The Blockade of Phalsburg: An Episode of the End of the Empire

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Title: The Blockade of Phalsburg: An Episode of the End of the Empire

Author: Erckmann-Chatrian

Release date: July 26, 2011 [eBook #36858]
Most recently updated: January 7, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/36858

Credits: Produced by Al Haines

*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE BLOCKADE OF PHALSBURG: AN EPISODE OF THE END OF THE EMPIRE ***

Produced by Al Haines

[Frontispiece: ALL WERE DEAD, AS IT WERE ONE LONG CEMETERY.]

HISTORICAL ROMANCES OF FRANCE

THE BLOCKADE OF PHALSBURG

AN EPISODE OF THE END OF THE EMPIRE

TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH OF

ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN

ILLUSTRATED

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS

NEW YORK::::::::::::::::::::::1911

ILLUSTRATIONS

_All were dead, as it were one long cemetery_ . . . . . _Frontispiece_

"_Be so good as to come in, Mr. Sergeant_"

_I shuddered in my very soul and my hair bristled_

_Winter took him by the collar, and said:_ "_I have you now!_"

_The sortie from the Tile-kiln_

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

"The Blockade of Phalsburg" contains one of the happiest portraits in
the Erckmann-Chatrian gallery--that of the Jew Moses who tells the
story and who is always in character, however great the patriotic or
romantic temptation to idealize him, and whose character is
nevertheless portrayed with an almost affectionate appreciation of the
sterling qualities underlying its somewhat usurious exterior.

The time is 1814, during the invasion of France by the allies after the
disastrous battle of Leipsic and the campaign described in "The
Conscript." The dwellers in Phalsburg--a little walled town of two or
three thousand inhabitants in Lorraine--defend themselves with great
intrepidity and determination during the siege which lasts until the
capitulation of Paris. The daily life of the citizens and garrison,
the various incidents of the blockade, the bombardment by night, the
scarcity of food, the occasional sortie for foraging, all pass before
the reader depicted with the authors' customary fidelity and
life-likeness, and form as perfect a picture of a siege as "The
Conscript" does of a campaign.

THE BLOCKADE:

AN EPISODE OF

THE END OF THE EMPIRE

FATHER MOSES AND HIS FAMILY

Since you wish to know about the blockade of Phalsburg in 1814, I will
tell you all about it, said Father Moses of the Jews' street.

I lived then in the little house on the corner, at the right of the
market. My business was selling iron by the pound, under the arch
below, and I lived above with my wife Sorle (Sarah) and my little
Safel, the child of my old age.

My two other boys, Itzig and Fromel, had gone to America, and my
daughter Zeffen was married to Baruch, the leather-dealer, at Saverne.

Besides my iron business, I traded in old shoes, old linen, and all the
articles of old clothing which conscripts sell on reaching the depot,
where they receive their military outfit. Travelling pedlers bought
the old linen of me for paper-rags, and the other things I sold to the
country people.

This was a profitable business, because thousands of conscripts passed
through Phalsburg from week to week, and from month to month. They
were measured at once at the mayoralty, clothed, and filed off to
Mayence, Strasburg, or wherever it might be.

This lasted a long time; but at length people were tired of war,
especially after the Russian campaign and the great recruiting of 1813.

You may well suppose, Fritz, that I did not wait till this time before
sending my two boys beyond the reach of the recruiting officers'
clutches. They were boys who did not lack sense. At twelve years old
their heads were clear enough, and rather than go and fight for the
King of Prussia, they would see themselves safe at the ends of the
earth.

At evening, when we sat at supper around the lamp with its seven
burners, their mother would sometimes cover her face and say:

"My poor children! My poor children! When I think that the time is
near when you will go in the midst of musket and bayonet fire--in the
midst of thunder and lightning!--oh, how dreadful!"

And I saw them turn pale. I smiled at myself and thought: "You are no
fools. You will hold on to your life. That is right!"

If I had had children capable of becoming soldiers, I should have died
of grief. I should have said, "These are not of my race!"

But the boys grew stronger and handsomer. When Itzig was fifteen he
was doing a good business. He bought cattle in the villages on his own
account, and sold them at a profit to butcher Borich at Mittelbronn;
and Fromel was not behind him, for he made the best bargains of the old
merchandise, which we had heaped in three barracks under the market.

I should have liked well to keep the boys with me. It was my delight
to see them with my little Safel--the curly head and eyes bright as a
squirrel's--yes, it was my joy! Often I clasped them in my arms
without a word, and even they wondered at it; I frightened them; but
dreadful thoughts passed through my mind after 1812. I knew that
whenever the Emperor had returned to Paris, he had demanded four
hundred millions of francs and two or three hundred thousand men, and I
said to myself:

"This time, everybody must go, even children of seventeen and eighteen!"

As the tidings grew worse and worse, I said to them one evening:

"Listen! you both understand trading, and what you do not yet know you
can learn. Now, if you wait a few months, you will be on the
conscription list, and be like all the rest; they will take you to the
square and show you how to load a gun, and then you will go away, and I
never shall hear of you again!"

Sorle sighed, and we all sighed together. Then, after a moment, I
continued:

"But if you set out at once for America, by the way of Havre, you will
reach it safe and sound; you will do business there as well as here;
you will make money, you will marry, you will increase according to the
Lord's promise, and you will send me back money, according to God's
commandment, 'Honor thy father and thy mother.' I will bless you as
Isaac blessed Jacob, and you will have a long life. Choose!"

They at once chose to go to America, and I went with them myself as far
as Sorreburg. Each of them had made twenty louis in his own business
so that I needed to give them nothing but my blessing.

And what I said to them has come to pass; they are both living, they
have numerous children, who are my descendants, and when I want
anything they send it to me.

Itzig and Fromel being gone, I had only Safel left, my Benjamin, dearer
even, if possible, than the others. And then, too, I had my daughter
Zeffen, married at Saverne to a good respectable man, Baruch; she was
the oldest, and had already given me a grandson named David, according
to the Lord's will that the dead should be replaced in his own family,
and David was the name of Baruch's grandfather. The one expected was
to be called after my father, Esdras.

You see, Fritz, how I was situated before the blockade of Phalsburg, in
1814. Everything had gone well up to that time, but for six weeks
everything had gone wrong in town and country. We had the typhus;
thousands of wounded soldiers surrounded the houses; the ground had
lacked laborers for the last two years, and everything was dear--bread,
meat, and drink. The people of Alsace and Lorraine did not come to
market; our stores of merchandise did not sell; and when merchandise
does not sell, it might as well be sand or stones; we are poor in the
midst of abundance. Famine comes from every quarter.

Ah, well! in spite of it all, the Lord had a great blessing in store
for me, for just at this time, early in November, came the news that a
second son was born to Zeffen, and that he was in fine health. I was
so glad that I set out at once for Saverne.

You must know, Fritz, that if I was very glad, it was not only on
account of the birth of a grandson, but also because my son-in-law
would not be obliged to leave home, if the child lived. Baruch had
always been fortunate; at the moment when the Emperor had made the
Senate vote that unmarried men must go, he had just married Zeffen; and
when the Senate voted that married men without children must go, he had
his first child. Now, after the bad news, it was voted that married
men with only one child should go, all the same, and Baruch had two.

At that time it was a fortunate thing to have quantities of children,
to keep you from being massacred; no greater blessing could be desired!
This is why I took my cane at once, to go and find out whether the
child were sound and healthy, and whether it would save its father.

But for long years to come, if God spares my life, I shall remember
that day, and what I met upon my way.

Imagine the road-side blocked, as it were, with carts filled with the
sick and wounded, forming a line all the way from Quatre-Vents to
Saverne.

The peasants who, in Alsace, were required to transport these poor
creatures, had unharnessed their horses and escaped in the night,
abandoning their carts; the hoar-frost had passed over them; there was
not motion or sign of life--all dead, as it were one long cemetery!
Thousands of ravens covered the sky like a cloud; there was nothing to
be seen but wings moving in the air, nothing to be heard but one murmur
of innumerable cries. I would not have believed that heaven and earth
could produce so many ravens. They flew down to the very carts; but
the moment a living man approached, all these creatures rose and flew
away to the forest of La Bonne-Fontaine, or the ruins of the old
convent of Dann.

As for myself, I lengthened my steps, feeling that I must not stop,
that the typhus was marching at my heels.

Happily the winter sets in early at Phalsburg. A cold wind blew from
the Schneeberg, and these strong draughts of mountain air disperse all
maladies, even, it is said, the Black Plague itself.

What I have now told you is about the retreat from Leipsic, in the
beginning of November.

When I reached Saverne, the city was crowded with troops, artillery,
infantry, and cavalry, pell-mell.

I remember that, in the principal street, the windows of an inn were
open, and a long table with its white cloth was seen, all laid, within.
All the guard of honor stopped there. These were young men of rich
families, who had money in spite of their tattered uniforms. The
moment they saw this table in passing, they leaped from their horses
and rushed into the hall. But the innkeeper, Hannes, made them pay
five francs in advance, and just as the poor things began to eat, a
servant ran in, crying out, "The Prussians! the Prussians!" They
sprang up at once and mounted their horses like madmen, without once
looking back, and in this way Hannes sold his dinner more than twenty
times.

I have often thought since that such scoundrels deserve hanging; yes,
this way of making money is not lawful business. It disgusted me.

But if I should describe the rest--the faces of the sick, the way in
which they lay, the groans they uttered, and, above all, the tears of
those who tried in vain to go on--if I should tell you this, it would
be still worse, it would be too much. I saw, on the slope of the old
tan-house bridge, a little guardsman of seventeen or eighteen years,
stretched out, with his face flat upon the stones. I have never
forgotten that boy; he raised himself from time to time, and showed his
hand as black as soot: he had a ball in the back, and his hand was half
gone. The poor fellow had doubtless fallen from a cart. Nobody dared
to help him because they heard it said, "He has the typhus! he has the
typhus." Oh, what misery! It is too dreadful to think of!

Now, Fritz, I must tell you another thing about that day, and that is
how I saw Marshal Victor.

It was late when I started from Phalsburg, and it was dark when, on
going up the principal street of Saverne, I saw all the windows of the
Hotel du Soleil illuminated from top to bottom. Two sentinels walked
to and fro under the arch, officers in full uniform went in and out,
magnificent horses were fastened to rings all along the walls; and,
within the court, the lamps of a calash shone like two stars.

The sentinels kept the street clear, but I must pass, because Baruch
dwelt farther on. I was going through the crowd, in front of the
hotel, and the first sentinel was calling out to me, "Back! back!" when
an officer of hussars, a short, stout man, with great red whiskers,
came out of the arch, and as he met me, exclaimed,

"Ah! is it you, Moses! I am glad to see you!"

He shook hands with me.

I opened my eyes with amazement, as was natural: a superior officer
shaking hands with a plain citizen is not an every-day occurrence. I
looked at him in astonishment, and recognized Commandant Zimmer.

Thirty years before we had been at Father Genaudet's school, and we had
scoured the city, the moats, and the glacis together, as children. But
since then Zimmer had been a good many times in Phalsburg, without
remembering his old comrade, Samuel Moses.

"Ho!" said he, smiling, and taking me by the arm, "come, I must present
you to the marshal."

And, in spite of myself, before I had said a word, I went in under the
arch, into a large room where two long tables, loaded with lights and
bottles, were laid for the staff-officers.

A number of superior officers, generals, colonels, commanders of
hussars, of dragoons and of chasseurs, in plumed hats, in helmets, in
red shakos, their chins in their huge cravats, their swords dragging,
were walking silently back and forth, or talking with each other, while
they waited to be called to table.

It was difficult to pass through the crowd, but Zimmer kept hold of my
arm, and led me to the end of the room, to a little lighted door.

We entered a high room, with two windows opening upon the gardens.

The marshal was there, standing, his head uncovered; his back was
toward us, and he was dictating orders which two staff-officers were
writing.

This was all which I noticed at the moment, in my confusion.

Just after we entered, the marshal turned; I saw that he had the good
face of an old Lorraine peasant. He was a tall, powerful man, with a
grayish head; he was about fifty years old, and very heavy for his age.

"Marshal, here's our man!" said Zimmer. "He is one of my old
school-mates, Samuel Moses, a first-rate fellow, who has been
traversing the country these thirty years, and knows every village in
Alsace and Lorraine."

The marshal looked at me a few steps off. I held my hat in my hand in
great fear. After looking at me a couple of seconds, he took the paper
which one of the secretaries handed him, read and signed it, then
turned back to me:

"Well, my good man," said he, "what do they say about the last
campaign? What do the people in your village think about it?"

On hearing him call me "my good man," I took courage, and answered
"that the typhus had made bad work, but the people were not
disheartened, because they knew that the Emperor with his army was at
hand."

And when he said abruptly: "Yes! But will they defend themselves?" I
answered: "The Alsatians and the Lorraines are people who will defend
themselves till death, because they love their Emperor, and they would
all be willing to die for him!"

I said that by way of prudence; but he could plainly see in my face
that I was no fighting man, for he smiled good-humoredly, and said:
"That will do, commandant, that is enough!"

The secretaries had kept on writing. Zimmer made a sign to me and we
went out together. When we were outside he called out:

"Good-by, Moses, good-by!"

The sentinels let me pass, and still trembling, I continued my journey.

I was soon knocking at the little door of Baruch's house at the end of
the lane where the cardinal's old stables were.

It was pitch dark.

What a joy it was, Fritz, after having seen all these terrible things,
to come to the place where those I loved were resting! How softly my
heart beat, and how I pitied all that power and glory which made so
many people miserable!

After a moment I heard my son-in-law enter the passage and open the
door. Baruch and Zeffen had long since ceased expecting me.

"Is it you, my father?" asked Baruch.

"Yes, my son, it is I. I am late. I have been hindered."

"Come!" said he.

And we entered the little passage, and then into the chamber where
Zeffen, my daughter, lay pale and happy, upon her bed.

She had recognized my voice. As for me, my heart beat with joy; I
could not speak; and I embraced my daughter, while I looked around to
find the little one. Zeffen held it in her arms under the coverlet.

"There he is!" she said.

Then she showed him to me in his swaddling-clothes. I saw at once that
he was plump and healthy, with his little hands closed tight, and I
exclaimed:

"Baruch, this is Esdras, my father! Let him be welcome!"

I wanted to see him without his clothes, so I undressed him. It was
warm in the little room from the lamp with seven burners. Tremblingly
I undressed him; he did not cry, and my daughter's white hands assisted
me:

"Wait, my father, wait!" said she.

My son-in-law looked on behind me. We all had tears in our eyes.

At last I had him all undressed; he was rosy, and his large head tossed
about, sleeping the sleep of centuries. Then I lifted him above my
head; I looked at his round thighs all in creases, at his little
drawn-up feet, his broad chest and plump back, and I wanted to dance
like David before the ark; I wanted to chant: "Praise the Lord! Praise
him ye servants of the Lord! Praise the name of the Lord! Blessed be
the name of the Lord from this time forth and forever more! From the
rising of the sun, unto the going down of the same, the Lord's name is
to be praised! The Lord is high above all nations, and his glory above
the heavens! Who is like unto the Lord our God, who raiseth up the
poor out of the dust, who maketh the barren woman to keep house, and to
be a joyful mother of children? Praise ye the Lord!"

Yes, I felt like chanting this, but all that I could say was: "He is a
fine, perfect child! He is going to live! He will be the blessing of
our race and the joy of our old age!"

And I blessed them all.

Then giving him back to his mother to be covered, I went to embrace the
other who was sound asleep in his cradle.

We remained there together a long time, to see each other, in this joy.
Without, horses were passing, soldiers shouting, carriages rolling by.
Here all was quiet: the mother nursed her infant.

Ah! Fritz, I am an old man now, and these far-off things are always
before me, as at the first; my heart always beats in recalling them,
and I thank God for His great goodness,--I thank Him. He has loaded me
with years, He has permitted me to see the third generation, and I am
not weary of life; I should like to live on and see the fourth and the
fifth--His will be done!

I should have liked to tell them of what had just happened to me at the
Hotel du Soleil, but everything was insignificant in comparison with my
joy; only after I had left the chamber, while I was taking a mouthful
of bread and drinking a glass of wine in the side hall so as to let
Zeffen sleep, I related the adventure to Baruch, who was greatly
surprised.

"Listen, my son," said I, "this man asked me if we want to defend
ourselves. That shows that the allies are following our armies, that
they are marching by hundreds of thousands, and that they cannot be
hindered from entering France. So you see that, in the midst of our
joy, there is danger of terrible evils; you see that all the harm which
we have been doing to others for these last ten years may return upon
us. I fear so. God grant that I may be mistaken!"

After this we went to bed. It was eleven o'clock, and the tumult
without still continued.

FATHER MOSES'S SPECULATION

Early the next morning, after breakfast, I took my cane to return to
Phalsburg. Zeffen and Baruch wanted to keep me longer, but I said:

"You do not think of your mother, who is expecting me. She does not
keep still a minute; she keeps going upstairs and down, and looking out
of the window. No, I must go. Sorle must not be uneasy while we are
comfortable."

Zeffen said no more, and filled my pockets with apples and nuts for her
brother Safel. I embraced them again, the little ones and the big;
then Baruch led me far back of the gardens, to the place where the
roads to Schlittenbach and Lutzelburg divide.

The troops had all left, only stragglers and the sick remaining. But
we could still see the line of carts in the distance, on the hill, and
bands of day-laborers who had been set to work digging graves back of
the road.

The very thought of passing that way disturbed me. I shook hands with
Baruch at this fork of the road, promising to come again with
grandmother to the circumcision, and then took the valley road, which
follows the Zorn through the woods.

This path was full of dead leaves, and for two hours I walked on
thinking at times of the Hotel du Soleil, of Zimmer, of Marshal Victor,
whom I seemed to see again, with his tall figure, his square shoulders,
his gray head, and coat covered with embroidery. Sometimes I pictured
to myself Zeffen's chamber, the little babe and its mother; then the
war which threatened us--that mass of enemies advancing from every side!

Several times I stopped in the midst of these valleys sloping into each
other as far as the eye can reach, all covered with firs, oaks and
beeches, and I said to myself:

"Who knows? Perhaps the Prussians, Austrians and Russians will soon
pass along here!"

But there was comfort in this thought; "Moses, your two boys, Itzig and
Fromel, are in America far from the reach of cannon; they are there
with their packs on their shoulders, going from village to village
without danger. And your daughter Zeffen, too, may sleep in quiet;
Baruch has two fine children, and will have another every year while
the war lasts. He will sell leather to make bags and shoes for those
who have to go, but, for his part, he will stay at home."

I smiled as I thought that I was too old to be conscripted, that I was
a gray-head, and the conscriptors could have none of us. Yes; I smiled
as I saw that I had acted very wisely in everything, and that the Lord
had, as it were, cleared my path.

It is a great satisfaction, Fritz, to see that everything is working to
our advantage.

In the midst of these thoughts I came quietly to Lutzelburg, and I went
to Brestel's at the Swan Hotel to take a cup of coffee.

There I found Bernard, the soap merchant, whom you do not know--a
little man, bald to the very nape of the neck, with great wens on his
head--and Donadieu, the Harberg forest-keeper. One had laid his dosser
and the other his gun against the wall, and they were emptying a bottle
of wine between them. Brestel was helping.

"Ha! it is Moses," exclaimed Bernard. "Where the devil dost thou come
from, so early in the morning!"

Christians in those days were in the habit of _thou_ing the Jews--even
the old men. I answered that I had come from Saverne, by the valley.

"Ah! thou hast seen the wounded," said the keeper. "What thinkest thou
of that, Moses!"

"I have seen them," I replied sadly, "I saw them last evening. It is
dreadful!"

"Yes, it is; everybody has gone up there to-day, because old Gredal of
Quatre-Vents found her nephew under a cart--Joseph Bertha, the little
lame watchmaker who worked last year with Father Goulden; so the people
from Dagsberg, Houpe, and Garburg, expect to find their brothers, or
sons, or cousins in the heap."

He shrugged his shoulders compassionately.

"These things are dreadful," said Brestel, "but they must come. There
has been no business these two years; I have back here, in my court,
three thousand pounds' worth of planks and timber. That would formerly
have lasted me for six weeks or two months; but now it is all rotting
on the spot; nobody wants it on the Sarre, nobody wants it in Alsace,
nobody orders anything or buys anything. It is just so with the hotel.
Nobody has a sous; everybody stays at home, thankful if they have
potatoes to eat and cold water to drink. Meanwhile my wine and beer
turn sour in the cellar, and are covered with mildew. And all that
does not keep off the duties; you must pay, or the officer will be upon
you."

"Yes," cried Bernard, "it is the same thing everywhere. But what is it
to the Emperor whether planks and soap sell or not, provided the
contributions come in and the conscripts arrive?"

Donadieu perceived that his comrade had taken a glass too much; he
rose, put back his gun into his shoulder-belt, and went out, calling to
us.

"Good-by to you all, good-by! We will talk about this another time."

A few minutes afterward, I paid for my cup of coffee, and followed his
example.

