Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 347, September, 1844

To me, it was a restoration to life from the depths of despair. It may be perfectly true, that many a post has been surprised, and many an officer captured, without being objects of penalty, or even of public observation; but my case was different. My character as a soldier was essential to my existence. The eyes of many, at home and abroad, were on me; and the scorn of one, wherever she was, would have been fatal to me. But of those bitter extremes I say no more; my spirit was buoyant with a sense that I had done my duty in the most effective style. Nor was I left   to my solitary sense on the subject. My return to the chateau was as triumphant as if I had gained a pitched battle at the head of a hundred thousand men. Our fair guests, who had spent the hour before in the terrors of instant capture, were boundless in their congratulations and expressions of gratitude. The officers, to whom my defence had made the entire difference between a French prison and liberty, spoke in the manliest and most cheering terms of my conduct. The scene of the struggle was visited during the next day by every officer of the army who could obtain a horse and an hour’s leave; and the report which was forwarded to the commander-in-chief contained language which was regarded as a sure pledge of promotion.

Guiscard hurried over to join in the congratulation. He had been employed until a late hour in sending despatches to his court, relative to the growing problems of our politics with Prussia; and taking the first opportunity of throwing aside the envoy, he came at a gallop to shake hands with me. His impatience to see the ground scarcely suffered him to sit down at table; his toast to the brave British army was given, and we went out to traverse the avenue. After having inspected every corner of it with his keen military glance—“You will find my theory right,” said he; “war is always a succession of mistakes. There never has been a battle fought, in which even the successful general could not point out a series of his own blunders, any one of which might have ruined him. The only distinction is, that there are brilliant mistakes and stupid ones. Yours was of the former order—the Frenchman’s of the latter. If, instead of sending his whole brigade headlong down the road, like clowns at a fair, he had dismounted half a squadron of his dragoons, and sent them to fire into the casements of the chateau, while he kept the rest of his men in hand in the neighbourhood, he must have captured every soul of the party, and by this time had you all fast at the French headquarters; but he blundered, and he has paid the price of blundering.” To my laughing reply, “that there was at least some merit in the steadiness of the men who beat him”—“Of course,” was his answer. “The English steadiness is like the English fire, the grand cure for the English contempt of the tactician. Yours is an army of grenadiers; you are fit for nothing but assaults: but it must be owned that your troops of old managed that part of their business well, and I dare say that the art is not lost among you yet. Still, there are other matters to be thought of. Pray,” said he, turning his keen eye on me, “can any one in the chateau tell how near is the French army to-night?” I acknowledged my ignorance. “I ask the question,” said he, “because I think it by no means improbable, that they are at this moment marching down upon you. Not that they can afford to lose a brigade of cavalry a-night, and I therefore think you safe enough for the twelve hours to come; but I am far from answering for the next twenty-four. Dampierre commands them; I know him well—he is a bold and also a clever fellow; the loss of his cavalry last night will leave him no alternative but to attack you or to meet the guillotine. Those are fine times to make a general officer look about him. My last letters from the Rhine state that the two generals of the two covering armies on the frontier have been put under arrest, and that they are now both on their way to Paris, from which Custine and Beauharnais will never return with their heads on their shoulders.”

I shuddered at this fate of brave men, overcome only by circumstances, and asked whether it was possible that such a system could last, or in any case could be endured by men with swords in their hands.

“It can, and will,” was the reply. “Soldiers are the simplest race of mankind, when they come in contact with the cunning men of cities. An army, showy and even successful as it may be, is always an instrument and no more—a terrible instrument, I grant you, but as much in the hands of the civilian as one of your howitzers is in the hands of the men who load and fire it. At this moment sixty commissioners, ruffians and cut-throats to a man—fellows whom the true soldier abhors, and who are covered with blood from top to toe—are on their   way from Paris to the headquarters of the fourteen armies of the republic. Woe be to the general who has a will of his own! Those fellows will arrest him in the midst of his own staff, carry him off in the presence of his army, and send him to give a popular holiday to the Parisians, by his execution within half an hour after his arrival. So much for the power of an army.”

