Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844

This whole day was full of splendid exhibitions. On reaching the edge of the wood, the first object below us as the succession of deep columns which I had seen some hours before, and which appeared to have been rooted to the ground ever since. But an aide-de-camp from the circle where the count stood, darted down on the plain, and, as if a flash of lightning had awoke them, all were instantly in motion. The columns on the right now made a sudden rush forward, and to my surprise, four or five strong brigades, which rapidly followed from the centre, took up their position. Varnhorst, who had been beside me during the whole day, now exhibited great delight. "I told you," said he, "that Clairfait would turn out well. I see that he has been taught in our school. Observe that manoeuvre;" he continued his comment with increasing force of gesture—"That was the Great Frederic's favourite, the oblique formation. The finest invention in tactics, with that he gained Rosbach, and beat the French and Austrians; with that he gained the battle of Breslau; and with that he gained the grand fight of Torgau, and finished the war. Yet the king always said that he had learned the manoeuvre from Epaminondas, and was only fighting the battle of Leuctra over again. But look there!" He pointed to a rising ground, a bluff of the forest ridge, to which a battalion of sharpshooters were hastening; it had seemed destitute of defence, and the sharpshooters were already beginning to scramble up its sides; when on the instant a large body of the enemy which had been covered by the forest, rushed upon its summit with a shout, and poured down a general volley. The whole Prussian line returned it by one tremendous discharge. The drums and trumpets struck up, the battalions and squadrons advanced, singing their national hymn. The skirmishers poured forward and the battle began. How shall I speak of what I felt at that moment; the sensation was indescribable! It was mingled of all feelings but personal. I was absorbed in that glorious roar, in that bold burst of human struggle, in all that was wild, ardent, and terrible in the power of man. I had not a thought of any thing but of the martial pomp and spirit-stilling grandeur of the scene before me. I was aroused from my contemplations by the loud laugh of my veteran friend; he was trying the benefit of a large brandy flask, which I remembered, and with some not very respectful opinion of his temperance, to have seen him place in one of his holsters at our visit to the suttlers. He now offered it to me. "You look wretchedly pale," said he; "our kind of life is too rough for you gentlemen diplomats, and you will find this glass right Nantz, the very best thing, if not the only good thing, that its country has to give." This took me down from my heroics at once, the brandy was first-rate, and I found myself restored to the level of the world at once, and infinitely the better for the operation. We now followed the advance of the troops. The leading columns had already forced their way into the entrance of the forest; but it was a forest of three leagues' depth and twice the number in length, a wooded province, and the way was fought foot by foot. It is only justice to the French to say, that they fought well—held the pass boldly—often charged our advance, and gave way only when they were on the point of being surrounded. But our superiority of discipline and numbers combined, did not suffer the success to be for a moment doubtful. Still, as we followed, the battle raged in the depths of the forest, already as dark as if night had come on—our only light the incessant illumination of the musketry, and the bursts of fire from the howitzers and guns.

As we were standing on the last height at the entrance of the defile, "Look round," exclaimed Varnhorst, "and take your first lesson in our art, if you ever adopt the trade of soldiership. The Duke has outwitted the Frenchman. I suspected something of this sort in the morning, when I first heard his guns so far to the right. I allow that the enemy may be puzzled for a while who has five passes to defend, with half a dozen leagues between them, and a Prussian army in front ready to make him choose. He has evidently drawn off the strength of his troops to the Duke's point of attack, and has stripped the wing before us. Clairfait's mass has been thrown upon it, and the day is our own. Onward."

The roads and the surrounding glades gave fearful evidence of the obstinacy of the struggle; but it also gave some curious evidence of the force of habit in making light of the troubles of life. The cavalry, which had been comparatively unemployed, from the nature of the service during the day, had taken advantage of the opportunity to consult their own comfort as much as possible. On the flank and rear of the infantry the troopers had taken the whole affair en amateur, and had lit their campfires, cooked their rations, handsomely augmented by the general spoliation of the hen-coops within many a league. Something like a fair was established round them by the suttlers; while the shells were actually falling and many a branch was shattered over their banquets by the shot which constantly whizzed through the trees. But, "Vive la fortune!" Even the sober Teuton and the rough son of the Bannat could enjoy the few moments that war gives to festivity, and what the next night or morning might bring was not suffered to disturb their sense of "schnapps," and their supper.

