Here I was, on the contrary, in conditions of absolute calm, of the
most impressive silence conceivable. Until that day the country, at
that hour of the day, had echoed with the innumerable noises made by
an army in retreat. Thousands of cannon, limbers, and convoys had been
passing along all the roads and all practicable by-ways monotonously
and ceaselessly. Often, too, the first shots exchanged by the cavalry
scouts of both the hostile armies could be heard.

We heard nothing that day. In front nothing stirred: the country
seemed deserted; the fields forsaken. Not a living creature showed
itself.

Behind us, too, there was complete silence. But I knew that an entire
army was there, waiting for us to send information, before advancing
to the fight. That information would direct its blows.... I knew my
brigade was behind that rise in the ground, and that all, officers and
troopers alike, were impatient to rush upon my tracks to the attack. I
knew that behind them, lying by sections in the plough-land, thousands
and thousands of infantrymen had their eyes fixed in the direction I
was taking, and that hundreds and hundreds of guns were ready to pour
out death. But that disciplined multitude was silent and, as it were,
holding its breath, waiting for the order that was to hurl it forward.
I felt in excellent spirits.

It was upon _me_, and upon a few comrades, that the confidence of so
many soldiers rested. It was to be by _our_ directions that the
regiments were to rush forward, some here, some there, carrying death
and receiving death with, for the first time, the certainty of
conquering; since for the first time the Commander-in-Chief had said
that conquer they must. And not for an instant had I any fear of not