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Clairfait's success, and the prospect of cutting off the retreat of the French, or of getting between them and Paris, have furnished him with new materials; and I am now on my way to Berlin, to put matters in the proper point of view. Farewell, Marston, I am sorry to lose you as a comrade; but we must meet again no laurels for me now.
"Might I suggest," said I, after an instant's consideration, "that the best way to give me a fair chance of studying Mademoiselle Clairfait's face at the next sitting, would be to lead her thoughts again to that quieting subject of the miniature, and to the events which the portrait recalls?
Sometimes she talks of Sister Rose, and of all that she went through in the time of the French Revolution, by the hour together. It is wonderfully interesting at least we all think so." "I presume that the lady described as 'Sister Rose' was a relation of Mademoiselle Clairfait's?" "No, only a very dear friend.
"So be it!" exclaimed Varnhorst, "What are troops without discipline, and generals without science? Both made to be beaten. The fifty thousand Prussians with us would march through Europe. I am for the advance. That was a brilliant dash of Clairfait's this afternoon. Let us match it to-morrow morning." "It was admirable!" replied the duke, with the colour mounting to his cheek.
The galloping of horses roused me. It was Guiscard with an escort. "What! not in your bed yet?" was his hurried salutation. "So much the better; you will have a showy despatch to send to England to-night. Clairfait has just outdone himself. He found that the French were retreating, and he followed them without loss of time. His troops had been so dispersed by the service of the day, that he could collect but fifteen hundred hussars; and with these he gallantly set forth to pick up stragglers. His old acquaintance, Chazot, whom he had beaten the day before, was in command of a rearguard of ten thousand men. His fifteen hundred brave fellows were now exposed to ruin; and doubtless, if they had exhibited any show of retreating, they must have been ruined. But here Clairfait's
I allow that the enemy may be puzzled for a while who has five passes to defend, with half a dozen leagues between them, and a Prussian army in front ready to make him choose. He has evidently drawn off the strength of his troops to the Duke's point of attack, and has stripped the wing before us. Clairfait's mass has been thrown upon it, and the day is our own. Onward."
That was a gallant attempt of Clairfait's, and, if we had not been too far off to support him, we might have pounced upon the main body as effectually as he did upon the rear. Chazot has escaped, but one of M. Dumourier's aides-de-camp, a remarkably intelligent fellow, has been taken, and on him has been found the papers which I beg you to peruse."
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