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There had been a glorious fight on the first day of the war with the "Pennies," and when they were beaten, a dozen of them, making a brave rearguard fight, took up their position with the Count's windows as their background.
Then the wide street itself, away down and down and down into the distance, was alive with gorgeously-clothed people not still, but moving, swaying, drifting, eddying, a delirious display of all colors and all shades of color, delicate, lovely, pale, soft, strong, stunning, vivid, brilliant, a sort of storm of sweetpea blossoms passing on the wings of a hurricane; and presently, through this storm of color, came swaying and swinging the majestic elephants, clothed in their Sunday best of gaudinesses, and the long procession of fanciful trucks freighted with their groups of curious and costly images, and then the long rearguard of stately camels, with their picturesque riders.
Many had been stripped, while still living, by their half-frozen comrades. But sometimes Louis had to dust the snow from strange bearded faces before he could pass on with a quick sigh of relief. Beyond Kowno, the country is thinly populated, and spreading pine-forests bound the horizon. The Cossacks the wild men of Toula, who reaped the laurels of the rearguard fighting were all along the road.
The battalia had thus become the van, the rearguard the battalia, while the whole cavalry corps by this movement had been transformed from the vanguard into the rear. Renty was instructed to protect his manoeuvres, to restrain the skirmishing as much as possible, and to keep the commander-in-chief constantly informed of every occurrence.
An attempt was made to encircle his southern flank and to cut him off with our cavalry, but his rearguard actions were fought stubbornly, and the pursuing cavalry had to be withdrawn. During the night of the 5th/6th, the enemy evacuated Katia, which was occupied by us on the following morning. By the 8th, he had abandoned Oghratina, and had fallen back to his advanced base at Bir-el-Abd.
He then issued orders for the whole battalia which, since the junction, had been under command of Mayenne, Farnese reserving for himself the superintendence of the entire army to countermarch rapidly towards the Marne and take up a position opposite Lagny. La Motte, with the rearguard, was directed immediately to follow.
Then came the king and queen, with the prince and princesses, and the ladies of the court, surrounded by the royal bodyguard, sumptuously arrayed, composed of the sons of the most illustrious houses of Spain; after these was the rearguard, a powerful force of horse and foot; for the flower of the army sallied forth that day.
Our advance-brigade had just passed New Baltimore, when Fitz-Hugh Lee, who had surprised and cut his way through a small detachment of our infantry at Thoroughfare Gap, then had swiftly swung around our right by an unpicketed road, fell upon our rearguard at Buckland Mills, and opened upon our unsuspecting column with a battery of flying artillery.
So far as the Empire was concerned, he was in the impressive rearguard, and this was a little company of fighting men. The entertainments arising out of business were usually on a scale more or less sumptuous.
This was all I saw of the struggle in front, for, with a cry of dismay, the Miamis composing the rearguard broke from their posts beside the wagons and came running back past us in a panic of wild terror.
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