About the end of November there happened an extraordinary thing, of which I must give you an account.
On the first fall of snow, our Landwehr had built on the hill, in the rear of their guns, huts of considerable size, covered with earth, open to the south and closed against the north wind. Under these they lighted great fires, and every hour relieved guard.
They had also received from home immense packages of warm clothing, blankets, cloaks, shirts, and woollen stockings; they called these love-gifts. Captain Floegel distributed these to his men, at his discretion.
Now, it happened that one night, when the Landwehr lodging with us were on guard, that I, knowing they would not return before day, had gone down to shut the back door which opens upon the fields. The moon had set, but the snow was shining white, streaked with the dark shadows of the trees; and just as I was going to lock up, what do I see in my orchard behind the large pear-tree on the left? A Turco with his little red cap over his ear, his blue jacket corded and braided all over, his belt and his gaiters. There he was, leaning in the attitude of attention, the butt-end of his rifle resting on the ground, his eyes glowing like those of a cat.
He heard the door open, and turned abruptly round.
Then, glad to see one of our own men again, I felt my heart beat, and gazing stealthily round for fear of the neighbors, I signed to him to draw near.
All were asleep in the village; no lights were shining at the windows.
He came down in four or five paces, clearing the fences at a bound, and entered the mill.
Immediately I closed the door again, and said: "Good Frenchman?"
He pressed my hand in the dark, and followed me into the back room, where my wife and Grédel were still sitting up.
Imagine their astonishment!
"Here is a man from the town," I said: "he's a real Turco. We shall hear news."
At the same moment we observed that the Turco's bayonet was red, even to the shank, and that the blood had even run down the barrel of his rifle; but we said nothing.
This Turco was a fine man, dark brown, with a little curly beard, black eyes, and white teeth, just as the apostles are painted. I have never seen a finer man.
He was not sorry to feel the warmth of a good fire. Grédel having made room for him, he took a seat, thanking her with a nod of his head, and repeating: "Good Frenchman!"
I asked him if he was hungry; he said yes; and my wife immediately went to fetch him a large basin of soup, which he enjoyed greatly. She gave him also a good slice of bread and of beef; but instead of eating it he dropped it into his bag, asking us for salt and tobacco.
He spoke as these people all do—thou-ing us. He even wanted to kiss Grédel's hand. She blushed, and asked him, without any ceremony, before our faces, if he knew Jean Baptiste Werner?
"Jean Baptiste!" said he. "Bastion No. 3—formerly African gunner. Yes, I know him. Good man! brave Frenchman!"
"He is not wounded?"
"No."
"Not ill?"
"No."
Then Grédel began to cry in her apron; and mother asked the Turco if he knew Jacob Weber, of the 3d company of Mobiles; but the Turco did not know our Jacob; he could only tell us that the Mobiles had lost very few men, which comforted my wife and me. Then he told us that a captain in the Garde Mobile, a Jew named Cerfber, sent as a flag of truce to Lützelbourg, had taken the opportunity to desert, and that the German general, being disgusted at his baseness, had refused to receive him, upon which the wretch had gone into Germany. I was nowise surprised at this. I knew Cerfber; he was mayor of Niederwillen, at four leagues from us, and more Bonapartist than Bonaparte himself. Unable to surrender the rest, as his master had done at Sedan, he had surrendered himself.
Grédel had gone out while the Turco was telling us these news; she returned presently with a large quantity of provisions. She had taken all my tobacco, and begged the Turco to take it to Jean Baptiste and Jacob. She had not quite the face to say before me that it was for Jean Baptiste alone; that would have been going a little too far; but she said, "It is for the two." The Turco promised to perform this commission; then Grédel gave him several things for himself; but he wanted especially salt, and fortunately we possessed enough to fill his bag. My wife stood sentinel in the passage. Thank God there was no stir for a whole hour; during which this Turco answered, as well as he was able, all the questions we asked him.
We understood that there was much sickness in the town; that several articles of consumption were utterly exhausted, among others, meat, salt, and tobacco; and that the inhabitants were weary of being shut in without any news from outside.
About one in the morning, the wind, having risen, was shaking the door, and we fancied we could hear the Landwehr returning. The Turco noticed it, and made signs to us that he would go.
We could have wished to detain him, but the danger was too great. He therefore took up his rifle again, and asked to kiss my wife's hand, just as the gypsies do in our country. Then pointing to his bag, he said: "For Jacob and Jean Baptiste!"
I took him back through the orchard. The weather was frightful; the air was full of snow, whirled into drifts by a stormy wind; but he knew his way, and began by running with his body bending low as far as the tall hedge on the left; a moment after he was out of sight. I listened a long while. The watch-fires of the Landwehr were shining on the hill, above Wéchem; their sentinels were challenging and answering each other in the darkness; but not a shot was fired.
I returned. My wife and Grédel seemed happy; and we all went to bed.
Next day we learned that two Landwehr had been found killed—one near the Avenue des Dames, between the town and the Quatre Vents, the other at the end of Piquet, both fathers of families. The unfortunate men had been surprised at their posts.
What a miserable thing is war! The Germans have lost more men than we have; but we will not be so cruel as to rejoice over this.
And now, if I am asked my opinion about the Turcos, against whom the Germans have raised such an outcry, I answer that they are good men and true! Jacob and Jean Baptiste have received everything that we sent to them. This Turco's word was worth more than that of the lieutenant and the feld-weibel who had promised to pay me for my wine.
