Part 61 (1/2)
”Onward! Hurrah! Thrust, my braves, and on!”
Attackers and defenders disappeared together in the heavy cloud of smoke from cannon and musket. For long the lurid obscurity of battle hung over the little hill; when the blue haze cleared away, the scene that presented itself to the survivors was one of rejoicing for the Republic, of rout and disaster for its enemies.
The foremost cuira.s.siers, overwhelmed by the fire from the hollow square, had nearly all either fallen, with their horses, or been trampled down by the following ranks which succeeded in scaling the hill. Still the Grand Duke of Gerolstein and several of his men had been carried by the impetuosity of their charge into the interior of the square, in spite of the forest of bayonets with which it bristled; but they came to a stop when their coursers, exhausted by their last a.s.sault, and pierced by the republican bayonets, sank under them.
Castillon had been sabered in the shoulder by the old Grand Duke; Duresnel was stunned and bruised but not wounded. Both at once, after their first disorder, beheld the Grand Duke within the square, pinned under his riddled horse. The great orange belt which he wore marked him as a military chieftain. Castillon and Duresnel precipitated themselves upon him and took him prisoner. John Lebrenn, for his part, had aimed accurately, and sent a ball into the chest of the color-bearer's mount.
The giant, proof against musket b.a.l.l.s, thanks to the thickness of his helmet, breastplate and heavy boots, leaped clear of his steed, and, his saber in one hand, his standard in the other, defended himself against John, who rushed at him with fixed bayonet. The colossus whirled his sword about him and wounded John in the knee; though wounded, the latter rushed on--and captured the colors.
Simultaneously with this, at a few paces' distance, another episode was enacting. An under-officer of the Gerolstein Cuira.s.siers, seeing himself surrounded, fell furiously upon quartermaster d.u.c.h.emin and his men.
d.u.c.h.emin, old wagoner that he was, entrenched himself behind one of Carmagnole's wheels, which thus served to s.h.i.+eld nearly half his body from the saber and hoof-strokes which his adversary sought to rain upon him. Thus barricaded, and further defending himself with a gun-swab, he at last succeeded in landing so masterful a blow upon his antagonist's helmet that the latter tumbled from his saddle half senseless. Meanwhile Carmagnole's other servitors had reloaded her. At a signal the ranks opened, and once more the artillery belched forth its iron hail upon the last squadron of the Gerolstein regiment, a reserve squad which the Count of Plouernel led again to the charge. Suddenly the remaining cuira.s.siers, seized with panic, wheeled about and fled full tilt down the steep incline. Their hurried departure was not due alone to the lively and sustained fire of the republican battery. The squadron of the Third Hussars, drawn up in battle array behind the burning farm buildings, had so far taken no part in the fray. Its captain had been killed and its lieutenant disabled by an exploding sh.e.l.l. But Oliver, although the youngest of the under-officers, already possessed so great a reputation for bravery that the soldiers, by common accord, voted him the command of the regiment. ”Ah, I was sure of it!” said the das.h.i.+ng young man, leaning over to Victoria, as they walked their horses together alongside the first platoon; ”I felt that I should either be killed to-day or win my epaulets. I shall be named an officer on the field of battle.”
The French squadron, now put to a gallop, fell upon the rear ranks of the Gerolstein Cuira.s.siers just as their head was being thrown into disorder and repulsed by the joint fire of the battery and the volunteer infantrymen. Oliver charged the German hors.e.m.e.n furiously. The broil was desperate. The Count of Plouernel, who strove in vain to rally the fleers, suddenly found himself beset by a young hussar whose cap had fallen off in the tumult of battle.
Apparently careless of self the young cavalier rushed straight at the traitor Count--slashed at his face--one eye he would never see out of again. Infuriated by the wound, the Count made a lunge and drove his saber into his adversary's breast. Then Neroweg urged his horse towards the left wing of the Austrian army, and escaped the pursuit of the republican hussars.
The young horseman was Victoria.
CHAPTER x.x.x.
