Moscow: A Story of the French Invasion of 1812

"Who is he?" said old Pierre, frowning; "I do not remember to have had a pupil of that name!"

"Ask the Baron to wait a moment in the salon," said Marie. "Do you not remember, father?" she continued, laughing, when the servant had disappeared. "This is a very beautiful young man, and in one respect at least, unique as well."

"Unique?" repeated Dupré; "and how so?"

"In that he is the only male being who ever succeeded in causing our Louise an extra pulse-beat or two. Have you forgotten how she nearly lost her heart, and how distressed you were, just before her departure for the war?"

"Sapristi—I remember the fool. What has he come for, think you?"

"To seek Louise, doubtless. He will find that she is none the softer for her warfaring. I am not sorry she is from home, however, the sight of him might not be good for her, mon père. It would be a pity if her career were spoiled for the sake of a Henri d'Estreville, who, they say, is not too trustworthy."

"Oho!" said old Pierre; "is it so? He shall know that there is no longer a Louise Dupré to listen to his philandering."

This attitude did not bode well for Monsieur le Baron, who awaited Louise in the salon, more agitated than he would have believed possible.

"Monsieur will doubtless remember me," he explained; "it was I who brought Monsieur Paul de Tourelle, the only fencer—it is said—at whose hands Mademoiselle Louise was ever worsted."

"Ah, his was a fine hand with the foils!" said Pierre. "Yes, I remember well. Ha ha! in the first bout she scored twice with the feint flanconnade Dupré—a trick new to him and most successful; but after consideration he thought out a counter which was clever; I remember well. Does Monsieur le Baron come now as a pupil? Let me see, have we already enjoyed the honour of instructing Monsieur le Baron?"

"Monsieur, I have lately returned from the war; I have heard enough of the clash of swords to last me handsomely until the Emperor enters upon a new enterprise and one, let us hope, of better omen. I have come to pay my respects to a friend for whom I entertain feelings of the highest respect—it is Mademoiselle your daughter."

"Ah—Marie; she is within; I will tell her." Old Dupré shuffled off as though to fetch Marie.

"Pardon, Monsieur," said Henri, blushing; the old man was very dense. "You have another daughter; it is Mademoiselle Louise I mean!"

"Louise!" exclaimed Dupré, throwing up his hands; "Monsieur le Baron has not then heard that Louise is dead?"

"Grand Dieu, Monsieur, what are you saying?" exclaimed Henri; his cheek grew suddenly pale; his knees seemed to tremble beneath him; he had risen to his feet, but he sat down again hurriedly.

"She is dead, Monsieur; Louise is dead; she has ceased to exist; do I not express myself with sufficient clearness?"

"Monsieur will pardon my emotion—I had not heard," murmured Henri scarcely audibly. "My God, it is incredible; it is horrible; and I have so looked forward—Monsieur, how long since did this most lamentable event happen?"

"Nearly a year, Monsieur. I fail to remember that Monsieur's acquaintance with my daughter was particularly intimate."

"Monsieur Dupré," said Henri, finding his voice, "I did not mention the circumstance when I was here in May last for the reason that I had not then myself realised it; but it is nevertheless the truth that, short as was my acquaintance with Mademoiselle Louise, it was long enough to convince me that my heart had in Mademoiselle found its intimate, its complement, that in a word I loved Mademoiselle and must lay at her feet my life, my happiness. Monsieur, I was presumptuous enough to think that your daughter was not indifferent to me; her young heart had never, I believe, been assailed; I had the greatest hopes that she would listen favourably to my suit—we should, perhaps, have enjoyed wedded bliss; and I return to be informed by you that she is dead."

"Monsieur le Baron will forgive me," said old Dupré, "but those who know me are well aware that such matters as Monsieur speaks of meet with no sympathetic response from my side. It is my grievance against Destiny, Monsieur, that my children should have been females; Monsieur had not heard this? It is the truth. Consequently, having brought up my daughters as men and taught them the highest skill in manly exercises and to value such attainments more highly than the usual avocations of women, I have ever observed with repugnance any indications of a falling away of either of the girls towards the ordinary womanly foolishness of a desire for love and courtship and such things. Which being the case, Monsieur, I can only reply to your rhapsodical utterances by saying that I thank Heaven Louise ceased to exist in time. I would not have had her exposed to such a declaration as you intended, I suppose, to make to her this day, for ten times the inducements Monsieur could offer."

