The soldiers advanced, packed so tightly one against the other that even had one of them wanted to flee they would not have been able to. The village of Essling came to life, as if the myriad
Austrians occupying it had been reanimated. Plumes and plumes of white smoke were released as artillery and their hordes of gunners stormed into action, like a volcano erupting. And at the same time, there were explosions on all sides, caused by the fury of the fire from the heavy artillery on the Isle of Lobau. Buildings were blown to smithereens but their smoking debris was immediately blanketed with new soldiers defending the village. That determination impressed the French - these Austrians were not the same breed as they had fought at Austerlitz. Those Austrians had rapidly thrown in the towel under pressure. Margont did not understand their resistance - he wanted to shout that they should ally themselves with Napoleon against their oppressive monarchies. But the Austrian bullets responded to his dreams of brotherhood by storming his ranks. The drums beat out the charge, one of the few sounds distinguishable in the uproar all around.
‘Long live the Emperor!’ yelled the infantry.
The 26th Light Infantry and the 18th of the Line swarmed into the village and its redoubts. Saber, with sabre aloft, speeded up to
overtake Margont and lead the company in a shock frontal attack on the Austrians barricading the main street. The two sides fired at point-blank range before throwing themselves at each other. Smoke drowned everything. Margont was suffocating in the blanket of fog and could recognise no one in the tumult of gesticulating figures. The flares of successive gunshots were like chaotic will-o’-the-wisps. Soldiers were firing so near to Margont that he could feel the burning wind of the guns on his face. Ghostly shadows hurried towards him, filling out and revealing themselves as enemy soldiers. A Hungarian tried to hit him in the face with the butt of his rifle. Margont dodged but, encumbered by the soldiers around him, could only defend himself by striking his assailant on the chin with the hilt of his sword. Pain forced the Hungarian to drop his weapon. The flow of French knocked him over and trampled on him. A dismounted hussar - one of Wallmoden’s cavalry - flung himself on Margont. The hussar was wounded all over and bleeding copiously, and there was a mad glint in his eye. His sabre was bent from having broken the skulls of Boudet's artillerymen.
He tried to decapitate Margont, crying, ‘Austria!’ but Margont bent his knees just in time.
‘We must save our major!’ yelled a conscript, confusing Margont with his superior officer. The young soldier perforated the hussar’s abdomen with his bayonet while the latter ran him through with his sword. The sappers of the 18th broke down doors with their axes and the French poured into the barricaded houses. Margont was swept forward on one of these waves; those following him were foolish enough to believe that they would find safety in there. Infantrymen were firing in a dining room and finishing their work with bayonets. In a corner of the room two Hungarians were sheltering behind a knocked over table, defending their pathetic excuse for a fortress. A lieutenant set off up the stairs, trailing grenadiers in his wake and driving back the Austrians, who defended each step. The massacre continued all the way to the first floor. Finally the building was taken. There was an exodus — soldiers running out to be sucked into the confrontations in the streets. Others lingered, pretending to be wounded or helping
those who really were. Margont was about to leave when he spotted a little branch of oak on the floor. Austrians and Hungarians had a tradition of attaching a few leaves of holly, willow or poplar to their helmets or shakos ... The tradition symbolised their desire to make peace. But these leaves were red, bathing in a pool of already coagulating blood.
Margont reached the street again. The melee had moved on, leaving hundreds of bodies in its wake. A captain was trying to stand up, leaning on his sabre planted in the ground. Wounded soldiers were clinging to the legs of the able-bodied, pleading for help, or at least for a drink. Others were propped against ruined walls. Margont joined the nearest French soldiers. They had crossed Essling. Austrians were fleeing before their eyes or throwing their arms on the ground and turning themselves in as prisoners. ‘Victory! We’ve won!’ cried the French.
Lefine came to join Margont, tears of joy making tracks on his cheeks blackened by gunpowder.
‘We’re still alive! At least I think we are ... I have the impression that Irénée stole your campaign.’
