A Soldier Of The Empire | Page 7

echo from the past; it was the same cry he
had heard at Waterloo, when the soldiers of France that summer day
had died for France and the emperor, with a cheer on their lips. "For
France": the words were consecrated; the emperor himself had used

them. He had heard him, and would have died then; should he not die
now for her! Was it not glorious to die for France, and have men say
that he had fought for her when a babe, and had died for her when an
old man!
With these thoughts was mingled the thought of Pierre--Pierre also
would die for France! They would save her or die together; and he
pressed his hand with a proud caress over the cross on his breast. It was
the emblem of glory.
He was almost back with his men now; he knew it by the roar, but the
smoke hid everything. Just then it shifted a little. As it did so, he saw a
man steal out of the dim line and start towards him at a run. He had on
the uniform of his regiment. His cap was pulled over his eyes, and he
saw him deliberately fling away his gun. He was skulking. All the
blood boiled up in the old soldier's veins. Desert!--not fight for France!
Why did not Pierre shoot him! Just then the coward passed close to him,
and the old man seized him with a grip of iron. The deserter, surprised,
turned his face; it was pallid with terror and shame; but no more so than
his captor's. It was Pierre.
"Pierre!" he gasped. "Good God! where are you going?"
"I am sick," faltered the other.
"Come back," said the father sternly.
"I cannot," was the terrified answer.
"It is for France, Pierre," pleaded the old soldier.
"Oh! I cannot," moaned the young man, pulling away. There was a
pause--the old man still holding on hesitatingly, then,--"Dastard!" he
hissed, flinging his son from him with indescribable scorn.
Pierre, free once more, was slinking off with averted face, when anew
idea seized his father, and his face grew grim as stone. Cocking his
musket, he flung it up, took careful and deliberate aim at his son's

retreating figure, and brought his finger slowly down upon the trigger.
But, before he could fire, a shell exploded directly in the line of his aim,
and when the smoke blew off, Pierre had disappeared. The Sergeant
lowered his piece, gazed curiously down the hill, and then hurried to
the spot where the shell had burst. A mangled form marked the place.
The coward had in the very act of flight met the death he dreaded.
Pierre lay dead on his face, shot in the back. The back of his head was
shattered by a fragment of shell. The countenance of the living man
was more pallid than that of the dead. No word escaped him, except
that refrain, "For France, for France," which he repeated mechanically.
Although this had occupied but a few minutes, momentous changes had
taken place on the ridge above. The sound of the battle had somewhat
altered, and with the roar of artillery were mingled now the continuous
rattle of the musketry and the shouts and cheers of the contending
troops. The fierce onslaught of the Prussians had broken the line
somewhere beyond the batteries, and the French were being borne back.
Almost immediately the slope was filled with retreating men hurrying
back in the demoralization of panic. All order was lost. It was a rout.
The soldiers of his own regiment began to rush by the spot where the
old Sergeant stood above his son's body. Recognizing him, some of his
comrades seized his arm and attempted to hurry him along; but with a
fierce exclamation the old soldier shook them off, and raising his voice
so that he was heard even above the tumult of the rout, he shouted,
"Are ye all cowards? Rally for France--For France----"
They tried to bear him along; the officers, they said, were dead; the
Prussians had captured the guns, and had broken the whole line. But it
was no use; still he shouted that rallying cry, For France, for France,
"Vive la France; Vive l'Empereur"; and steadied by the war-cry, and
accustomed to obey an officer, the men around him fell instinctively
into something like order, and for an instant the rout was arrested. The
fight was renewed over Pierre's dead body. As they had, however, truly
said, the Prussians were too strong for them. They had carried the line
and were now pouring down the hill by thousands in the ardor of hot
pursuit, the line on either side of the hill was swept away, and whilst
the gallant little band about the old