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Updated: June 20, 2025
Between the battalions and squadrons, which were constantly moving onward, the men, women, and children would come out with jugs of sour beer, bread, and strong white brandy which they sold to the soldiers for a few sous. Buche and I broke a crust as we looked on and laughed with the girls, who are blonde and very pretty in that country.
"Well! let us wait, we must defend ourselves, I will not surrender." "Nor I either," said he, "I had rather die than to be taken prisoner." At the same moment the Prussian officer shouted arrogantly, "Lay down your arms." Instead of waiting, as I did, Buche discharged the contents of his musket full in the officer's breast. Then the other four fell upon us.
The first report was that we were the victors, but afterward they heard a rumor that we were defeated. We understood that they were speaking of Ligny, and that their ideas were confused. I was ashamed to tell that we were overthrown; I looked at Buche, and he said: "We have been betrayed. The traitors revealed our plans.
The veterans would say: "There are Milhaud's cuirassiers! Here are the chasseurs of Lefebvre-Desnoëttes! Yonder is Lobau's corps!" On every side, as far as the eye could reach, there was nothing to be seen but cuirasses, helmets, colbacks, sabres, lances, and files of bayonets. Military caps of bear-skin. "What a battle," exclaimed Buche. "Woe to the English!"
The officers were furious; as if they too had not followed the movement to retreat, and some shouted to bring up the cannon, and others wanted to re-form the troops, though they could scarcely make themselves heard in the midst of the thunder of the artillery which shook the air like a tempest. I saw Jean Buche hurrying back with his bayonet red with blood.
In some places there were rascals who called us Buonapartists, and gendarmes who took us to the town hall and made us shout "Vive le Roi!" Buche and some of the old soldiers hated this; but what did it matter who was king, and what these fools wanted us to shout?
Every time this whizzing was heard, I observed that the conscripts near me ducked their heads, and Jean Buche, I remember, was staring at me with open eyes. The old soldiers marched with tightly compressed lips. The column stopped.
They were much pleased to learn that the pronoun leur is used for persons, but also for things, while où and en are used for things and sometimes for persons. Ought we to say Cette femme a l'air bon or l'air bonne? une bûche de bois sec, or de bois sèche? ne pas laisser de, or que de? une troupe de voleurs survint, or survinrent?
Buche and I were lying back to back in a furrow, in order to keep warm, and at last overcome by fatigue I fell asleep. When I woke about five in the morning, the church bells were ringing matins over all that vast plain. I shall never forget the scene; and as I looked at the gray sky, the trampled grain, and my sleeping comrades on the right and left, my heart sunk under the sense of desolation.
If it should be a boy they would call it Joseph, and caress it, and Father Goulden would dandle it on his knee, Aunt Grédel would love it, and Catherine would think of me as she embraced it, and I should not be altogether dead to them. But I clung to life while I saw how terrible was the conflict before us. Buche said to me, "Joseph, will you promise me something? I have a cross if I am killed."
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