The most advanced troops of Klenau’s VI Corps were evacuating Essling in order to retrench in Aspern. But Austria’s spirit was broken and Aspern also found itself under assault. This halted Klenau’s spectacular progression; he was now isolated and informed Archduke Charles that he was retreating. This was very bad news for the Austrians and was rapidly followed by a series of other problems. John’s thirteen thousand men, desperately needed as reinforcement, would not be there for more than two hours ... The Austrian troops were overwhelmed and began to show signs of exhaustion when Napoleon’s fresh reserve troops assailed them. The Austrian left wing was in disarray, its right wing was drawing back and the centre was weakening by the minute. The Archduke therefore decided to order the retreat. He wanted at all costs to avoid the destruction of his army, because the fate of the Habs-burg monarchy depended on it. In choosing to give in now, he was leaving himself enough healthy troops to withdraw in good order and defend themselves against the French, who would certainly pursue them.
The Austrians had lost forty-five thousand soldiers, twenty-five thousand killed or wounded and twenty thousand taken prisoner. The French and their allies, thirty-five thousand, of which two-thirds had been killed or wounded.
Napoleon declared: The war has never been like this before. We have neither prisoners nor enemy cannon: today we have achieved nothing lasting.’
CHAPTER 32
ON 7 July Napoleon decided to let his army rest for the day. Detachments of hussars and mounted chasseurs harried the retreating Austrian army but came up against the Archduke’s cavalry. The Emperor wanted to pursue the enemy army, to break it up and encircle the isolated units one by one ... the pursuit had to be decisive in order to convert victory on the battlefield into total victory. The next day Napoleon would set all his troops to this task. The Grande Armée was in great confusion. Everywhere, soldiers were wandering about, isolated or in little groups, looking for their battalions. It would take hours to reorganise everyone, especially as it was hard to transmit orders. Numerous officers had been killed, interrupting the chain of command. This dysfunction generated misunderstandings and rumours. It was said that Massena’s IV Corps - which had lost twenty-five per cent of its soldiers - was going to be allowed to rest in Vienna. A few minutes later an aide-de-camp announced that it was to prepare for the pursuit.
Margont was in the village of Leopoldau to the south-west of the battlefield, taking stock of the state of his company. He had sent most of his able-bodied soldiers to collect the thousands of wounded who had not yet been tended to. Lefine was in an apathetic state, amazed still to be alive. He was sitting on a heap of rubble and, at his feet, dozens of infantrymen were asleep right there on the ground - they could have been dead. Behind him the village’s ruined houses threatened to collapse, so that Lefine looked like a petty king who had not yet realised that his kingdom was no more. Piquebois was supervising the distribution of cartridges. Gunners were gathered round an ammunitions wagon and were filling their cartridge pouches. The company needed an endless supply of bullets.
Saber was absolutely furious.
‘Unbelievable! Unbelievable! I’m still a lieutenant - not even promoted to captain! Not even that! The Austrians were obliterating our rear, our army was lost! Who was it who retook Essling? It was thanks to me! I led my company—’ ‘My company!’ corrected Margont.
‘I led our company in the charge that saved us all and will become legendary. I broke into Essling, and Klenau’s corps crumpled like an over-extended rope when someone lets go of one end. And how am I rewarded?’
�
�More than thirty companies poured into Essling and its retrenchments ...’
Saber held up a finger to correct what he considered to be an important misrepresentation.
‘Ours was the first to get all the way through the village, all the others did was follow me in.’
Margont started to lose his temper. ‘You couldn’t see anything in all that smoke, so how can you say that?’
‘Only those following behind were blinded by the smoke. It was the smoke from our company firing at the front! Since our colonel refuses to make me a major, I’ll have to apply to his superior. To the general of the division. No, he would never go against the recommendations of one of his colonels. Has the Emperor been informed of my feat of arms? I demand to see the Emperor!’