The trampling of horses in our rear, and the galloping of the chasseurs of the ducal escort, now told us that the generalissimo was at hand. He rode up in high spirits, received our congratulations with princely courtesy, and bestowed praises on the troops, and especially on Clairfait, which made the count's dark features absolutely glow. The whole group rode together until we reached the open country. A decisive success had unquestionably been gained; and in war the first success is of proverbial importance. On this point, the duke laid peculiar weight on the few words which he could spare to me.

"M. Marston," he observed, taking me cordially by the hand, "we are henceforth more than friends, we are camarades. We have been in the field together; and, with us Prussians, that is a tie for life."

I made my acknowledgments for his highness's condescension. Business then took the lead.

"You will now have a good despatch to transmit to our friends in England. The Count Clairfait has shown himself worthy of his reputation. I understand that the enemy's force consisted chiefly of the household troops of France; if so, we have beaten the best soldiers of the kingdom, and the rest can give us but little trouble. You will remark upon these points; and now for Paris."

A cry, or rather a shout of assent from the circle of officers, echoed the words, and we all put spurs to our horses, and followed the cortège through the noble old groves. But before we reached its confines, the firing had wholly ceased, and the enemy were hurrying down the slope of the Argonne, and crossing in great disorder a plain which separated them from their main body. Our light troops and cavalry were dashing in pursuit, and prisoners were continually taken. From the spot where we halted, the light of the sinking day showed us the rapid breaking up of the fugitive column, the guns, one by one, left behind; the muskets thrown away; and the soldiers scattered, until our telescopes could discover scarcely more than a remnant reaching the protection of the distant hill.

We supped that night on the green sward. The duke had invited his own staff, and that of Clairfait, to his tent, in honour of the day, and I never spent a gayer evening. His incomparable finish of manners, mingled with the cordiality which no man could more naturally assume when it was his pleasure, and his mixture of courtly pleasantry with the bold humour which campaigning, in some degree, teaches to every one, made him, if possible, more delightful, to my conception, than even in our first interview. Towards the close of the supper, which, like every thing else round him, was worthy of Sardanapalus, he addressed himself to me, and giving a most gracious personal opinion of what my "services had merited from the English minister," said that, "limited as his own means of rewarding zeal and ability might be, he begged of me to retain a slight memorial of his friendship, and of our day together on the heights of Argonne." Taking from the hand of Guiscard the riband and star of the "Order of Merit," the famous order instituted by the Great Frederic, he placed it round my neck, and proposed my health to the table as a "Knight of Prussia."

This was a flattering distinction, and, if I could have had entire faith in all the complimentary language addressed to me by the sitters at that stately table, I should have had visions of very magnificent things. But there is no antidote to vanity equal to an empty purse. If I had been born to one of the leviathan fortunes of our peerage, I might possibly have imagined myself possessed of all the talents of mankind, and with all its distinctions waiting for my acceptance; but I never could forget the grave lesson that I was a younger son. I sat, like the Roman in his triumph, with the slave, to lecture him, behind. However, I had a more ample evidence of the sincerity with which those compliments were paid, in the higher degree of trust reposed in me from day to day.