I had the same thoughts as Brestel and Bernard; I saw that my trade in
iron and old clothes was at an end; and as I went up the Barracks' hill
I thought, "Try to find something else, Moses. Everything is at a
stand-still. But one cannot use up his money to the last farthing. I
must turn to something else--I must find an article which is always
salable. But what is always salable? Every trade has its day, and
then it comes to an end."

While thus meditating, I passed the Barracks of the Bois-de-Chenes. I
was on the plateau from which I could see the glacis, the line of
ramparts, and the bastions, when the firing of a cannon gave notice
that the marshal was leaving the place. At the same time I saw at the
left, in the direction of Mittelbronn, the line of sabres flashing like
lightning in the distance among the poplars of the highway. The trees
were leafless, and I could see, too, the carriage and postilions
passing like the wind through the plumes and caps.

The cannon pealed, second after second; the mountains gave back peal
after peal, from the very depths of their valleys; and as for myself, I
was quite carried away by the thought of having seen this man the day
before; it seemed like a dream.

Then, about ten o'clock, I passed the bridge of the French gate. The
last cannon sounded upon the bastion of the powder-house; the crowd of
men, women and children descended the ramparts, as if it were a
festival; they knew nothing, thought of nothing, while cries of "Vive
l'Empereur!" rose in every street.

I passed through the crowd, well pleased at bringing good news to my
wife; and I was saying to myself beforehand, "The little one is doing
well, Sorle!" when, at the corner of the market, I saw her at our door.
I raised my cane at once, and smiled, as much as to say "Baruch is
safe--we may laugh!"

She understood me, and went in at once; but I overtook her on the
stairs, and embraced her, saying:

"It is a good, hearty little fellow--there! Such a baby--so round and
rosy! And Zeffen is doing well. Baruch wished me to embrace you for
him. But where is Safel?"

"Under the market, selling."

"Ah, good!"

We went into our room. I sat down and began to praise Zeffen's baby.
Sorle listened with delight, looking at me with her great black eyes,
and wiping my forehead, for I had walked fast, and could hardly breathe.

And then, all of a sudden, our Safel came in. I had not time to turn
my head before he was on my knees, with his hands in my pockets. The
child knew that his sister Zeffen never forgot him; and Sorle, too,
liked to bite an apple.

You see, Fritz, when I think of these things, everything comes back to
me; I could talk to you about it forever.

It was Friday, the day before the Sabbath; the _Schabbes-Goie_* was to
come in the afternoon. While we were still alone at dinner, and I
related for the fifth and sixth time how Zimmer had recognized me, how
he had taken me into the presence of the Duke of Bellune, my wife told
me that the marshal had made the tour of our ramparts on horseback,
with his staff-officers; that he had examined the advanced works, the
bastions, the glacis, and that he had said, as he went down the college
street, that the place would hold out for eighteen days, and that it
must be fortified immediately.

* Woman, not Israelite, who on Saturday performs in a Jewish household
the labors forbidden by the law of Moses.

I remembered at once that he had asked me if we wished to defend
ourselves, and I exclaimed: "He is sure that the enemy is coming; since
he is going to put cannon upon the ramparts, it is because there will
be need of them. It is not natural to make preparations which are not
to be used. And, if the allies come, the gates will be shut. What
will become of us without our business? The country people can neither
go in nor out, and what will become of us?"

Then Sorle showed her good sense, for she said:

"I have already thought about this, Moses; it is only the peasants who
buy iron, old shoes, and our other things. We must undertake a city
business for all classes--a business which will oblige citizens,
soldiers and workmen to buy of us. That is what we must do."

I looked at her in surprise. Safel, with his elbow on the table, was
also listening.

"It is all very well, Sorle," I replied, "but what business is there
which will oblige citizens, soldiers, everybody to buy of us--what
business is there?"

"Listen," said she; "if the gates are shut and the country people
cannot enter, there will be no eggs, butter, fish, or anything in the
market. People will have to live on salt meats and dried vegetables,
flour, and all kinds of preserved articles. Those who have bought up
these can sell them at their own price; they will grow rich."

As I listened I was struck with astonishment.

"Ah, Sorle! Sorle!" I exclaimed, "for thirty years you have been my
comfort. Yes, you have crowned me with all sorts of blessings, and I
have said a hundred times, 'A good wife is a diamond of pure water, and
without flaw. A good wife is a rich treasure for her husband.' I have
repeated it a hundred times. But now I know still better what you are
worth, and esteem you still more highly."

The more I thought of it, the more I perceived the wisdom of this
advice. At length I said:

"Sorle, meat and flour, and everything which can be kept, are already
in the storehouses, and the soldiers will not need such things for a
long time, because their officers will have provided them. But what
will be wanted is brandy, which men must have to massacre and
exterminate each other in war, and brandy we will buy! We will have
plenty of it in our cellar, we will sell it, and nobody else will have
it. That is my idea!"

"It is a good idea, Moses!" said she; "your reasons are good; I approve
of them."

"Then I will write," said I, "and we will invest everything in spirits
of wine. We will add water ourselves, in proportion as people wish to
pay for it. In this way the freight will be less than if it were
brandy, for we shall not have to pay for the transportation of the
water, which we have here."

"That is well, Moses," she said.

And so we agreed.

Then I said to Safel:

"You must not speak of this to any one."

She answered for him:

"There's no need of telling him that, Moses. Safel knows very well
that this is between ourselves, and that our well-being depends upon
it."

The child for a long time resented my words: "You must not speak of
this to any one." He was already full of good sense, and said to
himself:

"So my father thinks I am an idiot."

This thought humiliated him. Some years afterward he told me of it,
and I perceived that I had been wrong.

Everybody has his notions. Children should not be humiliated in
theirs, but rather upheld by their parents.

III

A CIRCUMCISION FEAST

So I wrote to Pezenas. This is a southern city, rich in wools, wines,
and brandies. The price of brandies at Pezenas controls that of all
Europe. A trading man ought to know that, and I knew it, because I had
always liked to read the list of prices in the newspapers. I sent to
M. Quataya, at Pezenas, for a dozen pipes of spirits of wine. I
calculated that, after paying the freight, a pipe would cost me a
thousand francs, delivered in my cellar.

As I had sold no iron for a year, I disposed of my merchandise without
asking anything for it; the payment of the twelve thousand francs did
not trouble me. Only, Fritz, those twelve thousand francs were half my
fortune, and you may suppose that it required some courage to risk in
one venture the gains of fifteen years.

As soon as my letter was gone, I wished I could bring it back, but it
was too late. I kept a good face before my wife, and said, "It will
all do well! We shall gain double, triple, etc."

She, too, kept a good face, but we both had misgivings; and during the
six weeks necessary for the receipt of the acknowledgment and
acceptance of my order, and the arrival of the spirits of wine, every
night I lay awake, thinking, "Moses, you have lost everything! You are
ruined from top to toe!"

The cold sweat would cover my body. Still, if any one had come to me
and said, "Be easy, Moses, I will relieve you of this business," I
should have refused, because my hope of gain was as great as my fear of
loss. And by this you may know who are the true merchants, the true
generals, and all who accomplish anything. Others are but machines for
selling tobacco, or filling glasses, or firing guns.

It all comes to the same thing. One man's glory is as great as
another's. This is why, when we speak of Austerlitz, Jena or Wagram,
it is not a question of Jean Claude or Jean Nicholas, but of Napoleon
alone; he alone risked everything, the others risked only being killed.

I do not say this to compare myself with Napoleon, but the buying of
these twelve pipes of spirits of wine was my battle of Austerlitz.

And when I think that, on reaching Paris, Napoleon had demanded four
hundred and forty millions of money, and _six hundred thousand men_!
and that then everybody, understanding that we were threatened with an
invasion, undertook to sell and to make money at any cost, while I
bought, unhampered by the example of others--when I think of this, I am
proud of it still and congratulate myself.

It was in the midst of these disquietudes that the day for the
circumcision of little Esdras arrived. My daughter Zeffen had
recovered, and Baruch had written to us not to trouble ourselves, for
they would come to Phalsburg.

My wife then hastened to prepare the meats and cakes for the festival:
the _bie-kougel_, the _haman_, and the _schlachmoness_, which are great
delicacies.

On my part, I had tested my best wine on the old Rabbi Heymann, and I
had invited my friends, Leiser of Mittelbronn and his wife Boune,
Senterle Hirsch, and Professor Burguet. Burguet was not a Jew, but he
was worthy of being one on account of his genius and extraordinary
talents.

When a speech was wanted in the Emperor's progress, Burguet made it;
when songs were needed for a national festival, Burguet composed them
between two sips of beer; when a young candidate for law or medicine
was perplexed in writing his thesis, he went to Burguet, who wrote it
for him, whether in French or in Latin; when fathers and mothers were
to be moved to tears at the distribution of school prizes, Burguet was
the man to do it; he would take a blank sheet of paper, and read them a
discourse on the spot, such as nobody else could have written in ten
years; when a petition was to be made to the Emperor or prefect,
Burguet was the first man thought of; and when Burguet took the trouble
to defend a deserter before the court-martial at the mayoralty, the
deserter, instead of being shot on the bastion of the barracks, was
pardoned.

After all this, Burguet would return and take his part in piquet with
the little Jew, Solomon, at which he always lost; and people troubled
themselves no more about him.

I have often thought that Burguet must have greatly despised those to
whom he took off his hat. Yes, to see the fellows putting on important
airs because they were rural guard or secretary of the mayoralty, must
have made a man like him laugh in his sleeve. But he never told me so;
he knew the ways of the world too well.

He was an old constitutional priest, a tall man, with a noble figure
and very fine voice; the very tones of it would move you in spite of
yourself. Unfortunately, he did not take care of his own interests; he
was at the mercy of the first comer. How many times I have said to him:

"Burguet, in heaven's name, don't get mixed up with thieves! Burguet,
don't let yourself be robbed by simpletons! Trust me about your
college expenses. When anybody comes to impose upon you I will be on
the spot; I will pay the bills and hand you the account."

But he did not think of the future, and lived very carelessly.

I had thus invited all my old friends for the morning of the
twenty-fourth of November, and they all came to the festival.

The father and mother, with the little infant, and its godfather and
godmother, came early, in a large carriage. By eleven the ceremony had
taken place in our synagogue, and we all, in great joy and
satisfaction, for the child had not uttered a cry, returned together to
my house, which had been made ready beforehand--the large table on the
first floor, the meats in their pewter dishes, the fruits in their
baskets--and we had begun in great glee to celebrate the happy day.

The old Rabbi Heymann, Leiser, and Burguet sat at my right, my little
Safel, Hirsch, and Baruch at my left, and the women Sorle, Zeffen,
Jetele, and Boune, facing us on the other side, according to the
command of the Lord, that men and women should be separate at
festivities.

Burguet, with his white cravat, his handsome maroon coat and his
ruffled shirt, did me honor. He made a speech, raising his voice and
making fine gestures like a great orator--telling of the ancient
customs of our nation, of our religious ceremonies, of _Paecach_ (the
feast of Passover), of _Rosch-haschannah_ (the New Year), of _Kippour_
(the day of expiation), like a true _Ied_ (Jew), thinking our religion
very beautiful and glorifying the genius of Moses.

He knew the _Lochene Koidech_ (Chaldaic) as well as a _bal-kebole_
(cabalistic doctor).

The Saverne people turned to their neighbors and asked in a whisper:

"Pray, who is this man who speaks with authority, and says such fine
things? Is he a rabbi? Is he a _schamess_ (Jewish beadle)? or is he
the _parness_ (civil head) of your community?"

And when they learned he was not one of us, they were astonished. The
old Rabbi Heymann alone was able to answer him, and they agreed on all
points, like learned men talking on familiar subjects and conscious of
their own learning.

Behind us, on its grandmother's bed, inside of the curtains, slept our
little Esdras, with his sweet face and little clinched hands--slept so
soundly, that neither our shouts of laughter, nor the talking, nor the
sound of the glasses could wake him. Sometimes one, sometimes another,
went to look at him, and everybody said:

"What a beautiful child! He looks like his grandfather Moses!"

That pleased me, of course; and I would go and look at him, bending
over him for a long while, and finding a still stronger resemblance to
my father.

At three o'clock, the meats having been removed and the delicacies
spread upon the table, as we came to the dessert, I went down to find a
bottle of better wine, an old bottle of Rousillon which I dug out from
under the others, all covered with dust and cobwebs. I took it up
carefully and placed it among the flowers on the table, saying:

"You thought the other wine very good; what will you say to this?"

Then Burguet smiled, for old wine was his special delight; he stretched
up his hand and exclaimed:

"Oh! noble wine, the consoler, the restorer and benefactor of poor men
in this vale of misery! Oh, venerable bottle, thou bearest all the
signs of old nobility!"

He said this with his mouth full, and everybody laughed.

I asked Sorle to bring the corkscrew.

As she was rising, suddenly trumpets sounded without, and we all
listened and asked, "What is that?"

At the same time the sound of many horses' steps came up the street,
and the earth and the houses trembled under an enormous weight.

Everybody sprang up, throwing down their napkins and rushing to the
windows.

And from the French gate to the little square we saw trains of
artillerymen advancing, with their great shakos covered with oil-cloth,
and their saddles in sheepskins and driving caissons full of round
shot, shells and intrenching tools.

Imagine, Fritz, my thoughts at that moment!

"This is war, my friends!" said Burguet. "This is war! It is coming!
Our turn has come, at the end of twenty years!"

I stood leaning down with my hand on the stone, and thought:

"Now the enemy cannot delay coming. These are sent to fortify the
place. And what if the allies surround us before I have received my
spirits of wine? What if the Austrians or Russians should stop the
wagons and seize them? I should have to pay for it all the same, and I
should not have a farthing left!"

I turned pale at the thought. Sorle looked at me, undoubtedly having
the same fears, but she said nothing.

We stood there till they all passed by. The street was full. Some old
soldiers, Desmarets the Egyptian, Paradis the gunner, Rolfo, Faisard
the sapper, of the Beresina, as he was called, and some others, cried
"Vive l'Empereur!"

Children ran behind the wagons, repeating the cry, "Vive l'Empereur!"
But the greater number, with closed lips and serious faces, looked on
in silence.

When the last carriage had turned the Fouquet corner, all the crowd
returned with bowed heads; and we in the room looked at each other,
with no wish to continue the feast.

"You are not well, Moses," said Burguet. "What is the matter?"

"I am thinking of all the evils which are coming to the city."

"Bah! don't be afraid," he replied. "We shall be strongly defended!
And then, God help us! what can't be cured must be endured! Come!
cheer up; this old wine will keep up our spirits."

We resumed our places. I opened the bottle, and it was as Burguet
said. The old Rousillon did us good, and we began to laugh.

Burguet called out:

"To the health of the little Esdras! May the Lord cover him with his
right hand!"

And the glasses clinked. Some one exclaimed: "May he long rejoice the
hearts of his grandfather Moses and his grandmother Sorle! To their
health!"

We ended by looking at everything in rose-color, and glorifying the
Emperor, who was hastening to defend us, and was soon going to crush
all the beggars beyond the Rhine.

But it is equally true that, when we separated about five o'clock,
everybody had become serious, and Burguet himself, when he shook hands
with me at the foot of the stairs, looked anxious.

"We shall have to send home our pupils," said he, "and we must sit with
our arms folded."

The Saverne people, with Zeffen, Baruch, and the children, got into
their carriage, and started silently for home.

FATHER MOSES COMPELLED TO BEAR ARMS

All this, Fritz, was but the beginning of troubles.

You should have seen the city the next morning, at about eleven
o'clock, when the engineering officers had finished inspecting the
ramparts, and the tidings suddenly spread that there were needed
seventy-two platforms inside the bastions, three bomb-proof
block-houses, for thirty men each, at the right and left of the German
gate, ten palankas with battlements forming stronghold intrenchments
for forty men, and four blindages upon the great square of the
mayoralty to shelter each a hundred and ten men; and when it was known
that the citizens would be obliged to work at all these, to provide
themselves with shovels, pickaxes, and wheelbarrows, and the peasants
to bring trees with their own horses!

As for Sorle, Safel, and myself, we did not even know what blindages
and palankas were; we asked our neighbor Bailly, an old armorer, what
they were for, and he answered with a smile:

"You will find out, neighbor, when you hear the balls roar and the
shells hiss. It would take too long to explain. You will see, by and
by; never too late to learn."

Imagine how the people looked! I remember that everybody ran to the
square, where our mayor, Baron Parmentier, made a speech. We ran there
with all the rest.

Sorle held me by the arm, and Safel by the skirt of my coat.

There, in front of the mayoralty, the whole city, men, women, and
children, formed in a semicircle, and listened in the deepest silence,
now and then crying all together, "Vive l'Empereur!"

Parmentier, a tall, thin man, in a sky-blue dress-coat, a white cravat,
and the tri-colored sash around his waist, stood on the top of the
steps of the guard-house, with the members of the municipal council
behind him, under the arch, and shouted out:

"Phalsburgians! The time has come in which to show your devotion to
the Empire. A year ago all Europe was with us, now all Europe is
against us. We should have everything to fear without the energy and
power of the people. He who will not do his duty now will be a traitor
to his country! Inhabitants of Phalsburg, show what you are! Remember
that your children have perished through the treachery of the allies.
Avenge them! Let every one be obedient to the military authority, for
the sake of the safety of France," etc.

Only to hear him made one's flesh creep, and I said to myself:

"Now there will not be time for the spirits of wine to get here--that
is plain! The allies are on their way!"

Elias the butcher, and Kalmes Levy the ribbon-merchant, were standing
near us. Instead of crying "Vive l'Empereur!" with the rest, they said
to each other:

"Good! we are not barons, you and I! Barons, counts, and dukes have
but to defend themselves. Are we to think only of their interests?"

But all the old soldiers, and especially those of the Republic, old
Goulden, the clockmaker, Desmarels, the Egyptian--creatures with not a
hair left on their heads, nor as much as four teeth to hold their
pipes--these creatures fell in with the mayor, and cried out:

"Vive la France! We must defend ourselves to the death!"

I saw several looking askance at Kalmes Levy, and I whispered to him:

"Keep still, Kalmes! For heaven's sake, keep still! They will tear
you in pieces!"

It was true. The old men gave him terrible looks; they grew pale, and
their cheeks shook.

Then Kalmes stopped talking, and even left the crowd to return home.
But Elias stayed till the end of the speech, and, as the whole mass of
people were going down the main street, shouting "Vive l'Empereur!" he
could not help saying to the old clockmaker:

"What! you, Mr. Goulden, a reasonable man, who have never wanted
anything of the Emperor, you are now going to take his part, and cry
out that we must defend ourselves till death! Is it our business to be
soldiers? Have not we furnished enough soldiers to the Empire these
last ten years? Have not enough men been killed? Must we give,
besides, our own blood to support barons, counts, and dukes?"

But old Goulden did not let him finish, and replied, as if indignant:
"Listen, Elias! try to keep still! The thing now to be done is not to
know what is right or wrong--it is to save France. I warn you, that if
you try to discourage others, it will be bad for you. Believe me--go!"

Already a number of superannuated soldiers were gathered round us, and
Elias had only time to retreat by the opposite lane.

From this time public notices, requisitions, forced labors, domiciliary
visits for tools and wheelbarrows, came one after another, incessantly.
A man was nothing in his own house; the officers of the place assumed
authority over everything: only to be sure, they gave receipts.

All the tools from my storehouse of iron were in use on the ramparts.
Fortunately I had sold a good many beforehand, for these tickets in
place of my wares would have ruined me.

From time to time the mayor made a speech, and the governor, a fat man,
covered with pimples, expressed his satisfaction to the citizens; that
made up for their money!

When my time came to take the pickaxe and draw the wheelbarrow, I
arranged with Carabin, the wood-sawyer, to take my place for thirty
sous. Ah, what misery! Such a time will never come again.

While the governor commanded us within the city, the soldiers were
always outside to superintend the peasants. The road to Lutzelburg was
but one line of carts, laden with old oaks for building blockhouses.
These are large sentry-boxes, or turrets, built up of solid trunks of
trees, laid crosswise one upon another, and then covered with earth.
These are more solid than an arch. Shells and bombs might rain upon
them without disturbing anything within, as I found afterward.

These trees were also used to make lines of enormous palisades, pointed
and pierced with holes for firing; these are what they call palankas.

I seem still to hear the shouts of the peasants, the neighing of the
horses, the strokes of the whips, and all the other noises, which never
stopped, day or night.

My only consolation was in thinking, "If the spirits of wine comes now,
it will be well defended; the Austrians, Prussians, and Russians will
not drink it here!"

Every morning Sorle expected to receive the invoice.

One Sabbath day we had the curiosity to go and see the works of the
bastions. Everybody was talking about it, and Safel kept coming to me,
saying: "The work is going on; they are filling the shells in front of
the arsenal; they are taking out the cannon; they are mounting them on
the ramparts!"

We could not keep the child away. He had nothing to sell now under the
market, and it would be too tedious for him to stay at home. He
scoured the city, and brought us back the news.