“But Frenchmen are human beings after all. Must not those horrors revolt human nature?” was my question, put with indignant sincerity. He looked at me with a quiet smile.

“You are romantic, Marston, but you are of an age that becomes romance. When you shall have lived as long as I have done, and seen as much of the world as myself, you will know that it is utterly selfish. It may be true, that some generous spirits are to be found here and there, some fond hearts to cling to, some noble natures which inspire an involuntary homage for their superiority; but you might as well expect to be lighted on your way by a succession of meteors. In the world, you will find that every man carries his lantern for himself; and that whether small or great his light, the first object is to guide his own steps, with not the slightest care whether yours may not be into the swamp—unless, indeed, he may have a particular object in bewildering you into the very heart of it. But now, to more pressing affairs than my honest and luckless philosophy. Get leave from your colonel to take a ride with me. I feel a sudden wish to know what Dampierre is doing; and a few hours, and as few leagues, may supply us with information on points which your brave countrymen seem so constitutionally to despise. But recollect that I am a Prussian.”

We returned to the table, which was crowded with visitors, and spent an hour or two in great enjoyment; for what enjoyment can be higher than the conversation of minds willing to give and receive intellectual pleasure? And Guiscard was never more animated, easy, and abundant, in communicating that pleasure. He was a model of the most accomplished order of the continental gentleman. He had commenced life as a scholar; a disappointment in his affections drove him into the army. He discovered that he was made for the profession; and, combining the accomplished diplomatist with the almost chivalric soldier, he had rapidly risen to the highest rank of the royal staff. But he had the still rarer qualities of a sincere heart, and was a firm and willing friend.

The orderly now returned with the leave for which I had applied. The post was left in charge of the captain of dragoons; and Guiscard and I, without mentioning our purpose, rode out quietly, as if to enjoy the cool of the evening. It was well worth enjoying. The storm had gone down at daybreak, and been succeeded by a glowing sun; the fields flourished again, and if I had been disposed to forget the tremendous business which might be preparing for the morrow, I might have lingered long over the matchless luxuriance of the Flemish landscape. There certainly never was one which gave slighter evidence of the approach of two hostile armies. From the first hill which we ascended, the view, for leagues round, exhibited nothing but the rich tranquillity of a country wholly agricultural; soft uplands, covered with cattle grazing; ploughed fields, purpling in the twilight; clumps of trees sheltering villages, from which the smoke of the evening fires rose slowly on the almost breathless air, giving an impression of the comfort and plenty of the meal within; and at intervals, some huge old chateau, with its buttressed and richly-wrought architecture—those carvings and colourings which so strikingly convey the idea of a past age of quaint luxury and lavish wealth—rose from the centre of its beech grove, glaring against the sunset, as if it had been suddenly covered with a sheet of gold. All was peace, and the few peasants whom we met, as the night fell, were all in the same tale, that there had been no patrols in their neighbourhood of late, and that, with the exception of the attack on the “outposts of the English,” they had not heard or seen any thing of the French for a month before.

The night had now fallen, and though calm, it was one of remarkable darkness. We passed village after village, but by this time all were fast asleep, and except the disturbance of   the house-dogs as we rode by, not a sound was to be heard. I felt every inclination to take my share of “nature’s sweet restorer, balmy sleep,” and proposed to my companion to turn our horses into the first farm-yard, and “borrow an hour” or two’s rest from the farmer’s hospitality, and clean straw.

“I agree with you,” was the answer, “that Dampierre is clearly not on this road; but that is no reason why he may not be on some other. On considering the matter, I think that we have been wrong in looking for him here; for his national adroitness is much more likely to have tried a movement in any other direction. He may be marching on either the right or the left of the spot where we are standing. And if he is the officer which I believe him to be, he is trying this game at this moment.”

“What then is to be done, but ride back to our quarters, unless we should prefer being cut off by his advance?” was my question.