No doubt, amongst the Turcos there are some bad fellows; but the greater part are honest men, with a strong feeling of religion: men who have known them at Phalsbourg and elsewhere acknowledge them to be men of honor. They have stolen nothing, robbed nobody, never insulted a woman. If they had campaigned on the other side of the Rhine, of course they would have twisted the necks of ducks and hens, as all soldiers do in an enemy's country: the Landwehr put no constraint upon themselves in our country. But the idea would never have occurred to the Turcos, as it had to German officers and generals, of sending for packs of Jews to follow them and buy up, wholesale, the linen, furniture, clocks—in a word, anything they found in private individuals' houses. This is simple truth! Monsieur de Bismarck may insult the Turcos as much as he pleases before his German Parliament, which is ready to say "Amen" every time he opens his mouth. He might as well not talk at all. Thieves are bad judges of common honesty! I am aware that Monsieur le Prince de Bismarck thinks himself the first politician in the world, because he has deceived a simpleton; but there is a wide difference between a great man and a great dishonest man. By and by this will be manifest, to the great misfortune of Europe.
But it was a real comfort to have seen this Turco; and for several days, when we were alone, my wife and Grédel talked of nothing else; but sad reflections again got the upper hand.
No one can form an idea of the misery, the feeling of desolation which takes possession of you, when days and weeks pass by in the midst of enemies without the least word reaching you from the interior; then you feel the strength of the hold that your native land has upon you. The Germans think to detach us from it by preventing us from learning what is taking place there; but they are mistaken. The less you speak the more you think; and your indignation, your disgust, your hatred for violence, force, and injustice is ever on the increase. You conceive a horror for those who have been the cause of such sufferings. Time brings no change; on the contrary, it deepens the wound: one curse succeeds another; and the deepest desire left is either for an end of all, or vengeance.
Besides, it is perfectly evident the Lorrainers and the Alsacians are a bold, brave nation; and all the fine words in the world will not make them forget the treatment they have suffered, after being surprised defenceless. They would reproach themselves as cowards, did they cease to hope for their revenge. I, Christian Weber, declare this, and no honest man can blame me for it. Abject wretches alone accept injustice as a final dispensation; and we have ever God over us all, who forbids us to believe that murder, fire, and robbery may and ought to prevail over right and conscience.
Let us return to our story.
Cousin George had seen in the Englishman's newspapers that the circulation of the Indépendance Belge and the Journal de Genève had doubled and trebled since the commencement of the war, because they filled the place of all the other journals which used to be received from Paris; and without loss of time he had written to Brussels to subscribe.
The first week, having received no answer, he had sent the money in Prussian notes in a second letter; for we had at that time only Prussian thalers in paper, with which the Landwehr paid us for whatever they did not take by force. We had no great confidence in this paper, but it was worth the trial.
The newspaper arrived. It was the first we had seen for four months, and any one may understand the joy with which George came to tell me this good news.
Every evening from that time I went to hear the newspapers read at Cousin George's. We could hardly understand anything at first, for at every line we met with new names. Chanzy had the chief command upon the Loire, Faidherbe in the north. And these two men, without any soldiers besides Mobiles and volunteers, held the open country. They even gained considerable advantages over an enemy that far outnumbered them; whilst the marshals of the Empire had suffered themselves to be vanquished and annihilated in three weeks, with our best troops.
This shows that, in victories, generals have no more than half the credit.
Of all the old generals, Bourbaki was the only one left.
As for Garibaldi, we knew him, and we could tell by the restless movements of our Landwehr that he was approaching our mountains about Belfort. He was the hope of our country: all our young men were going to join him.
We also learned that the Government was divided between Tours and Paris; that Gambetta was bearing all the burden of the defence of the country, as Minister of War; that he was everywhere at once, to encourage the dispirited; that he had set up the chief place of instruction for our young soldiers at Toulouse, and that the Prussians were pursuing their horrible course in the invaded countries with renewed fury; that a party of francs-tireurs having surprised a few Uhlans at Nemours, a column of Germans had surrounded the town on the next day, and set fire to it to the music of their bands, compelling the members of the committee for the defence to be present at this abominable act; that M. de Bismarck had laid hands upon certain bourgeois of the interior, in reprisal for the captures made by our ships five hundred leagues away in the North Sea; that Ricciotti Garibaldi, having defeated the Prussians at Chatillon-sur-Seine, those atrocious wretches had delivered the innocent town over to plunder, and laid it under contribution for a million of francs; that respectable persons belonging to the Grand Duchy of Baden, private individuals, were crossing the Rhine with horses and carts to come and pillage Alsace with impunity—all the towns and villages being occupied by their troops. In a word, many other things of the kind; which plainly prove that with the Prussians, war is an honest means of growing rich, and getting possession of the property of the inoffensive inhabitants.
At St. Quentin, one of their chiefs, the Colonel de Kahlden, gave public notice to the inhabitants, that "if a shot was fired upon a German soldier, six inhabitants should be shot; and that every individual compromised or suspected would be punished with death."
Everywhere, everywhere these great philosophers plundered and burned without mercy whatever towns or villages dared resist!
George said that these beings were not raised above the beasts of prey, and that education only does for them what spiked collars do for fighting dogs.