Henri was silent. The old man's lack of sympathy mattered very little beside the greater fact: the fact of the death of Louise, which Henri felt to be a disaster of the first magnitude; too great, indeed, to be altogether realised so suddenly. Here was a grievance against Destiny, indeed! For once in his life the Baron had come very near to falling honestly in love, and this was the result; it was too appalling, too unfortunate for belief.

"Mademoiselle must have died soon after I left for the war," he murmured. "Was she long ill, Monsieur?"

"Louise died at the beginning of the war, Monsieur; she ceased to exist, I remember, on the day of the conscription in this quartier; her end was sudden; there was no illness."

"She did not, I suppose, leave messages for friends; words of remembrance and so forth—there was not time, perhaps?"

"Doubtless there was neither time nor inclination, Monsieur. Louise was happily but little disposed towards those follies of womankind to which I have made allusion."

"Pardon, Monsieur, I had reason to hope that in my own case Mademoiselle Louise had made an exception."

"Not so, Monsieur; believe me, you are mistaken."

"I think not, Monsieur. I may tell you, since Mademoiselle is dead and I break no confidence, that she had even confessed her love for me."

"Then, Sapristi, Monsieur le Baron, I repeat ten thousand times," cried old Pierre, banging the table with his fist, "that I thank Heaven my daughter ceased to exist before your return from the war. Monsieur le Baron will now understand my sentiments in this matter and will, I trust, for the future retain inviolate the secret he has been good enough to share with me."

Henri bowed and prepared to depart. The man was obviously crazy. Probably the death of Louise had overbalanced his reason. Henri remembered that he had heard long ago of his eccentricity with regard to his daughters and their sex.

"Monsieur will pardon my intrusion," he said politely; "he may rest assured that the secret made over to him shall henceforward remain inviolate in my breast."

When old Pierre returned to his daughter his face betrayed that he was in the best of spirits. He entered the room laughing and swearing round oaths.

"Âme de mon Épée!" he exclaimed; "I think we shall have no more visits from this suitor. The devil! He would have carried Louise from under our noses if we and she had been fools enough to let him. Thanks be to Heaven that Louise—if ever for a moment she wavered, as you seem to suppose—quickly recovered her balance. It was your example, Marie, fool that you made of yourself!" Marie laughed.

"You will sing a different song, my father," she said, "when you have a houseful of little grandsons to educate in the art of the sword. What did you tell the Baron?"

"The old tale—the same which we have told others, that Louise died long since. She 'ceased to exist,' that was my expression. Sapristi, it is the truth! Louise ceased to exist when Michel Prevost came into existence—is it not so? Ha! so it is!"

CHAPTER XXVI

Henri d'Estreville sat at his midday meal at the restaurant specially frequented by the officers of his regiment. He wore the aspect of one who is more than ordinarily depressed. He was pale and distrait and neglected the food which had been placed before him.

Several acquaintances entered the room and saluted him as they passed, but he took no notice of them.

"What ails D'Estreville?" men asked one another. "Is it cards or a woman?"

Among others there entered presently Michel Prevost, who was known to very few, having but lately qualified for the right to sit at meals with the class of men mostly frequenting this eating-house and others of its kind.

Michel looked round and saw Henri d'Estreville. His face flushed and then paled. He sat down on the nearest seat to gather breath and strength. Michel had almost despaired of his friend since the terrible day at Vilna, when the remnant of Ney's division, tattered and war-worn, had marched into the town like men returning from the grave; when he had looked and inquired for Henri among the rest and found him not. Even when he had heard it said, this very morning, that the Baron had reappeared, he had scarcely dared to believe it. For five minutes he sat still, not daring to move or speak. At last he rose from his seat, and advancing from behind came up and touched the Baron's shoulder.

"So you, too, have reached home in safety, mon ami!" he said. "You have returned from the grave indeed! Do you not know that we mourned you for dead? Allow me to share your table? I am a little shy of these super-aristocratic persons in times of peace; in the field the devil may care how many airs they put on; but here it is different. My commission feels new and strange to me; I am afraid at every moment that some one will say 'What right have you here? go out!'" Michel talked quickly, to conceal his agitation. Henri looked up and gave Michel his hand, smiling.