On this day, then, having heard that forty-two pieces were ranged in
battery, and that they were continuing the work upon the bastion of the
infantry-barracks, I told Sorle to bring her shawl, and we would go and
see.

We first went down to the French gate. Hundreds of wheelbarrows were
going up the ramparts of the bastion, from which could be seen the road
to Metz on the right and the road to Paris on the left.

There, above, crowds of laborers, soldiers and citizens, were heaping
up a mass of earth in the form of a triangle, at least twenty-five feet
in height, and two hundred in length and breadth.

An engineering officer had discovered with his spy-glass that this
bastion was commanded by the hill opposite, and so everybody was set to
work to place two pieces on a level with the hill.

It was the same everywhere else. The interiors of these bastions, with
their platforms, were shut in all around, for seven feet from the
ground, like rooms. Nothing could fall into them except from the sky.
In the turf, however, were dug narrow openings, larger without, like
funnels; the mouths of the cannon, which were raised upon immense
carriages, were drawn out through these apertures; they could be pushed
forward and backward, and turned in all directions, by means of great
levers passed in rings over the hind wheels of the carriages.

I had not yet heard the sound of these forty-eight pounders. But the
mere sight of them on their platforms gave me a terrible idea of their
power. Even Sorle said: "It is fine, Moses; it is well done!"

She was right, for within the bastions all was in complete order; not a
weed remained, and upon the sides were piled great bags filled with
earth to protect the artillerymen.

But what lost labor! and to think that every firing of these large guns
costs at least a louis--money spent to kill our fellow-men!

In fine the people worked at these things with more enthusiasm than if
they were gathering in their own harvests. I have often thought that
if the French bestowed as much pains, good sense, and courage upon
matters of peace, they would be the richest and happiest people in the
world. Yes, they would long ago have surpassed the English and
Americans. But when they have toiled and economized, when they have
opened roads everywhere, built magnificent bridges, dug out harbors and
canals, and riches come to them from all quarters, suddenly the fury of
war possesses them, and in three or four years they ruin themselves
with grand armies, with cannon, with powder, with bullets, with men,
and become poorer than before. A few soldiers are their masters, and
look down upon them. This is all it profits them!

In the midst of all this, news from Mayence, from Strasburg, from
Paris, came by the dozens; we could not go into the street without
seeing a courier pass. They all stopped before the Bockhold house,
near the German gate, where the governor lived. A circle formed around
the house, the courier mounted, then the news spread through the city
that the allies were concentrated at Frankfort, that our troops guarded
the islands of the Rhine; that the conscripts from 1803 to 1814 were
recalled; that those of 1815 would form the reserve corps at Metz, at
Bordeaux, at Turin; that the deputies were going to assemble; then,
that the gates had been shut upon them, etc., etc.

There came also smugglers of all sorts from Graufthal, Pirmasens, and
Kaiserslautern, with Franz Sepel, the one-armed man, at their head, and
others from the villages around, who secretly scattered the
proclamations of Alexander, Francis Joseph and Frederic William, saying
"that they did not make war upon France, but upon the Emperor alone to
prevent his further desolation of Europe." They spoke of the abolition
of duties, and of taxes of all sorts. The people at night did not know
what to think.

But one fine morning it was all explained. It was the eighth or ninth
of December. I had just risen, and was putting on my clothes, when I
heard the rolling of a drum at the corner of the main street.

It was cold, but nevertheless I opened the window and leaned out to
hear the announcements. Parmentier opened his paper, young Engelheider
kept up his drum-beating, and the people assembled.

Then Parmentier read that the governor of the place ordered all
citizens to present themselves at the mayoralty between eight in the
morning and six in the evening, without fail, to receive their muskets
and cartridge-boxes, and that those who did not come, would be
court-martialed.

There was the end at last! Every one who was able to march was on his
way, and the old men were to defend the fortifications; sober-minded
men--citizens--men accustomed to living quietly at home, and attending
to their own affairs! now they must mount the ramparts and every day
run the risk of losing their lives!

Sorle looked at me without a word, and indignation made me also
speechless. Not till after a quarter of an hour, when I was dressed,
did I say:

"Make the soup ready. I am going to the mayoralty to get my musket and
cartridge-box."

Then she exclaimed: "Moses, who would have believed that you would have
to go and fight at your age? Oh! what misery!"

And I answered: "It is the Lord's will."

Then I started with a sad heart. Little Safel followed me.

As I arrived at the corner of the market, Burguet was coming down the
mayoralty steps, which swarmed with men; he had his musket on his
shoulder, and said with a smile:

"Ah, well, Moses! We are going to turn Maccabees in our old age?"

His cheerfulness encouraged me, and I replied:

"Burguet, how is it they can take rational men, heads of families, and
make them destroy themselves? I cannot comprehend it; no, there is no
sense in it!"

"Ah," said he, "what would you have? If they can't get thrushes, they
must take blackbirds."

I could not smile at his pleasantries, and he said:

"Come, Moses, don't be so disconsolate; this is only a formality. We
have troops enough for active service; we shall have only to mount
guard. If sorties are to be made, or attacks repulsed, they will not
take you; you are not of an age to run, or to give a bayonet stroke!
You are gray and bald. Don't be troubled!"

"Yes," I said, "that is very true, Burguet, I am broken down--more so,
perhaps, than you think."

"That is well," said he, "but go and take your musket and
cartridge-box."

"And are we not going to stay in the barracks?"

"No, no!" he cried, laughing aloud, "we are going to live quietly at
home."

He shook hands with me, and I went under the arch of the mayoralty.
The stairway was crowded with people, and we heard names called out.

And there, Fritz, you should have seen the looks of the Robinots, the
Gourdiers, the Mariners, that mass of tilers, knife-grinders,
house-painters, people who, every day, in ordinary times, would take
off their caps to you to get a little work--you should have seen them
straighten themselves up, look at you pityingly over the shoulder, blow
in their cheeks, and call out:

"Ah, Moses, is it thou? Thou wilt make a comical soldier. He! he! he!
They will cut thy mustaches according to regulation!"

And such-like nonsense.

Yes, everything was changed; these former bullies had been named in
advance sergeants, sergeant-majors, corporals, and the rest of us were
nothing at all. War upsets everything; the first become last, and the
last first. It is not good sense but discipline which carries the day.
The man who scrubbed your floor yesterday, because he was too stupid to
gain a living any other way, becomes your sergeant, and if he tells you
that white is black, you must let it be so.

At last, after waiting an hour, some one called out, "Moses!" and I
went up.

The great hall above was full of people. They all exclaimed:

"Moses! Wilt thou come, Moses? Ah, see him! He is the old guard!
Look now, how he is built! Thou shalt be ensign, Moses! Thou shalt
lead us on to victory!"

And the fools laughed, nudging each others' elbows. I passed on,
without answering or even looking at them.

In the room at the farther end, where the names were drawn at
conscriptions, Governor Moulin, Commandant Petitgenet, the mayor,
Frichard, secretary of the mayoralty, Rollin, captain of apparel, and
six or seven other superannuated men, crippled with rheumatism, brought
from all parts of the world, were met in council, some sitting, the
rest standing.

These old ones began to laugh as they saw me come in. I heard them say
to one another: "He is strong yet! Yes, he is all right."

So they talked, one after another. I thought to myself: "Say what you
like, you will not make me think that you are twenty years old, or that
you are handsome."

But I kept silence.

Suddenly the governor, who was talking with the mayor in a corner,
turned around, with his great chapeau awry, and looking at me, said:

"What do you intend to do with such a patriarch? You see very well
that he can hardly stand."

I was pleased, in spite of it all, and began to cough.

"Good, good!" said he, "you may go home; take care of your cold!"

I had taken four steps toward the door, when Frichard, the secretary of
the mayoralty, called out:

"It is Moses! The Jew Moses, colonel, who has sent his two boys off to
America! The oldest should be in the service."

This wretch of a Frichard had a grudge against me, because we had the
same business of selling old clothes under the market, and the country
people almost always preferred buying of me; he had a mortal grudge
against me, and that is why he began to inform against me.

The governor exclaimed at once: "Stop a minute! Ah ha, old fox! You
send your boys to America to escape conscription! Very well! Give him
his musket, cartridge-box, and sabre."

Indignation against Frichard choked me. I would have spoken, but the
wretch laughed and kept on writing at the desk; so I followed the
gendarme Werner to a side room, which was filled with muskets, sabres,
and cartridge-boxes.

Werner himself hung a cartridge-box crosswise on my back, and gave me a
musket, saying:

"Go, Moses, and try always to answer to the call."

I went down through the crowd so indignant that I heard no longer the
shouts of laughter from the rabble.

On reaching home I told Sorle what had happened. She was very pale as
she listened. After a moment, she said: "This Frichard is the enemy of
our race; he is an enemy of Israel. I know it; he detests us! But
just now, Moses, do not say a word; do not let him see that you are
angry; it would please him too much. By and by you can have your
revenge! You will have a chance. And if not yourself, your children,
your grandchildren; they shall all know what this wretch has done to
their grandfather--they shall know it!"

She clinched her hand, and little Safel listened.

This was all the comfort she could give me. I thought as she did, but
I was so angry that I would have given half my fortune to ruin the
wretch. All that day, and in the night, too, I exclaimed more than
twenty times:

"Ah, the scoundrel!--I was going--they had said to me, 'You may
go!'--He is the cause of all my misery!"

You cannot imagine, Fritz, how I have always hated that man. Never
have my wife and I forgotten the harm he did us--never shall my
children forget it.

FATHER MOSES RECEIVES WELCOME NEWS

The next day we must answer to the call before the mayoralty. All the
children in town surrounded us and whistled. Fortunately, the
blindages of the Place d'Armes were not finished, so that we went to
learn our exercises in the large court of the college, near the _chemin
de ronde_ at the corner of the powder-house. As the pupils had been
dismissed for some time, the place was at liberty.

Imagine to yourself this large court filled with citizens in bonnets,
coats, cloaks, vests, and breeches, obliged to obey the orders of their
former tinkers, chimney-sweeps, stable-boys, now turned into corporals,
sergeants, and sergeant-majors. Imagine these peaceable men, in fours,
in sixes, in tens, stretching out their legs in concert, and marching
to the step, "One--_two_! One--_two_! Halt! Steady!" while others,
marching backward, frowning, called out insolently: "Moses, dress thy
shoulders!" "Moses, bring thy nose into line!" "Attention, Moses!
Carry arms! Ah, old shoe, thou'lt never be good for anything! Can any
one be so stupid at his age? Look--just look! Thunder! Canst thou
not do that? One--_two_! What an old blockhead! Come, begin again!
Carry arms!"

This is the way my own cobbler, Monborne, ordered me about. I believe
he would have beaten me if it had not been for Captain Vigneron.

All the rest treated their old patrons in the same way. You would have
said that it had always been so--that they had always been sergeants
and we had always been soldiers. I heaped up gall enough against this
rabble to last fifty years.

They in fine were the masters! And the only time that I remember ever
to have struck my own son, Safel, this Monborne was the cause of it.
All the children climbed upon the wall of the _chemin de ronde_ to look
at us and laugh at us. On looking up, I saw Safel among them, and made
a sign of displeasure with my finger. He went down at once; but at the
close of the exercise, when we were ordered to break ranks before the
town-house, I was seized with anger as I saw him coming toward me, and
I gave him two good boxes on the ear, and said: "Go--hiss and mock at
your father, like Shem, instead of bringing a garment to cover his
nakedness--go!"

He wept bitterly, and in this state I went home. Sorle seeing me come
in looking very pale, and the little one following me at a distance,
sobbing, came down at once to the door, and asked what was the matter.
I told her how angry I was, and went upstairs.

Sorle reproved Safel still more severely, and he came and begged my
pardon. I granted it with all my heart, as you may suppose. But when
I thought that the exercises were to be repeated every day, I would
gladly have abandoned everything if I could possibly have taken with me
my house and wares.

Yes, the worst thing I know of is to be ordered about by bullies who
cannot restrain themselves when chance sets them up for a moment, and
who are not capable of receiving the idea that in this life everybody
has his turn.

I should say too much if I continued on this head. I would rather go
on.

The Lord granted me a great consolation. I had scarcely laid aside my
cartridge-box and musket, so as to sit at the table, when Sorle
smilingly handed me a letter.

"Read that, Moses," said she, "and you will feel better."

I opened and read it. It was the notice from Pezenas that my dozen
pipes of spirits were on their way. I drew a long breath.

"Ah! that is good, now!" I exclaimed; "the spirits are coming by the
ordinary conveyance; they will be here in three weeks. We hear nothing
from the direction of Strasburg and Sarrebruck; the allies are
collecting still, but they do not move; my spirits of wine are safe!
They will sell well! It is a grand thing!"

I smiled, and was quite myself again, when Sorle pushed the arm-chair
toward me, saying: "And what do you think of _that_, Moses?"

She gave me, as she spoke, a second letter, covered with large stamps,
and at the first glance I recognized the handwriting of my two sons,
Fromel and Itzig.

It was a letter from America! My heart swelled with joy, and I
silently thanked the Lord, deeply moved by this great blessing. I
said: "The Lord is good. His understanding is infinite. He delighteth
not in the strength of a horse; he taketh not pleasure in the legs of a
man. He taketh pleasure in those that hope in his mercy."

Thus I spoke to myself while I read the letter, in which my sons
praised America, the true land of commerce, the land of enterprising
men, where everything is free, where there are no taxes or impositions,
because people are not brought up for war, but for peace; the land,
Fritz, where every man becomes, through his own labor, his
intelligence, his economy, and his good intentions, what he deserves to
be, and every one takes his proper place, because no important matter
is decided without the consent of all;--a just and sensible thing, for
where all contribute, all should give their opinions.

This was one of their first letters. Fromel and Itzig wrote me that
they had made so much money in a year, that they need no longer carry
their own packs, but had three fine mules, and that they had just
opened at Catskill, near Albany, in the State of New York, an
establishment for the exchange of European fabrics with cow-hides,
which were very abundant in that region.

Their business was prospering, and they were respected in the town and
its vicinity. While Fromel was travelling on the road with their three
mules, Itzig stayed at home, and when Itzig went in his turn his
brother had charge of the shop.

They already knew of our misfortunes, and thanked the Lord for having
given them such parents, to save them from destruction. They would
have liked to have us with them, and after what had just happened, in
being maltreated by a Monborne, you can believe that I should have been
very glad to be there. But it was enough to receive such good news,
and in spite of all our misfortunes, I said to myself, as I thought of
Frichard: "But it is only to me that you can be an ass! You may harm
me here, but you can't hurt my boys. You are nothing but a miserable
secretary of mayoralty, while I am going to sell my spirits of wine. I
shall gain double and treble. I will put my little Safel at your side,
under the market, and he will beckon to everybody that is going into
your shop; and he will sell to them at cost price rather than lose
their custom, and he will make you die of anger."

The tears came into my eyes as I thought of it, and I ended by
embracing Sorle, who smiled, full of satisfaction.

We pardoned Safel over again, and he promised to go no more with the
cursed race. Then, after dinner, I went down to my cellar, one of the
finest in the city, twelve feet high and thirty-five feet long, all
built of hewn stone, under the main street. It was as dry as an oven,
and even improved wine in the long run.

As my spirits of wine might arrive before the end of the month, I
arranged four large beams to hold the pipes, and saw that the well, cut
in the rock, had enough water for mixing it.

On going up about four o'clock, I perceived the old architect, Kromer,
who was walking across the market, his measuring-stick under his arm.

"Ah!" said I, "come down a minute into my cellar; do you think it will
be safe against the bombs?"

We went down together. He examined it, measured the stones and the
thickness of the arch with his stick, and said: "You have six feet of
earth over the key-stone. When the bombs enter here, Moses, it will be
all over with all of us. You may sleep with both ears shut."

We took a good drink of wine from the spout, and went up in good
spirits.

Just as we set foot on the pavement, a door in the main street opened
with a crash, and there was a sound of glass broken. Kromer raised his
nose, and said: "Look yonder, Moses, at Camus's steps! Something is
going on."

We stopped and saw at the top of the railed staircase a sergeant of
veterans, in a gray coat, with his musket dangling, dragging Father
Camus by the collar. The poor old man clung to the door with both
hands to keep himself from falling; he succeeded at last in getting
loose, by tearing the collar from his coat, and the door shut with a
noise like thunder.

"If war begins now between citizens and soldiers," said Kromer, "the
Germans and Russians will have fine sport."

The sergeant, seeing the door shut and bolted within, tried to force it
open with blows from the butt-end of his musket, which caused a great
uproar; the neighbors came out, and the dogs barked. We were watching
it all, when we saw Burguet come along the passage in front, and begin
to talk vehemently with the sergeant. At first the man did not seem to
hear him, but after a moment he raised his musket to his shoulder with
a rough movement, and went down to the street, with his shoulders up
and his face dark and furious. He passed by us like a wild boar. He
was a veteran with three chevrons, sunburnt, with a gray mustache,
large straight wrinkles the whole length of his cheeks, and a square
chin. He muttered as he passed us, and went into the little inn of the
Three Pigeons.

Burguet followed at a distance, with his broad hat down to his
eyebrows, wrapped in his beaver-cloth great-coat, his head thrown back,
and his hands in his pockets. He smiled.

"Well," said I, "what has been going on at Camus's?"

"Oh!" said he, "it is Sergeant Trubert, of the fifth company of
veterans, who had just been playing his tricks. The old fellow wants
everything to go by rule and measure. In the last fortnight he has had
five different lodgings, and cannot get along with anybody. Everybody
complains of him, but he always makes excuses which the governor and
commandant think excellent."

"And at Camus's house?"

"Camus has not too much room for his own family. He wished to send the
sergeant to the inn; but the sergeant had already chosen Camus's bed to
sleep in, had spread his cloak upon it, and said, 'My billet is for
this place. I am very comfortable here, and do not wish to change.'
Old Camus was vexed, and finally, as you have just seen, the sergeant
tried to pull him out, and beat him."

Burguet smiled, but Kromer said: "Yes, all that is laughable. And yet
when we think of what such people must have done on the other side of
the Rhine!"

"Ah!" exclaimed Burguet, "it was not very pleasant for the Germans, I
am sure. But it is time to go and read the newspaper. God grant that
the time for paying our old debts may not have come! Good-evening,
gentlemen."

He continued his walk on the side of the square. Kromer went toward
his own house, while I shut the two doors of my cellar; after which I
went home.

This was the tenth of December. It was already very cold. Every
night, after five or six o'clock, the roofs and pavements were covered
with frost. There was no more noise without, because people kept at
home, around their stoves.

I found Sorle in the kitchen, preparing our supper. The red flame
flickered upon the hearth around the saucepan. These things are now
before my eyes, Fritz--the mother, washing the plates at the stone
sink, near the gray window; little Safel blowing in his big iron pipe,
his cheeks round as an apple, his long curly hair all disordered, and
myself sitting on the stool, holding a coal to light my pipe. Yes, it
all seems here present!

We said nothing. We were happy in thinking of the spirits of wine that
were coming, of the boys who were doing so well, of the good supper
that was cooking. And who would ever have thought, then, that
twenty-five days afterward the city would be surrounded by enemies, and
shells hissing in the air?

A DISAGREEABLE GUEST

Now, Fritz, I am going to tell you something which has often made me
think that the Lord takes an interest in our affairs, and that He
orders everything for the best. At first it seems dreadful, and we
exclaim, "Lord have mercy on us!" and afterward we are surprised to
find that it has all been for our good.

You know that Frichard, the secretary of the mayoralty, disliked me.
He was a little, yellow, dried-up old man, with a red wig, flat ears,
and hollow cheeks. This rascal was bent on doing me an injury, and he
soon found an opportunity.

As the time of the blockade drew nearer, people were more and more
anxious to sell, and the day after I received the good news from
America--it was Friday, a market-day--so many of the Alsatian and
Lorraine people came with their great dossers and panniers of fruit,
eggs, butter, cheese, poultry, etc., that the market-place was crowded
with them.

Everybody wanted money, to hide it in his cellar, or under a tree in
the neighboring wood. You know that large sums were lost at that time;
treasures which are now discovered from year to year, at the foot of
oaks and beeches, hidden because it was feared that the Germans and
Russians would pillage and destroy everything, as we had done to them.
The men died, or perhaps could not find the place where they had hidden
their money, and so it remained buried in the ground.

This day, the eleventh of December, it was very cold; the frost
penetrated to the very marrow of your bones, but it had not yet begun
to snow. Very early in the morning, I went down, shivering, with my
woollen waistcoat buttoned up to my throat, and my seal-skin cap drawn
down over my ears.

Both the little and the great squares were already swarming with
people, shouting and disputing about prices. I had only time to open
my shop, and to hang up my large scales in the arch, before a crowd of
country people stood about the door, some asking for nails, others iron
for forging; and some bringing their own old iron with the hope of
selling it.

They knew that if the enemy came there would be no way of entering the
city, and that was what brought the crowd, some to sell and others to
buy.

I opened shop and began to weigh. We heard the patrols passing
without; the guard was everywhere doubled, the drawbridges in good
condition, and the outside barriers fortified anew. We were not yet
declared to be in a state of siege, but we were like the bird on the
branch; the last news from Mayence, Sarrebruck, and Strasburg announced
the arrival of the allies on the other bank of the Rhine.

