Where the Light Falls(10)

Jean-Luc let the news sink deep into his gut as he glanced out the window. Looking east, he saw the river. Just past the Seine the ancient stone spires of Notre Dame Cathedral jutted skyward. In the distance, past where the walls of Paris ceased and the green began, in the old forest hunting grounds of their disgraced king, his fellow patriots waited. Jean-Luc narrowed his eyes and willed himself to see past the city and into that verdant expanse. He could not tell if it was merely a trick of his imagination, but there, in the distance, he thought he could detect a faint wreath of smoke curling up toward the sky.





September 1792

The sun sprinkled through the ancient oaks, casting a dancing shadow over the cool, shady wood. Local rumor held that in this copse, in years of peace and plenty, King Louis XVI had liked to spread his blankets to take his nap and his wine while his men chased the boar, stags, and rabbits that occupied these lands. Later, they would present the spoils of the hunt to their monarch, and he would hoist the dead carcasses over his thick shoulders, boasting to his wife as he rode back into the palace grounds that he’d had another glorious day of hunting.

But on this day, the prey in the forest was not boar, nor stags nor rabbits. These woods were no longer the hunting grounds for royal sport and merriment. Today, men were hunting other men.

It was almost evening when the dragoon scouts returned to the French camp. They flew in, a cloud of riders and hooves churning up dust, their horses exhausted and slicked in a thin coating of sweat. Several dogs barked out a rough volley of greeting as the nearby aides scurried to receive the returning party.

Captain André Valière poked his head through the flap of his tent and looked out over the camp. The soft indigo light of dusk seeped over the area, the last few cooking fires sputtering out after the evening meal, but the postprandial quiet of the coming night had now dissipated. The aides were unsaddling the horses and escorting the returning party into camp. André strained his ears to hear as the scouts gasped out their reconnaissance.

“Where did you cross the river?” an aide asked one of the riders.

“We crossed at the shallow bend to the northeast, past the crossroads at La Lune. We found one of their horses on the other side.” A windswept dragoon officer, his black boots caked in dust from the dry road, handed off his reins as he dismounted and cut a quick line toward one of the central tents.

“Just a horse, no rider?” The aide hurried to keep the scout’s pace.

The scout shook his head. “Just the mount. We found their fires still smoking. They left in a hurry.”

Another scout was beside them now, panting. “We heard a shout—a Prussian scout, we’re guessing. Brunswick knows we’re here; we’ve been seen.”

André slipped out of his tent and trailed them from a few steps behind, his interest piqued.

“So they are moving on Paris. Did you exchange any fire?” The aide tried to walk and scribble notes at the same time.

“No, we heard the bastards croaking something in German, so we pissed on their fires and grabbed the mount and came straight back here.” The officer who appeared to be in charge took a drink from his canteen and splashed water on his face. “Where is the general?”

“Which one?”

“The commander, you fool. Dumouriez.” The officer wiped his face with a dirty hand, blinking several times. He passed the canteen back to one of his scouts and continued, “Or better yet, Kellermann. He at least might have some idea of what is going on here.”

“They are both inside the command tent, awaiting your report.” The aide turned and led the small group of scouts toward a large tent with a massive, if somewhat tattered, tricolor flag waving from its center post. Two bored-looking soldiers stood at attention outside the entrance. As the scouts approached, the guards crossed their muskets diagonally so the steel of their bayonets clanged together, but they quickly capitulated when the lead scout waved a dismissive hand and walked brusquely past them into the tent. André would have to wait until the evening’s briefing to hear the rest.

André sighed now, looking in the direction from which the scouts had arrived. He saw, among the brown warhorses, a lone white Lipizzaner, a Prussian cavalry horse, that whinnied and pawed the ground as if defiant in these new surroundings. André surveyed the rest of the camp. Clustered by the fires closest to the command tents sat men who, like André, were dressed in the white and sky blue of the old Bourbon army; these were the holdovers of the army of the monarchy, the regulars who had been trained when there was a king to fund military campaigns and pay salaries generous enough to draw men from the country’s poorest farms and its wealthiest families alike. These men, although their crisp white uniforms still bore the Bourbon fleur-de-lis, had been welcomed into the Revolution and composed well over half of the army’s forces. They had sworn allegiance to the new—albeit ever changing—government, and the Revolution needed men with their training and skill. They were respected and revered, if not included in the casual, threadbare fraternity of the revolutionary guardsmen who sat around the campfires a few paces away.