The Downfall (La Débâcle). Emile Zola
intelligence was arriving respecting the approach of the German armies. Was it possible that the Crown Prince of Prussia could be at Châlons? In that case, to what army belonged the Uhlans with whom the Hussars of the Seventh Corps had come in conflict in the defiles of the Argonne?[23]
'They know nothing at head quarters,' continued the chemist, waving his arms in a despairing way. 'Ah! what a fearful muddle! Still, everything will be all right if the army retreats to-morrow.' Then, kind-hearted man that he was at bottom, he resumed: 'Listen to me, my young friend. I will dress your foot: you shall dine with us and sleep upstairs in my assistant's little room, since he's bolted.'
Tormented, however, by a desire to see and learn, Maurice determined that first of all he would follow out his original idea by paying old Madame Desroches a visit. He was surprised that he was not stopped at the door of the house, which, amid all the tumult on the Place, remained wide open without even a sentry to guard it. Various people, officers and servants, were continually going in and coming out, and it seemed as though the commotion prevailing in the kitchen had extended to the entire premises. However, there was no light on the stairs up which Maurice had to grope his way. With beating heart, he paused for a few seconds on the first landing, in front of the door of the room which he knew to be occupied by the Emperor, but not a sound came from this room, a death-like silence prevailed there. And up above, when he reached the threshold of the servant's chamber where Madame Desroches had been compelled to take refuge, the poor old lady was at first quite frightened at sight of him. Having recognised him, however, she exclaimed: 'Ah! my child, in what a dreadful moment do we meet! I would willingly have given the Emperor my house, but he has such frightfully ill-bred people with him! If you only knew how they have laid hands on everything, and they certainly must mean to burn all the fuel, for they are keeping up such monstrous fires! The poor man is as pale as though he had just stepped out of the grave, and he looks so sad.' Then, as the young fellow went off, after trying to tranquillise her, she crossed the landing and leant over the banisters. 'There!' she muttered, 'you can see him from here—Ah! we are certainly all lost! Farewell, my child!'
Maurice had remained standing on the stairs in the darkness. On craning his neck forward he beheld, through a fan-light, so remarkable a scene that it dwelt for ever afterwards in his memory. At one end of the cold, plainly furnished room, the Emperor sat at a small table, laid for dinner and lighted on either side by a candle. In the background were two silent aides-de-camp, whilst a maître d'hôtel stood beside the table, waiting. The glass had not been used, the bread had not been touched, some fowl's breast lying on the plate was getting cold. The Emperor sat there stock-still, looking at the table-cloth with those dim, wavering, watery eyes that Maurice had already noticed at Rheims. But he seemed to be even more weary now, and when, apparently with a great effort, he had made up his mind and had carried a couple of mouthfuls to his lips, he pushed all the rest aside. He had dined. An expression of intense suffering, endured in secret, made his pale face look even whiter than before.
Downstairs, the door of the dining-room was opened just as Maurice passed out, and, amid the flare of the candles and the smoke of the dishes, he perceived a tableful of equerries, aides-de-camp, and chamberlains, who were emptying the bottles from the vans, devouring the fowls, and polishing off the sauces between loud bursts of conversation. Since the marshal's despatch had gone off, the conviction that they were about to retreat had been filling all these folks with delight. In another week or so they would be in Paris, and have clean beds again.
