Four Days in June. Iain Gale

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СКАЧАТЬ however, it was too late to move. Past nine o’clock. Desnouettes was right. The morning would do. The Nassauers would have run off with news of their encounter and Wellington would surely be hurrying to consolidate around Brussels. What to do? He thought of his mentor, Baron Jomini, France’s master tactical theoretician. Tried to imagine what he would do in such a situation.

      Ney decided to pull back the infantry to Frasnes. He had heard firing from the direction of Gilly. That surely must be Napoleon engaging the Prussians? It was more imperative than ever now that his own force should remain secure. Besides, if his staff were to be believed, his men were dropping with fatigue. They had been on the march since three that morning. He considered his position. Napoleon and the right wing were on his flank, engaging the Prussians. His own command was strung out across more than fifteen kilometres, between Marchienne and Frasnes. The heavy cavalry under Exelmans was near Campinaire, and some distance behind them came the rest of the army. Yes. It was time to rest.

      ‘Dinner, sir?’ It was Heymes, at last, arrived from Charleroi.

      ‘Of course. Dinner. Where?’

      ‘A house, not a hundred metres away. In the Rue St Roch. The only place still occupied – with food and a fire. We could walk there.’

      ‘Fine.’

      The little house looked out of place amidst the debris and chaos of war. A fairy-tale house – smoke at the chimney and flowers around the door, which was open. Ney entered and found inside a family, neatly turned-out and drawn up, almost as if for inspection. He felt faintly embarrassed. Smiled. Heymes spoke.

      ‘His name is Dumont, sir. He’s a clerk in the town. His wife. Their children.’

      The couple looked terrified. The children less so. Four boys, thought Ney. A curious coincidence. He looked for a moment. The woman was pretty in a charming, petit-bourgeois way. Not like his own Aglaé. Her husband looked sound, if somewhat round shouldered, with an air of indignant confidence. He was no soldier, though.

      The boys were roughly the same ages as his own. Good-looking too. He compared them – Napoleon, twelve, Louis, eleven, Eugene, now seven, and young Henri, just three. He thought of them all at Coudreaux, where even now Aglaé was perhaps helping their cook with the supper. The vision led him into foolish thoughts of their life together and everything with which they had been blessed over the last thirteen years.

      They had met through the Empress Josephine, who, much taken with Ney, had begun to matchmake immediately for her young friend, pretty Aglaé Auguié, whose father had been one of Louis XVI’s finance ministers, and whose mother, in that vanished other-world, was lady in waiting to Marie-Antoinette. As a child she had survived the Terror and her mother’s suicide, precipitated by the execution of the Queen. Ney loved her for it. For her bravery. But more than this he loved her for her beauty – physical and spiritual. He touched his breast pocket, felt inside the shape of the miniature of her portrait by Gerard – the companion to his own.

      He thought of their Paris house at the height of the Empire. Of his apartments overlooking the Seine. Of rooms crammed with mirrors, Aubusson tapestries and crystal chandeliers. Of the paintings – he had a particular taste for seventeenth-century Flemish art. Of his library, with its volumes of Racine, Rousseau and above all military theorists. Of their lavish candlelit receptions, thronged with painters, musicians, writers – Gros, David, Girodet, Gerard, Spontini, Gretry, Stendhal, Madame de Stäel.

      He found that he had been gazing blankly at a crucifix on the wall and turned again towards Dumont’s four boys. Wondered when again he might give his two youngest piggybacks around their farmyard. Thought of their future together. All the pleasures that lay in store. Of taking them fishing; hunting wild boar; helping with the harvest. Then, becoming suddenly and unpleasantly aware of his own mortality, of the possibility of there being no future, he cast the vision from his mind. Smiled. Waved his hand towards the uncertain Belgian children.

      ‘Please, please. Do not be afraid. Thank you for your hospitality. Please just behave as you would normally. Pretend we are not here. Ignore us.’

      Absurd, of course.

      Food arrived. Bread, cheese, bacon, wine, brought in by the lady of the house. The srvants had fled. Ney gave her a smile. 0Rollin entered.

      ‘The Nassauers, sir. We believe them to be part of Wellington’s 2nd Division; Perponcher’s men. The Prince of Saxe-Weimar’s brigade. They might be part of a force as strong as 8,000. But I have to say that we believe it probable that they have now rejoined the main army.’

      ‘My thoughts exactly. Thank you. Join us?’

      Local wine. Thin and lacking substance. What he would give for a good glass of Calvados. Noticing a flute hanging on the wall, he turned to his nervous host.

      ‘You play?’

      ‘A little, sir. When I have the time.’

      ‘I too. When I have the time.’

      He laughed and thought again of home. Of Aglaé at the piano and of himself struggling with the flute. He thought of her sweet voice. Her taste for Italian arias. Don Giovanni. That divine duet – ‘La ciderem lamano’. He began to hum the melody.

      Dumont’s house, he thought, was the epitome of petit-bourgeois – safe, dependable. And now, as Ney relaxed into a reverie, it took him back further to another, similar household, many years before. To a cosy parlour in the Saar where a father, a barrel-cooper by trade, would speak in German and French of the virtues of France, the glory of battle. How he had been proud to fight for King Louis against the Prussians. An image came to him of a small boy, ruddy-faced and with bright blue eyes, who, having listened spellbound to tales of war, had pursued his dreams of glory into the Song of Roland, the tales of Charlemagne, his knights, another empire. An image of a hot-headed boy of eighteen who had gone against his father’s wishes and joined the army. The army of France in whose ranks his German accent had quickly disappeared and in whose service, in the uniform of a hussar, a quarter of a century ago, he had first ridden to glory. So long ago.

      Mozart’s aria was going around and around in his head. So too was an unpleasant thought which had come to him as he ate. Why should the Nassauers have rejoined the main force? What if they were still there at the crossroads? What if the cavalry reports were muddled? It happened. Might they not mean that the enemy had left not Quatre-Bras – which he saw now was the key to the road, and the flank – but merely Frasnes? Looking out of the open window Ney saw that, although night had fallen, the street was still well illuminated by the cold light of a full moon. He stood up.

      ‘Heymes, my horse. We will ride to Quatre-Bras. I cannot rest until I see for myself our precise position.’

      ‘Sir, it’s dark. Surely?’

      ‘The moon will suffice. Monsieur Dumont, thank you for your hospitality. I believe that a bed has been arranged for me here? You are very kind. Madame.’ Giving a quick bow he left the house.

      Outside, with Heymes and the two aides, Ney mounted his waiting horse. With a small escort, found grudgingly by a half-troop of the First Chasseurs, they rode in silence the few kilometres to the crossroads. At Frasnes Ney caught the familiar stench of a recent battle – putrefaction and powder-smoke. Trotting along the street they passed occasional groups of Garde cavalry – chasseurs and lancers – some snatching what sleep they could, others eating, drinking, talking. The marshal and his party went unremarked.

      It СКАЧАТЬ