Brigadier Frederick; and, The Dean's Watch
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Title: Brigadier Frederick; and, The Dean's Watch
Creator: Erckmann-Chatrian
Translator: Richard Burton
Release date: October 11, 2015 [eBook #50186]
Language: English
Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/50186
Credits: Produced by Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK BRIGADIER FREDERICK; AND, THE DEAN'S WATCH ***
Produced by Al Haines.
[Illustration: Emile Erckmann]
[Illustration: Title page]
*ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN*
*Brigadier Frederick*
*AND*
*The Dean's Watch*
TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH
WITH A CRITICAL INTRODUCTION
BY PROF. RICHARD BURTON, OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
A FRONTISPIECE AND NUMEROUS
OTHER PORTRAITS WITH
DESCRIPTIVE NOTES BY
OCTAVE UZANNE
P. F. COLLIER & SON
NEW YORK
COPYRIGHT, 1902
BY D. APPLETON & COMPANY
*ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN*
Fashions change in literature, but certain things abide. There may be
disputes from generation to generation, even from decade to decade, as
to what is aesthetic, or what is beautiful; there is less as to what is
human. The work of the French writers, whose duality is quite lost in
the long-time association of their names for the purposes of story
making, seems at the least to make this claim to outlast its authors: it
is delightfully saturated with humanity.
And this humanity is of the sort that, since it can be understood of all
men, is therefore very widely acceptable. It is well to emphasize the
point in an attempt to explain the popularity of Erckmann-Chatrian,
immediate or remote. There are other reasons, to be sure: but this one
is at the door, knocking to be heard. But to speak of the essential
humanity of these books is not to deny or ignore their art; that they
have in abundance--quite as truly indeed as the work of your most
insistent advocate of "art for art"; but it is art for life's sake. In
the best sense, the verisimilitude of the Erckmann-Chatrian stories is
admirable, impressive. They are, as a rule, exquisitely in key. They
produce a cumulative effect by steadily, unobtrusively clinging to a
single view-point, that of the speaker who is an eye-witness, and the
result is a double charm--that of reality and that of illusion. One
sees life, not through the eyes of the authors, but through the eyes of
the characters; hence the frequent setting-forth of principles is
relieved from didacticism by the careful way in which the writers
refrain from expressing their own opinion. So artistic are they that
they even indulge in the delicate ruse of opposing the views which are
really their own, thereby producing a still stronger effect of
fair-mindedness and detachment.
Yet, as the world knows, in the most justly famed of their books, the
so-called National Novels, it is their purpose to preach against war;
they are early advocates of the principles of the Peace Congress at The
Hague, forerunners, in their own fashion, of the ideas expressed in art
and literature by later men like Tolstoy and Verestchagin.
The local colour--one still uses the phrase as convenient--is remarkable
for its sympathetic fidelity; the style well-nigh a model of prose whose
purpose it is to depict in homely yet picturesque terms the passage of
great events, seen by humble, it may be Philistine, folk, and hence not
seen _couleur de rose_. When a heartfelt sympathy for average
human-kind rises to the surface of the author's feeling, some candid,
cordial phrase is ever found to express it.
The work of Erckmann-Chatrian, voluminous as it is, can be easily
classified: it mainly consists of the idyl and the picture of war;
_L'lllustre Docteur Matheus_, their first success, happily illustrates
the former _genre_; any one of the half dozen tales making up the
National Novel series may be taken to represent the latter. Both veins
turned out to be gold mines, so rich were they in the free-milling ore
of popular favour. Such stories as _L'Ami Fritz_ and _The Brigadier
Frederick_ are types of the two kinds of fiction which panned out most
richly also for the world. In the idyl dealing with homely provincial
life--the life of their home province--these authors are, of a truth,
masters. The story is naught, the way of telling it, all that breeds
atmosphere and innuendo, is everything. In _L'Ami Fritz_ the plot may
be told in a sentence: 'tis the wooing and winning of a country lass,
daughter of a farmer, by a well-to-do jovial bachelor of middle age in a
small town; _voila tout_; yet the tale makes not only delicious reading,
it leaves a permanent impression of pleasure--one is fain to re-read it.
It is rich in human nature, in a comfortable sense of the good things of
the earth; food and drink, soft beds, one's seat at the tavern, spring
sunlight, and the sound of a fiddle playing dance tunes at the fair:
and, on a higher plane, of the genial joys of comradeship and the stanch
belief in one's native land. When the subtler passion of love comes in
upon this simple pastoral scene, the gradual discovery of Friend Fritz
that the sentiment he has always ridiculed has him at last in its
clutch, is portrayed with a sly unction, a kindly humour overlying an
unmistakable tenderness of heart, which give the tale great charm.
Sweetness and soundness are fundamentals of such literature.
This tale is a type of them all, though deservedly the best liked. Love
of nature and of human nature, a knowledge of the little, significant
things that make up life, an exquisite realism along with a sort of
temperamental optimism which assumes good of men and women--these blend
in the provincial stories in such a way that one's sense of art is
charmed while in no less degree one's sense of life is quickened and
comforted. Erckmann-Chatrian introduced to French readers the genuine
Alsatian, not the puppet of the vaudeville stage. Their books are,
among other things, historical documents. From their sketches and tales
better than in any other way one can gain an understanding of the
present German provinces of Alsace and Lorraine during a period
stretching from the Revolution to and after the Franco-Prussian war.
The Alsatian in their hands is seen distinctly as one of the most
interesting of Gallic provincial types.
The attitude of Dr. Matheus, that charming physician savant, who is in
love with science, with the great world of scholarship and literary
fame, and so is fain to leave his simple countryside in quest of
renown--in his final return to his home as, after all, the best spot on
earth, typifies the teaching of these authors in all their works. The
tale is a sort of allegory, veiling a sermon on the value of the
"fireside clime" of home hearths and hearts. Nor must it be forgotten
that these writers cultivated the short story or tale with vigour and
success; _The Dean's Watch_, printed in the present volume, is an
excellent example of the _genre_. Erckmann-Chatrian, especially in the
earlier years of their conjoined labour, wrote numerous pieces of short
fiction which abounded in gruesome adventure and situations more or less
startling--witness the Heidelberg murder story. They possessed a
considerable talent for the detective fiction brought to a fine art by
Poe and worthily carried on in our day by Conan Doyle. Yet even here
the work has a higher value--perhaps the highest--for the thoughtful
reader in that it affords a faithful transcript of German life in time
gone by; the authors, although so circumscribed in space, are in some
sort historians of piquant social conditions. It is commonly said that
your true short-story writer is not a novelist, nor the other way about.
But _The Dean's Watch_, and a dozen other tales that could be named, are
little master-pieces not to be omitted in any just, comprehensive survey
of these fecund authors.
The National Novels differ from these simpler tales in more than theme
and the fuller body and greater variety they possess; the authors' aim
in the series sets the books apart from the other stories. This group
is made up of tales that fairly may be called "purpose fiction," in the
present cant. Erckmann-Chatrian agree to hate war and to justify their
hate by writing a succession of books portraying its horrors, always
from the disadvantage-point of actual humble participants and onlookers,
so that the plea shall appear to be at once fairly made and yet be
overwhelming in effect. Of the result, surely it may be said of the
National Novels that if they are not magnificent, they are war--war
stript of its glory, reduced to the one grim denominator of human
misery.
The successive national struggles of France towards that peaceful
Republicanism which has now endured long enough to induce the outside
world into a belief that this volatile, fiery people will never revert
to any form of monarchy, are sketched so graphically as to give a clear
comprehension of their history. Nowhere is the artistry of the authors
better exhibited than in the skill with which, by placing their own
position in the mouths of others and by means of their remarkable power
in characterization, they rob special pleading of that didacticism which
is so deadly an enemy of good fiction. To secure an effect of
verisimilitude no method of story-telling is perhaps so useful as that
in which one of the characters speaks in proper person. What the author
loses in omniscience, he more than gains in the impression of reality.
This method is admirable in the hands of Erckmann-Chatrian, who
consistently use it in their fiction. Do the writers of any other
nation, one is tempted to query, offer such frequent examples of good
taste in this avoidance of the too didactic as do the French? In some
English hands so strenuous an attempt would have seemed heavily
intolerable. Here one forgets all but the naturalness of word and action
in the characters; and the lesson sinks the deeper into the mind.
In justice both to our authors and the present-day temper, it may be
declared that the Twentieth Century is likely to be more sympathetic to
their particular thesis than was their own time. There is a popular
treatment of war which bedecks it in a sort of stage tinsel, to the
hiding of its gaunt figure and cadaverous face. Some of Scott's
romances are of this order. Zola, with his epic sweep in _Le Debacle_,
does not disguise the horrors of the Franco-Prussian struggle. Yet epic
it is, and in a sense, romantic; handled by a poet whose imagination is
aroused by the magnitude and movement of his theme. Erckmann-Chatrian
set themselves squarely against this conception; they reduce the
splendid trappings and _elan_ of battle to its true hideousness.
In order to depict the inevitable, wretched results of the killing of
men for purposes of political ambition, or national aggrandizement,
Erckmann-Chatrian, as in their provincial idyls, cling steadily to the
position of the average man, who cannot for the life of him see the use
of leaving all that is pleasant and dear, of fighting, marching,
sickening, and dying for the sake of a cause he does not understand or
believe in, as the slave of men whom he perhaps despises. Joseph Berta,
the lame conscript, the shrewd, kindly Jew Mathieu, the common-sense
miller Christian Weber, protagonists in three well-known stories, each
distinct from the other, are all alike in their preference for peace
over war, for the joy of home and the quiet prosecution of their
respective affairs, instead of the dubious pleasures of siege and
campaign.
There is a superbly _bourgeois_ flavour to it all. Yet one feels its
force, its sound humanity. The republicanism of these writers is of the
broadest kind. They hate Bonaparte or Bourbon, because in their belief
either house stands for tyranny and corruption; while Napoleon is their
special detestation, the later Empire is vigorously assailed because it,
too, is opposed to the interests of the people. Napoleon III., whom in
high satiric scorn they pillory as "The Honest Man," comes in for savage
condemnation, since he again brings woe upon the working folk, in
pursuit of his own selfish ends. And underneath all, like a
ground-swell can be felt a deep and genuine, if homely, patriotism.
Human nature, as it is witnessed in the pages of Erckmann-Chatrian, is
not hard to decipher. It lacks the subtlety of the modern psychologue,
miscalled a novelist. Humanity for them is made up of two great
contrasted elements--the people and the enemies of the people; the
latter made up of kings, politicians, government leaders, and the
general world of bureaucracy, who fleece the former, "that vast flock
which they were always accustomed to shear, and which they call the
people." But the people themselves, how veritable and charming they
are! Not a whit are they idealized; the fictional folk of these writers
are always recognisable; they give us that pleasure of recognition which
Mr. James points out as one of the principal virtues of modern
novel-making. The title of one of the well-known books, _The History of
a Man of the People_, might almost stand as a description of their
complete works. There is no sentimentalizing of average humanity; none
of the Auerbach or George Sand prettification of country life.
Erckmann-Chatrian are as truthful as a later realist like Thomas Hardy.
The family life in _The Brigadier Frederick_ is almost lyrically set
forth, until it seems, mayhap, too good for human nature's daily food;
but similar scenes in other stories have a Dutch-like fidelity in their
transcripts of the coarser, less lovely human traits; recall the wife
and daughter of Weber, for example, or the well-nigh craven fear of
Joseph Berta in _The Plebiscite_, who seems half a poltroon until he is
seasoned in a Napoleonic campaign; the psychologic treatment here
suggesting Stephen Crane's _The Red Badge of Courage_. The blend of
grim realism and heroic patriotism in the figure of the old sergeant in
_The Plebiscite_ is a fine illustration of that truth to both the shell
and kernel of life which Erckmann-Chatrian maintain throughout their
work.
On the whole, then, it is a comfortable, enheartening conception of Man
they present. Poor theologians they would make; men are by nature good
and kind; only warped by cruel misuse and bad masters, as in war. "Ah,
it is a great joy to love and to be loved, the only one joy of life,"
exclaims the Jew Mathieu in _The Blockade_. This simple yet sufficient
creed pervades their thought. Again and again is it declared that
whatever the apparent evil, so that the faithful-hearted and devout of
the world, like Father Frederick, lose courage for the moment, the fault
is with men upon earth, not in heaven. High over all, God reigns. A
spirit of kindliness, quiet, unheroic, but deep and tender, enswathes
the more serious part of these novels like an atmosphere; and if the
mood shifts to indignation, it is the righteous indignation of the good
in the face of that which is wrong and evil. And these better human
attributes are most commonly found in the provinces; the city, as a
rule, spells sin. The touch of mother earth brings purity and strength.
"La mauvaise race qui trompe," declares the Brigadier Frederick,
"n'existe pas au pays; elle est toujours venue d'ailleurs." One smiles
at this, but it offends not nor seems absurd. Its very prejudice is
lovable.
Perhaps none of the stories make so moving an appeal against war as _The
Brigadier Frederick_. Its sadness is the most heartfelt, its realism the
most truthful, and hence effective. Nor in any other book of the War
Series does the French character shine more clearly in its typical
virtues. Family love and faith, _camaraderie_, humble devoutness in
religion, and earnest patriotism are constantly made manifest in this
fine tale. Instead of conducting their hero through the spectacular
scenes of military campaigns, the authors depict only the stay-at-home
aspects of war, which because of their lack of strut and epic colour
are, as a rule, overlooked, and which yet illustrate far better than the
most Zolaesque details the wretched _milieu_ and after effects of a
great national struggle. Frederick, the old guard of the Alsatian
forest domains, loses in turn his post, his son-in-law, wife, and
daughter, and at last his native land; and through all his misery
remains proudly a Frenchman, who refuses to declare allegiance to the
German invaders; and, in being true to his convictions, furnishes a
noble example of a man who, by the moral test, rises superior to any
fate, his head being
"bloody but unbowed."
Again, sad as the story is, it differs from too much of the tragedy of
current literature; it is sad for the sake of a purpose, not for
sadness' sake. Alleviation is offered the reader from the beginning, in
that he knows that Frederick himself has survived all his woes, since he
is telling his tale to a friend in after years. These qualities make
the work wholesome and beautiful, sound both for art and life.
Erckmann-Chatrian draw strength from mother-soil. Their stories are laid
in Alsace-Lorraine, or at least it is that debatable land whence the
characters go only to return for the peaceful denouement, which these
authors, in the good old-fashioned style, like to offer their readers.
The popularity of such writers brings us back, happily, to that
untechnical valuation of literature which insists, first of all, in
regarding it as an exposition of human experience. Their books bear
translation especially well because there is something in them besides
incommunicable flavours of style, though style is not wanting; namely,
vital folk, vivid scenes, significant happenings. Theirs is the
misleading simplicity of method and manner which hides technique of a
rare and admirable kind. Allowing for all exaggeration for altered
ideals in fiction, and for the waning of interest in the historical
circumstances which they portray, there remain such elements of
permanent appeal as to give their books far more than a transient worth.
For more than forty years, Erckmann-Chatrian wrote as one man; their
collaboration was, in effect, a chemical union. No example in
literature better illustrates the possibility of the merging of
individualities for the purposes of artistic unity. The double work of
the English Besant and Rice is by no means so important nor do they
stand and fall together in the same sense; much of Besant's typical
fiction being produced after his partner's death. In the case of the
most famed collaboration of older days, that of the dramatists Beaumont
and Fletcher, the union was more intimate. But the early death of
Beaumont, the consideration that he wrote less than half the plays
conventionally attributed to their joint authorship, and the additional
consideration that some of the best and most enjoyable dramas associated
with these great names--_The Loyal Subject_, to mention but one--are
unquestionably of Fletcher's sole composition, make the
Beaumont-Fletcher alliance not so perfect an example of literary
collaboration as is offered by Erckmann-Chatrian. When Chatrian died in
1890, it was as if, for literary purposes, both died. Their work had a
unity testifying to a remarkable if not unique congeniality in
temperament, view and aim, as well as to a fraternal unity which--alas!
the irony of all human friendships--was dispelled when their quarrel,
just before the death of Chatrian, put an end to an association so
fruitful and famous.
From the very nature of fiction in contrast with drama, it would seem as
if collaboration in stage literature were more likely to yield happy
results than in the case of the novel. Here, however, is an example
setting aside _a priori_ reasoning; seemingly "helpless each without the
other," the final breach in their personal relations would seem to have
written Finis to their literary endeavour. Yet Erckmann survived for
nearly a decade and wrote military stories, which in tone and temper
carried on the traditions of the two men. But we may easily detect in
this last effort the penalty of their literary severance: the loss of
the craftsmanship of Chatrian was a loss indeed. Nor is this subjective
guess-work of the critic; Erckmann himself described nearly twenty years
ago the respective parts played by the two in their literary work. He
declared that after a story had been blocked out and thoroughly talked
over between them, he did all the actual composition. Then was it
Chatrian's business to point out faults, to suggest, here a change in
perspective, there less emphasis upon a subsidiary character, or here
again, a better handling of proportion--in short, to do all the
retouching that looks to artistry. And Erckmann goes on to testify in
good set terms how necessary his collaborator was to the final perfected
form of the story; how much it must have suffered without his sense of
technique. It would appear from this that the senior member of the firm
did what is commonly called the creative work of composition, the junior
filling the role of critic. From France one hears that Erckmann was
very German in taste and sympathy (_mirabile dictu!_ in view of so much
of what he wrote); Chatrian, French to the core, a man who insisted on
residing on the French side of the national line, who reared his sons to
be French soldiers; whereas Erckmann in later years hobnobbed with the
Germans, members of his family, in fact, inter-marrying with his ancient
enemies.
Indeed, this last act of their personal history has its disillusionment.
But after all, men shall be judged in their works. Whatever their
private quarrellings, their respective parts in literary labour, their
attributes or national leanings, the world, justly caring most in the
long run for the fiction they wrote, will continue to think of them as
provincial patriots, lovers of their country, and Frenchmen of the
French, not only in the tongue they used, but in those deep-lying
characteristics and qualities which make their production worthily
Gallic in the nobler implication of the word.
RICHARD BURTON.
*BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE*
_The celebrated friends who collaborated for fifty years under the title
of_ ERCKMANN-CHATRIAN _were natives of the department of the Meurthe, in
Alsace-Lorraine_. EMILE ERCKMANN _was born at Phalsbourg (now
Pfalzburg), on the 20th of May, 1822. His father was a bookseller; his
mother he lost early. He was educated at the grammar school of
Phalsbourg, and was a boarder there, growing up an intractable and idle
boy. At the age of twenty Erckmann went up to Paris to study law, but
he was inattentive to his work, and positively took fifteen years to
pass the necessary examinations; having done so, he made no further rise
of his profession. When he was twenty-five he suffered from a serious
illness, and during his convalescence, in Alsace, he turned his
attention to literature. At this moment there had arrived in
Phalsbourg; as an usher in the grammar school, a young Alsatian_,
ALEXANDRE CHATRIAN, _of Italian descent, who was born at Soldatenthal,
near Abreschwiller, on the 18th of December, 1826, and who was destined
for the trade of glass-worker. He had been sent in 1844, as an
apprentice, to the glass-works in Belgium, but had, in opposition to the
wish of his parents, determined to return and to be a schoolmaster in
France._
_Erckmann and Chatrian now met, and instantly felt irresistibly drawn to
one another. From this time until near the end of their careers their
names were melted indissolubly into one. In 1848 a local newspaper, "Le
Democrate du Rhin," opened its columns to their contributions, and they
began to publish novels. Their first great success was "L'Illustre
Docteur Matheus" in 1859, which appeared originally in the "Revue
Nouvelle," and which exactly gauged the taste of the general public.
