What hideous, furtive hand is that which is slipped into the pocket of victory? What pickpockets are they who ply their trade in the rear of glory? Some philosophers--Voltaire among the number--affirm that it is precisely those persons have made the glory.
It is the same men, they say; there is no relief corps; those who are erect pillage those who are prone on the earth.
The hero of the day is the vampire of the night.
One has assuredly the right, after all, to strip a corpse a bit when one is the author of that corpse. For our own part, we do not think so; it seems to us impossible that the same hand should pluck laurels and purloin the shoes from a dead man.
One thing is certain, which is, that generally after conquerors follow thieves.
But let us leave the soldier, especially the contemporary soldier, out of the question.
Every army has a rear-guard, and it is that which must be blamed. Bat-like creatures, half brigands and lackeys; all the sorts of vespertillos that that twilight called war engenders; wearers of uniforms, who take no part in the fighting; pretended invalids; formidable limpers; interloping sutlers, trotting along in little carts, sometimes accompanied by their wives, and stealing things which they sell again; beggars offering themselves as guides to officers; soldiers' servants; marauders; armies on the march in days gone by,-- we are not speaking of the present,--dragged all this behind them, so that in the special language they are called "stragglers."
No army, no nation, was responsible for those beings; they spoke Italian and followed the Germans, then spoke French and followed the English. It was by one of these wretches, a Spanish straggler who spoke French, that the Marquis of Fervacques, deceived by his Picard jargon, and taking him for one of our own men, was traitorously slain and robbed on the battle-field itself, in the course of the night which followed the victory of Cerisoles.
The rascal sprang from this marauding.
The detestable maxim, Live on the enemy! produced this leprosy, which a strict discipline alone could heal. There are reputations which are deceptive; one does not always know why certain generals, great in other directions, have been so popular. Turenne was adored by his soldiers because he tolerated pillage; evil permitted constitutes part of goodness.
Turenne was so good that he allowed the Palatinate to be delivered over to fire and blood. The marauders in the train of an army were more or less in number, according as the chief was more or less severe.
Hoche and Marceau had no stragglers; Wellington had few, and we do him the justice to mention it.
Nevertheless, on the night from the 18th to the 19th of June, the dead were robbed.
Wellington was rigid; he gave orders that any one caught in the act should be shot; but rapine is tenacious. The marauders stole in one corner of the battlefield while others were being shot in another.
The moon was sinister over this plain.
Towards midnight, a man was prowling about, or rather, climbing in the direction of the hollow road of Ohain.
To all appearance he was one of those whom we have just described,--neither English nor French, neither peasant nor soldier, less a man than a ghoul attracted by the scent of the dead bodies having theft for his victory, and come to rifle Waterloo.
He was clad in a blouse that was something like a great coat; he was uneasy and audacious; he walked forwards and gazed behind him.
Who was this man? The night probably knew more of him than the day.
He had no sack, but evidently he had large pockets under his coat.