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Our only arms were the captain's whip, our uniforms our peasants' blouses, and our food the Gruyere cheese. Our sole wealth consisted in our ammunition, packages of cartridges which we had stowed away inside some of the large cheeses. We had about a thousand of them, just two hundred each, but we needed rifles, and they must be chassepots.
"All will drill together, in the afternoon, from three to six. The officer commanding the troops, here, has promised us the loan of a hundred and twenty old guns, which are in store; and also of twenty chassepots for rifle practice. "That is all I have to say. All who are ready and willing to enter, upon these terms, can now sign their names.
There were soldiers who had followed the drum all their lives, and there were soldiers who did not know how to load their chassepots. There were veteran non-commissioned officers hurriedly drilling embryo priests; and young gentlemen from St. Cyr trying to form in line grey-headed peasants who wore sabots.
What, was it wrong for a poor fellow to earn his living? He was collecting chassepots, and received five sous for every chassepot he brought in.
Peter's; the Pope left the Castle of Angelo, and returned to the Quirinal; the Noble Guard sheathed their puissant blades; the six-score of monsignori reappeared in all their busy haunts and stately offices; and the court of Rome, no longer despairing of the republic, and with a spirit worthy of the Senate after Cannae, ordered the whole of its forces into the field to combat its invaders, with the prudent addition, in order to insure a triumph, of a brigade of French infantry armed with chassepots.
They left their wagon at Omans, among the Germans, and escaped out of it at night on foot; so as to gain the heights which border the River Doubs; the next day they entered Besancon, where there were plenty of chassepots.
The men were armed somewhat indiscriminately, one company with Chassepots, another with Remingtons; there were carbines, and percussion rifles, and smooth-bores, and even a few flint-locks; but I failed to discern a single specimen of the trabuco, the bell-mouthed blunderbuss we are accustomed to associate with the Spanish knight of the road.
No doubt God had sent you to me you and your fifty men. You need not desert. You can make your last stand here for France." "And perish," cried Fevrier, caught up from the depths of his humiliation, "as Frenchmen should, arms in hand." Then his voice dropped again. "But we have no arms." The curé shook the lieutenant's arm gently. "Did I not tell you the chassepôts were not found? And why?
"Lor' bless you, sir, I'd rather have 10,000 Englishmen than the lot of them. In my stable I make my men obey me, but these chaps they don't seem to care what their officers says to them. I seed them drill this morning; a pretty green lot they was. Why, sir, giving them fellow Chassepots is much like giving watches to naked savages." The Breton Mobiles are making pilgrimages to the churches.
We had about a thousand of them, just two hundred each, but then we wanted rifles, and they must be Chassepots; luckily, however, the captain was a bold man of an inventive mind, and this was the plan that he hit upon. While three of us remained hidden in a cellar in the abandoned village, he continued his journey as far as Besançon with the empty wagon and one man.
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