This was followed by "Contes Fantastiques" and "Contes de la Montague,"
in 1860; by "Maitre Daniel Rock," in 1861; by "Contes des Bords du Rhin"
and "Le Fou Yegof" in 1862; "Le Joueur de Clarinette" in 1863; and in
1864, which was perhaps the culminating year of the talent of
Erckmann-Chatrian, by "Madame Therese," "L'Ami Fritz" and "L'Histoire
d'un Conscrit de 1813." These, and innumerable stories which followed
them, dealt almost entirely with scenes of country life in Alsace and
the neighbouring German Palatinate. The authors adopted a strong
Chauvinist bias, and at the time of the Franco-German War their
sympathies were violently enlisted on the side of France._
_In 1872 Erckmann-Chatrian published a political novel which enjoyed an
immense success, "Histoire du Plebiscite"; in 1873, "Les Deux Freres",
and they concluded in many volumes their long romance "Histoire d'un
Paysan." Two of the latest of their really striking romances were "Les
Vieux de la Vielle," 1882, and "Les Rantzau," 1884. During this period,
however, their great vogue was the theatre, where in 1869 they produced
"Le Juif Polonais," and in 1877 "L'Ami Fritz," two of the most
successful romantic plays of the nineteenth century, destined to be
popular in all parts of the world. After the war of 1870-'71 Erckmann
lived at Phalsbourg; which was presently annexed to German Lothringen,
and he became a German citizen; Chatrian continued to reside in Paris,
and remained a Frenchman. For a long time the friends continued to
collaborate on the old terms of intimacy, though at a distance from one
another, but a quarrel finally separated them, on a vulgar matter of
interest. Erckmann claimed, and Chatrian refused, author's rights on
those plays which bore the name of both writers, although Chatrian had
composed them unaided. The rupture became complete in 1889, when the old
friends parted as bitter enemies. Chatrian died a year later, on the
4th of September, 1890, from a stroke of apoplexy, at Villemomble, near
Paris. Erckmann left Phalsbourg, and settled at Luneville, where he died
on the 14th of March, 1899. The temperament of Erckmann was phlegmatic
and melancholy; that of Chatrian impetuous and fiery. They were
strongly opposed to the theories of the realists, which assailed them in
their advancing age, and they stated their own principles of literary
composition in "Quelques mots sur l'esprit humain," 1880, and its
continuation "L'Art et les Grands Idealistes," 1885. For a long time
their popularity was unequalled by that of any other French novelist,
largely because their lively writings were pre-eminently suited to
family reading. But they never achieved an equal prominence in purely
literary estimation._
E.G.
*CONTENTS*
Erckmann-Chatrian
_Richard Burton_
Lives of Erckmann and Chatrian
_Edmund Gosse_
Brigadier Frederick
The Dean's Watch
The Portraits of Erckmann and Chatrian
_Octave Uzanne_
[Illustration: Chatrian]
*BRIGADIER FREDERICK*
*I*
When I was brigadier forester at Steinbach, said Father Frederick to me,
and when I was the inspector of the most beautiful forest district in
all the department of Saverne, I had a pretty cottage, shaded by trees,
the garden and orchard behind filled with apple trees, plum trees, and
pear trees, covered with fruit in the autumn; with that four acres of
meadow land along the bank of the river; when the grandmother, Anne, in
spite of her eighty years, still spun behind the stove, and was able to
help about the house; when my wife and daughter kept house and
superintended the stables and the cultivation of our land, and when
weeks, months, and years passed in their tranquility like a single day.
If at that time any one had said to me, "See here, Brigadier Frederick,
look at this great valley of Alsace, that extends to the banks of the
Rhine; its hundreds of villages, surrounded by harvests of all kinds:
tobacco, hops, madder, hemp, flax, wheat, barley and oats, over which
rushes the wind as over the sea; those high factory chimneys, vomiting
clouds of smoke into the air; those wind-mills and sawmills; those
hills, covered with vines; those great forests of beech and fir trees,
the best in France for ship-building; those old castles, in ruins for
centuries past, on the summits of the mountains; those fortresses of
Neuf-Brisach, Schlestadt, Phalsbourg, Bitche, that defend the passes of
the Vosges. Look, brigadier, as far as a man's eye can reach from the
line of Wissembourg to Belfort. Well, in a few years all that will
belong to the Prussians; they will be the masters of all; they will have
garrisons everywhere; they will levy taxes; they will send preceptors,
censors, foresters, and schoolmasters into all the villages, and the
inhabitants will bend their backs; they will go through the military
drill in the German ranks, commanded by the feldwebel[#] of the Emperor
William." If any one had told me that, I would have thought the man was
mad, and, even in my indignation, I should have been very likely to have
given him a backhander across the face.
[#] Sergeant.
He would only have told the truth, however, and he would not even have
said enough, for we have seen many other things; and the most terrible
thing of all for me, who had never quitted the mountain, is to see
myself, at my old age, in this garret, from which I can see only the
tiles and chimney-pots; alone, abandoned by Heaven and earth, and
thinking day and night of that frightful story.
Yes, George, the most terrible thing is to think! Foxes and wolves that
are wounded lick themselves and get well. Kids and hares that are hurt
either die at once, or else hide in a thicket and end by recovering.
When a dog's puppies are taken away, the poor beast pines for a few
days; then she forgets, and all is forgotten. But we men cannot forget,
and as time goes on we realize our misery more and more, and we see many
sad things that we had not felt at first. Injustice, bad faith,
selfishness, all grow up before our eyes like thorns and briers.
However, since you desire to know how I happened to get into this hovel
in the heart of La Villette, and the way in which I have passed my life
up to the present time, I will not refuse to answer you. You can
question many other people beside myself; persons of different
occupations--workmen, peasants emigrated from down yonder; all the
tumble-down houses of La Villette and La Chapelle are filled with them.
I have heard that more than two hundred thousand have left. It is
possible. When I quitted the country the roads were already
overcrowded.
But you know all about these things as well as I do; so I will tell
about what concerns me alone, beginning at the beginning. That will be
the simplest way.
When your grandfather, M. Muensch, the President of the Tribunal,
obtained promotion, in 1865, and left for Brittany, I was very glad of
it, in one way, for he deserved to be promoted; I have never seen a
better or more learned man. Saverne was not the place for him. But, on
the other hand, I was very sorry for it. My father, the former forester
of Dosenheim, had never spoken to me of President Muensch but with the
greatest respect, repeating to me, over and over again, that he was our
benefactor, that he had always liked our family. I myself owed to him
my good post at Steinbach, and it was also on his recommendation that I
got my wife, Catherine Burat, the only daughter of the former brigadier,
Martin Burat.
After that, you can readily believe that, in going to make my report at
Saverne, it was always with emotion that I gazed upon that good house,
where, for twenty years, I had been so kindly received, and I regretted
that noble man; it made my heart very sad. And, naturally, we missed
very much, no longer having you to spend the vacations with us. We were
so used to having you, that, long in advance, we would say: "The month
of September is coming round; little George will soon be here."
My wife arranged the bed upstairs; she put lavender in the well-bleached
sheets, and she washed the floor and window-panes. I prepared snares
for the thrushes and bait of all kinds for the trout; I repaired the
tomtits' hut under the rocks; I tried the whistles for the bird-calls,
and made new ones with lead and geese bones; I arranged everything in
order in our boxes--the hooks, the lines, the flies, made of cock
feathers; laughing beforehand at the pleasure of seeing you rummage
among them, and of hearing you say: "See here, Father Frederick, you
must wake me up to-morrow morning at two o'clock, without fail; we will
start long before day!"
I knew very well that you would sleep like a top till I should come to
shake you and to scold you for your laziness; but at night, before going
to bed, you always wanted to be up at two o'clock, or even at midnight;
that amused me greatly.
And then I saw you in the hut, keeping so still while I whistled on the
bird-call that you scarcely dared to breathe; I heard you trembling on
the moss when the jackdaws and thrushes arrived, wheeling under the
trees to see; I heard you whisper, softly: "There they are, there they
are!"
You were almost beside yourself when there came a great cloud of
tomtits, which usually happened just at daybreak.
Yes, George, all these things rejoiced my heart, and I looked forward to
the vacations with as much impatience perhaps as you did. Our little
Marie-Rose also rejoiced in the thought of soon seeing you again; she
hastened to plait new snares and to repair the meshes of the nets which
had got broken the year before. But then all was over; you were never
to return, and we knew it well.
Two or three times that poor idiot Calas, who looked after our cows in
the field, seeing afar off on the other slope of the valley some persons
who were on their way to Dosenheim, came running in, crying, with his
mouth open as far as his ears, "Here he is, here he is! It is he; I
recognise him; he has his bundle under his arm!"
And Ragot barked at the heels of that idiot. I should have liked to have
knocked them both over, for we had learned of your arrival at Rennes,
and the President himself had written that you regretted Steinbach every
day. I was in a bad enough humour, without listening to such cries.
Often, too, my wife and Marie-Rose, while arranging the fruit on the
garret floor, would say: "What fine melting pears, what good gray
rennets! Ah! if George returned, he would roll them round from morning
till night. He would do nothing but run up and down stairs." And then
they would smile, with tears in their eyes.
And how often I myself, returning from the bird-catching, and throwing
on the table my bunches of tomtits, have I not cried: "Look! there are
ten or twelve dozen of them. What is the good of them now the boy is no
longer here? Might as well give them to the cat; for my part, I despise
them."
That was true, George; I never had a taste for tomtits, or even for
thrushes. I always liked better a good quarter of beef, with now and
then only a little bit of game, by way of change.
Well, it is thus that the time passed just after your departure. That
lasted for some months, and finally our ideas took another course, and
that the more because, in the month of January, 1867, a great misfortune
happened to us.
*II*
In the depth of the winter, while all the roads and the mountain paths
were covered with snow, and we heard every night the branches of the
beech trees breaking like glass under their load of ice, to the right
and left of the house, one evening my wife, who, since the commencement
of the season, had gone to and fro looking very pale and without
speaking, said to me, towards six o'clock, after having lighted the fire
in the fireplace, "Frederick, I am going to bed. I do not feel well. I
am cold."
She had never said anything like that before. She was a woman who never
complained and who, during her youth, had looked after her house up to
the very day before her confinements. I suspected nothing, and I
replied to her:
"Catherine, do not put yourself out. You work too hard. Go and rest.
Marie-Rose will do the cooking."
I thought "once in twenty years is not too much; she may well rest
herself a little."
Marie-Rose heated a jug of water to put under her feet, and we took our
supper of potatoes and clotted milk as tranquilly as usual. We were not
at all uneasy, and about nine o'clock, having smoked my pipe near the
stove, I was about to go to bed, when, on coming near the bed, I saw my
wife, white as a sheet, and with her eyes wide open. I said to her,
"Helloa, Catherine!"
But she did not stir. I repeated "Catherine," and shook her by the arm.
She was already cold. The courageous woman had not lain down till the
last moment, so to speak; she had lost much blood without complaining.
I was a widower. My poor Marie-Rose no longer had a mother.
That crushed me terribly. I thought I should never recover from the
blow.
The old grandmother, who for some time had scarcely ever stirred from
her arm-chair, and who seemed always in a dream, awoke. Marie-Rose
uttered cries and sobs which could be heard out of doors, and even
Calas, the poor idiot, stammered:
"Oh, if I had only died instead of her!"
And as we were far away in the woods, I was forced to transport my poor
wife to bury her, to the church at Dosenheim, through the great snows.
We went in a line, with the coffin before us in the cart. Marie-Rose
wept so much that I was forced to support her at every step.
Fortunately the grandmother did not come; she sat at home in her
arm-chair, reciting the prayers for the dead. We did not return that
evening till it was dark night. And now the mother was yonder under the
snow, with the old Burat family, who are all in the cemetery of
Dosenheim behind the church; she was there, and I thought:
"What will become of the house? Frederick, you will never marry again;
you have had a good wife and who knows if the second would not be the
worst and the most extravagant in the country. You will never take
another. You will live like that, all alone. But what will you do?
Who will take care of everything? Who will look after your interest day
and night? The grandmother is too old and the girl is still a mere
child."
I was miserable, thinking that everything would go to ruin and that my
savings of so many years would be wasted from day to day.
But my little Marie-Rose was a real treasure, a girl full of courage and
good sense, and no sooner was my wife dead than she put herself at the
head of our affairs, looking after the fields, the cattle, and the
household, and ruling Calas like her mother. The poor fellow obeyed
her; he understood in his simplicity that she was now the mistress and
that she had the right to speak for everybody.
And so things go on earth. When we have had such trials we think that
nothing worse can happen to us, but all that was merely the beginning,
and when I think of it, it seems to me that our greatest happiness would
have been, all to have died together upon the same day.
*III*
Thus all our joys, all our satisfactions passed away, one after the
other. The old house to which I formerly returned, laughing from afar,
only to see its little windows glittering in the sun and its little
chimney smoking between the tops of the fir trees, was then sad and
desolate. The winter appeared very long to us. The fire which sparkles
so joyously on the hearth when the white flowers of the frost cover the
panes, and when silence reigns in the valley, that fire which I had so
often gazed at for half an hour at a time while smoking my pipe,
thinking of a thousand things that passed through my head, now gave me
none but melancholy thoughts. The fagots wept; poor Ragot sought in
every corner, he wandered up stairs and down and smelt under all the
doors; Calas wove baskets in silence, the oziers piled in front of him;
grandmother Anne told her beads, and Marie-Rose, very pale and dressed
in black, came and went through the house, watching over all and doing
everything without noise like her poor mother. As for me, I said
nothing; when death has entered anywhere all lamentations that one makes
are pure loss. Yes, that winter was long!
And then the spring came as in other years; the firs and beech trees put
forth their buds; the windows were opened to renew the air: the great
pear tree before the door became covered with white flowers; all the
birds of the air began once more to sing, to chase each other, and to
build nests as if nothing had happened.
I also returned to my work, accompanying the chief guard, M. Rameau, in
his circuits in order to direct the wood felling, overlooking the works
from a distance, leaving early in the morning and returning late, at the
last song of the thrushes.
My grief pursued me everywhere, and yet I had still the consolation of
seeing Marie-Rose grow in strength and beauty in a truly marvellous way.
It is not, George, because I was her father that I tell you this, but
you would have had to search for a long time from Saverne to Lutzelstein
before finding as fresh-looking a young girl with as trim a figure, as
honest an air, with such beautiful blue eyes and such magnificent fair
hair. And how well she understood all kinds of work, whether in the
house or out of doors! Ah, yes, I may well say it, she was a beautiful
creature, gentle and yet strong.
Often coming in at night and seeing her at the head of the stairs,
signing to me that she had waited supper a long time for me, then
running down the stairs and holding out to me her fresh cheek, I have
often thought:
"She is still handsomer than her mother was at the same age; she has the
same good sense. Don't lament over your misfortunes, Frederick, for
many people would envy your lot in having such a child, who gives you so
much satisfaction."
One thing only made the tears come, that is when I thought of my wife,
then I cried to myself:
"Ah! if Catherine could come back to see her, she would be very happy!"
About the same time other ideas entered my head; the epoch of my
retirement was approaching, and as Marie-Rose had entered her
seventeenth year, I thought of finding her a good and nice young fellow
from among the foresters, in whose house I could tranquilly end my days,
in the midst of my children and grandchildren, and who, taking my place,
would respect me as I had respected my father-in-law Burat, when
succeeding him twenty years before.
I thought of it; it was my principal idea, and I had even some one in
view, a tall and handsome young man from Felsberg, who had left the
horse guards three or four years before, and who had just been appointed
forest guard at Toementhal, near our house. His name was Jean Merlin,
and he was already experienced in the duties of a forester, having
passed his apprenticeship at Eyisheim, in Alsace.
The young fellow pleased me first because he had a good character,
afterward because Marie-Rose regarded him with a favourable eye. I had
remarked that she always blushed a little when she saw him enter the
house to make his report, and that he never failed to appear in full
dress, carefully shaved, his little cap with its hunting horn badge,
adorned with an oak leaf or a sprig of heather, which sets off a man;
and that his voice, which was a little gruff, became very gentle in
saying, "Good day, Mlle. Marie-Rose; I hope you are quite well? What
beautiful weather we are having--the sun is shining finely," etc. He
appeared embarrassed; and Marie-Rose also answered him timidly. It was
very clear that they loved and admired each other, a natural thing when
one is old enough to get married. It always has been and always will be
so; it is a blessing of Providence.
Therefore I found no evil in it, on the contrary I thought: "When he
asks her of me according to custom, we will see about it. I will say
neither yes nor no at once; one must not have the air of throwing one's
self at people's heads; but I will, and by yielding, for neither must
one break young people's hearts."
Those were the ideas that I revolved in my head.
Besides which the young man was of good family; he had his uncle, Daniel
Merlin, who was schoolmaster at Felsberg; his father had been sergeant
in a regiment of infantry, and his mother, Margredel, though she lived
with him in the forester's house at Toementhal, possessed at Felsberg a
cottage, a garden, and four or five acres of good land; one could not
desire a match in every way more advantageous.
And seeing that everything seemed to go according to my wishes, almost
every evening when I returned from my circuits through the woods, in the
path which skirts the valley of Dosenheim, at the moment when the sun is
setting, when the silence spreads itself with the shadow of the forest
over the great meadows of La Zinzelle--that silence of the solitude,
scarcely broken by the murmur of the little river--almost every evening,
walking thoughtfully along, I pictured to myself the peace that my
children would have in this corner of the world, their pleasant home,
the birth of little beings whom we would carry to Dosenheim to have them
baptized in the old church, and other similar things, which touched my
heart and made me say:
"Lord God, it is all sure; these things will happen. And when you grow
old, Frederick, very old, your back bent by age, like grandmother Anne,
and your head quite white, you will pass away quietly, satisfied with
years, and blessing the young brood. And long after you are gone, that
brave Jean Merlin, with Marie-Rose, will keep you in remembrance."
In picturing all this to myself, I halted regularly on the path above
the forester house of Jean Merlin, looking beneath at the little tiled
roof, the garden surrounded with palisades, and the yard whence the
mother of Jean drove her ducks and fowls into the poultry-yard towards
night, for foxes were not wanting in that outskirt of the forest. I
looked down from above, and I cried, raising my cap, "Hilloa!
Margredel, good evening."
Then she would raise her eyes, and joyously reply to me, "Good evening,
Mr. Brigadier. Are all well at your house?"
"Why, yes, Margredel, very well, Heaven be praised." Then I would come
down through the brushwood, and we would shake hands.
She was a good woman, always gay and laughing because of her great
confidence in God, which made her always look upon the bright side of
things. Without ever having said anything to each other, we knew very
well of what we were each thinking; we only needed to talk about the
weather to understand all the rest.
And when, after having had a good gossip, I went away, Margredel would
still call after me, in her rather cracked voice, for she was nearly
sixty years old, "A pleasant walk to you, Brigadier. Don't forget Mlle.
Marie-Rose and the grandmother."
"Don't be afraid. I'll forget nothing."
She would make a sign with her head to me that it was all right, and I
would go off with lengthening steps.
It sometimes happened to me also, sometimes when my circuit was finished
before five o'clock, to find Jean near the house, at the other side of
the valley, in the path that skirted our orchard, and Marie-Rose in the
garden picking vegetables. They were each on their own side, and were
talking across the hedge without appearing to do so; they were telling
things to each other.
That reminded me of the happy time when I was courting Catherine, and I
came up very softly over the heather till I was within twenty steps
behind them, and then I cried, "Ho! ho! Jean Merlin, is it like this
that you perform your duties? I catch you saying fine words to the
pretty girls."
Then he turned round, and I saw his embarrassed look.
"Excuse me, Brigadier," he said, "I came to see you on business, and I
was conversing with Mlle. Marie-Rose while waiting for you."
"Oh, yes, that is all very well; we will see to that. I do not trust
foxes myself."
And other jokes without end. You can understand, George, that happiness
had returned to us.
I had as much confidence in Jean Merlin as in Marie-Rose and in myself.
The evil race that deceives does not exist in our country; it has always
come from elsewhere.
*IV*
Things went on like this throughout the whole year 1868. Jean Merlin
took every possible occasion to present himself at the house, either on
business connected with his office, or else to consult me on his family
affairs. He had but one fear, that was of being refused. Sometimes,
when we were walking together in the woods, I saw him musing, with
drooping head; he seemed to wish to speak; he raised his voice suddenly,
and then was silent.
For my part, I wished that he would be a little more courageous, but I
could not open the subject; that would not have been proper for his
superior; I awaited his formal proposal, thinking that he would end by
writing to me, or by sending me one of his relatives to make a
ceremonious declaration: his uncle Daniel, for instance, the
schoolmaster of Felsberg, a respectable man, who was able to take charge
of so delicate a commission.
It often happened to me also to reflect upon what concerned me
particularly. I asked nothing better than to see my daughter happy, but
I had to try to arrange all interests in accord as much as possible.
When one thinks of nothing, everything appears simple and easy, and yet
the best things have their evil side.