As for me, I thought of nothing but my spirits of wine, and all the
time I was selling, weighing, and handling money, it was never out of
my mind. It had, as it were, taken root in my brain.

This had lasted about an hour, when suddenly Burguet appeared at my
door, under the little arch, behind the crowd of country people, and
said to me:

"Moses, come here a minute, I have something to say to you."

I went out.

"Let us go into your passage," said he.

I was much surprised, for he looked very grave. The peasants behind
called out:

"We have no time to lose. Make haste, Moses!"

But I paid no attention. In the passage Burguet said to me:

"I have just come from the mayoralty, where they are busy in making out
a report to the prefect in regard to the state of feeling among our
population, and I accidentally heard that they are going to send
Sergeant Trubert to your house."

This was indeed a blow for me. I exclaimed:

"I don't want him! I don't want him! I have lodged six men in the
last fortnight, and it isn't my turn."

He answered:

"Be quiet, and don't talk so loud. You will only make the matter
worse."

I repeated:

"Never, never shall this sergeant enter my house! It is abominable! A
quiet man like myself, who has never harmed any one, and who asks
nothing but peace!"

While I was speaking, Sorle, on her way to market, with her basket on
her arm, came down, and asked what was the matter.

"Listen, Madame Sorle," said Burguet to her; "be more reasonable than
your husband! I can understand his indignation, and yet for all that,
when a thing is inevitable we must submit to it. Frichard dislikes
you; he is secretary of the mayoralty; he distributes the billets for
quartering soldiers according to a list. Very well; he sends you
Sergeant Trubert, a violent, bad man, I allow, but he needs lodging as
well as the others. To everything which I have said in your favor,
Frichard has always replied: 'Moses is rich. He has sent away his boys
to escape conscription. He ought to pay for them.' The mayor, the
governor, everybody thinks he is right. So, you see, I tell you as a
friend, the more resistance you make, so much the more the sergeant
will affront you, and Frichard laugh at you, and there will be no help
for it. Be reasonable!"

I was still more angry on finding that I owed these misfortunes to
Frichard. I would have exclaimed, but my wife laid her hand on my arm,
and said:

"Let me speak, Moses. Monsieur Burguet is right, and I am much obliged
to him for telling us beforehand. Frichard has a spite against us.
Very well; he must pay for it all, and we will settle with him by and
by. Now, when is the sergeant coming?"

"At noon," replied Burguet.

"Very well," said my wife; "he has a right to lodging, fire, and
candles. We can't dispute that; but Frichard shall pay for it all."

She was pale, and I listened, for I saw that she was right.

"Be quiet, Moses," she said to me afterward, "and don't say a word; let
me manage it."

"This is what I had to say to you," said Burguet, "it is an abominable
trick of Frichard's. I will see, by and by, if it is possible to rid
you of the sergeant. Now I must go back to my post."

Sorle had just started for the market. Burguet pressed my hand, and as
the peasants grew more impatient in their cries, I had to go back to my
scales.

I was full of rage. I sold that day more than two hundred francs'
worth of iron, but my indignation against Frichard, and my fear of the
sergeant, took away all pleasure in anything. I might have sold ten
times more without feeling any better.

"Ah! the rascal!" I said to myself; "he gives me no rest. I shall have
no peace in this city."

As the clock struck twelve the market closed, and people went away by
the French gate. I shut up my shop and went home, thinking to myself:

"Now I shall be nothing in my own house; this Trubert is going to rule
everything. He will look down upon us as if we were Germans or
Spaniards."

I was in despair. But in the midst of my despair on the staircase, I
suddenly perceived an odor of good things from the kitchen, and I went
up in surprise, for I smelt fish and roast, as if it were a feast day.

I was going into the kitchen, when Sorle appeared and said:

"Go into your chamber, shave yourself, and put on a clean shirt."

I saw, at the same time, that she was dressed in her Sabbath clothes,
with her ear-rings, her green skirt, and her red silk neckerchief.

"But why must I shave, Sorle?" I exclaimed.

"Go quick; you have no time to lose!" replied she.

This woman had so much good sense, she had so many times set things
right by her ready wit, that I said nothing more, and went into my
bedroom to shave myself and put on a clean shirt.

As I was putting on my shirt I heard little Safel cry out:

"Here he is, mamma! here he is!"

Then steps were heard on the stairs, and a rough voice called:

"Holla! you folks. Ho!"

I thought to myself: "It is the sergeant," and I listened.

"Ah! here is our sergeant!" cried Safel, triumphantly.

"Oh! that is good," replied my wife, in a cheerful tone. "Come in, Mr.
Sergeant, come in! We were expecting you. I knew that we were to have
the honor of having a sergeant; we were glad to hear it, because we
have had only common soldiers before. Be so good as to come in, Mr.
Sergeant."

[Illustration: "BE SO GOOD AS TO COME IN, MR. SERGEANT."]

She spoke in this way as if she were really pleased, and I thought to
myself:

"O Sorle, Sorle! You shrewd woman! You sensible woman! I see through
it now. I see your cunning. You are going to mollify this rascal!
Ah, Moses! what a wife you have! Congratulate yourself! Congratulate
yourself!"

I hastened to dress myself, laughing all the while; and I heard this
brute of a sergeant say:

"Yes, yes! It is all very well. But that isn't the point! Show me my
room, my bed. You can't pay me with fine speeches; people know
Sergeant Trubert too well for that."

"Certainly, Mr. Sergeant, certainly," replied my wife, "here is your
room and your bed. See, it is the best we have."

Then they went into the passage, and I heard Sorle open the door of the
handsome room which Baruch and Zeffen occupied when they came to
Phalsburg.

I followed them softly. The sergeant thrust his fist into the bed to
feel if it was soft. Sorle and Safel looked on smilingly behind him.
He examined every corner with a scowl. You never saw such a face,
Fritz; a gray bristling mustache, a long thin nose, hooked over the
mouth; a yellow skin, full of wrinkles: he dragged the butt-end of his
gun on the floor, without seeming to notice anything, and muttered
ill-naturedly:

"Hem! hem! What is that down there?"

"It is the wash-basin, Mr. Sergeant."

"And these chairs, are they strong? Will they bear anything?"

He knocked them rudely down. It was evident he wanted to find fault
with something.

On turning round he saw me, and looking at me sideways, asked:

"Are you the citizen?"

"Yes, sergeant; I am."

"Ah!"

He put his gun in a corner, threw his knapsack on the table, and said:

"That will do! You may go."

Safel had opened the kitchen door, and the good smell of the roast came
into the room.

"Mr. Sergeant," said Sorle very pleasantly, "allow me to ask a favor of
you."

"You!" said he, looking at her over his shoulder, "ask a favor of me!"

"Yes. It is that since you now lodge with us, and will be in some
respects one of the family, you will give us the pleasure of dining
with us, at least for once."

"Ah, ah!" said he, turning his nose toward the kitchen, "that is
another thing!"

He seemed to be considering whether to grant us this favor or not. We
waited for him to answer, when he gave another sniff and threw his
cartridge-box on the bed, saying:

"Well, so be it! We will go and see!"

"Wretch!" thought I, "if I could make you eat potatoes!"

But Sorle seemed satisfied, and said:

"This way, Mr. Sergeant; this way, if you please."

When we went into the dining-room I saw that everything was prepared as
if for a prince; the floor swept, the table carefully laid, a white
table-cloth, and our silver knives and forks.

Sorle placed the sergeant in my arm-chair at the head of the table,
which seemed to him the most natural thing in the world.

Our servant brought in the large tureen and took off the cover; the
odor of a good cream soup filled the room, and we began our dinner.

Fritz, I could tell you everything we had for dinner; but believe me,
neither you nor I ever had a better. We had a roasted goose, a
magnificent pike, sauerkraut, everything, in fact, which could be
desired for a grand dinner, and all served by Sorle in the most perfect
manner. We had, too, four bottles of Beaujolais warmed in napkins, as
was the custom in winter, and an abundant dessert.

Well! do you believe that the rascal once had the grace to seem pleased
with all this? Do you believe that all through this dinner, which
lasted nearly two hours, he once thought of saying, "This pike is
excellent!" or, "This fat goose is well cooked!" or, "You have very
good wine!" or any of the other things which we know are pleasant for a
host to hear, and which repay a good cook for his trouble? No, Fritz,
not once! You would have supposed that he had such dinners every day.
The more even that my wife flattered him, and the more kindly she spoke
to him, the more he rebuffed her, the more he scowled, the more
defiantly he looked at us, as if we wanted to poison him.

From time to time I looked indignantly at Sorle, but she kept on
smiling; she kept on giving the nicest bits to the sergeant; she kept
on filling his glass.

Two or three times I wanted to say, "Ah, Sorle, what a good cook you
are! How nice this force-meat is!" But suddenly the sergeant would
look down upon me as if to say, "What does that signify? Perhaps you
want to give me lessons? Don't I know better than you do whether a
thing is good or bad?"

So I kept silence. I could have wished him--well, in worse company; I
grew more and more indignant at every morsel which he swallowed in
silence. Nevertheless Sorle's example encouraged me to put a good face
on the matter, and toward the end I thought, "Now, since the dinner is
eaten, since it is almost over, we will go on, with God's help. Sorle
was mistaken, but it is all the same; her idea was a good one, except
for such a rascal!"

And I myself ordered coffee; I went to the closet, too, to get some
cherry-brandy and old rum.

"What is that?" asked the sergeant.

"Rum and cherry-brandy; old cherry-brandy from the 'Black Forest,'" I
replied.

"Ah," said he, winking, "everybody says, 'I have got some cherry-brandy
from the Black Forest!' It is very easy to say; but they can't cheat
Sergeant Trubert; we will see about this!"

In taking his coffee he twice filled his glass with cherry-brandy, and
both times said, "He! he! We will see whether it is genuine."

I could have thrown the bottle at his head.

As Sorle went to him to pour a third glassful, he rose and said, "That
is enough; thank you! The posts are doubled. This evening I shall be
on guard at the French gate. The dinner, to be sure, was not a bad
one. If you give me such now and then, we can get along with each
other."

He did not smile, and, indeed, seemed to be ridiculing us.

"We will do our best, Mr. Sergeant," replied Sorle, while he went into
his room and took his great-coat to go out.

"We will see," said he as he went downstairs, "we will see!"

Till now I had said nothing, but when he was down I exclaimed, "Sorle,
never, no never, was there such a rascal! We shall never get along
with this man. He will drive us all from the house."

"Bah! bah! Moses," she replied, laughing, "I do not think as thou
dost! I have quite the contrary idea; we will be good friends, thou'lt
see, thou'lt see!"

"God grant it!" I said; "but I have not much hope of it."

She smiled as she took off the table-cloth, and gave me too a little
confidence, for this woman had a good deal of shrewdness, and I
acknowledged her sound judgment.

VII

SERGEANT TRUBERT IN A NEW LIGHT

You see, Fritz, what the common people had to endure in those days.
Ah, well! just as we were performing extra service, while Monborne was
commanding me at the drilling, while Sergeant Trubert was down upon me,
while we were hearing of domiciliary visits of inspection to ascertain
what provisions the citizens had--in the midst of all this, my dozen
pipes of spirits of wine were being slowly wheeled over the road.

How I repented of having ordered them! How often I could have torn my
hair as I thought that half my thirty years' gains were at the mercy of
circumstances! How I prayed for the Emperor! How I ran every morning
to the coffee-houses and ale-houses to learn the news, and how I
trembled as I read!

Nobody knew what I suffered, not even Sorle, for I kept it all from
her. She was too keen-sighted not to perceive my anxiety, and
sometimes she would say, "Come, Moses, have courage! All will come
right--patience a little longer!"

But the rumors which came from Alsace, and German Lorraine, and
Hundsruck, quite upset me: "They are coming! They will not dare to
come! We are ready for them! They will take us by surprise! Peace is
going to be made! They will pass by to-morrow! We shall have no
fighting this winter! They can wait no longer! The Emperor is still
in Paris! Marshal Victor is at Huninguen! They are impressing the
custom-house officers, the forest-keepers, and the gendarmerie! Some
Spanish dragoons went down by Saverne yesterday! The mountaineers are
to defend the Vosges! There will be fighting in Alsace!" etc., etc.
Your head would have been turned, Fritz. In the morning the wind would
blow one way and put you in good spirits; at night it would blow
another way and you would be miserable.

And my spirits of wine were coming nearer and nearer, and at last
arrived, in the midst of this conflict of news, which might any day
turn into a conflict of bullets and shells. If it had not been for my
other troubles I should have been beside myself. Fortunately, my
indignation against Monborne and the other villains diverted my mind.

We heard nothing more of Sergeant Trubert after the great dinner for
the remainder of that day, and the night following, as he was on guard;
but the next morning, as I was getting up, behold, he came up the
stairs, with his musket on his shoulder; he opened the door and began
to laugh, with his mustaches all white with frost. I had just put on
my pantaloons, and looked at him in astonishment. My wife was still in
her room.

"He! he! Father Moses," said he, in a good-natured voice, "it has been
a dreadful cold night." He did not look or speak like the same person.

"Yes, sergeant," I replied, "it is December, and that is what we must
expect."

"What we must expect," he repeated;--"all the more reason for taking a
drop. Let us see, is there any more of that old cherry-brandy?"

He looked, as he spoke, as if he could see through me. I got up at
once from my arm-chair, and ran to fetch the bottle: "Yes, yes,
sergeant," I exclaimed, "there is more, drink and enjoy it."

As I said this, his face, still a little hard, seemed to smile all
over. He placed his gun in a corner, and, standing up, handed me the
glass, saying, "Pour out, Father Moses, pour out!"

I filled it brimful. As I did so, he laughed quietly. His yellow face
puckered up in hundreds of wrinkles at the corners of his eyes, and
around his cheeks and mustaches and chin. He did not laugh so as to be
heard, but his eyes showed his good-humor.

"Famous cherry-brandy this, in truth, Father Moses!" he said as he
drank it. "A body knows who has drank it in the Black Forest, where it
cost nothing! Aren't you going to drink with me?"

"With pleasure," I answered. And we drank together. He looked at me
all the time. Suddenly he said, with a mischievous look, "Hey, Father
Moses, say, you were afraid of me yesterday?" He smiled as he spoke.

"Oh--Sergeant----"

"Come, come," said he, laying his hand upon my shoulder--"confess that
I frightened you."

He smiled so pleasantly that I could not help saying: "Well, yes, a
little!"

"He! he! he! I knew it very well," said he. "You had heard them say,
'Sergeant Trubert is a tough one!' You were afraid, and you gave me a
dinner fit for a prince to coax me!"

He laughed aloud, and I ended by laughing too. Sorle had heard all, in
the next room, and now came to the door and said, "Good-morning, Mr.
Sergeant."

He exclaimed, "Father Moses, here is what may be called a woman! You
can boast of having a spirited woman, a sly woman, slyer than you are,
Father Moses; he, he, he! That is as it should be--that is as it
should be!"

Sorle was delighted.

"Oh! Mr. Sergeant," said she, "can you really think so?"

"Bah! bah!" he exclaimed. "You are a first-rate woman! I saw you when
I first came, and said to myself, 'Take heed, Trubert! They make a
fair pretence; it is a stratagem to send you to the hotel to sleep. We
will let the enemy unmask his batteries!'

"Ha! ha! ha! You are nice folks. You gave me a dinner fit for a
Marshal of the Empire. Now, Father Moses, I invite myself to take a
small glass of cherry-brandy with you now and then. Put the bottle
aside, by itself, it is excellent! And as for the rest, the room which
you have given me is too handsome; I don't like such gewgaws; this fine
furniture and these soft beds are good for women. What I want is a
small room, like that at the side, two good chairs, a pine table, a
plain bed with a mattress, paillasse, and coverings, and five or six
nails in the wall for hanging my things. You just give me that!"

"Since you wish it, Mr. Sergeant."

"Yes, I wish it; the handsome room will be for state occasions."

"You will breakfast with us?" asked my wife, well pleased.

"I breakfast and dine at the cantine," replied the sergeant. "I do
very well there; and I don't want to have good people go to any expense
for me. When people respect an old soldier as he ought to be
respected, when they treat him kindly, when they are like
you,--Trubert, too, is what he ought to be."

"But, Mr. Sergeant!" said Sorle.

"Call me sergeant," said he, "I know you now. You are not like all the
rabble of the city; rascals who have been growing rich while we have
been off fighting; wretches who do nothing but heap up money and grow
big at the expense of the army, who live on us, who are indebted to us
for everything, and who send us to sleep in nests of vermin. Ah! a
thousand million thunders!"

His face resumed its bad look; his mustaches shook with his anger, and
I thought to myself, "What a good idea it was to treat him well!
Sorle's ideas are always good!"

But in a moment he relaxed, and laying his hand on my arm, he exclaimed:

"To think that you are Jews! a kind of abominable race; everything that
is dirty and vile and niggardly! To think that you are Jews! It is
true, is it not, that you are Jews?"

"Yes, sir," replied Sorle.

"Well, upon my word, I am surprised to hear it," said he; "I have seen
so many Jews, in Poland and Germany, that I thought to myself 'They are
sending me to some Jews; they had better look out or I'll smash
everything.'"

We kept silent in our mortification, and he added, "Come, we will say
no more about that. You are good, honest people; I should be sorry to
trouble you. Your hand, Father Moses!"

I gave him my hand.

"I like you," said he. "Now, Madame Moses, the side room!"

We showed him the small room that he asked for, and he went at once to
fetch his knapsack from the other, saying as he went:

"Now I am among honest people! We shall have no difficulty in getting
along together. You do not trouble me, I do not trouble you; I come in
and go out, by day or night; it is Sergeant Trubert, that is enough.
And now and then, in the morning, we will take our little glass; it is
agreed, is it not, Father Moses!"

"Yes, sergeant."

"And here is the key of the house," said Sorle.

"Very well; everything is arranged; now I am going to take a nap;
good-by, my friends."

"I hope you will sleep well, sergeant." We went out at once, and heard
him lie down.

"You see, Moses, you see," whispered my wife, in the alley, "it has all
come right."

"Yes," I replied, "all right, excellent; your plan was a good one; and
now, if the spirits of wine only come, we shall be happy."

VIII

FATHER MOSES'S FIRST ENCOUNTER

From that time the sergeant lived with us without troubling anybody.
Every morning, before he went to his duties, he came and sat a few
minutes in my room, and talked with me while he took his glass. He
liked to laugh with Safel, and we called him "our sergeant," as if he
were one of the family. He seemed to like to be with us; he was a
careful man; he would not allow our _schabisboie_ to black his shoes;
he cleaned his own buff-skins, and would not let any one touch his arms.

One morning, when I was going to answer to the call, he met me in the
alley, and, seeing a little rust on my musket, he began to swear like
the devil.

"Ah! Father Moses, if I had you in my company, it would go hard with
you!"

"Yes," thought I; "but, thank God, I'm not."

Sorle, leaning over the balustrades above, laughed heartily.

From that time the sergeant regularly inspected my equipments; I must
clean my gun over and over, take it to pieces, clean the barrel and
furbish the bayonet, as if I expected to go and fight. And even when
he knew how Monborne treated me, he also wanted to teach me the
exercises. All my remonstrances were of no avail, he would frown, and
say:

"Father Moses, I can't stand it, that an honest man like you should
know less than the rabble. Go along!"

And then we would up to the loft. It was very cold, but the sergeant
was so provoked at my want of briskness in performing the movements,
that he always put me in a great perspiration before we finished.

"Attention to the word of command, and no laziness!" he would exclaim.

I used to hear Sorle, Safel, and the servant laughing in the stairway,
as they peeped through the laths, and I did not dare to turn my head.
In fine, it was entirely owing to this good Trubert that I learned to
charge well, and became one of the best vaulters in the company.

Ah! Fritz, it would all have been very well if the spirits of wine had
come; but instead of my dozen pipes, there came half a company of
marine artillery, and four hundred recruits for the sixth light
infantry.

About this time the governor ordered that a space six hundred metres
wide should be cleared all round the city.

You should have seen the havoc that was made in the place; the fences,
palisades, and trees hewn down, the houses demolished, from which
everybody carried away a beam or some timbers. You should have looked
down from the ramparts and seen the little gardens, the line of
poplars, the old trees in the orchards felled to the ground and dragged
away by swarms of workmen. You should have seen all this to know what
war is!

Father Frise, the two Camus boys, the Sades, the Bosserts, and all the
families of the gardeners and small farmers who lived at Phalsburg,
suffered the most. I can almost hear old Fritz exclaim:

"Ah! my poor apple-trees! Ah! my poor pear-trees; I planted you
myself, forty years ago. How beautiful you were, always covered with
fine fruit! Oh, misery! misery!"

And the soldiers still chopped away. Toward the end, old Fritz went
away, his cap drawn over his eyes, and weeping bitterly.

