Here I was, on the contrary, in conditions of absolute calm, of the most impressive silence conceivable.  Until that day the country, at that hour of the day, had echoed with the innumerable noises made by an army in retreat.  Thousands of cannon, limbers, and convoys had been passing along all the roads and all practicable by-ways monotonously and ceaselessly.  Often, too, the first shots exchanged by the cavalry scouts of both the hostile armies could be heard.

We heard nothing that day.  In front nothing stirred:  the country seemed deserted; the fields forsaken.  Not a living creature showed itself.

Behind us, too, there was complete silence.  But I knew that an entire army was there, waiting for us to send information, before advancing to the fight.  That information would direct its blows....  I knew my brigade was behind that rise in the ground, and that all, officers and troopers alike, were impatient to rush upon my tracks to the attack.  I knew that behind them, lying by sections in the plough-land, thousands and thousands of infantrymen had their eyes fixed in the direction I was taking, and that hundreds and hundreds of guns were ready to pour out death.  But that disciplined multitude was silent and, as it were, holding its breath, waiting for the order that was to hurl it forward.  I felt in excellent spirits.

It was upon me, and upon a few comrades, that the confidence of so many soldiers rested.  It was to be by our directions that the regiments were to rush forward, some here, some there, carrying death and receiving death with, for the first time, the certainty of conquering; since for the first time the Commander-in-Chief had said that conquer they must.  And not for an instant had I any fear of not being equal to my task.  On the contrary, it seemed to me that I had been destined from all eternity to command this first offensive reconnaissance of the campaign in France....  I felt my men’s hearts beating close to mine and in unison with mine.

I had consulted my map before breaking into a trot, and had noticed that the road leading to Courgivault passed through two woods, not very deep, but of considerable extent.  I soon came in sight of one of them, at about 500 yards distance, below a ridge which we had just passed.  I called out to Vercherin, who had begun to spur his horse towards the wood, to stop.  I knew that numbers of men had fallen by having acted in this way—­a way we have at manoeuvres, when the enemy are our comrades with white badges on their caps, and when harmless blank cartridges are used instead of bullets.  We had very soon learnt from the Germans themselves the way to reconnoitre a wood or a village, and also how they must be held.

How much more dashing it would have been, more in the light cavalry style, to ride full gallop, brandishing my sword, with my five little Chasseurs into the nearest copse!  But I knew then that if it were occupied by the enemy their men would be lying down, one with the soil, using the trees and bushes as cover, till the last moment.  Then not one of us would have come out alive.