France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799 -- Fiction; Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, 1769-1821 -- Fiction
If one chanced to be less well provisioned, and had only dry bread, he
opened a dead comrade's knapsack and found all he wanted.
In the meantime the surgeons were going over the field; those who could
stand the transportation were sent to Froeschwiller to await attention
there, the others were looked after at once. The generals established
themselves in the redoubts previously occupied by General Hodge half way
up the hill. The Goddess of Reason, now the citizeness Faraud, in her
quality of first canteen-bearer of the Army of the Rhine, and having no
rival in the Army of the Moselle, had assumed charge of the generals'
repast. A few chairs, knives and forks and glasses were discovered; they
had hoped to find all other necessaries in the general's wagon, but a
stray ball had shattered the caisson and all that it contained. The
table was set with all the necessary dishes, but all kinds of food and
drink were conspicuous by their absence.
Pichegru was about to ask tithes of his soldiers, when a voice, which
seemed to come from the bowels of the earth, cried: "Victory! Victory!"
It was Faraud, who had discovered a trap-door, a staircase, and a cellar
containing a well-furnished pantry.
Ten minutes later the generals and their staff were dining at the same
table. No words could describe these fraternal love-feasts, where
soldiers, officers and generals broke the bread of the bivouac together.
These men who were to conquer the world, and had started at the Bastile
as Cæsar's soldiers had started at the Golden Mile, began to feel in
themselves the supreme confidence which gives victory. They did not know
whither they were to go, but they were ready to go anywhere. They had
before them the whole world, and behind them France--the land which is
more solicitous than all others, the only one which lives, breathes, and
loves her children, which has a heart, which trembles with pleasure
beneath their feet when they triumph, with sadness when they are
vanquished, and with gratitude when they die for her.
Oh! he only knows her, this Cornelia among nations, he only can cherish
her pride, who can place on her head a laurel-crown, and in her hand the
sword of Charlemagne, of Philippe-Auguste, of François I., or of
Napoleon--he alone knows what milk can be drawn from her bosom, what
tears from her eyes, what blood from her heart!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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