Chapter 9

The battle ceased, and the last of the wounded was brought to the surgeons, but still Lady Harriet was without news of Major Acland, and it was not until many hours later that she heard he was still alive. Her joy was tempered by the knowledge that the fighting would be renewed before many days had elapsed.

At last, on October 7, 1777, the second battle of Saratoga was fought. Lady Harriet was once again doomed to listen to the sound of cannon and musketry, and to see a sad procession of wounded moving to the rear. As time passed without any news of her husband reaching her, she began to hope that he would pass through the battle uninjured; but this was not to be. Soon the news came that the British, under General Burgoyne, had been defeated, and that Major Acland, seriously wounded, had been taken prisoner.

For a time Lady Harriet was overcome with grief, but growing calmer she determined to make an attempt to join her husband in the American camp and nurse him there. 'When the army was upon the point of moving after the halt described,' General Burgoyne wrote in his account of the campaign, 'I received a message from Lady Harriet, submitting to my decision a proposal (and expressing an earnest solicitude to execute it, if not interfering with my designs) of passing to the camp of the enemy, and requesting General Gates's permission to attend her husband. Though I was ready to believe (for I had experienced) that patience and fortitude in a supreme degree were to be found, as well as every other virtue, under the most tender forms, I was astonished at this proposal. After so long an agitation of the spirits, exhausted not only for want of rest, but absolutely want of food, drenched in rains for twelve hours together, that a woman should be capable such an undertaking as delivering herself to the enemy, probably in the night, and uncertain of what hands she might first fall into, appeared an effort above human nature. The assistance I was enabled to give was small indeed; I had not even a cup of wine to offer her; but I was told she had found, from some kind and fortunate hand, a little rum and dirty water. All I could furnish to her was an open boat and a few lines, written upon dirty and wet paper, to General Gates, recommending her to his protection.'

Accompanied by an army chaplain and two servants, Lady Harriet proceeded up the Hudson River in an open boat to the enemy's outposts; but the American sentry, fearing treachery, refused to allow her to land, and ignoring the white handkerchief which she held aloft, threatened to shoot anyone in the boat who ventured to move. For eight hours, unprotected from the night air, Lady Harriet sat shivering in the boat, but at daybreak she prevailed upon the sentry to have her letter delivered to General Gates. The American general readily gave permission for her to join her husband, who, she found, had been shot through both legs, in addition to having received several minor wounds. His condition was serious, but Lady Harriet succeeded in nursing him into comparatively good health.

When Major Acland was sufficiently recovered to be able to travel he returned with his wife to England, where the story of Lady Harriet's bravery and devotion was already well-known. A portrait of her, in which she is depicted standing in the boat holding aloft a white handkerchief, was exhibited in the Royal Academy and engraved. Sir Joshua Reynolds also painted a portrait of her.

Lady Harriet, 'the heroine of the American War,' lived, admired and respected, for thirty-seven years after her husband's death, dying deeply mourned at Tatton, Somersetshire, on July 21, 1815.

'Let such as are affected by these circumstances of alarm, hardship and danger, recollect,' General Burgoyne wrote, 'that the subject of them was a woman, of the most tender and delicate frame, of the gentlest manners, habituated to all the soft elegances and refined enjoyments that attend high birth and fortune. Her mind alone was formed for such trials.' But in very many cases heroines have been women from whom few would have expected heroism. The blustering braggart does not often prove to be a hero in time of danger, and the gentle, unassuming woman is the type of which heroines are frequently made. The aristocracy the middle and the lower classes, have each given us many heroines of this type.

AIMÉE LADOINSKI AND THE RETREAT FROM MOSCOW.

Napoleon was entering Moscow in triumph. It was night, and the streets of the Russian capital were deserted, but at a window of one house past which the victorious troops were marching sat a French lady, eagerly scanning the faces of the officers. Her husband, Captain Ladoinski, of the Polish Lancers, was somewhere among the troops, but she failed to recognise him as he rode by. Soon, however, he was at her house, and great was the joy of meeting after long separation.

After the first greeting, Aimée Ladoinski noticed that her husband was wounded, and although he spoke lightly of his wound, it was not a slight one. Moreover, it had been aggravated by want of attention, for Napoleon's surgeons did not at this time possess the proper appliances for dressing wounds. Captain Ladoinski's wound had been dressed with moss and bandaged with parchment! In a few minutes after making this discovery Madame Ladoinski had bandaged her husband's wound with lint and linen. It was a great relief to the warrior, and settling down in a comfortable chair he proceeded to question his wife as to how she had fared during his absence, and then to relate his own adventures.

Suddenly, as they sat talking, a fierce red light shone into the room, which had until then been in darkness, except for the feeble glimmer from a shaded lamp in the corner. Rising quickly, Madame Ladoinski went to the window, closely followed by her husband, who uttered an exclamation of surprise when he saw that a fire was raging in the newly captured city.