I had still nearly two years to serve before retiring, but after that,
if my son-in-law was not named brigadier in my place, we would be forced
to quit the old house, where I had passed so many years, with the beings
who were dear to me--father-in-law Burat, my poor wife, grandmother
Anne, everybody, in fact; and we would be obliged to abandon all that to
go live in a land which I did not know, and among strange faces.
That idea made me wretched. I knew well that Marie-Rose and Jean Merlin
would always respect me as their father; of that I was sure. But the
habit of turning round in the same corner and of seeing the same things
becomes a second nature, and that is why old hares and old foxes, even
when they have received gunshot wounds in the neighbourhood of their
lair or their hole, always return there; they need the sight of the
brushwood and the tuft of grass, which recall to them their youth, their
love, and even the annoyances and the sorrows which, in the long run,
make up three-quarters of our existence, and to which we become as
strongly attached as to memories of happiness.
Ah! I never should have believed that anything worse could happen to me
than to retire with my children into a country of fir trees like ours,
and into a little house like my own.
These things made me very uneasy, and, since the departure of President
Muensch, I no longer knew of whom I could ask a bit of good advice, when
at length all was settled in a very happy way, which touches my heart
even now when I think of it.
*V*
You must know that, during the years 1867, 1868, and 1869, roads were
being made in all directions, to facilitate the wood-cutting and to
transport the wood to the railway and the canal. M. Laroche, Forest
Inspector of the Canton of Lutzelstein, directed these great works. He
was a man of fifty-five years of age, robust and serious, who thought of
nothing but his business; hunting and fishing were not among his tastes;
to be well noticed by him, there was no question of being a good shot or
a skilful trapper; it was necessary to serve him well.
He often came himself to the place, explaining clearly the declivity to
be followed, the trees which ought to be felled, etc.; unless one was
idiotic, he could not but understand. Things went on this way briskly
and well. Naturally, such a man would know all his workmen thoroughly,
and when he was satisfied, he would address to you some of those kind
words that make your heart light.
For my part, I think that he took an interest in me, for often, after
hearing my report in his office at Lutzelstein, he would say to me,
"That is very good, very good, Father Frederick!" and would even shake
hands with me.
Towards the spring of 1869 the order arrived to repair the road which
descends from Petite Pierre to the valley of Graufthal, in order to join
the new highway from Saverne to Metting; the junction fell near the
saw-mill, not far from the forester's house; I had to go, therefore,
every working day with my brigade to survey the works.
The first part was almost finished, and they had commenced to blow up
the rocks below, near the valley, to level the road, when, one morning,
going to make my usual report at Lutzelstein, the inspector received me
particularly well.
It was about ten o'clock, his breakfast hour, and he had just reached
his house as I rang.
"Ah! it is you, Father Frederick," said he, gaily, as he opened his
door; "fine weather this morning. All right down yonder?"
"Yes, sir, all is going well, according to your orders."
"Very good," said he. "Sit down, I have something to say to you. You
will breakfast with me. My wife is with her parents in Champagne; you
will keep me company."
Often, when I arrived at breakfast time, he would offer me a glass of
wine, but the idea had never occurred to him to give me a place at his
table.
"Sit down there," said he. "Here, Virginie, bring a plate for the
brigadier. You can bring in breakfast."
Imagine my astonishment and my satisfaction. I did not know how to thank
him; he did not seem to see my embarrassment. He commenced by taking
off his tunic and putting on his coat, asking me: "You have a good
appetite, Father Frederick?"
"Yes, sir, that never fails me."
"So much the better! Taste this beefsteak; Virginie is a good cook; you
will tell me what you think of it. Here's to your health!"
"Here's to yours, sir."
I felt as if I were dreaming; I said to myself, "Is this really you,
Frederick, who are breakfasting here in this handsome room, with your
superior, and who are drinking this good wine?" And I felt embarrassed.
M. Laroche, on the contrary, grew more and more familiar, so that,
finally, after three or four glasses, I discovered that the thing was
quite natural. Because his wife was not at home, I thought that he was
glad to have me to talk over the felling of the timber, the new
clearings, and our road from Graufthal; so I grew bolder, and answered
him laughing, and almost without embarrassment.
Things went on thus for about twenty minutes; Mlle. Virginie had brought
in the biscuits, almonds, and Gruyere cheese, when, throwing himself
back in his chair, and looking at me good-humouredly, "It is very
agreeable," said he, "to be as well as we are, at our age. Ha! ha! ha!
we have not yet lost our teeth, Father Frederick!"
"No, indeed; they are well-rooted, sir." And I laughed, too.
"How old are you?" he asked.
"I shall soon be fifty, sir."
"And I am fifty-five. Well, well, it is all the same; the time for
retiring is approaching; one of these days they will slit our ears."
He was still laughing. As for me, when I thought of that, I was not so
gay as before.
Then he passed me the cheese, saying: "What do you think of doing two
years from now? For my part, my wife wants to take me into her country,
Champagne. That is a great bore; I do not like the plains; but, you
know, 'A wilful woman will have her way.' It is a proverb, and all
proverbs have an astounding air of good sense."
"Yes, sir," I answered; "such proverbs as that are really annoying, for
I could never leave the mountains; I am too used to them. If I had to
go, I should not live two weeks. There would be nothing left to do but
throw on me the last handful of earth."
"Without doubt," he said; "but when the young people come, the old
people must give up their place."
In spite of the good wine, I had become quite silent, thinking of those
unfortunate things, when he said to me: "In your place, Father
Frederick, do you know what I would do? Since you love the mountains
so, since it is, so to speak, your existence to live in the
forest--well, I would look out for a son-in-law among the foresters; a
good fellow, who would take my place and with whom I would live
tranquilly till the end, in the midst of the green caps and the smell of
the firs."
"Ah! that is so, sir; I think of it every day; but----"
"But what?" he said. "What hinders you? You have a pretty daughter, you
are a sensible man; what embarrasses you? It is not for want of choice,
I hope; in the inspector's guard, big Kern, Donadieu, Nicolas Trompette,
would ask nothing better than to become your son-in-law. And that good
Jean Merlin. He is what one might call a model forester--frank, active,
intelligent, and who would answer your purpose admirably. His record is
excellent; he stands first on the list for promotion, and, upon my word,
Father Frederick, I think that, on your retreat, he has a good chance of
succeeding you."
When I heard that, I got red up to my ears, and I could not help saying,
"That is true! No one has anything to say against Jean Merlin; I have
never seen a better or more honest fellow; but I cannot offer my
daughter to people who please me; Merlin has never spoken to me of
marriage with Marie-Rose, neither has his mother Margredel, nor his
uncle Daniel; not any of the family. You can understand, sir, that I
cannot make the advances; it would not be proper! Beside, everything
ought to be done decently and in order; the proposal ought to be made
regularly!"
He was going to answer, when Mlle. Virginia came in to pour out the
coffee, so he took a box from the mantelpiece, saying, "Let us light our
cigars, Father Frederick."
I saw that he was amused, and when the servant went out he cried,
laughing, "Come, now, Father Frederick, do you really need some one to
tell you that Marie-Rose and Jean Merlin love each other with all their
hearts? And must Uncle Daniel come and declare it to you in a black
hood and with buckled shoes?"
He laughed loudly, and as I sat in surprise:
"Well," said he, "here is the affair in two words: The other day Jean
Merlin was so melancholy that I asked him if he was sick, and the poor
fellow confessed to me, with tears in his eyes, what he called his
misfortune. You are so serious and respectable-looking that none of the
family dared to make the proposal, and the good people thought that I
would have some influence. Must I put on my grand uniform, Father
Frederick?"
He was so gay that, notwithstanding my trouble, I answered: "Oh, sir,
now all is well!"
"Then you consent?"
"Do I consent? I have never wished for anything else. Yes, yes, I
consent, and I thank you. You can say, M. Laroche, that to-day you have
rendered Frederick the happiest of men."
I had already risen and had put my bag upon my shoulder, when the chief
guard, Rameau, entered, on business connected with the service.
"You are going, Frederick?" asked the inspector. "Are you not going to
empty your cup?"
"Ah! M. Laroche," I said, "I am too happy to keep quiet. The children
are waiting for me, I am sure; I must go carry them the good news."
"Go, then, go," he said, rising and accompanying me to the door; "you
are right not to delay the young people's happiness."
He shook hands with me, and I left, after saluting M. Rameau.
*VI*
I went away so happy that I could not see clearly. It was only at the
end of the street, in going down at the left again, towards the valley,
that I awoke from this great confusion of joyous ideas.
I had perhaps taken a little drop too much; I must confess, George, that
the good wine had dazzled my eyes a little; but my legs were solid,
nevertheless, and I went as if I were just twenty years old, laughing
and saying to myself:
"Frederick, now everything is according to rule, no one will have
anything to say; it is the inspector himself who has made the proposal
and that is a thousand times better than if it had been Uncle Daniel.
Ha! ha! ha! what luck! Won't they be happy when they learn that I
consent; that all is arranged and that there is nothing left to do but
to sing the _Gloria in Excelsis_! Ha! ha! ha! And you can laugh, too,
for all has gone as you wished it. You will stay in this country to the
end of your existence; you will see the woods from your window, and you
will smell the sweet odours of the resin and the moss till you are
eighty years of age. That is what you needed, to say nothing of the
rest; of the children, the grand-children, etc."
I wanted to dance as I descended the Fromuhle road.
It was then about six o'clock, and night was approaching; with the
coolness of the evening the frogs were beginning their music in the
midst of the reeds, and the high grasses of the pool, and the old fir
trees on the other side of the shore showed blue against the darker sky.
I stopped from time to time to look at them and I thought:
"You are fine trees, straight and full of good sap, and so you will
remain there for a long time to come. The sun will delight your
evergreen tops till you are marked for the axe of the woodcutter. Then
that will be the end, but the little firs will have grown up in your
shadow and the place will never be vacant."
And while thinking of that, I recommenced my march, quite touched, and I
cried:
"Yes, Frederick, such will be your lot. You loved father-in-law Burat,
you supported him when he could not do anything, in consideration of the
confidence he had reposed in you, and because he was a good man, an old
servant of the state and a man to be respected. Now it is your turn to
be loved and supported by those who are full of youth; you will be in
the midst of them like one of these old fir trees, covered with white
moss. The poor old things, they deserved to live, for if they had not
grown up straight they would have been cut down long ago to be made into
logs and fagots."
I blessed Providence which never lets the honest perish, and it is thus
that I arrived, towards seven o'clock in the evening, on the Scienie
road at the bottom of the valley. I saw the forester house at the left,
near the bridge. Ragot was barking, Calas was bringing the cattle back
to the stable, shouting and cracking his whip, the flock of ducks on the
bank of the river were scratching and picking themselves around their
necks and under their wings and tails, while awaiting the hour of going
to roost; some chickens were still pecking in the courtyard, and two or
three half-plucked old hens were napping in the shadow of the little
wall.
Then, seeing Ragot running to meet me, I said to myself:
"Here we are. Now attention. First you are going to speak. Jean
Merlin must be there for certain. All must be quite clear beforehand."
*VII*
I went up the stairs and I saw Marie-Rose in the lower room, with bare
arms; she was kneading dough and rolling it out flat, with the
rolling-pin, on our large table, to make noodles. She had seen me in
the distance and continued her work without raising her eyes.
"You are working hard, Marie-Rose," I remarked to her.
"Ah! it is you, father," said she; "I am making noodles."
"Yes, it is I," I replied, hanging my bag against the wall; "I have come
from the inspector's. Has any one been here?"
"Yes, father, Jean Merlin came to make his report, but he went away
again."
"Ah! he went away again, did he? Very good! he has not gone far, I
guess; we have some very important business to talk over!"
I came and went, looking at the dough, the basket of eggs, the little
bowl of flour and Marie-Rose, working away without opening her lips.
Finally I stopped and said to her:
"See here, Marie-Rose, it is right to be industrious, but we have
something else to do just now. What is this that I have just heard at
the inspector's? Is it true that you love Jean Merlin?"
As I spoke she let fall the rolling pin and flushed scarlet.
"Yes," I said; "that's the point! I don't mean to scold you about it;
Jean Merlin is a nice fellow, and a good forester, and I am not angry at
him. In my time, I loved your mother dearly, and father Burat, who was
my superior, neither chased me away nor swore at me because of it. It
is a natural thing when one is young to think of getting married. But
when one wishes to marry an honest girl, one must first ask her of her
father, so that every one may be agreed. Everything ought to be
conducted sensibly."
She was very much embarrassed, for on hearing that she ran to get a pot
of mignonette and placed it on the sill of the open window, an action
which filled me with surprise, for my wife, Catherine, had done the same
thing on the day of my proposal to call me in; and almost at once Merlin
came out of the clump of trees under the rocks opposite, where I also
had hidden, and ran across the meadow as I myself had run, twenty-three
years before!
Then, seeing these things, I did also what old Burat had done. I placed
myself in the hall before the door of the room, my daughter behind me;
and as Merlin entered, all out of breath, I drew myself up and said to
him:
"Merlin, is it true what the inspector tells me; that you love my
daughter and ask her in marriage?"
"Yes brigadier," he answered me, placing his hand on his heart, "I love
her better than life! At the same time he wished to speak to Marie-Rose,
but I cried:
"Stop a minute! You love her and she has found out that she loves you.
That is very nice--it is agreeable to love each other! But you must
think also of the others, of the old people. When I married Catherine
Burat I promised to keep her father and mother till the end of their
days, and I have kept my word, like every man of honour; I have loved
them, cared for them, and venerated them; they have always had the first
place at table, the first glass of wine, the best bed in the house.
Grandmother Anne, who still lives, is there to say it. It was only my
duty, and if I had not done it I would have been a villain; but they
have never had any complaints to make, and on his death-bed father Burat
blessed me and said: 'Frederick has always been to us like the best of
sons!' I deserve, therefore, to have the same, and I wish to have it
because it is just! Well, now that you have heard me, will you promise
to be to me what I was to father Burat?"
"Ah! brigadier," said he, "I would be the happiest of men to have you
for a father! Yes, yes, I promise to be a good son to you; I promise to
love you always and to respect you as you deserve."
Then I was touched, and I said:
"In that case, all right; I give you the hand of Marie-Rose, and you may
kiss her."
They kissed each other right before me, like two good children that they
were. Marie-Rose wept profusely. I called the grandmother into the
little side-room; she came leaning on my arm and blessed us all, saying:
"Now I can die in peace, I have seen my grand-daughter happy, and loved
by an honest man."
And all that day till evening she did not stop praying, commending her
grand-children to God. Merlin and Marie-Rose did not weary of talking
together and looking at each other. I walked to and fro in the large
room and told them:
"Now you are affianced. Jean can come whenever he likes, whether I am
at home or gone out. The inspector told me that he was first on the
list for promotion, and that he would doubtless replace me at my
retreat; that cannot be far off now; then we will celebrate the
marriage."
This good news augmented their satisfaction.
Night came on, and Jean Merlin, so as not to worry his mother, rose and
kissed once more his promised bride. We accompanied him out as far as
the great pear tree. The weather was magnificent, the sky glittering
with stars; not a bird nor a leaf was stirring, all were sleeping in the
valley. And as Merlin pressed my hand I said to him again:
"You will tell your mother, Margredel, to come without fail to-morrow
before noon; Marie-Rose will get you up a good dinner, and we will
celebrate the betrothal together; it is the greatest festival in one's
life; and if Uncle Daniel could also come we should be very glad of it."
"Very well, Father Frederick," he said, and then he walked swiftly away.
We went in again with tears in our eyes. And thinking of my poor
Catherine, I said to myself:
"There are still some pleasant days in life; why is my good, my
excellent wife no longer with us?"
It was the only bitter moment I had during that day.
*VIII*
You understand, George, that after this, all went on well. I had
nothing more to think of but my service. Jean Merlin and his mother
Margredel came to pass every Sunday at our house.
It was autumn, the opening of the season for hunting and fishing; the
time for bird catching and snare setting in the woods, and for fishing
baskets and nets at the river.
The old watchmaker, Baure, of Phalsbourg, arrived, as usual, with his
great fishing rod and his bag for the trout; Lafleche, Vignerol, and
others, with their bird calls and limed twigs; the gentlemen from
Saverne with their dogs and their guns; they whistled, they yelled; they
shot hares and sometimes a deer; then all these people came to take
lunch and refresh themselves at the forester's house; the smell of
frying and of good omelettes, with ham, reached to the garden, and we
turned a penny or two at the house that way.
As you know all these things, I have no need to tell you about them.
But this year we saw also arrive quantities of wood-cutters from the
Palatinate, from Bavaria, and further; great strapping fellows, with
knapsacks on their backs and gaiters with bone buttons on their legs,
who were going to Neiderviller, to Laneville, and to Toul to work at
wood felling. They passed in bands, their vests hanging from the handles
of their axes over their shoulders.
These people emptied their mugs of wine as they passed; they were jolly
fellows, who filled the room with smoke from their big porcelain pipes,
asking questions about everything, laughing and joking like people who
have no trouble about earning their living.
Naturally I was glad to have them stop at our house; that made business
brisk.
I remember at this time a thing which shows the blindness of slow-witted
people who are ignorant of what is going on at twenty leagues from home,
and who trust to the government without thinking of anything; a thing of
which I am ashamed, for we went so far as to laugh at sensible men, who
warned us to be on our guard!
One day our whole house was filled with people from the city and the
environs; some of these strangers among the rest. They were laughing
and drinking, and one of the tall Bavarians, with red whiskers and big
mustaches, who was before the window, cried:
"What a lovely country! What magnificent fir trees! What are those old
ruins up there--and this little wood yonder--and that path to the
right--and that pass to the left, between the rocks? Ah! I have never
seen such a country for fruit trees or fine water courses. It is rich;
it is green. Is there not a steeple behind that little wood? What is
the name of that pretty village?"
I, who was glad to hear this man so enthusiastic over our valley, I told
him about everything in detail.
Baure, Duerr, Vignerol were talking together; they were smoking and
going occasionally to the kitchen to see if the omelette was nearly
ready, without troubling their heads about anything else.
But near the clock sat Captain Rondeau, who had returned home several
months before having retired on a pension, a tall, dry-looking man, with
hollow cheeks, wearing his black overcoat buttoned up to the chin,
suffering from wounds received in Italy, Africa, and the Crimea,
listening without saying anything and drinking a cup of milk because
Doctor Semperlin had forbidden him to take anything else.
This went on for a whole hour, when the Bavarians, having emptied their
mugs, continued their journey. I followed them to the door to show them
the road to Biegelberg; the tall, red-haired man laughed, showing his
teeth with a joyous air; finally he shook hands with me and cried,
"Thanks," as he went to join his band.
While they were taking their leave, Captain Rondeau, leaning on his
cane, was standing in the doorway, and he watched them go off with
glittering eyes and compressed lips.
"Who are those people, Father Frederick?" he said to me. "Do you know
them?"
"Those are Germans, captain," I answered him; "wood-cutters; I do not
know any more about them, except that they are going to Toul, to work
for some contractors there."
"Why do they not employ Frenchmen, these contractors?"
"Ah! because these wood-cutters are cheaper than ours; they work for
half-price."
The captain frowned, and all at once he said:
"Those are spies; people that came to examine the mountain."
"Spies? How is that?" I answered, in astonishment. "What have they to
spy out here? Have they any reason to meddle in our affairs?"
"They are Prussian spies," he said, dryly; "they came to take a look at
our positions."
Then I believed almost that he was joking with me, and I said to him:
"But, Captain Rondeau, all the strong points are set down, and any one
can buy maps of the country at Strasburg, or Nancy, or anywhere."
But, looking at me askance, he exclaimed:
"Maps! maps! And do your maps tell how much hay, and straw, and wheat,
and oats, and wine, and oxen, and horses and wagons can be put into
requisition in each village for an army on the march? Do they tell you
where the mayor lives, or the _cure_, or the postmaster, or the receiver
of contributions, so that one can lay one's hand upon them at any
minute, or where stables can be found to lodge the horses, and a
thousand other things that are useful to know beforehand? Maps, indeed!
Do your maps tell the depth of the streams, or the situation of the
fords? Do they point out to you the guides that are best to take or the
people that must be seized because they might rouse up the populace?"
And as I remained, my arms hanging at my sides, surprised at these
things, of which I had never thought, Father Baure cried from the room:
"Well, captain, who is it that would want to attack us? The Germans?