Then Maurice suddenly realised how terribly he was overcome with fatigue. It was, indeed, certain—the whole army was about to retreat, and that being so, there was nothing for him to do but to sleep pending the arrival of the Seventh Corps. He crossed the Place again, and once more found himself at the chemist's, where he dined as though in a dream. Then it certainly seemed to him that his foot was dressed and that he was carried into a room upstairs. Black night, annihilation followed. He slept on, overwhelmed, and scarcely breathing. After an uncertain lapse of time, however—hours or centuries, he could not tell—a shudder disturbed his slumbers, and he sat up in bed in the profound darkness. Where was he? What was that continuous roar of thunder that had awakened him? All at once his memory returned, and he hastened to the window to look out. In the obscurity down below a regiment of artillery was crossing the Place, usually so quiet at night time; the men, horses, and guns following each other in endless succession, at a trot which made the little lifeless houses fairly shake. Unreasoning disquietude took possession of Maurice as he beheld this sudden departure. What time could it be? The town-hall clock struck four. He was endeavouring to tranquillise himself, reflecting that the scene he witnessed must simply be the outcome of the orders issued the previous afternoon, when on turning his head he perceived something which gave the finishing stroke to his anguish. The corner first-floor window at the notary's house was still lighted up, and at regular intervals the dark shadow of the Emperor was profiled upon the curtains.
Maurice quickly slipped on his trousers, intending to go downstairs, but at this moment Combette appeared on the threshold carrying a candlestick and gesticulating. 'I saw you from below just as I came back from the town-hall,' he said, 'and I came up to tell you the news. Just fancy! they haven't let me go to bed! For two hours past the mayor and I have had to attend to fresh requisitions. Yes, once again everything is altered. Ah! that officer who didn't want any telegram to be sent to Paris was in the right!'
He continued talking for a long time in imperfect, disjointed phrases; and Maurice, who remained silent, with anguish in his heart, ended by understanding him. At about midnight a telegram for the Emperor had arrived from the Minister of War, in reply to that sent to Paris by the marshal. The exact wording of the despatch was not known; but an aide-de-camp had openly declared at the town-hall that the Empress and the Ministerial Council feared there would be a revolution in Paris if the Emperor abandoned Bazaine and returned there. Those who had drawn up the despatch, inaccurately informed as to the true positions of the German forces, seemed to believe that the army of Châlons had an advance upon the enemy which it no longer possessed, and with an extraordinary burst of passion insisted, despite everything, on a forward march.
'The Emperor sent for the marshal,' added the chemist, 'and they remained shut up together during nearly an hour. Of course, I don't know what they said to each other, but all the officers have repeated to me that we are no longer retreating, and that the march on the Meuse is resumed. We have just requisitioned all the ovens in the town for the First Corps, which to-morrow morning will arrive here in place of the Twelfth, whose artillery, as you can see for yourself, is at this moment starting for La Besace. This time it's settled; you are marching to battle.' He paused. He also was looking at the lighted window at the notary's. Then, with a thoughtful, inquisitive air, he resumed in an undertone: 'Yes; what can they have said to one another? It's comical all the same. A man's threatened with danger, and, in order to avoid it, he decides at six o'clock that he will retreat; then, at midnight, he rushes head first into that very danger, although the situation remains identical.'
Maurice was still listening to the guns as they rolled along through the little black town down below, to the horses trotting past without cessation, to the men flowing away towards the Meuse, towards the terrible Unknown of the morrow. And, meantime, on the little window curtains he still saw the Emperor's shadow pass by at regular intervals; the shadow of that invalid, kept on his legs by insomnia, pacing to and fro, feeling that he must needs continue on the move despite all his sufferings, and with his ears full of the noise made by all those horses and soldiers whom he was sending to death. So a few hours had sufficed, and now the disaster was decided upon, accepted! What, indeed, could they have said to each other, that Emperor and that marshal, both of whom were aware of the calamity to which they were marching, who in the evening had been convinced of defeat—given the frightful situation in which the army would henceforth find itself—and who could not have changed their opinion in the morning since the peril was increasing hour by hour? General de Palikao's plan, the lightning march on Montmédy, already a hazardous venture on August 22, still susceptible, possibly, of accomplishment on the 25th, with veterans and a captain of genius, became on the 27th an act of sheer madness in presence of the continual hesitation of the commanders and the increasing demoralisation of the troops. If both Emperor and marshal knew this, why did they yield to the pitiless voices that goaded them on in their indecision? The marshal, perhaps, had