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Updated: June 20, 2025
Such are men! the fear of being taken prisoners, made us barbarians. When we recalled these terrible scenes afterward, we would have given anything if we had had the least heart, but then it was too late. An hour before, fifteen of us had entered that old barn, now there were but six to come out. Buche and Zébédé were among the living; the Pfalzbourgers had been fortunate.
At Heitz's inn I said to Buche, "Let's stop here. My legs are giving out." Mother Heitz, who was then still a young woman, threw up her hands and exclaimed, "My God! there is Joseph Bertha! God in heaven! what a surprise for the town!" I went in, sat down and leaned my head on a table and wept without restraint.
Far in the rear we could see a red light: this was the farm-house at Caillou. We hastened onward, borne down with fatigue, hunger, and despair; we were ready to die, but still the hope of escape sustained us. Buche said to me as we went along, "Joseph, let us help each other." "I will never abandon you," I replied. "We will die together.
I said to Buche: "That is Marshal Ney, the second brigade will go to support the first, and we shall come next." But I mistook; at that very moment the first battalion of the second brigade received orders to march in line on the right of the highway, the second in the rear of the first, the third behind the second, and the fourth following in file.
That night we reached the village of Beauregard, the next night we were at Vitry, near Thionville, where we were stationed till the 8th of June. Buche and I were lodged with a fat landlord named Pochon. He was a very good man and gave us excellent white wine to drink, and liked to talk politics like Mr. Goulden.
Buche followed a furrow about twenty-five paces, to where three or four Englishmen were lying one on the top of the other. I asked him what he was going to do amongst the dead. He came back with a tin bottle, and shaking it at his ear, he said, "Joseph, it is full." He dipped it in the water of the ditch before opening it, and then took out the cork and drank, saying, "It is brandy!"
I believe he would have let himself be cut to pieces to save me from danger. Old comrades and bed-fellows never forget each other. In my time, old Harwig whom I knew in Pfalzbourg, always received a pension from his old comrade Bernadotte, King of Sweden. If I had been a king, Jean Buche should have had a pension, for if he had not a great mind he had a good heart, which is better still.
What horrible things are battles! Buche shouted, "Strike hard!" I felt the sweat run down my forehead, and others with great gashes, and their eyes full of blood, were wiping their faces and laughing ferociously. In ten minutes, seven hundred dragoons were hors-de-combat; their gray horses were running wildly about on all sides, with their bits in their teeth.
The servant stood staring at us at the door, as if she expected thanks or compliments. I took off my knapsack, sad enough as you can imagine, and Jean Buche did the same. The servant turned to go downstairs when I cried out: "Wait a minute, we will go down too, we do not want to break our necks on those stairs."
We broke rank, each one going his own way. Jean Buche, who had never seen any other town than Pfalzbourg, did not leave me for a moment. Our ticket was for Elias Meyer, butcher, in the rue St. Valery. When we reached the house the butcher was cutting meat in the arched and grated window, and was anything but pleased to see us, and received us very ungraciously.
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