Ha! ha! ha! Let them come! let them come! We'll give them a warm
reception. Poor devils! I would not like to be in their skins. Ha!
ha! ha! We would settle them! Not one should go out alive from these
mountains."
All the others laughed and cried out: "Yes! yes! let them come! Let
them try it! We'll give them a good reception!"
Then the captain re-entered the room, and, looking at big Fischer, who
was shouting the loudest, he asked of him:
"You would receive them? With what? Do you know what you are talking
about? Where are our troops, our supplies, our arms; where, where,
where, I ask of you? And do you know how many of them there are, these
Germans? Do you know that they are a million of men, exercised,
disciplined, organized, ready to start at two weeks' notice--artillery,
cavalry, infantry? Do you know that? _You_ will receive them!"
"Yes," cried Father Baure, "Phalsbourg, with Bitche, Lichtenberg, and
Schlestadt, would stop them for twenty years."
Captain Rondeau did not even take the trouble to reply, and, pointing
from the window to the wood-cutters that were going away, he said to me:
"Look, Father Frederick, look! Are those men wood-cutters? Do our
wood-cutters march in ranks? do they keep step? do they keep their
shoulders thrown back and their heads straight, and do they obey a chief
who keeps them in order? Do not our wood-cutters and those of the
mountains all have rounded shoulders and a heavy gait? These men are not
even mountaineers; they come from the plains; they are spies. Yes, they
are spies, and I mean to have them arrested."
And, without listening to what might be answered, he threw _sous_ on the
table in payment for his cup of milk, and went out abruptly.
He was scarcely outside the door when all who were present burst out
laughing. I signed to them to be quiet, for that the captain could
still hear them; then they held their sides and snuffled through their
noses, saying:
"What fun! what fun! The Germans coming to attack us!"
Father Baure, while wiping his eyes with his handkerchief, said:
"He is a good fellow; but he got a rap at the Malakoff, and since then
his clock has been out of order, and it always strikes noon at fourteen
o'clock."
The others recommenced laughing, like real madmen, so that I thought,
George, myself, that the captain had not common sense.
All that comes back to me as if it had taken place yesterday, and two or
three days later, having learned that the captain had caused the
wood-cutters to be arrested in a body at the Lutzelbourg station, and
that, their papers being all right, they had obtained authorization to
continue their journey into Lorraine, notwithstanding all the
representations and the observations of M. Rondeau, I believed decidedly
that the worthy man was cracked.
Every time that Baure came to the forester's house he would begin upon
the chapter of the German spies, and made me very merry over it. But
to-day we have ceased laughing, and I am sure that the jokers of
Phalsbourg no longer rub their hands when the _feldwebel_ makes his rod
whistle while calling to the conscripts on the parade ground, "_Gewehr
auf!--Gewehr ab!_" I am sure that this sight has more than once
recalled to them the captain's warning.
*IX*
This took place at the end of the autumn of 1869; the valley was already
filled with mist; then came the winter: the snow began to whirl before
the panes, the fire to crackle in the furnace, and the spinning-wheel of
Marie-Rose to hum from morning till night, to the accompaniment of the
monotonous ticking of the old clock.
I paced to and fro, smoking my pipe, and thinking of my retreat.
Doubtless Marie-Rose thought of it also, and Merlin spoke to me
sometimes about hurrying up the marriage, which annoyed me considerably,
for when I have said my say, I am done, and, since we had agreed to
celebrate the marriage the day of his nomination, I did not see the use
of talking over an affair already decided.
But the young people were in a hurry; the dulness of the season and the
impatience of youth were the causes.
For two months past, Baure, Vignerol, Duerr, and the others came no
more; the trees bent under their load of icicles; no one passed the
house any more, except some rare travellers afar off in the valley. The
history of the captain's spies, which had made me laugh so much, had
entirely gone out of my head, when an extraordinary thing proved to me
clearly that the old soldier had not been wrong in distrusting the
Prussians, and that other people thought of dealing foul blows--people
high in rank, in whom we had placed all our confidence.
That year several herds of wild boars ravaged the country. These
animals scratched up the newly-sown grain; they dug up the ground in the
woods to find roots, and came down every night to tear up the fields
around the farms and the hamlets.
The peasants were never done lamenting and complaining; when, finally,
we heard that Baron Pichard had arrived to organize a general battle. I
received at the same time the order to go and join him, at his
rendezvous of Rothfelz, with the best marksmen of the brigade, as many
of the huntsmen of the neighbourhood as I could get.
It was in December I started with Merlin, big Kern, Donadieu, Trompette,
and fifteen or twenty hunters, and in the evening we found up there all
the baron's guests, filling the rooms of the little hunting lodge, lying
on straw, eating, drinking, and joking as usual.
But you know all about those things, George; you remember also the
hunting lodge at Rothfelz, the cries of the hunters, the barking of the
dogs, and the danger of the guests, who fired in every direction but the
right one, in the lines and out of the lines, always imagining at the
end that they had killed the great beast. As for us guards, we had
always missed. You remember that; it is always the same thing.
What I want to tell you is, that after the hunt, in which some wild
boars and a few young pigs had fallen, they had a grand feast in the
hunting lodge. The carriages of the baron had contained an abundance of
everything: wine, cherry brandy, wheaten bread, pies, sugar, coffee,
cognac; and, naturally, towards midnight, after having run around in the
snow, eaten, drunk, howled and sung, the party of pleasure wore a
dubious aspect.
We were quartered in the kitchen and well supplied with everything, and,
as the door of the dining-room was open, to air the room, we could hear
everything that the guests said, particularly as they shouted at the
tops of their voices, like blind men.
I had noticed among the number a tall, lean fellow, with a hooked nose,
black eyes, a small mustache, a tightly-fitting vest, and muscular legs
in his high leather gaiters, who handled his small gun with singular
skill; I said to myself, "That man, Frederick, is not in the habit of
sitting before a desk and toasting his calves by the fire; he is
certainly a soldier, a superior officer!"
He had been stationed near me in the morning, and I had noticed that his
two shots had not missed their mark. I looked upon him as a real
huntsman, and so he was. He knew also how to drink, for towards
midnight three-fourths of the guests were already fast asleep in all the
corners, and, except himself, Baron Pichard, M. Tubingue, one of the
largest, richest vine-growers in Alsace; M. Jean Claude Ruppert, the
notary, who could drink two days running without changing colour or
saying one word quicker than another; and M. Mouchica, the
wood-merchant, whose custom it is to intoxicate every one with whom he
has any dealings--except these, the other guests, extended on their
bundles of straw, had all left the party.
Then a loud conversation took place; the baron said that the Germans
were sending spies into Alsace, that they had agents everywhere,
disguised as servants or commercial travellers or peddlers; that they
were drawing out maps of the roads, the paths, the forests; that they
even penetrated into our arsenals and sent notes regularly to Germany;
that they had done the same thing in Schleswig-Holstein before
commencing the war, and then in Bohemia, before Sadowa; that they were
not to be trusted, etc.
The notary and M. Mouchica agreed with him that it was a very serious
business, and that our government ought to take measures to stop this
spy system.
Naturally, when we heard that, we listened with all our ears, when the
officer began to laugh, saying that he was more ready to believe what
the baron said because we were doing the same thing in Germany; that we
had engineers in all the fortresses and staff-officers in all their
valleys. And M. Tubingue having said that that was impossible, that no
French officer would behave that way, because of the honour of the army,
he began to laugh still louder, and said:
"But, my dear sir, what is war now? It is an art, a game, an open
contest; they look over each other's hands and each tries to make out
the cards of his adversary. Look at me; I have gone all through the
Palatinate as a commercial traveller; I sold Bordeaux to those good
Germans!"
Then, laughing still more, the gentleman related all that he had seen on
his road, just like what Captain Rondeau had said that the Prussians
were doing here, adding that we were only waiting for an excuse to seize
on the left bank of the Rhine.
When they heard that, my guards began to stamp their feet with delight,
as if their fortune was made; and at once the door was closed, and we
heard nothing more.
I went out into the air, for the stupidity of big Kern, Trompette, and
the others disgusted me.
It was very cold outside; the platform was white with frost and the moon
over the bristling old firs was peeping between the clouds.
"What is the matter, brigadier?" asked Merlin, who had followed me; "you
look pale. Do you feel sick?"
"Yes, the stupidity of Trompette and the others has upset me; I should
like to know what made them stamp," I answered. "And you, too, Merlin;
you surprise me! You think that it is a fine thing to invade the
country of our neighbours; to carry off the wheat, the wine, the hay,
and the straw of poor people, who never did us any harm. You think it
is fine to take their country and to make them French, in spite of
themselves. That is sport. You think that is sport! Would you like to
become a German? Would you like to obey the Prussians and put aside your
country for another? What would it profit us to do such a thing as
that? Would it make us richer to tear out the souls of our neighbours?
Would that leave us with a good conscience? Well, for my part, I would
not, for the honour of our nation, have an ill-gotten _centime_ or inch
of land. I do not want to believe what that gentleman says. If it is
true, so much the worse! Even if we were the strongest to-day, the
Germans, from father to son, would think only of vengeance, of returning
to their rights, of reclaiming their blood. Would the good God be just
to abandon them? There are only beings without hearts and without
religion who are capable of believing it; gamblers, who imagine stupidly
that they will always win. Nevertheless, we see that many gamblers end
their days on a dunghill."
"Father Frederick," said Merlin, "don't be angry with me. I had never
thought of all that; it is true. But you are too angry to return to the
kitchen."
"Yes," I answered, "let us go to sleep; that is better than drinking;
there is still room in the barn."
We did so, and left the next morning at daybreak.
What I have just told you, George, is true; I have always placed justice
above everything, and even now, when I have lost all that I loved best
in the world, I repeat the same thing. I am better pleased in my great
misery to be deprived of the fruit of my labour for thirty years than to
have lost my love of justice.
*X*
After that the winter passed as usual; rain, snow, great blasts of wind
through the leafless trees, uprooted firs, dislodged rocks, covering
with earth the roads and paths at the foot of the slope. That is what I
had seen for twenty-five years past.
Then gradually the spring arrived. The cattle again descended to drink
at the river. Calas began to sing again as he cracked his whip, and the
cock began to flap his wings on the low wall of the poultry-yard, in the
midst of his hens, filling with his clear voice all the echoes of the
valley.
Ah! how all that comes back to me, George, and how beautiful those
things to which I then paid no attention, appear to me now in this
garret into which scarcely a ray of light can penetrate.
It was our last spring at the forest house.
Marie-Rose, every morning, in her short petticoat, with her clean
_fichu_ crossed over her bosom, went into the garden with her basket and
the old earthy knife, to gather the first vegetables. She came and
went, lifting up the bordering of box that edged the little alleys, and
tied up the branches of the rose bushes that had fallen away from their
stakes. I saw in the distance Jean Merlin, advancing at a swift pace
through the meadow path, skirting the old willows; I heard him call out:
"Marie-Rose!"
She instantly rose and hastened to meet him. They kissed each other and
returned laughing, arm in arm. I was pleased and said to myself:
"They love each other dearly. They are good children."
Old grandmother Anne, who was nearly always shut up in her own room, was
looking too, leaning out of the little window surrounded with ivy, with
her eyelids puckered up, her old face wrinkled with satisfaction; she
called me:
"Frederick!"
"What is it, grandmother?"
"I am growing young as at the time of my own marriage. It was the year
of the comet in which they made such good wine before the great Russian
winter; you have heard them talk of that, Frederick; all our soldiers
were frozen."
"Yes, grandmother."
She liked to recall those old stories, and we did not think that we
should soon see the same things.
The good people of Phalsbourg, the poorest, such as father Maigret, old
Paradis, grandfather Lafougere, all of them old soldiers without any
means of subsistence but public charity and their medal of St. Helena,
began to come to look for mushrooms in the woods; they knew all the
different kinds from the small to the large Polish mushroom; they
gathered also strawberries and mulberries. The wood strawberries, which
are the best, sell in the town for two sous a quart, mushrooms for three
sous the small basketful.
The lower meadow, by the river bank, gave them also quantities of salad.
How many times those poor old backs were forced to stoop in order to
earn a _sou_!
And every year we received orders to enforce the forest laws more
severely, to prevent the poor from picking up the dead leaves and beech
nuts, which was as much as to say to "prevent them from living."
Things went on this way till the hay-making season, when came the great
drought; it lasted till the end of July, and we feared for the potatoes.
As to the _plebiscite_, I won't talk to you about that; those things did
not worry us foresters much. One fine morning we received the order to
go to the Petite Pierre, and all the brigade, after assembling at my
house, left together in their holiday clothes to vote; yes, as we had
been ordered to do. Then, stopping at the inn of the Three Pigeons, we
drank a bumper to the Emperor's health, after which every one went home
and never thought of it any more.
The people complained of but one thing at Graufthal, Dosenheim, and
Echbourg, and that was the lack of rain. But in the depths of the
valleys dry weather was always the most beautiful and the richest; we
never lacked moisture; the grass grew in abundance, and all the birds in
Alsace, blackbirds, thrushes, bullfinches, and wood pigeons, with their
young nestlings, enjoyed themselves with us as if in an aviary.
It was also the best time one could wish for fishing, for when the
waters were low all the trout ascended to the springs beneath the rocks,
where one could take them out in one's hand.
You may well believe that there was no lack of fishermen. Marie-Rose
had never before had as many omelettes and fried dishes to prepare. She
superintended everything and answered the compliments made to her upon
her approaching marriage without stopping her work. She looked as fresh
as a rose; merely looking at her, Jean Merlin's eyes grew moist with
tenderness.
Who would have imagined at that time that we were going to have a war
with the Prussians? What interest had we in that? Beside, did not every
one say that the _plebiscite_ had been voted to keep peace? Such an
idea had never entered our heads, when, one July evening, the little
Jew, David, who had been to Dosenheim to buy a calf, said to me as he
passed:
"You have heard the great news, brigadier?"
"No; what is it?"
"Well, the Paris newspapers say that the Emperor is about to declare war
upon the King of Prussia."
I could not believe it, because the wood-merchant Schatner, who had
returned a few days before from Sarrebrueck, had told me that the
country thereabouts was swarming with troops, cavalry, infantry,
artillery, and that even the citizens had their knapsacks, their guns,
and their complete outfits, ticketed and numbered, all arranged in good
order on shelves in large barracks, and that at the first sign of the
_hauptmann_ these people would have nothing to do but to dress
themselves, receive cartridges, get into a railway car, and fall upon
our backs _en masse_. As for us, we had nothing at all, either in our
towns or our villages, so simple good sense made me think that they
would not declare war on these Germans before having put us in a
condition to defend ourselves.
So I shrugged my shoulders when the Jew told me such an absurd thing,
and I said:
"Do you take the Emperor for a fool?"
But he went off, dragging his calf by the rope, and saying:
"Wait a bit, brigadier; you will see--this won't last long."
All that he could say on that score came to the same thing, and when
Jean Merlin came that evening, as usual, it never occurred to me to tell
him about it.
Unfortunately, eight or ten days later, the thing was certain; they were
calling in all soldiers away on leave of absence. It was even stated
that the Bavarians had cut the telegraph wires in Alsace--that
innumerable troops were passing Saverne, and that others were encamped
at Niederbronn.
*XI*
All at once it was rumoured that there had been fighting near
Wissembourg, and that same evening the inhabitants of Neu Willer,
fleeing with their furniture piled on carts to Lutzelstein, told us at
the very door of the house, without daring to come in, that several of
our battalions had been slaughtered; that the general of the vanguard
had been left on the field; that Wissembourg was in flames, and that our
troops were retiring towards Bitche.
These people seemed bewildered with terror; instead of continuing on
their way to Petite Pierre, the idea struck them all at once that it was
not strongly enough fortified, and in spite of the circuit of three
leagues that they had just made, the whole band, men and women, began to
climb the Falberg hill to fly to Strasbourg.
Then desolation reigned among us. Merlin and his mother came to our
house to talk over the bad news. The grandmother lamented. As for me,
I said there was no need to be cast down about it, that the Germans
would never dare to risk themselves in our forests; that they did not
know the roads, and other reasons like that, which did not prevent me
from being very uneasy myself, for all that Captain Rondeau had said to
us one year before came back to me; the wood-cutters that he had caused
to be arrested at Lutzelstein rose before my eyes; and then I was
humiliated to think that the soldiers of Baden and Bavaria had beaten
the French at their first encounter. I knew that they were ten to one,
but that did not lessen my grief.
It was our first bad night. I could not sleep, and I heard Marie-Rose,
in her little side room, get up, open the window, and look out.
All outside was as silent as if nothing had happened; not a leaf was
stirring, so calm was the air; some crickets were chirping on the
ground, which was still warm six hours after sunset, and along the river
the frogs were uttering their long, drawn-out cry.
My inward emotion prevented me from sleeping. About four o'clock Ragot
began to bark down-stairs; some one was knocking at the door, I dressed
myself, and two minutes after, went down to open the door.
A man, the younger Klein-Nickel, of Petite Pierre, brought me an order
from Inspector Laroche to come without delay.
Marie-Rose had come down-stairs. I only waited long enough to snatch a
morsel, and then I left with my gun slung over my shoulder. By seven
o'clock I was at M. Laroche's door, and I went in. The inspector was
seated at his desk writing.
"Ah! it is you, Frederick," he said, laying down his pen, "take a seat.
We have had some pretty bad news; you know that our little body of men
detached for observation has had a misfortune?" "Yes, sir."
"They allowed themselves to be surprised," said he; "but that is
nothing; it will not occur again."
He appeared as tranquil as usual, and said that in every war there were
ups and downs; that a first unfortunate engagement did not signify
anything, but that it was always good to take precautions in view of
more serious events impossible to foresee; consequently, that it was
necessary to tell all the men of my brigade, and those that we were
employing on the forest roads, to be ready to march with their pickaxes,
hatchets, and shovels, at the first order, because it would perhaps be
necessary to blow up the rocks and to cut the roads by means of ditches
and the felling of trees.
"You understand," said he, seeing me rather uneasy, "that these things
are simply measures of forethought, nothing is threatening; Marshal
MacMahon is concentrating his troops near Hagenau; everything is in
movement; there is nothing immediate to fear; but the chief thing is to
be ready in case of need; when everything is ready, we will act rapidly
and surely. I may receive an order from General de Failly to block the
roads, and in such a case the order must be executed within a few
hours."
"It will not take long, sir," I answered; "everywhere the rocks are
leaning over the roads; in falling they would take everything with them
to the bottom of the valley."
"Exactly," said he. "But, first, every one must be warned. We have no
lack of blasting powder; if the order arrives, all my colleagues having
taken the same measures, it will be a day's journey from Bitche to Dabo;
not a cannon, not an ammunition wagon can pass from Alsace to Lorraine."
He said this as he accompanied me to the door, and shook hands with me.
As I was going thoughtfully home, I saw on the height of Altenberg some
soldiers who were planting stockades along the hillside. The greatest
confusion was reigning in the suburbs, people were running from house to
house to get news, two or three companies of infantry were encamped in a
potato-field.
All that day and the next I did nothing but carry the orders of the
inspector from Frohmuehle to Echbourg, from Echbourg to Hangsviller, to
Graufthal, to Metting, etc., telling each of what he would have to do,
the places where we were to meet, the rocks which we were to attack.
On the third day I came home, so worn out that I could not eat nor even
sleep for several hours. However, towards morning I fell into a heavy
sleep, from which I was roused by Marie-Rose coming into my room and
opening the window towards Dosenheim.
"Listen, father," said she, in a trembling voice; "listen to that noise.
What is it? We hear nothing but that in the whole valley."
I listened. It was an endless booming that filled the mountain, and at
times covered the noise of the wind in the trees. It did not take me
long to understand what it meant, and I answered:
"It is cannon. They are fighting seven or eight leagues from here, near
Woerth. It is a great battle."
Marie-Rose instantly ran down-stairs, and after having dressed myself I
followed her into the lower room, where the grandmother was also; her
chin trembled as she looked at me with wide-open eyes.
"It is nothing," I told them; "do not be afraid; whatever happens, the
Germans will never come this far; we have too many good places to defend
our passes."
But I was very far from feeling very confident myself.
The cannonading grew louder, sometimes like the distant rolling of a
storm; then it died away, and we heard nothing more but the rustling of
the leaves, the barking of Ragot before the door, and the quacking of a
duck among the willows by the river. These voices of the solitude, when
one thought of what was going on behind the curtain of the forest, had
something strange about them.