Taking up his lance Captain Ladoinski hurried out, to order his men to assist in subduing the fire, but at the doorway he was met by a messenger who made known to him Napoleon's command, that the troops billeted in that portion of the town were not to leave their quarters. Surprised at this order, Captain Ladoinski returned to his wife, and together they watched from their window the rapidly extending fire. The burning part of the city was at a considerable distance from where they stood, but it seemed to them that unless prompt measures were taken it would be impossible to save the city from utter destruction. Hundreds of soldiers were resting near them who might have been busily employed in checking the progress of the flames. The truth dawned on both of them. Napoleon did not see his way to save Moscow from this new calamity.

Now Aimée Ladoinski had resided for some time in Moscow, and its streets and palaces were familiar to her, and the thought of their ruthless destruction to thwart the designs of one man filled her with shame--shame that he who had caused this act of vandalism was a Frenchman.

Madame Ladoinski did not admire Napoleon, for she was at heart a Bourbon, and regarded him as an usurper. The reckless sacrifice of thousands of his fellow countrymen for his own aggrandisement filled her with loathing for the man, and she did not conceal her feelings from her husband, who made no attempt to defend the emperor. It was not for love of him that Captain Ladoinski had fought under 'the Little Corporal.' He was a Pole, and it was because Napoleon was fighting the oppressor of the Polish race--Russia--that he fought for the French. The Russians had been humbled, and he, a Pole, had marched as one of a victorious army into their capital. But secretly he wondered if the condition of much-persecuted Poland would be better under Napoleon than it was under Russia. His wife candidly declared that it would not be. Napoleon had promised he would free Poland from the Russian yoke, but she felt convinced that it would simply be to place the country under French rule.

'And, wherefore,' she said to her husband, as we read in Watson's _Heroic Women of History_, 'should Poland find such solitary grace in the eyes of Europe's conquerors? Shall all the nations lie prostrate at his feet, and Poland alone be permitted to stand by his side as an equal? Be wise, my dear Ladoinski. You confess that the conqueror lent but a lifeless ear to the war-cry of your country. Be timely wise; open your eyes, and see that this cold-hearted victor--wrapped in his own dark and selfish aims--uses the sword of the patriot Pole only, like that of the prostrate Prussian, to hew the way to his own throne of universal dominion.... Believe it, this proud man did not enslave all Europe to become the liberator of Poland. Ah! trust me, that is but poor freedom which consists only In a change of masters. O Ladoinski! Ladoinski! give up this mad emprise; return to the bosom of your family; and when your compatriots arise to assert their rights at the call of their country, and not at the heartless beck of a stranger despot, I will buckle the helmet on your brow.'

Captain Ladoinski was inclined to believe that his wife had spoken the truth when she said that Napoleon would forget the Poles, now that Russia was crushed. Posing as a disinterested man eager to deliver the Poles from the hands of their oppressor, Napoleon had gathered round him a band of brave men, who fought with the determination of men fighting for their homes and liberty. They had served his purpose, and he would reward them, not with the freedom he had promised, but with the intimation that they were now his subjects. It was a terrible disappointment, but Captain Ladoinski consoled himself with the belief that French rule would not be so hard to bear as the Russian had been.

The fire spread apace. It was a grand yet terrible scene, the like of which, it is to be hoped, will never again be witnessed. Soon the heat became unbearable in the quarter of the city where the Ladoinskis stood and watched, and sparks and big flaring brands fell in showers. Unless they departed quickly they would be burned to death.

Captain Ladoinski could not seek safety in flight, for he had been commanded to remain in his quarters, and the order had not been cancelled. Assuring his wife that he would soon be at liberty to leave his post, he urged her to depart with their child and wait for him outside the city. This she refused to do, declaring that as long as he remained where he was she would stay with him. And this determination he could not alter, although he used every persuasion possible to that end.

On came the flames, crackling, hissing and roaring, and soon the houses facing the Ladoinskis would be engulfed in them. The captain would not quit his post without orders, and his wife would not leave him. Death seemed certain, and they were preparing to meet it, when suddenly an order came from head-quarters ordering the troops to evacuate the city with all despatch. Instantly the retreat began, but many men fell in the scorching, suffocating streets never to rise again. Captain Ladoinski and his wife and child had many narrow escapes from the fiery brands which fell hissing into the roads as they hurried on towards the suburbs, but fortunately they received no injury.

Arriving on high ground, and safe from the fire's onslaught, the Ladoinskis stood, with thousands of Napoleon's army, gazing at the destruction of Moscow. The captain, remembering the havoc which the Russians had wrought by fire and sword in Warsaw, rejoiced to see their capital in flames; but his wife checked his rejoicing by warning him that the destruction of Moscow would not bring freedom to Poland.

