not make out where they were in the noisy, surging throng that filled the road from ditch to ditch, pouring onward like a brawling mountain stream. Interspersed among the regiments were many fugitives from the rout at Beaumont, in ragged uniforms, begrimed with blood and dirt, who inoculated the others with their own terror. Down the wide valley, from the wooded hills across the stream, came one universal, all-pervading uproar, the scurrying tramp of other hosts in swift retreat; the 1st corps, coming from Carignan and Douzy, the 12th flying from Mouzon with the shattered remnants of the 5th, moved like puppets and driven onward, all of them, by that one same, inexorable, irresistible pressure that since the 28th had been urging the army northward and driving it into the trap where it was to meet its doom.
Day broke as Maurice's company was passing through Pont Maugis, and then he recognized their locality, the hills of Liry to the left, the Meuse running beside the road on the right. Bazeilles and Balan presented an inexpressibly funereal aspect, looming among the exhalations of the meadows in the chill, wan light of dawn, while against the somber background of her great forests Sedan was profiled in livid outlines, indistinct as the creation of some hideous nightmare. When they had left Wadelincourt behind them and were come at last to the Torcy gate, the governor long refused them admission; he only yielded, after a protracted conference, upon their threat to storm the place. It was five o'clock when at last the 7th corps, weary, cold, and hungry, entered Sedan.
VIII.
In the crush on the Place de Torcy that ensued upon the entrance of the troops into the city Jean became separated from Maurice, and all his attempts to find him again among the surging crowd were fruitless. It was a piece of extreme ill-luck, for he had accepted the young man's invitation to go with him to his sister's, where there would be rest and food for them, and even the luxury of a comfortable bed. The confusion was so great-the regiments disintegrated, no discipline, and no officers to enforce it-that the men were free to do pretty much as they pleased. There was plenty of time to look about them and hunt up their commands; they would have a few hours of sleep first.
Jean in his bewilderment found himself on the viaduct of Torcy, overlooking the broad meadows which, by the governor's orders, had been flooded with water from the river. Then, passing through another archway and crossing the Pont de Meuse, he entered the old, rampart-girt city, where, among the tall and crowded houses and the damp, narrow streets, it seemed to him that night was descending again, notwithstanding the increasing daylight. He could not so much as remember the name of Maurice's brother-in-law; he only knew that his sister's name was Henriette. The outlook was not encouraging; all that kept him awake was the automatic movement of walking; he felt that he should drop were he to stop. The indistinct ringing in his ears was the same that is experienced by one drowning; he was only conscious of the ceaseless onpouring of the stream of men and animals that carried him along with it on its current. He had partaken of food at Remilly, sleep was now his great necessity; and the same was true of the shadowy bands that he saw flitting past him in those strange, fantastic streets. At every moment a man would sink upon the sidewalk or tumble into a doorway, and there would remain, as if struck by death.
Raising his eyes, Jean read upon a signboard: Avenue de la Sous-Prefecture. At the end of the street was a monument standing in a public garden, and at the corner of the avenue he beheld a horseman, a chasseur d'Afrique, whose face seemed familiar to him. Was it not Prosper, the young man from Remilly, whom he had seen in Maurice's company at Vouziers? Perhaps he had been sent in with dispatches. He had dismounted, and his skeleton of a horse, so weak that he could scarcely stand, was trying to satisfy his hunger by gnawing at the tail-board of an army wagon that was drawn up against the curb. There had been no forage for the animals for the last two days, and they were literally dying of starvation. The big strong teeth rasped pitifully on the woodwork of the wagon, while the soldier stood by and wept as he watched the poor brute.
