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Updated: May 12, 2025
Two hours later a courier came galloping in, breathless with terror, to announce that General Bordas had positive information that the enemy were on the Vouziers road, and dared not leave Grand-Pre.
It appeared for a moment as if they were about to resume their march; the tents were struck and the entire corps took the road and passed through Vouziers, leaving on the right bank of the Aisne only one brigade of the second division, apparently to continue the observation of the Monthois road; but all at once, as soon as they had put the town behind them and were on the left bank of the stream, they halted and stacked muskets in the fields and meadows that skirt the Grand-Pre road on either hand, and the departure of the 4th hussars, who just then moved off on that road at a sharp trot, afforded fresh food for conjecture.
The rumor spread that General Bordas had sent in a courier to announce that he had encountered the enemy in force at Grand-Pre and had been compelled to fall back on Buzancy, which gave cause to apprehend that he might soon be cut off from retreat on Vouziers.
The general announced, moreover, in the confidence of his sublime ignorance, that a column of one hundred thousand men was on the way from Grand-Pre to attack them, while another, of sixty thousand, was coming up by the way of Sainte-Menehould. "How's your foot, Maurice?" asked Jean. "It don't hurt now," the other laughingly replied. "If there is to be a fight, I think it will be quite well."
" ... since the burning of Grand-Pre, When on the falling tide the freighted vessels departed, Bearing a nation, with all its household gods, into exile; Exile without an end, and without an example in story." Of the numerous readers of Evangeline in Lancaster, few now suspect how nearly the sad tale of wantonly-ravaged Acadie touched their own town history.
Then suddenly, at once, his fear left him; upon the road, that he knew was not two hundred yards away, he distinctly heard the cadenced tramp of marching men. Immediately it flashed across his mind as a certainty that they were the troops from Grand-Pre, whose coming had been awaited with such anxiety General Dumont bringing in Bordas' brigade.
There had been some talk of a fourth army, under the Prince of Saxony, which was to operate on the line of the Meuse; this was doubtless the one that was now before them, although their promptitude in occupying Grand-Pre was a matter of surprise, considering the distances.
An aide-de-camp had been dispatched to the marshal to urge him to hurry forward their supports, as intelligence received from every quarter made it more and more certain that the two Prussian armies were close at hand, and three hours later still another officer galloped off like mad toward Chene, where general headquarters were located, with a request for instructions, for consternation had risen to a higher pitch then ever with the receipt of fresh tidings from the maire of a country commune, who told of having seen a hundred thousand men at Grand-Pre, while another hundred thousand were advancing by way of Buzancy.
Therefore he had sent out the 4th hussars to reconnoiter the country as far as the defiles of Grand-Pre and Croix-aux-Bois, with strict orders not to return without intelligence.
Since the day, near six weeks ago, when he had enlisted in a fit of enthusiasm, supposing that he would surely have to face the foe in a day or two, all that he had done had been to tramp up and down the country on his poor, sore feet the feet of a man who had lived in luxury, far from the battle-field; and so, among all those impatient watchers, there was none who watched more impatiently than he the Grand-Pre road, extending straight away to a seemingly infinite distance between two rows of handsome trees.
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