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, Dürr, 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 curé, 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, Dürr, 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 centimeor 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 Lafougére, 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, Dôsenheim, 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 Dôsenheim 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 Sarrebrück, 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.