The rumor spread also that they were going to burn the Maisons Rouges
at the foot of the Mittelbronn hill, the tile-kiln at Pernette, and the
little inns of _l'Arbre Vert_ and _Panier Fleuri_, but it seemed that
the governor found it was not necessary as these houses were out of
range; or rather, that they would reserve that till later; and, that
the allies were coming sooner than they were expected.

Of what happened before the blockade, I remember, too, that on the
twenty-second of December, about eleven o'clock in the morning, the
call was beat. Everybody supposed that it was for the drill, and I set
out quietly, with my musket on my shoulder, as usual; but, as I reached
the corner of the mayoralty, I saw the troops of the garrison formed
under the trees of the square.

They placed us with them in two ranks; and then Governor Moulin,
Commandants Thomas and Pettigenet, and the mayor, with his tri-colored
sash, arrived.

They beat the march, and then the drum-major raised his baton, and the
drums stopped. The governor began to speak, everybody listened, and
the words heard from a distance were repeated from one to another.

"Officers, non-commissioned, National Guards, and Soldiers!

"The enemy is concentrated upon the Rhine, only three days' march from
us. The city is declared to be in a state of siege; the civil
authorities give place to martial law. A permanent court-martial
replaces ordinary tribunals.

"Inhabitants of Phalsburg! we expect from you courage, devotion,
obedience! _Vive l'Empereur_!"

And a thousand cries of "_Vive l'Empereur_!" filled the air.

I trembled to the ends of my hair; my spirits of wine were still on the
road; I considered myself a ruined man.

The immediate distribution of cartridges, and the order to the
battalion to go and forage for provisions, and bring in cattle from the
surrounding villages for the supply of the city, prevented me from
thinking of my misfortune.

I had also to think of my own life, for, in receiving such an order, we
supposed of course that the peasants would resist, and it is abominable
to have to fight the people you are robbing.

I was very pale as I thought of all this.

But when Commandant Thomas cried out, "Charge!" and I tore off my first
cartridge, and put it in the barrel, and, instead of hearing the ramrod
I felt a ball at the bottom!--when they ordered us: "By file--left!
left! forward! quick step! march!" and we set out for the barracks of
the Bois-de-Chenes, while the first battalion went on to Quatre-Vents
and Bichelberg, the second to Wechern and Metting; when I thought that
we were going to seize and carry away everything, and that the
court-martial was at the mayoralty to pass sentence upon those who did
not do their duty;--all these new and terrible things completely upset
me. I was troubled as I saw the village in the distance, and pictured
to myself beforehand the cries of the women and children.

You see, Fritz, to take from the poor peasant all his living at the
beginning of winter; to take from him his cow, his goats, his pigs,
everything in short, it is dreadful! and my own misfortune made me feel
more for that of others.

And then, as we marched, I thought of my daughter Zeffen, and Baruch,
and their children, and I exclaimed to myself:

"Mercy on us! if the enemy comes, what will they do in an exposed town
like Saverne? They will lose everything. We may be beggared any day."

These thoughts took away my breath, and in the midst of them I saw some
peasants, who, from their little windows, watched our approach over the
fields and along their street, without stirring. They did not know
what we were coming for.

Six mounted soldiers preceded us; Commandant Thomas ordered them to
pass to the right and left of the barracks, to prevent the peasants
from driving their cattle into the woods, when they had found out that
we had come to rob them.

They set off on a gallop.

We came to the first house, where there is the stone crucifix. We
heard the order:

"Halt!"

Then thirty men were detached to act as sentinels in the little
streets, and I was among the number, which I liked, for I preferred
being on duty to going into their stables and barns.

As we filed through the principal street the peasants asked us:

"What is going on? Have they been cutting wood? Have they been making
arrests?" and such like questions. But we did not answer them, and
hastened on.

Monborne placed me in the third street to the right, near the large
house of Father Franz, who raised bees on the slope of the valley
behind his house. We heard the sheep bleating and the cattle lowing;
that wretch of a Monborne said, winking at me:

"It will be jolly! We will make the Baraquois open their eyes."

He had no mercy in him. He said to me:

"Moses, thou must stay there. If any one tries to pass, cross your
bayonet. If any one resists, prick him well and then fire. The law
must be supported by force."

I don't know where the cobbler picked up that expression; but he left
me in the street, between two fences white with frost, and went on his
way with the rest of the guard.

I waited there nearly twenty minutes, considering what I should do if
the peasants tried to save their property, and thinking it would be
much better to fire upon the cattle than upon their owners.

I was much perplexed and was very cold, when I heard a great shouting;
at the same time the drum began to beat. Some men went into the
stables and drove the cattle. The Baraquins swore and wept; some tried
to defend themselves. Commandant Thomas cried out:

"To the square! Drive them to the square!"

Some cows escaped through the fences, and you can't imagine what a
tumult there was. I congratulated myself that I was not in the midst
of this pillage. But this did not last long, for suddenly a herd of
goats, driven by two old women, filed down the street on their way to
the valley.

Then I had to stop them with my bayonet and call out:

"Halt!"

One of the women, Mother Migneron, knew me; she had a pitchfork, and
was very pale.

"Let me pass, Moses," said she.

I saw that she was coming slowly toward me, meaning to throw me down
with her pitchfork. The other tried to drive the goats into a little
garden at the side, but the slats were too near together, and the fence
too high.

I should have liked to let them go by, and deny having seen anything;
but, unfortunately, Lieutenant Rollet came up and called out:

"Attention!"

And two men of the company followed: Macry and Schweyer, the brewer.

Old Migneron, seeing me cross the bayonet, began to grind her teeth,
saying:

"Ah! wretch of a Jew, thou'lt pay for this!"

She was so angry that she had no fear of my musket, and three times she
tried to thrust her pitchfork into me; then I found the benefit of my
drilling, for I parried all her attacks.

Two goats escaped between my legs; the rest were taken. The soldiers
pushed back the old women, broke their pitchforks, and finally regained
the chief street, which was full of cattle, lowing and kicking.

Old Migneron sat down on the fence and tore her hair.

Just then two cows came along, their tails in the air, leaping over the
fences and upsetting everything, the baskets of bees and their old
keeper. Fortunately, as it was winter, the bees remained as if dead in
their baskets, or else I believe they would have routed our whole
battalion.

The horn of the _hardier_* sounded in the village. He had been
summoned in the name of the law. This old _hardier_, Nickel, passed
along the street, and the animals became quiet, and could be put in
some order. I saw the procession go along the street; the oxen and
cows in front, then the goats, and the pigs behind.

* Herdsman.

The Baraquins followed, flinging stones and throwing sticks. I saw
that, if I should be forgotten, these wretches would fall upon me, and
I should be murdered; but Sergeant Monborne, with other comrades, came
and relieved me. They all laughed and said:

"We have shaved them well! There is not a goat left at the Barracks;
we have taken everything at one haul."

We hastened to rejoin the column, which marched in two lines at the
right and left of the road, the cattle in the middle, our company
behind, and Nickel, with Commandant Thomas, in front. This formed a
file of at least three hundred paces. On every animal a bundle of hay
had been tied for fodder.

In this way we passed slowly into the cemetery lane.

Upon the glacis we halted, and tied up the animals, and the order came
to take them down into the fosses behind the arsenal.

We were the first that returned; we had seized thirty oxen, forty-five
cows, a quantity of goats and pigs, and some sheep.

All day long the companies were coming back with their booty, so that
the fosses were filled with cattle, which remained in the open air.
Then the governor said that the garrison had provisions for six months,
and every inhabitant must prove that he had enough to last as long, and
that domiciliary visits were to begin.

We broke ranks before the city hall. I was going up the main street,
my gun on my shoulder, when some one called me:

"Hey! Father Moses!"

I turned and saw our sergeant.

"Well," said he, laughing, "you have made your first attack; you have
brought us back some provisions. Well and good!"

"Yes, sergeant, but it is very sad!"

"What, sad? Thirty oxen, forty-five cows, some pigs and goats--it is
magnificent!"

"To be sure, but if you had heard the cries of these poor people, if
you had seen them!"

"Bah! bah!" said he. "_Primo_, Father Moses, soldiers must live; men
must have their rations if they are going to fight. I have often seen
these things done in Germany and Spain and Italy! Peasants are
selfish; they want to keep their own; they do not regard the honor of
the flag; that is trash! In some respects they would be worse than
townspeople, if we were foolish enough to listen to them; we must be
strict."

"We have been, sergeant," I replied; "but if I had been master, we
should not have robbed these poor wretches; they are in a pitiable
condition enough already."

"You are too compassionate, Father Moses, and you think that others are
like yourself. But we must remember that peasants, citizens,
civilians, live only by the soldiers, and have all the profit without
wanting to pay any of the cost. If we followed your advice we should
die of hunger in this little town; our peasants would support the
Russians, the Austrians, and Bavarians at our expense. This pack of
scoundrels would be having a good time from morning to night, and the
rest of us would be as poor as church-mice. That would not do--there
is no sense in it!"

He laughed aloud. We had now come into our passage, and I went
upstairs.

"Is it thou, Moses?" asked Sorle in the darkness, for it was nightfall.

"Yes, the sergeant and I."

"Ah, good!" said she; "I was expecting you."

"Madame Moses," exclaimed the sergeant, "your husband can boast now of
being a real soldier; he has not yet seen fire, but he has charged with
his bayonet."

"Ah!" said Sorle, "I am very glad to see him back."

In the room, through the little white door-curtains, we saw the lamp
burning, and smelt the soup. The sergeant went to his room, as usual,
and we into ours. Sorle looked at me with her great black eyes, she
saw how pale I was, and knew what I was thinking about. She took from
me my cartridge-box, and placed my musket in the closet.

"Where is Safel?" I asked.

"He must be in the square. I sent him to see if you had come back.
Hark! There he is coming up!"

Then I heard the child come up the stairs; he opened the door at once
and ran joyfully to embrace me.

We sat down to dinner, and, in spite of my trouble, I ate with a good
appetite, having taken nothing since morning.

Suddenly Sorle said: "If the invoice does not come before the city
gates are closed we shall not have to pay anything, for goods are at
the risk of the merchant until they are delivered. And we have not
received the inventory."

"Yes," I replied, "you are right; M. Quataya, instead of sending us the
spirits of wine at once, waited a week before answering us. If he had
sent the twelve pipes that day or the day after, they would be here by
this time. The delay is not our fault."

You see, Fritz, how anxious we were; but, as the sergeant came to smoke
his pipe at the corner of the stove, as usual, we said no more about it.

I spoke only of my fears in regard to Zeffen, Baruch, and their
children, in an exposed town like Saverne. The sergeant tried to put
my mind at ease, and said that in such places they made, to be sure,
all sorts of requisitions in wines, brandies, provisions, carriages,
carts, and horses, but, except in case of resistance, the people were
let alone, and the soldiers even tried to keep on good terms with them.

We kept on talking till nearly ten o'clock; then the sergeant, who had
to keep guard at the German gate, went away, and we went to bed.

This was the night of the twenty-second and twenty-third of December, a
very cold night.

APPROACH OF THE ENEMY

The next morning, when I threw back the shutters of our room,
everything was white with snow; the old elms of the square, the street,
the roofs of the mayoralty and market and church. Some of our
neighbors, Recco the tinman, Spick the baker, and old Durand the
mattress-maker, opened their doors and looked as if dazzled, while they
exclaimed:

"He! Winter has come!"

Although we see it every year yet it is like a new existence. We
breathe better out of doors, and within it is a pleasure to sit in the
corner of the fireplace and smoke our pipes, while we watch the
crackling of the red fire. Yes, I have always felt so for seventy-five
years, and I feel so still!

I had scarcely opened the shutters when Safel sprang from his bed like
a squirrel, and came and flattened his nose against a pane of glass,
his long hair dishevelled and his legs bare.

"Oh! snow! snow!" he exclaimed. "Now we can have some slides!"

Sorle, in the next room, made haste to dress herself and run in. We
all looked out for some minutes; then I went to make the fire, Sorle
went to the kitchen, Safel dressed himself hastily, and everything fell
back into the ordinary channel.

Notwithstanding the falling snow, it was very cold. You need only to
see the fire kindle at once, and hear it roar in the stove, to know
that it was freezing hard.

As we were eating our soup, I said to Sorle, "The poor sergeant must
have passed a dreadful night. His little glass of cherry-brandy will
taste good."

"Yes," she said, "it is well you thought of it."

She went to the closet, and filled my little pocket-flask from the
bottle of cherry-brandy.

You know, Fritz, that we do not like to go into public houses when we
are on our way to our own business. Each of us carries his own little
bottle and crust of bread; it is the best way and most conformed to the
law of the Lord.

Sorle then filled my flask, and I put it in my pocket, under my
great-coat, to go to the guard-house. Safel wanted to follow me, but
his mother told him to stay, and I went down alone, well pleased at
being able to do the sergeant a kindness.

It was about seven o'clock. The snow falling from the roofs at every
gust of wind was enough to blind you. But going along the walls, with
my nose in my great-coat, which was well drawn up on the shoulders, I
reached the German gate, and was about going down the three steps of
the guard-house, under the arch at the left, when the sergeant himself
opened the heavy door and exclaimed:

"Is it you, Father Moses! What the devil has brought you here in this
cold?"

The guard-house was full of mist; we could hardly see some men
stretched on camp-beds at the farther end, and five or six veterans
near the red-hot stove.

I stood and looked.

"Here," I said to the sergeant as I handed him my little bottle, "I
have brought you your drop of cherry-brandy; it was such a cold night,
you must need it."

"And you have thought of me, Father Moses!" he exclaimed, taking me by
the arm, and looking at me with emotion.

"Yes, sergeant."

"Well, I am glad of it."

He raised the flask to his mouth and took a good drink. At that moment
there was a distant cry. "Who goes there?" and the guard of the
outpost ran to open the gate.

"That is good!" said the sergeant, tapping on the cork, and giving me
the bottle; "take it back, Father Moses, and thank you!"

Then he turned toward the half-moon and asked, "News! What is it?"

We both looked and saw a hussar quartermaster, a withered, gray old
man, with quantities of chevrons on his arm, arrive in great haste.

All my life I shall have that man before my eyes; his smoking horse,
his flying sabretash, his sword clinking against his boots; his cap and
jacket covered with frost; his long, bony, wrinkled face, his pointed
nose, long chin, and yellow eyes. I shall always see him riding like
the wind, then stopping his rearing horse under the arch in front of
us, and calling out to us with a voice like a trumpet: "Where is the
governor's house, sergeant?"

"The first house at the right, quartermaster. What is the news?"

"The enemy is in Alsace!"

Those who have never seen such men--men accustomed to long warfare, and
hard as iron--can have no idea of them. And then if you had heard the
exclamation, "The enemy is in Alsace!" it would have made you tremble.

The veterans had gone away; the sergeant, as he saw the hussar fasten
his horse at the governor's door, said to me: "Ah, well, Father Moses,
now we shall see the whites of their eyes!"

He laughed, and the others seemed pleased.

As for myself, I set forth quickly, with my head bent, and in my terror
repeating to myself the words of the prophet:

"One post shall run to meet another, and one messenger to meet another,
to show the king that his passages are stopped, and the reeds they have
burned with fire, and the men of war are affrighted.

"The mighty men have forborne to fight, they have remained in their
holds, their might hath failed, and the bars are broken.

"Set ye up a standard in the land, blow the trumpet among the nations,
prepare the nations against her, call together against her the
kingdoms, appoint a captain against her.

"And the land shall tremble and sorrow; for every purpose of the Lord
shall be performed, to make the land a desolation without an
inhabitant!"

I saw my ruin at hand--the destruction of my hopes.

"Mercy, Moses!" exclaimed my wife, as she saw me come back, "what is
the matter? Your face is all drawn up. Something dreadful has
happened."

"Yes, Sorle," I said, as I sat down; "the time of trouble has come of
which the prophet spoke: 'The king of the south shall push at him, and
the king of the north shall come against him like a whirlwind; and he
shall enter into the countries and shall overflow and pass over.'"

This I said with my hands raised toward heaven. Little Safel squeezed
himself between my knees, while Sorle looked on, not knowing what to
say; and I told them that the Austrians were in Alsace; that the
Bavarians, Swedes, Prussians, and Russians were coming by hundreds of
thousands; that a hussar had come to announce all these calamities;
that our spirits of wine were lost, and ruin was threatening us.

I shed a few tears, and neither Sorle nor Safel would comfort me.

It was eight o'clock. There was a great commotion in the city. We
heard the drum beat, and proclamations read; it seemed as if the enemy
were already there.

One thing which I remember especially, for we had opened a window to
hear, was that the governor ordered the inhabitants to empty
immediately their barns and granaries; and that, while we were
listening, a large Alsatian wagon with two horses, with Baruch sitting
on the pole, and Zeffen behind on some straw--her infant in her arms,
and her other child at her side--turned suddenly into the street.

They were coming to us for safety!

The sight of them upset me, and raising my hands, I exclaimed:

"Lord, take from me all weakness! Thou seest that I need to live for
the sake of these little ones. Therefore be thou my strength, and let
me not be cast down!"

And I went down at once to receive them, Sorle and Safel following me.
I took my daughter in my arms, and helped her to the ground, while
Sorle took the children, and Baruch exclaimed:

"We came at the last minute! The gate was closed as soon as we had
come in. There were many others from Quatre-Vents and Saverne who had
to stay outside."

"God be praised, Baruch!" I replied. "You are all welcome, my dear
children! I have not much, I am not rich; but what I have, you
have--it is all yours. Come in!"

And we went upstairs; Zeffen, Sorle, and I carrying the children, while
Baruch stayed to take their things out of the wagon, and then he came
up.

The street was now full of straw and hay, thrown out from the lofts;
there was no wind, and the snow had stopped falling. In a little while
the shouts and proclamations ceased.

Sorle hastened to serve up the remains of our breakfast, with a bottle
of wine; and Baruch, while he was eating, told us that there was a
panic in Alsace, that the Austrians had turned Basle, and were
advancing by forced marches upon Schlestadt, Neuf Brisach, and
Strasburg, after having surrounded Huninguen.

"Everybody is escaping," said he. "They are fleeing to the mountain,
taking their valuables on their carts, and driving their cattle into
the woods. There is a rumor already that bands of Cossacks have been
seen at Mutzig, but that is hardly possible, as the army of Marshal
Victor is on the Upper Rhine, and dragoons are passing every day to
join him. How could they pass his lines without giving battle?"

We were listening very attentively to these things when the sergeant
came in. He was just off duty, and stood outside of the door, looking
at us with astonishment.

I took Zeffen by the hand, and said: "Sergeant, this is my daughter,
this is my son-in-law, and these are my grandchildren, about whom I
have told you. They know you, for I have told them in my letters how
much we think of you."

The sergeant looked at Zeffen.--"Father Moses," said he, "you have a
handsome daughter, and your son-in-law looks like a worthy man."

Then he took little Esdras from Zeffen's arms, and lifted him up, and
made a face at him, at which the child laughed, and everybody was
pleased. The other little one opened his eyes wide and looked on.

"My children have come to stay with me," I said to the sergeant; "you
will excuse them if they make a little noise in the house?"

"How! Father Moses," he exclaimed. "I will excuse everything! Do not
be concerned; are we not old friends?"

And at once, in spite of all we could say, he chose another room
looking upon the court.

"All the nestful ought to be together," said he. "I am the friend of
the family, the old sergeant, who will not trouble anybody, provided
they are willing to see him here."

I was so much moved that I gave him both my hands.

"It was a happy day when you entered my house," said I. "The Lord be
thanked for it!"

He laughed, and said: "Come now, Father Moses; come! Have I done
anything more than was natural? Why do you wonder at it?"

He went at once to get his things and carry them to his new room; and
then went away, so as not to disturb us.

How we are mistaken! This sergeant, whom Frichard had sent to plague
us, at the end of a fortnight was one of our family; he consulted our
comfort in everything--and, notwithstanding all the years that have
passed since then, I cannot think of that good man without emotion.

When we were alone, Baruch told us that he could not stay at Phalsburg;
that he had come to bring his family, with everything that he could
provide for them in the first hurried moments; but that, in the midst
of such dangers, when the enemy could not long delay coming, his duty
was to guard his house, and prevent, as much as possible, the pillage
of his goods.

This seemed right, though it made us none the less grieved to have him
go. We thought of the pain of living apart from each other; of hearing
no tidings; of being all the time uncertain about the fate of our
beloved ones! Meanwhile we were all busy. Sorle and Zeffen prepared
the children's bed; Baruch took out the provisions which he had
brought; Safel played with the two little ones, and I went and came,
thinking about our troubles.

At last, when the best room was ready for Zeffen and the children, as
the German gate was already shut, and the French gate would be open
only until two o'clock at the latest, for strangers to leave the city,
Baruch exclaimed: "Zeffen, the moment has come!"

He had scarcely said the words when the great agony began--cries,
embraces, and tears!

Ah! it is a great joy to be loved, the only true joy of life. But what
sorrow to be separated! And how our family loved each other! How
Zeffen and Baruch embraced one another! How they leaned over their
little ones, how they looked at them, and began to sob again!

