Page:The Czar, A Tale of the Time of the First Napleon.djvu/130

120 unripe corn and the raw vegetables that grew along their route. Nor did the knowledge that the general of his division was feasting upon sterlet and champagne make the hard, insufficient fare of the conscript more palatable. "It is the soldier's own fault if he wants anything in an enemy's country," was a maxim often repeated; but what can the soldier do when the people flee at his approach, carrying off or destroying everything they possess, and the country, at best but thinly inhabited, is left a desert around him? Yet it must be owned that the French had themselves to thank for some of their privations, since those peasants who did not flee at their approach were plundered, beaten, ill-treated, perhaps even murdered.

One day Henri accompanied a detachment of his regiment which was sent out on a foraging expedition. They were under the command of Seppel, the corporal who had undertaken to post Henri's letter in Paris; but he was a sergeant now, and rode a good horse, while the others tramped wearily on foot. After a long march through a dreary country they saw, towards evening, a brown village surrounded by promising corn-fields. "Courage, mes enfants," cried Seppel; "here is luck for us at last. No doubt food and water, ay, and brandy too, are to be found yonder."

They marched across the fields, trampling down the standing corn without remorse. Henri and some of his comrades were hungry enough to pluck the unripe ears and to eat them as they passed, like another company strangely opposite to these in their character and their place in the world's history.

As they approached the village, they became aware that its inhabitants had not only seen them, but were prepared for their approach. A crowd of men and boys, armed with axes, pitch-forks, and reaping-hooks, came towards them with loud cries and intentions evidently the most hostile.