After each confrontation, it was important to replace all the officers seriously wounded or killed in action as quickly as possible, so that the army could continue to function. It was traditional that heroics on the battlefield were rewarded by promotion, sometimes allowing soldiers to skip several ranks in one go. Saber would become more and more wound up as it became known that such and such had skipped captain, and so and so had skipped major
Margont caught sight of Relmyer, who was trotting over to feed his horse. He waved to the hussar, who bowed in his direction. Relmyer wore a strange expression. Pagin had died right in front of him, as had his colonel, Laborde, and many other hussars of the 8th. General Lasalle had also been killed. Relmyer could not yet admit to himself that all these men were no longer there. He was riding about, a broken man, surrounded by ghosts.
'I'm delighted to see you have survived,’ he told Margont and Le-fine. ‘Let’s go immediately and see Luise to put her mind at rest. We can see how far she’s got with her researches.'
He was already becoming obsessed again with the investigation ... ‘Fernand and I can only get away for the day.' replied Margont. ‘Tomorrow our regiment will definitely be taking part in the pursuit.'
Relmyer nodded silently. Margont left his company in Piquebois’s hands. As for Saber, he was engaged in writing his letter, failing to get past the first line, because it was rather daunting to be writing to the Emperor ... Without him fully realising it, his letter was acting as a screen, preventing him from seeing the broken flesh all around him.
Relmyer, Margont and Lefine went off, passing lost Saxons, streams of wagons heaped up with the wounded, white lines of prisoners and repentant deserters discreetly trying to rejoin their battalions ... All around lay corpses and the remains of horses, picked over by crows.
CHAPTER 33
THE Viennese were in mourning for Austrian hopes and asking each other what would happen now to the campaign. They questioned the French and their prisoners to try to hear news of loved ones serving in the Archduke’s army.
As they went into the Mitterburgs’ house, Margont, Lefine and Relmyer passed medical orderlies of the Army Medical Service. Luise had been giving them sheets to make lint, and bottles of brandy. The war was an abyss that everyone tried to fill in his or her own way. Luise stared at the three of them, motionless, incredulous. Margont had eyes only for her. Luise looked at him but Relmyer hurried to question her.
‘Did anyone recognise the man in the portrait?’
‘No ...’
Luise was stupefied. After all that they had been through in the last few hours, was that all the greeting she was entitled to? Relmyer was once again a victim of his demons. Not noticing anything, he continued in the same tone.
‘Were you able to find out anything about Teyhern?’
This time she went along with it. She led them into the salon. Her face was deathly pale. During the two days of battle she had not been able to stop herself imagining Relmyer and Margont dead, the one run through in a tangle of hussars, the other riddled with bullets. She had determinedly imagined the worst, as if to get used to it in preparation. She could not therefore quite believe that they were really there, and had difficulty in rejoicing fully at their return. There were several sheets of paper on one of the tables. Some were the rough drafts that Luise had scribbled of accounts given by the servants charged with finding information. Others were more legible. Luise had cut out parts of the information and organised them logically. She had drawn up Teyhern’s family tree and grouped his friends and acquaintances together in a diagram. She had worked hard and gathered many names, but on all the sheets there were question marks. Each of the lists was incomplete, there was no information at all on some people ... It was like looking at a building under construction. Relmyer wanted to read all the papers at the same time, holding them like a fan in each hand.
‘Who do you suspect the most?’
Luise took one of the papers; it was a pretext to touch Relmyer’s hand.
‘I don’t know, Lukas
Some names were scored through, but most were still possibilities or unknowns.
‘“Acquaintance”, “cousin”, “distant relative”, “uncle”, “colleague” ...’ said Relmyer in irritation, shuffling the documents clumsily. ‘Let’s begin at the beginning,’ suggested Margont. ‘Let’s concentrate on Teyhern’s life.’
Luise ordered the papers.
‘He comes from a modest family, born in Vienna in 1773. He’s always lived here or round about. His father worked for the state, for the Ministry of Finance. He was an accountant, but I don’t know much else about him. Teyhern had three brothers, Gregor, Florian and Bernhard.’
Relmyer could not keep still. He burnt with impatience. He was reading Luise’s notes, anticipating what she was going to say.
