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Bourgain-Desfeuilles had wheeled his horse and was moving away, when General Douay, to whom a grimy, dust-stained hussar had galloped up with another dispatch, excitedly summoned him back. "General! General!" His voice rang out so loud and clear, with such an accent of surprise, that it drowned the uproar of the guns. "General, Ducrot is no longer in command; de Wimpffen is chief.
Only one general, so it was said, Bourgain-Desfeuilles, alleging his rheumatism as a reason, had bound himself by that pledge, and when, that very morning, his carriage had driven up to the door of the Hotel of the Golden Cross and he had taken his seat in it to leave the city, the people had hooted and hissed him unmercifully.
Nothing had been seen of General Bourgain-Desfeuilles, who was said to be ill in bed at the Hotel of the Golden Cross, and the colonel decided to send one of his officers to advise him of the danger of their new position in the too extended line of the 7th corps, which had to cover the long stretch from the bend in the Meuse to the wood of la Garenne.
General Bourgain-Desfeuilles, however, who had been storming and vociferating in the kitchen, appeared to have found something, for he suddenly held his peace and ran away swiftly up the stairs, holding in his hands a large paper parcel of a greasy aspect.
The other division, which included Bourgain-Desfeuilles' brigade, bivouacked on a wide plateau, bordered by an oak wood, behind the church. There was such confusion in locating the bodies of troops that it was dark before the 106th could move into its position at the edge of the wood. "Zut!" said Chouteau in a furious rage, "no eating for me; I want to sleep!"
At a window of the Hotel of the Golden Cross, on the opposite side of the square, he caught a glimpse of General Bourgain-Desfeuilles, already half-undressed and on the point of tasting the luxury of clean white sheets. Why should he be more self-denying than the rest of them? he asked himself; why should he suffer longer?
The staff had gone on ahead at a sharp trot, spurring their horses in the fear lest the Prussians might get into Altkirch before them. General Bourgain-Desfeuilles, aware that he had a hard day's work before him, had prudently taken Mulhausen in his way, where he fortified himself with a copious breakfast, denouncing in language more forcible than elegant such hurried movements.
So, while some of us hurried off to report to it the movements of the enemy, we thought it best to come and let you know how matters stood, so that you might go to its assistance, for it will certainly have sixty thousand men to deal with in the morning." General Bourgain-Desfeuilles gave a contemptuous shrug of his shoulders. "Sixty thousand men!
The first object they set eyes on was an officer who had reined in his smoking, steaming charger before a farm-yard gate and was venting his towering rage in a volley of Billingsgate. It was General Bourgain-Desfeuilles, the commander of their brigade, covered with dust and looking as if he was about to tumble from his horse with fatigue.
And there is to be no more retreating; the orders now are to reoccupy our old positions, and defend them to the last." General Bourgain-Desfeuilles drank in the tidings, his eyes bulging with astonishment. "Nom de Dieu!" he at last succeeded in ejaculating, "one would like to know But it is no business of mine, anyhow."
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