We also heard of the capitulation of Thionville, after a terrible bombardment, in which the Prussians had refused to allow the women and children to leave the place! We heard of the first encounters of Faidherbe in the north with Manteuffel; and the battles of Chanzy with Frederick Charles, near Orleans.
In spite of the inferiority of our numbers, and the inexperience of our troops, we often got the upper hand.
These news had restored us to hope. Unhappily, the heaviest blow of all was to come. Phalsbourg, utterly exhausted by famine, was about to surrender, after a resistance of five months.
Oh! my ancient town of Phalsbourg, what affliction sank into our hearts, when, on the evening of the 9th December, we heard your heavy guns fire one after another, as if for a last appeal to France to come to your rescue! Oh! what were then our sufferings, and what tears we shed!
"Now," said George, "it is all over! They are calling aloud to France, our beloved France, unable to come! It is like a ship in distress, by night, in the open sea, firing her guns for assistance, and no one hears: she must sink in the deep."
Ah! my old town of Phalsbourg, where we used to go to market; where we used to see our own soldiers—our red-trousered soldiery, our merry Frenchmen! We shall never more see behind our ramparts any but heavy Germans and rough Prussians! And so it is over! The earth bears no longer the same children; and men whom we never knew tell us, "You are in our custody: we are your masters!"
Can it be possible? No! ancient fortress of Vauban, you shall be French again: "Nursery of brave men," as the first Bonaparte called you. Let our sons come to manhood, and they shall drive from thy walls these lumpish fellows who dare to talk of Germanizing you!
But how our hearts bled on that day! Every one went to hide himself as far back in his house as he could, murmuring, "Oh! my poor Phalsbourg, we cannot help thee; but if our life could deliver thee, we would give it."
Yes! I have lived to behold this, and it is the most terrible sensation I have ever experienced: the thought of meeting Jacob again was no comfort; Grédel herself was listening with pale cheeks, and counting the reports from second to second; and then the tears fell and she cried: "It is over!"
Next day, all the roads were covered with German and Prussian officers galloping rapidly to the place; the report ran that the entry would take place the same evening; every one was preparing a small stock of provisions for his son, his relations, his friends, whom he dreaded never more to see alive.
On the morning of the 11th of December, leave was given to start for the town; the sentinels posted at Wéchem had orders to allow foot-passengers to pass.
Phalsbourg, with its fifteen hundred Mobiles and its sixty gunners, disdained to capitulate; it surrendered no rifles, no guns, no military stores, no eagles, as Bazaine had done at Metz! The Commander Taillant had not said to his men: "Let us, above all, for the reputation of our army, avoid all acts of indiscipline, such as the destruction of arms and material of war; since, according to military usage, strong places and arms will return to France when peace is signed." No! quite the contrary; he had ordered the destruction of whatever might prove useful to the enemy: to drown the gunpowder, smash rifles, spike the guns, burn up the bedding in the casemates; and when all this was done, he had sent a message to the German general: "We have nothing left to eat! To-morrow I will open the gates! Do what you please with me!"
Here was a man, indeed!
And the Germans ran, some laughing, others astonished, gazing at the walls which they had won without a fight: for they have taken almost every place without fighting; they have shelled the poor inhabitants instead of storming the walls; they have starved the people. They may boast of having burnt more towns and villages, and killed more women and children in this one campaign, than all the other nations in all the wars of Europe since the Revolution.
But, to be sure, they were a religious people, much attached to the doctrines of the Gospel, and who sing hymns with much feeling. Their Emperor especially, after every successive bombardment, and every massacre—whilst women, children, and old men are weeping around their houses destroyed by the enemy's shells, and from the battle-fields strewn with heaps of dead are rising the groans and cries of thousands and thousands of sufferers whose lives are crushed, whose flesh is torn, whose bodies are rent and bleeding!'—their Emperor, the venerable man, lifts his blood-stained hands to heaven and thanks God for having permitted him to commit these abominable deeds! Does he look upon God as his accomplice in crime?
Barbarian! one day thou shalt know that in the sight of the Eternal, hypocrisy is an aggravation of crime.
On the 11th of December, then, early in the morning, my wife, Grédel, Cousin George, Marie Anne and myself, having locked up our houses, started, each carrying a little parcel under our arms, to go and embrace our children and our friends—if they yet survived.
The snow was melting, a thick fog was covering the face of the country, and we walked along in single file and in silence, gazing intently upon the German batteries which we saw for the first time, in front of Wéchem, by Gerbershoff farm, and at the Arbre Vert.
Such desolation! Everything was cut down around the town; no more summer-arbors, no more gardens or orchards, only the vast, naked surface of snow-covered ground, with its hollows all bare; the bullet marks on the ramparts, the embrasures all destroyed.
A great crowd of other village people preceded and followed us; poor old men, women, and a few children; they were walking straight on without paying any attention to each other: all thought of the fate of those they loved, which they would learn within an hour.
Thus we arrived at the gate of France; it stood open and unguarded. The moment we entered, the ruins were seen; houses tottering, streets demolished, here a window left alone, there up in the air a chimney scarcely supported; farther on some doorsteps and no door. In every direction the bombshells had left their tracks.
God of heaven! did we indeed behold such devastation? we did in truth. We all saw it: it was no dream!
The cold was piercing. The townspeople, haggard and pale, stared at us arriving; recognitions took place, men and women approached and took each other by the hand.
"Well?" "Well," was the reply in a hollow whisper, in the midst of the street encumbered with blackened beams of wood. "Have you suffered much?" "Ah! yes."
