It was noon and the victory was complete. The conquered Prussians abandoned the battlefield covered with dead and wounded, twenty-four ammunition wagons, and eighteen cannon. The cannon were dragged before the two generals, and their captors were paid for them at the price set upon them at the beginning of the conflict—six hundred francs apiece.
The battalion of the Indre had taken two. The soldiers were exhausted, first from their night's march, and then from the three long hours of fighting. The generals decided that while one battalion took possession of Froeschwiller, the others should halt and breakfast upon the battlefield.
The trumpets sounded and the drums beat a halt. Arms were stacked. The French relighted the Prussian fires, some of which were not wholly extinguished. When they left Dawendorff they had all received their full rations, and as they had in addition their back pay for five months, each one had added a sausage, a roast fowl, a smoked tongue or a leg of ham to the regular fare. All had full canteens.
If one chanced to be less well provisioned, and had only[Pg 197] dry bread, he opened a dead comrade's knapsack and found all he wanted.
In the meantime the surgeons were going over the field; those who could stand the transportation were sent to Froeschwiller to await attention there, the others were looked after at once. The generals established themselves in the redoubts previously occupied by General Hodge half way up the hill. The Goddess of Reason, now the citizeness Faraud, in her quality of first canteen-bearer of the Army of the Rhine, and having no rival in the Army of the Moselle, had assumed charge of the generals' repast. A few chairs, knives and forks and glasses were discovered; they had hoped to find all other necessaries in the general's wagon, but a stray ball had shattered the caisson and all that it contained. The table was set with all the necessary dishes, but all kinds of food and drink were conspicuous by their absence.
Pichegru was about to ask tithes of his soldiers, when a voice, which seemed to come from the bowels of the earth, cried: "Victory! Victory!"
It was Faraud, who had discovered a trap-door, a staircase, and a cellar containing a well-furnished pantry.
Ten minutes later the generals and their staff were dining at the same table. No words could describe these fraternal love-feasts, where soldiers, officers and generals broke the bread of the bivouac together. These men who were to conquer the world, and had started at the Bastile as C?sar's soldiers had started at the Golden Mile, began to feel in themselves the supreme confidence which gives victory. They did not know whither they were to go, but they were ready to go anywhere. They had before them the whole world, and behind them France—the land which is more solicitous than all others, the only one which lives, breathes, and loves her children, which has a heart, which trembles with pleasure beneath their feet when they triumph, with sadness when they are vanquished, and with gratitude when they die for her.
[Pg 198]
Oh! he only knows her, this Cornelia among nations, he only can cherish her pride, who can place on her head a laurel-crown, and in her hand the sword of Charlemagne, of Philippe-Auguste, of Fran?ois I., or of Napoleon—he alone knows what milk can be drawn from her bosom, what tears from her eyes, what blood from her heart!
In this genesis of the nineteenth century, with the mire of the eighteenth still clinging to its feet while its head was in the clouds—in these first battles, when a single people, in the name of liberty and the happiness of the human race, threw down the gauntlet to the whole civilized world—there was something grand, Homeric, sublime, which I feel myself powerless to describe, and yet for the purpose of describing which I have undertaken this book. It is not the least of the poet's misfortunes to feel grandeur, and yet, breathless, stifled, discontented with himself, to fall far short of that which he feels. With the exception of the five hundred men who had been sent to occupy Froeschwiller, the remainder of the army, as we have seen, bivouacked upon the field of battle, rejoicing over their victory, and already forgetful of the price it had cost them. The cavalry, which had been sent in pursuit of the Prussians, now returned with twelve hundred prisoners and six pieces of artillery. Their story was as follows:
A short distance beyond Woerth, the second carabineers, the third hussars and the thirtieth chasseurs had attacked a large force of Prussians surrounding one of Abatucci's regiments, which, having lost its way, had found itself in the midst of the enemy. Attacked on all sides by a force ten times superior to them, the men formed a square and fired a volley of musketry which had attracted the attention of their comrades.
The three regiments did not hold back; they burst through the terrible wall of fire which encircled their comrades; and the latter, realizing that help was at hand, formed in column and fell upon the enemy with terrible energy. Cavalry and infantry then began their retreat[Pg 199] toward the French army, but an overwhelming force issued from Woerth and intercepted them. The battle began anew, and, as the French were contending with four times their number, they might have had to yield, had not a regiment of dragoons cut a way through the flames for the infantry, thus setting it free. The infantry in tu............