absorption.
“Close the window,” cried M. de Broglie; he was blenching in the deep cold that had in an instant chilled the luxurious little chamber.
The valet obeyed and again drew the beautiful curtains over the closed, barred window.
The Maréchal cast down the map on top of the letter from France and asked for wine. When it was brought M. de Broglie put it aside in silence, but M. de Belleisle drank heavily, then dropped into his cushions with a sigh of physical pain.
When the servant had left, the younger man spoke; he had recovered his composure and something of his self-confident manner.
“Do you mean to obey these orders, Monsieur?”
“I am a Maréchal de France, Monsieur le Duc, and I obey the orders of France.”
Crippled by gout as he was he managed to sit upright, half supporting himself against the carved back of the couch.
“M. de Fleury speaks for France—you have been too long in Prague—abandon the town and join Maillelois, so you may make a dash on Vienna,” he gasped. “Vienna!—we shall see hell sooner.”
With a quivering hand he pressed his handkerchief to his pallid lips, then wiped the damp of pain from his brow.
“But it shall be done—do not think, Monsieur, that I shirk the duty. France has spoken. You will make ready for a council to-night.”
M. de Broglie shrugged his shoulders.
“You at least, M. le Maréchal, are not fit to leave Prague.”
M. de Belleisle narrowed his clever eyes.
“While I can draw a breath to form a sentence I do not resign command again,” he said with cold passion.
The Duke bowed.
“That is as you please, Monsieur.”
Their common responsibility, their mutual anxiety for a moment obscured their jealous rivalry. M. de Broglie could not restrain a little exclamation of despair.
“We shall not get ten regiments through!” he cried.
The Maréchal answered, rigid with secret pain and mental anguish—
“No more words—the fiat is there; we shall leave Prague to-morrow. God have mercy on the poor devils in the ranks—fine men too,” he added in spite of himself, “and, by Heaven, we might have stormed Vienna if I had had a chance!”
“You will hold the council here?” asked M. de Broglie.
“In my outer chamber—see to it for me, M. le Duc. I must confess that I am a sick man and something overwhelmed.”
His colleague looked at him a moment, then crossed the room impulsively and kissed the hand that lay on the brocaded velvet cushions; then, with a deep obeisance, withdrew.
To reach the quarters of the aide-de-camp whose duty it would be to summon the Generals to the sudden council, M. de Broglie had to pass through the guardroom of this portion of the irregular buildings that formed the Hradcany.
Two officers of the régiment du roi sat by an insufficient fire; one was reading, the other, of a singular and youthful beauty, was writing a letter on a drum-head. As they rose and saluted M. de Broglie paused.
“Ah, M. de Vauvenargues,” he said excitedly, “what do you read?”
“Corneille, Monsieur,” answered the Marquis.
“I think you are a philosopher,” returned M. de Broglie. “I will give you something to meditate upon. The army leaves Prague to-morrow.”
Georges d’Espagnac looked up with a flush of joy.
“Monsieur,” he cried, “then it is to be action at last!”
The Duke gave him a flickering look of pity.
“A retreat to Eger, my friend. I hope,” he added gravely, “we shall all meet again there.”
He saluted and passed on.
“Oh!” exclaimed the Marquis softly—“a retreat in mid-December.”
He closed the volume of Corneille and glanced at the eager face of his companion.
They could hear the wind that swirled the snow without.
CHAPTER V
THE RETREAT FROM PRAGUE
The French quitted Prague on the evening of the 16th of December, leaving only a small garrison in the Hradcany; by the 18th the vanguard had reached Pürgitz at the crossing of the rivers, and then the snow, that had paused for two days, commenced towards evening and the cold began to increase almost beyond human endurance.
At first their retreat had been harried by Austrian guns and charges of the Hungarian Pandours, but the enemy did not follow them far. The cannon was no longer in their ears; for twenty-four hours they marched through the silence of a barren, deserted country.
The road was now so impassable, the darkness so impenetrable, the storm so severe, the troops so exhausted that M. de Belleisle ordered a halt, though all they had for camping-ground was a ragged ravine, a strip of valley by the river, and, for the Generals, a few broken houses in the devastated village of Pürgitz.
The officers of the régiment du roi received orders to halt as they were painfully making their way through the steep mountain paths; they shrugged and laughed and proceeded without comment to make their camp.
It was impossible to put up the tents, both by reason of the heavy storm of snow and the rocky ground; the best they could do was to fix some of the canvas over the piled gun carriages and baggage wagons and so get men and horses into some kind of shelter.
No food was sent them, and it was too dark for any search to be made. It was impossible to find a spot dry enough to light a fire on. The men huddled together under the rocks and rested with their heads on their saddles within the feeble protection of the guns and carts.
The officers sat beneath a projecting point of rock, over which a canvas had been hastily dragged, and muffled themselves in their cloaks and every scrap of clothing they could find; behind them their horses were fastened, patient and silent.
“I am sorry,” said M. de Vauvenargues, “that there are so many women and feeble folk with us.”
“Another of M. de Belleisle’s blunders,” answered the Colonel calmly. “He should have forced them to remain in Prague.”
“There was never a Protestant,” remarked Lieutenant d’Espagnac, “who would remain in Prague at the mercy of the Hungarians.”
The other officers were silent; it seemed to them vexatious that this already difficult retreat should be further hampered by the presence of some hundred of refugees—men, women, and children, French travellers, foreign inhabitants of Prague, Bavarians who wished to return to their own country, Hussites who were afraid of being massacred by the Pandours.
M. de Vauvenargues had it particularly in his mind; he had seen more than one dead child on the route since they left Prague. Eger was still many leagues off and both the weather and road increasing in severity and difficulty.
“I wonder if Belleisle knew what he was doing,” he remarked thoughtfully.
M. d’Espagnac laughed; his soaring spirits were not in the least cast down. He had just managed, with considerable difficulty, to light a lantern, which he hung from a dry point of rock. Its sickly ray illuminated the group and showed features a little white and pinched above the close wrapped cloaks; but Georges d’Espagnac bloomed like a winter