I should have liked to climb the rocks to see at least what was going on
on the other side, in the plain; but as the order to commence operations
might arrive at any minute, I was forced to stay where I was.
This went on till three o'clock in the afternoon.
I walked about, trying to put a brave face on the matter, so as not to
frighten the women. This day, the sixth of August, was very long; even
today, when so many other griefs have overwhelmed us, I cannot think of
it without a heavy heart.
The most terrible moment was, when all at once the dull sound that we
had heard since morning ceased. We listened at the garden window, but
not a breath, not a sound but those from the valley reached us. It was
only after a few minutes that I said:
"It is over. The battle is ended. Now some are running away and the
others are pursuing them. God grant that we have conquered."
And till night not a soul appeared in the neighbourhood. After supper
we went to bed with heavy hearts.
*XII*
The next day was very gloomy; the sky was cloudy, and at length it began
to rain, after the two months' drought; the rain fell heavily and
continuously; the hours passed slowly away, the order to commence
operations did not come, and I said to myself:
"That is a good sign! So much the better! If we had been defeated the
order would have arrived early this morning."
But we had no news, and about three o'clock, losing patience, I said to
Marie-Rose and the grandmother:
"See here, I cannot stand this any longer; I must go to Petite Pierre to
find out what is going on."
I put on my water-proof cape and went out into the pouring rain. On our
sandy soil the water flows off without soaking into the ground. I
arrived at Petite Pierre, where every one was then shut up in the
cottages, about six o'clock. At the point of the fort, high up in air a
sentinel was on guard outside of his watch-box.
A few minutes later I entered the office of the chief inspector. He was
there alone, walking up and down with a bowed back and a gloomy air, and
when I raised my hood he stopped short and said to me:
"It is you, Father Frederick, is it? Have you come to hear the news and
to get your orders?"
"Yes, sir," I replied.
"Well, the news is bad; the battle is lost; we are repulsed from Alsace,
and one hundred and fifty thousand Germans are advancing to enter
Lorraine."
A cold shiver ran down my back, and as he said no more I murmured:
"Everything is ready, sir; there is nothing to do but to distribute the
powder for the mines and to commence felling the trees; we are all ready
and waiting."
Then, smiling bitterly and running his hands through his thick brown
hair, he cried:
"Yes, yes, we are all like that. Time presses; the retreat is
continuing by Bitche and Saverne, the enemy is sending out scouts in all
directions, and the orders do not come."
I answered nothing, and then, seating himself, he cried:
"After all, why should I hide the truth from you? General de Failly has
sent me word that the abattis are useless, and that there is nothing for
us to do."
I was as though rooted to the ground and a cold trembling shook my
limbs. The inspector recommenced his walk with his hands crossed behind
his back under the skirts of his coat, and as he paced to and fro,
without saying another word, I added:
"And now, what are we to do, sir?"
"Remain at your posts like brave fellows," he said. "I have no other
orders to give you."
Something choked me; he saw that, and, looking at me with moistened
eyes, he held out his hand to me, saying:
"Come, Father Frederick, take courage. After all, it is pleasant to be
able to say, a hand upon the heart, 'I am a brave man!' That is _our_
recompense."
And I said, deeply moved:
"Yes, sir, yes, that is all which remains to us, and that will never be
lacking."
He did me the honour to accompany me down the walk to the gate, and
again pressing my hand, he cried:
"Courage! courage!"
Then I set off again, descending the great valley. The rain covered the
pool of the Fromuehle, which was quivering all gray among the willows
and the parched herbage.
As to telling you about the ideas which chased each other through my
head, and how often I passed my hand over my face to wipe away the tears
and the rain which were flowing from it--as to relating to you that,
George, it is not in my power; that would take a wiser man than I; I
felt myself no longer, I did not know myself, and I repeated to myself
in my trouble:
"No orders--it is useless. The general says that it is useless to cut
down the trees and to block up the roads. Then he wants the enemy to
advance and to come through the passes."
And I marched on.
It was dark night when I reached the house. Marie-Rose was waiting for
me, seated by the table; she observed me with an anxious eye, and she
seemed to ask, "What has happened--what orders have we."
But I said nothing, and, throwing my cape, all streaming with rain, on
the back of a chair, and shaking my cap, I cried:
"Go to bed, Marie-Rose, we will not be disturbed to-night; go and sleep
tranquilly; the general at Bitche does not want us to stir. The battle
is lost, but we will have another in Alsace, at Saverne, or farther off,
and the roads are to remain open. We have no need to do anything, the
roads will be well guarded."
I do not know what she thought about it, but at the end of a minute,
seeing that I did not sit down, she said:
"I have kept your soup near the fire, and it is still hot if you would
like something to eat, father."
"Bah! I am not hungry," I answered; "let us go to bed: it is late, and
that is the best thing to do."
I could no longer restrain myself; anger was gaining upon me. I went
out and bolted the door, and then taking the lamp I went up-stairs.
Marie-Rose followed me, and we each went to our own room.
I heard my daughter go to bed, but I remained thinking for a long time,
leaning my elbows on the table and watching the little yellow light
before the black panes where the ivy leaves were shivering in the rain,
winking my eyes and saying to myself:
"Frederick, there are, nevertheless, many asses in the world, and they
do not walk in the rear; they march in front and lead the others."
At last, as the night advanced towards two o'clock, thinking that it was
useless to burn oil for nothing, I undressed and went to bed, blowing
out my lamp.
On that very night of the seventh to the eighth of August, the Germans,
having reconnoitred to a great distance and finding that all the roads
were free, advanced in a body and took possession of the passes, not
only of La Zingel but also of La Zorn, thus investing Phalsbourg, the
bombardment of which was begun two days later.
They passed also into Lorraine by the great tunnel of Homartin, while
our army fell back, by forced marches, upon Nancy, and finally upon
Chalons.
Thus the two great German armies of Woerth and Forbach found themselves
united, and all others were as if swallowed up, cut off from all help
and even from all hope.
You can easily picture to yourself that immense army of Prince
Frederick; Bavarians, Wuertemburgers, Badeners, cavalry, artillery,
infantry, which defied by squadrons and by regiments through our lovely
valley; that torrent of human beings which goes on and on, ever forward,
without interruption during a whole week, and the cannon which thunders
around the place, and the old rocks of the Graufthal which resound with
echoes upon echoes, and then the smoke of the conflagration which arises
to Heaven forming a sombre dome above our valleys.
*XIII*
After the grand passage of the German army and the bombardment of the
city, thousands of _landwehr_ came to occupy the country. These people
filled up all the villages and hamlets; here one company, there two;
further on three or four, commanded by Prussian officers. They guarded
all the roads and paths, they made requisitions of all kinds: bread,
wheat, flour, hay, straw, cattle, nothing came amiss to them; they
amused themselves at the corner of the fire, talked of their wives and
children with an air of tender emotion, pitied the fate of their poor
brothers of Alsace and Lorraine, and sighed over our misery. But all
that did not prevent them from eating and drinking heartily at our
expense, and from stretching themselves out in the old arm-chair of the
grandmother or grandfather, smoking with satisfaction the cigars that we
were obliged to furnish for them! Yes, fine words did not cost them
much. This is what I have often seen at Graufthal, at Echbourg,
Berlinger, Flangeviller, where the desire to learn the news made me go
from time to time, wearing a _blouse_ and carrying a stick.
From the first days of September their governor-general, Bismark Bohlen,
came to establish himself at Hagenau, declaring that Alsace had always
been a German province, and that his Majesty the King of Prussia was
taking possession of his own; that Strasbourg, Bitche, Phalsbourg, Nevy
Brisach were to be considered as cities rebelling against the legitimate
authority of King William, but that they would soon be brought to their
senses by the new bombshells weighing a hundred and fifty pounds.
This, George, was what they said openly with us, and that shows that
these Germans took us for fools, to whom they could tell the most silly
jokes without fear of being laughed at.
Our only consolation was that we lived in the midst of the forest, in
which these brave people did not like to risk themselves; I thanked
Heaven for it every evening. But scarcely was Bismark Bohlen installed
than we saw passing every morning and evening regularly mounted
_gens-d'armes_ in the valley, with their helmets and their great cloaks,
with packets of proclamations, which the mayors were obliged to post up
on the doors of their offices and the churches.
These proclamations promised the kindest of treatment to the faithful
subjects of King William, and threatened with death all those who
assisted the French, whom they called "our enemies!" It was forbidden
to give them bread or even a glass of water in their misfortune, to
serve them as guides, or to hide them in one's house; one must give them
up to be an honest man; you were to be judged by a council of war in
case of disobedience, and the smallest penalty for such an offence was
twenty years of the galleys and thirty-seven thousand francs fine.
By such means Bismark Bohlen could dispense with all other explanations
touching the races, the German fatherland, and the rights of his
Majesty.
Picture to yourself now our solitude, the fear of marauders, whom we
could not have dared to repulse, because they would have presented
themselves in the name of the king. Fortunately that kind of people are
not very courageous; it was rumoured that sharp-shooters, and even
soldiers escaped from Woerth, were prowling round in the neighbourhood,
and that preserved us from visits from that good race which wished us so
much good.
It was also said that the members of the forest guard would be kept,
that the salary of the old guards would even be augmented, and that
several would obtain promotion.
You can understand my indignation when I heard such things said; I had
not forgotten the advice of our good Chief Inspector; I reminded our men
of it at every opportunity:
"We must stay at our posts! Perhaps the luck will not always be against
us. Let every one do his duty till the end. I have no other orders to
give you."
He observed this order himself, staying at Petite Pierre and continuing
to fulfil the duties of his office.
Strasbourg was defending itself; there was fighting going on round Metz.
From time to time I sent Merlin to get the orders from our superiors,
and the answer was always: "Nothing is hopeless. We may be called upon
at any minute. Let every one stay where he is!"
We waited then, and the autumn, always so beautiful in our mountains,
with its russet leaves, its silent forests, where the song of birds was
no longer heard; its meadows newly mown and smooth as a carpet as far as
the eye could reach; the river covered with gladiols and dead leaves,
this great spectacle so calm at all times, was still grander and sadder
than ever in the midst of the terrible events through which we were
passing.
How often then, listening to the endless murmur of the forest, over
which was passing the first cold shiver of the winter, how often have I
said to myself:
"While you are looking, Frederick, at those old woods wherein everything
is sleeping, what is happening down yonder in Champagne? What has
become of that immense army, the cavalry, the infantry, the cannons, all
those thousands of beings going eagerly to destruction for the glory and
interest of a few? Shall we see them driven back in disorder? Will
they remain lying amid the mists of the Meuse, or will they return to
place their heel upon our necks?"
I imagined great battles. The grandmother also was very uneasy; she sat
by the window and said:
"Listen, Frederick, do you hear nothing?"
And I listened; it was only the wind among the dry leaves.
Sometimes, but rarely, the city seemed to awake; so a few cannon shots
thundered amid the echoes from Quatre Vents to Mittelbroun and then all
was silent again. The idea of Metz sustained us; it was from there,
above all, that we hoped to obtain succour.
I have nothing more to tell you about this autumn of 1870; no news, no
visits, and towards the last but little hope.
But I must tell you now about a thing that surprised us a good deal,
that we could not understand, and which unhappily has now become too
clear for us, like many other things.
*XIV*
About two weeks after the establishment of Bismark Bohlen at Hagenau, we
saw arrive one morning in the valley a vehicle similar to those used by
the Germans who were starting for America before the invention of
railroads--a long wagon, loaded with hundreds of old traps, straw beds,
bedsteads, frying-pans, lanterns, etc., with a muddy dog and an unkempt
wife and a horde of scabby children, and the master himself leading his
sorry jade by the bridle.
We looked at them in amazement, thinking, "What does all this mean?
What are these people coming to do among us?"
Under the cover near the pole the woman, already old, yellow, and
wrinkled, her cap put on awry, was picking the heads of the children,
who were swarming in the straw, boys and girls, all light-haired and
chubby and pussy, as potato-eaters always are.
"Wilhelm, will you be quiet?" she said. "Wait till I take a look--wait,
I see something. Good, I have it; you can tumble about now. Wilhelmina,
come put your head upon my knees; each must take their turn; you can
look at the pine trees later."
And the father, a big man, in a bottle-green coat, that had a thousand
wrinkles in the back; his cheeks hanging, his little nose adorned with a
pair of spectacles, his pantaloons tucked into his boots, and a big
porcelain pipe in his mouth, pulled on his miserable horse by the bridle
and said to his wife:
"Herminia, look at those forests, those meadows, this rich Alsace. We
are in the terrestrial paradise."
It was a group resembling the gipsies, and, as Merlin came to see us
that day, we talked of nothing but that the whole evening.
But we were destined to see many more of them, for these strangers, in
old _cabriolets_, basket wagons, _chars-a-banc_, and two or four wheeled
carriages, put into requisition along the road, continued to pass for a
long time. From the first of them, the remembrance of whom has remained
in my mind, the train was never ending; there passed daily three, four,
or five vehicles, loaded with children, old men, young women, and young
girls--the last gotten up in an odd style, with dresses which, it seemed
to me, I remembered having seen some fifteen or twenty years before upon
the ladies of Saverne, and with wide hats, trimmed with paper roses, set
upon their plaits, just three hairs thick, like the _queues_ of our
grandfathers.
These people talked all kinds of German and were hard to understand.
They had also all kinds of faces: some broad and fat, with venerable
beards; others sharp as a knife-blade, and with their old overcoats
buttoned to the throat, to hide their shirts; some with light gray eyes
and stiff, shaggy, red whiskers; others little, round, lively, going,
running, and wriggling about; but all, at the sight of our beautiful
valley, uttering cries of admiration and lifting up their hands, men,
women, and children, as we are told the Jews did on entering into the
Promised Land.
Thus came these people from all parts of Germany; they had taken the
railroads to our frontiers, but all our lines being then occupied by
their troops and their provision and ammunition trains starting from
Wissembourg or from Soreltz, they were forced to travel in wagons, after
the Alsatian fashion.
Sometimes one and sometimes another would ask us the way to Saverne,
Metting, or Lutzelstein; they got down at the spring below the bridge
and drank from one of their pans or from the hollow of their hands.
Every day these passages were repeated, and I cudgelled my brain to find
out what these foreigners were coming to do among us at so troubled a
time, when provisions were so scarce and when we did not know to-day
what we should have to eat the morrow. They never said a word, but went
upon their way, under the protection of the _landwehr_ which filled the
country. We have since learned that they shared in the requisitions--a
fact which permitted them to save money and even to get themselves into
good condition on the road.
George, all these Bohemians of a new species, whose miserable air filled
our hearts with pity, even in the midst of our troubles, were the
functionaries which Germany sent to be our administrators and our
rulers, preceptors, controllers, notaries, schoolmasters, foresters,
etc. They were persons who, from the months of September and October,
long before the treaty of peace was signed, arrived tranquilly to take
the place of our own people, saying to them, without ceremony, "Get out
of there, so that I may get in."
One would have said that it was all agreed upon beforehand, for it
happened so even before the capitulation of Strasburg.
How many poor devils, beer barrels or schnaps drinkers, who had been
whipping the devil around the stump for years and years in all the
little cities of Pomerania, of Brandenburg, and further still, who never
would have become anything at home, and who did not know from whom to
ask for credit at home for rye bread and potatoes--how many such men
fell then upon rich Alsace, that terrestrial paradise, promised to the
Germans by their kings, their professors, and their schoolmasters!
At the time of which I speak they were still modest, notwithstanding the
wonderful victories of their armies; they were not yet sure of
preserving that extraordinary good-fortune to the end, and, comparing
their old tattered coats and their miserable appearance with the easy
fortune of the least of the functionaries of Alsace and of Lorraine,
they doubtless said to themselves:
"It cannot be possible that the Lord should have chosen scamps like us
to fill such good places. What extraordinary merit have we, then, to
play first fiddle in a country such as this, which the French have
occupied for two hundred years, which they have cultivated, planted, and
enriched with workshops and factories and improvements of all kinds?
Provided that they do not return to retake it, and to force us to return
to our schnaps and our potatoes."
Yes, George, with a little common sense and justice, these intruders
must have reasoned thus to themselves; a sort of uneasiness could be
recognised in their eyes and in their smile. But once Strasburg was
taken and Metz given up, and they comfortably installed in large and
fine houses, which they had not built, sleeping in the good beds of
prefects, under-prefects, judges, and other personages, of whom they had
never even had an idea; after having imposed taxes upon the good lands
which they had not sowed, and laid hands upon the registers of all the
administrations, which they had not established, seeing the money, the
good money of rich Alsace, flowing into their coffers--then, George,
they believed themselves to be really presidents of something,
inspectors, controllers, receivers, and the German pride, which they
know so well how to hide with cringing when they are not the
stronger--that brutal pride puffed out their cheeks.
There always remained to them during the time that I was still down
yonder an old remembrance of the Lorempe Strasse and of the Speingler
Volk, where they had formerly lived. That remembrance made them very
economical; two of them would order a mug of beer and pay for it between
them; they disputed about farthings with the shoemaker and the tailor;
they found something to find fault with in every bill, crying out that
we wanted to cheat them; and the poorest cobbler among us would have
been ashamed to display the meanness of these new functionaries, who
promised us so many benefits in the name of the German fatherland, and
who showed us so much avarice and even abominable meanness. But that
only showed us with what race we had now to do.
*XV*
One day, towards the end of October, one of the _gens-d'armes_ of
Bismark Bohlen, who passed every morning through the valley, halted at
the door of the forest house, calling:
"Hillo, somebody!" I went out.
"You are the Brigadier Frederick?" asked the man.
"Yes," I answered, "my name is Frederick, and I am a brigadier
forester."
"All right," said he, holding out a letter; "here is something for you."
Then he trotted off to join his comrade, who was waiting for him a
little farther on. I entered the house. Marie-Rose and the grandmother
were uneasy; they looked on in silence as I opened the letter, saying:
"What can those Prussians want with me?"
It was an order from the Oberfoerster,[#] established at Zornstadt, to
be at his house the next day, with all the foresters of my brigade. I
read the letter aloud and the women were frightened.
[#] Chief Inspector of the forest.
"What are you going to do, father?" asked Marie-Rose, after a pause.
"That is what I am thinking about," I answered; "these Germans have no
right to give me orders, but they are now the strongest; they may turn
us out of doors any day. I must think it over."
I was walking up and down the room, feeling very much worried, when all
at once Jean Merlin passed rapidly before the windows, ascended the
steps and entered.
"Good morning, Marie-Rose," said he, "good morning, grandmother. You
have received the order from the Oberfoerster, brigadier?"
"Yes."
"Ah!" said he, "those people have no confidence in us; all the foresters
have received the same thing. Shall we go?"
"We must see about it," I said; "you must go to Petite Pierre and ask
the advice of our inspector."
The clock was striking eight. Jean started at once; at twelve o'clock
he had already returned to tell us that M. Laroche wished us to see what
the Germans wanted with us, and to send him an account of it as soon as
possible. So it was resolved that we should go.
You must know, George, that since the arrival of the Germans the forests
were robbed by wholesale; all the wood still in cords and piled in the
clearings, vanished, fagot by fagot: the _landwehr_ carried off all that
was within their reach; they liked to sit by a good fire in their
earthworks before the city. The peasants, too, helped themselves
liberally, one might almost say that the property of the State belonged
to the first-comer.
I told my guards without ceasing to watch the culprits closely, that the
wood still belonged to France, and that after the war they would have to
account for it. My district suffered less than the others, because I
continued to make my rounds as heretofore; people always respect those
who do their duty.
So I sent Jean to tell his comrades to meet without fail the next day at
the forest house, wearing their uniform, but without badges, and that we
would go together to Zornstadt.
The next day, when all had assembled, we took up the line of march, and
about one o'clock we arrived in the vestibule of the great house,
wherein the Oberfoerster had installed himself and all his family. It
was a great holiday at Zornstadt for the Prussians. They had just heard
of the capitulation of Bazaine, and they were singing in all the public
houses. The Oberfoerster was giving a banquet. Naturally this ill news
made our hearts very heavy. The other brigades had already met at the
door, headed by the brigadiers, Charles Werner, Jacob Hepp, and
Balthazar Redig.
