“There is the sun of Austerlitz,” said Napoleon to those who were near him when it arose. But it was not. It was the sun of Borodino. And before it set the great battle desired by the French had been fought, and eight French generals lay dead, while thirty more were wounded. Murat, Davoust, Ney, Junot, Prince Eugene, Napoleon himself—all were there; and all fought to finish a war which from the first had been disliked. The French claimed it as a victory; but they gained nothing by it, and they lost forty thousand killed and wounded.
During the night the Russians evacuated the position which they had held, and lost, and retaken. They retreated towards Moscow, but Napoleon was hardly ready to pursue.
These things, however, are history, and those who wish to know of them may read them in another volume. While to the many orderly persons who would wish to see everything in its place and the history-books on the top shelf to be taken down and read on a future day (which will never come), to such the explanation is due that this battle of Borodino is here touched upon because it changed the current of some lives with which we have to deal.
For battles and revolutions and historical events of any sort are the jagged instruments with which Fate rough-hews our lives, leaving us to shape them as we will. In other days, no doubt, men rough-hewed, while Fate shaped. But as civilization advances men will wax so tender, so careful of the individual, that they will never cut and slash, but move softly, very tolerant, very easygoing, seeking the compromise that brings peace and breeds a small and timid race of men.
Into such lives Fate comes crashing like a woodman with his axe, leaving us to smooth the edges of the gaping wound and smile, and say that we are not hurt; to pare away the knots and broken stumps; and hope that our neighbour, concealing such himself, will have the decency to pretend not to see.
Thus the battle of Borodino crashed into the lives of Désirée and Mathilde, and their father, living quietly on the sunny side of the Frauengasse in Danzig. Antoine Sebastian was the first to hear the news. He had, it seemed, special facilities for learning news at the Weissen Röss’l, whither he went again now in the evening.
“There has been a great battle,” he said, with so much more than his usual self-restraint that Désirée and Mathilde exchanged a glance of anxiety. “A man coming this evening from Dirschau saw and spoke with the Imperial couriers on their way to Berlin and Paris. It was a great victory, quite near to Moscow. But the loss on both sides has been terrible.”
He paused and glanced at Désirée. It was his creed that good blood should show an example of self-restraint and a certain steadfast, indifferent courage.
“Not so much among the French,” he said, “as among the Bavarians and Italians. It is an odd way of showing patriotism, to gain victories for the conqueror. One hoped—” he paused and made a gesture with his right hand, scarcely indicative of a staunch hope, “that the man’s star might be setting, but it would appear to be still in the ascendant. Charles,” he added, as an afterthought, “would be on the staff. No doubt he only saw the fighting from a distance.”
Désirée, from whose face the colour had faded, nodded cheerfully enough.
“Oh yes,” she answered, “I have no doubt he is safe. He has good fortune.”
For she was an apt pupil, and had already learnt that the world only wishes to leave us in undisputed possession of our anxieties or sorrows, however ready it may be to come forward and take a hand in good fortune.
“But there is no definite news,” said Mathilde, hardly looking up from the needlework at which her fingers were so deft and industrious.
“No.”
“No news of Charles, I mean,” she continued, “or of any of our friends. Of Monsieur de Casimir, for instance?”
“No. As for Colonel de Casimir,” returned Sebastian thoughtfully, “he, like Charles, holds some staff appointment of which one does not understand the scope. He is without doubt uninjured.”
Mathilde glanced at her father not without suspicion. His grand manner might easily be at times a screen. One never knows how much is perceived by those who look down from a high place.
The town was quiet enough all that night. Sebastian must have heard the news from some unofficial source, for none other seemed to know it. But at daybreak the church bells, so rarely used in Danzig for rejoicing, awoke the burghers to the fact that the Emperor bade them make merry. Napoleon gave great heed to such matters. In the churches of Lithuania and farther on in Russia he had commanded the popes to pray for him at their altars instead of for the Czar.
When Désirée came downstairs, she found a packet awaiting her. The courier had come in during the night. This was more than a letter. A number of papers had been folded in a handkerchief and bound with string. The address was written on a piece of white leather cut from the uniform of one who had fallen at Borodino, and had no more need of sabretache or trapping.
Madame Désirée Darragon—née Sebastian,
Frauengasse 36,
Danzig.
Désirée’s heart stood still; for the writing was unknown to her. As she cut the network of string, she thought that Charles was dead. When the enclosed papers fell upon the table, she was sure of it; for they were all in his writing. She did not pick and choose as one would who has leisure and no very strong excitement, but took up the first paper