This was enough: no need for another word; and then we would proceed farther. At every street corner a new scene of horror began.
Catherine and I were seeking Jacob; no doubt Grédel was looking for Jean Baptiste.
We saw our poor Mobiles passing by, scarcely recognizable after those five months. All through the fearful cold these unhappy men had had nothing on but their summer blouses and linen trousers. Many of them might have escaped and gained their villages, for the gates had stood open since the evening before; but not a man thought of doing so; it was not supposed that Mobiles would be treated like regular soldiers.
On the place, in front of the fallen church filled with its own ruins, we heard, for the first time, that the garrison were prisoners of war.
The cafés Vacheron, Meyer, and Hoffmann, riddled with balls, were swarming with officers.
We were gazing, not knowing whom to ask after Jacob, when a cry behind us made us turn round; and there was Grédel in the arms of Jean Baptiste Werner! Then I kept silence; my wife also. Since she would have it so, well, so let it be; this matter concerned her much more than it did us.
Jean Baptiste, after the first moment, looked embarrassed at seeing us; he approached us with a pale face, and as we spoke not a word to him, George shook him by the hand, and cried: "Jean Baptiste, I know that you have behaved well during this siege; we have learned it all with pleasure: didn't we, Christian? didn't we, Catherine?"
What answer could we make? I said "yes"—and mother, with tears in her eyes, cried: "Jean Baptiste, is Jacob not wounded?"
"No, Madame Weber; we have always been very comfortable together. There is nothing the matter. I'll fetch him: only come in somewhere."
"We are going to the Café Hoffmann," said she. "Try to find him, Jean Baptiste." And as he was turning in the direction of the mayoralty-house:
"There," said he, "there he is coming round the corner by the chemist Rèbe's shop." And we began, to cry "Jacob!"
And our lad ran, crossing the place.
A minute after, we were in each other's arms.
He had on a coarse soldier's cloak, and canvas trousers; his cheeks were hollow; he stared at us, and stammered: "Oh, is it you? You are not all dead?"
He looked stupefied; and his mother, holding him, murmured: "It is he!"
She would not relinquish her hold upon him, and wiped her eyes with her apron.
Grédel and Jean Baptiste followed arm-in-arm, with George and Marie Anne. We entered the Café Hoffmann together; we sat round a table in the room at the left, and George ordered some coffee, for we all felt the need of a little warmth.
None of us wished to speak; we were downcast, and held each other by the hand, gazing in each other's faces.
The young officers of the Mobiles were talking together in the next room; we could hear them saying that not one would sign the engagement not to serve again during the campaign; that they would all go as prisoners of war, and would accept no other lot than that of their men.
This idea of seeing our Jacob go off as a prisoner of war, almost broke our hearts, and my wife began to sob bitterly, with her head upon the table.
Jacob would have wished to come back to the mill along with us; I could see this by his countenance; but he was not an officer, and his parole was not asked for. And, in spite of all, hearing those spirited young men, who were sacrificing their liberty to discharge a duty, I should myself have said "No: a man must be a man!"
Werner was talking with my cousin: they spoke in whispers; having, no doubt, secret matters to discuss. I saw George slip something into his hand. What could it be? I cannot say; but all at once Jean Baptiste rising from his seat and kissing Grédel without any ceremony before our faces, said that he was on service; that he would not see us again very soon, as after the muster their march would begin, so that we should have to say good-by at once.
He held out both his hands to my wife and then to Marie Anne, after which he went out with George and Grédel, leaving us much astonished.
Jacob and Marie Anne remained with us; in a couple of minutes Grédel and my cousin returned; Grédel, whose eyes were red, sat by the side of Marie Anne without speaking, and we saw that her basket of provisions was gone.
The stir upon the place became greater and greater. The drums beat the assembly, the officers of the Mobiles were coming out. I then thought I would ask Jacob what had become of Mathias Heitz; he told us that the wretched coward had been trembling with fright the whole time of the siege, and that at last he had fallen ill of fear. Grédel did not turn her head to listen; she would have nothing to do with him! And, in truth, on hearing this, I felt I should prefer giving our daughter to our ragman's son than to this fellow Mathias.
The review was then commencing under the tall trees on the place, and Jacob appeared with his comrades. No sadder spectacle will ever be seen than that of our poor lads, about half a hundred Turcos and a few Zouaves, the remnants of Froeschwiller, all haggard and pale, and their clothes falling to pieces. They were unarmed, having destroyed their arms before opening the gates.
Presently Jacob ran to us, crying that they were ordered to their barracks, and that they would have to start next day before twelve.
Then his eyes filled with tears. His mother and I handed him our parcels, in which we had enclosed three good linen shirts, a pair of shoes almost new, woollen stockings, and a strong pair of trousers.
I was wearing upon my shoulders my travelling cape; I placed it upon his. Then I slipped into his pocket a small roll of thalers, and George gave him two louis. After this, the tears and lamentations of the women recommenced; we were obliged to promise to return on the morrow.
The garrison was defiling down the street; Jacob ran to fall in, and disappeared with the rest, near the barracks.
As for Jean Baptiste Werner, we saw him no more.
The German officers were coming and going up and down the town to distribute their troops amongst the townspeople. It was twelve o'clock, and we returned to our village, sadder and more distressed than ever.
And now we knew that Jacob was safe; but we knew also that he was going to be carried, we could not tell where, to the farthest depths of Germany.