After the repast was ended, and the principal part of the guests had withdrawn, I was desired to wait for the communication of important intelligence—Guiscard and Varnhorst being the only officers of the staff who remained. A variety of papers, taken in the portfolio of one of the French generals who had fallen in the engagement of the day, were laid before us, and our little council proceeded to examine them. They were of a very various kind, and no bad epitome of the mind of a gallant and crackbrained coxcomb. Reflections on the conduct of the Allied armies, and conjectures on their future proceedings—both of so fantastic a kind, that the duke's gravity often gave way, and even the grim Guiscard sometimes wore a smile. Then came in a letter from some "confrère" in Paris, a tissue of gossip and grumbling, anecdotes of the irregularities of private life, and merciless abuse of the leaders of party. Interspersed with those were epistles of a more tender description; from which it appeared that the general's heart was as capacious as his ambition, and that he contrived to give his admiration to half a dozen of the élite of Parisian beauty at a time. Varnhorst was delighted with this portion of the correspondence; even the presence of the duke could not prevent him from bursting into explosions of laughter; and he ended by imploring possession of the whole, as models of his future correspondence, in any emergency which compelled him to put pen to paper in matters of the sex. But nearly the last of the documents in the portfolio was one deserving of all attention. It was a statement of the measures which had been enjoined by the Republican government for raising the population in arms; and, as an appendix, the muster-roll of the various corps which were already on their way to join the army of Dumourier. The duke read this paper with a countenance from which all gaiety had vanished and handed it to Guiscard to read aloud.

"What think you of that, gentlemen?" asked the duke, in his most deliberate tone.

Varnhorst, in his usual unhesitating style, said—"It tells us only that we shall have some more fighting; but, as we are sure to beat them, the more the better. Your highness knows as well as any man alive, that the maxim of our great master was, 'Begin the war by fighting as many pitched battles as you can. Skirmishes teach discipline to the rabble; allow the higher orders time to escape, the government to tamper, and to encourage the resistance of all. Pitched battles are thunderbolts; they finish the business at once; and, like the thunderbolts, they appear to come from a source which defies resistance by man.'"

"I think," said Guiscard, with his deep physiognomy still darkening, "that we lost, what is the most difficult of all things to recover—time."

The duke bit his lip. "How was it to be helped, Guiscard? You know the causes of the delay; they were many and stubborn."

"Ay," was the reply, with an animation, which struck me with surprise, "as many as the blockheads in Berlin, and as stubborn as the rock under our feet, or the Aulic council."

"Well," said the duke, turning to me, with his customary grace of manner—"What does our friend, the Englishman, say?"

Of course, I made no pretence to giving a military opinion. I merely said, "That I had every reliance on the experienced conduct of his highness, and on the established bravery of his army."

"The truth is, M. Marston, as Guiscard says, we have lost time, though it is no fault of ours, and I observe, from these papers, that the enemy availed themselves of the delay, by bringing up strong corps from every point. Still, our duty lies plain before us; we must advance, and rescue the unfortunate royal family—we must tranquillize France, by overthrowing the rabble influence, which now threatens to subvert all law; and having done that, we may then retire, with the satisfaction of having fought without ambition, and been victorious without a wish for aggrandizement." After a pause, which none attempted to interrupt, he finished by saying—"I admit that our work is likely to become more difficult than I had supposed."

Varnhorst's sanguine nature bore this with visible reluctance. "Pardon me, your highness, but my opinion is for instant action, whatever may happen. Let us but move to-morrow morning, and I promise you another battle of Rosbach within the next twelve hours." The idea was congenial to the gallantry of the duke; he smiled, and shook the bold speaker by the hand.

"I see, by these lists," said Guiscard, as he slowly perused the returns, "that the troops with which we have been engaged to-day amounted to little more than twenty thousand men, under the new general, Dumourier. They fought badly, I think. I scarcely expected that they would have fought at all since the emigration of their officers. Sixteen or eighteen thousand men are already moving up from Flanders; a strong corps under my old acquaintance and countryman, Kellerman—and whatever he may be as an officer, a bolder and braver veteran does not exist—are coming, by forced marches, from the Rhine; the sea-coast towns are stripped of their garrisons, to supply a supplementary force; and I should not be surprised to find that we rather under, than over, calculated the force which will be in line against us within a week.

"So be it!" exclaimed Varnhorst, "What are troops without discipline, and generals without science? Both made to be beaten. The fifty thousand Prussians with us would march through Europe. I am for the advance. That was a brilliant dash of Clairfait's this afternoon. Let us match it to-morrow morning."