DEATH OF VICTORIA.
Night was come. Across the December fogs glared the watch-fires of the republican army. The French troops rested on the field of battle, establis.h.i.+ng headquarters in the ruins of the chateau of Geisberg, half demolished by cannon-b.a.l.l.s. A large barn, one of the outbuildings of the estate, was turned over to the hospital corps. There the wounded were stretched upon litters of straw, receiving medical attendance by the light of torches. Everywhere were heard the moans drawn by the pain of an amputation, or the extraction of a ball. At one end of the barn, an enclosure of planks set off the thres.h.i.+ng floor from the rest of the building. Mortally wounded by the Count of Plouernel, Victoria was at length carried from the field hospital into this retreat, her s.e.x having been revealed while her wound was receiving its first dressing.
A torch fastened into a post illuminated the scene. John Lebrenn, also wounded, knelt beside his sister, who lay out-stretched upon her pallet, half wrapped in a coverlet. His back to the wall, Oliver buried his face in his hands and with difficulty checked his sobs, while Castillon, whose manly face was streaming tears, stood a little apart, leaning against one of the door posts.
Victoria's pallor, and her broken breathing, announced that her sands of life were run. Tightly clasped in both of his, her brother held her hand; he felt that hand grow ever colder and colder.
”Adieu, Oliver,” said Victoria feebly, as she turned toward the young fellow. ”Love and serve the Republic as you would a mother. Bear in mind that you are a citizen before you are a soldier. Remember above all that those who see in war only a field opened to their ambition and their pride are the worst enemies of the people.” Then, addressing her brother, Victoria continued: ”Adieu, brother. Before the battle I had the presentiment that I would die as did our ancestress Anna Bell--whose sad life bears so many resemblances to mine.” Then, struck by a sudden idea, Victoria continued on a new train of thought: ”The Grand Duke of Gerolstein is taken prisoner, you told me, brother? St. Just should be told of the services rendered to our cause by Franz of Gerolstein, and the Grand Duke informed that he will be kept in durance until his son is set free. Franz's liberation will mean one soldier the more for the Revolution.”
”Your recommendations will be followed, sister dear,” replied John between his sobs; ”and oh, dear sister, I weep at our separation. You are going on a journey without return. I am young yet, and long years will pa.s.s, perhaps, before I will again be able to behold you.”
”Those years will pa.s.s for you, brother, as a day--sweetened by the tenderness of your wife, by the love of your children, by the fulfilment of your civic duties.”
Then, just as a lamp before its dying flicker casts still some bright beams, the young woman rose to a sitting position. Her great black eyes shone radiantly from within; her voice, erstwhile choked and gasping, became sonorous and full; her beautiful features glowed with enthusiasm; she exclaimed:
”Ah, brother, I feel it--my spirit is shaking off my present body, in order to inhabit a new envelope beyond. The future unrolls before me--
”Hail to that beautiful day predicted by Victoria the Great! Hail!
Radiant is its dawn! I see shattered irons, crumbled Bastilles, thrones and altars in dust, and crowning the ruins of the old world a scaffold, the reckoning of Kings! Hail, holy scaffold, symbol of popular justice!
O, Republic! Radiant is your birthday! Glorious your sun rises over Europe! Your star, full-orbed, O Republic, pours its torrents of light upon a regenerate world! It buds--It flowers--It bursts into bloom--It sheds in peace its treasures, its riches, its glories, its wonders, amid the joy of its children, free and equal, freed forever from the double yoke of Church and Misery--and united forever by the brotherly solidarity of the confederated peoples--”
The witnesses of the scene, carried away by Victoria's words, deceived by the clearness of her glance and the superexcitation of which she was capable in a supreme burst of energy, forgot that the young woman was dying. Her eyes half-closed, her countenance ashy pale and bathed in an icy sweat, Victoria fell back in her brother's arms; after a moment's agony she pa.s.sed out of this life to live again in those worlds whither we shall all go.
CHAPTER x.x.xI.