From that time the sergeant lived with us without troubling anybody.
Every morning, before he went to his duties, he came and sat a few
minutes in my room, and talked with me while he took his glass. He
liked to laugh with Safel, and we called him "our sergeant," as if he
were one of the family. He seemed to like to be with us; he was a
careful man; he would not allow our _schabisboie_ to black his shoes;
he cleaned his own buff-skins, and would not let any one touch his arms.
One morning, when I was going to answer to the call, he met me in the
alley, and, seeing a little rust on my musket, he began to swear like
the devil.
"Ah! Father Moses, if I had you in my company, it would go hard with
you!"
"Yes," thought I; "but, thank God, I'm not."
Sorle, leaning over the balustrades above, laughed heartily.
From that time the sergeant regularly inspected my equipments; I must
clean my gun over and over, take it to pieces, clean the barrel and
furbish the bayonet, as if I expected to go and fight. And even when
he knew how Monborne treated me, he also wanted to teach me the
exercises. All my remonstrances were of no avail, he would frown, and
say:
"Father Moses, I can't stand it, that an honest man like you should
know less than the rabble. Go along!"
And then we would up to the loft. It was very cold, but the sergeant
was so provoked at my want of briskness in performing the movements,
that he always put me in a great perspiration before we finished.
"Attention to the word of command, and no laziness!" he would exclaim.
I used to hear Sorle, Safel, and the servant laughing in the stairway,
as they peeped through the laths, and I did not dare to turn my head.
In fine, it was entirely owing to this good Trubert that I learned to
charge well, and became one of the best vaulters in the company.
Ah! Fritz, it would all have been very well if the spirits of wine had
come; but instead of my dozen pipes, there came half a company of
marine artillery, and four hundred recruits for the sixth light
infantry.
About this time the governor ordered that a space six hundred metres
wide should be cleared all round the city.
You should have seen the havoc that was made in the place; the fences,
palisades, and trees hewn down, the houses demolished, from which
everybody carried away a beam or some timbers. You should have looked
down from the ramparts and seen the little gardens, the line of
poplars, the old trees in the orchards felled to the ground and dragged
away by swarms of workmen. You should have seen all this to know what
war is!
Father Frise, the two Camus boys, the Sades, the Bosserts, and all the
families of the gardeners and small farmers who lived at Phalsburg,
suffered the most. I can almost hear old Fritz exclaim:
"Ah! my poor apple-trees! Ah! my poor pear-trees; I planted you
myself, forty years ago. How beautiful you were, always covered with
fine fruit! Oh, misery! misery!"
And the soldiers still chopped away. Toward the end, old Fritz went
away, his cap drawn over his eyes, and weeping bitterly.
The rumor spread also that they were going to burn the Maisons Rouges
at the foot of the Mittelbronn hill, the tile-kiln at Pernette, and the
little inns of _l'Arbre Vert_ and _Panier Fleuri_, but it seemed that
the governor found it was not necessary as these houses were out of
range; or rather, that they would reserve that till later; and, that
the allies were coming sooner than they were expected.
Of what happened before the blockade, I remember, too, that on the
twenty-second of December, about eleven o'clock in the morning, the
call was beat. Everybody supposed that it was for the drill, and I set
out quietly, with my musket on my shoulder, as usual; but, as I reached
the corner of the mayoralty, I saw the troops of the garrison formed
under the trees of the square.
They placed us with them in two ranks; and then Governor Moulin,
Commandants Thomas and Pettigenet, and the mayor, with his tri-colored
sash, arrived.
They beat the march, and then the drum-major raised his baton, and the
drums stopped. The governor began to speak, everybody listened, and
the words heard from a distance were repeated from one to another.
"Officers, non-commissioned, National Guards, and Soldiers!
"The enemy is concentrated upon the Rhine, only three days' march from
us. The city is declared to be in a state of siege; the civil
authorities give place to martial law. A permanent court-martial
replaces ordinary tribunals.
"Inhabitants of Phalsburg! we expect from you courage, devotion,
obedience! _Vive l'Empereur_!"
And a thousand cries of "_Vive l'Empereur_!" filled the air.
I trembled to the ends of my hair; my spirits of wine were still on the
road; I considered myself a ruined man.
The immediate distribution of cartridges, and the order to the
battalion to go and forage for provisions, and bring in cattle from the
surrounding villages for the supply of the city, prevented me from
thinking of my misfortune.
I had also to think of my own life, for, in receiving such an order, we
supposed of course that the peasants would resist, and it is abominable
to have to fight the people you are robbing.