"It was admirable!" replied the duke, with the colour mounting to his cheek. "Any officer in Europe might envy the decision, the daring, and the success. His sagacity in discovering the weak point of the enemy's position, and his skill in its attack, deserve all praise. His flank movement was perfectly admirable."

"Well, we have only to try him again," exclaimed Varnhorst, with increasing animation. "We have turned the position, and taken a thousand prisoners and some guns. Our men are in high spirits; and, if I were in command of a corps to-morrow, my only countersign would be—'Paris.'"

"Varnhorst," said the duke, "you have only anticipated my intention with regard to yourself. You shall have a command; the three brigades of Prussian grenadiers shall be given into your charge, and you shall operate on the flank. It is my wish to make our principal movement in that direction, and I know you well."

Varnhorst's gratitude almost denied him words; but his countenance spoke better than his tongue.

One of those papers contained a detail of several projects by the leading members of the Assembly for the government of France. Guiscard, after bending his wise head over them, pronounced them all equally futile, and equally tending to democracy. The duke was of the opposite opinion, and after a glance at the papers, observed—"that he thought some of those schemes ingenious; but that they so closely resembled the ideas thrown out in Germany, under the patronage of the Emperor Joseph, as to deprive them of any strong claim to originality." "No," said he gaily, "I shall never believe that Frenchmen are changed, until I hear that there is no ballet in Paris; you might as well tell me, that the Swiss will abjure the money which makes a part of his distinction, as the Frenchman give up the laced coat, the powdered queue, and the order of St Louis at his buttonhole. Those things are the man, they are his mind, his senses, himself. He is a creation of monarchy—a clever, amusing, ingenious, and brave one; but rely upon my knowledge of human nature—if French nature be any thing of the kind—that Paris, a capital without balls, and a government without embroidery, will disgust him beyond all forgiveness. It is my opinion, that if democracy were formed to-morrow, it would be danced away in a week; or if every pedigree in France were burned in this evening's fire, you would have the Boulevards crowded with marquises and marchionesses before the month was over. Is my friend un peu philosophe?" He laughed at his own picture of a revolution, and his pleasantry of manner would have made his sentiments popular on any subject. Still, our long-headed friend, Guiscard, was not to be convinced.

"I may have every contempt," said he, in a hurried tone, "for the shallowness of idlers and talkers attempting to mould men by theories; but the question whether France is to remain a monarchy or not, is one of the most pressing importance to your highness's operations. It is only in this practical sense that I should think of the topic at all. You have taken the frontier towns, and have beaten the frontier army. Thus, so far as the regular force of France is concerned, the war is at an end. But then comes the grand point. A country of thirty millions of people cannot be conquered, if they can but be roused to resist. All the troops of Europe—nay, perhaps all the princes of the earth—might perish before they fully conquered a country so large as France, with so powerful a population. This seems even to be one of the provisions of Providence against ambition, that an invasion of a populous country is the most difficult operation in the world, unless the people welcome the invader. It gives every ditch the character of a fortress, and every man the spirit of a soldier. I recollect no instance in European history, where an established kingdom was conquered by invasion. They all stand at this hour, as they stood a thousand years ago. In France, we found the people without leaders, without troops, and without experience in war; of course they have not resisted our hussars and guns. But they have not joined us. In any other country of Europe, we should have recruits crowding to ask for service. But the French farmer shuts up his house; the peasant flies; the citizen barricades his gates, and gives a cannon-shot for an answer. The whole land rejects us, if it dares not repel; and, if we conquer, we shall have to colonize."

"Well, we must fight them into it," said Varnhorst.

"Or leave them to fight themselves out of it," I observed—"my national prejudices not being favourable to reasoning at the point of the bayonet."

"Or take the chances of the world, and float on wherever the surge carries us," laughed the duke.

But Guiscard was still inflexible. His deep eye flashed with a light which I never could have looked for under those projecting brows. His cheek was visited by a tinge which argued a passionate interest in the subject; and, as he spoke, his tongue uttered a nervous and powerful eloquence, which showed that Guiscard was thrown among camps, while he might have figured in senates and councils. Of course, at this distance of time, I can offer but a faint memory of his bold and spontaneous wisdom.

