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He has given his children such an education as nobles only receive; I have had my governess and my music-teacher; my brother his tutor; my father has not allowed him to walk through the streets, fearing that he might fall into the hands of the recruiting-officers. We have each our private rooms, beautifully furnished, and are the envy of all our friends.
The big farmers were often loud-voiced, and the publicans hung out colours when the recruiting-officers made temporary headquarters of their houses, but the mass of the people stood silent, sullen and determined. They would not be taken, and if any were seized they would put up such a fight that the "press" would pay three or four lives for one.
The artists of the Pont Neuf are, consequently, chop-fallen; and hilarity which formerly shone on their countenance, is now succeeded by gloomy sadness. At the foot of the Pont Neuf on the Quai de la Feraille recruiting-officers used to unfurl their inviting banners, and neglect nothing that art and cunning could devise to insnare the ignorant, the idle, and the unwary.
On his death-bed Matthias told me the story of his life how he, a jolly, happy fellow, fell into the recruiting-officers' trap, escaped from their clutches, was betrayed by his own village people, and flogged through the line, and how they rubbed vinegar and salt into his wounded back; how he escaped from the battlefield and found refuge in this wilderness a changed man, quarrelsome, with an uncontrollable temper, which led him into many a brawl; and how, under great provocation, he had stabbed a wood-burner at the inn, and had been beaten within an inch of his life by the wood-cutters.
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