My wife arrived home quite ill; the damp weather, her anxiety, her anguish of mind, had cast her down utterly. She went to bed with a shivering fit, and could not return next day to town, nor Grédel, who was taking care of her, so I went alone.
Orders had come to take the prisoners to Lützelbourg. On reaching the square, near the chemist Rèbe's shop, I saw them all in their ranks, moving by twos down the road. The inhabitants had closed their shutters, not to witness this humiliation; for Hessian soldiers, with arms shouldered, were escorting them: our poor boys were advancing between them, their heads hanging sorrowfully down.
I stopped at the chemist's corner, and waited, being unable to discern Jacob in the midst of that crowd. All at once I recognized him, and I cried, "Jacob!" He was going to throw himself into my arms; but the Hessians repulsed me. We both burst into tears, and I went on walking by the side of the escort, crying, "Courage! ... Write to us.... Your mother is not quite well.... She could not come.... It is not much!"
He answered nothing; and many others who were there had their friends and relations before or behind them.
We wanted to accompany them to Lützelbourg; unhappily, at the gate the Prussians had posted sentinels, who stopped us, pointing their bayonets at us. They would not even allow us to press our children's hands.
On all sides were cries: "Adieu, Jean!" "Adieu, Pierre!" and they replied: "Adieu! Farewell, father!" "Adieu! Farewell, mother!" and then the sighs, the sobs, the tears....
Ah! the Plébiscite, the Plébiscite!
I was compelled to stay there an hour; at last they allowed me to pass. I resumed my way home, my heart rent with anguish. I could see, hear nothing but the cry, "Adieu! Adieu!" of all that crowd; and I thought that men were made to make each other miserable; that it was a pity we were ever born; that for a few days' happiness, acquired by long and painful toil, we had years of endless misery; and that the people of the earth, through their folly, their idleness, their wickedness, their trust in consummate rogues, deserved what they got.
Yes, I could have wished for another deluge: I should have cared less to see the waters rise from the ends of Alsace and cover our mountains, than to be bound under the yoke of the Germans.
In this mood I reached home.
I took care not to tell my wife all that had happened; on the contrary I told her that I had embraced Jacob in my arms for her and for us all; that he was full of spirits, and that he would soon write to us.
We were now rid of our Landwehr, who were garrisoned at Phalsbourg, but a part of whom were sent off into the interior. They were indignant, and declared that if they had known that they were to be sent farther, the blockade would have lasted longer; that they would have let the cows, the bullocks, and the bread find their way in, many a time, in spite of their chiefs; and that it was infamous to expose them to new dangers when every man had done his part in the campaign.
There was no enthusiasm in them; but, all the same, they marched in step in their ranks, and were moved some on Belfort, some on Paris.
We learned, through the German newspapers, that they had severer sufferings to endure round Belfort than with us; that the garrison made sorties, and drove them several leagues away; that their dead bodies were rotting in heaps, behind the hedges, covered with snow and mud; that the commander, Denfert, gave them many a heavy dig in the ribs; and every day people coming from Alsace told us that such an one of the poor fellows whom we had known had just been struck down by a ball, maimed by a splinter or a shell, or bayoneted by our Mobiles. We could not help pitying them, for they all had five or six children each, of whom they were forever talking; and naturally, for when the parent-bird dies the brood is lost.
And all this for the honor and glory of the King of Prussia, of Bismarck, of Moltke, and a few heroes of the same stamp, not one of whom has had a scratch in the chances of war.
How can one help shrugging one's shoulders and laughing inwardly at seeing these Germans, with all their education, greater fools than ourselves? They have won! That is to say, the survivors; for those who are buried, or who have lost their limbs, have no great gain to boast of, and can hardly rejoice over the success of the enterprise. They have gained—what? The hatred of a people who had loved them; they have gained that they will be obliged to fight every time their lords or masters give the order; they have gained that they can say Alsace and Lorraine are German, which is absolutely no gain whatever; and besides this they have gained the envy of a vast number of people, and the distrust of a vast many more, who will end by agreeing together to fall upon them in a body, and treat them to fire and slaughter and bombardment, of which they have set us the example.
This is what the peasants, the artisans, and the bourgeois have gained: as for the chiefs, they have won some a title, some a pension or an épaulette: others have the satisfaction of saying, "I am the great So-and-So! I am William, Emperor of Germany; a crown was set on my head at Versailles, whilst thousands of my subjects were biting the dust!"
Alas! notwithstanding all this, these people will die, and in a hundred years will be recognized as barbarians; their names will be inscribed on the roll of the plagues of the human race, and there they will remain to the end of time.
But what is the use of reasoning with such philosophers as these? In time they will acknowledge the truth of what I say!
Now to our story again.
They were fighting furiously round Belfort; our men did not drop off asleep in casements; they occupied posts at a distance all round the place: their sortie from Bourcoigne, and their slaughter of the Bavarians at Haute-Perche, were making a great noise in Alsace.
We learned from the Indépendance the battles of Chanzy at Vendôme against the army of Mecklenburg; the fight by General Crémer at Nuits against the army of Von Werder; the retreat of Manteuffel toward Amiens, after having overwhelmed Rouen with forced contributions; the bayonet attack upon the villages around Pont-Noyelles, in which Faidherbe had defeated the enemy; and especially the grand measures of Gambetta, who had at last dissolved the Councils-General named by the Prefects of the Empire, and replaced them by really Republican departmental commissions.