"Yes, I found my way home somehow," he said; "yet for all the joy I feel in living I wish to God I had stayed beneath the Russian snows."

Michel gazed at his friend in amazement.

"Why—what mean you—what has happened?" he asked.

"Michel, mon ami, you have been a good friend to me; you will sympathise; it will do me good to tell you; listen. Have I your permission to bore you with my tale of woe?"

"Yes—speak—who knows, I may be able to counsel you, give you relief–"

"No, it is impossible. Listen, my friend. You may remember our first meeting, when I lay wounded at Smolensk, I spoke confidentially—you will call it raving, I daresay—the subject, women; I confessed many things foolish and wicked; I spoke of one pure sentiment; of the love, strange and unfamiliar, because pure and disinterested, that I cherished for a very simple, very charming maiden whose name–"

"Was Mathilde—was it not?—or Louise; one of the daughters of a maître d'armes."

"Yes; Louise; you professed to know her—to have heard of her, at any rate. Well, let that pass then. It is strange, my friend, but my affection in that quarter has not vanished after the fashion of the wretched sentiment I have hitherto felt for other women, which has evaporated when the object is absent. On the contrary, it has increased in absence. I returned home to Paris inclined, certainly, to love the girl even more than I loved her at parting; a wonderful thing for me, Michel, mon brave, and very remarkable." Henri smiled ruefully at his friend.

"Continue," said Michel, whose face looked pale, perhaps in sympathy with that of his companion.

"Well, I return. I go, almost the first available moment, to see my charming one. I enter the house, my heart glowing with love and sweet anticipation. I am received by her father, who is cold, polite, long-winded, unsympathetic. I ask for Louise–" Henri paused; his fingers tapped upon the table; his voice had grown suddenly hoarse; there was actually moisture in his eyes.

"Continue," murmured Michel, who wondered what was coming, for all this was a surprise to him, neither Dupré nor Marie having breathed a word of the visit of Baron Henri.

"I ask for Louise," D'Estreville continued. "She is dead."

"Dead?" exclaimed Michel, suddenly rising to his feet and pushing back his chair with a clatter. "Who said so? Why dead? What mean you?"

Michel was never so grateful to destiny as at this moment, for he was able to ease his feelings by an exhibition of genuine surprise. But for that he must soon have burst into tears.

"Simply that she is dead. It is true, my friend. 'She is dead,' said her parent, and 'since it appears you come as a lover and would have stolen from me my daughter who should be above such feminine foolishness as love and marriage, I add my thanks to the Highest that she has ceased to exist in time'—these are the very words of her father, whose throat I could have pinched with satisfaction. What say you, mon ami, have I the right to be distressed? By all the Saints, Michel, it is too cruel a trick of Destiny. I could have loved this girl. God knows, I might even have married her. Never before have I felt so fondly disposed towards a woman, never so virtuous. I believe this was true love, my friend, or the beginning of it."

"Nom de la Guerre!" exclaimed Michel. "And she is dead, say you—the father himself declared it?"

"I have said so. 'She ceased to exist'—that was his odd manner of expressing it; 'she ceased to exist on the day of conscription'; it is odd how the crazy old man dates naturally from that day; he is mad upon men; he loves only men, honours men, thinks men; women are nothing to him. You would suppose he would be affected in speaking of the death of his daughter; but no! It seemed that her loss is nothing to him. Why? because she was not a man."

To Henri's surprise and displeasure Michel at this point suddenly burst into a roar of laughter. He looked up frowning.

"I beg ten thousand pardons," cried Michel, half choking; "I am not wanting in sympathy, mon ami; but in truth the attitude and words of this old man are very comical. Forgive me, Baron, I was very rude."

"Enough. I would laugh also if I had the heart. Certainly the old man is a lunatic. Tell me, Michel; what shall I do? What is going on? I shall die of ennui if I sit and nurse my grief, as now. Thanks to Heaven that you have arrived; it may be that the Saints sent you for my salvation, as before at Smolensk. Come, suggest. I must be made amused; must laugh. I must see movement of men and women."

"Ha! you are not so overwhelmed by your grief, I see, that you cannot feel the desire for amusement. That is a good sign, Baron; you will soon recover, I prophesy."