After having shaken hands, it was decided that we should listen to the
remarks of the Oberfoerster in silence, and that I, as the oldest
brigadier, should speak for all if there was anything to reply. We
still waited for over half an hour, as the banquet was not yet over;
they were laughing and joking, playing the piano and singing "Die Wacht
am Rhein." In spite of their immense vanity, these people had not
expected such great victories, and I think that if we had had other
generals, that, in spite of their preparations and their superiority in
numbers, they would not have had the opportunity to be so merry at our
expense.
At last, about two o'clock, a German in a green felt hat, adorned with
two or three cock feathers, with a joyous air, and cheeks scarlet to the
ears, for he had just left the kitchen, came and opened the door,
saying:
"You may come in."
After traversing a long room, we found the Oberfoerster alone, seated in
an arm-chair at the end of a long table, still covered with dessert and
bottles of all kinds, with a red face, and his hands crossed upon his
stomach with an air of satisfaction. He was a handsome man in his
jacket of green cloth edged with marten fur--yes, George, I will confess
it, a very handsome man, tall, well-made, a square head, short hair,
solid jaws, long red mustaches and side whiskers, that, so to speak,
covered his shoulders. Only his large red nose, covered with flowery
splotches, astonished you at first sight, and forced you to turn away
your eyes out of respect for his rank. He looked at us as we entered,
his little gray eyes screwed up; and when we had all gathered round the
table, cap in hand, after having scrutinized us carefully, he settled
his waistcoat, coughed a little, and said to us, with an air of deep
emotion:
"You are good people. You have all honest German faces; that pleases
me! Your get-up is very good also; I am satisfied with you!"
In the side room the guests were laughing; this forced the Oberfoerster
to interrupt himself:
"Wilhelm, shut the door!" said he to the servant who had let us in. The
waiter obeyed, and the Oberfoerster continued:
"Yes, you have good German faces! When I think that you have been kept
for so many years in the service of that race of boasters, it makes me
angry. But, thanks to the Almighty, and thanks also to the armies of
our glorious King William, the hour of deliverance has arrived, the
reign of Sodom and Gomorrah is over. We will no longer see honest
fathers of families doing their duty with loyalty and exactness, and
preserving the property of his Majesty; we will no longer see such
people living on a salary of five or six hundred francs, while
adventurers, law-breakers, gamblers, people swallowed up in vice, award
themselves forty millions a year to support dancing girls, cooks, and
toadies, and to declare war at random upon pacific neighbours, without
reason, without foresight, without armies, without ammunition, and
without cannon, like real idiots! No, that will never be seen again;
old Germany is opposed to it!"
Then the Oberfoerster, satisfied with what he had just said, filled his
glass in order to refresh his ideas; he drank solemnly, with half-closed
eyes, and continued:
"I have sent for you to confirm you in all your situations; for I
visited the forests, I saw that all was in order; I saw that you were
faithful servants; it is but just that you should remain. And I
announce to you that your salaries are to be doubled; that old servants,
instead of being put on the retired list, shall receive promotion; that
they shall enjoy an honest competency proportionate to their rank;
finally, that the munificence of his Majesty will extend itself to you
all, and in your old age you will bless the happy annexation of this
noble land, Alsace, to the mother country. You will relate some day to
your children and grandchildren the story of this long captivity in
Babylon, during which you suffered so much, and you will also become the
most faithful subjects of his Most Gracious Majesty, the King of
Prussia. This is what I wish! Old functionaries like you, honoured and
respected in the country because of the faithfulness of their services,
exercise always a great influence over the peasantry. You will express
loudly your attachment to our glorious King William, that hearty
attachment which every German feels. Yes, you will take the oath of
allegiance to his Majesty; and as to the rest, as to the augmentation of
your salary, I give you my word as an Oberfoerster that all will be done
according to the promises I have just made you."
While he was talking he did not cease to watch us; behind us were two or
three tall Germans in uniform, who appeared dazzled and touched by his
discourse. But as for us we remained cold, cap in hand; and as I was to
be the spokesman they all looked at me to see what I thought.
You can imagine, George, my silent indignation to see that they called
us good servants, honest people in order to make traitors of us. I felt
my cheeks getting red; I would have liked to be able to answer that only
rascals would have accepted the title of honest men, by forfeiting their
honour; but I held my tongue, not wishing to answer for my comrades,
several of whom had large families; the responsibility seemed too great.
The Oberfoerster having ended, he looked at us fixedly; at me in
particular, and he said:
"Well! you may speak; I authorize you to speak."
Then I answered:
"Sir, as the oldest forester of the three brigades, my comrades have
requested me to speak for them all; but the proposition that you have
just made is serious; I think that every one will ask for time to think
it over."
They all nodded assent; and he, who was really astonished, for he had
doubtless thought that the augmentation of the salaries would decide
everything, remained for over a minute with his eyes wide open, staring
at me as if I were something extraordinary; then he did as much for the
others, and, frowning, he said gruffly:
"I give you twenty-four hours! To-morrow at this time I want to have
your written reply, signed by each of you; yes or no! Do not think that
there is any lack of men, there are plenty in Germany, good people, old
foresters, who know the service as well as the smartest of you, who
would ask nothing better than to come into this rich Alsace, where
everything grows so abundantly, to live in comfortable houses in the
midst of magnificent forests, having nothing to do but to take a little
turn in the neighbourhood morning and evening, to draw up a report, and
to receive for that twelve or fifteen hundred francs a year, with the
garden, the strip of meadow, the pasture for the cow, and all the rest
of it. No, do not think that! Hundreds are waiting impatiently till we
tell them to come. And weigh well your answer; think of your wives and
your children; beware of having to repent bitterly if you say no!
France is completely ruined, she is penniless; the wretched forests that
are left her in Brittany and the Landes are nothing but broom-sticks;
the guards of these thickets will retain their places, and you will
never get other situations. You are Germans. The French used you and
despised you; they called you blockheads! Think over all this; it is the
advice of an honest man that I give you, of a German brother and the
father of a family!"
He looked at me, thinking that I was going to say something; but I
compressed my lips, and I felt as if little puffs of cold wind were
passing over my forehead. All my companions were also silent. At one
side behind the door some one was playing on the piano, and a woman was
singing a sweet and melancholy little song.
"Twenty-four hours," he repeated, rising; "not another minute." And,
throwing his napkin on the table angrily, he added:
"Remember, too, that those who wish to answer no can pack up at once;
the highway is open to them. We will never keep enemies among
us--dangerous persons--that would be too stupid. We are not Frenchmen."
So he entered the next room, while we went out by the vestibule.
What the Oberfoerster had said to us, "that we would have a hard time
getting situations in France, and that the Germans would force us to be
off without mercy," was terrible; the most courageous hung their heads.
Some of them, very pale, were thinking of going to the Fir Tree Inn to
deliberate; they wanted, above all, to know my opinion; but I said,
stopping before the door of the inn:
"From this time, comrades, let us economize all the little money that we
have; five sous for a glass of wine is always five sous. We shall
probably have to break up housekeeping, and at these unhappy times
everything is dear; travelling costs money when we take women, children,
and old men with us."
Big Kern insisted upon knowing what I thought; several of them gathered
around me, so I finally said:
"See here, for what concerns myself I know what I ought to do; but at
such a moment as this every one should be free to follow his own
conscience; I shall give no advice to any one."
And seeing poor Jacob Hepp, the father of six small children, standing
with drooping head, hanging arms, and cast-down eyes, I said:
"Come! Let us shake hands all round once more--for the last time,
perhaps! May the old recollections of friendship follow us wherever
Heaven may conduct us."
Several of us kissed each other, and at that place we parted.
*XVI*
Jean Merlin and I took the road to Felsberg alone; I do not know what
the others did, whether they entered the inn or returned to their homes.
As for us, so many ideas were passing through our heads that we walked
on for a long while without saying a word.
On leaving Zornstadt, we ascended the hill of Bruyeres till we reached
the plateau of Graufthal, and suddenly the sun pierced the clouds and
shone upon the woods. The sun was very brilliant, and showed us through
the leafless trees in the depths of the valley the pretty cottage in
which I had passed so many happy days since Father Burat had given me
his daughter in marriage.
I stopped short. Jean, who was following me along the path, also
halted; and, leaning on our sticks, we looked for a long time as if in a
dream. All the by-gone days seemed to pass before my eyes.
The little cottage, on this clear, cold day, looked as if it were
painted on the hillside, in the midst of the tall fir trees; its roof of
gray shingles, its chimney, from which curled a little smoke, its
windows, where in summer Marie-Rose placed her pots of pinks and
mignonette, the trellis, over which climbed the ivy, the shed and its
worm-eaten pillars--all were there before me, one might have thought it
possible to touch them.
When I saw that I said to myself:
"Look, Frederick, look at this quiet corner of the world, wherein thy
youth has passed, and from which thou must go away gray-headed, without
knowing where to turn; that humble dwelling wherein thy dear wife
Catherine gave thee several children, some of whom lie beside her in the
earth at Dosenheim. Look! and remember how calmly thy life has glided
away in the midst of worthy people who called thee good son, kind
father, and honest man, and prayed God to load thee with blessings.
What good does it do thee now to have been a good father and a dutiful
son, to have always done thy duly honestly, since they drive thee away,
and not a soul can intercede for thee? The Germans are the strongest,
and strength is worth more than the right established by God himself."
I trembled at having dared to raise my reproaches to the Almighty, but
my grief was too deep, and the iniquity appeared to me to be too great.
May Heaven forgive me for having doubted of His goodness.
As to the rest my resolution was taken; I would rather a thousand times
have died than have committed so base an action. And, looking at
Merlin, who was leaning gloomily against a birch tree near me, I said:
"I am looking at my old abode for the last time; to-morrow the
Oberfoerster will receive my answer, and day after to-morrow the
furniture will be piled upon the cart. Tell me now what do you mean to
do?"
Then he flushed scarlet and said: "Oh! Father Frederick, can you ask me
that? You pain me by doing so. Do you not know what I will do? I will
do like you; there are not two ways of being an honest man."
"That is right--I knew it," I said; "but I am very glad to have heard
you say so. Everything must be clear between us. We are not like
Germans, who chase the devil round the stump, and think that everything
is right, provided it succeeds. Come, let us walk on, Jean, and keep up
your courage."
*XVII*
We began to descend the hill, and I confess to you, George, that when I
approached the house and thought of how I should have to announce the
terrible news to my daughter and the grandmother, my legs trembled under
me.
At last we reached the threshold. Jean entered first; I followed him
and closed the door. It was about four o'clock. Marie-Rose was peeling
potatoes for supper, and the grandmother, seated in her arm-chair by the
stove, was listening to the crackling of the fire, as she had done for
years past.
Imagine our position. How could we manage to tell them that the Germans
were going to turn us out of doors? But the poor women had only to look
at us to understand that something very serious had happened.
After having put my stick in the corner by the clock, and hung my cap on
the nail, I walked up and down the room several times; then, as I had to
commence somehow, I began to relate in detail the propositions that the
Oberfoerster had made to us to enter the service of the King of Prussia.
I did not hurry myself; I told everything clearly, without adding or
suppressing anything, wishing that the poor creatures might also have
the liberty of choosing between poverty and shame.
I was sure that they would choose poverty. Marie-Rose, deadly pale,
lifted her hands to Heaven, murmuring:
"My God! is it possible? Do such rascals exist in the world? Ah! I
would rather die than join such a company of wretches!"
It pleased me to see that my daughter had a brave heart, and Jean Merlin
was so touched that I saw his lip quiver.
The grandmother seemed to wake up like a snail in its shell; her chin
trembled, her dull eyes sparkled with anger; I was surprised at it
myself. And when I went on to say that the Oberfoerster, if we refused
to serve Prussia, gave us twenty-four hours to leave our home, her
indignation burst forth all at once.
"To quit the house?" said she, lifting her bent form, "but this house is
mine! I was born in this house more than eighty years ago, and I have
never left it. It was my grandfather, Laurent Duchene, who first lived
here, more than a hundred and thirty years ago, and who planted the
fruit trees on the hill; it was my father, Jacquemin, who first marked
out the road to Dosenheim and the paths of Toementhal; it was my
husband, George Burat, and my son-in-law Frederick here, who sowed the
first seeds of the beech trees and firs, whose forests now extend over
the two valleys; and all of us, from father to son, we have lived
quietly in this house; we have earned it; we have surrounded the garden
with hedges and palisades; every tree in the orchard belongs to us; we
saved up money to buy the meadows, to build the barn and the stables.
Drive us away from this house? Ah! the wretches! Those are German
ideas! Well, let them come! I, Anne Burat, will have something to say
to them!"
I could not calm the poor old grandmother; all that she said was just;
but with people who believe that strength is everything, and that shame
and injustice are nothing, what is the use of talking so much?
When she sat down again, all out of breath, I asked her, in a very sad
but firm voice:
"Grandmother, do you wish me to accept service with the Germans?"
"No!" said she.
"Then within forty-eight hours we must all leave together this old
house."
"Never!" she cried. "I will not!"
"And I tell you it must be," said I, with an aching heart. "I _will_
have it so."
"Ah!" she cried, with painful surprise.
And I continued, with anguish:
"You know, grandmother, that I have always had the greatest respect for
you. May those Germans be a thousand times accursed for having forced
me to be disrespectful to you; I hate them still more for it, if
possible! But do you not understand, grandmother, that those brutes are
without shame, without honour, without pity even for old age, and if
they encountered the slightest resistance they would drag you out by
your gray hair? You are weak and they are strong, and that is enough for
them! Do you not understand that if I saw such a spectacle I would
throw myself upon them, even if they were a regiment, and that they
would kill me? Then what would become of you and my daughter? That is
what we must think of, grandmother. Forgive me for having spoken so
harshly to you, but I do not wish for a minute's grace, nor, I am sure,
do you; beside, they would not let us have it, for they are pitiless
people!"
She burst into tears and sobbed out:
"Oh! my God! my God! to have to leave this house, where I hoped to see
my grand-daughter happy and to nurse my great-grandchildren! My God! why
did you not call me away sooner?"
She wept so bitterly that it touched our hearts, and all of us, with
bowed heads, felt the tears trickle down our checks. How many
recollections came to us all! But the poor grandmother had more than
any of us, having never quitted the valley for so many years, except to
go two or three times a year to market at Saverne or Phalsbourg; those
were her longest journeys.
*XVIII*
At last the blow was struck. Cruel necessity, George, had spoken by my
lips; the women had understood that we must go away, perhaps never to
return; that nothing could prevent this fearful misfortune.
That was done; but another duty, still more painful, remained to fulfil.
When the lamentations had ceased, and we were meditating, mute and
overwhelmed, raising up my voice anew, I said:
"Jean Merlin, you asked me last summer for my daughter in marriage, and
I accepted you to be my son, because I knew you, I liked you, and I
esteemed you as much as the greatest man in the country. So it was
settled; our promises had been given, we wanted nothing more! But then
I was a brigadier forester, I was about to receive my pension, and my
post was promised to you. Without being rich, I had a little property;
my daughter might be considered a good match. Now I am nobody any more;
to tell the truth, I am even a poor man. The old furniture I possess
suits this house; if it were taken with us it would be in the way; the
meadow, for which I paid fifteen hundred francs from my savings, also
because it was convenient to the forest house, will be worth little more
than half when it has to be sold over again. Beside, perhaps the
Germans will declare that all real estate belongs to them. It depends
only upon themselves, since the strongest are always in the right! You,
too, will find yourself without a situation; you will be obliged to
support your old mother. The maintenance of a wife in the midst of all
this poverty may appear very troublesome. Therefore, Jean, my honour
and that of my daughter oblige me to release you from your promise.
Things are no longer as they were; Marie-Rose has nothing, and I can
understand that an honest man, on such a grave situation, might change
his mind."
Merlin turned pale as he listened to me, and he answered, in a gruff
voice:
"I asked for Marie-Rose for her own sake, Father Frederick, because I
loved her, and she also loved me. I did not ask for her for the sake of
your place, nor yet for the sake of the money she might have; if I had
thought of such a thing, I would have been a scoundrel. And now I love
her more than ever, for I have seen that she has a noble heart, which is
above everything."
And, rising and opening his arms, he cried: "Marie-Rose!"
Scarcely had he called her, when she turned, her face bathed in tears,
and threw herself into his arms. They remained clasped in a close
embrace for some time, and I thought to myself:
"All is well; my daughter is in the hands of an honest man; that is my
greatest consolation in the midst of all my misfortunes."
After that, George, in spite of our grief, we grew calm again. Merlin
and I agreed that he would go the next day to carry our answer to
Zornstadt: "No, Oberfoerster, we will not enter the service of the King
of Prussia!" I wrote my letter at once and he put it in his pocket.
It was also agreed that I should go early to Graufthal, and try to find
lodgings for ourselves, wherein we could place our furniture. The three
first-floor rooms belonging to Father Ykel, the host of the Cup Inn, had
been empty ever since the invasion, as not a traveller came to the
country. There must certainly be room in his stable, too; so I hoped to
hire them cheap.
As to Merlin, he had still to tell his mother, and he said to us that
she would go to Felsberg, where Uncle Daniel would be very glad to
receive her. The old schoolmaster and his sister had kept house
together for a long time, and it was only after Jean Merlin's
installation in the forester's house at Toementhal that he had taken his
mother to live with him. Good old Margredel had nothing to do but to
return to the village, where her little house was waiting for her. So
our final resolutions were taken.
Jean also took upon himself to go and tell M. Laroche of what had
occurred, and to say also that I would come and see him after our
flitting. Then he kissed Marie-Rose, said a few encouraging words to
the grandmother, and went out. I went with him as far as the threshold
and shook hands. The night had come; it was freezing cold; every blade
of grass in the valley was sparkling with frost, and the sky was
glittering with stars. What weather in which to leave our home and to
seek another shelter!
As I returned to the room, I saw poor Calas empty the saucepan of
potatoes on the table and place the two pots of clotted milk beside the
salad-bowl, looking at us with an amazed air; no one stirred.
"Sit down, Calas," I said; "eat alone; none of us are hungry this
evening."
So he sat down and began to peel his potatoes; having cleaned out the
stable and given forage to the cattle, he had done his duty and his
conscience was easy.
Happy are those who cannot see the morrow, and whom the Almighty only
governs, without kings, without emperors, and without ministers. They
have not one-quarter of our sorrows. The squirrel, the hare, the fox,
all the animals of the woods and the plains, receive their new fur at
the beginning of winter; the birds of the air receive finer down; those
who cannot live in the snow, for lack of insects to feed them, have
strong wings, that enable them to seek a warmer climate.
It is only man who receives nothing! Neither his labour, nor his
foresight, nor his courage can preserve him from misfortune; his fellow
beings are often his worst enemies and his old age is often the extreme
of misery. Such is our share of existence.
Some people would like to change these things, but no one has the
courage and the good sense which are necessary.
Finally, at nightfall we separated, to think over, each alone in his
corner, the terrible blow that had overwhelmed us.
*XIX*
On the following day, which was the first of November, at dawn, I set
out for Graufthal. I had put on my blouse, my thick shoes, and my felt
hat. The trees along the roadside were bending under their covering of
frost; occasionally a blackbird or a thrush would rise from under the
white brushwood, uttering its cry, as if to bid me farewell. I have
often thought of it since; I was on the path of exile, George; it was
only beginning, and extended very far.
Towards seven o'clock I arrived under the large rocks, where the most
wretched huts in the village were situated--the others were built along
the banks of the river--and I stopped before that of Father Ykel. I
went through the kitchen into the smoky little parlour of the inn.
Nothing was stirring; I thought I was alone and I was about to call,
when I saw Ykel, sitting behind the stove, his short black pipe, with a
copper cover, between his teeth, and his cotton cap pushed over one ear;
he did not move, as he had had, a few weeks before, an attack of
rheumatism, brought on by his long fishing excursions among the mountain
streams, and also at night by torchlight, amid the mists.
The valley had never known such a fisher; he sold crawfish and trout to
the great hotels of Strasbourg. Unhappily, as we all have to pay for
our imprudences, sooner or later, he had been attacked by the
rheumatism, and now all he could do was to sit and think about the best
places in the river and the great hauls he used to make.
When I discovered him, his little green eyes were already fixed upon me.
"Is it you, Father Frederick?" he said. "What is your business here
among these rascals who are robbing us? If I were you, I would stay
quietly in the forest; the wolves are much better neighbours."
"We cannot always do as we like," I answered. "Are your three upper
rooms still empty, and have you room enough in your stable for two
cows?"