‘We don’t know anything more about them? This one, the oldest, Gregor, serves in the Austrian army. The regular army? The Landwehr? The volunteer force?’
‘I don’t know ...’
All his brothers are suspects! But you’ve found out almost nothing about them! The other two aren’t in Vienna any more, but where did they go? And his cousins! He has eight of them altogether ... or perhaps he has more and you’ve forgotten!’
Relmyer was exhausting himself running round the labyrinth of the lists of names and the arrows linking them to indicate the nature of their relationship to Hermann Teyhern.
‘Let’s stick to Teyhern,’ insisted Margont.
Luise’s fingers were trembling. ‘He never married,’ she went on. ‘Like his father, he worked for several years as an accountant for the Ministry of Finance. He had a lowly position and in 1801 was involved in a serious incident. Teyhern was accused of falsifying some accounts and embezzling money, quite large sums, the equivalent to fifty thousand of your francs.'
‘Fifty thousand francs? Fifty thousand francs?’ exclaimed Lefine, dazzled by such a sum.
‘Exactly. There was even a trial. But Teyhern was found not guilty. He nevertheless wanted to change jobs and he went to the Ministry of War.’
‘Not guilty?’ Margont was astonished. ‘Even we know that he was not exactly the most honest man ... Besides, he owns a superb house in Leiten. And his furniture? Marquetry chests of drawers, Louis XV armchairs ... Not to mention the porcelain, Turkish carpets ... Yet ministry employees aren’t well paid. Look at Konrad Sowsky: he was doing the same job as Teyhern but his way of life was nothing like as lavish. And from what you’ve told us, Luise, Teyhern did not come from a rich family.’
Luise agreed. A neighbour told us that Teyhern’s parents died of consumption in 1800 and that they left almost nothing to their children. And most people who knew Teyhern said that he was a spendthrift. He dressed according to the latest fashion, went often to restaurants or the opera, often visited antiquarians to buy works of art ... He was described as a misanthrope, always on his own, thinking only of himself. His work colleagues thought he came from a rich family, while his few friends imagined that he had an important post at the ministry and commanded a large salary/
‘So where did all his money come from?’
Relmyer was leaning against the table, his hands grasping the edge as if he would have liked
to crush it.
‘He knew what happened to those young boys whose names he added to the military registers and exacted money for that/
‘No.' Luise objected. ‘He was already rich before joining the Ministry of War. He began to spend money hand over fist when he was still employed by the Ministry of Finance. After his trial many people thought he was guilty.'
‘Who was his lawyer?’ asked Margont.
‘Rudolph Rinz. But I crossed him out because he’s nearly sixty now. The trial was short. The prosecutor complained about the verdict. But the matter never went any further.’
‘What is the name of the judge?’
‘Vinzenz Knerkes. But it can’t be him either.’
Vinzenz Knerkes’ name was crossed out on a page covered in notes.
‘Why?’
‘Because it’s impossible.’
‘Why do you say that?’ Margont pressed her.
‘I’ve often heard him spoken of, always in a positive way. He’s respected by his peers. He has the reputation of judging the guilty harshly and he’s particularly severe on anyone who harms children or young people.’
Margont recalled the smiles the assassin carved on the faces of his young victims. Because they had been locked away for days and deprived of food and water, they could not defend themselves. That gave their tormentor the impression that they accepted the cruelty he inflicted on them. And in a way, the mutilation also created the impression that the young men had consented to their treatment. Perhaps the murderer did feel guilt. A guilt so intense, so destructive that he tried to exorcise it with his tactic of weakening his victims and then faking their smiles? ‘Perhaps the judge doubly condemns people who make young people suffer because he’s punishing them for their crimes and also for his own. One culprit escapes justice but another pays double. The assassin thus tries to ease the guilt racking him.’
This remark met a lively response. Lefine shook his head, too down to earth to accept such an abstract explanation. Luise refused to entertain the thought that a judge could be culpable. As for Relmyer, he was lost in the depths of his own reflections.
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