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Updated: June 8, 2025
The Englishmen were continually looking at their watches, shuffling their feet and hurrying on with the preparations, uneasy lest they should be too late for the train. M. Dubuis had never fired a pistol in his life. They made him stand twenty paces away from his enemy. He was asked: "Are you ready?"
The Englishmen were continually looking at their watches, shuffling their feet and hurrying on with the preparations, uneasy lest they should be too late for the train. M. Dubuis had never fired a pistol in his life. They made him stand twenty paces away from his enemy. He was asked: "Are you ready?"
The German opened the carriage door, and, catching M. Dubuis by the arm, said: "Go and do what I told you quick, quick!" A Prussian detachment occupied the station. Other soldiers were standing behind wooden gratings, looking on. The engine was getting up steam before starting off again.
When he was able to breathe freely, he said: "Unless you give me satisfaction with pistols I will kill you." M. Dubuis replied: "Whenever you like. I'm quite ready." The German said: "Here is the town of Strasbourg. I'll get two officers to be my seconds, and there will be time before the train leaves the station."
And suddenly the officer appeared at the carriage door and jumped in, followed close behind by the two Englishmen, who were impelled by curiosity. The German sat facing the Frenchman, and, laughing still, said: "You did not want to do what I asked you?" M. Dubuis replied: "No, monsieur." The train had just left the station. The officer said: "I'll cut off your mustache to fill my pipe with."
The Englishmen at once began staring, at him with smiles of newly awakened interest, while M. Dubuis made a show of reading a newspaper. He sat concealed in his corner like a thief in presence of a gendarme. The train started again.
He was quivering with delight, with satisfied curiosity and joyous impatience. The other, who still kept his watch in his hand, seized M. Dubuis' arm and hurried him in double-quick time toward the station, his fellow-countryman marking time as he ran beside them, with closed fists, his elbows at his sides, "One, two; one, two!"
While he was answering, "Yes, monsieur," he noticed that one of the Englishmen had opened his umbrella in order to keep off the rays of the sun. A voice gave the signal: "Fire!" M. Dubuis fired at random without delay, and he was amazed to see the Prussian opposite him stagger, lift up his arms and fall forward, dead. He had killed the officer. One of the Englishmen exclaimed: "Ah!"
M. Dubuis replied: "No, monsieur." The German resumed: "You might go and buy some for me when the train stops." And he began laughing afresh as he added: "I'll give you the price of a drink." The train whistled, and slackened its pace. They passed a station that had been burned down; and then they stopped altogether.
As you passed through the different towns you saw entire regiments drilling in the squares, and, in spite of the rumble of the carriage-wheels, you could every moment hear the hoarse words of command. M. Dubuis, who during the entire siege had served as one of the National Guard in Paris, was going to join his wife and daughter, whom he had prudently sent away to Switzerland before the invasion.
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