“One thing is to be done,” was the reply—“we must not let ourselves be laughed at; and if we return with nothing more for our night’s work than the story that we slept in a Flemish barn, we shall be laughed at. So far as I am concerned, I care nothing for the sneers of ignorance; but, my young friend, your late conduct has inevitably made you an object of envy already; and the only way to pluck the sting out of envy, is by giving the envious some new service to think of.”

We now agreed to separate, and examine the country to the right and left for an hour precisely, meeting at one of the villages in the road, if no advance of the enemy were discernible within that time. We parted, and I commenced as comfortless an expedition as it would be easy to imagine. The Flemish cross-roads, never very passable, were now deep in mire; the rivulets, of which they are generally the conduits, had been swelled by the storm of the night before; and I floundered on for nearly the appointed time, in the full perplexity of a stray traveller. I was on the point of returning, when I observed a sudden light rising above some farm-houses, about half a league off. The light rapidly strengthened, and I rode forward, in some degree guided by its illumination. But after blazing fiercely for a while, it sank as suddenly as it rose; and I was again left bewildered among hedges and ditches. But a loud hum of voices, followed by the sound of many footsteps, now convinced me that a large body of men were near; though whether peasants roused by the fire, or battalions, I was still unable to discover. While I stood under cover of a clump of trees by the roadside, the question was settled by the march of a patrol of cavalry, followed at brief intervals by squadrons and light troops intermixed. It was evident that Dampierre meditated a surprise of the British forces, and that the whole of his skirmishers were already in motion. How long this movement had continued, or how near the enemy might already have approached to the British camp, was entirely beyond my conjecture; and for the first few moments, the probability of the surprise, and the possibility of my being already so completely within the range of the French march as to preclude my bearing the intelligence in sufficient time, made the drops of anxiety and perturbation roll down my forehead. But every thing must be tried. I no longer attempted to wind my way back through the network of lanes; but, in the spirit of an English sportsman, took the country in a straight line towards the British quarters. My horse, a thorough English hunter, evidently preferred leaping the Flemish fences to wading his way through the swamps; and I had the honour of bringing the first information, and the happiness of finding that I had brought it just in the right time.

The camp was immediately under arms; every preparation was made in a silence which gave me a high conception of the capabilities of the British soldier for every species of service; and, without a sound among ten thousand men, we waited for the approach of the enemy.

Dampierre’s manœuvre had been a dashing one—conceived and managed with the skill of an able officer. His purpose had been to throw his main body into the rear of our position; and while he drew off our attention   by a false attack on our front, avail himself of the confusion of a night attack to crush us. Whether the fighting qualities of the Englishman would not have made him repent of his plan under any circumstances, is no longer the question; but the surprise was now wholly his own. The first volley which we poured into his columns, as they crept up stealthily towards our line, was so heavy that it finished the battle. By the blaze of the musketry, we could see the French masses actually rolling back upon each other, staggering and shaken like landsmen at sea, or like any man in an earthquake. Our cavalry were now ordered to follow; but the enemy were too quick in making their escape; and the intersected nature of the country forbade any continued pursuit. A few shots from our howitzers, which ripped up the ground after them, were all that we could send as our parting present; and the engagement, which began in such silence and sternness, finished in roars of laughter from all our battalions.

Day broke, and the order was issued to follow the French general. The troops, animated by the prospect of coming to action at last, and utterly wearied with the idleness of the camp, received the intelligence with shouts; and the whole moved rapidly forward. Dampierre, before his march of the previous night, had provided for casualty, by forming an intrenched camp in the famous position of Famars. It was strong by nature, and he had added to its strength by covering it with fieldworks, and a powerful artillery. It was late in the day before we came within sight of it; and its strength, from the height of its glacis—the natural glacis made by a succession of sloping hills—was all displayed to full and formidable advantage. The troops, fatigued with the length of the march under the burning sun of one of the hottest days which I ever felt, were halted at the foot of the heights; and the plans of attack proposed were various enough to have perplexed the Aulic Council itself. Lines of circumvallation, or bombardment, or waiting the effect of famine, were successively urged. But the British style prevailed at last over the scientific. The Guards were ordered to head the column which was to storm the lines in front, and columns on the right and left were put in motion at the same instant. We rushed forward under a general discharge of the French artillery and musketry, and in a quarter of an hour the position was in our hands. The difficulty of its approach, and the broken nature of the ground in its rear, enabled the French general to make his retreat with the chief part of his forces. But our prize was well worth the trouble; for we brought back two thousand prisoners, and the whole artillery in position.