Cousin George highly approved of this step. This was of more importance in his eyes than the decrees of our Prussian Préfet Henckel de Bonnermark; though he had inflicted heavy fines upon the fathers and mothers of the young men who had left home to join the French armies, and had laid Lorraine, already ruined by the invasion, under a contribution of 700,000 livres to compensate the losses suffered by the German mercantile marine; plundering decrees which went nigh to tearing the bread out of our mouths.
Then George passed on to the campaign of Chanzy; for what could be grander than this struggle of a young, inexperienced army, scarcely organized, against forces double their number, commanded by the great Prussian general who had been victorious at Woerth, Sedan, and Metz, over the whole of the Imperial troops?
George especially admired the noble protest of Chanzy, proclaiming to the world the ferocity of the Germans, and pointing out with pride the falsehoods of their generals, who invariably claimed the victory.
"The Commander-in-Chief lays before the army the subjoined protest, which he transmits, under a flag of truce, to the commander of the Prussian troops at Vendôme, with the assurance that his indignation will be shared by all, as well as his desire to take signal revenge for such insults.
"To the Prussian commander at Vendôme:
"I am informed that unjustifiable acts of violence have been committed by troops under your orders upon the unoffending inhabitants of St. Calais. In spite of our humane treatment of your sick and wounded, your officers have exacted money and commanded pillage. Such conduct is an abuse of power, which will weigh heavily upon your consciences, and which the patriotism of our people will enable them to endure; but what I cannot permit is, that you should add to these injuries insults which you know full well to be entirely gratuitous.
"You have asserted that we were defeated; that assertion is false. We have beaten you and held you in check since the 4th of this month. You have presumed to attach the name of coward to men who are prevented from answering you; pretending that they were coerced by the Government of National Defence, which, as you said, compelled them to resist when they wanted peace, and you were offering it. I deny this: I deny it by the right given me by the resistance of entire France and this army which confronts you, and which you have been hitherto unable to vanquish. This communication reaffirms what our resistance ought already to have taught you. Whatever may be the sacrifices still left us to endure, we will struggle to the very end, without truce or pity; since now we are resisting the attacks not of loyal and honorable enemies but of devastating bands who aim solely at the ruin and disgrace of a nation, which itself is striving to maintain its honor, rank, and independence. To the generous treatment we have accorded to your prisoners and wounded, your reply is insolence, fire, and plunder. I therefore protest, with deep indignation, in the name of humanity and the rights of men, which you will trample underfoot.
"The present order will be read before the troops at three consecutive muster-calls.
"CHANZY, Commander-in-Chief,
"HEAD-QUARTERS, Le Mans, 26th December, 1870."
These are the words of an honorable man and a patriot, words to make a man lift up his head.
And as Manteuffel, whose only merit consists in having been during his youth the boon companion of the pious William; as this old courtier followed the same system as Frederick Charles and Mecklenburg, of lowering us to raise themselves, and to get their successes cheap; General Faidherbe also obliged him to abate his pride after the affair of Pont-Noyelles.
"The French army have left in the hands of the enemy only a few sailors, surprised in the village of Daours. It has kept its positions, and has waited in vain for the enemy until two o'clock in the afternoon of the next day."
This was plain speaking, and it was clear on which side good faith was to be looked for.
Thus, after having opposed a million of men to 300,000 conscripts, these Germans were even now obliged to lie in order not to discourage their armies.
Of course they could not but prevail in the end: France had had no time to prepare anew, to arm, and to recover herself after this disgraceful capitulation of the honest man and his friend Bazaine; but still she resisted with terrible energy, and the Prussians at last became anxious for peace too, and wished for it, perhaps, even more than ourselves.
The proof of this is the numberless petitions of the Germans entreating King William to bombard Paris.
Humane Germans, fathers of families, pious men, seated quietly by their counters at Hamburg, Cologne, or Berlin, in every town and village of Germany, eating and drinking heartily, warming their fat legs before the fire during this winter of unexampled severity, cried to their king at Christmas time to bombard Paris, and set fire to the houses—to kill and burn fathers and mothers of families like themselves, but reduced to famine in their own dwellings!
Have any but the Germans ever done the like?
We too have besieged German towns, but never have petitions been sent up like this under the Republic, or under the Empire, to ask our soldiers to do more injury than war between brave men requires. And since that period we have never uselessly shelled houses inhabited by inoffensive persons; and even when we have had to bombard walled towns, warning was given, as at Odessa and everywhere else, to give helpless people time to depart for the interior, if they did not want to run the risk of meeting with stray bullets; and permission was given to old men, women, and children to come out—a privilege never granted by the Prussians.
Ah! the French may not be so pious, so learned, and so good as the good German people, but they have better hearts and feelings of compassion; they have less of the Gospel upon their lips, but they have it in the bottoms of their souls. They are not hypocrites, and therefore we Alsacians and Lorrainers had rather remain French than belong to the good German people, and be like them.
Indignities without a precedent have been committed by them: "Shell—bombard—burn, in the name of Heaven! Set fire everywhere with petroleum bombs!—You are too gracious a king!—Your scruples betray too much weakness for this Babylon: Bombard quick: Bombardments have succeeded better than anything else. Sire, your good and faithful people entreat you to bombard everything—leave nothing standing!"
