War and Glory

HISTORICAL ROMANCES OF FRANCE

THE CONSCRIPT

A STORY OF THE FRENCH WAR OF 1813

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF

ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN

ILLUSTRATED

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

NEW YORK :::::::::::::::::::::: 1911

ILLUSTRATIONS

War and glory . . . . . . . . . . Frontispiece

The dragoon fell heavily

"Close up the ranks!"

Everything gave way before him

In the river the dead were floating by in files

"Halt! Stop!"

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

Instead of following "Madame Thérèse" with stories celebrating thevictories of Napoleon and thus appealing to their compatriots' love ofglory and military illusions, MM. Erckmann-Chatrian take up next thetragic and far more significant story of 1812-13. With "The Conscript"begins their long, sustained, and eloquent sermon against war andwar-wagers—the exordium, so to say, of their arraignment of Napoleonfor wanton and insatiate love of conquest. "The Conscript" iscertainly one of the most impressive statements of the darker side ofthe national pursuit of military glory that have ever been made. Thefirst part of the book is taken up with a vivid and pathetic account ofthe passage of the grande armée through Alsace on its way to Moscowand the Beresina, of the anxious waiting for news of the battles thatsucceeded, of the first suspicions of disaster and their overwhelmingconfirmation, of the final rout and awful straggling retreat and returnof the great expedition, and its demoralized and harassed entry withinthe national frontiers once more. The second and major portionnarrates the rude surprise of the continuation of warfare and the stillmore fatal campaign which opened so dubiously with Lutzen and Bautzen,and culminated so disastrously in Leipsic and the capitulation ofParis. Poor Joseph Bertha, who tells the affecting and exciting story,is snatched away from his betrothed and his peaceful trade by theconscription, and his individual experiences in the campaign are asinteresting, from the point of view of romance, as their representativenature and his shrewd and simple reflections upon them are historicallyand philanthropically suggestive. Certainly, war, in the minutiae ofits reality, has never been more graphically painted than in "TheConscript of 1813."

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