The Erckmann-Chatrian Megapack: 20 Classic Novels and Short Stories (124 page)

“Yes, major,” said another; “but they ought to be kicked out all the same.”

“Bah! It is not worth the trouble,” replied the sergeant-major; “a fortnight hence, when the Emperor is master again, they will come and lick his boots. Such men are necessary in a dynasty—men who lick your boots—it has a good effect!—especially old nobility, who are paid thirty or forty thousand francs a year. They will come back, and be quiet, and the Emperor will pardon them, especially since he cannot find others noble enough to fill their places.”

And as they all went away after emptying their glasses, I thanked heaven for having given them such confidence in the Emperor.

This confidence lasted till about the eleventh or twelfth of April, when some officers, sent by the general commanding the fourth military division, came to say that the garrison of Metz recognized the Senate and followed its orders.

This was a terrible blow for our veterans. We saw, that evening, by our sergeant’s face, that it was a death-blow to him. He looked ten years older, and you would have wept merely to see his face. Up to that time he had kept saying: “All these decrees, all these placards are acts of treason! The Emperor is down yonder with his army, all the while, and we are here to support him. Don’t fear, Father Moses!”

But since the arrival of the officers from Metz, he had lost his confidence. He came into our room, without speaking, and stood up, very pale, looking at us.

I thought: “But this man loves us. He has been kind to us. He gave us his fresh meat all through the blockade; he loved our little David; he fondled him on his knees. He loves Esdras too. He is a good, brave man, and here he is, so wretched!”

I wanted to comfort him, to tell him that he had friends, that we all loved him, that we would make sacrifices to help him, if he had to change his employment; yes, I thought of all this, but as I looked at him his grief seemed so terrible that I could not say a word.

He took two or three turns and stopped again, then suddenly went out. His sorrow was too great, he would not even speak of it.

At length, on the sixteenth of April, an armistice was concluded for burying the dead. The bridge of the German gate was lowered, and large numbers of people went out and stayed till evening, to dig the ground a little with their spades, and try to bring back a few green things. Zeffen being all this time sick, we stayed at home.

That evening two new officers from Metz, sent as envoys, came in at night as the bridges were being raised. They galloped along the street to the headquarters. I saw them pass.

The arrival of these officers greatly excited the hopes and fears of every one; important measures were expected, and all night long we heard the sergeant walk to and fro in his room, get up, walk about, and lie down again, talking confusedly to himself.

The poor man felt that a dreadful blow was coming, and he had not a minute’s rest. I heard him lamenting, and his sighs kept me from sleeping.

The next morning at ten the assembly was beat. The governor and the members of the council of defence went, in full dress, to the infantry quarters.

Everybody in the city was at the windows.

Our sergeant went down, and I followed him in a few minutes. The street was thronged with people. I made my way through the crowd; everybody kept his place in it, trying to move on.

When I came in front of the barracks, the companies had just formed in a circle; the quarter-masters in the midst were reading in a loud voice the order of the day; it was the abdication of the Emperor, the disbanding of the recruits of 1813 and 1814, the recognition of Louis XVIII., the order to set up the white flag and change the cockade!

Not a murmur was heard from the ranks; all was quiet, terrible, frightful! Those old soldiers, their teeth set, their mustaches shaking, their brows scowling fiercely, presenting arms in silence; the voices of the quartermasters stopping now and then as if choking; the staff-officers of the place, at a distance under the arch, sullen, with their eyes on the ground; the eager attention of all that crowd of men, women, and children, through the whole length of the street, leaning forward on tiptoe, with open mouths and listening ears; all this, Fritz, would have made you tremble.

I was on cooper Schweyer’s steps, where I could see everything and hear every word.

So long as the order of the day was read, nobody stirred; but at the command:—Break ranks! a terrible cry arose from all directions; tumult, confusion, fury burst forth at once.

People did not know what they were doing. The conscripts ran in files to the postern gates, the old soldiers stood a moment, as if rooted to the spot, then their rage broke forth; one tore off his epaulettes, another dashed his musket with both hands against the pavement; some officers doubled up their sabres and swords, which snapped apart with a crash.