"I can see no result for France but democracy. This war is like no other since the fall of the Roman Empire. It is a war of the passions. What man can calculate the power of those untried elements? I implore your highness to consider with the deepest caution every step to be taken from this moment. Europe has no other commander whom it can place in a rank with yourself; and if you, at the head of the first army of Europe, shall find it necessary to retreat before the peasantry of France, it will form a disastrous era in the art of war, and a still more disastrous omen to every crowned head of Europe."

The duke looked uneasy. But he merely said with a smile—"My dear Guiscard, we must keep these sentiments to ourselves in camp. You are a cosmopolite, and look on these things with too refined a speculation. Like myself, you have dined and supped with the Diderots and Raynals—pleasant people, no doubt, but dangerous advisers."

"I have!" exclaimed his excited hearer; "and neither I, nor any other man, would have met them without admiring their talents. But I always looked on their coterie as a sort of moral lunatics, the madder the more light they have."

"Our question is simply one of fact," said the duke.

"Yes, and of a fact on which the fate of Europe hinges at this moment! The monarchy of France is already cloven down. What wild shape of power is now to take up its fallen sword? The sovereignty of time, laws, and loyalty are in the grave, and the funeral rites will be bloody; but what hand is to make the ground of that grave firm enough to bear the foundations of a new throne?

"The heels of our boots and the hoofs of our horses will trample it solid enough!" exclaimed Varnhorst.

"The much stronger probability is," replied Guiscard, "that they will trample it into a mire so deep, that we may reckon the Allied powers fortunate if they can draw themselves out of it. France is revolutionized irrecoverably. Three things have been done within the last three months, any one of which would overthrow the strongest government on the Continent. By confiscating the property of the nobles, she has set the precedent for breaking down all property, thrown the prize into the hands of the populace, and thus, after corrupting them by the robbery, has bound them by the bribe. By destroying and banishing the persons of the nobility, she has done more than extinguish an antagonist to the mob—she has swept away a protector of the people. The provinces will henceforth be helpless; Paris will be the sovereign, and Paris itself will have the mob for its master. And by her third step, the ruin of the church, she has given the death-blow to the few and feeble feelings which acknowledged higher objects than those of the hour. The pressing point for us, is, how the Revolution will act upon the military spirit of the nation. The French nay succumb; but they make good soldiers, they are the only nation in Europe who have an actual fondness for war, who contemplate it as a pastime, and, in spite of all their defeats, regard it as their natural path to power."

"But they fly before our squadrons," observed the duke.

"Yes, as schoolboys fly before their master, until they are strong enough to rebel; or as the Indians fled before the lances and horses of Cortes, until they became accustomed to them. It would be infinitely wiser to leave the republicans to struggle with each other, than unite them by a national attack. Mobs, like the wolves, always fall upon the first wounded. The first faction that receives a blow in those campaigns of the Palais Royal, will have all the others tearing it to fragments. The custom will spread; every new drop of blood will let loose a torrent in retaliation; and when France has thus been drained of her fever, will be the time, either to restore her, or to paralyse for ever her power of disturbing the world."

The sound of a gun from either flank of the army, reminded us that the hour of the evening hymn had come. It broke up our council. The incomparable harmony of so many thousand voices ascended into the air; and at the discharge of another gun, all was still once more. The night had now fallen, and the fatigues of the day made repose welcome. But the conversation of the last hour made me anxious to obtain all the knowledge of the actual state of the country, and the prospects of the campaign, which could be obtained from Guiscard. Varnhorst, full of a soldier's impetuosity, was gone to the quarters of his grenadiers, and was busy with hurried preparations for the morrow. The duke had retired, and, through the curtains of his tent, I could see the lamps by whose light his secretaries were in attendance, and with whom he would probably pass the greater part of the next twelve hours. With Guiscard I continued pacing up and down in front of our quarters, listening to the observations of a mind as richly stored, and as original, as I have ever met. He still persisted in his conviction, "that we had come at the wrong time, either too early or too late; before the nation had grown weary of anarchy, and after they had triumphed over the throne. "The rebound," said he energetically, "will be terrible. Ten times our force would be thrown away in this war. The army may drive all things before its front; but it will be assailed in the rear, in the flanks—every where. It is like the lava which I have seen pour down from Etna into the sea. It drove the tide before it, and threw the water up in vapour; but they were too powerful for it after all. And there stands the lava fixed and cold, and there roll the surges once again, burying it from the sight of man."

