The Eagle of the Empire: A Story of Waterloo, Cyrus Townsend Brady [best thriller books to read .txt] 📗

the room within, upon the soul of the great Captain approaching the nadir of his fortunes, his spirit almost at the breaking point. To him at last came Berthier and Maret. They had the right of entrance. The time for which he had asked had passed. Young Marteau admitted them without question. They entered the room slowly, not relishing their task, yet resolute to discharge their errand. The greater room outside was alight from fire and from lanterns. Enough illumination came through the door into the bed-chamber for their purpose—more than enough for the Emperor. He turned his head away, lest they should see what they should see. The two marshals bowed and stood silent.

"Well?" said the Emperor at last, his voice unduly harsh, as if to cover emotion with its roughness, and they noticed that he did not look at them.

"Sire, the courier of the Duke of Vicenza waits for his answer," said Maret.

There was another long pause.

"Will not your majesty give way for the good of the people?" urged Berthier. "Give peace to France, sire. The army is hungry——"

"Am I God, messieurs, to feed thousands with a few loaves and fishes?" cried the Emperor bitterly.

"No, Sire. Therefore, authorize the duke to sign the treaty, and——"

"What!" said Napoleon fiercely, sitting up on the bed and facing them. "You would have me sign a treaty like that? Trample under foot my coronation oath? Unheard-of disaster may have snatched from me the promise to renounce my own conquests, but give up those before me, never! Leave France smaller, weaker than I found her! God keep me from such a disgrace. Reply to Caulaincourt, since you wish it, but tell him I reject this treaty. We must have better terms. I prefer to run the uttermost risks of war."

Berthier opened his mouth to speak again, but Napoleon silenced him with word and gesture.

"No more," he said. "Go."

The two marshals bowed and left the room with downcast heads and resentful hearts. As they disappeared Napoleon called after them.

"Send me that boy at the door. Lights," he cried, as the young officer, not waiting for the order to be repeated, promptly entered the inner room and saluted. "The maps on the table, bring them here, and the table, too," commanded the Emperor.

Even as the lights which were placed on the table dispelled the dusk of the room, so something had dispelled the gloom of the great man's soul. For a moment he looked almost young again. The gray pallor left his cheeks. Fire sparkled in his eyes.

"Not yet—not yet," he muttered, spreading the maps upon the table. "We will have one more try with fortune. My star is low on the horizon, but it has not set yet."

"Nor shall it set, Sire, while I and my comrades live," returned Marteau.

"You are right," said the Emperor. "You stand to me for France. Your spirit typifies the spirit of my soldiery, does it not?"

"Theirs is even greater than mine, Sire," was the prompt answer.

"That's well. Do you know the country hereabouts?"

"I was born at Aumenier."

"Let me see," said the Emperor, "the village lies beyond S�zanne?"

"Yes, Sire."

"In an opening in the great woods beyond the marshes of St. Gond," continued the other, studying the map, "there is a ch�teau there. Are you by any chance of the ancient house of Aumenier?"

"My father was a warden on the estates of the last marquis."

"Good. Do you know that country?"

"I have hunted over every rod of it as a boy, Sire."

"I must have news," said the Emperor, "information, definite tidings. I want to know where Bl�cher is; where his several army corps are. Can I trust so young a head as yours with great matters?"

"Tortures could not wring from me anything you may confide, your majesty," said the young man resolutely.

"I believe you," said the Emperor, looking at him keenly and reading him like a book. "Look. Before daybreak Marmont marches to S�zanne. The next day after I follow. I shall leave enough men behind the river here to hold back Schwarzenberg, or at least to check him if he advances. With the rest I shall fall on Bl�cher."

The young man's eyes sparkled. He had been bending over the map. He drew himself up and saluted.

"It is the Emperor at his best," he said.

"You have studied the art of war, young sir?"

"I have read every one of your majesty's campaigns."

"And you see what I would do?"

"Not altogether, but——"

"Fall upon the flank of the unsuspecting Prussian, burst through his line, break his center, turn to the right or left, beat him in detail, drive him back, relieve Paris, and then——"

"And then, Sire?"

"Come back and do the same thing with Schwarzenberg!"

"Your majesty!" cried the young soldier, as the whole mighty plan was made clear to him.

"Ha! It brightens your eyes and flushes your cheek, does it not? So it will brighten the eyes and flush the cheeks of France. I will show them. In six weeks I will drive them across the Rhine. In another month they shall sue for peace and the Vistula shall be our boundary."

"What does your majesty desire of me?"

"That you go at once. Take with you whomsoever you will. Bring or send me reports. You are educated?"

"I was a student at your majesty's Military College," answered the young man.

"Did you finish there?"

"I finished in your majesty's army last year."

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-two, Sire."

"You belong to the foot, but you can ride?"

"Anything."

"Marshal Berthier will give you horses. I shall be at S�zanne the day after to-morrow night. You will have news for me then?"

"Or be dead, Sire."

"I have no use for dead men. Don't get yourself taken. Any fool can die, or be made prisoner. It is a wise man who can live for me and France."