The war had now begun in earnest; and our advance was unintermitted. On the eighth day from the storm of Famars, we again came in sight of Dampierre. He was now the assailant; our army, which had never exceeded ten thousand men, (such was the military parsimony of those days,) with the Prussian troops, and some of the smaller German contingents, were now unwisely spread to cover a line of nearly thirty miles. The French general had seized the opportunity of retaliating his ill fortune upon the allied troops. At daybreak we were roused by the tidings that the French had broken through our weak extended line in several places, and had got into the rear of the whole army. The force of the enemy, its direction, or its object, were alike matters of total ignorance; and, for some hours, it was impossible to obtain any exact information.

It was in vain that we adopted all the usual expedients, of detaching officers, examining peasants, or judging of the progress of the engagement by the sound of the advancing or retreating fire. We had only to wait, drawn up ready for action, and take our chance of the result. Of all the contingencies of the field, none is more perplexing; but I had a personal source of anxiety to add to the general vexation. I had every reason to believe that my excellent friend, Guiscard, had either fallen into the hands of the enemy, or had been killed on the night when we separated. If either misfortune had occurred, it was solely in consequence of his zeal for my character, and the thought inexpressibly distressed me. I had made the most persevering enquiries for him, but without any success; or   rather, with a painful gathering of facts, all which told against my feelings. His horse had been found straying through the country; his helmet had been also found; and a fragment of a sabre, in a spot evidently much trampled, and which, therefore, appeared to be the scene of the personal rencontre in which he had probably fallen. Every thing had been found but his body.

At length, the firing, which had continued with more or less steadiness during the day, approached our position and we were ordered to advance. The country was now a portion of an ancient forest, and it was difficult to see in front of us beyond a few hundred yards. As we made way, we could hear not only the musketry but the shouting of the troops engaged; as, growing constantly more impatient, we pressed on, a mounted officer came galloping towards us. Judge of my astonishment and delight when I saw Guiscard. As he reined up beside me—

“I have not a moment,” said he, “to speak to you; you shall hear of my adventures by and by. I was in as much fear for you as you probably were for me. But now, tell me where I am to look for the officer in command of the column.”

The general was soon found, and Guiscard communicated to him that the enemy had concentrated his chief force directly in front of us, where a Prussian column had been posted; that the Prussians had resisted vigorously several successive attacks; but that the force converging on it was too powerful, and that it must speedily retire. “Then let it retire,” was the general’s reply, “and we shall take their place.”

“Pardon me, general,” was the prompt suggestion of the pupil of a more experienced school; “but, if you will permit me, I shall ride back to my countrymen, inform them of your advance, and make them hold their position until you come out from the forest upon the enemy’s flank.”

His opinion was received, and he put spurs to his horse and was gone. We now moved with all speed to the right of our former direction; and after half an hour’s toiling through the intricacies of a wood on which no axe seemed to have fallen since the Deluge, passed round the enemy, and came full upon their rear. A few volleys, thrown in upon them in this state of alarm, broke them; the Prussian fire in front, and our’s in the rear, made their disorder irreparable. In this crisis, Dampierre rushed forward with a group of aides-de-camp to restore the engagement, striking the fugitives with his sabre, and desperately exposing his person to the balls which now fell thick as hail around him. For a while he seemed to bear a charmed life; but a rifleman of the Prussian hulans took a sure aim. He fired, and I saw the unfortunate general fall from his horse. He had died instantly. A more gallant death, and scarcely a more expeditious one, than awaited the unsuccessful generals of the merciless Republic. We buried him on the spot where he fell, with the honours due to a distinguished soldier. Before nightfall the French had retired in all quarters; and the remnant of the troops hurried across the Flemish frontier, utterly disheartened and ruined.