What can be said at such a moment? I sat by the window, with my hands
before my face, without strength to speak. I thought to myself: "My
God, must it be that a single man shall hold in his hands the fate of
us all! Must it be that, for his pleasure, for the gratification of
his pride, everything shall be confounded, overturned, torn asunder!
My God, shall these troubles never end? Hast thou no pity on thy poor
creatures?"

I did not raise my eyes, but I heard the lamentations which rent my
heart, and which lasted till the moment when Baruch, perceiving that
Zeffen was quite exhausted, ran out, exclaiming: "It must be! It must
be! Adieu, Zeffen! Adieu, my children! Adieu, all!"

No one followed him.

We heard the carriage roll away, and then was the great sorrow--that
sorrow of which it is written:

"By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down; yea, we wept when we
remembered Zion.

"We hanged our harps upon the willows.

"For there they that carried us away captive, required of us a song,
saying: 'Sing us one of the songs of Zion!'

"How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?"

AN ENGAGEMENT WITH THE COSSACKS

But that day I was to have the greatest fright of all. You remember,
Fritz, that Sorle had told me at supper the night before, that if we
did not receive the invoice, our spirits of wine would be at the risk
of M. Quataya of Pezenas, and that we need feel no anxiety about it.

I thought so, too, for it seemed to me right; and as the French and
German gates were closed at three o'clock, and nothing more could enter
the city, I supposed that that was the end of the matter, and felt
quite relieved.

"It is a pity, Moses!" I said to myself, as I walked up and down the
room; "yes, for if these spirits had been sent a week sooner, we should
have made a great profit; but now, at least, thou art relieved of great
anxiety. Be content with thine old trade. Let alone for the future
such harassing undertakings. Don't stake thine all again on one throw,
and let this be a lesson to thee!"

Such thoughts were in my mind, when, about four o'clock, I heard some
one coming up our stairs. It was a heavy step, as of a man trying to
find his way in the dark.

Zeffen and Sorle were in the kitchen, preparing supper. Women always
have something to talk about by themselves, for nobody else to hear.
So I listened, and then opened the door.

"Who is there?" I asked.

"Does not Mr. Moses, the wine-merchant, live here?" asked the man in a
blouse and broad-brimmed felt hat, with his whip on his shoulder--a
wagoner's figure, in short. I turned pale as I heard him, and replied:
"Yes, my name is Moses. What do you want?"

He came in, and took out a large leather portfolio from under his
blouse. I trembled as I looked on.

"There!" said he, giving me two papers, "my invoice and my bill of
lading! Are not the twelve pipes of three-six from Pezenas for you?"

"Yes, where are they?"

"On the Mittelbronn hill, twenty minutes from here," he quietly
answered. "Some Cossacks stopped my wagons, and I had to take off the
horses. I hurried into the city by a postern under the bridge."

My legs failed me as he spoke. I sank into my arm-chair, unable to
speak a word.

"You will pay me the portage," said the man, "and give me a receipt for
the delivery."

"Sorle! Sorle!" I cried in a despairing voice. And she and Zeffen ran
to me. The wagoner explained it all to them. As for me, I heard
nothing. I had strength only to exclaim: "Now all is lost! Now I must
pay without receiving the goods."

"We are willing to pay, sir," said my wife, "but the letter states that
the twelve pipes shall be delivered in the city."

The wagoner said: "I have just come from the justice of the peace, as I
wanted to find out before coming to you what I had a right to claim; he
told me that you ought to pay for everything, even my horses and
carriages, do you understand? I unharnessed my horses, and escaped,
myself, which is so much the less on your account. Will you settle?
Yes or no?"

We were almost dead with fright when the sergeant came in. He had
heard loud words, and asked: "What is it, Father Moses? What is it
about? What does this man want?"

Sorle, who never lost her presence of mind, told him the whole story,
shortly and clearly; he comprehended it at once.

"Twelve pipes of three-six, that makes twenty-four pipes of cognac.
What luck for the garrison! what luck!"

"Yes," said I, "but it cannot come in; the city gates are shut, and the
wagons are surrounded by Cossacks."

"Cannot come in!" cried the sergeant, raising his shoulders. "Go
along! Do you take the governor for a fool? Is he going to refuse
twenty-four pipes of good brandy, when the garrison needs it? Is he
going to leave this windfall to the Cossacks? Madame Sorle, pay the
portage at once; and you, Father Moses, put on your cap and follow me
to the governor's, with the letter in your pocket. Come along! Don't
lose a minute! If the Cossacks have time to put their noses in your
casks, you will find a famous deficit, I warrant you!"

When I heard that I exclaimed: "Sergeant, you have saved my life!" And
I hastened to get my cap.

"Shall I pay the portage?" asked Sorle.

"Yes! pay!" I answered as I went down, for it was plain that the
wagoner could compel us. I went down with an anxious heart.

All that I remember after this is that the sergeant walked before me in
the snow, that he said a few words to the sapper on orderly duty at the
governor's house, and that we went up the grand stairway with the
marble balustrade.

Upstairs, in the gallery with the balustrade around it, he said to me:
"Be easy, Father Moses! Take out your letter, and let me do the
talking."

He knocked softly at a door as he spoke:

Somebody said: "Come in!"

We went in.

Colonel Moulin, a fat man in a dressing-gown and little silk cap, was
smoking his pipe in front of a good fire. He was very red, and had a
caraffe of rum and a glass at its side on the marble mantel-piece,
where were also a clock and vases of flowers.

"What is it?" he asked, turning round.

"Colonel, this is what is the matter," replied the sergeant: "twelve
pipes of spirits of wine have been stopped on the Mittelbronn hill, and
are surrounded by Cossacks."

"Cossacks!" exclaimed the governor. "Have they broken through our
lines already?"

"Yes," said the sergeant, "a sudden attack of Cossacks! They have
possession of the twelve pipes of three-six which this patriot brought
from Pezenas to sustain the garrison."

"Some bandits," said the governor--"thieves!"

"Here is the letter," said the sergeant, taking it from my hand.

The colonel cast his eyes over it, and said hastily:

"Sergeant, go and take twenty-five men of your company. Go on the run,
free the wagons, and put in requisition horses from the village to
bring them into the city."

And, as we were going: "Wait!" said he; and he went to his bureau and
wrote four words; "here is the order."

When we were once on the stairway, the sergeant said: "Father Moses,
run to the cooper's; we may perhaps need him and his boys. I know the
Cossacks; their first thought will be to unload the casks so as to be
more sure of keeping them. Have them bring ropes and ladders; and I
will go to the Barracks and get my men together."

Then I ran home like a hart, for I was enraged at the Cossacks. I went
in to get my musket and cartridge-box. I could have fought an army: I
could not see straight.

"What is it? Where are you going?" asked Sorle and Zeffen.

"You will know by and by," I replied.

I went to Schweyer's. He had two large saddle-pistols, which he put
quickly into his apron-belt with the axe; his two boys, Nickel and
Frantz, took the ladder and ropes, and we ran to the French gate.

The sergeant was not yet there; but two minutes after he came running
down the street by the rampart with thirty veterans in file, their
muskets on their shoulders.

The officer guarding the postern had only to see the order to let us go
out, and a few minutes after we were in the trenches behind the
hospital, where the sergeant ranged his men.

"It is cognac!" he told them; "twenty-four pipes of cognac! So,
comrades, attention! The garrison is without brandy; those who do not
like brandy have only to fall to the rear."

But they all wanted to be in front, and laughed in anticipation.

We went up the stairway, and were ranged in order in the covered ways.
It might have been five o'clock. Looking from the top of the glacis we
could see the broad meadow of Eichmatt, and above it the hills of
Mittelbronn covered with snow. The sky was full of clouds, and night
was coming on. It was very cold.

"Forward!" said the sergeant.

And we gained the highway. The veterans ran, in two files, at the
right and left, their backs rounded, and their muskets in their
shoulder-belts; the snow was up to their knees.

Schweyer, his two boys, and I walked behind.

At the end of a quarter of an hour, the veterans, who ran all the way,
had left us far behind; we heard for some time their cartridge-boxes
rattling, but soon this sound was lost in the distance, and then we
heard the dog of the Trois-Maisons barking in his chain.

The deep silence of the night gave me a chance to think. If it had not
been for the thought of my spirits of wine, I would have gone straight
back to Phalsburg, but fortunately that thought prevailed, and I said:

"Make haste, Schweyer, make haste!"

"Make haste!" he exclaimed angrily, "you can make haste to get back
your spirits of wine, but what do we care for it? Is the highway the
place for us? Are we bandits that we should risk our lives?"

I understood at once that he wanted to escape, and was enraged.

"Take care, Schweyer," said I, "take care! If you and your boys go
back, people will say that you have been a traitor to the city brandy,
and that is worse than being a traitor to the flag, especially in a
cooper."

"The devil take thee!" said he, "we ought never to have come."

However, he kept on ascending the hill with me. Nickel and Frantz
followed us without hurrying.

When we reached the plateau we saw lights in the village. All was
still and seemed quiet, although there was a great crowd around the two
first houses.

The door of the _Bunch of Grapes_ was wide open, and its kitchen fire
shone through the passage to the street where my two wagons stood.

This crowd came from the Cossacks who were carousing at Heitz's house,
after tying their horses under the shed. They had made Mother Heitz
cook them a good hot soup, and we saw them plainly, two or three
hundred paces distant, go up and down the outside steps, with jugs and
bottles which they passed from one to another. The thought came to me
that they were drinking my spirits of wine, for a lantern hung behind
the first wagon, and the rascals were all going from it with their
elbows raised. I was so furious that, regardless of danger, I began to
run to put a stop to the pillage.

Fortunately the veterans were in advance of me, or I should have been
murdered by the Cossacks; I had not gone half way when our whole troop
sprang from the fences of the highway, and ran like a pack of wolves,
crying out, "To the bayonet!"

You never saw such confusion, Fritz. In a second the Cossacks were on
their horses, and the veterans in the midst of them; the front of the
inn with its trellis, its pigeon-house, and its little fenced garden,
was lighted up by the firing of muskets and pistols. Heitz's two
daughters stood at the windows, with their arms lifted and screamed so
that they could be heard all over Mittelbronn.

Every minute, in the midst of the confusion, something fell upon the
road, and then the horses started and ran through the fields like deer,
with their heads run out, and their manes and tails flying. The
villagers ran; Father Heitz slipped into the barn, and climbed up the
ladder, and I came up breathless, as if out of my senses.

I had not gone more than fifteen steps when a Cossack, who was running
away at full speed, turned about furiously close to me, with his lance
in the air, and called out, "Hurra!"

I had only time to stoop, and I felt the wind from the lance as it
passed along my body.

I never felt so in my life, Fritz; I felt the chill of death, that
trembling of the flesh, of which the prophet spoke: "Fear came upon me
and trembling; the hair of my flesh stood up."

[Illustration: I SHUDDERED IN MY VERY SOUL AND MY HAIR BRISTLED.]

But what shows the spirit of wisdom and prudence which the Lord puts
into his creatures, when he means to spare them for a good old age, is
that immediately afterward, in spite of my trembling knees, I went and
sat under the first wagon, where the blows of the lances could not
reach me; and there I saw the veterans finish the extermination of the
rascals, who had retreated into the court, and not one of whom escaped.

Five or six were in a heap before the door, and three others were
stretched upon the highway.

This did not take more than ten minutes; then all was dark again, and I
heard the sergeant call: "Cease firing!"

Heitz, who had come down from his hay-loft, had just lighted a lantern;
the sergeant seeing me under the wagon, called out: "Are you wounded,
Father Moses?"

"No," I replied, "but a Cossack tried to thrust his lance into me, and
I got into a safe place."

He laughed aloud, and gave me his hand to help me to rise.

"Father Moses," said he, "I was frightened about you. Wipe your back;
people might think you were not brave."

I laughed too, and thought: "People may think what they please! The
great thing is to live in good health as long as possible."

We had only one wounded, Corporal Duhem, an old man, who bandaged his
own leg, and tried to walk. He had had a blow from a lance in the
right calf. He was placed on the first wagon, and Lehnel, Heitz's
granddaughter, came and gave him a drop of cherry-brandy, which at once
restored his strength and even his good spirits.

"It is the fifteenth," he exclaimed. "I am in for a week at the
hospital; but leave me the bottle for the compresses."

I was delighted to see my twelve pipes on the wagons, for Schweyer and
his two boys had run away, and without their help we could hardly have
reloaded.

I tapped at once at the bung-hole of the hindmost cask to find out how
much was missing. These scamps of Cossacks had already drunk nearly
half a measure of spirits; Father Heitz told me that some of them
scarcely added a drop of water. Such creatures must have throats of
tin; the oldest topers among us could not bear a glass of three-six
without being upset.

At last all was ready and we had only to return to the city. When I
think of it, it all seems before me now: Heitz's large dapple-gray
horses going out of the stable one by one; the sergeant standing by the
dark door with his lantern in his hand, and calling out, "Come, hurry
up! The rascals may come back!" On the road in front of the inn, the
veterans surrounded the wagons; farther on the right some peasants, who
had hastened to the scene with pitchforks and mattocks, were looking at
the dead Cossacks, and myself, standing on the stairs above, singing
praises to God in my heart as I thought how glad Sorle and Zeffen and
little Safel would be to see me come back with our goods.

And then when all is ready, when the little bells jingle, when the whip
snaps, and we start on the way--what delight!

Ah Fritz! everything looks bright after thirty years; we forget fears,
anxieties, and fatigues; but the memory of good men and happy hours
remains with us forever!

The veterans, on both sides of the wagons, with their muskets under
their arms, escorted my twelve pipes as if they were the tabernacle;
Heitz led the horses, and the sergeant and I walked behind.

"Well, Father Moses!" said he laughing, "it has all gone off well; are
you satisfied?"

"More than I can possibly tell, sergeant! What would have been my ruin
will make the fortune of my family, and we owe it all to you."

"Go along," said he, "you are joking."

He laughed, but I felt deeply; to have been in danger of losing
everything, and then to regain it all and make profit out of it--it
makes one feel deeply.

I exclaimed inwardly: "I will praise thee, O Lord, among the people;
and I will sing praises unto thee among the nations.

"For thy mercy is great above the heavens, and thy truth reacheth unto
the clouds."

FATHER MOSES RETURNS IN TRIUMPH

Now I must tell you about our return to Phalsburg.

You may suppose that my wife and children, after seeing me take my gun
and go away, were in a state of great anxiety. About five o'clock
Sorle went out with Zeffen to try to learn what was going on, and only
then they heard that I had started for Mittelbronn with a detachment of
veterans.

Imagine their terror!

The rumor of these extraordinary proceedings had spread through the
city, and quantities of people were on the bastion of the artillery
barracks, looking on from the distance. Burguet was there, with the
mayor, and other persons of distinction, and a number of women and
children, all trying to see through the darkness. Some insisted that
Moses marched with the detachment, but nobody would believe it, and
Burguet exclaimed: "It is not possible that a sensible man like Moses
would go and risk his life in fighting Cossacks--no, it is not
possible!"

If I had been in his place I should have said the same of him. But
what can you do, Fritz? The most prudent of men become blind when
their property is at stake; blind, I say, and terrible, for they lose
sight of danger.

This crowd was waiting, as I said, and soon Zeffen and Sorle came, as
pale as death, with their large shawls over their heads. They went up
the rampart and stood there, with their feet in the snow, too much
frightened to speak.

I learned these things afterward.

When Zeffen and her mother went up on the bastion, it was, perhaps,
half-past five; there was not a star to be seen. Just at that time,
Schweyer and his boys ran away, and five minutes later the skirmish
began.

Burguet told me afterward that, notwithstanding the darkness and the
distance, they saw the flash of the muskets around the inn as plainly
as if they were a hundred paces off, and everybody was still and
listened to hear the shots, which were repeated by the echoes of the
Bois-de-Chenes and Lutzelburg.

When they ceased Sorle descended from the slope leaning on Zeffen's
arm, for she could not support herself. Burguet helped them to reach
the street, and took them into old Frise's house on the corner, where
they found him warming himself gloomily by his hearth.

"My last day has come!" said Sorle. Zeffen wept bitterly.

I have often reproached myself for having caused this sorrow, but who
can answer for his own wisdom? Has not the wise man himself said: "I
turned myself to behold wisdom, and madness, and folly; and I saw that
wisdom excelleth folly; and I myself perceived that one event happeneth
to the wise man and the fool. Wherefore, I said in my heart, that
wisdom also is vanity."

Burguet was going out from Father Frise's when Schweyer and his sons
came up the postern stairs, crying out that we were surrounded by
Cossacks and lost. Fortunately my wife and daughter could not hear
them, and the mayor soon came along and ordered them to stop talking
and go home quickly, if they did not want to be sent to prison.

They obeyed, but that did not prevent people from believing what they
said, especially as it was all dark again in the direction of
Mittelbronn.

The crowd came down from the ramparts and filled the street; many of
them went to their homes thinking they should never see us again, when,
just as the clock struck seven, the sentinel of the outworks called
out, "Who goes there?"

We had reached the gate.

The crowd was soon on the ramparts again. The squad in front of the
sergeant on duty flew to arms; they had just recognized us.

We heard the murmur, without knowing what it was. So, when, after a
reconnoissance, the gates were slowly opened to us, and the two bridges
lowered for us to pass, what was our surprise at hearing the shouts:
"Hurrah for Father Moses! Hurrah for the spirits of wine!"

The tears came to my eyes. And my wagons rolling heavily under the
gates, the soldiers presented arms to us, the great crowd surrounding
us, shouting: "Moses! Hey, Moses! are you all right? you have not been
killed?" the shouts of laughter, the people seizing my arm to hear me
tell about the fight,--all these things were very pleasant.

Everybody wanted to talk with me, even the mayor, and I had not time to
answer them.

But all this was nothing compared with the joy I felt at seeing Sorle,
Zeffen, and little Safel run from Father Frise's and throw themselves
all at once into my arms, exclaiming: "He is safe! he is safe!"

Ah, Fritz! what are honors by the side of such love? What is all the
glory of the world compared with the joy of seeing our beloved ones?
The others might have cried out, "Hurrah for Moses!" a hundred years,
and I would not even have turned my head; but I was terribly moved by
the sight of my family.

I gave Safel my gun, and while the wagons, escorted by the veterans,
went on toward the little market, I led Zeffen and Sorle through the
crowd to old Frise's, and there, when we were alone, we began to hug
each other again.

Without, the shouts of joy were redoubled; you would have thought that
the spirits of wine belonged to the whole city. But within the room,
my wife and daughter burst into tears, and I confessed my imprudence.

So, instead of telling them of the dangers I had experienced, I told
them that the Cossacks ran away as soon as they saw us, and that we had
only to put horses to the wagons before starting.

A quarter of an hour afterward, when the cries and tumult had ceased, I
went out, with Zeffen and Sorle on my arms, and little Safel in front,
with my gun on his shoulder, and in this way we went home, to see to
the unlading of the brandy.

I wanted to put everything in order before morning, so as to begin to
sell at double price as soon as possible.

When a man runs such risks he ought to make something by it; for if he
should sell at cost price, as some persons wish, nobody would be
willing to run any risk for the sake of others; and if it should come
to pass that a man should sacrifice himself for other people, he would
be thought a blockhead; we have seen it a hundred times, and it will
always be so.

Thank God! such ideas never entered into my head! I have always
thought that the true idea of trade was to make as much profit as we
can, honestly and lawfully.

That is according to justice and good sense.

As we turned at the corner of the market, our two wagons were already
unharnessed before our house. Heitz was running back with his horses,
so as to take advantage of the open gates, and the veterans, with their
arms at will, were going up the street toward the infantry quarters.

It might have been eight o'clock. Zeffen and Sorle went to bed, and I
sent Safel for Gros the cooper, to come and unload the casks.
Quantities of people came and offered to help us. Gros came soon with
his boys, and the work began.

It is very pleasant, Fritz, to see great tuns going into your cellar,
and to say to yourself, "These splendid tuns are mine: it is spirits
which cost me twenty sous the quart, and which I am going to sell for
three francs!" This shows the beauty of trade; but everybody can
imagine the pleasure for himself--there is no use in speaking of it.

About midnight my twelve pipes were down on the stands, and there was
nothing left to do but to broach them.

While the crowd was dispersing, I engaged Gros to come in the morning
to help me mix the spirits with water, and we went up, well pleased
with our day's work. We closed the double oak door, and I fastened the
padlock and went to bed.

What a pleasure it is to own something and feel that it is all safe!

This is how my twelve pipes were saved.

You see now, Fritz, what anxieties and fears we had at that time.
Nobody was sure of anything; for you must not suppose that I was the
only one living like a bird on the branch; there were hundreds of
others who were not able to close their eyes. You should have seen how
the citizens looked every morning, when they heard that the Austrians
and Russians occupied Alsace, that the Prussians were marching upon
Sarrebruck, or when an order was published for domiciliary visits, or
for days' labor to wall up the posterns and orillons of the place, or
to form companies of firemen to remove at once all inflammable matter,
or to report to the governor the situation of the city treasury, and
the list of the principal persons subject to taxes for the supply of
shoes, caps, bed-linen, and so forth.