A sudden harmony of trumpets, from various points of the vast encampment, pierced the ear, and in another moment the whole line of the hills was crowned with flame. The signal for lighting the fires of the Austrian and Prussian outposts had been given, and the effect was almost magical. In this army all things were done with a regularity almost perfect. The trumpet spoke, and the answer was instantaneous. All comparisons are feeble to realities of this order—seen, too, while the heart of man is quickened to enjoy and wonder, and feels scarcely less than a new existence in the stirring events every where round him. The first comparison that struck me was the vague one of a shower of stars. The mountain pinnacles were in a blaze. The general fires of the bivouacs soon spread through the forest, and down the slopes of the hills, all round to the horizon.

The night was fine, the air flowed refreshingly from the verdure of the immense woods, and the scent of the thyme and flowers of the heath, pressed by my foot, rose "wooingly on the air." All was calm and odorous. The flourish of the evening trumpets still continued to swell in the rich harmonies which German skill alone can breathe, and thoughts of the past and the future began to steal over my mind. I was once more in England, gazing on the splendid beauty of Clotilde; and imagining the thousand forms in which my weary fortunes must be shaped, before I dared offer her a share in my hopes of happiness. I saw Mariamne once more, with her smile reminding me of Shakspeare's exquisite picture—

 
"Oh, what a deal of scorn looks beautiful,
In the contempt and anger of that lip!"
 

Then came a vision of my early home. The halls of Mortimer castle—the feebly surviving parent there, whom I still loved—the heartless and haughty brother—the pomp and pageantry to which he was born; while I was flung out into the wilderness, like the son of the handmaid, to perish, or, like him, escape only by a miracle. At that hour, perhaps, there were revels in the house of my fathers, while their descendant was wandering on a hill-side, in the midst of hostile armies, exposed to the chances of the conflict, and possibly only measuring with his pace the extent of his grave. But while I was thus sinking in heart, my hand, in making some unconscious gesture, struck the badge of Frederic's order on my bosom. What trifles change the current of human thoughts! That star threw more light over my darkness than the thousand constellations that studded the vault above my head. Success, honours, and public name, filled my mind. I saw all things, events, and persons through a brilliant haze of hope; and determining to follow fortune wherever she might lead me, abjured all thoughts of calamity in my unfriended, yet resolute career. Is it to consider the matter too curiously, to conceive that the laws of nature affect the mind? or that the spirit of man resembles an instrument, after all—an Aeolian harp, which owes all its pulses to the gusts that pass across its strings, and in which it simply depends upon the stronger or the feebler breeze, whether it shall smile with joyous and triumphant chords, or sink into throbs and sounds of sorrow?

The galloping of horses roused me. It was Guiscard with an escort. "What! not in your bed yet?" was his hurried salutation. "So much the better; you will have a showy despatch to send to England to-night. Clairfait has just outdone himself. He found that the French were retreating, and he followed them without loss of time. His troops had been so dispersed by the service of the day, that he could collect but fifteen hundred hussars; and with these he gallantly set forth to pick up stragglers. His old acquaintance, Chazot, whom he had beaten the day before, was in command of a rearguard of ten thousand men. His fifteen hundred brave fellows were now exposed to ruin; and doubtless, if they had exhibited any show of retreating, they must have been ruined. But here Clairfait's à la Turque style was exactly in place. He ordered that not a shot should be fired, but that the spur and sabre should do the business; and at once plunged into the mass of infantry, cavalry, and artillery. In five minutes the whole were put to the rout—guns, baggage, and ammunition taken; and the French general-in-chief as much stripped of his rearguard, as ever a peacock was plucked of his tail."