I
The joy of the people on the return of Louis XVIII., in 1814, was
unbounded. It was in the spring, and the hedges, gardens, and orchards
were in full bloom. The people had for years suffered so much misery,
and had so many times feared being carried off by the conscription
never to return, they were so weary of battles, of the captured cannon,
of all the glory and the Te Deums, that they wished for nothing but to
live in peace and quiet and to rear their families by honest labor.
Indeed, everybody was content except the old soldiers and the
fencing-masters.
I well remember how, when on the 3d of May the order came to raise the
white flag on the church, the whole town trembled for fear of the
soldiers of the garrison, and Nicholas Passauf, the slater, demanded
six louis for the bold feat. He was plainly to be seen from every
street with the white silk flag with its "fleur-de-lis," and the
soldiers were shooting at him from every window of the two barracks,
but Passauf raised his flag in spite of them and came down and hid
himself in the barn of the "Trois Maisons," while the marines were
searching the town for him to kill him.
That was their feeling, but the laborers and the peasants and the
tradespeople with one voice hailed the return of peace and cried, "Down
with the conscription and the right of union." Everybody was tired of
living like a bird on branch and of risking their lives for matters
which did not concern them.
In the midst of all this joy nobody was so happy as I; the others had
not had the good luck to escape unharmed from the terrible battles of
Weissenfels and Lutzen and Leipzig, and from the horrible typhus. I
had made the acquaintance of glory and that gave me a still greater
love for peace and horror of conscription.
I had come back to Father Goulden's, and I shall never in my life
forget his hearty welcome, or his exclamation as he took me in his
arms: "It is Joseph! Ah! my dear child, I thought you were lost!" and
we mingled our tears and our embraces together. And then we lived
together again like two friends. He would make me go over our battles
again and again, and laughingly call me "the old soldier." Then he
would tell me of the siege of Pfalzbourg, how the enemy arrived before
the town, in January, and how the old republicans with a few hundred
gunners were sent to mount our cannon on the ramparts, how they were
obliged to eat horseflesh on account of the famine, and to break up the
iron utensils of the citizens to make case-shot and canister.
Father Goulden, in spite of his threescore years, had aimed the pieces
on the Magazine bastion on the Bichelberg side, and I often imagined I
could see him with his black silk cap and spectacles on, in the act of
aiming a twenty-four pounder. Then this would make us both laugh and
helped to pass away the time.
We had resumed all our old habits. I laid the table and made the soup.
I was occupying my little chamber again and dreamed of Catherine day
and night. But now, instead of being afraid of the conscription as I
was in 1813, I had something else to trouble me. Man is never quite
happy, some petty misery or other assails him. How often do we see
this in life? My peace was disturbed by this.
You know I was to marry Catherine; we were agreed, and Aunt Gredel
desired nothing better. Unhappily, however, the conscripts of 1815
were disbanded, while those of 1813 still remained soldiers. It was no
longer so dangerous to be a soldier as it was under the Empire, and
many of these had returned to their homes and were living quietly, but
that did not prevent the necessity of my having a permit in order to be
married. Mr. Jourdan, the new mayor, would never allow me to register
without this permission, and this made me anxious.
Father Goulden, as soon as the city gates were opened, had written to
the minister of war, Dupont, that I was at Pfalzbourg and still unwell,
that I had limped from my birth, and that I had in spite of this been
pressed into the service, that I was a poor soldier, but that I could
make a good father of a family, that it would be a real crime to
prevent me from marrying, that I was ill-formed and weak and should be
obliged to go into the hospital, etc.
It was a beautiful letter, and it told the truth too. The very idea of
going away again made me ill. So we waited from day to day--Aunt
Gredel, Father Goulden, Catherine, and I, for the answer from the
minister.
I cannot describe the impatience I felt when the postman Brainstein,
the son of the bell-ringer, came into the street. I could hear him
half a mile away, and then I could not go on with my work, but must
lean out of the window and watch him as he went from house to house.
When he would stay a little too long, I would say to myself, "What can
he have to talk about so long? why don't he leave his letters and come
away? he is a regular tattler, that Brainstein!" I was ready to pounce
upon him. Sometimes I ran down to meet him, and would ask, "Have you
nothing for me?" "No, Mr. Joseph," he would reply as he looked over
his letters. Then I would go sadly back, and Father Goulden, who had
been looking on, would say:
"Have a little patience, child! have patience, it will come. It is not
war time now."
"But he has had time to answer a dozen times, Mr. Goulden."
"Do you think he has nobody's affairs to attend to but yours? He
receives hundreds of such letters every day--and each one receives his
answer in his turn. And then everything is in confusion from top to
bottom. Come, come! we are not alone in the world--many other brave
fellows are waiting for their permits to be married."
I knew he was right, but I said to myself, "If that minister only knew
how happy he would make us by just writing ten words, I am sure he
would do it at once. How we would bless him, Catherine and I, Aunt
Gredel and all of us." But wait we must.