This engagement, which was known long after as the battle of the forest of Vicogne, cleared the Netherlands, raised the fame of the British troops to the highest pitch, and left in their hands four thousand prisoners.

The councils of the allied camp now assumed a bolder tone. France was before us. The popular enthusiasm had been cooled by time and calamity. Defeat had taught the nation the folly of supposing that it could contend single-handed with Europe; and the only obstacle to our march to Paris was the line of fortresses erected by Louis XIV. The most powerful of those fortresses lay in the road by which the British columns were advancing; and it was with a singular mixture of rejoicing and anxiety, of ardour and awe, that I saw, at the breaking of a brilliant morning, spread beneath me the strong city of Valenciennes.

IT IS NO FICTION

“Oh! I could be bounded in a nutshell, and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.”

—Hamlet.

“I am wrapp’d in dismal thinkings.”

—Shakspeare.

I have been a dreamer all my life. The earliest recollections of my childhood are of dreams of greatness. My boyhood’s visions were peopled with warlike tumults. There were no spring mornings to my brain even in early youth; my heart was clouded with shadow, and sadness reigned when mirth and careless glee should have been pre-eminent. My manhood has been a fitful, feverish, and painful existence. I have outlived all whom I ever cared for; I have seen those whom I idolized lie before me cold and senseless; and now, with every event vividly impressed upon my memory, each tone of the voice of her I loved dropping like liquid fire into my brain, and drying up the tears that would weep away my anguish—feeling all this with intensity, and longing for the free air of heaven, I find myself alone—desolate—and HERE!!

Oh! the horror of this prison-solitude—the anxious watching for the pale morning after sleepless nights—the horrible nights when fantastic shapes are alone visible, mocking at and jeering me—when the only sounds I hear are the ravings of some wretched maniac, confined, like myself, because we have made for ourselves a world, and our imaginations have created a presiding divinity; and, should a laugh disturb the silence, it is the outbreak of a maddened spirit seeking relief from thought—a laugh frightful, because a mockery—sad in its boisterousness—“the laugh which laughs not.”

For many weary years I have been pent up in this prison, pining for freedom, hoping for things which never existed, conjuring up anticipations of a brighter future, calling upon her who made

“The starlight of my boyhood,”

to look down upon me from her blest abode, and woo me back to calmness by one gentle word, one loving glance; and then sinking into hopeless, bitter despondency, when I remembered that she was gone, and that I should see her no more.

Sometimes I can think of her in her exquisite beauty, and my soul drinks in, as it were, the sweet and liquid tones of the voice which once spoke peace to me, and, fancying her again before me, I sink into an unquiet slumber, till some hideous dream oppresses me, and I see the fair brow of my “Julia” contracted, withered; and instead of her silvery voice of enchantment, a hissing sound escapes the lips I have worshipped. I rise, and try to approach, but she recedes. I awake—I start from my uneasy bed—I find this horrible picture, which bore the impress of reality, is but a dream. I awake to the consciousness that my beloved is dead, and that my eyes will gaze upon her beauty no more.

How few there are in this busy world who, when passing those abodes of wretchedness—“private madhouses”—can imagine the agony, the misery, the despair that dwells there! But to my history.

I was the only child of General Sir Frederick and Lady Charlotte B–. I was reared in luxury; the rude air was scarcely allowed to blow upon my delicate frame. I can remember now, though years have passed, and sorrow has bowed me—I can remember the happy days when my wearied head was pillowed on the bosom of my mother, and, after she had sung me to sleep with some wild melody, she would place me in my small luxurious cot, and watch over me with those deep-loving eyes, and be the first to comfort and re-assure me if uneasy dreams—for even then I was a dreamer—made me awake to sorrow. But my mother died. Even now I shudder at the recollection of the desolateness of my agony when I knew I had looked on her for the last time. Even now I can feel the coldness which crept over me as I laid my cheek to hers. My blood was frozen. I could not weep. Oh! tears would have been a relief, but they were denied   me; and though I saw her taken from my embrace, and her beloved form laid in the vault, I could still gaze with speechless agony—but I wept not.