And now began Napoleon's retreat. Terrible were the sufferings of the men, but it is only with Madame Ladoinski's trials that we are concerned. Knowing that after the burning of Moscow it would be dangerous for any French person to remain in Russia, she, with many other people of her nationality, accompanied the French army on its disastrous retreat. She travelled in a baggage-wagon, which at any rate afforded her and her child some protection from the frost and snow. To her the journey was not so terrible an undertaking as to some of her compatriots, for she had the pleasure of being daily with her husband, after some years of separation. But her pleasure soon received a rude shock. The Cossacks hung on with tenacity to the remains of the great French army, swooping down at unexpected times upon some dispirited, disorganised section, cutting it to pieces, and recapturing some of the spoil with which the troops were loaded.

Captain Ladoinski was present when one of these attacks was made, and, while assisting to repel the attackers, received a dangerous wound. A place was found for him in the baggage-wagon, and there he lay for days, tenderly nursed by his wife. The road was blocked in many places with abandoned guns, dead horses, and broken-down wagons, and travelling was difficult. Some of the wagons had not broken down accidentally or through hard wear, but had been tampered with by the drivers. Many a terrible act was perpetrated in baggage-wagons during the retreat from Moscow. In these wagons, among the spoil taken from the capital, were placed the wounded, frequently unattended and without protection. Many of the drivers, anxious to possess some of the spoil with which their wagons were loaded, weakened the axle, so that it should collapse. The bedraggled soldiers would march on, and when the drivers were well in rear of the force they murdered their wounded passengers and looted the wagons.

One night Madame Ladoinski was awakened by the stoppage of their wagon. She had heard stories of the murdering of the wounded by wagon-drivers, but she had not believed them, and after peeping out at the snow-covered country, and seeing that soldiers and other wagons were near, she lay down again, and in a few minutes was sleeping soundly--a sleep from which in all probability she would not have awakened, so intense was the cold, had not the wagon arrived at Smolensk, a depôt of the French army, an hour later. Her life was saved by the prompt attention of a young officer, who glanced into the wagon, and was surprised to find her lying insensible with her child beside her. Calling to some brother officers, he jumped into the wagon and poured a little brandy into Madame Ladoinski's mouth. Then, when she began to show signs of returning consciousness, he and his companions lifted her from the wagon to carry her and her boy to a house where they would be properly warmed, fed and nursed.

On the way some of the officers recognised her as Captain Ladoinski's wife, and they were naturally surprised to find her in such a sad condition. 'Where is Ladoinski?' they asked each other; and one replied that on the previous day he had seen him, wounded, in the wagon with his wife and child. Some expressed the belief that he had died of his wounds, but others declared that he must have been murdered by the wagon-drivers, who, scoundrels though they were, had possessed sufficient humanity to spare the woman and child.

As in a dream, Madame Ladoinski had heard the conversation of the officers, and suddenly she grasped the meaning of what they had said.

'My husband! my husband!' she cried, wildly. 'Where is he?'

The officers, distressed at her grief, told her that when the wagon arrived at Smolensk, she and her boy were the only people in it. Of her husband they had seen or heard nothing, and the wagon-drivers had disappeared soon after reaching the city. They endeavoured to cheer her, however, by assuring her that he was, no doubt, not far away, and would soon return to her. But she, remembering what they had said when they believed her to be unconscious, was not calmed by their well-intentioned words.

Two days passed, and nothing was seen or heard of Captain Ladoinski, although the officers who had taken an interest in his wife made every effort to obtain news of him. They were in their own minds convinced that he was dead, but in order that a searching enquiry might be made, they obtained for her an interview with two of the most powerful of Napoleon's officers--the King of Naples and Prince Eugène Beauharnais, Viceroy of Italy. These officers listened quietly to the story of her husband's disappearance, and having expressed their sympathy with her, an aide-de-camp was summoned and ordered to make immediate enquiries among the wagon-drivers as to the fate of Captain Ladoinski. The aide-de-camp answered respectfully that he and several of his brother officers had already closely questioned every wagon-driver they could find, and that the men had sworn that Captain Ladoinski had died during the night of cold and of his wounds, and that his body had been thrown out into the snow. Madame Ladoinski, they declared, was insensible from cold when her husband died.

Clasping her boy, Madame Ladoinski burst into tears. For a few minutes she sat sobbing bitterly, but then, in the midst of her grief, she remembered that she was encroaching on the time of the officers before her. Controlling her tears as well as she was able, she asked for a safe-conduct for herself and child. As a Frenchwoman and the widow of a Polish rebel she would receive, she reminded her hearers, no mercy if she fell into the hands of the Russians. Her husband had fought for the French, and she claimed French protection. Instantly the two marshals declared that she should have the protection she asked, and Prince Eugène offered her a seat in a wagon that would accompany his division when it started in the course of a few days.