Of course I had resumed my old habit of going to Quatre Vents on
Sundays. On these mornings I was always awake early--I do not know
what roused me. At first I thought I was a soldier again; this made me
shiver. Then I would open my eyes, look at the ceiling, and think,
"Why you are at home with Father Goulden, at Pfalzbourg, in your own
little room. To-day is Sunday, and you are going to see Catherine."
By this time I was wide awake, and could see Catherine with her
blooming cheeks and blue eyes. I wanted to get up at once and dress
myself and set off. But the clocks had just struck four, and the city
gates were still shut. I was obliged to wait, and this annoyed me very
much. In order to keep patience I began to recall our courtship,
remembering the first days, how we feared the conscription and the
drawing of the unlucky number, with its "fit for service;" the old
guard Werner, at the mayor's, the leave-taking, the journey to Mayence,
and the broad Capougnerstrasse where the good woman gave me a
foot-bath, Frankfort and Erfurth farther on, where I received my first
letter, two days before the battle, the Russians, the
Prussians--everything in fact--and then I would weep, but the thought
of Catherine was always uppermost.
When the clock struck five I jumped from my bed, washed and shaved and
dressed myself, then Father Goulden, still behind his big curtains,
would put out his nose and say:
"I hear you! I hear you! You have been rolling and tumbling for the
last half hour. Ha! ha! it is Sunday to-day."
He would laugh at his own wit, and I laughed with him, and would then
bid him good-morning and be down the stairs at a bound.
Very few people were stirring, but Sepel the butcher would always call
out: "Come here, Joseph, I have something to tell you." But I only
just turned my head, and ten minutes after was on the high-road to
Quatre Vents, outside the city walls. Oh! how fine the weather was
that beautiful year! How green and flourishing everything looked, and
how busy the people were, trying to make up for lost time, planting and
watering their cabbages and turnips, and digging over the ground
trodden down by the cavalry; how confident everybody was too of the
goodness of God, who, they hoped, would send the sun and the rain which
they so much needed. All along the road, in the little gardens, women
and old men, everybody, were at work, digging, planting, and watering.
"Work away, Father Thiebeau, and you too, Mother Furst. Courage!"
cried I.
"Yes, yes, Mr. Joseph, there is need enough for that; this blockade has
put everything back, there is no time to lose."
The roads were filled with carts and wagons, laden with brick and
lumber and materials for repairing the houses and roofs which had been
destroyed by the howitzers. How the whips cracked and the hammers rang
in all the country round! On every side carpenters and masons were
seen busily at work on the summer houses. Father Ulrich and his three
boys were already on the roof of the "Flower Basket," which had been
broken to pieces by the balls, strengthening the new timbers, whistling
and hammering in concert. What a busy time it was, indeed, when peace
returned! They wanted no more war then. They knew the worth of
tranquillity, and only asked to repair their losses as far as possible.
They knew that a stroke of a saw or a plane was of more value than a
cannon-shot, and how many tears and how much fatigue it would cost to
rebuild even in ten years, that which the bombs had destroyed in ten
minutes. Oh! how happy I was as I went along. No more marches and
counter-marches; I did not need the countersign from Sergeant Pinto
where I was going! And how sweetly the lark sang as it soared
tremblingly upward, and the quails whistled and linnets twittered. The
sweet freshness of the morning, the fragrant eglantine in the hedges,
urged me on till I caught sight of the gable of the old roof of Quatre
Vents, and the little chimney with its wreath of smoke. "'Tis
Catherine who made the fire," I thought, "and she is preparing our
coffee." Then I would moderate my steps in order to get my breath a
little, while I scanned the little windows and laughed with anticipated
pleasure. The door opens, and Mother Gredel, with her woollen
petticoat and a big broom in her hand, turns round and exclaims: "Here
he is! here he is!" Then Catherine runs up, always more and more
beautiful, with her little blue cap, and says: "Ah! that is good; I was
expecting thee!" How happy she is, and how I embrace her! Ah! to be
young! I see it all again!
I go into the old room with Catherine, and Aunt Gredel flourishes her
broom and exclaims energetically: "No more conscription--that is done
with!" We laugh heartily and sit down, and while Catherine looks at
me, aunt commences again:
"That beggar of a minister, has he not written yet? Will he never
write, I wonder? Does he take us for brutes? It is very disagreeable
always to be ordered about. Thou art no longer a soldier, since they
left thee for dead. We saved thy life, and thou art nothing to them
now."
"Certainly, you are right, Aunt Gredel," I would say; "but for all that
we cannot be married without going to the mayor--without a permit--and
if we do not go to the mayor, the priest will not dare to marry us at
the church."
Then aunt would be very grave, and always ended by saying: "You see,
Joseph, that all those people from first to last have fixed everything
to suit themselves. Who pays the guards, and the judges, and the
priests, and who is it that pays everybody? It is we! and yet they
dare not marry us. It is shameful; and if it goes on, we will go to
Switzerland and be married." This would calm us, and we would spend
the rest of the day in singing and laughing.