Page 602 - les-miserables

be blamed. Bat-like creatures, half brigands and lackeys; all
the sorts of vespertillos that that twilight called war engen-
ders; wearers of uniforms, who take no part in the fighting;
pretended invalids; formidable limpers; interloping sut-
lers, trotting along in little carts, sometimes accompanied
by their wives, and stealing things which they sell again;
beggars offering themselves as guides to officers; soldiers’
servants; marauders; armies on the march in days gone
by,— we are not speaking of the present,—dragged all this
behind them, so that in the special language they are called
‘stragglers.’ No army, no nation, was responsible for those
beings; they spoke Italian and followed the Germans, then
spoke French and followed the English. It was by one of
these wretches, a Spanish straggler who spoke French, that
the Marquis of Fervacques, deceived by his Picard jargon,
and taking him for one of our own men, was traitorously
slain and robbed on the battle-field itself, in the course of
the night which followed the victory of Cerisoles. The rascal
sprang from this marauding. The detestable maxim, Live on
the enemy! produced this leprosy, which a strict discipline
alone could heal. There are reputations which are deceptive;
one does not always know why certain generals, great in
other directions, have been so popular. Turenne was adored
by his soldiers because he tolerated pillage; evil permitted
constitutes part of goodness. Turenne was so good that he
allowed the Palatinate to be delivered over to fire and blood.
The marauders in the train of an army were more or less
in number, according as the chief was more or less severe.
Hoche and Marceau had no stragglers; Wellington had few,

602 Les Miserables