The Downfall. Emile Zola

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СКАЧАТЬ the marshal to go and encamp at Nonart; the 5th was to take the direction of Beauclair, where it would be the right wing of the army, while the 1st was to move up to Chene and relieve the 12th, then on the march to la Besace on the extreme left. And the reason why more than thirty thousand men had been kept waiting there at ordered arms, for nearly three hours in the midst of a blinding storm, was that General Douay, in the deplorable confusion incident on this new change of front, was alarmed for the safety of the train that had been sent forward the day before toward Chagny; the delay was necessary to give the several divisions time to close up. In the confusion of all these conflicting movements it was said that the 12th corps train had blocked the road at Chene, thus cutting off that of the 7th. On the other hand, an important part of the materiel, all the forges of the artillery, had mistaken their road and strayed off in the direction of Terron; they were now trying to find their way back by the Vouziers road, where they were certain to fall into the hands of the Germans. Never was there such utter confusion, never was anxiety so intense.

      A feeling of bitterest discouragement took possession of the troops. Many of them in their despair would have preferred to seat themselves on their knapsacks, in the midst of that sodden, wind-swept plain, and wait for death to come to them. They reviled their leaders and loaded them with insult: ah! famous leaders, they; brainless boobies, undoing at night what they had done in the morning, idling and loafing when there was no enemy in sight, and taking to their heels as soon as he showed his face! Each minute added to the demoralization that was already rife, making of that army a rabble, without faith or hope, without discipline, a herd that their chiefs were conducting to the shambles by ways of which they themselves were ignorant. Down in the direction of Vouziers the sound of musketry was heard; shots were being exchanged between the rear-guard of the 7th corps and the German skirmishers; and now every eye was turned upon the valley of the Aisne, where volumes of dense black smoke were whirling upward toward the sky from which the clouds had suddenly been swept away; they all knew it was the village of Falaise burning, fired by the uhlans. Every man felt his blood boil in his veins; so the Prussians were there at last; they had sat and waited two days for them to come up, and then had turned and fled. The most ignorant among the men had felt their cheeks tingle for very shame as, in their dull way, they recognized the idiocy that had prompted that enormous blunder, that imbecile delay, that trap into which they had walked blindfolded; the light cavalry of the IVth army feinting in front of Bordas' brigade and halting and neutralizing, one by one, the several corps of the army of Chalons, solely to give the Crown Prince time to hasten up with the IIId army. And now, thanks to the marshal's complete and astounding ignorance as to the identity of the troops he had before him, the junction was accomplished, and the 5th and 7th corps were to be roughly handled, with the constant menace of disaster overshadowing them.

      Maurice's eyes were bent on the horizon, where it was reddened with the flames of burning Falaise. They had one consolation, however: the train that had been believed to be lost came crawling along out of the Chene road. Without delay the 2d division put itself in motion and struck out across the forest for Boult-aux-Bois; the 3d took post on the heights of Belleville to the left in order to keep an eye to the communications, while the 1st remained at Quatre-Champs to wait for the coming up of the train and guard its countless wagons. Just then the rain began to come down again with increased violence, and as the 106th moved off the plateau, resuming the march that should have never been, toward the Meuse, toward the unknown, Maurice thought he beheld again his vision of the night: the shadow of the Emperor, incessantly appearing and vanishing, so sad, so pitiful a sight, on the white curtain of good old Madame Desvallieres. Ah! that doomed army, that army of despair, that was being driven forward to inevitable destruction for the salvation of a dynasty! March, march, onward ever, with no look behind, through mud, through rain, to the bitter end!

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