I went trembling into Harmantier's little room, and said to him: "This
is for the deserter; take it to him from me." "All right!" said he.
I asked him if he had confidence in Burguet. He shrugged his
shoulders, and said: "We must have examples."
The stamping outside continued, and when I went out there was a great
whistling in the balcony, the arch, and everywhere, and shouts of
"Moses! hey, Moses! this way!"
But I did not turn my head, and went home very sad.
Sorle handed me a summons to appear as a witness before the
court-martial, which a gendarme had just brought; and till nine o'clock
I sat meditating behind the stove, trying to think of some way of
escape for the prisoner.
Safel was playing with the children; Zeffen and Sorle had gone down to
continue our sales.
A few minutes before nine I started for the townhouse, which was
already so crowded that, had it not been for the guard at the door, and
the gendarmes scattered within the building, the witnesses could hardly
have got in.
Just as I got there, Captain Monbrun was beginning to read his report.
Burguet sat opposite, with his head leaning on his hand.
They showed me into a little room, where were Winter, Chevreux,
Dubourg, and the gendarme Fiegel; so that we didn't hear anything
before being called.
On the wall at the right it was written in large letters that any
witness who did not tell the truth, should be delivered to the council,
and suffer the same penalty as the accused. This made one consider,
and I resolved at once to conceal nothing, as was right and sensible.
The gendarme also informed us that we were forbidden to speak to each
other.
After a quarter of an hour Winter was summoned, and then, at intervals
of ten minutes, Chevreux, Dubourg, and myself.
When I went into the court-room, the judges were all in their places;
the major had laid his hat on the desk before him; the recorder was
mending his pen. Burguet looked at me calmly. Without they were
stamping, and the major said to the brigadier:
"Inform the public that if this noise continues, I shall have the
mayoralty cleared."
The brigadier went out at once, and the major said to me:
"National guard Moses, make your deposition. What do you know?"
I told it all simply. The deserter at the left, between two gendarmes,
seemed more dead than alive. I would gladly have acquitted him of
everything; but when a man fears for himself, when old officers in full
dress are scowling at you as if they could see through you, the
simplest and best way is not to lie. A father's first thought should
be for his children! In short, I told everything that I had seen,
nothing more or less, and at last the major said to me:
"That is enough; you may go."
But seeing that the others, Winter, Chevreux, Dubourg, remained sitting
on a bench at the left, I did the same.
Almost immediately five or six good-for-nothings began to stamp and
murmur, "Shoot him! shoot him!" The president ordered the brigadier to
arrest them, and in spite of their resistance they were all led to
prison. Silence was then established in the court-room, but the
stampings without continued.
"Judge-advocate, it is your turn to speak," said the major.
This judge-advocate, who seems now before my eyes, and whom I can
almost hear speak, was a man of fifty, short and thick, with a short
neck, long, thick, straight nose, very wide forehead, shining black
hair, thin mustaches, and bright eyes. While he was listening, his
head turned right and left as if on a pivot; you could see his long
nose and the corner of his eye, but his elbows did not stir from the
table. He looked like one of those large crows which seem to be
sleeping in the fields at the close of autumn, and yet see everything
that is going on around them.
Now and then he raised his arm as if to draw back his sleeve, as
advocates have a way of doing. He was in full dress, and spoke
terribly well, in a clear and strong voice, stopping and looking at the
people to see if they agreed with him; and if he saw even a slight
grimace, he began again at once in some other way, and, as it were,
obliged you to understand in spite of yourself.
As he went on very slowly, without hurrying or forgetting anything, to
show that the deserter was on the road when we arrested him, that he
not only had the intention of escaping, but was already outside of the
city, quite as guilty as if he had been found in the ranks of the
enemy--as he clearly showed all this, I was angry because he was right,
and I thought to myself, "Now, what was there to be said in reply."
And then, when he said that the greatest of crimes was to abandon one's
flag, because one betrays at once his country, his family, all that has
a right to his life, and makes himself unworthy to live; when he said
that the court would follow the conscience of all who had a heart, of
all who held to the honor of France; that he would give a new example
of his zeal for the safety of the country and the glory of the Emperor;
that he would show the new recruits that they could only succeed by
doing their duty and by obeying orders; when he said all this with
terrible power and clearness, and I heard from time to time, a murmur
of assent and admiration, then, Fritz, I thought that the Lord alone
was able to save that man!
The deserter sat motionless, his arms folded on the dock, and his face
upon them. He felt, doubtless, as I did, and every one in the room,
and the court itself. Those old men seemed pleased as they heard the
judge-advocate express so well what had all along been their own
opinion. Their faces showed their satisfaction.
This lasted for more than an hour. The captain sometimes stopped a
moment to give his audience time to reflect on what he had said. I
have always thought that he must have been attorney-general, or
something more dangerous still to deserters.
I remember that he said, in closing, "You will make an example! You
will be of one mind. You will not forget that, at this time, firmness
in the court is more necessary than ever to the safety of the country."
When he sat down, such a murmur of approbation arose in the room that
it reached the stairway at once, and we heard the shouts outside,
"_Vive l'Empereur_!"
