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The Downfall (La Debacle) Part 1
by
“I do not pretend to be a judge of such matters,” he continued, “but I have a feeling, so strong as to be almost a conviction, that the army is very badly situated at Sedan. The 12th corps is at Bazeilles, where there was a little fighting this morning; the 1st is strung out along the Givonne between la Moncelle and Holly, while the 7th is encamped on the plateau of Floing, and the 5th, what is left of it, is crowded together under the ramparts of the city, on the side of the Chateau. And that is what alarms me, to see them all concentrated thus about the city, waiting for the coming of the Prussians. If I were in command I would retreat on Mezieres, and lose no time about it, either. I know the country; it is the only line of retreat that is open to us, and if we take any other course we shall be driven into Belgium. Come here! let me show you something.”
He took Jean by the hand and led him to the window.
“Tell me what you see over yonder on the crest of the hills.”
Looking from the window over the ramparts, over the adjacent buildings, their view embraced the valley of the Meuse to the southward of Sedan. There was the river, winding through broad meadows; there, to the left, was Remilly in the background, Pont Maugis and Wadelincourt before them and Frenois to the right; and shutting in the landscape the ranges of verdant hills, Liry first, then la Marfee and la Croix Piau, with their dense forests. A deep tranquillity, a crystalline clearness reigned over the wide prospect that lay there in the mellow light of the declining day.
“Do you see that moving line of black upon the hilltops, that procession of small black ants?”
Jean stared in amazement, while Maurice, kneeling on his bed, craned his neck to see.
“Yes, yes!” they cried. “There is a line, there is another, and another, and another! They are everywhere.”
“Well,” continued Weiss, “those are Prussians. I have been watching them since morning, and they have been coming, coming, as if there were no end to them! You may be sure of one thing: if our troops are waiting for them, they have no intention of disappointing us. And not I alone, but every soul in the city saw them; it is only the generals who persist in being blind. I was talking with a general officer a little while ago; he shrugged his shoulders and told me that Marshal MacMahon was absolutely certain that he had not over seventy thousand men in his front. God grant he may be right! But look and see for yourselves; the ground is hid by them! they keep coming, ever coming, the black swarm!”
At this juncture Maurice threw himself back in his bed and gave way to a violent fit of sobbing. Henriette came in, a smile on her face. She hastened to him in alarm.
“What is it?”
But he pushed her away. “No, no! leave me, have nothing more to do with me; I have never been anything but a burden to you. When I think that you were making yourself a drudge, a slave, while I was attending college–oh! to what miserable use have I turned that education! And I was near bringing dishonor on our name; I shudder to think where I might be now, had you not beggared yourself to pay for my extravagance and folly.”
Her smile came back to her face, together with her serenity.
“Is that all? Your sleep don’t seem to have done you good, my poor friend. But since that is all gone and past, forget it! Are you not doing your duty now, like a good Frenchman? I am very proud of you, I assure you, now that you are a soldier.”
She had turned toward Jean, as if to ask him to come to her assistance, and he looked at her with some surprise that she appeared to him less beautiful than yesterday; she was paler, thinner, now that the glamour was no longer in his drowsy eyes. The one striking point that remained unchanged was her resemblance to her brother, and yet the difference in their two natures was never more strongly marked than at that moment; he, weak and nervous as a woman, swayed by the impulse of the hour, displaying in his person all the fitful and emotional temperament of his nation, vibrating from one moment to another between the loftiest enthusiasm and the most abject despair; she, the patient, indomitable housewife, such an inconsiderable little creature in her resignation and self-effacement, meeting adversity with a brave face and eyes full of inexpugnable courage and resolution, fashioned from the stuff of which heroes are made.