Oh! scoundrels!—rascals!—if you have so often played the saint for fifty years; if you have talked so edifyingly about friendship, brotherhood, and the alliance of nations, it was because you did not then think yourselves the strongest; now that you think you are, you piously bombard women, old men, and children, in the name of the Saviour! Faugh! it is simply disgusting!
Every time that Cousin George read these assassins' petitions, he would spring off his chair and cry: "Now I know what to think of fanatics of every religion. These men have no need to play the hypocrite: their religion does not oblige them to it. Well, they play the Jesuit for the love of it, better than we do by profession. May they be execrated and despised perpetually."
Then he dilated with much warmth of feeling upon the kind reception which the Parisians, in former days, used to accord to the Germans, for forty years and more. Men who came to seek a livelihood among us, without a penny, lean, humble, half-clad, with a little bundle of old rags under their arms, asking for credit, even in George's and Marie Anne's little inn, for a basin of broth, a bit of meat, and a glass of wine, were kindly received; they were cheered up, and situations found for them: everybody was anxious to put them in the right way, to explain to them what they did not know. Soon they grew fat and flourishing, and gained assurance; by servility they would win the confidence of the head-clerk, who showed them all about the business; and then some fine morning it was noised about that the head-clerk was discharged and the German was in his place. He had had a private interview with the head partner, and had proposed to do the work for half the salary. Of course the partners are always glad to have good workmen, humble and obsequious, and, above all, cheap. George had witnessed this fifty times.
But people did not get angry; they would say,
"The poor fellow must earn a living somehow. The other is a Frenchman: he will very soon secure another place."
And it was thus that the Germans slipped quietly into the shoes of those who had received them kindly and taught them their trade.
A few old clerks used to get angry; but they were always held to be in the wrong. "That good German" was justified! He had not meddled; everything had gone on simply and naturally.
And twenty, thirty, fifty thousand Germans used thus to come and prosper in Paris; and then they would get a holiday to take a turn home and exhibit the flesh and fat they had gained, and their gold trinkets.
If they happened to be professors of languages or newspaper correspondents, they were sure to break out down there against the corruption of manners in this "modern Babylon." Great hulking fellows they were, with long hooded cloaks, and gold or silver spectacles, who had scandalized even their doorkeepers by bringing home night after night "princesses" of Mabile and elsewhere, singing, drinking like a sponge, shaking all the house, and preventing people from sleeping; bringing, besides, other colleagues of the same stamp, and leading disgraceful lives!
But it is the fashion in Germany to cry out against "modern Babylon." It flatters the secret envy of the Germans, and establishes the character of the speaker for seriousness, gravity, and influence; as a man worthy of every consideration, and who may hope—if his situation in Paris is permanent—for the hand of "Herr Rector's" or "Herr Doctor's" fair daughter: for in that country they are all doctors in something or other. He had gone off as cold and comfortless as the stones in the street; he would have become a school-master, or a small clerk at a couple of hundred thalers all his life, in old Germany. He weighed heavily upon his poor father, encumbered with a dozen children; but he had grown fat, well-feathered, and well-trained in Paris; and there he is now virtuously indignant against our own townswomen: against the degenerate race which has given him his daily bread, and pulled him out of the mire, instead of kicking him downstairs.
This German fellow used to be republican, socialist, communist, etc. He had fled from Cologne, or elsewhere, in consequence of the events of 1848. Nothing in our opinion was sufficiently strong, decided, or advanced for him. He spouted about his sacrifices for the universal Republic, his terrible campaign in the Duchy of Baden against the Prussians, the loss of his place, of his property. We thought, what sufferings he has endured! Surely, the Germans are the first Democrats in the world!
But now this very same gentleman is the most faithful servant of his Majesty William, King of Prussia, Emperor of Germany. No doubt he talks at Berlin of the sacrifices which he has made to the noble cause of Germany, the battles he has fought in the public-houses amongst the broken bottles of beer which he has been swallowing by the dozen, to reclaim old Alsace, where lie deep the roots of the Germanic tongue. He abounds in indignation against the "modern Babylon;" his name stands at the head of the earliest petitions that Babylon should be burned, till nothing but ashes were left: that that race of madmen should be exterminated; and as during his residence in France he has rendered police services to Bismarck, he is pretty sure to obtain a post in Alsace-Lorraine, where all these old German spies are swooping down to Germanize us.
Thus spoke George, in his indignation; and Marie Anne, after listening to him, said: "Ah, it is too true! Those men did deceive us; and they did not even pay their debts. Some fine morning, when their bill had run up, three-fourths of them would make a start, and they were never heard of again. I have never had any confidence in any of them, except the crossing-sweepers and the shoe-blacks: one knew where to find them; but as for the professors, the newspaper correspondents, the inventors, the book-worms—they have done us too many bad turns; and they were too overbearing. They were filled with hatred and envy of our nation."
Since the departure of the Landwehr, we were able to speak more freely: those sulky eavesdroppers were no longer spying upon us, and we felt the relief.
Paris, as we saw in the Indépendance, was making sorties. The Gardes Mobiles and the National Guards were being drilled and becoming better skilled in the use of arms. Our sailors, in the forts, were admirable. But the Germans grew stronger from day to day; they had brought such enormous guns—called Krupp's—that the railways were unable to bear them, the tunnels were not high enough to give them passage, and the bridges gave way under their ponderous mass. This proves that if the bombardment had not yet commenced, in spite of the innumerable petitions of the good Germans, it was not for want of will on the part of his Majesty King William, Messieurs Moltke, Bismarck, and all those good men. Oh, no! our forts and our sorties hampered them a good deal in gaining their positions!