The major and the other members of the council looked smilingly at each
other, as if to say, "It is all settled. What remains is a mere
formality!"
The shouts without increased. This lasted more than ten minutes. At
last the major said:
"Brigadier, if the tumult continues, clear the town-house! Begin with
the court-room!"
There was silence at once, for every one was curious to know what
Burguet would say in reply. I would not have given two farthings for
the life of the deserter.
"Counsel for the prisoner, you have the floor!" said the major, and
Burguet rose.
Now, Fritz, if I had an idea that I could repeat to you what Burguet
said, for a whole hour, to save the life of a poor conscript; if I
should try to depict his face, the sweetness of his voice, and then his
heart-rending cries, and then his silent pauses and his appeals--if I
had such an idea, I should consider myself a being full of pride and
vanity!
No; nothing finer was ever heard. It was not a man speaking; it was a
mother, trying to snatch her babe from death! Ah! what a great thing
it is to have this power of moving to tears those who hear us! But we
ought not to call it talent, it is heart.
"Who is there without faults? Who does not need pity?"
This is what he said, as he asked the council if they could find a
perfectly blameless man; if evil thoughts never came to the bravest; if
they had never, for even a day or a moment, had the thought of running
away to their native village, when they were young, when they were
eighteen, when father and mother and the friends of their childhood
were living, and they had not another in the world. A poor child
without instruction, without knowledge of the world, brought up at
hap-hazard, thrown into the army--what could you expect of him? What
fault of his could not be pardoned? What does he know of country, the
honor of his flag, the glory of his Majesty? Is it not later in life
that these great ideas come to him?
And then he asked those old men if they had not a son, if they were
sure that, even at that moment, that son were not committing an offence
which was liable to the punishment of death. He said to them:
"Plead for him! What would you say? You would say, 'I am an old
soldier. For thirty years I have shed my blood for France. I have
grown gray upon the battle-fields, I am riddled with wounds, I have
gained every rank at the point of the sword. Ah, well! take my
epaulettes, take my decorations, take everything; but save my child!
Let my blood be the ransom for his offence! He does not know the
greatness of his crime; he is too young; he is a conscript; he loved
us; he longed to embrace us, and then go back again--he loved a maiden.
Ah! you, too, have been young! Pardon him. Do not disgrace an old
soldier in his son.'
"Perhaps you could say, too, 'I had other sons. They died for their
country. Let their blood answer for his, and give me back this
one--the last that I have left!'
"This is what you would say, and far better than I, because you would
be the father, the old soldier speaking of his own services! Well, the
father of this youth could speak like you! He is an old soldier of the
Republic! He went with you, perhaps, when the Prussians entered
Champagne! He was wounded at Fleurus! He is an old comrade in arms!
His oldest son was left behind in Russia!"
And Burguet turned pale as he spoke. It seemed as if grief had robbed
him of his strength, and he were about to fall. The silence was so
great that we heard the breathing throughout the court-room. The
deserter sobbed. Everybody thought, "It is done! Burguet need say no
more! It must be that he has gained his cause!"
But all at once he began again in another and more tender manner.
Speaking slowly, he described the life of a poor peasant and his wife,
who had but one comfort, one solitary hope on earth--their child! As
we listened we saw these poor people, we heard them talk together, we
saw over the door the old chapeau of the time of the Republic. And
when we were thinking only of this, suddenly Burguet showed us the old
man and his wife learning that their son had been killed, not by
Russians or Germans, but by Frenchmen. We heard the old man's cry!
But it was terrible, Fritz! I wanted to run away. The officers of the
council, several of whom were married men, looked before them with
fixed eyes, and clinched hands; their gray mustaches shook. The major
had raised his hand two or three times, as if to signify that it was
enough, but Burguet had always something still more powerful, more
just, more grand to add. His plea lasted till nearly eleven, when he
sat down. There was not a murmur to be heard in the three rooms nor
outside. And the judge-advocate on the other side began again, saying
that all that signified nothing, that it was unfortunate for the father
that his son was unworthy, that every man clung to his children, that
soldiers must be taught not to desert in face of the enemy; that, if
the court yielded to such arguments, nobody would ever be shot,
discipline would be utterly destroyed, the army could not exist, and
that the army was the strength and glory of the country.
Burguet replied almost immediately. I cannot recall what he said; my
head could not hold so many things at once: but I shall never forget
this, that about one o'clock, the council having sent us away that they
might deliberate--the prisoner meanwhile having been taken back to his
cell--after a few minutes we were allowed to return, and the major,
standing on the platform where conscriptions were drawn, declared that
the accused Jean Balin was acquitted, and gave the order for his
immediate release.
It was the first acquittal since the departure of the Spanish prisoners
before the blockade; the rowdies, who had come in crowds to see a man
condemned and shot, could not believe it; several of them exclaimed:
"We are cheated!"
But the major ordered Brigadier Descarmes to take the names of these
brawlers, so that they should be seen to; then the whole mass trampled
down the stairs in five minutes, and we, in our turn, were able to
descend.