Madame Ladoinski accepted the offer with gratitude, whereupon the aide-de-camp was informed that she was to be placed in a baggage-wagon, and that the drivers were to be told that if their passengers did not reach the end of the journey in safety they would answer for it with their lives. On the other hand, if she arrived safely in Poland, and declared that she and her boy had been well-treated on the way, each driver would receive five hundred francs.

In a few days Madame Ladoinski was once again in a baggage-wagon; but Napoleon's 'Grand Army' was now in a terrible condition. Ragged, starving, dispirited by the constant harassing from the enemy, and the continuous marching through snow, it made but slow progress. The gloomy forests through which the miserable army tramped on its way to attempt the passage of the Beresina were blocked with snow, and so difficult was it to move the guns that Napoleon ordered that one half of the baggage-wagons were to be destroyed, so that the horses and oxen might be utilised for dragging forward the artillery. The wagon in which Madame Ladoinski rode was one of the number condemned to destruction, but the men who had been ordered to protect her speedily found room for her in another vehicle.

A day or two later, when the bedraggled army was nearing the Polish frontier, Madame Ladoinski was startled from her dejection by hearing loud joyful shouts, and on enquiring of the driver the reason of the noise she was told that a reinforcement under Marshal Victor had unexpectedly arrived.

Soon the reinforcements were passing the wagon, but Madame Ladoinski possessed neither the energy nor the curiosity to glance out at them. She could think of nothing but her dead husband and her little orphaned boy. But suddenly as she sat brooding over her great loss she heard, 'Forward, lancers!' uttered in Polish. Believing that it was her husband's voice she had heard, she sprang up and looked out at the troop trotting ahead. But she could not recognise her husband among the lancers, and she turned to sit down, believing that she was the victim of a delusion. To her surprise she saw her little son standing, with a finger uplifted to urge silence, listening eagerly.

'What is it, darling?' she asked.

'Father!' he replied.

Again Madame Ladoinski's spirits rose, but they fell quickly when she remembered that the Polish Lancers had quitted Smolensk before she and her boy arrived there. It was madness, therefore, to imagine that her wounded husband could be with Marshal Victor's army, and she dismissed the hope from her mind.

Days of terrible suffering for Napoleon's army followed, but eventually Studzianka, on the left bank of the Beresina, was reached, and the soldiers hoped that once in Poland their trials would diminish. Madame Ladoinski, her spirits reviving at the prospect of soon being in her husband's native land, lay listening to the noise of the men busily engaged in building the bridges over which the French army was to pass. Suddenly there was a tremendous uproar; shouts of joy, cries of triumph. Looking out Madame Ladoinski saw at once the cause of the excitement--the enemy who had been encamped on the opposite bank of the river was in full retreat. The fierce battle which she had dreaded, in case her boy might be injured, would not be fought. Falling on her knees in the wagon, she thanked God for averting the danger she feared.

Now that the Russians were gone, the cavalry swam their horses across the river, and took up a position that would protect the crossing of the foot soldiers. The bridges were completed at last, and quickly the ragged regiments hurried over them. The baggage-wagons were to be left until the last, and for hours Madame Ladoinski sat watching regiment after regiment hurry across. Napoleon, stern and silent, passed close to her, and a mighty shout of 'Vive L'Empereur' burst from his trusting, long-suffering troops, when he gained the opposite bank.

Soon after Napoleon had crossed, Prince Eugène came along, and seeing Madame Ladoinski he rode over to her, and told her cheerfully that she would soon be among her husband's friends, and that her trials would then be at an end. Then, turning to the drivers, he commanded them not to forget the order he had given concerning their behaviour and care of the lady entrusted to them.

When at last more than half the troops had crossed, the news arrived that the Russians had suddenly turned about and were marching back to the position they had vacated, while another strong body of the enemy was advancing to attack in the rear the troops which had not yet crossed. Instantly there was a panic, and the wagon-drivers, anxious for their own safety, turned Madame Ladoinski and her companions out of the wagon, so that their weight might not impede their progress. Madame Ladoinski reminded them of Prince Eugène's instructions, but they took no notice. Neither fear of punishment nor hope of reward had any influence over them now; they were anxious only for their own safety.

For a minute or two Madame Ladoinski knew not what to do. To attempt to cross either of the bridges on foot would, she soon saw, result in her and her child being crushed to death. Others, men and women, had come to the same conclusion, and were wandering, shivering with cold, along the bank of the river. These Madame Ladoinski hastened to, believing, as did they, that before long the bridges would be less crowded, and they would be able to cross in safety.