"A good sign, say you? There is no question of recovery. You are far from the truth, my friend. It is distraction that I need. I do not yet ask to be cured, that would be impossible."

"That depends! The rapidity of the healing depends upon the severity or otherwise of the wound. Yours is, I take it, but a shallow slash."

"Michel, you wound me again by these words. I need distraction; but that does not imply that I am not almost heart-broken, which I verily believe that I am. You, who have never been in love, are unable to appreciate the anguish of having loved and lost."

"Thanks be to Heaven I have never yet loved woman in that foolish manner," said Michel. "You are right, my friend. Tell me, is it worth while to love when an accident, such as this from which you now suffer, may in an instant turn love to misery? Is there any woman in this world for whose sake it is worth while to break one's heart?"

"I thought the same but a short while since. You are young, Michel; do not boast. One day you too will love."

"Absit omen!" laughed the other. "I say that there is no woman worth loving; worth, that is, breaking one's heart over, in case she should prove unfaithful, or die or what not."

"And I say that one such, at least, there has been. Do not speak so positively, Michel, my friend, of matters in which you are altogether ignorant."

"Well, have it your own way; but I swear that I, for one, shall never love a woman."

"I am sorry that my grief has had so deterrent an effect upon you," Henri sighed, "though I will not say that I am surprised; for indeed, now that I have lost her before she was won, I wish with all my heart I had never seen her. Like you, I am tempted to swear that I shall never give my heart of hearts to another woman."

"Oh, oh!" laughed Michel. "That is not easily believed; for they say that once a heart has become susceptible to womankind there is no more controlling its vagaries. Be sure, my friend, that we shall find you falling in love, and maybe far more seriously than before, with the first fair lady you see."

Henri looked reproachfully at his friend.

"Let us talk of other things," he said; "it is too early as yet to make of love a jesting matter; my heart is sorer than you think, Michel, or perhaps you would speak more sympathetically. Remember that my grief is as yet very green."

"Forgive me," said Michel, a softer look stealing into his eyes. "I will jest no more. Come, we will walk in the streets of Paris; Sapristi! it is better than Moscow, ha?"

CHAPTER XXVII

Napoleon and his Grand Army had been starved out of Moscow; they had made their futile attempt to destroy the Kremlin, they had delivered their last savage onslaught upon the inhabitants, lighted the last fire, desecrated the last church, exploded the last mine, insulted the last woman; they had manœuvred in the direction of St. Petersburg and of the rich Volga provinces in order to cover the movements of the main force, and finally they had thrown to the winds all subterfuge and frankly made off with all speed towards the frontier and France, leaving behind them a city of smoke and of fire, of starvation, of desertion and of the dead. Within the cathedrals was the stench of stabled horses, with all the filth attendant thereon. Dead bodies of men and women, of horses and dogs, lay about the streets unremoved. Scarcely a house within a twelve-mile radius of the centre of the city but was wholly or partially burned, pillaged, and its contents pulled hither and thither and destroyed.

Scarcely had the last Frenchman left the place to its silence and emptiness when back into this city of death and destruction began to creep, cautiously, at first, but presently to crowd into each gate that gave access within the walls, a dense mob of her banished inhabitants, each anxious to make his way to the quarter of the city in which his home had existed a month ago. Would it be found standing now? Of the Lares and Penates left behind in the terror and stress of sudden departure, would anything be left to him?

The great majority found their houses burned. Those whose four walls were still standing found their homes sacked and looted, their possessions ruthlessly destroyed and themselves ruined.

From end to end of Moscow a wail of despair arose and continued day long, for in the city proper, out of 6,000 wooden houses 4,500 were burned down, while of the 2,500 brick dwellings which had existed before the fires, only 500 now remained standing.

But meanwhile the last of the retiring French were leaving the city by the Borovitsky Gate, and here, at the very first opportunity, began the stupendous anguish of their terrible retreat. For from the first they marched from ambush to ambush, from disaster to disaster, through miseries of frost and hunger and sleeplessness and unceasing attack in flank and rear. Truly the avenging of Moscow began from her very gates.

Vera Demidof came with the rest of the returning fugitives into Moscow, came—like thousands of others—to find that the house in the Sloboda had been looted and wrecked, though the fire had not reached it. Vera had hurried back to Moscow, however, not from any anxiety as to the family mansion or its contents, she came because she had ascertained from Sasha Maximof that his regiment was to be one of those which should first engage the retreating French beyond the walls of Moscow.

"Just to hurry them up and see them safely off the premises," Sasha had laughingly expressed it but yesterday, paying her a hurried visit at the village to which she had retired on leaving Moscow.

Indeed, as the crowds of Muscovites entered the city at one side, the roar of cannon from the opposite end of the town, beyond the Borovitsky Gate, gave grim evidence that the Frenchmen were not being permitted to march away in peace and impunity.

"If you should be wounded outside Moscow, send me word," Vera had said at parting. She felt depressed and inclined to expect disaster, though she was not one to indulge weakly and without resistance in presentiments; Vera's healthy intelligence was accustomed to look upon such things as foolishness.

"Why do you expect me to get hurt?" Sasha had laughed. "When my time comes I shall die, but I do not think that is yet, Vera. There is something I am determined to achieve before I finish with life—can you guess what it is?"

Vera did not attempt to guess. "You are always getting hurt," she laughed. "Send me word by a soldier if you are clumsy enough to stand in the way of a French bullet." Vera laughed though she spoke with a full heart.

In consequence of this conversation, Sasha actually wrote Vera's address upon a slip of paper which he gave to a trooper in his regiment, bidding him keep an eye upon him and ride back to Moscow quickly, if he should fall, in order to tell the lady named in the written address of what had occurred. When, later in the day, Sasha's regiment received orders to charge from their cover a body of French foot-guards, the trooper to whose care Sasha had entrusted his slip of paper and who rode close at Sasha's stirrup saw a notable sight.

In the mélée he heard a French officer call gaily to the Count Maximof:—

"Hi," he cried, "mon ami, Maximof, here am I, let us finish that old matter".

Sasha had turned his horse, and with an exclamation made straight for the Frenchman, at whom he lunged and struck with his sabre. But the Frenchman skilfully dodged his blows, and watching his opportunity planted a thrust of his bayonet which entered the Count's body and tumbled him off his horse senseless.

"Aha!" the Frenchman cried, "that was more than I meant; what will the fair Vera say!" Almost at the same moment a Russian trooper rode this French officer down, and the messenger himself dealt him a whack with his sword that half severed his left arm at the shoulder.

After this the stress of battle separated the trooper from these two fallen men, but when the fight was done and the Frenchmen had gone forward, pursued by the Russian mounted men, the trooper, whose name was Markof, returned to the spot to see how the Count fared. Here he found the Frenchman actually giving Maximof a drink from his flask, talking to him the while in French and laughing; Maximof's eyes were open, but he breathed with difficulty.

Markof spoke to him, saying he would now ride back to the address given upon his paper, which name and address he read aloud in order to make sure he had it right.

"Ah, ah!" said the Frenchman, "Vera Demidof—good—go back and tell her, my friend, that there are two who wish to see her before they die. Sapristi, we are in luck, Maximof, both of us!"

At this the Count smiled, but said nothing, being apparently very weak. Presently he shut his eyes and swooned.

"Go, my friend, I will keep him alive till she comes," said the Frenchman, and away went Markof upon his mission.

Vera received the messenger, pale but dry-eyed and resolute.

"He is alive?" she asked. Markof nodded.

"When I left," he said; "but he is bad, lady; do not expect too much. A Frenchman sits by his side, wounded also, who has undertaken to keep him alive with brandy until you come. They seem to know one another."

Vera looked puzzled for a minute, then her face brightened.

"I am ready," she said, "and my droshka is ready, we will go at once."

Markof led the way to the spot in which Sasha had fallen. Amid the dead and dying around they found Paul de Tourelle dozing, but Sasha had disappeared. Paul opened his eyes at the sound of their voices.

"Ah! the fair Vera," he said; "I am glad I have lived long enough to see you; I am desolate, Mademoiselle, by reason of your treatment of me, yet I forgive you. Your friend Maximof has been taken by Russian peasants to the village yonder; me they left, after bestowing a great whack upon my head with a bludgeon—Maximof is alive; he–" Paul's head drooped and he closed his eyes. He had spoken gaily, but his voice came faintly and in gasps.