Jean was moving away when it occurred to him that the trooper might be able to give him the address of Maurice's sister. He returned, but the other was gone, and it would have been useless to attempt to find him in that dense throng. He was utterly disheartened, and wandering aimlessly from street to street at last found himself again before the Sous-Prefecture, whence he struggled onward to the Place Turenne. Here he was comforted for an instant by catching sight of Lieutenant Rochas, standing in front of the Hotel de Ville with a few men of his company, at the foot of the statue he had seen before; if he could not find his friend he could at all events rejoin the regiment and have a tent to sleep under. Nothing had been seen of Captain Beaudoin; doubtless he had been swept away in the press and landed in some place far away, while the lieutenant was endeavoring to collect his scattered men and fruitlessly inquiring of everyone he met where division headquarters were. As he advanced into the city, however, his numbers, instead of increasing, dwindled. One man, with the gestures of a lunatic, entered an inn and was seen no more. Three others were halted in front of a grocer's shop by a party of zouaves who had obtained possession of a small cask of brandy; one was already lying senseless in the gutter, while the other two tried to get away, but were too stupid and dazed to move. Loubet and Chouteau had nudged each other with the elbow and disappeared down a blind alley in pursuit of a fat woman with a loaf of bread, so that all who remained with the lieutenant were Pache and Lapoulle, with some ten or a dozen more.
Rochas was standing by the base of the bronze statue of Turenne, making heroic efforts to keep his eyes open. When he recognized Jean he murmured:
'Ah, is it you, corporal? Where are your men?'
Jean, by a gesture expressive in its vagueness, intimated that he did not know, but Pache, pointing to Lapoulle, answered with tears in his eyes:
'Here we are; there are none left but us two. The merciful Lord have pity on our sufferings; it is too hard!'
The other, the colossus with the colossal appetite, looked hungrily at Jean's hands, as if to reproach them for being always empty in those days. Perhaps, in his half-sleeping state, he had dreamed that Jean was away at the commissary's for rations.
'D--n the luck!' he grumbled, 'we'll have to tighten up our belts another hole!'
Gaude, the bugler, was leaning against the iron railing, waiting for the lieutenant's order to sound the assembly; sleep came to him so suddenly that he slid from his position and within a second was lying flat on his back, unconscious. One by one they all succumbed to the drowsy influence and snored in concert, except Sergeant Sapin alone, who, with his little pinched nose in his small pale face, stood staring with distended eyes at the horizon of that strange city, as if trying to read his destiny there.
Lieutenant Rochas meantime had yielded to an irresistible impulse and seated himself on the ground. He attempted to give an order.
'Corporal, you will-you will-'
And that was as far as he could proceed, for fatigue sealed his lips, and like the rest he suddenly sank down and was lost in slumber.
Jean, not caring to share his comrades' fate and pillow his head on the hard stones, moved away; he was bent on finding a bed in which to sleep. At a window of the Hotel of the Golden Cross, on the opposite side of the square, he caught a glimpse of General Bourgain-Desfeuilles, already half-undressed and on the point of tasting the luxury of clean white sheets. Why should he be more self-denying than the rest of them? he asked himself; why should he suffer longer? And just then a name came to his recollection that caused him a thrill of delight, the name of the manufacturer in whose employment Maurice's brother-in-law was. M. Delaherche! yes, that was it. He accosted an old man who happened to be passing.
'Can you tell me where M. Delaherche lives?'
'In the Rue Maqua, near the corner of the Rue au Beurre; you can't mistake it; it is a big house, with statues in the garden.'
The old man turned away, but presently came running back. 'I see you belong to the 106th. If it is your regiment you are looking for, it left the city by the Chateau, down there. I just met the colonel, Monsieur de Vineuil; I used to know him when he lived at Mezieres.'
But Jean went his way, with an angry gesture of impatience. No, no! no sleeping on the hard ground for him, now that he was certain of finding Maurice. And yet he could not help feeling a twinge of remorse as he thought of the dignified old colonel, who stood fatigue so manfully in spite of his years, sharing the sufferings of his men, with no more luxurious shelter than his tent. He strode across the Grande Rue with rapid steps and soon was in the midst of the tumult and uproar of the city; there he hailed a small boy, who conducted him to the Rue Maqua.
There it was that in the last century a grand-uncle of the present Delaherche had built the monumental structure that had remained in the family a hundred and sixty years. There is more than one cloth factory in Sedan