At last, about the end of December, "by the grace of God," as the Emperor William said, they began by bombarding a few forts, and were soon enabled to reach houses, hospitals, churches, and museums.
George and Marie Anne knew all these places by name, and these ferocious acts drew from them cries of horror. I, my wife, and Grédel could not understand these accounts: having never been in Paris, we could not form an idea of it.
The German news-writers knew them, however; for daily they told us how great a misfortune it was to be obliged to shell such rich libraries, such beautiful galleries of pictures, such magnificent monuments, and gardens so richly stocked with plants and rare collections; that it made their hearts bleed: they professed themselves inconsolable at being driven to such an extremity by the evil dispositions of those who presumed to defend their property, their homes, their wives, their children, contrary to every principle of justice! They pitied the French for their want of common-sense; they said that their brains were addled; that they were in their dotage, and uttered similar absurdities.
But every time that they lost men, their fury rose: "The Germans are a sacred race! Kill Germans! a superior race! it is a high crime. The French, the Swiss, the Danes, the Dutch, Belgians, Poles, Hungarians, even the Russians, are destined to be successively devoured by the Germans." I have heard this with my own ears! Yes, the Russians, too, they cannot dispense with the Germans; their manufactures, their trade, their sciences come to them from Germany; they, too, belong to an inferior race. The renowned Gortschakoff is unworthy to dust the boots of Monsieur Bismarck, and the Emperor of Russia is most fortunate in being allied by marriage to the Emperor William: it is a glorious prerogative for him!
The captain, Floegel, used often to repeat these things; and besides, the Germans all say the same at this time; you have but to listen to them: they are too strong now to need to hide their ambition. They think they are conferring a great honor upon us Alsacians and Lorrainers in acknowledging us as cousins, and gathering us to themselves out of love. We were a superior race in "that degenerate France;" but we are about to become little boys again amongst the noble German people. We are the last new-comers into Germany, and shall require time to acquire the noble German virtues: to become hypocrites, spies, bombarders, plunderers; to learn to receive slaps and kicks without winking. But what would you have? You cannot regenerate a people in a day.
The Prussians had announced that Paris would surrender after an eight-days' bombardment; but as the Parisians held out; as there were passing by Saverne innumerable convoys of wounded, scorched, maimed, and sick by thousands; as General Faidherbe had gained a victory in the North, the victory of Bapaume, in which we had driven the Prussians from the field of battle all covered with their dead, and in which the enemy had left in our hands not only all their wounded, but a great number of prisoners; as the inhabitants of Paris had only one fault to find with General Trochu, that he did not lead them out to the great battle, and they were raising the cry of "victory or death;" since Chanzy, repulsed at Le Mans, was falling back in good order, while in the midst of the deep snows of January and the severest cold, Bourbaki was still advancing upon Belfort; and Garibaldi with his francs-tireurs was not losing courage; since the Germans were suffering from exhaustion; and it takes but an hour, a minute, to turn all the chances against one; and if Faidherbe had gained his victory nearer to Paris a great sortie would have ensued, which might have entirely changed the face of things—for these and other reasons, I suppose, all at once there was much talk of humanity, mildness, peace; of the convocation of an assembly at Bordeaux, where the true representatives of the nation might settle everything, and restore order to our unhappy France.
As soon as these rumors began to spread, George said that Alsace and German Lorraine were to be sacrificed; that our egotists had come to an understanding with the Germans; that all our defeats had been unable to cast us down, and the Prussians were better pleased than ourselves to come to an end of it, for they needed peace, having no reserves left to throw into the scale; that Gambetta's enthusiasm and courage might at once win over the most timid, and that then the Germans would be lost, because a people that rises in a body, and at the same time possesses arms and munitions of war in a third of our provinces, such a nation in the long run would crush all resistance.
I could say nothing. Even to-day I do not know what might have happened. When Cousin George spoke, I was of his opinion; and then, left to my own reflections, when I saw that immense body of prisoners delivered by Bonaparte and Bazaine all at once; all our arms surrendered at Metz and Strasbourg, and our fortresses fallen one after another; then the ill-will, to say the least of all the former place-holders under the Empire, three-fourths of whom were retaining their posts—I thought it quite possible that we might wage against the Germans a war much more dangerous than the first; that we might destroy many more of the enemy at the same time with ourselves; but, if I had been told to choose, I should have found it hard to decide.
Of course, if the Prussians had been defeated in the interior, before abandoning our country, they would have ruined us utterly, and set fire to every village. I have myself several times heard a Hauptmann at Phalsbourg say, "You had better pray for us! For woe to you, if we should be repulsed! All that you have hitherto suffered would be but a joke. We would not leave one stone upon another in Alsace and Lorraine. That would be our defensive policy. So pray for the success of our armies. If we should be obliged to retire, you would be much to be pitied!"
I can hear these words still.
But I would not have minded even that: I would have sacrificed house, mill, and all, if we could only have finally been victorious and remained French; but I was in doubt. Misery makes a man lose, not courage, but confidence; and confidence is half the battle won.
About that time we received Jacob's first letter; he was at Rastadt, and I need not tell you what a relief it was to his mother to think that she could go and see him in one day.
Here is the letter, which I copy for you: