The Sword of Honor; or, The Foundation of the French Republic: A Tale of The French RevolutionSue, Eugène
History
The Sword of Honor; or, The Foundation of the French Republic: A Tale of The French Revolution
Sue, Eugène
France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799 -- Fiction
Germinal (the Budding month, March 21 to April 19), Floreal (the
Flowery month, April 20 to May 19), Prairial (the Pasture month,
May 20 to June 18).
For Summer:
Messidor (the Harvest month, June 19 to July 18), Thermidor (the
Hot month, July 19 to August 17), Fructidor (the Fruit month,
August 18 to September 16).[13]
12TH BRUMAIRE, YEAR II (November 2, 1793).--The detail of arms is
completed, and Castillon and I leave day after to-morrow to join at
Lille the Seventh Battalion, Paris Volunteers.
CHAPTER XXVI.
A REVOLUTIONARY OUTPOST.
On the 5th Nivose of the year II (December 25, 1793), an advance post of
the main body of the Army of the Republic lay in military occupancy of
an isolated tavern some quarter of a league's distance from Ingelsheim,
a French burg about twelve leagues from Strasburg. Hoche and Pichegru,
the Generals of the detachments called "of the Rhine and Moselle," had
removed their headquarters to Ingelsheim, after several advantages
gained over Marshal Wurmser, the Duke of Brunswick and the Prince of
Conde. The republican troops were bivouacked about the city. The light
of their campfires struggled with difficulty through the mists of a
black winter's night. A line of scouts and pickets covered the position
of the post, which was composed of a company of the Seventh Battalion,
Paris Volunteers, among whom were John Lebrenn and his foreman
Castillon.
The company was gathered in the large hall of the inn, and in the
kitchen, where blazed a great fire. The greater part of the men, worn
out with fatigue, sought repose on beds of fresh straw laid along the
walls, making shift to use their knapsacks as pillows. Others furbished
their arms, or blacked their cartridge-boxes; still others were mending
their dilapidated garments or exercising their wits to cobble their
shoes into a semblance of serviceableness; for neither the stores of the
army nor draughts on nature sufficed to clothe and shoe all the citizens
called to the flag in the last levies, or to replenish their wardrobes
against the havocs of war. Few, indeed, of the volunteers, wore the
complete uniform decreed by the Convention and which was already covered
with the glory of so many victories. This consisted of a coat of deep
blue, with facings and trimmings of red, and large white lapels, which
left displayed the vest of white cloth, like the trousers; black knit
leggins, with leather buttons, reaching to the knee; a flat
three-cornered hat, surmounted with a plume of red horse-hair, falling
beside the cockade; and a knapsack of white calf or buffalo-skin. Only
the most recent recruits to the battalion were dressed correctly in
accord with the decree.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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