You should have seen how people looked at each other.

In war times civil life is nothing, and they will take from you your
last shirt, giving you the governor's receipt for it. The first men of
the land are zeros when the governor has spoken. This is why I have
often thought that everybody who wishes for war, or at least wants to
be a soldier, is either demented or half ruined, and hopes to better
himself by the ruin of everybody else. It must be so.

But notwithstanding all these troubles, I could not lose time, and I
spent all the next day in mixing my spirits. I took off my cloak, and
drew out with great gusto. Gros and his boys brought jugs, and emptied
them in the casks which I had bought beforehand, so that by evening
these casks were brimful of good white brandy, eighteen degrees.

I had caramel prepared, also, to give the brandy a good color of old
cognac, and when I turned the faucet, and raised the glass before the
candle, and saw that it was exactly the right tint, I was in ecstasies,
and exclaimed: "Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and
wine unto those that be of heavy hearts! Let him drink and remember
his misery no more."

Father Gros, standing at my side on his great flat feet, smiled
quietly, and his boys looked well pleased.

I filled the glass for them; they passed it to each other and were
delighted with it.

About five o'clock we went upstairs. Safel, on the same day, had
brought three workmen, and had them remove our old iron into the court
under the shed. The old rickety storehouse was cleaned. Desmarets,
the joiner, put up some shelves behind the door in the arch, for
holding bottles, and glasses, and tin measures, when the time for
selling should come, and his son put together the planks of the
counter. This was all done at once, as at a time of great pressure,
when people like to make a good sum of money quickly.

I looked at it all with a good deal of satisfaction. Zeffen, with her
baby in her arms, and Sorle, had also come down. I showed my wife the
place behind the counter, and said, "That is the place where you are to
sit, with your feet in loose slippers, and a warm tippet on your
shoulders, and sell our brandy."

She smiled as she thought of it.

Our neighbors, Bailly the armorer, Koffel the little weaver, and
several others, came and looked on without speaking; they were
astonished to see what quick work we were making.

At six o'clock, just as Desmarets laid aside his hammer, the sergeant
arrived in great glee, on his return from the cantine.

"Well, Father Moses!" he exclaimed, "the work goes on! But there is
still something wanting."

"What is that, sergeant?"

"Hi! It is all right, only you must put a screen up above, or look out
for the shells!"

I saw that he was right, and we were all well frightened, except the
neighbors, who laughed to see our surprise.

"Yes," said the sergeant, "we must have it."

This took away all my pleasure; I saw that our troubles were not yet at
an end.

Sorle, Zeffen, and I went up, while Desmarets closed the door. Supper
was ready; we sat down thoughtfully, and little Safel brought the keys.

The noise had ceased without; now and then a citizen on patrol passed
by.

The sergeant came to smoke his pipe as usual. He explained how the
screens were made, by crossing beams in the form of a sentry-box, the
two sides supported against the gables, but while he maintained that it
would hold like an arch, I did not think it strong enough, and I saw by
Sorle's face that she thought as I did.

We sat there talking till ten o'clock, and then all went to bed.

XII

THE ENEMY REPULSED

About one o'clock in the morning of the sixth of January, the day of
the feast of the Kings, the enemy arrived on the hill of Saverne.

It was terribly cold, our windows under the persiennes were white with
frost. I woke as the clock struck one; they were beating the call at
the infantry barracks.

You can have no idea how it sounded in the silence of the night.

"Dost thou hear, Moses?" whispered Sorle.

"Yes, I hear," said I, almost without breathing.

After a minute some windows were opened in our street, and we knew that
others too were listening; then we heard running, and suddenly the cry,
"To arms! to arms!"

It made one's hair stand on end.

I had just risen, and was lighting a lamp, when we heard two knocks at
our door.

"Come in!" said Sorle, trembling.

The sergeant opened the door. He was in marching equipments, with his
gaiters on his legs, his large gray cap turned up at the sides, his
musket on his shoulder, and his sabre and cartridge-box on his back.

"Father Moses," said he, "go back to bed and be quiet: it is the
battalion call at the barracks, and has nothing to do with you."

And we saw at once that he was right, for the drums did not come up the
street two by two, as when the National Guard was called in.

"Thank you, sergeant," I said.

"Go to sleep!" said he, and he went down the stairs.

The door of the alley below slammed to. Then the children, who had
waked up, began to cry. Zeffen came in, very pale, with her baby in
her arms, exclaiming, "Mercy! What is the matter?"

"It is nothing, Zeffen," said Sorle. "It is nothing, my child: they
are beating the call for the soldiers."

At the same moment the battalion came down the main street. We heard
them march as far as to the Place d'Armes, and beyond it toward the
German gate.

We shut the windows, Zeffen went back to her room, and I lay down again.

But how could I sleep after such a start? My head was full of a
thousand thoughts: I fancied the arrival of the Russians on the hill
this cold night, and our soldiers marching to meet them, or manning the
ramparts. I thought of all the blindages and block-houses, and
batteries inside the bastions, and that all these great works had been
made to guard against bombs and shells, and I exclaimed inwardly:
"Before the enemy has demolished all these works, our houses will be
crushed, and we shall be exterminated to the last man."

I took on in this way for about half an hour, thinking of all the
calamities which threatened us, when I heard outside the city, toward
Quatre-Vents, a kind of heavy rolling, rising and falling like the
murmur of running water. This was repeated every second. I raised
myself on my elbow to listen, and I knew that it was a fight far more
terrible than that at Mittelbronn, for the rolling did not stop, but
seemed rather to increase.

"How they are fighting, Sorle, how they are fighting!" I exclaimed, as
I pictured to myself the fury of those men murdering each other at the
dead of night, not knowing what they were doing. "Listen! Sorle,
listen! If that does not make one shudder!"

"Yes," said she. "I hope our sergeant will not be wounded; I hope he
will come back safe!"

"May the Lord watch over him!" I replied, jumping from my bed, and
lighting a candle.

I could not control myself. I dressed myself as quickly as if I were
going to run away; and afterward I listened to that terrible rolling,
which came nearer or died away with every gust of wind.

When once dressed, I opened a window, to try to see something. The
street was still black; but toward the ramparts, above the dark line of
the arsenal bastions, was stretched a line of red.

The smoke of powder is red on account of the musket shots which light
it up. It looked like a great fire. All the windows in the street
were open: nothing could be seen, but I heard our neighbor the armorer
say to his wife, "It is growing warm down there! It is the beginning
of the dance, Annette; but they have not got the big drum yet; that
will come, by and by!"

The woman did not answer, and I thought, "Is it possible to jest about
such things! It is against nature."

The cold was so severe that after five or six minutes I shut the
window. Sorle got up and made a fire in the stove.

The whole city was in commotion; men were shouting and dogs barking.
Safel, who had been wakened by all these noises, went to dress himself
in the warm room. I looked very tenderly on this poor little one, his
eyes still heavy with sleep; and as I thought that we were to be fired
upon, that we must hide ourselves in cellars, and all of us be in
danger of being killed for matters which did not concern us, and about
which nobody had asked our opinion, I was full of indignation. But
what distressed me most was to hear Zeffen sob and say that it would
have been better for her and her children to stay with Baruch at
Saverne and all die together.

Then the words of the prophet came to me: "Is not this thy fear, thy
confidence, thy hope, and the uprightness of thy ways?

"Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished being innocent, or where were
the righteous cut off.

"No, they that plough iniquity and sow wickedness, reap the same.

"By the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of his nostrils are
they consumed.

"But thee, his servant, he shall redeem from death.

"Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age, like as a shock of corn
cometh in his season."

In this way I strengthened my heart, while I heard the great tumult of
the panic-stricken crowd, running and trying to save their property.

About seven o'clock it was announced that the casemates were open, and
that everybody might take their mattresses there, and that there must
be tubs full of water in every house, and the wells left open in case
of fire.

Think, Fritz, what ideas these orders suggested.

Some of our neighbors, Lisbeth Dubourg, Bevel Ruppert, Camus's
daughters, and some others, came up to us exclaiming, "We are all lost!"

Their husbands had gone out, right and left, to see what they could
see, and these women hung on Zeffen and Sorle's necks, repeating again
and again, "Oh, dear! oh, dear! what misery!"

I could have wished them all to the devil, for instead of comforting us
they only increased our fears; but at such times women will get
together and cry out all at once; you can't talk reason to them; they
like these loud cryings and groanings.

Just as the clock struck eight, Bailly the armorer came to find his
wife: he had come from the ramparts. "The Russians," he said, "have
come down in a mass from Quatre-Vents to the very gate, filling the
whole plain--Cossacks, Baskirs, and rabble! Why don't they fire down
upon them from the ramparts? The governor is betraying us."

"Where are our soldiers?" I asked.

"Retreating!" exclaimed he. "The wounded came back two hours ago, and
our men stay yonder, with folded arms."

His bony face shook with rage. He led away his wife; then others came
crying out, "The enemy has advanced to the lower part of the gardens,
upon the glacis." I was astonished at these things.

The women had gone away to cry somewhere else, and just then a great
noise of wheels was heard from the direction of the rampart. I looked
out of the window, and saw a wagon from the arsenal, some citizen
gunners; old Goulden, Holender, Jacob Cloutier, and Barrier galloped at
its sides; Captain Jovis ran in front. They stopped at our door.

"Call the iron-merchant!" cried the captain. "Tell him to come down."

Baker Chanoine, the brigadier of the second battery, came up. I opened
the door.

"What do you want of me?" I asked in the stairway.

"Come down, Moses," said Chanoine. And I went down.

Captain Jovis, a tall old man, with his face covered with sweat, in
spite of the cold, said to me, "You are Moses, the iron-merchant?"

"Yes, sir."

"Open your storehouse. Your iron is required for the defence of the
city."

So I had to lead all these people into my court, under the shed. The
captain on looking round, saw some cast-iron bars, which were used at
that time for closing up the backs of fireplaces. They weighed from
thirty to forty pounds each, and I sold a good many in the vicinity of
the city. There was no lack of old nails, rusty bolts, and old iron of
all sorts.

"This is what we want," said he. "Break up these bars, and take away
the old iron, quick!"

The others, with the help of our two axes, began at once to break up
everything. Some of them filled a basket with the pieces of cast-iron,
and ran with it to the wagon.

The captain looked at his watch, and said, "Make haste! We have just
ten minutes!"

I thought to myself, "They have no need of credit; they take what they
please; it is more convenient."

All my bars and old iron were broken in pieces--more than fifteen
hundred pounds of iron.

As they were starting to run to the ramparts, Chanoine laughed, and
said to me, "Capital grape-shot, Moses! Thou canst get ready thy
pennies. We'll come and take them to-morrow."

The wagon started through the crowd which ran behind it, and I followed
too.

As we came nearer the ramparts the firing became more and more
frequent. As we turned from the curate's house two sentinels stopped
everybody, but they let me pass on account of my iron, which they were
going to fire.

You can never imagine that mass of people, the noise around the
bastion, the smoke which covered it, the orders of the infantry
officers whom we heard going up the glacis, the gunners, the lighted
match, caissons with the piles of bullets behind! No, in all these
thirty years I have not forgotten those men with their levers, running
back the cannon to load them to their mouths; those firings in file, at
the bottom of the ramparts; those volleys of balls hissing in the air;
the orders of the gun-captains, "Load! Ram! Prime!"

What crowds upon those gun-carriages, seven feet high, where the
gunners were obliged to stand and stretch their arms to fire the
cannon! And what a frightful smoke!

Men invent such machines to destroy each other, and they would think
that they did a great deal if they sacrificed a quarter as much to
assist their fellow-men, to instruct them in infancy, and to give them
a little bread in their old age.

Ah! those who make an outcry against war, and demand a different state
of things, are not in the wrong.

I was in the corner, at the left of the bastion, where the stairs go
down to the postern behind the college, among three or four willow
baskets as high as chimneys, and filled with clay. I ought to have
stayed there quietly, and made use of the right moment to get away, but
the thought seized me that I would go and see what was going on below
the ramparts, and while they were loading the cannon, I climbed to the
level of the glacis, and lay down flat between two enormous baskets,
where there was scarcely a chance that balls could reach me.

If hundreds of others who were killed in the bastions had done as I
did, how many of them might be still living, respectable fathers of
families in their villages!

Lying in this place, and raising my nose, I could see over the whole
plain. I saw the cordon of the rampart below, and the line of our
skirmishers behind the palankas, on the other side of the moat; they
did nothing but tear off their cartridges, prime, charge, and fire.
There one could appreciate the beauty of drilling; there were only two
companies of them, and their firing by file kept up an incessant roll.

Farther on, directly to the right, stretched the road to Quatre-Vents.
The Ozillo farm, the cemetery, the horse-post-station, and George
Mouton's farm at the right; the inn of La Roulette and the great
poplar-walk at the left, all were full of Cossacks, and such-like
rascals, who were galloping into the very gardens, to reconnoitre the
environs of the place. This is what I suppose, for it is against
nature to run without an object, and to risk being struck by a ball.

These people, mounted on small horses, with large gray cloaks, soft
boots, fox-skin caps, like those of the Baden peasants, long beards,
lances in rest, great pistols in their belts, came whirling on like
birds.

They had not been fired upon as yet, because they kept themselves
scattered, so that bullets would have no effect; but their trumpets
sounded the rally from La Roulette, and they began to collect behind
the buildings of the inn.

About thirty of our veterans, who had been kept back in the cemetery
lane, were making a slow retreat; they made a few paces, at the same
time hastily reloading, then turned, shouldered, fired, and began
marching again among the hedges and bushes, which there had not been
time to cut down in this locality.

Our sergeant was one of these; I recognized him at once, and trembled
for him.

Every time these veterans gave fire, five or six Cossacks came on like
the wind, with their lances lowered; but it did not frighten them: they
leaned against a tree and levelled their bayonets. Other veterans came
up, and then some loaded, while others parried the blows. Scarcely had
they torn open their cartridges when the Cossacks fled right and left,
their lances in the air. Some of them turned for a moment and fired
their large pistols behind like regular bandits. At length our men
began to march toward the city.

Those old soldiers, with their great shakos set square on their heads,
their large capes hanging to the back of their calves, their sabres and
cartridge-boxes on their backs, calm in the midst of these savages,
reloading, trimming, and parrying as quietly as if they were smoking
their pipes in the guard-house, were something to be admired. At last,
after seeing them come out of the whirlwind two or three times, it
seemed almost an easy thing to do.

Our sergeant commanded them. I understood then why he was such a
favorite with the officers, and why they always took his part against
the citizens: there were not many such. I wanted to call out, "Make
haste, sergeant; let us make haste!" but neither he nor his men hurried
in the least.

As they reached the foot of the glacis, suddenly a large mass of
Cossacks, seeing that they were escaping, galloped up in two files, to
cut off their retreat. It was a dangerous moment, and they formed in a
square instantly.

I felt my back turn cold, as if I had been one of them.

Our sharpshooters behind the ammunition wagons did not fire, doubtless
for fear of hitting their comrades; our gunners on the bastion leaned
down to see, and the file of Cossacks stretched to the corner near the
drawbridge.

There were seven or eight hundred of them. We heard them cry, "Hurra!
hurra! hurra!" like crows. Several officers in green cloaks and small
caps galloped at the sides of their lines, with raised sabres. I
thought our poor sergeant and his thirty men were lost; I thought
already, "How sorry little Safel and Sorle will be!"

But then, as the Cossacks formed in a half-circle at the left of the
outworks, I heard our gun-captain call out, "Fire!"

I turned my head; old Goulden struck the match, the fusee glittered,
and at the same instant the bastion with its great baskets of clay
shook to the very rocks of the rampart.

I looked toward the road; nothing was to be seen but men and horses on
the ground.

Just then came a second shot, and I can truly say that I saw the
grape-shot pass like the stroke of a scythe into that mass of cavalry;
it all tumbled and fell; those who a second before were living beings
were now nothing. We saw some try to raise themselves, the rest made
their escape.

The firing by file began again, and our gunners, without waiting for
the smoke to clear away, reloaded so quickly that the two discharges
seemed to come at once.

This mass of old nails, bolts, broken bits of cast-iron, flying three
hundred metres, almost to the little bridge, made such slaughter that,
some days after, the Russians asked for an armistice in order to bury
their dead.

Four hundred were found scattered in the ditches of the road.

This I saw myself.

And if you want to see the place where those savages were buried, you
have only to go up the cemetery lane.

On the other side, at the right, in M. Adam Ottendorf's orchard, you
will see a stone cross in the middle of the fence; they were all buried
there, with their horses, in one great trench.

You can imagine the delight of our gunners at seeing this massacre.
They lifted up their sponges and shouted, "Vive l'Empereur!"

The soldiers shouted back from the covered ways, and the air was filled
with their cries.

Our sergeant, with his thirty men, their guns on their shoulders,
quietly reached the glacis. The barrier was quickly opened for them,
but the two companies descended together to the moat and came up again
by the postern.

I was waiting for them above.

When our sergeant came up I took him by the arm, "Ah, sergeant!" said
I, "how glad I am to see you out of danger!"

I wanted to embrace him. He laughed and squeezed my hand.

"Then you saw the engagement, Father Moses!" said he, with a
mischievous wink. "We have shown them what stuff the Fifth is made of!"

"Oh, yes! yes! you have made me tremble."

"Bah!" said he, "you will see a good deal more of it; it is a small
affair."

The two companies re-formed against the wall of the _chemin de ronde_,
and the whole city shouted, "Vive l'Empereur!"

They went down the rampart street in the midst of the crowd. I kept
near our sergeant.

As the detachment was turning our corner, Sorle, Zeffen, and Safel
called out from the windows, "Hurrah for the veterans! Hurrah for the
Fifth!"

The sergeant saw them and made a little sign to them with his head. As
I was going in I said to him, "Sergeant, don't forget your glass of
cherry-brandy."

"Don't worry, Father Moses," said he.

The detachment went on to break ranks at the Place d'Armes as usual,
and I went up home at a quarter to four. I was scarcely in the room
before Zeffen, Sorle, and Safel threw their arms round me as if I had
come back from the war; little David clung to my knee, and they all
wanted to know the news.

I had to tell them about the attack, the grape-shot, the routing of the
Cossacks. But the table was ready. I had not had my breakfast, and I
said, "Let us sit down. You shall hear the rest by and by. Let me
take breath."

Just then the sergeant entered in fine spirits, and set the butt-end of
his musket on the floor. We were going to meet him when we saw a tuft
of red hair on the point of his bayonet, that made us tremble.

"Mercy, what is that?" said Zeffen, covering her face.

He knew nothing about it, and looked to see, much surprised.

"That?" said he, "oh! it is the beard of a Cossack that I touched as I
passed him--it is not much of anything."

He took the musket at once to his own room; but we were all
horror-struck, and Zeffen could not recover herself. When the sergeant
came back she was still sitting in the arm-chair, with both hands
before her face.

"Ah, Madame Zeffen," said he sadly, "now you are going to detest me!"

I thought, too, that Zeffen would be afraid of him, but women always
like these men who risk their lives at random. I have seen it a
hundred times. And Zeffen smiled as she answered: "No, sergeant, no;
these Cossacks ought to stay at home and not come and trouble us! You
protect us--we love you very much!"

I persuaded him to breakfast with us, and it ended by his opening a
window, and calling out to some soldiers passing by to give notice at
the cantine that Sergeant Trubert was not coming to breakfast.

So we were all calmed down, and seated ourselves at the table. Sorle
went down to get a bottle of good wine, and we began to eat our
breakfast.

We had coffee, too, and Zeffen wanted to pour it out herself for the
sergeant. He was delighted.

"Madame Zeffen," said he, "you load me with kindness!"

She laughed. We had never been happier.

While he was taking his cherry-brandy, the sergeant told us all about
the attack in the night; the way in which the Wurtemberg troops had
stationed themselves at La Roulette, how it had been necessary to
dislodge them as they were forcing open the two large gates, the
arrival of the Cossacks at daybreak, and the sending out two companies
to fire at them.

He told all this so well that we could almost think we saw it. But
about eleven o'clock, as I took up the bottle to pour out another
glassful, he wiped his mustache, and said, as he rose: "No, Father
Moses, we have something to do besides taking our ease and enjoying
ourselves; to-morrow, or next day, the shells will be coming; it is
time to go and screen the garret."

We all became sober at these words.

"Let us see!" said he; "I have seen in your court some long logs of
wood which have not been sawed, and there are three or four large beams
against the wall. Are we two strong enough to carry them up? Let us
try!"

He was going to take off his cape at once; but, as the beams were very
heavy, I told him to wait and I would run for the two Carabins,
Nicolas, who was called the _Greyhound_, and Mathis, the wood-sawyer.
They came at once, and, being used to heavy work, they carried up the
timber. They had brought their saws and axes with them; the sergeant
made them saw the beams, so as to cross them above in the form of a
sentry-box. He worked himself like a regular carpenter, and Sorle,
Zeffen, and I looked on. As it took some time, my wife and daughter
went down to prepare supper, and I went down with them, to get a
lantern for the workmen.