The governor tried to speak; he tried to form the ranks again, but nobody heard him; the new recruits were already in all the rooms at the barracks, making up their bundles to start on their journey; the old ones were going to the right and left, as if they were drunk or mad.

I saw some of these old soldiers stop in a corner, lean their heads against the wall, and weep bitterly.

At last all were dispersed, and protracted cries reached from the barracks to the square, incessant cries, which rose and fell like sighs.

Some low, despairing shouts of “
Vive l’Empereur!
” but not a single shout of “
Vive le Roi!
”

For my part, I ran home to tell about it all; I had scarcely gone up, when the sergeant came also, with his musket on his shoulder. We should have liked to congratulate each other on the ending of the blockade, but on seeing the sergeant standing at the door, we were chilled to the bones, and our attention was fixed upon him.

“Ah, well!” said he, placing the butt-end of his musket upon the floor, “it is all ended!”

And for a moment he said no more.

Then he stammered out: “This is the shabbiest piece of business in the world—the recruits are disbanded—they are leaving—France remains, bound hand and foot, in the grip of the kaiserlichs! Ah! the rascals! the rascals!”

“Yes, sergeant,” I replied with emotion, seeing that his thoughts must be diverted: “now we are going to have peace, sergeant! You have a sister left in the Jura, you will go to her—”

“Oh!” he exclaimed, lifting his hand, “my poor sister!”

This came like a sob; but he quickly recovered himself, and went and placed his musket in the corner by the door.

He sat down at the table with us for a moment, and took up little Sâfel, drawing him to him and caressing his cheeks. Then he wanted to hold Esdras also. We looked on in silence.

“I am going to leave you, Father Moses,” said he, “I am going to pack my bag. Thunder and lightning! I am sorry to leave you!”

“And we are sorry, too, sergeant,” said Sorlé,. mournfully; “but if you will live with us—”

“It is impossible!”

“Then you remain in the service?”

“Service of whom—of what?” said he; “of Louis XVIII.? No! no! I know no one but my general—but that makes it hard to go—when a man has done his duty—”

He started up, and shouted in a piercing voice: “
Vive l’Empereur!
”

We trembled, we did not know why.

I reached out my hand to him, and rose; we embraced each other like brothers.

“Good-by, Father Moses,” said he, “good-by for a long while.”

“You are going at once, then?”

“Yes!”

“You know, sergeant, that you will always have friends here. You will come and see us. If you need anything—”

“Yes, yes, I know it. You are true friends—excellent people!”

He shook my hand vehemently.

Then he took up his musket, and we were all following him, expressing our good wishes, when he turned, with tears in his eyes, and embraced my wife, saying:

“I must embrace you, too; there is no harm in it, is there, Madame Sorlé?”

“Oh, no!” said she, “you are one of the family, and I will embrace Zeffen for you!”

He went out at once, exclaiming in a hoarse voice, “Good-by! Farewell!”

I saw him go into his room at the end of the little passage.

Twenty-five years of service, eight wounds, and no bread in his old age! My heart bled at the thought of it.

About a quarter of an hour after, the sergeant came down with his musket. Meeting Sâfel on the stairs, he said to him, “Stay, that is for your father!”

It was the portrait of the landwehr’s wife and children. Sâfel brought it to me at once. I took the poor devil’s gift, and looked at it for a long time, very sadly; then I shut it up in the closet with the letter.

It was noon, and, as the gates were about to be opened, and abundance of provisions were to come, we sat down before a large piece of boiled beef, with a dish of potatoes, and opened a good bottle of wine.

We were still eating when we heard shouts in the street. Sâfel got up to look out.

“A wounded soldier that they are carrying to the hospital!” said he.

Then he exclaimed, “It is our sergeant!”

A horrible thought ran through my mind. “Keep still!” I said to Sorlé, who was getting up, and I went down alone.

Four marine gunners were carrying the litter by on their shoulders; children were running behind.

At the first glance I recognized the sergeant; his face perfectly white and his breast covered with blood. He did not move. The poor fellow had gone from our house to the bastion behind the arsenal, to shoot himself through the heart.

I went up so overwhelmed, so sad and sorrowful, that I could scarcely stand.

