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Updated: June 22, 2025
Maurice, unable to stop on account of the pressure from the rear, turned his head and shouted, in a tone of anxious inquiry: "And Henriette? Henriette?" Delaherche replied with a long farrago, but his voice was inaudible in the shuffling tramp of so many feet.
And scarcely was he in the room when again was heard the Emperor's so oft repeated question. "Why do they continue to fire, General, when I have given orders to hoist the white flag?" The aide-de-camp left the apartment, shutting the door behind him, and Delaherche never knew what was the general's answer. The vision had faded from his sight.
And so he passed from life, peacefully, without a struggle; and on his wasted, tranquil face rested an expression of unspeakable melancholy. Delaherche saw to it that the remains, instead of being borne away and placed among the common dead, were deposited in one of the outbuildings of the factory.
He had wasted away until he was little more than a shadow, and still the physician who was attending him could find no lesion to account for that lingering death. He was slowly fading away, like the flame of a lamp in which the supply of oil is giving out. Mme. Delaherche, the mother, had immured herself there with him on the day succeeding the occupation.
As he was passing through a field of potatoes he was sufficiently thoughtful to dig a few of the tubers and put them in his pockets; they were not ripe, but he had nothing better, for Jean, as luck would have it, had insisted on carrying both the two loaves of bread that Delaherche had given them when they left his house.
Delaherche remonstrated angrily, but by that time the Emperor had disappeared. The hoarse murmur of the Meuse continued uninterruptedly; a wailing lament, inexpressibly mournful, seemed to pass above them through the air, where the darkness was gathering intensity.
Besides, what would it have availed? As Delaherche was drinking in these particulars with greedy ears a loud explosion shook the quarter. It was a shell, which had demolished a chimney in the Rue Sainte-Barbe, near the citadel. There was a general rush and scramble; men swore and women shrieked.
In front of the Hotel de Ville Delaherche was jostled by a disorderly mob of half-crazed soldiers who were pushing their way down from the Faubourg de la Cassine; he lost sight of the colonel, and abandoned his design of going to witness the raising of the white flag.
Delaherche, too, was curious to see what would happen; his curiosity made him valiant. He had been so interested in the preparations for defending the place that he had not slept a wink.
"Ah!" exclaimed Delaherche, "they are crossing the railway bridge. See, they are making their way along the track. How stupid of us not to have blown up the bridge!" The officer's face bore an expression of dumb rage. The mines had been prepared and charged, he averred, but they had fought four hours the day before to regain possession of the bridge and then had forgot to touch them off.
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