Chapter 79
"Spare me your casuistry, sir," replied he, with an insolent wave of his hand, while he sank into a chair, and laid his head upon the table.
For an instant my temper, provoked beyond endurance, was about to give way, when I perceived that a handkerchief was bound tightly around his leg above the knee, where a great stain of blood marked his trouser. The thought of his being wounded banished every particle of resentment, and laying my hand on his shoulder, I said,--
"De Beauvais, I know not one but yourself to whom I would three times say, forgive me. But we were friends once, when we were both happier.
For the sake of him who is no more,--poor Charles de Meudon--"
"A traitor, sir,--a base traitor to the king of his fathers!"
"This I will not endure!" said I, pa.s.sionately. "No one shall dare--"
"Dare!"
"Ay, dare, sir!--such was the word. To asperse the memory of one like him is to dare that which no man can, with truth and honor."
"Come, sir, I'm ready," said Be Beauvais, rising, and pointing to the door, "Sortons!"
No one who has not heard that one word p.r.o.nounced by the lips of a Frenchman can conceive how much of savage enmity and deadly purpose it implies. It is the challenge which, if unaccepted, stamps cowardice forever on the man who declines it: from that hour all equality ceases between those whom a combat had placed on the same footing.
"Sortons!" The word rang in my ears, and tingled through my very heart, while a host of different impulses swayed me,--shame, sorrow, wounded pride, all struggling for the mastery: but above them all, a better and a higher spirit,--the firm resolve, come what would, to suffer no provocation De Beauvais could offer, to make me stand opposite to him as an enemy.
"What am I to think, sir?" said he, with a voice scarcely articulate from pa.s.sion,--"what am I to think of your hesitation? or why do you stand inactive here? Is it that you are meditating what new insult can be added to those you have heaped on me?"
"No, sir," I replied, firmly; "so far from thinking of offence, I am but too sorry for the words I have already spoken. I should have remembered, and remembering, should have made allowance for, the strength of partisan feelings, which have their origin in a n.o.ble, but, as I believe, a mistaken source."
"Indeed!" interrupted he, in mockery. "Is it, then, come to this? Am I, a Frenchman born, to be lectured on my loyalty and allegiance by a foreign mercenary?"
"Not even that taunt, De Beauvais, shall avail you anything. I am firm in my resolve."
"_Pardieu!_ then," cried he, with savage energy, "there remains but this!"
As he spoke, he leaped from his chair, and sprang towards me. In so doing, however, his knee struck the table, and with a groan of agony, he reeled back and fell on the floor, while from his reopened wound a torrent of blood gushed out and deluged the room.
For a second or two he motioned me away with his hand; but as his weakness increased, he lay pa.s.sive and unresisting, and suffered me to arrest the bleeding by such means as I was able to practise.
It was a long time ere I could stanch the gaping orifice, which had been inflicted by a sabre, and cut clean through the high boot and deep into the thigh. Fortunately for his recovery, he had himself succeeded in getting off the boot before, and the wound lay open to my surgical skill. Lifting him cautiously in my arms, I laid him on the bed, and moistened his lips with a little wine. Still the debility continued,--no signs of returning strength were there; but his features, pale and fallen, were glazed with a cold sweat that hung in heavy drops upon his brow and forehead.
Never was agony like mine. I saw his life was ebbing fast; the respiration was growing fainter
In an instant all his angry speeches and his insulting gestures were forgotten. He looked so like what I once knew him, that my mind was wandering back again to former scenes and times, and all resentment was lost in the flood of memory. Poor fellow! what a sad destiny was his!
fighting against the arms of his country,--a mourner over the triumphs of his native land! Alien that I was, this pang at least was spared me.
As these thoughts crossed my mind, I felt him press my hand. Overjoyed, I knelt down and whispered some words in his ear.
"No, no," muttered he, in a low, plaintive tone; "not all lost,--not all! La Vendee yet remains!" He was dreaming.
CHAPTER VII. THE ARMISTICE.
As I sat thus watching with steadfast gaze the features of the sleeping man, I heard the clattering of a horse's hoofs on the pavement beneath, and the next moment the heavy step of some one ascending the stairs.
Suddenly the door was flung wide open, and an officer in the handsome uniform of the Austrian Imperial Guard entered.