Sorlé was waiting for me in great agitation.

“Our poor sergeant has killed himself,” said I; “may God forgive him!”

And, sitting down, I could not help bursting into tears!

CHAPTER XXI

It is said with truth that misfortunes never come singly; one brings another in its train. The death of our good sergeant was, however, the last.

That same day the enemy withdrew his outposts to six hundred yards from the city, the white flag was raised on the church, and the gates were opened.

Now, Fritz, you know about our blockade. Should I tell you, in addition, about Baruch’s coming, of Zeffen’s cries, and the groanings of us all, when we had to say to the good man: “Our little David is dead—thou wilt never see him again!”

No, it is enough! If we were to speak of all the miseries of war, and all their consequences in after years, there would be no end!

I would rather tell you of my sons Itzig and Frômel, and of my Sâfel, who has gone to join them in America.

If I should tell you of all the wealth they have acquired in that great country of freemen, of the lands they have bought, the money they have laid up, the number of grandchildren they have given me, and of all the blessings they have heaped upon Sorlé and myself, you would be full of astonishment and admiration.

They have never allowed me to want for anything. The greatest pleasure I can give them is to wish for something; each of them wants to send it to me! They do not forget that by my prudent foresight I saved them from the war.

I love them all alike, Fritz, and I say of them, like Jacob:

“May the God of Abraham and Isaac, our fathers, the God which fed me all my life long unto this day, bless the lads; let them grow into a multitude in the midst of the earth, and their seed become a multitude of nations!”

THE INVASION OF FRANCE IN 1814

HISTORICAL ROMANCES OF FRANCE

INTRODUCTORY NOTE

The invasion of France by the allied armies after the battle of Leipsic had proved the German campaign even more disastrous than that of Russia the year before, was not only essentially the death-blow to the power of Napoleon, but was the first real taste France had had for many years of an experience she had so often previously meted out to her neighbors. In spite of all she had suffered from the conscription and from exhaustion of men and treasure in offensive war—or at least war waged outside her own territory—the great Invasion meant for her something far more terrible than any reverses she had yet undergone. Napoleon was not only not invincible, it appeared, he was not even able to defend the frontiers he had found firmly established on his accession to power. The allies had announced that they were warring not against France but against the French Emperor—“against the preponderance that Napoleon had too long exercised beyond the limits of his empire.” Everywhere in France except in the official world of Paris, the once enchanted name of Napoleon had become recognized as a synonym of national disaster.

Nevertheless nothing—except, perhaps, the similar circumstances of the Prussian invasion in 1870—has ever so well attested the fundamental and absorbing patriotism of the French people as their heroic resistance to this invasion and their instinctive and universal refusal to separate in this crisis the cause of their Emperor from their own. The presence of a foreign foe on whatever pretext within their boundaries sufficed to arouse them
en masse
. No such enthusiasm had been known since the days of the Republic’s and the Consulate’s victories as was awakened, in the thick of national disaster and amid the ruin of all ambitious hopes, by the thought of an enemy within the borders of
la patrie
. And in “The Invasion” of MM. Erckmann-Chatrian this enthusiasm and devotion find a chronicle which is most realistically impressive. So soon as the peasants of the outlying villages of the eastern frontier learn of the impending descent of the Cossacks and Germans, without thought of their own comfort and safety—which it is, however, impartially pointed out they know would hardly be better secured by submission—they organize for resistance. They blockade the highways and defend the mountain passes. Women and children aid in the work. While the siege of Phalsbourg goes on the heights are occupied by sturdy peasants who oppose for a while an effective obstacle to the passage of the invaders. The worst hardships, the most perilous adventures, are accepted by them with the heroic courage of regulars. Outlaws and smugglers work and fight hand to hand with the respected worthies of the neighborhood. They watch their farms burn from their outlook on the hill-tops, they suffer the pangs of starvation when their supplies are intercepted by the enemy, they fight to desperation when their position is finally turned by the treachery of a crazy German they have long harbored—and whose vagaries give, by the way, a most romantic color to the narrative—and they are finally slain or captured just as Paris capitulates and peace is made. None of the National Novels is more graphic or more significant historically than “The Invasion.”