"Haven't I, though!" he cried. "The Prussians have made room! They
have taken everything--straw, hay, oats, flour, and the cattle. Ah!
room; I guess so; from the garret to the cellar, we have plenty; it will
not run out for a long time!"
And he uttered a harsh laugh, gnashing his old teeth and muttering:
"Oh! the wretches! God grant that we may one day have the upper hand; I
would go there on crutches, in spite of my rheumatism, to get back what
they took from me!"
"Then," said I, "the rooms are empty?"
"Yes, and the stable, too, with the hayloft. But why do you ask me
that?"
"Because I have come to hire them."
"You!" cried he, in amazement. "Then you are not going to stay at the
forest house?"
"No, the Prussians have turned me out."
"Turned you out! And why?"
"Because I did not choose to serve under the Germans."
Then Ykel appeared touched; his long hooked nose curved itself over his
mouth, and, in a grave voice, he said:
"I always thought you were an honest man. You were a little severe in
the service, but you were always just; no one has ever been able to say
anything to the contrary."
Then he called:
"Katel! Katel!"
And his daughter, who had just lighted the fire on the hearth, entered.
"Look here, Katel," said he, pointing to me; "here is Father Frederick,
whom the Prussians have turned out of his house, with his daughter and
grandmother, because he will not join their band. That is a thousand
times worse than the requisitions; it is enough to make one's hair stand
on end."
His daughter also sided with us, crying that the heavens ought to fall
to crush such rascals. She took me up-stairs, climbing the ladder-like
stairs to show me the rooms that I wished to hire.
You cannot imagine anything more wretched; you could touch the beams of
the ceiling with your hand; the narrow windows, with lead-framed
casements, in the shadow of the rocks, gave scarcely a ray of light.
How different from our pretty cottage, so well lighted, on the slope of
the hill! Yes, it was very gloomy, but we had no choice; we had to
lodge somewhere.
I told Katel to make a small fire in the large room, so as to drive away
the damp; then, going down-stairs again. Father Ykel and I agreed that
I should have the first floor of his house, two places in the stable for
my cows, the little hayloft above, with a pig-sty, one corner of the
cellar for my potatoes, and half the shed, where I intended to put the
furniture that would not go into the rooms, at a rent of eight francs a
month--a pretty large sum at a time when no one was making a _centime_.
Two or three neighbours, the big coal man, Starck, and his wife; Sophie,
the basket-maker; Koffel, and Hulot, the old smuggler, were then
arriving at the inn, to take their glass of brandy, as usual. Ykel told
them of the new abominations of the Germans; and they were disgusted at
them. Starck offered to come with his cart and horses to help me to
move, and I accepted, thankfully.
Things were settled that way; Starck promised me again to come without
fail before noon; after which I took the road towards home. It had
begun to snow; not a soul before or behind me was on the path, and,
about nine o'clock, I was stamping my feet in the entry to get off the
snow. Marie-Rose was there. I told her briefly that I had engaged our
lodgings, that she must prepare the grandmother to leave very soon, to
empty the contents of the cupboards into baskets, and to take the
furniture to pieces. I called Calas to help me and went to work at
once, scarcely taking time enough to breakfast. The hammer resounded
through the house; we heard the grand-mother sobbing in the smaller room
and Marie-Rose trying to console her.
It all seems to come back to me. It was terrible to hear the
lamentations of the poor old woman, to hear her complain of the fate
that overwhelmed her in her old age, and then to call on her husband for
aid, good Father Burat, who had died ten years before, and all the old
people, whose bones lay in the cemetery at Dosenheim. It makes me
shudder when I think of it, and the kind words of my daughter come back
to me and touch my heart anew.
The hammer did its work; the furniture, the little looking-glass by
Catherine's bed--my poor dead wife--the portraits of the grandfather and
grandmother, painted by Ricard, the same who painted the beautiful signs
in the time of Charles X; the two holy-water vessels and the old
crucifix, from the back of the alcove; the chest of drawers belonging to
Marie-Rose, and the large walnut-wood wardrobe that had come down to us
from great-grandfather Duchene; all those old things that reminded us of
people long dead, and of our quiet, peaceful life, and which, for many
years, had had their places, so that we could find them by groping in
the darkest night; everything was taken away; it was, so to speak, our
existence that we had to undo with our own hands!
And Ragot, who came and went, all astonished at the confusion; Calas,
who kept asking, "What have we done, to be obliged to run away like
thieves?" And the rest!--for I do not remember it at all, George! I
would even like to forget it all, and never to have begun this story of
the shame of humanity and the humiliation of that sort of Christians who
reduce their fellow creatures to utter misery, because they will not
kneel before their pride. However, since we have begun it, let us go on
to the end.
All that was nothing as yet. It was when big Starck came, and the
furniture was loaded on his wagon, we had at last to tell the
grandmother to leave her little room, and when, seeing all that
desolation in the road, she fell on her face, crying:
"Frederick, Frederick, kill me! let me die, but do not take me away!
Let me, at least, sleep quietly under the snow in our little garden!"
Then, George, I wished that I were dead myself. The blood seemed
curdling in my veins. And now, after four years, I would be puzzled to
tell you how the grandmother found herself placed in the cart, in the
midst of the mattresses and straw beds, under the thousands of
snow-flakes that were falling from the sky.
*XX*
The snow, which had continued to fall since morning, was by this time
quite deep. The great wagon went slowly on its way, Starck, in front,
pulling his nags by the bridle, swearing, and forcing them to advance by
blows; Calas, farther on, was driving along the pigs and cows; Ragot was
helping him; Marie-Rose and I followed, with drooping heads; and behind
us the cottage, all white with snow, among the firs, was gradually
vanishing in the distance.
We had still our potatoes, wood, and fodder to take away the next day,
so I closed the door and put the key in my pocket before leaving.
At nightfall we arrived before Ykel's house. I took the grandmother in
my arms, like a child, and carried her up-stairs to her room, where
Katel had kindled a bright fire. Marie-Rose and Katel kissed each
other; they had been schoolmates and had been confirmed together at
Felsberg. Katel burst into tears. Marie-Rose, who was deadly pale,
said nothing. They went up-stairs together, and, while Starck and Calas
and two or three of the neighbours were unloading the furniture and
putting it under the shed, I went into the parlour, to sit down for a
few minutes behind the stove and to take a glass of wine, for I could
not stand it any longer; I was exhausted.
Our first night at Graufthal, in that loft, through which poured the
draught from the garret, is the saddest that I can remember; the stove
smoked, the grandmother coughed in her bed; Marie-Rose, in spite of the
cold, got up to give her a drink; the little window-panes rattled at
every blast of the wind, and the snow drifted in upon the floor.
Ah! yes, we suffered terribly that first night! And, not being able to
close my eyes, I said to myself:
"It will be impossible to live here! We should all be dead in less than
two weeks. We must positively go somewhere else. But where shall we
go? What road can we take?"
All the villages of Alsace and Lorraine were filled with Germans, the
roads were crowded with cannon and convoys; not a hut, not even a stable
was free.
These ideas almost made my hair turn gray; I wished that I had broken my
neck in coming down the steps of the forest house, and I wished the same
thing for the grandmother and my daughter.
Happily, Jean Merlin arrived early the next morning. He had taken our
answer to the Oberfoerster, he had moved his furniture to Felsberg, and
old Margredel, his mother, was already sitting quietly beside the fire
at Uncle Daniel's house.
He told us that with a good-humoured air, after having kissed Marie-Rose
and said good-morning to the grandmother.
Only to see how his confidence had already lightened my heart; and when
I complained of the cold, the smoke, and of our bad night, he cried:
"Yes! I understand all that, brigadier; I thought as much; so I hurried
to come here. It is very hard to leave your old ways and come to live
among strangers at your age; that paralyzes one's arm. Such occasions
change one's ideas. Here is the key of my cottage and the book of
estimations; you have also your register and the stamping hammer. Well,
do you know what I would do in your place? I would take everything to
our chief inspector, because the Oberfoerster of Zornstadt might ask you
for them and force you to give them up. When they are deposited with M.
Laroche no one will have anything more to say to you. While you are
away Marie-Rose will wash the windows and the floor; Calas will go with
Starck to get the wood, the fodder, and the potatoes, and I will
undertake to arrange the furniture and to put everything in order."
He spoke with so much good sense that I followed his advice. We went
down into the large room, and though it is not my habit, we took a good
glass of brandy together; after which I set out, the register under my
blouse, the hammer in my pocket, and a stout stick in my hand. It was
my last journey through the country on affairs connected with the
service. The pool of Frohmithle was frozen over; the flour-mill and the
saw-mill lower down had ceased to go. No one, since the day before, had
followed my path; all seemed desolate; for three hours I did not see a
soul.
Then, remembering the smoke from the charcoal kilns, the sound of the
wood-cutters' hatchets working in the clearings, lopping the trees,
piling up the fagots beside the forest paths, even in mid-winter, all
that formerly gay life, that profit that gave food and happiness to the
smallest hamlets, I said to myself that the robbers, who were capable of
troubling such order to appropriate wrongfully the fruit of the labour
of others, ought to be hanged.
And from time to time, in the midst of the silence, seeing a
sparrow-hawk pass on his large wings, his claws drawn up under his
stomach and uttering his war cry, I thought:
"That is like the Prussians! They have got the Germans in their claws;
they have given them officers who will cudgel them; instead of working,
those people are forced to spend their last penny in the war, and the
others have always their beaks and claws in their flesh; they pluck them
leisurely, without their being able to defend themselves. Woe to us all!
The noble Prussians will devour us; and the Badeners, the Bavarians, the
Wuertembergers, and the Hessians with us!"
Those melancholy ideas, and many others of the same kind, passed through
my mind. About ten o'clock I ascended the stairs of the old fort,
abandoned since the beginning of the war; then descending the Rue du
Faubourg, I entered the house of the chief inspector. But the office
door in the vestibule at the left was closed; I rang and tried to open
the door, but no one came. I was going out to ask one of the neighbours
what had become of M. Laroche, and whether he had been obliged to go
away, when an upper door opened, and the chief inspector himself
appeared on the stairs in his dressing-gown.
*XXI*
"Who is there?" said M. Laroche, not recognising me at first under my
broad-brimmed felt hat.
"It is I, sir," I answered.
"Ah! it is you, Father Frederick!" said he, quite rejoiced. "Well, come
up stairs. All my household has departed, I am here alone; they bring
me my meals from the Grapes Inn. Come in, come in!"
We went into a very neat little room on the first floor; a large fire
was burning in the stove. And, pushing forward an arm-chair for me:
"Take this chair, Father Frederick," said he, seating himself beside a
small table covered with books. So I sat down, and we began to talk
over our affairs. I told him about our visit to the Oberfoerster; he
knew all about that and a good many other things beside.
"I am glad to find," said he, "that all our guards, except poor Hepp,
the father of six children, have done their duty. With regard to you,
Father Frederick, I never had the least doubt about either your
son-in-law or yourself."
Then he inquired about our position; and, taking the register and the
hammer, he put them in a closet, saying that his papers were already
gone, that he would send these after them. He asked me if we were not
in pressing need. I answered that I had still three hundred francs,
that I had saved to buy a strip of meadow, beside the orchard, that that
would doubtless be sufficient.
"So much the better!" said he. "You know, Father Frederick, that my
purse is at your service; it is not very full just now; every one has to
economize their resources, for Heaven only knows how long this campaign
may last; but if you want some money----"
I thanked him again. We talked together like real friends. He even
asked me to take a cigar from his box; but I thanked him and refused.
Then he asked me if I had a pipe, and told me to light it. I tell you
this to make you understand what a fine man our chief inspector was.
I remember that he told me after that that all was not yet over; that
doubtless our regular army had surrendered _en masse_; that all our
officers, marshals, generals, even the simple corporals had fallen into
the power of the enemy, a thing that had never been seen before since
the beginning of the history of France, or in that of any other nation;
that pained him, and even if I may say so made him indignant. He had
tears in his eyes like myself.
But after that, he said that Paris held good, that the great people of
Paris had never shown so much courage and patriotism; he added that a
large and solid army, though composed of young men, had been formed near
Orleans, and that great things were expected from it; that the republic
had been proclaimed after Sedan as the peasants go for a doctor when the
patient is dying, and that, however, this republic had had the courage
to take upon itself the burden of all the disasters, dangers that it had
not caused, while those who had drawn us into the war withdrew to a
foreign country. That a very energetic man, Gambetta, a member of the
provisory government, was at the head of this great movement; that he
was calling around him all the Frenchmen in a condition to bear arms,
without distinction of opinions, and that if the campaign lasted a few
months longer the Germans could not hold out; that all the heads of the
families being enlisted, their estates, their workshops, their
improvements were neglected. No ploughing or sowing were done, and that
the women and children, the entire population, were dying of terrible
starvation.
We have since seen, George, that those things were true; all the letters
that we found on the _landwehr_ told of the terrible poverty in Germany.
So what M. Laroche told me filled me with hope. He promised also to
have my pension paid to me as soon as it would be possible, and about
one o'clock I left him, full of confidence. He shook hands with me and
called out from the door:
"Keep up a good heart, Father Frederick; we will have happy days yet."
After I left him I felt like another man, and I walked leisurely back to
Graufthal, where a most agreeable surprise awaited me.
*XXII*
Jean Merlin had put everything in order. The cracks in the roof and in
the doors and windows were stopped up; the floor was washed, the
furniture placed and the pictures hung, as much as possible as they were
at the forest house. It was bitterly cold outside; our stove, which
Jean had put up and blackleaded, drew like a forge bellows, and the
grandmother, sitting beside it in her old arm-chair, was listening to
the crackling of the fire, and looking at the flame which was lighting
up the room. Marie-Rose, with her sleeves rolled up, seemed delighted
at my satisfaction; Jean Merlin, his pipe in his mouth and screwing up
his eyes, looked at me as if to say:
"Well, Papa Frederick, what do you think of this? Is it cold now in
this room? Is not everything clean, shining and in good order?
Marie-Rose and I did all that?"
And when I saw all that I said to them:
"All right. The grandmother is warm. Now I see that we can stay here.
You are good children!"
That pleased them very much. They set the table. Marie-Rose had made a
good soup of cabbages and bacon, for as the Germans took all the fresh
meat for their own use we were very glad to get even smoked meat;
fortunately potatoes, cabbages, and turnips did not run out and they
formed our principal resource.
That evening we all took supper together; and during the repast I
related in all its details what the chief inspector had told me about
the affairs of the republic. It was the first positive news we had had
from France for a long time; so you may guess how eagerly they all
listened to me. Jean's eyes sparkled when I spoke of approaching
battles near the Loire.
"Ah!" said he, "they call the French the old soldiers. Indeed! they
defend their country, then!"
And I cried, full of enthusiasm:
"Of course, they will defend their country! You had better believe it!
The chief inspector says that if it lasts for a few months the others
will have enough of it."
Then he twirled his mustache, seemed almost to speak; but then looking
at Marie-Rose, who was listening to us with her usual quiet aspect, he
went on eating, saying:
"Anyhow, you give me great pleasure by telling me that, Father
Frederick; yes, it is famous news."
At last, about eight o'clock, he went away, announcing that he would be
back on the morrow or the day after, and we went quietly to bed.
This night was as comfortable as the night before had been cold and
disagreeable; we slept soundly in spite of the frost outside.
I had recovered from my sorrow; I thought that we could live at
Graufthal till the end of the war.
*XXIII*
Once withdrawn under the rocks of Graufthal, I hoped that the Germans
would let us alone. What else could they ask from us? We had given up
everything; we lived in the most wretched village in the country, in the
midst of the forest; their squads came very seldom into this corner,
whose inhabitants were so poor that they could scarcely find a few
bundles of hay or straw to take away with them. All seemed for the
best, and we thought that we would not have anything more to do with the
accursed race.
Unfortunately we are often mistaken; things do not always turn out as we
thought they would. Soon it was rumoured that Donadien, big Kern, and
the other guards had crossed the Vosges; that they were fighting the
Germans near Belfort, and all at once the idea struck me that Jean would
also want to go. I hoped that Marie-Rose would keep him back, but I was
not sure of it. The fear haunted me.
Every morning, while my daughter arranged the rooms, and the grandmother
told her beads, I went down stairs to smoke my pipe in the large room
with Father Ykel. Koffel, Starck, and others would come dropping in, to
take a glass of brandy; they told of domiciliary visits, of orders not
to ring the bells, of the arrival of German schoolmasters to replace our
own, of the requisitions of all kinds that increased every day, of the
unhappy peasants who were compelled to work to feed the Prussians, and
of a thousand other atrocities that infuriated one against those stupid
Badeners, Bavarians, and Wuertembergers, who were allowing themselves to
be killed for the sake of King William, and warring against their own
interests. Big Starck, who was very pious, and always went to mass
every Sunday, said that they would all be damned, without hope of
redemption, and that their souls would be burned to all eternity.
That helped to make the time pass agreeably. One day Hulot brought us
his grandson, Jean Baptiste, a big boy of sixteen, in his vest and
pantaloons of coarse linen, his feet bare, winter as well as summer, in
his large shoes, his hair hanging in long, yellow locks over his face,
and a satchel hanging over his thin back. This boy, sitting in front of
the fire, told us that at Sarrebruck and Landau the _landwehr_ were
furious; that they were declaiming in all the taverns against the crazy
republicans, the cause of all the battles since Sedan, and of the
continuation of the war; that it had been reported that a battle had
been fought at Coulmiers, near Orleans; that the Germans were retreating
in disorder, and that the army of Frederick Charles was going to their
rescue; but that our young men were also learning to join the army of
the republic; and that the _hauptmaenner_ had laid a fine of fifty
francs a day upon the parents of those who had left the country, which
had not prevented him, Jean Baptiste, from going to the rescue of his
country like his comrades.
Scarcely had he ceased to speak when I ran up the stairs, four steps at
a time, to tell Marie-Rose the good news. I found her on the landing.
She went down to the laundry, and did not appear in the least
astonished.
"Yes, yes, father," she said, "I thought it would end that way; every
one must lend a hand--all the men must go. Those Germans are thieves;
they will return routed and defeated."
Her tranquility astonished me, for the idea must have occurred to her,
too, that Jean, an able-bodied man, would not stay at home at such a
time, and that he might all at once go off yonder in spite of his
promises of marriage. So I went to my room to think it over, while she
went down, and two minutes afterward I heard Jean Merlin's step upon the
stairs.
He came in quietly, his large felt hat on the back of his head, and he
said good-humouredly:
"Good morning, Father Frederick; you are alone?"
"Yes, Jean; Marie-Rose has just gone to the laundry, and the grandmother
is still in bed."
"Ah! very good," said he, putting his stick behind the door.
I suspected something was coming, from his look. He walked up and down,
with bent head, and, stopping suddenly, he said to me:
"You know what is going on near Orleans? You know that the breaking up
of the German army has begun, and that all willing men are called upon.
What do you think of it?"
I flushed scarlet and answered, feeling rather embarrassed:
"Yes, for those on the other side of the Loire it is all very well; but
we others would have a long journey to take, and then the Prussians
would arrest us on the road; they guard all the paths and highways."
"Pshaw!" said he; "they think the Prussians more cunning than they
really are. I would wager that I could pass the Vosges under their
noses. Big Kern and Donadien have passed, with a good many others."
Then I knew that he wanted to go, that his mind was made up to a certain
extent, and that gave me a shock; for if he once set off, Heaven only
knew when his marriage would take place; the thought of Marie-Rose
troubled me.
"Very likely," I said; "but you must think of the old people, Jean.
What would your mother, good old Margredel, say, if you abandoned her at
such a time?"
"My mother is a good Frenchwoman," he answered. "We have talked it
over, brigadier; she consents."
My arms dropped at my sides; I did not know what to reply; and only at
the end of a minute I managed to say:
"And Marie-Rose! You do not think of Marie-Rose! Yet you are
betrothed. She is your wife in the eyes of God!"
"Marie-Rose consents also," he said. "We only want your consent now;
say yes; all will be settled. The last time I was here, while you were
down stairs smoking your pipe, I told Marie-Rose all about it. I said
to her that a forest guard without a situation, an old soldier like me,
ought to be at the front; she understood and consented."
When he told me that, George, it was too much; I cried: "I do. It is
not possible!" And, opening the window, I called out:
"Marie-Rose! Marie-Rose! Come here. Jean has arrived."
