Lieutenant Rochas meantime had yielded to an irresistible impulse and seated himself on the ground. He attempted to give an order.
"Corporal, you will-you will-"
And that was as far as he could proceed, for fatigue sealed his lips, and like the rest he suddenly sank down and was lost in slumber.
Jean, not caring to share his comrades' fate and pillow his head on the hard stones, moved away; he was bent on finding a bed in which to sleep. At a window of the Hotel of the Golden Cross, on the opposite side of the square, he caught a glimpse of General Bourgain-Desfeuilles, already half-undressed and on the point of tasting the luxury of clean white sheets. Why should he be more self-denying than the rest of them? he asked himself; why should he suffer longer? And just then a name came to his recollection that caused him a thrill of delight, the name of the manufacturer in whose employment Maurice's brother-in-law was. M. Delaherche! yes, that was it. He accosted an old man who happened to be passing.
"Can you tell me where M. Delaherche lives?"
"In the Rue Maqua, near the corner of the Rue au Beurre; you can't mistake it; it is a big house, with statues in the garden."
The old man turned away, but presently came running back. "I see you belong to the 106th. If it is your regiment you are looking for, it left the city by the Chateau, down there. I just met the colonel, Monsieur de Vineuil; I used to know him when he lived at Mezieres."
But Jean went his way, with an angry gesture of impatience. No, no! no sleeping on the hard ground for him, now that he was certain of finding Maurice. And yet he could not help feeling a twinge of remorse as he thought of the dignified old colonel, who stood fatigue so manfully in spite of his years, sharing the sufferings of his men, with no more luxurious shelter than his tent. He strode across the Grande Rue with rapid steps and soon was in the midst of the tumult and uproar of the city; there he hailed a small boy, who conducted him to the Rue Maqua.
There it was that in the last century a grand-uncle of the present Delaherche had built the monumental structure that had remained in the family a hundred and sixty years. There is more than one cloth factory in Sedan that dates back to the early years of Louis XV.; enormous piles, they are, covering as much ground as the Louvre, and with stately facades of royal magnificence. The one in the Rue Maqua was three stories high, and its tall windows were adorned with carvings of severe simplicity, while the palatial courtyard in the center was filled with grand old trees, gigantic elms that were coeval with the building itself. In it three generations of Delaherches had amassed comfortable fortunes for themselves. The father of Charles, the proprietor in our time, had inherited the property from a cousin who had died without being blessed with children, so that it was now a younger branch that was in possession. The affairs of the house had prospered under the father's control, but he was something of a blade and a roisterer, and his wife's existence with him was not one of unmixed happiness; the consequence of which was that the lady, when she became a widow, not caring to see a repetition by the son of the performances of the father, made haste to find a wife for him in the person of a simple-minded and exceedingly devout young woman, and subsequently kept him tied to her apron string until he had attained the mature age of fifty and over. But no one in this transitory world can tell what time has in store for him; when the devout young person's time came to leave this life Delaherche, who had known none of the joys of youth, fell head over ears in love with a young widow of Charleville, pretty Madame Maginot, who had been the subject of some gossip in her day, and in the autumn preceding the events recorded in this history had married her, in spite of all his mother's prayers and tears. It is proper to add that Sedan, which is very straitlaced in its notions of propriety, has always been inclined to frown on Charleville, the city of laughter and levity. And then again the marriage would never have been effected but for the fact that Gilberte's uncle was Colonel de Vineuil, who it was supposed would soon be made a general. This relationship and the idea that he had married into army circles was to the cloth manufacturer a source of great delight.
That morning Delaherche, when he learned that the army was to pass through Mouzon, had invited Weiss, his accountant, to accompany him on that carriage ride of which we have heard Father Fouchard speak to Maurice. Tall and stout, with a florid complexion, prominent nose and thick lips, he was of a cheerful, sanguine temperament and had all the French bourgeois' boyish love for a handsome display of troops. Having ascertained from the apothecary at Mouzon that the Emperor was at Baybel, a farm in the vicinity, he had driven up there; had seen the monarch, and even had been near speaking to him, an adventure of such thrilling interest that he had talked of it incessantly ever since his return. But what a terrible return that had been, over roads choked with the panic-stricken fugitives from Beaumont! twenty times their cabriolet was near being overturned into the ditch. Obstacle after obstacle they had encountered, and it was night before the two men reached home. The element of the tragic and unforeseen there was in the whole business, that army that Delaherche had driven out to pass in review and which had brought him home with it, whether he would or no, in the mad gallop of its retreat, made him repeat again and again during their long drive:
"I supposed it was moving on Verdun and would have given anything rather than miss seeing it. Ah well! I have seen it now, and I am afraid we shall see more of it in Sedan than we desire."
The following morning he was awakened at five o'clock by the hubbub, like the roar of water escaping from a broken dam, made by the 7th corps as it streamed through the city; he dressed in haste and went out, and almost the first person he set eyes on in the Place Turenne was Captain Beaudoin. When pretty Madame Maginot was living at Charleville the year before the captain had been one of her best friends, and Gilberte had introduced him to her husband before they were married. Rumor had it that the captain had abdicated his position as first favorite and made way for the cloth merchant from motives of delicacy, not caring to stand in the way of the great good fortune that seemed coming to his fair friend.
"Hallo, is that you?" exclaimed Delaherche. "Good Heavens, what a state you're in!"
It was but too true; the dandified Beaudoin, usually so trim and spruce, presented a sorry spectacle that morning in his soiled uniform and with his grimy face and hands. Greatly to his disgust he had had a party of Turcos for traveling companions, and could not explain how he had become separated from his company. Like all the others he was ready to drop with fatigue and hunger, but that was not what most afflicted him; he had not been able to change his linen since leaving Rheims, and was inconsolable.
"Just think of it!" he wailed, "those idiots, those scoundrels, lost my baggage at Vouziers. If I ever catch them I will break every bone in their body! And now I haven't a thing, not a handkerchief, not a pair of socks! Upon my word, it is enough to make one mad!"
Delaherche was for taking him home to his house forthwith, but he resisted. No, no; he was no longer a human being, he would not frighten people out of their wits. The manufacturer had to make solemn oath that neither his wife nor his mother had risen yet; and besides he should have soap, water, linen, everything he needed.
It was seven o'clock when Captain Beaudoin, having done what he could with the means at his disposal to improve his appearance, and comforted by the sensation of wearing under his uniform a clean shirt of his host's, made his appearance in the spacious, high-ceiled dining room with its somber wainscoting. The elder Madame Delaherche was already there, for she was always on foot at daybreak, notwithstanding she was seventy-eight years old. Her hair was snowy white; in her long, lean face was a nose almost preternaturally thin and sharp and a mouth that had long since forgotten how to laugh. She rose, and with stately politeness invited the captain to be seated before one of the cups of cafe au lait that stood on the table.