Tom Burke Of "Ours", Volume II. Lever Charles James

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СКАЧАТЬ staff of General d’Auvergne, and – ”

      “A French officer, sir,” interrupted he; “quite enough. I ask for no other guerdon of your honor. Sit down here, then, and – But first try if you can discover a pocket-book in my sabretache; I hope it has not been lost.”

      “Here it is, General,” said a soldier, coming forward with it; “I found it on the ground beside you.”

      “Well, then, I will ask you to write down from my dictation a few lines, which, should this affair,” – he faltered slightly here, – “this affair prove unfortunate, you will undertake to convey, by some means or other, to the address I shall give you in Paris. It is not a will, I assure you,” continued he with a faint smile. “I have no wealth to leave; but I know his Majesty too well to fear anything on that score. But my children, I wish to give some few directions – ” Here he stopped for several minutes, and then, in a calm voice, added, “Whenever you are ready.”

      It was with a suffering spirit and a faltering hand I wrote down, from his dictation, some short sentences addressed to each member of his family. Of these it is not my intention to speak, save in one instance, where St. Hilaire himself evinced a wish that his sentiments should not be a matter of secrecy.

      “I desire,” said he, in a firm tone of voice, as he turned round and addressed the soldiers on either side of him, – “I desire that my son, now at the Polytechnique, should serve the Emperor better than, and as faithfully as, his father has done, if his Majesty will graciously permit him to do so, in the grenadier battalion, which I have long commanded; it will be the greatest favor I can ask of him.” A low murmur of grief, no longer repressible, ran through the little group around the litter. “The grenadiers of the Sixth,” continued he, proudly, while for an instant his pale features flushed up, “will not love him the less for the name he bears. Come, come, men! do not give way thus; what will my kind young friend here say of us, when he joins the hussar brigade? This is not their ordinary mood, believe me,” said he, addressing me. “The Russian Guard would give a very different account of them; they are stouter fellows at the pas dé charge than around the litter of a wounded comrade.”

      While he was yet speaking, Louis returned, followed by two officers, one of whom, notwithstanding his efforts at concealment, I recognized to be Marshal Murat.

      “We must remove him, if it be possible,” said the surgeon, in a whisper. “And yet the slightest motion is to be dreaded.”

      “May I speak to him?” said Murat, in a low voice.

      “Yes, that you may,” replied Louis, who now pushed his way forward and approached the litter.

      “Ah, so soon!” said the wounded man, looking up; “a man of your word, Louis. And how is Rapp? Nothing in this fashion, I hope,” added he, pointing to his fractured limb with a sickly smile.

      “No, no,” replied the surgeon. “But here is Marshal Murat come to inquire after you, from the Emperor.”

      A flush of pride lit up St. Hilaire’s features as he heard this, and he asked eagerly, “Where, where?”

      “We must remove you, St. Hilaire,” said Murat, endeavoring to speak calmly, when it was evident his feelings were highly excited; “Louis says you must not remain here.”

      “As you like, Marshal. What says his Majesty? Is the affair as decisive as he looked for?”

      “Far more so. The allied army is destroyed; the campaign is ended.”

      “Come, then, this is not so bad as I deemed it,” rejoined St. Hilaire, with a tone of almost gayety; “I can afford to be invalided if the Emperor has no further occasion for me.”

      While these few words were interchanging, Louis had applied a tourniquet around the wounded limb, and having given the soldiers directions how they were to step, so as not to disturb or displace the shattered bones, he took his place beside the litter, and said, —

      “We are ready now, General.”

      They lifted the litter as he spoke, and moved slowly forward. Murat pressed the hand St. Hilaire extended to him without a word; and then, turning his head away, suffered the party to pass on.

      Before we reached Beygern, the wounded general had fallen into a heavy sleep, from which he did not awake as they laid him on the bed in the hospital.

      “Good-night, sir, – or rather, good-morning,” said Louis to me, as I turned to leave the spot. “We may chance to have better news for you than we anticipated, when you visit us here again.”

      And so we parted.

      CHAPTER V. A MAÎTRE D’ARMES

      The day after the battle of Austerlitz the Prince of Lichtenstein arrived in our camp, with, as it was rumored, proposals for a peace. The negotiations, whatever they were, were strictly secret, not even the marshals themselves being admitted to Napoleon’s confidence on this occasion. Soon after mid-day, a great body of the Guard who had been in reserve the previous day were drawn up in order of battle, presenting an array of several thousand men, whose dress, look, and equipment, fresh as if on parade before the Tuileries, could not fail to strike the Austrian envoy with amazement. Everything that could indicate the appearance of suffering, or even fatigue, among the troops, was sedulously kept out of view. Such of the cavalry regiments as suffered least in the battle were under arms; while the generals of division received orders to have their respective staffs fully equipped and mounted, as if on a day of review.

      It was late in the afternoon when the word was passed along the lines to stand to arms; and the moment after a calèche, drawn by six horses, passed in full gallop, and took the road towards Austerlitz. The return of the Austrian envoy set a thousand conjectures in motion, and all were eager to find out what had been the result of his mission.

      “We must soon learn it all,” said an old colonel of artillery near me. “If the game be war, we shall be called up to assist Davoust’s movement on Göding. The Russians have but one line of retreat, and that is already in our possession.”

      “I cannot for the life of me understand the Emperor’s inaction,” said a younger officer; “here we remain just as if nothing had been done. One would suppose that a Russian army stood in full force before us, and that we had not gained a tremendous battle.”

      “Depend on it, Auguste,” said the old officer, smiling, “his Majesty is not the man to let slip his golden opportunities. If we don’t advance, it is because it is safer to remain where we are.”

      “Safer than pursue a flying enemy?”

      “Even so. It is not Russia, nor Austria, we have in the field against us; but Europe, – the world.”

      “With all my heart,” retorted the other, boldly; “nor do I think the odds unfair. All I would ask is, the General Bonaparte of Cairo or Marengo, and not the purple-clad Emperor of the Tuileries.”

      “It is not while the plain is yet reeking with the blood of Austerlitz that such a reproach should be spoken,” said I, indignantly. “Never was Bonaparte greater than Napoleon.”

      “Monsieur has served in Egypt?” said the young man, contemptuously, while he measured me from head to foot.

      “Would that I had! Would that I could give whatever years I may have before me, for those whose every day shall live in history!”

      “You are СКАЧАТЬ