"Excuse this scant ceremony, Monsieur," said he, bowing with much courtesy, "but I almost despaired of finding you out. I come from Holitsch with despatches for your Emperor; they are most pressing, as I believe this note will inform you."
While I threw my eye over the few lines addressed by General Savary to the officer in waiting at Holitsch, and commanding the utmost speed in forwarding the despatch that accompanied them, the officer drew near the bed where De Beauvais was lying.
"_Mere de ciel_, it is the count!" cried he, starting back with astonishment.
"Yes," said I, interrupting him; "I found him here on my arrival. He is badly wounded, and should be removed at once. How can this be done?"
"Easily. I 'll despatch my orderly at once to Holitsch, and remain here till he return."
"But if our troops advance?"
"No, no! we're all safe on that score; the armistice is signed. The very despatch in your hands, I believe, concludes the treaty."
This warned me that I was delaying too long the important duty intrusted to me, and with a hurried entreaty to the Austrian not to leave De Beauvais, I hastened down the stairs, and proceeded to saddle for the road.
"One word, Monsieur," said the officer, as I was in the act of mounting.
"May I ask the name of him to whom my brother officers owe the life of a comrade much beloved?"
"My name is Burke; and yours, Monsieur?"
"Berghausen, _chef d'escadron_ of the Imperial Guard. If ever you should come to Vienna--" But I lost the words that followed, as, spurring my horse to a gallop, I set out towards the headquarters of the Emperor.
As I rode forward, my eyes were ever anxiously bent in the direction of our camp, not knowing at what moment I might see the advance of a column along the road, and dreading lest, before the despatches should reach the Emperor's house, the advanced vedettes should capture the little party at Holitsch. At no period of his career was Napoleon more incensed against the adherents of the Bourbons; and if De Beauvais should fall into his hands, I was well aware that nothing could save him. The Emperor always connected in his mind--and with good reason, too--the machinations of the Royalists with the plans of the English Government.
He knew that the land which afforded the asylum to their king was the refuge of the others also; and many of the heaviest denunciations against the "perfide Albion" had no other source than the dread, of which he could never divest himself, that the legitimate monarch would one day be restored to France.
While such were Napoleon's feelings, the death of the Duc d'Enghien had heightened the hatred of the Bourbonists to a pitch little short of madness. My own unhappy experience made me more than ever fearful of being in any way implicated with the members of this party, and I rode on as though life itself depended on my reaching the imperial headquarters some few minutes earlier.
As I approached the camp, I was overjoyed to find that no movement was in contemplation. The men were engaged in cleaning their arms and accoutrements, restoring the broken wagons and gun-carriages, and repairing, as far as might be, the disorders of the day of battle. The officers stood in groups here and there, chatting at their ease; while the only men under arms were the new conscript? just arrived from France,--a force of some thousands,--brought by forced marches from the banks of the Rhine.
The crowd of officers near the headquarters of the Emperor pressed closely about me as I descended from my horse, eager to learn what information I brought from Holitsch; for they were not aware that I had been stationed nearly half-way on the road.
"Well, Burke," said General d'Auvergne, as he drew his arm within mine, "your coming has been anxiously looked for this morning. I trust the despatches you carry may, if not Contradict, at least explain what has occurred."
"Is this the officer from Holitsch?" said the aide-decamp of the Emperor, coming hurriedly forward. "The despatch, sir!" cried he; and the next moment hastened to the little hut which Napoleon occupied as his bivouac.
The only other person in the open s.p.a.ce where I stood was an officer of the lancers, whose splashed and travel-stained dress seemed to say he had been employed like myself.
"I fancy, Monsieur," said he, bowing, "that you have had a sharp ride also this morning. I have just arrived from G.o.ding--four leagues--in less than an hour; and with all that, too late, I believe, to remedy what has occurred."
"What, then, has happened?"
"Davoust has been tricked into an armistice, and suffered the Russians to pa.s.s the bridge. The Emperor Alexander has taken advantage of the negotiations with Austria, and got his army clear through; so, at least, it would seem. I saw Napoleon tear the despatch into fragments, and stamp his foot upon them. But here he comes."
The words were scarcely spoken when the Emperor came rapidly up, followed by his staff. He wore a gray surtout, trimmed with dark fur, and had his hands clasped within the cuffs of the coat. His face was pale as death, and save a slight contraction of his brows, there was nothing to show any appearance of displeasure.
"Who brought the despatch from G.o.ding?"