"I shall live," said the young man simply. "Have you any further command, Sire?"

"None."

The hand of Marteau was raised in salute.

"Stop," said the Emperor, as the soldier turned to the door.

"Sire?"

"Come back with news, and let us but escape from this tightening coil, and you shall be a lieutenant colonel in my guard."

"I will do it for love of your majesty alone," cried the soldier, turning away.

It was not nearly dawn before Berthier and Maret, who had been pondering over the dispatch to Caulaincourt, who was fighting the envoys of the allies at the Congress at Chatillon, ventured to intrude upon the Emperor. Having come to his decision, as announced to the young soldier, who had got his horses and his comrade and gone, the Emperor, with that supreme command of himself which few men possessed, had at last got a few hours of rest. He had dressed himself with the assistance of his faithful valet, Constant, who had given him a bath and shaved him, and he now confronted the two astonished marshals with an air serene—even cheerful.

"Dispatches!" he said, as they approached him. "It is a question of a very different matter. Tell Caulaincourt to prolong the negotiations, but to concede nothing, to commit me to nothing. I am going to beat Bl�cher. If I succeed, the state of affairs will entirely change, and we shall see what we shall see. Tell Marmont to give orders for his corps to march immediately after they get some breakfast. No, they may not wait till morning. Fortune has given the Prussians into my hands. Write to my brother in Paris; tell him that he may expect news from us of the most important character in forty-eight hours. Let the Parisians continue their mis�r�r�s and their forty-hour-long prayers for the present. We'll soon give them something else to think of."

"But, Sire——" feebly interposed Berthier.

"Do as I tell you," said the Emperor, good-humoredly, "and leave the rest to me." He was in a mood apparently that nothing could dash that morning. "And you will be as much surprised as the Prussians, and I believe that nobody can be more amazed than they will be."

CHAPTER III THE ARMY MARCHES AWAY

Gallantly on his errand rode young Marteau. Napoleon's order to Berthier, by him transmitted down the line, had secured four of the best horses in the army for his messengers. For young Marteau went not alone. With him rode a tall grenadier of the Imperial Guard, whose original name had been lost, or forgot, in a sobriquet which fitted him perfectly, and which he had richly earned in a long career as a soldier. They called him "Bullet Stopper," "Balle-Arr�tante," the curious compound ran in French, and the soldiers clipped it and condensed it into "Bal-Arr�t!" He used to boast that he had been wounded in every country in Europe and in Asia and Africa as well. He had been hit more times than any soldier high or low in the army. He had distinguished himself by valor, and, but for his humble extraction and meager education, might have risen to a high command. As it was, he was personally known to the Emperor, and was accounted as one of the favorite soldiers of the army.

He, too, had been a dweller on the Aumenier estates. It was his tales of adventure which had kindled the martial spirit in young Marteau, whom he had known from his birth. A warm friendship subsisted between the young officer and the old soldier, which no difference in rank or station could ever impair. When the Emperor had given him leave to take with him whomsoever he would, his thoughts had at once turned to old Bullet Stopper. The latter had gladly accepted the invitation.

Behold him now, his huge body astride of an enormous horse—for, although the grenadier was a foot-soldier, he could still ride after a fashion—plodding along through the mud and the wet and the cold on the mission which, if successful, would perhaps enable Napoleon to save the army and France, to say nothing of his throne and his family.

Captain Marteau, or Major Marteau, to give him his new title, had said nothing as to the nature of his mission, upon which they had been dispatched, to the humble comrade, the faithful follower who accompanied him. He had only told him that it was difficult, dangerous, and of vital importance, and he had explained to him that his familiarity with the country, as well as a warm-hearted admiration and respect for his shrewdness and skill and courage, had caused his selection. That was enough for the old soldier; dangers, difficulties, were as the breath of life to the veteran. And he was always happy to follow Marteau, in whose career he took an interest almost fatherly.

The weather was frightful. It had snowed and then thawed. The temperature was now just above the freezing point. The rough wind was raw, the fierce winter gale was laden with wet snow. The roads, like all country cross-roads in France, or anywhere else, for that matter, in that day, were a sea of mud. It was well that the pair had brought two extra horses. By changing mounts from time to time they were enabled to spare their beasts and make the greater speed. The Emperor had impressed upon his young aide the necessity for getting the information to him at the earliest possible moment. Haste was everything. So they pressed on.

Without waiting for their report, and presuming on his general knowledge of Bl�cher's character and shrewdly deducing the exact state of affairs Napoleon was already acting as if he possessed absolute and accurate information. The drums were beating the long roll as they rode through the still dark streets of the little town of Nogent. Horses were being harnessed to guns, baggage wagons were being loaded, ammunition caissons were being got ready. The troops were assembling out of houses and tents, and coming from around fires, where many of them had passed an unsheltered night.

There was little of the joy, the gaiety, the �lan of the French soldier, to be seen in the faces of the men thus summoned to the Eagles. They came, indeed, they answered the call, but with black looks and sullen faces and a manner almost despairing. They had fought and fought and fought. They had been beaten back and back and back, and when they had not been fighting they had been retreating. And always