the world.

There was no reserve. There was nothing to cover a retreat. Someone raised the wild cry not often heard on battlefields overlooked by Napoleon, and it was echoed everywhere:

"Sauve qui peut."

The army as an army was gone. Thousands of men in mad terror fled in every direction. Still, there were left a few battalions of the Guard which had not been in action. They formed three squares to receive the English and Prussians. Into the nearest square Napoleon, bewildered, overwhelmed, stricken by the catastrophe, was led on his horse. His sword was out. He would fain have died on that field. Doubtless, many a bullet marked him, but none struck him. For a little while these squares of the Guard, Napoleon in the center one, another square on either side of the center one, stayed the British and Prussian advance, but it was not to be. "The stars in their courses fought against Sisera!" The Emperor gave no order. Bertrand and Soult turned his horse about and the squares retreated.

It was night. They were the sole organized body left. Well, they upheld their ancient fame and glorious reputation and untarnished honor. Through the calm and moonlit night pursuers and pursued could hear the rolling of the brass drums far and wide over the countryside as the Guard marched away from that field back to stricken France, to that famous grenadier march, "La Grenadiere."

Again and again they stopped to beat off the furious attack of the cavalry. Again and again the Prussian pursuers hurled themselves unavailingly on quadrangles of steel, worked up to a terrible pitch of excitement by the possibility that they might seize the Emperor at whose behest and for whose purpose fifty thousand men lay dead or wounded on that fatal hill, in that dreadful valley. Happy the fate of those who were dead—horrible the condition of those who were wounded. English, Prussians, Germans, Bavarians, Hollanders, French, trampled together in indistinguishable masses. Horses, guns, weapons, equipment—everything in hopeless confusion. Every horror, every anguish, every agony was there—incense burned about the altar of one devouring ambition.



CHAPTER XXXII

AT LAST THE EAGLE AND THE WOMAN

Nearest the crest of the hill immortalized by the great conflict, in advance of but in touch with the regular dead lines of the Guard, a little group, friend and foe, lay intermingled. There was a young officer of the Fifty-second infantry, one of Colborne's. He was conscious but suffering frightfully from mortal wounds. One side of his face where he had been thrown into the mud was covered with a red compound of earth and blood; his bright head was dabbled with the same hideous mixture. Blood frothed out of his mouth as he breathed. He murmured from time to time a woman's name. "Water," was sometimes the sputtering syllable that came from him.

His left hand clutched uneasily at his breast, where his torn uniform showed a gaping wound. But his right hand was still. The arm was broken, paralyzed, but the fingers of his right hand were tightly closed around a broken blue staff and next to his cheek, the blood-stained one, and cold against it, was a French Eagle. He had seized that staff in the heat of battle and in the article of death he held it.

At the feet of the English officer lay a French officer wearing the insignia of a Colonel of the Guard. He was covered with wounds, bayonet thrusts, a saber-slash, and was delirious. Although helpless, he was really in much better case than the young Englishman. He, too, in his delirium muttered a woman's name.

They spoke different tongues, these two. They were born in different lands. They were children of the same God, although one might have doubted it, but no one could mistake the woman's name. For there Frank Yeovil and Jean Marteau, incapable of doing each other any further harm, each thought of the same woman.

Did Laure d'Aumenier back in England waiting anxiously for news of battle, fearing for one of those men, hear those piteous, broken murmurs of a woman's name—her own?

Around these two were piled the dead. Marteau had seized the Eagle. Yes, he and a few brave men had stayed on the field when the great Ney, raging like a madman, and seeking in vain the happy fortune of a bullet or sword-thrust, had been swept away, and on him had fallen Yeovil with another group of resolute English, and together they had fought their little battle for the Eagle. And Marteau had proved the Englishman's master. He had beaten him down. He had shortened his sword to strike when he recognized him. Well, the battle was over, the Eagle was lost, the Emperor was a fugitive, hope died with the retreating Guard, the Empire was ended. Marteau might have killed him, but to what end?

"For your wife's sake," he cried, lowering his sword, and the next minute he paid for his mercy, for the other English threw themselves upon him.

But Frank Yeovil did not get off scot free. There was one lad who had followed Marteau, who had marched with the Guard, who had no compunctions of conscience whatever, and with his last pistol Pierre gave the reeling Englishman the fatal shot. Yes, Pierre paid too. They would certainly have spared him, since he was only a boy, but maddened by the death of their officer, half a dozen bayonets were plunged into his breast.

Thither the next day came Sir Gervaise Yeovil, who had been with the Duke at the Duchess of Richmond's famous ball in Brussels. Young Frank had left that ball at four o'clock in the morning, according to order, only to find that later orders had directed the army to march at two and that his baggage had gone. He had fought that day in pumps and silk stockings which he had worn at the ball; dabbled, gory, muddy, they were now.

Sir Gervaise Yeovil was an old friend of the Duke of Wellington. The Iron Duke, as they called him, was nevertheless very tender-hearted that morning. He told the Baronet that his son was somewhere on the field. Colonel Colborne of the Fifty-second had marked him in the charge, but that was all. Neither Vivian nor Vandeleur could throw any light on the situation. There were twenty thousand of the allied armies on that field and thirty thousand French.

"My God," said Sir Gervaise, staring along the line of the French retreat, "what is so terrible as a defeat?"

"Nothing," said the Duke gravely. Then looking at the nearer hillside he added those tremendous words which epitomized war in a way in which no one save a great modern captain has ever epitomized it. "Nothing," he said slowly, "unless it be a victory."

They found the Guard. That was easy. There they lay in lines where they had fallen; the tall bearskins on their heads, the muskets still clasped in their hands. There, too, they found young Yeovil at last. They revived him. Someone sought to take the Eagle from him, but with a sudden accession of strength he protested against it.

"Father," he whispered to the old man bending over him, his red face pale and working, "mine."

"True," said the Duke. "He captured it. Let him keep it."

"O God!" broke out the Baronet. "Frank! Can nothing be done?"

"Nothing. Stop." His lips moved, his father bent nearer. "Laure——" he whispered.