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The Downfall (La Debacle) Part 1
by
Once they were outside they found the same gloomy and forbidding Sedan that had greeted their eyes that morning. Twilight with its shadows had invaded the narrow streets, sidewalk and carriage-way alike were filled with a confused, surging throng. Most of the shops were closed, the houses seemed to be dead or sleeping, while out of doors the crowd was so dense that men trod on one another. With some little difficulty, however, they succeeded in reaching the Place de l’Hotel de Ville, where they encountered M. Delaherche, intent on picking up the latest news and seeing what was to be seen. He at once came up and greeted them, apparently delighted to meet Maurice, to whom he said that he had just returned from accompanying Captain Beaudoin over to Floing, where the regiment was posted, and he became, if that were possible, even more gracious than ever upon learning that Weiss proposed to pass the night at Bazeilles, where he himself, he declared, had just been telling the captain that he intended to take a bed, in order to see how things were looking at the dyehouse.
“We’ll go together and be company for each other, Weiss. But first let’s go as far as the Sous-Prefecture; we may be able to catch a glimpse of the Emperor.”
Ever since he had been so near having the famous conversation with him at Baybel his mind had been full of Napoleon III.; he was not satisfied until he had induced the two soldiers to accompany him. The Place de la Sous-Prefecture was comparatively empty; a few men were standing about in groups, engaged in whispered conversation, while occasionally an officer hurried by, haggard and careworn. The bright hues of the foliage were beginning to fade and grow dim in the melancholy, thick-gathering shades of night; the hoarse murmur of the Meuse was heard as its current poured onward beneath the houses to the right. Among the whisperers it was related how the Emperor–who with the greatest difficulty had been prevailed on to leave Carignan the night before about eleven o’clock–when entreated to push on to Mezieres had refused point-blank to abandon the post of danger and take a step that would prove so demoralizing to the troops. Others asserted that he was no longer in the city, that he had fled, leaving behind him a dummy emperor, one of his officers dressed in his uniform, a man whose startling resemblance to his imperial master had often puzzled the army. Others again declared, and called upon their honor to substantiate their story, that they had seen the army wagons containing the imperial treasure, one hundred millions, all in brand-new twenty-franc pieces, drive into the courtyard of the Prefecture. This convoy was, in fact, neither more nor less than the vehicles for the personal use of the Emperor and his suite, the char a banc, the two caleches, the twelve baggage and supply wagons, which had almost excited a riot in the villages through which they had passed–Courcelles, le Chene, Raucourt; assuming in men’s imagination the dimensions of a huge train that had blocked the road and arrested the march of armies, and which now, shorn of their glory, execrated by all, had come in shame and disgrace to hide themselves among the sous-prefect’s lilac bushes.
While Delaherche was raising himself on tiptoe and trying to peer through the windows of the rez-de-chaussee, an old woman at his side, some poor day-worker of the neighborhood, with shapeless form and hands calloused and distorted by many years of toil, was mumbling between her teeth:
“An emperor–I should like to see one once–just once–so I could say I had seen him.”
Suddenly Delaherche exclaimed, seizing Maurice by the arm:
“See, there he is! at the window, to the left. I had a good view of him yesterday; I can’t be mistaken. There, he has just raised the curtain; see, that pale face, close to the glass.”
The old woman had overheard him and stood staring with wide-open mouth and eyes, for there, full in the window, was an apparition that resembled a corpse more than a living being; its eyes were lifeless, its features distorted; even the mustache had assumed a ghastly whiteness in that final agony. The old woman was dumfounded; forthwith she turned her back and marched off with a look of supreme contempt.