Sons of the Soil | Page 9

to make the
purchase, which cost about eleven hundred thousand francs, including
the furniture. The general, no doubt, felt the influence of these
luxurious apartments; and I was arguing with the countess only
yesterday that her marriage was a direct result of the purchase of Les
Aigues.

To rightly understand the countess, my dear Nathan, you must know
that the general is a violent man, red as fire, five feet nine inches tall,
round as a tower, with a thick neck and the shoulders of a blacksmith,
which must have amply filled his cuirass. Montcornet commanded the
cuirassiers at the battle of Essling (called by the Austrians Gross-
Aspern), and came near perishing when that noble corps was driven
back on the Danube. He managed to cross the river astride a log of
wood. The cuirassiers, finding the bridge down, took the glorious
resolution, at Montcornet's command, to turn and resist the entire
Austrian army, which carried off on the morrow over thirty
wagon-loads of cuirasses. The Germans invented a name for their
enemies on this occasion which means "men of iron."[*] Montcornet
has the outer man of a hero of antiquity. His arms are stout and
vigorous, his chest deep and broad; his head has a leonine aspect, his
voice is of those that can order a charge in the thick of battle; but he has
nothing more than the courage of a daring man; he lacks mind and
breadth of view. Like other generals to whom military common-sense,
the natural boldness of those who spend their lives in danger, and the
habit of command gives an appearance of superiority, Montcornet has
an imposing effect when you first meet him; he seems a Titan, but he
contains a dwarf, like the pasteboard giant who saluted Queen
Elizabeth at the gates of Kenilworth. Choleric though kind, and full of
imperial hauteur, he has the caustic tongue of a soldier, and is quick at
repartee, but quicker still with a blow. He may have been superb on a
battle-field; in a household he is simply intolerable. He knows no love
but barrack love,--the love which those clever myth-makers, the
ancients, placed under the patronage of Eros, son of Mars and Venus.
Those delightful chroniclers of the old religions provided themselves
with a dozen different Loves. Study the fathers and the attributes of
these Loves, and you will discover a complete social nomenclature,--
and yet we fancy that we originate things! When the world turns upside
down like an hour-glass, when the seas become continents, Frenchmen
will find canons, steamboats, newspapers, and maps wrapped up in
seaweed at the bottom of what is now our ocean.
[*] I do not, on principle, like foot-notes, and this is the first I have ever
allowed myself. Its historical interest must be my excuse; it will prove,

moreover, that descriptions of battles should be something more than
the dry particulars of technical writers, who for the last three thousand
years have told us about left and right wings and centres being broken
or driven in, but never a word about the soldier himself, his sufferings,
and his heroism. The conscientious care with which I prepared myself
to write the "Scenes from Military Life," led me to many a battle- field
once wet with the blood of France and her enemies. Among them I
went to Wagram. When I reached the shores of the Danube, opposite
Lobau, I noticed on the bank, which is covered with turf, certain
undulations that reminded me of the furrows in a field of lucern. I
asked the reason of it, thinking I should hear of some new method of
agriculture: "There sleep the cavalry of the imperial guard," said the
peasant who served us as a guide; "those are their graves you see
there." The words made me shudder. Prince Frederic Schwartzenburg,
who translated them, added that the man had himself driven one of the
wagons laden with cuirasses. By one of the strange chances of war our
guide had served a breakfast to Napoleon on the morning of the battle
of Wagram. Though poor, he had kept the double napoleon which the
Emperor gave him for his milk and his eggs. The curate of
Gross-Aspern took us to the famous cemetery where French and
Austrians struggled together knee-deep in blood, with a courage and
obstinacy glorious to each. There, while explaining that a marble tablet
(to which our attention had been attracted, and on which were inscribed
the names of the owner of Gross-Aspern, who had been killed on the
third day) was the sole compensation ever given to the family, he said,
in a tone of deep sadness: "It was a time of great misery, and of great
hopes; but now are the days of forgetfulness." The saying seemed to