I was going up again very quietly, never thinking of danger, when,
suddenly, a frightful noise, a kind of terrible rumbling, passed along
the roof, and almost made me drop my lantern.

The two Carabins turned pale and looked at each other.

"It is a ball!" said the sergeant.

At the same time a loud sound of cannon in the distance was heard in
the darkness.

I had a terrible feeling in my stomach, and I thought to myself, "Since
one ball has passed, there may be two, three, four!"

My strength was all gone. The two Carabins doubtless thought the same,
for they took down at once their waistcoats, which were hanging on the
gable, to go away.

"Wait!" said the sergeant. "It is nothing. Let us keep at our
work--it is going on well. It will be done in an hour more."

But the elder Carabin called out, "You may do as you please! _I_ am
not going to stay here--I have a family!"

And while he was speaking, a second ball, more frightful than the
first, began to rumble upon the roof, and five or six seconds after we
heard the explosion.

It was astonishing! The Russians were firing from the edge of the
Bois-de-Chenes, more than a half-hour distant, and yet we saw the red
flash pass before our two windows, and even under the tiles.

The sergeant tried to keep us still at work.

"Two bullets never pass in the same place," said he. "We are in a safe
spot, since that has grazed the roof. Come, let us go to work!"

It was too much for us. I placed the lantern on the floor and went
down, feeling as if my thighs were broken. I wanted to sit down at
every step.

Out of doors they were shouting as if it were morning, and in a more
frightful way. Chimneys were falling, and women running to the
windows; but I paid no attention to it, I was so frightened myself.

The two Carabins had gone away paler than death.

All that night I was ill. Sorle and Zeffen were no more at ease than
myself. The sergeant kept on alone, placing the logs and making them
fast. About midnight he came down.

"Father Moses," said he, "the roof is screened, but your two men are
cowards; they left me alone."

I thanked him, and told him that we were all sick, and as for myself I
had never felt anything like it. He laughed.

"I know what that is," said he. "Conscripts always feel so when they
hear the first ball; but that is soon over--they only need to get a
little used to it."

Then he went to bed, and everybody in the house, except myself, went to
sleep.

The Russians did not fire after ten o'clock that night; they had only
tried one or two field-pieces, to warn us of what they had in store.

All this, Fritz, was but the beginning of the blockade; you are going
to hear now of the miseries we endured for three months.

XIII

A DESERTER CAPTURED

The city was joyful the next day, notwithstanding the firing in the
night. A number of men who came from the ramparts about seven o'clock,
came down our street shouting: "They are gone! There is not a single
Cossack to be seen in the direction of Quatre-Vents, nor behind the
barracks of the Bois-de-Chenes! _Vive l'Empereur_!"

Everybody ran to the bastions.

I had opened one of our windows, and leaned out in my nightcap. It was
thawing, the snow was sliding from the roofs, and that in the streets
was melting in the mud. Sorle, who was turning up our bed, called to
me: "Do shut the window, Moses! We shall catch cold from the draught!"

But I did not listen. I laughed as I thought: "The rascals have had
enough of my old bars and rusty nails; they have found out that they
fly a good way: experience is a good thing!"

I could have stayed there till night to hear the neighbors talk about
the clearing away of the Russians, and those who came from the ramparts
declaring that there was not one to be seen in the whole region. Some
said that they might come back, but that seemed to me contrary to
reason. It was clear that the villains would not quit the country at
once, that they would still for a long time pillage the villages, and
live on the peasants; but to believe that the officers would excite
their men to take our city, or that the soldiers would be foolish
enough to obey them, never entered my head.

At last Zeffen came into our room to dress the children, and I shut the
window. A good fire roared in the stove. Sorle made ready our
breakfast, while Zeffen washed her little Esdras in a basin of warm
water.

"Ah, now, if I could only hear from Baruch, it would all be well," said
she.

Little David played on the floor with Safel, and I thanked the Lord for
having delivered us from the scoundrels.

While we were at breakfast, I said to my wife: "It has all gone well!
We shall be shut up for a while until the Emperor has carried the day,
but they will not fire upon us, they will be satisfied with blockading
us; and bread, wine, meats, and brandies, will grow dearer. It is the
right time for us to sell, or else we might fare like the people of
Samaria when Ben-Hadad besieged their city. There was a great famine,
so that the head of an ass sold for four-score pieces of silver, and
the fourth part of a cab of dove's-dung for five pieces. It was a good
price; but still the merchants were holding back, when a noise of
chariots and horses and of a great host came from heaven, and made the
Syrians escape with Ben-Hadad, and after the people had pillaged their
camp, a measure of fine flour sold for only a shekel, and two measures
of barley for a shekel. So let us try to sell while things are at a
reasonable price; we must begin in good season."

Sorle assented, and after breakfast I went down to the cellar to go on
with the mixing.

Many of the mechanics had gone back to their work. Klipfel's hammer
sounded on his anvil. Chanoine put back his rolls into his windows,
and Tribolin, the druggist, his bottles of red and blue water behind
his panes.

Confidence was restored everywhere. The citizen-gunners had taken off
their uniforms, and the joiners had come back to finish our counter;
the noise of the saw and plane filled the house.

Everybody was glad to return to his own business, for war brings
nothing but harm; the sooner it is over the better.

As I carried my jugs from one tun to another, in the cellar, I saw the
passers-by stop before our old shop, and heard them say to each other,
"Moses is going to make his fortune with the brandy; these rascals of
Jews always have good scent; while we have been selling this month
past, he has been buying. Now that we are shut up he can sell at any
price he pleases."

You can judge whether that was not pleasant to hear! A man's greatest
happiness is to succeed in his business; everybody is obliged to say:
"This man has neither army, nor generals, nor cannon, he has nothing
but his own wit, like everybody else; when he succeeds he owes it to
himself, and not to the courage of others. And then he ruins no one;
he does not rob, or steal, or kill; while, in war, the strongest
crushes the weakest and often the best."

So I worked on with great zeal, and would have kept on till night if
little Safel had not come to call me to dinner. I was hungry, and was
going upstairs, glad in the thought of sitting down in the midst of my
children, when the call-beat began on the Place d'Armes, before the
town-house. During a blockade a court-martial sits continually at the
mayoralty to try those who do not answer to the call. Some of my
neighbors were already leaving their houses with their muskets on their
shoulders. I had to go up very hastily, and swallow a little soup, a
morsel of meat, and a glass of wine.

I was very pale. Sorle, Zeffen, and the children said not a word. The
drum corps continued the call to arms; it came down the main street and
stopped at last before our house, on the little square. Then I ran for
my cartridge-box and musket.

"Ah!" said Sorle, "we thought we were going to have a quiet time, and
now it is all beginning again."

Zeffen did not speak, but burst into tears.

At that moment the old Rabbi Heymann came in, with his old martin-skin
cap drawn down to the nape of his neck.

"For heaven's sake let the women and children hurry to the casemates!
An envoy has come threatening to burn the whole city if the gates are
not opened. Fly, Sorle! Zeffen, fly!"

Imagine the cries of the women on hearing this; as for myself, my hair
stood on end.

"The rascals have no shame in them!" I exclaimed. "They have no pity
on women or children! May the curse of heaven fall on them!"

Zeffen threw herself into my arms. I did not know what to do.

But the old rabbi said: "They are doing to us what our people have done
to them! So the words of the Lord are fulfilled: 'As thou hast done
unto thy brother so shall it be done unto thee!'--But, you must fly
quickly."

Below, the call-beat had ceased; my knees trembled. Sorle, who never
lost courage, said to me: "Moses, run to the square, make haste, or
they will send you to prison!"

Her judgment was always right; she pushed me by the shoulders, and in
spite of Zeffen's tears I went down, calling out: "Rabbi, I trust in
you--save them!"

I could not see clearly; I went through the snow, miserable man that I
was, running to the townhouse where the National Guard was already
assembled. I came just in time to answer the call, and you can imagine
my trouble, for Zeffen, Sorle, Safel, and the little ones were
abandoned before my eyes. What was Phalsburg to me? I would have
opened the gates in a minute to have had peace.

The others did not look any better pleased than myself; they were all
thinking of their families.

Our governor, Moulin, Lieutenant-Colonel Brancion, and Captains
Renvoye, Vigneron, Grebillet, with their great military caps put on
crosswise, these alone felt no anxiety. They would have murdered and
burnt everything for the Emperor. The governor even laughed, and said
that he would surrender the city when the shells set his
pocket-handkerchief on fire. Judge from this, how much sense such a
being had!

While they were reviewing us, groups of the aged and infirm, of women
and children, passed across the square on their way to the casemates.

I saw our little wagon go by with the roll of coverings and mattresses
on it. The old rabbi was between the shafts--Safel pushed behind.
Sorle carried David, and Zeffen Esdras. They were walking in the mud,
with their hair loose as if they were escaping from a fire; but they
did not speak, and went on silently in the midst of that great trouble.

I would have given my life to go and help them--I must stay in the
ranks. Ah, the old men of my time have seen terrible things! How
often have they thought:--"Happy is he who lives alone in the world; he
suffers only for himself, he does not see those whom he loves weeping
and groaning, without the power to help them."

Immediately after the review, detachments of citizen-gunners were sent
to the armories to man the pieces, the firemen were sent to the old
market to get out the pumps, and the rest of us, with half a battalion
of the Sixth Light Infantry, were sent to the guard-house on the
square, to relieve the guards and supply patrols.

The two other battalions had already gone to the advance-posts of
Trois-Maisons, of La Fontaine-du-Chateau,--to the block-houses, the
half moons, the Ozillo farm, and the Maisons-Rouges, outside of the
city.

Our post at the mayoralty consisted of thirty-two men; sixteen soldiers
of the line below, commanded by Lieutenant Schnindret, and sixteen of
the National Guard above, commanded by Desplaces Jacob. We used
Burrhus's lodging for our guard-house. It was a large hall with
six-inch planks, and beams such as you do not find nowadays in our
forests. A large, round, cast-iron stove, standing on a slab four feet
square, was in the left-hand corner, near the door; the zigzag pipes
went into the chimney at the right, and piles of wood covered the floor.

It seems as if I were now in that hall. The melted snow which we shook
off on entering ran along the floor. I have never seen a sadder day
than that; not only because the bombshells and balls might rain upon us
at any moment, and set everything on fire, but because of the melting
snow, and the mud, and the dampness which reached your very bones, and
the orders of the sergeant, who did nothing but call out: "Such and
such an one, march! Such an one forward, it is your turn!" etc.

And then the jests and jokes of this mass of tilers, and cobblers, and
plasterers, with their patched blouses, shoes run down at the heel, and
caps without visors, seated in a circle around the stove, with, their
rags sticking to their backs, _thouing_ you like all the rest of their
beggarly race: "Moses, pass along the pitcher! Moses, give me some
fire!--Ah, rascals of Jews, when a body risks his life to save
property, how proud it makes them! Ah, the villains!"

And they winked at each other, and pushed each other's elbows, and made
up faces askance. Some of them wanted me to go and get some tobacco
for them, and pay for it myself! In fine, all sorts of insults, which
a respectable man could endure from the rabble!--Yes, it disgusts me
whenever I think of it.

In this guard-house, where we burned whole logs of wood as if they were
straw, the steaming old rags which came in soaking wet did not smell
very pleasantly. I had to go out every minute to the little platform
behind the hall, in order to breathe, and the cold water which the wind
blew from the spout sent me in again at once.

Afterward, in thinking it over, it has seemed as if, without these
troubles, my heart would have broken at the thought of Sorle, Zeffen,
and the children shut up in a cellar, and that these very annoyances
preserved my reason.

This lasted till evening. We did nothing but go in and out, sit down,
smoke our pipes, and then begin again to walk the pavement in the rain,
or remain on duty for hours together at the entrance of the posterns.

Toward nine o'clock, when all was dark without, and nothing was to be
heard but the pacing of the patrols, the shouts of the sentries on the
ramparts: "Sentries, attention!" and the steps of our men on their
rounds up and down the great wooden stairway of the admiralty, the
thought suddenly came to me that the Russians had only tried to
frighten us, that it meant nothing; and that there would be no shells
that night.

In order to be on good terms with the men, I had asked Monborne's
permission to go and get a jug full of brandy, which he at once
granted. I took advantage of the opportunity to bite a crust and drink
a glass of wine at home. Then I went back, and all the men at the
station were very friendly; they passed the jug from one to another,
and said that my brandy was very good, and that the sergeant would give
me leave to go and fill it as often as I pleased.

"Yes, since it is Moses," replied Monborne, "he may have leave, but
nobody else."

We were all on excellent terms with each other and nobody thought of
bombardment, when a red flash passed along the high windows of the
room. We all turned round, and in a few seconds the shell rumbled on
the Bichelberg hill. At the same time a second, then a third flash
passed, one after the other, through the large dark room, showing us
the houses opposite.

You can never have an idea, Fritz, of those first lights at night!
Corporal Winter, an old soldier, who grated tobacco for Tribou, stooped
down quietly and lighted his pipe, and said: "Well, the dance is
beginning!"

Almost instantly we heard a shell burst at the right in the infantry
quarters, another at the left in the Piplinger house on the square, and
another quite near us in the Hemmerle house.

I can't help trembling as I think of it now after thirty years.

All the women were in the casemates, except some old servants who did
not want to leave their kitchens; they screamed out: "Help! Fire!"

We were all sure that we were lost; only the old soldiers, crooked on
their bench by the stove, with their pipes in their mouths, seemed very
calm, as people might who have nothing to lose.

What was worst of all, at the moment when our cannon at the arsenal and
powder-house began to answer the Russians', and made every pane of
glass in the old building rattle, Sergeant Monborne called out: "Somme,
Chevreux, Moses, Dubourg: Forward!"

To send fathers of families roaming about through the mud, in danger,
at every step, of being struck by bursting shells, tiles, and whole
chimneys falling on their backs, is something against nature; the very
mention of it makes me perfectly furious.

Somme and the big innkeeper Chevreux turned round, full of indignation
also; they wanted to exclaim: "It is abominable!"

But that rascal of a Monborne was sergeant, and nobody dared speak a
word or even give a side-look; and as Winter, the corporal of the
round, had taken down his musket, and made a signal for us to go on, we
all took our arms and followed him.

As we went down the stairway, you should have seen the red light, flash
after flash, lighting up every nook and corner under the stairs and the
worm-eaten rafters; you should have heard our twenty-four pounders
thunder; the old rat-hole shook to its foundations, and seemed as if it
was all falling to pieces. And under the arch below, toward the Place
d'Armes, this light shone from the snow banks to the tops of the roofs,
showing the glittering pavements, the puddles of water, the chimneys,
and dormer-windows, and, at the very end of the street, the cavalry
barracks, even the sentry in his box near the large gate:--what a sight!

"It is all over! We are all lost!" I thought.

Two shells passed at this moment over the city: they were the first
that I had seen; they moved so slowly that I could follow them through
the dark sky; both fell in the trenches, behind the hospital. The
charge was too heavy, luckily for us.

I did not speak, nor did the others--we kept our thoughts to ourselves.
We heard the calls "Sentries, attention!" answered from one bastion to
another all around the place, warning us of the terrible danger we were
in.

Corporal Winter, with his old faded blouse, coarse cotton cap, stooping
shoulders, musket in shoulder-belt, pipe-end between his teeth, and
lantern full of tallow swinging at arm's length, walked before us,
calling out: "Look out for the shells! Lie flat! Do you hear?"

I have always thought that veterans of this sort despise citizens, and
that he said this to frighten us still more.

A little farther on, at the entrance of the cul-de-sac where Cloutier
lived, he halted.

"Come on!" he called, for we marched in file without seeing each other.
When we had come up to him he said, "There, now, you men, try to keep
together! Our patrol is to prevent fire from breaking out anywhere; as
soon as we see a shell pass, Moses will run up and snatch the fuse."

He burst into a laugh as he spoke, so that my anger was roused.

"I have not come here to be laughed at," said I; "if you take me for a
fool, I will throw down my musket and cartridge-box, and go to the
casemates."

He laughed harder than ever. "Moses, respect thy superiors, or beware
of the court-martial!" said he.

The others would have laughed too, but the shell-flashes began again;
they went down the rampart street, driving the air before them like
gusts of wind; the cannon of the arsenal bastion had just fired. At
the same time a shell burst in the street of the Capuchins; Spick's
chimney and half his roof fell to the ground with a frightful noise.

"Forward! March!" called Winter.

They had now all become sober. We followed the lantern to the French
gate. Behind us, in the street of the Capuchins, a dog howled
incessantly. Now and then Winter stopped, and we all listened; nothing
was stirring, and nothing was to be heard but the dog and the cries:
"Sentries, attention!" The city was as still as death.

We ought to have gone into the guard-house, for there was nothing to be
seen; but the lantern went on toward the gate, swinging above the
gutter. That Winter had taken too much brandy!

"We are of no use in this street," said Cheyreux; "we can't keep the
balls from passing."

But Winter kept calling out: "Are you coming?" And we had to obey.

In front of Genodet's stables, where the old barns of the gendarmerie
begin, a lane turned to the left toward the hospital. This was full of
manure and heaps of dirt--a drain in fact. Well, this rascal of a
Winter turned into it, and as we could not see our feet without the
lantern, we had to follow him. We went groping, under the roofs of the
sheds, along the crazy old walls. It seemed as if we should never get
out of this gutter; but at last we came out near the hospital in the
midst of the great piles of manure, which were heaped against the
grating of the sewer.

It seemed a little lighter, and we saw the roof of the French gate, and
the line of fortifications black against the sky; and almost
immediately I perceived the figure of a man gliding among the trees at
the top of the rampart. It was a soldier stooping so that his hands
almost touched the ground. They did not fire on this side; the distant
flashes passed over the roofs, and did not lighten the streets below.

I caught Winter's arm, and pointed out to him this man; he instantly
hid his lantern under his blouse. The soldier whose back was toward
us, stood up, and looked round, apparently listening. This lasted for
two or three minutes; then he passed over the rampart at the corner of
the bastion, and we heard something scrape the wall of the rampart.

Winter immediately began to run, crying out: "A deserter! To the
postern!"

We had heard before this of deserters slipping down into the trenches
by means of their bayonets. We all ran. The sentry called out: "Who
goes there?"

"The citizen patrol," replied Winter.

He advanced, gave the order, and we went down the postern steps like
wild beasts.

Below, at the foot of the large bastions built on the rock, we saw
nothing but snow, large black atones, and bushes covered with frost.
The deserter needed only to keep still under the bushes; our lantern,
which shone only for fifteen or twenty feet, might have wandered about
till morning without discovering him: and we should ourselves have
supposed that he had escaped. But unfortunately for him, fear urged
him on, and we saw him in the distance running to the stairs which lead
up to the covered ways. He went like the wind.

"Halt! or I fire!" cried Winter; but he did not stop, and we all ran
together on his track, calling out "Halt! Halt!"

Winter had given me the lantern so as to run faster; I followed at a
distance, thinking to myself: "Moses, if this man is taken, thou will
be the cause of his death." I wanted to put out the lantern, but if
Winter had seen me he would have been capable of knocking me down with
the butt-end of his musket. He had for a long time been hoping for the
cross, and was all the time expecting it and the pension with it.

The deserter ran, as I said, to the stairs. Suddenly he perceived that
the ladder, which takes the place of the eight lower steps, was taken
away, and he stopped, stupefied! We came nearer--he heard us and began
to run faster, to the right toward the half-moon. The poor devil
rolled over the snow-banks. Winter aimed at him, and called out:
"Halt! Surrender!"

But he got up and began to run again.

Behind the outworks, under the drawbridge, we thought we had lost him:
the corporal called to me, "Come along! A thousand thunders!" and at
that moment we saw him leaning against the wall, as pale as death.
Winter took him by the collar and said: "I have got you!"

[Illustration: WINTER TOOK HIM BY THE COLLAR, AND SAID: "I HAVE YOU
NOW!"]

Then he tore an epaulette from his shoulder: "You are not worthy to
wear that!" said he; "come along!"

He dragged him out of his corner, and held the lantern before his face.
We saw a handsome boy of eighteen or nineteen, tall and slender, with
small, light mustaches, and blue eyes.

Seeing him there so pale, with Winter's fist at his throat, I thought
of the poor boy's father and mother; my heart smote me, and I could not
help Baying: "Come, Winter, he is a child, a mere child! He will not
do it again!"

But Winter, who thought that now surely his cross was won, turned upon
me furiously:

"I tell thee what, Jew, stop, or I will run my bayonet through thy
body!"

"Wretch!" thought I, "what will not a man do to make sure of his glass
of wine for the rest of his days?"

I had a sort of horror of that man; there are wild beasts in the human
race!

Chevreux, Somme, and Dubourg did not speak.

Winter began to walk toward the postern, with his hand on the
deserter's collar.

"If he stops," said he, "strike him on the back with your muskets! Ah,
scoundrel, you desert in the face of the enemy! Your case is clear:
next Sunday you will sleep under the turf of the half-moon! Will you
come on? Strike him with the butt-end, you cowards!"

What pained me most was to hear

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