Max Pemberton
The Great White Army (Historical Novel)
Published by
Books
- Advanced Digital Solutions & High-Quality eBook Formatting -
2021 OK Publishing
EAN 4064066380281
Table of Contents
Chapter I. The Woman on the Stairs
Chapter III. The Treasure in the Woods
Chapter V. The Camp by the River
Chapter VI. The Witch in Ermine
Chapter VIII. The Affair at the Post-house
Chapter IX. We Cross the Bérézina
AUTHOR'S NOTE
The greatest military tragedy in history is the retreat of Napoleon's Grand Army from Moscow. Napoleon set out to invade Russia in the spring of the year 1812. In the month of June 600,000 men crossed the River Niemen. Of this vast army, but 20,000 "famished, frost-bitten spectres" staggered across the Bridge of Kovno in the month of December.
Many pens have described, with more or less fidelity, the details of this unsurpassable tragedy. The story which we are now about to represent to our readers is that of Surgeon-Major Constant, a veteran who accompanied Napoleon to Moscow, and was one of the survivors who returned ultimately to Paris. Constant had fled from Paris at the beginning of the French Revolution in the year 1792. He lived for a while at Leipsic, where he gave lessons in French and studied medicine. His nephew, Captain Léon de Courcelles, was one of the famous Vélites of the Guard. It is with the exploits of this young and daring soldier that the veteran's narrative is often concerned.
CHAPTER I
THE WOMAN ON THE STAIRS
I
I, Janil de Constant, remember very well the moment when we first beheld the glorious city of Moscow, which we had marched twelve thousand leagues to take.
It would have been the fourteenth day of September. The sun shone fiercely upon our splendid cavalcade, and even in the forests, which we now quitted very willingly, there were oases of light like golden lakes in a wonderland.
It was half-past three o'clock when I myself reached the Mont du Salut, a hill from whose summit the traveller first looks down upon the city.
And what a spectacle to see! What domes and minarets and mighty towers! What a mingling of East and West, of Oriental beauty and the stately splendour of a European capital! You will not wonder that our men drew rein to gaze with awe upon so transcendent a spectacle. This was Mecca truly. Here they would end their labours and here lay their reward.
We thought, with reason surely, that there would be no more talk of war. The Russians had learned their lesson at Borodino, and all that remained for the Russian Tsar to do was to make peace with our Emperor. Meanwhile there would be many days of holiday such as we had not known since we left France. The riches of this city passed the fables, they told us. You will imagine with what feelings the advance posts of the Guard set out to descend the hill and take up their quarters in the governor's palace.
I had hoped to enter Moscow with my nephew Léon, who is one of the Vélites of the Guard. I wished to be near that young man at so critical a moment. Even old soldiers lose their heads when they enter an enemy's city, and what could one expect of the young ones? Léon, however, had ridden on with Major Pavart, of the chasseurs à cheval, and so it was with old Sergeant Bourgogne, of the Vélites, that I entered Moscow and began to think of quarters.
We heard some shots as we went down into the town, and when we came to that broad street which leads to the Place du Gouvernement, a soldier of the line told us that the governor had released the convicts and that they were holding the palace against our outposts. We thought very little of the matter at the time, and were more concerned to admire the magnificence of the street and the beauty of many of its houses. These, it appeared, belonged to the nobility, but we began to perceive that none of the princely owners had remained in Moscow, and that only a few servants occupied these mansions. Many of the latter watched us as we rode by, and at the corner of the great square one of them, a dandy fellow with mincing gait, had the temerity to catch my horse by the bridle and to hold him while he told me that his name was Heriot, and that he had left Paris with the Count of Provence in the year 1790.
"You are a surgeon, are you not?" he went on before I had time to exclaim upon his effrontery. Amazed, I told him that I was.
"Then," said he, "be good enough to come into yonder house and see to one of your own men who is lying there."
I suppose it was a proper thing for the fellow to ask me, yet the naïveté of it brought a smile to my lips.
"Bon garçon," said I, "you must have many surgeons of your own in Moscow. Why ask me, who am on my way to the Emperor?"
"Because," he said, still holding the bridle, "you will not regret your visit, monsieur. This is a rich house: they will know how to pay you for your services."
There was something mysterious about this remark which excited my curiosity, and turning my horse aside I permitted him to lead it into the stable courtyard. It was to be observed that he slammed the great gate quickly behind us, and bolted it with great bars of iron which would almost have defied artillery. Then he tethered my horse to a pillar and bade me follow him. It was just at the moment when the band of the Fusiliers began to play a lively air and many thousands of our infantry pressed on into the square.
II
We entered the house itself by a wicket upon the left-hand side, which should have led to the kitchens.
It was here, perhaps, that I thought it not a little extraordinary, and it may be somewhat less than prudent, that I, who should have been already at the gates of the palace, had turned aside at the mere nod of this dandy to enter a house of whose people I knew nothing. Nevertheless, it was the case, and I reflected that if one of my own countrymen were indeed in distress, then was the delay not ill-timed.
We were at the foot of a cold stone staircase by this time, and I observed that the lackey began to mount it with some caution. There was no