She was hanging out clothes in the shed, and leaving at once her work,
she came up stairs.
"Marie-Rose," I said, "is it true that you have consented to let Jean
Merlin go to fight the Germans at Orleans, behind Paris? Is it true?
Speak freely."
Then, pale as death, with flashing eyes, she said:
"Yes. It is his duty. He must go. We do not wish to be Prussians, and
the others ought not to fight alone to save us. He must be a man. He
must defend his country."
She said other things of the same kind that warmed my blood and made me
think:
"What a brave girl that is! No, I did not know her before. She is the
true descendant of the old Burats. How the old people wake up and speak
through the mouths of their children! They want us to defend the earth
of the old cemetery where their bones lie buried."
I rose, white as a sheet, with open arms. "Come to my arms!" I said to
them; "come to my arms! You are right. Yes, it is the duty of every
Frenchman to go and fight. Ah! if I were only ten years younger, I
would go with you, Jean; we would be two brothers in arms." And we
embraced each other all round.
*XXIV*
I wept; I was proud of having so brave and honest a daughter, whom I had
not appreciated till then; that made me lift up my head again. The
resolution of Jean and Marie-Rose appeared natural to me.
But, as we heard the grandmother groping her way from the other room, by
leaning against the wall, I made a sign to them to be silent, and, when
the poor old woman came in, I said:
"Grandmother, here is Jean, whom the chief inspector is about to send to
Nancy; he will be there for some time."
"Ah!" said she. "There is no danger?"
"No, grandmother, it is a commission for the forest registers; it has
nothing to do with the war."
"So much the better!" said she. "How many others are in danger! We
ought to be very happy to keep out of it!"
Then, sitting down, she began, as usual, to say her prayers.
What more can I tell you, George, about those things that rend my heart
when I think about them?
Jean Merlin spent the whole day with us. Marie-Rose cooked as good a
dinner as she could in our position; she put on her handsome cap and her
blue silk _fichu_, so as to be agreeable to the eyes of the man she
loved.
I seem to see her still, sitting at the table near the grandmother,
opposite her betrothed, and smiling, as if it were a holiday. I seem to
hear Jean talking about the good news from Orleans, about the happy
chances of the war, which are not always the same.
Then, after dinner, while the grandmother dozes in her arm-chair, I see
the two children sitting beside each other, near the little window,
looking at each other, holding each other's hand, and talking in a low
voice, sometimes gaily, sometimes sadly, as is the custom with lovers.
As for me, I walked up and down, smoking and thinking of the future. I
listened to the hum of talk from the tavern, and, remembering the danger
of leaving the country, the penalties established by the Germans against
those who wished to join our armies, I seemed to hear the stamping of
heavy boots and the rattle of sabres. I went down the stairs, and, half
opening the door of the smoky room, I looked in, and then I went up
stairs again, a little reassured, saying to myself that I ought not to
be afraid, that more difficult lines of the enemy had been crossed, and
that energetic men always got well through their business. So passed
all that afternoon.
Then, at supper, as the time for his departure drew near, a more
terrible sadness and strange, unknown fears seized upon me.
"Go to bed," I said to the grandmother; "the night has come."
But she did not hear me, being a little deaf, and she went on muttering
her prayers, and we looked at each other, exchanging our thoughts by
signs. At last, however, the poor old woman rose, leaning her two hands
on the arms of her chair, and murmuring:
"Good night, my children. Come, Jean, till I kiss you. Distrust the
Prussians; they are traitors! Do not run any risks; and may the Lord be
with you!"
They kissed each other; Jean seemed touched; and when the door was
closed, as the church clock was striking eight, and when the little
panes were growing dark, he said:
"Marie-Rose, the time has come. The moon is rising; it is lighting
already the path by which I must reach the Donon."
She flung herself into his arms and they held each other clasped in a
close embrace for a long time, in silence, for down stairs they were
talking and laughing still; strangers might be watching us, so we had to
be prudent.
You do not know, George, and I hope that you never will know, what a
father feels at such a moment.
At last they separated. Jean took his stick; Marie-Rose, pale, but
composed, said: "_Adieu_, Jean!" And he, without answering, hurried
out, breathing as if something was choking him.
I followed him. We descended the dark little staircase, and on the
threshold, where the moon, covered with clouds, cast a feeble ray, we
also kissed each other.
"You do not want anything?" I said, for I had put about fifty francs in
my pocket.
"No," said he, "I have all that I need."
We held each other's hands as if we could never let go, and we looked at
each other as if we could read each other's hearts.
And, as I felt my lips quiver:
"Come, father," said he, in a trembling voice, "have courage; we are
men!"
Then he strode away. I looked at him vanishing in the darkness,
blessing him in my heart. I thought I saw him turn and wave his hat at
the corner of the path, by the rock, but I am not sure.
When I went in, Marie-Rose was seated on a chair by the open window, her
head buried in her hands, weeping bitterly. The poor child had been
courageous up to the last minute, but then her heart had melted into
tears.
I said nothing to her, and, leaving the small lamp on the table, I went
into my room.
These things happened in November, 1870. But much greater sorrows were
to come.
*XXV*
After that for a few days all was quiet. We heard nothing more from
Orleans. From time to time the cannon of the city thundered, and was
answered by that of the enemy from Quatre Vents and Werhem; then all was
silent again.
The weather had turned to rain; it poured in torrents; the melting snow
floated in blocks down the course of the swollen river. People stayed
in-doors, cowering close to the fire; we thought of the absent, of the
war, of the marches and counter-marches. The _gens-d'armes_ of Bismark
Bohlen continued to make their rounds; we saw them pass, their cloaks
dripping with rain. The silence and the uncertainty overwhelmed one.
Marie-Rose came and went without saying anything; she even put on a
smiling aspect when my melancholy grew very great; but I could see from
her pallor what she was suffering.
Sometimes, too, the grandmother, when we least expected it, would begin
to talk about Jean, asking for news of him. We would answer her by some
insignificant thing, and the short ideas of old age, her weakened
memory, prevented her from asking more; she would be contented with what
we could tell her, and murmured, thoughtfully:
"Very good! very good!"
And then the cares of life, the daily labour, the care of the cattle and
of the household, helped us to keep up.
Poor Calas, having no more work to do with us, had turned smuggler
between Phalsbourg and the suburbs, risking his life every day to carry
a few pounds of tobacco or other such thing to the glacis; it was
rumoured at this time that he had been killed by a German sentinel;
Ragot had followed him; we heard nothing more of either of them. They
have doubtless been sleeping for a long time in the corner of a wood or
in some hole or other; they are very fortunate.
One morning, in the large down-stairs room, when we were alone, Father
Ykel said to me:
"Frederick, it is known that your son-in-law, Jean Merlin, has gone to
join our army. Take care, the Prussians may give you trouble!"
I was all taken aback, and I answered, after a moment:
"No, Father Ykel! Jean is gone to Dosenheim on business; he is trying
to collect old debts; at this time we need money."
"Pshaw!" said he, "you need not hide the truth from me; I am an old
friend of the Burats and you. Merlin has not been here for several
days; he has crossed the mountain, and he did right; he is a brave
fellow; but there are plenty of traitors about here; you have been
denounced, so be on your guard."
This warning startled me, and, thinking that it would be well to tell
his mother, Margredel, and his Uncle Daniel, after breakfast, without
saying anything to Marie-Rose, I took my stick and set out for Felsberg.
It had stopped raining. The winter sun was shining over the woods, and
this spectacle, after leaving our dark nook, seemed to revive me. As
the path at the hill passed near the forest house, showing the old roof
in the distance, I was touched by it. All my recollections came back to
me, and it occurred to me to go and take a look at the cottage, and to
look at the inside by standing on the bench by-the wall. It seemed as
if it would do me good to see once more the old room, wherein the old
people had died and where my children had been born! My heart warmed at
the idea and I went swiftly on, till, reaching the little bridge between
the two willows, covered with frost, I stood still in horror.
A German forest-guard, his green felt hat, with its cock-feathers, set
on one side, his long-stemmed porcelain pipe in his great fair
mustaches, and with his arms crossed on the window-sill, was smoking
quietly, with a calm expression, happy as in his own house. He was
looking smilingly at two chubby, fair-haired children, who were playing
before the door, and behind him, in the shadow of the room, was leaning
a woman, very fat, with red cheeks, calling, gaily:
"Wilhelm, Karl, come in; here is your bread and butter!"
All my blood seemed to go through my veins at the sight. How hard it is
to see strangers in the old people's house, where one has lived till
one's old age, from which one has been chased, from no crime of one's
own, only because others are masters and turn one out of doors! It is
terrible!
The guard raising his head suddenly, I was afraid he would see me, so I
hid myself. Yes, I hid myself behind the willows, hastening to reach
the path farther on, and stooping like a malefactor. I would have been
ashamed if that man had seen that the former master had found him in his
house, in his room, beside his hearth; I blushed at the idea! I hid
myself, for he might have laughed at the Alsatian, who had been turned
out of doors; he might have enjoyed himself over it. But from that day
hatred, which I had never known before, entered my heart; I hate those
Germans, who peacefully enjoy the fruit of our toil, and consider
themselves honest people. I abhor them!
From there I went up through the heath to Felsberg, feeling very sad and
with hanging head.
The poor village seemed as sad as I, among its heaps of mud and
dunghills; not a soul was to be seen in the street, where requisitions
of all kinds had passed more than once. And at the old schoolhouse,
when I tried to lift the latch, I found the door fastened. I listened;
no noise nor murmur of children was to be heard. I looked through the
window; the copies were hanging there still by their strings, but the
benches were empty.
I called, "Father Daniel!" looking up at the first-floor windows, for
the garden gate was also closed. Some moments later another door, that
of Margredel's house, built against the gable end, opened; Uncle Daniel,
an active little man, with coarse woollen stockings, and a black cotton
skull cap on his head, appeared, saying:
"Who is there?" I turned round.
"Ah! it is Brigadier Frederick," said he. "Come in!"
"Then you do not live yonder any more?" said I.
"No, since day before yesterday the school has been closed," he
answered, sadly.
And in the lower room of the old cottage, near the little cast-iron
stove, where the potatoes were cooking in the pot, sending their steam
up to the ceiling, I saw Margredel, sitting on a low stool.
*XXVI*
Margredel wore her usual open, kindly expression, and even her usual
smile.
"Ah!" said she, "we have no longer our pretty up-stairs room for our
friends. The Germans are hunting us out of every place; we will not
know where to go soon! However, sit down there on the bench, Father
Frederick, and, if you like, we will eat some potatoes together."
Her good-humour and her courage in such a wretched place made me still
more indignant against those who had plunged us all into misfortune; my
consternation kept me from speaking.
"Are Marie-Rose and the grandmother well?" asked Margredel.
"Yes, thank God!" I answered; "but we are very uneasy about Jean. The
Prussians know that he has gone; Father Ykel has warned me to be on my
guard, and I came to warn you."
"Who cares for the Prussians?" said she, shrugging her shoulders
contemptuously. "Ah! they are a bad race! Jean has crossed the
mountains long before this; if they had been able to stop him we would
have heard of it by this time; they would have come to tell us, rubbing
their hands with delight; but he has got over; he is a fine fellow!"
She laughed with all her toothless mouth.
"Those who have to fight him will not laugh. He is safe with our
volunteers! The guns and cannon are thundering yonder!"
The poor woman saw the bright side of everything, as usual, and I
thought:
"What a blessing it is to have a character like that; how fortunate!"
Uncle Daniel was walking about the room, saying:
"It is because of Jean's departure that the bandits shut up my school.
They had nothing to reproach me with; they gave me no explanations; they
simply shut it up, that is all, and just gave us time enough to carry
away our furniture; they looked at us crossly, crying, '_Schwindt!
schwindt!_'"[#]
[#] Quick! quick!
"Yes," cried Margredel, "they are sly hypocrites; they strike you heavy
blows without warning. In the morning they smile at you, they sit by the
fire like good apostles, they kiss your children with tears in their
eyes; and then all at once they change their tone, they collar you, and
turn you out of doors without mercy. Ah! those good Germans; we know
those honest people now! But they will not always be so proud. Wait a
bit; Heaven is just! Our own people will come back; Jean will be with
them. You will see, Father Frederick! We will go back to the forest
house; we will celebrate the wedding there! That is all I can say.
Don't you see, you must trust in God. Now we are suffering for our
sins. But God will put everything to rights, when we will have finished
expiating our faults. It cannot be otherwise. He uses the Prussians to
punish us. But their turn will come; we will go to their country. They
will see how agreeable it is to be invaded, robbed, pillaged. Let them
have a care! Every dog has his day!"
She spoke with so much confidence that it infected me; I said to myself:
"What she says is very possible. Yes, justice will be done, sooner or
later! After all, we may take Alsace again. Those Germans do not like
each other. We would only have to win one great battle; the break-up
would begin at once. The Bavarians, the Hessians, the Wuertembergers,
the Saxons, the Hanoverians, they would all go home again. We would
have it all our own way!"
But, in the meantime, we were in a very sad position. Margredel said
that they had enough rye and potatoes to last till the end of the war,
and that, with a few _sous'_ worth of salt, would be sufficient for
them.
Master Daniel compressed his lips and looked thoughtful.
So, having seen how things were getting along at Felsberg, I took leave
of my old friends about eleven o'clock, wishing them all the good things
in the world.
I avoided passing by the forest house, and I descended the hill of
Graufthal by the forest of fir trees among the rocks, leaning on my
stick in the steepest places.
I remember meeting, about two-thirds of my way down, old Roupp, an
incorrigible thief, with his faded little blouse, his cotton cravat
rolled like a rope round his lean neck, and his hatchet in his hand.
He was chopping away right and left, at everything that suited him; huge
branches, small fir trees, everything went into his magnificent fagot,
which was lying across the path, and as I called to him:
"Then you are not afraid of the Prussian guards, Father Roupp!"
He began to laugh, with his chin turned up and his scrap of felt hat on
the back of his neck, and wiping his nose on his sleeve.
"Ah! brigadier," said he, merrily, "those people don't risk themselves
alone in the forest! Unless they come in regiments, with cannon in front
of them and uhlans on every side, and ten against one, they always
follow the high roads. They are fellows that have a great respect for
their skins. Ha! ha! ha!"
I laughed, too, for he only told the truth. But a terrible surprise
awaited me a little farther on, at the descent of the rocks.
When I left the wood and saw the little thatched roofs at the foot of
the hill, among the heath, I first saw helmets glittering in the narrow
lane in front of Father Ykel's hut, and, looking closer, I perceived a
ragged crowd of men and women gathered around them; Ykel, at the door of
the inn, was talking; Marie-Rose behind, in front of the dark stable,
and the grandmother at her little window, with uplifted hands, as if
cursing them.
*XXVII*
Naturally, I began to run through the brushwood, knowing that something
serious was happening, and descending the passage of the old cloister,
to make a short cut, I came out behind the stable, at the moment that
some one was leaving it, dragging our two cows, tied by the horns.
It was the station-master of Bockberg, named Toubac, a short, thick-set
man, with a black beard, whose two tall, handsome daughters were said to
be the servants of the Prussian hauptmann[#] who had lodged at his house
since the beginning of the siege.
[#] Captain.
When I saw this rascal taking away my cattle, I cried:
"What are you doing, thief? Let my cows alone, or I will break every
bone in your body."
Then, at my cries, the sergeant and his squad of men, with drawn
bayonets, Ykel, Marie-Rose, and even the grandmother, dragging herself
along and leaning against the wall, entered the passage.
Marie-Rose cried out to me:
"Father, they want to take away our cows."
And the grandmother said lamentingly:
"Good Heavens! what will we have to live on? Those cows are our only
possession; they are all that we have left!"
The sergeant, a tall, lean man, with a tight-fitting uniform and with a
sword at his side, hearing Ykel say, "Here is the master! the cows
belong to him!" turned his head, as if on a pivot, and looked at me over
his shoulder; he wore spectacles under his helmet, and had red mustaches
and a hooked nose; he looked like an owl, who turns his head without
moving his body; a very bad face!
The crowd was blocking up the passage and the sergeant cried:
"Back! Clear the premises, corporal, and if they resist, fire upon
them!"
The trampling of the sabots in the mud and the cries of the grandmother,
weeping and sobbing, made this scene fearful.
"These cows suit me," said the station-master to the sergeant; "I will
take them; we can go."
"Do they belong to you?" said I, angrily, and clutching my stick.
"That is no affair of mine," said he, in the tone of a bandit, without
heart and without honour. "I have my choice of all the cows in the
country to replace those that the rascals from Phalsbourg carried off
from me at their last sortie. I choose these. They are Swiss cows. I
always liked Swiss cows."
"And who gave you the choice?" I cried. "Who can give you other people's
property?"
"The _hauptmann_, my friend, the _hauptmann_!" said he, turning up the
brim of his hat with an air of importance.
Then several of the crowd began to laugh, saying, "The _hauptmann_ is a
generous man; he pays those well who give him pleasure."
My indignation overcame me; and the sergeant having ordered his squad of
men to go on, at the moment when the station-master, crying "Hue!" was
dragging my poor cows after him by the horns, I was about to fall upon
him like a wolf, when Marie-Rose took hold of my hands and whispered to
me with a terrified look:
"Father, do not stir, they would kill you. Think of grandmother."
My cheeks were quivering, my teeth clenched, red flames were dancing
before my eyes; but the thought of my daughter alone in the world,
abandoned at this terrible time, and of the grandmother dying of hunger,
gave me the strength to keep down my rage, and I only cried:
"Go, scoundrel! Keep the property you have stolen from me, but beware
of ever meeting me alone in the forest!"
The sergeant and his men pretended not to hear; and he, the wretch,
said, laughing:
"These cows, sergeant, are as good as mine; after a long search we ended
by finding two fine animals."
They had searched all the villages, visited all the stables, and it was
on us that the misfortune fell. Marie-Rose, on seeing the poor beasts
raised by us at the forest house, could not restrain her tears, and the
grandmother, her hands clasped above her gray head, cried:
"Ah! now--now we are lost! Now this is the last stroke. My God, what
have we done to deserve such misery!"
I supported her by the arm, asking her to go in, but she said:
"Frederick, let me look once more at those good creatures. Oh! poor
Bellotte! Poor Blanchette! I will never see you again!"
It was a heartrending spectacle, and the people dispersed quickly,
turning away their heads, for the sight of such iniquities is the most
abominable thing on earth. At last, however, we were obliged to ascend
to our wretched little rooms, and think over our desolation; we had to
think how we should live, now that all our resources were taken away.
You know, George, what a cow is worth to a peasant; with a cow in the
stable one has butter, milk, cheese, all the necessaries of life; to
possess a cow is to be in easy circumstances, two are almost wealth. Up
to the present time we could sell the produce and make a few _sous_ in
that way; now we would have to buy everything at this time of dearth,
while the enemy fattened on our poverty.
Ah! what a terrible time it was! Those who come after us will have no
idea of it.
*XXVIII*
All that we had left were five or six hundred weight of hay and
potatoes. Ykel, who sympathized with all our griefs, said to me the
same day:
"Look here, brigadier; what I predicted has come to pass. The Germans
hate you, because you refused to serve under them, and because your
son-in-law has gone to join the republicans. If they could drive you
away, or even kill you, they would do it; but they want still to give
themselves airs of justice and highmindedness; for that reason they will
strip you of everything to force you to leave the country, as they say
'of your own free will!' Take my advice, get rid of your fodder as
quickly as possible, for one of these fine mornings they will come to
requisition it, saying that those who have no cows have no need of
fodder. And, above all, do not say that I gave this advice!"
I knew that he was right; the next day my hayloft was empty; Gaspard,
Hulot, Diederick, Jean Adam, big Starck, all the neighbours came that
evening and carried off our provision of hay by bundles, and in this way
I had a few francs in reserve. Starck even gave up to me one of his
goats, which was of the greatest use to us; at least the grandmother had
a little milk, morning and evening, that prolonged her life; but after
so many shocks the poor old woman was terribly weakened, she trembled
like a leaf, and no longer left her bed, dreaming always, murmuring
prayers, talking of Burat, her husband; of Grandfather Duchene, of all
the old people that returned to her memory. Marie-Rose spun beside her,
and sat up till late at night, listening to her laboured breathing and
her complaints.
I sat alone in the side room, near the little windows, almost blocked
with snow, my legs crossed, my unlig
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